The Bell House

by Lori Titus

  Mr. Bell looked at me. Thadd stared at his boots.

  He patted his son on the back. “You know what to do son. Don’t be shy.”

  There was something in his smile I didn’t like.

  Thadd shrugged. “Sure, Pa.”

  The door was closed, and we were in near darkness. There was a candle on the table, but it didn’t give much light.

  I sat down, and he sat beside me.

  I waited until I heard Mr. Bell’s footsteps die away before I spoke.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You know why,” he said petulantly. “We could have brought you to the house, but I don’t think I could do that . . .”

  “Do what?”

  He showed me what he wanted. “Lie still,” he said. “It will be nice.”

  It wasn’t.

  There was punishment if I screamed or fought. I knew that much. So I was still, except that he moved me. Through the door, which the Master had not fully closed behind him, I could see the night sky. The clouds were drifting in front of the moon. I lay there and wondered where Mama was. Wondered if she could feel me screaming all the way down in Florida, down into the places where the dead of our kind slept.

  I closed my eyes and thought of all the things that she taught me back in Haiti. The words were beginning to slip sometimes, but I could bring them back if I recalled the singsong rhythm. Soon, I was not still. I moved beneath him, and it was to the motion in my head. When I kissed him, it was to give my lips something to do. But I hated him with each touch.

  The curses were easy to bring.

  He came, and he cried.

  What a relief that he cried and my eyes were dry as sand. He sat on the edge of the cot, back to me, holding his knees. He’d never emptied his seed into a woman before. He didn’t know it would be so much more powerful with a body beneath his, so much more than the dreams he had.

  His thoughts were all about himself. I knew because I could hear them.

  He would wash himself in the only pail of water I had, cleanse his body of my blood before he went back to his house.

  But that didn’t stop our blood from being tied forever.

  JENNA STOPPED, TAPING her pen against her notebook.

  Where had the idea of magic come from? Was it a stereotype to think a girl with Haitian roots would know something about it or that in such a situation would make her angry enough to use it?

  Of course, if this were a work of fiction, that couldn’t hurt, could it?

  CHRYSALIS, SOUTH CAROLINA

  One Year Ago

  Stephen had never really liked Diana, but he kept his opinions about it to himself. It was easy to see, the way conversation between the two of them was always strained. No one had to tell Jenna that her sister didn’t exactly approve of the fact that she’d married a white man, even though Diana had never had the gall to bring it up. There were some things that Jenna would not tolerate, and the whole debate as to who she should be with or why was one of them.

  As it was, once they moved to Chrysalis, Jenna mostly talked to Diana at home, so her sister and Stephen rarely saw each other. He did develop a good relationship with Maya and Taleya though, because he was always there when the girls visited.

  “I hate to say it,” Stephen said, “but I feel like Diana kind of uses you.”

  Stephen was standing in the living room of their house. He was wearing beat up white sneakers, baggy jeans, and an old polo shirt. Still half asleep, he had a coffee mug in hand. Both he and Jenna were looking out the window into the backyard where Taleya and Maya played with their dolls. It was still warm out despite the fact that it was the beginning of November. That year was an Indian summer.

  Jenna shrugged. “She probably does. But I get to see my nieces.”

  Stephen kept his voice low. He touched Jenna’s cheek. “I love them too, honey. And I’m glad that you get to spend time with them. But I just find it suspicious they are never here unless Diana has someplace she’s got to be. Even then it seems like you’re the last resort.”

  Jenna nodded in agreement. “It’s something, though.”

  “How long are you going to do that?” Stephen asked, and she saw a spark of anger in his eyes. “Accept whatever you get from her just because it’s something?”

  “Well, I don’t know. We weren’t raised the same. She had a hard time coming up. And yeah, I know she’s kind of jealous, but I would be too in her place. So I just try to forgive her.”

  “A lot of people come up poor. I did. Hell, your mom supported you when your dad wasn’t there, but you weren’t rich. It seems like she blames you for your dad going back to your mom.”

  “We don’t talk about it,” Jenna replied. “But yeah, maybe she does. Diana’s mother had a nervous breakdown not long after. She was seeing things and having conversations with dead people. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Still. Not your fault. Not even your dad’s fault, maybe. He may not have known that she was mentally . . . fragile.”

  “You’re very diplomatic.”

  “I try,” Stephen smiled. His hand rested on her back and she hugged him. When she shifted her head onto his chest, she could hear his heartbeat.

  “I still kind of get mad at Daddy - after all this time,” she whispered. “He hurt me and my mother, and it’s like he destroyed the two of them.”

  “I don’t believe anything is ever that simple. If things got that bad, it was because something was already wrong there. Stress brings things to the surface.”

  “Oh, so you’re going into family therapy now?” she teased.

  “Yeah, I think that would look fine on my resume, babe.”

  “So, I promised them an actual movie at the theater. I need you to help me.”

  “Sure. I’d love to be kiddie wrangler for the day. By the way,” he grew serious, “you know that we’d make exceedingly beautiful kids together.”

  “I know,” she smiled. “We can get to work on that once the kids go home on Sunday,” she said and kissed his lips.

  “MRS. MCBRIDE? THE DOCTOR will see you now.”

  Jenna grabbed her purse and shoved her cell phone inside it.

  She hadn’t been in to see her doctor in a year, but Dr. Suri smiled at her as if they’d only seen each other a week earlier.

  “Hi, Jenna,” she said, her sweetly accented voice holding the underpinning of her Asian Indian heritage. She was a stunning woman with black, waist-length hair and wide, brown eyes. “How are you?”

  Jenna shrugged. “I have been better, but I’m coping.”

  “Oh, my dear, I was so sorry to hear about your husband. As it turns out, he happened to be friends with some colleagues of mine. Every one speaks so highly of him and what a great guy he was. I’m so sorry for your loss. I must say that I am happy to see you here today, though. I was hoping this might bring you back in for a talk.”

  Jenna sat down. She was never sure what to say when people gave her condolences, and she heard much the same thing about Stephen from many different people. He was gifted; he was handsome; his patients adored him. Sometimes she wanted to say, Thanks, guys, for reminding me what I’ve lost. That makes me hurt so much more. Now can you leave me the fuck alone?

  Jenna had gone into therapy shortly after her mother died. As much as her husband supported her, she’d never felt comfortable letting him into the depth of her grief, and counseling was the next logical resort. She really liked Dr. Suri and felt that she had a sense of compassion that was lacking in some members of her profession.

  “What can I help you with today?” the doctor prodded gently.

  “I’ve gone through a lot of changes. Stephen, of course. Plus, the house is gone, so I have moved into a new one. I’ve lived in the new house for three weeks now, and I am having a lot of trouble sleeping.”

  “How so? Is it that you can’t sleep at all, or are you having poor sleep?”

  “Some of both,” Jenna admitted. “The worst of it is that I am having a lot of nightmares.�
�

  “Nightmares?” Dr. Suri’s brow wrinkled. “What about?”

  “I feel almost embarrassed to say. I have been writing a book, and it seems that the subject matter is invading my sleeping thoughts.”

  Jenna had decided that she would not tell this woman just how vivid the nightmares were. She’d been dreaming about Patricia Bell’s life. Sometimes she felt as if she were inside the woman’s body. Walking outside, barefoot in the soft dirt, or laboring in the house on the plantation, stirring a hot pot that caused drops of sweat to rise on her skin or, worse yet, enduring Thadd’s touch. Caught in the pleasure he could wring from her body yet disgusted at the same time. Loving the boy that she’d known all her life and hating this man for making her need what she’d never asked for.

  “That actually may be a normal response for an author. Perhaps a way to work the plot out in your head? To handle some unconscious meaning that your conscious mind is not prepared to accept?”

  Oh, there’s probably a lot of shit that I’m not ready to accept, Jenna thought. She smiled.

  “Have you dreamed of fire?” the doctor asked. “Of Stephen?”

  “Sometimes, but not often. I still think of him all day long. So I guess once I’m asleep there is not as much of a need to see him.”

  Suri sighed sympathetically. “Do you think perhaps some pills would help you get some better rest?”

  “I really don’t like taking medication,” Jenna asserted. “But yes, I’d appreciate it if you prescribed something for me.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER she was leaving the local pharmacy with a bottle of pills in her purse. Dr. Suri said that it was the lowest dose of the medication available and told her that it should help mellow her mood throughout the day, making it easier to sleep at night. She wondered how a little pill could yield such miracles, but she was ready to try anything.

  She’d told herself that maybe the change of scenery was doing it to her. She didn’t have so much as one pillow or quilt left from her old life or any furniture to make her new surroundings feel familiar.

  This is truly a new life, she thought grimly. The old has been burned away in fire. That made her think of Diana and the conversation they had on Wednesday when Diana told her what she had done with Ahmad’s things.

  “You . . . burned them?”

  It was morning, and she’d been sitting in Diana’s kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, with Diana only a few feet away loading her clothes into the washing machine. Jenna found it odd how her sister washed clothes almost obsessively. If there was one dirty shirt, she had to wash it, before she even had half a load. Jenna usually waited until she had a full hamper before she even bothered.

  Diana sighed. “Yeah, I did. After all, I don’t have any place to store all that. And I’ll be damned if I was going to donate his clothes. This is a small town. Sooner or later I’d be bound to see some kid wearing his coat or hat, and I just couldn’t have that. And you know, I don’t believe in paying people for storage. That’s just some brand new foolishness.”

  Jenna had mentioned that she noticed a burn spot in the grass on her side of the property that was not there the first time she visited, and that’s when Diana blurted out that she’d taken her son’s possessions out in a blaze of glory.

  “Well . . . do you feel better?”

  Diana’s head snapped around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “There is a tradition about burning things that belong to a dead person in some cultures. I don’t know. I thought maybe it was a bit of ritual for you. Something cathartic.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve never heard that before. I just do what needs to be done.”

  Jenna almost slapped her forehead. Goddamn, this speech again? “I’m real. I believe in keeping it real. I do the shit nobody else can handle. I’m fucking superwoman.”

  “If you got something to say, why don’t you just say it, Jenna?”

  “I wasn’t going to bring it up,” she replied, “but I really don’t like the idea of you burning stuff so close to my house. I already lost one house, and I’m not really happy about the idea of maybe losing a second. And we’re supposed to be under a burning ban this month, anyway.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Jenna. You come here like you’re all high and mighty, like you’re better than everybody. I welcomed you into my home. I got rid of my son’s things. For you! So your tired ass could be comfortable in my house!”

  “What?” Jenna stood. She was so angry that she was nearly speechless. “Daddy willed me that house! And you have been using it as a garage or a shrine or whatever the hell you want for years now. I never complained. I said sure, do what you want with it! The first time I ask for just a little respect this is what I get? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t care what that deed says. You have never lived here, and this is my property.”

  “You feel that way? Fine. Just don’t send your kids over to my house, and don’t bother talking to me anymore.”

  Chapter Six

  Jenna sat in front of her computer monitor, looking at the words on the screen. She hadn’t bothered with lights. The television was on, playing the third rerun of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer that she’d heard over the course of the evening. Spike was making a confession, a speech about love and forgiveness and how his reclaimed soul did things that burned his flesh.

  “Yeah, boyfriend,” Jenna said to the television, “that’s gonna work out really well for you.”

  The television was playing in the other room, but the sound was comforting.

  There was a glass of wine at her side, the second that she had poured for herself over the evening. She hadn’t eaten much earlier, but she’d forced herself to make a decent sandwich to nibble on while she worked on the book.

  The thirty thousand words in the novel had begun to take on a confessional tone, something Jenna had not expected or planned. And there was magic.

  Jenna had started to do some research, but the scenes that she wrote beforehand seemed to have a frighteningly authentic feel.

  There was one phrase that Patricia kept repeating, something in Haitian patois that she didn’t understand. The phrase eluded her.

  Because it was imagined? Or because it was real and obscure?

  It would be difficult to find a translation for a bastardized language from the 1800s, but she continued to look, hoping each time that she could find the meaning somewhere. This particular night was not a research night, however. She wanted to follow Patricia and catch the flow of her words while she had them, while her pain and scars were real and still painful.

  I SEE HOW THADD WATCHES me now.

  He pretends not to, but I feel his eyes when I walk into the room. When I’m setting the table or taking clothes out back to be washed. That smile—there is something wrong with it.

  One night after dinner he took my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen. I was humiliated, because all of the other women’s eyes were on me. They knew just where he was taking me and what that meant. They looked at the floor at once, feigning innocence.

  The room was dark; his bed was the softest thing I’d ever lain in. I had been in Thadd’s room once before that I could remember. I’d come upstairs to get a shirt that was missing from the basket. It was his Sunday shirt, the one with the blue buttons he’d worn the week before, and although his mother had not given it to me to be washed, I knew I’d be punished if it wasn’t.

  I found it thrown carelessly on the floor. I picked it up and folded it in my arms.

  I touched the bed as I stood and was amazed how soft it felt. I had heard the other girls talk about the beds here, but I was never one of the ones who made them up.

  Lying in the bed with him beside me was a different thing. I found pleasure when he touched me, and it was different than when he did before. He didn’t push me away. He didn’t hide his face from me. We lay side by side, arms touching. He reached over and put his hand over my belly button. His thumb stroked
my skin.

  “If you had my child, would you love it?” he whispered.

  “If I had your child, would you love it?” I replied, my eyes filling with tears.

  Not that we didn’t both know the answer. He kissed my mouth. When words failed, his body was the only comfort he could give me.

  “She would, perhaps, be very fair,” he offered. “She might marry well.”

  “That was my mother’s dream for me as well when I was little.”

  We did not even mention the possibility of a boy. A male child had no way out.

  Silence. It had begun to rain outside.

  I closed my eyes. I willed my body to be out there in the rain, where I could feel clean again. If I had ever been truly clean.

  I felt Thadd move. He maneuvered himself into my arms so that he lay with his head against my breast. He held me tight in his arms, as if I were something that could evaporate, flow away like smoke or water if he did not hold tight enough.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “Please, don’t be cross with me.”

  I felt his body harden.

  “DAMN,” JENNA WHISPERED.

  She saved her document and looked at the time. It was a little past two in the morning. She had pulled all night sessions before, but not in years. She was suddenly exhausted, the hours catching up with her all at once.

  “Time to reacquaint myself with bed,” she said. She swayed, a little dizzy as she stood—the after effect of the wine, she supposed. She sank into bed gratefully, dreaming of candlelight and nights in Barbados.

  HENRY WORKED AN HOUR of overtime that night, but he told Diana he was scheduled to work three.

  She didn’t know that he went to Finny’s to get a beer and relax, in order to ready himself for the shit he was going to get when he got home. He knew it was on when he got a text from her in the middle of the day: There has got to be a way to get that bitch out of my house.