by Edward Lee
“Are you feeling better, Aunt Annie?”
“Oh, yes, hon, much better now that I’ve had a lie-down.” She looked rested and chipper as she diced spring onions on the kitchen’s great butcher block. “Slept the whole day away, though—gracious! I’ll be late getting supper ready!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Charity said. “Father Alexander and Jerrica aren’t even back from Richmond yet.”
“I’ve just got this burnin’ desire to impress Father with some real mountain cookin’. Red Beet Eggs, Spoonbread, and my famous Squirrel Pasties—how’s that for a supper?”
Squirrel. Pasties. Charity’s College Park instinct at first recoiled, but then she remembered, from her childhood, how good squirrel was. Just so long as I don’t have to see her skin and butcher the squirrel, she thought. “That sounds great, Aunt Annie. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, no, dear. You just leave the viddles to me.” A “pastie” was one of many makeshift aspects of southern mountain cuisine, something akin to a burrito: meat and vegetables wrapped in soda dough, then baked. As Charity recalled they were delicious, and so was Annie’s sweetened spoonbread, which she also remembered. Red Beet Eggs were simply hard-boiled hen’s eggs marinated for several days in beet juice—also delicious. Just thinking of these treats sparked Charity’s appetite.
“So what did you do today?” Annie asked.
“I— I went to the cemetery.”
The kitchen momentarily hushed. “Well, I thought it only fitting and proper that you see your mama’s restin’ place.”
“Yes,” Charity replied, clumsily. “I have so many questions all of a sudden.”
“Now’s not the time, dear; let me get supper on. These pasties take an hour and a half ta bake. Low heat or else the dough cooks faster than the insides. But I promise ya, tonight I’ll tell all about yer wonderful ma…”
Sissy, Charity thought. Annie’s sister. My mother. What was she like? These questions had scarcely ever occurred to her, but now?
Now they burned.
Proximity—that must be it. Charity, after so long, was back home, so naturally the questions would come. But—
“Charity!” Annie exclaimed, her knife poised mid-chop over the turnips and onions. “Your hand!”
Charity’s muse roused; she’d been scratching at the bandage on her hand. She didn’t dare mention to her aunt the entails of what she’d done today—she’d need more time to ask about the unmarked grave. And she just couldn’t see herself saying: Well, Aunt Annie, when I went to the cemetery today, I didn’t just visit my mother’s grave. I also looked at that second grave you put flowers on yesterday. The grave you didn’t want me to see. Oh, and I pulled that unmarked stone…out of the ground.
This she had indeed done, having noticed something like etching below the base of the stone. R.I.P was inscribed, in crude fashion, as if by an untrained hand with a stone chisel. And: Geraldine, forgive me.
But when she’d been setting the stone back in place, she’d scraped some skin off her hand, which had bled rather profusely.
“It’s nothing, Aunt Annie,” she excused. “I just scraped my hand today…” Then she lied. “On the back fence. I’ve got it bandaged up fine.”
“You shore, hon? Maybe some iodine’d help.”
“No, really. It’s fine.”
Charity’s thoughts, then, strayed. R.I.P, she remembered. Why inscribed such a thing under the stone? Country ways, she considered. Strange ways. And who was Geraldine?
“Whuh-why, hi, Miss Charity!”
Charity turned, to notice Goop Gooder standing in the kitchen entry. The boy was attractive, Charity had to admit: tall, well-muscled, something close to a GQ face, and obviously, via hard work, bathed in sweat. But still— Not my type. However, she could easily understand how Jerrica had found him desirable, if not however crudely. “Hello, Goop,” she answered. “How are you today?”
“I’se fine, Miss Charity,” he told her with spark and enthusiasm. “I’se just outside hammerin’ up the vinyl trim thats Miss Annie sended me ta Roanoke fer yesterday. Say, you know where Miss Jerrica is?”
“Goop!” Annie interrupted. “Are you done hangin’ that trim?”
Goop Gooder stalled. “Whuh-well, no, not yets, Miss Annie.”
“Then git back to it! An’ don’t’cha be botherin’ Charity’s fine friend. Ya just leave her be an’ git about yer business.”
“Yuh-yuh-yes, Miss Annie.”
Goop, then, disappeared out the back door, slumped in dejection.
“Do you need to be so hard on him?” Charity ventured.
Annie went back to her chopping. “What’cha gotta understand, hon, is that I know full well Goop’s a fine, fine boy. But he’s a tad slow in the head, fer one, an’ he kin get ta be a pain in the you-know-what, when it comes ta lady folk guests. I love him dearly, I do, but sometimes I just gotta keep on him. I cain’t have yer dear friend Jerrica bein’ pestered by Goop.”
“It’s just a young man’s crush,” Charity pointed out, but her next thoughts added, Yes, Aunt Annie, it’s just a crush. To the extent that Jerrica had sex with him in your garden the other night! “I’m sure he won’t bother her,” she said in replacement.
“I shore hope yer right, Charity, ’cos I cain’t bear the thought’a yer friend goin’ back ta the city thinkin’ we’se all a bunch’a hayseeds.”
“Oh, Aunt Annie, you’re impossible!”
Still, though, she wondered. Goop obviously had no interest in Charity herself. Why her and not me? her insecurities made her wonder.
(II)
Dinner was fabulous, the food exquisite. But one thing Charity couldn’t help but notice was this: Jerrica and Father Alexander scarcely spoke. Jerrica seemed flattened, while the priest appeared distracted, muddled. Not like them at all. Then, rather early, in fact, they both retired to their rooms.
“I wonder what’s wrong with them?” Annie queried. “My gracious. I hope they liked the Squirrel Pasties!”
««—»»
“So.” Annie lounged back at the big table in the parlor. She lit her acrid meerschaum pipe, and Charity immediately thought, If you’re worried about people thinking you’re a hayseed, Annie…lose the pipe.
“Just you an’ me now, ever-one else is in bed, an’ it’s late an’ it’s actually even kinda cool.”
Charity waited, listened.
“Perfect time, hon, fer me ta tell you ’bout yer ma.”
“I want to hear about her,” Charity said, nearly without breath.
“I called her Sissy, she were my younger sister, an’ a fine woman she was. An’ she married a fine fella named Jere, from Filbert he was, fine a man as you’d ever meet. Started at a rock-pickin’ job at the mine ands worked his way up ta shift supervisor, he did. A fine, fine man.”
Yeah, I heard you. A fine man, Charity’s thoughts complained. But she knew she must give the old woman her due. The elderly had a way of relating a story—the roundabout way—and that was usually the best way.
“Yer daddy, hon, he was not only a fine, lovin’ husband, he was almost problee the handsomest man in the ridge. Lotta hearts was broke when he married yer ma, but that were fine by God ’cos Sissy were a blessed woman. Things was goin’ just fine, they was. Yer mamma was pregnant with you, yer daddy climbin’ the ladder at the mine—just fine they was. Until one day…”
My father died, Charity knew.
“Yer daddy, hon, he died. Weren’t slow was what the inspectors said, so don’ts ya worry ’bout that. Kilt instantly, they claimed. See, a prop stull busted in the main shaft, all that coal in the ridge came a’tumblin’ down on yer daddy and a bunch’a other fine men.” Annie poured two glasses of the dark raspberry wine, then repeated, “Kilt instantly, they was.”
“But my mother,” Charity began.
“Yer mama, hon, she was a fine woman, like I’se said, but also a awful unstable one. Only thing kept her alive, I ’spect, was her bein’ pregnant with
you. So’s she waited, she did, gettin’ bigger ever day, till she had out with ya. An’ I kin say, Charity, you was the most beautiful li’l baby girl I ever did see. See, I was the midwife these parts, an’ I saw ’em all. But you?” Annie sipped her dark wine, trembled, closed her eyes. “You was just the cutest li’l thing. ’N’fact, that’s why we’se called ya Charity, ’cos you were a charity from God…”
Charity wasn’t very impressed. She wanted to know the rest, down to every last detail. She had a right to know, didn’t she?
“But it weren’t long after,” Aunt Annie went on, “that yer ma just couldn’t tolerate it n more.” Annie gulped, poured more wine. “It pains me ta say it, hon, but one night yer mama took up one’a Jere’s shotguns and—”
“Tell me,” Charity insisted. She’d never feel complete if she didn’t hear it all. “What…happened? Exactly?”
“Yer mama, dear—she blowed her head off with that shotgun.”
The vision of the trauma assailed her. Charity couldn’t imagine the strength of the depression to drive someone to do such a thing. Shotgun, she thought. In the head. Did she feel pain? What were her final thoughts?
Did she think about me?
“So that’s the story, hon. I never tolt ya ’cos they took ya from me when ya were so young. Didn’t think it fittin’ ta tell ya ever-thing, when ya were just eight. I’se don’t feel good about it at all.”
“Annie, stop. You did the right thing. An eight-year-old is too young to hear such details.”
Aunt Annie slugged more wine, obviously not at ease. “But I feel a tad better now, just knowin’ that I finally told ya. Please, hon, fergive me…”
(III)
Joyclyn, he thought. The abbess. And Grace, the sister superior…
He looked at their old photos, from the file that Halford had given up. Attractive women, for sure. The abbess, lean and smiling, with short sable-hued hair. And the sister superior: raving, clear green eyes; smiling angelically, with a headful of bright red hair…
Both dead. Twenty years ago. Raped and butchered by a madman.
Or, as Halford had inferred, a madchild.
Shared delusions. Shared hallucinosis. Alexander considered this. Folie a` deux? But Downing, the resident psychologist, would’ve tagged that in a heartbeat. Crazy nuns? It would be obvious to even a novice or a newbie.
So what bothered him?
The record was filled with death-quotes. A monster-child, Joyclyn had said. The devil’s brood. And Sister Grace, more delineated: Ten years old or thereabouts. Hideous. A huge head, big as a watermelon, Father Downing, and eyes…God save me. One eye big as an apple, and one…smaller than the end of my thumb, Father! It was the devil’s child that came in there that night!
Then she went into a coma and, shortly thereafter, died.
Alexander closed the files. He sputtered and smoked. Last night, Annie had told the tall tale of The Bighead, the “monster-child.” A local myth.
And, according to this secret archival record, that’s exactly what Abbess Joyclyn and Sister Superior Grace had described as the attacker of Wroxeter Abbey.
A monster-child.
The priest squinted at the window. Heat lightning flashed, followed by eerie silence. He took off his black shirt and slacks and prepared to shower.
A monster-child?
No.
Just, he thought and struggled with the idea. Just…a coincidence.
(IV)
Goop, laved in sweat, went to his bedroom after he’d put the tools away. Vinyl trim, new caulking? The house didn’t need any of that, and Annie sure didn’t need to send Goop to Roanoke to get it. It almost seemed as though his employer had concocted the excursion solely to keep him out of the house. He hadn’t even seen Jerrica for a full day!
Dag it, he grumbled to himself. He knew what was going on; it was a cah-spear-ah-see!
Annie’s tryin’ ta keep me away from Jerrica…
Vinyl trim. New caulk. The boarding house looked just fine, and a lot of it was because Goop had worked so hard; Annie was just spendin’ money on account’a she had it now from that ass-klaction suit or whatever it was. He tried ta calm hisself down, an’ ’ventually did.
But he couldn’t help what he done next.
He slipped inta his closet, took out the panel an’ went in. Shee-it, if Annie ever fount out ’bout this, she’d have his hide! Down the narrow corridor he went, feelin’ his way mostly ’cos there were no light. But he’d done it so many times…he knowed his way fairly well. First he passed Charity’s room. The hole glowed, and Goop Gooder put his eye to it. Miss Charity were sitting on the bed wearin’ this really fine-lookin’ teddy—er at least that’s what Goop thought it was called. Had some fine, purdy white legs onner, and that musty dark hair hangin’ ta her shoulders. Purdy face. But what Goop’s eyes took to mostly were that set’a boobs onner, fillin’ up that teddy top the way a couple’a big summertime melons’ll fill a pick-sack. Lordy! Goop thought. But Miss Charity’s face, purdy as it were, hadda look to it…
Confused, kinda. An’ maybe even sad. Like she were thinkin’ ’bout things that not only got her down but things also that she couldn’t figgure.
No nudie action here, fer shore. She’d ob-ver-us-lee already hadda shower an’ were fixin’ ta bed down. Goop moved on.
The very next hole— Goop stopped, stuck his eye right up.
An’ there she were.
Nekit, like the first time he seed her, an’ touchin herself. Goop had to touch hisself just lookin’, purdy as she were. I loves her so much, he thought, pressin’ his hand against his pants front. I’d marries her inna heartbeat, an’ be a good husband ta boot…
His eye, a’corse, didn’t have a whole lotta mobility, peepin’ inta that wall-hole, but he coulds see just the same. There were some funky li’l commuter-thing sittin’ with its lid up on the desk, but Miss Jerrica herself…
She were layin’ on the big, high bed an’ moanin’ an’ squirmin’ as her hand played with her girly parts. I loves her, he thought again, squeezin’ his own crotch whiles he were watchin’. Ever-thing about her were just beautiful. Them pretty tits onner, them long tan legs and trim tummy. Her bush—swear ta God!—were the same fine bright-blond color as her hair. Shiny as silk, it were!
Then Goop thought: Wonders what she thinkin’ ’bout whiles she doin’ it. I wonder if she thinkin’ ’bout me…
She were done, though, in another minute ’er so, so loud enough fer Goop ta hear through that wall. Her face turnt a kinda soft-pink, then her tensed-up body went just as soft. Then she laid there fer a few, her chest goin’ up’n down. An’ then—
She leaned up, turnt over onner side. That vision just there—Jerrica half rolled over—almost made Goop shoot a wad right in his pants, it did! ’cos he could see her li’l beaver pressed ’tween her cheeks as she done so, like a li’l blond chipmunk like the kind that run ’round in back, in Miss Annie’s flowers. Cutest li’l thing…
But—
What’n tarnations she doin’ now? he thought.
She was leanin’ over ta the nightstand, fishin’ somethin’ out. Hadda lady’s compact mirror open an’ were pourin’ somethin’ onta it, then choppin’ it up with what looked like a razor blade.
What the—
Then he knowed.
Miss Jerrica, what she done then was she brought that li’l mirror upta her face an’ started sniffin’…
Drugs, Goop thought. He’d heard about it from folks. The devil’s toy, Miss Annie’d said once, commentin’ ’bout it. It were this city stuff, this white powder, that folks’d sniff inta their noses an’ mess ’em alls up. Mess up their heads, it would was what Annie’d said, make ’em git close ta the devil. She’s doin’ drugs, Goop realized, his unblinkin’ eye pressed hard against that hole. The devil’s gotta hard bite on her!
She sniffed that evil stuff up a coupla times, then lay back with a tiny grin onner face. Then—
She got up, slipped onna nightgow
n an’ left the room.
Goop had no idea where she might be goin’ at this hour, but he didn’t care. All he knowed was this: I loves her, an’ I gots ta help her fight that devil-made ah-dik-sher-un she got…
Goop, frantic now, paced back down the unlit corridors until he got back to his own room.
Then he raced out.
(V)
Charity couldn’t sleep. She tossed amid the sheets, audibly whining. Each time she started to nod off, some awful dream would plague her, mostly dreams of her past men, the men who had rejected her and never said why. What’s wrong with me? Why do I repulse men every time I’m with them?
Familiar questions, and familiarly unanswered. Mental block, she always told herself. Some aspect of her subconscious, perhaps, was blocking her capacity for sensation.
Then, she’d keep waking up.
But was that what really bothered her?
No…
She knew what it was. That grave. That little stone.
R.I.P. scratched onto it, below the base.
Geraldine, forgive me.
Whose grave was it? Why did her aunt go there?
My aunt…
Maybe she’d thus far kept the ultimate question out of her mind.
It was something secret.
Why had Annie not mentioned this second grave—this unmarked grave?
And maybe it was her imagination, but—
Though this was the first time in two decades that Charity had actually seen her aunt, she had, in fact, received many letters from her over the years. Hundreds of letters—
And now she couldn’t help but think about that.
The etched scrawl at the bottom of the gravestone…
It must be my imagination, she thought.
But the etched scrawl at the bottom of the gravestone reminded her of Aunt Annie’s penmanship.
(VI)