by Mary Gray
When spurs jingle across the yard, I’m looking over to a lean man in a cowboy hat and Wranglers. Dwayne. He seems to be leading a muscular, darker-skinned man toward the totem pole tree ...
Pulling out a rope, Dwayne turns to the muscular man—like he means to tie him to the tree. But he can’t really be doing that. The man obediently leans against the tree—until he swings a meaty fist at Dwayne.
I can help him—I’ll help the man being tied!—when a longer-haired, drug-dealer-looking type—Olly—comes scrambling out of the bushes like a skunk on a chicken feast.
Olly catches the man by the neck with a long, hooked cane, and my heart’s about to explode in my chest when his captive lets out a guttural scream.
Dwayne pulls out a whip, and he and Olly have never looked more demonic or sickly in the moonlight. This isn’t real. None of this can be real. This is all a bad dream.
Their captive wails while a little girl screeches across the yard. “DADDY!”
But the little girl isn’t near them—she’s by me. And my heart jolts to my heart as I turn. She’s in the crate, only a few paces away from me.
Lowering his whip, Dwayne scoops up a fistful of dirt and stuffs it between the man’s teeth.
“Shut yer trap,” he growls. “Don’t wanna scare your little girl, right?”
His captive whimpers. Clearly tries to decide whether he should give up the fight, while the little girl wails again, “DADDY!”
I need my phone. I’ll call the police.
But Jesse’s here. Why is he here? Please tell me he’s not involved in this some way.
Spinning, I head for the girl—thorns of the honey locust scrape my cheeks—while the little girl whimpers, so scared, from the crate just to my right.
I’m just lifting my hand to free her—somehow figure out how to unlock the crate—when a slobbery nose brushes along my hand and I’m reeling.
Long, droopy ears. Midnight fur marks off a seething face. Patches of skin hang from the poor bloodhound’s side, and it’s clear she’s been abused; giant welts slice across her malnourished body.
Who would do this?
Where is WT?
When the bloodhound seizes my ankle, a shrill whistle rings through the trees. My breathing hitches as my ankle’s freed. The bloodhound clambers back the way it came.
As the wind picks up, a new, unnatural caw cackles through the trees. I think it should be a Chupacabra for the unearthly noise it’s making—but no. That’s the sound of the devil at work as they hoot and caw, Olly and Dwayne.
“Gemma.”
My heart lurchese to my throat as I turn to place the hushed male’s voice.
It’s my husband, kneeling next to me in the scraggly weeds. He’s wearing the antique leather Oxfords we bought last month. The same green blazer I saw him slip on this morning.
“What are you doing here?” His hands are on my shoulders as he gives me a gentle shake. His eyes have never been more wild or wide.
I think I’m finally going to get him to talk to me, when a dozen or so men come tearing out of the house, carrying white blankets, rifles, and long, rusted machetes.
But those don’t look like blankets.
What am I seeing?
The group clears a path—through the brush, coming directly toward me. My heart hammers in my chest as my conscience twinges, warning me to hide.
“Why are you here?” I turn to my husband while another wail tears from the captive at the tree. “Are you turning them in? Working with Jesse?”
Three more men march much closer to us as machetes slice through the thistles’ stems, purple heads beheading. At the front of the pack is Doctor Zebulun Calhoun. I think I may have had an appointment with him before ... it’s hard to say.
With that blanket—or towel—slung casually over his shoulder, Calhoun looks about as troubled as if he were strolling on the beach.
Sticking his hands in his pockets, he says, “Well, boys, looks like our chosen leader forgot to mention he was bringing a dinner date.”
On impulse, WT’s fingers slacken around my waist. He shoulders himself between us. Seems to take great pains in mimicking Calhoun’s casual speech. “Don’t mind her, Zeb.” My usually calm husband’s shoulders are tensing. “Gemma, here, was just brushing up on some Hardin family history.”
More wails break out from the captive. How can everyone just stand around when he’s being tortured in plain sight? The girl’s screams echo her father’s, while a man with an enormous potbelly blocks my way.
Calhoun tilts his head. “You and I both know, William, it’s against the bylaws to bring along your wife. Even if she is Hardin royalty.”
Easing me even further behind him, WT squares his shoulders. “This is my land.”
“Be that as it may”—Calhoun reverently pulls his towel, which really a robe from off his shoulder like he’s an ordained priest—“Ms. Hardin looks ill-prepared to handle our little role play.”
WT lunges at Calhoun, and I open my mouth to scream. Tansy yanks me out of the memory.
Cotton from her mattress litters the floor in our head, and several springs lay twisted and gnarled, never to be used again.
“There,” Tansy says breathing heavily. “There is nothin’ else you need to see.”
But I have to go back. I have to go back!
The sight of Delilah’s pink scrunchy flashes again in my mind. I have to see if Tim and Delilah were set free.
Sensing Tansy’s refusal to help me, I try to elbow my way past her. I’ll go to WT.
But Tansy groans. “You n’ I both know that there’s no way Calhoun would have let Delilah and her daddy survive!”
All I know is, a mountain of phlegm fills my throat. I have to know what happened, no matter if she’s warning me.
Gas and other chemicals clog the air. A few paces off, WT’s got three separate fires going. Flames lick the newly budded foliage, but if everything burns, I may never recover my memory.
Sensing my panic, Tansy jabs a pointed fingernail in the mattress. “Can’t see it, won’t let you see it. Nope, nope, nopety!” Cotton spills around her like wasted ice on a snow cone machine.
I try wrenching open her hand—maybe she’s stuffed the truth in that stuffing—when Tansy seizes one of the canopy curtains, and tackles me with it, of all things.
I go down for maybe five seconds.
But she has to see she has to stop keeping things from me.
Knowing my best bet is with my husband, I tear off for WT. He’s just past a mound of prickly pears, disassembling three large dog crates.
When I reach him, I seize his arm. “What happened?” I’m about to strangle his forearm. “Tell. Me.”
The last thing I expect is to see tears shining in WT’s eyes. He pauses like he’s about to talk, when, all at once, he sets his jaw and marches directly toward the totem pole tree.
I scamper after him.
This is it.
I can feel it in my gut. He’s going to tell me.
Stopping just short of the tree, WT lifts his boot just high enough to nudge Delilah’s crate. “I wasn’t sure how much Tansy would let you remember. You recall who was inside?”
I nod, the ever-widening pit in my stomach revolving.
“What about after that?”
All I can do is shake my head. I’d better not tell him where Tansy stopped the memory or he might assume I know more than I do.
Stooping for a red gas can, WT takes an eternity trudging even closer to the totem pole tree. Tilts the gas can downward, dumping the can’s entire fuel at the tree’s base.
Striking a match, WT flatly says, “I couldn’t free them.” I flinch as he lights up the entire edifice.
Flames lick wood; red-hot vultures, ravenous. Hungry.
“Nothing I said ..." WT stares at the dirt, eyes glazed over, unseeing. “Nothing I said made a difference. Calhoun’s intoxication with power—his sick ideals ..." He hurls the gas at the fence. “I shot one of his me
n, then Tim—he started to get away, but the dogs—” He reaches up and wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I tried getting them out, I swear to you, I did. Even tried drugging them before the others came. But Calhoun—” WT’s voice breaks off. “He caught me.”
Lifting a rock, WT hurls it at the back of the property, reminding me of how he acted when we found Grammy. “Beauchamp trains the dogs to chase anyone”—he chokes back a sob—“who tries to escape.”
I don’t know if I can talk. “And Delilah?”
His face morphs into something unreadable. “With her, I was smarter. Told Calhoun he could have ten million. To set her free.”
Despite the holes widening in my heart, I can feel the twinge of hope fighting to take hold of something. So ... she got away?
But from the way WT’s standing, so stiff and holding his elbows so closely to his body, I can tell that there’s something else he’s not telling me.
Pacing to a dead, twisted tree, WT pounds his fist into the trunk. “I tried to make them stop, but they were obsessed with the old ways.”
I’m still not sure what he means. Obsessed, how?
From the corner of my mind, Tansy casually places herself between her torn-apart mattress and me. She thinks she’s being clever—coy—but she’s not big enough to actually shield me from anything. Just to her left, lies a wooden box—a toy box—amidst the wreckage of the cotton and springs.
The box just sits there on the ground, right below where her mattress used to be, and it must house all the answers.
All the answers.
I dive for the truth while Tansy screeches—a bald eagle protecting her nest of eggs.
52
A painted ballerina adorns the top of the box, pink tutu stretching out like a tent, a full foot wide. While the pine prism boasts a ton of nicks and cracks, every fiber in my gut says I have to see inside.
Seizing me by the ankle, Tansy begs, “Don’t do it, G!”
But it doesn’t take me long to grip the smooth lid’s edge. When I try to heave it open, though, it doesn’t move or budge.
“You asked me to protect you!” Tansy pleads. “You never wanted to see this. You have to believe me.”
Jiggling my foot, I try to shake her loose, when, like a demented Chihuahua, she cries out before sinking her teeth into my leg.
“TANSY!” With my other foot, I try to kick her off. Swiftly kick her three times. Guilt claws at me for doing it, but I have to keep going. Anything to see what’s inside.
Tansy whimpers uncontrollably while I fiddle with the lock—a single, metallic padlock with a hint of rust on the side. I’ve just clicked it open when it disintegrates into dust.
I seize the lid. Flex my muscles to lift it high to find a little girl ... a little girl. And a squirrel and magpie.
Neither of the animals move—lifeless. Just like they were on the porch that day.
The little girl’s hair’s separated in twin, tight ponies, and my chest tightens as I track her sad, familiar eyes.
On her legs are the cutest pair of rainbow leggings. Pink and tan cowgirl boots wrap around her feet, and the baby unicorn on her shirt dashes under a rainbow, shaking its mane.
There’s a blue and white handkerchief wrapped around the little girl’s wrist, which sparks another memory. I know where I’ve seen that—tied by Grammy.
When the little girl stands, I find that my five-year-old self has a startling spray of freckles on her nose and under her eyes. A scab marks her left eyebrow—from slipping and falling after trying to catch a bunny.
“Close the lid,” Tansy begs while the girl, just like the lock, dissipates.
“No!” I try grasping for her, but it’s like hugging sand that’s been blown out to the sea.
Tansy grabs the back of my sweater. Tries dragging me back. But I have to shake her off—haven’t come this far to give up already.
Stepping inside the box, I force Young Gemma Louise to become me. It’s a risk. I know it’s a risk, but I have to do it while the wood’s smooth and nicked. Not altogether sanitary.
I think maybe the girl will come out to greet me, when my spine suddenly contorts and pops, and I’m reminding myself of Smeagol in Lord of the Rings.
I know it’s all in my head—it’s all in my head!—but I can’t help rolling with the motion. In my imagination, I shrink in size. It’s now, but it’s not. It’s last year. Last year when I first arrived on Klan property.
My fingers shrivel; my tongue forgets all the fancy words I picked up while reading.
And the toy box vanishes. I’m on the ground and the dirt and grass are very, very pokey.
I don’t know where they are, but I can sense them. The grownups ... they are watching.
I wipe the peanut butter from my hands. Gotta wipe it from my hands. Grownups don’t like me being sticky. And oooh! A bonfire! A big, blowy, blowy bonfire with smoke and—and—maybe we’ll be eating s’mores later once I find Grammy!
Tall man is standing way too close to me. He look like Edgar ‘cept he’s got no scratchy hair on the bottom of his face. He puffy-puffs on a cigar. The smoke has me coughing.
“Mizz Hardin,” Tall Man say. The fatty cigar sticks like a popsicle between his teeth.
I don’t know a Mizz Hardin, but he’s a lookin’ at me, so I swishy-swash across the grass. Can’t give him lip, or Edgar—he will smack Grammy. He do it yesterday. He say, “If ya tell yer meemaw what happened, I will KILL her, do ya HEAR ME?” He say that. He say that right after he bend my wrist back and we bury chopped man’s body.
Now Tall Man nods at a big, BIG muscly man who’s tied to a broked telephone pole tree. Tied man looks like he need a hug, cuz his lip is soooo puffy.
“Hang him,” Tall Man say. He sound like Edgar, but I will certainly do no such thing. Tied man needs to be taken to a hospital. Needs shurgery.
Tall Man hands me a rope. It’s heavier than a veloshiraptor. A tank! And he’s a lookin’ at me. So I take it. I take it. It’s awfully scratchy but I have to do it, I have to do it or Edgar, he will smack Grammy.
Tall Man give my head a patty-pat, which makes me feel silly. “You’ll be a good girl, won’t you, Gemma Louise?” He nods at tied man, and ohhhh, he wants me to put the rope on tied man’s neck, but I don’t wanna do it. I don’t wanna hurt nobody.
“You must do this if you are to save the child’s life,” Tall Man say. He nods at a pretty, sad girl I don’t wanna see cry. Her hands have so much dirt and her face is sooo splotchy.
But Tall Man, he won’t let us go till I loop tied man’s head with—with jewelry.
After I put it on, I’ll take it off.
Take it off …
Raising the choker, I close my eyes.
Gotta save the little girl.
Gotta save Grammy.
WT yanks my arm so hard, every single person in my vision spills to the wind, becoming fairy dust the trees. What exactly is WT trying to do? Force me to forget what I did? Forget how I reverted to my five-year-old self, Young Gemma Louise?
“Gemma.” WT’s voice has never sounded so terrified.
But my arms have become limp as WT shakes me. He takes me by the shoulders to try to see into my eyes, but I shake him off. Bite my lip, because blood’s the only thing I should be tasting.
I’m a killer.
There’s blood on my hands. I took a life.
Without really thinking about it, my body shifts taller. I stand broader as I come to terms with what I did that day.
“Gemma,” WT pleads. He reaches for my hand. “Please talk to me.”
All I can do is take a step back as he attempts to cup either side of my cheeks.
I don’t know how to respond. Don’t know how to say it. How to say it? My mouth—the muscles have stopped working.
I swallow back the bile. “You—knew ..." I lean over to dry heave. “You knew I hung Ti—” I take a breath. “Delilah’s daddy.”
WT takes a shaky step forward as I slug him with
a fist. “All along, you knew it was me.” I bite my lip, wanting nothing more than to bleed.
I lifted the rope.
Killed a man who didn’t deserve to die. He was a good man who was raising a little girl all alone. Francesca was going to find them, and they were going to be reunited as a family.
I’m the killer.
All along. To think I thought it was Tansy.
Tansy’s teetering on the edge of her bed, wringing her hands, clearly at a loss as to what to say.
While WT foolishly tries to pull me closer, I snarl, “I DIDN’T ASK YOU TO LIE!”
He flinches while Tansy shrinks back.
“Both of you!” I stammer. “All this time ..."
I don’t care if they feel bad. They should feel great pain. They knew. And they kept the truth of what happened and locked it away from me.
Knocking her back into the bedpost, Tansy says, “I did it for you! What you just remembered could prove your destruction, G.”
But all I can do is pound and pound away at what I’ve just seen. The criminal act. So much hate. The disgusting truth that I acted on the Klan’s orders.
And the avalanche already came.
Digging into his jeans pocket, WT pulls out a photograph of a little girl with a bright pink scrunchy. Delilah looks just like her mommy. Same front gap in her teeth.
Pointing repeatedly at the photograph, WT says, “You saved her.” He crinkles the photograph, knuckles turning white. “They weren’t going to let her go, but you agreed to—” he lowers the picture, obviously not wanting to say what I did to Tim. “Because of you, she survived!”
All I can do is stare at my hands. At the filth. My crime. They tingle from the touch—they know all too well that I lifted a rope to take a decent person’s life.
WT’s hair sticks out in every direction while he shakes the photograph in front of my face. “She lives in Houston with her aunt, see?”
But my fingernails ... they still remember the scratchy fibers of the rope. My palms itch from the coarse strings. Eyes won’t forget, won’t stop burning.
I saw Calhoun and believed it to be Edgar, and they both forced me do unspeakable, heinous things.