Her Loving Husband's Curse

by Meredith Allard

  * * * * *

  It has begun. It is night, and still they are swept from the land like dust from a porch. Soon, you will never know they were here.

  They do not want to leave. This is their land. Their trees. Their crops. Their father’s fathers, their mother’s mothers, their grandparents as far back as history recalls, all of them are here by this rock. There by that river. Everywhere your eyes see. But they must go. When the President of the United States will not uphold the agreement that keeps Cherokee land in Cherokee hands, they must go, if not of their own free will then by the force the musket-bearing soldiers are happy to provide.

  Some of the people are stoic as they begin to walk, their faces stone-hard. The soldiers are impatient, shouting, pointing, pushing him here, shoving her there. The women scream for their children, but the soldiers are careless, separating the small ones from the big ones in their haste. This is all the people hear now…hurry.

  All the seven clans are here, Long Hair and Blue, Wolf and Wild Potato, Deer, Bird, and Paint. I recognize the medicine man from the Paint tribe (most medicine people are from the Paint tribe since medicine is ‘painted’ onto the person in the healing ceremony), the one who eyed me so readily at the Stomp Dance last week. He sees me watching through my cabin window. I walk outside to offer my help to his family, but he turns away abruptly, as though suddenly he is afraid of me. I see the way he talks to my neighbor, and though I don’t understand their words I see the familiarity between them, the resemblance in their features. I realize my neighbor is the medicine man’s son.

  I watch in horror as my sturdy, straight-backed neighbor, with biceps the size of a normal man’s thighs, stands helplessly nearby while soldiers point bayonets at his family. His mother-in-law refuses to leave her home, whatever was left after the fire, and she sits stubbornly, cross-legged on the floor. My neighbor yells at her in their language, but she folds her arms and turns away like an annoyed five-year-old. Two soldiers push past my neighbor, lift his mother-in-law by the arms, carry her outside, and drop her hard on the ground. My neighbor moves to help her, but the soldiers shake the sharp end of their bayonets in his direction. The medicine man is able to approach the older woman, the soldiers do not see him, and he soothes her with his soft-spoken words. My neighbor’s pretty wife, with a screaming toddler on her hip, rushes back inside to grab whatever was left unscorched by the fire, and she returns with the blanket my neighbor saved that night. My neighbor grabs his musket from the doorway. All around frantic people call out in cracked voices, seeking family and trying to stay together in the chaos.

  I want to help them, Lizzie. The fear you can hold in your hands like sharp-edged razors—can you feel it? The wails of the mothers as they’re dragged from their children—can you hear it? Do you see the downcast heads of the fathers as their families are yelled at, pushed at, poked with the sharp ends of bayonets? I recognize their contorted faces, their slumped shoulders, the weight that pulls them all the way down. They look the way I felt when I watched the constable drag you away. This is torture, Lizzie. No other word will do, and I must help them.

  The wagons are moving. The walking has begun.

  CHAPTER 14

  James paced the ten short steps of his office replaying the newsreel of Hempel’s murder in quick-time scenes behind his eyes. Here is the still of Hempel’s whitewashed house. There is the mug shot-like photo of Hempel, his thinning hair brushed to the side, his tie knotted perfectly, his small, nervous eyes. There the blood stains the rug, and there the red ooze trails outside. The more James tried to force the images away, the more brightly they burned and blinded him.

  He wanted to leave campus, go walking around Salem, through Massachusetts, across the continent. It would take three thousand miles to ease the anxiety he felt like an itching under his skin. It was a strain, this flat-faced ache. He was done teaching for the night, but Sarah had another hour in the library. Needing to keep busy, he logged into his SSU account and checked his e-mail. At the top of the screen was a link from Howard. James groaned aloud. He didn’t want to see it. He opened his office door, ready for his cross-country walk. He got to the elevator, but when the doors opened he couldn’t go inside. He had to see what Howard sent.

  He walked back into his office and clicked the link, which directed him to a clip from WCVB Channel 5. He stared at the young woman on the screen, her coffee-brown hair leveled in a blunt cut, her beige suit blending into the mess of Kenneth Hempel’s home office. That’s what Kansas looked like after Dorothy was swept away, James thought. Confusion everywhere. The camera panned to the filing cabinets tipped on their sides. The desk was turned over, and pencils, files, newspapers, and books littered the floor. A yellow line of police tape prevented the reporter from stepping directly into the room.

  “This is the office of Kenneth Hempel, the former reporter for the Salem News who was murdered in his home office last week. His wife, a teacher for the Salem Public Schools, was gone with their two young children to visit her family in Beverly. Police believe Hempel was murdered here in his office, as indicated by the bloodstains on the floor and the wall, and his body dragged through the back door where his corpse was left in the yard. After neighbors called authorities, police arrived to find Hempel dead, apparently of vicious wounds to the neck. A coroner’s report is expected to be released to the public as soon as it becomes available. This is what Sheriff Mannion had to say about Hempel’s death…”

  Cut to a portly, red-faced sheriff stretching his short neck over the podium lined with microphones. He strains his Boston accent to the limit to be heard over the drumming banter of the reporters. The sheriff’s hands jump nervously from his belt buckle to his thinning gray hair.

  “We’re unable to comment on the exact cause of Mr. Hempel’s death until we receive the coroner’s report. All we can say for certain now is the perp, or perps, broke into his home some time after 8 p.m. that night.”

  “How do you know it was after 8 p.m.?” a reporter asked.

  “According to Mrs. Hempel, she called her husband at approximately 8 p.m. to ask if he’d like to go out for pizza with the children when they arrived home.”

  The reporters shout their questions at once.

  “We’re as troubled by this as the citizens of Danvers,” the sheriff said. “We’re doing everything we can to solve this quickly and bring the murderer to justice.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “We know Mr. Hempel accused certain individuals of being vampires. We have that list of names. We’ll be contacting those individuals shortly.”

  “They’re not suspects?”

  “Not at this time, no.”

  “As you just stated, Sheriff, Mr. Hempel accused several people of being vampires on Salem Public Access television. There have been reports that there were more lists with other names. Is there any truth to those reports?”

  “Most of Hempel’s files were destroyed when the room was vandalized.”

  “Most?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were others named?”

  “We have no further information on that at this time.”

  A seasoned, older voice spoke out above the crowd. “There are some amusing stories being circulated on the web these days, Sheriff Mannion. Can you verify whether or not Mr. Hempel was killed by vampires?”

  Everyone in the room laughed but the sheriff, who blotted the wet from his forehead with his sleeve.

  “No comment.”

  The sheriff nodded and walked away.

  Cut to the reporter by the yellow tape outside Hempel’s office. “From inside Kenneth Hempel’s home in Danvers, this is Kara Kennington for WCVB Channel 5.”

  The nice-looking gray-haired anchorman nodded at the camera. “Kara, since you’re in Kenneth Hempel’s home, can you tell us how his wife and children are doing?”

  “They’re heartbroken, as you would imagine, Bill. Mrs. Hempel declined to be interviewed on camera, but she told me before we went
on the air that she didn’t know why anyone would want to kill her husband. When I asked if she thought his controversial statements about vampires had anything to do with his murder, she said she wasn’t sure. She said she never took his vampire talk seriously, and she didn’t think others did either.”

  “Very sad. Thank you Kara.”

  James sat at his desk unmoving for the longest time. It might have been an hour or a minute. A century or a year. The physical time didn’t matter. It only mattered that it had begun. He thought of Jocelyn and Timothy. He thought of Chandresh. Oh my God, Chandresh. Now will you think of me differently? Now will you think I hurt you instead of helped you? James remembered the night the mean-mouthed soldier stood outside Chandresh’s home, ignoring the Cherokee man as though he were less than the mud that scuffed his officer’s boots, and he wondered if this experience with the police would be more of the same.

  James worried for his friends, but he worried for himself too. Someone had access to the files the police salvaged from Hempel’s office, and James guessed that his name was somewhere in those files. It had to be. Hempel had pursued him with such narrow-minded purpose for seven long months, taking notes on that damned yellow legal pad, researching, asking questions, spying. James saw it in his mind, his name on a list somewhere in Hempel’s office spelled out in mismatched magazine clippings like a ransom note from a madman.

  “This is absurd,” he said aloud. “You heard those reporters laugh. Timothy, Jocelyn, and Chandresh will be fine. We’ll all be fine.” He unlatched his window and pushed it open, letting the sharp March night air into his office. This too shall pass, he thought. By next week everyone will have forgotten about Kenneth Hempel. I already have.

  James heard the lighting-quick flash and Timothy stood by the open door. “Did I hear my name?” Timothy looked around the office. “Why are you talking to yourself? Don’t you know only crazy people talk to themselves?”

  “They’re only crazy if they answer,” James said.

  Timothy sat in the empty chair near the bookshelf while James closed the door. “What were you saying?” Timothy asked.

  “I was just hoping that everyone was going to be all right after the police interrogation.”

  “I wouldn’t call it much of an interrogation. They stopped by last night and asked where I was the night Hempel was murdered. It was easy enough to answer since I was here in calculus class. The professor takes roll so they can verify it if they need to. They didn’t seem too concerned. They said thank you and left.”

  “Do you think that’s it?” James asked.

  “I do, and so does Dad.”

  James nodded. Perhaps this would blow over even more quickly than he hoped.

  Timothy didn’t look pleased. His face was puckered as if he had just eaten a bagful of sour gummy worms. He crossed his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles. “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Is something wrong? You always look that way.”

  Timothy pulled a three-folded business letter from his backpack and waved it in the air. “All those half-assed vampire books out there and they turn me down! It’s bullshit!”

  “What are you talking about, Timothy?”

  “I finished my memoir and sent queries to some editors saying it was a vampire novel. They all turned me down!” Timothy shoved the letter in James’s face. “This one editor said I wrote the most unbelievable vampire story he ever read, so I called him and told him I’m really a vampire and it’s all true.”

  “Timothy!” James yelled so loudly the window rattled in its frame. “How could you do that after everything that’s happened? Don’t you have any sense in your head?”

  “Relax, James. The editor didn’t believe me. He laughed and said writers are all alike. Whenever someone criticizes our work we claim it really happened.”

  James slumped into his chair and turned toward the open window. He leaned his head outside, allowing the night bay breeze to cool him. “It’s for the best,” he said finally. “We need to stay as far away from the word vampire as we can right now.”

  “I just wanted to share my story,” Timothy said. “I don’t understand a lot about the world, James, especially now, and writing helps me make sense of things, you know?”

  James nodded. “I know, Timothy. But there’s no rush. This madness will blow over, all madness does, and then you can try again. And you still learned about yourself from your experience writing the book. You don’t lose that wisdom.”

  As Timothy left, James looked at the time on his cell phone and saw it was library closing time. He went to turn down his computer and saw a new link from Howard. What now, he wondered? When he saw the comment on the New York Times blog he blinked once, twice. But it was still there. Even if he sent the screen crashing through his office window to smash on the pavement outside the words would still be etched into his brain, tattooed, leaving their imprints. Forever.

  I’ve read the posts from the haters bashing Kenneth Hempel saying he was a loser who deserved to die for the stupid stuff he said. Here’s my two cents. My sister is an orderly at Salem Hospital and she says she’s been providing blood for a real vampire for over a year now. When she first told me that I freaked, but then she said how she got him donated blood from the blood bank and he never hurt her, not even a bit. Never tried to sneak a bite, I asked? Not once, she said. She was very casual about it, like it was no big deal, he was no big deal, yeah he’s a vampire, whatever, and that’s that. My sister is smart (she goes to college and everything) and if she says vampires are no big deal then I believe her. Suck on that haters!

  After they arrived home and put Grace to bed, James showed Sarah the clip about Hempel’s murder and the comment on the New York Times blog. She watched and read, nodding at nothing in particular, trying to absorb it all. James kissed her forehead and watched her with all his intensity.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you,” he said.

  “Yes, you should have. Everyone everywhere is talking about vampires. In the grocery store. In the doctor’s office. Every book on vampires has been checked out of the library, and there’s a waiting list two months long. Every computer I walk past someone is on a vampire website. Every conversation I hear in the halls is about vampires.”

  James stroked her face from her temple to her chin. “Let them talk. The police questioned Timothy for ten minutes and left. No one is taking this seriously.”

  Sarah nodded. She wanted to be convinced, but then she felt the slithering iron chains lurking behind her as though ready to snap at her like a King Cobra. She hadn’t seen the chains since the past-life regression, but for a moment they were there again, mocking her, ready to drag her away. James lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her frown away. She closed her eyes, straightening the words out in her mind. Finally, she said, “You can’t get blood from Salem Hospital anymore.”

  “No.”

  “And you won’t drink from me.”

  “No.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Jennifer knows someone at the General Hospital.”

  “She’s also the one who found Amy.”

  “Amy’s sister didn’t mean any harm. She was trying to say vampires were all right.”

  “She was a little too specific.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s no reason to connect her comment to me.”

  “I know.”

  James shook his head. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I do…I want to…I just…”

  “I know, honey. I know.”

  Grace cried from her crib and James carried her into the great room, sitting with her on the sofa, rocking her, soothing her. The baby waved her hands in the air, her jewel-like eyes wide and beckoning her mother. When Sarah joined them, Grace smiled, yawned, and patted her father’s shoulder. James held her close and kissed her cheek. Sarah put her arms around them both, struggling to control the shaking that rattled her bones from her marrow to
her joints. A whisper, an incoherent mumble, words of caution she couldn’t quite make out—what were they saying? She thought she was being warned, about what she didn’t know, but she guessed from the way James avoided her gaze he felt it too.

  * * * * *

  It’s midnight. Do you know where your favorite celebs are?

  Tom Hardison, star of the movie Every Damn Way, has been spotted at night, every night, and only at night. One of our reporters cornered him outside his favorite club at three a.m. this morning.

  “Out late again, huh, Tom?”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  “You’ve been looking kind of thin and pale lately. When’s the last time you’ve eaten? And you’re only out at night.”

  “What?”

  “We never see you during the day. Do you sleep during the day?”

  “Yeah, dude, I’m a vampire like everyone says.”

  Hardison is just one more name in the new trend to “out” certain celebrities as vampires. According to sources close to his latest film, when Hardison wasn’t on the closed set of the soundstage he demanded all exterior windows be covered with heavy curtains during the day, claiming it was hard on his eyes. Others stated that Hardison was never seen with the cast at lunch, always choosing to stay in his darkened trailer, alone.

  “He was always so pale, and when I touched his hand he was so cold,” said one source. “I don’t know. Maybe with all the talk about vampires these days people are expecting them to be real. He might be a vampire for all I know.”

  What do we know for sure about the guy? Based on what we’ve seen, he’s either a vampire—or stoned. Maybe it’s hard to tell the difference.

  CHAPTER 15

  Marissa Tillis.

  Manny Santiago.

  James Wentworth.