He’d spent a lot of time among those trees since they had arrived at the beginning of September, even once it had turned cold. He had matted down a few “paths” and had even thought about bringing in stones to line the sides of some of them.
Stepping into the house now, he hung the keys on the stiletto-shaped hook by the door. They’d received that little nicnac from Jen’s aunt when they got married six years ago. He thought it was silly, but Jen loved it, and Paul—resident sane man—knew it was not worth a fight to get her to replace it with a sensible wooden one. And anyway, any concession he didn’t mind making felt good, given the one concession he seemed unable to give.
At least Cards was happy to see him. She gave a little yip and circled him, ending up on the couch, head up, tail wagging. Paul accepted the invitation, and plunked down next to her, offering a little scratch behind the ears. The couch sagged under his weight and he flipped through Men’s Health. He saw an ad for the very car he had just purchased. Looking at the glossy page Paul realized he was disappointed about the car. Not disappointed in the car, exactly, but by the malaise that followed. He had thought this day would mean more to him. I now own a luxury car, he thought. Paul Kenner owns a luxury car. No matter how many times he tried to run it through his head it never really took. Paul Kenner may be in a failing marriage proved itself a more powerful mantra. In true Cardsian fashion, the puppy scampered off to God-knew-where, following whatever curious thought she’d just had. Paul was happy that Cards had turned out to have this kind of attitude; when they’d been looking into getting a dog, his biggest fear was that it would be too needy.
He placed a hand on the car in the ad, as if some kind of connection to it would be meaningful.
After a quick lunch, he thought, Well, how to fill the rest of the day? How else, big boy? Writing! You are a writer, are you not? He stood, continuing the pep talk aloud as he plodded up the staircase. “You are author of the critically acclaimed Vicksburg and Soldier, Black. You paid for this whole house, all the land, your wonderful new car, with your writing. So get to it!”
But lately he couldn’t seem to write anything. He had the premise of the next book—he even knew the title: Scott’s Anaconda—but whenever he sat down to type nothing came, even though it always had before. Civil War historical fiction came quite naturally to Paul, for whatever reason. Writing his stories had always felt like breathing or scratching an itch.
After his first book was published, he and Jen had been to Kokomo, Indiana to visit his mother a thick, severe woman, with a hard dark face that matched her personality. She’d said, “Don’t you think Civil War historical fiction is a little limiting? Can you make a career out of something so specific?” She herself, Paul had silently noted, was exclusively a fan of thriller crime novels with female detective protagonists.
This was, of course, something Paul had asked himself many times. His mother had always had a way of expressing Paul’s private fears accurately (her own voiced worries mentally crippling him during middle-school soccer, having convinced him the only probable outcome of playing would be a snapped tibia). No matter how carefully Paul felt his fear was concealed, his mother had always seen it and its cause.
He’d said, “I’m sure, Mom. Others have done it. Besides, once you’ve learned a little bit about the Civil War, you begin to understand the immensity of it. I could never hope to tell all the stories of what happened or what could have happened during and around the war if I lived to be a hundred-and-fifty.”
He knew Jen had resented her mother-in-law voicing the very concern that had the power to scare Paul, maybe enough to dissuade him from the course he felt he should take. She’d said, “There are a number of successful authors who only write in this vein. And you should know that Paul’s not half-bad at it. You should read one of his short stories on the subject.” She then quickly sipped some coffee and looked away, realizing how trivial that made it sound.
Paul’s mother had not responded to that, instead she said to Paul, “If you’re happy, I’m happy.” She couldn’t help but add, “As long as you’re sure.”
He hadn’t been sure, but it seemed to work out, and he had become sure over time.
Now, all that confidence seemed to have disappeared like frost exposed to late-morning sun.
With little hope, he trudged into his office. The office was the heart of the home, built to Paul’s specific instruction. A huge mahogany desk in the middle—very much like the one Stephen King denounced in On Writing—took up much of the room. But Paul really didn’t care what the King of Horror had to say about it, he loved his “dinosaur desk” and everything it represented to him. Not that anything aside from the final touches of Confederate Dead had ever been written there. The huge picture window on the East gave view to the little, beautiful woods beside the home. The woods sang a pathetic little siren’s song, but—pathetic or not—it didn’t take much to derail Paul these days. He didn’t even bother to sit down.
A minute later he was walking with the trees. He loved walking among them and had done so most weekdays since the move. Once, three months back, one of the first times he’d been among the trees after the house was constructed, he’d noticed an old man near the edge of their property, by the end of the paved road. The man had looked like he wanted to talk to Paul, so he’d headed that way, simultaneously waving the man over. They’d met up about halfway between the road and the patch of trees. The man limped with his left leg. It swung stiffly, but the assurance of his walk convinced Paul whatever had caused it must have happened a long time ago.
The old man had a typical hard farmer’s face at first glance, but as he stepped closer he saw some kind of weird class in it, as if he’d spent part of his youth attending Gatsby’s parties. He wore a pair of clean, stiff jeans, and a red-and-black plaid shirt that had seen better days. He chewed a thickish stalk of hay, and Paul wondered if he was trying to appear stereotypical. His hair had gone death-white, except right at the roots on the crown. There was a little color and vitality in him yet.
“Hello,” Paul said, once he felt he could talk without raising his voice. “I’m guessing we must be neighbors!” The wind picked at his sandy hair, and he subconsciously wished his shoulders were a bit wider, that he looked more like a real man to the old farmer.
The man said, “If you can be said to have any neighbors, living far as you do from anybody else, then you could call me one of them. I live in the small white house at the end of that road. Use to be the closest thing to Rockport River in town. Before you built your place, of course.” He moved his head, almost imperceptibly, indicating Paul’s McMansion. His voice was solid, firmly rooted in his chest, as if it were a part of his body. There was something almost musical about it, as if perhaps in another life he might have sung along to Elvis songs, clear and loud. Paul would need to remember that voice for an old general or somebody. “Name’s Clancy Miller.”
“I’m Paul. Paul Kenner.”
“I know who you are,” Miller said, taking the hay from between his teeth as if he’d just noticed it was there. He rolled it in his fingers and inspected it. “You’re the writer. Everybody in town knows about you. You think you’re going to move into a town of two-hundred-and-fifty and not be known?” He said the last word, known, as if it were profound, a word of many meanings.
“Not at all,” Paul said. “I was being polite.” In Paul’s younger years he would have been more intimidated by the man, but his years spent working alone, writing, had made him more aware of the grandstanding BS so many people seemed to rely on. It had also made him less patient with it. “Would you rather I say, ‘Nice to meet you Mr. Miller, I’m sure you know who I am, the millionaire writer?’ ” Paul wasn’t a cash millionaire, not after buying the home, but he liked the shock value the word provided.
Miller seemed genuinely surprised, but he regained himself quickly. A less observant man than Paul might not have even noticed the man’s faltering. “I suppose you’re right,” Miller
said.
“Anything I can help you with, Mr. Miller?” Paul said, regretting his smart-alec quip only a little.
“Nope. I guess I just thought it’d be neighborly of me to come out and say ‘howdy.’ So, howdy.” Despite his grumpy old man routine, Paul liked the man; he could tell there was more than a stereotype working inside him.
“I appreciate it,” Paul said.
The man—old, but clearly hale—let the hay stock fall from his hand into the grassy gravel like he’d forgotten it. He took a breath, as if to speak, and then let the air out slowly. Eventually he said, “You need anything, you let me know. That’s what neighbors are for, in’nit?”
“Certainly. And you be sure to do the same.”
“See you,” Miller said and began the trek back to his house.
There had been something strange in his voice as he spoke the last two words, something out-of-place, and it wasn’t until Paul started to head back himself that he figured out what it was: Clancy Miller had something else he’d wanted to say, but he had been afraid to. Paul couldn’t imagine what was scaring the man, but something was.
Now, walking among the trees, Paul wasn’t sure what had made him think of the encounter. Lord knows he hadn’t thought about it much after the fact. He’d talked to Miller and a few other neighbors on only a handful of occasions, and Miller hadn’t seemed anxious to tell him anything new.
Miller had been the most obviously unwelcoming neighbor so far, but just about everyone they’d met had been at least a bit standoffish.
The only Peoa resident who really seemed happy to have them was Donald Harmon, the fifty-something gentleman who’d sold them the patch of land. He was rather fat, but hadn’t yet reached the massive status of some men who shared his body shape. His ink-black hair was his most striking feature. Even though it was obviously a dye job, it was a good dye job and didn’t look bad on him. Harmon didn’t just seem happy to have made the sale—he was ecstatic. Clearly he’d been trying to sell the land for a long time, and he’d jumped on the first, admittedly generous, offer Paul had made.
The neighbors, Harmon included, had assured Paul and Jen that Peoa was often quite snowy by early November, but it was only in the mid-forties that afternoon, and completely dry. Paul couldn’t even see his breath as he followed his almost-footpaths.
Then, more in the form of déjà vu than an actual memory, Paul remembered he had been out in the woods the day before. This, in and of itself, was not unusual; he sometimes came here two or three times a day. But just now he couldn’t remember what had happened when he’d come out. He could remember walking between the two large trees that he always thought of as the Doorway to the Forest (not that the patch of trees was really big enough to be called a forest), and he remembered going back inside about an hour later. Everything else was gone from his memory. Why did it make him think of his nightmare from the night before?
Something red. Something wet and heavy.
It was not as easy for Paul to pretend nothing strange was happening to him now, not in the woods. He walked to the far end where the trees gave way to the water and crouched to touch the freezing river, reviewing the events in his mind. First, a trip into the woods he didn’t remember. Second, a nightmare that left him unsettled. Unsettled? a cold part of Paul asked, you were weeping. Third, the pristine blender and the imagined intruder.
And don’t forget your little chat with Mike the salesman.
What did it mean?
What was it the salesman had said? “You didn’t tell her because you knew it wasn’t her that left the blender out. It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t her.”
“It wasn’t me,” Paul said aloud, “and it wasn’t Jen.”
What did it mean?
Paul could see a couple potential meanings, none pleasant. He left his patch of trees behind, walking along the side of the river where it led to a large field of wild grass. Soon, without the trees to block the view, he saw the big industrial shed in the distance, by the road, and had a strange thought: I should have just become a blue-collar guy. I should have been a warehouse worker or something, and just let my mind rest.
Sometimes he could hear a car in the distance out here, but not now. If he turned to face the water and the steep hill that peaked into something like a mountain, there wasn’t a trace of humanity in his eyes or ears.
He turned to look at his small mansion, integrated so naturally with the little woods it could almost be an illustration in a child’s storybook. That was when Paul had one of his first revelations. I should write in the woods. My real office is here. He didn’t quite know what that meant, but the important thing was how it chased away the task of contemplating the day’s events. He headed back inside and upstairs to grab his MacBook from its charger, and he was actually getting excited.
Paul knew what it felt like to be ready to write. For the words to be there, ready to come out, and this was it. He noticed, and tried not to notice, how his breathing had quickened and deepened. It didn’t just feel like he could turn the faucet of his story on, he felt as if he were a dam that needed only to be broken.
Taking cue from Paul’s excitement, Cards popped up and followed her owner to the front door, tail wagging happily. His laptop clutched in one hand, he let the front door close behind him so he could take in the patch of trees with new eyes. He wanted to write there. Bad. Then a thought came to him that was so tangible he almost heard it aloud: You’ve had this idea before.
Paul dismissed it.
In the woods, which Paul would always in his mind call a forest, he sat on a large fallen log he had used as a bench many times. He set the laptop on his knees and flipped up the screen, eager to open a blank document and begin. But Word was already open. He didn’t usually leave any programs open—a little private OCD quirk, he supposed—but it was highly unlikely that Jen had used his laptop instead of her own. It must have been him. He clicked the minimized window to see what it was. It bloomed from the corner like a white flower unfolding, and he recognized it as the beginning of a book. He began to read.
5
It was not Scott’s Anaconda. This was another kind of book; another kind of story.
A sentence abruptly cut off midway through page ten, and without a thought Paul picked up where he must have left off the day before. He didn’t have to try; the words came to him as they never had before. They were pouring out now, his fingers fluttering on the keyboard like restless moths. A nippy breeze picked up, smacking his face and hands, but he felt absurdly warmed by his work and felt no real discomfort. He had never written so fast. Just what kind of story was this? He didn’t have much time to wonder, to reread passages and analyze them, simply trying to keep up with the ideas flowing into his mind from the forest around him required all his focus.
He didn’t know how long he continued in this way, but by the time he carried himself and the laptop back inside he was exhausted. The big Roman-numeral clock in the living room told him it was 6:00 pm. Jen still wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours, long after the fall-time sunset.
They had cell phones and texting plans of course, but Paul rarely used his. He checked it just in case. Nothing. That was just as well. If he had missed a call from her and didn’t respond for hours it might have led to some uncomfortable questions he wasn’t prepared to answer.
He marched upstairs, undressing himself and tossing his clothes to the floor as soon as he crossed the threshold to the bedroom. He wanted to sleep, but the opening line from his new story had gone to bed with him. He tried to ignore its whispering in his ear.
Deeny started with the blade below her waist. When a person was restrained you could do it that way.
CHAPTER TWO
JEN MUST HAVE CHECKED her phone a hundred times that day. She knew Paul was going in to buy that stupid car—wouldn’t he want to tell her all about it? As much as she didn’t want to hear about the car, she was disappointed that he did not seem to care enough to waste her time with it.
She stared at her computer screen, but aside from a digital pile of work that still needed doing, it offered no answers.
Maybe she was being unfair; he was probably writing. If that was the case, she was glad. She knew he hadn’t even started on his next novel, and that must be stressful for him. The agent and publisher were breathing down his neck for another book, and Jen knew he didn’t want to resort to the two he had stashed away. She thought they were good, not his best yet, but still marketable and interesting. But he saw them as a regression, and he would go to great lengths to hide that weakness from his fans and from the critics. The publisher already had their hands on Confederate Dead, which hadn’t even hit the shelves yet, but they always had an eye on the future, and Paul seemed sure they knew he’d hit a dry spell. Consistency was key to the publisher; about one book a year was what they expected. No more, no less. It didn’t look like that was going to happen next year, not unless Paul could make up some serious lost time with Scott’s Anaconda.
Anyway, it was a busy day for her, and she couldn’t afford to worry about her moody husband too much. Among other things, Jen was in charge of coordinating deaf education lectures. This included handling those who came to the U to speak as well as sending qualified staff or students to off-campus locations to attend or give presentations. And although the deaf conference was still six weeks off, it generated a huge amount of work for her. Not that she minded being in high demand; at least some people in this big cold world relied on her.
Tomorrow I Will Kill Again Page 3