Whisper Down the Lane

by Clay Chapman

  But the tire isn’t where it’s supposed to be. Someone cut the rope that tied it to the branch.

  In its place is a body.

  Weegee is hanging upside down, his tail tied to the severed rope. His tawny body spins in the evening breeze, intestines dangling out from his gaping torso. Blood drips on the grass. I spot Elijah’s tee-ball bat propped against the tree. The bulb of the bat glistens.

  Someone tied Weegee to the tree, alive, and beat him until he burst open.

  A living piñata.

  The weeping willow is directly outside our kitchen window. I see Tamara on the other side of the glass, opening a fresh bottle of wine. She can’t see me, not out here in the dark. If she were to step up to the sink and glance out the window, she might notice movement outside. Just shadows, but still. I have to act fast.

  Weegee’s body twirls in a gust of wind. I cut him down and stuff him into the inner rim of the tire and quickly roll the whole thing to my studio until I can come back with a garbage bag. I’ll need to hose down the lawn. All that blood dripping over the grass. The bat.

  I notice the tree trunk is smeared in red as well. Finger-painted, more like it. I step closer to make out its shape.

  A pentagram. In our yard.

  Our home.

  Somebody’s fucking with me. The thought is crystalline, so clear in my head. First Professor Howdy, then the pentagram symbol on Mr. Stitch. Who, though? Who would do something like this?

  And then, just like that, it comes to me: Hank. Eli’s father. As far as I know, Tamara hasn’t seen or spoken to Hank since he left her. He didn’t even show up to the hearing when the court terminated his parental rights on grounds of abandonment. Had he changed his mind? Did he want back into this family and see me as a roadblock? It’s absolutely batshit to consider, but once the idea starts to take root, I can’t stop myself from thinking it.

  Hank knows. He is trying to scare me away. Mess with my head.

  Tamara is on her second glass of wine when I enter the kitchen. “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey,” I echo. I can’t recognize my voice. It sounds distant, hollow.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Just went out to the studio,” I lie. I know I should tell her about Weegee. Now’s my chance. I can feel the opportunity to say something slip away. It’s easier to say nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  “About before. I think…” She stops herself, as if she’s still working out what she wants to say in her head. “I think all this adoption talk has just stirred up a lot, you know?”

  “Am I pushing?” I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but it is dawning on me that it’s Tamara who is having the most trouble with the adoption. Dating hadn’t been a problem. Marriage was never a problem. It’s only when I came for her son that she grew tense.

  “There’s just some old memories popping up,” she explains. “Shaking up a lot of dust.”

  “A few too many dust bunnies you didn’t expect to find, huh?” I clear my throat, trying to figure out how to word what I want—need—to know. “Has Hank reached out lately?”

  Tamara freezes. His name sucks the air out of the room. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. I just…I suppose I was wondering how he might feel if he found out you married a guy who wants to adopt his child.”

  Tamara shakes her head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I gave him plenty of chances to be in this family and he never took a single one of them.”

  My eyes flick over to the adoption papers on the counter for reassurance. That’s when I spot the envelope.

  “What’s this?”

  It’s resting on top of the adoption forms, the mound of papers on the table untouched since I printed them out. The ring of wine has dried into a deep purple.

  “Somebody must have sent it to us by accident,” Tamara says, filling her glass with tap water. She swirls the pinkish water and drinks. “Found it stuffed in the mail slot.”

  I must’ve stepped right over it when I was carrying Elijah to his room.

  There is no address. All it says is:

  SEAN.

  I tear the envelope open. I can’t control the tremors in my own hand.

  “What are you doing?” Tamara asks, but I’m not listening anymore.

  It’s an old newspaper clipping, yellowed and brittle. It had been folded so long ago, the print has faded down the seam. The header is familiar enough.

  Greenfield’s ledger. The article was ripped from the front page of the smallest of small-town newspapers. Its circulation was so infinitesimal, in fact, they only printed an issue every other day. Strange for an obituary to make the front page.

  The cheap newsprint rubs off on my fingers. I hadn’t realized I was holding on to it that tightly. Whatever I touched will have my fingerprints smeared all over it.

  The picture had misprinted. The four-tone ink is off by a millimeter, so the color of the man’s skin drifts to the side of his face, all the color of his flesh spiriting away from him, as if his soul is separating from his body. Even with the printing error, I can still make out my kindergarten teacher wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit.

  Mr. Woodhouse.

  ACCUSED “SATANIC” TEACHER COMMITS SUICIDE

  By Jonathan Salk

  Former Greenfield Academy kindergarten teacher Thomas Woodhouse was found dead in his apartment early Monday morning. The cause of death is an apparent suicide by hanging. No note was found. Woodhouse had recently been acquitted of six counts of sexual assault after a year-long trial in which several of his students, some as young as five years old, accused him and five other faculty members of performing ritual sex abuse and satanic sacrifices in their classrooms and other parts of Greenfield. Woodhouse was seen as the leader of this group, who came to be known in the press as the Greenfield Six.

  Federal investigators would later determine that these accusations were unfounded, but it would take another year for a jury in the Fairfax Circuit Court to declare Woodhouse not guilty. During that time, the trial quickly became a national sensation. Celia Jenkins, Woodhouse’s defense attorney, blamed the length of the trial on a “quack cadre” of “traumatists,” referring to psychotherapists who interrogated the child witnesses. Their methods, including hypnosis, were considered by psychological experts who testified for the defense to be coercive, leading to false memories. These child witnesses recounted midnight masses, grave robbings, orgies, and, in some truly bizarre accounts, fornication with Satan himself.

  “I don’t blame my kids,” Woodhouse said following the court’s decision. “I believe they were just scared. They got caught up in something they couldn’t understand. It wasn’t their fault.”

  When asked what was next for him, Woodhouse said, “now I can try to pick up the pieces of my own life. I want to get back to my family.”

  Woodhouse was thirty-six. He is survived by his estranged wife and daughter.

  DAMNED IF YOU DO

   SEAN: 1983

  The teachers came at night. They took the children from their beds and carried them out windows and back doors while their parents slept. The children were loaded onto a yellow school bus. When they woke, they were told they were going on a midnight field trip.

  An adventure, the witness stated.

  The children were brought to the cemetery of an abandoned church. They were escorted off the bus and told to hold hands. Make sure you stick with your partner, the witness recalled the defendant saying. The defendant wore a black robe, which made it hard to see his face, but the children recognized his voice.

  The children were led to an open grave. A small coffin had been unearthed and pried apart. The students were shown the body of a little boy in a suit. His skin was gray. His face was wrinkled like a raisin. A California Raisin, the witness noted.

  Five more t
eachers joined them and formed a ring around the coffin, including their headmaster. There were candles placed on the headstones, giving off just enough light for the witness to see each teacher’s face as they pulled back their hoods.

  Circle time, the defendant said. Everyone hold hands.

  The gray boy was stiff. Like a G.I. Joe action figure. The teachers picked him up from his coffin and lifted him over their heads. They began to chant. The defendant had taught this chant to the children during school hours and instructed them to sing the words. The witness states that he and the other children did not understand these words. Nonsense words. Another language.

  The teachers put the gray boy down and he began to move, like Pinocchio when Geppetto pulls his strings. He’s dancing. The gray boy is dancing! the children said. The louder they sang, the faster he danced. The children were told to sing louder, watch him dance, watch him dance!

  The gray boy danced up to each student and asked each of them, one by one, to open their mouths. He pinched at his own body. Pinched it hard enough to pull off a little bit of flesh. He held each sliver of skin up to the students and said, Take and eat, for this is my body.

  These students did as they were told. They opened their mouths and let the gray boy place his flesh on their tongues.

  The teachers all sang. Their voices lifted higher, higher, cheering the gray boy on. Their black robes opened to reveal their naked bodies. Their boobies and wee-wees, as the witness recalled. The accused Mr. Grantier. The accused Miss Macneill. The accused Mr. Sung. The accused Mrs. Haynes. The accused Mr. Jenkins. All of them naked.

  The gray boy went down the row, pinching himself. Take. Eat. He was all bones before long. His arms, his chest. You could see through his ribs, all the way to his heart.

  Now the teachers were touching each other. Touching their boobies. Their wee-wees. They put their lips all over each other’s bodies, making kissy sounds, moaning sounds, as the kids continued to sing the song they had been taught to sing.

  The gray boy finally reached the witness. He was the last to be fed. All the other boys and girls had eaten their fill. Now there was no flesh left. There was nothing left of his face even.

  It looked like the gray boy was crying. Why are you crying? the witness asked.

  I am crying because I have nothing…nothing left for you.

  This made the witness very sad. He didn’t want to be left out, so he began to cry, too.

  Wait, the gray boy said. For you, my brightest disciple, I have something special. For you, my star, I give all I have left…The gray boy slipped his fingers through his ribs and tore out a piece of his heart and offered it to the witness. Take and eat, for this is my body, he said. The witness remarked that it tasted like Wonder Bread soaked in the juices of diced Del Monte vegetables with just a pinch of sugar. He never felt happier in all his life. Now he belonged.

  * * *

  —

  Just about everybody twisted in their seats as they listened to the prosecution share Sean’s story. Some sighed. There was even sporadic laughter. Somebody sitting in the gallery muttered just under their breath, Can you believe this shit?

  But it was quickly noted by the prosecution that this testimony was repeated by another witness. Key details of Jenny Cardiff’s story overlapped with Sean’s testimony.

  Tommy Dennings’s testimony also confirmed certain details. The bus. The cemetery.

  Tommy’s house had become the unofficial headquarters of the parents. Just to keep everyone updated, Mrs. Dennings said. She made Tommy go to his room during these meetings, but he perched at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping on the conversation in the living room.

  Jenny’s mother always left these meetings in tears. She would sit at the edge of Jenny’s bed and share just enough of the story with her daughter to see if it could possibly be true. Jenny, always an obedient child, never liked to see her mother upset, so she would answer yes.

  Now it wasn’t merely one child’s word but two. Then three. Soon it was half a dozen children. The specifics might have differed but the broad strokes, the gist, was the same. All the students who used to tease Sean were fusing the DNA of his story into their own personal accounts, whether they knew it or not. His narrative became the foundation for everyone else’s. Kids who pushed Sean around were following his lead, changing their stories to sound like his.

  Because Sean told it best.

  As more classmates gave their statements, coming forward to speak, their testimonies coalesced into a single narrative. They spoke in one voice. No longer their own, but one.

  Sean. His was the voice of a generation.

  DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

   RICHARD: 2013

  “Tamara?”

  “…yeah?” she manages, her eyelids fluttering open. “Don’t forget to…” she starts, but she’s already gone. Tamara never has any problems passing out. I envy her ability to turn off at night. We’ll lie on our backs and chat for the last few breaths before sleep takes her away.

  Now I’m on my own. In bed. Alone.

  Liar.

  An arched window looks out onto the backyard where the tree swing had been. Our bedroom is a triangular converted attic space with sloping ceilings. It’s like living in the tip of a pyramid. I’ve knocked my head on the wooden beams plenty of times. There’s not much room for furniture up here. We’ve had to make do with a shared dresser that juts out a few inches from the wall, thanks to the slant of the eaves. There are only a handful of picture frames perched on top. A photo from our wedding. Another of her family. I don’t have any photos.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” My voice is barely above a whisper. Tamara doesn’t answer. “I need to come clean.”

  Isn’t that what Miss Kinderman always said?

  Don’t you want to be clean?

  Imagine a fib you told as a child. A little white lie. Now imagine that lie taking on a life of its own. Imagine having no control over it. If you ever did. Imagine it spreading. Growing. Imagine the consequences of that lie affecting everyone in your life. Imagine it consuming everything around you—your teachers, friends, family—until there’s nobody left.

  No one to love you. Imagine that lie haunting you for the rest of your life, following you no matter how far you run away from it.

  Sean Crenshaw was five when he told his mother his kindergarten teacher abused him. She told the authorities, who roped in more adults. All these unfamiliar faces surrounding Sean wanted, needed his story to be true. Remember, this was 1983. Think about the country back then. Think of the Russians infiltrating our water systems. Think of the white van without windows rolling down the street at night, trawling for kids. Think about Dungeons & Dragons and the witchcraft it possessed. Think about the incantations backtracked on your Black Sabbath album. Think about the direct line to the devil and the new slew of 1-900 numbers kids could dial up. Think about The Smurfs and the other animated incubuses sneaking into your home through the cathode portal of your TV screen. Think of the wave of paranoia sweeping the nation, riding a tide of Coca-Cola and holy crusaders sobbing on the airwaves.

  Everybody felt it. The lies. The deception of our pastors, our politicians. There was always this sense that someone you knew, or thought you knew, wasn’t who they said they were.

  Sean was never alone now. He had an audience. He had believers, followers hanging on his every word. He became a star witness. As more adults asked him different versions of the exact same question, feeding him key details, the boy repeated whatever he thought these adults wanted to hear. People’s hearts went out to the boy as he spoke the truth. From the mouths of babes. When he spoke, the nation listened. Why would he lie? His story made its way into the newspapers. On the nightly news. The judge tried to put a lid on the press, but the trial spilled into the court of public opinion. Everyone was talking about these kids. What their teacher
s had done. It wasn’t just one teacher that had abused him and his classmates anymore, but practically an entire faculty of devil worshippers. There was a cult hiding in plain sight, right here in their school, performing midnight rituals with its students…and people believed.

  Six faculty members were charged with sexual assault. Never mind that there was no physical evidence, no hard-line proof to substantiate any of these stories. The students’ claims were eventually debunked, but by then it was too late for the faculty at Greenfield. Sean couldn’t keep the narrative from spreading. He didn’t know how. Marriages were destroyed. Families were torn apart, children sent to foster homes.

  All because of Sean. All because of me.

  “That’s not who I am,” I whisper to Tamara. “I’m a different person.”

  Sean was just a little boy. Just a kid. He was scared.

  Now his fear has become my fear. I’m scared because I don’t remember everything that happened. I’m scared because I can’t say for sure what’s happening now. I’m scared because this emotion does not belong to me. It belongs to someone else.

  Sean is dead.

  And for all intents and purposes, he is. It was easy for me to bury him, especially after I became Richard. I’m a believer in fresh starts.

  But lately I feel like I’ve been living on borrowed time. Like I sold my soul to the devil thirty years ago. Now he’s coming to collect.

  There were so many faces back then. Strangers emerged behind flash bulbs, bright and blinding, searing my eyes before fading. Nothing but shadows now. There are shapes within those shadows, silhouettes that take on the form of people Sean hurt. People who suffered.

  I barely remember my mother. Even calling her my mother seems strange. She’s the one piece of the past I continue to share with Sean. Adults whispered about her when they thought I wasn’t listening. I was placed with a sympathetic foster family who went out of their way to hide me from the spotlight. Tim and Nancy already had their own family. Their kids were all grown up and out of the house. They read about my mother in the newspaper and made a decision to help rewrite my life. What I had done was unforgivable. The only hope I had at a normal life was to bury the past. Tim and Nancy made that decision for me. To hide me from myself.