Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  Elizabeth pushed her chair back and began to clear the table. Phillip stood to help her.

  “Just put the dishes by the sink,” Elizabeth insisted, a strange chord of excitement in her voice. “I’ll deal with them later. It’s after one-thirty now and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

  Only the solid warmth of Jared’s body next to her on the back seat of the jeep anchored her to the moment, thought Rosemary. Without him, she would rise and float away, insubstantial as the dreams and memories that had been her constant companions since leaving Chapel Hill for this tormenting quest. Dream quest, like Maythorn said, back when we tried to get high.

  In the front seats, her mother and Phillip were talking but the roaring, a constant hurring sound as if she were holding a seashell to her ear, made their voices seem thin and far away. Rosemary closed her eyes to concentrate on the memories endlessly dancing and teasing just beneath the surface of her understanding.

  The car pulled to a stop and Mum and Phillip were getting out. Jared tugged at her sweater sleeve.

  “We’ll have to walk up from here, Rosie. Dad says there’s been some erosion just ahead and the pavement’s fallen in.”

  Opening her eyes, Rosemary looked out her window to see Moon, and beside him, slightly taller, and slightly younger, the Uncle Mike of her memory. She looked from Moon and Mike to Jared and back again. I’ve fallen into a house of mirrors—they’re still so alike.

  And now Mike was opening her door and helping her out. The little party set off, up the long curling driveway to Mullmore. With every step, the years seemed to fall away. Rosemary felt blind to the overgrown roadside, the once beautiful landscaping inexorably absorbed by native growth, the gaping cracks and potholes in the drive. It seemed that at any minute she might round a curve and the depredations of time would be undone: Mullmore would stand shining in the midst of its perfectly manicured lawns and gardens and Maythorn would come running to greet them, black braids flying behind her.

  Elizabeth hurried after her daughter, whose pace seemed to increase the nearer they drew to the big house. They were all half jogging now, trailing in the wake of the young woman who moved as if drawn by some irresistible influence.

  I’ve seen him again…he’s as handsome as I remembered…but thank god, he no longer has the same effect on me. Back then I was unhappy and needed someone who cared…but now…

  She looked at Phillip, keeping pace at her side. Had it been her imagination or had he been watching with particular interest when she first spoke to Mike, watching her reaction to this man from her past? It doesn’t matter what fantasies I might have had at one time about Mike—I’m happy with the reality of Phillip.

  She smiled at that solid reality beside her. Phillip winked at her and grabbed for her hand, gave it a brief squeeze, and released it.

  No one spoke as the great house came into view. All eyes were on Rosemary, who ignored the broad entryway and led them through the brown and dying weeds to the basement door at the side of the house. Wordlessly, Moon searched through a heavy ring of keys till he found the correct one and put it to the lock.

  “Rosemary,” Elizabeth stepped to her daughter’s side and took her hand, “Rosie, are you sure you want to do this? You don’t—”

  Blank, brown eyes met hers and Rosemary answered in an unfamiliar voice, high and breathless. “Maythorn told me to meet her here.”

  Moon pushed open the door and stood aside. Without a moment’s hesitation, Rosemary went down the steps and into the vast room. Pale throngs of sheeted furniture and stacks of dusty, cobwebbed boxes filled one end of the space, but she ignored them all and walked deliberately toward the furnace that sat in the middle of the basement.

  “She looks like she’s sleepwalking, Phillip,” Elizabeth whispered. “I don’t like this; I think we should—”

  Phillip raised a hand. “Wait,” he cautioned.

  Suddenly, Rosemary dropped to her knees. With her bare hands, she began frantically sweeping the dirt from the concrete apron around the big furnace, cold for so many years. With a cry, Elizabeth started for her daughter, but Phillip held her back.

  Rosemary ignored them, scraping at the dirt with filthy hands, pushing it away to clear a small rectangle. At last the frenzied activity ceased and Rosemary sat back.

  Elizabeth leaned closer to read, in straggling letters, the words: “ROSIE GOODWEATHER,” a date, and a handprint. As they watched, Rosemary laid her hand atop the smaller impression and her slim body jerked as if she had received an electric shock.

  When at last she spoke, it was as if she were a ten-year-old again. Her voice, usually low and musical, was high and shrill, like that of a frightened child.

  “I was looking for Maythorn. She was supposed to meet me at the scuttle hole. We were going trick-or-treating and she wasn’t there. I looked in the garden shed and she wasn’t there either. And I did our special call but she didn’t answer. Then I saw the basement door was open so I went down the stairs. Mr. Mullins was there, scraping the top of some wet cement, and he was crying. He said it was allergies but I knew he was crying. I asked him where Maythorn was and he said she was in her room, being punished for talking back. He told me he was fixing a place to set a new furnace on. He was pulling a piece of wood over the top of the wet cement and he stopped and said, ‘Hey, come here, Rosie, you want to write your name?’”

  Elizabeth turned to look at Moon. Tears were streaming down his face, but he made no effort to move. “She’s there,” he rasped. “God help me! She’s under there!”

  HALLOWEEN

  1986

  THE MENDED INDIAN outfit had been under the message stone, just where Rosie had said she would leave it. A note was in the plastic bag with it.

  Dear F-T-W,

  Mum said this was the best she could do for now. She’ll make us both new ones for Christmas. Pa will take us trick-or-treating at 5. He put hay in the back of his truck so we can have a hayride. I’m glad your not grounded anymore. Meet me here at 4:30.

  See you then!

  S.D. of O.H.

  Maythorn carefully unfolded the precious garments and, dropping her jeans and sweatshirt on the floor of her bedroom, she pulled on the mended trousers and shirt. There were odd, slanting lines where Rosie’s mum had sewn the pieces back together, and both top and bottom fit more tightly than they had before. But the fringe down the trouser legs still jiggled when she walked and the bone beads on the shirt still traced their intricate zigzag patterns.

  She slid her hand under the mattress and pulled out the big scissors that Mama had thrown down on the floor. Opening and closing them a few experimental times, Maythorn watched the long vicious blades slash the air. Satisfied, she turned to her closet where the ballerina costume was hanging, and began her work.

  When the closet floor was littered with shreds of lavender satin and little wads of netting, she shut the door on the destruction. In her head she could hear the echoing chant—the chant she had heard that night in the woods when she and Shining Deer had watched the men do the Booger Dance.

  Like a ghost, Maythorn slipped down the hall to the stairs. It had worked; Mama and Krystalle had left for the pageant without her, thinking she was with the Goodweathers. The house was still and empty, except for Moon, who was fast asleep in his den. Down the stairs and into the back hallway, moving on silent moccasined feet, Fox-That-Watches crept through the deserted house. In the hallway by the kitchen she froze, listening with all her might, but no sound came to her. Even the cook and houseman were gone.

  The stealthy Cherokee edged out the door, into the cool afternoon air, bound for the secret hiding place of the masks. They were waiting. She would put on the face of the enemy and, so doing, would dance them into nothingness. She would become fearless. The wail of the chant echoed in her head as she padded past the deserted pool house, her lips moving silently.

  The crack of a black walnut falling on a metal roof made her jump and she spun around. Who is it? she whispered, b
ut there was no answer, nothing but the rattle of bare branches overhead, restless in the small breeze.

  Be brave, like Driver said, she told herself. Be strong like all the ancestors. Put on the face of your enemy and dance the Booger Dance.

  At the little shed, she looked around once more before reaching for the latch. Her breath was coming fast and the chant was loud in her head.

  She put out her hand, and at her touch, the door swung open. In the shadows, the booger stood before her.

  43.

  SHE WANTS TO BE FOUND

  Friday, October 28

  “She’s under there, just where Rosie wrote her name.”

  Moon sank to his knees, his face a study in anguish. “I put her there, and not an hour passes that I don’t beg her to forgive me.” Sobs racked his thin body.

  They watched, speechless and helpless. Jared moved to Moon’s side and leaned close to whisper a few words in his father’s ear. Moon shook his head and the horrible, broken sounds continued while the rest of them stood frozen, dreading further revelations.

  At last the fit of weeping subsided and Moon looked up. His eyes went at once to Rosemary, and when he began to speak it was as if his words were for her and her alone.

  “I was drunk; I didn’t know what I was doing. I swear it. When I came to and saw her lying there, I thought it was a hallucination…I had no memory of what had happened…what I must have done. I still don’t. But God help me, there must have been a devil in me to have hit her like that—again and again. Her face was so swollen and battered that I wouldn’t have known it was Maythorn, little Maythorn…except for that Cherokee Pride sweatshirt she always wore.”

  They listened in horror as he described waking up on the basement floor, the child’s body at his side, a bloody shovel by his hand.

  “My head was spinning. Nothing made any sense. But there she was, and her blood was on me. And there were bags of Qwikcrete piled to one side and the workmen’s tools and the place where the new furnace was going to go. The dirt was soft—”

  “Dad, stop, you don’t know what you’re saying…you couldn’t have…” Jared gripped his father’s shoulder to stop the dreadful flow. “He used to have terrible hallucinations back then…that’s what he’s remembering. He couldn’t have done a thing like that.”

  “Jared’s right.” Mike Mullins moved forward. “Moon, it was a nightmare, not something that really happened. Between your drinking back then and the loss of Maythorn, it’s not surprising—”

  “Will somebody listen to me?” Moon struggled to his feet. His eyes were still wild but his voice had become calm, almost peaceful. “I knew when Elizabeth first came to Redemption House how this was going to end. I’m tired of pretending, of trying to live with the horror of who I was…of what I did.”

  He turned and walked to a sheet-covered table, leaned down, and brought out a pickaxe. “I came out here a few days ago, thinking I’d get it over with. I was going to uncover her, to ask her forgiveness again,” The pickaxe dragged behind him as he slowly approached the concrete pad.

  “I thought I could do it, but I kept hearing sounds…sounds that frightened me and wouldn’t let me think. God help me, I ran away…again.”

  “Dad, please…please don’t say these things.” Jared stopped his father as the pickaxe began its upward swing. Gently he took the heavy tool from the older man.

  “Son, please, she’s tired of being hidden; she wants to come out!” The frenzy had returned to Moon’s voice. Phillip took a step forward, but Mike intervened.

  “No. Let him see the truth—let him see that this is all a fantasy, just a product of his illness. Give me the pickaxe, Jared.”

  Without a word, Jared handed the implement to Mike, who lifted it high over his head, bringing it down with a resounding crack in the loop of the R in the inscription. To Elizabeth’s surprise, the concrete broke at once, revealing that it was just a few inches thick.

  Only the repeated thuds broke the strained silence as the pickaxe swung again and again. Moon fell to his knees, watching the tool bite eagerly into the thin concrete. As the material shattered, Mike paused, allowing Jared to reach in and lay the pieces to one side.

  At last an area was cleared. In a voice raw with emotion, Moon called out, “Stop, you’ll hit her! I can’t bear it if you hit her.”

  Like a medieval penitent, Moon Mullins, still on his knees, approached the newly revealed patch of soil. Just as Rosemary had done, he began to sweep aside the dirt with his bare hands, muttering as he worked.

  Elizabeth pulled at Phillip’s sleeve. “He’s insane! Shouldn’t we try to—”

  Mike, who had been watching his brother with an inscrutable expression, turned to her. “We might as well let him work through this, Elizabeth. Let him see for himself that there’s nothing—”

  “No!” A cry of despair rang out and Jared was on his knees beside his father. “No!”

  Even as he cried out, Jared’s hands were working frantically to uncover the smooth brownish-white object that was emerging from the soil—the elegant fanlike shape of a small bone protruding from a gray piece of cloth and the horrible shattered teeth of a partially hidden skull. Clumps of matted blond hair still clung to the bone.

  “Mike, Jared, get him away from there. This is a crime scene. I’ll call the sheriff—we can’t do anything till he gets here.” Phillip had his phone in his hand. Suddenly he looked puzzled and took a careful step nearer to the half-revealed bones. “But this…this was a blonde—I thought Maythorn…”

  “It’s dyed. Patricia thought it would make Maythorn look more like one of us.” Jared helped his father to his feet and slowly pulled him back from the excavation. Phillip had his cell phone to his ear as he shepherded them all up the steps and outside. They obeyed him without protest, happy to be away from the darkening basement and the subtle stench of dirt and decay.

  “I never went back down there, I never could…. When the men came to set up that furnace, I was dead drunk….”

  While they waited on the steps of the mansion for the arrival of the sheriff, Moon talked incessantly. Words tumbled out of him as he looked from one to another of them, his eyes begging for understanding, for compassion, for forgiveness.

  “I’ve tried to pay…to make my life count for something…to help others. It didn’t seem right, that I should have to go to jail, maybe even die for something I couldn’t remember doing.”

  His filthy hands reached out to his son. “Jared, forgive me, but for a while I was able to convince myself that you had accidentally killed her—you had such a temper back then—and I told myself I was protecting you.”

  The haggard face turned to Rosemary. “And Rosie, when you came looking for her, I lied, I said Maythorn was in her room. And I let you write your name and make your handprint…and all the time, she was there…under there.”

  It was a long, sad wait. Jared’s arm was around Rosemary and he was whispering to her. Moon, babbling and weeping, was hunched over, his face buried in his hands, as his brother tried to calm him.

  When Sheriff Blaine arrived at last, he quickly took charge. A deputy read Moon his rights and led him, stumbling and dazed, to a waiting car. Jared and Mike followed.

  “Hawk, you take the ladies home. No need to keep them out here. We’ll get statements later, after we see what’s down there.”

  “Moon’s made a full confession, Elizabeth.” Phillip came to sit beside her in front of the fire.

  On returning home, Rosemary had refused dinner, saying only that she wanted to go to sleep, that she might wake later and fix a sandwich. Elizabeth had watched without comment as Rosemary climbed the stairs to her old room. This has been terrible for her—but at least it’s at an end. Sleep is probably the best thing for her right now.

  “Evidently Jared’s taking it pretty hard.” Phillip put his arm around her. “He doesn’t believe his dad knows what he’s saying.”

  “And Mike?”

  “Mike…Well, Blaine
said he got the impression that Mike might have had some suspicions about his brother all along. Something he said implied that was one reason he moved so far away.

  “Blaine said Mike’s talking about staying around a while, maybe even moving back here.” Phillip was looking directly into her eyes now. “Would it make a difference to you if he did?”

  She was silent, thinking of all the might-have-beens. Finally, she answered. “Years ago, when Sam and I were having…difficulties, I was attracted to Mike. He was a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on. But in the end, Sam, my marriage, and my family were more important. Now…”

  It was with a joyful burst of revelation that she found the words. “Now it’s you who’s more important.” She grinned happily. “As Laurel would put it, I am so over Mike Mullins.”

  44.

  UNSETTLED

  Saturday, October 29

  Rosemary lay still, listening to the morning sounds below: the gurgle of the coffeepot; James’s excited bark as he danced, toenails clicking; her mother’s cheerful “Go play, you dogs;” and the opening and closing of the front door. There was the chunking sound of logs being added to the fire and Phillip’s deep gravelly tones asking some question.

  Phillip. He seems to be a part of life here now. Mum is finally having to acknowledge what’s going on between them. Once the guy who did the break-in was in jail, she didn’t really need a bodyguard anymore. But he’s still here.

  Rosemary rolled out of her bed and reached for her jeans. Her quest was over: Maythorn had been found; her murderer had confessed.

  It’s what I thought she wanted. Why do I feel so…unsettled?

  “I talked to Jared, Mum. I won’t be here for supper; we’re eating at his place.”