Hemlock Veils

by Davenport, Jennie

  Nicole’s acrylic fingernail shot out, aimed at the trees. “Look!” she cried, grasping Regina’s arm with her other hand. It was hard to tell from here, but someone—or something—came their way, rustling the branches. While the rest of the group tensed back in anticipation of what might crash through, Regina inched closer, shivering as rain dripped down her face. It soaked through her uniform, even to her behind.

  Two figures shot through, one in a limp: Eustace, with someone else in tow. “Good Lord,” Regina said in relief, running to them.

  At his side was a soaked woman, small but with eyes wider than the moon on a full night. Regina supported him from his other side.

  “Inside,” Eustace ordered, out of breath and managing to pick up his pace with an impaired gait.

  Everyone, huddled around him and trying to keep up, spoke at once. “What were you doing out there?” Taggart demanded.

  “What’d it do to you?” Brian asked, calling over Regina’s shoulder.

  Nicole, voice as shaky as ever, said, “You got it, right, Bathgate?”

  They reached the diner, filing in two bodies at a time—a mass of voices and dripping figures. In the chaos, Eustace and the mysterious woman had yet to speak. Eustace leaned on the counter, holding his hand tenderly. The woman, whose breaths came and went in a shudder, stared out the window. Nearly purple lips accented her white face. “You shot him,” she said to herself.

  “You’d rather I let it shred you?” Eustace rushed, and that was all it took for silence. Every eye and ear waited for an explanation. But neither of them seemed to realize the crowd was here. Eustace—breaths finally slowing and beard still dripping—stared at the woman with an unreadable, almost cautious expression. He removed his cap.

  The silence made the woman turn. Her eyes snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in, for they shot to Eustace’s bloody hand. “Eustace,” she said, rushing to him. “You’re hurt.” It was a wonder how in the world she knew him. Eustace Bathgate didn’t know anyone outside of Hemlock Veils. She looked at Regina, tucking wet brown hair behind her ear with a shaky hand. “Ma’am, do you have a first-aid kit by chance?”

  “It’s nothing,” Eustace said before Regina could respond. “Regina, get this one a blanket before we lose her to hypothermia.”

  “I don’t exactly carry blankets around here, Eustace,” Regina said, hand on her hip.

  The young woman pried Eustace’s fingers open, and he flinched. Blood covered the deep gash on his palm. “It’s not nothing,” she said, as though Eustace’s mother. “This is deep.”

  “Must’ve been when it ripped the shotgun from my hand,” he said, trying not to wince.

  “Ma’am,” the woman said at Regina again, while Regina still tried to grasp what they’d just said. “Some bandages and antiseptic would come in real handy right now.”

  Regina stared her down, trying to get a read. If it wasn’t Eustace in need of assistance, she might tell her to get her own bandages. Something felt strange about the girl being here, as though she’d already turned everything topsy-turvy.

  “Fine then,” Regina finally said, walking to the small cupboard behind the counter, the one with all the odds and ends. The first-aid kit she’d put there a couple years ago after Nicole’s incident should still be there somewhere. “You oughta go to the clinic, Eustace,” she said, still searching.

  “I’m not waking Doc Ortiz just for a scrape.”

  Regina found the kit and slid it across the counter. The woman rummaged through it, pulling out gauze and applicators that looked like large Q-tips.

  “You trust this woman to stitch you up?”

  The woman’s eyes shot to Regina only briefly. “He won’t need stitches.”

  “Oh, you a doctor?”

  “A nurse…kind of.” She doused an applicator tip with Betadine and began to apply it to Eustace’s hand, gently. He nearly jumped, then sighed and looked away.

  “How are you a nurse…kind of?”

  “Yes, I trust this woman,” Eustace said in response to Regina’s earlier question, not allowing the visitor to answer. He sent a warning glance at Regina. Something had to be said about her if Eustace liked her. “Beth here saved my life.”

  There it was. Regina couldn’t stop the sensation that came over her at his simple statement. Something comforting, almost a true peace, settled inside her chest, despite her many questions. It was clear everyone else’s curiosity had piqued too, since the only sound came from the package of gauze the woman named Beth opened. Regina’s eyes flitted from Eustace to Beth.

  “Saved your life?” asked Deputy Holman, unconvinced.

  Eustace gave a single nod. “Everyone, this is Elizabeth Ashton.”

  “Bathgate, I swear,” Taggart said, face red and mustache twitching. “If you don’t clue me in on what’s going on here…”

  “Sheriff, calm down. Let’s everyone calm down. I promised her a safe place to stay tonight and she’s going to get that. She’s had a long journey, her car’s broken down on Mt. Hood Highway, and she trusted an old fool to get her here.” He paused for effect, looking to all eyes. “An old fool who just so happened to give her face time with the beast. And when I say face time, I mean literal, breathing-in-her-face time. So I think it best we show our respect.”

  Nicole gasped, and without realizing it, so had Regina.

  ***

  Violent wind rattled the motel window’s screen. Raindrops smeared across it, hindering Elizabeth’s view. She lay in one of Anita Thurman’s flannel nightshirts, awake and alert. Bill and Anita owned the motel and had asked her whether she wanted a room with an excellent view, or one that safely faced the street. Of course she’d picked the view, even after they’d tried convincing her it was a mistake. As though seeing the forest would be too traumatic in her fragile state. It had only made her want the room more.

  But she wouldn’t know just how spectacular the view from her window was until morning. The motel sat at the top of Red Cedar Loop, which curved above town and, according to the Thurmans, placed it within dangerous reach of the monster. They’d said they never had guests for that reason: everyone was too terrified of the darkened forest her window faced.

  She imagined the view, how it would look with a little light and less rain. While lying on her side, she couldn’t remove her mind’s eye from it. Or from him, of the way he looked at her. He was out there somewhere, probably bleeding. Would he survive? Had Hemlock Veils seen the end of their terrorizing beast, who Elizabeth didn’t think was so terrorizing after all?

  She would never tell them her secret: that she thought him as harmless as the next resident of Hemlock Veils. They’d think her just as satanic as their beast. She would never try to explain the desperation in his eyes during their stare-down, or the way he gave her a pass. The way he seemed too intelligent to be a ravenous monster. But what was he? Who was he? And why had people in the diner stared at her with awe when Eustace had finished explaining what happened to them?

  There were a whole lot of things about this place she didn’t understand. Even the people were a mystery: the way they loved the place they feared. Regina, the woman whose skin was the color of molasses, had seemed most skeptical of her at first. But something changed in her after Eustace’s recounting; whether it was pity for Elizabeth’s encounter with the beast or a strange reverence, Regina welcomed her now. She’d called Bill Thurman herself so he could check her into his vacant five-bedroom motel. Bill had been so excited to have a guest he’d even turned the motel’s neon sign on.

  When Elizabeth had searched through her leather shoulder bag for her wallet, to pay Bill, she’d found everything soaked through. But worse, the locket her father had given her many years ago had vanished. She’d removed everything three times, and again when she arrived to her room and hung all her clothes and underwear—and the damned money—over the shower curtain rod to dry; but the locket was gone. She’d had it when leaving California, and that meant it had probably fallen to the
sodden forest floor. Probably it came out when she and her bag got tossed over the fallen log.

  She willed it to stay put, wherever it was, since it was the only good thing she had left of him. And as she closed her eyes, seeing again the monster with a lost soul, she let herself breathe, truly breathe, for the first time since Willem came smashing through her door one week ago.

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth had just come home from work when three panicked knocks shook her apartment door. She’d snuck quietly to both deadbolts, making sure they were secure, when the door thumped again, startling her back and making her neighbor’s terrier yap across the hall. Her apartment wasn’t in the safest neighborhood in Boyle Heights, but any complex in Boyle Heights would prove just as risky for a white woman living alone. She hated relying on deadbolts and pepper spray, but eleven years ago, after high school, this place was all she could afford. Mr. Vanderzee had offered to put her up in a loft near work, in Bel Air, but only if she would cut ties with her brother. He had to know she never would, but every once in a while he’d throw the offer out to remind her of the kind of life she could have without Willem. But here, in Boyle Heights, Willem was close enough to keep some measure of tabs on, so she could live with being viewed by her Hispanic neighbors—most of the time coolly—as part of the two-percent minority.

  The door banged again, and she swore if it was any harder the flaking paint on her walls would have floated to the floor. “Beth!”

  Her heart sank in both relief and dread.

  “Beth! Lemme in!” Willem pounded again, even as she unlocked the door. Before she could step away he crashed in, knocking her back against her shelf of cookbooks.

  “Will,” she said, steadying herself. His pale blue eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his cheeks sunken, and sweat coated his pallid, shaved head. No matter how many times she’d seen him this way—more often than not the past two years—it felt like the first. But this time it wasn’t just the side effects of being high. This time he trembled with fright. And something—a sinking inside—told her that whatever he was about to ask of her would be more detrimental than any of his past favors. Even more so than the last, which had almost gotten her arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had already determined that was the last straw, but she hadn’t expected him to need something again so soon. Or to look this desperate when needing it.

  He slammed the door behind him, breathing heavily, and looked all around them as though a million pairs of unseen eyes watched him, hiding in her vintage furniture and framed family photos. He blinked rapidly, as always. “They’re gonna kill me, Beth.” Tears hung in the corners of his eyes, lurking.

  “Who?” she asked, keeping her distance.

  “I’m in too deep this time.” He exhaled the sob she’d been anticipating, running a trembling hand over his moist head then down his face. His fingers stayed at his mouth, tapping, and to himself he whimpered, “It’s over.”

  “Willem, look at me.”

  He didn’t. And the side of her that would do anything for him wanted to take him in her arms until all his problems vanished. She wanted him better, she wanted him home.

  “It’s not too late to clean up—”

  “Fuck off, Beth.” He glared, and saliva collected in the corners of his mouth like it would on a crying baby. “I’m not here for a lecture.”

  Elizabeth tightened her lips. “Leave.”

  “What?”

  “Leave. I won’t do this anymore.”

  His sobbing turned apologetic, and his whimpers pathetic. He cowered before her, his clammy hands grasping hers. “Please…Beth. I’ll never ask for anything again.”

  She shook her hands free, backing up.

  “Your promises mean nothing. I can’t always bail you out. I love you and you know I’d do anything for you—hell, I’ve given up everything. But—”

  “How? Working for that rich cock-sucker and living the good life? I’m just asking for a little of it.”

  Her heart grew hot, and the swelling fire filled her. “Just a little? I guess I’m mistaken for thinking I’ve given you everything. And for what, so you can run out and screw up your life again, even worse than the last time? You’re not just screwing yourself, Will! You’re screwing me, too!”

  “I know, I know.” His mood shifted faster than she could get a handle on it. “I know, Beth. But it’s different this time, I swear. I know you’ve given up a lot to help me—”

  “What do you know?”

  “I…know you’re happy with your life, and you’re always teaching me—”

  “You think I’m happy?” She recoiled. Living the good life was one thing, but happy? “Will, what I am isn’t happy. I just make the best of what I have. You think I was happy taking over for Dad when he died, missing out on the normal life of a teenager so I could make sure my brother wasn’t out getting high, beaten, or arrested? Was I happy putting every cent I earned from the time I started working into cleaning you up?” She backed him into a corner. “Was I happy dropping out of nursing school when I had one semester left, just to take on more hours with Mr. Vanderzee so I could pay for your damn rehab?”

  Her chest heaved in the silence, and Willem’s eyes held only a trace of fear. She sighed, dropping to the couch, and finished tiredly, “That’s not being happy. That’s being a fool. That’s holding to Dad’s dying request that I never give up on you. That I do everything to help you. So don’t say I should give you a little, when everything I’ve done is for you.”

  She met his eyes, the color of a dawn sky; the life in them was barely there. “Has it meant anything to you, Will?”

  “You’ve…always had my back.”

  She shouldn’t have expected more. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

  “Look. I don’t know what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time, but I can’t help. No more drug debts, no more jail bonds, no more medical bills for overdoses, and no more goddamn rehab. I can’t…” She paused, hating herself even as she spoke the words. “I won’t stick my neck out for you anymore. The truth is, my brother died a long time ago and I’ve been wasting money on a ghost.” She’d never spoken such harsh words to him before, and she couldn’t meet his eyes, even though she knew there wouldn’t be anyone real staring back.

  “I never asked you to send me to rehab,” he said through his teeth.

  “So all your ‘I’m cleaning up’ speeches were acts?”

  With a shrug, he sniffed. “You…always came.”

  The pain in her heart should have made her sob. “And it’s my fault,” she whispered to herself, finding it hard to breathe. The reality astounded her, the one she’d never let herself think, since she’d always believed one day, with enough help, he would change. Just as her father had said only minutes before he’d passed: Don’t give up on him no matter what. Anyone can change. Turns out she had been doing all the wrong things to help him.

  “There’s one last thing you can do to help, though, Beth. And I swear on Dad’s grave it’s the last thing.”

  “Don’t swear on Dad’s grave.” She stared at the floor. She couldn’t look at him, this time out of mere disgust—with him and herself.

  “I need a little money, that’s all.”

  “Get out.”

  “Beth, please. I mean it, they’ll kill me.”

  A corner of her heart ached, telling her to jump up and save him. But the rest of her didn’t believe him. He’d said it before.

  She was guiding him to the door when tears began fleeing his eyes again. “Louis Dimas,” he said. And then in a rush, “Jacob Maceno.”

  She pushed him, staring. Vaguely, the names rang a bell.

  “Martin Soto,” he finished with more reverence. For the briefest moment, when another tear fled his bloodshot eye, she saw a flicker of Willem—the old, real Willem. Martin Soto had been Willem’s best friend last year, the one Elizabeth had begged Willem to stop ass
ociating with—the one who always got Willem stuck in the same hole. But three months ago, Martin Soto had been shot, and the story had been all over the local news.

  The other names, the ones that had pricked her memory: they were other murder victims from that same week—all young men and all shot in the head. Willem had actually shown a trace of sadness during that week. She’d hated those boys who called themselves friends of Willem, but the attachment he felt to them made her realize there were still some healthy human emotions remaining inside her brother. And those boys, no matter what life they got mixed up in, didn’t deserve murder.

  “What about them?”

  “It’s the Paddock brothers.”

  She shook her head, confused. “Will…”

  “They all owed ’em. Louis and Jake and Marty…they couldn’t pay.”

  “These Paddock brothers, they murdered them?”

  He nodded. “And now it’s me who owes. I ran out…I’m next if I don’t pay. But…they don’t just want my share. They want theirs, too.”

  Elizabeth huffed, folding her arms over her sickened abdomen. “That’s ridiculous. If you know it was them, turn them in.”

  “You don’t think anyone’s tried? You remember that kid, the ten-year-old who was beaten behind Joe’s garage a couple weeks back?”

  Elizabeth hardly nodded. The news had hit her apartment complex hard, since the kid was Guillermo from 4D’s nephew. It was tragic, and the boy had been hospitalized. He’d survived.

  But it wasn’t soon after that his older brother had been murdered.

  “He was a snitch, Beth. The kid witnessed something and decided to be brave. And it was his family that suffered. It won’t be long before they’d be coming after you, too.”