Devil's Oven

by Laura Benedict

  Lila responded by pursing her lips at the edge of the spoon. She sipped, still staring forward at the drawn curtains.

  “Are you warmer?”

  Lila didn’t answer, but accepted another spoonful of broth.

  It was strange to have Lila back in the trailer. She had been there as a client several times, always in the front room, where Ivy had set up a screen for clients to change behind. They hadn’t been close enough friends when they were younger for Ivy to bring her home. By junior high, Lila had made it clear that she was beyond people like Ivy, people who were obviously never going to leave the mountains. But she had been kind sometimes. Particularly when she wanted something from Ivy. And she had come back to Alta, hadn’t she?

  Can I let you walk away from here to tell everyone, Lila?

  When the broth was down to a scant spoonful, Lila slumped against the headboard and closed her eyes. Ivy put aside the bowl and adjusted the pillows so that they were beneath Lila’s head. She reached over and turned off the lamp. Almost immediately, Lila’s breath deepened and Ivy knew she would sleep for hours.

  Distorted shadows covered the bed and walls, making the room seem empty and lonesome. It had once been her parents’ bedroom. Thora had taken down the bright, inexpensive pictures and cheerful curtains that Ivy’s mother had put up, and replaced them with dull things: brown curtains like burlap, and generic, black-framed photos of buildings from the thrift store. “Better for renters,” she had said. It was not a happy room.

  Ivy stood over Lila, wondering what all those boys had seen in her. As a teenager, Lila’d had corkscrew curls and a mouth that was too wide for her face. Freckles, too. She had never been hesitant or shy, and had tormented the teachers with her willingness to do things like climb out of second-story windows for a joke, or make cookies in the shape of a penis and testicles in Home Ec class. Then she would pull off a tear-jerking performance in a school play. It wasn’t just boys who wanted to be near her. Girls did, too.

  “Sleep is good,” Ivy said, tucking a curl away off Lila’s forehead. How much do I owe you? Is this enough? “Sleep. Then we’ll know what to do.”

  • • •

  Down the hill, the only light coming from the house was the television’s chalky glow from behind the living room curtains. Ivy let herself in and turned on the overhead light. The television was blaring, but Anthony wasn’t in the room. The floor was littered with cupcake wrappers, an empty potato chip bag, and peanut shells that had first been crushed in his careless hands and then ground into the carpet. She had discovered he liked to shell peanuts when she pulled a bag of them out of the cabinet to put some on an ice cream sundae. He had shelled fifty or sixty in one sitting, not even bothering to eat half of them, but sprinkling them on the floor as though that was what the floor was made for. Seeing the mess, she recalled that she had thought they were out of peanuts. Where had he even found them? She was too tired to think about it. At least he had fed himself, and not forced her to come down to the house to make him a meal.

  Ivy took a quick shower, and changed into dry corduroys and a violet cotton sweater whose wide portrait collar made her feel more civilized, as though she hadn’t been half-covered in vomit and mud and Lila’s blood only an hour earlier.

  Back in the living room, she swept the wrappers into one hand and dropped the remotes into the pockets of the denim caddy hanging over the arm of the recliner. Each of the caddy’s three pockets had an initial embroidered on it—Thora’s initials. Ivy had made it for Thora the previous Christmas after seeing one in a magazine, and laid it on Thora’s chair for her to find Christmas morning. Thora was everywhere in the house, as much of a presence as when she had been alive. She felt Thora’s vexation as she used a whisk broom and dustpan to clean up the peanut shells so she wouldn’t wake Anthony with a noisy vacuum. Eventually the room was clean, but Thora wasn’t exorcised. She had just become invisible.

  Ivy dumped the debris in the kitchen trashcan and went to wipe down the sink. Movement in the window caught her eye, and she looked up to see her own reflection. The light shining behind her made her features look blurred and flat in the glass. Her face had been transformed into a narrow oval with shadowed indentations for eyes, a faint triangle of a nose, and a thin line where her lips should be. No lashes. No scars. No hollows beneath her cheekbones. But the light had also transformed her hair into an aura of yellow gold.

  She reached out, and the fingers of the woman in the glass met hers in cold union.

  • • •

  Ivy woke to the sound of the front door slamming.

  She scrambled to kneel in the recliner so she could push back the curtain and look out the window. Outside, the sky was clear, the moonlight stronger.

  Anthony’s long shadow led him up the driveway, toward the darkened trailer.

  She opened her mouth to call him back, and her breath made a small wreath of fog on the glass. All she had to do was open the front door and shout after him. But nauseating fear kept her where she was until he disappeared behind the trailer. She sank back down into the chair, and turned off the lamp.

  She couldn’t move. Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself to get up out of the chair. To go up to the trailer. To do anything but sit there.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Jolene pulled Charity’s beat-up car into a parking space around the corner from the courthouse. It stalled out before she could put it into park. The last time she had driven a car had been over thirty years ago. Working a clutch properly seemed to her like one of those things she shouldn’t forget, but it hadn’t happened that way.

  The concrete and marble courthouse was a tomb whose thick walls couldn’t keep the silent pain of the men and women inside from reaching her. Hospitals, nursing homes, prisons—they were all islands of misery, and she stayed away from them if she could. Up on the mountain, she could hardly feel anything at all. She had strength, there. But being around all this humanity was draining her body of its usefulness. Her time was coming, and she hadn’t even gotten close to what she was supposed to do.

  Lila was out there, holding the hand of hell itself. Ivy—her dear, sweet Ivy of the serious questions and snowy hair—was lost. And Thora. At least someone had closed her eyes. Ivy? It had to have been Ivy.

  She had to do something right this time. She couldn’t bear to be born again. To suffer life again.

  • • •

  “You mean I can’t see my own father?” There was a particular little-girl tone of voice that some of the other dancers at the club used when they wanted something from the men. It made Jolene laugh when she heard it—baby talk from cotton-candy pink or red-painted, pillowy lips. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t imitate it. The advantage she had over those girls was her ability to maintain innocence in her eyes. She had changed from the sweatshirt into one of Charity’s fluffy, V-neck sweaters, and had left her jacket open so the man at the jail’s front desk could get a good look at what was inside.

  “I understand your concern, miss, but the visiting schedule is posted right on the front door.”

  The gleaming gold tag over his left breast pocket read FOWLER, and his aura was a putrid, muddy orange. He seemed lonely in his defenses, like he had been loved once but had forgotten what it was like. His brusqueness was part of an act that wouldn’t be difficult for her to break.

  “But I came all the way here from school, Officer Fowler,” she said. “I came as soon as I heard from the police, and now you tell me I can’t see him?”

  “Really wish I could help you.” He shook his head with exaggerated regret.

  Jolene nodded, playing along. “Please.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to Da-dee.”

  Ah, there was the sarcasm. He must have recognized her from the club. It still surprised her to realize the low esteem in which the dancers were held. Most of them were young mothers, or girls who had wanted to dance all their lives but didn’t have much training. A v
ery few were addicts and even fewer had sex for money, but they were all the same to the public. It had been foolish of her to imagine that she could sail into the courthouse, ask to see Bud, and be taken to him immediately.

  The prospect of the next hour—of having to persuade this man the way he wanted to be persuaded—filled her with visceral dread. It had been different with Tripp. Even though he was touching evil in the worst way, she had found a kind of solace in his arms. She had forgotten what it was like to be touched with tenderness. And Tripp had been tender—for a while, anyway. She had let herself feel human, almost vulnerable, in the same way she allowed herself to feel when she danced at the club.

  “I know he’s upset.” This was not a lie. She could feel Bud’s rage around them. He was afraid for Lila. Desperate. “Where’s his lawyer?” She looked around the lobby as though a lawyer might suddenly appear.

  “Said I can’t help you.”

  Fowler moved some papers around on his desk and put a bright green apple on top of them. The apple was obviously a nod to a doctor-ordered healthy lifestyle, because sickness—physical as well as moral—was consuming his body.

  “But how come you don’t have a line on what’s up with the lawyer, seeing as you’re his daughter and all?” He gave her an insincere little smile. “You don’t seem too worried about Mrs. Tucker—your mama.”

  “She’s my stepmother,” Jolene said. “We don’t get along, you know?”

  “No. I can see that you wouldn’t,” he said. The gray around him intensified.

  “What if I just sat over there in a chair and waited until the morning visiting hours?”

  “I think that would be a waste of your time, but go ahead and do that if you want,” he said. “Free country, public place.”

  “Okay,” she said, returning his smile. “Works for me.” She knew he would watch her walk away.

  The “L” of chairs in the waiting area sat beneath a bank of bright but indirect lights. A wall-mounted television tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel yammered at her from above. She was weary enough to close her eyes and sleep for hours, but knew she had to stay alert if she was going to see Bud. She sat paging idly through a fishing magazine, four years old but its content still brand new to her. Every so often Fowler would look up from his desk, staring at her without apology or acknowledgment.

  Fifteen minutes and two dull stories about fishing equipment passed before he spoke again. This time into the radio.

  “Kenny, what’s your ten-twenty?”

  “Second floor down,” Kenny replied. “One of the boys had him a bad dream. Raised all kinds of hell. Need me to come up?”

  Fowler cleared his throat. She glanced over at him to see that his cheeks and ears were lightly flushed.

  “Nah. I’m going to take a break, though,” he said. “If anybody shows up, they can wait outside for five.”

  “Ten-four,” Kenny said.

  Fowler took his time making a show of setting up the space for his absence, and then ambled to the waiting area, absently tucking in his shirt and adjusting his belt. Jolene looked up and gave him a hopeful, innocent smile. He wasn’t looking for real innocence. That was the last thing he wanted.

  “So you want to see your daddy in a bad way?” he said. What he was really asking her was in the flush of his skin and the way his voice had dropped a throaty octave.

  She nodded. “You just tell me what to do,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  • • •

  The storage room was larger and neater than the one Dwight maintained at the club, with the labels of the cleaning supplies carefully facing out of their shelves, and boxes of paper towels and toilet paper stacked so that their corners met in perfect lines. She had a moment to look around while Fowler shifted a stack of boxes to reveal a folding chair and a stained, square pillow.

  “No reason we shouldn’t be comfortable,” he said.

  She tried to pretend surprise at his preparations; this was obviously something he did all the time. Or did he usually just come back here to nap?

  He held a stainless steel flask, engraved with some kind of lodge insignia, out to her. “You like sloe gin?” he said.

  Staying in character, she let herself look surprised, and waited until he gestured with the flask a second time before taking it. The gin passed over her lips and coated her tongue with sweetness. She took several sips before passing it back to him.

  “I like that,” she said. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, making him smile.

  “Bet you were expecting ’shine.” He shook his head. “That stuff will mess you up. There are plenty of sloeberry bushes around here if you know where to look. Every one of the berries that went into this was pricked with the bush’s own thorns.” He held up the flask. “Never metal. That’ll sour the batch before it’s even started.”

  She smiled.

  By the time he was settled on the chair, with Jolene standing close enough to look down on the freckled skin between the gelled clumps of his salt-and-pepper hair, they had passed the flask back and forth three or four times. She was careful to let the syrupy liquid press against her tongue for just a second at each turn.

  He set the flask on a nearby shelf, all the while staring at her chest.

  “Why don’t you take off that jacket?” he said.

  She shrugged off the jacket, letting it drop to the floor. He grabbed her sleeve to pull her closer and slid a damp hand beneath her sweater. When he pushed her bra up over her breasts, the underwire pinched as it caught on his wedding ring, but he didn’t pause and his wheezing breath didn’t change. Closing his eyes, he began kneading her breasts. His jowls slackened with perverse serenity.

  “Sweet amen,” he said. Now he shoved the entire sweater up to her neck and filled his mouth with her.

  His gray viscous aura enveloped her, and the tang of his sweat invaded her nostrils and lungs. But she let it pass through her—away, away—so that she could barely feel his beard against her skin.

  When he seemed to have had enough of both breasts, he fell back onto the chair, fumbling at his fly.

  “Why, lookee here,” he said. “Treat time.” His voice was breathless as he revealed himself.

  Jolene unhooked her bra and slipped it off with her sweater. She pulled them over her head, glad to be able to hide her revulsion for those few seconds.

  “Oh, you better start now,” he said, gripping his penis in one hand. “Daddy’s not going to make it.”

  “Sure you will,” she said, straddling his lap and pressing close so he could feel her skin and hair against his face, her breasts against his chest.

  “It would mean so much if you would kiss me first,” Jolene said, close to his ear.

  When she leaned back, he looked in her eyes. She thought he might demur—then what would she do? Kill him? No. She could hurt him, and she was going to hurt him. Murder had never been in her nature. God knew if it had, she wouldn’t be here in this closet. She wouldn’t be anywhere at all. She would have lived out her natural life decades and decades earlier. She might even have married back then and had children, sweet children. Her descendants, and those of her brother, would have covered Devil’s Oven with goodness. But she hadn’t been brave enough to kill back then.

  Was she brave enough now to kill the creature who had Ivy in his grip? She told herself that killing the already dead wasn’t killing at all.

  Fowler’s eyes shone with a brief spark of compassion, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. When he crushed his mouth against hers, she tasted ash and coffee and damnation.

  Reaching deep inside him, she opened the gate that held back the darkness every human tries to keep hidden. Fowler’s darkness flowed with a ferocity that washed over them both. He struggled, trying to pull away from her. But she held him fast, held their kiss until she felt him weaken then stop struggling altogether. Between her legs, his member melted back into its cotton/poly hiding place, and the flood of dark
ness revealed his soul—a crusted, barely-breathing thing that cowered in a corner of his mind. She showed him how close it was to death, how his every vile thought killed it a little more.

  Was this what her own soul had become? Did she even have one anymore?

  Fowler jerked once in her embrace. His tongue went rigid in her mouth.

  She let him go.

  • • •

  Bud stood up quickly from the lower bunk, almost banging his head on the steel frame of the one above him.

  “Jolene!”

  “Here are your shoes and stuff,” Jolene said, whispering. She was weak, though not as weak as the man who stood in the doorway behind her. Fowler faced the hallway, unwilling—or unable—to look at either of them.

  “We have to go,” she said. “We have to go right away.”

  Bud’s aura was a confusion of blue and yellow. He tried to ask her questions, but didn’t seem to know where to start. He finally gave up and slipped on his shoes, put his wallet into his pocket without looking into it, and threaded his belt onto his pants.

  She hated to see how much pain he was in. Lila didn’t deserve all the love he felt for her.

  How much does any of us deserve?

  “Don’t look at him as we go out,” she whispered. Bud’s face held no understanding, but he nodded.

  She touched Fowler’s arm so he would move out of the doorway.

  Staring down at the floor, he took a single plodding step sideways. His aura was translucent, gaining slow strength to a peaceful, healing green.

  • • •

  “You need to drive,” she said, opening the passenger door of Charity’s car. “We have to hurry.”

  Bud cast a doubtful glance at the tiny car, but hardly hesitated before folding into the driver’s seat. His head only cleared the interior roof by an inch or two. He grunted as he felt for the seat adjustment lever, and there was the prrrong of a spring breaking as the seat jerked backward.

  “Holy hell,” he said. “This your car?”