Passover

by Aphrodite Anagnost

  “The feds say the timin’s coincidence,” said Sheriff Wise, rising. “The only folks who believe there’s a connection are us.”

  “Our neighbors believed it,” said Rachel.

  “Except the neighbors.” He shrugged. “The wonder of it is that the Samples and the Creeds are still here. Skinnin’ lice for their tiler.”

  “Which means?” said Rachel.

  “Jes’ makin’ do.”

  “No, they’re here because they’re smart.” Dave wiped his fingers on the newspaper and sniffed his thumb. “They know running away won’t stop it. They’re not in danger. Yet.”

  “Funny thing about the neighbors,” said Wise. “They didn’t have any trouble believing it.

  Most didn’t even wait for the third murder before they scattered.”

  “The people who live here could sense something coming,” Dave said. “We sense it. It’ll be here before dawn tomorrow.”

  “Because of the full moon.” Rachel rubbed her forearms as if to brush away the cold. “Yes. Because of the moon.”

  Dave gathered the knives at the table. Examined them one by one and checked the sharpness of the blades with his wetted thumb. He drew blood, then licked it off. Rachel could smell it, coppery and thick. It churned her stomach. The warm, metallic odor felt like lead settling into her tight lungs.

  “I sense it coming down the road too.” The sheriff walked to the window. “I think you’re right about running. Won’t do a bit o’ good. I’d rather go against a rusty nail I can see then get whacked up the side of the head with a hammer.”

  “Sharpsburg,” said Rachel, looking down at the table. She felt a wheeze coming on. “The Harper children died—killed even though they were sent to Sharpsburg.”

  The sheriff nodded once.

  “In what way do you sense it coming?” asked Dave.

  “I’ve dreamt it.” Wise’s dark eyes narrowed at a combine harvester gliding down the road, quiet as a mouse. “Easy as that.”

  “You’ve dreamt it,” repeated Rachel, incredulous. “Are you saying you wouldn’t be here or wouldn’t have your deputies on guard if you hadn’t dreamed about it?”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “And how do your dreams turn out?” said Rachel. She sat alone at the table now. A chill shot up her neck.

  “Depends on what I’ve eaten for dinner,” he said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she said.

  Without the tinkling of glass or the falling of plaster, or a groan of the ceiling, the chandelier pulled away from the bronze medallion that held it, swayed briefly, threatening.

  “My God!” Rachel put her hands over her head.

  A thousand glitters, coalesced, in an instant, then the chandelier hurled downward, before Dave could reach her. It poured through the air, as a meteor, in a cascade of light. Then slammed into the middle of the dining room table with a crash of cymbals.

  Crushing a lemony magnolia in its bud vase, it splattered into a thousand reflective pieces.

  Shattered crystals everywhere—in pieces—like bugs of ice, infesting everything. Rachel’s hair, her blouse, the clothing of the men, the thick fur of Wolfie, who had crept out of the pantry.

  A portent of disaster.

  Rachel thought of the frogs, hundreds of them, buried in a mass grave. And of red tides. Of Ewell impaled on a stop sign, wrapped with chains. And of Petty, head cleaved, blood spurting on his carpet. Of the Harper boys, shot to death in Sharpsburg. Of childhood dreams she could never quite remember, but had left her terrified, nonetheless. These still lurked behind her fears. Now it seemed the stuff of her nightmares was finally about to arrive in her world, multifaceted globes, with straw for brains.

  Dave held the dustpan while Rachel swept up the tar-covered shards of crystal and dumped them into a cardboard box. He closed it with duct tape while the sheriff held it between a chair back and his gut. Rachel wrote “chandelier pieces” and “Saturday April 7, 2014” with a black Sharpie. The two men carted the bulky container down to the musty basement, each step creaking like a bad knee as they descended. The vague reek of black mold drifted up the stairwell, Dave held the door open for the sheriff to come out first, then pulled it shut until the latch bolt clicked in its strike.

  “Bad, huh?” Dave turned the brass mortise knob and slid the chain door fastener into its track. “The mold.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Toxic stuff. And plenty of it. Best get that taken care of.”

  Rachel sighed. As if the mold mattered. She took the bronze medallion into the butler’s pantry and tucked it behind a bag of Kibbles ‘n Bits. A sharp pain stabbed a thumb. “Ouch,” she said. A glass splinter had lodged there. She pulled it out and sucked the end of her thumb. Returning to the dining room with a wet rag spotted with blood, she cleaned the table of plaster dust.

  A front door slammed. Where were Dave and the sheriff? Outside? Why?

  A clamor rang from the pantry behind her. She ran to throw open the door wider. All the shelves had fallen off their brackets. Pots and pans, umbrellas, garden tools were scattered over the oak floor. Her neck ached and shoulders contracted. She took a breath, stepped out, and slammed the door. “The pantry’s collapsed,” she shouted to the dog, now crouching in the corner of the dining room. She held up a hand. “Forget it. We’re not picking all that shit up. Not now, not today. Just sayin’.”

  She cocked an ear to listen for the thump of running footsteps or whispers in the hallway upstairs. How could the boys sleep through that racket? No drum strokes, no guitar licks, no recitation of Zack’s poetry on the landing. How could he and Leo ignore the crash of the chandelier, and Dave and Wise carrying away its broken skeleton? And the slamming door? And then the pandemonium in the pantry. And what about those footsteps earlier? Did the boys get up then go back to bed? It seemed unlikely.

  She took the stairs, two at a time in stocking feet, to the landing. She paused there before the door to the closet where they kept spare tack, a tiny loveseat, and Zack’s lava lamp collection. She had an impulse to enter, but pushed it aside. A butter yellow oval passed through the landing’s astragal and illuminated a spot on the oak floor beside her, as if urging her on. She shivered once, turned and resumed climbing the stairs, then felt a hint of warmth as she gently pushed open Leo’s door. He lay sleeping, one arm over his face shielding it from rays slanting between purple drapes. His desk had been cleaned off, the crayons all returned to the box. What’s gotten into him? she thought. His many drumsticks were stuffed into a ceramic rainbow blowfish standing on its tail.

  She crept to the next room where Zack’s door was locked by its hook and eye. She could still crack it open about a half an inch. The locks had been a gesture toward privacy rather than a security measure. She could lift the hook with a credit card if she’d wanted to. Her son stirred, a dark halo of curls spread on the pillow. At fourteen he still had a sweetness about him, the rosy health of someone who’d not yet stopped growing. Once a body reached maturity, it started to die.

  She shook her head to knock the thought loose from her brain. Zack’s guitar leaned against the foot of the bed. Had he gotten up, fearful of all the commotion, then locked the door? My God, she thought. For a moment feeling sorry she’d ever had children, only to have them taste human suffering. To face death, perhaps, as Zack’s father had—shot dead before she’d even noticed she’d missed a period. Mike, her first husband, had been a general surgeon in the Navy stationed in Iraq while Rachel was still a resident. By the time her cardiology fellowship started, she’d been a pregnant widow, broken-hearted.

  She sneaked back down the short flight of stairs to the landing, hoping the boys would sleep a good long while. She stopped and leaned over the railing. From there she could gaze over the foyer and through the transom above the front door. It gave a perfect view of an SUV, with U-Haul attached, pulling out from across the street. Even the hardy, no-nonsense Kellams were leaving town.

  She passed the two men who
had returned to the shiny, dented, mahogany dining table. They sat with arms crossed, staring at the hole in the ceiling, electrical cords dangling like squid tentacles. Taking turns saying “Jesus,” or “How could—?” and “But it makes no sense.” Then clamming up without finishing a sentence.

  She went back in the kitchen to prepare her mother’s breakfast. A stash of mini Mr. Goodbars was hidden in a spare teapot. She stuffed three into her mouth and let them melt, and slowly swallowed the chocolate juice, saving the peanuts for last. She stuffed a few packets into her pockets for later.

  Soon, fresh eggs from the spotted-brown dozen the boys had collected the day before were sizzling in the skillet between two slices of soy bacon. She slid it all onto a platter from her mother’s favorite set, porcelain plates with a raised gilded rim. She twisted an orange slice into a floweret garnish, folded a burgundy linen napkin to make a triangular pocket, then shook a can of starch and spritzed the folds, as if spraying Aqua Net on a spit-curl. She slipped the silverware in and carefully arranged it all on a bed tray, singing phrases from “Sweeney Todd,” trying to block out the drone of Dave and the sheriff who’d returned to the dining room, and were arguing again. This time about the level of Dave’s participation in the investigation.

  Of course, her own analysis began when she was the medical examiner for H.V. Ewell, impaled on a stop sign in the middle of his living room. She’d poured over the topographical maps of Zebulon, every inch of them. The attack will come from the east. And plus, Rachel knew she was the only one who understood that the uprooted stop sign meant, ironically, the killer had no intention of stopping. Let’s face it, she was the smartest person in the room. And not happy about that, at all.

  “Damn!” Rachel dropped a roll of paper towels then bent over to pick it up under the butcher block. “Ew.” She went to the sink and dampened several, then mopped up a cluster of dead flies, tossed the mess into the trash, and washed her hands. After that, she laid a paper towel over the food to keep the black flies off—flies also swarmed dead things. Rachel left by the back door.

  Stepping over the scattered greenish droppings of chickens and guinea hens, she reached the cottage and knocked on the red door. Once a garage, now her mother’s stone abode, it was fronted by a row of shuttered windows and blooming drifts of yellow and white jonquils. When they’d shared the main house, Beatricia had demanded her own “wing.” Once the west side had been redesigned to accommodate this, she’d changed her mind. “All the loud rock ‘n’ roll those boys play,” she’d complained. “Just put me in the garage with the rest of the junkers. Don’t worry, you two, I’ll pay for it.” And she had.

  Her garden beds were tended by Lev, who was at the moment draining the pond and glancing occasionally at the woods of the bordering north pasture. Maybe to catch a glimpse of Ruiz. He lifted a hand as Rachel stood waiting for her mother’s greeting.

  “Entrez-vous!” called Beatricia at last.

  She turned the doorknob and shouldered her way in. As always, Indian sage was in the air. A CD droned the mantra her mother used to make herself “peaceful.” Over the headboard hung an icon of Jesus and Mary. The ceiling over the bed displayed an astrology chart of the wheel of heaven Beatricia had acquired on an archeological trip to Timbuktu. A six-foot tapestry of the tree of life covered the wall adjacent to the bed. Scattered over the nightstands and open dresser drawers were crystal balls, altar bells, white candles in jars painted with various saints. And Rachel’s least favorite—a handmade Spirit board of maple, inlaid with the usual letters, but also charms and sacred symbols: lovebirds, frogs, an elephant, a horseshoe, the number seven, and something resembling a swastika in one corner. Good God, she thought. Her cheeks tingled.

  “Hello, Mother.” She stood holding the tray, waiting. “What is that thing on the board?”

  “Thing?” said her mother “You mean the ancient symbol of protection and auspiciousness?”

  “The swastika! God, Mom, grandpa was Jewish.” She carried the tray into the cottage’s small studio, an area crowded with a television, stereo system, computer and printer, and lattice-back chairs. Two walking canes lay on the bed, wooden shafts crossed, crooks facing each other, forming a long, narrow heart shape on a white pillow.

  “You’re a half hour late,” Beatricia chided. “And that’s not a swastika. It’s a tetraskelion. An Om symbol sits above it. And at the top, a trident. The combination of ancient symbols bestows extreme protection against negative energy.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes, amazed she’d only been held up thirty minutes by Wise’s tardiness and the chandelier’s crash. She hurried to load the plate and orange juice onto a bedside tray-stand.

  Beatricia pulled herself up to a sitting position. “I hope the eggs are store-bought.” She poked with the fork at a red dot in one yoke. “I prefer unfertilized eggs. Is that tofu, or TVP?”

  “Free-range,” said Rachel. “You know those are the only kind we eat.”

  “Then they’ll have to do,” Beatricia sighed.

  Rachel loved her mother, really. But she’d slowly grown tired of, then horrified by, the long slow process of her dying. First, three heart attacks. Then, her worsening neuropathy. Beatricia, who had in her twenties been a figure skater in The Ice Capades, dancing the role of Beauty in Beauty and the Beast, now fell whenever she tried to walk without a pair of canes. Then had come her time of seeing ghosts, particularly Rachel’s father. Followed by increasing episodes of shortness of breath over the past three months. Which, in turn, had precipitated bouts of compulsive, Tourette-ish spelling, during which she would utter “N-U-N-O” over and over. It made no sense.

  “Want to try to walk today?” said Rachel brightly. “I’ll get your tank.”

  “Forget the oxygen,” said Beatricia. “What’s going on?” She crooked a dainty pinky as she sipped juice. “Some men just walked by my window.”

  “Only Dave and Lev.”

  “No. These were in uniform. Good-looking.”

  “Nothing’s going on, Mother. It’s just an ordinary day.”

  Beatricia shook her head. “I wonder if the daffodils survived. There was hoarfrost again on my window this morning.”

  “No, there wasn’t. It’s spring. I told you that yesterday.”

  “Well, the panes were coated with ice crystals.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. It must’ve been dew.”

  “It was ice.”

  Rachel frowned. “I’m sorry, no.”

  Beatricia’s face crumpled. She started to cry.

  Rachel ground her teeth. When her mother cried she looked like a helpless old woman. Her eyes creased and drooped until her whole face seemed to be sliding to her chin. She’d always been such an arrogant, gorgeous woman, with black hair and dark eyes, too beautiful to be denied all her whims and eccentricities. And she was beautiful still—until she cried.

  Rachel turned away and pulled the heavy green velvet curtains closed. They made a rustling noise, like something small scuttling in the underbrush. She dialed down the volume on the stereo. “Mind if I turn it off?” She waited for an answer. But as she’d learned early in life, no answer is also an answer.

  She walked back to the bed where Bea sat on the edge, still waiting. Rachel slid the rest of the silverware out and laid it next to the plate. She unfolded the starched napkin and tied it around her mother’s thin, corded neck.

  “Before the beginning, God was one and non-dual,” said Beatricia. “It thought, ‘May I become many.’ This caused a vibration, which became sound, and this sound was ‘Ommm.’ The big bang—you’ve heard of that, my dear—was set in motion. Things were very dense and hot back then, dear.” She tittered. “But turn it off if you wish to.”

  Rachel stomped over to the stereo and punched the button. She winced at a fleeting, lancinating pain in one ear. A smell of iron and taste of steel that seemed to come from nowhere made her gag as though she’d been sucking on a cheap metal spoon all day. Feelings had become flavors and odors a
nd a burn in her stomach. The taste of her own growing panic.

  “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “Nothing.” She took a slow deep breath through her nose, inhaling the acrid scent of burning pitch. Ugh. She hated campfires, and camping in general.

  “What do you mean nothing?” Beatricia was staring at a gap where the twin drapes didn’t quite meet. “‘Nothing’ has always been ‘something’ ever since you were three. Those night terrors, for instance.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Fine.” Bea paused to take a sip of juice. “Maybe later.” Her eyes met Rachel’s and held them. “Your soul is as restless as any dead spirit’s.”

  “What?” Every word her mother said seemed vital, but she tried to remain cool and skeptical. She needed to hold herself together for her kids.

  “You’re bothered by something,” said Beatricia, cutting up a slice of egg with one side of the sterling fork. “Got any ketchup?”

  “No ketchup. Never ketchup. Why, do I look disturbed?”

  “Not at all. You’re the very picture of rational, serene deportment. My congratulations. But you’ll crack as soon as you leave this room. Don’t bother to deny it.” She swallowed. “And we both know this isn’t just another day.”

  “Oh,” said Rachel, trying to hide her annoyance at her mother’s still-sharp perception. “Then perhaps you can tell me what’s going on, and how everything will turn out.”

  “Haven’t a clue,” said Beatricia. “I’m not in the house, but confined here. Where the only thing truly open to me is the emotional electricity of your brain…”

  “You’re not confined. You wanted this place.” She sat at the foot of the bed, sinking into memory foam. So, I’m simmering inside and attempting to conceal it from you?”

  “Yes, clearly.”

  “That’s a very egocentric position, Mother. To assume I’m spending all my time and energy to hide something from you.”