The House of Dust

by Noah Broyles

  Phone in hand, he found one of the church doors partially ajar and slipped through.

  Inside, there was no floor. Bare earth, hard and dusty from years without rain, stretched smoothly beneath unbolted pews and rows of unshod feet.

  There was only one light on in the building, a very small one up front, mounted on the pulpit. The pastor stood behind the pulpit, but the light was angled so only his weathered hands and the Bible they held were visible. White curtains crumbled the noontime sunbeams coming through the windows. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Brad realized he had never seen curtains across church windows before.

  Hesitantly, he walked to the unoccupied backmost pew and slipped into it.

  The pastor was reading a familiar passage from Ezekiel Chapter 37. “So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above. But there was no breath in them.”

  His voice spilled down from the pulpit and flowed across the congregants as slow and steady as the river outside. Brad searched for Sorrel among the people. Most were quite oddly positioned. Shoulders were slumped. Heads tilted, most down, chins against their chests; a few lolling back, throats drawn tight, faces turned toward the sluggishly swirling ceiling fans.

  All the eyes were closed. The lips slack. But they were not asleep. The cadence of their breath was too rapid, their eyes briefly and sporadically flickering open.

  They were pretending. The people of Three Summers were sitting in this little church on this sunny afternoon, listening to the pastor and feigning slumber.

  Brad raised his phone. He tapped off the flash and the shutter sound and positioned the view.

  As the image froze on the screen, a hand fell like a brick on his shoulder.

  He dropped the phone. It thumped to the dirt floor. A few eyes opened and heads turned. He just had time to snatch the device up before a fist was at the back of his collar, dragging him to his feet and into the aisle. He knocked the arm away and spun around.

  Sorrel was standing in the gloom. He pointed to the door.

  Heat prickled on Brad’s forehead.

  Drawing a deliberate breath, he rubbed the phone on his shirtfront.

  The sheriff was on him again in an instant. Grabbing the front of his shirt, he hauled him toward the door, shouldered it open, and shoved him into the sun. He came out after him.

  “I told you not to come around here! I told you that last night!”

  Brad pushed his glasses up on his nose. His hands were shaking. He hid it by folding them behind his back, still gripping the phone. “I found something. As sheriff, I thought you should know.”

  Sorrel’s hand became a fist, closing the door. “What’s that?”

  “Come see.”

  Sorrel’s shoes crunched behind him as they crossed through the gravel. At the car, he opened the trunk again and took out the Walgreen’s bag. “Open it.”

  Sorrel snatched the bag and pulled the handles apart. His head turned as the smell hit his face.

  “That’s one piece of your puzzle,” Brad said. “I know where the rest is.” The words tasted bitter immediately after he said them. That was his mother.

  Sorrel considered for a while, holding the bag open, eyes moving between it and his opponent. Finally, he closed the handles and folded them carefully around the bundle. “I apologize. You opened the curtains quicker than I was prepared for. Pardon me for flinching.” He nodded back toward the church. “Let me invite you back inside.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Aw, come on, Brad. After services I can take you on a tour of Three Summers. Point out all the old buildings, give you what little history I know. Maybe even introduce you to a few folks.”

  “Feed me the soft version.” He switched his hands to his pockets. “No, thanks.”

  “I’m trying to be helpful.”

  “You’re trying to get your version told: a backwater town with a few quirks coming into the modern age, or something like that. But why do you think people read this stuff? Why do you think I get paid to do it again, and again, and again, and. . . You think they care about the names of a hundred-year-old family, or the date a building was put up, or what percent of the kids are below-average readers? They want blood. And I know there’s blood in this soil.”

  “Well, where’s there not?” Sorrel’s voice became dangerously gentle. “Where’s there not? Huh? What town? What square foot of earth? Have you checked your own backyard, Mr. Ellison?”

  The step Brad took away from him was involuntary. He caught himself before he took another. “Yeah. I have.”

  Sorrel rearranged his hold on the bag. “This. . . this is the kind of stuff that lost me my brother. This is what I’m trying to get rid of. And it’s not easy. Because it’s old. Its roots go way down. But I want you on my side. Your fiancée, too. I want you two to look after each other while you’re in that house.”

  “So tell me what Adamah is.”

  The man kept looking at the bag. “It’s this. It’s angel worship that got out of hand.”

  “Do you believe in it?”

  “Who cares what I believe?” He nodded between earth and sky. “Who cares if I believe in what’s down there or what’s up there?”

  “Because that changes what happens right here.”

  “Things happen everywhere. Either way.”

  “Here,” Brad said. “What happens here?”

  Sorrel folded his arms. “And do the lives of the people you report on get better after you’ve shredded their reputations?”

  “This can’t be contingent.”

  “This has to be contingent.”

  “I don’t work that way.” Brad shrugged and backed slowly away, hoping the man would relent. “I just don’t. I’m sorry. I need the truth. Unvarnished.”

  Sorrel did not budge. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “I’m gonna keep looking.”

  “Fine. While you’re doing that, don’t forget to look after her.”

  Brad squinted, raising his arms silently: What does that mean?

  The man shook his head and turned away. Brad got in the car, slamming the door. From behind the hazy windshield, he watched the sheriff walk into the cemetery with the bag containing his mother’s hand. He kicked the floorboard and started the engine.

  As Brad turned off Simmons Pike onto Adamah Road, his phone rang. No caller ID.

  “Brad Ellison,” he answered.

  “Mr. Ellison?” A breathless voice. “This is Brooke Carney. From the Henderson Public Library? You came in to see us last week.”

  He slowed the vehicle. “Yes. Thank you for getting back in touch.”

  “I know it’s Sunday, but . . . we have some new items. I think you should see them. Can you drive down this afternoon?”

  “I can be there in half an hour.”

  “Good.” She hesitated. “Yes, I think you really should see this.”

  “Be there soon.” He tossed the phone into the passenger seat and pressed on the gas.

  As he passed the turnoff to the island, he considered stopping by to check in on his fiancée, but decided against it.

  15

  It seemed to me then that if I understood what Adamah was, I would understand everything that sprung from this being. And so, initially, I paid little attention to the “Queen of Hearts” mythology. That was a mistake.

  —“The House of Dust”

  Southern Gothic

  Missy took the journal into the dance hall.

  The room was still a mess, of course. Shrouded furniture rung the outer wall and dust crusted everything, the floor especially. Motionless years had stuck the stuff down good, like hard-water residue left behind on glass. H
er feet left no marks as she moved toward the fireplace. Dust on the mirror above the mantel turned her reflection to a blur. She sat down at the piano, closed the lid across the keys, and placed the notebook atop it.

  So much work to do, but first this. First to find out how a previous resident had dealt with the mansion. “How did the house treat you, Ellen King?” she murmured.

  A yellowed price tag was fossilized to the back of the notebook. She ran her dry fingers across it, then let the book flop open to a random entry.

  They are coming out of the floor now—and the walls. They’re coming for me. I love you, dearest John. Our baby loves you, too. I say this because I’m not sure either of us will be able to say anything when you return.

  Missy flipped back page after page, until she found another entry. “The king shall come when morning dawns.” I love that old hymn, Pastor. It has sustained me through these endless nights. John can’t sleep, so I stay up with him. I see the dark thing moving in the hall, mocking my faith by covering its head and its feet and still reaching for me, like a perversion of Isaiah 6.

  “What’s Isaiah 6?” she asked aloud. Grandmama had probably read it at some point. There might be a Bible upstairs in his desk, but she didn’t feel like looking right now.

  The pages of the book turned loudly, dryly beneath her fingers, until she came to one without words. Her hand paused.

  Here was a drawing, skillfully rendered, of a faceless six-armed figure inside a circle. She knew that symbol. Her eyes rose to the murky mirror.

  There was the piano. There she was, seated behind it. And there was something standing just behind her. Arms, many arms, extended. Narrow fingers touching the back of her head.

  Air rushed from Missy’s lungs. The bench screamed back as she stood. The notebook flapped off the piano as she spun around.

  Nothing.

  Only sunlight occupied the front of the room. She sank back onto the bench. She turned toward the mirror.

  Nothing. A trick of the distorted glass, swelled up as it was to form the same symbol that was drawn in the book. And there was her scared little face.

  Wagging her finger at the face, she picked up the book and scooted back to the piano. Her brittle skin ached as she worked her fists to steady herself. She turned more pages.

  An early entry said: The island seemed so perfect when we first came. The daffodils perfumed the air, and the locusts sang all night, and soft rains turned the field and the forest bright green. I imagined it like Beulah in Pilgrim’s Progress, the land where angels walk. DeWitt, the man who built it, even named it “Angel’s Landing.” But did he mean to evoke those who fell?

  Hunkering down, Missy turned to the middle pages, scanning the poor woman’s jumbled thoughts. They made the same amount of sense read in any order: not much. She read the entry just prior to the torn-out page.

  John says it is time for us to leave. I’m loath to think he triumphed over us, but I cannot continue in this miserable state, especially with the baby coming. It must have gained purchase here long ago.

  It. What was “it”? The final entry came only halfway through the book. She turned through the rest of the pages, expecting to find them blank. And most of them were. But near the end, something strange began to happen.

  She sat up.

  A plant stem, drawn as two parallel lines and shaded just slightly for dimension, sprang up suddenly on one of the pages, climbing to the top of the paper. The page whispered as Missy turned it. The stem curved down the following page and threaded along the bottom onto the next sheet. And then the next. And on and on, up and down, twining, pulling Missy’s fingers through the remainder of the book until there was just one page left. She slipped her finger beneath it and turned.

  A daffodil exploded across the paper, drawn in exacting detail. Just beneath it, Ellen King had written, She breathes for me now.

  Missy shut the book.

  From far away, a howl rose.

  And was cut short.

  No. She shook her head. It was part of the slow nightmare the journal had painted in her head. She stood up, arms at her sides. She wouldn’t participate.

  The howl came again. The direction was discernible this time. The backyard.

  Leaving the notebook on the piano, she walked up the hall. The sharpness of her senses dazed her. She winced at every shift in the floorboards.

  Again, the wail rose, ending in a shriek.

  Something was in pain. Something real. Her footsteps quickened.

  Passing through the dining room, she stopped at the back door. Her breath fogged the glass. There was nothing on the porch. Beyond, the screen door was latched. She squinted.

  A small figure crouched in one of the old flower beds. The wail came again, and the figure drew back a hand and struck at something in the weeds. Missy opened the door and stepped out cautiously. She crossed the abandoned porch and opened the screen door. She squinted again. A person.

  The high grass obscured the stranger’s actions. But judging from the dirt flying in the air, Missy guessed the person was digging. She descended the steps and the shrieks continued.

  Her walk became a sprint. As she approached the crouching figure, a raspy little voice became audible between the wails from the grass: “Shut up, now, shut up! Only way, kitty, only way. Sorry, but it’s the only way. Queen of Hearts and all, you know? Queen of—”

  “What are you doing?” Missy barked.

  A little boy looked back at her. Black hair hung in his eyes. “Oh, you must be herrrr!” He threw the shovel aside and dragged a writhing cat across the ground. A small metal bucket stood beside him. “Be done in a second!”

  He stuffed the shrieking creature into a messy hole. Pressing one hand onto the cat’s back, he used the other to rake dirt clods on top of the animal.

  It was surprisingly quick work. In just a few seconds, only the writhing head and tail remained above the surface.

  It took that long for Missy to assure herself she was seeing correctly. Ignoring the daffodils that poked up through the weeds, she forged into the flower bed. Pinning the half-buried cat with one hand, the boy dumped the bucket of water over it.

  “You horrible little bastard!” She smacked him so hard her hand ached. “What are you doing?”

  The boy sprawled backward in the dirt, clutching his head. “I did it for you!”

  As she lunged toward him, he picked himself up and leapt away. “This is all for you!” he shrieked.

  “Get out of here!”

  The boy turned and fled.

  Immediately, she crouched down and scraped the mud off the cat. The dirt stuck to her fingers, easing the ache in her withered skin.

  The poor creature didn’t struggle as she lifted it from the muddy hole. It hung limply in her hands, eyes wide, as she examined it. Shock. It must be in shock.

  “You poor thing,” she whispered. “Why would he bury you alive?”

  16

  A different figure occupied my thoughts, one that was gradually emerging from the gloom. One that I could now give the name Adamah.

  —“The House of Dust”

  Southern Gothic

  Brad parked his car in front of the library. It was a single-story dark-brick structure, just off Church Street, the sunbaked central avenue through the Henderson county seat. He cleaned his glasses in the car and jammed his shirttails into his pants before crossing the empty parking lot to the entrance.

  A woman in her mid-forties paced just inside the library’s entrance. Black-rimmed glasses rested atop a prominent nose, and thick brown hair was combed down in two apostrophes around her face. She unlocked the door when she saw him. “Thanks for driving down, Mr. Ellison.”

  “What’s changed?” he asked.

  Rubbing her palms together, the woman led him into the unlit library. Gray carpet scuffed beneath his shoes.
The air was papery and pleasantly cool after the shut-up car. It was the same hazy atmosphere he had retreated to on autumn days after school when he was twelve.

  Headphones playing static, he would log on to a computer and click through images that drew the looks of others: fire, collapsing buildings, billowing smoke.

  His reminiscing had been especially acute since last Sunday, since trying to down the pills. He blinked as the woman ducked behind the circulation desk.

  “Ms. Carney?”

  “Please, just Brooke.” She came around the desk holding two pairs of white silk gloves.

  “You’ve acquired some new items since last Monday?”

  “We . . . yes. In fact, we received them just a few hours after you were here.”

  Brad inclined his head.

  “Yeah, it’s weird,” she said. “The whole thing is weird. I think . . . I think you should know who this man is.” She laid the gloves on the desk and pulled out her phone. It lit her pensive face as she scrolled and tapped for a few seconds before holding it out. “This is Richard Hettinga.”

  On the screen, two people stood where Brad and Brooke were standing now, leaning against the circulation desk, smiling. One was Brooke Carney. The other was a short man with a high reddish forehead and a white goatee. He was dressed in plaids and denim and his teeth were bad. His cheeks were thin. His eyes were bottomless.

  “Richard is a great patron of ours,” Brooke continued. “We have the Tennessee Room here that chronicles a great deal of local history, and he has helped us track down and acquire a huge number of documents. But his prime interest is the place you’re investigating: Three Summers.”

  She lowered the phone. “I didn’t tell you about him last week because he’s . . . I’ll just say it, he’s a paranoid person. He regularly thinks someone is standing behind him when there’s no one there. And he fears that people are hunting for the same information he is. He thinks if they reach it first, they’ll destroy it. Almost like a cover-up. But it all pertains to hundred-year-old records, so I’ve never understood why he’s worried.”