Stefan put his arm around her. “The short woman, the one with the red scarf on her head – she’s in there with three men I can’t tell apart. They’re each one eating spaghetti out of a can with their fingers. They’re ignoring each other and they ignored us.”
Drew asked, “What does Brentley have to say about it?”
Stefan nodded; he’d been expecting the question. “To him, they feel disconnected from reality. Like sleepwalkers.”
Sally pointed. “Yes - sleepwalkers, that’s what I thought too.”
“Is it drugs?” asked Greg.
They all looked first to Kaye. She seemed a bit surprised by this, but answered, “I don’t think so. These people are borderline malnourished, they’re exhausted and they have varying levels of tooth decay. But I didn’t sense any drugs in their systems.”
“You can sense tooth decay?” asked an impressed Rosemary.
“I don’t have to sense it. I could see it.” Kaye gave an involuntary shudder. “That home is the most repulsive place I’ve ever been inside. I don’t know whether it should be cleaned with alcohol or burned to the ground. And any of these people I’ve gotten close enough to smell, well - they’re going a long time between showers. Their clothes aren’t being washed properly.”
Rosemary turned to Sally. “Sal, what do you get?”
Sally tamped down on her desire to grin at the pleasure of being called on to give an opinion. “Their auras taste like dry rot,” she said.
They all processed the information for a few quiet moments.
“Okay,” said Rosemary. “Cloda says they’re under a spell and we need to find the source of it, or we need to find Elton. So let’s talk about how we’re going to do this.”
Stefan stopped further discussion. “Before we make plans, can we can get out of the rain? I’m soaked clear to my skin.”
Chapter Eight
Othernaturals Season 6, Episode 5
Eyeteeth Mountain, Missouri; June 2015
They made a plan, the seven of them together in Ardelia’s front room. They needed to leave Slope in a day and a half, and had much to accomplish, so they divided the tasks. Rosemary and Andrew were staying in Slope that night, to keep an eye on things here and observe the behavior of the townspeople in the morning. Then they would search the area for the source of the curse.
Everyone else was going to Gully, the town in the valley below the mountain, to sleep in a dry motel and to shop for supplies. The following day, Stefan, Kaye and Greg would go to the Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chair Factory to observe, check that area for curse-causing totems, and possibly to speak with Elton Baker and see how amenable he was to visiting his grandmother. Sally and Judge would visit with the local sheriff (an appointment had been hastily arranged, with Greg insisting that “local law enforcement is great show material!”), where they would get the real story on what happened between Willie Baker and his accusers. Then, the teammates working in Gully would meet up when their tasks were complete, and return to Slope, grab Rosemary and Andrew, and they’d all head to the mountaintop to revisit Cloda. Maybe with Elton?
As they volunteered for various jobs, Sally checked the bright pink phone she’d kept with her throughout the day. Almost twelve hours had gone by since she’d called the three people on Tina’s contacts list, and she’d gotten no response from any of them.
Rosemary saw the look on her face. “Nothing yet, Sal?”
“Not a peep.” Sally sighed. “Thanks a lot, Julie, Brenda and Roxy. They’re probably all three friends of Tina’s who live right here in Slope, and they’re all just as screwed as she is.”
She started to put the phone back in her pocket, but Greg stopped her. “Hang on a second, Babygirl. Let me see that phone, wouldja?” He took it from her and went back to Tina’s picture file with its hundreds of seemingly mundane snapshots.
“Something has been bothering me all day, about these pictures. Let’s see.” He began scrolling through, and after a moment, starting showing what he was looking at. “Look here. This bunch of the remodeled car - these were taken less than a year ago. Look at the houses behind the car.”
Everybody did, and quickly they understood what had tickled Greg’s interest. The remodeled car was photographed from many angles, thus giving a fairly panoramic view of Slope. One would never call the town a tourist attraction; in fact, none of these houses or yards would pass muster in a homeowner’s association - but still. Less than a year ago, this tiny town had still been in working order. There were people on the porches. The houses stood upright. Most of them were even neatly painted, with all of their windows and roofs intact.
“It’s like the place is eroding before our eyes,” breathed Stefan.
Sally speculated, “Maybe the curse isn’t just on the people but on the whole town.”
“Like the people and their homes and their minds all have the same degenerative disease,” said Kaye. “It’s monstrous and frankly, it’s ridiculous. We have to put a stop to it.”
“Damn right.” Rosemary cringed at her own choice of words, and called out, “Sorry, Miss Ardelia,” but Miss Ardelia had apparently not heard the swear-word. Rosemary had been digging through her “magic bag of drugs” that had been benevolently stolen from Ivy Robbins last year, and finding what she’d wanted, handed Kaye a rattling bottle of pills. “Here. If you get a chance, slip five or six of these in Elton’s drink. Make him pliable, and agreeable.”
Kaye’s mouth dropped open.
“Well,” Rosemary argued, “it couldn’t hurt.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Kaye scolded sarcastically; then, having done so, she took the bottle of pills and put them in her bag, explaining with a hard shrug, “He’s a gigantic warlock. Can’t be too careful.”
The five departing members finished packing their things and went back to the Mercedes: Judge with Vladimir, then Greg, Stefan, Kaye, and Sally bringing up the rear. They passed by Ardelia in the hallway and bid her many thanks and see-you-tomorrows, though she only nodded brusquely and said, “Less trouble for me.”
It was worse than dark by the time they left, and only because the Mercedes had tremendously powerful headlights were they able to navigate the roads. As Stefan carefully guided the Mercedes away from Slope, nobody spoke much. They were all feeling a little bit like cheaters.
“Does anyone else feel like we’re bailing on Rosemary?” Sally asked.
Eventually, replies came back: yes, they kind of did.
Judge groaned. “I think the better question is, does anyone feel bad enough about it to go back? I don’t want to share a bed with the Old Man again; his elbows poke me.”
“And I’d love a real shower,” said Kaye almost wistfully, as if they had been in the wilderness for a week instead of a night.
Greg added, “And a bed that doesn’t smell like whatever the hell it is that house smells like – bad lard? Burned hair?”
Sally realized they seemed to be leaving the final decision to her, which was great because they respected her opinion, and bad because ultimately she was the one with the allergy who had a medical reason for leaving. She really did not like the thought of abandoning Tina to the horrors of Slope. But at the end of this muddy drive she would be closer to her next goal: the town sheriff, and answers for Tina’s sake.
Sally decided. “No, let’s go to the motel. Rosemary said it was fine and I think it will actually make her happier. She felt bad about the lousy sleeping situation for us.”
Judge sighed audibly with relief – he wasn’t the only one. He said, “Then it’s settled, and I’m officially over the guilt.”
*****
Rosemary and Andrew stood and watched their friends drive away from the relative shelter of Ardelia’s porch. Andrew put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed, lamenting, “Ah, it’s always hard when the kids leave home.”
“I lied to them, when I said I’d never again make our lodging plans sight unseen,” Rosemary said as she giggled. “I’ll probably make lot
s more plans, sight unseen.”
“Of course you will. It’s good material.” Andrew jerked his head at the sad house behind them. “But you got all the footage you needed already, so why not let the kids have a sleepover?” He lowered his voice. “My only question is, why did you stay here? You can’t like it any better than anyone else.”
Rosemary whispered, “It’s stupid, but I didn’t want to hurt Ardelia’s feelings.”
“Are you serious? You are! That’s not stupid, that’s sweet.”
“It’s the weirdest thing,” Rosemary said. “I feel kind of like a kindred spirit to her. I don’t even mind that she’s rude to us. I like the way she talks too. I can’t always follow her words but I always know what she means.”
“I feel that way about Judge most of the time.”
“What about you? Why did you stay?”
“Fishing for compliments again?”
“Yes. Can I get some please?”
“I can’t bear the thought of being more than two decrepit shacks away from you. I’d kiss you now except we’re being watched.” This last, he said in a low whisper.
“Honestly, if you hadn’t stayed, I might have cried.” She had not yet met his gaze, unsure if she could bear the intensity of eye contact. The heavy strong arm around her was already tipping the balance of her resolve. Best to focus on something else for now. “There’s a little more breathing room in the house now. Why don’t we get dry and then we can camp out in the front room and watch the town, see if anything interesting happens in the wee hours. Maybe we’ll get another sleepwalker out wandering.”
They went back inside, where Ardelia was lurking close by. “You’uns ain’t leaving with your friends, I see.”
They’d already explained this to her. Far be it from Ardelia, however, to miss a chance to be annoyed. Rosemary answered jovially. “Andrew and I will stay here, to keep an eye on the town. We’re going to watch for a while. Would you like to join us?”
“Watch it for what? Ain’t nothing going to happen, nothing ever happens at night.”
Rosemary shrugged. “I don’t know, Miss Ardelia. It seems whenever we’re around, plenty of things happen that nobody expected.”
*****
Gully was in the valley south of Eyeteeth Mountain, with three smaller mountains crowding its other cardinal directions. The storm that had pummeled Eyeteeth relentlessly for the last few days appeared to be focused on that mountain specifically; after spreading outward from it, the clouds dissipated and some actual light managed to break through. Sally surprised to see that it there was still some daylight to be had, though it was well after eight in the evening. She was careful to replace all her usual protective gear.
Daylight or not, she tried to peer up the Eyeteeth Mountain when they arrived at their motel. It seemed that a great boil of thunderheads swelled over the top half of the mountain, dumping rain. Sally hadn’t watched a weather report in a week and wondered what meteorologists were thinking of this. How far away was the nearest town of any substantial size, someplace with a TV station? Gully’s population was just under 1200 people, as Sally had noted on the town limits sign. It was a poor town and its concrete buildings and hand-painted signs didn’t appear to have changed in 40 years. Finding the grocery store was faintly comical. Greg searched for it on his maps app and was informed that the store was forty meters from where they sat in their Mercedes in the motel parking lot. They all turned around to see it across the road.
“Oh. Found it,” said Greg. “Let’s go stock up.”
She’d been on plenty of trips to small country towns with the group, so Sally was no longer surprised by the dark, tiny grocery stores with their highly limited selection of products, their outdated cash registers, buzzing fluorescent lights, crackling Muzak and complete lack of amenities. Still, she never went into one without remembering her first experience in such a place. What town had that been? Derry or Cherry, someplace on the vast flatland between Kansas City and Wichita, known for having a graveyard with a singing ghost. There, the only grocery store in town was three shelves of what only the locals were willing to buy: Mr. Kooter’s favorite brand of chili, and Mrs. Blister’s favorite brand of ketchup, and those weird pickled onions that Cowhand Elsie demanded. No coffee shop, deli, bakery, pharmacy, photo center, dry cleaning, snack bar – not even a gumball machine.
Compared to the glowing, soccer-field sized supermarkets her parents had frequented in the suburbs of Kansas City, that lost little place had been less like a grocery store than like the ill-stocked pantry of a soup kitchen. So on a scale of country stores, Gully’s store was about an 8/10, meaning that its selection was improved slightly by tourism: hikers and camping vacationers who came to see the mountains and the famous trails. Kaye, probably the most experienced grocery shopper of them all, got a rickety grocery cart and led them through like they were her various young charges, promising them all that they could each pick one treat if they were good in the store, until they lugged four brown paper sacks and three cases of beer and soda out the door, and across the street again.
*****
The young ones, which is how Kaye thought of Sally, Greg and Judge, gathered in one room to edit film and watch television. It seemed ironic to Kaye - they each had at least two electronic devices that could stream TV shows, but even to the “young ones,” there remained something comforting about turning on a real television set with its touchstones of 24-hour action news teams, cheap local commercials and scrolling weather reports.
Kaye turned on her own television set when she finally dragged off her boots in the room she was to share with Stefan. It was dry in here, and before this trip, Kaye had seriously underestimated the value of being in a dry room. Never again! She shed her clothes, which were still damp in all seams and corners, and stretched out naked on the gloriously dry blanket of the queen-sized bed. This motel was actually slightly nicer than she’d been expecting. Instead of a sleazy place that charged by the hour with a parking lot discreetly ‘round the back, Tricia had booked them into a tourist spot that only slightly overcharged for the privilege of a clean bed and bathroom. Kaye pulled the blanket around herself, snuggling luxuriously. Stefan was in the bathroom, the shower running, and she’d meant to join him but found herself unwilling to leave this unexpected comfort.
It had been a strange day, peppered with revelations and confrontations, the tension of the unnatural storm and the troubling situation in Slope making her feel the slow burn of worry. Still, nothing could seem to dislodge from the front of her mind the possibilities of Cloda Baker’s grimoire. With that desire came another slow-burn problem - her reluctance to tell Stefan about it. What on earth made her think he would mind, or care, or judge her for it?
She knew what made her nervous, silly as it might seem: Stefan thought she was the righteous one. If she came out and admitted that she was just as susceptible to the lure of magic as the rest of them, would he think less of her? That was stupid. Stefan loved her. She should just tell him what she wanted; he’d find out soon enough.
As soon as she decided to tell him, though, that niggling worry came back. Kaye wasn’t used to being insecure about relationships. She was insecure about nothing, ordinarily. But this - oh, this felt like her persistent resistance towards introducing Stefan to her son. The two most important people in her life and they had never met - unless a brief chat on the phone counted, the one time Stefan had picked up her line when Milo called unexpectedly to tell her some good news.
One thing this trip had done for Kaye was remind her of just how superstitious she really could be. She had the most inexplicable fear of karmic reprisals, should she ever intersect Martin with Stefan.
Not Martin, Milo. She’d meant Milo.
“Oh holy shit,” she said aloud, marveling at her own tunnel-vision. “Well of course.”
“What’s up?” asked Stefan, swinging open the bathroom door, the steam from the shower wafting gently out. Kaye turned her head, looking at him up
side down from her position on the bed. He had no idea how sexy he looked, hot and damp and wet-headed, towel slung around his waist, even with a white toothbrush between his teeth. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him. She ran her eyes over him, his body lean and hardened but rather elegant too; he had that same wiry strength as dancing legend Fred Astaire. Stefan could certainly make a bath towel look good - Kaye didn’t know if Fred Astaire would have been quite so hot in white terrycloth, all dewy and fragrant from the shower.
“Were you talking to me?” he asked.
“I’m embarrassed at how dense I am,” she confessed.
Stefan spoke around his toothbrush; she could barely understand him, but he said, “I worry about that too. How dense you are.”
“I was just lying here wondering why I’ve never introduced you to my son. Face to face. Formally. He was home for five days just a couple months ago, and I should have invited you. I’m so sorry.”
“You hadn’t seen him in seven months,” Stefan reminded her carefully, slowly, toothbrush bobbing comically. “That visit wasn’t about me; I don’t mind.”
He had never chastised her for anything - anyway, not since they’d become a couple. Stefan didn’t think he was good enough for her, so never dared to criticize. Or maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as all that, maybe infatuation made him forgiving. Still, he seemed to accept her every move as the correct one.
Kaye said, “Well I’ve figured it out, thanks to a little Freudian slip. It just came to me. Milo is all that’s really left of Martin in this world. I’m afraid if I put the two of you in the same room, it will be some kind of sleight to his memory. That somehow Martin will know that I fell in love again and it will hurt him.”
Stefan’s face creased with concern. “Oh Katie - no, never - how could he ever be angry at you?”
“It’s the way he died,” Kaye said, not exactly answering the question. “Poor boy, dying at nineteen. Just a little older than Brentley was, right? Dying that young is a tragedy, and dying before you can make any real mistakes is pretty unfair to the rest of us. Now Martin gets to be forever remembered as a wonderful young man with unlimited potential in life, and the rest of us have to live up to that.”
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