The House of Dust

by Noah Broyles

  He turned the page.

  May 4, 1877. Words cannot manifest the utterance of my first patient; as near as I can approximate, the sound was thus expressed—

  A ragged line crawled beneath the sentence, like the seismographic readout of an earthquake.

  On the next page, another hasty sentence. May 21, 1877. No words yet, but echoes. A voice in a well, far down.

  Next page.

  June 12, 1877. At last! The breach has been opened. These words:

  And below, in a more careful script, was written: It’s so dark.

  As he turned it, the page tingled between his fingers like a feather of ice.

  June 25, 1877. In careful hand: The air just trickles down here.

  July 3, 1877. How long is its arm?

  July 11, 1877. It’s coming through the cracks in the boards.

  July 17, 1877. The floor is standing up.

  A thud from above penetrated through the insulating vines.

  His hands jostled. The book slid back into the casket as he raised his phone. The rusty music had cut off, the ancient mechanics giving out in the music box. He craned his head back. Silence rained down from the vine-smothered ceiling.

  She had stopped moving. Lifting the book, he twined the strap around it and stumbled through the clutter to the staircase. At the top, the hall was empty.

  The front door still stood wide. No sound of pacing from the next room over.

  He hurried down the hall. The retreating drug had sapped him. He grabbed the bannister at the foot of the stairs and paused again to listen. Nothing. She must still be in the dance hall. He dropped the little book on the first stair, turned off his flashlight and pocketed his phone, and strode over to the dance hall doorway.

  A ladder had been set up before the fireplace. She lay at its foot, small and pale in the deep room. She did not stir as he hurried to her. When he reached her, he stumbled down onto his knees. She did not look over. She was curled up on her side, hands drawn into her chest, staring at the empty mouth of the fireplace with the concentrated expression of impending nausea.

  “Honey?” He switched to sitting and gently touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I just had one of those falling feeling moments. You know? Where everything just . . . ”

  He knew. He could feel his own unsteadiness against her shoulder and wished the words that flowed so readily in his articles would come at times like this. “You’re okay.”

  She drew a slow breath, still staring into the fireplace “Someone died in here, didn’t they?”

  “No.”

  That stuff was still upstairs, in the bed. He couldn’t let her see it.

  “No,” he continued. “She went out back. Out to the garden.”

  “And she died in the garden.”

  “She . . . ” Had she been dead? Those eyes in the grave.

  Tonight, he thought.

  “That’s where I found her.” He squeezed her shoulder gently. “You going to be all right?”

  “I’m not afraid of dead people, Brad. What they leave behind, though . . . Listen to how quiet it is.”

  Not a sound from the front door. From the trees outside. From the house’s ancient beams.

  “I was trying to clean that mirror,” his fiancée murmured. “But you can’t clean quiet like that out of a house.”

  He knew what she was remembering. A story she’d never told. One he’d learned from the police chief in Jasper, Tennessee. How she’d come home late from work and found her mother and brother in the living room, sitting before the muted television, slumped, but not sleeping.

  “We’ll manage,” he said. It was their mantra, the droll magnetism that had connected them across the counter of that muggy little diner in Jasper four years ago. Something in her smile as she tore off the receipt and handed it to him had revealed a soul struggling for buoyancy. It was the immediate companionship of finding in her face someone as desolate as himself. Someone whose eyes knew just as much failure.

  “You’re shaking, Brad.”

  He withdrew his hand and she sat up. She looked at his trembling fingers before gathering them between her own, cool and smooth. “You’ve stopped taking your medicine. You can’t just drop it like that.”

  “I don’t need it. I need this.” He pointed his eyes around at the blank-faced walls and hovering ceiling. “I need to find out what it’s seen. I need to work.”

  She turned his palms open and studied them. “So why’d you want me to come here? I sure hope it wasn’t pity ’cause I know how to deal with pain. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

  “It wasn’t pity.” Bending down, Brad kissed the fingers that held him captive. “That day we met, when I came into the diner and asked for water—you knew why I wanted it. You saw I was in a black place. Work just wasn’t enough to hold it off anymore. I needed you.”

  Her nose and lips came down to rest in his hair for a silent moment. Then, “I was sliding toward a black place, too. And I grabbed on to you. But . . . sometimes it feels inevitable.”

  “No.” He straightened and saw memories moving in her eyes. “What happened to them won’t happen to you. You’re stronger. You’re the one who didn’t fall into the trap. And . . . ” He knew he shouldn’t continue; the wound was still too raw. “What happened last month wasn’t your fau—”

  She stood abruptly, letting go of him and pacing across the floor.

  He squeezed empty air and held back further words.

  Eventually, she turned and shrugged. “You’re right. I’m okay. I’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “It’s getting late. I’m gonna look for some light bulbs.”

  He sat on the floor a little longer before climbing to his feet and leaving the hall. On his way upstairs, he retrieved the book he had left on the step.

  Slumped in the study, he eyed the motionless Newton’s cradle, then the cardboard box filled with wadded newspaper. That would do to remove the soil from the bed.

  His gaze returned to the desk, to the book. Opening it, he found the word again. The name he had seen repeated so often in the town. He pulled out his phone. The connection was sluggish, but he was able to load Google. He typed in Adamah and waited.

  A Hebrew word returned.

  It meant ground. Dirt.

  6

  I had, of course, conducted as much supplemental research as possible in the week before our arrival. It didn’t result in much. No internet sites made reference to the town or the house. I located the practice of the doctor who had come to the house and pronounced the woman dead, but he refused to sway from the verdict. I also consulted the Register of Deeds at 17 Monroe Street in the county seat of Lexington. The last registered house owners were a couple named John and Ellen King, who purchased the property in 1946. After their abrupt demise, with no heirs and accumulating taxes due, the place fell to ownership by the town of Three Summers.

  Finally, I went to the library in Lexington and asked for local records and writings about the community. But again, nothing was available. The woman who helped me, Brooke Carney, struck me as uncomfortable and slightly evasive. I left her my card and asked her to call should anything become available.

  Thus, my initial knowledge was mainly geographical.

  Three Summers lies a hundred miles west of Nashville in the northwestern corner of Henderson County, lost amid the woodlands bordering state route 104. At a width of approximately eight hundred feet, the Locust River flows flat and green past the settlement on its way toward the Mississippi. Due to the abundant distribution of sandy clay and gravelly silt loams, Henderson County has been described as inconducive to crop growth. This makes the plantation at Three Summers remarkable, not least because the quality of the soil is not discernibly superior to that of the surrounding county. On the contrary, it is gritty, crumbly, and quite
gray in color.

  —“The House of Dust”

  Southern Gothic

  “You sure we don’t want to eat outside?” Missy asked.

  She stood in the dining room doorway, a paper plate in each hand.

  “When we’ve got a dining room like this?” Her fiancé was already sitting at the long dark walnut table. He smiled, gesturing to the deep green walls and the fireplace bordered by ivory tiles, and the gold drapes gathered away from the windows by a cord at their waist. “Course not.”

  “Meal doesn’t really match the setting,” she said, coming in and taking a seat just opposite. Behind her was a door to the dance hall.

  A pair of unlit candelabras, fashioned like slender forearms with straining fingers, stood at the far end of the table, stiff and supplicant, right where she had scooted them. The musty smell that inhabited the whole house was heavy here, throbbing inside her nostrils. Evening light burrowed through the rear windows and cloaked him.

  “No need for modesty.” He grinned. “You’ve got chicken salad down to a science.”

  She pushed his plate across the table. “Grandmama grew me up on this stuff. It’s always a safe bet, she said, in case no one shows up for dinner.”

  Preparing for a bite, he paused for a second.

  She smiled back. “Anyway, what kept you upstairs all afternoon?”

  “The case. Got to hit the ground running. It’s . . . it might end up being the most important thing I’ve done.”

  “And what happens when it is done?”

  He chewed, considering. “I guess then your project will be done, too.”

  “My project?”

  “The restoration of this house.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Down here today, I was just wondering if it will be worth it. If we’ll actually stay.”

  He took off his glasses and placed them on the table. “When it’s fixed up, who would want to leave this place?”

  Fixed up.

  With flowers maybe.

  Daffodils everywhere.

  The heavy chair screeched as she stood up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just moving.” She carried her plate to the end of the table, away from the weird candelabras. Away from the dance hall doorway. “Can’t eat with all that empty space on my back.”

  Her fiancé shifted toward her new seat. “Hey. Honey. What’s going on?”

  “Do I seem off?” She sat down.

  “All day you’ve seemed . . . suspicious.”

  “The house is beautiful. It’s what I’ve dreamed of ever since . . . ” She pinched pieces off her sandwich. “Still, it feels . . . deep, somehow. Like even if someone’s just in another room, they’re a long way off.”

  Her fingers stopped. He was looking at her. She looked at the table.

  “You’re remembering HUG. The Club, too. I’ll bet you even threw our apartment into that mix. Grungy places. But this can be a real home, honey. Your dream to keep.”

  No. This wasn’t about their apartment, or the Club, or even the Home for Underprivileged Girls in Atlanta. It was about the place before all those places. The place where daffodils grew thick as carpet in the backyard.

  “You know how dreams can be,” she said.

  Pushing back his chair, he stood and came down the table. He bent and folded his arms across her chest. “How can they be?”

  She leaned her cheek against his arm, but her gaze stayed in place on the table.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t eat your dinner.” He bent lower, nosing her neck, looking between her eyes and the table. “If the house isn’t to your liking, perhaps the island will be.”

  At last she blinked, resuming her smile. “What do you mean ‘island’?”

  “We’re on an island. The old plantation grounds. Dozens of acres, all of it ours.”

  Maybe it was just a trick of the dimness on the table; maybe her unease was making her imagine things. Oh well. It would be good to get out of the house, so she said, “Show me.”

  They walked down the drive.

  Diminished seven-o’clock wind stirred the moss in the live oaks and Missy’s hair. She let her head loll back, and the breeze slid across her neck.

  They crossed the road at the end of the driveway and voyaged hand in hand into the field. Their voices were muffled by leaves and steam and dripping light and thick evening air.

  “Wet spring,” Missy remarked. It hadn’t rained that afternoon, but the grass swishing around her legs was damp. “I bet I’ll pull a thousand ticks off myself after this.” Still, it felt delicious after the stuffy house.

  “All this,” her fiancé said, flinging out his arms. “All this is ours. Our northern shore is the Locust River, right here.”

  A few trees grew along the bank, but it was mostly clear. They arrived at the edge and looked down the weedy slope at the water. The gravel riverbed was visible for a good way out, and a pile of rocks was set up where the water became a deeper green. The far shore was completely forested and rose much higher, becoming the ridge that separated this slice of country from the state highway.

  Her eyes lingered on that green barrier as they walked eastward along the bank.

  “Look,” she exclaimed, pointing across the water at clouds of fireflies rising from the trees.

  “On this side, too,” he said.

  She watched them evaporate from the field and drift up, transforming the sky like the absinthe drinks she had mixed at the Club, morphing from clear emerald into something creamy and opalescent.

  “Never really see those in the city,” she breathed.

  The little blinking points of light had become a canopy by the time the shoreline led them to the end of the island. The road that cut along its center terminated there, and a gentle slope of dark clay, rife with black-eyed Susans, led down to the water. An ancient wooden dock jutted into the shallows.

  “This is where they’d ship the cotton and tobacco from, back when this was a plantation,” he said. “In the early days, at least. Amazing: all these years and it hasn’t rotted away.”

  “Mud can fossilize things, sometimes. Hold history in place.”

  “That from your encyclopedia?”

  She grinned and they walked together down the slight incline, stopping on a marshy gravel patch near the water’s edge. The air was faintly acrid. Algae swamped the shallows and clouds of miniscule flies danced above the scummy mud. Still, looking at the deepening sky, and the sky in the river, and the avenue of trees on either bank, fuzzing into darkness, Missy took a big breath and felt the tension in her back relax.

  “The river flows toward us, and part of it catches on this point of land,” he said. “It arcs around through a little channel to the south, creating a creek between us and the mainland.” He swept his arm rightward, indicating the wooded half of the island and the invisible creek. “Then the water flows out under the clay-stained bridge at the other end and rejoins the river.”

  “And no one between here and the town,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said with a relaxed sigh.

  She bent down and pried a pebble from the boggy dirt. “Maybe when we get things all grand, we can invite some folks over. A little get-together.” She tossed the pebble into the water and glanced back as a ripple crossed his contented face. “Nothing huge, just something to give us roots.”

  He shifted his feet, as if the pebble she’d tossed had gone inside his shoe instead of the river. “This place is rural. Folks out here might prefer to keep to themselves. Don’t have to be the center of things, you know.”

  “Hey.” Stepping against him, she kissed him lavishly, then traced a finger across his breast pocket. “There’s only one thing I want to b
e the center of.”

  His lips puckered out a bit, and he looked at her with drowsy eyes. “You look good in yellow.”

  She watched the backs of his fingers brush her sleeveless blouse. When his hands became too heavy, she giggled and twisted away. Strolling off a couple feet, she picked up another pebble, examining it and waiting for him to follow. When he didn’t, she glanced around. He was squinting up the island. “Your dream’s coming true. Looks like our first guest is on the way.”

  The sound of a car faded into the quiet evening. Turning, she watched headlights journey toward them along the tired road.

  “It’s the sheriff.” Her fiancé held out his hand. “Come on, you can meet him.”

  Missy tossed away the pebble and walked toward him. Only a dozen feet separated them. Halfway there, the ground beneath her right foot collapsed.

  Balance fled. She reeled for a moment, then toppled forward. With a jolt, her splayed hands slapped against the ground. Like a blister, the soft earth broke apart. Sucking mud rose around her wrists as her hands disappeared into the ground.

  The next instant, her fiancé was beside her. Grabbing her midriff, he hauled her up and pulled her away from the bank. As she straightened, he glanced uncertainly between her and the oncoming car. “What happened?”

  “It’s like it lunged at me.” With a shaky laugh, she went over to a patch of Johnson grass and scrubbed her hands clean. The mucky smell clung to her skin. Dirt had darkened her sandal and made the sole slippery. “I can’t meet him like this.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fine.” He didn’t hold out his hand this time.

  When they reached the top of the low incline, the sheriff was visible in the dusky light, sitting on the hood of his car, arms folded. “Stopped by the house, didn’t see you folks,” he called. “So I thought I’d check down here.”

  Missy’s wet shoe scuffed as they crossed the pavement.

  “This must be your lady.”

  “Yes,” her fiancé said. “Here she is. This is Missy.”

  With a stiff, sort of restrained leap, the sheriff rose. His teeth were gleaming and grotesque, each one separated by a narrow black line. His voice was soft and sonorous, like a distant waterfall. “Name’s Ezra. Three Summers’s sheriff. Well, there’s another guy, too, but . . . ”