The House of Dust

by Noah Broyles

  In later years, he’d visit the other headstones. Some fixed with flowers, some forgotten to moss, scattered all across the South. Twelve of them. Twelve names. Twelve victims of the accident.

  Brad wet his lips. They had stopped. A patch of churned dirt lay before them. No daffodils. No marker. Just weeds taking root, stitching the wounded earth shut. Missy’s grave. “Did you know her?”

  The pastor exhaled. The energy that had carried him through his rambling tale of cycles was gone. His voice, which had started out hoarse, was a rasping whisper. “She came once to visit me. Once long ago. She was very earnest but very guarded. She called herself Marilyn. I could see in her stance she had been . . . stung many times by Satan’s darts. She stayed only a few minutes.”

  “And you never saw her again?”

  “I did at times, by accident on her part. I tried to visit, but she would never answer the door. Then one morning, it might have been 1982, as I drove to the grocery store, she was standing at the end of that long road that leads to the old plantation house—just standing there. I rolled down my window to speak. She was friendly, I’d say. Plenty of energy, and her wits”—he tapped his temple—“very sharp. She’d say things that were off, sometimes, but even so . . . ”

  “Even so . . . ”

  “It was a façade she put up for me. After I left, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she became a different person. She was like a single coat of white paint over a dark wall. It was pronounced the last time I saw her. It was the last summer I could walk my old route along the old railroad tracks. I came down the gravel track in the woods and saw her returning through that tunnel beneath the ridge, as if she had been out somewhere beyond Three Summers. I tried to speak, but it was like meeting a shadow cast by someone standing a long way off. She passed me, wordless.” A second sighed by. “Now she is here.”

  “Is she?”

  “Sorrel regained her body Monday morning.”

  Had Sorrel forced Jezebel Irons to return it? Or were her purposes with the corpse fulfilled? Had it lost its potency with the being below?

  “The people . . . ” Brad started hesitantly. “Are they religious? Do they worship the Queen?”

  “They worship Adamah. The Queen is their medium.”

  “Your church was packed last time I stopped by.”

  It seemed impossible, but the man’s slumping shoulders bowed still farther. “Sorrel compels them, not the Spirit of God.”

  Brad watched him carefully. “Why?”

  “He brings them here to try to sever the ties that bind them to the endless cycles. To this cult of the Queen of Hearts.”

  “He considers it dangerous?”

  “Stifling. And the rituals, satanic.”

  He gripped the phone and dared to hold the microphone a little closer. “Rituals.”

  “Dark, very dark. From the pit of—” Pastor Burger stopped. His lips were dry. The sweat had dried from his forehead. He was trembling. Shock smoothed his face. “I can see . . . ” His voice dropped to nothing. He crouched down, lips moving, eyes boring the ground. His faint eyebrows arched, as if the surface were splitting between his feet. “I can see you,” he whispered.

  Brad looked at the ground. Below the bent grass of one of their footsteps was the mashed mouth of a crawdad hole. Slightly odd this far from the water, but nothing to provoke such a reaction. He stepped closer.

  “Pastor? You okay? We can stop.” He touched his back.

  The man went rigid. He tried to straighten. Brad jammed his phone in his pocket and helped him up.

  “It’s okay, we can stop,” he repeated.

  “No! I mean—” A breath. “I think I’ve been in the sun too long. But I don’t want you to stop. I want you to continue your investigation!” A concerning note of panic elevated his voice.

  “Sure. Definitely. We’ll stop for today, though.”

  Brad helped him back through the heat to the shade of the church. “I can come back another day.”

  “You need a better witness than I. The only soul I ever saved out here, Richard Hettinga—you need to talk with him. He knows the history, the cycles. He knows the danger of the Queen of Hearts. I’ll give you his phone number.”

  “I already have it. But thank you.”

  Pastor Burger took another breath and mustered a straighter posture. “I’m sorry about that.” He nodded at the graveyard, features drawn. “Like I say, the sun . . . I don’t know how you manage in that black shirt.”

  “Yeah.” Brad forced a smile. “I’ll stop by in a couple days.”

  As he left, he found himself treading lightly across the ground toward the car.

  22

  Later, sitting at my desk in the house, I played the eyeless girl’s words back. Out of everything she’d said, one phrase burrowed into my mind and lodged there: shallow place. Shallowness conjured something subterranean; from shallow places you could reach into the depths. And the depths could reach back. The house, she’d said, was one of these places.

  —“The House of Dust”

  Southern Gothic

  “You kidnapped a child,” Walt said.

  He still hadn’t shaved, and the stubble darkened his face. Behind him the windows were black, the curtains open, letting out the light. Letting in the night.

  Missy set down the spoon of tomato soup she had been attempting to fit between the boy’s tight teeth and got up. She rounded the table, gripped the drapes, and pulled them closed. Even then, the house did not feel secure. It was the central cave in a labyrinth, eager to carry their voices to a prowler.

  Resuming her seat, she picked up the spoon. Her hands were still smooth, revived. And trembling. “I wish you’d been here earlier. Some explaining needs to be done.”

  “Understatement.”

  “By you.”

  Walt looked right through her, spooning up his soup in even increments. “About what?”

  “About a lot of things. About this place.”

  “I thought you decided you liked it here.”

  “I said if being here meant more of you. But it hasn’t. Just a lot of other things.”

  The spoon pointed. “I have to work. It’s my responsibility. And it’s yours not to make that harder by abducting children.”

  “They were killing him!” she burst out. “They had buried him alive in a field! And if you’re not surprised and horrified by that, then there’s a lot you need to tell me.”

  He blanched. “No. Of course. But could you see a motive? Why were they doing it?”

  “I don’t care why! He’s a child! He doesn’t deserve to be treated the way—”

  Walt’s spoon had shifted to point at the boy.

  “He’s saying something.”

  Twisting, she looked at Roy. He had straightened a bit from his slump. He was looking earnestly at Walt. His lips had formed a tight oval that opened and closed.

  Leaning nearer, she listened. “He’s saying him.” Then the boy’s voice was loud in her ear, and she pulled away as he spoke clearly.

  “They were giving me to him.”

  Walt lowered his spoon and swirled it in his bowl. “Who is him?”

  The boy rocked and then flickered, as if the electricity in his body had shorted out for a second.

  Missy stood and gripped the boy’s shoulders. She shot a gaze at Walt and opened her mouth to speak.

  Three short knocks at the front door bounded up the hall.

  “The sheriff!” Her guts cinched. “Is the door locked?”

  Walt blinked. Rising, he went into the hall and looked toward the front door.

  “Don’t let him in,” she said.

  “If he’s looking for the child, I have to—”

  “No. He doesn’t know Roy’s here. But he’ll ask. You have to tell him he’s not here; tell him to go away
.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “If the sheriff wants that boy, there’s a reason.”

  The knocking again, three quick hammer blows. From the chair beside her, a low moan began, burrowing through the boy’s ratcheted jaws, just like in the field. He’d be wailing soon.

  Plastering her hand across his lips, she pulled him from the chair and hauled him into the hall. “I’ll take him upstairs and keep him quiet.”

  Walt was already walking.

  “Wait!” She stumbled after him.

  “I have to answer it.”

  “Wait until we hide.”

  He didn’t wait. She was halfway down the hall when he reached the door. They were exposed. Those deep eyes would look into the bright hall from the dark and see them, and those gapped teeth would smile.

  Lurching to one side, she dragged the boy into the nook beneath the stairwell. The pressure of his groans built behind her fingers. The sheriff would hear. Using the fading creak of the front door opening to mask her sound, she squeaked open the basement door. With the boy, she shrunk through the gap onto the upper steps and pulled the door shut.

  In the cool earthen dark, she listened. Past the boy’s dull moan, greetings were exchanged. Affable. And taking place inside the threshold. Just a few dozen feet off. It sounded, though, as if

  the distance were greater. As if the voices were far above and she at the bottom of some chasm. As if a great fall were deforming the voices.

  She leaned down toward the crack of light beneath the door, trying to hear the words. The movement disturbed her lock on the boy’s mouth. His whimper spiked to a cry. Clamping her fingers tighter, she pulled him against her chest and down a few more steps. “Quiet! We need to be quiet. Nothing’s gonna happen, but we need to be quiet.”

  Hair hissed against fabric as he jerked his head. Static built on her skin.

  “I’ll let go if you promise to be quiet.”

  The bucking head changed directions. Nodding.

  Gradually, she relaxed her hold. Lifting the hand from his face, she whispered, “Shh. That’s right.” It was what Grandmama had always said when they heard people yelling at night.

  Down the hall, the voices were humming conversation. The hum moved away from the front door, deeper into the hall. Nearer to the stairs.

  This is our house. Don’t let him search.

  Her gaze paced the crack of light below the door.

  “It’s not finished,” the boy whispered.

  Missy’s hand leapt to his lips but paused. It had come out in only the tiniest whisper.

  “He’ll always come until it’s finished.”

  “This is my house,” she assured him softly. “If he comes again, I won’t let him in.”

  Again, his head moved. Shaking this time. “Not from town. From down there.”

  “Down where?”

  “Deep down.” His voice dwindled still further. “He’s coming up.”

  She sank down on the step and gathered him close. “No one’s coming.”

  Outside, the voices went on, humming, humming.

  Then his mouth was beside her ear. It was an eek, a breath of air through a rusty pipe. “He’s coming out of the ground.”

  An itch broke out on her feet: sweat and dirt mixing. “Shh.”

  “I can hear him down in the basement.”

  “Be quiet.” It was louder than it should have been. She had to stop this.

  “He’s at the bottom of the stairs.”

  She shook him slightly, hissing, “Be quiet.”

  He hunched against her. “He’s coming up.”

  In the hall, the humming was faint. Very faint. Or had it gone? Was her fiancé watching helplessly while the sheriff prowled around, looking through doors? Or had he sent him away?

  The static seemed to have concentrated in her feet. But the tingle was building through her limbs. It was sliding up her neck, too, moving across her scalp. It burned like the fuzzy fire in a bloodless limb. She was getting dizzy just sitting here.

  Not enough air. The boy was holding on too tight. She needed to breathe.

  Wait. Now he must be standing up, because she couldn’t see the line of light under the door anymore. And he was playing with her hair. She could feel it lifting away from her head and tugging gently at the roots, twisting between fingers.

  Missy tried to smooth down her hair, but it wouldn’t go. “Roy, stop it.”

  The point of his chin slid on her chest as he looked up. In an airless whisper, he said, “He’s got your hair.”

  Her heartbeat sped to a driving clamor and she clambered up the steps. The line of light came back, but she didn’t stop. The atmosphere was thick and prickling around her, like a wool blanket. Slamming against it, she scrambled for the handle, threw the door back, and spilled into the brilliance of the hall.

  It was empty.

  “Walt!”

  The front door was closed.

  “Walt!” She rushed down the hall and hauled the door open.

  Beyond the porch, beneath the fringe of moss at the edge of the clearing, two sets of taillights vanished down the drive.

  “Walt.”

  Gone. Like he’d go off for days at a time when he was bored with her, leaving her alone in the grungy apartment. Walt.

  Missy turned back into the hall. Bright. And still empty. Roy hadn’t come out of the stairs. Unsteadily, she walked back down the corridor. At the door, she turned and stopped.

  Roy stood just inside. Only his face and hands were visible. The rest was lost in gloom, like a body drowning in dark oil. The hands were reaching toward her. The mouth was moving, calling. Calling without sound.

  “Get out here,” Missy growled.

  His hands splayed. His mouth gaped wider, screaming at her noiselessly.

  Steadying herself, Missy leaned over the threshold, jamming a hand into the stairwell. Grabbing his fingers, she leaned back, towing him out and letting him flop onto the floor. She slammed the basement door and rounded on him.

  “Stop this!” Stop acting like you don’t hear me. Stop pretending you can’t talk. Now he’s gone and left me ’cause of you!

  The wretched little creature looked up, tears etching his greasy face. “They wanted him to go.”

  “Walt? Who wanted him to go?”

  “The hands.” Despite his quaking, the boy straightened. His neck craned back, and his own hands matched his words as he reached for the ceiling lights. “The hands reach from the ground. They direct the things that happen. They move your feet.” Head dropping, he pointed. “See? They’ve got your feet.”

  Missy looked down. Her feet were gray. Too smooth, as if a file had rubbed away every detail. As she backed away from him, dusty outlines of her soles followed.

  She stopped. Her chin jutted. Stalking forward, she dragged him up.

  Upstairs, in the bedroom, she shut the door. After lugging him onto the bed, she went into the bathroom and shut that door, too. In the brightness, she went to the sink and turned on the hot faucet. Raising one leg, she rested her heel on the lip of the basin. She splashed scalding water across the skin. Heat-numbed fingers worked her feet, nails scrubbing at the dust. Minutes passed, the water ran, and the dust remained, plastered in place, gripping her.

  Wanting her.

  Steam blurred her vision. Perspiration gathered on her face. It couldn’t have her. She wouldn’t let it have her. Wouldn’t let it strangle Roy. Wouldn’t let it drag Walt away from her. She’d fight it.

  Her fingers hardened. Her nails gouged deeper. Soon, the water splattering the basin was pink.

  23

  Around midnight, Jennifer came into the study and asked if we could go for a walk. She hadn’t slept since Saturday night, when she dreamed about the girl coming out of her casket. It showed in her eyes and translucent
skin and slouching gait. She was fighting slumber and losing. I wanted her to lose. Even so, I agreed.

  We went outside and down to the road. The cicada choruses rasped our ears as we walked up and down the island in the moonless night. I tried to speak about us. She cut me off: “Don’t, Brad. Things are fine until we try to talk about them.”

  Sometime around dawn, we returned to the house. I waited up with her through the morning, until around ten, when she sat down in a dining room chair and didn’t get up again. I carried her upstairs and put her in bed. Then I left. It was time to visit the second shrine.

  —“The House of Dust”

  Southern Gothic

  The Three Summers power substation stood behind Grammy’s Grocery store. Brad parked there.

  Drowsy woods along the west edge of town shrouded his walk to the hospital. The more direct approach—the driveway from McCloud Street—ran past the sheriff’s station. It wasn’t that he was sneaking, but his exploration might go more smoothly without Sorrel’s scrutiny.

  A chain-link fence greeted him at the edge of the hospital yard, and a lichen-crusted metal sign dangled by a single zip tie, warning him to keep out. Barbed wire looped irregularly along the top of the barrier. He scaled the fence, maneuvered his hands around the wire, and dropped nimbly down on the other side.

  As he crossed the lot, a memory phased through his mind of traversing the barren parking lot before the Martlet Mall, an abandoned shopping center bordering the small town of Drayton, Louisiana. The sheriff had been hostile there, too. And the locals all shrugs and nervous laughs and mumbled warnings. That had been 2012, his sixth investigation. Or was it seventh? Or did it matter?

  He looked up at the approaching building. Large windows on two floors, interspersed along the marble façade by ornamental columns. He knew it had once been white, from the library photos. Now, it was the color of fog. A procession of magnolias led to a covered portico jutting from the front of the structure, sheltering a portion of the drive. In its shade, brass letters corroded green hung above the double doors: angel adamah hospital.