by Alex Gordon
“Virginia won’t be able to see her straight. Memories of Matthew, all the things that might have been. The girl will sense the resentment. It will drive her away.” Leaf stretched his legs as far as comfort allowed. “From what I have heard, last night’s little get-together didn’t go at all well. Over half the attendees walked out. Theo Fuller’s applied for a job at the orchard and Judith Merton has signed up to help with the winter service, and there will be more where they came from.” He imagined the scene in that poky living room. The accusations. The denials. “Soon we’ll have them all, and Virginia Waycross will be left alone with only her horses to preside over.”
Amanda remained quiet as she folded a towel into a tight roll, then used it to cushion her knees as she knelt to examine Leaf’s legs. “She never stood a chance with Matt. Virginia.” She applied ointment to a fresh lesion on Leaf’s knee. “It was sad, really. The way she used to follow him around. I always wondered what made Mike Waycross think he would ever be able to compare. Fireplug with legs and bald before he was twenty.” She pointed to an older wound, a raised red-brown smear that covered the inner side of Leaf’s calf. “This looks better.”
“Looks the same to me.” Leaf flexed his toes, winced as the pins-and-needles sensation radiated up his legs. “Feels worse.” He lifted his arm as high as he could and pointed behind him. “The one on my back has spread.” He felt the heat rise up his neck. Damn, but he was too old to blush. “Downward.”
Amanda straightened, stripped off her soiled gloves, snapped on a fresh pair. “Take off your shirt and lower your bottoms. Go to the bed and lie on your stomach.” She eyed him with motherly irritation. “Don’t you give me the fisheye, Leaf Cateman. Won’t see nothing I ain’t seen a thousand times at the funeral home.”
“Such a comfort, Amanda. Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.” Amanda sighed, then turned away so he could ready himself. “She was here, you know. I could smell her, like meat gone bad.”
“I saw her, just before you came.” Leaf removed his pajama shirt, winced as the cool air raked across the sores on his back. “From what I understand, Matthew told her little and taught her less. She’s probably heard all sorts of things from Virginia and the others. She’s curious.” He rolled the bottoms down past his hips, held on to them as he lay down to keep them from slipping farther. “That provides me an opportunity to make an impression. I don’t intend to waste it.” He waited, heard nothing but the grind of scissors cutting gauze, and Amanda’s breathing as she slathered ointment. “You don’t approve.”
“Not for me to approve or disapprove. You’ll do what you want. Like always.”
“And you will be there to assist. Like always.” Leaf boosted on his elbows to relieve the pressure on his stomach. The skin there was clean, dammit. No reason for it to hurt. “I need her, Amanda. Gideon needs her.” He gave up the struggle with his pajama bottoms, and twisted until he sat on the edge of the bed.
“She won’t like it.” Amanda jerked her chin toward the door.
“When what my mistress wife likes or dislikes enters into the equation, I will let you know.” Leaf licked his lips. At least his discomforts had not yet interfered with his appetite. “Been some time since we had a dinner party in this house, don’t you agree?” He nodded without waiting for an answer. “See to it.”
“Don’t I always?” Amanda took up the tray. “Get some rest. I’ll come by later to see how you are.” One last long look. Then she departed, the door closing with a soft click.
Leaf listened to the muffled clump of Amanda’s heavy shoes on the thick carpet, so different from Jorie’s light step. He sometimes wondered whether there were other reasons for her steadfastness besides the loyalty of a longtime retainer. Her condemnations of poor Virginia’s hopeless affections, so much like the pot commenting on the shade of the kettle.
Reverie claimed him. What might have been. Life would no doubt have been simpler if he had married a woman like Amanda, a plain, no-nonsense hedge witch, content to remain in his shadow. So different from the women who shaped him, his grandmother Barbara and his mother, Alice.
Youth. Power. Beauty. Cateman men craved them, claimed for themselves anyone who possessed them. Emma, the dancer and artist. Matthew, the athlete.
And then there’s Jorie. Well, she possessed a base sort of attractiveness, glossy and brittle as her hair. Pickings had, unfortunately, become rather slim in Gideon over the years. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Leaf adjusted his pillow to avoid pressing against the bandages. Dear, dull Amanda—she was right, as usual. He needed to see his doctor.
“Later.” After he had acquired Lauren Mullin, brought her into the fold, assessed her. Instructed and guided her. Only then he would see to himself. Until that time, he would just have to bear whatever test the Lady imposed upon him.
Binding punishments. Sometimes Virginia Waycross’s lack of imagination astonished him. Be the rack and thumbscrew next.
Poor, foolish Amanda. Loyal though she was, he really could not allow her to interfere. The dream of his father and grandfather was now so close to becoming reality. Wealth and glory. The power to bend time, forestall death, and transform Gideon into the shining city it was always meant to be.
“So close.” He could sense it in the air, like the soft static before a storm.
As Lauren reached the entry to the cul-de-sac, she heard the crunch and grind of an old transmission. Zeke? She broke into a trot, crossed her fingers that the old man had been successful in all matters chain saw and would be more than happy to cart her back to the Waycross place.
But as she rounded the corner onto Main Street, she caught sight of a chrome bumper, a dull black body streaked with orange flames. She ducked behind an overgrown yew as the truck rounded the corner and she recognized the driver and passenger as two of the men who had walked out of the previous evening’s debacle.
The truck slowed to the curb. The men got out, slammed the doors, walked around the vehicle, and kicked tires.
“Jake wants three for it.”
“I wouldn’t give him no more than two. Needs a new transmission.”
“Brakes felt mushy, too.”
Lauren hunched and backed into the shrubbery. Maybe the men would have left her alone. But they hadn’t liked Matt Mullin, and thought stoning an appropriate welcome for her. She didn’t want to take the chance.
She pushed farther into the yew, felt a shower of twigs tumble down her neck, the inside of her sweater. The hedge looked solid and green on the outside, but the inside had browned and rotted—dried needles scratched like claws and weakened branches flexed under her weight.
Then one of the thicker branches snapped and she tumbled backward onto the broken end. It drove into her side, and she cried out before she could stop herself.
“Who’s there?”
Lauren righted herself and looked out through the tangle in time to see the driver reach into the bed and pull out a shotgun.
“Who the fuck’s out there?” He headed toward the hedge.
The other man leaned on the hood, chin in his hands. “Jeez, it’s probably just a cat.”
“Fuckin’ big cat.” The driver held the shotgun against his chest, barrel pointed up. “Shit’s been goin’ down round here lately, ain’t no time to fuck around.”
Lauren edged farther into the tangle. The collapse of the branch had opened up a gap behind her. If she made it through, she could run along the hedge to the stand of trees that hemmed the backyards. She edged toward it as dirt and needles tumbled into her hair, her face and clothes and the stink of rotting vegetation and other decaying things wafted around her with each movement.
The man walked along the hedge, poking the shotgun barrel into it every few feet. “Here kitty, kitty. Gonna blow your brains all over the fucking yard, kitty, kitty.”
Lauren held out one hand behind and felt her way, gripped branches with the other to keep her balance as she crab-walked backward. She
wedged into the gap, positioned herself to bolt, then hesitated because she knew she would make noise and draw fire. Counted backward. Three . . . two . . . one—shot through the gap and bent low, running along the hedge as shouts sounded from behind.
Then came the blast.
Lauren stumbled. Righted herself, then ran. No pain. No blood. Missed me! She darted into the trees, felt the silence close around her like a shield.
Then she stopped, looked around at the overhanging branches that dripped mist. Felt the weight of the dark as it pressed from all sides. Looked behind her, and saw the man with the shotgun shimmer in and out of focus, the houses fade into faint shapes seen through fog.
“I did it again.” Lauren brushed droplets from her hair, then wiped her hand on her jacket again and again. The water felt slick, greasy. Only the threat of death by dehydration would have induced her to taste it.
She stayed still, even as every nerve and sense urged her to run. Out beyond the trees, the image of the men grew faint, then vanished. No more sound. No more movement. It was as though someone had pulled a plug.
Lauren held out her hands, felt for . . . what? Drafts? Changes in temperature? She sniffed, caught whiffs of damp and burning leaves. But here and there she found a cleaner scent, like nothing at all with a trace of spice. Cinnamon. Clove. It came and went like distant memory, lost, then found again.
Milk, flour, eggs. Connie Petersbury’s words. The scientific explanation. The interface where her world and Lauren’s world met.
Lauren stepped forward, then back, moved side to side, then paused and smelled the air again. Eventually, her fingers felt what her nose smelled, gritty dryness like grains of sand, a sere path through the stinking wet. She followed the trail with toddler steps, slow and unsure, as she grappled with the new knowledge that there actually were rules to this game and the woods, at least for the moment, followed them.
One step forward. Another. Lauren felt weightless, head like a balloon and stomach quivery and ready to flip at any moment. So this is magic. Lost in the dark and wanting to vomit. The stuff of song and legend.
Minutes may have passed. Hours. A lifetime. She felt that she had taken no more than a dozen steps at most, but when she looked back over her shoulder, she saw nothing but dark. No more house shadows. No more milky sky.
She kept walking forward. The spice scent grew stronger, warmer, as though she stood before an oven and smelled what baked within. Glimpses of light followed. A thinning of tree and branch.
Then, before she realized she had crossed a threshold, she stood in an open space. Saw the same scatter of bricks she had seen before encountering Connie, the same bare foundation and remains of a chimney. The old Mullin place. Her father’s house.
“Hello, Dad.” Lauren stepped onto the brown lawn, imagined a small boy running after a ball, the young man in the newspaper article pulling into the driveway at the wheel of his first car. Happy thoughts. She had already had her fill of the other kind.
She walked around, kicked at the ground, looked under bushes and the odd brick, on the lookout for . . . what? The street remained empty. It was a weekday, so most folks were at work, or out searching for Connie.
Connie is teacher. Do what teacher does. Lauren studied the street more closely. She had thought at first that she had stepped back into the real world, her real world, when she walked out of the trees. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She held out her hand, then fought the urge to plunge it into her pocket. She couldn’t define what she felt, but she knew she didn’t want it on her skin. Dirty oil. Slick mold from the wall of a cave. The best descriptions she could think of, and they didn’t even come close.
She stilled again, and listened. Heard movement, on the other side of the street. Rustles in the bushes.
“You can’t come here. Because I’m here, and this is my place.” Lauren took out the crumpled leaves and tissues from her pocket, streaked with her dried blood. Walked to the edge of the lot that bordered the street, dug a shallow hole in the ground with her boot heel, and stuffed one of the bloody leaves into it. “My home.” She pushed dirt over the mess, trod on it until the ground lay flat and packed. “You touch it, and it will burn you.”
She walked the perimeter of the lot, stopping every few strides to dig a hole and plant a bloody shred of tissue, a few blades of grass, a leaf. A piece of herself.
By the time she finished, the sky had lightened and the sense of dread had lessened from scream to murmur to a light chitter in her ear. A rustling sound, like a nest of rodents.
I’m back. Back in the human world, the living world. For now. But the other world, Blaine’s world, was seeping through more and more. Gideon was running out of time.
Lauren walked around the lot until she stood beside the remains of the chimney. She sat on the brick ledge, felt the chill through her clothes. Wedged partway into the firebox to hide from passersby. Leaned back, looked through the shattered chimney top to the yellow sky.
After a minute or so, her eyes adjusted sufficiently that she could see details, the gaping hole where the damper had been, the patches of creosote, the missing bricks. The chimney itself had grown crooked through age and damage or because it had always been that way. One area just above her head bubbled out, black and shiny, and she scooted deeper into the firebox and stretched until she could feel it.
The creosote cracked as soon as she touched it, rained on her in shards that clung to her clothes and smeared her skin.
Then she spotted something else in the mess. Flecks of metal, dull silver and brittle, crumbling when touched. Foil.
Lauren maneuvered until she knelt in the firebox. Pulled her hood over her head and held it in place with one hand as she tore at the creosote bubble with the other. More garbage showered down, ash and oxidized foil and bits of woven fabric that looked an awful lot like duct tape.
Then her hand closed around something flat, hard. She lifted it free from its hiding place and pushed out of the firebox. Brushed ash from her face and clothes, then turned her attention to the packet.
It had been carefully wrapped in layer after layer of foil, duct tape, stiff fabric coated with wax, careful preparations that fell away in pieces or crumbled to dust when she touched them. What remained looked familiar, the black leather cover worn to gray by years of use, the gold embossing erased.
Lauren tilted the book one way, then the other, until the light hit the cover just right and she could pick out the faint indentations. Another Book of Endor. She sniffed it, smelled nothing but age and ash. Opened it, and read the inscription.
To my dearest Barbara
On this anniversary day
Your loving husband
Hiram
July 10, 1868
The binding crackled each time she turned one of the deckled pages, themselves yellowed and brittle from age and exposure to the chimney heat. Who the hell would hide something made of paper in a chimney? Unless the fireplace was never used. Or the book wasn’t supposed to remain there for long.
The sound of a vehicle accelerating claimed Lauren’s attention. She looked toward the street just as a pickup truck veered to the edge of the road, and just had time to pick out the faded W on the door when the driver slammed on the brakes.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dylan Corey jumped out of the cab and hit the ground running. “We have been hunting for you all morning.” He stopped in midstride, looked her up and down. “What the hell have you been doing?”
Lauren tugged at the leg of her jeans, sending a cloud of soot puffing into the air. “I came to talk to Lolly about my car.”
“Did anybody see you?”
“Zeke gave me a ride into town.”
Corey made a show of looking around. “Was he going to wait for you? Because I don’t see him anywhere.”
“He had to see a man in Sterling about a chain saw.” Lauren tucked her new find into her coat pocket. “Did something happen?”
Corey beckoned for her to f
ollow him. He hurried ahead to his truck, grabbed a blanket from the back, and threw it over the passenger seat, then waited for her to get inside before getting in himself. “Lolly’s missing.” He dug a shop rag out of the pile on the floor of the cab and handed it to her, eyes fixed on her face, a hard stare that didn’t like what it saw.
They drove in silence until the Waycross place came into view. Then Corey spoke, his voice ragged, as though it hurt to talk.
“Phil came by the place right before I left to look for you.” He pulled into the driveway, made the long, slow swing around to the back of the house. “He had stopped by the garage to bug Lolly about his truck. He found the door to the office wide open. Couldn’t find Lolly anywhere. Said the place felt wrong, like something bad had happened.” He pulled in next to a tractor mower, shut off the engine, and sat still, hands on his thighs, and watched the horses meandering about the corral.
“He always locks his place.” Lauren fielded another hard look, surprise sharpened by anger. “I saw him unlock the door. After Zeke dropped me off.”
“Did anyone else see you?”
“Tom Barton.”
“Great.”
“Barton never struck me as a gossip.”
“He turns up everywhere and yammers at everybody, and he can say the wrong thing at the damnedest times.” Corey thumped the steering wheel. “Well, let’s get this over with.” He opened his door. “I’ll tell you right now, I have never seen the Mistress this pissed and I’ve known her my whole life.”
Lauren waited for him to round the truck and open her door, not for the sake of etiquette but because she didn’t want to face Virginia Waycross. I didn’t do anything wrong. She had a right to know about her father, to search for answers.
All those arguments faded when she looked in the passenger-side mirror and saw the tall, slim figure standing on the backdoor step.
Corey opened her door, then held out his arm for her as she stepped out of the truck. “Maybe if you limp a little, it might help.” He put his hand over hers, and squeezed it.
