Scarecrow (21 page)

I will bring something back.

“Oh, no,” I whispered then, “oh…no—” And I didn’t remember moving forward, only that I had to keep that door from being opened, that I had to keep Girlie from unsealing that awful room, and as my hands went down and caught the metal ring, grappling with her fingers, I thought I heard a noise below—something moving—and suddenly, impossibly, the door burst open, flinging us both back into the straw.

I screamed, grabbing Girlie against me as a blast of cold, dank air enveloped us, dousing the light, leaving us in darkness, and for an eternity we lay there, eyes riveted helplessly, unseeingly on that yawning hole in the floor.

As the minutes crawled by and my heart thudded sickeningly against my chest, I finally felt Girlie squirming from my grasp, and I realized I must have been hurting her, holding her so tightly against me. I felt my breath return at last, my heart recede to a painless murmur; as I inched my way up off the floor, the barn came back into focus, flickering in the glow of the relighted lamp.

I’d never felt so foolish. Suddenly the whole situation seemed so bizarre and ridiculous that I began to laugh, only softly at first, but then strange gasps bordering on hysteria.
You’re letting it all get to you—Girlie and Franny’s argument, that scarecrow not being burned, Micah’s dying, all the silly, stupid superstitions of this plain, ignorant family.
Abruptly I broke off, my hands going nervously to my throat.

“What did you want to show me?” I whispered, and Girlie began her descent into the cellar, motioning me to follow. After a pause, I did so, handing down the lantern so that the tiny space filled with yellow light, standing there beside her, surveying the interior without speaking. The place seemed the same as it had before…and yet…

Frowning, my eyes swept the cramped space from floor to ceiling, from one corner to another. Something was different. Something…I turned slowly, my frown deepening. Everything looked the same, the damp walls, the straw-strewn floor, the chains…I pressed my fingers to my nose. The room
smelled
different—not anything overpowering, just a slight undercurrent of something I hadn’t smelled there before. I glanced at Girlie and saw that she was on her knees, beckoning me to the wall where the chains hung down. Her face was intense, her eyes seemed sad in a way I’d never noticed before. I knelt beside her, a prickle of apprehension working its deliberate way up my spine. She fixed me with her stare, then shifted it to the rusty coils in a heap upon the straw. Swallowing my revulsion, I picked up one of the thick chains and held it in my hands.

Surely Micah could never have been this strong—that was the first thought that came to mind. Surely his frail body, even in the grips of insanity, could never have required restraints this heavy. Of course, I had heard of people becoming superhumanly powerful in certain deranged states, yet the thought of Micah being bound by these awful chains was unbelievable to me. My face twisted in loathing and anger, and as I ran my fingers down the metal links, I gasped and recoiled in horror. They were sticky…coated with clots of something not quite dry. And as I stared down at the revolting evidence, I felt my stomach churn inside me. These were not just stains—not just the bloodstains I had noticed on my previous visit to this place—these were chunks of flesh and hair, already shriveling along the chain, where someone had writhed and struggled in an agony to free himself.

I let the thing fall from my sticky fingers and saw Girlie scrabbling about in the straw. As she buried herself deeper into the pile, scattering straw all around us, I saw more blood, great pools of it, all dried and clumped in red patches, the dirt stained rusty with it, the floor soaked brown where it had seeped through and gathered and dried. It reminded me of a slaughter, and feeling desperately ill, I turned away and climbed quickly up into fresher air. I sank down onto the edge of a feed trough and lowered my head between my knees. I heard Girlie come up after me and settle the trapdoor back into place. After a while I felt one of her hands on my back.

“Micah,” she whispered sadly.

“Yes, Girlie, I know.” I could barely speak. “I’m so sorry.”

He must have been out of his mind for days. He must have fought to free himself, ripping his arms in the process, cutting himself to ribbons. No wonder his body had been so mutilated. Micah must have found supernatural strength somehow, forcing Seth to chain him even tighter. He must have suffered terribly…it must have been a blessing when he finally died.

Amazed at my calm assessment of it all, I realized that Girlie was again patting my back.

“Micah,” she repeated, and her voice was small and urgent.

“Yes, I know, darling. But he’s at peace now, can you understand that?”

“No,” she said. “Micah can’t sleep.”

I stared at her, my mind slowing, trying to absorb her words. Of course she’d know about Micah’s spells—she’d told me herself that Micah had to be confined at times. She was only a child, after all, but there were some things even a child could sense, and so I tried to comfort her now.

“Yes, Girlie, it’s really all right. Micah isn’t sick now like he was before. Now he
can
sleep and he’s happy. No more bad dreams. And he won’t ever have to stay in this awful place again.”

Her face came so close to mine that I started. Her saucer eyes were bottomless, full of swimming lights and liquid secrets.

“He can’t sleep,” she said sadly. “Poor Micah…”

“Girlie,” I sighed, trying to be patient, racking my brain for some new consolation that would make sense to her. She was staring at me so unhappily that I felt my heart break for her pain.
She loved Micah so much…she misses him…
But as I opened my mouth to speak, she yanked hard at my hand and took a step toward the door.

“You’ll see,” she said simply.

I sat there, listening to the steady thrum of rain against the roof, feeling so tired all of a sudden. “I think we should go in now. I think we should check on Rachel—”

“Come!” Girlie tugged at me again, and I eyed her doubtfully, the pout of her upper lip, her thick brows angled in perpetual expectancy above her huge eyes. Sighing, I gave in and trudged out into the rain, but instead of staying within the confines of the yard, she took off around the south corner of the house.

“Girlie! Where are you? I was just in time to see her disappearing into the trees. “Girlie! Wait! come back here!” But if she heard me, she gave no sign, and with a cry of exasperation I ran into the woods, trying to keep on her trail. “Girlie?” The world was cold and wet, but I went on, scanning my surroundings with growing unease. This was the way we had come to bury Micah’s body.

A clap of thunder startled me into movement again. I sloshed along, mud sucking at my ankles. Once I thought I heard Girlie’s voice—a faint haunting sound beneath the downpour—but when I called and got no answer, I ran on.

The clearing was upon me before I realized. I stumbled out into the little cemetery, nearly sprawling over a lopsided cross, so that I flailed my arms and fought to keep my balance.

Micah’s grave, so newly dug, was a crumbling mound of oozing earth. Girlie was huddled in a little heap beside it.

But she wasn’t alone.

As I strained my eyes through the downpour, I saw Seth standing silently beside her like a tall, gray statue, his head bowed, hair and beard plastered, dripping, to his face.

His cheeks were streaming with rain…and yet…for one minute I thought he was crying.

Ever since that night in the shed, he’d avoided me whenever possible, not even speaking when we were forced to be together at meals. But now he looked up as I approached, holding me steadily with his eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, and after my first rash of fear I finally managed to look down at Girlie, questions forming on my half-frozen lips.

She had shriveled into a cold, soggy bundle at Seth’s feet. She fixed me with expressionless eyes.

“Gone,” she said, and shook her head miserably.

I reached out to touch her, but she didn’t speak again the rest of the day.

A
LL THROUGH SUPPER I
watched her, but Girlie avoided my eyes. She hardly ate a thing. Rachel was afraid she was coming down with something and put her to bed early, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was much more than that. I was sure that Seth’s being at the cemetery had upset her for some reason. I just couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t get the whole thing out of my mind—Girlie’s strange behavior, taking me on secret excursions. I felt somehow that I’d been on the verge of learning something important—
but what?

No one seemed much in a talking mood after supper. Micah’s death had thrown a pall over the house, making us move like ghosts through a world of the half-living. Rachel rocked slowly in her chair. Franny came in from a bath, asking if anyone wanted to take advantage of the water that had already been heated. I jumped at the chance—anything to escape the oppression of these dark rooms—and told Rachel not to bother helping me tonight. She nodded vaguely in my direction, but I wasn’t sure she had even heard.

After filling the tub in the barn, I undressed quickly and sank down into the heavenly warmth of the water. I was still puzzled by Girlie’s odd behavior that day. The more I thought about it the more certain I was that she had really been trying to tell me something, and that Seth’s presence in the cemetery had stopped her. Closing my eyes, I tried to remember everything she had said to me, concentrating on each phrase as if I could pick it apart and come up with some hidden meaning. But Girlie was not cunning, she was honest. There had been no trickery intended, I was sure of that; this was no game of twenty questions intended to frighten me. She had been trying to tell me
something.

Micah is going to die.
Girlie had known it. I could still see it so clearly…her stepping off the porch, coming up to me, taking my hand…the sadness on her face, the way her words had come, direct, matter-of-fact, unchangeable. I hadn’t believed her then.

But now Micah was dead.

“Micah can’t sleep…poor Micah.”
Lathering up my washcloth, I ran it over my face, hearing Girlie’s words over and over again in my mind—
“can’t sleep”…“can’t sleep”…
I suspected that Girlie had probably spent some sleepless nights of her own in her very short lifetime—listening to Micah’s ravings, hearing Seth’s attempts to restrain him. My mind took a morbid detour, imagining what it must have been like for a little girl in a household like this. Had she lain awake in the dark while Micah’s insanity echoed across the secluded hills? Had she even known about his victims, heard their screams, their pleas for mercy? And then what might have followed—hushed family conferences behind closed doors while the child was supposed to be asleep upstairs…
what will we do with Micah?…poor Micah…he can’t sleep…

I moaned and sank lower in the tub, splashing water over my face.
But why did she take me to the cemetery?
And what had Seth been doing there? And why had his presence caused Girlie to clam up the way she did? I sponged the cloth over my forehead, wringing the water, loving the feel of it caressing my cheeks, my eyelids…my lips…

Suddenly I knew he was there.

Without opening my eyes, I knew it, without hearing a sound or smelling the scent of rainwashed fields, I knew he was there, his presence filling the barn with its silence and strength. Drawing in my breath, I let my eyes readjust to the gloomy barn, and they fell upon his shadow, not three feet away. My heart thudded against my chest as he stepped out into the dim circle of lantern light.

“I’ll scream,” I said hoarsely, trying to meet his eyes without flinching. And then, as another memory struck, my voice trembled in surprise. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“That night in the barn?” He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

“Get out of here.” I tried to hold back my rage and sudden tears. “Get out of here now. You’ve caused enough hurt as it is.”

He pondered a moment, his shoulders blending with shadows on the wall. “I wanted you,” he said quietly. “I wanted you then, just as much as I want you now.”

He took a step nearer, the familiar hostility strangely absent, and I bent into the water, knowing I could never hide from those dark, dark eyes.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he mumbled. “That night, I never meant—”

“I want you to leave!” My voice rose, shrill with growing panic. “I never want you to come near me again!”

“You’re lying,” he said. “Don’t ever lie to me.” He leaned over, and I felt his breath, softly, in my ear.

“You’ve been drinking.” And though I pushed him away in alarm, he regarded me complacently.

“So? It’s my land and my corn and my still.” The eyebrows lifted. “It doesn’t happen very often, I promise you that. Only when I bow to my limitations.”

I watched him warily as he went down on his knees beside me, resting his elbows on the edge of the tub. One slender finger moved lazily in the water…trailed a wisp of lather over my breast. I stiffened, and he withdrew his hand.

“You’re worrying about Rachel, aren’t you?”

“I’m…” My eyes lowered again, avoiding his, while I tried frantically to think. “She’s your wife, and she’s been good to me…is there any way you could ever imagine what I’ve gone through? The shame and the horrible—”

“Because of her, then. Not because of me.”

“Please…
just go away—”

“Because of her?” he demanded, catching my face in his hands. “Or me?”

Silence hung endlessly between us. He gave a vague nod and sat down upon the floor. A faint smile played over the hard lines of his mouth. “Don’t feel bad for Rachel.”

“How can you say that? She’s your wife! You never talk to her. You never hold her—”

“Rachel doesn’t like to be held,” he said, the smile fading. “Rachel doesn’t like to be touched. Especially by me.” He looked at me then in mild surprise as if I should have been aware of the fact. “What Rachel needs from me, I give her. Don’t feel bad for Rachel.”

“What
does
she need from you?” I asked, yet even as I said the words, I could see the change in him. Something cold and strange passed slowly across his face, turning him into a different person right in front of my eyes.