by Vicki Lane
Kyra pulled the shirt on and let out an anguished wail as her hand touched her head. “My hair!”
It was only then that Elizabeth realized that Kyra’s hair had been shorn. Bare patches of scalp shone here and there amid the grease-soaked stubble that remained.
“Used motor oil,” Ben said, sniffing at the blackened towel he was using to gently wipe the oily sludge from the shivering, weeping girl. “Kyra, let’s get you to the house— it’s going to take a lot of detergent to get this stuff off. That dishwashing liquid’s the only thing that’ll work. Remember, Aunt E, that time James rolled in the puddle of oil when the truck was leaking so bad? I had to lather him up and rinse him off three or four times.”
Ben continued to talk calmly as they covered the front seat of the jeep with a frayed blanket from the workshop and bundled the sobbing Kyra into the vehicle. Finally, as the jeep bumped up the road, the cries died away and Kyra’s story emerged in halting phrases.
“I was in the shop, working on a wreath. The radio was on— they were playing something by Gillian Welch— and I was singing along. I was so happy….” She touched her hand to her oil-smeared head. “I…I—”
“Kyra, who did this? We need to call the sheriff.” Ben’s voice was soft but firm.
“No, please, it’s no good…. Ben, I don’t know who it was. Like I said, I was working on a wreath and the radio was on real loud. Then I thought I heard a truck and I went over to the window to see if it was you.” She sat silent for a moment. “I was looking out the window and someone grabbed me from behind and put something around my neck. They kept squeezing and I couldn’t breathe, and this creepy low voice kept saying the same thing over and over…‘bitch, whore, slut’…and…some other things.” Her head was bowed and her words barely audible.
“Did you recognize the voice?” Elizabeth leaned forward from the back seat to catch Kyra’s answer.
“No…I don’t think so. It was real hoarse and low. It sounded…I don’t know…like a crazy person.” Kyra’s eyes were squeezed shut and she had wrapped her blackened arms around herself. In spite of the heat of the day, she was shivering. “It all happened so quickly…and the thing around my neck kept getting tighter…I couldn’t breathe…. I guess I passed out. When I woke up, my clothes were gone and this black stuff was smeared all over me. I was in that…whatever that place was.” Her voice quivered. “It was like a cage. And my hair…” She covered her ravaged scalp with her hands and sobbed. Ben reached out to put his hand on her arm and drove one-handed the rest of the way to the house.
* * *
While Kyra showered, Ben returned to the workshop to look around. In almost no time he was back, fuming with rage. “He used the oil I drained out of the truck yesterday— I’d left it in an old canner behind the barn till I could get some empty milk jugs. That’s where her clothes are— what’s left of them. They’ve been cut to shreds. A pair of the workshop scissors is back there too—” He choked and went on. “Fucking pervert! I’d like to—” His voice failed him once more then, in a painful whisper, he added, “Clumps of her hair are all over the place.”
* * *
Three bottles of dishwashing liquid and forty-five minutes later, Kyra came into the kitchen, where Ben and Elizabeth were discussing his findings. Her normally pale skin was pink from the repeated scrubbing, and a bright scarf covered her head. Angry-looking scratches were plain across one cheek and on both arms.
“Are you all right? Maybe we should get a doctor to take a look at you. I’ll give the clinic a call—” Elizabeth was appalled at the sight of the tiny young woman, so frail and battered. “Or we can take you in to the urgent care place in Weaverville. And I’ll call the sheriff. Maybe he can—”
“No.” Kyra’s voice was low and determined. “No doctor, no police. I wasn’t hurt. I just want to go home to Reba and GeeGee.”
“Reba and GeeGee?” Ben asked. “Who’s that?”
“Reba was my nurse when I was little. Now she’s GeeGee’s housekeeper. GeeGee’s my great-grandmother. You probably saw her at the museum that night. She lives in Asheville, in Biltmore Forest. Her name is Lily Gordon.”
FROM LILY GORDON’S JOURNAL—
FOURTH ENTRY
It was dusk when Reba announced Kyra’s arrival. I was sitting in the library with this journal and my sherry. Reba seemed agitated, though like the perfect servant she has always been, she attempted to hide her distress. It’s Miss Kyra, she said, her plain face illuminated with a strange mixture of pain and joy. She’s— Reba hesitated, then began again. That lady she’s been stayin’ with has brought her home.
At that moment Kyra burst through the door and ran to me, dropping to her knees beside my chair and burying her head in my lap, just as she did as a small child whenever she was in trouble. Oh, GeeGee, she sobbed, I’m so afraid. I don’t want to be punished anymore.
I laid my hand on the scarf that she had wrapped around her head and murmured, as I had done so many times before, There, there, child, GeeGee’s here.
Reba’s voice finally made itself heard over Kyra’s weeping. Miz Goodweather, ma’am. And her nephew, Mr. Hamilton.
Standing there in the doorway was a tall dark-haired woman— I took her to be in her forties— and an attractive young man with long sun-bleached hair. Both had the look of people who spend a great deal of time out of doors. As the woman came nearer, I saw that there was gray in her hair and realized that she was older than my first impression. Striking blue eyes stared out of a tanned face that was handsome rather than beautiful.
She introduced herself as Kyra’s neighbor and began to explain what had happened. I could see that she was taking care not to alarm me (at my advanced age!), but she did not patronize me in any way (as do so many young people). I was surprised to find that she spoke like a person with a good education, though with a certain amount of the mountain accent I expected. She and her nephew both seemed quite at ease. On the whole, I formed a very favorable impression of Mrs. Goodweather— Elizabeth, as she asked that I call her.
I thanked Elizabeth and her nephew (who is obviously smitten with Kyra, as they all are) and, after asking to be kept informed on Kyra’s condition, they left. I told the child to go to bed and I would have a tray sent up. Reba, so delighted to have her old charge back in her care, hovered solicitously, proposing warm milk, cinnamon toast, a little omelet. She shepherded Kyra up the stairs to her old bedroom, one arm around the child and whispering to her all the way. It’s a sad thing that Reba never married and had a family of her own— Kyra is all in all to her and when the day comes that Kyra no longer flies back to her GeeGee and to her childhood nurse in times of trouble— when, perhaps, a young man provides a more tempting shoulder to cry on— then I fear that Reba will be lost. As, perhaps, will I.
But as for her story— I reserve judgment. The child has been through so much— in the past, and now more recently. And the old ghost of mental unbalance is always there, hiding behind those so-candid sea-green eyes of hers.
My thoughts are tumbling wildly— I doubt I’ll sleep tonight. Perhaps I’ll quiet my mind by resuming the account of my time at the Center. I find that I can lose myself in these memories. Dr. P would be pleased to know how well his prescription has worked.
Little Kyra— so young to have experienced so much. I remember how innocent I was when I came to the mountains thoselong years ago. I close my eyes and I can see myself, proper Boston miss that I was, on my first morning at the Center, creeping stealthily into the kitchen in hopes of being able to fix a pot of tea. In my world heretofore, morning tea had appeared at my bedside, brought by our Irish housemaid, Biddy or Bridey or Katie— there was an endless succession of these girls, fresh off the boat and eager for work till they could find husbands.
There was no sign of my hostesses but suddenly a door opened and Miss Geneva emerged, tucking in her waist and yawning deeply. Before she shut the door behind her I glimpsed a double bed and Miss Caro sitting on the edge pulling on h
er stockings. It suddenly was clear to me that these two women shared that room, that bed.
Of course, even a sheltered young lady from Boston knew of spinster couples living together in genteel domesticity— indeed, Boston marriages, some called this arrangement. But these associations were generally assumed to be for the sake of expedience, certainly not…
Oh, how shocked that prudish Lily Cabot of 1934 was! And what a hypocrite! She had read of just such liaisons years before— read, savored, devoured, dreamed—
It was 1929, just before the Crash. I was spending a month with my best friend Evelyn Endicott and her family at their summer home in Dark Harbor. Many of our crowd summered in this part of Maine, and the little island was a hive of social activity. A hive— I write the cliché unthinkingly and then realize how fitting it is. Social insects, swarming together, acting out their preordained roles. But a hive it was and, among the younger crowd, Helen, Evy’s older sister— just back from Europe and a bit of a flapper according to my mother— Helen was the queen bee. Evy and I were not yet sixteen and Helen was twenty— as fascinating to us as some exotic being from a world we could only imagine.
Helen had little time for us for she was part of a “fast” set of young people from Boston. There was always some activity afoot— boating, tennis parties, and, it was whispered, road-houses where liquor run in from Canada was readily available. Helen came in late, slept till noon, and then was off again. Evy and I hung about the front porch to see her leave— usually in an open roadster surrounded by exuberant young people.
One lazy afternoon Mrs. Endicott had gone to call on a friend and Mr. Endicott and the boys were down at the cove with their sailboat. Evelyn and I watched enviously as Helen drove away with a carload of her friends, all shrieking with laughter. I know what let’s do, suggested Evy with a sly grin. We’ll go up to Helen’s room. She brought back the most shocking lingerie from Paris. I heard Mother telling Mrs. Lawrence about it.
Helen’s room was in terrible disorder. The Endicotts chose not to have a full staff while in Maine, making do with a cook, a man of all work, and a housemaid. We were expected to make our beds and, in general, keep our own rooms tidy. But Helen’s bed was a tangled swirl of sheets, and bits of clothing lay strewn about— a pair of silk stockings and a single red pump were atop the dresser; a beaded dress puddled in a glittering pool in the midst of the braided rug; and tiny silken wisps that I assumed must be examples of the shocking lingerie traced a trail to the bed.
She sleeps naked, whispered Evy, disapproval vying with awe in her expression. Mother sent me to wake her once and the sheet had slipped down…. Her voice trailed off and she picked up one of the wisps.
While Evy rummaged the drawers of the bureau in search of more lingerie, I was drawn to the untidy pile of books protruding from under the dust ruffle of the four-poster bed. I had been a voracious reader all my life and had already exhausted the meager resources of the bookshelves in the Endicott summer home— all comfortable old favorites— Louisa May Alcott, Gene Stratton-Porter, Mark Twain, and the like. But here were five books I had not seen before. The authors were unknown to me at the time but now I know that these were all books that had been banned in Boston— Hemingway, Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis…I picked up the book on top, attracted by the title that gleamed in gilt letters on the black leather binding—The Well of Loneliness. I sat on the edge of the unmade bed and traced the words with my finger.
Oh, take the silly old book and read it later, cried Evy. Helen’s gone for the weekend. She’ll never know you borrowed it. Let’s try on her clothes. She was already pulling off her middy blouse. Look at this dress! It’s got no back at all!
And I did take and I did read and I knew at last that I was not alone.
* * *
Reba came in to light the lamps and chided me for sitting in the dark. Why, you like to give me a fright, just settin’ there, staring at nothin’, she scolded. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. She fussed around the room, straightening a magazine on the coffee table, needlessly plumping up the throw pillows on the sofa. Little Kyra was sound asleep when I took her tray up, Reba said. I’ll check back later to see if she wants somethin’. The expression on her worn face was softer than usual and she was clearly delighted at the prospect of having Kyra under her wing once more. Yes, it’s a great pity. Poor Reba— never to have experienced motherhood except in her surrogate care of other people’s children. But I believe that she would defend her little Kyra as fiercely as a tigress her cub.
At last she left me in peace. Reba is an excellent woman and I would be lost indeed without her. When I go, she will be handsomely rewarded for her solicitous care of me. But, how she does fuss!
The Well of Loneliness—I had a hidden copy for years and eventually came to recognize its many weaknesses. Therehave been so many other books dealing with the subject more frankly, more beautifully. But I treasured it, for it had been a clarion call— awakening me to the reality that there were other women whose desires turned to women, not men.
I felt— how shall I say it?— I felt as if a veil had been lifted and now I could see. I also, at the tender age of fifteen, felt that it was enough to know that I was not a monster, unique in the history of the world. I would keep my feelings, but— and it was a solemn vow to myself— I would never reveal my true nature. It was inconceivable that I could ever do such a thing and risk bringing shame on my family.
All these fine resolves came back to me that chilly April morning at the Center. It had begun to snow— outside the kitchen window, fat fluffy flakes swirled and sat on the pink blossoms of a young peach tree. Miss Geneva rattled some sticks of wood into the cookstove and quickly had a fire going, all the while reassuring me that the freak snow wouldn’t last long. Caro’s like a little squirrel, she said fondly. She would stay snuggling in a warm bed all day if I’d let her.
I busied myself filling the teakettle at the sink for I could feel a blush rising. Unbidden images filled my mind— soft pink limbs intertwined in creamy sheets. But one couldn’t, I told myself. One would become a pariah, an outcast— beyond the pale.
CHAPTER 11
SNAKE IN THE GRASS
(SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3)
AS SHE OPENED THE DOOR TO THE CHICKEN RUN, Elizabeth was aware of an ominous stillness. There was no sound from the new gang of chicks that should have been peeping and scratching about in the deep litter of the chicken house or even venturing down the little ramp out into the morning sun. And the three old hens that normally met her at the door, bustling and eager to see what delicacies were in her scrap bucket, hunched in a wary little knot at the far end of the enclosure. With a grim foreboding, Elizabeth set down the bucket of vegetable trimmings and freshly pulled weeds, grabbed the worn hoe hanging by the entrance to the chicken house, and stepped inside. A cluster of black, yellow, and gray chicks were huddled in the corner behind the can of feed, and in the middle of the floor, a huge blacksnake had a fluffy gray and white chick squeezed tight in several loops of his thick body. His jaws were wide around the chick’s head and neck as he endeavored to swallow his victim.
Down slashed the hoe, with all the force Elizabeth could muster in that confined space, breaking bones and opening a gash just behind the reptile’s shiny head. She hooked the heavy, still-writhing body out of the chicken house and out of the enclosed yard, hoping to avoid traumatizing the chickens any further. The broken head of the snake looked up at her with one dimming black eye, and the pale mouth gaped and closed with an inscrutable message.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity of chopping at the bloody pulp of thick muscle, Elizabeth lofted the snake’s head into the nearby bushes with a flick of the hoe. She stood panting and wiping the sweat from her eyes. At her feet, the headless body continued to coil in lazy curves. The movement was measured and beautiful and utterly nightmarish. She shuddered and stepped back, wondering how long it would take before the snake’s body accepted the fact of its death.
“Mum!”
The shocked exclamation broke the silence and Laurel descended upon her mother like an avenging angel. Her blazing red dreadlocks were quivering with indignation. “I was coming up to see you and Kyra and— why did you kill that snake? I thought you always caught the blacksnakes and moved them.” She crouched mournfully by the still undulating body, long cords of auburn hair falling forward around her face. “He’s so beautiful; he must be almost six feet long. You always say they’re good snakes— rat killers and stuff like that. Why didn’t you just take him across the river like you usually do?” Her voice was harsh and on the edge of tears.
Elizabeth wiped her face again on the sleeve of her faded blue work shirt. “Oh, Laur. He’d killed a chick— you remember that really feisty gray and white one that I said might be a rooster— and was swallowing him— or trying to. I doubt he could actually have done it.”
Laurel’s silence accused her. Elizabeth started to explain but no words would come. Finally she caught up the satiny black corpse with her hoe and tossed it, still writhing, into the bushes. “A coon or something’ll get that tonight,” she informed her daughter tartly. “If not, I’ll come bury it tomorrow.”
Laurel still crouched there, looking at the ragged patch of blood-soaked dirt. “It looks like some kind of battle went on here. I was walking up the road and kept hearing this thwacking sound over and over.” Indignation had replaced sorrow in her voice.
“He wouldn’t stop moving.” Elizabeth took a deep breath, hating the shaky way her own words sounded. “I probably killed him with the first couple of blows but he kept moving and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t suffering.” She touched her daughter’s shoulder. “That snake was in the chicken house yesterday and he got away from me when I tried to catch him. I could have killed him then, but I didn’t, and now the chick is dead and it’s my fault.”