by Ike Hamill
The door latch clicked and Kate was back in the hall, settling to the floor again. She looked exhausted as she sighed.
“Millie was asleep. She was having a bad dream so Isla poked her until she woke up,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.
June smiled.
“You were saying? Things get even weirder?”
June bit the inside of her lip and looked away. “You don’t want to hear about this stuff. It’s just going to make you think even less of us.”
Kate shook her head. “I’m in for all of it now. For better or worse, you know? Don’t hold back. I can take it.”
June studied Kate for a moment. She probably had the right to know. She was, through marriage, a part of the family.
“So everyone joins hands and calls the imp. The process is clearly defined. There is a certain incantation and an amount of time that you have to wait. The document lays out very clear steps to follow if the imp actually shows up. When Gus first took my place, I was terrified for him. I almost peed my pants the first time I had to participate in the calling. I could sense that little demon out in the world, coming towards us. I waited for him to burst through the door, or worse, come right through the wall like it wasn’t there.”
“How did he do?”
“Gus? Auggie said that he did just fine. He was a real trooper during the calling, according to Auggie and Jules. They sat on either side of him so he would have friendly faces surrounding him when he replaced me in the ceremony. I still can’t believe that I made him do that for all those years. Never again.”
Kate nodded. Her eyes went back to the door that separated her from her children.
“After the imp is called, it’s time to turn to good spirits. The document says that no ceremony can be conducted without inviting all the old kin to the table. They call it the rise home. People say that when there’s a Mumma at the table, her face changes during this part of the ceremony. They say that Mumma takes on the appearance of all the old Mummas that have come before her. During my time, I’ve never been to the ceremony with a Mumma, but Allison told me how it used to be. She said that she barely recognized Mumma Claire during the rise home. She looked like the old painting of Mumma Josephine that’s in the drawing room.”
“The woman in the purple gown?” Kate asked.
June nodded.
“I’ve always thought that she looked somewhat like you,” Kate said.
June was shocked for a moment and then she shook her head.
“Thank you.”
“What comes after the rise home?”
“That’s when we get to the meat of the ceremony. There’s a bunch of bookkeeping about the assets. The appreciated value of all the holdings is calculated by one of the people at the table and verified by another. It’s this really long formula, but it’s not difficult at all to work the numbers. If you can add, then you can do it.”
“What’s it based on?” Kate asked.
June shrugged. “I don’t even know if it’s remotely close to reality. The last time I was in the ceremony, I couldn’t have told you what this place was worth, and now I’m even less certain.”
June put up a finger as she remembered something.
“But there was one time when someone challenged the valuation. That’s allowed right after the calculation. Any of the heirs can challenge and then a revised value is voted on. I voted yes because Allison voted yes. That’s all I can remember about that part of the process though.”
June looked up as she recalled the order.
“After the bookkeeping, there’s a count of heirs, I think. If it ever gets down to one person, or a group of people who elect one representative, then the assets can be dispersed. If there are multiple factions, then the assets stay under the guardianship of either the trust or the current Mumma.”
“Is that how Auggie planned to change the ceremony?”
“No,” June said. “I should have mentioned—his call for a vote came at the top, before the document was even opened. His approach has precedence, but it’s not documented anywhere. There’s the idea that a natural artifact of the process is that it only continues because all the heirs agree to it. If more than eighty-five percent of the participants vote to change, then all it takes is their agreement and vote before the ceremony commences. It’s the same time, during the preamble, when someone can nominate themselves for the title, like I did.”
“Oh?” Kate asked.
June could tell that Auggie had told her something about what had happened. He had probably badmouthed her—Auggie had been pretty mad.
“Anyway, after the count of heirs, that’s when the really weird stuff goes on.”
“Yeah?”
June nodded.
# # # #
“The next part, the family calls Suh-dah-meh, but in the ceremony document, it’s called the feast,” June said. She rubbed her forehead. “I’ve heard that in the old days they used to butcher a pig for the feast. I find that hard to believe because it seems like everyone in the family would have gotten trichinosis.”
“From the pig? Isn’t trichinosis killed when you cook the meat?”
“Yeah. But the meat that’s eaten during Suh-dah-meh isn’t cooked. You know when people say, “Eat your heart out?’”
“Sure.”
“What does that mean to you?”
Kate thought about it for a second. “It means that you’re consumed with envy, right? Your heart is eaten away with envy or desire.”
June nodded.
“In our family, it’s a bit more literal. The pig’s heart was symbolic of taking their own hearts out of their chests and eating them. Now, instead of using a real pig, we do it even more symbolically. We each take our hearts out of our chests and we eat them.”
“What?” Kate asked. Her face was scrunched up with disgust and confusion.
June puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled and then tried to explain. She gestured to show Kate how it would look.
“You reach into your chest with your fingers. I know it sounds strange, but you’ll have to trust me—it’s even stranger in person. Sitting at that table, you can literally feel your fingers penetrating your own sternum and ripping the beating heart from your chest. I have looked around the room, we all feel the same thing. Once you have the heart, you put that beating organ on an imaginary plate in front of you and then you use a fork and knife to cut it up.”
“Real fork and knife?”
June shook her head. “No, also imaginary, but you can feel the cold metal in your hands when you’re doing it. The tissue is still wriggling when you stab it with the fork. When you put it to your lips, you can still feel the heartbeat in the imaginary flesh as you hear your heart beating in your ears. You have to eat at least three bites. That’s when you feel your heart dying between your teeth. You chew the life out of it as you taste the salty, coppery blood.”
“Ugh,” Kate said, wrinkling her nose.
“I know. The worst part isn’t the smell or the taste. The worst part is the hunger. When you’re eating your heart out, you don’t want to stop at three bites. They say you have to take at least three, but nobody stops. They devour their hearts, long after the organ is dead, and even if they’re already full.”
June shook her head at the memory.
“And the more you eat, the more you can see. You look around at the others and you can see the blood dripping down their chins. Then, with a little more, you can see their hearts. I remember looking at Uncle Tommy’s heart one time. It was covered in a filmy white layer of shiny fat and the muscle underneath was dark with thick blood. I watched him slice through one of the valves and blood squirted out when he did.”
“Oh my god,” Kate said, putting her hand to her chest and looking up.
“Gross, I know,” June said.
“No,” Kate said. “I just figured out what Auggie was talking about. I heard him talking to Jules a couple of years ago. He said that Uncle Tommy wouldn’t eat the cow valve. I had no
idea what he was talking about.”
“That’s right,” June said. “Tommy had a heart valve replaced with a cow valve a couple of years ago. I guess it wasn’t palatable.”
Kate shook her head. “This can’t be real. Some kind of self-hypnosis you’re all doing, right?”
June shrugged. “Honestly, I have tried to forget about it. I did a pretty good job of putting it out of my head until I decided to go back this year. Then, it all came flooding back. I still can’t believe I made Gus go to that terrible ceremony. The only solace is that I didn’t remember much of it at all from when I was a kid. I think kids are better at blocking that kind of shit out of their heads.”
“Repressed memories,” Kate said.
June frowned. “When you put it that way, it makes me sad. Those memories always surface later in life, don’t they. You think he is damaged forever?”
Kate put up her hands. “Who knows? You’re a good mom. Maybe we’re all damaged, one way or another. There could be worse things.”
June nodded.
“That’s about it. After we eat the heart, there’s not much more to the ceremony. It’s a ritual that doesn’t seem to serve much purpose except to ensure that our names stay in the hat for the inheritance.”
“Why is it so important to you?” Kate asked. “This place is worth something, sure, but why have you put up with it for this long? It seems like a crazy ordeal just for, what, a fifth of a share in a falling down house?”
Realization spread through June as she considered Kate’s question. Auggie was obsessed with his inheritance, but he hadn’t shared that with his wife.
“You need to talk to Auggie about that.”
June started to push to her feet. She figured that she still had time to relax for a bit before the second ceremony. There was no hope of getting any actual sleep, but at least she could stretch out and try to quiet her thoughts.
“Wait,” Kate said. “One more question.”
June paused. Kate stayed close to the door where her daughters were hidden away. June stayed in her front room. They were separated by the framing around the door to the hall—different worlds, only inches apart.
“What’s the second ceremony, the one tonight? You have to take a test?”
June nodded.
“What is the test? Should I be worried about what Millie and Isla are going to witness?”
“I have no idea,” June said. “That’s all up to the imp.”
She left Kate and walked over to her futon so she could stretch out.
Chapter 19 : Henry
WHEN THE BANGING STARTED again, Henry cracked open the door to peek down the hall. He couldn’t see much.
“I’ll just go down and ask him what he’s doing,” Henry said.
“Don’t,” Deidra said. “Don’t leave us. He’ll give up.”
“It will just take a second,” Henry said. He slipped through the door before his wife could object again. Henry closed the door softly until the latch clicked. A moment later, he heard the lock slide home. Henry rubbed his bare arms, wishing he had put on something more substantial. The hall was a lot colder than their room.
It was too late now. He turned back towards the banging.
It was Auggie—he had been right about that. He saw his cousin-in-law’s shape in the dim light down there. Auggie was leaning against the wall with one arm and banging with the other. He looked exhausted.
Henry cleared his throat as he approached. Auggie jumped and blinked. After a second, when his eyes finally recognized Henry, Auggie softened a little.
“Hey,” Auggie said.
There was no apology for the noise. There was no explanation for all the banging.
“He has to be in there,” Auggie said. “Stubborn old bastard.”
“That’s your Uncle Tommy’s room?”
Auggie nodded.
“And you need to talk to him?”
“Kinda,” Auggie said. “You don’t know how to pick a lock, do you?”
Henry chuckled at the question and then realized that Auggie was serious.
“No. Not at all.”
Henry hugged his arms around himself. Auggie slapped his palm against the door.
“Open up, Tommy. I have to talk to you.”
Auggie turned around and leaned his back into the door. He looked at Henry and shrugged.
“You have a pry bar? Axe?” Henry asked.
“There’s a woodshed at the far end of the barn that has all that stuff, but I don’t dare go that far,” Auggie said, misunderstanding Henry’s attempt at humor.
“Yeah?”
“When the second ceremony starts, and it could be at any time, everyone in the house is called to join. I don’t know if the barn counts as part of the house. Somehow, I doubt it. The barn was always a separate structure and it only seems like part of the house now because the sheds reach all the way out there. Honestly, I don’t even know if the far parts of the connecting shed would count. You know that milking room we went through?”
Henry nodded, remembering how Auggie had counted all of the doors.
“Yeah, I don’t think that would count either. Somehow, that’s considered to be outside, you know?”
Henry had no idea what Auggie was talking about, but he nodded anyway.
“I should have planned ahead. There was absolutely no way of knowing that June would… do what she did.”
There were other words that Auggie had swallowed. There was an unspoken accusation for his sister in there. He was covering it pretty well, but Henry wondered exactly how furious Auggie was.
“I tried to kick it open before,” Auggie said. “You probably heard. I swear, he must have a metal plate behind this door. It didn’t give at all.”
Henry frowned. He was pretty sure that he had seen the same door standing open earlier that evening. There hadn’t been any metal plates visible.
“What about the ladder?” Henry asked, as he remembered what his daughter had said in that same hall.
“Ladder?”
# # # #
“It’s probably nothing,” Henry said. “Just something the kids dreamed up, I’m sure.”
“What did she say?” Auggie asked, tilting his head. He looked like he was trying to remember something from long ago.
“She said that there was a ladder that went up from the cellar. She suggested that we could use that instead of the stairs when the… It’s a long story.”
“From the cellar…” Auggie said, trailing off. “Can you do me a favor?”
Henry agreed before he really considered it. A few minutes later, he found himself alone in the hall, tapping on the door to Uncle Tommy’s room as Auggie went off to execute whatever crazy idea had struck him in the moment.
“Deidra’s family is nice—crazy, but nice,” Henry whispered to himself as he tapped. It was a good kind of crazy. It made him feel at home. His own family was just as eccentric but not nearly as kind to each other.
Growing up, a family gathering had three distinct stages—drinking, saying things that should never be said, and sulking. His own mother would wait until the house was full of relatives before she would air their dirty laundry.
Henry switched arms and tapped with his left hand. He shook his head, wondering how Auggie had so easily trapped him into this useless chore.
It was because he was too eager to smooth things over. Henry recognized that he had a tendency to try to make other people happy. The strange thing was, he also knew that, in general, he was not a very affable person. If asked, people at work would probably say that he was a bit of a bastard. Recognizing his desire to please as a weakness, Henry worked hard to make sure that nobody else spotted his true nature.
He switched hands again.
There was probably a fancy name for the injury he was going to get from tapping on Uncle Tommy’s door. Some kind of repetitive, percussive trauma was creeping into his tendons or bones.
He stopped knocking.
It was a stu
pid thing to do—it would take Auggie minutes to get to the cellar and climb up, assuming that there even was a ladder. And what good would it do for him to hear Henry tapping, anyway?
Shaking his head, Henry began to walk away from the door. It was cold in the hall and Deidra was probably waiting for his return. Still, he hated to leave Auggie’s task when he said that he would do it.
After reaching over his shoulder and scratching his back, Henry turned back to the door. He pressed his ear against it and heard breathing. The sound shocked him until he realized that he was only hearing himself.
He knocked twice.
“Hello?” he asked.
Something behind the door clicked and Henry sprang back.
He looked at the handle, suddenly sure that it was now open.
Chapter 20 : Auggie
AUGGIE POUNDED DOWN THE stairs and rounded the corner. When he saw June stretched out on the futon and Gus asleep in the chair, he tried to soften his footsteps and creep through their room. He had said it a million times—if she was going to pick one room to spend all of her time in, it was downright antisocial to pick the primary room that they all had to cross through to get upstairs. She had picked the most inconvenient spot to become a shut in. At least Mumma Claire had chosen a relatively out-of-the-way room.
Auggie was startled to see Kate in the hall.
“They asleep?” Auggie asked, pointing.
“Not really,” Kate said. “How much time do we have left?”
“No idea. I can’t chat, I’m still trying to track down Tommy.”
“Go,” she said with a wave.
Auggie hurried away. Yes, he had something to do, but the speed in his step was more to get away from the storm that seemed to be brewing with Kate. She was starting to have mixed feelings about everything. Auggie could tell.