Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  Holly followed her mother’s red-enameled fingernail. “The tan one near that big white ‘B’ on the mountain?”

  “Yep. That’s where we’re going to live. Over the river and through the woods, then out to the dried-up middle-of-nowhere to Grandmother’s house we go.”

  “It’s gigantic!” Holly edged away as her mother lit another Virginia Slim. “Do you think I can have my own room?” She hated the way the stink of her mom’s cigarettes clung to her hair and clothes. It was gross. At their studio apartment in Van Nuys she could never escape the smell.

  “She’d better give us our own rooms!” Cherry coughed. “That place is five stories and the first four are the hotel. I want hotel rooms so we don’t have to live in her damned penthouse with her.”

  Holly heard the venom in Cherry’s voice. “Why don’t you like Grandmother?”

  “She’s a vain old woman; all she does is criticize. You’ll see. You’ll want to keep your trap shut around her or she’ll pick on you. She still thinks she’s a goddamned movie star.” Cherry paused. “Trust me, kid, if she makes us live on the fifth floor with her, we’ll be scrubbing crap out of her toilet and wiping her ass.”

  Though just eleven, Holly barely remembered her grandmother, but she hated the way Cherry talked about her. Delilah Devine was a glamorous movie star in the old days and she thought Cherry - she insisted Holly call by her first name - was just jealous. Cherry Devine was in movies, too - but last month she’d announced she was taking a break.

  That’s why they were moving to Brimstone, Arizona.

  Holly knew it had to be more than that - Cherry didn’t like her mother and probably needed money really bad to go live with her. ‘Delilah Devine’ was her grandmother’s name. Cherry was Cherry Devine Tremayne, but she was only married about five minutes and never ever used her married name. Holly was secretly glad she had her father’s last name instead of ‘Devine,’ which was just too much, especially since that fat guy who dressed in ladies’ clothes hit the Hollywood scene. She heard about Divine a lot because Cherry kept laughing and saying she bet Delilah really hated him.

  “Come on, kid.” Cherry took a pull on her smoke. “Time to get a move on.”

  Holly nodded and got in the car, a red 1966 Ford Falcon - her mother called it “Cherry Red” - that she bought new a couple years ago when she played a stewardess in a movie called Friendly Skies. She called it “high class” but wouldn’t let Holly see it. Cherry never let Holly see any of her movies.

  Cherry pulled the Falcon back onto the narrow road that had twisted and turned for half an hour before they’d come to the turn-out where they finally got their first sight of the town. Now, they continued following its hairpin turns, and Holly caught glimpses of Brimstone between trees and hills. It looked ramshackle and old. Really old.

  Finally, they began passing ancient buildings - shacks, really - roofless cabins, cement pads with nothing left on them, little clapboard houses with broken windows and no doors. Holly opened her mouth to ask if all of Brimstone was like this, but saw Cherry’s hands gripping the steering wheel white-knuckle hard. Her face was set and determined, her eyes unreadable behind big white-rimmed sunglasses. Her lips had another long cigarette in a death-grip.

  Holly touched the passenger window - it was warm outside but not as hot as she’d feared. Still, she hoped there would be air conditioning where they were going. Or even electricity!

  They passed a brown and white sign that read:

  Welcome to Brimstone

  Population 3021

  “We’re here,” Cherry grumbled around her cigarette.

  “I wonder what the school’s like.” Holly would be starting sixth grade in September and had been looking forward to it before the move. Now, she was worried; she hated the idea of being the new kid, but at least it wasn’t like she had to walk into a strange classroom in the middle of the school year. That would be the worst.

  “Schools and students are all the same.” Cherry stubbed her smoke out in the overflowing ashtray. “There are girls who think they’re better than everybody else if they’re boobs are coming in.” She glanced at Holly’s flat chest. “Plenty of them aren’t yet, don’t worry. There are always boys who pull your hair because they like you, and boys who fight all the time. Girls who dot their i’s with little round circles, or worse, hearts. Stay away from those girls, kid, they’re weird. Usually stuck-up little brats. Then there are the kids who go to detention three times a week like I did.” She laughed and ended up coughing. “Takes all kinds. You’ll fit right in.” She glanced over. “You always fit in, Holly. That’s your special talent.”

  “It is?”

  “Um-hmm. I’ve seen you. So many times, back when you were little, I’d take you to the park and watch you. In five minutes, you had a new best friend, every single time. And that, Holly, is a real talent. Use it right and you’ll be rich someday.”

  It didn’t feel much like a talent. She just hated being alone all the time. Mostly Holly visited the park by herself, and her favorite trips were when her mother gave her change to buy an ice cream at Thrifty’s on the way to hang out on the swings and monkey bars. That happened whenever Cherry brought home a boyfriend.

  Holly stared out at the houses - mostly old and dinky - with rocks and manzanita, yuccas, and big junipers surrounding them instead of lawns and flower beds. There were quite a few trees, some tall sycamores, but mostly they were stunted oaks and smallish willows. As they wove higher into town, pines began dotting the landscape. It sure didn’t look anything like Van Nuys. Neither did the brilliant blue sky and the white puffy clouds drifting on the wind; in Los Angeles the sky was so smoggy and yellow that some days it even hurt to breathe when she ran or played tetherball. “Why did Grandmother move here?”

  “You got me, kid.” Cherry glanced at her. “Get in my purse and get me out a stick of Juicy Fruit. You can have one, too. Watch it around your granny though - she’s death on gum.”

  Holly pulled Cherry’s white plastic purse into her lap and rummaged past extra packs of Slims, a handful of lipsticks, little Avon perfume sprayers, all kinds of eye makeup and powder and blush, and finally found the gum. She unwrapped two sticks.

  “Put it right in here.” Cherry opened her mouth.

  Holly put one stick in Cherry’s mouth, then one in her own. “Brimstone seems like a weird place to live.”

  “You think?” Cherry barked a laugh. Then coughed. “Hippies, bikers, artists, a lotta gun-toting desert rats. Religious nuts and Commie-haters judging by the number of American flags flying. And your grandmother.” She shook her head. “And us. I hope we don’t have to stay long.”

  “So, we’re just here for a break?” Holly had wanted to ask before, but hadn’t dared; sometimes questions like that made Cherry furious.

  “Yeah. A break between jobs. The minute Larry calls me with the right gig, we’ll go back to Hollywood where we belong.”

  But Larry Zimmer, Cherry’s agent, hadn’t been calling much lately.

  “Look at that.” As they drove into downtown, Cherry pointed at a big wooden buffalo standing on the sidewalk outside a saloon.

  “Maybe there are real bison here,” Holly said, half hoping. “Do you think?”

  “Nah, it’s just a cowboy-and-Indian thing. This town thinks it’s part of the Wild West - and, you know, kid, they’re pretty much right.” Cherry snapped her gum. “Watch for a gas station.”

  They rounded a bend and hit Main Street proper. Holly stared up at the skinny false front buildings lining the narrow street. They loomed, seeming to lean forward as they cast tall shadows. She hadn’t had time to research much before they left Van Nuys, but she had been at the library long enough to find out Brimstone was a copper mining town in the 1800s that pretty much died out around 1930. It was almost a ghost town until a few years ago when artists and other unusual-type people started moving in.

  Some of the buildings looked empty but most had businesses in them. Holly spotted a
stained glass shop, a couple of music stores (one blaring White Rabbit, one of her favorites because it was based on Alice in Wonderland, a book she loved), more bars and restaurants and markets, rock shops, and a bunch of souvenir shops. The musky scent of patchouli incense floated from one shop. Above all the businesses were crooked brick and clapboard second stories that looked like homes. She saw bicycles locked to haphazard wooden stairs, ferns hanging on porches, and curtains in windows; she smiled, thinking it would be a very adventurous place to live.

  A black and white dog barked at them from the open window of a parked car as they wound up the curving street. Holly could have reached out and touched it, it was so close. “There. There’s gas.” She pointed at a tiny Humble station that seemed to be hanging off a cliff dead ahead, right where Main Street made a sharp turn and continued up the hill.

  “Good, we’re on fumes.” Cherry headed into the lot and pulled up at one of the old-fashioned round-headed pumps. An elderly man in denim overalls and a red kerchief in his pocket came out and headed their way.

  “Here, kid,” Cherry said. “Go buy us some soda pop. I want a Dr. Pepper.” She pressed change into Holly’s hand.

  As the old man went to Cherry’s window to see what kind of gas she wanted, Holly hopped out and walked to the office, enjoying the feel of the warm, dry high desert air against her skin. There was a faded lost child poster in the window, a Pepsi ad, and a sign for the annual Fourth of July Picnic, just passed. She pushed the door open, setting off a cacophony of bells, then turned, looking for the soda chest.

  “It’s right behind you, honey.”

  Surprised, Holly glanced up to see an old lady sitting behind the counter. She could just see her face above the Baby Ruths, Jolly Ranchers, displays of Certs, and Juicy Fruit on the counter.

  “Thanks!” She turned and looked with longing at an ice cream freezer, but opened the soda box and retrieved two Dr. Peppers, took them to the counter, and set them down with the dimes.

  The old lady rose and came to the cash register. “Is that all, honey?”

  Holly nodded. The lady, tall and slender, wore a print dress that left her freckled arms bare. There were lots of veins on the backs of her hands and a million wrinkles on her face. She stared at her like she’d seen a ghost as she rang up the purchase and pushed change back to her. “Want me to open those for you? Or you can do it over there on the machine.”

  Holly loved how the lady’s wrinkles spread, accentuating her smile and wondered if her own grandmother would have as many lines on her face. “Would you?”

  “Of course.” The lady used an opener hidden behind the counter and put the sodas back up. Fizzy mist rose from the frosty bottles. Her eyes on Holly’s, she asked, “Are you visiting or just passing through, honey?”

  “My mom and I are going to live here,” Holly said somberly.

  “Well, welcome to Brimstone. My name’s Adeline Chance and that old codger waiting on your mother is my husband, Isaac. What’s your name, honey?”

  Holly looked into the lady’s eyes - despite the wrinkles, they were as clear and blue as the sky. “Holly Tremayne,” she replied, staring hard. Adeline Chance had a big gold fleck in one eye.

  “Holly. I like that name. Were you born around Christmas?”

  Holly smiled. “No, I was born in May. I just turned eleven.”

  “A wonderful age. And where are you going to be living, Holly?”

  “With my grandmother, up at the hotel.”

  Adeline Chance’s smile faltered and she turned pale. “You don’t mean the Brimstone Grand, do you?”

  Holly nodded.

  “Your grandmother is …”

  “Delilah Devine. She used to be an actress. Have you met her?”

  “Yes, a long time ago.” Adeline spoke slowly. “She was very young when her father sent her to live with her aunt in Boston.”

  “Wait! You mean my great-grandfather lived in Brimstone?”

  Adeline hesitated. “Well, sure. You didn’t know that?”

  “I don’t know much of anything about my family. Cherry - my mom - isn’t into it. She says it’s old news.”

  Adeline chuckled. “Well, then, you ought to know that your great-great-grandfather, Henry Hank Barrow, was one of the owners of the Clementine Mining Company. He was in charge of the hospital - in fact he owned it and the land it sat on.”

  “Hospital?” Holly asked.

  “Your grandmother’s hotel - the Brimstone Grand - used to be the Clementine Hospital. Your great-grandfather worked for him.”

  “Really?” Holly felt like she was going to pop with excitement.

  “Really!”

  “Was my great-great-grandfather a doctor?”

  “No, he was an administrator. A businessman. You could say he ran things.”

  Holly nodded. “Mrs. Chance-”

  “Call me Adeline, honey.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “You have a gold fleck in your eye. Were you born with it?”

  “Why, yes, I was.” Adeline was quiet a long time. “My mother told me it meant I was special.” She gazed into Holly’s eyes. “I see you’re pretty special, too. You have gold in both your eyes.”

  “Cherry told me they’re flaws. See?” Holly widened her own blue eyes and stared up at Adeline.

  “Light’s not in my favor in this place,” the old lady said. She bent down and squinted. “Well, I’ll be …” There was something in her expression that gave Holly goosebumps. The woman reached out and touched her chin, pushing just a little to turn her head so the light hit her eyes more. “Well … in the light, I can see flecks of gold in both your eyes. They’re very pretty.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said, but Adeline was still studying her.

  “Look at those tiny little motes, just like gold dust floating in a creek. I’ve never seen eyes so beautiful as yours, Holly.” She smiled gently and let go of her chin. “I guess that means we’re both special.”

  “What kind of special?” Holly asked.

  Adeline looked thoughtful but said nothing for a long time. “I’m going to tell you something, but don’t repeat it.”

  “What?” Holly leaned on the counter, feeling like Adeline was an old friend.

  “It has to be our secret.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

  The old lady chuckled. “We’re distant cousins, you and I.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, though whatever you do keep your promise. Your grandmother wouldn’t approve of my telling you.”

  “I promise, but why wouldn’t she approve?”

  “I come from the poor side of the family.”

  “Is that bad?”

  Adeline searched Holly’s eyes, the gold fleck shimmering. “It might be.”

  “That’s so cool! I have a new cousin!”

  Adeline smiled. “Me, too. And I’ll tell you something else, young lady. Your great-great- grandmother Myrtle Delacorte had two daughters. One was your grandmother, Delilah, and the other was her big sister, Carrie. She was only a couple years younger than me and we were best friends. She had gold in her eye, too.” Her smile faded. “So did your great-great-grandfather.”

  “He did?”

  Adeline nodded. “Yes. And you know what they say about every one of us with gold in our eyes?”

  Holly shook her head.

  “They said we have the Sight.” She leaned closer. “They say that about me - and they’ll say that about you, too. Because of our eyes.”

  “Do we? Have the Sight?” Holly wasn’t even sure what that meant. “Is that what makes us special?”

  “We’ll talk about it sometime.”

  Holly nodded. The only thing she knew about the Sight was that they sometimes referred to it on Dark Shadows.

  “Holly,” Adeline said. “Do you know what the Sight is?”

  “Not really.”

  Adeline leaned
closer. “Have you ever seen things other people can’t?”

  “You mean like a ghost or something?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. At the park in Van Nuys where I go sometimes, there’s a little girl on a swing. She’s like maybe four years old and she’s wearing this dress that looks like a party dress, all ruffly. It looks a little old-fashioned, but not much.” Seeing Adeline was taking her seriously, she continued. “I’ve seen her three times and I didn’t think much about it - she’s just a little kid - but once, another kid ran up and jumped into the swing, right on top of her. He started swinging and the girl was gone. I think she was a ghost.”

  “I think you’re right,” Adeline said. “Did she ever make eye contact with you?”

  Holly shook her head. “She just looked down, like she was sad.”

  “I see.” Adeline spoke softly. “Holly, when you realized she was a ghost, did that scare you?”

  “No. I love ghosts.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are likely to see some up at your grandmother’s hotel.”

  “Really?” Holly smiled. “Like what?”

  “There’s a nurse who pushes a rattling cart down one of the halls. A lot of people without the Sight can hear the cart or her footsteps, but I saw her a few times when I was young. She’s not frightening. I haven’t been in there in decades, mind you, but she’s probably still there. There are other nice things, too, like the ghost of an old caretaker who rides the elevator. But there might also be some scary ones.”

  “Scary? I’m not scared of-”

  “There’s one who rattles door knobs. When you look, no one’s there.”

  “Why is that scary?”

  “I guess because whoever did that in life was a nasty person. If you’re scary when you’re alive, I’d say it’s a safe bet, you make a scary ghost.”

  Holly nodded. “Are there any bloody ghosts? Gory ones?”

  Adeline chuckled. “Not that I recall, but it’s possible; after all, it was a hospital for many years. The point is, Holly, you have the Sight, so if there’s something to see you may well see it. But there’s nothing that can hurt you. They’re more like movies than anything else. I guess they’re always around, but hardly anyone notices. You have the sight, so you may see them - and if there are scary things, you’ll likely see them too.”