Moments later she heard heavy footsteps, then the old man stood in the open entry, still in his nightshirt, wide-eyed and wrinkled from sleep. Rebekkah peeked from behind Jethro, her normally impeccable bun gone, her iron gray hair draped in shiny waves over her shoulders.
"What's wrong? Is Joey sick?” Jethro craned his neck to see beyond Charlene.
She put her fists on her hips. “I don't know. You tell me. He ate two pounds of raw beef last night and nearly snapped my fingers off. You think that's normal?” She held out the holy books. “What are these doing at my house? What do they mean?"
Jethro sucked in his breath, his eyes flared green, and he took a step back.
Charlene moved in, matching him step for step. “What's happening to Joey? And, who the hell is Oblis?"
"You want answers?” Jethro spat out. He turned and pointed at his wife. “Ask Rebekkah. It's her Koran, her Bible. Don't know why she had to go and do that."
Thin-lipped, ashen-colored, the old woman refused to make eye contact with Charlene, instead staring at the floor as she spoke in a near whisper. “It was the right thing to do. She needed to know...about...about him—and Them."
Jethro stomped into the kitchen, cursing under his breath.
She stomped in right behind him. “Who is Oblis?"
He kept his back to her, grabbed a coffee pot and began to fill it with water.
Charlene reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder.
The old man turned and stared at her, a stricken look on his face. “Please. You don't want to know. Just knowing about Them puts you in grave danger."
She refused to look away, stared deeper into those color-shifting eyes. “Rebekkah thinks I need to know. If Fred Johnson wasn't Joey's father, then who the hell was?"
Jethro's voice fell to a harsh whisper. “A sexual predator. He crawled out of a hole in the ground, slithered into town, and took our girls’ innocence."
"How did he get away with it?"
"He went after our girls at night. Got them alone, told them he'd kill them if they cried out. Raped them. And vanished."
"The police didn't help?"
He snorted. “State Police couldn't track him.” Jethro looked off into the distance. “He was a disappearing, reappearing snake.” He shook his head. “A terrible, evil piece of work he was."
Her lips trembled, but she forced herself to speak. “Was? Where is he now?"
He clenched his fists, and the black signet ring stood out in stark contrast to his white knuckles. “Dead and gone."
Charlene wrapped her arms around herself, afraid to ask the next question, but unable to stop. “What happened? I need to know the truth—Grandfather."
He flexed his left hand, made a fist, and adjusted the ring. “I caught him with your mother. I killed him."
Charlene's stomach dropped, and she grasped a counter to steady herself. “The boys—Joab, Jehud, Julius, Josiah, Justus, Jared, Joey—all his?"
Now weary looking, he nodded. “He left the girls—all of them barely eighteen—broken and pregnant. The families kept it secret—until the babies were born, all the same, all marked by this—this creature. I never had the chance to tell your mother why I did what I did.” Tears filled his eyes. “She ran away. I couldn't find her—not until she contacted your Aunt Jessie. She was pregnant with you. Wouldn't speak to me. She thought I wanted to kill Joey, too. I would have never harmed my grandchild—no matter what his father was."
He passed a shaky hand over his face. Charlene's heart twisted.
"She blamed herself. Thought she should have known better than to say hello to a stranger. But he had this power. He whispered in her ear and led her to the woods. When I realized she was missing, I tracked them and saw him with her. I went mad, killed him with my bare hands.” The old man broke down and sobbed. “Oh, my poor baby. My poor child."
"Our child."
Charlene looked up.
Rebekkah stood in the kitchen doorway, a haunted look on her pale face. Her voice shook. “My daughter. My beautiful daughter. How she suffered from her guilt and shame. And none of it—none of it was her fault."
"Grandmother?"
"Yes, dear. I'm your grandmother. And that old fool is your grandfather."
Charlene shook her head. “Why didn't you just tell me at the funeral?"
Rebekkah gave her a sad look. “Would you have believed us?"
She had no answer.
"You had no history, no knowledge of your family.” Rebekkah shook her head. “Your mother didn't trust us to tell her the truth. Why would you? We had to show you the truth of who we are and how we live our lives. Does that make sense to you?"
"Yes—but—Joey—the boys—I don't understand what happened to them last night. And where did that pack of black dogs come from?"
Jethro's eyes widened. He shook his head, his voice gruff. “That's enough for today. Go. Take care of Joey. Go to work. But know that we love you, are here for you. Blood will tell, Charlene. We are your blood and you belong here with us in Eden. We will care for you and protect you. Don't forget that. Ever."
The mothers on the route called soft greetings and gave Charlene sideways glances. The boys seemed more subdued, less exuberant than most mornings. It was as if a gray veil had fallen across the normally sunny skies of Eden. Charlene wondered if it was because she knew their secret or if it was because they knew that she knew. But how could they?
She parked the bus in the side lot at the Regional School and made her way into the library. Shoshannah glanced up at her from the reference desk, did a double take and took Charlene by the arm into her private office.
"Honey, you look terrible. What's going on?"
"Oh, that good, huh? No wonder the mothers have been giving me strange looks."
"I have never seen you looking so poorly. You always have a smile on your pretty face and your eyes light up when you say hello. You look like you lost your best friend.” She gasped. “Tell me you didn't break up with Zack."
Startled at the idea, Charlene shook her head. “This is about my grandparents—and Oblis."
Shoshannah's lips curled and she snarled, “Don't ever say that name again!” Tears glimmered in her bright blue-green eyes. Her voice fell to a whisper. “I'm sorry. Please don't speak that monster's name."
Painful understanding hit Charlene like a body blow. “Oh, Shoshannah."
"I was just a young girl. After—after he was done—he left me for dead out in a field, my throat slashed.” She pointed to a scar on her neck, and her metal bracelets jangled. “Your grandfather found me—saved my life."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't—"
"How could you? We tried to forget that terrible chapter in our community's life, but—” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and sighed. “The monster took away our innocence, but we survived. He didn't, thanks to your grandfather."
Charlene spoke almost in a whisper. “My grandfather is a hero."
"Yes. Yes he is."
"And the children—no one cast them out?"
"The children can be, shall we say, aggressive at times, but there are no orphans among our people. Don't you ever forget that, Charlene. No orphans."
Still trying to process everything, Charlene closed her eyes and thought about her mother and father, her brother, all alone in Baltimore, disconnected from this loving clan of relatives. Her grandparents were good, not evil. What could have made Joanna so afraid of her own family?
Shoshannah's now chipper voice broke into Charlene's thoughts. “So, what brings you to my lair?"
"The Internet. I need to do some research. Is that okay?"
A bell rang and children's voices clamored in the distance. “Oh, look at the time. I'm supposed to be on first lunch duty today.” Shoshannah motioned for Charlene to sit at the desk. “Use my computer. There's paper in the printer. Help yourself to whatever you need."
She had the office, the computer and her scientific research skills. She also had a sinking fee
ling she was on the verge of discovering her mother's secrets and her own worst fears.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Nine
Secrets within Secrets
Despite recalling her father's near daily explanations of his research, Charlene decided to do some digging beyond her memories of his work. Gorlin-Chaudry-Moss Syndrome was similar to, but in no way explanatory for the events of the previous evening. An extremely rare genetic disorder, children with this condition were often deaf, hirsute and developmentally delayed. In addition, bone plates closed prematurely, causing shortened or uneven limbs, hence the gait problems she'd seen in the boys. The disorder was possibly an “autosomally recessive trait.” She twisted a strand of hair. That meant the mothers would have to be carriers, too. But only the offspring of Oblis exhibited these characteristics. And not one scientific article offered any explanation for the changes she observed in her brother overnight.
On a whim, she clicked on the website for the Johns Hopkins Genetics Lab. And found nothing related to her father and his research.
Her stomach fell in a long swooping glide and her heart thudded in her throat. Where was his name? His list of publications? All the grants he'd garnered? What the hell was going on?
She decided to call Dr. Hoffman. After all, he told her, “If there's anything I can do for you, call me." What he could do for her was tell her why her father had been erased from their institutional memory as easily as she'd erased the cookies and web addresses from the Internet browser on Shoshannah's computer.
When she finally reached the lab by phone, an underling said the esteemed director might be around, but “deeply regretted” that he “truly needed” to know who was calling. When she identified herself, a quick intake of breath told her that her father's name wasn't completely forgotten. Hoffman came on the line shortly after the gasp.
"Charlene, my dear, how are you?"
"How long did it take for you to wipe out every trace of my father's work at your lab? A day? Two?"
"Oh, come now, my dear girl. It's not like that.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Let me close my door.” She heard a door slam and he returned to the line. “Your father was chasing after a non-existent disorder. That's why the NIH wouldn't renew his grant. Good God, Charlene, we've only just begun to understand the magnitude of his delusions."
"Delusions? My father wasn't mentally ill."
"He was obsessed, obsessed with a cure for your brother, so much so that he went off in bizarre tangents, into cryptozoology for God's sake! Do you know how that looks to funding sources? We were the laughing stock of the NIH Rare Gene Disease Program. If he hadn't died in the car crash, we would have been forced to fire him. And he knew it."
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in a futile attempt to stop the alarm bells in her head, the ones that were taking her back to the medical examiner and the trip to the morgue to identify her parents. “Did you say cryptozoology?"
His voice now fell into a low whisper. “Yes. He was looking into cases of lycanthropy and harassing the psychiatrists for the medical records of the few lunatics they saw here who claimed they were werewolves.” He paused. “People were talking. My funding agencies were beginning to ask some very difficult questions. A fraud investigation would have destroyed the lab and many, many fine researchers’ lives. You do understand, don't you?"
A chill fell on the once cozy librarian's office.
"No. I don't understand, Dr. Hoffman. Please. I would like a detailed explanation. Tell me exactly what you mean."
"I couldn't cover up for him any longer, my dear. He refused to go to the Employee Assistance Program, see someone to stop this bizarre behavior. I had no choice. I had to tell your mother what he'd been up to, ask her to get him professional help.” He sighed. “Naturally, she was upset. Defended him. Said I was out to get him. Jealous of his brilliance. When I explained the exact nature of his—his werewolf investigations—she was shocked into silence. Thanked me for my concern. Said she'd speak with him.” His voice broke. “Next thing I knew, they were both dead. A week after the funeral, a Special Agent from the Department of Homeland Security showed up with a warrant and demanded we turn over all his records."
Charlene flashed on the bus accident and the dark-haired woman. “What was the agent's name?"
"Solomon. Like the king."
"Why did Homeland Security want my father's notes?"
"I have no idea what use his crackpot research could have been to them. I was happy to give her everything we could find and to take all mention of his work off our website.” He stopped speaking.
"Dr. Hoffman?"
"Oh, my dear, I've said too much. I'm sorry. I really must go.” He hung up and the dial tone buzzed in her ear like a million angry flies.
She placed the receiver into the cradle and stared at it for a very long time, not really seeing the phone, the desk or the office.
One part of her was convinced Hoffman's concern was all self-serving, his unctuous sympathy a ruse to cover his overweening ego and agenda to promote the genetics lab. The other part felt a twinge of guilt for even thinking that about the man. He'd been her father's boss for years. Dad never complained about him. Not once. If they'd been at odds, she would have overhead something, right? Then again, she hadn't been living at home for the past two years.
Exactly when did her father's obsession drive him away from scientific explanations and into supernatural ones? How long had it been going on? Her mother would have never encouraged him to search for a cure for a disease that her brother did not have. That would have been a waste of time, money—and career suicide.
What possessed her father to think this tangent was a viable research path? Her mother was a nurse, not prone to flights of fancy. In fact, she'd discouraged Charlene from her occasional forays as a child into any supernatural reading, calling it “irrational, superstitious garbage.” Knowing her mother's animosity toward all things outside the scientific realm, how would her mother have dealt with her father's bizarre quest? Had Hoffman's call to her mother provoked a fight between her parents—and the subsequent car crash?
And what was Homeland Security looking for, first in her father's notes, now in Eden? What the hell was going on? She pulled the woman's card out of her pocket and stared at the phone number. Should she call Special Agent Solomon? Would the woman tell her the truth? She put the card away. Not now. Not until she had more information.
Jethro—Grandfather—said Joanna had contacted Jessie when she was pregnant with Charlene. Was she really trying to reconnect with her sister? Or was it an attempt to discover if she carried that elusive recessive gene? Eden wasn't the only place with secrets—but it seemed like a good bet that these other secrets started here. Secrets within secrets within secrets. Joanna stayed in touch with Jessie. And Jessie was friends with—
She leaped to her feet. The only person she hadn't pressed for more information was the one she'd been sleeping with. If she hadn't been blinded by lust, she would have been on her game—poking at him with her scientific reasoning, asking hard questions. Instead, when she asked about his past, he dazzled her with his smile, neatly side-stepping any real replies. He had to know more than he had told her. One way or another, she was going to get some genuine responses out of Zack.
She found the charmer rocking on her front porch when she arrived home with Joey. He held a large bouquet of red roses and a bottle of wine. When they locked gazes, his eyes filled with concern. Zack joined her at the bottom of the ramp and placed his hands on her arm.
"Let me help you."
She shook his hand away. “I'm fine, thank you. I can take care of my brother."
Joey's face lit up when he saw the man and he signed, “Zack, Zack, Hi, Zack, Zack. Hi, hi, hi."
Charlene wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Was Joey keeping secrets, too?
She fed Joey, then Zack assisted her in bathing him without saying a word. As soon as Joey's head touched the
pillow, he began to snore. She wished she could sleep like that. Unworried and innocent. Safe.
She pulled Joey's door closed and walked toward the kitchen, Zack trailing behind her.
He reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “You have a hell of a bruise. Let me put something on it for you.” He touched her forehead and pulled back at her wince. “I know you had a bad night—and a rough day."
"Really? Now how would you know that? The grapevine buzzing its way to you? Jethro maybe? What about Shoshannah? Did she give you a shout and tell you all about my visit with her?” She glared at him. “You're the only one around here without a J name. Does that mean something? That is, you and Oblis."
The color drained out of his face. “I am nothing like that viper."
"You seem to be a nice man. You are great in bed, I'll grant you that. But, I have to wonder why the bum's rush? How could you really be in love with me? You barely know me. Or was fabulous sex just a way to keep me from asking hard questions about my aunt and my mother? Hell, for all I know you're working for Homeland Security."
His brow creased and he sounded genuinely baffled. “What are you talking about?"
"I've seen no dogs in Eden until the accident. Not one. Then I almost run down a pack of them near the old mining camp. Next thing I know, a special agent from Homeland Security is racing into the woods after a bunch of black dogs.” She took a shaky breath. “And, the same agent seized my father's research records from Hopkins."
Zack pulled her close, and she struggled to wriggle out of his hug. He held her tighter and whispered, “I can't tell you what Homeland Security is investigating. Honest. But I can tell you that I will always be here for you. No matter how much you try to push me away."
When placed into the context of this house, this day, and this moment, the intensity of her emotions and the reports of her father's bizarre research collided. She sagged into Zack's arms and sobbed, grieving anew for her parents, for their lost hopes, and for her father's desperate course of action when science failed him. His pathetic delusions had driven him to delve into the supernatural world of lycanthropy and werewolves.
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