Old Wounds (46 page)

H
ALLOWEEN

1986

I
T WAS WARMER
in the cave and I curled up in the dead leaves way back under the lean of one of the sisters. My heart was still beating so hard that it was like a drum, filling the room with thunder. I lay still, feeling the burn of the cut down my leg but knowing that when daylight came I could get away. She would hide me from him; I knew that she would. I called her again with my mind and asked her to help me. My eyes got heavier and heavier and I knew that I was falling asleep, like a rabbit, snug in its hole.

The sharp crack of a dead branch snapping woke me and I opened my eyes to see a beam of light coming from the entrance tunnel. The light swooped and danced on the walls and I choked back the scream that wanted to come out.

Then I heard the booger call me. Little Indian, little Indian, I know where you hide. I stayed still, hoping the way in would be too small for him but the sounds kept getting closer.

Your Cherokee blood gave you away, little Indian. There were scraping, pulling sounds as he inched through the tunnel, talking all the while.

Oh, little Indian, it was a slow game, but a good game for a Halloween night, tracking you through the dark woods, one red drop at a time, right to your hiding place. The best Reaper Game of your life—and we’re not done yet.

He laughed and began to sing. Here comes the reaper to take you apart; here comes the reaper to cut out your heart—and then he was filling the narrow entrance and I remembered how wild things always had a bolt hole—another way out. But there wasn’t a bolt hole in the Cave of the Two Sisters, not unless I could turn myself into a bird and fly up through the open place high above my head.

I shoved the Looker Stone onto my little finger to keep it near and made myself small against the rock face. I was shivering all over but still I tried not to cry. The booger pulled himself all the way in and his eyes were as cold and silver and sharp as the blade he held. His hair looked white in the dimness and he said Little Indian, little Indian, say your prayers and go to bed.

I pushed up against the wall, wishing I could melt into it. He came at me with the knife and grabbed my hand. At first I thought that he only wanted to pull the Looker Stone off, but then I felt the cold blade slicing through the knuckle of my little finger. I screamed with pain and with the fear of what was coming. The sound filled the cave and I watched my finger and the Looker Stone fall to the sandy floor. They were still stuck together and he kicked them both away from him. Then he turned to me and I could see the booger looking out of his silver eyes. He caught my bleeding hand and pulled my arm out straight.

We’re just beginning, little Indian, he said, and ran the knife from my shoulder to my wrist-bone. The sharp blade sliced through the shirt sleeve and left a bloody track down my arm. He watched the blood soaking into the cloth, then he smiled, as if he was remembering something, and reached for my pointer finger. All of a sudden there was a terrible sound that filled the cave, like some giant bird was in there. The booger jumped back and turned around to see what it was.

And I picked up one of the branches me and Rosie had drug in for a pretend fire. It was thick and long, like a baseball bat, and I swung it with all my might. I got him on the side of the head, right at the temple where I knew the bone was thin, and he fell over. He didn’t move and I hit him again and he still didn’t move and I knew that I’d killed him.

Good, I thought, and crawled over his legs and out into the chill night air. With the bleeding stump of my finger pressed against my shirt, and the blood running from the cuts he’d made on me, I ran through the woods of that black Halloween night. The giant bird was screeching in my ears and I felt sick and dizzy, but I ran, on and on down the long gravel driveway, past the dark buildings. I was almost to the hard road and my legs were heavy. My head felt light, as if I was flying, and then I fell. Just ahead I could see the dim outline of a truck and I began to crawl to where I knew she would be waiting for me.

48.

A
NOTHER
H
ALLOWEEN

Monday, October 31

“Do you ever
get any trick-or-treaters, these days? I remember once Laurel and her friends got too sophisticated for trick-or-treating, there were years no one ever made it all the way up here.” Rosemary sat on the cushioned bench, lacing up her hiking boots.

Elizabeth pointed to the oven. “I’ve got a pan of brownies baking. Morris Roberts brought his stepkids up in his truck last year. Took me by surprise. I didn’t have anything remotely treatlike in the house so I ended up giving them money. This time I’ll be ready. And Dorothy called to let me know that Calven was coming too.”

She came to sit beside Rosemary. “Are you still planning on bringing Jared back to dinner?”

Rosemary’s head was bent over her boot and her fingers were busy pulling the laces tight. “Mum, would you mind very much if I canceled? When I asked him to come here, Jared said he’d already made reservations at that new place in Biltmore. We thought we’d look for the notebooks and then just go straight on in to Asheville. I’ve already put my stuff in my car. If I stay in Asheville tonight, I can get an earlier start in the morning.”

At last she raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mum, I should have told you sooner.”

Somehow, Mum can make me feel ten times worse by what she doesn’t say. I
should
have told her right off what my plans were. Just putting it off to avoid that look, I guess.

Rosemary found herself humming as she strode down the hill to meet Jared
…. Rode till he came to Miss Mousie’s hall; Gave a knock and he gave a call—a hum, a hum, a hum, a hum….

Jared’s car, an elegantly simple Saab, was parked by the barn and he was standing beside it, checking his watch. Looking up, he caught sight of her. “Four o’clock on the dot. Our reservation is for seven-thirty, plenty of time to find those notebooks, if they’re where you think they are.”

He looked at her little car. “All packed? Why don’t you follow me over to Mullmore? That’ll save us a few minutes, not having to come back for your vehicle.”

They were turning up the gravel road of the next holler—the road that led to Mullmore’s iron gates—when a utilitarian pickup truck came rattling down the road, its bed full of costumed children. As the truck inched by them, its strange cargo began to howl and gesture in their direction.

Rosemary smiled, recognizing her mother’s neighbor Morris Roberts and his brood. There was a small boy in a Superman outfit and another with the black, pointy-eared mask and cape of Batman. An older boy had no mask but was wrapped in gauze from head to toe. She raised her hand to wave and then caught sight of the two other children—both in ordinary clothes, each wearing a mask from her dream.
One, smooth and painted, made from a large gourd. The other crudely fashioned from an abandoned hornet’s nest—ragged holes forming two empty, staring eyes and a small mouth, perpetually open in a soundless scream.

But there was a difference. As the child with the hornet’s nest mask turned to face her, she saw that the mouth had been ringed with bright red lipstick and iridescent blue paint decorated the staring eyes.

She sat there in her car, watching the truck and its nightmare passengers crawling along Ridley Branch toward Miss Birdie’s house.
Am I hallucinating or something? Those were the booger masks from my dream.

Blinking her eyes, she shook her head to clear it of the rags and tatters of old memories. Jared’s car was moving forward now and, with a quick tap of his horn, he recalled her to the task at hand.

The iron gates were open and another car was parked just inside. She pulled in beside Jared’s car, ready for the walk up the drive with its cracking and fallen-in pavement.

“Whose car?” she asked, as Jared came to open her door.

“Uncle Mike’s.” Jared’s face betrayed an odd annoyance. “The foundation’s going to put the house on the market and Mike came out earlier to make an inventory. I thought he’d be gone by now.”

The great front doors of Mullmore were open, but Jared led her quietly around to the basement entrance on the side of the house. “You thought they were down here, right? Let’s get started.”

Rosemary hesitated, looking at the yellow crime scene tape across the door. Jared brushed it aside with an impatient gesture. “The sheriff’s people finished this morning. I talked to Blaine and he said it was okay for us to go in.”

“Jared, I was just thinking—now that they’ve found the second body…set of remains…whatever it was, Phillip said the sheriff is looking for Tamra’s father. That makes things look better for your dad, doesn’t it? Maybe we should just forget about the notebooks.”

A strange reluctance to go down those stairs, back into that basement, was creeping over her. Memories of the Reaper Game, played in the claustrophobic darkness…

Jared fumbled through a set of keys, at last selecting one and fitting it into the lock. “Rosie, nothing’s certain. They’re only guessing that those remains belong to Tamra and her mother. At this point, after the confession he made, Dad’s going to need all the help I can give him. If you think you know where Maythorn’s notebooks are, let’s go find them.”

He turned the key and pushed at the door, but it stayed firmly shut.

“Damn! Mike must have bolted it from the inside. He was worried that those kids down the road would get to wanting to see the scene of the crime and come poking around.”

As Jared gave the door a final, futile shove, there was a soft flurry of wings just above their heads. In the deepening shadow of the afternoon, an early owl was hunting. It swooped low, almost grazing Jared’s head.

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed and, grabbing her hand, pulled Rosemary after him back to the front of the house and through the open doors.