As we rounded the edge of one wall our guide stopped and a heavy wooden door opened wide, a sick shifting.
“Not really,” Andrews pronounced carefully, so there would be no mistake. “I’m not going in there.”
I tried to see past the doorway into the tomb—without luck.
“It’s warmer,” the stranger said, and disappeared inside.
“It is a little cool out here,” I admitted to Andrews halfheartedly.
“It is not warmer in there.” He stood his ground.
I called into the stone building: “Who’s in there?”
No answer came.
This structure was solid, gray granite, nearly the size of my cabin, highlighted with hunter green and chartreuse lichens. The wooden door was as big as a drawbridge, riddled with wormholes, crowned with the stern visage of an unforgiving God. I could just make out the quote under it: Come hither ye blest but depart all ye curst.
The roof was made of rust-colored clay tiles. Ancient twigs and new pine straw littered its crevasses. After a second of examination I thought I saw fog or steam crouching over it. An instant later the sweet smell of burning hickory made clear the possibility of a fire inside.
“Are they burning something in there?” Andrews said at the same time.
“I think so,” I answered, taking a step closer to the door.
“Are they cooking?” His voice lifted. “Smells like barbecue.”
Only partially amused that no fear was greater than my friend’s appetite, I shook my head.
“There’s no telling what’s in there.”
“That dog’s in there,” he suggested.
“Probably.”
A face appeared in the doorway, someone new.
“Are you coming in or am I closing the door?” said the woman. Not Truevine—older.
“How about if we come in,” I suggested, taking a slow step her way, “and then you close the door.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed humorlessly.
“Are you out of your mind?” Andrews didn’t move.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” I said, my eye glued to the woman in the doorway.
“This is what’s wrong with you,” he said angrily.
But he followed—after a moment.
Before my eyes could adjust to the odd glowing light in the place, I heard the door creak, slam tightly behind us.
By the time white light at the center of the vault receded to amber, I had made out several forms huddled around the fire. A new blaze, it had burned down quickly. It was made only from thick twigs and stems; no large wood fueled it. A column of thin gray smoke shot upward to an open skylight in the ceiling; the draft was perfect.
Silence framed the rest of the air, filled it with unspoken longing. Several of the figures were partly hidden by scarves or hoods, but I was certain Truevine was not with us. These people had helped Able Carter. An intuition.
The desire to pour out story after story was etched deeply on the faces I could see. My chest ached breathing in their desperation. They were frozen, mute, their eyes wild as the ocean and as dark. Waiting.
A younger man, bent and limping, took a step toward me. He was wrapped in a coat that had once been fine, camel hair, double-breasted—now baring and worn at the elbows. I tensed without thinking, and he stopped.
“Dr. Devilin,” he rasped, “we need your help.”
Shaken by the understatement, and the obvious pain that contorted his face, I couldn’t speak for a moment.
The older woman who’d let us in laid another bundle of kindling on the coals, and the room brightened once more.
The scarecrow who had invited us in wiped his nose with the palm of his hand. “We don’t like to mix with town folk,” he announced, then fell silent, his eyes turned to the fire.
I found my voice. “Who are you? What is this?”
They looked at one another slowly.
The young man in the camel hair coat sucked in a difficult breath and held it for a moment. Then: “We thought you might know us. Know our little community.”
“Know you?” A tingling, like a hand that had fallen asleep, touched the pit of my stomach, the back of my neck. I turned to Andrews.
He stood straight, feet apart, balanced, hands shaking a little. He was still in fighting readiness. My old overcoat made him look stockier than he was; he made an imposing figure: face hard, eyes steel.
Reading the questions on my face, the young man motioned for me, then turned toward a darker part of the crypt. “I’ll show you.”
I hesitated, but the others were watching me with such anticipation—there was no menace in their posture, no threat in their aspect.
I followed.
Every eye was on me. It only took a few steps for me to catch up with the young man. We moved into the shadows.
At the back corner of the place he pointed mutely to an arrangement of debris: broken bits of tombstone, strangely shaped patterns of moss, sticks, other bits of debris all held together by old shoelaces, tied at the back with a knot the size of a tarantula. At the center of this folk sculpture was a geode as big as a human head, cracked open, filled with amethyst colors.
The man stared at me, willing me to understand what the conglomeration meant. I studied it, ideas darting into my consciousness like dark birds, then flying away. It bore some relation to Howard Finster’s older sculptural attempts, but without the poetry and Bible verses. As I was about to confess to the man that I had no idea what I was looking at, I caught the glint of something silver in the geode.
He watched my face, nodded slowly.
I moved so that a little more light from the fire could spill into the dark corner, and was finally able to make out what they all wanted me to see.
I took in a gulp of air so suddenly I began to cough violently.
“Dev?” Andrews called out, coming my way.
“I’m all right,” I assured him hoarsely. “But my God.”
“What?” He bounded to my side.
I had no idea how to tell him what it was. I could only stare at it, suddenly unable to speak.
“Damn it!” he insisted, bouncing.
Where to begin?
Nestled inside the geode was a masterfully wrought antique silver lily.
“This,” I finally managed, transfixed, “was made by my great-grandfather. I think.”
“What was?” Andrews glared at the pile. “This heap?”
I took a step closer to the pin. “Can you see the little lily?”
He squinted. “In the hollow rock?” He drew closer too, next to me. “Yes. Your great-grandfather? Are you sure?”
“No. And it would be a fairly amazing coincidence. I was just reading his story again.”
I reached out my hand without thinking, then pulled it back. “Do you mind?” I asked, turning to the young man.
He hesitated but gave a curt nod.
Instantly I plucked the lily out, took it back to the fire so I could examine it better. By the dim orange glow I could just make out the letters CB on the main part of the flower, the only place large enough for the tiny initials. Even though I’d tried to prepare myself for seeing them, I still let out a startled syllable.
“Is it?” Andrews peered over my shoulder.
“See the initials?”
“CB? Is that right?”
“His name was Conner Briarwood when he went to Ireland. He changed it to Devilin when he ran to the States.”
I heard myself begin to tell Andrews the story, starting with the Irish silversmith Jamison who had taken my great-grandfather as an apprentice. The others drew closer as I went on: the faithless Molly, the gift of the pin, the betrayal, the trial, his narrow escape. I left out the ending, the not-so-happily ever after in America.
To my great surprise, the haggard young man took up the tale.
“Every one of us knows the rest,” he began solemnly. “Conner Devilin was buried in this park, clutching the silver lily to his heart
. His wife Adele went mad with grief. She left home, came to live here.”
I nearly dropped the pin.
“Townsfolk said she was lost in the woods, but this was her home,” he said, looking around the crypt. “She dug up the body of her husband, pried the lily away from him, and kept it around her neck for the remainder of her days.”
My mind was swimming. “How on earth could you know what she did or didn’t do?” I looked around at all of them.
“She started this community. It’s named after her.”
One of the women pointed to a place over the inside door frame. The name Adele had been scratched, very cleanly, in the stone, each letter nearly a foot high.
“I don’t believe any of this.” My voice cracked with anger. “Why are you saying these things?”
“Used to be called hoboes in her day,” the young man intoned. “Travelers. Most don’t stay long. Some few take up residence.”
“I heard about it in Chicago,” said the old woman. How old was she? Twenty? Eighty? Her thick black coat revealed no clue. “Adele is a very famous place.”
I turned to Andrews. “Am I too exhausted to understand this, or is it all as weird as I think?”
“Weirder,” he croaked.
“Who are you?” I demanded to no one in particular.
The young man stepped closer into the light, pulled his hair back, revealing his features clearly.
I studied them, and a slow dawn of recognition grew, contrary to my sense of reality.
“Rud?” My voice betrayed disbelief.
“That’s right.”
“Who?” Andrews whispered to me.
“Rud Pinhurst,” I said, amazed, back to Andrews. “Truevine’s first love. He left Blue Mountain over three years ago.”
“In town,” Rud began his tale around the fire, “I was no good.”
He told us his version of Truevine’s story, his smithing for the tourists, betrayal of the fragile girl. He added what I had always suspected: his contribution to the girl’s legend had been sufficient to make her the witch of our town. He’d continued to spread rumors about her as his health and posture deteriorated. With his aspect failed, demeanor ruined, his bride soon left him, went back to her wealthy family. She sold the home they lived in, with everything in it.
Rud’s health prevented his working. His own family had never cared for him, was glad to see him sink. He had nowhere to go.
“I came here to stay. Nearly three years ago,” he finished quietly. “I found peace.”
Andrews was seated on a stolen lawn chair by the coals. He shook his head. “How do you all live here?” His voice cracked.
“We don’t,” said the scarecrow who’d whistled at the black dog. No names were offered—or solicited.
We’d all huddled close around the warm glow as Rud told us his history. We numbered seven; most were seated. I stood close to Rud as he spoke, wishing I had my tape recorder.
The woman from Chicago was the only representative of her gender; one of the men was ancient, with no glint of life in his eye; a younger man was very sick, lying in a fetal position close to the fire, covered with several blankets and sniffing, staring at the coals. All were dressed in mismatched layers, filthy pants.
Everyone, however, sported spotless new sneakers, a fashion mystery solved when I remembered the sermon from last Thursday night’s prayer meeting at the Blue Mountain Methodist Church: “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” The collection cage had been set up outside the new meeting hall, contributions of new shoes for the needy had been demanded. Surely that bin had supplied most of our company with its current footwear.
“We only stay awhile, most of us,” said the woman from Chicago. “Then move on. It’s autumn. Time to move further south.”
“Atlanta’s nice,” the ancient said, affectless, staring into the coals.
“Florida’s better,” the scarecrow mumbled. “It’s warm.”
Everyone grumbled. It appeared to be an old argument.
“Sure,” the woman said, “if they don’t lock you in jail, Alton.” She looked up at me. “Florida, in my experience, does not care for the homeless person. You don’t see so many bums on the beach, do you? Whereas Atlanta has some degree of tolerance. Underground Atlanta area, Hurt Park or Central City Park, back side of the Omni.”
“Omni’s gone, May,” Rud said gently.
“Always used to be the Omni,” she stuttered back, losing her train of thought.
“I’m the only one that lives here currently,” Rud told me. “It’s my job. When Tess Brannour left me, I tried to kill myself; I wanted to die. But my family would not allow me that. Not even that. Uncle Jackson got me the job of caretaker here. I had no choice in the matter.”
The woman from Chicago, apparently named May, tossed more sticks on the fire. It sputtered up, then blazed. Orange and black shadows danced the walls around us; faces were momentarily more illuminated—I found myself wishing they had not been. Longing and exhaustion painted every one. No deeper thoughts were to be read, however. Everything in the mind was tightly guarded by the mask painted on each face.
“I live in the caretaker’s cottage,” Rud continued. “Worked here nearly a year before I discovered Adele.”
“I used to filch things out of his kitchen while he was asleep in his bed,” May admitted, grinning. “He never knew.”
“I never cared, May,” he answered her sweetly. He caught my eye. “I was more dead than alive.”
“No one in town knows you’re here,” I told him.
“That was Uncle Jackson’s condition, one of them,” Rud said. “I was not to make myself known up here, keep out of sight. Take care of the family plots first, do what I could with the rest.” His gaze drifted. “You wouldn’t imagine it, but the days go by quickly.”
“The rest of us come and go,” May picked up. “This is my fifth year.”
“You’ve come here five years,” Andrews said, leaning forward. It wasn’t a question; it was an expression of astonishment.
“I’ve been resting here near a month,” the scarecrow said. “Trying to nurse Billy.” He twitched his head in the direction of the boy under the blankets. “We’re travel mates. I can’t seem to get him warm enough. He’s sick.”
He was dying.
“Can’t you get someone up here?” Andrews asked Rud, coming to the same conclusion as I had.
“I could speak to Lucinda about someone at the hospital,” I added quickly. “Pro bono, no worry.”
“We don’t do that sort of thing,” Rud said. A strange pride edged his words.
Others around the fire nodded.
You don’t ask for help from the family that threw you out. Whether the family is called Pinhurst or Chicago, never look back. This was not a company of beggars; it was a band of outcast travelers. Aid might be stolen from an unguarded kitchen or a church donation bin, but it would never be requested from the people who lived outside the graveyard.
It was Billy’s last autumn. Everyone seemed to know it. That was his lot. He was nearly home.
Rud came upon the group in the Adele sarcophagus quite by accident—heartbreaking hazard. He’d been pulling weeds around the Angel of Death and caught sight of a woman coming up the hill. When he saw it was Truevine he panicked and ran.
“I came in here.” He looked around the room, taking it in, the whisper of a smile at one corner of his mouth. “I’d never been in this one before that. The sudden break with my ordinary routine of moping, weeding, eating, napping, and moping took our little community by surprise.”
May smiled.
“The irony was that Truevine already knew they were here.” His voice flooded with warmth. “She was bringing them ham biscuits.”
“She does a thing with the ham,” May began enthusiastically, “which is impossible: makes it smoky, well done, and still tender.” She looked at Andrews. “How does she do that?”
“Is there a sauce?” Andr
ews shot back.
“Nope.”
“Too bad,” he said, thin-lipped.
“So Truevine found you here?” I asked Rud.
“No,” he answered, his voice turning cold again.
If I’d had my tape recorder and we’d been alone, I could have gotten him to reveal what he was hiding, though it seemed obvious. His guilt had crippled him, and he still harbored some feeling for the girl. That was my two-second conclusion.
I took a different tack under the circumstances. “You said you needed my help?”
His face momentarily grimaced a sort of gratitude for the change in subject, then masked again. “Yes.”
“It’s Ms. Deveroe,” the scarecrow said. “She’s in trouble.”
“I know,” I told them all. “That’s why we’re here: looking for her.”
“You know where she is?” Andrews leaned forward.
“She’s not right,” May chimed in. “A nice girl, but she’s not all there in the head.”
“Takes one to know one,” the scarecrow shot back at May.
“Malmener,” she spat back with a perfect accent, her face suddenly alive. “Chatre.”
Andrews moved so quickly his chair nearly collapsed. Before I could intervene, his face was nearer to May’s.
“Was that French?”
The anger left her eyes; she wouldn’t look at him. “‘I have not always been as you see me now.’”
Her expression returned to its stony mask once more.
Andrews looked at me, amazed.
“She called him a bully,” he couldn’t help saying.
“And a neutered animal, I believe,” I added.
“We don’t ask many questions here,” Rud said defensively.
That was all; nothing more would be said on the matter. May’s former life—Chicago socialite jetting to Paris, demure teacher of languages in a small girls’ school, waitress in an uptown bistro—whatever had taught her French was a closed book. We would never read it. An autumn would come to Adele that would find May gone entirely. No one would ask questions then either.
The Witch's Grave Page 14
