The backyard looked much the same as the front. It was cared for in a way that told visitors, "We do what we can. No more, no less." A hundred yards or so from the back porch, an old barn still holding true angles looked an odd monolith in a sea of pines and spruces framing the back of the property.
Looking at the barn, Roland said, "Patricia, what happened after Bill's body was incinerated?"
"When we got back to the house," she said, "Mother was standing on the porch." Roland saw Patricia looking off into the distance.
He had seen Patricia do this many times, and he knew now that some parts of her story were just that, a story. Stories relayed and retold, if only to the shadows and maybe Scuba. Something that happened so long ago it ceased to be memory and became lore.
There were times like this when telling it caused her to relive the memory inside her mind. When Patricia Owens went back to spring 1912, she needed a moment to regroup before coming back to the now. Assembling the next chapter of her tale in her mind had sent her back, and Roland sat in silence waiting for her return.
She looked slightly confused when she came back to him, and Roland waited patiently until she was ready to continue. She looked into his eyes, smiled awkwardly, then sipped her tea. Roland recognized the sips as another of her stall tactics. When she needed a moment, she either went off somewhere inside herself, or sipped her beverage, or caressed her journal.
"Mother wanted to know what we were up to," Patricia continued, her voice barely audible. "Daddy told her that one of the horses foundered and had to be put down. He told her we burned the remains behind the barn so the animals didn't come around."
"Quick thinking," Roland said. "How did he explain the gunshot in the house and the broken window?"
"Bravo, young man," she said. "Daddy told her he dropped his rifle tripping over her damn cat." She laughed out loud at that. "Daddy hated Mother's cat and took not just a small amount of joy in blaming the poor thing. That cat wasn't even in the house when the window got shot out."
"Your father was very fast on his feet, wasn't he?"
"Daddy never lost an argument," she said. "He was the smartest man I ever met. And I have lived a long time, so that's saying something. I must say though, Roland. Your insight is making me think you might have been able to give Daddy a run for his money."
"Thank you, Patricia. I'm honored to be considered as potential for inclusion in that esteemed company."
"You're too polite," she said, patting his knee.
"Mother believed Daddy's excuses. At least she claimed to. I think she may have wanted to believe them because the alternative, based on events of the time, was much more grim."
Roland nodded and sipped from his glass. Scuba ambled over and, without warning, leaped onto Roland's lap causing him to make a squeaky sort of yip. The cat didn't seem to notice, or didn't care. He just turned himself away from Roland, stretched out and fell asleep on Roland's warm thighs.
"Would you like to know the truth?" Roland asked, looking at Patricia, his mouth drawn into a forced smile. "I don't really like cats."
"I think he knows," she said. "I can't tell you how many times I have seen a cat cozy up to people who apparently were not fond of cats. It seems the more someone dislikes the animals, the more they want to prove the humans wrong. Almost as if the cats are thinking, 'If I am nice to him, he will like me.' Do you know what I mean?"
"I thought you said cats didn't really care what we thought."
"I believe that to be true, but everyone wants to be liked. Even cats. Once he wins you over, he will ignore you forever."
Without even thinking about it, Roland began to stroke Scuba's head and scratch behind his ears. The cat stretched out further on his lap, purred loud enough to be heard inside the house, and gingerly nuzzled his head against Roland's belly.
"I think Scuba's work might just be done here," Patricia said motioning to Roland's fingers caressing his furry friend.
"You might be right," he said.
With that, Scuba jumped off and trotted around to the front of the house.
Chapter 18
After a light meal of sandwiches and fruit, Roland and Patricia resumed their seats on the front porch. The breeze that had cooled the afternoon had blown itself out making the air feel warmer. Patricia removed her sweater and draped it over the porch railing. In the fading light of what was a stunning sunset, she opened her journal.
Patricia's Journal—Wednesday, June 19, 1912
I woke to Mother's screams. She was in her garden. It was time to plant her annuals.
I ran so fast I almost fell down the stairs. I found her in Daddy's arms. They were standing near the place where Bill's body had fallen into the garden.
The ground glistened with black gore. In the darkness, Daddy didn't realize how awful it had been. What was worse, half of Bill's head had fallen among the tulip stems, and the remaining eye looked as though it could still see.
"Daddy had no quick excuse for this. He just asked me to take Mother back inside. I tried to take her arm and lead her away, but she clung to Daddy so tight it was no use. He took her inside himself. I went to the barn and started filling buckets from the hand pump. I toted ten pails of water to that spot. Poured it over the black ick, and it still looked grotesque."
Patricia pointed to the left side of the house. "See that sickly rose bush?"
Roland nodded, but she was looking at the bush and could not have seen him.
"The land is sick where that bush is. Anything that touches the evil from within those dreadful creatures turns ugly.
"That day, Daddy hitched a pair of horses and drew a wagon over to that spot. Well, almost to that spot. When those horses got to within a couple of yards from there, they reared and bucked and refused to go any further. Daddy unhitched them, and the two of us pushed that wagon the rest of the way. We took shovels and dug up that dirt. We dug until any sign of the black gore and the water I dumped there had been removed. That left us with a problem. Can you guess what our problem was?"
"With the wagon filled with dirt, it was too heavy to move by hand," he answered.
"Give the man a prize," she cheered. "Daddy would have liked you a great deal, Roland."
"So how did you get the wagon out of there?"
"The motor car," she said. "That pathetic little thing struggled, but once the wagon started to move it was okay. We towed the wagon to the edge of the cliff down by the lake and pushed it off. Daddy said that the horses would never come near it again anyway."
"That must have been a sight to see."
"I have to admit, in a time before moving pictures and television, watching a wagon smash to bits on the rocks was something."
"How did you fill in the hole?"
"The same way we made it," she said. "Daddy hitched a different pair of horses to another wagon. We filled it with dirt from the new pasture. Daddy wanted to dig a pond in that pasture anyway, so that day we got it started."
"Did the horses pull the wagon all the way up?"
"They did. Daddy stuffed their noses with something so they wouldn't smell anything if there was anything left to smell. Those animals were skittish as hell, but they managed to do their job."
Roland looked at the solitary rose bush in the garden beside the porch. The thorns were abnormally long, and he could swear some had barbs on them like fishhooks. The branches were thick at the base with a coarse bark that left it doubtful that it was a rose bush at all. The leaves definitely looked like rose leaves in shape, but the color was too green, and the veins in the leaves had a red tinge to them.
"What color are the flowers?" he asked.
"That bush has been there for ninety-nine years. I planted it myself because none of the annuals that Mother once planted would grow there. I would plant them on Monday, and by Tuesday they would be withered. I had this rose bush shipped from Europe. It has managed to stay alive but has never produced a single rose. That ground is damned with the blood of demons," she wh
ispered.
Chapter 19
Patricia stood. "Young man, what say we walk awhile. These old bones don't forgive too much sitting. It's as fine an evening for a walk as ever there was."
Obediently, Roland stood and strode to the steps, where he waited for his host. She took his arm with her left hand while her right held the banister.
"I think I might have to find a smaller place to live soon," she said. They both knew that would not happen. She was born in this house. Aside from a short stay in town in the spring of 1912, she had lived her whole life in this house. It was unthinkable that Patricia Owens would live anywhere but this house.
"Well, Patricia, I can say without hesitation that you are the only person in Canada who has had the same address for 120 years."
That brought a smile to her face as they made their way past Roland's car.
"On second thought, Roland," she said. "Would you care to take me for a ride in that pretty car of yours?"
Without saying a word, he took his keys out, pressed a button on the fob to unlock the doors, and opened the passenger side door.
"I left my journal on the porch," she announced.
Roland closed the door and trotted back to the house. When he returned to the car, he had her journal under his arm and their glasses in his hands.
After stowing the glasses in the cup holders and placing the book in her lap, he guided the car to the road. She pointed to her left, and they were off.
"What did you do after you filled in the hole in front of the house?" he asked.
"The clouds moved in as we were finishing. The sky turned angry in a hurry as though it weren't happy with our activity. Or, maybe mother earth hoped to lend a hand by sending some rain to wash away anything we may have missed."
They both looked to the sky to make sure a repeat performance wasn't rolling in to protest the telling of this secret. The quarter moon illuminated some fluffy clouds high in the atmosphere. The sky would not drop any moisture tonight.
"We retired to the house after that," she continued. "I was reading something, but I can't for the life of me remember what."
Roland was sure he could give her a pass on that. The fact that she could remember her own name at her age was a miracle. The last book he read had some self-help theme and an odd title he couldn't remember, and that was only two weeks ago.
"Daddy went to bed. I knew things were going to the devil when my father went to bed before dark."
"He had been under a great deal of stress, and was sleep deprived; his actions seem reasonable to me," Roland said.
"For most that would be true, dear," she replied. "Daddy, you have to understand, was not most people. He slept into the next day. When he woke, he found Mother knitting in her chair beside the bed. I don't know how he slept with those needles clicking relentlessly. Maybe it gave him peace to know she was there. Anyway, he slept until the church bells rang just after sunset. Can you imagine sleeping for more than a full day?"
"I remember doing it once," Roland said. "Between work and finals at the U, I was awake for thirty-eight straight hours. When I finally slept, I was out for eighteen hours. When I woke up, I felt exhausted."
She nodded like she understood and said, "I bet Daddy felt the same, but when the bells chimed, he didn't have time to be tired.
"I heard those bells, and a second later I heard his heavy footsteps on the floor over my head. He came running down the stairs, pulling his suspenders over his shoulders as he did. Mother followed along in his wake trying to convince him that the men in town could handle this crisis without him.
"I too pleaded with him not to go. Of course, he did anyway," Patricia said as she opened the journal.
Patricia's Journal—Thursday, June 20, 1912
Daddy has gone to town. It was those bells again.
Please, God, watch over him.
Mother has gone to her room. We are both sick with worry.
"He did, you know," Patricia said. "That night at least. God watched over us all that night. When Daddy got to the common, the men were gathered at the bandstand. It was a wonderful place before this all happened. During the summer, the town would gather in the common, sometimes bands would play. People would dance and sing. It was a glorious, innocent time. The innocence died when Timmy disappeared, and it never came back. Not ever.
"No band played that night. Just angry frightened farmers and loggers." She paused like she was looking for a memory in the back of her mind.
"Patricia," Roland said. "With Bill gone, who told you about this night?"
"Daddy," she said. "He sat Mother and me down the next day and told us everything. Of course, I already knew a great deal, but it was all new to Mother, and she didn't take it well.
"When Daddy arrived in the common he learned that two more men had gone missing. If it was a couple of single men, you could say they decided to cut and run before they became victims, but these were family men with wives and children and property.
"Daddy asked where their families were. The men said they were at home behind locked doors. They seemed quite pleased to tell Daddy that news. Daddy split the group in half, and one went to check on the new widows. Of course, there was no evidence that they were widows, but no one was under the impression that the end for those men would be any different than it had been for the others.
"Daddy's group went to the Mitchell place. The trip out there was uneventful. When they got to the farm, however, the two strangers who had taken Bill into the woods were walking away from the front door. Daddy called for them to stop. They just hissed and descended the porch steps. Daddy said the hiss was the same one that boy gave before Daddy cut his head off."
She stopped and sipped her drink. Condensation dripped from the glass. Patricia wiped a drop of tea from her lower lip and set the glass back in the cupholder.
"Did the strangers surrender?" Roland asked.
"No, they just ambled toward the road like they were on a Sunday stroll. John Harris raised his gun, and when those demons heard him cock it, they sprang. That is the only way to describe what happened next. One second they were there, the next they weren't."
Roland had trouble envisioning this. "You mean they vanished? Like magic?"
"No magic involved. Just inhuman strength. They jumped into the air so high and so fast the posse saw neither where they went or how they got there. When they landed, it was cat-like. They dropped into position right behind Daddy's group. Before any of Daddy's men could react, four men were down. The remaining four spun and opened fire. Both of those strangers took two rounds in the chest. The force did knock them back, but it didn't knock them off their feet, and it certainly didn't kill them. Daddy said the shirts glistened with blackness as unspeakable foulness erupted from the wounds. It must have hurt them because they fled without any further confrontation. Daddy's men emptied their guns in the direction those things went, but it was doubtful any more damage was done."
At a stop sign, Roland ejected a tape from his recorder and inserted another. He slid the used tape into his shirt pocket, and asked, "What about the men? The four you said were down?"
"Dead, all of them. They fell to the ground face first. When they were turned over to check on their condition, one of them had a broken neck. His head flopped around without resistance. Every muscle, tendon, and bone had been twisted beyond what was possible. Another one had a hole in his chest. His heart sat on the ground beside him, lifeless, shining with blood, in the moonlight. The creature plunged his hand through the fellow's chest, grabbed his still-beating heart and yanked it out."
"I've seen that in movies," Roland said.
"Art mimics reality."
"Macabre art," he added.
Patricia shrugged. "Two of the men on the ground left a family behind. Philip Green had two little girls and a pregnant wife. We buried those two the next day. At least they stayed buried. Their wives and children moved into town. It wasn't safe for anyone on a secluded farm, and certainly not for wo
men and children."
They traveled in silence for a bit, Patricia giving an occasional instruction, and about ten minutes later he stopped the car at the edge of an escarpment overlooking the lake.
Chapter 20
Roland marveled at the view. Steps from the front of his car, the ground disappeared. He put the windows down at Patricia's request. The rhythmic swish of the waves rolling in on the sand twenty feet below played like the soporific melody of a sleep aid.
The moonlight danced on the surface of the lake. Lines of light reached out from a passing freighter as if casting a lifeline to shore. Everything for as far as the eye could see was black. Everything that is, but the moon, the stars and the light from the ship.
"It's beautiful," Roland said.
"Yes, it is. Ever since I was old enough to leave home alone, this has been my favorite place on earth. I am not alone in that. It has been the place for amorous youngsters to go to escape prying eyes. You know what I mean, Roland?"
"This is the make-out place for the local teens?" he asked.
"I guess that would be an accurate assessment. It has had that distinction since before I ever came here. The summer of 1912 didn't change that."
"I have done a couple of stories involving teens. As long as there have been people, teens have refused to listen to their parents when it came to advice on staying safe. The teens of 1912 didn't listen either, did they?"
Patricia opened the car door and eased herself from her seat. Roland did as well, quick-stepping to her side. He stumbled twice on the uneven ground before getting to her and had great concern for her footing.
"You're right," she said. "A group of kids snuck out of the house. A boy named Jimmy Alberts brought three bottles of his father's homemade wine. They made a big fire. There were seven of them. They found one of them down there." Patricia pointed to the rocks directly below where she stood. "Nobody knows what happened. The rest were never seen again."
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