by Chris Neeley
It had to be some place where nothing could get at her.
There were rats in the barn.
Seph shifted the babe from one arm to the other.
Where?
The water trough.
It was metal. Maybe the rats couldn't get at her if he put her in the water trough. But he would have to move it. It couldn't be right here by the door. Where could he put it?
In his mind, he searched the barn's interior. Where would be a good place?
The loft.
That was the only answer.
The boys would probably ask where the trough had gone, but he'd worry about that later.
All he needed was a few hours.
He had to go get the truck, anyway, so all he had to do was hide the child, get inside the house and act like he'd been there a while. Then, after it got light enough, he'd call old Matthew up to come and get him and he'd put the babe in his big toolbox. When Matthew showed up, he'd say that he needed his tools with him and take the toolbox with him when they went to get the truck.
Seph leaned over and found the drain plug at the bottom of the trough and opened it. Water splashed out onto his hand. He shook it off.
Damn, it's dark in here, he thought. There was a flashlight on the shelf on the other side of the barn door. He lifted his feet, bringing them down easy when he walked. He didn't want to step on something that the boys might have left lying around and fall and kill himself.
He didn't want to drop the child, either. Poor thing had been through enough.
Rain pattered against the barn siding. It smelled musty in the barn, like old wet clothes. They kept the feed that they added to the slop for the hogs in here and it drew dampness.
The feed was the reason that they had rats in the barn. Seph had tried poison and he had let Fern raise cats, but nothing kept up with the rats. The damn things multiplied faster than rabbits.
Seph heard something skittering around in front of him on the barn floor. He hoped that he didn't step on one of the stupid things. They made his skin crawl.
He ran his hand along the wall. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the barn to the point that he could see outlines and shapes but nothing was clear to him yet. His hand came across the edge of the shelf. Walking his fingers across it, he came to the barrel of the boys' BB gun. His fingers kept on walking until they found the round handle of the flashlight. Seph hoped that the batteries weren't dead. The way his luck was running...
Seph flicked the switch. A round beam of light shot out from the business end, making a perfect circle on the floor in front of Seph's feet. The light dimmed. Seph shook the flashlight. The light brightened back up.
"Come on, last for just a little while," he said. He walked over to the lawn tractor, sweeping the floor in front of him with the light as he went. He carefully put the child on the seat of the tractor.
What he was doing was a terrible thing to do to a child, but the fact of the matter was that Seph's family was more important than a crazy woman's poor deformed babe. Seph didn't think that the babe would have had a chance at life, anyway, and even if it did, what kind of life would it have had to go through? He went back over to the water trough and tipped it on end so that the rest of the water lying at the bottom could drain out. He thought about what the child' life would have been like. People could be vicious.
But to give the child the Mayhew name was out of the question.
Seph let the trough drop and picked up the flashlight from off the barn floor.
Seph had his family to protect.
Nothing was more important, or more sacred, than the family. And nothing was going to threaten his.
Seph walked across the floor to the ladder that led up to the loft. In the flashlight's circular beam, it looked like it was going to be one hell of a chore to get that metal trough up there. Jesus, if he lived through the rest of this night, it would be a down right miracle.
He set the flashlight at the bottom of the ladder and to the side and pulled a hunk of two-by-four from a pile behind the ladder. He put the piece of wood under the edge of the flashlight so that the beam of light would be angled upwards.
That done, he took his cap off and wiped a hand across his eyes, then put his cap back on. His eyes felt like they were made of sand and glass. His muscles ached from the jolt that they had taken when the truck had decided to try its hand at gymnastics and jump that fallen tree.
He walked back over to the water trough, grabbed the edge of it and dragged it over to the bottom of the ladder.
Seph walked around it, sizing it up. About the only way he was going to get it up there was to turn it upside-down and put it over his head. He'd have to balance it there while he used both hands to climb the ladder. The thought of it made his head pound harder.
Seph flipped the trough over and walked it up his back. He turned his cap around backwards, so that the bill faced the back of his head. He lifted the trough up and over his head, and rested it as easy as he could on top of it.
Damn, the thing was heavy.
He started up the ladder. One hand over the other, one rung at a time. His breath echoed against him inside the trough. His neck was a steel rod. At the top of the ladder, he bent his back, leaned forward and rested the edge of the trough on the floor of the loft.
Tiny feet ran across the back of his hand. He gritted his teeth and fought the urge to jerk away. Going backwards off the ladder would kill him for sure.
He took hold of the sides of the trough and slid it forward, the leading edge of it scraping across the loft floor, jarring his teeth. He shoved it as far as he could and locked his knees. With a grunt, he lifted it up and over his head and shoved it the rest of the way into the loft.
He stood on the ladder for a moment, legs feeling like rubber, his heart pulsing blood into his ears, and waited until he had enough wind in his sail to climb back down for the flashlight and the babe.
Once he had his feet planted firmly on the barn floor again, he realized the rain still hadn't let up outside. He was soaked to the gills and feeling all wrinkled up like he had lain in the bath tub an hour too long. Lord, he couldn't wait to get in the house and dry off. It wasn't cold outside, in fact the temperature was quite warm, it being the fifth of August, but he felt chilled to the bone. Down right cold. He sniffled.
Seph picked up the flashlight and lit up the barn floor.
He went over to the tractor and looked down at the babe.
***
Anna stomped onto the front porch of the shack, the soles of her feet no longer capable of feeling the splintered roughness of the wood. Her back was hunched, her hair draped across her face. In the span of one day and one night, she had turned from a vibrant, slightly weird, young pregnant girl into a lunatic crone.
Anna shuffled into the shack, not bothering to shove the door closed behind her. It didn't matter. Let the elements and the animals have their way with the shack. She was one of them now, not entirely human, wild in her nature and crazed in her grief.
She had two things and two things only on her mind.
To get her babe named and buried.
Then, to get revenge.
She shoved the branches of the tree limb that hung through the roof out of her way, kicked at the caved in bath tub, and made her way across the ruined wood floor. She got down on her knees and ran her hands over the floor, brushing leaves and twigs aside, searching, searching. Where is it? Her injured hand, the one that the raccoon thought was dinner, bumped up against something rectangular. She skittered over to it, her hands feeling, touching the object blindly. She picked it up and brought it close to her face, trying to see in the dark. Here it was.
Anna opened the book, feeling the water-logged sogginess of the pages. One started to rip away from the binding. She smoothed it back as best as she could.
She needed some light.
Anna scrambled around in the debris. A candle. A match.
She missed her Momma. Her Momma would know just what to do. Momma
knew everything that there was to know about southern folk magic and Anna wanted to be just like her. Anna felt something round and long. It was a candle. She closed her fingers around it. The wick was only a bit damp. If she could find some matches, she'd be in business.
The shack had taken on a musty, woodsy smell. The wild had moved in and taken over. Anna didn't mind. In fact, it suited her just fine. If only she had some light. Anna raised her eyes to the hole in the roof, looking up to the sky.
"Mother Moon, shine your light, that your daughter might see," she said.
The clouds in the sky rolled back, their edges turning in on themselves. The moon, its circular outline stark against the black void of the sky, was cast in glowing red, the craters on its surface forming an evil smile as it shined its eerie glow down, down through the jagged hole in the roof of the raggedy shack past the limb that still balanced precariously on its edge, and bathed its new-found daughter in a ghastly crimson light. If any soul could have seen the person who crouched in the middle of the storm's wreckage, they would have sworn on their momma's grave that the person was bathed in blood.
Anna Caine raised her hands high to the sky, embracing the moon.
She smiled.
***
James and Cliff had their shoes on.
The man hadn't come out of the barn.
"What's he doing in there?" Cliff asked, peering out of the window in the back door.
"Come on. Let's go out the front door. We'll work our way around the back of the house," James said.
The boys made their way quietly through the house, miraculously not bumping into anything. They opened the front door and went out on the porch, easing it shut behind them.
"We should have got us a flashlight," Cliff said, as they rounded the back corner of the house and the outline of the barn came into view through the rain. It was a regular old barn, the siding not quite coming together in places and it wore an old hip roof. The shingles of the roof were like a coat of many colors, the family only replacing the ones that needed it, when they needed it. From their observation point at the back of the house, the boys could make out the shape of the roof and a dim outline of where the door should be.
"Yeah, we could walk around with a flashlight so the guy could see us and know exactly where we are, huh, Cliff?"
"Mr. Know-it-all."
"Just shut up and come on." James moved away from the protection of the house and out into the darkness. "He could be doing anything in there," James whispered over his shoulder.
The boys crouched, just like in the days that they used to play commando, and ran as low to the ground as they could until they reached the side of the barn. They worked their way to the small door in front, the one that James had seen the intruder sneak in. They waited, listening while the rain soaked them to the skin.
***
Seph laid the babe inside the water trough and then he draped an old tarp over the top. As he struggled trying to straighten it out, his thoughts drifted back to Chloe. He hadn't treated her very well lately. With all of the drinking, the trying to forget what had happened with the girl, he had forgotten about his wife. He dreaded facing her in the bright, unforgiving morning light. How could he even look her in the eye? She must never find out about this child, because there really was a possibility that it could be his.
The barn closed in on him.
He straightened the last corner of the tarp, walked to the edge of the loft floor, swung his legs over, and started down the ladder. There wasn't going to be any way that he could hide the fact that he had been gone all night. Maybe, Chloe would believe that the truck had been the reason. Please God, just let me slide this one thing past her, he prayed.
***
Anna had gotten everything that she needed, with the help of the moonlight, and set herself up in the middle of the floor.
She'd finally found some matches that would still light and had lit the three candles that she had managed to scrounge up, placing them in a semi-circle in front of her. She opened the book, careful not to do any more damage to it than had already been done and started reading.
She'd found a small jar of black paint and, when she couldn't find a paint brush, had taken a knife and whacked off a hunk of her hair big enough to suit her purpose.
Now, she had everything lined up, including the mirror that she would use to scry with, to see what Seph was doing and what was happening with her babe.
She found the right spell.
A crow flew into the shack through the gaping mouth of the hole in the roof and perched on the limb that was still hanging through the hole. It cocked its head, eyeing her. A screeching caw erupted from its beak.
Anna glared at it out of the corner of her eye.
Then, she cast the first spell.
***
The two boys eased the door to the barn open. The storm still continued but before long the sky would be getting lighter.
They had to move now.
James slipped through the narrow crack in the door and moved along the wall. Cliff followed. He left the door they had come through open, not wanting it to creak again and give them away. Cliff moved along the wall in the opposite direction that James had taken. They circled around the edges of the barn, listening, trying to pinpoint where the intruder was. The rain beat a rhythm on the barn roof.
A flashlight beam bounced along the wall behind where the ladder to the loft was.
Both boys froze.
Someone was coming down the ladder.
James was only about six feet from the ladder, hidden by the shadow of the loft floor. Cliff was all the way over on the other side of the barn. James moved toward the ladder, careful to stay underneath the loft floor.
James smelled the man before he could make out his shape. He smelled of sweat, the biting scent of alcohol, and wetness. The flashlight beam bounced along the wall behind James, getting lower with each step the man took as he came down the ladder.
James moved closer.
He wanted to be directly on the other side of the ladder before the man made it all the way down. If he could grab the guy's legs, maybe...
A clatter came from the other side of the barn. James swore under his breath. Cliff...
The beam of the flashlight flew through the air above James and swung around to point in the direction that the noise had come from.
"Who's there?" a gruff voice called out as thunder rumbled.
The light whipped across Cliff and then back again. The wind moaned through the cracks in the barn walls. James saw Cliff's eyes. A deer trapped in headlights.
"What are you..." the man began.
James lunged his arms through the rungs of the ladder and latched onto both of the intruder's ankles.
"What the--" was all the man had time to say before James jerked, throwing all of his body weight backwards.
The light coming from the flashlight went wild, then fell to the floor of the barn.
James let go of the man's legs and landed on his back on the old pile of two-by-four pieces.
The man crashed down the ladder, letting out a yell, then was quiet.
The flashlight rolled back and forth on the barn floor, slowly coming to rest. The storm quieted outside, as if it was holding its breath.
James heard ragged breathing coming from the man and from across the barn in the direction of where he had last seen Cliff. He listened for movement. The only sound of someone moving came from the other side of the barn. The storm had died down to a soft patter of rain outside.
James got up, wincing a little. His back had taken a beating from the wood that he had landed on. "Cliff?"
"What!" Something crashed.
Couldn't he ever be quiet? James moved around the ladder. "Cliff, get the light." He stood over the man. The fall must have knocked him out. He heard Cliff mutter something, scuffling around. Finally, the light lifted from the floor. The light swept back and forth along the floor as Cliff approached. Cliff shot the light stra
ight into James' eyes.
"You there?" Cliff asked.
"Get that out of my face."
Cliff lowered the light.
James saw spots floating in front of his eyes. Someday he was going to kill Cliff. He rubbed at his eyes.
"Oh, shit," Cliff said. He was shining the light on the man's face.
James' heart hit his knees.
There on the floor of the barn was his father.
"Son of a bitch. What are we going to do?" Cliff asked, his voice having a distinct whining quality that James hated.
"I don't know."
"Shit, James, he's gonna kill us."
"Shut up! Get that light out of his face." James took the flashlight from his brother.
The storm had completely moved off and daylight started to filter into the barn through the cracks in the siding. A shaft of light cut across Seph's chest. His chest rose and fell evenly in a wash of dust motes that floated lazily in the light.
"Do you think he's okay?" Cliff asked. He was shifting his weight back and forth, from foot to foot, looking like he was in great need of a bathroom.
James kneeled down beside his father.
His father looked like he was sleeping. He was breathing steadily and evenly now. James couldn't see any blood, although Seph did look like he had been in a fight or something sometime during the night. James looked away from his father and up toward the loft. "I wonder what he was doing up there?" he asked.
"I don't know about you, but if he's okay, I'm heading back in the house, climbing in my bed, and acting like none of this ever happened," Cliff said, moving toward the door.
"We can't just leave him lying here," James said, looking up at his brother.
"I can. He's been out drinkin' all night, can't you smell it? Maybe he won't remember what happened. I'm leavin'. You do what you want." Cliff went on out the door of the barn, leaving James alone with his father.
James stayed where he was, gazing up at the loft. More light was filtering into the barn now. His father had said that someday they'd put up a metal pole barn, but not until this old relic had seen its last days. James remembered many happy times when he was little, playing up in that loft, especially when he wasn't supposed to be up there.