CHAPTER FOUR
1
“HELLO, RICH,” said Franklin’s father-in-law from behind the screen.
“Hi, George.” Richard shifted on the porch, wishing dearly to God that he was someplace else, anyplace—even a few houses over, where he’d heard the White Sox game on the radio, would be better than this. Break out another cold brew, buddy! he felt like yelling. I’ll be right there! Who’s up? What’s the score?
Then Deadmond pushed open the screen door and stepped out, extending one liver-spotted hand to him. Richard knew he had to be in his sixties, but the man looked a great deal older than that now. His face seemed haggard and worn, the eyes red and sunken behind his bifocals. He looked almost wizened beyond recognition, as if he’d aged fifteen years since the last time Richard had seen him, a month ago at Michelle’s funeral.
He’s going to die pretty soon, Richard thought morbidly. On the heels of that, immediately: Jesus! What a thing to think!
“How are you?” Richard said, letting go of Katie to grasp his father-in-law’s hand.
“I’ve been better, son,” confessed Deadmond. “You?”
“Tired is a good word, I suppose. I . . . I don’t really know what to say to you, George.” Richard faltered for words, clearing his voice and needing to cough. It felt as if an uncut diamond was lodged in his throat that wouldn’t go down, and it wasn’t the Rolaids. “I’m so . . . I can’t even . . . ”
The two clutched each other for a moment and a sense of such profound guilt descended upon Richard Allan Franklin, reducing his soul to the size of a single grain of sand, that he gasped for air.
The old man spoke quietly. “It’s all right, Rich. I know how hard this is. Everything’s all right.”
Richard stepped back, avoiding his gaze. A shudder ran through him, seeking to bring his deflated spirit back to some sort of life. He looked up with difficulty. “George, this is Katelyn,” he began, sounding awkward. “Katie, hon, this is your grandpa. Remember?”
Oh, what a mess. This is Katelyn, and this is your grandpa, and this is the last chance you got to run, pal. So run. Run all the way to Comiskey if you have to. Wonder who’s on the mound today? I wonder—
These thoughts were all cut short when he saw his father-in-law’s eyes. George Deadmond knelt down somewhat stiffly and looked at his only granddaughter for just the second time in both of their lives, and something sparked in his aged, dimming eyes. Something undeniable.
It was eternal affection. No two ways about it.
“Why, sure she remembers me,” George beamed, his face aglow. “Don’t you, sweetheart? Hey there, Katie Jane.”
“Hello.”
“My, if you’re not the prettiest little sweetheart I’ve ever seen, I don’t know who is,” the old man said. “You know what? I think we could all use something nice and cold to drink, how about it. Would you like that, honey Kate?”
“Yes,” Katie answered, smiling as best as she could.
George straightened, and something dangled loose out of his shirt collar—a long brass key on a cord around his neck. “Well, then,” he said, tucking the key back, “let’s go inside.”
That was how Katie Franklin met her grandfather again.
2
The house was just as Richard remembered, only it seemed a lot smaller now. He knew how dumb and cliché that sounded, but it was true. A sweet, flowery aroma hung in the cool entranceway, one vaguely familiar to him. The first thing he saw as they passed into the living room was Michelle’s framed high school picture sitting on top of the big console television set, and beside it a handcrafted photo box with words around its edging: If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I would never have to live without you. The quote was attributed to Winnie the Pooh, and the center of the box frame held one of Michelle’s baby pictures.
The TV was the Deadmonds’ reliable old Curtis Mathis, surely so out-dated that it couldn’t possibly even work anymore. He stared at it, a hint of a smile touching his lips (“I object to all this sex on the television,” Michelle used to joke in her best British, Monty Python voice. “I mean, I keep falling off!”), and he felt that rough diamond trying to rise again.
George’s recliner rested right where he would always remember it being, with a small Oriental design rug on the floor, in front of it. Several plants hung suspended from the ceiling in knotted wool slings, but none of them could be giving off the scent he smelled; they were mostly Wandering Jews, he noted, with a spider plant or two mixed into the fray.
On the wall above the television was a chipped plaque (Michelle made it fly across the room at him once, in a fit of heated anger) which read I ASKED JESUS HOW MUCH HE LOVED ME. HE SPREAD HIS ARMS WIDE AND SAID “THIS MUCH.”, AND HE DIED. Off to the left behind the recliner was an overflowing bookcase, and in a corner to the right of the swinging kitchen door sat an Italian moon phase grandfather clock, the steady cadence of its polished brass pendulum the only sound to be heard above the gentle whir of the central air. The odd, yet comfortable combination of all these things made Richard’s heart ache. He glanced at Katie and saw her looking at her mother’s senior class photograph, and he tried to imagine how much her little heart must be aching, too.
Taking the folded newspaper out from under his arm, he handed it to George. “Found this in your mailbox. TheGuardian still puts out an evening edition, I see.”
“Always has.” Deadmond paused. “Oh, that’s right. You used to work there, didn’t you?”
“Feature writer and some copy stuff—Local Vibes section.” He rolled his eyes for effect.
“Right, right. I’d forgotten. Well, you always did have a flare for the words, son. Will lemonade do okay for everyone?”
Richard and Katie nodded, and Deadmond disappeared into the kitchen. After a minute or so of rattling around, he came back with tall glasses of pink lemonade on a small tray. “How bad of a drive was it, Richard?” he asked, setting the tray down on the end table next to his chair. “Did it take you long?”
“Three days,” Richard said, still somewhat nervy. “But we stopped a lot, you know?” His insides were coiled up, waiting. Expecting something.
“Mm, I surely do.” He carefully handed them their drinks. “Rich? Please, you and Katie sit down. Go on, anywhere you like.”
They sat together on the floral-print sofa by the front picture window. The same sofa upon which Michelle and Richard used to make love. Why the Deadmonds kept it around this long, he hadn’t a clue. Now though, father and daughter settled side-by-side, without wife or mother, widowed and orphaned in the end. They found one another’s eyes briefly and smiled. Richard stared at her a moment longer, his gaze traveling up to Katie’s moppy hair. It was a darkish, curly chestnut brown, like her mother’s; she surely hadn’t gotten it from him. Katie had inherited Michelle’s eyes also, her irises the palest pearl-gray color he’d ever seen. But where had Michelle gotten them? Because neither George or Glee—
Richard started at the thought, nearly dropping his drink. Glee. That’s why he was uneasy, apprehensive. Sure. Glee fucking Deadmond.
George sat down in his recliner and cleared his throat. “What do you think of this heat of ours?”
“It’s a treat,” said Richard. “Flurries are already flying in Maine.”
“That right? Well, it’ll be happening here eventually. Bad storms out west, I guess, heading this way. Big cold front. Warm air won’t be around for long, I’m afraid.”
“Really? I didn’t hear.”
“Not to worry,” the old man went on. “Won’t hit for a while. Yepper, some bad storms rolling in.”
“Huh.” Richard felt a foolish grin (yepper; he still says yepper) coming and he caught himself, straightening his crooked face. Wiping at his unshaven neck, he could feel the sweat roll down inside his shirt. He was still perspiring heavily, even in the cooled house. It was almost claustrophobic. All in tingling anticipation of Her Royal Highness, queen Glee . . .
Deadmond was out of his chair, tinkering at the bookcase with his back to them. He cleared his throat again. “Rich, did you get everything taken ca—” His sentence broke off midway, and he turned quick to look upon Katie. His eyes were strikingly red, and his lip trembled. “I just meant . . . we’ll probably . . . ” He looked away, toward his books. “Oh, forgive me,” he murmured.
Richard set down his glass and got up, went and stood next to him. Putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder, he struggled for his own words. “She’s in the car, George,” he said finally, softly. So terribly. “It’s all been handled. She’s home now.” He felt him tense, felt the muscles go rigid beneath his grip. Then those shoulders sagged as if strength had abandoned him all at once. Deadmond turned to his son-in-law, face darkened, his eyes teary. He sniffed and adjusted his bifocals, mouthing the words again: Forgive me.
“Nothing to forgive,” Richard said.
Katie meanwhile—who’d felt her father jerk a moment ago beside her, but had pretended she had not—glanced up at the whispering pair and asked George, “Could I use your bathroom, please?”
“Why, sure, little honey Kate. Come with me and I’ll show you where it is, okay?” The old man took her by the hand, but hesitated. “Is that all right with you, son?” he said. Stung by the question, Richard nodded and watched them walk down the hall past the coat rack and up the Cornish staircase there at the end, leaving him by himself to listen to the rhythmic tick of the longcase grandfather. It was nearly 5:30 PM according to the clock, and would soon be a new moon by the look of it.
He perused the books in the case, briefly scanning their titles. There were some dusty World War II tomes below, most likely George’s, and several of Glee’s books on cooking and gardens—and where was she, anyhow? He saw volumes about ancient Egypt and the pharaohs, the construction of the pyramids and such, while the upper shelves were filled with political books, everything from Pat Buchanan to Arianna Huffington, William F. Buckley Jr. to Gore Vidal. One title caught Richard off guard and made him laugh aloud: On Politics and the Art of Acting, by the playwright Arthur Miller.
Richard peeked out the picture window and checked on the Blazer. He milled around the quiet living room, examining various items; knickknacks and whatnots, collected prudently and placed about with loving care over the decades. Miniature china dogs, a snowglobe of the Valley of the Kings. He saw gold trophies from Michelle’s basketball tournaments and from her many outdoor varsity track and field meets, and lots of Waterford crystal pieces—some clear, some tinged in a rainforest-green hue—even a set of tumblers from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.
The dichotomy of the room struck him: here it was, the year 2000, our long-awaited Millennium arrived, and yet here were so many old and outdated objects mixed in with the new.
He made his way to where a framed newsprint page hung upon the wall, over a desktop computer hutch. He squinted at its headlines, hearing the faint creak of movement on the floorboards above him. It was a sheet daily from Springfield, Illinois, a capital paper called The State Journal-Register. The article told of none other than one Mrs. Glee Deadmond, celebrated Blackwater Valley denizen and school board superintendent, her growing groundswell of support and her highly anticipated campaign push toward the Illinois General Assembly—
“Holy shit,” Richard breathed. She was running for state representative now? The Illinois Senate? He’d never heard any of this before. But then he and Michelle’s parents weren’t exactly on chummy terms either—ever since he’d ‘lured’ their baby girl away to live a life certainly most unbecoming in southern Maine, of all places. Nobody forced Michelle to come with him. She decided that for herself, once he’d landed himself a decent New York literary agent and had decided to head for the East Coast to try and make a professional go at this writing thing. She’d even entertained ideas of becoming an author herself; she loved writing children’s stories for Katie, didn’t she? Even worked on the illustrations with her.
It was Michelle’s own choice, when all was said and done. Ultimately she had wanted to get away as much as he. And they blamed him for what had happened, he knew they did.
He knew. Because he blamed himself for it, as well.
***
Katie sat in the silent bathroom, trying to go, in the same room where her mother had sat and gone when she herself was a little girl. She could smell the fragrant aroma of flowers even up here. She could feel the essence of her dead mother close to her, could almost sense the soft touch of her fingers caressing her hair. Katie closed her eyes and concentrated on the lingering scent. She closed her eyes tight, because others were here with her, as well.
They’d begun to gather, as they always did upon finding her, a host of stained, saddened figures, crowding in as close as they dared. Though their numbers were vast she was aware, thankfully, of only the closest, those who huddled in nearer than the rest, like so many gauzy moths to a flame.
She saw men and women here, young and old mingled alike—no discrimination among these torn wraiths and whatever had befallen them—dressed in strange, bygone clothing she’d never seen outside vintage pictures or old movies.
They had no solidity, moving more like vapor trying to congeal in the air. She saw a dripping teenage boy with what surely must’ve been a broken neck approach between their smoky limbs, his head lolling down in front of one shoulder at a horrible angle. The boy carried a cat in his arms, but there were gaping holes in his wretched form, holes she could see right through. None of the figures spoke, only watched her with empty, ruined sockets.
Katie caught the stink of sickness, of feverish flesh that hung about them, and damp earth. The ripe stench filled her nostrils, threatening to smother out her mother’s sweet fragrance. So she closed her eyes and began to rock, fending off the frittles and fighting to hold on, to keep the flowery aroma alive in her mind.
She imagined herself in her own bathroom back home, hundreds of miles away from here. She could hear birds cheeping outside the window, could even see the wooden sign hanging on the back of their bathroom door. She focused hard and was able to read the words painted on it as if they were hovering before her:
Mom’s Reminders
Brush your teeth . . .
wash your face,
Don’t leave your clothes
all over the place.
Hang up your towel
and washcloth, too,
And please remember . . .
I love you!
Katie heard humming in the room somewhere, and then she heard the echo of her mother’s voice repeating something she’d told her many, many times at moments like this. You don’t have to be afraid of them, Katie-Smatie. They’ve only lost their way, is all. Don’t be scared. She felt a warm hand slipping itself into hers. Can you remember that, when they come? My brave Katie milady . . . ?
She smiled and opened her eyes. They were still there, of course, the stained and wretched ones, and two others had joined them. These new arrivals seemed different somehow, fresh, and wore clothes that were at least more familiar to her. It was a man and a woman holding a tiny bundle, and the odor of exhaust fumes rolled off them in dizzying waves as they drifted nearer. The sodden boy with the lollygag head stroked his calico cat, and she felt their innumerable gazes resting upon her, forsaken, bereft of life, all seeking the same thing.
Her smile faltered a bit, quivering, trying to collapse in on itself. She held it there on her round face, though, smiling and rocking as she tried to go, being as much of a brave Katie milady as she could now for her mother. She smiled and she rocked, trying to go and trying desperately not to cry, and concentrating on her faraway mother’s faraway words.
They’ve only lost their way.
3
Richard took a sip of his pinkish drink and set the glass down, thinking he might have to use the bathroom himself soon; the acidic lemonade wasn’t helping matters. He sighed and wandered through the front foyer area with its dark, heavy draperies on the walls, pausing to toy at the keys of Deadmond’s hand-carved antique Kimball piano which squatted there. An envelope was taped to its side, and he noticed a small handwritten C upon it.
He could almost picture Michelle, seated on the wobbly bench, struggling to play the theme from The Exorcist, instead of practicing her classical music lessons like she was supposed to. On the other side of the foyer was the door to George’s study, slightly ajar. Richard poked his head in and looked around. He pushed the door wide and stared in disbelief.
If the rest of the Deadmond home was nothing but neat and prim, this room was utter chaos by comparison. The large study had been choked off with cardboard boxes, their bulk crammed against the walls and flowing outwardly into the center of the cherry flooring. Even a long leather sofa was littered with them. Mahogany tables and two desks, a big one and a mid-sized one, were heaping with piles of paperwork, old mail, and newspapers.
A tall floor lamp, with its shade missing, illuminated the mess, and a 12-inch LCD screen TV was on and sitting muted atop the cluttered smaller desk. On one wall hung a giant world map, while a display case adorned the wall opposite, containing an autographed Sammy Sosa All-Star baseball bat. He grinned at this—poor Georgie and his Chicago Cubs, keeping the faith for his beloved team all these long, interminably endless years.
There were bookcases in here, too, and Richard was surprised to see his own first novel, Malignant Regions, mixed in with the other texts. The book was a highly fictionalized account of his wife’s battle with leukemia, and although the critics had been kind to him, sales never really launched into the stratosphere as he’d hoped. It wasn’t the debut piece he intended, but he had felt compelled to write it at the time because of Michelle’s dire condition. Still, he did snag a two-book deal from it; now he could return to those original ideas he’d scrapped earlier on and work at what he wanted. He wondered which one of the Deadmonds had acquired it, and what they thought of his prose. Richard could only imagine, and none of what he imagined was good. After all, the young woman in the story ended up living through her ordeal, didn’t she? So much for fairytale bullshit endings.
Richard spotted something above the big desk and moved in for a look, pushing a scuffed leather armchair off to one side. It was an old fireman’s helmet propped on a hook—half melted and twisted terribly, the metal eagle’s head and the number 20 on its crown so fused and burnt black they were barely recognizable—a relic of George Deadmond’s firefighter days and the inferno that almost blotted him from the earth. As Richard recalled, the old man went on battling blazes for many years, even after that close call had occurred. George was a fireman at his core, Richard surmised, just like his dad before him, who laid now under an imported stone of Dutch, pelican-gray granite, sleeping with the other dreaming dead somewhere out in Calvary Cemetery’s manicured grounds.
The smell of flowers permeated this room also, though no plants could be seen. No candles or air fresheners, not a single Glade plug-in. He turned and considered the hodgepodge, taking in the entire depth and disarrayed scope of it. Then Richard froze. On the small television screen he saw the flickering images of that road collapse outside of town. The sinkhole site where he could’ve sworn—
“Rich?” It was George, peering around the door at him, and Richard sucked his breath in. “We’re downstairs again. Katie Jane’s in the living room.” Deadmond glanced curiously about the study, looking embarrassed. “Thought you’d want to know. Is there something you needed, son?”
Richard felt the embarrassment also, and his ears reddened. “Sorry, didn’t mean to come in here but . . . on the TV . . . ” He pointed, and the old man stared. “I wanted to see this for a second. Do you mind?”
“Oh, no. Sure. Go ahead. I was watching this, as a matter of fact, when you knocked at the front door.” Deadmond had begun to search for the remote, appeared confused, lifting his bifocals to the top of his balding head. Richard glanced around and found it first, handing it to him.
“Really? We passed it, George.”
“What?”
Richard nodded. “Katie and I, we drove right by this thing on our way into town today. Near the bypass. I saw something strange out there, George. It looked . . . ” He hesitated, his brow creasing. “Hold on.” He ducked back through the foyer and across to the living room, peeking in at his daughter. “Hey, how you doing, babe? Everything okay?”
Katie was seated on the floral sofa once more, holding her glass of pink lemonade. “Yes.” She rocked slightly, he noticed. “Can I have my coloring book and crayons, Daddy?” she said. “The special book?”
“Uh, sure. I’ll go out and get them for you in a minute, okay Katie-Smatie?”
“Yes, all right.”
Richard blew her a kiss. “Be right there. Promise.” He walked back into George’s study. The television sound was on now, a woman reporter speaking. He could see that blue swimming pool tarp as it billowed and flapped behind her, wanting to tear loose of its moorings and ascend upon the wind. “What is it, an old graveyard they uncovered or something?”
“Hmm? Oh, I think not. Why do you say that?”
Richard watched the screen closely as he spoke. “I’m pretty sure I saw human remains down in that hole, George. In fact I’m positive. There were a lot of bones, even some skulls.” He chewed at the tender inside lining of his cheek.
“Did Katie see it, too?”
“No. I tried to keep her occupied, keep her looking away.”
“Good, good.” The old man nodded. “Well, this reporter here seems to think that, what you just said. That it might be a disused cemetery of some kind that got plowed under and asphaulted over. Indian burial ground, perhaps. Or maybe that’s what she’s hearing at the scene, I don’t know. She’s not from around here by the looks of her, and neither are most of the policemen you see in the background. Out-of-towners. But no, I don’t think that’s what they’ve found at all.”
Richard stared at him. “What else could it be?”
“Do you remember what the name of this town used to be, son? Back when it was founded?”
“Before it was Blackwater Valley? Hang on, I should know this.” He strained his brain a moment. “Wasn’t it called Shaw Valley? Yeah. After Augustus Shaw, one of the first settlers. Built his big creepy house in the woods overlooking town, right? The name got changed later on, though, at some point.”
“That’s right. Now, do you know why it was renamed Blackwater Valley?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” Richard felt as though he’d learned all of this at one time. “I assumed it was because the town’s on the river, or from it being part of the Rock River Valley. Something along those lines.” He suddenly felt foolish.
Deadmond took the eyeglasses from his head and began cleaning them with his shirttail. “Well, the original village of Shaw Valley was platted in 1829, and thrived almost immediately. But in 1832, the year of the so-called Black Hawk War, malaria struck the township’s settlers. Devastated them. A bad strain, too: raging fever, blood in their urine, massive destruction of the red blood cells. Malaria was also known as ‘blackwater fever’ in those days. The old-timers didn’t know what was happening to them, I think. They got sick and started dying off, didn’t know how to stop it. They thought they were cursed.”
“Cursed? From malaria?”
“The war against the Sauk Indians had turned into nothing but a massacre, and they knew it. Most of them knew, so they reckoned they’d been cursed. People were dropping like flies, and it spread fast—men, women, the children. They probably panicked. It’s said that Augustus Shaw’s brains cooked inside his skull from fever, up at that house of his. He survived it, but most of his family didn’t. All accounts, he was never the same after that. By 1835 more than half of the village was gone. The area was already being referred to as Blackwater Valley throughout the region, and the name eventually stuck, to everyone’s chagrin.”
“So the town was named after the disease that decimated it,” Richard echoed. He remembered this story now, remembered it from his school days here. Then something dawned on him. “Wait a sec . . . didn’t Michelle do a paper once on Chief Black Hawk or something? Sure! In high school, wasn’t it?”
“You got it. I helped her with it, too.” Deadmond tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage. “Chelle and I, yes,” he murmured, the broken thought trailing off as he caught himself, cleared his throat and continued. “Anyone who was sick, or even suspected of being sick, they were rounded up here in the Val. Pious old Augustus Shaw himself led the charge on that, I guess, during the frenzy. Though I’ve read he was probably certifiable by then, a genuine raving lunatic. People were rounded up just the same. They didn’t know what was happening to them, see?” The old man sniffed, placed his bifocals on his face. “At the height of it, they started throwing bodies into mass graves, and not all of them were dead yet either. A lot of people were buried still alive, Rich.”
He stared at his son-in-law, eyes rimmed in red, looking again as if he’d aged a decade over the telling of this tale. After a few moments he glanced back to the television screen.
“No, that’s not a cemetery they found out there,” said George Deadmond with quiet certainty. “It’s a plague pit, son. I’d bet anything on it. And there’s lots more of them around here, you know? Has to be. Yepper, this whole damned town is built right on top of them.”
