Death's Curses

by Becca Fox

  Aunt Dinah sat up a little straighter, lifting her chin with pride. “I snuck him outside to see the city on the evenings my parents were attending their political functions. If anyone asked, I told them he was a friend. I’m the one who bought him the camera and developed the film. We would sit in the cellar for hours, looking through all of his pictures…” She gripped the frame more tightly, chin bobbing.

  My eyes were already misty, my nose dripping. I tried to wipe it discreetly but she didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me. My aunt watched the fire crackling in the fireplace.

  “My friends and I, we weren’t bad kids. We just liked to stir up trouble. And Thatcher liked to tag along. He thought they were his friends too. One night, we started a fire in an abandoned house. At least, we thought it was abandoned. It turned out several homeless people were staying there. We saved them before they could be consumed but then had to make a quick exit before the police arrived. Thatcher took a picture that incriminated Rich, my then boyfriend. Rich tried to take the camera away but Thatcher fought. Rich dared to strike my brother so I jumped in between them.”

  She lifted the frame. “It’s why I’m injured in this picture. I was the victor of the fight but I didn’t come out looking much better than Rich. It was the last straw for my parents. They sent me to St. Catherine’s School for Girls two weeks later. I promised Thatcher I’d be back as soon as I could. My sister, Maryanne, didn’t care about him; she adored our father and hated everything he hated. Walter and Asher were too young to dare defy our father, even if they did feel sorry for their older brother. My mother would visit with Thatcher when she could but I was truly the only friend he had. I tried running away so many times. I tried getting expelled. Nothing worked. My father just kept bribing the nuns to keep me there.”

  Aunt Dinah scowled. “So I did the only thing I could do: I played by their rules and made them believe I was changed. My father sent for me as soon as I graduated, but when I arrived back home...” Her face crumpled, as if she’d swallowed something bitter.

  “What?” I asked. “What happened to Thatcher?”

  “To this day, I still don’t know all the details. My mother was so heartsick over his death; she could barely tell me the story. From what I gathered, Thatcher had died trying to escape from the cellar.” Aunt Dinah lowered her gaze as her mouth worked. Tears escaped, falling into the wrinkles on her cheeks.

  The news hit me like a punch to the throat. I squeezed the camera between both hands and focused on breathing. Tears rolled past my lips.

  “They held a private funeral while I was in school. They didn’t tell me because they didn’t want to ‘disrupt my schedule,’ since I was doing so well. I couldn’t forgive my mother. I expected that kind of nonsense from my father, but she knew how much I loved Thatcher. She should’ve made arrangements for me to come home temporarily. I-I should’ve been there.” Aunt Dinah wrestled with her grief for a second before continuing her terrible story. “My mother didn’t have the heart to clean out the cellar. In fact, she screamed at my father for merely suggesting it. I suppose he did care about her in the end because he respected her wishes.”

  My aunt sniffled but kept her head bowed. “I only went down there to find this picture and the camera. Then I gathered my things and left. Even though I hated the nuns for beating their way of life into me all those years ago, I found myself depending on the schedule they created for me to survive my grief. That’s true even now.” She grimaced. “I find it difficult to stray from the routine.”

  I wanted to say, “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” But she wasn’t done telling her story and I had a feeling I’d never get the chance to hear it again. So I kept my mouth shut.

  “I didn’t return home for many years. Not when I heard my mother had died, certainly not when my father died, not even when Maryanne offered me the house.” The old woman scoffed. “She’d inherited it from our father. As much as she loved our childhood home, she couldn’t stand the idea of raising her children in a house where someone had died. She was going to sell it but wanted to offer it to me first. I didn’t like the idea of a stranger living here, not with Thatcher’s ghost living in the cellar.”

  At my look of horror, she sighed and added, “Metaphorically speaking, of course. I hired someone to care for the grounds. I lived my life, separate from the memories, for as long as I could. I didn’t move back in until a little over ten years ago when it was time to retire. The house had been paid for by my parents; I didn’t have to worry about rent. My retirement fund could cover my living expenses if I was frugal. The investments I made using my inheritance money would cover the rest of my bills. It seemed to be the only logical option.”

  We sat in the quiet that followed, each wrestling with our own feelings. Funny thing was, I wasn’t ashamed to be crying in front of her. To pretend I didn’t feel anything would’ve been disrespectful to Thatcher’s memory. I hated Aunt Dinah’s father for treating his wife’s son like shit. I hated her mother for being too weak to protect her son. I hated my aunt for not telling me just how much we had in common. But more than anything, I felt lonely. And inconsequential.

  I knew what it felt like to be unwanted, but what Thatcher had suffered was worse than anything I’d ever gone through. At least I knew my dad had loved me. My mom loved me too, even if she had chosen Hunter over me in the past. This world and the people in it really sucked ass.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I finally asked. I understood why she hadn’t told me about her brother sooner; it was sad and personal and painful for her to share. So why had she chosen to open up all of a sudden?

  “When Jasmine collapsed, I didn’t see her. Only Thatcher. At least, what I pictured he must’ve looked like when he…” Aunt Dinah shuddered and turned away from me, still clutching the picture frame. “I had to get out of this house, to see him.”

  “He’s buried nearby?”

  She nodded. “Sitting by his graveside, I was reminded what it was like to be a young adult: to feel lost, vulnerable, angry, misunderstood.” Her eyes flickered in my direction. She sighed again. “I realized I was treating you no better than the nuns treated me. For that, I had to apologize.”

  I clenched my jaw to keep it from falling open.

  “So, there you have it,” my aunt said with her signature scowl. “Now you know why your stepfather chose to send you here. He knew, out of all of his elderly relatives, I would be best suited to teach you discipline and decorum, and I still aim to do so. I’ll just be going about it a different way is all. Seeing you make the same mistakes I made is maddening.”

  I blinked at her.

  “Oh, stop looking at me like that.” She rose to glare down her nose at me. “And, while I do approve of Charles Campbell, I don’t trust you not to have your way with him as soon as my back is turned.”

  I choked back a laugh and ended up snorting. “What do you take me for? A rapist?”

  Her nostrils flared dangerously. “That is not something you should ever joke about, Esmeralda. I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant,” I said with a wink.

  “I will lay down the law, young lady, and you will abide by it or you’ll no longer be allowed to see him. Are we clear?”

  After spilling her guts, she must’ve felt the need to appear strong, remind me she was still in control. So I let her. Wrestling my face into a more demure expression, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  November 6th, 1962

  Yesterday we were thrown out of a home. We had been visiting for days with a dying child but, when he finally passed, Dymeka lost his temper. We quarreled in the dead boy’s room.

  “This was all for naught!” Dymeka cursed at the ceiling.

  I too felt unbelievable rage. After a whole year of sitting at deathbeds, we were no closer to finding answers than we were a year ago.

  “What are we doing, Ashki?” he demanded.

  “Trying to find her!” I yelled back.

  “To what end?”<
br />
  “Any end!”

  We were interrupted by the parents of the dead child. They were furious because their child had died under our care and we were yelling at each other instead of telling the family. They shoved us out of the house and threw our medical bags at us. As the man of the house shut the door in our faces, his eyes were welling up with tears. I heard the mother’s wails of anguish through the wall.

  I recognized their cry. I had cried it many times myself. I looked at my Dymeka and he too had tears in his eyes.

  “Any end?” he asked in a small voice.

  “Any end,” I repeated.

  He picked up our bags and slung them on his back. He reached out, offering his hand to me. “Then let us find an end that suits us. If you still wish to join me?”

  I took his hand.

  “Always.” I held no resentment for our argument. I only felt the desire to stop the wails of agony in the house we left behind.

  Perhaps we will never find our answers. Perhaps we will never meet our Lady Death. Perhaps it is time to focus on errands we can complete, like preventing those sobs that will likely haunt us for days.

  “Where do you think we will find good medical teachers?” Dymeka wondered aloud.

  I remembered the medicine men in China and India, how their methods were ancient but quite effective, especially with surgeries.

  “Asia,” I said with confidence.

  Chapter 27

  Jasmine

  Victor walked into the interrogation room much like he always did, with a friendly but guarded demeanor. He shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Smith before taking the empty seat across from them. “Good evening, folks. My name is Detective Campbell. Sorry to bring you in like this but I’m conducting an investigation and I desperately need your help.”

  “Of course,” the woman, Angela, said. “Whatever you need, Detective.”

  “Thank you.” Uncle Vic opened up his notebook and clicked his pen. “First off, how would you define your relationship with David and Tiffany Ward?”

  His voice came through the speakers sitting on the table in front of us. The camera recording the interrogation was aimed at the Smiths.

  “Nonexistent.” Angela waved a hand to indicate herself and her husband. “We were friends once but we haven’t spoken in many years.”

  “Why?”

  “We had a falling out.”

  Uncle Victor wrote something down. “Can I ask what it was about?”

  A corner of the woman’s full lips tilted up in a sad, regretful smile. “You could say we had a difference in lifestyle preference.”

  I cocked my head to the side as I studied her face on the computer screen.

  Everything about this couple was contradictory. They appeared to be in their early thirties but there was something old about their expressions. As if the soul of a kindly grandmother lurked behind the woman’s smile and the soul of a suspicious grandfather was behind the man’s flat look.

  Their ethnicity was hard to pin down; with their oval-shaped faces, round-tipped noses and slightly slanted eyes, they could’ve been first generation immigrants from Israel or India. But their English was flawless. Well, the woman’s was anyway. She spoke with an eloquence that betrayed higher education. Her husband hadn’t spoken a word.

  Despite their well-worn clothes and the fact that they’d been roughing it in an RV when they’d been found, their golden-brown skin was smooth and their dark hair was clean.

  I wasn’t paying much attention to Uncle Vic’s interrogation because I was too busy noticing all the oddities about this couple. And trying to figure out how they could be connected to Death. Because they had to be connected somehow. There was no other explanation for this feeling of familiarity tying us together like the thick rope around the anchor of a freighter ship.

  “Angela and Jerald Smith,” I murmured. “What is your secret?”

  Charlie stood with his left arm across his abdomen; his right elbow was propped against his left wrist, and his right fist was pressed against his mouth. It was a stance often adopted by thinkers. In my brother’s case, it just meant he was anxious.

  “Where were you on August eighteenth at approximately two-fifteen in the afternoon?” our uncle asked.

  It was the date and time of the second murder in the Ward case, the torture and eventual strangulation of Ms. Ida Mavity.

  “Driving,” Angela replied without needing to think about it too much. “We came here after hiking through the Rockies in Colorado. It was a lengthy trip.”

  “Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts?”

  “No, but we purchased gas before crossing state lines.” She and her husband shared a look. “I believe we kept the receipt. You’ll find it in our vehicle. It will prove we only just arrived last week.”

  Uncle Victor jotted something else down in his notebook.

  “Are we being accused of a crime, Detective Campbell?” Angela asked, her thick eyebrows knit.

  “You’re suspects in several crimes, actually.” Uncle Vic opened the file folder that had been resting in his lap this whole time. He proceeded to lay out crime scene pictures from all of the murders related to the Ward case.

  Angela looked grieved by the images but she didn’t avert her gaze.

  Jerald gathered the pictures together with angry swipes of his hands. “We don’t need to see these. They are upsetting my wife.”

  “It’s all right, my love,” Angela said.

  “No, it’s not all right.” Jerald gave the stack of pictures back to Uncle Victor with an expression as cold as snow. “As my wife has patiently explained, we could not have been involved in these murders. We have dedicated our lives to healing the sick around the world and only recently decided to go on sabbatical. We have been traveling the United States and hiking. Even if we had been in your state for months, we would never harm another human being. We are doctors, pacifists, humanitarians. We ended our friendship with the Wards because of our commitment to do no harm.” He spoke the name with a sarcastic twist of his lips and a roll of his eyes.

  “We made it very clear that we don’t agree with their revolutionary lifestyle, their meddlesome and manipulative games. To defend my wife and our way of life, I would most definitely fight, but not for any other reason. The Wards know this. If they told you we were capable of doing these unspeakable crimes, it just goes to prove they are the ones seeking to settle the score between us by ruining our good reputation.”

  Uncle Victor accepted the pictures and tucked them back into his file. “I see.” He sounded disappointed. “Thank you for your cooperation but please don’t leave the city until I’ve finished my investigation. I might have more questions for you.”

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Charlie said with a shake of his head. “Neither of them fit the profile of a cold, calculating murderer. They don’t seem like the kind of people who would hire a hitman either. This is a dead end.”

  Before I could reply, Angela cleared her throat. “Detective, am I allowed to ask a question?”

  Uncle Victor started to rise but paused. “Sure.”

  “Those two young ones you were with before…Who are they?”

  Our uncle stiffened. I saw the lines of his back muscles through his shirt. Charlie was a statue beside me.

  “I’m sorry but that’s none of your concern.” Uncle Victor sounded like an automated message. “They have nothing to do with this investigation.”

  Angela spoke cautiously, her gaze drifting away from her interrogator and landing on the mirror behind him. As if she could sense us through the glass. “I think they do. May we speak to them?”

  Charlie shivered. “This lady’s got some nerve.”

  “Absolutely not,” Uncle Victor said in the same low but firm voice he used on us when we were in trouble.

  Angela would not be swayed. “Please. It’s a matter of life and death.” With a little shrug, she added, “But mostly death.”

  My heart beat louder and more insi
stently in my ears. She knows, she knows, she knows, it seemed to be saying.

  Uncle Victor wasn’t playing along. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Angie,” Jerald murmured, gripping her hand. He leaned forward expectantly, ready to jump between them if he sensed danger.

  Angela forged on. “I think we might be related.”

  Our uncle shook his head. “Impossible. I’m their uncle. We come from a small family. I’d know if there was any relation between us.”

  “I think…we might have the same mother.”

  I tapped my knuckles against the glass.

  “What’re you doing?” Charlie hissed, yanking my hand away. “You know the rules!”

  Our uncle glanced briefly over his shoulder before excusing himself and exiting the room. He walked into the observation room a minute later, looking pale. “Do you think—?”

  “I do,” I said, my breathing hitched in excitement. “You have to let me talk to her.”

  “No,” Charlie all but growled as he grabbed my arm. “We don’t know what her game is. She could just be—”

  “What? Bringing up Death to change the subject? Hoping we’ll forget about her potential guilt if she can find some sort of link between us?” I yanked my arm out of his grip. “She has nothing to gain by bringing up Death. In fact, she’s running the risk of sounding clinically insane by talking about Death during a recorded interrogation. She has to have a really good reason for it.”

  “Maybe she is insane! Did you ever think about that?” My brother rolled his eyes. “Of course not. You’re too busy sniffing out conspiracies because you felt something funny.”

  I shoved a finger in his face, forcing him to step back. “Don’t make it sound like I’m crazy, Charles! You felt it too. This means something, dammit.”