as though there were some obstacle in the way;
and yet: as though, once it was overcome,
she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.
It took me weeks to get it all written out and twice as long to get the words tucked away in my head and my heart where they could take root. Now I can say it every hour if I want.
The psychiatrist likes to ask me why I pick the ones I do. Sometimes I tell him I like the way they sound or maybe because it made me cry the first time I read it. We both know I see myself in the Bohemian's verses. Waiting for the moment when I, too, will fly.
Today I'm copying a piece of Wallace Stevens. The title is in French, but it's about a woman named Ursula and a garden. I've got the first lines done. Just two more to finish the first verse.
Ursula, in a garden, found
a bed of radishes.
She kneeled upon the ground
and gathered them,
with flowers around,
blue, gold, pink, and green.
I smooth the paper flat and stick my tongue out, concentrating. Blue. Gold. Pink. And. Green.
Fold the paper up carefully and put it in my sweater pocket. I'll work to memorize it later.
There's another stack of books on the table. History and poetry mostly. The psychiatrist has his hobbies, and his books are usually of one kind or the other. One I started last week is about movies and has lots of pictures of women with big eyes and short hair, and men with mustaches and neat suits.
There's a scuffle of feet in the hall outside and voices sharp with curiosity and fear.
“How many have they found?”
“First reporter said a dozen, but now they're sayin' undetermined.”
“You think that means more or less?”
“It don't matter how many. It's the how that's creepy. Burned up.”
“And hid.”
The words get indistinct as they move down the hall. Not that it matters. I've already seen what they're whispering about. Probably know more in that seeing than they do. More than they ever will.
I glance at the clock. There's still a half hour left for me to read, but the scars on my arm are prickling. Something is happening—something more important than finding new words.
So I get up and walk to the door, covering my hand with my sweater sleeve out of habit before I touch the knob. Ain't much in the institution that's made out of iron, but I've been stung by it enough to take precautions now. Of course, it makes it hard to turn the knob, but after a few tries, I get it far enough that the door swings open.
The nurses are all gathered around the TV at the end of the hall, eyes wide as they listen to the nasal cadence of the reporter.
“The bodies were found this morning in a wooded area off Grisham Road. It is uncertain at this time how many were discovered and a larger search is being conducted as we speak. It has been confirmed that the bodies appear to have been burned, though the coroner can't tell us if that was the cause of death. Sheriff Tolbert says they do not have any suspects in mind at this time. He did confirm a team from the FBI is being sent in to assist in the investigation.”
“It's the Salesman,” Lettie says breathlessly. “It's got to be.”
“That's just a folk tale.” Mrs. Pratt starts nudging them away from the TV. “And you know better than to start bringing that up in here.”
“That's right.” Malcom grins. “She might hear you.”
Too late I realize I would have been better off staying in the office. She, with that tone and leer, means something I don't need to hear. She means The One That Don't Burn. She means me.
Too late I start to back down the hall.
Lucia turns and sees me. “Ah, mi dios.” Her hand flutters from forehead to heart, marking herself against evil.
They all shuffle and mutter. The small magic of many tongues falling like raindrops on thirsty ground.
I let my hair fall forward around my face and stare at my shoes. Cling tight to words that are not as dark or fearful and remember that my voice is a storm.
As though, once it was overcome,
she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.
Mrs. Pratt is the first to move. She puts her arm around my shoulders gentle and firm, walking me back down the hall toward the office. “Del. Aren't you supposed to be reading?” She holds her arm out, the little gold watch clasped around her solid wrist sparkling even under the fluorescent light. “Only quarter 'til one. Why don't you come back in and sit? What are you reading about today?”
“The silent era of film.”
“Sounds fascinating,” she says in a tone that is false as her smile. She guides me back to the chair in the office. “Now you go ahead and read for a while longer. I'll come get you when it's time to go back to your room.”
“Yes, ma'am.” I nod and bend my head over my book, pretending to look at the words until she closes the door behind her.
The scars on my arm are prickling worse than ever, and I rub at them through the sweater sleeve. Something bad is awake. Something that burns and though I know this has been coming, my heart beats faster.
I close my eyes trying to catch a glimpse of the thing the nurses called The Salesman, but I can't see anything except the black-red insides of my eyelids. I feel it though, laying my hands flat on the table and touching the trembling little threads that lead away across the hours and minutes. Seeing the thing that waits as surely as I saw Mrs. Hayney peering into her fridge and wishing for a beer. Feeling it in my skin intimately as Collins’ puffing and sweating as he crept through the underbrush looking for the dead girls.
Distant. Quiet. And hungry.
It’s evil in way that cannot be ignored.
“Just you wait,” I whisper. “Just you wait.”
3
They've only uncovered the first few corpses, marking the others with little flags at either end so they remain undisturbed.
Percival stands with his arms crossed on his chest, looking for a pattern in the placement of the dead. Five of them form a loose ring, but without the proper spacing needed for the points of a pentagram. The other seven are scattered farther away and to no discernible purpose.
He settles on his heels next to one of those they've uncovered. The smell is intense—like roadkill that's been tossed in a fire pit. Decay and ash meld into a sick-and-sweet stink. He coughs and stares at the shifting leaves overhead until his stomach calms.
His ears are ringing. An echo of screams raises the hair on his arms despite the sweltering heat, voices pleading or cursing or threatening. None of them went easy or quiet. All the soft and thin bits have burned away completely, leaving cheekbones and teeth exposed, while the arms and legs are still a mass of flesh. A hot fire, but not sustained.
He licks his fingertips and holds his hand out over the corpse, fingers spread wide as though trying to catch hold of something.
The roar of fire fills his head. Flames. Flames in the rough shape of a man. And an iron box, red hot and unforgiving. Fingertips torn open to the bone. Heat pouring into lungs as thick and deadly as water.
“Agent Cox.” The voice, and the hand on his shoulder, are firm, dragging him back to a reality that is less terminal, if not markedly more pleasant. Martinez, jacketless, and sleeves rolled up as a defense against the smothering heat, tucks his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. “Pretty grim out here.”
“Oh.” Percival jerks up onto his feet. Staggers for a moment until he rests hands on knees and gulps a few breaths paying no mind to the stink. His tongue is gritty, the taste in his mouth not unlike having licked an ashtray. “Yeah.”
Martinez looks at him, eyes narrowed in a way that might be concern. “You all right, Cox?” He sounds irritated, but Percival has learned that Martinez doesn't say anything he doesn't mean, even if his tone seems to say different.
“Yes. Mostly.” He coughs, spits out a mouthful of bile, only just remembering to turn toward the middle of the clearing so he doesn't splatter it all over th
e body.
“You saw something.” Martinez may not be easy to read, but there's a tremor in his voice. If it's some unnatural thing that has resulted in the dozen bodies, he'd rather not know. All the same, he cannot help but ask.
“Flames. And a big metal box with handles on the end. Like a steamer trunk. Or a sort of casket.”
“Huh.” He nods, shoulders relaxing. “That makes sense.”
“It does?” Percival wipes his mouth on his hand.
“Turns out these woods are part of piece of property that used to be a crematory.”
“Used to be?”
“The facility's still there, but closed down. Apparently they'd been taking money for services and burying the bodies in a pit. Gave the families back urns filled with cement and wood ash.”
Percival frowns, rubs fingertips against his palm, the skin still unnaturally warm. “I don't think it was a person that did this.”
“Maybe not. Can't hurt to check them out.” Martinez looks at him again. “You sure you're all right?”
“Just the heat. And this.” He waves a hand at the corpses. “This is a little over my head.”
“Yeah.” He claps Percival on the shoulder. “Don't worry. You'll get used to it.”
“You think so?”
“Or you'll go nuts and blow your brains out like Harold did.” Martinez touches the gun holstered on his belt, reflexive. “I'd suggest talking to someone if it gets that bad. Harold didn't.”
Percival nods. The others on the team won't even talk about their previous teammate. Aside from some veiled references to new talent. But Martinez mentions him with clockwork efficiency. And invariably as some kind of cautionary tale.
“I'm sorry,” he says. “About Harold. That's a difficult thing. Finding a friend dead like that.” He looks at Martinez hesitantly. Might be he's overstepping his bounds. But he ain't a Sensitive for nothing.
For a moment the hardness leaves Martinez, the practiced disinterest fading into grief. And gratitude. The relief that someone knows how raw he feels inside. He rubs his forehead. “Sometimes, I think...” He clears his throat and puts the sadness back inside, like folding a handkerchief and tucking it into a pocket. “We should go.”
Percival licks his lips. “Sure.” The back of his neck prickles. The sense that someone is watching him comes so strong he glances over his shoulder. He sees nothing but the silver beech trunks and green leaves.
He stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets. “Sure.”
4
Hannah Gartner and her daughter, Tammy, stare through the screen door sullenly. “If you from the papers, we ain't got nothin' to say.”
Martinez holds up his badge. “FBI, ma'am. We just want to ask you a few questions.”
“If I say no?”
“We can go down to the sheriff's office instead.”
“Huh.” Her lip curls back from her teeth, but she shoves the door open anyway. “Our show's on in a few minutes so better make it quick.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Martinez squeezes past without hesitation.
Percival follows more slowly, nodding to Mrs. Gartner and Tammy as he passes between them. He resists the urge to straighten his vest, smooth the hair curling across his forehead, and go wait by the car. The back of his neck is prickling with more than the sullen glare of the women, righteous in their anger. There is something important here.
The interior of the house is rank with the smell of yesterday's breakfast and fifty years of cigarette smoke. Mrs. Gartner plops back down on the faux leather couch, crosses her arms over her chest, and glares at them. “Well?”
Percival hesitates. He's still wobbly at the knees, but asking for a chair seems to be pushing their luck. He looks around the room, trying not to stare. Trying not to judge, though it's hard with the piles of newspaper, clothes hanging from a piece of rope strung up behind the couch, the TV mumbling incoherently at his back.
“We heard the sirens.” Tammy settles on the other end of the couch. A younger, paler version of Mrs. Gartner—equally large, but somehow lacking the solidity of her mother, if not the spite.
“That's right.” Martinez pulls his notebook out of his shirt pocket. “A number of bodies have been found. Local authorities tell us the property is yours.”
“Those woods are big,” Mrs. Gartner says.
“Yes, ma'am. But this would be the area near Grisham Road and the Hayney property.”
Her eyes get narrow, but she nods. “That's ours all right.”
“Have you seen or heard anything unusual out that way?”
She shrugs. “Can't say that I have.” Pokes her daughter with a hard finger. “What about you? Seen anything, Tammy?”
Tammy purses her lips, shakes her head so hard she jiggles from head to toe. “Don't leave the house much.”
Martinez makes a note. Or pretends to. “You mind if we look around outside?”
“Go ahead. Ain't much out there.” Mrs. Gartner's lips get thin. “Most of it been sold to pay for court fees and such.”
Martinez glances at Percival. “You want to come?”
“I'll wait here.” The house is stifling, but the back of his neck hasn't stopped itching. A sure sign there is something else to be learned here.
“All right.” He looks at the two women as he tucks his notebook away. “I'll be outside if you need anything.”
Percival shoves his hands in his pockets and does his best to look awkward. “Could I get a glass of water?”
For a moment it seems as if they won't relent, but Mrs. Gartner lets her breath out in a huff and pokes her daughter again. “Get him a glass of water, Tammy.”
“I don't—”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes'm.” Tammy shuffles through a doorway hung with strings of wooden beads, and there is a rattle of glass, the thump of a cabinet door. After a moment, she returns with a glass of water. “Here.”
“That clean?” Mrs. Gartner asks, sharp-like.
Her daughter squinches up her face 'til her eyes are hid and her nostrils are flared wide, but she goes back into the kitchen without a word. This time there's more noise and a few words that make Percival's ears get hot.
“Why don't you take a chair while we wait?” Mrs. Gartner motions to a battered recliner nearly hidden under a drift of newspaper inserts.
“Thank you.” He moves some of the paper off the seat and sits down gingerly.
“How'd they die?”
“I'm sorry?”
She waves a thick hand toward the door and the sun-covered yard beyond. “You said there were bodies found out there near Hayney's place. How'd they die?”
“I really can't...”
“They was burned, wasn't they?” Tammy shuffles back in from the kitchen. “Here.” She hands him a new glass of water. “No spit in that one.”
“Thank you.” He takes a quick sip, then rests it on his knee.
“Were they burned?” Mrs. Gartner leans forward, eyes keen under the flabby slope of her forehead.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I knew it.” Tammy grins triumphantly, and there's a brief hint of her mother's strength in her wide shoulders. “Always seem to forget that John-John went to prison for not burnin' nobody.”
Percival nods. “Once people get an idea about you... it's hard to change their mind.” He takes another sip of water, then a deep breath while he waits for the anxious tremble to fade.
Mrs. Gartner looks at him like she's weighing him with her eyes, tallying up each word he's said and putting it into one column or another to find his worth. Finally, she nods. “That's the truth.”
A cockroach skitters out of the pile of paper he just moved, running back and forth. Tammy raises one broad foot and brings it down hard. “Hah.” She rubs her shoe on a greasy patch of carpet. “Got 'em.”
Percival takes another swallow of water. “I'm not sure...” He pauses. It's against protocol to discuss the details of the case with civilians, but that itch won't go away.
“I think it may be something other than human behind these bodies.”
Tammy sucks in a breath. “The Salesman.”
He fidgets as the itch turns to an outright sting. “Salesman?”
“That's just a town legend,” Mrs. Gartner says, but there's a thoughtful tilt to her head.
“Maybe someone is trying to imitate it. What sort of story is it?”
“A love story,” Tammy says quickly.
“A ghost story,” her mother says a breath behind.
“Like Romeo and Juliet.” Tammy drops onto the couch. “Only not everyone dies.”
“Can I hear it?” Percival wedges his free hand under his leg to keep from scratching the back of his neck raw.
“I'll tell it.” Mrs. Gartner settles back against the couch cushions with a nod. “The Salesman. Story is he came to town after the war.”
Percival frowns. “The war?”
“Between the States.” Her lip curls up in a way that says Yankee.
“Of course. So, this was over a century ago.”
“That's right.” She smooths the front of her dress, fingers circling the floral pattern like she's tracing a map. “He came to town after the war, and the menfolk all disliked him for bein' a Yankee. And because he was handsome. But the women, the young ones anyway, they liked him plenty because he had a big metal trunk full of ribbons and glass brooches that looked almost like real gemstones. And because he was handsome.”
“But there were only one girl that caught his eye.” Tammy has one hand pressed over her heart. “That was the mayor's daughter, Emily.”
Her mother fixes her with a stare as sharp as needles. “You goin' to let me tell this or not?”
“Yes'm.” She presses her fingers to her mouth to keep any further words trapped inside.
Mrs. Gartner turns her attention back to Percival and smiles apologetically. “There was only one girl that caught Jack Green's eye. The mayor's daughter, Emily. She was fairer than most with a gentle disposition, and when she turned her affection on Green, the other young men in town were... unhappy.
“But Emily and Jack were in love and you know how that is. When you love someone down to the soles of your feet and out to the tips of your fingernails, love them with every breath and in each heartbeat... when you love someone like that, it's all you see.
Touch: A Trilogy Page 2