“I think I’ve heard enough,” the woman said into a silence that seemed just as piercing. Mr. Sotheby’s fist shook at her father as he stomped toward his car.
“You okay, Pops?” Limpy asked. Her father quaked, arms wrapped around his chest. After a minute he strode inside and slammed the door to his bedroom.
Not long after, her brothers returned to the yard.
“That was weird. Think I got time for some target practice though,” Dylan said of his father’s absence.
Limpy’s heart lightened at the chance to get some stitching done.
Always thinking of yourself, her mother’s ghost whispered, but no one else appeared to hear it.
With potatoes set to baking in the oven, Limpy embroidered on her bed. She worked on the Church and filled in details of the various stores. Each stitch was a shuffling step farther off the farm. As the image was revealed, so too would Limpy be seen—carried toward the outskirts of town, to the bank of thorns, and through it to Hillcrest. The skin on her fingertips had healed and the scabs peeled as she worked. The curtains were drawn tight and a kitchen chair leaned against the doorknob to prevent unwanted visits from her family. In the hope chest, Tufts, Podge and Chup tumbled and chirruped, but she had set the weight of an old iron on top. She’d wait until dark before tracking Ghost. If the farm was going to sell, Limpy had to stop Ghost from scaring away all the buyers. Once she caught it, she’d try to introduce Ghost to the others.
Her father began to snore despite the early hour, and Limpy stitched to his rhythm. She finished the town and turned her attention back to the farm to add more detail. Hills and trees framed one edge of the property. Jutting boulders in the panel had been her mother’s favorite place to sit and read in the late afternoon with heat from the sun-warmed stone at her back. To Limpy the rocks were megaliths. Massive standing stones, the gravesites of giants, the entire edge of the farm a barrow within which she stitched ancient skeletons. Different hues of twine differentiated trees from stone, sky from field, and earth from bone.
Would Limpy miss the farm? Not the potatoes. Her brothers and father would have to seek work in the city. That would be good for them, wouldn’t it? Dylan seemed desperate never to leave Flesherton, rarely even heading into town, preferring Limpy to do any shopping even if it were his own. But sometimes she caught a longing in Connor’s gaze that he couldn’t share with her, and when Limpy asked what he wanted to do after the farm, he’d simply shake his head and shrug, refusing even to trade notes with a pen and paper.
Limpy added twine stained with fireplace ash to her stitching of the charred stables, wondering what the Flesherton Herald had said of the disaster and whether there had been any other strange goings-on in the area that might help explain her furry friends. The oven timer buzzed, and she abandoned her sewing.
“Don’t go anywhere and I’ll find your friend,” she said to the lid of the hope chest.
With the potatoes drenched in shredded cheese and sour cream, she placed her family’s dinner on the table and palmed the can opener and two cans of cat food before heading out the door to the barn. She didn’t worry about stealing the cat food. Spud could fend for himself. The old tom had brought more dead birds and rats to the back door of the farmhouse than it could eat.
As she made her way to the barn, Spud slipped out through a loose board and sprinted away as if escaping something. She stopped to watch closely, but the board had swung back in place. In the distance Dylan’s gunshots cracked, followed closely by the plinks of tins blasted from fence posts.
Inside the barn the smell of pigeons and old grain mingled. But it was silent. Something was missing. A feather drifted down. Feathers dusted the equipment. Nothing cooed. No birds watched from the rafters. The pigeons were gone. Perhaps dead.
In the darkness something scritched against wood. A rat honing teeth? The scrabble of claws over planks? Everything sounded louder in the dark. Unsealed bags ranked against the side of the sorter. Three dozen of them at least, and another half-dozen already stitched. A half-closed bag was jammed between the needle bar and machine bed of the Stitch-Fast 1000. She’d worry about that tomorrow. For now every noise sent her heart skittering back to the farmhouse.
“Ghost,” she called. “Ghost.” She grabbed an empty potato bag to capture it.
But Ghost either didn’t hear or kept to the shadows. Limpy had brought a small flashlight and when she turned it on, the tines of the tiller cast long claws onto the walls. She turned the beam into the corners, once catching the eye-shine of a rag-doll cat that slipped between the planks. She scanned the thick logs supporting the barn. Nothing was there but the sputtering coo of a lone pigeon wondering after its friends.
One place remained where Limpy hadn’t looked. She was loathe to enter the cellar at this late hour. But with her father sleeping and her brothers not interested in her goings-on, this was her chance to smuggle Ghost into the house.
She hauled on the cellar door’s metal ring, pulling it open to bang against the floorboards. Dust and feathers swirled in the flashlight beam. She cast about with the light. Something darted amongst the potato sacks below.
“Ghost,” she said. “I have food for you.”
She sat with her legs dangling into the cellar, before deciding it felt a little too much like she used her toes for bait. With her feet tucked under her, she cranked the can opener and opened the tin of cat food. Something in the darkness snorted and snuffed, but still wouldn’t approach.
If she wanted to capture it, she’d need to descend. After a final check with the flashlight to ensure the area below her feet was clear, she clambered down. At the bottom of the ladder, she heard chupping and sighed her relief when she saw the red creature perched on the summit of the potato sack pile, sniffing the air.
“Come on, you,” she said. “It’s okay, I’m your friend.” The other creatures had happily come with her, but Ghost seemed wilder. Skittish.
She showed it the tin of food, while opening the potato sack. From bag to bag it hopped, its pupils contracting to points in the bright light. She set the can down a few feet in front of her and knelt in the dirt, motionless while it scampered to the can and snuffled. Ghost was larger than Podge and Tufts, about the same size as Chup who was a little older, the size of a furry football.
Ghost bent over the tin and soon cat food pasted the fuzz around its face, causing Limpy to giggle. At her laughter it paused and took slow steps until it looked directly up at her from her thigh. To her delight the red fur-ball jumped from her leg to her shoulder and gave a sudden hoot.
“Shh . . . ,” she said, grinning at it. “You all full?”
From out of its mouth extended a pale jaw encircled at its tip by fine, sharp teeth. Limpy screamed, brushed Ghost from her shoulder and backed away. But the jaw had snapped into its mouth like it had never been. And again it bounced and chupped. Just like dogs, it seemed some of these creatures were nice and gentle, others not so. She shuddered.
The potato sack was clenched in her fingers. She held it out in front of her. Ghost eyed her sidelong as she bent closer. When it huddled back over the cat food, she sprang. With a swooping motion she caught Ghost, tumbling it into the bag. It screamed, a trilling as penetrating as the harp chords.
“Shh . . . I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I don’t want the fox or the cats to get you. Shh!”
It threw itself at the sides and bottom, poking and prodding with its claws, but it couldn’t pierce the tough burlap. The keening rose as it struggled.
Booted feet thumped across the planks above. She tried to muffle Ghost but, if anything, the pitch of the whine sharpened. Whoever was above would soon be upon her. Ghost flailed and she opened the top and threw the sack to the ground. Ghost zipped from the mouth, back into the crannies of potato sacks, where it fell silent.
“Quit your whining and give me some light,” Dylan said from above, seeming to think Limpy had made the racket. She shifted the beam. At the top of the ladder, Dylan hel
d out a potato sack for her to catch. She hated when he did this. It was faster, but catching a twenty-pound sack of potatoes also hurt. He didn’t wait for her approval, and she barely managed to reach out with her arms before the first sack landed in them.
“Oof!” she exclaimed and then waddled over to place the sack on the pile before he threw the second. Ghost watched from the windowsill and, even though it wasn’t human, its eyes were filled with the same loathing she’d seen from Arnie. They were the same eyes Dylan had just before he fired a shot.
Chapter 16
Limpy hadn’t slept well. The phantom of her mother had stayed out of her dreams, but not Ghost. Ghost with its bony, round jaw of teeth. It’d visited and stuck its teeth into her ear.
She rubbed grit from her eyes and started breakfast. Oil spat in the pan when she threw in chips of raw potato. As they sizzled she snatched the wicker basket and dashed out toward the henhouse, knowing that she had too many chores this morning and not enough time to do them all before school. Sometimes Limpy felt like she were a potato kept in a cold, dark place waiting to grow eyes or turn to mush. She tried to do her chores. Do her homework. Now, also keep Ghost from ruining the sale of the farm. Keep the others safe and out of trouble. Complete her art . . . She tried, but it was hard.
In two more days it would be over. Her scholarship submission would be made.
As she stepped into the chill morning, frost crunched beneath her boots and she paused. It was quiet. Halfway to the chicken coop she realized what was missing. Clucking. The chickens should have been up with the sun, but the yard was empty. Limpy hurried on, stepping through the wire gate. She relaxed when she heard a scratching within.
One, two . . . nine, she counted in all. Of the dozen chickens, only nine remained. A trail of bloody feathers traced through a small door and out into the yard. At the far corner, the three chickens lay, heads under the wire, bodies still in the yard, but they were tattered and flattened like rubber toys. In the henhouse, the surviving hens clucked mournfully. And Limpy knew without checking that they would not have laid a single egg. Father wouldn’t be happy.
“Something’s been at the chickens,” Limpy said as she entered the kitchen where her father scooped potatoes onto his plate. He walked with a limp to the table and sat in the chair. He wore the look of a defeated man. Dark moons slung beneath his eyes. The harp playing had shaken him.
“Foxes,” he mumbled.
“Maybe,” she replied. But she’d never known a fox to leave meat behind. Could it be Ghost? She hoped not. This wasn’t the first time an animal had killed a chicken, though.
“Or coyote.” The way he said it sounded like key-yoat. “Well, Lady Luck favors no quitters,” he muttered unconvincingly and then shouted for Dylan.
“Pa!” The reply came from the washroom.
“You’re guarding the hens tonight.”
“Yes, Pa.”
“We’ll clear them out. They’ll return. They always return,” her father said grimly, as if glad to have something to focus his thoughts upon.
“Spent most of my bullets though,” Dylan called back.
“Get to town and pick up a box.”
“Can’t Limpy get it?” Dylan stood in the doorway, face wan and hands wringing.
Limpy brightened. If she left now to the General Store to pick up bullets for Dylan’s gun, she could go to the library too! Limpy bobbed her head. Her father narrowed his eyes.
“You get into town and buy some ammo for Dylan. He’s nearly out.”
“Oh, oh, sure, yes!” She patted her pocket to feel for the rubbing. If she set another speed record she’d have a little spare time to visit the school library before the bell rang.
Fearing her father would change his mind, Limpy rushed into her bedroom and stuffed the still sleeping balls of Chup, Podge and Tufts into her book bag. With a stop at the Tater Hut tin for money to buy the ammunition, she set off on her bike again and began peddling. The fwit fwoo of the tractor started behind her before it coughed twice and stopped.
Her father began to rage about something, but she was already too distant to hear what.
She rode, first down the rugged driveway and then along the gravel road, past distant neighbors. She focused on what she might discover on the internet at the library. Deep down she knew no coyote killed the chickens. And no fox either. Ghost must be the culprit. The creatures ate meat, but she couldn’t believe Chup could kill a chicken, let alone Tufts or fat, mute Podge. It must have been Ghost. If only she had been there for it when it had hatched, she’d have four buddies, not three, and the very thought of Ghost wouldn’t cause the hair to prickle on the back of her neck. She felt for Ghost and its lack of a caregiver. How might her life be different had her mother survived? Would Limpy be such a monster?
You’d be a better-behaved daughter for certain, ghost-mother snapped.
Limpy missed seeing a pothole and the front tire dipped into it, jarring her arms so hard that she nearly lost her grip. Focus. She pushed away the thought of Ghost chewing on her dad’s toes and biting chicken necks.
At the General Store she shoved open the door and ran to the counter.
The air smelled of spices that Limpy had never used. Emmanuel Jr. manned the counter of the small store that stocked everything from milk to beef jerky, but mostly sold booze, bullets and cigarettes. Pretty much everything on the sparsely filled shelves was twice the price you’d find at the large grocery store a town over, but when the grocery was closed or too far, townspeople had nowhere else to go, and the General Store opened early and shut late.
Emmanuel’s dark hair flopped across one eye, making him difficult to read. His gaze traveled from the sweat on her forehead to her stringy hair, and to the Batman T-shirt. Truth be told, she didn’t really mind this shirt. Emmanuel wore a heavy leather apron and shrugged bony shoulders. Something above their heads rocked back and forth over the floorboards.
“What c-can I get you?” he asked.
“Why are you stuttering?”
“Dunno, it’s only around you.”
Now it was her turn to flush. “I need bullets for Dylan. Something’s getting into the chickens.”
He paled and glanced to the ceiling. “Heard that Burt lost a pig to coyotes.” The rocking sound stopped.
“How is your dad?” Limpy asked to cover her own strangling fear. A chicken was one thing, but a pig?
Emmanuel put a finger to his temple and twirled it.
She smiled and then whispered, “Mine too.”
He snorted with laughter and then reached beneath the counter to put a box of bullets on top.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked. “Why you been acting so weird? I heard about the farm being for sale.”
Limpy swallowed. She couldn’t tell him about her new friends, but she had to tell him something.
“I’ve got a secret,” she said. “I . . . I’ve applied to Hillcrest and if I get a scholarship and the farm sells, then my dad won’t have any reason to stop me from going.” She went on to explain all the stuff she needed to get done first, and the principal threatening to change his reference letter should she do anything wrong.
Emmanuel glanced out the window and an expression of longing misted his eyes. “I thought I saw something, yesterday, when the books were coming down on Arnie. I was sitting on the other side of the bookshelf and I’m sure I saw something furry, the size of a screech owl. You didn’t shove those books, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Limpy said and slid the bullets closer.
“It had these shocks of fur.” He held his hands out so that they sprouted out from his cheeks. “I think you do know what I’m talking about.” His smile was gone.
Limpy bit her lip, and she paused way too long to deny that there was something more happening.
“I knew it,” Emmanuel said.
Limpy sighed with exaggerated frustration. “It’s supposed to stay a secret. My art project.”
“Art project?”
“Oh, yes, yup, I’m making a stuffed animal. Something different. For the scholarship, remember?”
“And that’s what shoved the books?”
Emmanuel was too smart.
“I had put it on the shelf,” she explained. “It’s what you saw.”
“Prove it, let me see it.”
“No, no, no, it’s at home.”
In the intervening silence, he cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “But I saw it move.”
“What? You’re crazy. I’m a good stitcher, but you’re talking a robot.”
“Not a robot. An . . . an animal.”
“Just a stuffie.”
“Prove it.” His voice hardened.
“How?” she asked.
“Show it to me.”
“I said, I don’t have it.” She dug in her pockets for money and tried not to look him in the eye.
“Bring it in tomorrow.”
“I’m still working on it.”
“Looked pretty done to me. Besides, you said it has to be done by Thursday.”
She gulped and nodded, thinking fast—she could do it. She could make one tonight out of scraps. Her tapestry was almost done; she only needed to finish the road out. She could do it. “Okay, fine.”
“Tomorrow then,” he said.
She paid and turned to leave. Her back straightened and her heels clacked.
“I won’t tease you anymore, Limphetta,” he shouted as she reached the door.
“Not now that I have bullets, you mean.” She laughed. It made the morning feel brighter even though she had even more work to do.
The library was around the corner. Limpy finished the journey on her bike.
Ms. Summerfield eyed her coolly as she entered, stealing away the moment of jokiness Limpy had shared with Emmanuel.
“A new day brings new chances, Limphetta,” Ms. Summerfield said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No more fuss.”
Limpy nodded, her body turned toward the computers even though she knew it was impolite.
“Have you sent in your work to the scholarship committee?”
Keep in a Cold, Dark Place Page 8