The Liar of Red Valley

by Walter Goodwater

  Graciela looked over Sadie’s shoulder. “The Gray House. I remember going on a field trip there in elementary school. It was… creepy.”

  “Everything in Red Valley is creepy.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “And look here,” Sadie said, pointing to the section highlighted by the search. “‘When asked about the strange disappearance, Red Valley resident and long-time associate of the missing gentlemen Mary Bell said, “I’m glad they left. This town didn’t deserve them. They were too pure for Red Valley. Too good. I wish them well, wherever they are now.””

  “So the caretakers knew your great-great-whatever-grandmother.”

  “Maybe they have something we can use,” Sadie said. “A picture or something. It seems like a longshot, but those are the only shots I’ve got right now.”

  “Is the Gray House even, you know, there right now?”

  “One way to find out.”

  It wasn’t.

  The lot on Washington Street was empty. There were houses on both sides, but in between was just a dirt lot, devoid even of weeds. Caution tape sagged between wooden stakes along the border. A sign posted right in front was blazoned with: absolutely no trespassing. The ink had started to fade under the relentless sun.

  “Real welcoming,” Graciela said.

  Sadie said nothing. Of course the Gray House was gone. That was just the kind of week she was having. She squinted at the fine print on the trespassing sign and read it aloud. “‘Private property of Thomas Gray. If you are trespassing when the Gray House returns, you will be wiped from existence. You have been warned.’”

  “I don’t remember the casual death threats from when we toured here as kids,” Graciela said.

  Sadie had few memories of the trip, but that was unsurprising. Kids rarely appreciated the things they were forced to experience. And the Gray House wasn’t just a well-preserved relic from an older era. No one was quite sure how they managed it—or frankly, why—but the caretakers of the Gray House had tapped into some of the King’s latent magic and found a way to step outside of time. One minute, the stately Victorian building would be looming over Washington Street, then the next, it would be gone. Months or years would pass, then then poof—it would be back, exactly like it had been when it left, roses still in bloom. Had there ever been a time when the caretakers had been revered for their unique power? Sadie doubted it. Just another weird, dangerous consequence of their proximity to the King.

  “So, what now?” Graciela asked. “Back to the library?”

  Though she was looking at just dirt, Sadie felt something else there, like an unexpected pressure. She felt it in her chest and inside her skull. It reminded her of what she’d felt in Tips, trying to look at the patrons, and what she’d seen in Beto’s endless eyes. “No,” she said absently. “There’s nothing at the library.”

  Sadie stepped up to the caution tape. There was nothing here, either. She could see all the way to the houses on the far street. A few cars drove by. But when she turned her head and snuck a look out of the corner of her eye, it was almost like…

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to go in there,” Graciela said as Sadie ducked under the tape.

  “You always do what you’re told?”

  “Usually breaking the rules doesn’t involve getting wiped from existence.”

  “You buy that nonsense?” Sadie asked. She took a few more steps into the lot. Her footprints were the only things disturbing the dirt. “Sounds like what a cranky Victorian-era magician would write if he wanted to keep kids off his lawn.”

  The strange feeling was stronger now, but even as she reached for it, it slipped away. This was starting to piss her off. A little help would have been nice, Mom. Just a few notes on how all this shit was supposed to work, would that have been too much to ask? She waved her hands in front of her and swept only air. But then for a moment, she caught a whiff of roses.

  This was the King’s magic, just like the Liar was. Just like she was.

  “Hey!” Sadie yelled.

  Graciela jumped. “What?”

  “Not you,” Sadie said. She focused hard on the strangeness, on the unnamable otherness she could somehow sense. “Thomas Gray! I need to talk to you!”

  Movement in her peripheral vision. Sadie spun, but there was nothing. “I’m a descendent of Mary Bell and I need your help!”

  “I don’t think they can hear you,” Graciela said.

  “Sure they can,” Sadie said, mostly to herself. The Gray House might exist outside of time—whatever that meant—but it was anchored here, and she could feel it. Maybe they could feel her too. Louder, she called, “Mary said you were good and pure. That Red Valley didn’t deserve you. Well then, get out here and prove it!”

  People were watching them now, from the far sidewalks or behind pulled window blinds. She was making a scene. Let them look, Sadie thought. What they think won’t matter if I can’t figure this Liar thing out.

  “I think maybe we should…” Graciela was saying, but Sadie stopped listening. She smelled roses again. The air was filling with the heavy scent. And if she looked closely, she could just make out—

  “Oh, shit.” All around her, the Gray House was returning. Ghostly brick and stone and wood appeared like fog, creating garden, house, and wall. Some of it right in front of her face. Some of it inside of her body.

  Sadie ran. Maybe the warning on the sign was just to frighten people off. And maybe it wasn’t.

  “Come on!” Graciela yelled.

  Sadie’s feet slapped the dirt. Then the gravel garden path. She crashed through a hedge that was almost nearly real. Echoes of leaves brushed her face. Memories of branches pulled at her clothes. Then she burst out onto the sidewalk, nearly knocking Graciela over, just as a stone wall and gate settled into place.

  They stood on the sidewalk for a minute, breathing heavily, staring at the house that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  “Holy shit,” Graciela said, and Sadie couldn’t have said it better.

  The building stood tall and sharp, just as it had been in the picture. Now, however, instead of being surrounded by fields and a dirt road, it was bordered by plain tract houses and a busy paved street. The blue and white paint looked fresh, without a crack or smudge. A tall brick chimney crowned the roof along the west side of the house. The building looked to be at least three stories high, but the haphazard windows made it hard to identify floors. The main tower stood well above every other building in sight on Washington Street. From its upper window, Sadie imagined you could probably see all of Red Valley. The wall surrounded the entire property, blocking some of the rose gardens from view and funneling visitors through a single iron gate, where a sign hung from a chain: the gray house. all welcome. admission $10. group rates available. inquire within.

  When no one appeared from inside, Sadie approached the gate. “You coming?” she asked.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You aren’t curious to meet the impossibly old friends of my long-dead ancestor?”

  “Well, when you put it like that…”

  They walked cautiously along the stately garden path just inside the gate. Sadie marveled at it. Stuff like this didn’t grow in Red Valley, not anymore. The plants themselves must be well over a hundred years old, if ages could still be measured when the passage of time no longer universally applied.

  They climbed the oddly steep steps to the front door and knocked using the bulbous brass knocker. A moment later, the door opened. On the other side was a man dressed in a fine black waistcoat and purple silk tie. His hair was dark and slick with pomade. He had a mustache that refused to end, disappearing into bushy chops that cascaded down his cheeks. He wore round wire-rimmed glasses and a pained expression.

  “So,” he said sourly. “Brazen self-centeredness runs in your family as much as does magic.”

  “Um, hi,” Sadie said. “I’m a descendant of—”

  “Yes I heard you,” the man replied. “You m
ade your point quite clearly. And with volume. Otherwise, we would not be conversing.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said. “Okay. So, can you help me?”

  “Help you?” the man asked. “No. Dear me, no. I responded to your summons to admonish you for trespassing and to demand your silence. I have not come to be where I am today by offering my help to any waif barging in off the street, even if she can reach out to us when we are away. Though it might appear otherwise, my time on this earth is precious and limited. Good day. And do keep your voice down in the future.”

  As he made to close the door, Sadie stopped it with her foot. “Please,” she said. “I need your help. I’m in trouble and I have nowhere else to go.”

  The man’s face hardened as he stared down at Sadie’s foot and then back up at her. His arching expanse of beard made Sadie want to laugh, but she saw nothing amusing in his calculating eyes.

  “Of course you are in trouble,” he said. “You’re the Liar, aren’t you? Liars track trouble everywhere they go, like dung stuck to your shoes.”

  “Um, ew?” Graciela said.

  “Great metaphor,” Sadie said. “Really nails the whole, ‘I hate you even though we just met’ vibe you’re going for here. But if what you want is to be left alone in peace and quiet, then your best move right now is to invite me in, serve me tea or whatever, and help me do what I need to do. Because if you think I won’t camp out on that sidewalk with a bullhorn and scream the lyrics to Backstreet Boys songs at your invisible windows all night long, until you learn how miserable eternity can actually be, then don’t pretend you know me just because you’ve met my ancestors, okay?”

  They locked eyes and stared each other down across the threshold, across generations, until finally a voice called from inside the house. “Thomas, stop grandstanding. Just let them in.”

  The man—Thomas, apparently—paused for another long moment, then exhaled a weary, resigned sigh. “I knew how this was going to go the moment I opened this door,” he said. “Congratulations on being just as stubborn as your mother. And her mother. And frankly, every accursed woman in your mendacious family. Come inside.”

  Sadie and Graciela exchanged a look as Thomas disappeared into the dim house. “What’s ‘mendacious’ mean?” Graciela asked.

  “I think it means he likes us,” Sadie said.

  “Backstreet Boys?”

  “Shut up,” Sadie said. “It worked, right? Come on.”

  The wood floor inside the Gray House creaked under their feet as they stepped inside. Just ahead, a tall staircase with narrow steps disappeared up into gloom. Hazy yellow sunlight filtered in from windows in two side rooms. When Sadie’s eyes adjusted, she discovered that their reluctant host was not waiting for them and they had to hurry to catch up.

  They reached him in a small library off the central hallway. Expensive-looking plush chairs flanked a red-brick fireplace and bookshelves covered all the remaining wall space from floor to ceiling. Sadie stole a glance at the books on display: Dickens, Brontë, and Keats, but also Hemingway and Faulkner, and then Grisham and King and Gaiman.

  “See anything you like?” The question came from a man sitting in one of the chairs. Unlike Thomas, this man was clean-shaven, with pale skin and light blond hair. And also unlike Thomas, he was smiling.

  “Quite a collection,” Sadie said. “Though some doesn’t seem… period appropriate.”

  “Guilty,” the blond man said. “I didn’t magically flee the Victorian era only to be stuck reading Victorian books. We don’t usually let the school tours come back here. Might ruin the mystique if the caretakers appeared too human.”

  “Charles,” Thomas said, chiding.

  “What?” Charles replied. “You’re the one who invited these ladies inside.”

  “At your insistence.”

  “Oh, you were going to get there eventually, however you’d like to pretend otherwise,” Charles said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I just hurried us along.”

  Thomas didn’t argue that point. “They may be our guests, but that does not mean we have to be so… informal.”

  Sadie noticed that Charles hadn’t gotten up from his chair. He had a woolen blanket over his legs, despite the heat outside. Thomas stood by the empty fireplace and scowled.

  “So you guys are really from the past?” Graciela asked as she looked between both men. “That isn’t just some marketing gimmick to trick kids?”

  Thomas scoffed at the question, but Charles just laughed. “We prefer to think of it as the ever-changing present.”

  “That’s not really an answer,” Sadie said.

  “Why are you here?” Thomas asked. “You’ve come for our help, but I do not see how we could possibly assist you, whatever your troubles.”

  “My mom died,” Sadie said. “Yesterday, actually.” So much had happened since that still moment in the hospital room that the memory of it was already receding, though the pain was still vivid, a bright burn in her chest.

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” Charles said.

  “That,” Thomas said, “is not really an answer, is it?”

  “Man, I remember you being a lot nicer when we came on the tour,” Graciela said. “Now you’re kind of a dick.”

  Thomas sighed. Charles looked at him carefully, as if he recognized the sound and wanted to calm him, but Thomas did not return the glance. “The tours are a performance,” Thomas said. His voice was hard-edged. “It is part of our agreement with the lovely people of Red Valley. We give their insufferable children a glimpse into a glorious, nearly forgotten past, and they don’t build a gas station in the lot where my house stands when we are… away.”

  Sadie nodded toward the front of the house. “The sign out there, the warning. It is… real? Wiped out of existence?”

  “Very real,” Thomas said. “Anything standing here when we return from outside of time is instantly and forever eradicated, a process that I am tempted to initiate immediately if no one in this particular year will be bothered to answer any of my bloody questions.”

  “Thomas, please,” Charles said. “Don’t be such a boor. We so rarely have guests. And perhaps now I remember why that is,” he added with a wink to Sadie and Graciela.

  Before Thomas could offer another rebuke, Sadie stepped forward. “My mom died, which I guess means I’m the Liar now. Since then I’ve had the King and the undersheriff and a number of other weirdos making demands of me. Making threats. I need to be able to protect myself.”

  “No one can make demands on the Liar,” Thomas said. “Not unless they want to face her wrath, terrible as it is wont to be. The Lies she could tell, not to mention if she got ahold some of their blood. Once that goes in the ledger, the Liar’s Price is due, whether the blood’s owner agrees or not.”

  “See,” Sadie said, “that’s just it. I don’t know anything about being the Liar. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know how to make the magic work.”

  Thomas and Charles shared a weighty look now. There was a great deal of history there, but little Sadie could read.

  “We’ve known our share of Liars,” Charles said. “In fact, as you seem to have deduced, Mary Bell was a dear friend of ours.”

  “Yours,” Thomas corrected under his breath. “Dreadful woman.”

  “But,” Charles went on, choosing to ignore him, “I must confess that we’re no experts on the Liar’s gift.”

  “No,” Sadie said, “but I’m hoping you can help me talk to someone who is.” She explained her plan in brief. She had a moment of pause before describing it, but then realized talking to the dead might not seem so bizarre to two men who could step out of the current of time.

  When she was done, Thomas nodded slowly to himself. “I’ll admit it sounds a bit mad, but not impossible. Red Valley is a very peculiar place; and while I believe there are others like it, there are not many. The rules of the universe bend here. And sometimes they break.”

  “Because of the King,” Graciela said.

  “Th
ere is power here, that much I know for certain,” Thomas said. “I could not be definitive about its source.”

  “Thomas is an expert at uncovering Red Valley’s reluctant secrets,” Charles explained with a slight grin. “That’s how he saved our lives.”

  “Is that why you took the Gray House out of time?” Sadie asked. “Your lives were in danger?”

  Thomas’s scowl deepened, but he seemed more annoyed at Charles than Sadie. “We left our time in search of a more enlightened future,” he said gruffly. “In more ways than one.”

  “What have you found so far?”

  “Progress,” Thomas said. “Slow and disappointing progress.”

  Sadie considered Charles’s immobility and the pallor of his skin, and what life might have been like in Red Valley in the 1800s. She had barely remembered her tour at the Gray House, and certainly nothing of its inhabitants. But now she saw them not as relics, but as human, faced with their own insurmountable problems. But they hadn’t given up; they’d broken the rules.

  “So you think talking to the dead might be possible here?”

  Charles held out a hand, and Thomas stepped over and took it and held it gently. “The dead are on a journey of their own,” Thomas said. With his fingers laced with Charles’s, the edge was gone from his voice. “We see them, sometimes, when we are between the past and the present. Distant shadows on a long, winding road.”

  “Can you speak to them?”

  “It is not our place,” Thomas said. “And I do not want to draw unwanted attention.”

  “I have Mary’s blood,” Sadie said. “But I need an icon, an image of her. Something for the brujo to focus on.”