by Lynn S.
“Of course.” Isabel was attentive, her smile actually reflecting in her eyes. “I have a couple of things to do, but I’ll drive you later. We can go to the nearby town. It is less than three miles down the road.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose, and please, don’t think me rude, but I’d rather go by myself.”
Isabel’s smile didn’t freeze, but her voice was a little on the cross side when she replied, “I understand,” and handed Marissa the keys to a vehicle. “It is impossible to get lost, just follow the road south, and you’ll see a detour on the right hand side.”
She was right. It was hard to miss. The house on the hill had an impressive view and the town looked like a colorful pattern of squares in the distance. The ride was short, but being at the wheel gave her a boost of confidence somehow. Stepping out of the SUV, Marissa took in the fresh early afternoon air. The place had a certain postcard quality to it. Old, but neat. Fourteen streets locked in a square with the residential area toward the outside; colorful houses made of brick and wood, with considerable yards framed by either wrought iron or white picket fences. Episcopalian and Catholic churches stood side by side on Main Street, as well as a couple of stores, a cafeteria, a family practitioner’s office, and what seemed to be an elementary school.
Marissa swallowed. Somehow her throat was parched, a lingering feeling that kept haunting her from the night before. Walking into the cafeteria, she was for once grateful not to be overwhelmed by a number of choices. She read the menu. Small, medium, and large described the possibilities for coffee with either cream or fresh milk. Tea kind of showed up in a corner, trying to capture someone’s attention, competing with three choices of pie.
Marissa asked for a mint infusion, which was served in a midsize mug. It tasted freshly brewed, not microwaved in a hurry, and she was grateful for it. It felt soothing. The waiter, who was also the owner, a man with peppered hair and a talkative nature, approached, surprising her with a slice of peach pie.
He told her it was on the house, but nothing was truly free. The man was obviously exhausting all his kind senior citizen points to get some information. The town hardly ever saw visitors except for the summer season and he felt like talking. The luxurious SUV made him ask if she was somehow related to the folks who owned the big mansions on the hills. When she answered she was visiting with the O’Reillys, the man eased into a chat.
“Ah, so you are staying up there in Innisfree.”
“You could say that.” Marissa gave in, enjoying a bite of the pie. It had flaky crust and perfectly candied fruit. “Oh my God! This is heavenly!”
“It is good, I’d vouch for that pie any time,” the man continued. “I wish I could say it is my recipe, but for the last couple of years, since my wife’s arthritis took a bad turn, I have been buying from the Amish. It helps to move things along with the local economy and it even turns up sales during high season. You know how people are into organic stuff these days, and, well, it doesn’t get more organic than straight from the farm. During the summer, it is a bit of a show, and tourists like watching the deliveries. They’ve made a form of entertainment out of it. Sometimes it gets out of hand, especially if the local kids decide to join in. It’s a shame.”
“Guilty on all accounts. Count me as curious. I’m here for the full farm delivery experience.” Marissa gifted the man with a smile while pointing toward herself. She had no idea about the Amish or their schedules, but it felt good to be part of an animated conversation for once. She had been deeply affected by loss and longed to extend her stay in that world of sweets, coffee, herbal teas, and casual exchanges. To be as far away as possible from the gloomy presence of the house on the hill, that though exquisitely built and touched with radiant color, was the saddest place she’d ever seen. No, not sad, sad was okay, understandable. It was cold, detached, and unpleasant while surrounded by beauty. But the topic eventually turned to Innisfree and there was nothing she could do about it.
“So, are you staying for long up there? Sure, call me nosy, but it is curious to see movement on the hill besides Hank doing roundabouts, and I can’t recall a time in which Mrs. O’Reilly and her mother actually brought in guests. Not since Mr. O’Reilly died. No one has stayed there for more than two nights in a row since little Stephen…no, not Stephen, he had a Spanish name, like his mother. Are you family, perhaps?”
Though Marissa liked the waiter at first, his questions felt intimate and invasive. Of course he didn’t know the circumstances, that she could tell, and opted for being direct as to gain back a bit of her personal space.
“His name was Esteban,” she answered dryly. “I came to the house to accompany his mother and grandmother. He recently died in an accident and his ashes will rest there.”
Her words had the desired effect. The man grew quiet, twisting the plaid patterned cleaning cloth he used for the tables. He gave a solemn nod of the head, a bit of respect toward a departed he didn’t know well.
“Damn it,” he mumbled. “What is wrong with the men in that family? Neil O’Reilly was a decent guy who didn’t deserve to die young, and now his son. He was not even thirty, if I recall. It is a tragedy. A darned tragedy.”
Marissa gave him a curious look. Something about the ring of his voice, a degree of non-conformity when he spoke about Neil O’Reilly’s death, made her think twice about the version she had heard from both Esteban and Isabel: that Neil had passed after a chronic congenital illness that confined him to Innisfree for a couple of years before the inevitable came knocking.
“Were you friends?” Her interest was suddenly piqued, and the old man seemed willing to keep talking.
“As much as one can be friends with the folks who live up there. I used to bring over fishing supplies and groceries when needed. Once a week, we’d try to go for a catch. He was a nice man as I said, and he kept his own counsel most of the time. When he stayed up there, he hardly talked to anyone but me. Decent fellow, but if you are friends with the ladies, then you oughta know.”
This time it was the waiter who rushed into closing the conversation. He turned on his heels, pretending to have heard someone ask for a menu at another table, and didn’t come back to check on her again. The quick, almost disdainful way in which he spit a reference to Carla and Isabel didn’t go unnoticed by Marissa, but conscious of being a stranger, she decided not to press for more.
Marissa finished her pastry and stalled, waiting for the promised Amish. She didn’t stay in the cafeteria, but rather went about town, discovering what the thrift shop had to offer and even roaming a bit in the hardware store, buying a roll of brightly colored duct tape to justify her presence. Feeling it was not time to go back to the house just yet, she sat quietly on the empty swing set adjacent to the school yard, watching the gray drift in the distance, opening once again to the bluest of skies.
There were others, outsiders like her, driving around, parking close to the general store. A woman clad in wide glasses that preserved anonymity checked her cell phone; it probably doubled as a shopping list, or perhaps she didn’t feel like granting thirty seconds of eye contact to the world around her. Marissa thought it funny if the latter were to be the case. It seemed the people of this town were gallant enough to concede a space without the need to generate drama.
The carts painted black announced the Amish. The farmers, members of a religious order who wore austere clothes that made them look as though they were jumping out of the page of a history book, stepped out of their vehicles in silence and started unloading beautifully embroidered bedspreads, fruit preserves, and half a case of those delicious pies so as to comply with the demand of the cafeteria. Though closed to the world, the Amish enjoyed these moments of exchange with their “English” neighbors, a term they used to identify all non-Amish.
They were lovely people, quite given to lend a hand as far as their religious restrictions allowed, and people respected their privacy and creed. The declining economy had opened them even more to the community as th
ey became intertwined with the cycle of supply and demand in the little upstate town. Though the adult locals were already used to them, teenagers were another matter. They itched to try their cell phone cameras, making the bearded men feel uncomfortable, forcing them to walk together, as if protecting their youngest members from curious eyes.
The owner of the cafeteria popped his head out from the establishment’s door with an angry frown. He asked, well, rather demanded with almost paternal authority, that the young ones stop bothering the Amish, trying to take their picture. After shooing them away, he turned toward Marissa, who happened to be sitting on one of the wooden benches outside the cafeteria, and picked up the conversation he had interrupted as if no time had gone by at all.
“These are the best pies I’ve ever sold in my life. If any of these little good for nothings ever make the Amish cancel their business, I’ll hang them by their feet like rabbits. Is it too much to ask for a bit of consideration? These are good people, but a little backward in their thinking. They don’t like when people take pictures of them…something about not offending God with recreating images. My father said something about them being afraid of losing their souls to a frame. A little too literal if you ask me, but it hurts nobody. Whatever rocks their boat, as long as the pies keep coming, huh.”
Marissa thought about what she saw Isabel doing back in the house on Long Island, and it sorted itself out. It seemed the Amish were not the only ones worried about things haunting their reflection. It struck her as odd that forward thinking women such as Carla and Isabel could follow such superstitions.
“Hallo, Engels…Hello, English.” It was the privilege of old people and children to bend the rules of order and religious conviction. A little Amish boy, no older than nine years old, dressed customarily in a long-sleeved shirt, dark pants with suspenders, and wide-brimmed hat, extended his hand, greeting both the blonde woman and the old man.
“Hey, Malachi. Does your father know you are here? Are you running into trouble again, boy?” The gray-haired man who owned the coffee shop patted the boy’s head and the little one answered.
“Father said to keep away from those boys, and they are gone. So I am not being disobedient.”
“Good boy. I’ll go tend to your pops now. Coming?”
“Neh. I think I’ll stay, Mr. Evans.” The kid sat on the nearby bench, and after giving Marissa a toothy grin, kept talking. He found it easy enough to relate to the blonde, gray-eyed woman who although close to her mid-twenties, had enough of a girl in her as to make the shy boy feel comfortable.
“My name is Malachi, but my friends call me Mal.”
“Hi, Mal, my name’s Mary.”
“You don’t look like a Mary, English.” The boy looked at her eye to eye and Marissa noticed a deformation of the pupil that made it look as if the almost turquoise blue of his eyes had met with a blotch of ink the color of mud brick. That eye seemed to be looking right through her, guessing at her half-truths.
“My name is Marissa. Sometimes people call me Mary,” she rectified.
“Yes, but never your friends,” the child replied.
“You are right…I guess.”
“Marissa, Marissa…” the little boy repeated. He was not committing the name to memory, but rather trying to remember something. His brows knitted and he flared his freckled nose. “Two very bad nightmares call you out at night. One has been with you since you were born. The other you are just getting to know.”
“Mal!” His father’s voice made the boy react.
Jumping to his feet, he turned toward his elder, while Marissa stood there, eyes wide, not quite reacting yet to what the kid told her. On top of that, the kid was quick to answer in a confusing Pennsylvania Dutch. “Maar vader, ik heb het visioen, it moet harr helpen.”
Marissa had taken some German in high school, but the years made her rusty and it was impossible to make out anything besides the word “father.”
“Excuse my child,” the father interceded, pushing Malachi gently as to lead him away.
Marissa was on her feet, asking them to stop and talk to her, but they kept going, ignoring her. That is until the boy, careless of his father’s mandate, turned about and met her once again. Digging deep in his pocket, the boy handed her a rounded object that Marissa thought to be a keychain at first. It was a round iron piece slightly larger than a quarter in diameter. Iron craftsmanship carefully painted showed a white horse over a field of concentric circles of roses in bloom. At several points some of the red roses were painted black—two black flowers to the west, one marking north, three to the east, two south, in a pattern that seemed to repeat itself with eerie familiarity…
***
On their way back to their farm, the Amish drove their horse-drawn buggies at the edge of the road, mindful of oncoming traffic.
“You must warn your child, Isaac, otherwise we will have to bring this incident to the council.” The elder was emphatic with Malachi’s father.
“I am sorry,” the boy’s father answered the older man. “Malachi has a gift for vision, but he has not yet learned the discipline needed to apply it.” He then called out to the boy in a loving voice, knowing that Malachi was both scared and mortified.
In his mind, he had done nothing wrong that would cause his father grief, and trying to make the adults understand, he repeated what he told them earlier in Dutch so as not to scare the beautiful blonde girl.
“I don’t understand, Father. I thought that the mission of those with the gift is to help the needy. She needs help. Soulless monsters are after her.” Malachi looked at his father, his mismatched eyes looking for a satisfying answer.
“Mal,” his father’s voice was tender, as was the touch upon his shoulder, “you will grow to understand your gift. For now, be content to know that our world and that of the English is different. When it comes to evil, sometimes they throw themselves in, dragged by the need to see their desires fulfilled, without a care. Sometimes they are born under generational curses, victims of the stupidity and pride of those who set a path before them, and sometimes…they carry it in their blood. Your gift, a warning, or that hex mark you gave her, won’t help the likes of her. You outdid yourself by giving her the talisman. Now it is up to her to understand its meaning by instinct, though I think she’ll end up discarding it so as not to harm herself.”
They kept silent from there on, and soon enough, Malachi was sound asleep on his father’s lap. The elder, while driving the cart, had thoughts of his own. He was to speak to the council, try to convince them to stop making business in the town with the big white house on top of the hill. It was better to face need than to expose their brothers and sisters to such evils.
Chapter VI
Adriana Popescu
Most people quoted a particular reason for leaving their native land and adopting another country. Those who chose to become expatriates usually claimed economics as the main force behind their choice.
Adriana Popescu was inclined to say, whenever the subject came up, that the reason she moved to America and eventually relocated to New York was merely to satisfy her lust. It was a studied answer, designed to trigger a response, be it surprise or disgust. These types of emotions were hard to conceal and she’d measure the reaction of whomever she had been speaking to in order to determine whether or not that person deserved to hear the whole story. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the real reason stayed with her.
Her father, now dead, used to say with great disgust that Adriana was born hungry, and that she could never control that impulse to feed her needs. Adriana hardly ever thought of her father, but there were days in which she’d remember him in the context of their journey together. He was part of her nightmares, along with the smell of salty wood barely kept together and the sway of the ship that brought them to their new home. She counted herself lucky to have survived her own bets, thinking more than once that the vessel would sink to the bottom of the ocean before completing the journe
y from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. After all, she had suffered, along with her father, the terrible worry of succumbing to the might of the sea, paralyzed by fear—this was the only instance they ever bonded.
Port after port, they faced rough currents and tempests, until it was time to reach their final destination. Less than rats, they were. At least rodents had an alternative. They simply held on to the wooden boxes that doubled as luggage, stowed away in the cargo area, more dead than they were alive.
Adriana had come into her own alone. Her father, Pappa Popescu, was forced to take care of her, but he never allowed her to feel something other than a necessary evil of sorts. Her mother, whose name she’d rather never mention, loved her in her own way, as one accepted a gift for which one’s been deemed unworthy. Precious as gold she was, but her mother always cared for her more with a sense of duty than anything else. She knew the consequences of failing to instruct Adriana in her responsibilities as a daughter could bring dire consequences. Eventually, her mother died, failing miserably; her father made sure to remind her so. That sorry woman left this world while crossing from Bulgaria toward the Greek border. They didn’t even mark her grave. They were people on the run, traveling by night as to avoid questions, hurrying to escape the fierce persecution of men on horseback.
They had no time for ceremonies. Adriana just recalled her mother as a pale, shivering piece of flesh, barely keeping strength, and sanity, by a thread. The woman was submissive enough so as not to dare die without Pappa Popescu being present, and, after saying goodbye to her husband, she hardly had the will to embrace her daughter. So, silently, almost imploringly, she held out her arms to Adriana.
“Mother…” The woman who gave her life was nothing more than a husk, shaky as a leaf exposed to forceful winds; it didn’t matter much that the night was humid and hot as a circle of hell. Still, she trembled. Her skin, bloated, sticky, and feverish, smelled of blood as it trickled from ulcerated cuts on her body. She had sacrificed too much to end like that. Adriana wanted to hug her, sing one of the many lullabies she had learned from her, return in kind her attention over the years. The girl wanted to dote on the dying woman, help her to forget the nightmares that had become constant and so vivid they were impossible to cope with.