“Anna Belle in the woods?”
The boy nodded.
“Why don’t you go with her?”
Raphael shrugged.
Ellsworth took another bite of the apple. “That place isn’t all good, is it?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Newberry. But I do know that some answers aren’t found between walls.”
“You didn’t visit Mr. Eddington the other day with Anna Belle. Why not?”
Raphael paused. “I don’t trust him.”
Ellsworth waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He took another bite of apple and asked the boy to retrieve his bourbon from downstairs. Raphael was back in a minute. Your father was a drinker. Ellsworth shook his mother’s voice away and took two gulps that left his throat burning and his chest on fire. “How’d you know to play my wife’s sonata? The Mozart.”
“Her songbook was on Mrs. Roper’s piano. First page looked crinkled, like it’d been used a lot. So that’s what I played.”
That page was stained with Eliza’s tears.
“How’d you know my first name was Michael?”
“Your . . . late wife told me that one, Mr. Newberry.”
Ellsworth smiled, took another gulp of Old Sam. Maybe the boy wasn’t as strange as he’d first thought. “Call me Ellsworth. You’ve fondled my chest the past two nights. Might as well be on a first-name basis.” Raphael’s caramel skin blushed, but he didn’t deny touching him. “Conversation for another day?” Raphael nodded. Ellsworth didn’t push him on it, but he wondered if his rapid healing didn’t have more to do with the boy than the chapel.
He offered Raphael the bottle. “Take a nibble.”
Raphael hesitated, but then took a drink. He choked into his fist and patted his skinny chest. “Burns.” They shared a laugh. “Don’t tell Mrs. Roper.”
“I won’t if you won’t.”
Ellsworth pushed the bedcovers aside and slowly swung his legs to the side of the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing? Where’s my leg?”
Raphael retrieved it from across the room, leaning next to the window.
Ellsworth latched it on, wincing. “The other day . . . you said you saw my color?”
“It’s blue. Like your eyes.” Raphael helped him off the bed. They went silent; it was hard to discuss what made little sense.
Eliza had talked about such things and he’d just gone along with it, accepted that if she believed or saw them they must be true. But until he’d met Raphael, had he ever seen it for himself—that faint thread of color shimmering like horizon glow around another person’s contour? It dawned on him now that possibly he had, on another person in town, another who’d been inside this very room with him here during his recovery.
Ellsworth stepped away from the bed. “Yours is green, by the way. Your color. Don’t know what it means, Raphael, but it’s green as lima beans.”
CHAPTER 12
Four days after he was stabbed, Ellsworth stepped out on his veranda and filled his chest with flowery air.
Everything still bloomed with brilliance. People moved along the street, in and out of the woods in greater numbers. Some he’d never seen before.
“Recent arrivals,” Anna Belle told him. She looked tired, like an overworked mother of a wild brood, when in reality she only had under her charge one boy more self-sufficient than half the adults he knew. She was starting to get that aged look he’d seen on Eliza in her last days.
“You need rest, Anna Belle.”
“You’re the one who needs rest, Ellsworth.”
“Nonsense.” He paced himself down the steps and down the walk, stopped at the mailbox.
Dozens walked the road, glancing at him in disbelief. He’d seen the look before; they were all surprised he’d lived through the stabbing.
Lou Eddington’s house on the hill was nearly finished, bright yellow now except for a lone patch on the upper south side under the roofline, where two men leaned with brushes from a scaffolding.
“He’s gone into the city,” said Anna Belle, following Ellsworth’s gaze.
“How do you know?”
“This morning he invited me to come see his store. You can come too.”
“I can’t drive with this leg.”
“I’ll drive.”
He laughed. “You don’t know how.”
“I do now.”
Ellsworth started across the road toward the destroyed town hall and the squatty brick building beside it that now served as both courthouse and county jail. The back of the building sported three barred cells, one of which currently held Old Man Tanner. “Since when do you know how to drive, Anna Belle?”
Anna Belle followed. “Since yesterday.” He looked over his shoulder. Anna Belle grinned. “Lou Eddington taught me.”
Ellsworth stopped in the middle of the road. “Did he now?”
“In that fancy red car.” She pointed down the avenue of oaks. “Up and down the road.”
Ellsworth chewed the inside of his mouth and headed toward the sheriff’s office.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“About him teaching me to drive.”
“You’ve got my blessing, Anna Belle. Marry him for all I care.”
“Marry him? What? I hardly know the man. And don’t think I need your blessing either. I can do anything I darn well please.” She peeled off in the opposite direction.
“Anna Belle, where you going?”
She quick-walked behind the town hall and gathered momentum into the woods, where she passed Rabbi Blumenthal on his way out.
Leroy Lecroy had taken over the job of town sheriff the night Isaac Pomeroy was killed by the Klan.
He’d been Pomeroy’s underling, his do-this-do-that man, and Leroy had always been happy to oblige. He’d liked wearing the deputy badge, the silver star that twinkled in the sun but was never quite straight on the left shirt pocket of his beige cotton button-down. And when it came time to bury Pomeroy and pin the gold-star badge to his own shirt, he’d done it with pride, but also reluctance. He had never once coveted the job of sheriff—or so he’d told Anna Belle one night, half drunk two weeks after the town hall burned, confiding in her that he didn’t think he had the sand to do it.
When Ellsworth entered the jailhouse, Sheriff Lecroy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His belly overhung his waistline, and his shirt was untucked in the back. In the far corner cell, Old Man Tanner stood naked, his face pressed between the bars.
“I keep tellin’ him to put clothes back on, Ellsworth, but he won’t listen to reason.” Sheriff Lecroy nibbled on a fingernail he’d already taken down to the quick. “He’s off his nut, Ellsworth, and I’m stuck with him day and night.”
Old Man Tanner started peeing on the floor, and the splatter made Ellsworth chuckle.
“Ain’t funny,” Leroy said. “He’s done that six times if he’s done it a dozen. Should make him clean it up.”
Old Man Tanner finished. He spat on the floor and shook the bars hard enough to loosen ceiling dust. And then he started walking backward, pacing around the cell the same way Ellsworth had seen him do around his house days ago. He watched Ellsworth like a predator would prey, a lion in a cage.
“The devil made me do it.”
“How’s he doing otherwise?” Ellsworth asked Leroy.
“What do you mean? He’s a lunatic. Everyone knows that.”
“I mean at night. Doing his business on the floor is rebellious behavior. But Anna Belle said he was thrashing the bars and speaking in tongues the first few nights. Is he still doing that?”
Leroy hefted his belt. “Suppose that’s eased now that I think on it. Why?”
“You once told me your father died from the bottle.”
“He did. Been ten years now.”
“Did he ever try to stop drinking?”
“About every Sunday.” Leroy smiled but then grew serious. “Twice that I recall. Once
for about a month and another time for two.”
“Remember those first few days? The nights? Was he fidgety?” Leroy nodded. “Restless?” Another nod. “Easily agitated? Violent?”
Leroy chewed his fingernails again. “Only time he ever hit Ma was when he sobered up. Then he went out to the tavern for a growler.”
“I think that’s what we’re dealing with here. With Tanner.”
“He misses his alcohol?”
“No . . . well, yes, in a sense. Leroy, have you been inside that chapel? In the woods?”
Leroy paused. “I have.”
“How many times?”
He counted on his fingers. “Five. Plan to go again when I leave here this evening.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know why, Ellsworth.”
“Then say it.”
Leroy shook his head, smirked, but didn’t answer.
“You can’t say it aloud because it sounds so impossible. But it isn’t, is it, Leroy? It makes you feel good, doesn’t it, breathing in that air? Who do you talk to in there? Who do you think you see? Your father?”
Leroy bit his lip, looked away. “I don’t want to be the sheriff anymore.”
“But you are.”
“I am.”
“And you’re coming down so stringent with Prohibition because of your father’s problem with the suds.”
Leroy didn’t deny it. That was another story for another time.
Ellsworth grabbed Leroy’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Ever since I returned from the war, I’ve seen Old Man Tanner going into the woods every day after lunch and returning a few hours later. My guess is he’s been visiting that chapel, and who knows for how long. We don’t know how long it’s been there or who built it. But there’s something about that place that makes people need to go back. Old Man Tanner’s suffering from withdrawal, just like your father would from the lack of drink. You get it?”
Leroy watched Old Man Tanner pace backward. “You think the chapel did this?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“But I’ve been inside, Ellsworth. It ain’t bad in there. It’s a slice of heaven, just like Alfred says.”
“You ever been to heaven, Leroy?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t know, do we?”
Leroy clenched his jaw, then pointed a fat finger at Ellsworth. “Don’t you dare make that place bad for me or any of the others. Rumor is Eliza went in there before she died. And that’s how come she acted so peaceful before . . . you know, like . . .”
“Like what?”
“You know, Ellsworth.”
“No I don’t.”
Leroy wiped his brow. “You know what the town thought of her.”
“That she was a lunatic?”
Leroy gulped, stepped away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brung it up.”
Ellsworth clenched his hand into a fist. “But you did.”
“Do it,” Tanner yelled across the room. “Do it. Plunge your knuckles into his fat neck.”
Ellsworth said, “Close your head, Tanner.” Tanner hushed. Ellsworth eased his fingers and stared at Leroy. “Tuck your shirt in. Walk with your shoulders up. Act the part, Sheriff Lecroy. Maybe then your prisoner will respect you. Now, you mind if I have a word?”
“Go on,” Lecroy said, tucking in his shirt. “Suit yourself.”
Old Man Tanner stopped pacing. “You gonna shoot me, Mr. Newberry?”
Ellsworth gripped the handle of his Smith & Wesson but left it in the holster. “Probably should. Put your clothes on.”
Tanner retrieved his underwear across the cell. His skin was wrinkled and liver-spotted and his hair was white, yet he moved nimbly and his eyes seemed sharp.
“How old are you, Tanner?”
“Old enough.” He slipped his shirt on and buckled his pants.
“You still want to kill me?”
Tanner shook his head. “No.”
“You did three days ago.”
Tanner slid down the wall and sat against it. “But I don’t anymore.”
Ellsworth sat, too, awkwardly on the opposite side of the bars with his prosthesis jutting out. “Why not?”
Tanner shrugged, crossed his arms.
“How long you been going into the woods?”
The old man rolled the back of his head against the cinder-block wall. “Oh, Ellsworth.”
“What?”
“You really want to know?”
“Wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Ain’t got time for game playing.”
“Okay, then. Longer than you been alive—that’s how long I’ve been going into those woods.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “Longer than you been alive.”
CHAPTER 13
Ellsworth felt stomach sick by the time Anna Belle navigated his black Model T into the city.
The car had lurched and puttered the whole way, threatening to run out of gas before they reached Charlie Thurston’s fuel station outside of Bellhaven. The car had been used when he and Eliza bought it in 1914, and Anna Belle drove it like a battering ram. She’d clipped Moses Yarney’s mailbox backing out of the driveway. And before they’d made it through the avenue of oaks, Ellsworth had volunteered to walk to Charleston, questioning whether she’d paid enough attention during her so-called driving lesson.
“Close your head, Ellsworth,” she’d barked.
Instead he’d closed his eyes, preferring surprise to actually seeing his front fender fold around a tree.
At first her feet had moved so frantically atop the floor pedals that she appeared to be dancing, all while fumbling with the throttle lever on the steering wheel, still stressed over how she’d struggled to hand crank the engine. The second try, after he’d pumped the gas, had gone a little smoother, and eventually, until they’d entered the busier thoroughfare in Charleston, they’d enjoyed a few minutes of easy coasting, with the windows down and the low-country sunlight on their arms.
But now Anna Belle gripped the wheel with both hands, eyes pinpointed on the road. “And that’s all he said? That he’d been going into the woods since before you were born.”
“Turn here.”
“I know where I’m going, Ellsworth. What did he say?”
“That he’s known about that chapel for decades. Until recently it was concealed by foliage and weeds and brambles and whatnot. Even the door. But he cleared that all out.”
“Why did he do that? Why now?”
“Said he felt his time coming near, and when he passed he was going to leave a note with directions. But until that time came, he considered the place his.”
“And then what? What’d he say after that?”
Anna Belle’s long fingers wrapped the steering wheel. The knuckles weren’t bone white anymore, and he favored the red color she’d painted her nails.
“Ellsworth?”
“Oh, sorry. Nothing. After that he started beating the back of his head against the wall, crying like I’d never seen a grown man cry before. Mumbling about his late wife—her name was Susannah—and the old White Meeting House over in Summerville. And the earthquake that leveled Charleston.”
“The ’86 quake?”
“The same.”
“Supposedly Susannah and Tanner were in the area because of that earthquake. I have no idea how that could be—how they knew it was coming.” Anna Belle turned carefully onto Bull Street, the tip of her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth in concentration. “But the meeting house was left in ruins, with Susannah still in it.” She straightened the car and leaned forward. So many cars were parked in diagonal tangents from the curb that it made for a narrow passage. “That’s why he went into the woods every day.”
“Also why he started losing his mind.” He watched her for a reaction, but none came. He recalled Sheriff Lecroy’s words as Ellsworth had left the jail. “Don’t make this bad for me. Don’t ruin this for the town.”
“While you were convalescing, Maisie Cannon took he
r daughter Marlene in there. The daughter with the tuberculosis she keeps quarantined. She knelt upon the healing floor.”
“Anna Belle . . .”
“The girl still coughs, Ellsworth, but at least she smiles now.” He thought about how rapidly he’d healed from the knife wound but was hesitant to tell her about Raphael’s possible role in it. Or had it been because they’d carried him into that chapel on a stretcher? She continued, “Not everyone goes into the woods to . . .”
She trailed away, but he knew what she’d wanted to say. Not everyone goes into the woods to communicate with their deceased loved ones. But he also knew that he’d recently been stabbed in the heart by the man who’d been visiting that chapel for at least two decades, and that man claimed the devil had made him do it.
Ellsworth spotted Eddington’s store up ahead on their right, a narrow brick building pressed between a clothing store and a butchery. “There it is. Eschec Mat.”
“I see it.” She slowed the car. It choked and lurched.
Ellsworth braced his hands on the dashboard. “There’s a spot. Park there.” She eyed the open spot. Her tongue moved to the corner of her mouth again, and Ellsworth suddenly imagined kissing her. “Right there, Anna Belle. Turn.”
“I’m turning.” She spun the wheel like a fisherman hurriedly righting a shrimp boat.
“Slow down. Slow down!” He braced his good foot into the floorboard. The Model T rammed against the curb, and they bounced forward. He wasted no time opening the car door and balancing himself against a palmetto tree. “My lands, Anna Belle. It’s not a tractor.”
“We made it here, didn’t we?”
“Next time I’ll hire Alfred to drive.”
She slammed the driver’s side door. “Lou was much more patient than you.”
“So he’s just Lou now?”
“I assume he’s been Lou since he was born, Ellsworth.”
Ellsworth started toward the shop. “Has nothing to do with being patient, Anna Belle.” He leaned forward, whispered in her ear. “He just wants to run his hands across those getaway sticks of yours.”
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