Hallowed (20 page)

“Trick or treat,” I surmised.

“Exactly.  Celtic beliefs are at the heart of everything we do at Halloween.  A lot of those concepts managed to survive for two thousand years, so there must be some grain of universal truth to it all, wouldn’t you say?”

I grumbled.

“Just keep your mind open, Paul. That’s all I ask.”

We reached the small town of Griffinbourg, about 35 miles northeast of Haven.  It was isolated, hilly country, and we parked the car on the road a couple of hundred yards from the house, a dark shape rising from within a few acres of land overgrown with weeds and the remnants of an orange grove.  I knew almost at once, even from this distance, that it was not the right house.

With no light between us but my dim cell phone display, we started side-by-side down the short gravel road which led into the front yard, and by the time we had passed the first orange tree, Claudia was clutching my arm like a vise.

I attempted to change the subject, not realizing that the new subject would be just as unnerving.  “I was talking to my mom the other night about how my dad and my uncle had gone into a house with your dad to save a little girl.  You know about that?”

After a few moments of silence, she nodded.  “Oh yeah, but that’s about all I know.  Mom doesn’t like to talk about it.  The only information I’ve been able to get about that night was some article from the
Austin American Statesmen
from thirty-five years ago.”

“I got the same treatment,” I responded.  “What do you think that’s all about?”

“Something bad happened there, Paul.  What does your Uncle say about it?”

I shrugged.  “I never got around to asking him.”

The house standing before us was an old two story number that had once been painted white, but between being washed out by the sun and simply rotting from age, it now looked almost gray in the moonlight.  We walked up to the old wooden porch.  The steps leading up to it had completely collapsed.  The front door, and the single window to its right, was obscured by boards nailed across the front.  Painted graffiti from gang signs to declarations of love were sprayed across the front of it in defiance of its stately appearance.

“This must have been beautiful once,” I stated.

Claudia gave a nod of satisfaction.  “See, I knew you would appreciate it.  C’mon, we got in this way the other night.”  She started to tug my arm.

I refused to move.  “None of this looks familiar to me,” I told her.

“We’ve come all this way.  What would it hurt to check it out?”

“If I don’t recognize it from the front, why would the inside stir anything,” I explained.  “I’ve never dreamed about the inside.”

She sighed and couldn’t seem to muster the energy for a fight.

“No telling how many people have been using this place as their own personal hideout,” I continued.  “Crackheads.  Transients.  Kids looking for a place to make-out.  It just feels disrespectful.  This was someone’s home once.”

Claudia gave a single nod and started back the way we’d come.  “Let’s go then.”

I followed along behind her.  After a few minutes, she slowed enough for me to catch up with her.  For the second time in the course of a week, her hand found mine in the darkness.  The difference this time, though, was that now she was deferring to me and letting me take the lead.  Whereas before I had sought comfort from her, now she wanted me to protect her.  It was a good feeling, validating everything that was masculine about me.  In that moment, a thought occurred to me.

I would die for her.

Would you, Paul?

I spun around, jerking Claudia to a stop.  It had been the sound wind makes rushing through the branches of a tree.  Almost a hiss.  But I had distinctly heard words.

“What is it?”

Thinking quickly, I turned back to her with a smirk.  “Just kidding.”

Claudia gave me a punch to the arm and started forward again.  “I don’t know if you realize what time it is, but we’ve got exactly thirty minutes to get home.  If I’m not there when the Counsinner gets home, there’ll be all kinds of questions.”

With renewed determination, I started up the path.

We made record time back to Haven, risking life, limb, and speeding tickets, but I got Claudia back to her house at exactly five ‘til midnight.  No pumpkin for her!

When I pulled to a stop, Claudia shoved her door open and started out, but I reached across and touched her arm.  “Wait!”

Her eyes lit up and she turned back to me.  “Oh yeah!  I almost forgot.  Let me show you how to take pictures with your new phone, Johnny Appleseed, so you can let me take a look at those crime scene photos.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

She glared, gave a huff, and started to the house again.

“Hey, Claudia?”

She stopped and gave me a wide-eyed expression that was a cross between fear and excitement.  She took a few steps toward me in curiosity.

The words stuck in my throat.  All it takes is a moment to lose an opportunity.

That moment passed.

She gave me an amused smile and slugged my arm as hard as she could.  “Guess, this evening didn’t suck as much as the Homecoming dance would have, huh?”  She pulled away but gave me one last piercing look with those dark eyes that set the hook deep for another day’s catch.  Then she was gone.

Almost immediately after, my phone began to ring.

As a wise man named Yogi Berra once said, it was “deja-vu all over again.”

When I got home, I found Dad sitting on the swing, which verified the fact that the separate camps had definitely been in contact.

Mounting the steps of the porch, I noticed he once again had the cigarettes out, but this time I saw something even more disturbing.  An empty glass sat on the wooden railing surrounding the porch and a vague smell of alcohol wafted off of him.

He examined me intensely for a moment, with absolutely no tipsy shifting of the eyes or wobbling of the head, then patted the wooden planks of the swing’s seat.

The screen door opened and Mom stepped out.  “You were with
her
, weren’t you?”  I had never heard that acidic edge to my mother’s voice before in regards to another person, especially someone who, for all intents and purposes, might have been a member of our family.

“Kathy, please. Let me handle this.”

My mother hesitated for a few more moments until Dad gave her a look that sent her inside.

Resigned to another lecture, I took the seat next to Dad, ignoring the pungent smell of alcohol hanging like a cloud around him.

“There’s a good reason why I warned you to be cautious,” he stated.  “A seventeen year old boy was found over in Ulee’s Junction, not fifteen miles away.  His head was removed from his body.”

I didn’t have to pretend to react with horror.  Just the way my father said it was enough to make me shudder involuntarily.

“You have to understand that the source of our anger is not that you disobeyed your mother, but that you did something irresponsible at a time of high risk.”

I opened my mouth to try and defend myself.  My father set his lips into a hard line, like a shield against the denials that he must have known were coming.

Finally, I just said, “I’m sorry.”

He glanced up and cast judgment on my sincerity.  It must have passed muster, because he gave a single nod and said with finality, “Go to bed, Paul.”

I pressed my lips together, willing the words I wished to utter to stay put.  Instead, I pushed my feelings aside for the moment and went dutifully into the house, passing my mother tucked away on one corner of the couch.  When I was halfway up the stairs, I glanced down and saw the light of the lamp reflecting my mother’s face on the empty TV screen in front of her.  She looked as wan and exhausted as I’ve ever seen her.

It was then that I first noticed the changes, subtle in their earliest incarnation, stirring not concern, as it would later, but resentment instead.  After all, I thought, it was
their
need to control me that was causing all this negative energy, not me.  They were the ones who felt it necessary to continue to treat me as if I were a child.  I was seventeen!  I was nearly an adult, wasn’t I?

Beneath me, my mother cocked her head at an angle that somehow reminded me of an animal, a strange dog who had wandered into our yard by mistake and adopted a defensive posture when confronted.  Her eyes slid around and stared at me out of the corners without actually acknowledging me.  I shivered involuntarily and rushed up the last few steps to my room.

I couldn’t forget the way she had said those words: “You were with her, weren’t you?”  It wasn’t an emotion I recognized as coming from my mother.

Open loathing.

The next morning, I didn’t feel much like getting out of bed, but I knew that I had the mid-shift at the store.

The house was too quiet.  Dad had already left for the station and Mom was still in bed, which was uncharacteristic for her.  On the heels of my thoughts the previous night that my parents weren’t treating me enough like an adult, I felt the irony that no one was around to “give me a good talking to.”

I found my car keys in the center of the kitchen table with a note in Mom’s handwriting, which bluntly read, “Drive yourself to work.”

No “Love, Mom” accompanied the four words.

I ate my breakfast in the silence of the kitchen, alone, reflecting on the events of last night, thinking about Claudia and conspiring about how I could arrange to see her before Monday.  In fact, my mind was so occupied, that I didn’t realize that I had forgotten my phone at home until I got to work.

When I got home around six, I steeled myself for the inevitable lecture.

The house was empty.  No notes.

After a few moments of reflection, I realized what might be going on.  Were they giving me a taste of their own medicine?  But then I checked the answering machine.  There was a message from Uncle Hank.

“Kathy?  It’s Hank.”  Then there was a moment of silence almost as if he were trying to determine how best to proceed.  “I think you and Jack should come down to the church.”  I listened to it once more before I decided that the message was meant for only Mom and Dad, which meant, by implication, that it involved me.

Of course, the first conclusion that I jumped to was that something happened to Claudia.  That’s when I heard the knock at the front door.

I opened my door to a uniformed deputy.  Behind him was a Sheriff’s cruiser, lights off.  The best I could manage was a wide-eyed stare.

He raised his hands, palms out and gave a bit of a smile.  “Your mom and dad are fine.  They just thought it was best if we pick you up and bring you over.”

I started out then abruptly stopped.  “Can I see your badge, please?”

The officer smiled and displayed his credentials with a patient expression.  “You’re Jack’s son all right.  Now c’mon, before I regret volunteering for this.”

He guided me out, shut the door, then checked the knob to make sure it was locked.  “Everything else locked down in there?”

I gave a confused nod.  “Is Claudia okay?”  My voice came out in almost a whimper.  Glancing up at the name patch on his breast, I found the name “Baxter” there.

The deputy gave me a confused look as he guided me toward his car where a second deputy was waiting, knees locked and thumbs hooked under his belt.  “Who’s Claudia?”

By the time we had reached the rectory, night had fallen.  Parked in front in the otherwise empty lot of St. Peters were five cars: Mom and Dad’s, an EMT unit, another cruiser and one vehicle I didn’t recognize.  When I saw Dad’s car, it finally hit home.  It was important enough to them to call Dad away from the case.  I felt a rush of adrenaline.

Something serious was happening inside.

Two other deputies were waiting in the foyer of the rectory when I was escorted inside.  My mother rushed to me when I entered and gave me a fierce hug.

“Paul!  Thank God!”  Then, with a stern look on her face: “Where’s your phone?  We’ve been trying to reach you.”

I lowered my eyes.  “I sorta forgot it at home.  Mom, what’s going on?”

“Hank said she came in around noon seeking sanctuary, but didn’t identify who she was until a few hours ago.”

“Who?” I asked.  “Who are we talking about?”

“She claims she’s the Tatum girl.”

I stared at my mother in confusion.  I had literally no idea who she was talking about but I could tell from the expression on her face that it should mean something to me.

I looked over her shoulder, and I could see my Uncle sitting in one of the comfortable leather chairs in his office in front of his desk.  He was framed in the doorway, leaning forward conspiratorially and speaking to someone in the other chair, obscured by the wall.

As I was watching, I saw the head of the other figure peek out from around the corner and stare right down the hallway directly at me.

My father glanced out from inside the office and closed the door behind him.

“Who’s..?”  Before another word left my mouth, I knew.  The little girl they had rescued thirty-five years ago. .“But I thought… she’s dead, right?  You told me.”

“She was.  She
is
.”  My mother shook her head.  “Vital records faxed us a copy of the death certificate on file.  She’s legally dead.”

“So how can she..?”

“I don’t know, Paul.”

I looked down the hallway at the closed door of Father Hank’s office and wondered about the conversation that was going on inside.

“Why is she here?  What’s sanctuary?  Is she wanted for something?”

“Your father just got here less than an hour ago, and she’s been refusing to speak to anyone else until he was here.  Not even to your Uncle.”

“If no one knows who she really is or why she’s here, why did Dad send the deputies to pick me up?” I asked, looking at the two uniformed men who had brought me here.  Both just gave me blank poker faces.  I watched them carefully as I asked the next question: “Does she have something to do with the investigation into the murders?”  Their expressions never changed, but they begin to shift around as if they wanted to be somewhere other than where they were.

“At this point, we know as much as you all do,” the one named Baxter said.

Suddenly the door swung open again and both Uncle Hank and Dad stepped outside.  I could tell by the look on Dad’s face that something had happened that upset him.  He glanced up once and made eye contact with me but never smiled.  Uncle Hank led him a few steps away from the open door, and they began to argue in hushed voices.

It was the first time I’d seen them together in years and here they were arguing.

“What’s going on?” I took a step toward the office, but Mom grabbed my arm.

“Kathy,” my father called.  Mom stepped around the corner with Uncle Hank and Dad and after a moment, I again heard sounds of protest, this time from my mother.

It was then that the figure in the office again peeked around the corner of the office.  As she rose and stood in the doorway, I first noticed that she wore long-sleeves and white gloves.  Second, I thought her hair was platinum blonde.  Later I would realize that it had gone completely white.  She looked to be thirty-five.

She stared intently at me and gave me a tentative smile as if uncertain as to how she should relate to me.  And I to her.

I returned the smile and started over, but I felt a restraining hand on my arm.  It was again one of the deputies.

It was then that she began to sing;

“Now I don’t hardly know her.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck slowly stand.

The raised voices in the hallway came to an abrupt stop and my parents and Uncle Hank glanced back at the woman in the hallway, who was singing to their son and nephew.

“But I think I could love her.”

Suddenly, I realized where I had heard that song before and the floor slipped out from under me.