Midsummer's Eve

by Kitty Margo

“Me too.” Tammy was quick to agree. “And if I get out of here alive, you better believe I won’t ever thep foot near thith houth again!”

  “You won’t ever step foot near this house again, right?”

  And what was the diva doing? Why thinking, of course. She was sure she could solve any problem if she deliberated on it long enough, which was unusual for her. Not the thinking part, the fact that while she spent precious time pondering, she was also allowing an unsightly flaw to go unattended on her porcelain skin. I would have bet good money that under any other circumstance, she would have been on her way to her cosmetic surgeon to see if any of her abrasions should require stitches and his skilled hands.

  “Why would the child get so angry because we picked a flower?” she asked. “He obsesses over his flowers worse than Lawrence obsesses over his sod.”

  “Who cares?” Mallory stormed. “He has already tried to kill us! Why don’t you present yourself as a human sacrifice to him, Teri, so he might let the rest of us live?”

  “Oh, aren’t we the humorous one now? When your caterwauling was the only sound I heard above the deafening noise of the storm a short while ago.”

  “You caused the storm, you stupid bitch! And don’t you dare pick another flower if we make it out of here alive! If you do, so help me, I will personally tell Lawrence about the FedEx man. And the landscaper. And the pool boy!”

  Wow! Mallory meant business!

  “Who knows what he will do to us next time!”

  Suddenly, I noticed that it was quiet outside. I didn’t hear the rapid fire hail pounding the tin roof. “Listen y’all. It’s stopped.” All was quiet as we ventured back outside. “Be careful,” I said, when we stood on the porch. “All of these boards are rotten and you could fall through. We have incurred more than enough injuries for one day.”

  “Amen to that,” Mallory mumbled and groaned.

  We carefully placed one foot in front of the other until we stepped off the porch, back into the amazing array of buttercups.

  “Look at that.” Tammy whispered, in awe. “Batheball thized hail and not a thingle flower ith broken. How ith that potthible?”

  “Baseball sized hail and not a single flower broken. How is that possible?” I translated for a quizzical Teri before she even asked.

  Tammy was right. All the buttercups stood ramrod straight and tall. I couldn’t even find one that had been slightly bent. Where was all the hail that had fallen? The flowers should be under at least a foot or two of ice, but they weren’t. They looked exactly as they had when we had first seen them. Not one flower was damaged!

  “I looked out the window during the storm and the flowers were flatter than pancakes. Damn! Well one thing is for sure,” Teri said. “The child certainly doesn’t want us picking his flowers. So I suggest we abide by his wishes.”

  “No thit!”

  “The rest of us were smart enough to figure that out the first time, after Tammy picked one!” Mallory snarled.

  “Yeah, Teri.” Tammy was still moaning and clutching her aching head.

  “I had to be sure.” Teri said, dismissing the matter as she waded through the flowers and headed for a narrow path that snaked its way through the cornfield.

  “Where does she think she’s going now?” Mallory snapped.

  “She thinks she’s going to the graveyard, of course,” Teri called over her shoulder like it was the only logical answer to the problem at hand.

  “I am in dire need of medical attention and that demented reject from a witch coven wants to visit a graveyard!” Mallory seemed unable to believe what she had just heard from Teri’s lips. I could tell she was on the verge of requiring mind numbing medication. “Do you happen to see the gash on my face? The one with the blood gushing from it!”

  “Please, Mallory.” As usual Teri jumped in to make matters worse. “Must you ever embellish? The wound has stopped bleeding and has actually dried and crusted, most unbecoming by the way, on the side of your face.”

  “Granted, the flow of blood seems to have subsided for the moment, but there is no way in hell that I am going to a graveyard.” Mallory stood in the ocean of yellow with her arms akimbo, her eyes blaring and her bloody upper lip in a pout.

  “I’m sure you’re embellishing the fact, as you tend to do, that your surface abrasions require medical attention. We all took the same beating from the hail as you did, and we don’t require an emergency room visit. Soap and water and a few band-aids would do us all a world of good.” Teri rubbed her head gingerly and continued, “Nevertheless if you insist, walk on back to the cabin. We’ll meet you back there later.”

  Mallory ran up to Teri, spun her around, and gritted between clenched teeth, “You know I am not going back there by my damn self!”

  Ignoring her fit of temper, Teri said, “Then perhaps you had better stifle your incessant love of whining and follow us. Or find yourself a stump among the flowers to sit on and wait for us to return. Just remember to keep an ever alert eye to the sky.”

  “You know, Teri? I hope the little boy takes you with him the next time he appears!”

  “No. You don’t. Trust me, I would haunt your ass and keep you terrified every day for the rest of your natural life.”

  We were about half‑way through the cornfield when Tammy asked, “Are Mallory and I the only oneth concerned that thumthing really thrange is going on and we could have died back there? That wath thum real Thephen King thit. Thouldn’t we be concentrating on getting the hell out of here, inthead of touring a graveyard?”

  “Some really strange Stephen King shit, and shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here,” I translated.

  “I think you are being a tad over dramatic, as well.” Teri giggled. “For heavens sake, he is just a small child.”

  “Quite frankly, my dear,” Tammy said, stealing a line from my favorite movie. “I don’t give a damn. It doethn’t matter how old he ith, he thill could have killed uth. That hail wathn’t a joke! And anyway, he may look like a two year old, but in reality, he’th probably more like two hundred yearth old.”

  “It doesn’t matter how old he is, he still could have killed us. That hell wasn’t a joke and he’s probably two hundred years old.”

  “Well, he didn’t kill us, did he?” Teri replied. And I think we are all convinced that he could if he had wanted to. He is trying to show us something. Can’t you see that? Not kill us. We’ve just got to figure out what it is. So come on, we’re almost there. Don’t any of you people read Sylvia Browne?”

  Some of the tombstones dated back to the 1700's. Delbert Almond had a large ornate tombstone. There was a smaller tombstone beside his with a sad little angel with outstretched arms perched on top.

  “Children died young back then, didn’t they? Tharah Louithe, aged 11 and Eliza Jane, aged 12. They muth have been thitherth.” Tammy read, having recovered enough to show some interest in the old cemetery. “Look how thad the angel ith on the grave beside Delbert Almond.”

  “Sarah Louise and they must have been sisters,” I whispered to Teri before she even got her mouth open. “The angel on the grave beside Delbert Almond looks sad.”

  Mallory was still sulking and sitting in the shade, nervously watching the sky. She wouldn’t even glance at a tombstone, but would occasionally shoot daggers at Teri with her eyes.

  “Yes, Tammy, unfortunately, children died very young back then. Yellow Fever came through this area in the 1800’s and almost wiped out the children.”

  We walked past the family cemetery with large, elaborate tombstones into the slave graveyard with only slate rocks marking their final resting places. We heard, “Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill” and clutched our chests at the unexpected sound. Whippoorwills only sing at night.

  “What wath that?”

  “It was a whippoorwill, Tammy,” I said.

  “You’ve heard about the birds, haven’t you, Mallory?” Teri asked, with an evil grin curving her lips. “One legend says that a whipp
oorwill can sense when a soul is departing earth and capture it. Another belief is that if you hear a whippoorwill singing it is a death omen.”

  “Screw you, Teri.”

  We were deep in the woods now and it would soon be dusk. “We really should head back,” I said. “It will be dark soon and I’m hungry.”

  We walked back through the family cemetery and I heard Tammy gasp. “Would you look at that?”

  I turned, followed her gaze and was completely astonished. On the child’s grave beside of Delbert Almonds lay a single magnificent buttercup.

  Tammy hurried to the grave. “Theth Andrew Almond,” she read. “Beloved thon of Delbert Almond.”

  Looking at Tammy with an irritated expression, Teri followed her to the grave and read, “Seth Andrew Almond, Beloved Son of Delbert Almond.”

  “Thath what I thaid!”

  “That flower wasn’t there a few minutes ago when we passed his grave, was it?” I asked, remembering that Tammy had brought our attention to the sad little angel perched on the headstone and there definitely hadn’t been a flower adorning his grave then.

  “No, it wathn’t there.” Tammy agreed.

  “Why would he put a flower on Delbert Almond’s son’s grave?” Teri asked, puzzled. Then, the candidate for the Dorethea Dix Psychiatric Hospital in Raleigh actually reached out her hand to pick up the flower.

  Fortunately, a loud chorus of, “Stop!” from the three of us, caused her hand to halt less than an inch from the flower and most likely prevented another disaster. Teri looked around and whispered, “Sorry. I forgot. He must be here now.”

  “Here? With us now! Not back at the house!” Mallory shrieked, looking like she might leave this world at any minute. Honestly, the girl looked pitiful. Her bruised and swollen face was ghastly pale under the bright red scrapes and her hair almost stood straight up on her head.

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Teri smiled seemingly unconcerned.

  “Can we just leave? You see it’s getting dark,” Mallory beseeched. “Who knows what he’s going to do next. And can we walk on the road this time and not go through the woods?”

  “Anything to make you happy, precious!” Teri giggled, running over to give Mallory a bear hug. “It makes my day to see a smile on that little cherub face with those fat cheeks.”

  “You are a bitch from the bowels of hell, Teri.”

  Back at the cabin everyone was ravenous, so I poured charcoal on the grill and lit it, my mind drifting in a thousand different directions. Twice I had been caught in violent storms and once had been attacked by a swarm of near fatal bugs. It was entirely possible that I now had a concussion to add to my growing list of injuries. But this latest storm had definitely been the most severe. It seemed the child had tired of playing games and was rather insistent on making a point. But what that point was I didn’t have a clue.

  Teri was slathering barbecue sauce on chicken when she turned to me. “You know he is not going to let it rest until he shows you what he is so determined for you to see.”

  “Shows me what? Could someone please tell me what it is we are looking for? And if not, could we at least change the subject for all of five minutes?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she continued, ignoring my outburst.

  “Oh, just what we need! For you to freaking brainstorm!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Okay. He knew we would go inside the house when the storm came. I think whatever he wants us to find is inside the Buttercup House.”

  “Almond House,” I said, correcting her. “And I think he was just pissed about the flowers and that’s why he sent the storm.”

  Mallory and Tammy were slicing vegetables for the salad. Mallory’s hands were trembling so badly that I prayed she wouldn’t add a chunk of meaty finger to the vegetarian dish.

  “This is not happening.” Mallory fretted. “I mean I saw it with my own eyes, but things like this happen in movies not in real life. My head is throbbing. I am bruised, swollen and scratched all over and look at you, Eve. You have so many bug bites and stings you look like you have chicken pox. If we tell anybody what happened, they are going to think we’re crazy and commit us all.”

  “Amen,” Tammy agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment. “I juth want to go home and forget thith night ever happened. Eve, will you take me home tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too.” Mallory was quick to add.

  “You two are totally pathetic.” As was most often the case, Teri was unable to keep her pie hole shut.

  “I would rather be pathetic and alive than a crazy ass bitch and dead any day,” Mallory was only too happy to inform her.

  After the meal Mallory and Tammy piled their belongings back into the truck. Teri had convinced me to spend the night and discover what the child was so determined to show me.

  Good Lord, I was tired of hearing that! I turned the switch on Dad’s truck, tempted just to go home and crawl in my bed. Nothing happened! Oh shit! I tried again. “It’s dead,” I said anticipating Mallory's screams and covering my ears in advance.

  “He is not going to let us leave, is he?” she bellowed, reaching in her bag for her cell phone. “He won’t rest until we’re all dead!“ Then her shrieks turned into a full fledged wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Oh my God, there is no signal! How are we going to get home? I am not spending the night in these woods with that evil little ghoul!”

  Checking our phones we found that none of us had a signal. “Then I guess you will have to walk,” Teri said, ignoring Mallory’s keening, as she calmly opened the door and got out of the truck.

  “You know Teri, you are really starting to get on my frigging nerves!” Mallory snapped, jumping out of the truck. “If we get out of this alive, I hope I never have to see your fake ass again.”

  “Oh, you’ll see me. Next time your cheap ass wants a free haircut.”

  Mallory turned several shades of red and raced toward Teri, calling her a few choice words in the process. When she got close enough Teri sidestepped, gave Mallory a little shove and sent her plunging headfirst into the river.

  Laughing, Tammy and I jumped into the river with her. It was the only way we had to wash the dried blood from our skin and, plus, it felt heavenly in the late July heat. I asked the diva to throw us a bar of soap knowing full well she wasn’t about to step one pedicured toe into the river water. I glanced up once and saw her using bottled water and paper towels to daintily scrub her porcelain skin.

  We swam upriver allowing the current to carry us back down and cool Mallory off. “I wonder if we’ll make it through this night alive?” Mallory whispered.

  “Don’t think about it,” Tammy said. “Juth don't think about it. With four of uth, hopefully there ith thafety in numberth.”

  “Safety in numbers… right,” Mallory mumbled. She was quiet, for once, as we crawled up the bank and dried off. She might have been bruised, swollen and terrified as all hell, nonetheless it didn’t stop her from scarfing down two more pieces of barbequed chicken and another baked potato. “Swimming always makes me hungry,” she informed us, noisily licking barbecue sauce from her fingers.

  The rest of us nibbled at the remaining food as we listened to the night critters beginning to stir. Minks and muskrats scurried down the riverbank searching for their evening meal of delectable muscles. Fish jumped playfully and plopped back in the river. An owl hooted from the tree above us. And something was making an awful commotion as it raced through the nearby woods. Hopefully, it was a raccoon. At any rate, we hastily decided that it was late and time to turn in.

  It was evident that Mallory and Tammy were either really scared or really pissed off as they both presented us their backs and pretended to sleep.

  Teri and I climbed into the bottom bunks and eyeing me curiously she said, “You know, Eve, I have noticed a remarkable change in you recently.”

  “What do you mean?” I was snuggling down under the
cover to get comfortable.

  “I don’t know. I can’t really put my finger on it, but you seem more relaxed and calmer than you normally are. Actually, you don’t seem like the nervous bundle of energy that I’ve known for the last 15 years at all. You know how stressed you always were. How you bounced from one drama to the next, falling in love with every man who looked sideways at you. It appears that the imbecile falling in love with another woman was the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  “It probably was the best thing that ever happened to me. Visiting a hypnotist didn’t hurt either.”

  “A hypnotith?” Tammy gasped. She and Mallory were wide-awake now, sitting up in bed and stunned by the fact that I had kept such a revelation from them. “When did you go to a hypnotith?”

  So I told them about my visit to Marilyn and how I had floated to this very spot on a magic carpet.

  “I had noticed a change in you too,” Mallory said. “But I just assumed it was because you weren’t having to deal with Adam’s bullshit anymore.”

  “How much doth the charge? What ith her phone number?”

  “$60.00 an hour and worth every penny. But she gave me a coupon for a free visit at a Chamber meeting. I think you should all go see her if for nothing more than help dealing with your intense hatred of innocent vegetables. Remind me to give you each one of her cards when we get home.”

  “If we make it home.” Mallory said. “And the Amazing Kreskin couldn’t convince me to eat a cucumber.”

  Teri sat quietly watching me. “You remembered something while you were hypnotized didn’t you, Eve?”

  “Yes.” I took a deep breath trying to muster the courage to relive it. “It took about two weeks, but memories that I had kept buried deep inside have returned, along with bits and pieces of my childhood. I remember birthdays now, Christmas morning, my first day of school, and being sexually abused as a child.”

  Teri nonchalantly wiped a tear from her cheek. “I always thought that something bad must have happened in your childhood for you to have suppressed all your memories. I pray that I never come face to face with the bastard that abused you.”