This shape was almost like that, except indistinct. Somehow, the extremities didn't quite add up. Ray took the hoe from beside the barrel and dipped it into the tainted water. He hooked and lifted, straining from the weight. The odor hit him before his eyes could make sense of what they were seeing.
It was a goat, at least a week dead, its meat beginning to turn to pink soap. The animal had been gutted and a few ribs glinted in the afternoon light. The head hung by a narrow scrap of skin and the horns had been sawed down to blunt stumps. One leg was missing, and in the lower part of the goat's body cavity was a furry lump. Ray lifted the hoe higher to get a good look, and the head broke free and plopped into the barrel, splashing stinky water onto Ray. The head bobbed in the surface, the lips puffed into a grin.
Ray twisted the hoe handle so he could see what was inside the body cavity. He'd slaughtered plenty of livestock in his time, and he knew that guts were gray and pink and most major organs were ruby red. Nothing grew inside that was furry. He shook the corpse, expecting pieces of it to slough off and slide back into the water. It held together long enough for him to see what was lurking where the stomach, kidneys, and liver should have been.
It was another goat head, that of a billy, the horns long and slick. One of the horns had perforated the animal's skin, Ray let loose of the hoe and it slid into the barrel along with thirty pounds of scrambled goat parts. The stench was stronger now, and Ray wiped at the front of his soaked shirt. He forgot all about Buck Owens as he made his way into the sanity of the long, straight rows.
The Circuit Rider might have come riding through, but he wouldn't have any business with scarecrows. He'd never been known to slaughter livestock, either, at least not since he'd passed from the mortal coil. This business was different. As mysterious as the Circuit Rider was, at least he was a part of Solom, regular, reliable, not given to trickery.
"Better the devil you know," Ray figured. But some new devilry was afoot, and he didn't want to be caught out alone if that particular devil came calling.
Ray glanced back once as he entered the corn. A murder of crows had settled onto the crosspiece. One of them fluttered down and gripped the rim of the barrel, dipping its head to drink at the sickening soup.
Jett tuned out the monotone of Jerry Bennington, her earth sciences teacher. That was no challenge, because Bennington was lecturing about gravity and even though gravity tied all the stars and planets into place, he managed to make it sound as simple and boring as a math problem. Like there was no magic or mystery in it at all. Public school teachers weren't allowed to address religion in the classroom, and explaining how heaven stayed in place might have made the subject a little more colorful.
The boy sitting in front of her, Harold Something-or-Other, must have raided his dad's medicine chest, because he reeked of Old Spice or Brut or one of those stinky-sweet colognes. She could endure it as long as Harold didn't bend forward to pick up a pencil or something and flash his sweaty crack over the belt loops of his low-riding blue jeans. She slipped Dad's letter from her backpack and read it for the fourth time since yesterday.
Dear Punkin,
I miss you so much mucher than all the chocolate donuts in the world. Right now I'm looking at the picture of us from the Outer Banks trip we took the summer you were seven. You look a lot like your mother in that one, more than you do now. I guess you were getting ready to be your own self.
How do you like the mountains? I'll bet they're not as strange as you thought they would be, but I wish you were down here right now so we could go to Discovery Place or a Panthers game, or anywhere that sold cotton candy and root beer. You'11 have to tell me all about your school and teachers. I would e-mail you but your mom told me her new husband (I don't like to say his name, I guess that's small of me but that's the way it is) put a password on the computer so you can't use it without his permission. Plus ink and paper give you something real to hold on to, and you can keep a letter nearby for when you want it.
Are you making new friends? I finally went out with that poodle woman but I don't think any sparks flew. If they did, I didn't get burned. I guess it's taking me longer to get over the breakup than it did your mom. But she's a great woman and a great mother. I tried my best but things happen, and I'll still always try my best for you no matter what. Listen to your old man going on like this. A good parent leaves the kids out of it, they say. I wish I could have left you out of my other problems, too.
It's not that long until Thanksgiving and I'm so much mucher looking forward to having you down for a few days. You know I'm not a cook but even turkey cold cuts will taste fine with you at the table. Work's going great, I'm designing some new wrought-iron furniture, wine racks and chandeliers, fancy stuff. They pay me for all the designs they use and then I get a royalty on each piece cast from my design. I hope that will allow me more free time in the next few years so I can get up and see you whenever I want. Maybe I can even move near you, since there's nothing keeping me in Charlotte now except the manufacturing plant. All I would need is a small house and a workshop, and maybe we can work it out so you 're with me on weekends.
I was not going to mention the drugs, but it seems like part of the problem that caused the Big Problem. I'm sorry if I was a bad influence on you. I let that stuff take me over and steal part of my soul away, and things might have been different if I had given that bit to my family instead. The reason I bring it up is this: You 're going to be a big girl soon and have to make your own decisions about your life. I know better than anybody that you can't change your heart just by changing your scenery. Because my heart still belongs to you even though we're two hundred miles apart.
So tell me all about Solom and send me some pictures when you write back. I've enclosed some stamps and a money order. The money is for you and you don't have to tell any grown-ups about it. I miss you all the world and love you all the stars in the sky and think of you all the fish in the sea. See you in November.
Giant hugs and supersize kisses,
Dad
Heavy shit, Dad.
"Miss Draper?"
Jett slid the letter into the papers on her desk. She wondered how many times Bennington had called her name before she'd noticed. Harold turned in his seat with a faint farting noise and smirked at her. She was used to the stares by now. Solom's first genuine artificial Goth girl, and the attention was half the fun. "Yes, Mr. Bennington?"
"We were discussing Sir Isaac Newton."
"The guy who invited the delicious fig cookies?"
That got a muffled laugh out of a couple of the kids. She had to admit, it was a pretty lame comeback, but she was off her game. Maybe when Tommy came through with the pot, she'd sharpen her wit a little and really wow the crowd.
Bennington wasn't amused, his Grinchish frown seeming to stretch longer in defiance of physics as his lips receded deeper into his mouth. "We were discussing Newton's Third Law of Motion."
"Oh yeah, that one. How does it go again?"
This drew a few more laughs. Bennington glanced above the chalkboard at the clock. Two minutes away from the bell. ''It seems not everyone benefited from today's lecture, so perhaps the entire class should read chapter four in your textbooks and write a two-page report on Isaac Newton's laws."
Bennington's frown lifted a little as the class let out a collective groan. "Good going, witch," Harold whispered.
After the bell sounded, Jett hurried from the room. She was to meet Tommy just before sixth period in the boiler room behind the gym. Tommy had skipped English class, so Jett assumed he'd gone off the school grounds to score. She didn't feel the least bit guilty for her part in his truancy. His attendance record was his problem. It wasn't like the goon was going to last past the legal dropout age of sixteen anyway.
The gym was set apart from the school, with a walkway that led to the bus parking lot. Phys ed classes weren't held during the last period so it was the perfect place for a little privacy. Jett passed a necking couple who were tucked
behind a screened Dumpster. The boy wore dark boots and a stained baseball cap, the girl wore cheap jewelry and an outdated Friends hairstyle. From their downscale Kmart fashion wear, she pegged them for trailer trash. The girl would probably be pregnant by ninth grade and the boy would do the honorable thing and marry her, at least until he realized that diapers didn't change themselves and three people could never live as cheaply as one.
Not that you're any great shakes, Jett, but at least you're aware of your flaws. Like criticizing others.
She hefted her backpack higher on her shoulder and cut around the gym entrance, where cigarette butts and old ticket stubs littered the gravel. The dirt around the boiler room was stained black from spilled fuel oil. A large rusty tank was half-submerged in the ground, the cap locked to prevent sabotage or theft.
The door to the boiler room was ajar. The custodian must have been performing maintenance earlier in the morning. She'd expected the door to be locked and for the deal to go down in the shadows of the little brick outbuilding. The building had no windows. Now they would have decent concealment, and if she and Tommy were caught, they could always pretend they were just another couple sneaking off to swap a little saliva.
She took a look around before easing into the boiler room. It was dark and smelled of oil, musty pasteboard, and old pipes. Something rustled behind the giant steel-plated pipe-entangled contraption in the center of the room.
'Tommy?"
She reached into her hand purse for the money. She usually didn't carry a purse but had gone with a black, ruffled skirt today, with white knee hose, figuring cold weather would come soon enough so she might as well log some leg time while she could.
The noise came again, and the room grew darker. The door slammed shut behind her. A ventilation grille in the wall allowed some light, but it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. Tommy must be playing some stupid stoner game. Or maybe he was dick-headed enough to try and get laid even under threat of death from AIDS.
"That's not funny, Tommy," she said trying the doorknob. Stuck tight.
"It's not funny," came a voice from behind the boiler. It wasn't Tommy's. It was deep and raspy and evoked a tingling familiarity.
Jett turned with her back to the door. The custodian? Maybe he hung out in here with his girlie mags in the afternoon, waiting for the last bus to leave so he could run a buffer over the hallway tiles. Except how had he closed the door when he was on the opposite side of the building?
A pipe reverberated as if someone had bumped into it. Though the boiler wasn't running, the room was stuffy. Jett tried me door again, wondering if her screams would carry to the couple by the Dumpster.
"It's not funny, it's serious," said the voice, and a blacker shadow moved in the darkness.
The brim of the hat lifted and the moon-white face gave a grin. Except it wasn't a grin, Jett saw, just an illusion caused by the man's missing upper lip. She decided it was a man though she had little evidence that it had once been human. A stench flooded the room, and Jett recognized the musky aroma of a male goat.
"You're not real," Jett said moving her backpack to her chest as if to add a protective layer between her and the nightmare.
"Judge not, that you be not judged" me man said. The head turned and dull silver flashed where the eyes might be. "I just wanted to tell you something while you were away from home, because home clouds your judgment."
"It's not my home," Jett said throat dry, sure she was having a nervous breakdown spiced with a bad acid flashback and a panic attack thrown in for good measure. Each breath felt like swallowing a handful of sand. She worked the knob with all her strength, chafing her palm.
"It will be your home soon enough." The man waited, as if reluctant to leave the safety of the shadows.
"What do you want?"
"To warn you about false prophets."
"I don't know any prophets." She wondered if acid flashbacks had a time limit, or if she was likely to keep on retro-tripping until her brain was a puddle of ooze.
"Yes, you do."
"Okay, whatever. I'll watch out for them, just let me go."
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."
Jett nodded toward the dark figure.
"You will know them by their fruits," the voice said, as the shadows merged into an unbroken darkness.
The knob turned in her hand. She staggered blinking into the sunlight.
Tommy Williamson sat on the oil barrel, legs crossed cigarette trailing smoke into the cloudless autumn sky. "What the hell were you doing in there?"
She didn't want to blow her cool in front of this ass clown. "Waiting for you."
Tommy inhaled blew out a long snake of smoke as if he were sighing, then flicked his butt onto the gravel. "Who were you talking to?"
"Nobody."
"You're as crazy as you look."
"No wonder the girls flock to you, with lines like that."
"Whatever." Tommy slid down from the barrel and reached into his NASCAR windbreaker. He pulled out a paper bag that had been twisted into the size of a hammer handle. "Here's your quarter ounce. Fifty bucks."
Jett peeled off the bills with a trembling hand, hoping Tommy would think she was nervous instead of insane. She put the paper bag in her backpack without looking at its contents. "Thanks. I've got to get to class."
"Sure. Plenty more where that came from, just say the word." She left him lighting another cigarette, her heart throbbing, wondering how she would make it through math with the man in the black hat's voice buzzing through her skull.
Chapter Thirteen
Katy lay on the bed, listening to the ticking of the tin roof as the sun warmed it. The afterglow of sex had faded, and only a faint stickiness remained. Her toes were cold. Her robe was tangled around her. She must have fallen asleep because the alarm clock on the bedside table read almost ten. She forced herself out of bed, legs heavy, head feeling as if it were stuffed with wet rags.
On the way to the bathroom, she paused at the linen closet to get a clean towel. The closet was still a mess from moving, strewn with garbage bags full of winter clothes, boxes of shoes, and bun-dled-up coats. The door bulged open, with mufflers, pajamas, and dish towels oozing from the crack. Had Rebecca been this messy? She kicked the clothing away and opened the door, and a shoe box fell from the shelf and bounced off her shoulder. As she put it back, she noticed a string running down the inside of one wall. She thought it might be a light switch and gave it a tug, peering into the darkness above. There was a slight metallic rasp and the squeak of a spring. Katy pulled harder and saw a small wooden door descending. It must be an attic access.
Curious, she took a flashlight from the bedside table and carried one of Gordon's heirloom rockers to the closet. Climbing unsteadily onto the rocker seat, she grabbed the lip of the door and pulled it down until it bumped the shelf. Rough pine rungs had been hammered onto a set of steel bars, making a folded ladder. She shone the light into the opening and saw the ribs of the ceiling joists and the dull galvanized tin of the roof. Cobwebs hung in large dusty beards and the air was stale and humid. Katy shucked her robe so she could climb more easily and grabbed the highest rung she could reach and pulled herself up. She held the flashlight in her left hand, keeping two of her fingers free for gripping. She nearly lost her balance, but managed to get a bare foot on the shelf for purchase, knocking off the shoe box again in the process.
With one more heave, she got her other foot on the lowest rung and stood, poking her head into the attic. Louvered grilles were set at each end of the attic to allow air circulation, with wire covering the openings. The old house must have once been insulated with shredded paper, because bits of gray fluff hung to the wooden support posts. Pale fiberglass had been rolled out in places, though a large section had been floored around the opening as a storage space. Katy focused the beam on the boxes, old lamp shades, and small pieces of furniture that were stacked around the
floored area. A fuzzy orange ball bounced among the clutter; then she realized it was the flashlight's beam reflected in a dusty mirror.
Katy climbed through the access hole and crawled on her hands and knees to the mirror. A space had been cleared away in front of it. Two rolls of lipstick, a makeup kit with several peach shades of face blush, and a silver-handled hairbrush were arranged before the mirror as if some woman had tended her appearance here. A small glass spray bottle lay on its side, and it took Katy a second to realize what was out of place: the bottle was free of dust, as if it had been recently used. One of the cardboard boxes was open and a cotton dress hung over the edge, bearing an autumnal print with a frilly white collar.
Behind the mirror was a long, wooden box covered with books. The box appeared too large to have fit through the access hole. Katy wondered if someone had carried the boards up one at a time and assembled the box in the attic. If the box were meant for book storage, it would have been simpler to nail shelving boards between the joists.
So something was inside the box.
Maybe books, maybe air.
Maybe a piece of Smith family history, something that would help her better understand Gordon.
Or understand Rebecca.
As Katy crawled past the clutter, she regarded her reflection in the mirror. Because of the dust, her reflection was fuzzy. Katy tried to grin at her double that was crawling closer. In the dim light, the reflection became distorted and for a moment, Katy's face was narrow and pinched and snarling. But was it her face? The fragrance of lilacs rose over the odor of dry wood and blown insulation.
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