All Things Bright and Strange

by James Markert

  “Watch her,” Ellsworth told Anna Belle. “She makes the first move, tackle her.”

  Gabriel and Uriel were still deep in the woods, blocking passage to the chapel. So far everyone who’d attempted to enter the woods had returned back into town, dejected. To channel their unease, Ellsworth ordered them to clean up the mess the earthquake and shoot-out had caused. Two of the five bodies under the blankets had yet to be claimed. Probably out-of-towners who’d been lured in by the same presence that had inhabited Lou Eddington.

  Hopefully that being had exited his body when the house collapsed. So far the man showed no signs of being under any kind of foreign influence other than delirium.

  The injured rested in the churches, some on makeshift cots and others on the floor. Two had been clipped by bullets; the rest had minor injuries from the earthquake. Eddington was the worst off. Dr. Philpot said he was lucky to be alive and, without saying it aloud, attributed the man’s survival to what Raphael’s hands had done when they’d pulled him out of the rubble. The doc had splinted Lou’s legs and injected him with morphine Ellsworth pilfered from Alfred’s stash at the bottom of his footlocker.

  It was a town custom to lay out the recently deceased in their homes before burial so the town folk could pay their respects and gather for food. But Ellsworth didn’t like the idea of spreading out from the town square, where everyone had now congregated. They needed to stay in a group. Omar and his men had already gone door to door to make sure no one was unaccounted for or unknowingly injured or dead.

  As the sun began its final swoop toward the woods, Ellsworth stood atop the town hall’s rubbled façade and announced his plan to honor the five dead inside the town hall, then hold the burials all at once. That way they could all stay together and watch one another. The chapel wasn’t what they thought, and many were hearing of its evil for the first time. “If anyone feels the pull toward the woods, then it is everyone’s duty to stop them.” The town folk agreed, some with reluctance. Many looked drawn and weary, as if they could barely keep their eyes open.

  “We’ll feed the urge with good food,” he told them as Anna Belle stepped beside him. “And comaraderie.” More nods of reluctant agreement. “We’ve taken down names of all the survivors, and even those who’ve felt the need to join us in recent days.” He eyed a man across the room, who only hours before had worn white Klan robes but now was outfitted in a white button-down, suspenders, and trousers. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face unshaven and spent. “You’re welcome to stay, but just know that at the first sign of malcontent you will be sent on your way, and it won’t be by soft hands.”

  The Klansman jerked a nod. “I can put names to the two unclaimed then. Butch Monroe is the one on the left there. And beside him is Elmer Cantain. May God give them both peace in the hereafter, since they couldn’t fine none in the here.” He settled his eyes on Omar across the parking lot, who stood smoking his pipe. The Klansman continued. “Bein’ as they were unfairly slain by the wicked evildoers and some jumpy blacks.”

  The crowd grumbled.

  Omar stepped forward, armed. “Who dat dem coward hide b’hind coward mask?”

  The Klansman spat at the ground. “I wear no mask at the current.”

  Ellsworth held up his hand to quiet the crowd, then faced the Klansman. “That will be the last word of hatred spoken in my town. See this as your first and only warning before I send you on your way with your newly claimed in tow.”

  The man looked around, outnumbered, and nodded reluctantly. “What’s your name?” said Ellsworth.

  “Bo Blythe.”

  “Consider this your official welcome to Bellhaven, Bo Blythe. Now make yourself of some use and start cleaning up your dead.”

  They spent the next hour readying the bodies, displaying them in clean clothes and on tables placed in a row along the side wall of the town hall, which two dozen of the locals had taken upon themselves to clean. Cobwebs no longer hung from the rafters. The animals, birds, and rodents had been chased outside, their droppings swept out with the dust. The windows that weren’t broken now shone clean, and the floorboards smelled of fresh cedar oil.

  Night swooped in without incident as they worked. Occasionally some would pause to look out the windows toward the woods, but another would remind them of their task and work would resume. At one point Reverend Cane dropped his broom and walked out the busted front of the town hall toward the woods, but Rabbi Blumenthal hurried to stop him.

  The two men shared a look and escorted each other back inside.

  The electricity had been blown in the fire, and the incandescent light didn’t work. So they hung lanterns on wall hooks and placed dozens of candles about the hall. The light cast nimbuses of fuzzy glow around the vast room—a calming tone for the joint wakes.

  Outside the hall, Anna Belle led a team of a dozen others to cook up enough food to feed the town, which numbered just over a couple hundred. First, they’d gone out in groups to the homes and the damaged market to collect ingredients, deciding to cook it all in the kitchens of Anna Belle, Ellsworth, and Old Man Tanner, whose homes had held up against the quake. Despite the earthquake bolts added after ’86, many of the other homes and structures had shifted, including the jailhouse. After Linda May prepared her husband’s body, she joined Anna Belle in the kitchen to help take her mind off things. She’d dressed Alfred in his favorite Sunday suit and even placed pieces of that “darn radio” at his side.

  Anna Belle put Linda May to work chopping celery for the gumbo Reverend Beaver was fixing over a kettle fire in Ellsworth’s driveway. Minister Beaver seemed chastened and was spotted humming a song as he stirred the gumbo and eyed Frank Jessups across the way with what looked like an inkling of remorse.

  No more scuffles or verbal altercations broke out, but the tension remained as people worked. Glances flashed as some passed. Jaws clenched at the sight of others. Few words were spoken, and most people kept to themselves. Whatever had seeped into their minds at the chapel and the yellow house would not be quickly erased, so Ellsworth kept them on task.

  The sky outside was clear and scattered with stars. An occasional gust of wind whistled from the trees, and everyone paused and listened when it did. Ellsworth encouraged them to ignore the sound, to keep their minds on work and try not to think about the woods. But that was difficult with so many woodland creatures—deer, raccoons, woodchucks, and even several foxes—remaining around town as if afraid to reenter their homes.

  A threesome of skittish deer lapped water from a birdbath in Beverly Adams’s backyard. A half dozen more stood in front of the Pentecostal church, sniffing the air. Brother Bannerman eyed them all, but not as closely as he did the dozens of snakes slithering across the grounds. He picked up two copperheads, one for each hand, and began speaking in tongues. He’d already started to rally some of his Pentecostals toward his house and away from their work.

  Ellsworth watched Bannerman from the parking lot, where he and Raphael were helping set up tables and chairs, expecting overflow from the town hall. They’d rolled in three empty whiskey barrels from Tommy Tankersly’s shed and filled two of them with sweet tea, one with water.

  The only near skirmish that evening happened between one of Bo’s Klansmen and a member of Omar’s congregation. But just before their words came to blows, the earth shook with another aftershock—just long enough to remind all that they were insignificant pieces in comparison.

  Ten minutes later Dr. Philpot parted the crowd, pushing Lou Eddington in a wheelchair. Mayor Bellhaven walked beside them, still red-eyed from weeping over his family’s plantation home. They stopped in front of Ellsworth, who offered his hand, and Lou shook it. Ellsworth and three other men helped lift Eddington’s chair up the stairs into the town hall, and then a line began to form to honor the dead.

  An hour later everyone had paid their respects. Then a cluster of clergy led a solemn procession to the Bellhaven cemetery, with grieving townspeople close behind. When the prayers had b
een said and the bodies buried, they made their way back to the square, ready to move from solemnity to food.

  They eagerly filled their plates with corn bread, fried ham and chicken, cheesy grits, green beans, and Anna Belle’s famous hoppin’ John. For dessert they had an assortment of pies and cobblers—blueberry, blackberry, pumpkin, and apple. The chatter increased while they ate, but only to a steady murmur—most people were focused on their food and too busy eyeing the woods.

  After surveying the tables both in and outside the hall, Ellsworth noted a change in the division of people. Hours ago it had been those on the hillside in a gunfight with those below. Now, as they gathered to eat, the two sides intermingled again, albeit cautiously, but the people had more or less divided themselves according to religion and race. Pentecostals sat with Pentecostals, Protestants with their various Protestant groups, Catholics with Catholics, blacks with the blacks, and on down the line. Instead of two sides, the town seemed to be separating in numerous subgroups.

  Ellsworth didn’t like the look of that, either. He didn’t like the looks each table gave the other, either, especially since almost everyone was still heeled. Rifles leaned against chairs, and pistols rested next to plates, all within arm’s reach and still loaded.

  The only one not eating was Brother Bannerman, who had ventured closer to the outdoor tables with his two new pet snakes. But these two, unlike the placid Adam and Eve, looked angry. Everyone stopped eating to watch as the snakes coiled restlessly around Bannerman’s forearms and wrists. He held the snakes up high and started tapping his right foot in the dust, calling out to his Savior and condemning everyone to eternal damnation and hellfire, to which three of the Mormons and two of Bo Blythe’s Protestant unhooded Klansmen took offense and stood from their chairs.

  The snake coiled around Bannerman’s right arm and sank its fangs down into the meat of the preacher’s hand. He screamed but didn’t stop preaching. The snake in his left hand then lurched out and bit Bannerman’s neck just below the jawline. Bannerman stumbled backward, arms swooping, and crashed to the gravel. Both snakes slithered away as Bannerman writhed on the ground.

  Ellsworth had seen copperhead bites before. Though rarely deadly unless the one bitten was allergic to the venom, they were painful. But Bannerman was laughing. The men who’d been ready to attack him moments ago stood down, their faces confused.

  Raphael hurried to the preacher and put his hands on the two wounds simultaneously. Bannerman fought him, screaming for the Lord Jesus Christ to cast that boy devil away. He made it to his feet, and three of his brethren escorted him to his house. All the way there he kept shouting that the good Lord would save him if it was his will.

  Ellsworth let Bannerman go. He had bigger problems to worry about. A mysterious commotion sounded from the woods, and the crowd grew alarmed. Deer scampered at the tree line, and redbirds flew in and out of the shadows. Gabriel and Uriel emerged from the woods, walking side by side, hurrying at first and then slowing as they noticed the gathered crowd.

  Ellsworth gestured for everyone to remain calm and then met Gabriel and Uriel beside the town hall, out of earshot from the others.

  Gabriel was out of breath, but spoke calmly. “It’s growing, Ellsworth.”

  “What’s growing?”

  Uriel said, “The clearing around the chapel.”

  “It’s not gradual anymore,” Gabriel added. “The leaves are withering. Trees are dying one by one. The clearing is expanding outward.”

  “Spreading like water across a table,” said Uriel.

  Ellsworth hadn’t noticed it initially. But now, as Uriel stepped into the moonlight, he did. “Your hair!”

  Uriel touched his hair. “What of it?”

  “It’s white.”

  “I warned you.” Gabriel looked down at Uriel. “You stood in one place too long.”

  CHAPTER 29

  While everyone was still in the town hall, Ellsworth decided to call a meeting.

  He connected three tables on one end of the hall and gathered the leaders from each church, along with Lou, Anna Belle, Tanner, Gabriel, Uriel, and—out of respect for the office—Mayor Bellhaven. In a show of solidarity he invited the Klansman Bo Blythe as well. He wanted all parties represented at this head table.

  Raphael had declined a seat, claiming he had something else he had to do.

  Gabriel brought three cases of Old Sam from Ellsworth’s shed, and she wasn’t stingy with the pours. No one objected, even the ardent drys in the hall. Bo Blythe stared at his shot, contemplating, then held it up as if toasting the table and downed it in one gulp. He poured more, swirled it, and stared to his side, where Omar sat positioning a wax straw through the slit of his mask. He sucked bourbon and swallowed it like water.

  Blythe scooted his chair another inch away from Omar, as if he actually believed what he’d said when he’d sat down beside the man on Ellsworth’s order—that he couldn’t get too close in fear of “catching a colored disease.” To which Omar had exhaled pipe smoke in his direction and the Klansman had been too stubborn to move from the cloud.

  Ellsworth carefully watched both men, glad that neither of them was heeled. Before the meeting he’d requested as sheriff that all weapons be left outside the hall. He’d gotten pushback from several, including both Bo and Omar, but ultimately they’d agreed to disarm and parlay peacefully.

  Ellsworth offered a toast to those who had died and called the meeting to order. He reiterated what Uriel and Gabriel had told them about the woods surrounding the chapel. The clearing around the structure was growing outward, killing trees as it moved.

  “As what moves?” asked Anna Belle. “What exactly are we dealing with here?”

  “Whatever is inside that chapel. It’s coming up from the ground.”

  Tanner retold the story of the ’86 earthquake, when he’d initially found the chapel hidden in the brush. “Everyone here now knows what it did to me, how it aged me and jingled my brain. That didn’t stop me from going in, anymore than it stopped you. But once I realized what it was doing to me, I started clearing out the woods around it.”

  “Why?” asked Anna Belle.

  “So that I could share it with the rest of the town.” Tanner chewed his lip. “But not in the good way, Anna Belle. And I’m sorry about that. But it had its claws so deep into my brain that my intent was to take the entire town down the same hellish road I’d been on.”

  Uriel patted Old Man Tanner’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Ain’t got nobody else to blame,” Tanner said in a huff. “If I’d been stronger, I would’ve stopped. It maybe slipped me the thoughts, but I still had free will. It’s just that the line was blurred. And I didn’t know whatever it was would gain steam. But it did. The more people visited, the stronger that chapel became.” He gulped his bourbon. “I gotta say, I didn’t see that coming.”

  “But what is it?” asked Anne Belle.

  “The devil is what it is.” All eyes shot to Lou Eddington in his wheelchair. “That’s what everyone’s thinking but not saying. It’s in there dangling that apple and daring us to pull it from the tree.” He slurred his speech slightly—he’d mixed bourbon with morphine—but was coherent enough to make sense. “I believe I was pulled here because of my intense need to be forgiven. I was vulnerable. Weak. A simple artist seeking answers.”

  “An easy host,” said Ellsworth.

  Lou agreed. “The day I visited that house, I went up to the third-floor attic. Something didn’t feel right up there. There was a window—a little round dormer that turned in its frame like a globe, and it was open just a smidge. About two-dozen flies buzzed around it, so I crossed over to close it. But when I got within a couple of feet of the window, chill bumps covered my body, then I got so hot I nearly fainted. I dropped to one knee. And then I had this feeling that something was trying to squeeze into my body. I tell you, it was strange.

  “After that, one by one, those flies died right in front of me—just dropp
ed out of the air to the floorboards. There was one left, buzzing and tapping against the window glass like it was trying to get out, but then it died like the others. That dormer started spinning in and out, in and out, and then it closed with a snap, airtight. Bam. I blew at the dead flies, and they scattered like dry leaves would. I left the house in a hurry and swore never to return.”

  Mayor Bellhaven said, “But you did.”

  Lou nodded. “Bought it the very next day. But by that time it already owned me. It also gave me bad ideas I knew were wrong.” He looked directly at Ellsworth. “I stayed up night after night carving those chess pieces of the town. And I moved your piece right to the middle of the board along with Tanner’s.”

  “I heard a voice,” Tanner said. “That’s when I walked across the street and stabbed you.”

  “Except the voice referred to him as Michael, right?” Tanner blinked, nodded, as Lou glanced around the table. “At the end of the big ’quake yesterday, I walked toward the house, even as I saw it tilting. It was still pulling me, like it wanted to take me down with it, and I didn’t have the know-how to resist. But then something happened, just as I reached the sunporch. My knees started wobbling, my skin tingled like pinpricks, and then suddenly I felt . . . lighter, like a shucked corncob. I felt that thing leave me, just as noticeably as I’d felt it arrive inside the attic weeks before. Then the house collapsed. I was sure I was going to die, and I’m still not quite certain why I didn’t, but I’m grateful.”

  His story finished, Lou gave Ellsworth a little nod and pulled out his tobacco pouch. He concentrated on the ritual of stuffing his pipe and lighting it while conversation buzzed around the table and more bourbon was poured.