by Glen Krisch
“Poppa, please!”
He looked at her tear-streaked face, blinked several times, as if surprised to find her there.
“Do we have to talk about this right now?” she said.
“I guess not, but time—”
“Time is short. I get it.” Krista climbed onto the bed and lay next to him, sharing his pillow. She took one of his hands in both of hers. Squeezed. His skin was so dry and smooth, his brittle bones just beneath the surface. “Can we just … can we just do this? For a few minutes?”
Poppa chuckled, and carried no trace of cynicism, nor any dark underpinnings. It was a sound she wanted to remember always.
Krista stroked the back of his hand, marveled at the dark spots that weren’t there the last time she was here. How could she have let so much time slip by without keeping this man within an arm’s length at any given moment? She began to calm. Her tears dried and her chest no longer felt gripped in an angry fist.
“I don’t blame you,” Poppa murmured.
“Pardon me?” Krista’s said.
“I don’t blame you for not coming back here. In truth, it crossed my mind to sell the place after Breann disappeared. But I couldn’t. It’s stupid, when I look back on it. I like to think I’d worked so hard to preserve the wildness surrounding Little Whisper. And nothing would make me put that aside, even the loss of your friend. And I wanted to let you know, I don’t blame you for feeling resentment toward me. I’m sorry.”
“Poppa, you don’t need to be sorry about anything.”
“We all have something to be sorry about. Some people more than others. I’d like to bring some balance to the tally sheet before my time is done.”
Krista shifted on the pillow, regarding her grandfather with a sidelong glance. “Consider your apology accepted,” she said, “even though I don’t think it was necessary in the first place.”
Poppa smiled and the fatigue faded from his eyes.
“When we were kids, you told us we could be anything in the world. You told me I could become president. I could walk on the moon. I did nothing like that.”
“You became a wife … a mother.”
“Yes, and I’ve dedicated all my time and energy into making sure Clara is loved, supported, and that her world is enriching …”
“But …?”
“Well, Clara, one day … my God, one day she’s going to grow up. And that time is soon, believe it or not.”
“It’s soon,” Poppa agreed, “but, I’m afraid, not soon enough for me to see.”
“That’s not … I didn’t mean it that way. How stupid of me.” She paused, suddenly out of breath. “I meant to say … she’s growing up so fast—she’s always been like a little adult intellectually—and she’s going to be a full-fledged adult. And I’ve realized, since we came here, that I’ve been doing her a disservice. I know I can be overbearing, controlling—”
“You? Never!” He chuckled.
“Poppa, I’m serious.”
“I know, I know. It’s just … I saw Nan in your face, how your lips tighten up at the corners when you’re passionate about something. So, please forgive me, and carry on with being serious.”
“So, anyway, I’ve always taken pride in protecting my daughter. For obvious reasons, I haven’t wanted her out of my sight.”
“Understandable.”
“But I’ve also seen, since you’ve been talking with her, maybe … maybe I’ve taken it too far. I see Clara opening up, coming out of her shell. Just even her smiling with abandon, without hesitation. It’s like my eyes are opening to how sheltered I’ve kept her.”
“Don’t stress about instinct. Don’t worry about protecting your family too much.”
“I’m not. Or I’m trying not to anyway.”
Poppa squeezed her hand.
“You should get your rest,” Krista said.
“Is there something else you wanted to ask me about?” Poppa asked, his gaze probing, knowing.
“I … I don’t think so.”
“There is. I can see it on your face. You’re hiding something.”
“Poppa … I saw … something.”
His lips curled into a coy smile. “Something, really?”
“Breann …” She whispered the name, felt a chill across the nape of her neck. “I saw her. Down by the lake. Either that, or I’m going mad.” She laughed uneasily.
His expression changed from whimsy to something akin to understanding, which was the last thing she expected from him.
He licked his lips, ready to say something, but hesitated, as if to gather his thoughts. “This land is restless, untamable.” He scooted higher on his pillow. “Sure, there are houses, roads, utilities stretching from here to Grand Rapids. But settled, it has never been. And never shall it be.” He took a steadying breath. “I didn’t know this until a couple of years after To Heal the Land was published, when it was wildly successful, but I still didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. But when I was able to rest after an extensive book tour, to finally breathe for the first time since your grandmother and I got married, I became aware of the strange energy of this place.” He paused to catch his breath, his face a grim mask of pain and fatigue.
“Have you seen her, too? Have you seen Breann?”
“No. Never once. But as I’ve tired, as this mutation in my cells turns one after another of my systems against me … I’ve seen Francie. Just glimpses at the corner of my eye. The scent of her perfume floating like a keen memory on the air. And sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly low, vulnerable, near my end … I hear her voice. Not words, just her voice in her throat. Her laughter. That alone would be enough reason for me to not want to linger. It’s the reason I’ve decided to live out my time here, at the lake. For those irrational moments of clarity. When I can hear my wife, see a split second of her profile, the mischievous sparkle in her eye.”
Krista said the first words to come to mind. “You loved her—”
“Without question, without fail. It’s a cliché to say losing a spouse is like losing a limb, but there’s always some truth to clichés, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. Sure, it’s like missing a limb, but it’s something more … more like losing substance, clarity, cohesion. And I just want to see her again, to be with her again, not in mere glimpses, but wholeheartedly, with my full affection.”
“It’s probably selfish for me to want you for myself,” Krista said, “for the entire family, but … I think I understand.” She went to his side and ran her fingers over the cottony white hair at his temple.
“I’m glad.”
“I better go before Leah gets back. She’d be so angry knowing I’ve been talking your ear off.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” He chuckled again, but this time the tiredness had returned in its full glory. He looked more drawn and feeble than he did on the back deck.
“So you believe me about Breann?”
“Yes, I do. Without question. And if I were to hazard a guess, it would mean she never went far from Little Whisper when she disappeared, even though Jenkins was eventually caught on the ferry getting off in Wisconsin.”
“Have a good rest, Poppa.”
She remained outside the doorway, watching him unobtrusively, her mind whirling.
His smile deflated; he no longer had to marshal his energy to put on a brave face. Agony twisted his features into something hideous and shattered. His fingers curled to claws as he brought them to his chest. He held them there—a morbid mimicry of someone in deep prayer—as his eyelids fluttered closed in exhaustion. As he drifted off, the pain never left his face; if anything, it intensified.
Krista closed the door, heart racing as she neared Poppa’s writing desk. She unburied his unfinished manuscript, the one about Edgar Jenkins. The binder itself seemed to give off a low vibration as she opened it.
/> FALLEN: THE MIND AND MOTIVATIONS OF A SERIAL KILLER
The title alone made her queasy. She didn’t want to know about the mind and motivations of the man who had kidnapped and killed her childhood friend. She didn’t want to learn about Poppa’s reasons for writing such a morbid book, either. But she also couldn’t not turn the opening page and start from the very beginning, this time no longer skimming but ruminating over every word, searching for understanding.
The concept for this book had a long gestation period before I finally decided to explore its gruesome subject matter …
CHAPTER 20
Words shaped Clara’s first memories. She could remember, even now, the comforting emotions of them—soft and lulling, the gentle voices of her parents reading her a bedtime story, the individual syllables like incongruent building blocks of magic that would coalesce, break apart, then reform to a new meaning. Even before she understood their words were mere symbols given sound, Clara was drawn to their power. Words had power; she knew this before anything else but the love of her parents.
Now, short of breath, her leg muscles crying for her to stop, stop, stop! she charged down an almost-there trail, a slight riffle in the underbrush known only to ground squirrels and the owls lurking overhead.
Poppa’s satchel jounced on her shoulder as she ran freely—her reins tossed aside—with only the occasional glance at his crude map to alter her path. Her destiny. Oh, yes, destiny! She felt compelled through the woods, hurtled down declining swales her feet barely clung to as she raced ahead. Onward!
Now undeniably doubling back through the woods, but still following Poppa’s crooked scrawl across the crumpled page, she noticed the lake house through the trees, seeing it as untamed nature would see it: foreboding in the high sun of late morning. She put the sight out of mind, her heart pumping in her ears, the sound blotting out all others but the muted clump and fall of her strides striking the moist earth.
She ran, exhilarated beyond measure. For the first time since she started forming memories, Clara’s mind was clear of words, uncluttered, sated by her exertion alone.
Sunlight flickered through the myriad layers of leaves above. She wound through a tunnel of wilderness, and at its end, thirty feet ahead, the trail terminated in blinding white light. She charged into its maw, as if chasing the sun itself, slowing when her feet met sand.
A low gray wave uncoiled across the beach, losing its energy like a tired exhalation before receding to the dark depths of the lake.
She sucked in a deep breath, and a stabbing cramp blossomed under her ribs. She bent at the waist, resting her hands on her knees. Sweat dripped from the tip of her nose. Fresh air ripped through her lungs. Her vision dimmed for a few seconds before she felt the worst of it passing over her like a retreating storm. In its wake, an easy smile found her lips.
Her mind hummed blissfully as her feet took her to the edge of the dark water.
Again, Clara glanced at the evidence of Poppa’s house: the lean-to where they dried wood for bonfires, the anchored dock bobbing with the eddying waves, Heidi, Robby, and Trev struggling to get a box kite into the sky. The trio ran along the shore, Trev in the lead and tugging on the string while the kite stuttered impotently against the sand. Robby let out an excited whoop while Heidi halted in her tracks. No amount of running and cajoling would set the kite aloft; it was not windy enough for kite-flying.
“Heidi, we need your help,” Robby called out.
His twin sister waved him away, turning back toward the lake house. Robby waved a clenched fist in exasperation and picked up his pace to catch back up to Trev and his kite.
Before anyone noticed her, Clara hurried off in the opposite direction.
Poppa’s map was damp with her sweat, but she could still see where he had wanted her to go. She mirrored the shaky directional arrows down another hundred feet of shoreline, and as the lake cut back toward the woods, the lake house disappeared from view.
No matter her determination, a side stitch forced her to slow to a brisk walk.
With Poppa’s house now nowhere in sight, the lake seemed to extend in inky swells to the horizon. The woods on the far side of the lake had become a single mass of green vegetation.
A heron waded with its broomstick legs in the nearby shallows, hunting small fish. It stabbed its beak into the lake and came up short. Preparing to strike again, it took a couple sly strides through the water before it noticed her. The bird squawked and flew into the air with mighty wings. Its feet dangled low, at first, but as it picked up speed, they lifted higher, flattening. Clara stopped in her tracks, marveling at its prehistoric beauty, even after it was gone.
Laughter drew her attention away from the lake. At first, she thought her cousins had abandoned their box kite and decided to follow her. She felt a wicked stab of anger at them, and then, as she stepped toward the sound and into the cool shade of the woods, she realized it was indeed laughter, but not her cousins’. She tried to pinpoint the sound, but the voices quieted before she determined anything more than their general direction.
There was no trail to follow, and Poppa’s map didn’t zag back into the woods at quite the same spot. But still …
Clara left the beach, left the known parameters of her quest, straining for the sounds of laughter. She soon found herself snagged on any number of overgrown raspberry bushes. She tried to pull free, but the thorns held fast.
“Oh, come on,” she muttered.
The thorny branches would only come free if she worked each one individually, carefully. A few berries had ripened, and before thinking twice, she popped them into her mouth. Her mouth watered almost painfully at the fruit’s tart juiciness.
She removed a final thorn from the hem of her shorts, and again heard voices, no longer laughing, but in deep conversation. Girls’ voices, two of them. They sounded close, just over the next wooded rise.
She felt like an intruder, yet somehow connected to the unseen strangers. Why else would she get so easily sidetracked from helping Poppa answer a question so long in waiting?
She kicked past the last of the raspberries and reached the top of the rise, or so she thought. Instead of a rounded peak, the hill abruptly fell away, as if a sharp cleaver had separated that portion of land from the rest. She toppled over the edge, stumbling forward, too far forward to arrest her descent.
The weight of Poppa’s satchel sent her cartwheeling, and the world became a chaotic jumble—the scrape and rustle of her body plowing down the ridge, flashes of stark blue sky, the flicker and flash of layers of green leaves. She tumbled a good twenty feet before the crown of her head hit something hard.
Granite.
The word popped into her head, then was gone. So simple a word, yet the blow had fogged her mind, and she began to drift through layers of ever-deepening darkness.
CHAPTER 21
Gritty sand gathered between Krista’s sandaled toes as she cut across the beach and away from the lake. The road’s weathered spine stretched from one edge of her vision to the other. Cool air billowed from the woods looming across the cracked blacktop. Few cars ever passed this way. Desolate, full of murk and ambiguity. The perfect location to snatch someone without any witnesses. Her breath caught in her throat. She felt it in her bones; this was the spot.
Krista held her place in Poppa’s manuscript with her index finger. After reading at the summer house for an hour, she felt the need to move, to experience the words in the real world. She lifted the binder and opened it. She had already learned Poppa had become obsessed with Breann’s disappearance, so much so that he’d dedicated his months of declining health in order to make sense of the tragedy.
As she picked up where she’d left off, the outside world drew away, became muted from her senses. In moments, she could have been a fly on the wall of the interview room at Two Rivers Correctional Facility.
The man sitting
across the table from me in the drab gray bunker of a room didn’t look like a killer, but he’d already admitted as much under oath when he claimed seven victims as his own. He looked young at first glance, just as he did on TV when he was shown being ushered from a squad car into the Two Rivers Courthouse for his first hearing. I’d felt vindicated that day, but not anymore.
There were still unanswered questions, bodies left unburied, unmourned.
“Oh, God, Breann.” Krista looked up from the binder, blinking through tears. She didn’t want to read anymore, but knew she couldn’t not read it, either. She sighed, took a deep breath, and returned to the manuscript:
I soon noticed crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, creases in his forehead. His eyes … no corruption stared back at me from those icy blue eyes. If anything, his gaze was inviting, at ease. His untroubled disposition was the most unnerving aspect of my first visit with Edgar Jenkins. Even though he was a killer, even though he had been caught with traces of his last victim’s blood and skin under his nails, even though he’d been caged and cut off from the world, Edgar Jenkins seemed a man at peace.
“How many times did you troll the beach road?” I asked him. “Ten? More?”
“Oh at least,” he replied with a haughty laugh. “You’re a lucky man to live in such natural beauty. I’d had no intention of staying as long as I did in your neck of the woods. See, it’s a funny thing … my thing had always been to take the ferry from Wisconsin. I used to never stray from Cheeseland to pursue my … entertainments … but I got crafty, see. I’d get caught if I kept the same pattern. I learned that from those cop shows on TV, right? So I started taking the ferry across Lake Michigan to expand my … reach, so to speak.”
Edgar paused in his explanation, overcome with a sickening, manic laughter.