They had flipped a coin to decide which one of them would do the actual talking. It fell to him. When the little girl opened the door, he looked down at her wideeyed face and went dumb. Bill had to ask for Mary, who came up rather quickly behind her. Eddie had the feeling she had been waiting in the shadows. He thought she already looked like a wife in mourning. She wore a black dress, her face was pale, and she carried a Bible. Her voice was strange, too, because she sounded like someone in a trance. The little girl stepped away as soon as Mary came forward. It was obvious she knew her place.
“What is it?” she asked. Was she looking at them or beyond them? He almost turned around to see if there were anyone behind them … maybe Tom’s ghost. He was so unnerved he heard his voice quiver.
“There’s been a bad accident, Mary,” he said. She said nothing, but her cold, expressionless eyes made him feel like someone standing in ice water. “Tom went off the road,” he added. “That bad turn … there’s been so many accidents there …”
“Is he dead?” She was impatient and would permit no preliminaries, no easing into it.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Mary. We’re …”
“Was he alone?” Eddie couldn’t help but look away. He met Bill’s gaze and they both looked down. “Both dead?” He nodded, looking up to express a deeper sympathy, even though in his heart he couldn’t blame Tom for his unfaithfulness. He wondered who could be faithful to such a woman. Even so, he wanted to tell her that they would do what they could to keep things discreet, but she didn’t appear concerned. She looked relieved, as though they had confirmed something she already knew.
“He’s at the hospital if you want to …”
“Thank you,” she said and closed the door. Just like that, she left them standing there, hats in hand, melting on the porch. He remembered the little girl in the background listening, embracing herself tightly, looking small and frightened. He wanted to go in there and take her in his arms. Somehow he knew she wouldn’t get much comfort, and he regretted that he would be part of what would surely be a recurring nightmare for her. But Bill nudged him.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. She gives me the creeps.”
He remembered thinking that Bill was right. Since that time he could never look at Mary Oaks without experiencing that same cold feeling, that heavy sense of dread. Later, of course, everyone buzzed about the fact that she didn’t give Tom a funeral, that she buried him secretly. His friends were outraged. Two of them, Jimmy Kuhn and Fred Boyles, wanted to hire a priest and hold their own funeral service at the grave site, but they talked themselves out of it.
Now, as he looked at the big house, he realized he hadn’t been here since the day he brought Mary the terrible news. Of course, every time he passed it, he thought about Tom and the accident; but parking the car in the driveway and getting out to approach that door was a great deal more intense.
The house had been degenerating continually over the years. He remembered it as a beautiful building, an impressive structure, a testament to the quality of workmanship that once went into things. But now, with much of its siding faded and chipped, with its shutters and door in need of paint, with the grounds unkempt and the hedges untrimmed, The Oaks looked forlorn, tired, and neglected, a symbol of a dying age. It was the home of skeletons and shadows and the weird Mary Oaks.
How dark the house looked to him, even in the daytime. All the shades and curtains were drawn on all the windows. Everything appeared shut tight. Anyone walking up to the porch would wonder if the place had been deserted. He hesitated and looked about. Why did he come here, anyway? Mary and her daughter lived alone. They wouldn’t know anything about pranks.
Wait a minute. What’s wrong with you, Eddie Morris? he asked himself. Are you trying to find reasons not to knock on that door? What about the possibility that pranks might have been pulled on them? Be a policeman. Look for patterns.
He nearly laughed at himself and then started forward again, walking up the narrow sidewalk to the front steps. He was almost there when something off to the left caught his attention. It was just a slight movement in the tall grass, where the spotted lawn, filled with weeds and patches of dirt, met the wild undergrowth. He stopped again and studied the area. There was another movement and then another. He stepped toward it. Could it be … another movement and then …
The rabbit hopped freely over the lawn, dragging its torn leash behind it.
EIGHT
As Mary worked, she thought of Faith’s betrayal as a different sort of betrayal. It was deeper and perhaps even everlasting. Yes, it was the Devil’s victory. But she would do what she could to snatch it from him, just as God had done in John Milton’s famous epic Paradise Lost; the Devil returned to hell after causing the fall of man in Eden and found all his followers had been turned into snakes. She remembered how good she felt after reading that. God had had the last laugh, after all.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t conceal her disappointment and pain over Faith’s actions. Faith, her darling Faith. Look at what they had endured together. Look at how much Faith had resembled her when she was Faith’s age. All her prayers and her promises, all the care she had taken to be sure Faith was well protected and spiritually strong seemed to have gone wrong; yet how could it be her fault? She couldn’t be with Faith all the time, helping to make decisions and resist temptations. God wouldn’t blame her. Hadn’t He answered her questions? Hadn’t He told her what to do?
She looked around Tom’s room. It was fitting that this would be the place. The Devil had been defeated here. She saw that the key was still in the lock in the door. She knew that Tom had taken to locking his door at night, because he had grown afraid of her—afraid that she would come to him in the middle of the night, when he was in one of his drunken stupors after whoring around, and kill him. Why else would he have done it? She had considered it and asked God about it, but He had given her no answer. It wasn’t until Tom’s accident that she understood why—He had had His own plans for Tom.
Now, though, this room and the door that locked would come into some valuable use. She had left it much the same as it had been—the dresser and the night table dusty, the rug stained and unvacuumed, towels strewn about. Why clean it? It was his pigsty, a perfect home for a man like him. Of course, she would change things now. Cleanliness was important and some of the things would only be distractions to someone placed in meditation.
She stripped the bed, rolling the sheet and blanket into a ball. She opened the window and beat the mattress, and then remade the bed using Faith’s own linens. She cleared the dresser and the table and dusted and polished everything. Then she brought in the vacuum cleaner and did the rug. She even had plans to scrub down the walls, but before doing that, she went to the pantry to get the hammer, nails, and boards. She wanted to nail both of the windows shut, blocking out any outside view. But the doorbell rang just as she started.
She stopped to listen. They still had that handcranked bell whose ring reverberated with amazing volume throughout the house. It rang again. Who could be there? She rarely had callers. Putting everything aside carefully, she started down just as the bell rang for the third time. Whoever it was was impatient and was sure she was at home. When she reached the entrance way, she looked out a window just to the side of the front door and saw the police car. The sight of it made her shudder. For a few moments, she couldn’t move. Then there was a loud knock.
She opened the door and faced Eddie Morris. Despite the passage of time, confronting him nearly took her breath away. It was the worst kind of déjà vu. She half expected the same words.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mary,” he began. She had been so stunned by his appearance that she had nearly failed to notice the rabbit in his arms. It was so still, it was more like a toy.
“What is it?”
“Been tracing down a prank. Cy Baum bought a coupla rabbits for his granddaughter, for pets, you see.”
“So?”
“He b
ought ’em one at a time. One was set free and one was killed. This one was stolen right out of his basement last night.” He held the rabbit higher to verify his statements, but Mary didn’t change her expression.
“What does any of this have to do with me?”
“Well, I was checking the neighborhood, looking to see if anyone else had been bothered, when I … I was on my way to speak to you, when I saw the rabbit by the side of your house. See, it’s Cy’s; it still has the leash.” He lifted the leash for emphasis.
“That’s very nice,” she said, starting to close the door. “I’m happy for him.”
“Yeah, but I was wondering how it got all the way over here. It’s a ways and …”
She held the door half open and stared out at him for a moment. Although he was uncomfortable looking intensely at her, he took note of the dramatic changes in her face and body. Seeing her walking on the streets or driving in her car, he hadn’t realized the differences. Her face was drawn and sallow and her bone structure so evident, it was as though her skin were transparent. She looked like someone being tormented from within, pulled and tightened by unseen forces that lived off her like parasites. Although her eyes still reflected some strength, he had the terrible feeling they were reporting back to someone else. Her face had become a mask. He thought of science fiction stories, body snatchers, invaders from other planets. It gave him the chills and made him conscious of his own vulnerability. Despite how much he wanted to, he couldn’t throw off the fears.
“Are you suggesting I took it?”
“Oh no. I thought you might have seen some kids about or…”
“No one. This all sounds very silly to me.”
“Uh huh.” He looked to the side. “I suppose it could have made its way over here. If you’re sure you haven’t seen anything suspicious and you haven’t had any pranks pulled on you …”
“I’m sure.”
“Thanks,” he said just before she closed the door.
After she shut it, she stood there listening to him walk off the porch. Even though she had presented a strong and cold appearance, she couldn’t help but tremble now. Images were returning—a younger Eddie Morris, another cop hovering nervously beside him, her sense of dread and her awareness of the power of God, and then that great light behind them before they spoke. No one but her could see it. It was the tip of God’s finger piercing the night, comforting her with His vision. It gave her the strength she needed.
She stepped away from the door and peered through the side window. Eddie Morris was walking slowly toward his patrol car, petting the rabbit and looking back and around. He stopped once and stared at the house. She didn’t move from the window until he got into his car and drove off.
Ridiculous, the whole thing, she thought. It showed her how trivial her neighbors were. Pranks, pet rabbits …
She started back upstairs to finish her work, but stopped at the bottom of the stairway to listen. What was that sound under the floorboards? A distinct rubbing or clawing. He was at it again, spying on the upstairs. She had known about it for some time now, but she hadn’t taken any serious action. Maybe it was time she should. She took the padlock key out of the pocket of her housecoat and went to the basement door. After she opened it, she listened. Sure enough, there was the sound of his scurrying about, his looking for a hiding place. He knows he’s doing something wrong, she thought. She put on the light and descended.
Odors came up at her again, odors that were new. She had smelled them before, but she hadn’t thought about them until now. Through the years, she had grown accustomed to every scent down here. What was different now? She wasn’t sure, but she knew it was something obvious. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused and looked about. Nothing seemed visibly different and yet she sensed a change. What was it?
“IMP,” she called. “WHERE ARE YOU?” She panned the basement floor, turning slowly until she saw him cowering against the far wall. With his body squeezed so tightly and protectively in a crouch, he looked even more deformed than usual. His head looked enormous today and he was dirtier than ever, much dirtier than he often was between the days that she bathed him.
She approached him slowly, sensing something more aggressive about the way he moved and held his arms up. He grimaced; his teeth, although small, looking threatening. He slid along the floor, moving in anticipation. This angered her, but she realized she hadn’t brought her strap along and she didn’t want to lay her hands on his dirty body. Diseases, she thought, maybe that’s what she smelled.
“Stay away from the roof,” she said slowly and as ominously as she could. She pointed upward and he understood. She could see the comprehension in his face. To her, his face was always distorted, but today, she thought she saw Tom’s features more clearly. Perhaps it was that same combination of hate and fear in the eyes. She stepped closer to him and when her shadow reached him, he cowered more meekly and began to whimper in anticipation of a blow.
For a few moments she hesitated over him, undecided about what she wanted to do. Then she remembered the work that had to be completed upstairs. She looked at the breakfast tray and saw that he had eaten everything. His appetite had grown considerably. Lately, he left nothing on the tray. She picked it up and then turned back to him.
“Stay away from the roof,” she repeated, pointing again. He had his arms crossed over his face, peering out over them, his look of hate now stronger than his look of fear. She started back toward the stairs, but paused when she realized that scent again. There was definitely something different. But what? She heard him move behind an old dresser. It took her mind off the thought and she started up the stairs.
She completed nailing the boards over the windows and then gathered everything together. After she brought things downstairs, she went back up and put a Bible on the bed. Then she took the key out of the lock and tried locking the door from the outside. It worked. She was satisfied that things would be as they should be. Despite her success in making these arrangements, she was still quite sad. It was depressing to think that it had come to this.
When she went downstairs to relax, she sat in her soft chair and reminisced. She thought about her mother and she remembered how the two of them, alone in the house, would talk for hours in her mother’s room. Of course, her mother did most of the talking, doing a great deal of reminiscing herself. The sicker she became, the more vivid and revealing she was, especially about her sinful brother, Mary’s uncle Billy, who finally left home and was never heard from again. The worst Uncle Billy story that her mother told was the last one about him that Mary would tolerate.
“He was always a no-good, boozing up with older boys before he was even in high school.”
“I thought you said he never finished high school,” Mary had said.
“He didn’t; he was in trouble so much—stealing from parking meters, shoplifting. He and two of his friends even broke into a department store after it closed. He spent a night in jail before he was sixteen. Everyone thought it would do him some good, but it didn’t. Maybe they should have kept him there longer to contemplate his sins. Maybe they should have kept him in solitary confinement so he could be alone with just the voice of God and his own conscience. He never went to church unless my father dragged him, and when he was there, he was usually unruly.”
Mary had to admit there was something fascinating about the Uncle Billy stories. Despite her realization that he was wicked, she wanted to hear about him. He became a mythical character, perhaps the Devil incarnate. But when her mother told her about the day he attacked her, she became so revolted by any reference to him, she pressed every memory deep into her mind, hoping to wipe away all thoughts of him. She burned his pictures and couldn’t understand afterward why her mother was angry about that.
One day when she was half-sedated, she told her the terrible Uncle Billy story. It seemed to spill out of her mind like hot milk boiling over the pot. She spoke in a hypnotic trance, her mind intensely locked in on the past. Mary
felt like an intruder, an eavesdropper, but she couldn’t pull herself away.
“I was sick,” she said, “and they had given me these pills to help me sleep … tiny little pinkish pills. I laughed. These can’t make me sleep; they’re too tiny. Take them, my mother said. Just take them. She left me. She had to go to work and my father wasn’t home yet. I was fifteen. Everyone said I was going to be a beautiful girl, despite my illnesses. I was so groggy.”
She looked like she was about to cry. Mary took her limp hand into hers.
“Go to sleep now, Mother. Don’t talk anymore.”
“I could barely raise my head from the pillow,” her mother said, ignoring Mary’s advice. “But I heard him come to the door. He had been drinking down at the railroad station with Ron Toomey and the Clayton brothers. Unwashed, low-class friends … What do you want, Billy? I asked him. I could open my eyes, but he looked fuzzy. I saw him smiling. Go away, I said. Ma says leave me sleep. He laughed and came closer. You always have to sleep, he said. You’re lazy, but shrewd, he said. Me, I thought. Me? How could he of all people call me lazy? He pulled the blanket off me.”
Mary was frightened. Her mother’s face took on a twisted grimace. This story was too painful. Her mother started to sit up as though she were reliving it. Mary stroked her arm and tried to get her to relax.
“Don’t talk anymore. You’ve got to sleep now. Don’t remember things,” she said, but it was as though her mother couldn’t hear her.
“His hands … his hands were on me. I said, Billy, what are you doing? But I couldn’t lift my arms … sleepy, groggy. He was laughing, pulling my nightgown up.”
“Ma, don’t talk no more.”
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