For a second Hettie looked confused, and then comprehension crossed her features and she laughed with a melodic twitter that made her eyes dance. "Oh my. You made a joke. And a rather clever one. Death and taxes. How amusing. Have I asked your name?"
"It's Vick."
"That is not a proper name for a young lady," she said reprovingly, but she was still smiling.
"Victoria."
"Well, Victoria, I've thought about it, and I quite like you. I've packed the things I need the most and we can leave now. You and your friend can return for my sundries at your convenience."
"I like you, too, Hettie," Vick said. "And I need you to do something for me."
"What's that, dear?"
"Lift the three book limit on checkouts."
Hettie laughed again. "Since everyone has abandoned their responsibilities but me, I am quite prepared to assume the task of rewriting our lending policies, Victoria. Please take whatever you feel your library requires. Would the book carts in the utility area be helpful?"
Chapter Five
“How long are you going to stay mad at me?” Vick asked as she sat down beside Lucy.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Lucy grumbled, taking a long drink of her beer.
“Are you going to let me tell you what happened?”
“I don’t have anything else to do,” Lucy said, staring fixedly ahead of her.
Vick started talking. She told Lucy everything, from dead Sam in the park, to finding Hettie in the library, to the “promenade” that morning. By that time, Lucy had shifted to watch Vick as she talked, a look of both consternation and incredulity on her face.
“You trying to tell me that a 9 millimeter slug popped out of this dead guy’s head and the hole healed up?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And you think he wrote his own name in that notebook?”
“Yes.”
“And before you shot him, you looked in his eyes and somebody was home?”
“Yes.”
Lucy let out a long, low whistle and leaned back against the iron railing that flanked the back steps. “What the hell?”
“Hettie says they’ve become increasingly coherent in their movements.”
“You want to translate that out of Crazy Librarian and into English?”
Vick smothered a laugh. “She told me the dead used to wander around and walk into things, but that now most of them use the sidewalk and seem to have some place to go.”
“And so they all just walked together down to the seawall first thing and started filling sandbags?”
“We watched them through the telescope. It’s a spot in the seawall that’s cracked. I read about it in the paper before this all happened. It caught my attention because I was interested in global warming and rising sea levels,” Vick explained. “The Corps of Engineers was planning to section off that part of the city due to the danger of flooding while they repaired the damage. They never got the chance.”
“And the dead are actually filling up the bags and stacking them?” Lucy asked.
“Hettie says they work for about two hours every morning and then break up and go their separate ways. But they’re always back the next morning, walking down the street. I swear to you, Lucy, they looked like some kind of undead marching band.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes and then Lucy spoke, her voice thick with emotion. “I thought you were dead.”
“Lucy, I . . . “
“I’m not finished,” she said sharply. “I thought you were the kind of dead I’d have to hunt down and make deader. Have you ever once thought what it would take for me to put a bullet between your eyes, Vick?”
Vick grew quiet, and then said softly, “I just always hoped if I ever became one of them that you would.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Lucy said. “And you know I would, just like you would for me. I asked you if you ever thought about what it would do to me?”
Vick fumbled for words. “Lucy, I . . . it was never my intent. . . I didn’t . . .”
“Why don’t you just shut up for once, huh, Vick?” Lucy said, once again staring out in the yard. “I never asked about what kind of life you had before the shit hit the fan, and you never asked about mine. You didn’t ask about my mom who had a real close personal relationship with Johnny Walker, or my dad who wanted to do things to me that no dad should do. He didn’t, because my grandma stopped him. But until I left the house for good when I was 14, I never slept one night through. You didn’t ask about how hard I worked not to get hooked on any of the drugs people like me take mainly because they can’t stand being nothing in the world. You never asked about Bruce, who was pretty much all I had in the goddamn world. He had shit for brains, but he never hit me and he never screwed around on me.”
Vick sat silently beside Lucy and felt her cheeks grow warm.
“It never hurt my feelings, Vick, because from that first day you treated me like a friend. It didn’t take a genius to see you were better than me . . .”
“I do not ever want to hear you say that again,” Vick said in a low, level tone.
“See?” Lucy said, turning to Vick. “You see what you did right there? You always treated me with respect. Until last night. You knew I didn’t want you to go into the city alone, and the last thing you said to me was that you weren’t going to get yourself killed. Then you didn’t come home. I’ve never spent a longer night in my life. Other than Grandma, you’re the only person in this world I have ever really cared about. So what happened last night is what I don’t want to happen again. Now that you’ve told me everything, I understand why you stayed, but we have to work out some better way to communicate. You matter to me Vick. I’m not living through another night like last night anytime soon. I’m real goddamn sorry if you don’t like somebody giving a rat’s ass if you live or die, but I do. Deal. And learn to back down on some things. I have feelings, too.”
Several minutes passed before Vick finally said, “You’re right. I was wrong. And I apologize.”
“Jesus, Vick,” Lucy said, blowing out a long, frustrated breath, “I don’t want an apology. I need you to see that you aren’t in this alone anymore and you haven’t been for a long time. I really need you to stop acting like the Lone Ranger, because I sure as hell am not Tonto.”
“Not even if I get you a headband and a feather?” Vick ventured, teasing with her voice and saying something far more with eyes that unflinchingly met Lucy’s own.
“Kiss my ass, Kemosabe,” Lucy said, but she was grinning. “Now would you just drink a beer with me so we can call this thing done?”
Vick accepted the bottle Lucy offered to her and twisted off the top. They clinked the longnecks and Vick took a long, slow pull.
“You drank that like you needed it,” Lucy said.
“I did,” Vick said, “because we have problems.”
“Really, Vick?” Lucy said. “I hadn’t picked up on that.”
Hettie insisted on taking over the study as her own, and it was pointless to argue. Vick suspected the old lady felt more comfortable surrounded by books than by people. During Hettie’s first week at the house in Maine, Vick often got up at night to check on her and found the woman hard at work arranging the books and cataloging the volumes, including everything Vick had brought home from the library.
As she worked, Hettie talked. At first Vick thought she was talking to herself, until one night she heard Hettie say, “I miss you, Arthur.”
Vick leaned quietly against the door frame and listened. “I’m not sure I’m quite right anymore, dear. Everyone at the library deserted their post, but you know me, I couldn’t leave my books.”
Hettie hummed an aimless little tune and Vick heard her moving around inside. “I wish I knew what happened to you, Arthur,” she said, sounding uncertain. “I did come home, but you left the front door open, and you dropped the groceries on the walk. The milk was ruined, Arthur. That’s a very expensive waste. I just do
n’t think we make enough money to let good milk spoil so carelessly.”
Vick dropped her chin and closed her eyes, swallowing against the knot that rose in her throat as she listened to the woman talk.
“I want you to know I waited for you for two weeks, Arthur,” Hettie said. “And then I felt it was imperative I return to work. I left you a note, dear, but if you tried to contact me, the switchboard didn’t ring you through.”
A small sob echoed in the night. “I think this is a nice new position for me, Arthur. Victoria and Lucille are quite lovely, and Beth reminds me of our little Kathy, God rest her soul. I hope you can hear me, Arthur, because I will be working here now if you come looking for me. This is an unusually long business trip for you, dear. I won’t talk any more now, but do call when you get this message.”
And that’s when Vick heard the phone being replaced in the cradle; the phone that hadn’t worked in three years. “Oh, Hettie,” she whispered sorrowfully.
“Who is there, please?” Hettie called out in her crisp professional voice.
Vick rearranged her face and said, “It’s Victoria, Hettie. I was going to have some tea and cookies. Would you like some?”
“That would be lovely. If you will, bring them in here, please. We need to discuss your conception of organization, Victoria. Honestly . . . .”
When Vick returned with the tea, she found Hettie sitting at her desk . . . well, Hettie’s desk now. The woman was using an old-fashioned dip pen and she was writing something in a flowing hand. Vick put the cup down beside Hettie and watched as she wrote . . .
“One cannot reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.”
“What is that, Hettie?” Vick asked.
“It’s a quotation of Lao Tzu, dear,” the woman said, humming, dipping her pen into the ink again and beginning to sketch with it. Vick watched as the house in which they were sitting emerged in light, damp strokes, complete with a rendering of the makeshift moat. “They don’t like it, you know.”
Vick pulled up a chair and sat down. “What don’t they like, Hettie?”
“Water. It’s why you have that silly ditch, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Vick said. “That’s right. The dead won’t cross it.”
“It’s because they can’t see themselves when it runs, and if they can’t see themselves they might get lost when they pass through the gateway.”
“The gateway?”
Hettie looked up and recited, “'Long, long ago, even before the reign of King Arthur, the land was blessed with enchantment and great fertility. Throughout the realm, maidens stood guard over the sacred wells, offering their healing waters with golden cups to any journeyers who might pass. Indeed, some say that these were the very waters of inspiration, offering transport between the worlds.”
“I’m sorry, Hettie,” Vick said frowning, “I don’t recognize that quote.”
“It’s from a book about King Arthur, dear. The story is called ‘The Rape of the Well Maidens.’ But the bad men can never get the cup. The cup will only appear before a knight who is pure of heart.”
“The cup, Hettie?”
The old woman finished her drawing and gently wiped her pen nib with a piece of chamois cloth. “What else would hold water, dear? Now. Our discussion. I assume you learned your alphabet in school, Victoria, but that is not how one organizes books in a library . . .”
Hettie continued her lecture as she got up and moved to the first bookshelf. Vick reached over and rotated the big leather book to get a better view of what the woman had drawn. She saw her own face and Lucy’s on one side of the townhouse, and Hettie and Beth on the other. In a neat, deft hand under herself and the child, Hettie had written, “Lazarus, come out!”
Vick leaned back in her chair. Lazarus. The man Jesus raised from the dead?
A terrible suspicion began to creep into Vick’s mind, so terrible she reached for the small gun she kept in a holster at the small of her back even when they were securely inside the house. “Hettie?” she said, making the woman’s name a question.
“Yes, Victoria?”
“Are you alive?”
The question hung in the air as the woman carefully aligned the spines of books along the edge of the shelf in front of her. Finally she said, quite pleasantly, “Alive is a relative term.”
Vick had to admit that was a difficult point to argue, so she tried another way. “Are you like those creatures?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” Hettie said cheerfully. “I got over that a long time ago.”
Taking a deep breath, Vick asked, “Is Beth alive?”
“Yes,” Hettie said confidently. “She went through the gateway.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Vick said. “Will you explain it to me?”
Hettie turned and looked at her, a serene smile on her face. “Beth drowned in their backyard pool. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” Vick said, “she didn’t. What did she tell you about what happened to her?”
“Beth has been to the safe place and brought part of it back with her,” Hettie said, “so she’s quite alright now, as am I.”
Vick’s heart was pounding in her throat. “And are there others like you?”
“I don’t know,” Hettie said. “I’ve been working so hard on the special collections, I have no idea.”
“The creatures in the street,” Vick said, “what about them?”
“They are looking for the safe place, I think,” Hettie said thoughtfully, as she turned back to the books. “They seem to be improving, but they aren’t there yet. And my heavens, they do have the worst manners, don’t you think?”
Trying not to upset the older woman, Vick asked carefully, “Did Arthur make it to the safe place, Hettie?”
The woman turned back around with a crestfallen expression. “No, Victoria,” she said, “I don’t think he did. Although I do hope he’s just away on business. When I saw him last, he’d been sitting there against the hedge for two weeks without moving. I thought, perhaps, if I went back to work, he could get on with his plans and let me know. He was always quite good about calling, my Arthur.”
“What happened when you went back to the library, Hettie?” Vick asked gently.
Hettie frowned, and appeared to be trying to remember. “I think I had an accident,” she said. “I must have hit my head, because things seem quite confused in my mind about my first days back at work. It must have been because of that little cold I had. The damp night air sitting with Arthur in the garden waiting for him to awaken. I think that was it.”
So she’d had the illness -- and lived through it. “When did you start to get better, Hettie?” Vick asked.
“When I went into the water, dear,” she said. “Good hydration is so necessary for our health. Do you drink your eight glasses each day?”
“No,” Vick said seriously, “but I think I’m getting ready to start.”
“Well, that’s good, Victoria. We must not neglect our health.”
There was still one question Vick had to ask. “Hettie, you’re not going to hurt us, are you?”
“What a thing to ask, Victoria,” she said, making a clicking noise with her tongue. “That quite wounds me. Of course, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Out of the woman’s sight, Vick gently eased the hammer of the automatic back in place. “Are you going to help us, Hettie?”
“Victoria, it takes time to arrange a proper library,” she scolded. “A little patience on your part would not be out of order.” The look on Hettie’s face was so reproving, Vick couldn’t help but laugh.
“Victoria! Hush! You’ll awaken Beth.”
Still smiling, Vick said, “I don’t mean help with the library. I want you to help me understand about the water and the gateway, the maidens and the cup.”
“Oh!” Hettie smiled. “You want me to do story hour like I used to do at the library? Oh! I would quite enjoy that. May we do it by the fire
and have hot chocolate?”
Chapter Six
"The Holy Grail?" Lucy said, her jaw hanging open. "Okay. I have a great idea. How about we just pop on over to the Temple of Doom with Indiana Jones while we’re at it? Or, hey! Maybe we just stick with the religious theme and make holy water hot fudge sundaes. Everything’s better when you pour chocolate over it.”
The corner of Vick's mouth quirked as she attempted not to grin. "You," she said, pointing accusingly at Lucy, "are going to be struck by lightning. And I agree with you about the chocolate."
They were sitting in the basement late at night with the door to the kitchen closed so there was no chance that they would be overheard. Lucy blew out her breath and said sardonically, "Getting struck by lightning would be just my luck." Then she sat there for a minute, and almost as an afterthought, crossed herself superstitiously.
The gesture was enough to make Vick actually laugh. “Once a Catholic always a Catholic?” she asked.
Lucy gave her an annoyed frown. "At least I didn't drop to my knees and pray the rosary in the middle of an attack the way Bruce did," she said. "Seriously, though, please tell me that you don’t actually think the things Hettie told you are references to the actual Holy Grail. You don’t think that, do you?"
“Of course not," Vick assured her. "I do think that Hettie is using the literary language she knows to explain what she sees because she doesn’t have any other way to frame those events. It’s actually a pretty creative way to survive. She’s obviously traumatized. She’s been alone for a long time. What's coming out of her mouth is a reflection of a lot of jumbled up Judeo-Christian imagery in her head. She found a way to reconcile terrifying events with a comforting belief structure. It’s probably the only thing that’s kept her from going stark raving mad.”
“Okay. That was a ‘no’ on the Holy Grail, right?” Lucy asked.
Vick chuckled, “Yes, that’s a no.”
Lucy leaned her chair back on two legs and stared up at the rafters. “I can't believe I'm getting ready to ask you this,” she said, “but you do believe she came back from the dead, don't you?"
Fermata: The Spring: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series (The Fermata Series: Four Post-Apocalyptic Novellas Book 2) Page 4