J. G. Passarella - Wendy Ward 01

by Wither

By the next day the fever had broken, though Abby’s horrible body aches kept her home from school yet again. Out her bedroom window she could hear her school bus rumbling by, and she was sure she could even distinguish the individual voices of her friends. Her hearing was getting sharper. She could hear mice in the basement. She could hear voices in the current of the wall sockets.

  Later that morning, the man her father had hired came to begin work on the ceiling over Abby’s bedroom, so she moved her convalescence to the sofa downstairs in front of the TV The repairman—he introduced himself to Abby simply as “Paul”—seemed surprised to learn her father had left her alone in the house. (She’d let him in to use the bathroom when he appeared at the back screen door.)

  “Do you need anything? Some water or something?” he asked when he came back from the bathroom. She shook her head.

  “D’you have a little girl?” Abby asked him suddenly.

  “A little—?” Her eyes seemed strangely older than her years, heavy with sad understanding. “No, not…yet. Soon.”

  Abby nodded gravely, and returned her attention to the television. He felt with certainty that he’d been dismissed. And yet he lingered a moment before returning to work. He searched for a business card in his shirt pocket and handed it to Abby. “Do you know how to use a telephone?” he asked her.

  Abby turned those too-wise eyes to him with a pitying look. “Are you kidding?” she asked.

  “Right. Dumb question,” Paul said. “Well, if you need anything while you’re dad’s out and I’m up on the roof, you just call this number. I carry my cell phone with me.” He slapped his hip, where the cell phone was clipped beside a tape measure, a pocketknife, and a pager. Then he left the little girl staring blankly at the flickering television.

  By noon Abby had grown bored with Nickelodeon reruns: Gilligan’s Island, Brady Bunch, McHale’s Navy, Partridge family. After Bewitched she pulled on her best school clothes and quietly ventured outside for the first time since falling ill. She was shaky, unstable on her aching legs, but she couldn’t bear to remain cooped up in the house a moment longer.

  Outside on the porch, Abby sat on the steps and tried looking up at the blue sky, streaked with the cottony contrails of long-gone airplanes; but it was too penetratingly blue for her tender eyes, and she had to look away. She felt hot, flush in the face, as if the fever might be returning.

  Her eyes found the inviting shade of the woods beyond, at the edge of the weedy lot behind their yard. The woods looked cool and peaceful, back where the details of individual trees melted into a deep and leafy blur. Abby stood and decided, on impulse, to seek refuge in its shade. She slipped her bare feet into the dusty pink jellies she left beside the screen door—her summer play shoes—and strode off purposefully across the yard, stepping without hesitation beyond its mowed border and into the waiting field of tall weeds and witchgrass.

  Without a backward glance she disappeared into the shade of the woods.

  A child left alone outdoors long enough will always find her way to water. Minutes after she’d entered the canopy of shady woods, Abby discovered a creek, a tributary from some unseen spring. It babbled gently over mossy rocks that were green above the waterline, cool and slimy below. She followed the water to a kind of tide-pool and watched a water bug skating across the placid surface, its legs barely dimpling the water. She found a school of minnows hovering in the shallows by a muddy bank. She investigated a shoal of fragile foam beside decomposing leaves.

  The creek fascinated her for an hour and led her deeper within the woods. “When she finally looked up from her investigations, she found herself in an unfamiliar clearing. She was alone and, she supposed, lost. She wasn’t afraid yet, though. Shafts of sunlight angled down through breaks in the high canopy above. She found a fallen tree that crumbled beneath her weight when she tried to climb up onto it Inside it was dry and rotten, roiling with termites.

  She ventured farther into the clearing. The trees here seemed different from the others in the woods. They were thicker, which meant (recalling a life sciences project in the second grade) they were older; if you cut one in half it would have many rings, one for each year. These trees must be very old, and like old people they were twisted and bent, barnacled with strange misshapen growths and burled, tumorous swellings. Their bark was mottled, scarred, split in places to reveal raw sodden wood beneath. One trunk bore great fatty lobes of fungus. Another wept a treacly black sap. All rose up from visible roots that clutched the moist humus of the forest floor like arthritic hands.

  Abby realized the clearing had fallen strangely silent, like a church. Gone were the bird calls, the ever-present susurrus of insects. No more breeze in tree branches overhead, or the distant rumble of airplanes.

  But Abby still wasn’t afraid, she was curious. And when she found the gravestones, she ceased to be simply a visitor to this place—she knew shed found a home.

  They lay in a tumbled heap, three stones so old they almost seemed natural rock. Abby kneeled down to peer at the first name carved into the green face of the first stone. She read the letters eroded by three hundred seasons of wind, rain, and snow.

  SARAH HUTCHINS

  CONDEMNED WITCH

  HANGED THIS DAY 1699.

  She had to read the words slowly, sounding them out. She traced a fingertip through the shallow grooves, feeling each letter. Quietly, with reverence.

  The woods watched. The trees held their breath, as if afraid to startle away the timid visitor to this secret place. But Abby felt no impulse to flee this quiet place. Just the opposite, in fact. She’d found a new secret place of her own.

  Wendy was late for work. She turned onto Theurgy Avenue, which was part of the sleepy business district located within three miles of the main Danfield campus. The Crystal Path was nestled within a block of nine quaint shops, painted in different pastel flavors, each one sporting a gingerbread trim of awning and an old-world charm that made you want to tack “Ye Olde” to the front of every store’s name.

  The store tenants had unilaterally agreed that street parking be reserved for customers, so Wendy was spared the embarrassment of parallel parking the Gremlin, which she found to be a nightmare even when the little car cooperated by not conking out on her. The long narrow lot behind the row of stores handled the spillover customers and employees. Just her dumb luck to get stuck in the spot next to the big, smelly Dumpster.

  Wendy opened the door to the tinkling sound of hanging silver chimes in the shape of quarter moon and stars—Alissa hated buzzers—and the pleasant aroma of a vanilla candle. As always, just walking through the door of the place seemed to soothe Wendy. “I’m sorry, Alissa!” Wendy called instinctively Her boss was often in the back of the store practicing her yoga breathing or postures, even when she was technically in charge of the register. In other words, when she was alone in the store. Her regulars usually browsed for a while before requiring any sort of sales assistance. Newcomers were often at a loss as to what to make of the shop anyway and needed time alone to acclimate.

  “Wendy? Is that you?”

  “Reporting for duty!” Wendy called to the back of the store.

  While she was alone, she took a moment to look at the store anew, as she imagined a first-time visitor would see it. Arranged around the front of the store were jars and baskets of daisies, lavender, jasmine, and roses, some fresh and some dried. Various handmade jewelry items—mostly crystal or silver—were on display in the glass cases that formed the cash register’s U. At each corner of the island stood an oversize palmistry model hand, with all the lines and whorls of the palm reader’s art plainly illustrated and labeled. Each hand was suction-cupped to the smooth glass countertop.

  On the walls on either side of the register were shelves featuring crystal balls and polished stones, including amethyst, blue-laced agate, sapphire, tiger eye, and rutilated quartz. Farther back on the left side were the many jars of dried herbs—thyme, rosemary, sage, and hawthorn among them. Opposite thi
s display were drawers of muslin bags, candles of numerous sizes and shapes, empty bottles and jars and decorative baskets, shelves with simple and elaborate candleholders, wooden mortars and pestles, and even an assortment of tarot decks.

  Wendy stepped inside the cash register U and high-fived the nearest palmistry hand, smiling as it wobbled back and forth like one of those inflatable punch clowns that always came back for more. She tossed her backpack on a low shelf under the register. Alissa didn’t mind if she caught up on her class assignments if business was slow, as long as the store was properly presented: swept, watered, dusted, folded, and alphabetized.

  “Traffic bad?”

  Wendy spun around to face Alissa Raines, who had a disconcerting habit of gliding wraithlike throughout the shop, making about as much noise as a passing thought.

  “Traffic bad. Gremlin worse.”

  Alissa had an ethereal presence and an inner tranquility about her. A youthful face with hauntingly pale blue eyes framed by long white hair, usually bound in a loose ponytail. Since shed taken up yoga, she more often than not wore flowery scarves and wraparound skirts over her exercise leotard. She kept an exercise mat in the back room, along with her own personal mandala, so she liked to be able to strip down quickly to her leotard for a twenty-or thirty-minute yoga session.

  “Gwendolyn, I do believe that car is the only thing blocking you from true inner peace.” Whether consciously or unconsciously, Alissa always seemed to use Wendy’s formal name when she was in mentor mode.

  “I know,” Wendy said, chagrined. “More trouble than it’s usually worth.”

  “Why not get a bike? A good ten-speed could get you around campus and back and forth to work easily enough.”

  “I need a place for all my stuff,” Wendy said sheepishly. Besides, Wendy thought, I already have a bike. It’s up on blocks, in my bedroom.

  “Most of your stuff is trash you forgot to throw away. You know, we do have recycling bins in back.”

  Wendy nodded. She planned to get organized… just as soon as she got some free time. “So…how’s business today?” Wendy asked.

  “Change of topic. Okay, I can take a hint. Business? Well, you know what I always say, we only get two types of customers…”

  “Tourists and true believers.”

  “Well, the tourists are scarce today, and the true believers must be all stocked up,” Alissa said with a wry smile.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Got in a shipment of books.” Alissa tapped a large brown box with the toe of a slipper. “Shelve those, give the place the once-over with the magic duster, and you’re free to crack open the books for the rest of the evening.”

  “Oh, joy!” Wendy said with a wry smile.

  “If you need me I’ll be in back, for a little pranayama.” Breathing exercises. Wendy was starting to remember all the “anas” and “amas” of yoga.

  She took the box cutter out of the drawer and sliced the top of the book carton open. She made three trips to the back of the store, stacking the books in a loose pile on the floor. All the books were shelved by topic, not by author, so when she got to the book on water dousing, she had to decide whether to file it in the W section for water or in the D for dousing. She settled on D, since that was more specific. Sitting on the carpeted floor with no customers to help, no sounds but her own humming to intrude, she felt a creeping lethargy seep into her bones, as if she were being pulled down into sleep by a strong hand. She yawned so wide her jaw cracked. After she shelved these books, she had a whole pile of her own textbooks to absorb. Another yawn. “Oh, boy,” she mumbled through the hand pressed to her mouth, “it’s gonna be a long evening.”

  After a full afternoon of classes and one graduate seminar (“Proust, Joyce, Faulkner: Architects of Memory”), Karen was exhausted. Driving home in her red Volvo, she wanted nothing more than a cool drink, a magazine, and a few uninterrupted hours on the porch glider before sunset.

  Alas, her evening wind-down wasn’t to be. As she turned off Main onto Lore Avenue, she saw Paul Leeson’s blue pickup parked outside her house, and the man himself taking measurements on the wraparound porch. Karen sighed and told herself she should be glad to see him. Like many a successful contractor, he juggled her renovation along with half a dozen others, assigning priority to the homeowners who shouted loudest when he went MIA for more than a day. Too often, Karen found herself low on that priority list.

  Paul looked up at the sound of the Volvo’s tires on the gravel driveway and raised a hand in a kind of minimalist wave. He was a plain-featured man, always just shy of a sunburn, and handsome if you caught him in the right kind of light-this kind, in fact: a six-thirty sun. He wore a contractor’s standard-issue jeans (he kept a pair of pressed khakis for delivering an estimate) but somewhat uncharacteristically favored old golf shirts in wash-faded pastels, monogrammed with little alligators or polo players. Sometimes Karen thought he looked more like a golf pro—up there on his A-frame ladder—than a general contractor.

  “Need help?” he called as she lifted a stack of blue exam books from the passenger seat of the Volvo. She shook him off, but he came anyway, closing the Volvo’s door for her, taking her shoulder bag from her.

  “Did I catch you actually planning to do some work?” she asked, tempering the jab with a smile.

  “You feeling neglected?” he asked.

  “Just cranky,” she said. “Been a long day. My feet hurt. My back hurts. The baby’s been doing jumping jacks all afternoon.” They climbed the porch steps, Karen throwing a forlorn glance at her antique glider. Paul had laden it with tools.

  “We’ve got to talk about the bills, Professor Glazer,” he said as he held open the screen door for her. She was singling out her house key, trying not to lose the slumping stack of exam books.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do any more work until you settle some outstanding receipts. How would you like to pay?”

  “Inside,” she said, pushing the heavy door open. He followed her into the cool foyer, the place smelling comfortingly old, like carpets and deep closets. Part of the reason Karen had fallen in love with it. She turned within the sudden circle of his arms and kissed him. She felt his five o’clock shadow, like fine grit sandpaper, though with his fair hair the stubble wouldn’t be visible for hours.

  She fumbled behind her to close the door on their little display. He broke the kiss and gave her an amused look. “Don’t want the neighbors to know you’re carrying on with the handyman?”

  “Just chilly.”

  “Bullshit,” he said, not unpleasantly. She slipped away from him and into the living room. Long streaks of honeyed sunlight lay across the oriental carpet, the only time of day the sun was low enough to breach the ramparts of the deep porch. Karen dropped the exam books on the piano bench, tossed her keys into the basket atop the old spinet. Paul slipped a hand across her belly as she flipped through the day’s mail.

  She asked him, without looking up, “Do I really owe you money?” He grunted and said, “Fifteen hundred,” his touch turning into a caress.

  “That much?”

  “It’s the cedar siding. Expensive stuff, particularly for the quality you want.” She’d returned her attention to the mail, using her finger like a letter opener. He took advantage of the moment’s distraction to slip beneath her radar. “You know, there’s a simple way we could economize…”

  She was only half-listening. He felt like a shrink planting a posthypnotic suggestion: “I could put my place up for sale, move in here, we turn my mortgage payments into your renovations.” He nuzzled her throat, slipping his arms around from behind.

  She sighed. “Paul.”

  “Don’t worry, professor—it’s not a marriage proposal.”

  She turned to face him. “But it’s not a good idea, either.” She tried to say it gently, but he darkened nonetheless.

  “Why?”

  She headed into the kitchen. He followed on her hee
ls.

  “I’m just beginning to get used to this being my place,” she said. Her parents had deeded it to her when they moved to Panama City.

  Paul trapped her in the corner where the kitchen counters met “Okay, so it’s your place”—he touched her belly—“but this is our daughter.”

  She looked away. She hadn’t yet gotten used to thinking of the baby as theirs together. In unguarded moments she still found herself thinking of the unborn child as somehow a solo act of creation. Ridiculous, she knew, and usually checked herself for thinking it; but even quashed, the thought left an aftertaste of possessiveness. And Paul sensed it.

  “She is going to be our daughter, isn’t she?” he asked. “Or am I overstaying my welcome?”

  “Of course not.” She flashed an irritated look, forced him to let her out of the corner. Went to the fridge and began rooting around inside, improvising supper. “Honestly, Paul, I think sometimes you wait to spring this shit on me when I’m at peak exhaustion. It’s like you know my resistance is weak.”

  “Trouble sleeping again?” It was more observation than question.

  “Bad dreams.”

  “No kidding,” he said, and she saw the worry etched around his eyes. Good, kind Paul Leeson. Nothing duplicitous about this man. Nothing hesitant or uncertain about his feelings for her. He deserved no less in return, and once more Karen felt ashamed she couldn’t return his love without qualification.

  “You were talking in your sleep again last night,” he said, taking a beer for himself from the door of the fridge and twisting off the cap with a calloused palm.

  “Anything memorable?”

  “You called me a ”son of a whore“ at one point,” he said, and took a meditative swallow of beer. He wiped his frothy lips and belched quietly. “Oh yeah! And a ”pig fucker.“ I sorta liked that one.”

  She looked troubled. “I’m sure I wasn’t talking to you…”

  “Who then? Department chair?”