December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “Something happened.”

  “No,” I answered, more strongly than before. “I did my research, I took a little time off to visit some … some other places, and I came back to the university. That’s all.”

  “What other places did you visit?”

  “Just, it was just a— look it was kind of personal.”

  “Embarrassing?”

  “No,” I said quickly, and a little defensively, “I went to Ireland to see the place where my— I had an ancestor, sort of the founder of the Devilin clan, who was born in Wales but went to Ireland for work when he was young. He was apprenticed to a silversmith, fell in love with a woman who didn’t love him, and killed a man.”

  “Oh,” she said, sitting up, “I have to hear about this.”

  “His name was Conner Briarwood,” I said, with a small portion of melancholy. “He narrowly avoided being hanged for murder, and was set free on something like a technicality. He changed his last name to Devilin, and escaped to America. He came to these hills, married, had children and grandchildren—lived a good life.”

  “There’s more,” she said.

  “Yes.” I sighed. “After he was dead I found a trunk of his. In it there were hundreds of pages of his story. But it was the same short story, written over and over again, obsessively. Every one with only slight variations. It was clear to me that he was trying, desperately, to make the ending come out differently. But it never did. In the end the woman still didn’t love him, and the murdered man’s life would not be restored. The discovery of that trunk was at least partially responsible for my interest in folklore, because it engendered a keen, strange longing to find answers in the past. And, of course, I realized when I read those pages, that I would never have any hope of being normal. I knew then that it wasn’t just my parents. I had historical genetic trouble.”

  “And?” she insisted.

  “And what?” I said, genuinely not knowing what she was after.

  “It’s obvious.” She leaned forward. “There you were in Wales trying to figure out a way into a different reality, and there’s the ghost of your ancestor who also wanted to manage some kind of metaphysical chicanery to make his own reality come out differently. But something happened that we’re still not talking about. Something happened in Wales, or in Ireland. It triggered something or set something off in you—maybe made you go to Ireland to see where your ancestor had killed a man. How did you get there?”

  “Get where? To Ireland?” I thought for a second. “Small boat.”

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “Look,” I said, standing, “I don’t know where this is getting us. The problem is not what happened in Wales years ago, the problem is that there is a crazy woman and a boy with a gun crawling around in a cave under my house right now!”

  I began to pace, something I never did.

  “I hope you’re listening to yourself,” Dr. Nelson said, settling back onto the sofa. “Your entire intellectual career is based on things that happened in the past, long ago. That’s what you think is important. Well, me too. What happened in your past is important because it made you what you are now—a sleep-deprived, pacing product of too much hallucination and not enough acceptance of who and what you really are.”

  “Who and what I really am?” I snarled. “And just what would that be?”

  “A man who needs to excavate the caves underneath his house,” she said calmly.

  “Oh really,” I sneered.

  “I just want you to observe,” she continued, very softly, “that you’re up on your feet, snarling and sneering at me, for absolutely no immediate reason. I would have to surmise that we’re getting closer to what it is that actually happened in Wales.”

  “Nothing happened in Wales!” I exploded.

  She sat silently. It was exactly the right thing to do. It made my outburst stand alone in the room, as unattractive and unwarranted as it was: an obvious sign that something was wrong.

  My shoulders sagged. The fire popped. Dr. Nelson smiled.

  “I guess something happened in Wales,” I said weakly.

  “I guess it did.”

  “Is that why I can’t remember this woman, Issie?”

  She shrugged good-naturedly. “Could be.”

  “And you think it’s more important to find out about that,” I said, returning to my chair, “than it is to capture Issie and Wild Child and turn them over to a zoo.”

  “I think that the two go hand in hand,” she told me, “and I think that’s just the start. You have a lot of work to do.”

  “Work?”

  “The things that have taken years to make you strange,” she said, “can’t be undone in a few days.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That work.”

  “So tell me about Ireland.”

  I slumped down in the chair. “I’d done the research about that, too. I didn’t know the name of the town where my ancestor Conner Briarwood had been, but I knew that the silversmith with whom he apprenticed was named Jamison, and that Jamison silver pieces were valued quite highly in the antiques marketplace. So finding that he’d worked in the fishing village of Dunmore East was no trouble. At a certain time in history, there had been a relatively large harbor in the village, and that enabled easy commerce for Jamison. I knew from previous research that along a walk from Dunmore East to Ballymacaw, by a brook underneath a hazel tree, was the place where my kin had killed a man with a dagger or a rapier or some such. I can’t explain why, but I had been seized with an irrational obsession to see the spot where it happened. I tried for several days to deny the impulse, but in the end I chartered a small boat and crossed the Celtic Sea. It was a choppy voyage, but not entirely unpleasant. The village is very lovely.”

  “Did you find the place you were looking for?”

  “I did.” I closed my eyes, picturing it. “I found the hazel; the small brook. The sun was out, and very warm, lovely. I tried to imagine Molly, that was the woman’s name, the woman that Conner loved. He discovered her underneath the tree with another man, and the other man was making advances that appeared unwanted. Conner was enraged, and took out his rapier and dagger. They fought, this other man and Conner. All the while this Molly was screaming, trying to stop the fight. In the end the other man was dead and Molly, at last, explained that she had recently married him, or was about to marry him. Conner had killed the man she actually loved.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “That’s where your family tree took a turn,” she said.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “That had to be part of my obsession, the fact that without that event, Conner would most likely have gone back to Scotland, or stayed in Ireland, and I wouldn’t exist. But every family tree is filled with odd twists and turns. It wasn’t just that.”

  “No,” said Dr. Nelson firmly. “It wasn’t just that.”

  “I was overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal.” I heard those words come out of my mouth as I was saying them, as if someone else were talking.

  “Betrayal,” she said. “That’s fascinating.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “All right. Enough of this. I mean, I can’t do this any more right now, this sentimental journey. I realize that we actually should have called Skidmore as soon as we got back to tell him about our adventure. And I’m absolutely dying for you to confirm to him, and to Lucinda, that my demon bride does, most assuredly exist. In the flesh. In the cave.”

  “All right,” she agreed instantly. “Let’s call now.”

  She stood. I was only a little taken aback, and stood, too.

  “Good,” I said, a little uncertainly, thanks to her sudden change of direction.

  “But didn’t you find it interesting,” she added, walking toward the kitchen, “that Issie talked about a choppy sea, and seasickness, on her journey to visit you in Wales? What was all that— about taking the wrong medicine or something?”

  “That was odd,”
I agreed, going to the phone. “Very odd. No idea what she was talking about.”

  Into the kitchen, I dialed the telephone. Skidmore picked up almost instantly.

  “Sheriff.” His voice was unusually cold.

  “Skid, it’s Fever,” I began. “Look, don’t be mad, but Dr. Nelson and I went down to the cave where this woman and the boy—”

  “Damn it, Fever,” he snapped. “This is not—”

  “Your police tape was gone, the cave was covered up again, we barely found it, the woman and the boy were in there, and Dr. Nelson was with me the entire time.” The words spilled forth, a torrent from a broken dam. “She saw everything.”

  Skidmore was silent.

  Then: “Put her on.”

  I handed the phone to Dr. Nelson.

  “Sheriff,” she said calmly, “the woman who visited Fever the other night is real. I saw her. And the boy. They’ve been living in the cave. And the cave has at least one other entrance.”

  She listened, and as she did, her perennial smile disappeared.

  “Oh.” She looked at the kitchen floor. “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

  She listened for another second, and then handed the phone back to me.

  “Fever?” he asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “We did manage to get some print evidence from the cave. That’s what I was waiting for when you called awhile ago. The boy? He’s been missing from Central State Hospital in Milledgeville for several months. Considered armed and dangerous. And he’s not a boy. He’s thirty.”

  I think my face must have flinched. Dr. Nelson nodded, as if agreeing with whatever surprise I was registering.

  “That can’t be right,” I said slowly. “I mean—he’s not thirty. You have erroneous information.”

  “Prints are a perfect match,” he said flatly. “Fever, his name is David Newcomb.”

  “What?” I gaped at Dr. Nelson. “David Newcomb?”

  “Wait,” she said, “Newcomb? As in the Newcombs who kind of owned this town? Skidmore didn’t tell me that.”

  I nodded, but Skidmore kept talking.

  “It’s unclear why he was in the mental hospital, exactly,” the sheriff told me curtly, “but he may have killed as many as seven people. And he was only in the hospital for less than a week, far as I can tell—I’m still in the process of acquiring information about him. He seems to have committed himself, for some reason, and then broken out a short while later.”

  “But, what about the woman?”

  “The other prints didn’t get any match in the database,” he answered. “And there’s no one in the database at all by the name of Issie Raynerd. But since there was another set of prints in the cave, I’m prepared to listen to what Dr. Nelson has to say about the woman you encountered there. Which, let me just say this again: don’t go down there anymore!”

  “Right,” I answered immediately. “Exactly.”

  I could tell how angry he was. I just didn’t know why. I’d gone places he’d told me not to go, and done things he’d told me not to do, dozens of times. Ordinarily he just would have thought I was—maybe incorrigible would be the word. But this was obviously different. He was genuinely upset.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me, Skid?” I asked quietly.

  More silence ensued.

  “I don’t know how much of this I can tell you right now,” he said finally, sighing.

  “Because it’s confidential—what? Police business. In the past you’ve never hesitated—”

  “Because I don’t know your state of mind,” he told me bluntly. “Because I don’t know how much you can take. Sorry.”

  I would have to admit to being significantly deflated by that pronouncement. It must have shown, once again, on my face, because Dr. Nelson put her hand on my arm.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Look, Sheriff,” I said, a bit tersely, “you thought I was crazy because I imagined a woman in my home. Now it turns out she was here. So, I was right and you were wrong. How does that make me so delicate that you can’t tell me everything about this situation—a situation that obviously involves me in ways I don’t even yet know?”

  “You died and came back to life,” he began, his voice rising inappropriately, “stayed in a coma for three months, hallucinated for weeks after that, and now you’re under the care of a very serious psychiatrist. I don’t see how that makes you entirely stable.”

  By the end of his short tirade I had to hold the phone away from my ear because he was shouting so loudly. Dr. Nelson heard.

  “I’m not that serious a psychiatrist,” she sang out.

  “You listen to me, Dr. Devilin!” the sheriff growled. “I’m telling you to stay put in your house until I get there. Melissa and me, we’re coming back with dogs and guns and people—state troopers, maybe FBI. We’re going to find this David Newcomb. He’s a very, very bad person. I haven’t told you everything and I’m not going to. But you stay away from him and you make Ceri do the same. Do you hear me? I can’t have either one of you get dead. Not at Christmas time!”

  He slammed down the phone.

  “Hey, that’s right,” Dr. Nelson chirped. “It’s only a couple of days until Christmas.”

  I gaped for a moment. “I have to sit down.”

  I reached out for a kitchen chair and sat, unsteadily, facing the plywood window covering.

  Dr. Nelson took a seat beside me.

  We sat for a while, staring out the remaining windowpanes. Snow clouds were low in the sky, a charcoal smudge covering up the sun.

  “What does this mean?” I asked at last. “Another Newcomb dwarf, a phantom bride, and a psychiatrist with a mythological name—all visit my house at Christmas. Three twisted Magi. Something is genuinely wrong with my life. I mean, maybe I am some kind of magnet for weirdness.”

  “The first step,” she said, mock-heroically, “is admitting you have a problem.”

  “Please shut up,” I mumbled. “I’m having a significant feeling of— I feel very strange. There’s something going on in the caves beneath my home. And, actually, I mean that in any metaphorical sense you care to imagine.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder then. It was warm and oddly comforting. “Want to call Lucinda now? Tell her you’re not as crazy as she thinks?”

  “Good,” I agreed. “Yes. Set her mind at ease—a bit.”

  But I didn’t get up. I was momentarily drained of all energy. I couldn’t understand why for a moment.

  “Is it possible,” I asked Dr. Nelson, “that I’m exhausted by the weight of hiding something in my mind? I mean, this repression thing—could it be that it takes up more energy than just letting it all out?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, sitting back and folding her arms. “It’s the most tiring thing in the world, trying to hide something that you actually want to expose. Ambivalence. It’s the heaviest thing in the world. It’s the heaviest substance known to humankind. It’s the main thing that causes trouble in any interaction. It makes you crazy.”

  “It makes you Hamlet.”

  “It stalls your process of actualization,” she concluded. “It makes you unable to be who you really are.”

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “You’re tired.”

  “Very,” I told her.

  “So call Lucinda. You’ll feel better; she’ll feel better—all’s right with the world.”

  I only took another second to consider before I agreed.

  17

  Sometime in the next hour Skidmore and Melissa Mathews appeared. Skidmore was still terse and perfunctory in his conversation, and he avoided eye contact. Melissa was nearly stuttering she was so nervous. They both had rifles, flak jackets, and extra pistols on their gun belts. Their collective image was surreally filmic. They were more heavily armed and armored than I had ever seen either one of them. Skidmore all but threatened me with life in prison if I so much as stepped out of my house onto the porch.

&n
bsp; “Lock the doors. Do you still have that hunting rifle I gave you?” He was staring off to the side of the house.

  “Somewhere,” I answered vaguely. It had been a Christmas present when we’d both been in high school—his one and only attempt to normalize me for our small-town environment.

  “Find it,” he snapped, and then stepped backward down the steps and off the porch.

  “We’ve called the State Patrol,” Melissa whispered, as if she were afraid that Skid might hear. “They’re sending someone. He just didn’t want to wait. This man, this Newcomb? He’s a very, very bad man.”

  I had never seen Melissa frightened; her anxiety gave me pause. If she was afraid of David Newcomb, that was genuinely cause for concern.

  Skid sniffed and looked in Dr. Nelson’s direction. “You saw this woman, this so-called Issie Raynerd.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Nelson was uncharacteristically curt.

  “Call Lucinda,” Skid commanded us both.

  “I did,” I answered, irritated by his manner. “I talked with her shortly before you arrived. She was relieved to hear that I’m not quite as disturbed as she might have feared.”

  “Good,” he said, still not looking at me. “When’s she coming over?”

  “Well, there’s something strange. She accepted my commentary and was happy to hear it, but when I suggested that she come right over to talk about it, she begged off. Long day at the hospital, she said, and sleep was what she needed.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to surprise him.

  “I understood, of course,” I assured him. “She hasn’t slept much lately.”

  Still, upon reflection as the sun was going down, it seemed very strange to me that she’d reacted so mildly to the fact that I hadn’t imagined or hallucinated the strange woman. That Issie was actually real, albeit difficult to explain.

  Without much more ado, Skidmore and Melissa trudged off down the hill and Dr. Nelson and I locked ourselves into my house. I spent awhile in relative silence putting together a nice duck cassoulet made with dried white beans that Lucinda had grown and a duck that Skidmore had brought me. It was very satisfying: onions, garlic, of course, but more Benton’s bacon, that was the real secret.