by Lori Roy
Imogene didn’t tell Mama or Daddy what happened that day, but someone did. Eddie had to move out for almost making Imogene drown, and even though she was mostly a grown woman, Jo Lynne wasn’t allowed to leave the house for a month except to go to classes over in Milledgeville because she had been drinking beer with Garland instead of keeping a close eye on her little sister. Imogene first imagined her real daddy told, but in the end, she knew it was Russell Tillerson. She already loved him even then, in a childish twelve-year-old sort of way. The day after it happened, Imogene told Russell, the only person she ever told, about coughing and spitting up water and about her real daddy maybe not being bad like everyone said. Russell was angry, stomped around, trying his best to puff up his chest, which was still scrawny and sunken in, and hollered about Eddie being a Goddamned fool. Though Imogene never asked him, she knew Russell told Mama because he loved Imogene even then too and didn’t want Eddie to get away with what he had done, and he didn’t want Imogene trying to swim to her real daddy ever again.
“Jesus, Immy,” Eddie says, letting the screen door slap closed and starting down the stairs toward the drive. “You hate Daddy and this family so much you burned the place down?”
“I didn’t,” Imogene says. “I don’t, I mean. I don’t hate Daddy or this family, and I didn’t start that fire. Why would you say that?”
“Ain’t none of it a secret,” Eddie says.
He doesn’t have to say anything more. It’s never been a secret that Imogene would have left the family long ago if not for Tillie and Mrs. Tillie. Being near them was the closest Imogene would ever get to being near Russell and Vaughn. Not even Mama would have been enough to make Imogene stay. And it’s never been a secret that Imogene isn’t a real Coulter and that Daddy, at best, tolerated her and she him. Her hate for what the Knights believe and the things they do has never softened. What has shifted is her fear. She feared the robes and hoods when she was a child. Those men were monsters sprung to life, but as she reached her teenage years, she began to think of them as pitiful and cowardly, ridiculous even. And these last several years, grief left her fearing only one thing—another day alive while Russell and Vaughn were dead. But over these most recent months, she’s beginning to fear the Knights again because they’re becoming louder, stronger, and pushing their way back into everyday life.
“What should we do?” Jo Lynne says, grabbing Imogene’s hand to stop her from saying anything more. “Do we need to leave?
“Fire ain’t going to jump that lake,” Eddie says as a set of headlights hits the trunks of the pecan trees growing on the other side of the drive. “You all will be fine up here.”
“I don’t think we should stay,” Jo Lynne says, holding Imogene’s hand with both of hers, maybe because of nerves or maybe to keep Imogene from following Eddie. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Suit yourself,” he calls back as he walks toward the approaching car.
A sheriff’s car parks in the drive, and a man Imogene recognizes from town steps out, but she doesn’t know his name. She knows most of the deputies because of her work. They copy burglary reports for her and sometimes let her take a peek at a particular person’s record when really they shouldn’t. Eddie motions for Jo Lynne and Imogene to get back inside as he and the sheriff’s deputy walk toward the top of the ridge where they’ll be able to look down on the lake and old house beyond. A fire truck comes next, the small one they keep downtown. If there’s real trouble, the fellows from Milledgeville will come and use the back road into the old place because it’s wider and flatter. Everyone in Griffith County has lived through enough high winds and dry, hot springs to take care they have a good firebreak carved around their house or a well-fed spring.
“How much have you had?” Jo Lynne asks as the fire truck rattles past.
She stares at Imogene and shakes her head in that same way Daddy did when his fellow Knights of the Southern Georgia Order insisted that new succession plans be discussed. Much as it pained them to say it, Eddie just didn’t have the brains to lead them in their modern-day battles and asked did Daddy ever think to get Eddie tested for hookworm. It makes fellows look to be lazy, they said. Makes them out to be not so bright. That’s how Jo Lynne is looking at Imogene now, as if she’s a hookworm-infested embarrassment.
“It’s not the drinking,” Imogene says.
Except it is the drinking. Her head aches, throbs really, because she’s sobered up too quickly, even with the vodka she drank, and the pain is tangling her thoughts and making her fear run off in all different directions.
“Go on and get Mama’s things pulled together,” Jo Lynne says.
“But Eddie said we don’t need to go.”
“And when is the last time you took Eddie’s word for anything?”
“I can’t go,” Imogene says, knowing this is the moment she has to tell. Except now, she doesn’t know what to say.
“What do you mean, you can’t go?”
“Mama showed me something,” Imogene says. “Outside. Earlier tonight, after you and Eddie left.”
“And?”
When Imogene doesn’t say anything else, Jo Lynne tips her head and cocks her brows in that way she always does when waiting for Imogene to admit she’d been drinking when she cracked her shin on the coffee table or lost the spare house key so instead broke a window to get inside.
“It was a wire.”
“This is going to have to wait,” Jo Lynne says, walking past Imogene toward the kitchen door.
“An electrical wire,” Imogene says, grabbing Jo Lynne by the arm. “I followed it to the basement at the old place.”
“What basement?” Jo Lynne says, trying to tug her arm free, but Imogene won’t let go. “What are you talking about?”
“The wire,” Imogene says. She lets her hand slide down Jo Lynne’s arm to her hand and holds it. “It went underground, all the way to the old house. All the way to the basement there.”
“What have you done, Imogene?” Jo Lynne says it slowly, pausing after each word.
The sound of that question is too familiar, so familiar Imogene has to grab at her stomach with both hands. Even amid everything else—the basement, the fire, the boy asleep in her bedroom—that question takes Imogene back five years. The pain is fresh again, an open wound that has yet to spend five years trying its best to heal and made all the more raw today by Imogene having sat in that church again and walked through that cemetery. Imogene had been holding a phone to her ear but then dropped it because Warren Nowling, a detective relatively new to town at the time, was on the other end, not wanting to tell her over the phone but her screaming until he did. Vaughn and Russell, both, an accident, they were gone. Just like that. What have you done, Jo Lynne asked, because Imogene dropped her cell phone and it shattered when it hit the ground. Hearing those words again, in that same way of Jo Lynne’s, has knocked the wind from Imogene’s lungs, and she stands motionless, waiting for them to open up again.
“I didn’t do anything,” Imogene says. It’s little more than a whisper but all she can manage. “I went there. To the old house. I found a boy.”
Jo Lynne yanks her hands free this time and stares up at Imogene.
“You found a what?” Jo Lynne says.
“He’s in my room.” It’s passing, the pain from that punch in her gut. “Right now. Sleeping. And there’s a mother somewhere. He was living down in the basement. His mama too, I think.”
Jo Lynne tries to push past, but Imogene grabs her by the wrist again.
“Listen to me.”
Jo Lynne twists and pulls, but Imogene won’t let go.
“For the love of God, Imogene, let loose of me.”
“Someone was keeping them down there. And the mother, she might still be there. In the house. Maybe somewhere nearby.” And then she has to say it. Even though she’d been trying to convince herself she was wrong ever since she laid the boy in her bed, because if she’s right, it will devastate Mama. “I think Daddy was the
one keeping them down there.”
Chapter 21
BETH
Before
I know today is Wednesday. Wednesday, March 16, 2011, and I’ve been in the basement for one year. I’d be in fifth grade if I still went to school. Fifth graders get to make crystal snowflakes with borax, pipe cleaners, and wide-mouth mason jars and go on a field trip to the museum in Macon. When I think about Ellie and Fran going to Macon without me, and the two of them sitting together on the bus instead of all three of us squeezing into one seat, it makes me angry. But then I can’t remember what color Ellie’s hair was or which one of us was tallest, and I start wondering if me not remembering anymore is the same as parts of me not living anymore.
I know for sure today is a Wednesday—not like before, when I thought it was a Tuesday and was wrong—because I keep a calendar now. It’s on the inside cover of a high school chemistry book where I think he’ll never look. My calendar starts with November because he came special on Halloween and brought me candy. I knew Halloween was October 31, and the next day I started my calendar with November. I have forty-two books now, and one of them, a workbook for second graders, helped me remember the order of all the months and how many days are in each, and because today is Wednesday, I push my one chair under the bulb that hangs from the ceiling, stack three of the other textbooks also meant for high schoolers on it so I can reach, and holding a small flashlight between my teeth, I get ready to climb on top.
Each time he comes, he brings me books, but my favorites are the ones about Laura. She lives in a small house in the Big Woods. There are only trees as far as she can see, and I think she’s alone like me except she has a family. I have four books about Laura now, and if I’m good, he’ll bring me more. He asked me once if I wanted to call him Pa like Laura called her daddy Pa. It was Christmas. I knew because he brought me a present wrapped in newspaper and because my calendar told me it was December 25. I shook my head, and he said that was all right. I never had a dad, but if I did, I think he would have been like Pa in my books. He would have taken me for walks in the Big Woods and set traps for bears to keep me safe like Laura’s pa did for her. And because maybe him asking me to call him Pa meant he was a little bit like Pa in my books, I made myself ask him a question too.
“If I promise not to tell about Julie Anna,” I said, “will you take me home?”
Knowing it was Christmastime made me miss Mama so bad my chest ached like the basement was running out of air and soon I’d suffocate. I wanted to be sitting under our small Christmas tree, its white lights glittering on my face and making my eyelids flutter, while Mama told stories about where each ornament came from and why it was special.
“What happened to that girl was her own damn fault,” he said. His lips always turned into a hard, straight line when I said Julie Anna’s name. “She and her whole damn family should have stayed where they come from.”
I stared at him but didn’t answer because he was talking in a quiet way that meant a louder voice was simmering inside. The same happened to Mama when the woman came to our house for her monthly visits. Mama would try to use her quiet voice, but a loud voice was always waiting to explode.
“But her daddy ain’t teaching no one now. He sure as hell ain’t.”
“Are Julie Anna’s mama and daddy dead too?” I could hardly make myself say the words.
We saw the men one Saturday, Mama and me. We’d been going to buy me an Easter dress and they were standing on the steps at the courthouse. A man in tan pants and yellow hair was angry about someone who was teaching over at the college. Mama said that was a rally and those were the Ku Klux Klan.
“If it weren’t for me,” he said, jabbing a finger at me, “you might be dead too. Could have been a whole lot worse for you. A whole lot worse.”
I didn’t know what could be a whole lot worse, because Julie Anna was dead and maybe her mama and daddy were dead too. But I did know him saying what he said meant he would never take me home. It also meant he was part of the Ku Klux Klan. I waited until he had left and I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore before I started to cry and then scream because I missed Mama so bad. I didn’t even care if bad people outside might hear me. Mama was the only mama I would ever get to have, and Pa in my books was the only daddy I was ever going to have. He was a great man, and he set traps for bears to keep his family safe. But Pa wasn’t going to keep me safe, so when my calendar read “Jan. 1” and I had to write a new year, 2011, I started to plan my own trap.
First, I began doing chores like Laura did in her stories. I set an alarm to wake me up every morning, brushed my teeth after every meal, and scrubbed my clothes in the kitchen sink every Saturday. I made myself eat three meals every day, even when the food made my stomach ache, because he was always telling me I was too thin, and I started climbing the stairs too. In the beginning, my lungs burned for my breathing so hard and heavy. I climbed them until I knew where to step to miss every spot that creaked. I didn’t know what I’d find on the other side of the door at the top of the stairs, but I knew the locks were on the outside and sometimes he left the door standing open when he carried things down to me. I also knew the outside was on the other side of the door. He sometimes tracked things in on the bottoms of his shoes—clumps of red clay I rubbed between my fingers and breathed in and touched to the tip of my tongue or scraps of yellow dandelions that hadn’t turned fuzzy yet. And I knew what happened when the light bulb at the bottom of the stairs went dark.
Before I started keeping my calendar, when I was still afraid of the stairs, he came one Sunday and said it was time to change the bulb. Handing me a small flashlight, he told me to point it at his head so he could see what he was doing and that I’d better not get smart. When he unscrewed the bulb, the basement went suddenly dark, darker even than when I close my eyes. With both thumbs, I pushed the button on the flashlight. A small stream of light broke the darkness and shined on his face. It was as if the flashlight cut a small hole in the blackness and only he could peek through. He held a new bulb to his ear and lightly shook it. No good, he said and handed the bulb to me. I reached into the darkness, took it, and gave it a shake like he did. Something inside rattled. Filament’s broke, he said. He took a third bulb from the box, screwed it in, and the basement lit up again. I switched off the flashlight and felt sad because him changing the bulb made the basement somehow deeper underground and it meant I was staying.
“You keep it,” he said when I stretched out a hand to give him back his flashlight. He looked like he felt shame, which is what Mama said I should feel when she caught me sticking a candy bar in my pocket without paying for it. “Turn the big light off when you’re ready for bed. Switch is there at the top of the stairs. And use the flashlight to make your way back down and up again in the morning. Sleep in the bed too. It’s a good bed. It was Imogene’s. When she was your age.”
“Imogene?” I said.
“Yes, Imogene,” he said. “Books were hers too.”
Three visits later he brought Halloween candy and I started my calendar with November. I made mistakes at first and sometimes I thought Wednesday had come and gone without him bringing more food and I started to think no one would ever come again, and then he came the next day. Yes, it was Wednesday, he said, and I knew I’d made a mistake. Mostly, the mistakes happened because I slept all the way through some days. I would lie on the sofa, because I still didn’t sleep in the bed, and because sometimes my body wouldn’t move, couldn’t move. After a few days passed like that, he would find me lying on the sofa and make me eat bread and butter that wouldn’t upset my stomach and drink white milk even though I didn’t like it. Something was broken inside me, like the tiny wire that broke in the bulb.
But I’ve been right about my days ever since I started setting a trap like Pa and climbing the stairs and doing chores like Laura. I don’t sleep so much and I’ve read more books and I try to eat good, but eating is the hardest because I can’t stop my stomach from not wanting
the food. I’ve filled out every workbook, even the seventh-grade math book, and I’ve read all four Laura books twice. I do different voices for Pa and Ma and use my own voice for Laura, and as I read those stories, I want to feel strong like Laura and Pa too. I’m not so alone when I read aloud, pretending all those characters are here with me.
I also give myself spelling tests now. Every Tuesday and Thursday is spelling test day. So I know today is March 16, 2011. A Wednesday, I think, for sure. I also know March is warmer than November. He said we drove for a whole day and night to get here, but I found the pecans and Mama and me had pecans at our house, so I think I’m still in Georgia. Mama’s magnolias always bloomed in March, so that means March is warmer. Warm enough to run.
Making sure the biggest textbook is on the bottom of the pile, I straighten them good before I step on top. I sometimes had to stack things at home when I wanted cereal and Mama couldn’t get out of bed to reach it for me. I fell once, and a doctor said I sprained my ankle and another woman came to visit, but she only came once because Mama had already moved the cereal to the cabinet under the sink. Before reaching up to the light bulb, I look quick at the clock with the orange numbers. It reads 3:27.
He’ll be here in thirty-three minutes.
Chapter 22
IMOGENE
Today
Imogene stands behind Jo Lynne, both of them peeking through the bedroom door they’ve opened a crack. The boy still lies as he did when Imogene first lowered him onto the bed. The room is dark except for the light from the kitchen that travels down the narrow hallway and throws a faint glow over the small body. Even though they’re upwind of the fire, the smell of that broken jar of pickles has been pushed aside by the smell of smoke. It must be midnight, or maybe not. Imogene has no idea how long she sat down in the basement and cradled the boy. Or how long she kneeled outside her bedroom door until she mustered the courage to text Jo Lynne and Eddie.