August Moon

by Jess Lourey

  “The Lord’s work? Kidnapping and murdering young women?”

  “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all of them also that love His appearing.”

  “Amen,” Sissy seconded, as she stripped off a loud piece of duct tape from a roll on the couch and bound Weston’s wrists. She grunted and strained as she dragged him roughly to the horrific tableau behind me, pushing me aside as she struggled past. Weston was still out cold, though I thought I saw his eyelids flutter for a second.

  When Sissy passed directly behind me, I could see sweat leaking through the back of her blue-flowered, cotton dress. I wanted to jump on her and make her stop, but she had arms like Popeye and would make short work of me if Naomi didn’t shoot me first.

  Naomi scowled at her sister’s interruption. “I can’t imagine you would understand what it’s like to lose a child and to find forgiveness and peace only by agreeing to do God’s bidding. Robert pegged you as a heathen from the first. That may have been the only thing he was right about. He always came up short, though, my Robert.”

  “What was all that about him being the head and you only being the neck?”

  “The neck turns the head, my dear.”

  Sissy returned to the den and stood by me with hands on pear-shaped hips, breathing heavily. “What are we going to do with her?”

  Excellent question. “I could convert.”

  “Tie her up and put her with the others.”

  Sissy shoved me roughly. “And then what?” I asked. A mental picture of Lucy Lebowski, her perfect young back marred by a murky hole big enough to put a fist through, flitted behind my eyes, unwanted.

  “‘If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee.’ Proverbs, chapter 25, verses 21–22.”

  “You’re going to burn my house down?”

  “It’s the only way, Sissy. I already wrote Robert’s suicide note and left it at the camp. Apparently he couldn’t stand the shame of kidnapping and killing four teenage girls. He beat his wife within an inch of her life and went to his sister-in-law’s house to kill himself and destroy all evidence.”

  I shook my head. “That’ll never work. He’ll be found tied up. And how will you explain me and Weston being here?”

  “The fire will burn his bindings off before they find your corpses. They can think what they want about you and your fornicating friend.”

  “What about Sissy?” My mouth was dry with desperation. “The police will think she was in on it.”

  “Sissy is officially at the Holiday Inn in St. Cloud. She made a great point of telling me, Alicia, Robert, and the entire congregation that she’d be gone all weekend and wouldn’t be back until Monday morning. She already checked in yesterday. Robert would certainly have taken advantage of that to finish his dirty work in her empty house.” An unsettling, joyful agitation burned in Naomi’s eyes and was reflected in Sissy’s. They had both tumbled over the edge of sanity and were operating on adrenaline and misplaced faith. Standing together, one sister solid as a silo and plain, the other bloody and wasted but oddly striking, I could see just a hint of a resemblance, a glimmer of what they may have looked like, young and hopeful, before this craziness had consumed them.

  “What about Alicia?” Panic made me lightheaded. “You’d kill her father?”

  “Not her true Father. This is all for Him. ‘If God be for us who can be against us?’ Tie her up.”

  I put up a fight with Sissy, who had her gun stuffed in her waistband, but she was built like a brick shithouse, had ten more years of life experience, and was quick as mercury. She had me trussed like a Christmas pig and on the floor within minutes. She dragged me into the little room of horrors, dumping me against a crucifix. The giant nail driven through Jesus’ foot dug in my back. To my left was Weston, whose eyes were closed, but one foot was twitching, like he was chasing rabbits. Straight ahead, Lydia lay on her side in front of the nativity scene, hands and feet tied and facing away from me. Pastor Meale was in the same position as her, only to my right and closer to the door. I could see his eyes were closed.

  Sissy, the workhorse, then brought down a five-gallon can of gasoline and pulled an armload of cotton rags out of the laundry room. She doused them with gasoline, the wicked, heavy stench of fuel slipping into our nostrils. The metal can made a chugging-sucking sound with every splash of gasoline she poured. She piled the incendiary rags on the couch and rug in the main room and trailed some up the stairs. I heard splashing on the floorboards above as she spread out the last of the fuel.

  The smell was suffocating. When Sissy returned to place the empty can near Robert Meales’ slumped and trussed figure, I pleaded with her. “You don’t have to do this. You can stop it all right now.”

  “It’s too late. I have to leave.”

  I would have given all the gardens in Minnesota to do the same. The binding was biting into my wrists, but the pain kept me focused.

  “Is it all set?” Asked Naomi, following her sister into the room. If I was hoping for a twinge of guilt or a last-minute reprieve, it wasn’t coming. Her eyes were as hard as obsidian chips.

  “We should be able to light it from the wheelchair ramp out front,” answered Sissy. “We better get the car on the road first, to be safe.”

  “Come on, then. You’ve got to get back to St. Cloud and I have to get back to the woods by the Bible camp.”

  Not even a backward glance from either woman as they walked up the stairs. The stench of gasoline was so thick that it coated my eyes with a greasy sheen. I tried to shift, but the metal nail in my back scratched at my spine. I endeavored to push it away, but it snagged on the duct tape holding my wrists behind my back. I got an idea—a tiny, desperate idea. I pushed the duct tape against the nail and felt it snag again. I scooted my whole body back toward Jesus’ legs and began to rub the tape furiously against the nail. Robert Meale and Lydia were both lying still, in the same spots and position as when I had first seen them. I could touch them with my foot if I stretched. Weston had stopped twitching on the far side of the room and was now motionless.

  I returned my focus to the task at hand—getting this damned duct tape off my wrists. It was hard to keep getting the right spot without being able to see what I was doing, and several times my wrists slipped and the gargantuan nail sliced me. I didn’t stop, the smell of gasoline pushing against the back of my throat like a finger. The front door slammed, and I imagined I could hear the whoosh of a gas stove firing—first the doused rags leading up the wheelchair ramp, through the entry, down the stairs, and into the heap of gasoline-soaked rags in the center of the lower den. From there, they would take off on the trail leading into this room. We’d probably suffocate before we burned, but it would be a race. I rubbed, harder and harder, and the tape grew hot. Harder and harder I rubbed, ignoring the hot blood trickling down into my cupped fingers.

  I did hear it before I saw it, the whistle of oxygen being removed, followed by a fiery tongue licking down the stairs as fast as a snake. In desperation, I stretched out my leg and kicked over part of the nativity scene in front of me. The manger fell on the cotton rags, disrupting the chain at the door. Still, when the flame snarled toward the entrance of our room, it lit the gas fumes, creating a searing sonic boom that left everyone without eyebrows. My heart raced, and I felt every hair on my body stand up.

  From this angle, I could see that the rug and one of the chairs in the den had caught fire. The manger had bought me some time, but not much. I rubbed with even more gusto, telling myself that my wrists could not feel pain, that they were just instruments. I felt eyes on me and looked up at Lydia. Her head was turned toward me, and her eyes were wide, scared, and young. I wondered if she had been alert the whole time. Te
ars were coursing down her face, but she didn’t say a word, even though her mouth was not bound. Across the room, Weston was beginning to shift, but Robert Meale remained still as a statue, his eyes closed, on his side but facing me.

  One monumental tug on the nail, and there was suddenly give in my wrists. I pulled them apart at an angle and was able to free them of the duct tape. Sweat coursed down my face as I tried to draw oxygen out of the heated air. I felt like a roasting pig on preheat. I turned to the Jesus statue and used my tender and bleeding hands to wiggle the railroad-sized nail out of his feet. When it was free, I plunged its sharp point into the duct binding my ankles. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the couch go up in flames that were now licking hungrily at the walls. In the center of the main room, the rags burned ineffectually, their gasoline power long gone, but the linoleum at the edges of the walls was curling and blistering like an open sore.

  I pulled my legs apart, but the duct tape was still too tight to rip. I plunged the nail twice more into the empty spot between my ankles, trying not to notice how difficult it was to breathe. Across from me, Lydia whimpered, her first sound.

  “Mira?”

  “Weston? Are you awake?” He moaned and sat up drunkenly. I ripped viciously at the duct tape, and suddenly, I was free.

  I rushed over to Weston and set him free, too. He was still groggy, and I slapped him across the face hard enough to leave a mark.

  “Get out now, Weston! Get Lydia and go!”

  He stood up shakily. “What about you?”

  The flames were kissing the door frame, little pecks at first, but it only took seconds for the fire to become a towering demon, its tongue darting out lasciviously into the room and along the ceiling. I coughed out orders. “I can walk out of here. Go now! There isn’t time to get her bindings off.”

  He scooped up Lydia, and for a terrible moment, I thought he was going to pass out. He rallied himself, wrapped his cape around Lydia and himself, and then charged through the flames and up the stairs.

  I crouched low, but the smoke was everywhere. Using my teeth on his duct tape, I had Pastor Meale free in less than six seconds. “Get up! I know you can hear me. If you don’t get up now, you’ll die.”

  The pastor’s voice, deep and sad, rumbled out of his body. “‘But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.”

  There simply wasn’t time. I reached over and grabbed the nativity scene baby Jesus that had rolled out with the manger, and I conked Robert over the head with it. It was a good, solid noggin-bonker, and it laid him out cold. “The Lord helps those who help themselves,” I whispered hoarsely.

  I was able to drag Robert all of three feet before my ankle gave out. Fortunately, Weston had returned down the fiery stairs, a wet blanket over his head and another in his hands. He shoveled Robert Meale onto his shoulders, and together we scuttled clumsily up the stairs, the flames caressing our legs, begging us to stay.

  Free of the house, I was confused by the complete and utter darkness of the outdoors. “Where’s the moon?” I croaked through a smoke-seared throat.

  Thunder answered my question, followed by raindrops as big and heavy as grapes. Fresh water poured down on my shoulders, as sweet as balm, cooling my raw wrists and hot skin. I guess the August Moon Festival had worked its magic.

  Ironically, the torrent of rain kept Sissy Meales’ house on Hancock Lake from burning to the ground. The gory church-room, the den, and the stairs were the only areas to suffer real damage. Weston Lippmann was as good as his word and had a radio in his car. He had an ambulance, a fire truck, three state troopers, and two unmarked cars at Hancock Lake within twenty-two minutes of sending out the word.

  Lydia was traumatized, but she would heal. Robert Meale came to shortly after the ambulance arrived and was pronounced physically healthy except for a concussion. His immortal soul was a different matter.

  After Weston gave instructions on where to find Sissy and Mrs. Meale, he and I were driven off in the ambulance. On the ride he told me Sissy’s real name was Constance Penwick, long-suffering younger sister of Naomi Meale, nee Penwick. Likely, Sissy was the reason the Meales chose to move to Battle Lake. In the course of his investigation, Weston had found no other connections tying them to this area.

  I took wicked pleasure at the thought of Mrs. Meale, lying in wait in the woods, a smirk on her twisted, puffy face as she heard the police sirens blaring toward the Bible camp. She would think they were coming looking for her to tell her her husband had gone up in smoke; they would really be coming to handcuff her and toss her to the mercy of very human judges. All her self-flagellation was for naught.

  The ambulance brought Weston and me to the Douglas County Hospital in Alexandria, where the same nurse who had originally treated my sprained ankle—telling me sternly not to put any pressure on it—was still on duty. When she saw the grass and dirt stains on the bottom of my straggling bandage, surface burns on both feet, charred hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and wrists rubbed raw, she looked at me like I didn’t even deserve ankles. This time, I took the crutches.

  I took a week off to recover, leaving Mrs. Berns and Sarah Ruth in charge of the library. Sid and Nancy took turns running baked goods out to me and tending to my lawn, garden, and animals. It had been raining steadily and pleasantly since the rock-and-roll thunderstorm the night of the fire, and all of Otter Tail County grew furiously, brazenly lush and as humid as a greenhouse.

  I healed along with the parched ground. The burns and abrasions mended quickly, but it took all of the week before my ankle went from pumpkin-sized to merely swollen. I had to chop off a couple inches of hair, my lungs weren’t yet at full capacity, and it’d be a few months before I’d have eyebrows again, but I was alive. When I returned to work, I had a new writing assignment for the paper: cover the affirmation celebration Pastor Winter wanted to hold the coming weekend. I researched the topic, mostly by pumping Mrs. Berns for information. She and I were alone as Sarah Ruth had failed to turn up for work.

  “Tell me again why Pastor Winter was out at the Bible camp the night Lydia disappeared.”

  Mrs. Berns leaned her face into the palm of her hand, her elbows on the front desk across from me. Her eyes were sparkly, like they always are when she’s got a good story. “He knew they were up to no good. He was looking for Lydia, just like you.”

  “Why’d he suspect the Meales?”

  “He’d been at that Wisconsin seminary with Robert when he and Naomi lost their baby. Said it was a real scandal. Well, not so much said it, but I could tell that’s what he meant. Said it was a tragedy, broke Naomi in half. She just stopped walking, eating, started talking in tongues. The Meales disappeared after that. When they showed up in Battle Lake last fall, Pastor Winter ogled them.”

  “What?”

  Mrs. Berns rolled her eyes. “It’s called the Internet. You want information, you ogle it. Welcome to the twentieth century.”

  I rubbed my ankle, feeling no need to correct her about what century it was or the difference between ogling and googling. “And what’d he find out? When he ogled them, that is?”

  “Same thing you found. They went to Georgia, started a church, but Mrs. Meale just got crazier and crazier and talked him into starting that whacky Christ’s Church of the Apocryphal Revelation. Then, a couple teenagers get shot in the back, the Meales skip town, and next thing you know, they’re in Battle Lake. When Lucy turned up shot the same way, Winter knew there was a connection, but didn’t know what. He was trying to find that out when you saw him at the Bible camp the night of the Festival.”

  I stretched, enjoying a comfortable silence with Mrs. Berns as we both chewed our thoughts. I realized I still had an unanswered question. “So, how’d the Meales know the teenagers in Georgia?”

  “Robert Meale didn’t. Naomi Meale confessed to meeting them both at a girl’s after-school center she volunteered at. Said when she saw them, she knew she had to save ’em.”

  I shivered. “With hel
p like that, you almost don’t want to leave the house.”

  Mrs. Berns nodded agreeably. “Pastor Winter feels terrible he wasn’t able to prevent Lucy’s death.”

  Pastor Winter hadn’t been able to save Lucy or find Lydia, but he had done what he could to heal the town. He started by initiating a calling chain in his congregation, arranging for members to be with Lydia and her family at all times. They would be up to their ears in hotdish, ham, buttered dinner rolls, and jello salad until Lydia was comfortable and the family felt safe once more. Lucy Lebowski’s family would never feel safe again, but I knew Pastor Winter would make sure they felt the support and comfort of their community for as long as they lived here.

  Once he was satisfied he was doing everything in his power to heal the town, he turned to his religion. Calling together some of his most active congregants in an emergency meeting, he put forth the need for some large-scale event to restore faith in the church. He wanted to call it the “Apologies, Not Apostasies” Festival and hold it as soon as possible. He envisioned closing down Lake Street, bringing in a Christian band, and having arts and crafts booths, bake sales, and profuse literature highlighting the “upbeat” parts of the Bible along with walking, talking pastors from other communities called in to heal the town through Jesus’ words.

  Sid and Nancy talked him down from the lofty pulpit, gently arguing that people may have had enough evangelizing for a while and that an encore to the August Moon Festival, which had been sadly interrupted, would be the way to go. After all, they pointed out, Pastor Winter had often told them that our goodness is seen in our actions, not our words.

  They agreed on a town-wide potluck with arts and crafts, bake sales, and Not with My Horse playing in the afternoon. All proceeds from the bake sales would be divided evenly between Lucy’s and Lydia’s families. Kennie agreed to close off Lake Street from one p.m. to six p.m. this Saturday, and I agreed to write an article promoting the event for the Battle Lake Recall.