Dead Willow (11 page)

But, according to Eunice, this organism would never mature. It would be an eternal drain on Willow Tree society. Food and resources and personnel would be expended just to keep this child in existence, with no expectation of a return for those efforts. But that wasn’t the worst part.

If the child were seen, it could attract unwanted attention from those agencies obsessed with child welfare. Once the government was involved the child would be watched carefully, and in no time they would realize that Baby Beau was not developing. They would get their hands on him and try to force growth through vitamins and minerals and other chemicals. When he showed no growth in the months under their care, fear would start to descend, and scared scientists were dangerous scientists. Willow Tree could find itself under a microscope, and what would be seen would not be understood.

For Willow Tree, privacy was sacred, and this was a necessary evil.

For some reason, this did not make Crystal feel better. She stepped lightly through the soil until she was standing over the mound in the dirt. She looked at the child and he was perfectly formed. His eyes were open and he looked up at her curiously, his little hands clapping together and grabbing at the dirt around him. He turned his head to the side for a moment and Crystal could see the main root was starting to detach, its edges black and decaying. Crystal had seen this many times before on her already mature friends and neighbors during the harvest cycle. She had only to sever the root from their heads, and they would begin to breath on their own. She had never had to sever one so young.

As she bent down to pick him out of the soil, the child made a sound. It was a soft gurgling sound, and the child smiled when he did it.

Crystal felt something in her chest give way.

Suddenly, she wanted very much to be holding this infant in her arms. She scooped her hand under the back of his head and pulled the root free. The end crumbled to dust and the root curled back into the dirt. She drew the child into her arms, snapping off the tiny shoots that had attached themselves to his arms and legs. Brushing away the soil, she felt the tears come, and the fear came with them.

Crystal looked over her shoulder at the tiny silhouettes of Eunice and the Hatchet standing at the edge of the cemetery. They could not know of this, she thought. They would never understand. Crystal did not understand these feelings, and she was at the center of it.

She brought a hand to her eyes and wiped them dry. She could not let Eunice see her crying, and the Hatchet were everywhere.
Weeping Gardens
was Hatchet domain, and they roamed the cemetery like angry ghosts. Suddenly she felt eyes on her from every shadow.

Crystal made her way slowly back to where Eunice stood waiting. Her eyes darted in every direction, but she knew she would never see the Hatchet if they did not wish to be seen. Not until it was too late. She stopped before Eunice and put on her most impersonal face. The woman studied her curiously.

“Was there trouble, child?”

“No, Madame,” she answered, trying not to look at the little thing in her arms. She knew that to look would betray her.

Eunice nodded and turned to the Hatchet guide. “Lead on, Marshall.”

Marshall led them along the edge of the cemetery to the side opposite the rusty gate. Crystal saw other Hatchet on the grave side of the wrought iron fence, lingering and watching accusingly. How many had seen her cry, and what would they do to her? The baby cooed and wriggled in her arms as if he were making a home for himself, and Crystal wanted that as well. Somewhere along the path, she had accepted what was happening to her heart. She would not let the child go.

But, what was the plan here? Would she run? Flee back down the path with the child in her arms? And go where? Home? To wait for them to hunt her down and rip the child from her dead hands?

Or, would they leave Willow Tree? How could they? Crystal was not even Bellwether; she wouldn’t last a day past the next cycle. She didn’t even know what clan Beau sprang from, but she knew she would be condemning them both to death. That really was the choice, wasn’t it? A slow agonizing death or a mercifully quick one.

This is your destiny
.

The smell of the reclamation center crept into her nostrils and she clutched the baby closer. Crystal trembled with indecision and she was crying again and she didn’t care who saw it. She felt the presence of more Hatchet behind her and she knew they were passed the point of no return.

Beau’s tiny hands grabbed at the air playfully, and Crystal placed her finger in them. The child pulled the finger into his toothless mouth and nibbled on it. Eunice watched the exchange with a stone face. She seemed to be expecting this, or perhaps, counting on it. Crystal wouldn’t have time to ruminate on this, as they had reached the gate to the reclamation facility and were being ushered in. When the iron gate clanged shut, the Hatchet soldiers backed away, fading into the shadows again. Time for the Paladin to take control.

“And what have you brought us this night?”

The voice was welcoming and amiable, like a preacher at a Sunday social, and Crystal wanted to tear his eyes out. What had she brought them? She had brought them a living, breathing person so they could grind him up like so much fertilizer!

The Paladin soldiers surrounded her as the voice stepped out of the shadow of the doorway. It was a voice she had heard many times before.

“Colonel Davis, why are you doing this?”

Her plea was to a fellow Paladin in the hope that some mercy would be granted. It was a dim hope; Colonel Davis was well-known for his support of Eunice Pembry.

She saw the two of them share a glance. It was decided. It had been decided long before Crystal. That’s why they called it destiny.

Colonel Davis gave her his best fatherly expression. His eyes had always seemed so kind, so full of compassion. He had always supported the Paladin over the other clans. Where was that man now?

“I do this for the child as much as for the community,” he finally said, laying a hand gently on the baby, stroking his cheek. “A part of a life is no life.”

“But I could care for him! I want to!” she pleaded.

“In the years to come, he would grow to hate you. Hate you for the life that has been denied him.”

“But, he’s just a child! He’ll never know!”

Davis seemed to speak from experience. “We always know what is just around the corner.”

They had been slowly inching into the main hall of the facility. Crystal felt the hands of two Paladin soldiers gently but firmly take her arms and guide her down the first passage to their left.

This was wrong.

Crystal had been to the reclamation center before, and the passage to the right led to the recycler, what others crudely called ‘the grinder’. This passage was leading them to … where?

“This isn’t the way to the reclamation chamber. Where are you taking us?”

The turn up ahead concealed their view, but that next hallway flickered with an orange glow. Crystal could feel the heat on her skin, and it ignited a panic response. She jerked back against her Paladin escorts, but they held firmly, dragging her down the hall in this fiery funeral procession.

“Why? Why are you doing this? He’s just a child!”

The baby in her arms felt the fear and panic she radiated, and his little chin began to quiver.

“Shh … shh …” she whispered as soothingly as she could, bouncing him gently in her arms. “It’s okay … everything’s okay …”

But things were not okay.

Eunice and Colonel Davis reached the hallway first. Orange light flickered off of their faces as they looked down the passage to whatever awaited. Eunice looked back at Crystal, and for a moment, she thought she saw the woman’s eyes glisten with tears. Then, it was gone, and a fire blazed from them that was not a reflection of the flames.

“Miss Ambrose … I am tasked with protecting the welfare of this community. I do not expect you to understand this, but I do expect you to abide by it.”

Crystal was brought into the passageway by the Paladin soldiers, her will to move forward long since exhausted. When she was turned to face the end of the hall, what she saw made her shrink back into their arms.

The two massive iron doors grinned at her like evil jack-o-lanterns, and one of them had more than a candle inside. The heat from the blast furnace prickled the skin on her cheeks. Crystal put a hand over Beau’s tender face to block the searing wave. It was a meaningless gesture, and her rage rivaled the fiery blast. She glared at Eunice and Davis.

“What kind of people are you? How can you even think of this? At least ‘the grinder’ would be quick!”

Eunice flinched at the word. She nodded to one of the Hatchet, who walked to the blazing furnace and twisted a large valve. The licks of flame dwindled to nothing, as did the melting heat on their faces. Crystal would never know whether Eunice had turned down the heat for her own comfort, or that of the baby.

“The child cannot be allowed to bleed anywhere in the cemetery,” explained Eunice as they approached the furnace doors. “Some things cannot be returned to the soil.”

A Paladin soldier unlatched the cold, rusted door of the other furnace and opened it for Crystal, just like a gentleman would. He rolled out the grated iron table and stepped back.

It was all very … cultured.

Crystal couldn't take her eyes off of the table. Ash coated the grating, falling through the holes and onto the concrete floor. The ash was gray with bits of white …

“It is time, child.”

She jumped at the sound of Eunice’s voice echoing off of the stone walls. It was the peal of the cathedral bell announcing her funeral.

They really expected her to do this, to place Beau in the ash on that filthy grate and watch him rolled into the furnace like Sunday’s roast.

He deserved more. He may just be a child and only recently alive, but he deserved more.

This is your destiny
.

Crystal sat on the edge of the grated table, and with Beau snug in her arms, she laid down. She rolled onto her side, holding him gently off of the hard surface. His baby fingers grabbed at her blouse buttons and she began to whisper a song in his ear, a song from a memory, from long before she was alive.

She pulled her legs in as the Paladin tucked her long skirt in around her. They eased the table slowly back into the furnace as Eunice and the others stood and watched solemnly, wordlessly. They did not deny her destiny.

Crystal finally understood, No one would ever remember what she had done here, because it had all been done before, many times before.

No matter. Her phone had rung and she had picked it up.

The door creaked shut and sealed the two of them off from the world. She listened to the quiet and to the cooing of her child, and she was right where she was supposed to be. She didn’t mind the cold and dark.

It would be bright soon enough.

Its initials were JPL, but the Jackson Public Library was not exactly the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
.

The musty smell of dusty old books, the antiseptic glow of fluorescents and the stillness of an ancient tomb all made Jess yearn for the warm bosom of
WiFi Joe’s Java Hut
. WiFi and caffeine was how research was done, everybody knew that. All the quiet made her suspect that they were up to no good.

But while JPL may have been in the stone ages, it was the Library of Congress compared to Willow Tree. At the
Rusty Gate
, like dark and light, the eras collided.

The cable got the
History Channel
, but not
HBO
. There was WiFi in the rooms, but the phones only connected to the front desk and room service, not the outside world. The staff hid their computers behind their desks, and the cleaning crew hoovered up at night while wearing their bonnets and long puffy skirts. Credit cards worked as easily as money, and the
Wells Fargo
armored car was not pulled by a team of horses.

A person could get jet lagged just walking through the lobby.

Then, there was Eunice.

Eunice Pembry wants to rule the world!

Jess thought that would be a great headline for her blog, which was looking less and less like a ghost story and more like
Night of the Living Dead
. But, she had too many hints and not enough real clues.

Where was Superman when you needed him? Or
Aquaman … she’d take Aquaman, because right now, Jess was drowning in questions.

They had watched Josiah Pembry for over an hour, until neither of them could stomach another spoon full of fudge ripple. He waited on customers and turned the fudge and wiped down the counters and did all the other things an ice cream shop owner would do.

But, he had the exact same mole over his left eyebrow as the man in the old photograph. Jess couldn’t let that go. A strong family resemblance was one thing, identical twins one-hundred and fifty years apart was another. Jess had no idea how to broach a subject like that.

“Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me … are you a zombie or a vampire?”

Yeah, right. Her journalistic integrity was going to take a spanking on this one. Even Jameson wouldn’t print this, and he printed everything! She needed a comrade, and the only other person she knew, who knew what she knew, was Patrick, and he was …

Patrick was worthless! He just sat there with a big dumb grin on his face, basking in Jess’ astonishment. He loved looking at the puzzle, but not solving the puzzle. He preferred to believe in the magic.

It was a good thing he was so pretty.

The book
slammed down on the table in front of her like Thor’s hammer. Dust clouds billowed up and drifted over the other books and newspapers … and into Jess’ nose and eyes. As she sneezed into the crook of one elbow, her other hand shot out to cover her open cup of espresso. When the dust settled, she waved away the moldy odor and glared up at the librarian.

“Nice presentation!” she grumped sarcastically.

“Thanks,” chirped Maddie, ignoring the tone. “I went to college.”

According to Maddie Kemp, her first job was cataloging scrolls at the
Library of Alexandria
. She had apparently brought some of that Egyptian dust back with her to the Jackson Public Library.

Her hair was spun of the finest white silk, and she was as thin as a number two pencil. She had placed every book on every shelf, and could point to one without a moments hesitation, if she did say so herself.

But, when Jess had asked her about Willow Tree, her mouth dropped a little.

“Why you wanna know about that place?” she pried.

“Um … I heard they’ve got this great festival,” fibbed Jess. “Thought I’d check it out.”

Maddie glared suspiciously over the top of her yellow tiger-striped reading glasses. “You don’t strike me as the festival type.”

Jess tried not to look like a cat munching on canary feathers. “I like historical stuff.”

“Really?” Maddie drew down on her. “Okay … who was John Hunt Morgan?”

Jess munched on that for a second. “Wasn’t he in
Watchmen
?”

The librarian dropped her mouth again. “You know this is a library, right? There’s a
Redbox
down the street in case you’re lost.”

Jess threw up her hands. “Okay … maybe I didn’t come for the festival.”

She bit her tongue as she considered how much to tell this woman. Then, she stuck her toe in the water.

“Have you ever heard of the
Paranormal Investigator
?”

“Is that one of those websites devoted to,” waving her hands in the air, “the strange and unusual?”

“So, you’ve heard of it?”

Maddie shook her head and sighed. “And here I thought you had a brain.”

“Hey,” argued Jess, her back up a little, “you’ve got to admit, Willow Tree
is
strange and unusual.”

The librarian folded her arms in front of her. “So, you think you’ve got that nut cracked, eh? Well, let’s see what you can do with this.”

Then, she went to get
the book
.

It was an old spiral-bound scrapbook that looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight since Jimmy Carter was president. The spine was cracked and the edges worn. The bits of paper that spilled out from between the pages were yellowed and crinkled with age. Jess wondered why it wasn’t in a museum somewhere in a glass case behind a velvet rope. Maybe it, too, came from the
Library of Alexandria.

“What am I looking at?” she asked the old woman.

Maddie ran her hands over the front of the book, leaving a trail of dusty fingerprints. There was a tenderness there that got Jess’ attention. Perhaps this was a family album of some sort, but was it her family? And, why was she showing it to Jess?

“I had a bit of an obsession, you might say, about Willow Tree,” she said wistfully. “It was 1975 and Gerald Ford was president in what many felt was a gross miscarriage of justice, but I digress. I had just finished my graduate degree, so I was young and stupid. I moved here from Louisville and I decided I needed to soak up some local color.”

“Let me guess,” Jess piped up. “You went to the Willow Tree Festival.”

“Seemed harmless enough. I had studied the Civil War in college, so I figured I could fit in with the natives. It didn’t take long to see that Willow Tree had little to do with the Civil War.”

“How so?”

Maddie took the seat opposite Jess and leaned in. “Did you ever notice those colors?”

Jess had to think for a minute. “Wait … you mean the outfits? The greens and browns -”

“And blues,” added Maddie.

“Yeah … even the guys in uniform had color coordinated pants. What’s that about?”

“Well, they didn’t just run out of material, I can tell you that. I figured it was like a code, you know, like a way to keep them separated.”

“You mean like some kind of caste system?”

“Sort of, but I could never figure out what made them different. Anyway, that was just the first time I went.”

“You went back?” Jess couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice.

“It was years later,” explained Maddie. “One of the middle schools in Jackson county did a unit on the Civil War. They had reenactors come out and all the kids did an essay on some character from that period. The library got involved and we ended up taking a group of them over to the festival for the day.”

She looked down at the book between them. “I hadn’t yet started to question, you see.”

“What was different this time?” asked Jess.

“Nothing,” she answered, the dark memory crowding its way back in. “It was the same. It was
exactly
the same. It was like I had stepped into a time machine and gone back to that first visit. It was … creepy.”

“What do you mean it was the same? What was?”

“Everything. The people, the outfits, the colors, the town. I mean, this was ten or eleven years later, but it could have been the next day. I can still remember the chill it sent up my spine.”

Maddie shivered and hugged herself.

“I’ve got some coffee on, you wants some, hon?” she asked Jess as she moved from the table.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” said Jess.

When Maddie turned the corner into her office, Jess let her gaze drop to the book on the table. She leaned in close and blew air across the book’s cover. Dust rolled up into a gray cloud that drifted ominously out into the stacks. She brushed a hand over the surface of the relic as gently as an archaeologist, revealing a yellowed label that simply read “Willow Tree”.

Jess slid the book closer and slowly opened the cover. She listened to the spine creak at the intrusion and wondered when the book had last been opened. The inside page was blank, save for a scrawl in the upper right hand corner.

Madeleine Kemp 1989

Jess flipped through it carefully, not really focusing on any one page. The bulk of the pages seemed to be filled with reproductions of old newspaper copy from long ago. There seemed to be a chronology to the album, so she decided to start at the beginning. The first page held a newspaper clipping from the
Jackson County Register.
The date was June 6th, 1863, and the accompanying photograph felt like icy fingers around her heart.

“Here you go, dear,” said Maddie, stepping up beside Jess with a Styrofoam cup of hot coffee. “Sorry I didn’t have any extra mugs. I made coffee this morning, so it might -”

Maddie looked down at the book opened to first page and she stopped talking about coffee. Jess laid her finger lightly on the copy of the newspaper article and looked up at Maddie.

“What is this?” she asked suspiciously.

Maddie sat down in her chair across from Jess and put the cups on the table carefully. Then, she met Jess’ stare with one of her own.

“I think you know what that is.”

Jess scanned the date of the newspaper again, hoping she had misread it. She checked the caption beneath the photograph.

Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Pembry.

“Is this some kind of joke? Is this one of those fake newspapers you get at a carnival?” She pointed to the image of Josiah Pembry and his wife. “I met this man yesterday! And I met this woman three days ago!”

“And this photograph was taken 150 years ago,” stated Maddie evenly.

Jess fell back into her chair. “How can those things both be true?”

“You figure that out, you let me know.”

“But, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this?”

“What do you usually do with a story?” asked Maddie.

“I’ve never had a story like this.”

“But, I thought you dealt with the strange and unusual.”

“No,” she said, crossing her arms and shaking her head defiantly. “What we do is debunk your favorite urban legends, only, at the end of the piece, we admit that maybe it could be true after all, and we leave everyone with a big question mark and a self-satisfied grin on their faces. It’s all a scam designed to sell ad space.”

“So, what would you do if one of those legends turned out to be true?”

“They’re never true.”

Maddie smiled at that. “First time for everything.”

She reached over and nudged the book a little closer to Jess, then sat back and waited.

“The question was, what would you do?”

Jess twisted the ring on her right thumb absently as she eyed the challenge to her profession. Could she really debunk a legend if it was true? Would she even want to? And, would it ever be believed?

Jess scooted back to the table and reached out to touch the scrapbook. She could feel Maddie warming her with her smile. She took a second to glare.

“Gloating is unbecoming a lady.”

“What lady?”

Jess tucked a thumb under the second page and turned it slowly, blotting out the photograph that was giving her the willies. Page two showed an entry from inside T
he Register
, a photograph of a rundown farm house and some scrub acreage.

The caption read “Pembry Farm 1863”.

“That’s where Josiah took his blushing bride to begin their life together,” explained Maddie.

“Maybe it’s just my expectation, but even this looks a bit familiar.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Jess flipped to the next page, and things got very familiar. The photograph showed Josiah Pembry decked out in his Prussian blue uniform, all buttons and epaulets shining and pressed. His hat was cocked slightly on his head, and his beard trimmed like it was Sunday morning. This was an army commissioned portrait of a new lieutenant, taken just weeks before he died on the battlefield, March of 1864.