“I had thoughts I needed to get out of my head, that’s all.”
“Told ya,” she says to Nate. “She’s obsessed with her family. They’re all she ever thinks about.”
“Not true.”
“You should be thinking about Nate.”
“Maybe I was.”
“Maybe, but doubtful.”
I give her a long stare. “You’ve been lucky, Joss. Wait till you lose your parents or one of your sisters. It’s not something that ever leaves you. It just doesn’t.”
“Sorry,” she whispers. “Did I put you in a bad mood?”
“No, I’m actually in a great mood today.”
“Are you back to believing Eli’s bagging groceries in the next town over?”
“He could be. Or he could be a bartender, or a chef, or a construction worker. Doubt I’ll ever know.” I bend down and tighten a strap on her snowshoe.
“Why are we going to Grady’s then?”
“To inspect the root cellar. It was too dark to get a good look last night.”
“Aren’t you creeped out by it? I can go if you want to wait back at the lodge.”
“I’m good.”
“Babe, really?”
“She’s curious,” Nate says. He pops his coat collar to protect his neck from the cold and puts on a pair of sunglasses. A glowing smile holds steady on his unshaven, ruddy face. A smile that pulls my own cheeks high. He takes my hand, and we step a little faster to catch up with Jim.
“That’s right. I’m curious.” I swing Nate’s arm, his skin warm and rough under my fingers.
“We’re also going so I can get a sense of how much I’ll be able to take home with me on this trip.” He squeezes my hand. “And I want to do it before the cops grow brains and realize they should be out there searching the cellar before us.”
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t think of that,” Joss says.
“I’m banking on the fact that they didn’t either. I want to dig through it before they take off with something I haven’t seen.”
We reach the top of the hill and begin the hike down to Grady’s root cellar. From my granddad’s letter about the Wunderkabinett, I had pictured two or three creatures made of bones, but there were at least thirty in there. Connor collected in threes but stopped. Maybe he got tired of it, outgrew the fascination. But Grady must’ve worked on his collection for years, even decades.
“Why do you think Grady made a skeleton of a kid?” Joss asks.
“It had something to do with him wanting to fix his face,” Nate says. “I think the deformed animals are supposed to represent him … his birth defect and the way he saw himself mangled and not human. And the human-like skeleton was his dream, but he never got it right. That’s why the skull was in pieces.”
“You’re guessing,” she says.
“I’m not guessing, I’m deducing.” Nate hisses in a breath. “Another hole in the roof.” I look up at a dead oak branch spearing the cabin roof. “Jim and I might have to tear this place down so no one gets hurt.”
“I can help,” I offer.
“Blaaa!” Jim dangles an animal skeleton out from behind a tree. Joss and I jump back as Jim’s laughter rocks the forest.
“Don’t touch my stuff.” Nate grabs the skeleton. He tousles Jim’s slick hair until his deep side part disappears.
“Don’t touch my stuff,” Jim mocks, fussing to fix his hair. “Can I have it? It’s like some rat-fox-fish creature.”
“What would you do with it?” Joss asks.
“You know, display it. Put it on a bookshelf or my kitchen counter.” With his snowshoes off, he steps closer and grabs her hips. “Or it can be our bedmate.”
“God, no, Jim.” She sticks out her tongue, red-stained from the strawberry jelly donut. “I’m not a three-some kinda girl.”
“Too bad.” He rubs her nose.
Nate and I pull on our snowshoe straps and release our boots. He takes off his sunglasses and heads toward the cellar, his hand on my back to keep me close. I swallow a smile, remembering the thump of his heart last night while we sat side by side next to the fire, and his low moans while we fucked through the late morning hours. He kept kissing me even after he came.
He props open the root cellar door with a branch, and I peek inside. Adrenaline blazes through me as I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Ever see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?” Joss catches my hand and pulls me inside.
“No.”
“We’re safe. No one’s gonna get sawed to pieces,” Nate says, hunched over from the low ceiling. He shines a flashlight over the skeleton creatures. “Like Salem’s granddad said in his letter, this is art.”
“Art? Pfft.” Joss laughs. “How can you call this art?”
“How can you not? Take it you’ve never left Tilford Lake.”
“You sayin’ I’m a hick?”
“I’m saying don’t be so judgmental if you have no experience.”
“Look who’s talking.” Jim sniffs. He wipes his runny nose on his coat sleeve. “What do you know about bones and living in the woods? We’re from the city.”
“I wouldn’t call Vinland Falls a city.” Nate directs a side-eye at Jim. “You’ve seen the fishing lures my dad made. Don’t you think those are art?”
“No, they’re lures.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, a tool, like a fork.”
“My mom has them on display in a shadow box in her living room.”
“I know. So what? Because they’re on the wall instead of inside his tackle box, they’re suddenly art?” He picks up a short piece of barbed wire. “Let’s take this back with us. I’ll hang it in my apartment and call it art.” He smirks.
Nate shrugs. “If it means something to you, why not?”
“Bullshit.” He pitches it out the door.
“Understanding bullshit is why I breezed through college and why you dropped out. If you want that wire to be art, then that makes it art. How about your tats?”
He touches his chest. “Don’t put me on the spot like this.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re acting all high and mighty because you have a college degree. Stop fucking with me.”
Nate grins. “Just getting you back for last night.”
“How? By making me look like an idiot in front of the women?”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Joss says.
Jim punches Nate’s shoulder and steps past him. “You’re lucky we’re family,” he says. He digs through a pile of loose bones in one of the metal tubs and pulls out a beaver skull. “Dang, look at this thing.” He turns to Joss. “You’re right. It is like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in here. Wonder if Grady ever made any furniture or wind chimes out of this stuff.” He looks to Nate, but Nate’s too busy examining a deer hide lashed to a wooden frame to answer.
“The tiny bird-frog is kinda cute,” Joss says. She pats the skull, and one of the front legs drops off. Trying to put it back in the socket triggers the head to plop on the table and roll to the ground. With her hands raised, she mouths sorry to Nate and steps silently away.
Nate squares his jaw for a second but doesn’t much care. He turns back to the deer hide and glides his finger across the top. “There’s something about this thing.”
Jim puts down a turtle shell and steps closer. “Is this gonna be another art lecture?”
Nate stares between the strings lacing the hide. He slants the frame away from the wall and nods at Jim to grab an end. They move it to the other side of the room. The light from the open door exposes writing carved into the concrete block wall. Words etched with a sharp object, a penknife, or a nail. Words never meant to be seen by us.
“Whoa,” Jim says. He steps closer and reads the top line aloud.
“If you’re going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.” - Manson
Nate frowns.
“There’s another,” Joss points. “Are these serial killer quotes?”
Jim snaps a photo of it with his cell. “Manson didn’t kill anyone.”
“Murder by proxy,” Nate says.
“Whatever.” Jim twists his lips.
Nate turns to me. “You doing okay?”
“So far.” I stride past him and read the next one.
“We’ve all got the power in our hands to kill, but most people are afraid to use it. The ones who aren’t afraid, control life itself.” - Ramirez
I look at Nate. “Ask me again if I’m doing okay.”
“That’s fucked up.” Joss links her arm in Jim’s. “The detective who left needs to come back and see these.”
“They’re just quotes,” Jim says.
“Right, just some serial killer quotes knifed into a wall. No big deal.”
“This one’s more like instructions,” Nate says. He puts his hands on his knees and leans forward to read it.
“I separated the joints, the arm joints, the leg joints, and had to do two boilings. I think I used four boxes of Soilex for each one, put in the upper portion of the body and boiled that for about two hours and then the lower portion for another two hours. The Soilex removes all the flesh, turns it into a jelly like-like substance, and it just rinses off. Then I laid the clean bones in a light bleach solution, left them there for a day and spread them out on a cloth and let them dry for about a week in the bedroom.” - Dahmer
Nate holds the flashlight on it so we can take photos with our cells.
“Instructions?” Joss questions. She stares at the creatures in the room. “Oh, God.” Her shoulders tighten and she shrinks into Jim. “Gross.”
“Chilling,” I say, “but they’re not just quotes or instructions. They’re like Virginia’s I’m not sorry message. He wouldn’t have taken the time to etch the words into the wall if they weren’t significant.”
“Salem, we’re talking about Grady here,” Joss says.
“I know.” I point at the last quote, hardly visible, in lower case letters along the bottom row of concrete blocks.
“Yes, I do have remorse, but I’m not even sure myself whether it is as profound as it should be.” - Dahmer
Jim moves forward. He reads each quote a second time then fingers the Manson text. “This is the best one.”
“There are no best ones,” I counter.
“But I can like it if I want. No harm in that.” He rubs his beard. “I’ll draw a thumbs up icon next to it and claim I’ve unearthed the first Facebook wall.” He’s the only one who laughs. “I’ll call it art.”
Joss unwraps a piece of cinnamon gum and shoves it in his mouth, opens one for herself, blows a bubble and snaps it between her lips. “Lame joke, Jim. Bad timing.”
“Fine. But seriously, this is wild.”
“Wild?” Nate raises a brow.
“I’m just sayin’ everyone has an obsession. I’m on a Viking kick, and my last girl read a ton of books on Jack the Ripper, seems like Grady was into serial killers. Good for him.”
“Good for him? No. On top of all this other stuff?” I tilt my head at Jim. “Special guy I had living behind me. It’s not normal. The bones were plenty to deal with. Now this?”
“The one about remorse isn’t so bad,” Jim says. “I bet it’s about the animals he killed.”
“Or about not being at his wife’s side when she died.” Nate glares at the quote. His voice pitches as if to ask if we agree.
I offer him a thin smile. I absolutely would not leave my mom in the end, even when she said she didn’t want me to watch her die. But some wouldn’t have the strength to stay. Everyone deals in a different way, there’s no handbook for it.
“Your grams may not have wanted Grady there, or Grady couldn’t bear it.” I meet his eye. “Not everyone can watch a loved one die.”
He smiles and takes a black flask out of his coat. After a sip, he passes it to Jim. “Did you?”
I nod.
Jim passes the flask to Joss, then to me. Bill Harlow engraved in silver lettering winks when it catches a ray of sunlight.
“Your dad’s?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“Drink slowly, not like the gulp Joss took.” Jim wraps his arms around her and kisses her shoulder. “Sip it,” he insists.
“I’m not a virgin drinker,” I inform him. The liquor burns my throat and causes a waterfall to spill from my eyes. “Rum. Not bad.” My voice is raspier than an old man with a cigarette habit.
Joss looks up and down the wall. “You think”—she touches the Ramirez quote—“there’re bodies behind here?” The sudden sound of my cell causes her to shriek in fright. “Fuck, why’d you do that?”
“I’m not calling myself, Joss. I didn’t make it ring on purpose.” I take the cell out of my pocket. “It’s Brad. He might have news about Virginia.”
“Tell him I’ll pick that skeleton up from the station,” Nate says. “Make sure he doesn’t put it in the trash.”
“Okay.”
“And tell him real men don’t pull weapons in a fight,” Jim adds.
“You can tell him that yourself.” I step outside, away from the musty stench emanating in the cellar. “Hi.”
“Salem.”
“What?”
“I’m out front. You here?”
“No, I’m at Grady’s. You won’t believe what’s in the cellar.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
“How come?”
“Chief wants to search it.” A pause. “He said…” His speech is tired like he hasn’t slept in days. “Look, I can’t fuck anything else up. Can you just come back to the lodge? I don’t want to drive over there and get trapped in another round with Harlow and Gaines. No one’s ever known about the cellar, so we gotta have a look.”
“Take it you got shit on for not thinking about that sooner.”
“Shit on, flushed, and plunged out. Now it’s back to work, but not with them there.”
Nate comes up behind me. I point at the cellar so he knows the cops are coming. He makes a quick about-face, heading back inside to finish examining the room before they show.
“Any news about Virginia Pullman?” I ask. The crunch-crunch of snow under my feet harmonizes with the zip-zip of my coat as I walk to the front of Grady’s cabin.
“No. I haven’t had time.”
“What about Logan? Can’t he look?”
“He’s off until tomorrow.”
“The station could use a cop who can handle two things at once.”
A fierce exhale pummels my eardrum. “Fuck off, Salem.”
“That’s your response to everything.”
I put my hand on my hip and crane my neck to see the busted cabin roof, then look over at the dead oak tree, its shadow has the tiny structure in a chokehold.
“Brad, I know about Joss. That deal you two made.”
“So?”
“You took a bribe, and it wasn’t even a good one. If you think Joss is going to—”
“Keep it to yourself.”
Windblown footprints wander up the broken porch steps and into the cabin. They’re too small to be from any of the men who were on the property last night. And the lack of any treads shows a boot didn’t make them. A slipper is more likely.
“Tell Joss to be at the bar at eight. She still owes me,” he says.
“Oh, grow a pair.” I hang up, shoving my cell inside my coat.
I pass over the bottom two steps and stride to the third, the cabin door partially open.
“Virginia?”
I hold steady, suddenly less buoyant. Her eagle eyes home in on me from all directions. She spies from the forest, the roof, and the windows. No, she’s under the porch.
“Virginia?” I swing around, check the driveway, scan the high pines. “You here?”
I’m apprehensive when I shouldn’t be. She’s just a harlot, a lying harlot.
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The iced door creaks and groans as I push it open. Snow swirls across the roof and descends through the two nature-made skylights. Sundrenched flakes settle on a piece of twine strung across the living room, a weathered line that shimmers when it sways, beckoning me inside. I pass the cardboard box Virginia was carrying, open and empty.
The items she left were meditatively planned out for this dead room.
The contents of her box: photographs. Black and white photographs clipped with clothespins along the twine that spans the length of the room.
I step forward and look at each one up-close, my pulse quickening, heart hammering.
One boy in each shot with dark hair and a bright smile. A boy about the age of four, in foreign rooms of a foreign house, with bunnies and sheepdogs, toy cars and building blocks, ice cream cones and cakes. He swims, and swings, and runs, and jumps. Photographs of a boy who never ages, not ten, or sixteen, or twenty, but a handsome little boy who is forever four, free of friends and relatives in every shot. A boy who wraps himself in flowing curtains next to a soaring window, and peeps over the back of a sofa with long eyelashes and Whitfield eyes. A boy in black and white who makes me feel so all alone.
Fat tears fall. I pluck the twine out of the wall and roll the line of photographs into a messy ball, shoving the heap back inside Virginia’s box.
“Salem, you ready?” Joss calls out.
I grab the box and barge outside, my eyes darting. I shout at Virginia to come out, to show herself, to explain. Near the dead oak, a family of deer leaps away, while Nate, Joss, and Jim stare speechless and bewildered.
twenty-two
“We’ll drive through town and stop at the diner to ask about Virginia. Someone must’ve seen her.” Joss closes the passenger-side door of Nate’s truck and rolls down the window. “Sure you don’t want us to call the station?”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I pick up a snow shovel and help Nate dig out Virginia’s car. “An old woman left my lodge in a robe and slippers two mornings ago, hasn’t come back, and the cops don’t seem to care. They haven’t even started looking for her. Why go to the station?”
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