Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  Orla shrugged.

  “Natural things in the world, aren’t they? I’m more afraid of politicians and atomic bombs.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m afraid of those too. Though I know a handful of politicians, and they’re not all bad.”

  “Do you, now? Rubbing elbows with the man? I do get the strait-laced vibe from you. Don’t tell me, you’re a lawyer? Or a banker?”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  “Somehow you just made both those professions sound less appealing than bug vomit. I’m a graduate student in psychotherapy.”

  “Yikes, a head-shrinker. The most scary option of all.”

  He stared into her eyes.

  “Tell me, Miss, how’s your relationship with your father?”

  Orla rolled her eyes.

  “Grand. It’s my mother where the problems lie. But if we’re going to change this tire, we’d better hustle. See that orange sky?” She pointed at the tree line. “It means the sun is heading for a long sleep.”

  He glanced at the horizon over the trees, and then stuck out his hand.

  “I’m Spencer Crow.”

  She shook it.

  “Orla Sullivan.”

  “Orla? Now that’s an interesting name.”

  “It’s a very Irish name, of which I am. In fact, Orla Delaney Sullivan - it doesn’t get more Irish than that.”

  “Irish,” he scanned her. “Shouldn’t you be covered in red hair and freckles?”

  “Very few of us fit that terrible stereotype. Though I have a cousin who looks the part. Open your trunk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Spencer gave her a single firm nod of the head and walked back to the trunk.

  Orla grabbed the spare.

  “Here, let me,” he said.

  She laughed and pulled the tire away, carrying it to the side of the car. “You grab the jack,” she told him.

  As Spencer cranked up the car, Orla pulled her long black hair into a ponytail.

  “Do you come here often to hike?” Orla asked him, setting the spare on its side as he pulled the flat off.

  “No, this is my first time,” he admitted. “How about you?”

  “At least once a week. I ride my bike out here. It’s such a peaceful place. There’s a bald eagle’s nest about a quarter mile down the creek.”

  “Really?” He looked toward the trees.

  The small dirt parking lot that bordered the trailhead was completely deserted. Orla rarely saw cars in the lot. She’d been surprised to see the shiny gold Corvette sitting there when she’d emerged from her hike earlier. Equally surprised to see the clean-cut man beside it, wearing white tennis shorts and a yellow t-shirt. His sandy blonde hair brushed the tops of his ears. Oddly, she thought she’d seen a mustache on the man when she emerged from the forest, but upon closer inspection, his face was clean-shaven.

  “This is a pretty isolated place. You must ride your bike a long way.”

  “It’s about ten miles. I live near the college. Long rides are my drug of choice. I once rode to the Mackinac Bridge.”

  He grimaced.

  “I’m more of a wine man, myself. That sounds like an exhausting trip.”

  She smiled and shrugged.

  “I stopped along the way and met up with some friends in Gaylord. There’s an amazing mind space when you ride for hours. It’s like your thoughts switch off, and you can just be.”

  “Do you have a car?” he asked.

  “Yep. Nothing like this.” She patted the side of his car, and she noticed his eyes linger on the spot where her gloved hand had rested. He didn’t ask about the gloves, and she was grateful, though she’d created a story years earlier about skin sensitivity. “It was my mom’s car, but she rarely drove it. She walks to her store every day - even in the winter. If the weather is terrible, my dad drives her. She gave me her car when I turned eighteen. I wanted to move out, and she feared me hitchhiking.”

  “It can be dangerous,” he said. “I love my car, my freedom. I live in an apartment at U of M during the school year, in a carriage house at my mom’s on the Leelanau Peninsula in the summer.”

  “A carriage house,“ Orla murmured. “Sounds fancy.”

  “It has its perks.”

  Orla rolled the flat toward the trunk, but he grabbed it before she could pick it up.

  “I’ve got this,” he told her.

  She glanced in his trunk, noticing a sheathed machete poking from a duffel bag.

  “Doing some bushwhacking?” she asked.

  He grinned and zipped the bag closed.

  “I like to explore new places. Sometimes it comes in handy. Listen,” he glanced toward the empty road. “Would you like to come back here tomorrow? Have a picnic. I’d love to see the eagle’s nest.”

  Orla studied him. He wasn’t her type. She preferred shaggy men with liberal political views who didn’t mind smoking the occasional joint and opted for live music over white linen dinners. But then again, she hadn’t been on a date in weeks, and Spencer intrigued her. Something seemed amiss beneath his clean facade. Maybe there was more to him than his preppy image.

  “Sure. I’d love to. Noon?”

  “Noon is great. I’ll put my bike rack on my car tomorrow, so I can give you a ride home. We can probably cram it in the backseat now…” He trailed off, and Orla had the sense that cramming anything onto the leather seats of his car would put Spencer on edge.

  She shook her head.

  “I like the evening ride. There’s another hour of daylight, anyhow. Once the sun sets, I’ll get a few more hours of purple twilight. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  “Purple twilight,” he murmured, smiling. “Sounds like a song. It was nice to meet you, Orla. I look forward to tomorrow.”

  Orla offered a little wave and grabbed her bike from where she leaned it by a tree. She pedaled off, not turning to see if he watched her as she rode away.

  6

  Orla

  Orla leaned back on her bike, pulling her hands away from the handlebars and opening her arms wide. The blacktop rushed beneath her, the trees ticking by one after another, and up ahead the expansive blue of a cloudless summer day almost convinced her she could fly. She lifted her gaze from the road, the wind whipping her hair back, and laughed.

  The opening night of Phantom of the Opera at the Old Town Playhouse had been a hit. The costumes she’d made were beautiful. Ginger, the lead actress, had gushed over the design and insisted she would appeal to the playhouse owner to bring Orla on full time as the costume designer. The mere thought of the possibility made her giddy.

  Orla gripped the handlebars and opened her feet to the sides as she slowed and coasted into the dirt parking lot at Birch Park. As she rounded the welcome sign, she glimpsed a young woman at the edge of the forest. Around Orla’s age, with long blonde hair parted in the middle, and wearing a yellow t-shirt and shorts, she had looked lost for a moment, even fearful.

  Orla pushed her bike into high weeds behind a tree and walked back across the lot to offer the woman help. Perhaps she’d gotten lost hiking.

  The stretch of forest appeared empty.

  Orla frowned, walked to the trailhead, and gazed down the grassy footpath. No sign of her.

  “Hello?” she called out, but her voice was muffled by the sound of a car pulling in behind her. Orla turned to see the gold Corvette.

  Spencer parked and waved out the window.

  “Hey there, Orla Delaney Sullivan,” he called, before stepping out.

  “A bona fide picnic basket,” Orla announced when Spencer plucked the basket from his backseat.

  “My mother owns every food-related item ever created,” he told her. “Is it fondue you’re after? She’s got a set. Or how about a teasmade? No one wants to bother with a teapot anymore. That’s so 1950s.”

  Orla laughed.

  “A teasmade! I happen to love my teapot. Your mother sounds like an interesting woman.”

  His eyes darkened, and then h
e smiled.

  “Yes, she is interesting.”

  “Does she work?” Orla asked, picking up the plaid blanket he’d brought folded in the trunk. The items made her want to laugh - they seemed pulled from an advertisement. Accessories for the Perfect Picnic, it would say in red, bold letters against a backdrop of blue sky, and a grassy field with a smiling, blonde, blue-eyed family.

  “She doesn’t work. She inherited money after my dad died…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Orla apologized. “That’s terrible.”

  “I wasn’t even two. I have no memory of him.”

  Orla followed Spencer onto the forest trail, thinking of her own father. He was big and loud and kind. She couldn’t imagine life without him. Her mother was his polar opposite, and yet somehow, they functioned together.

  Spencer had traded in his tennis shorts for jean cut-offs and a plain white t-shirt. A red ball cap covered his blond hair. His white tennis shoes looked squeaky clean, as if he’d never worn them outdoors.

  White rarely made an appearance in Orla’s closet. She’d thrown on flowery shorts, yellow Converse tennis shoes and a billowy black tank top. In truth, she’d gazed for a few seconds at the long red and orange dress she’d just finished making the week before. It was backless with slits up the sides and a plunging neckline. It was completely unrealistic for a bike ride or a picnic, but she’d considered it for half a second, mostly because it looked so lonesome hanging in her closet.

  Orla walked ahead of Spencer, keeping her eyes peeled for the young woman in the yellow shirt, but not a trace of her remained. Orla pointed out a leafy tree fat with black elderberries.

  “That’s an elder tree,” she told him. “You know, there were cultures who called the elder tree the Witch’s Tree. They believed every elder tree had a resident witch, and that a witch could turn into an elder tree.”

  He plucked one of the black berries.

  “Would this be her eye, do you think?” He popped it in his mouth, letting some red-black juice squirt between his lips.

  Orla made a face and laughed.

  “Does it taste like an eyeball?”

  He shook his head.

  “Not very sweet though.”

  “Look.” Orla pointed to a tall beech tree. The eagle’s nest perched huge and gnarled in the high branches.

  Spencer gazed at it for a long time. Orla studied the line of his jaw, his tan neck. He had the body of an anatomy model. Like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man stretched out in a star, everything perfectly proportioned. Orla had an eye for proportions. A quality she’d inherited from her mother, useful in making and mending clothes.

  He caught her looking.

  “Do I have a stain on my shirt?” He examined the fabric.

  She laughed.

  “No. You’re very symmetrical. I was just noticing.”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “I’ve received a few compliments in my life, but symmetrical is not one of them.”

  She grinned and shrugged.

  “Life of a seamstress.”

  He watched her for a moment.

  “Orla the Seamstress. Has a nice ring.”

  “And Spencer the what?”

  “Spencer the hungry,” he said, grabbing the blanket and fanning it out. He shook it high, and for an instant the fabric covered her, darkened the forest, and then it slid down and she could see once more.

  * * *

  Rain poured over the windshield, and the wipers swished dizzyingly but couldn’t keep the glass clear. Spencer appeared relaxed, unaffected by the storm.

  “Well, that was sudden,” Orla murmured, putting her hand on the armrest in the car and trying not to squeeze. She didn’t like thunderstorms, never had. Her father claimed she got lost once during a rainstorm when she was only a toddler. They’d been at the beach with friends, and she’d wandered down a sand dune, just out of sight. The rain came from nowhere, a deluge of sharp water that blurred the already dreamy quality of the sand dunes. Orla’s father had found her within minutes, clutching a tree and shrieking.

  Orla had no memory of the day, but she couldn’t deny the unease that coursed through her during heavy storms.

  “Wow. Did you see that one?” Spencer asked as lightning shattered the sky. For an instant the wet, leafy trees glowed white.

  Spencer pulled down a long driveway shrouded by trees. Orla squinted at the mailbox, but could not read the name or number.

  Through the rain, she saw little - the muted lights of a front porch, the vague outline of a large house.

  She wondered about her choice to accompany Spencer home. The conversation had been so easy, the wine dulling her inhibitions.

  Spencer jumped from the car, pulled a light coat from the backseat, and ran to Orla’s door. He opened the door and held the coat over their heads as they dashed into the garage beneath the carriage house. Orla made out the shapes of two cars in the darkness. Spencer took her hand and led her, laughing, up a set of narrow stairs.

  He pushed through a door, Orla behind him. The door swung closed, and Orla stood in complete darkness. She blinked into the room, her breath catching as she waited for the light to turn on. Seconds passed.

  “Spencer?” she asked, the first seedling of doubt rooting in her mind. She had followed this man, a complete stranger, to an isolated house in the woods.

  The lights flipped on washing the room in a yellow glow.

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “Took me a minute to find the switch.”

  Orla gazed around the apartment. The ceilings were high. Bookshelves lined the large window that looked over the driveway. A modern black sofa sat on a white shag rug. Above the sofa, a canvas hung, the paint a splattering of blacks and reds.

  It was a studio apartment, but spacious. The bed stood in the main room, tucked behind a Chinese screen. The apartment was clean; spotless, really. Orla glanced down where three rows of men’s shoes stood in a row. She imagined her own room, the bed unmade, books strewn haphazardly on the bedside table.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but does your mom clean your apartment?”

  He walked to the little kitchen complete with a narrow, pea-colored stove and refrigerator. From a cupboard, Spencer produced two wine glasses. He grabbed a bottle of red wine from a rack on his counter.

  “Do you like Merlot?” he asked.

  “Sounds great.”

  “And no, my mother doesn’t clean my apartment. I’m tidy. I realize it’s unusual, but I prefer it this way.” He gestured at the apartment.

  Orla walked to the bookshelf and scanned the titles. He read mostly nonfiction. She peered at dozens of titles about psychology and sociology. A stack of magazines sat on one end of a shelf, and she looked at the cover.

  “True Detective,” she murmured, gazing at the image beneath the headline of a terrified woman with a knife pressed against her throat. A masked man stood behind her. Orla grimaced and pushed the magazine away.

  “Have you ever read it?” Spencer asked, startling her from behind.

  She jumped and shook her head.

  “Not my style. It looks creepy.” She took the glass he held out.

  “True enough, but it’s real life. Better to be prepared than-”

  “Surprised?” she interrupted.

  “Dead,” he finished, clinking his glass against hers. “But let’s not talk about death. I want to know more about you, Orla Delaney Sullivan.”

  She followed him to the couch and sat down, sipping her wine and continuing to gaze at his impeccably clean apartment.

  “I’m marveling at this place. Where’s the pile of dirty laundry?”

  He laughed.

  “I’m guessing you’re not a neat freak. If you were, this would make complete sense to you.” He pointed at a little door near his bed. “That’s called a closet. It contains a hamper. Inside, you’ll find my dirty clothes.”

  “Wait. Those plastic things with the handles? Those aren’t for books and unmatched socks?”


  He widened his eyes and groaned.

  “I guess that’s another use for them.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m not as bad as I sound. I do, however, like to drop my dirty laundry in the corner, and then kick it down the hall to the laundry room.”

  “I had no idea we’d be having such a scintillating conversation.”

  Orla cocked an eyebrow.

  “With all those psych books, you’re clearly interested in people’s idiosyncrasies. What’s more revealing than laundry habits?”

  He leaned toward her, eyes twinkling.

  “Sexual habits are pretty revealing.”

  7

  Orla

  Orla laughed, color rising into her face.

  “I’m gonna need more than one glass of wine to reveal those secrets.”

  He pointed at the counter.

  “I’ve got bottles.”

  She glanced at the rack.

  “Tell me about you, Spencer. You go to the University of Michigan, you’re studying to be a psychiatrist. Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He balanced his chin on his hand and studied her.

  “Do you think I’d bring a woman home if I had a girlfriend?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first man who did.”

  He shook his head.

  “No girlfriend. I’ve dated at school, but I’m busy. Most women aren’t keen on spending Saturday night in the library.”

  “I love the library,” Orla admitted. “Though our reading preferences differ considerably.”

  “Which is the perfect moment to pivot to you, Orla. Tell me about your life.”

  “That’s a long tale.”

  “We’ve got all night.”

  “Do we, now?” She took a sip of wine and leaned back on the couch. “Well, I was born in Detroit in 1955. My parents are Patrick and Fiona. We lived for a few years in a little apartment. Dad worked for the Chrysler factory. My mom stayed home with me and worked part-time as a seamstress. They were Irish immigrants, and both had family in Detroit, but my dad’s cousin, Uncle Martin, moved to Traverse City. He’d gotten construction work. He wrote to my parents, said it was beautiful, simple. So, they packed us up, and we drove north.”