Backyard (24 page)

“You can tell your client that the property is not for sale, or rent, and that we will take our chances with the spirits underfoot,” Nan said. “And that is final.”

“And tell her to quit snooping around in our backyard,” George said.

Mr. Abelard shook his head solemnly.

“In that case, my client will ask you to sign a document attesting to the fact that she has warned you of the dangers imminent to your property, and that she is absolved of any damage to property or loss of life that can result therewith.”

“We won't sign anything of the sort,” George said.

“Absolutely not,” Nan said.

Mr. Abelard snapped his briefcase shut with a menacing abruptness.

“Of course, you know that eminent domain proceedings might apply here should the property be shown to be of incalculable value. In which case, you would have no choice. The state would buy your home at a price it deems to be fair. That would probably be much less than what my client is offering. You realize that, don't you?”

“We'll take our chances,” George said.

Mr. Abelard leaned across the table toward them. His lip curled up. He exhaled a big breath full of garlic that a hundred pieces of Dentyne gum couldn't cover up. He appeared to be on the brink of a snarl.

“If I may ask, Mr. and Mrs. Fremont, what is your mortgage status?”

“What do you mean?” said George.

“I mean exactly what I said. Are you able to keep up with your mortgage . . . or is there a little payment schedule problem here that we need to resolve? It could be that a mortgage company will be at your doorstep any day now to claim your property. Am I right, or perhaps I'm misinformed?”

George felt his resolve suddenly turn into a mass of quivering jelly. Nan wasn't quite as unnerved, though Mr. Abelard's garlic breath was making her queasy. She sat up, fully erect, and summoned up the requisite amount of indignation.

“That,” she said, “is none of your damn business!”

“Look,” Mr. Abelard said, suddenly shifting into reasonable, avuncular helper-guy mode. “I know I said I wouldn't throw out any figures, but . . . well . . . I guess I can. You could get $300,000 from my client for this home. That lets you avoid foreclosure, pay off the rest of your mortgage, and have plenty left to play around with. Let's do some quick math here. . . .” Mr. Abelard pulled a calculator out of his briefcase and punched some buttons. “How much do you have remaining on your mortgage?”

“That would be none of your business,” Nan said. “And I'm getting gosh-darned sick and tired of saying that.”

Mr. Abelard looked up from his calculator and pursed his lips.

“Well, of course, you're right,” he said. “I'll just put this thing away. . . . I don't need a figure. Let's just say that you would surely be able to pay off your mortgage, and have lots to put down on another house . . . a much nicer house, probably.”

“No deal!” said George, startling both Mr. Abelard and Nan with the firmness of his voice.

“What?”

“No deal. NO DEAL, and that is final!”

“You can't be serious?” said Mr. Abelard in his best tone of disbelief. “The deal of a lifetime and you want to pass it by.”

“Yes, I do. Now, will you please leave, Mr. Abelard, and we will wish you a good day.”

Mr. Abelard left them his card, encouraging them to call the minute they changed their minds, and warning them that the offer would likely be taken off the table at a moment's notice if he hadn't heard from them. Then he stomped off, muttering, down the steps. Nan watched him to see if he would be the latest in the line of miscreants who disturbed her pea gravel. Sure enough, on the last two steps, his shoes scuffed the surface too hard, and tiny rocklets went flying everywhere.

“Jerk,” she muttered. She looked over at George, who was studying the card intently. What the hell is he thinking? she wondered. George put the card down on the table and sighed, then picked it up again.

“Maybe we'd better keep this around,” he said. “Just in case we have second thoughts about our contest prospects.”

25

Backyard Maelstrom

D
r. Sproot realized she looked ridiculous, maybe even dangerous.

Here she was, having parked her car two blocks away, strolling down Sumac Street at two thirty-two a.m. in the middle of a violent thunderstorm with a gas mask clamped to her face, and wearing work gloves, a wide-brimmed, moisture-repelling safari hat, and a lime-green, billowing rain slicker. She carried a hatchet and a tomahawk, both unsheathed and honed to razor-edged sharpness, in her right hand.

What else could she do? There was a job to be done, and it had to be done now. There was no point pussyfooting around about it anymore. That idiot Abelard had failed miserably. She should have known it, as he was from Mort's feckless side of the family.

As for Edith, she had gotten word to Dr. Sproot via an anonymous, whispered phone message that she would make her spell-casting foray into the Fremonts' backyard sometime late at night, preferably when the weather was unsettled and therefore more favorable for the casting of spells. Dr. Sproot hadn't placed much stock in that, and hadn't even bothered to tell her of her own mission. And why should she have? Edith's powers apparently extended no farther than the Rose Maidens' gardens, where they worked remarkably well. Dr. Sproot found that disconcerting. It meant they would have to be really nice to Edith for the rest of their lives, or run the risk of facing perpetual blackmail.

What was even more troublesome was that she had just fleeced Dr. Sproot out of another $700, and for what? She was beginning to suspect that Sarah the Witch was a fraud, a charlatan, a newbie in the realm of the supernatural who had had a little beginner's luck, which then fizzled when she got too big for her broomstick.

“Ha-ha, ha-ha!” Dr. Sproot chortled into her gas mask, clouding up the lenses with vapor.

What it came down to was this, she figured: if you want the job done and done right, you've got to do it yourself. She clenched her heavy hatchet and tomahawk with a new determination that she would not flinch from this task. If the police, say, were to cruise by on their late rounds, she already had her alibi; she would explain to them that she was the owner of the Acme Pest Control Company out on an emergency call to remove some very large rodents infesting a home down the street, and would they please let her go about her business.

Still, she was relieved to be able to branch off from the street and begin walking up the hill on the edge of the woods that lead to the Fremonts' backyard. Her gas mask was doing good service. It was keeping her from getting dizzy and light-headed or seeing strange things. She had heard that the intoxicating perfumes of the angel's trumpet were especially potent at night and had taken no chances, pulling the gas mask over her head and yanking the straps taut to make sure it fit as snugly as possible before even getting out of her car. She knew that even the teeniest amount of hallucinatory plant gas entering her nervous system could wreck tonight's mission.

As she toiled up the hill, thunder crackled above her, and the rain came down even harder. She stopped halfway up the slope to tighten her straps. Moisture was getting into the gas mask, causing the lenses to fog up. But she didn't dare take it off; the angel's trumpets were too close by.

She continued on, barely able to see through the curtain of rain and her clouded lenses. She would have to feel her way along. A big gust of wind came up, lifted the hat off her head, and carried it off toward the invisible, churning lake. There was nothing to be done about that. Dr. Sproot steeled herself and pushed on. Drenched, and with her hair matted into heavy strands, she transferred the hatchet to her left hand and waved it and the tomahawk in front of her so she wouldn't crash into anything.

Shortly after the ground leveled off, she made a sharp turn, barely missing the arbor in front of her. The gauzy shape of the house loomed to her right, and she was relieved to notice with what little visibility remained to her that there were no lights on.

Her waving weapons didn't prevent her from colliding with a fence post. She groaned upon making contact and swiveled to the left to find the opening in the fence. Another good thing about this mask, she thought: nobody could hear that groan. The tomahawk scraped against something, the outline of which she could barely make out. She felt along it with the hatchet, found the top, measured its diameter with the tomahawk, and swung down hard with it. The first blow met nothing but thin air and just missed slicing across her right leg. The second merely glanced off the object. Dr. Sproot screamed into her gas mask. The third attempt paid off, and she sank the tomahawk deeply enough into the object to be lodged in it. Her right hand now freed, Dr. Sproot reached into her raincoat pocket for a vial, popped its top, and poured the contents around the stuck tomahawk. With any luck, the partial protection of a tree canopy above would keep it from washing away. Her job accomplished there, she backtracked toward the split-rail fence, found her way through it without hitting the post this time, and worked her way toward the looming fence that separated the Fremonts' yard from their neighbors'.

She could barely see now. She held out her gloved right hand so she could feel the plants. Pulling back suddenly when she felt a branch pushing against her gas mask, she sighed with relief to know that, without the mask, and its protective rubber, she would have had angel's trumpet emissions slathered all over her face now. The plant waved frantically in the thunderstorm as she felt for its stems. Another gust of wind almost blew her over as she attempted the first stroke and missed. Another stroke missed, though it connected with a thwack against the fence. The angel's trumpets gyrated wildly in the storm as Dr. Sproot pulled the hatchet out of the wood and swung wildly at them, shifting the hatchet from one hand to the other, and occasionally hitting the plants, but never able to deliver a coup de grace. Finally, her arms limp from exhaustion, she stopped to regain her strength.

What were those piercing noises? Those noises that weren't storm noises? They were coming from close to the house. Startled, Dr. Sproot turned her head and found she could see nothing through the waving curtain of rain but a bulky, balled-up shape at the base of the house. What the hell was that? There they were again, this time barely audible above the roar of the thunderstorm. Incantations or some other such cant! That was what it was. Edith . . . uh, Sarah the Witch . . . was here! And would she be in that ridiculous costume, with no raincoat, no umbrella, no nothing to protect her from the elements? Well, figured Dr. Sproot, witches can probably weave their little no-sick spells to protect them from catching cold or pneumonia. And it was about time she started earning her pay!

And what an awful way to earn my pay! thought the cowering Edith Merton, who by that time had morphed from Sarah the Witch into a shivering, sopping lump of mortal vulnerability sitting on the Krossa Regal hosta bed underneath the eaves of the house.

Edith had parked her car two blocks down Payne Avenue just before the full fury of the thunderstorm struck. Her dead mother's wobbling high heels precluding even a semblance of speed, she tottered down the street, then turned before reaching the driveway to climb cross-country up the slope into the heart of the Fremonts' gardens.

The recent rains had made the ground spongy. Her spiked heels sank in with sucking sounds at every step. She had also gained weight in the past few weeks, making her mother's girdle and tightly cinched skirt feel like a straitjacket. Finally, breathless and sweating, she reached the patio.

Careful to stay out of the range of the motion-sensor lights, she faced every direction of the compass and whispered the chants the dead flowers had taught her. Then, she tossed a handful of talcum powder mixed with Butch McDougal's “Spicy Ricey” seasoning up into the air. The howling wind whisked it away instantly. Edith took that to be a good sign. The flower spirits and Mother were listening. Then, as she rotated in a slow, full circle, she raised her arms skyward and wiggled her fingertips and toes, which she could only semi-wiggle within the confines of her high heels. Once she completed her circle, the spell was cast and her work was done.

Edith had just turned back toward the street when a flash of lightning blinded her and a clap of thunder ripped the sky apart. The rain drove down with a roar, soaking her within seconds. She'd have to find shelter quickly; that much was clear. Unable to see more than a couple of feet ahead through her rain-spattered cat's-eye glasses, she groped her way toward cover. Her feet found a bed of big-leafed hosta edged up against the house, then her hands found the slickened panels of siding. Edith flattened herself against it, gaining the partial protection of the eaves. She would just have to wait out the worst of it right there.

Moments later, just when the storm seemed to slacken, she thought she saw a vague gray shape emerge from behind the house and move toward her. She leaned forward, wiped off her glasses with a gloved forefinger, then froze. What else could she do, especially in those high heels, which she hadn't had the presence of mind to kick off? The shape stopped. Then part of it moved suddenly. Then again, and again. What was it doing? Edith instinctively shrank down into an agonizing crouch, lowering her head as far toward her knees as her bulky frame would allow, and hoping that would shield her from detection.

What was that
swack?
Edith looked up to see something sticking out of the Fremonts' weird tree sculpture. The lightning was continuous now. Its stuttering strobe effect showed her that some kind of hatchet or axe had been planted in the head of the sculpture. Despite her best efforts to make herself inconspicuous Edith shrieked. Once, twice, then one last modulating time for good measure.

The gray shape had moved away to the limits of visibility, then began flailing at something she couldn't see. Edith began to moan, which at least wasn't anywhere near as loud as shrieking. The thing turned to face her. Edith watched, transfixed as the lightning illuminated it. It was hideous, and it had big opaque eyes and a snout! Louder and louder moans were pushing themselves out of Edith's mouth without her even knowing it and became mingled with barely intelligible pleas for mercy.

 

Edith was saying something Dr. Sproot couldn't make out. Were those her so-called spells? And what was she doing crouching down over there, stapled against the side of the house? Slackass!

“Stop this storm, dad-blast-it, Edith, before we all get killed!” she yelled, but all that did was fog up her gas mask even more. Dr. Sproot struggled to suck in oxygen, which seemed to be coming through the mask filter in shorter supply than she was accustomed to breathing in. What was worse was that she was hearing some other sounds now. Something was coming up the slope, behind the northeast corner of the house, which she couldn't see anyway through her fogged-up gas mask. Something
else
was making a racket in the woods. Deafening thunder crashed just above her. The wind howled and the rain came down even harder, drowning out all the other noises, and plunging the world into the relentless chaos of the storm. Wracked by miserable wet discomfort and a new sensation—paralyzing fear—Dr. Sproot summoned just enough energy and strength of purpose to prepare for her last stand. She turned toward the house and raised her hatchet, which gleamed sharp and deadly in the blinding flashes of lightning, to present-arms level. Then, she whimpered out a solemn promise to some unknown deity that she would forever follow the path of righteousness if she could somehow survive this dreadful night.

The racket coming from behind the house was Earlene McGillicuddy and her twenty-two-year-old intern, Shirelle, trudging up the slope from Sumac Street. Earlene had parked her black Chevy on the street about a block north of the Fremonts', being careful to find a spot in the shadows to avoid the incriminating blue glare of the streetlamp. As they emerged from the car, they had closed the doors quietly and pulled the hoods of their rain slickers over their heads as the heavy, slanting rain drove down on them.

“These are good for disguise,” Earlene shouted to Shirelle, a floriculture major at the university who was between her junior and senior years, and was looking for some hands-on experience with a local gardening expert. “Besides, they come in handy in this pouring rain.”

Raindrops crackled against their slickers as the wind picked up and cascading peals of thunder rumbled overhead. Shirelle stood rooted to the pavement, staring at the flashing sky above her.

“Don't be frightened,” said Earlene, sidling up next to Shirelle so as to be heard above the wind and the rain. “Storms are good for this kind of work.”

Shirelle shivered and wrapped herself tightly in her arms.

“I don't know if I should be doing this, Mrs. McGillicuddy. It seems kind of... illegal.”