Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

  “It was your parents’ voices you heard?” asked Ray.

  “I think so.” He hadn’t considered that there might have been someone else in the house. He still had his head down. The world was wobbly; it could tilt on its side and dump him into space.

  Michael knew he should say something about Jones Cooper’s seeing him out there, digging in the very spot where Eloise had had her vision. But he didn’t. For the first time, he allowed himself to consider that he wasn’t back there digging for that lost mine. After all, it was a shot in the dark. He had no idea where that mine was. No one did. The story was folk legend; he’d never found anything about it in all his research. It was just a story his father had told him.

  Michael’s father was fascinated by the idea that men thought they could blow great veins in the earth and take what they found there. And they left these massive scars, these deep valleys in the ground. If you looked carefully, if you observed them, Mack believed, you could learn about the planet and about the people who were its current inhabitants. We will seek to take whatever we want, not for one second worrying about the damage we do, his father told him. And the earth, this patient mother, slowly heals herself of the wounds we inflict. But one day, she will tire of us, her incorrigible children. There’s going to be a cosmic time-out. The earth will reclaim herself.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, son?” Ray asked again.

  Michael made himself lift his head and look at Ray. “I’m just not feeling well. Everything is starting to get to me.”

  Ray put a hand on his arm. He glanced over at the neighbor’s yard.

  “Your neighbor, Claudia? She won’t talk to me. I’ve tried twice.”

  “She’s a bitch,” Michael said. Ray’s face registered surprise, and Michael realized he’d said it with more heat than he’d intended. “She always has been.”

  Ray laughed a little. “I picked up on that. The mean old lady next door.”

  “I’ll try to talk to her,” Michael said. “One more time.”

  A red van drove slowly down the street. It pulled in to a driveway, then turned around and headed back more quickly. Someone lost, finding his way. Michael couldn’t see the driver as the vehicle passed them by.

  “Mike, look,” said Ray. “I’m at a bit of a dead end here. I don’t have anyone else left to talk to. None of the database searches, the classified ads we’ve run, or the people I’ve interviewed from back then have led us to anything new. Unless Eloise gets any closer, I don’t know what’s left for me.”

  Michael felt a wash of fear. He didn’t want to be alone with this. Ray was the only person who didn’t think he was crazy for wanting to find his mother. “Are you quitting?” Michael asked.

  “No. I’m just being honest with you about where I’m at.”

  “I was thinking of putting up a website, you know, with pictures of her from back then, details about the case. I could get it up on the search engines. Maybe I’ll even make a Facebook page.”

  “And you’d do this because…?”

  “Because everyone’s online these days, maybe even her if she’s still alive,” he said. He felt a welling of excitement now. This was a good idea. “Maybe one day she searches herself on the Internet and she sees everything we’ve done to find her, and she’ll know we want her to come back to us, that we’re not angry, we just want to understand.”

  Ray wasn’t good at hiding his feelings. Michael pretended not to see the unmasked pity in the other man’s eyes.

  “That’s a good idea,” Ray said even so. “You never know what can break a case. It’s the little things that do it sometimes. All it would take is for her or someone she knows to sit down at a computer and enter her name.”

  “Right,” Michael said. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “So we’ll wait on Eloise a day or so and revisit. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. Then, “I’m sorry. I’m not going to have the money to pay you until I sell this house.”

  “I know,” Ray said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it out.”

  There were two mourning doves cooing on the telephone wire above the street. And the day, coming on noon, seemed unseasonably warm to Michael, even though he noticed that Ray was wearing a dark wool jacket and a knit cap. The leaves on the trees around them were turning from gold to brown. His mother had always hated autumn. Everything dies, she said. But it comes back in the spring, he’d remind her. She’d nod, as though she weren’t convinced. Of course it does, darling.

  chapter twenty-one

  Jolie wasn’t in school the next day. But that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes it seemed she was out more than she was in. Jolie skated by on C’s, though Willow thought that maybe she could do better. Jolie didn’t care. If Willow got a C, her mother would flip out. She’d be happy with nothing less than a B. And you shouldn’t be happy with anything less, either, young lady. Willow thought this was pretty funny, because her mother was so much the “rebel,” the “artist,” and had always taught her to ask questions and not bow to authority. But when it came to grades, she was as conservative as Laura Bush. Your education is your ticket to anywhere. Do well in school, learn as much as you can, and the world belongs to you. Was that true? she wondered. Had all those homeless people in the parks and subways of Manhattan just not paid attention in class? Wasn’t there more to success in life than algebra and biology?

  Willow slogged her way through the day. She didn’t see Cole, either, though she kept looking for him in the hallways. Maybe Cole and Jolie had cut together, she thought. They probably had. They’d probably hooked up after her mother humiliated her and dragged her home and grounded her forever. She really hated her life so much.

  Mr. Vance was no longer her friend. Even though he was just as nice to her in class and complimented her on her essay, she knew that she was no longer invited to linger after the bell and talk about her thoughts on what they were reading. A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Seminal coming-of-age tale. Intense adolescent friendship gone awry. Having to face yourself because of your own ugly deeds. Did Gene bounce the branch on purpose? Of course he did. Whether he realized it or not. No one else in class wanted to believe it.

  “It was an accident,” the pert and pretty Jenna said. She sounded almost desperate. “He couldn’t. He just wouldn’t. They were friends. Friends don’t hurt each other. Friends don’t lie.”

  Willow saw Mr. Vance looking at her, waiting for her to play the devil’s advocate, to say what she was thinking. But Willow didn’t say a word. She knew all about why people do bad things, why people lie. She knew all about that dark place inside, that angry storm cloud. Inside the storm you were capable of anything.

  It wasn’t until the end of the day when she’d given up on seeing Cole that he appeared beside her locker.

  “Hey,” he said. He had dark circles under his eyes. His shirt was wrinkled.

  “Hey,” she said. She felt her heart start to do a little dance in her chest. “What’s up?”

  “Just wondering if you wanted a ride home from school.” He leaned against the locker beside her and kept his eyes on her.

  Oh, yes!! I would love, love, love a ride home!!!

  “I can’t.” She looked away from him. There was a river of kids moving past them, shouting, laughing, horsing around. All the pent-up energy of the day was crackling in the air. “I’m grounded. My mom would kill me.”

  He looked down at his feet. “That’s cool.” She liked that he didn’t push her, the way Jolie would have.

  “You could come over later, if you want.” It just spilled out of her. It was so stupid and lame. What were they going to do, play Barbies? “I mean-you probably don’t want to.”

  When she could bring herself to look at him again, he was smiling a little. Was he laughing at her?

  “Would it be okay?” he said. “I mean, with your mom?”

  “Yeah,” she said quickly. “She said I could have people over, just not go out.” Bethany hadn’t in f
act said that. She’d said they’d work something out if Cole called.

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Cole. “About you getting in trouble.”

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “I knew I should have gone right back.”

  “My mom’s pretty strict, too,” he said. He wrapped his arms around his middle, rocked back and forth slightly. “So I’ll come by at four?”

  She felt a rush of giddy excitement. She was embarrassed to feel heat rise to her cheeks. Was she blushing? Please, no.

  “Do you know where I live?” she asked. She turned back to her locker to hide her face.

  “Jolie told me,” he said.

  “Oh,” Willow said. She closed the locker door. “Where is she today?”

  “Dunno.”

  And then he was gone, disappeared into the mob of students rushing out the doors to the buses. A moment later she drifted out, too. Floated, glided, danced. If her mom didn’t let him come over, she was going to totally die.

  chapter twenty-two

  The Groves weren’t hillbillies. Bill Grove was a general contractor, had a thriving business building gigantic homes for the people moving to The Hollows from the city. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at his own house, the same place Bill’s parents and grandparents had lived. It had gotten bigger, was improved inside. He’d built other structures on the land-his office, a house for his son’s family. But as Jones came up the long drive, it still somehow just looked like the run-down old place that had sat there since he was kid.

  As he brought the car to a stop, he saw Bill come out the front door. Today Bill was all smiles and outstretched hands. He was dressed in a pressed denim oxford and khakis, work boots. His belly was so big and protuberant that he might have been hiding a medicine ball under his shirt. He was the very picture of upper-middle-class comfort and success. But Jones had seen other versions of him, too. Jones had wrestled Bill, red-faced with rage and booze, from a drunken brawl at the Old Mill Bar. He’d watched the man collapse in wailing grief when he thought his youngest son had died after a fall down a well back in the woods. Jones had endured Bill’s powerful, weeping embrace of gratitude when Jones delivered his son from the hole, with a broken leg but alive and ultimately well.

  “How are you, Cooper? Good to see you.”

  “Good, man,” said Jones. “How’s that boy?”

  “Keeping him out of trouble-best I can.” A hearty laugh.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  They exchanged the usual handshake and niceties, asking about the usual things-the family, work, plans for the holidays. How was Ricky doing at Georgetown? Did he still have that crazy ring in his nose? What was wrong with these kids today? They were like aliens sometimes, weren’t they?

  Then right to business. “So what brings you out, Jones?”

  Jones glanced around the property. Once upon a time, the place had been littered with all manner of rusted-out vehicles, dead appliances, a tilted, rusted old swing set-it had been a virtual junkyard. Now there was a row of three white Dodge pickups, the doors bearing the neatly printed business name: GROVE AND SON GENERAL CONTRACTING. Bill’s shiny new black Mercedes preened in the sun. Jones knew that particular vehicle cost about a hundred thousand dollars. He didn’t assign any special value or judgment to this. He just noticed these things. Every little detail told you something about a person.

  “You remember Marla Holt?” said Jones.

  Bill squinted. “I guess I do. Young woman ran out on her family about half a lifetime ago? Mack Holt died just recently, right?”

  The sun was high in the sky. And Jones put a hand up against the glare as he told Bill about finding Michael Holt digging back by the Chapel, and the legend Holt had told Jones.

  When Jones was done, Bill wore a deep frown.

  “I want you to give the Hollows PD permission to dig where he was digging,” Jones said. “We want to know what’s back there.”

  Bill rubbed his forehead. When he took his hand away, the frown was still there.

  “You know I’m not crazy about that fellow from New York,” Bill said.

  Chuck had referred to the Grove land as a “compound.” And the word had gotten back to Bill; he hadn’t appreciated it.

  “Chuck’s all right, Bill. He’s a good cop.”

  “In my book there’s no such thing.” Bill cleared his throat. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Of course,” Jones said with a smile. “Besides, I’m not a cop anymore.”

  Bill let go of a breath.

  “Fact is,” Jones said, “I can’t keep them from getting a warrant and going back there anyway. I just wanted to pay you the respect of getting your permission. It would mean a lot to me, since this is my first consulting gig. You’re going to make me look real good if you say it’s okay.”

  Jones was certain the other man was going to tell him no, to get on. But people were always full of surprises.

  “How can I say no to you?” Bill said finally. “After what you did for my boy? But you tell them to watch their way, respect the land.”

  Jones called Chuck as he backed out of the drive, asked him to keep it small, just a few men. He told him to ask the boys to tread carefully, to treat any watching landowners with courtesy and gratitude. Chuck agreed, but he didn’t sound as if he liked the advice. The idea of finesse was a bit lost on Chuck; that was city people for you. Before Jones got on his way, he made another call. He rang Dr. Dahl’s office and made himself an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.

  As he pulled down the drive, the rain came. It was just a drizzle, really, a few drops glinting on the windshield. He didn’t even bother with the wipers. The blue sky was still peeking out from the low, gray cloud cover. But the sun had disappeared. Jones thought that they’d better start digging soon.

  part two faith

  Before birth; yes, what time was it then? A time like now, and when they were dead, it would be still like now: these trees, that sky, this earth, those acorn seeds, sun and wind, all the same, while they, with dust-turned hearts, change only.

  – TRUMAN CAPOTE,

  Other Voices, Other Rooms

  For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.

  – JOSEPH DUNNINGER

  (“The Amazing Dunninger”)

  chapter twenty-three

  Eloise didn’t remember that Marla Holt had been a smoker. And yet there she was in a pair of navy pedal pushers and a crisp white top, smoking a cigarette. She sat on the chair by the fireplace that Eloise hadn’t used in years, her legs draped over the arm like she owned the place.

  “Do you mind?” Marla asked. She held up the cigarette in two slim fingers.

  “Not at all,” said Eloise. There was no use in fighting these things. Better just to ride it out. She’d been vacuuming. Now she was talking to Marla Holt. That’s just the way it was some days.

  “Can I help you with something?” asked Eloise. She took a seat on the couch.

  “You were always so kind to me,” Marla said. She offered that warm smile Eloise remembered. Smiles like that, genuine and open, were truly rare. “So kind to the children. Thank you for that.”

  “It was my pleasure,” said Eloise. “They’re lovely children. I hear Cara has two girls now, twins.”

  Marla looked distant. “Yes.”

  That’s how Eloise first knew that these types of encounters weren’t supernatural, exactly. Meaning that Eloise was quite sure she wasn’t talking to a ghost, in the traditional sense. Marla was more like a hologram, a facsimile, something Eloise’s mind did to translate energies for her consciousness. Eloise was certain that if she’d been talking to a real ghost-in other words, Marla’s disembodied spirit-Marla would have been more animated about her granddaughters. This was more like a broadcast, a message; today it happened to take the form of Marla Holt. From whom or what the message came, Eloise had no idea.

  “What happened to you, dear?” Eloise
said. “Where did you go?”

  Sometimes it was that easy. Sometimes they just told you. Of course, it wasn’t always the truth. Or it was some kind of riddle. This was a very confusing business.

  Marla took a drag of her cigarette, crossed her legs. Her long hair was lustrous and thick, falling in waves over her shoulders. Her body was equally lush, full at the breasts and hips.

  “When you’re young, you only think about getting married, you know. The white dress, the flowers, the honeymoon. You never think about being married, what that means.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Do you have any regrets, Eloise?”

  Marla’s words echoed Eloise’s recent conversation with Ray. This was another reason Eloise didn’t think the Marla in her living room was a ghost. There were always these subtle links to whatever was going on in her own life.

  “Some days I’m not sure I have anything but regrets,” said Eloise.

  “So you know what I mean.” Marla tossed the cigarette into the fireplace. A fine line of smoke wafted up toward the ceiling. Of course, there was no scent of tobacco in the air.

  “I wasn’t happy,” Marla said. “And in that unhappiness I made mistakes.”

  “You had an affair?”

  “There were dalliances. I wouldn’t call them affairs. Flirtations?” She pressed her bloodred lips into a tight, thin line.

  “He knew I was a flirt,” Marla said. “He liked that about me at first. He was so quiet, reserved. With me he could be that. My personality more than made up for it. And he kept me centered, kept my feet on the ground.”

  “I can see that.” Eloise had found that it was better to agree with them, to be encouraging.

  “Isn’t it funny, though, that the things we love about each other at first become the things we hate later on? I was flamboyant. He was staid and professorial. I wanted to spend. He wanted to save. We were so different. And in the beginning, that was okay. And then, suddenly, it was oppressive.”