Mumma's House

by Ike Hamill

  June let her fingers play over the numbers, feeling the surface of the buttons. She could almost feel the warmth of Tommy’s finger on the nine. It was like he had pressed that one extra hard.

  “Oh!” she said, her eyes lighting up. Her mother had been born on April 19, 1940. She punched in the digits.

  Nothing happened.

  A light flashed twice a moment later and then went dark again.

  She wasn’t disappointed, only confused. Her certainty remained even though the safe hadn’t opened. With a second revelation, she realized her mistake. She hadn’t pressed the enter button and the sequence had timed out.

  June hit the date again, this time following it with the enter button. She heard a click and a whir. She grabbed at the handle, not shocked at all when it turned.

  The door to the safe opened with the rush of wind that blew the bedroom door shut. As it slammed into the frame, June realized that Tommy had protected his safe with more than just a combination.

  She didn’t know that much about him, but she knew that he was vindictive. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he wanted someone to break into his safe because opening the door would bring his retribution.

  Chapter 43 : Kate

  ALLISON CONTINUED WITH HER story even though it was growing clear that nobody wanted her to.

  “I don’t necessarily believe in witchcraft,” Allison said, “but I do believe that desperate people can make things happen that science will never explain. That is the root of it. You can cook up secret formulas and recite incantations, but the real magic is within the willpower of desperation. Mark was growing more and more desperate with each hour that June was gone. He should have simply chased after her. Instead, he tried to find a way to call her back.”

  Jules shook his head and looked down.

  “The Taíno people in the Caribbean believed in a god of chaos that they called Juracán. That’s who Mark beseeched with his spell. He thought that Juracán could drive June back here and he offered his own body and soul in exchange.”

  “That’s silly,” Auggie said. “Why would he trade his own body to get June back? He still wouldn’t have her.”

  “I think you don’t understand the true nature of desperation, Auggie,” Allison said. “The first victim it claims is logic.”

  “Wait,” Deidra said. “Is this when we found that dead bird on the porch?”

  “Exactly,” Allison said. “Mark began by going down to the coast with a nylon net. He lured the birds in with bread and then managed to capture several gulls. Juracán follows the gulls, according to the sources that Mark had studied. He didn’t try to hide what he was doing. When I saw him dissecting the bird that he left on the porch, he was forthcoming about all of it. He sounded perfectly logical and only a little insane at the time. Less than two weeks later, June was back. Soon after, they were together, just as Mark wanted.”

  “Who did he kill?” Kate asked. Everyone looked at her. They seemed puzzled by her question. She remembered Gus and felt bad for having asked.

  Allison flashed a sad smile at her.

  “According to science, Mark didn’t kill anyone. They say that the unexpected turn that the hurricane took was completely expected. Yes, a few people died and many more lost their houses and property. The path took the storm right over June and then it swept all the way up to us, dumping a ton of rain on June’s garden.”

  “It was his fault,” Jules said. “That blood was on his hands.”

  “Not for long,” Allison said.

  # # # #

  “They dated in secret for a year before they allowed anyone to see them out in public. By then, Mark had left the school system and he was working at the glass store. It was still a scandal, but not the kind that would ruin lives or get anyone fired. Mark’s co-workers, when they decided to be mean one time, brought in one of those giant lollipops and told him it was for his girlfriend. The joke was on them—Mark brought the lollipop over and June loved it. Your mother had a sweet tooth back then.”

  Gus looked up when he realized that Allison was talking directly to him now.

  “At some point, Auggie and Jules stopped threatening to beat your father up. I think they realized that June would have never forgiven them. It’s also possible that they got a closer look at Mark and realized that they might not be able to best him.”

  “He wasn’t that big,” Jules said.

  “They were in love,” Auggie said.

  Allison laughed.

  “They lived separately. Your mom always insisted on that. Mark was allowed to be over here until ten—no later. She made it very clear that this was her rule, regardless of what anyone else in the family thought about it. When she visited him, she would always be home by ten. I’m not suggesting that they weren’t a couple. Obviously, you’re here.”

  “Allison,” Auggie said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Relax,” she said. “I’m sure I’m not breaking any news for Gus. He’s nine years old, after all.”

  “Ten,” Kate said.

  “Even better,” Allison said. “Marriage was never discussed, as far as I know. Maybe June would have a different story, but I never heard anyone talk about matrimony. You would expect that nosy neighbors might even ask the young couple if wedding bells were in the air, but nobody did. It was almost like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the whole thing to dissolve before it turned bad, even after your mother discovered that she was pregnant. I got the sense that I knew what she wanted to do about it. I went and talked to her about where I could take her.”

  “Allison, that’s enough,” Jules said.

  She slapped her hand down on the table again, straightening up to glare at Jules.

  “It’s important that he knows how significant this house and this family are to his mother, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jules folded his arms and his nostrils flared with each breath. He looked and sounded like a steam engine, being run way to close to the redline.

  Allison softened as she turned back to Gus to continue the story.

  “Your father was over the moon with the news. You should always remember that. His joy at the idea of having a child with your mother radiated off of him in hot waves. Every room that he entered vibrated with his enthusiasm. Your mother was happy as well, but she kept her emotions contained. She stoked that fire silently. Then, the edict was read.”

  Auggie sighed with exasperation.

  “In a lot of families, there is trouble when a girl intends to conceive out of wedlock. One of my sister’s friends was sent away to have her baby down south, so her pregnancy would never be known to the neighbors. That’s not how it works in this family. When there is no Mumma to sanction a coupling, the offspring of marriage are forbidden. Do you understand that, Gus?”

  Gus didn’t move. He was staring at Allison, blinking.

  “I don’t understand,” Kate said. “June wasn’t allowed to have a kid because her mother had passed?”

  “No,” Allison said, shaking her head. “It’s not so archaic as that. She was free to marry whomever and have children alone or with a husband. But a woman of this family may only have a legitimate heir with her husband if that husband was approved by a Mumma. June could have Gus, out of wedlock, and everything would be fine. Or, she could have gotten married, had Gus, and he wouldn’t be an heir. Those were her options. That’s why she never talked about marriage. She didn’t want to strip Gus of his birthright just so she could be married to his father.”

  Kate opened her mouth to reply and realized that she didn’t know what to say. The idea was so crazy that it took her breath away. How could the family assume any power over June’s right to procreate? It was absurd.

  “I think that Mark took June’s independence as a rejection. He went into a deep depression that we could all see in the hollows under his eyes. He still came around as often as before, vacating the house before ten, but the joy went out of him. He looked like a deflated balloon—limp and s
pongy. It was very unattractive.”

  “Is this fun for you?” Auggie asked her. “Do you realize that Gus is going to walk around with these images in his head for the rest of his life?”

  Allison waved her hand at the notion.

  “Gus is strong and practical. He will form his own opinions regardless of what I say.”

  Kate couldn’t help herself. She needed to know the ending.

  “What happened to him?”

  Allison raised her eyebrows, like the ending should be obvious. “It all caught up to Mark. You can’t fool with the Juracán and expect no recourse. It took that evil god a few years to come to him in full force, but it tracked him down.”

  Chapter 44 : June

  JUNE’S SENSES RACED CHILLS up and down her back. The safe was open, but there was someone right behind her. She could feel their stare. June didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to give the intruder any power over herself.

  “It belongs to the family,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm.

  “We all do,” a breathy voice whispered. It was the sound of the wind being shaped by a deep, dark cave.

  “I don’t know you,” June said. “You’re not part of this family. You’re just some lonely spirit that my Uncle has trapped into guarding his safe.”

  Cold air tickled the back of her as the wind wheezed out a laugh.

  “You’ve forgotten. Ask your son if he knows me. Ask Gus.”

  “Don’t you talk about Gus,” June said, spinning. She knew it was a bad idea to lay eyes on the spirit, but she couldn’t help herself. She would not have her son’s name invoked in order to scare her.

  The wind carried the spirit away before she could fix her eyes on it. The man was big, smiling with evil intent, and barely visible. He was translucent, like cellophane, and then the rushing wind in Uncle Tommy’s room whisked him away.

  June cursed the spirit through clenched teeth.

  “Leave my son out of it, and leave me alone,” she said. “You don’t have any power over me.”

  June tried to turn back to the safe and the wind suddenly buffeted her. She was knocked to the floor by it. The sudden pressure change made her ears pop and jabbed needles of pain into her head.

  She could hear that wheezing laugh in her ears the whole time.

  Uncle Tommy’s possessions were blown from the top of his dresser. The thin blanket flew from his bed. June was pushed by a gust across the floor and slammed into the far wall before she came to a stop.

  The wind diminished. She opened her eyes as it whispered.

  “That’s almost precisely what Mark said to me that night.”

  June’s face fell into a blank expression.

  She realized that she had heard the voice before.

  Chapter 45 : Gus

  THE WHOLE TIME AUNT Allison spoke, Gus tried to picture his father’s face. He had only ever seen one photo. His mom kept it in her special box, in the back of her pants drawer. At one time, it had been the cash box that her boss used to store their tips. His mom got to bring it home because the lock didn’t really work anymore. If you pressed on the side in the right spot, the mechanism would pop open.

  It was almost like she wanted him to find the photo. Otherwise, why would she have told Gus how to open the box?

  In the photo, his father had looked happy and filthy. Nobody had ever told Gus that it was his father, but Gus had known. It had been obvious by the way his mother was looking up at the man’s face. She never looked at anyone that way.

  In a flash, Gus suddenly remembered his father’s nose. It wasn’t wide at the base, like the rest of Gus’s relatives. His father had a thin, noble nose, more like Gus’s nose.

  “Your father knew the storm was coming,” Allison said. “Nobody else was worried about it. By the time it was going to get up here, it was just going to be a heavy rain and some warmer weather. But Mark studied the little TV in the living room like he was watching a manhunt. Your mother took him out on the porch and I happened to overhear.”

  “Happened to?” Jules asked. “You used to spy on us all the time.”

  “It’s called being a good aunt,” Allison said to him. She gave Gus an odd smile before she continued. “Your mom actually told him not to go. She told him that if he was so concerned about the storm that, for once, he was allowed to stay. Mark wouldn’t hear of it. He wouldn’t put his girlfriend and her pregnancy in jeopardy. She didn’t believe him when he said that the storm was coming for him.”

  “You’re saying that he knew?” Auggie asked.

  Allison nodded.

  “He knew. He never mentioned the Juracán in person, but it was in the note addressed to her in his personal effects. I guess he wasn’t certain enough to give it to June that night, but she got it eventually.”

  “So what happened to him? He was caught in a storm?” Kate asked.

  “Chased by it, is more accurate,” Allison said. “We could feel it building before he left. The way that the wind whipped through the trees, it almost sounded like someone laughing at us. June stood out there on the porch, watching him pull away and then waving her arms and yelling at him to come back. He wouldn’t listen. He knew what was going to happen and he couldn’t bear to think of her getting caught in it too.”

  Allison paused and looked away from Gus.

  “The power blew out just after he left. Your father made it down to the corner of Scribner Hill Road. When we tried to go out the next morning to find a working phone, all the roads were blocked with debris and downed power lines. The sheriff showed up later that morning with Mark’s note and the news. That big elm tree that used to be on the corner down there had blown down and smashed right through Mark’s car.”

  Gus pictured his father’s laughing eyes and his noble nose. In his imagination, he saw his father leaning forward to peer through the windshield as the wipers tried desperately to keep up with the rain. He was leading the monster away from the woman he loved and the child she was carrying.

  The monster’s name was Juracán, and Gus had a feeling that he knew what it looked like.

  Chapter 46 : June

  “I KNOW WHO YOU are,” June screamed at nothing. “I know you. Your name is Juracán and you belong in a cave somewhere, isn’t that right?”

  She remembered Mark’s note. It had confessed how he had called the spirit to come out of its Caribbean cave and compel June back north.

  The wind whistled through Uncle Tommy’s room again. June heard a whisper on the wind.

  “That’s not my name. It’s only what my victims call me.”

  That evil laugh buffeted her ears again.

  She rolled over onto her stomach and pulled at the floor to crawl towards Tommy’s safe.

  The wind blasted her face, forcing her eyes shut. June felt herself slipping backwards across the floor again.

  “That document belongs to me and my family,” June screamed. “You won’t keep me from it.”

  The wind shrieked in her ears.

  “I’m just as much a part of this family as you.”

  “No. You were called by Mark and it was a mistake. He regretted it. I would have come back to him either way. I only needed some time alone to figure things out.”

  “Nobody cares,” the wind said. She saw his translucent form again, briefly, as he lifted Uncle Tommy’s metal bed. It flipped up on its side with a clang and then slid towards her as it was caught in the deadly wind.

  Chapter 47 : Gus

  “YOU SEE, YOUR MOM cared so much about you and this family that she wouldn’t marry Mark. That rejection was enough to seal his fate. The Juracán wouldn’t have come after him if he was a part of this family. It was only because he was still an outsider that it was able to hunt him down.”

  “No,” Auggie said, “that doesn’t make sense. You’re suggesting that the Juracán was loyal to the family? Why would it be? You said that Mark called the thing. Why would it be loyal to our family?”

  “Mark t
hought he called it. He executed the ritual, certainly, but you have to ask yourself where Mark got the idea and the knowledge to conjure up such a powerful spirit. That kind of knowledge would come to someone who has spent a long time learning about dark places and speaking with the Caribbean wind, wouldn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jules asked.

  Allison’s eyes went to the end of the table.

  “My brother is the only person I know who has been caught in one of those storms at sea. He is cowardly enough to have bargained for his life and clever enough to coerce one of those spirits to take up his cause. What did you promise that thing, Tommy? Did you promise it a place at this table?”

  As the eyes turned to that end of the room, Travis began to laugh again. He pointed a boney finger at Tommy as the man’s eyes glowed with anger.

  “This will be over soon,” Tommy said.

  Chapter 48 : June

  THE MATTRESS SEPARATED FROM the frame as it slid towards June. She got an arm up over her head to brace for impact as the frame flipped again. The momentum of the thing drove her back into the wall as the desk flipped over and spun in a little tornado.

  The translucent man, Juracán, was standing in the center of a maelstrom of swirling debris. The safe was the only thing that didn’t appear to be moving. Its contents sat still, undisturbed by the chaos in the room.

  June screamed when the chair slammed into the bed frame. The springs groaned, taking away some of the impact, but she felt a deep, numb pain in her knee when the wood smashed into her.

  “Stop!” she screamed. “You can’t keep me from that document. My mother wrote it for me.”

  The wind laughed at her.

  June’s brain raced, trying to figure a way out. There had to be some explanation for how this horrific wind had arisen from nothing. All she could picture was the moment that it had started. When she opened the safe, the door had slammed and the wind had erupted.