The keepers, p.10
The Keepers, page 10
“In a hurry, are you?” She punched the price of the milk into the register as she spoke.
“A little,” Jessie’s smile was tight. “My daughter is visiting Melanie and I’m late picking her up.”
Bessie nodded curtly and rang up the bread. “They was in here the other day. Pretty girl. Hope she likes Lost Crossing, sometimes it takes a while to get used to a new place.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask how this town got its name. It is a little odd.” Instantly Jessie regretted the words for Bessie stopped totaling the groceries.
“Proper thought, I guess. Must have been over a hundred years ago when people first settled here. They put a footbridge across the river and the story goes that a young mother was going across with her little girl and the poor child slipped and fell. The mother jumped in to save her and they both drowned. From then on, they called the place Lost Crossing. Course it wasn’t a town then. No, only a big fine castle on the ridge at the far end of the valley. But about sixty-nine years ago, something happened and it was destroyed. You ought to go up there sometime. The stone walls, fireplaces, stuff like that is still standing. Course its over-growed with grapevine and weeds now.”
“What happened to it?”
The milk jug was breaking out in fat drops of sweat that coursed down the plastic sides, making puddles on the counter. Bessie took out a dingy towel and mopped up the water. She leaned toward Jessie; her eyes tiny pinpoints of glitter.
“This is hearsay mind you, happened before I was born, but no, I’ll have to start further back than that. Best anybody knows it was around the time of the Civil War when a strange sort of fellow came here from Europe. He’d looked over the country for a place to settle. Finally, he found this valley with the river coming out of the mountain. It reminded him so much of his own home he bought it right then and there. After that he went back to his castle, some say it was in the Scottish highlands, tore it down and had it shipped here. Then had the whole thing built again on the cliff above where the river comes out. They put stone for stone building it back the very same way.
“Then like I said, nearly seventy years ago something happened and the whole kit and caboodle went up in flames. Never heard what caused it, but I did hear tell he was the one who built the lodge. Guess he still wanted a place hereabouts, but after losing the big house decided not to stay here as much. I heard he’s the one who sold the lodge to old Pritchard. Story was that Farley got it for next to nothing. That part must be true cause the Pritchards never had a pot to pee in afore that.”
Jessie followed the jumbled story the best she could, but a lot of detail was missing and the length of time was certainly off. Yet, it was interesting because of the tie-in with the lodge.
“I don’t understand. If the hilltop castle was built that long ago, how could the same man have sold the lodge to Mr. Pritchard?”
For a second, Bessie twisted her mouth looking irritated at having her history questioned. Then a blank innocence in her eyes quickly masked it.
“You know, I never paid it much mind, but you must be right. I believe it was the first fellow’s son who was living there when the fire came. Anyway,” Bessie waved her baby-plump hand. “I hope you’re not the spooky sort cause you’ll hear tales about the bridge and the old castle on the cliff. Why, some say the bridge is haunted. They’ll tell you how that young woman walks the bridge crying out for her lost child. Course having the town named after the misfortune doesn’t help put it to rest. Folks with that same turn of mind will go on about the old ruin, saying it has a strange air about it.”
Bessie threw her head back to laugh, exposing a top row of blunt, worn off teeth. “But you try finding anyone who has actually seen anything and it’ll fade mighty fast. For all of me, I don’t care if the devil himself is up there cavorting around. But now, if that or anything else threatened to run off our summer customers I’d be ready to do battle over that, you can bet! Well, I better get you finished here.”
Bessie rang up the rest of the groceries and began sacking them. Jessie was still anxious to leave and get Denise, but Bessie’s gossip, along with Jack Tanner’s strange babbling, set her mind spinning. Jessie didn’t believe in haunted ruins or possessed bridges, there was nothing to fear from the dead, it was the living who perpetuated evil. The word sent an icy finger down her spine. Until now her uneasiness only warned of some form of trouble, she had no desire to press on into a darker land. Yet, there was something wrong with the whole deal and, as she told Jack, she had a right to know.
“Bessie, I’m sure you know Jack Tanner, the man at the filling station?”
“Sure do.”
“I was there getting some gas and he wasn’t very friendly. He said some strange things.”
“He’s another funny one.” Bessie spat out the words. “That Jack Tanner hasn’t been right for years. It’s nothing you did. He grew up here; his dad used to have the station, course when the old man died it went to Jack. He always was a hell raiser, when he joined the army we thought it might settle him down. But not Jack. Why he even volunteered to work with explosives, landmines, that kind of thing. Right up his alley I suppose, but knowing Jack it’s a surprise he didn’t blow himself up. Must have liked it though, cause when he came back he helped put a new highway between here and Lebanon. Grinned like an ape when he got to do some blasting.
“Anyway, he got married and they had a little girl. The whole town breathed a sigh of relief cause it looked like he was finally calming down. Did too, till the little girl was about eight, I guess. That was around six years ago. That’s when the poor baby girl disappeared. Jack went so crazy his wife couldn’t take it and left him.
“Ever since, we’ve had to put up with him. I guess you noticed he wasn’t exactly sober.” Bessie tucked her chin back into the folds of her neck and narrowed her eyes. “So don’t you pay him no mind, or for that matter anything he says. It don’t mean a thing, just the raving of an alcohol-soaked brain.”
“I see. Well, thank you, Bessie.” Jessie hoisted the grocery sack with her right arm. “I better run now.”
Bessie waved her out of the store, calling: “You think it over now, about the girls. Let me know. I can have them out there in a wink. Tell your family hello.”
Jessie had tried not to think of the day when the lodge would have strangers scurrying about. Posey was no problem, he was so silent they hardly knew he was there, but the thought of the bulky Trasker girls chattering and bouncing around every corner caused Jessie’s skin to shrivel. Jessie’s family needed time alone, to adjust to the new life without the confusing interference of other people. They needed to talk freely without each disagreement being overheard and reported in town. Unfortunately, disagreeing seemed to be all they did lately.
She and Stan were having trouble settling into a work routine, they stumbled over each other at every turn, and Stan wasn’t pleased with anything she did. To say nothing of the problem of getting Denise and Andy into settled, normal days. Right now the family was off the track, like a derailed train with the cars upside down and scattered. Mrs. Trasker’s offer wasn’t attractive.
When Jessie walked across the cracked sidewalk and started to open the car door she looked down the street toward the service station. Jack Tanner was watching her. He stood in front of the station, his legs splayed and his fists on his hips. He was too far away for Jessie to see his eyes, but she felt them burning into her. She put the sack on the front seat and slid in behind the wheel, closing the door with a heavy thunk.
Although the afternoon was warm and the interior of the sun-baked car hot and dry as an oven, Jessie’s hands were white and icy and her teeth tried to chatter in her rigid jaw. Her mind hummed, sorting and cataloging what she’d heard, putting the information into neat packets. Jack’s tragedy certainly explained his condition, and Bessie’s story was only a local legend. So why did the circuits in her head crackle, snap, and flash small red and blue lights? The voiceless answer stuck like a ball full of straight pins in the space beneath her breastbone.
For all the placid, pastoral beauty of the small town and valley it was a place where the dark shadowy realm crowded in and pushed with a force that threatened to crush Jessie. She had always been aware of the evil that hovered and hung around the edges of life, but she felt it here more than any place she had ever been. What must Andy be going through? According to their unspoken code, they each hid their occasional anxiety, trying to appear normal, here that might not be possible. The atmosphere was too charged with something black and sinister.
Every nerve ending in Jessie’s tense body screamed out for her to take crazy old Jack’s advice. It fit the empty, uneasy hollow like a missing puzzle piece.
She could have her and the children out of here by evening; but Stan, never. He was a bee stuck in his own honey. The sweet fulfillment of his dreams held him fast. It was no good pointing out the danger. She had tried that. And what about Denise? It didn’t seem likely that she would willingly leave either. The ball of pins in Jessie’s stomach was joined by a solid chunk of certainty that she could not divide her family; the only way for them to survive was by staying together. Suddenly, Jessie was in a fever to gather them close, have her husband and children in a tight comforting circle.
She started the Lincoln and backed into the street, not daring to turn and look directly at Jack. Instead, she glanced in the side mirror. And as she drove down a cobblestone street toward the cedar house at the end of town, Jack became a small image in the distance. But he continued to watch her.
Chapter Thirteen
Andy slumped on the high stool at the island counter in the center of the big gleaming lodge kitchen and stared at the bowl of tomato soup. His stomach curled into a tight fist and his copycat throat followed suit. He wasn’t hungry, but it upset his mom if he didn’t eat. She always asked questions, and right now he didn’t have any answers. So while she ate and told him she was going to town and asked if he wanted to go with her, Andy shook his head and shoveled soup into his mouth, wondering how to force it down his closed throat. Then she was rinsing her bowl with quick hurried motions.
“I’m going upstairs to get ready,” she said over her shoulder. “If you change your mind about going, let me know. I won’t be leaving for an hour yet.”
While her back was turned, he glumly studied the congealing pinkish-red soup and the glass of room temperature milk. His mouth puckered. She better hurry and leave, she wasn’t easy to fool. Usually it was nice talking to her because she understood him, but this time she’d probably look at him strangely. He deserved it because he’d been feeling strange lately. He wanted to tell her about it, but the words weren’t there. He needed to be alone and think things over.
For the past two weeks, he’d been getting worse and worse; it was like coming down with the flu, but instead of his body, his mind was stiff and throbbing. It didn’t work right; it kept rambling off into unfamiliar areas, showing him shadowy disjointed pictures he didn’t understand.
Jessie finally closed the dishwasher and started to leave. When she reached the kitchen door Andy called: “Mom?”
She turned back. “Yes?”
“I won’t change my mind. I don’t want to go. I’m going for a walk instead.”
Andy waited until she’d had time to get upstairs, then he grabbed the revolting soup and the milk, which looking at it made him gag. and dumped the whole pink and white mess into the sink. With the blobs of limp soggy crackers, it reminded him of the time Sharon Kemper had thrown up outside the school cafeteria. Quickly Andy turned on the water and as it whirled down the drain his stomach relaxed a bit. With the evidence of his uneaten lunch gone, Andy slipped out the back door and down the deck stairs. The wide-open lawn separating him from the woods stretched like a vast never-ending plain. He tried to race across it and into the sheltering trees, but his knees jerked up and down in a funny half-hopping, half-skipping gait. His stride was hobbled. It had something to do with the odd messages coming from his head.
When Andy reached the woods, he went on for several yards until the trees hid him from the lodge. Then he found a gray weathered stump and sat down. He couldn’t see the river, but off to the right he could sense the heavy sliding of the deep rolling water. The woods were full of its presence. The river, the dense woods, and the woolly hills offered a freedom he’d never known. He loved the slate blue water gliding past the lodge on its way to the lake; the delightful discoveries of fascinating plants and rock formations; the sudden sightings of blue-jays or squirrels. It brought a warm, happy contentment. Still, lately something was different, confusing, and it had to do with the air. No, that wasn’t exactly right. The breeze still smelled of water and fresh green grass. It was more like an invisible cloud settling over the lodge.
With his elbows on his drawn up knees and his chin resting on the palms of his hands, Andy frowned at the slender new summer weeds struggling to grow in the forest shade. He needed to figure things out, or get sick for real. Maybe if he stripped away everything his eyes saw and his ears heard and concentrated instead on that other sense, the one making so much noise lately, he might begin to understand. Maybe he could open to it, let it say what it wanted, and then it would let him alone.
Andy felt the swirling disturbing currents and being a careful person he found it hard to suddenly plunge in, yet tiptoeing along the edge made things worse. He’d tried to ignore the unsettling changes by keeping busy, like asking his dad to explore the woods or go out on the river. Stan wasn’t interested.
Andy heaved a deep sad sigh; he knew why Stan didn’t want to go. He was disappointed in Andy. Andy wasn’t big enough or strong enough, and most of all they didn’t share the same wavelength. Their thoughts never connected. No matter what they talked about Stan got mad. It was painful, but Andy was used to it and there was nothing to do except keep trying. Maybe someday he’d suddenly explode with muscles and not trip over his feet and spill everything he picked up; maybe then he’d start talking his dad’s language. For such a long time, he’d tried to please his dad, and sometimes he thought he was getting close, but now a new thing was blocking the path.
Stan was changing.
Like smoke seeping under a door, Andy caught a whiff of the change. It was so thin and vapor-like he couldn’t catch hold of it, but it was there. If Andy now, by some miracle, became what his dad wanted him to be it wouldn’t matter.
It was too late.
Stan didn’t care anymore. He cared only about the resort.
Andy wanted to hate the place; yet, he didn’t. It wasn’t the buildings or the land; it was that sly secret floating in the air. It was turning Andy’s chance of getting closer to Stan into something dry, brittle, and dead. While Andy’s hope shriveled and shrank, Denise’s relationship with their father seemed to grow lush and green. They were more like each other than ever. Andy wasn’t sure how his mother felt, he couldn’t talk to her about it until he found the words to explain, but she must know something because she was right in not wanting Denise to be around that dark-haired woman.
Andy sat huddled on the tree stump, dwelling on things he could neither see, nor touch. He felt as if he were becoming light and small enough to melt away. It was scary to let that other sense loose, the one that showed his family drifting apart.
He was tempted to be sorry for himself, but that was a sissy thing. If he couldn’t look as his dad wanted, at least he could act strong and brave. But he did feel sorry for his mother. Every day Jessie looked more puzzled, and more often there was a flicker of hurt in her eyes. Whenever his parents were cross with each other, Andy’s stomach lurched in a sickening way as if the pillars supporting his world were shaking and cracking. Since they’d been at the lodge the tremors were more severe, coming as deep hard shocks, rocking and splitting the foundation more than ever.
A slight breeze skimmed across the river bringing coolness to Andy’s warm forehead and ruffling his hair. His thinly padded hips were numb from pressing against the hard wood and his shoulders heaved with discouragement. He’d given that nagging dark hovering sense free rein, and it hadn’t told him a thing he didn’t already know. It still lurked around fogging up his mind and filling his stomach with an oily queasiness. He squinted making the trees and bushes look fuzzy. He clamped his jaw puffing out his lower lip. What good was having some dumb thing that told you where lost keys were, or when someone was about to come into a room, if it didn’t help on important things? It made Andy swell with anger.
All Andy’s life he’d been on the verge of something, always on the edge, it kept him stretching taller trying to see over the rise, knowing when things were about to happen, but, maddeningly, never able to peer over the top and tell what they were! It was a useless ability. It kept him tense and always leaning forward.
Then Andy released the anger, letting it seep away and disappear like light rain on beach sand. He let it go because it too was useless. He’d reached out, stretched as tall as he could, and still the cause of his uneasiness was hidden. So instead, he concentrated on what he did know. His father was in love with the resort. He liked it better than he did Andy and maybe Jessie, too. The strange woman in town had captured Denise. His mother was walking a tightrope, balancing between underlying nervousness and trying to keep the family together. Andy went to bed every night exhausted and bruised by waves of anxiety, and undercurrents of tension that rolled back and forth over the lodge.
That was the sum total of Andy’s knowledge. He stubbornly refused to count the pulsing dark thing crouched beyond his vision. If it wouldn’t come out and show itself, after his generous offer to acknowledge it, then it could stay hidden forever, he wouldn’t care. Whatever It was. Andy gave a short jump and landed with a soft thud; his feet tingling and cold like lumps of ice inside his blue and white sneakers. He stomped around waking up his feet and then started through the brush toward the river. Although his session of sitting and thinking had relaxed him, he wasn’t ready to go back. The woods were far more comfortable than the lodge.
