Devil's Oven

by Laura Benedict

  Mommy, why does it sound like someone’s crying?

  It’s the wind trying to get inside because it’s cold out there. Aren’t you glad you’re inside with Daddy and me?

  The muddy path leading from the trailer up the hillside disappeared in the trees.

  Jolene closed her eyes. She thought about how she could take that path up, up onto the mountain and keep walking east, through the high, piney section of the forest, then eventually make her way to the eastern face, the part of Devil’s Oven she liked best. It wasn’t time for that yet, but she liked the idea that she could if she really wanted to. Now, she just wanted to see her Ivy.

  • • •

  A woman with eyes the color of wild blue columbine came silently into the living room, where Jolene stood shivering in her wet jeans. Her milky, fair skin gave no hints of her age. Jolene knew the woman was almost thirty-six, but she might have been in her early twenties. Her chambray dress was cinched at her tiny waist and covered by a pristine white apron with enormous patch pockets. A woman-child.

  Ivy.

  Thirty years had passed since she had held Ivy in her arms, and Jolene was afraid she might not be able to speak without bursting into tears. Those years away from her child—a child she couldn’t ever claim—crushed her as though she were still buried in the earth. She had to stop herself from reaching out to touch Ivy’s white-blonde hair.

  “Are you here for alterations?” Ivy said. Her voice was quiet, cautious, but there was no recognition in her eyes. Jolene looked like a stranger to her. Jolene was a stranger.

  “No,” Jolene answered before Thora, the other woman in the room, could answer for her. She tried not to stare at Ivy’s changed face. The harelip was now just a crescent scar, a tightness across her upper lip. Jolene was relieved to see that someone—who?—had made sure Ivy got the surgery she needed.

  “I’m here about renting the trailer. The one up the hill?” She addressed Ivy. Only Ivy.

  Thora lifted her rubber-tipped cane a few inches and thumped it firmly on the rug.

  “It’s been empty for too long, Ivy,” Thora said. “Now’s the time.”

  Seeing Thora had been a shock. The cross, loping teenager who had never been happy with Jolene as a stepmother had turned into a disappointed and angry woman. Her once-strong arms were meaty in her shapeless turtleneck, and her stomach bulged both above and below the waistband of her stretch pants. The only thing that hadn’t changed about her was the stony set to her eyes, an instant distrust of anyone and anything that was strange to her. Even her intimidating height was gone, stolen by the crooked angle of her back. But it was Thora’s aura—mottled gray and weak—that revealed what was really happening to her: she was dying.

  Jolene couldn’t help but pity her. As she came into the house, she had tried to keep her inner sight unfocused. There was only so much pain she could stand to witness, and the house was filled with it. Plus, the nausea from the previous night was back.

  “Oh, Thora,” Ivy said. “Why didn’t you tell me? We should have talked about it.”

  Even in the stifling room, with a space heater humming beside the recliner facing the television, Jolene felt an icy energy between them.

  “We had renters up there for a whole year,” Thora said. “What’s there to discuss?”

  “It’s not clean,” Ivy said. “And one of the toilets doesn’t work.” She pushed her hands into the front pockets of the apron. Jolene watched as Ivy’s lavender aura—the aura she was born with, indicating she was intuitive, sensitive, creative—flushed with waves of deep, troubled blue. She was hiding something.

  “It’s just you wants to rent?” Thora stared into Jolene’s eyes. She had always been suspicious. Jolene had tried so hard to love her. She could see the hurt in Thora, but could never heal it.

  “Just me.”

  “I already told you it wouldn’t be ready for a couple of weeks.” She nodded to Ivy. “Plenty of time for a plumber.”

  “Why don’t you come back then?” Ivy said. “If you haven’t already found a place.” Her smile was awkward, as though she didn’t smile often, and Jolene wondered if maybe the scar tissue had become inelastic, making it difficult. She didn’t want to think that Ivy had nothing to smile about.

  “Why should she rent somewhere else when our trailer’s empty?” Thora said. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s okay,” Jolene said. “I can wait. But if you really don’t want tenants…” Despite the tension in the room, she knew she could stay there for hours. Days. She wanted to sit and watch them, to know how they were living. What made them happy, or sad. If she stayed there, she could keep Ivy safe. She might feel truly human again. Love again, and be loved in return.

  Thora put her arm out as though she would stop Jolene from leaving.

  “No,” she said. “I’m going to take you up and show you the trailer. It belongs to me as much as it does to her.” She lifted the cane and poked it toward Ivy.

  Ivy took a single step toward them. “Let’s talk about this.” She glanced at Jolene. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Feelings this, feelings that,” Thora said. “We’re not made of money. Another two-fifty a month would make a real difference. We’ve got the power turned on up there for no good reason at all.”

  Jolene watched Ivy’s face. Thora obviously still intimidated her; another few minutes of tension might break her. Thora hadn’t dared be so aggressive with Ivy when the girls had been younger. Ivy had been more like an annoying little pet to her older sister. A pet who easily stole the small amount of affection their father had to give.

  Now, even Jolene was starting to feel overwhelmed. So much pain. Fear. She wanted to run for the shelter of the woods.

  No. Not this time. This time I’m staying.

  Ivy was almost begging. “I’ve got bills out for two wedding dresses, and two more ready to go. We’re fine for money.”

  “Really,” Jolene said, anxious. She hadn’t wanted to bring them strife. She had just wanted to see them. “I’ll go. I can come back.”

  Thora was limping toward the door. “I’ll get my jacket,” she said.

  Jolene felt a sudden rush of something—heat?—from behind her. The movement in the air made her dizzy. She turned to see Ivy, her face a mask of false serenity. The blue-gray aura cloaking her was misty, but it fluctuated, strengthening.

  “If you take her up there, I’ll leave,” Ivy said, no longer sounding fretful. “Someone else will have to move in here and take care of you.”

  Thora’s hand dropped from the closet’s door handle.

  Jolene was suddenly aware of all the medical equipment around them: a tank of oxygen on its wheeled base, the packaged syringe on the television table beside the recliner, the box of disposable gloves on another table.

  Now Thora was looking at Ivy as though she were the stranger in the room.

  • • •

  Sunlight pushed through the clouds as Jolene started down the highway, not back to town, but west, to where the Luttrell land met a thick stand of trees. The wind had warmed some and she unzipped her jacket. Within a few minutes, she had made her way up into the woods, following the rise until she was sure no one in or near the house could see her. Then she took off her too-noticeable white jacket and laid it at the base of a dogwood that was thick with tight brown buds.

  Ivy had offered to drive her back into town as an apology for Jolene’s wasted trip, but Jolene had demurred. As much as she would have liked to spend time with Ivy, even as a stranger, she had needed the excuse to leave on her own. Ivy, who as a child had never been comfortable with a lie, was definitely hiding something. She didn’t want anyone near the trailer, and Jolene suspected she had a dangerous reason for both her fear and secrecy.

  The ground above the trailer wasn’t as soft as it had been down near the house. She squatted in the leaves, loving the familiar scent of the wet woods, watching the house to see if either of the women would come outside. The mor
ning’s raindrops slipped from branch to branch in a rhythm as familiar as her own breath.

  When she decided it was safe, Jolene half-ran, half-slid down to the trailer’s back porch, keeping her head low as she went.

  The curtains were drawn, but she pressed herself against a window to peek through the narrow gap between the curtain panels. She could see outlines of furniture—a broad, high table in front of a couch; a bookcase; a chair. She relaxed, allowing what little she could see to make an impression on her mind. The light was faint and the shapes diffuse, but everything shared the same flat, dull quality. When she had lived here, she had tried to make it a bright, happy place, with covered pillows and houseplants in the windows. That was all gone.

  The wind picked up, spreading gooseflesh over her exposed arms. A few feet away, the storm door squeaked open a few inches, then banged shut. Unafraid, Jolene moved away from the window and put her hand on the door’s tarnished handle.

  She went inside.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Squatting behind the Dumpster of the Git ’n’ Go, he scratched the tender skin surrounding the stitches at his left wrist. He was careful not to worry the fragile bits of thread, somehow understanding that he might damage them.

  He could make out each distinct odor coming from the Dumpster—rotting lettuce and sausage, crusted nacho cheese, soiled diapers and tissues, soggy cardboard, stale beer, and sweet pop of some kind. But none was the scent he had been wanting, waiting for, the scent he had been searching for since leaving the trailer, keeping to the edge of the woods and shadowed walls and fences, until finally picking it up near the Git ’n’ Go. At first he had been drawn to the blue car parked behind the store, but no one was inside so he followed the scent right up to the store’s back door.

  He rolled back on his bare heels, hardly feeling the bits of gravel and glass beneath them. Once his senses had been in almost perfect balance, dulled very occasionally by fine whiskey and, even less frequently, a particular blend of soil-brown hashish, but now they were warped or heightened or shrunken, depending. He didn’t know the difference anymore.

  He closed his eyes and time passed. He breathed in, breathed out.

  The back door scraped open.

  “Ain’t my fault if she chooses to be late. I’m fine with the overtime.”

  He caught the woman’s scent as she passed between the Dumpster and the door. She wasn’t the one, but she carried the scent of the one he was waiting for. She flung something heavy into the Dumpster and went back inside.

  He closed his eyes again, remembering a woman’s fingers on his skin. He remembered the close smell of the room where he first opened his eyes. He remembered hungry and, for a fleeting moment, thought about food.

  The second time the door opened, he covered his ears with his hands to protect them from the hideous grating sound it made against the pavement. He didn’t need to hear the woman’s voice to know she was there and that she wasn’t alone.

  “Slide that stack of pallets this way, Claude,” she said. “Those morons don’t know the difference between the left and right sides of the stupid door.”

  “So what does all this labor get me, is what I want to know.”

  He breathed in, opened his eyes. He moved.

  “Somebody has to take care—Sweet Jesus!”

  The woman stared up at him. She was short but a yard wide, wearing a black-and-white-splotched tunic. She spread her arms, palms away from him, as though she was shielding Claude, who stood slack-jawed behind her.

  His eyes fixed on Claude, and he smiled. He swept the woman out of his way, not for a second feeling the bulk of her. When she hit the security door of the Git ’n’ Go, her shoulder cracked.

  • • •

  Claude didn’t even see what happened to her, didn’t hear her low-pitched oooomph of pain. He could only stare at the thing in front of him, the smiling, shirtless hulk of a man. The man’s torso and arms were covered with curling black hairs, and the memory of a swimming instructor he had when he was seven flashed into Claude’s mind. Then the man’s hand was on his neck and his back was against the wall and before he lost consciousness, he saw that the man’s smile looked frozen on his broad, handsome face.

  • • •

  He ran. Claude was slung over one shoulder. He didn’t like the heat of Claude’s body against him, and the way Claude’s head and arms flopped against his back. Something about it repelled him, but he knew he had to keep running and stay to the edges of town until he could get up the mountain. There was no map to follow; he only knew he had to keep going up, up, up. But there was something happening inside him as he ran. It wasn’t a feeling, but a vibrant memory that drove him forward. It was the memory of happiness. The memory of a job well done.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tripp pulled the pickup around his state-issued vehicle and parked beneath the cabin’s carport. The cabin’s windows were depressingly dark. Just like every other time he returned late at night, he thought how nice it would be to have a lamp on a timer or something. A dark house looked too empty. Not frightening—he couldn’t think of a single thing that really frightened him—but soulless.

  Ten or eleven years earlier, he had even had a girl named Darla living with him. The sex was good, but she had used his money to buy so many tiny, absurd beanbag animals that the shipping boxes had crowded them out of the living room and half-filled the bedroom. But before the spring was over, she had gone back to her home in the next state, disappointed he wasn’t going to marry her and let her add on to the cabin to make room for all the toys.

  The trouble was, once he had seen Lila again after a dozen years of almost forgetting her, he couldn’t see beyond her. She still made him feel weak inside, desperate to have her look his way, embarrassed at his raw need to put his hands on her. He had bided his time, though, eased himself into her view. She had never been the kind of girl to sleep around, despite the fact that no man with a half-working dick could see her and not want her. And she loved Bud. She swore it nearly every time they were together. Tripp wasn’t a man who believed in taking another man’s wife, but all bets were off with Lila.

  Inside, he turned on the lights. Anyone who had been in the cabin before Lila started spending time there would certainly know the difference. Now there were taupe pillows on his army green couch, a couple of prints of masculine paintings of dogs, and dead game on the wall instead of the sports-car-and-beer-girl posters he’d had since college. There was also a cappuccino maker on the kitchen counter. He didn’t even like coffee.

  He set his wallet and keys beside his holstered .44. Lila gave him hell about keeping it out in the open, but he had gotten very good at changing the subject with her. Usually it entailed telling her how glad he was to have her there or just putting his mouth on hers.

  Taking himself out to dinner at the mall in the next county over had done nothing to cheer him. Lila hadn’t answered her phone or any of his texts all day long. Knowing Bud was out of town didn’t help. What the hell was she doing? Was she with another man? The thought made his body tense. It was bad enough that he had to compete with Bud, but he had learned to handle it. After all, she was married to Bud, a situation he hadn’t been able to convince her to change. If she was punishing him by screwing someone else, that was bad. She didn’t get to do that.

  After getting a beer from the refrigerator, he cued up an episode of a cop drama on the DVR and sat down in front of the television. But the show didn’t hold his interest, and he fell asleep thinking not of Lila but the dancer, Jolene, and how she had seemed out of place entering the single-wide in which she was staying, like she was some kind of princess in disguise. He wanted to forget how he had thought of her the night before, hated the part of him that had imagined her hurt and helpless on the mountain trail. He had never had threatening thoughts about a woman before, and certainly had never actually hurt one. Ever.

  • • •

  Tripp startled awake at the sound of three beeps from a car h
orn down on the road—Lila’s signal that she was on her way up the hill. There were no lights for at least half a mile around the cabin, so even on clear nights like this one, when the moon was high, she wanted him to come out and meet her. As he stumbled out of his chair, he knocked over the half-empty beer bottle, spilling flat beer all over the coffee table. Swearing, he grabbed the fuzzy brown throw Lila had brought on her last visit and soaked up as much as he could. The show had ended. It was ten minutes before midnight.

  Had she decided to forgive him? Or was she just there to bust his chops? Assuming it was the second choice, he took a wide stance on the front porch to show her he wasn’t at all concerned that she was angry. Where did she spend the day? Who has she been with?

  The lights of the big SUV bounced as it came through the rut at the front of the driveway. But before it was halfway up the five-hundred-foot distance to the cabin, Tripp saw, in the truck’s stark halogen beams, a flash of movement in the woods to the west. There was a rushing noise as well, as though an animal were about to break out of the trees, but the sound disappeared in the roar of the truck’s engine. Tripp stiffened. Lila wasn’t driving fast enough for a deer to do serious damage to the truck, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. He could only watch, helpless, as something burst into the open and landed thirty feet or so in front of the vehicle.

  Had Lila seen it? Tripp ran toward the truck, waving his arms and shouting for her to stop. What the hell was lying in his driveway? A deer? And why wasn’t it moving away? The SUV stopped just a few feet short of whatever it was, and sat idling.

  He raised his arm to keep Lila in the vehicle. “Stay back!” he shouted, hoping she could hear him in the truck’s quiet interior.