Firefly Rain (30 page)

That changed when he came home. He came home after seven years away, grudging the time and the necessity. Grandmother Logan had fallen ill and would die soon after, but even so there was an air of wariness in the places where he discussed it.
He loved his mother, yes, but there was something about coming home he dreaded. It wasn’t enough to keep him away, though. In the end, he came back to see her and say farewell, intending to make a short visit and then go.

Instead, the next twenty pages were about Mother. There was no more talk of returning to his wandering ways after that, just occasional wistful notes on things he wished he’d been able to see again.

I stopped at that point, frowned, flipped back, and read some of those passages again. He’d said something that nagged at me, and I was nearly frantic by the time I found the page I was looking for again.

It seems
, he’d written of Mother,
almost like she’d been waiting here for me all along.

I paused at that. What if she had been? What if she’d been the hook set in Father to reel him in and keep him here?

Who’d done it, though, and why? Not Mother, certainly—at that point she hadn’t known him, couldn’t have known him. But if not her, then who?

Something cold started crawling up my spine as I thought about that question. Who’d wanted him back? Grandmother Logan? Maryfield itself? Who’d needed a Logan on this land?

I shook my head, trying to deny the thought. I was seeing ghosts and powers again when there was no need to. What if he just really loved her? Judging by those twenty pages, he did. I didn’t have any answers, so I read on, looking for them.

I found the first mention of myself about ten pages on from that, and nearly stopped. No man wants to know what his father really thinks of him, because every man fears not measuring up. As long as he can hear “I’m proud of you,” the rest is just noise.

For years, I’d told myself I didn’t care what Father thought. It’s
why I tried to avoid thinking about him. Now, facing the truth of it, I knew those words were a lie.

Afraid of what I’d see, I turned the page.

And there it was in black and white, impossible to disown or deny. Disappointment. Dreams and wishes left unfulfilled. Self-doubt as he wondered if he was being a good father to me, pain as I drifted away from him, anger as he saw the contempt in my eyes. Woven through that were the growing seeds of discontent with Mother—the doubt, the worry, the feeling of being displaced in his own home.

He didn’t talk much about the way he gained weight. I think it was just something Mother disapproved of, and that nearly broke my heart.

I read on, and my name disappeared from the pages. He talked about the Thicket a few times, about how he felt compelled to leave it be and the grief he took for that decision. He talked about missing me but once, and those words were laced with a faint hint of envy.
He’s gotten away like I thought I had
, Father wrote.
His mother misses him terribly, and wishes every day he’d come home already.

And toward the end, there was much said about Carl. He and Father were never friends, that much was true. Carl was a suitor for Mother’s hand when Father swept back into town and whisked her away, and Carl never forgave him for that. He was Maryfield through and through, a son of the local soil who couldn’t imagine stepping past its borders. The years softened and transformed his love for Mother, though, and through that Father and Carl made their peace. Father saw his end coming and wanted someone there for Mother and for the land. Carl accepted the responsibility—did it out of love for Mother and respect for Father’s being humble enough to ask. They even talked about
me once. Carl said that Mother was afraid I’d never come back. Father was afraid I would, and that I’d never get away. He was proud of me, he wrote, proud of what I’d started to accomplish. He didn’t want me to come home and stay, abandoning all I’d worked for.

Left unsaid was that he did want me to come home, if only to say good-bye. Left unsaid was any thought of his leaving the house to come and see me. That never seemed to be a possibility. This was his place, and he was bound to it.

Toward the end, he speculated a bit on things, on how he’d come home and why. He spent more time in the Thicket then, even though it was hardly an easy thing for him to do. There was nothing of what I’d expected, though. I’d read too many bad novels, I guess—I wanted there to be talk of ancient Indian burial grounds on the land, or curses cast or ghosts that haunted the place when Father was young. I’d wanted a mystic formula to give Mother peace, or a way to protect myself from her disappointment and anger. None of that was there. Father had been an investor, and a clever one, not a wizard or a shaman. He’d had his dark suspicions on why he’d been called home, but he hadn’t wandered far down those paths. Instead, there was just a brooding feeling over how the spirit of the place didn’t like its sons to wander, and a couple of jokes about the carrot and the stick.

I thought about my car, and about Adrienne, and about falling shotguns and the dog outside my door at night. Carrot and stick, maybe. The picture was still too blurry for me to see.

Too quickly, I was at the end. I turned the last page and didn’t see what I’d hoped for. I’d wanted to see a note from him to me, a farewell or a benediction or an answer. Instead, there was a simple note in a shaky hand.
Elaine judged a man by his promises
, he said,
and I’m afraid I haven’t kept mine. I didn’t put the stars on a string
for her and I didn’t pull down the moon to put it in her hands. I didn’t take her to see Paris, though I got the feeling she never wanted to go. I didn’t raise the son she wanted, or give her the daughter she would have loved. And I’m not sure I always loved her, though here at the last I find I still do. God have mercy on my soul and understand that I did the best I could, and forgive me for the times I fell short. Maybe some day I’ll have the right words to ask her forgiveness as well.
Then, down at the bottom,
Here’s hoping Carl has more sense than I did.

That’s where it ended. I closed the book, almost reverently, and tied the leather around it again. I was tempted to put it back in the trunk, but instead settled for taking it with me as I climbed down, feeling sad and angry and a little bit afraid. I was going to need to read it again, that much was certain. Maybe this time I’d find more of what Carl had hinted was in there. That last page nagged at me, nagged at me hard, and I knew the answer was close. My feet hit the floor of the hallway, and I absently folded up the ladder and closed the trapdoor.

Only then did I remember that I’d left the light on in the attic. Madder at myself than I ought to be, I reached up for the cord to pull the door back down. I’d just about reached it when I heard something that made my blood run cold.

Up above and undeniable, I heard the click of the lightbulb’s chain as something gave it a tug. The light disappeared from around the edges of the trapdoor.

“Thank you, Father,” I said, and I walked away.

It was well after noon by the time I’d finished Father’s journal, and the rain still hadn’t rolled in. The air had a dead quality to it, and it stuck in the lungs like cotton candy. Overhead, the sky was
the sick green-gray that made the neighbors think about heading down to their root cellars. I didn’t think it was quite tornado weather, but the storm was shaping up to be a damn memorable one.

Choosing the better part of valor, I pulled out my one working flashlight and a few candles, and stuck both them and some matches at strategic points throughout the house. Windows, the few that could be opened, were double-checked and shut tight.

The dishes and remaining cleaning only took a few minutes, and that left me at loose ends. I considered giving Father’s book another read, but coming so soon on the heels of the first one, I didn’t think it would do much good. Better to give it time to settle, to let my subconscious work on it.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t check out other options, though. There were all sorts of ways of dealing with ghosts, at least according to the stories I’d heard, and it was worth seeing what might work under these unusual circumstances.

And make no mistake, it was ghosts I was sure I was dealing with—spirits and memories and the power of a place that wasn’t going to let me go. What swinging doors and moving shotguns hadn’t convinced me of, the simple click of a lightbulb had. That much, at least, had become clear.

With that in mind, I picked up the phone and dialed the number for the church. An answering machine picked up after seven or so rings and informed me that the First Baptist Church of Maryfield was closed, but that if I left my name and number and a brief message explaining why the heck I needed to call the church in the first place, someone might get back to me sooner or later. There was a wait of about ten seconds, and then finally a beep.

“Hello? Reverend Trotter, this is Jacob Logan. I was wondering—”

There was a rattle and a click, the sound of the phone being picked up in a hurry. “Mr. Logan? Hello there, this is Doctor Trotter. I’m sorry—you caught me out of my office. What can I do for you?”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Reverend, do you remember what we talked about before?”

“We talked about a few things,” he said mildly. “I assume you’re talking about the notion your house is haunted, though. Am I correct?”

“That you are,” I replied. “I actually had a kind of specific question about that. If I decided I wanted an exorcism, could you do it?”

I could almost hear him shaking his head. “If your father, may he rest in peace, had brought you to Sunday school more than once in a blue moon, you might remember that we don’t do that sort of thing at this church. If you wanted me to come out and pray with you, well, that’s a different matter. But before I did that, I’d want you to think about why you were asking me to do it. I’m not Terminix, son, and I’d be deeply offended if you treated me like you thought I were. If you decide your faith is there and you want some help, give me a call. If you want me to spray a little Jesus in the corners to clean the place out, well, I’m afraid that’s not what I do. Does that help?”

“It does. Thank you,” I said, and I hung up. My ears were stinging from the rebuke, in large part because that was exactly the sort of help I’d been hoping for, no strings attached. Whatever faith I had, it wasn’t going to pray Mother out of her own home. She’d probably drive me off instead.

Thinking about Mother got me thinking about the state of the house in general, especially with company coming over. That led me to the realization that I hadn’t actually set up a bedroom
for Jenna, which led to a frantic search for clean sheets and the sort of general chaos that you see a lot on television and a lot less in real life. By the time I was finished with that, the sky had gotten noticeably darker and the taste of ozone in the air was broken glass sharp. The kitchen clock read half past three, though by the looks of things a man might have sworn it was getting on sunset. I cocked my ear to listen for thunder in the distance, but I didn’t hear it. Outside, everything was still.

Experience told me the storm would start blowing up in earnest in fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes. The smart thing to do would be to settle in with a good book, and maybe a cold beer, and wait for the weather to do its thing.

Instead, I put Father’s book and Carl’s note on the table, and hustled myself out the door. There was someone I needed to talk to, and I didn’t think it could wait. Not now, not after what I’d seen.

At the base of the porch steps I made a right and hurried on down to that row of pine trees. They stood there, straight and tall and suddenly very fragile against the roiling clouds behind them. I did a quick mental estimate of how tall they were versus how far they were from the house, came up with an answer I could live with, and moved on past.

I hadn’t been out to the stones since I’d slept at their feet. Now that I was here, I could almost start to see why. By day, the headstones looked much the same as they did by night, which struck me as a bit worrisome. Consecrated gravestones ought not to be that dark by day, even a day like this one. They seemed to drink in the light around them, and they looked thirsty for more.

Overhead, the thunder finally decided to rumble. I stood there waiting for the rain and staring down at the graves. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?” I asked, not
really caring if I got an answer. “If there is, do me a favor and tell me, all right? No more clanging and banging and supernatural hoodoo. It scares the ladies, Mother, and you always did want me to meet a nice girl.”

Then, I waited. Neither Mother nor Father said anything, but the rain picked that moment to start coming down, and come down it did. I trudged back up to the house in a reasonable downpour, the raindrops thrumming against the earth and grass in a steady rhythm. I didn’t hurry. I’d be soaked by the time I got to the house anyway, so why hurry? Besides, the water was cool on my skin, and I was in no rush. Jenna wasn’t due for hours yet, and the only thing to do in the house was some combination of worry, pace, and try to figure out what the hell Father had been talking about.

Halfway up the slope, I saw the Audi. It was rolling past the house headed in toward town, moving at a good clip. Sheets of water were already spraying up behind it as it went.

I took a fast step forward and then caught myself. I wasn’t going to go chasing it, not this time. Instead, I just kept walking, just taking a casual look as it cruised past. It slowed as it rolled on by, long enough for me to get something of a look at the driver. The windows were fogged to hell, but there was a sense of a shape in there.

A large shape.

Suddenly, I found myself wondering what exactly Officer Hanratty was up to at that moment. Tearing my gaze away from the car’s retreating taillights, I forced myself to go back up the steps and into the house. Still looking out the window, I picked up the phone and dialed the Maryfield police.

“Police,” a disinterested voice with a heavy Carolina accent said in my ear. “How can I help y’all?”