by Erica Waters
The perfect, hair-raising note sears away the fog in my mind, replacing it with an electric certainty. It wasn’t Jim’s death Daddy was warning me about, it was Jesse’s being arrested. He knew it was coming, he knew I would need his help.
I don’t know what Jesse’s done, but I know what I need to do.
Once Mama goes to her room to lie down, I take her keys from their hook. I climb into her car and head for Aunt Ena’s just as the first star winks in the deep-blue sky.
I’m going to find Daddy’s fiddle tonight.
I knock hard at Aunt Ena’s door until she opens it, her eyes frightened.
“What is it? What’s happened?” she says, standing back to let me in.
I walk deep into the house, all the way to the little parlor off the kitchen, where Daddy liked to play in the evenings. Aunt Ena follows close behind.
I turn and face her. “Where is it, Aunt Ena?”
“Where’s what?”
“The fiddle.”
“I told you those were echoes you were hearing. It’s gone.”
“I’ve heard it, over and over again I’ve heard it. Here. In the woods. It sounds just the way it did when Daddy played it. I know it’s him. I know it’s his fiddle.”
“Shady, your daddy’s dead.”
“Nobody’s ever dead around here.”
“Well, the fiddle’s gone, and even if it weren’t, I know your daddy wouldn’t want you to have it. He wouldn’t want you to play it.”
“He does. He’s been reaching out to me, trying to show me where it is.”
Aunt Ena shakes her head. “He wouldn’t. I promise you. If I know anything in this world, it’s that William wouldn’t want you playing that fiddle.”
“Aunt Ena, the fiddle was meant for me. Daddy said it would be mine when he was gone. My responsibility.”
“Your burden, you mean. That fiddle is nothing but a burden. I’ll die before I help you find it.”
Her words jolt through me. “So you admit it’s still out there? It’s not gone?”
She shakes her head.
I try a different approach. “Jesse was arrested today. He’s being taken to jail for killing Jim.”
“Arrested?” she asks, taken aback, and I realize I should have called her. She’s often the last to hear news, cooped up in this house. Her mouth twists with sudden emotion but then settles into a hard line. “That’s terrible, but it doesn’t explain why you’re here. What does Jesse being arrested have to do with William’s fiddle?”
“If I can find the fiddle and raise Jim’s ghost, I can learn the truth.” It sounds outrageous coming from my mouth, but I can’t take it back now. I cross my arms and stare at Aunt Ena, masking my doubt with defiance.
Her face registers surprise but she recovers quickly, staring back at me with equal defiance and a lot less doubt. “Sometimes learning the truth doesn’t give you what you want.”
Her voice is full of pity, but her words make me reel back from her like she’s slapped me. “You think he did it? You think Jesse killed Jim?”
She stares at me for a long time. “You do.”
I shake my head. I can’t let that thought in. Can’t give it room to grow. I spin away from her and dart my eyes all over the room. “Where’d you hide it? I’ll find it—you know I will. You may as well tell me. Daddy’s going to show me where it is anyway.”
“You ever think maybe it’s not your daddy leading you to the fiddle? You ever think maybe there’s a darkness in the woods, or maybe a darkness that’s in you?” She’s advancing on me now, angrier than I’ve ever seen her. “Don’t you remember your dreams? Don’t you remember the dark man in them, the little dead girl in your ceiling? Don’t you remember, Shady?” Aunt Ena is shaking.
I step back from her, then turn and pace the room. I don’t want to think about the dead girl. She never threatened me like the shadow man does, but she was worse somehow, more unbearable. She clung to the ceiling above my bed, almost featureless except for her white dress. But she gave off fear in waves, filling the room.
The memory of her makes my chest feel tight, so I turn my thoughts back to the fiddle. I run my hand over the walls of the parlor, searching for I don’t know what—a hidden compartment? I pick up a child-sized teapot from the fireplace mantel, checking the wall behind it.
“You think I’d keep a cursed thing like that fiddle in my house?” Aunt Ena spits, snatching the teapot away from me and cradling it in the crook of her arm. “The fiddle’s not here.”
“Tell me where it is,” I say. “If you love me at all, you’ll tell me.”
“I do love you. That’s why I want you to leave this be. Go home, help your mama, take care of your baby sister—while you’ve got her.” Aunt Ena’s voice cracks.
“And what about Jesse? Who’s going to take care of him?”
“I don’t know,” Aunt Ena says tiredly. “The Lord, I guess, if he looks after any of us.”
I turn on my heel and stalk from the parlor, straight to the front door. I slam it behind me as hard as I can, so hard the windows rattle in their frames. The ghosts press up against the house, spilling into the driveway and the forest, thick as the humid night air. They’ll wait around until the Second Coming, but me, I’m done waiting. I won’t wait around for justice to be done, for Jesse to be proved guilty or innocent. I’ll find a way to learn the truth.
Nine
The viewing room is surprisingly crowded. I guess in the South even people like Jim get large turnouts when they die. We’re all too polite to stay home.
Well, that’s the generous answer. A more accurate answer might be that people are here to gossip, to whisper, to speculate.
Sure, some are here to grieve—Mama, in the same black dress she wore to Daddy’s funeral; Jim’s mother, who clutches the edge of the open coffin like a captain clutching the helm of a sinking ship, her knuckles bone white; Frank, who looks angry now rather than sad, as if he can shout Jim out of the coffin. His face softens only when someone comes to shake his hand or hug him. It’s strange how well liked he is in town when you consider he’s related to Jim. Men look him in the eye like he’s someone important, and women smile at him like he’s a catch, while his wife looks on, quiet at his side, a perfectly demure Southern lady.
Several guys from the construction company came to pay their respects, and I wonder if they’re here for Jim’s sake or for Frank’s. Pedro Flores, a contractor who installs HVACs in Frank’s houses, came and brought his son Juan, who’s a friend of Orlando’s. Mr. Flores hugs both Mama and me and says Jim was a good man. I thought everyone at work hated Jim, but Mr. Flores seems sincere.
“We can only stay for a few minutes. Will you be all right? Is Orlando here?” Juan asks.
I shake my head. “He offered to come for moral support, but I told him I’d be fine on my own. I guess I thought I’d manage better that way.” If Sarah had asked, I might have said yes, but she didn’t offer, which really shouldn’t surprise me at this point. But it does, and my anger at her boils quietly underneath everything else I’m feeling.
Juan seems to sense my misery and gives me a quick hug. “Take care, Shady,” he says. “See you at school.”
I wave goodbye to Mr. Flores and turn back to survey the room, loneliness settling over me. Everyone here looks natural and at ease, as if milling around a dead body while exchanging pleasantries happens every day. But to me this is a creepy and unnecessary funeral tradition. Why would you want people to have to look at the empty shell who used to be a person they loved? I suppose if it’s someone you hated, looking at them defeated and empty in a coffin might offer a sort of pleasure, but what good is there in it for those of us who just lived with the person, shared a home, moved in each other’s orbit not because we wanted to but because that’s where our orbits happened to be?
I wish I had taken Orlando up on his offer to come. He could have been a kind of buffer for me. Instead, I take Honey from Mama’s arms and make her my buffer, trying to
keep her entertained and safe from the overly tearful old women who want to shower her with kisses and germs.
I try not to think about it, but this wake reminds me horribly of Daddy’s—of seeing his body laid out, unnaturally still, looking all wrong in a suit when he only ever wore jeans and work boots. I wanted to scream at him to wake up, to get out of that coffin and go home with us, but all I could do was sit in a chair and weep until my eyes were nearly swollen closed, feeling more alone than I ever had before.
I wonder if that’s how Kenneth is feeling now. I think about going to talk to him, but I can’t bring myself to walk over there. He sits in a corner with his hands in his lap, for once too stunned to speak. His mother sits beside him, messing around on her phone, like she’d rather be pretty much anywhere else on earth. She doesn’t look the least bit sad. I guess her and Jim’s divorce was pretty nasty. I heard him refer to her as a grasping shrew on more than one occasion, although I don’t imagine he behaved much better himself. Still, you’d think she’d try a little harder for her son’s sake.
Her new husband, Gary, has been standing out front smoking all morning like he’s afraid to come inside. I was surprised he came at all since he and Jim despised each other, but I guess he is Kenneth’s stepdad, as well as Frank’s friend, so it makes sense. Plus, he’s a police officer, so he’s going to lead the funeral procession to the graveyard later. But having the cop who arrested Jesse here really isn’t helping me and Mama.
At least Honey’s too young to know what’s happening. I’ve kept her away from the coffin because no little kid needs a memory like that buried deep in their mind, a memory they’ll dig up one day in therapy or unexpectedly when their dog dies or something. It’s bad enough that people keep coming over and touching her face or shaking her little hand, their faces full of pity.
I remember them all from Daddy’s funeral and hate them even more than I did back then. I hate their cliché “in a better place” speeches and their Sunday-best clothes. I hate their talk about God’s love and forgiveness. Most of all, I hate their unwavering belief in Jesse’s guilt.
I’m wrapped in my own web of anger when Cedar walks in. At first, I don’t even recognize him. He’s bare-headed and wearing a dark suit, without a single embellishment on it. He looks stripped down somehow, pulled out of context. I stare at him for a long time, trying to process it.
But he’s looking around and catches sight of me, and a blush spreads up my neck. Mama thinks she’s cursed with dead husbands, but I know I’m cursed to blush every time I get near this fool boy.
“Hey, Shady,” Cedar says when he reaches me. “Sorry about all this.” He doesn’t say anything about Jesse. I could hug him for it. “Is this your little sister?”
Honey’s head is against my shoulder, her arms wrapped around my neck. She’s almost asleep. “Yeah, she’s about tuckered out.”
Cedar smiles at her. “She looks like Kenneth a little bit.” He glances back at me with a sly smile. “Thankfully, though, she looks more like you.”
Is Cedar Smith seriously flirting with me at a funeral? “Thanks” is all I say. “Kenneth’s over there in the corner.” I motion with my head. “It was really nice of you to come and be with him.”
Cedar ducks his head. “I’ll go find him. See you later.” He touches my arm as he passes by, and it’s the first thing I’ve really, truly felt since the police dragged Jesse away yesterday.
I watch as Kenneth’s eyes brighten when he catches sight of Cedar. He stands and grips him in a bear hug, almost lifting Cedar off the ground.
Once Honey finally falls asleep, I pass her over to Aunt Ena and go to the bathroom to escape the whispering voices, red velvet, and the coffin at the far end of the room that draws people like moths to a front porch light. They can throw themselves at it and feel the electric zap if that’s what they need, but I want some quiet and solitude.
But of course there’s a line for the toilet. I’m about to turn around and find another place to hide when I hear Jesse’s name. Two elderly ladies in line are talking about him. I edge a little closer without letting them notice me.
“You know what I think?” says a voice like the creak of a screen door. “I think if it turns out he really did kill Jim, they ought to reopen William’s case. Maybe he killed him, too.”
“William died in a car accident.”
“So? The boy was with him, wasn’t he?”
“But Jesse would have only been a kid.”
“He was a strange child. The way he stared at his daddy sometimes.” She fakes a shiver, and I recognize her—our closest neighbor growing up, Miss Patty, who seemed old even back then. She’s ancient now, but still every bit as vile. She was always coming around the house with pamphlets from her Pentecostal church—usually with flames on the covers. She’d talk to us about heaven and hell and fighting off demons. Daddy would get so mad at her he could barely hold his temper.
Now my own temper is rising. Daddy’s death was an accident, and Jesse was never a suspect because there was nothing to be suspected of. It was a deer in the road. Jesse might have survivor’s guilt, but that’s all. I can’t believe she would say such horrible things.
“Oh, that house was full of sin, full of the devil,” Miss Patty goes on. “I don’t know how many times I told them—they needed an exorcism. Of course, it started years ago, when William and Ena’s parents first moved in. It was his mama that started it all—she was some kind of psychic. I told her it wasn’t good Christian spirits she was consorting with—it was devils. Oh, that house was so dark, so wrong.”
“I’ve heard stories about that place,” the other woman whispers. I don’t recognize her, but that’s the way things are around here—people always seem to know you even if you haven’t the faintest idea who they are.
Miss Patty shakes her head. “I swear I saw a pair of red eyes looking at me from a top window one time. It’s no wonder their boy Jesse turned out so wrong.”
“What about the girl, the one with the strange name?”
“Shady Grove? She’s a good girl from what I hear. Her mama must’ve gotten her out of that house just in time, before the devils got hold of her.”
I’ve heard about all I can stand, so I clear my throat, and both ladies look up. Miss Patty isn’t the slightest bit embarrassed to have been caught talking about my family, but the other woman goes rigid.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says in a sugar-sweet voice.
I’m not even going to try to be polite. I turn the full force of my pent-up fury on Miss Patty. “My brother did not kill anyone,” I say. “And our house was not awful. You are, you bitter old hag.” I spin on my heel and stalk back into the crowd before she can answer.
Aunt Ena catches my arm as I pass. Honey is draped across her chest, asleep. “Funeral gossips getting to you?”
I haven’t talked to her since our fight. My voice comes out brittle when I speak. “How’d you know?”
“I hear ’em too. All kinds of rumors flying around. Folks think this is CSI.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I say, and Ena rolls her eyes.
“Darlin’, I’m sorry about our argument. I don’t want to fight with you,” Ena says, reaching for my hand. Aunt Ena is one of the most important people in my life, and I should never have spoken to her the way I did, no matter how upset I was.
I squeeze her fingers. “I’m sorry too.”
Aunt Ena smiles up at me, her blue eyes glistening. “Can we leave that subject be then? Can we forget about it?” Her voice trembles.
I can’t forget about it, but we don’t have to talk about it now. I nod and change the subject. “I just heard Miss Patty say she thought Jesse killed Daddy, as well as Jim, and that our house was evil.”
Aunt Ena shakes her head. “She still comes around the house with her tracts sometimes. Loves talking about the devil so much, it makes you wonder.”
“But why would she say that about Jesse?” I don’t want to let ev
eryone else’s doubt—Mama’s, Aunt Ena’s, now Miss Patty’s—chip away at my faith in Jesse, but maybe my faith was shaky to begin with. After all, he was the first person I thought of when Aunt Ena told me Jim was killed.
All those fights he had with Jim. How Jesse snapped when Kenneth whispered something to him.
Aunt Ena gazes at me, studying my face. “You know your daddy and Jesse didn’t have an easy relationship.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
From behind me comes a loud, anguished voice. I turn and see Frank looming over Mama. I don’t know what he just said, but his arms are crossed and there are tears on his face. Mama’s leaning away from him like a skinny new tree bending in the wind—nothing like how she was at the police station the night Jim died. Jesse’s arrest and all the police tramping in and out of the house took more out of her than I realized. They only questioned me once, and that was bad enough. Mama’s been through hell.
I guess Frank isn’t faring much better. He’s never acted like this before.
“Go rescue her. I’ll keep hold of Honey,” Aunt Ena says.
I cross the room and head straight for Mama, who I can see is crying, the tears leaking from her eyes, forming rivulets of mascara. I don’t think she even knows she’s crying anymore. She doesn’t try to wipe them away.
“. . . that piece-of-shit son of yours killed my brother and all you’ve got to say for yourself is that you’re sorry,” Frank bellows before he catches sight of me heading their way. He has the decency to look ashamed of himself. “I’m just talking to your mama, Shady. It’s not your concern,” he says gently.
“You’re yelling at my mama, so it is my concern,” I say, coming to stand next to her.
“Shady,” she says, “don’t—”
“No,” I tell her. “Your husband just died, and he has no right to be yelling at you a few feet away from Jim’s body.”
“He was my brother,” Frank growls, but his voice breaks on the last syllable. A few heads turn to look at us, but I don’t care.