CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

1

BECAUSE OF THE skunk, they were marked from the beginning. It’d run out into the highway so suddenly that Richard Franklin had, in turn, run over it before he ever had a chance to brake. Startled, he jerked his foot off the gas pedal, feeling first the resistance and next the sickening give beneath his Bridgestone Firestones, and then the smell had hit. Richard and Katie glanced at each other, noses wrinkling. Franklin had resumed his speed, trying to get away from the invisible pungent wave as fast as he could. But it was already too late.

With nothing else that could be done, really, he continued to cruise, approaching an overpass and keying up the power windows on the Chevy Blazer. He shook his head, teeth clenched grimly at the irony of it, letting out a disheartened sigh.

“You okay?” he asked his only daughter.

Katie nodded, looking down at her activity books. “Yes,” she said. “What was that, Daddy?” She pulled a magenta crayon with slow precision from its box.

“Dead skunk laying in the highway, hon,” he lied. “Smells bad, huh?”

“A little.”

Richard followed US Route 20 along with the other traffic going west. He noticed it had begun to rain, so he clicked on the wipers. In the overcast distance he saw an exit sign coming up fast:

IRENE EXIT 1C

BLACKWATER VAL ¼ MILE

ROCKFORD ¾ MILE

He changed lanes and watched for the ramps, trying to breathe solely through his mouth, letting the first exit sail by. Some kind of commotion drew his gaze down off the overpass, to the ground beneath them, and to the right. He saw two county sheriff’s cruisers and an ambulance, their lights strobing dreamlike. And a television news van with its broadcast antenna extended; from this, a female reporter loped like a hyena, the assistant beside her trying to tweak her hair and makeup on the run, while brandishing an umbrella above them like some kind of Michael Jackson crony. Striped barricades were already in place, flares being thrown down. Below, in the center of all this buzz, was what appeared to be a partial section of the secondary artery that had seemingly caved in, creating a huge sinkhole where the road had been.

Richard strained to see and caught a brief glimpse—insanely—of what looked like human bones down inside the collapsed pit, amongst the earth and broken fragments of blacktop, strewn muddied bones and a darkened skull . . . or two . . . or . . .

“What in the f—?” he couldn’t help blurting, catching himself as the unsettling spectacle vanished under the billowy cascade of a blue swimming pool tarp. Then Katie was looking also, to see what was so interesting. Richard tried to distract her, quickly coming to his senses. “Hey, Katie, did you ever finish coloring that picture? The one you were working on?”

“Which picture?”

“You know, the one with the seahorses.” He fumbled at her books with his free hand, but she was having none of it. Not a jot.

“Isn’t any with seahorses. Who are those people down there, Daddy? What are they doing?”

Beyond the overpass now, Richard saw the second off-ramp coming up ahead. He put on his turn signal and got ready. “I don’t know, hon. Are you sure there aren’t any seahorses in here? Better look again.” He snatched at one of the books, feeling like an utter fool.

Katie was looking around strangely, all around the outside of the vehicle. “Why are people wandering on the road like this? They’re going to get hit.”

All at once his fingers grasped the Blazer’s steering wheel in a death-grip, and he felt something awful and familiar stir and crawl up into his belly. “That’s silly, Katie,” he laughed, almost choked. “No one’s wandering on the road.”

Her pearly gaze was focused, quite intent, aimed straight out the drizzled windshield. “Can’t you see them?” She started to murmur, reaching absently for her father. “Waving to us . . . giving me frittles. But their eyes—” Then, with quiet understanding, she said: “Oh.”

At that, Richard Franklin felt a shiver ice through him. He merged off 20 and took the exit a little too fast, jaw muscles working. The bizarre scene below them came into view again as they descended the spiraling ramp: there and gone, visible and gone once more. “This thing didn’t do much good, did it?” He made a last attempt, toying with the Yankee Candle air freshener looped over the rearview mirror, twirling it for her. “I still smell that skunk in here.” Finally, mercifully, the sinkhole site and whatever brand of nightmare occurring there disappeared behind them, fading back into the surrounding cornfields as he motored away.

To their left some Holsteins were scattered, even a few American bison calves milling in the lower pastures, rich pastures bordered by rail fences and flanked with nut, maple, and fruit trees just starting to turn. Farther up near a barn some young hands in checked, flannel shirts were bucking bales of hay to feed the ponies in the late-afternoon mist. Katie watched the calves, and Richard wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirtsleeve.

Ten minutes later, when they pulled into the small town of Blackwater Valley in north-central Illinois, every nose that was out of doors knew they were there.

And so, they were marked right from the beginning.

Despite all the curious stares they got as they drove by, though, one small boy with a wind-burned face looked directly at Katie and winked.

“Hey, Katie-Smatie,” he teased, still cringing inwardly at the framed image of that live skunk vanishing under the Blazer, at the pit back there and whatever in hell he imagined he’d seen, “looks like you’ve already got yourself a boyfriend.” Katie smiled, blushing a bit, and Richard felt an ache in his heart. He realized he could not remember the last time he’d seen her smile.

Richard pulled into a Sullivan’s Foods, situated back and away from the road they were on, and cut the motor. He sat for a moment in the stillness, listening to the engine tick down. He restarted the vehicle and flipped on the AC, set the parking brake, then unbuckled and stepped out into the balmy September air (which didn’t help the lingering sickly sweet stench by any means). A few locals gawked in their direction, from cars and from yards, and Richard seemed to feel every eye upon his daughter and him, inspecting these new strangers here. He mopped his face again with rising unease.

That’s right. I’m back. Been about eight years or more, but now I’m back. Won’t be here long, though, so don’t worry. Bear with me.

“What are you looking at, Daddy?” Questions. Kids and their questions. Like Carter and his endless supply of little liver pills, as the old saying went.

“Just thinkin’, babe.” He peered through his open door into the running SUV. “Do you want anything from the store?”

Katie started to shake her head, but stopped. “Maybe a Creamsicle,” she said, expression hopeful.

“Coming up. Wait right here, hon. Keep the doors locked the way I showed you, okay? Windows up and doors locked?”

Katie nodded and repeated the words: “Windows up and doors locked,” as he closed his side and went into the market, dropping the locks with the spare remote on his backup keyring.

As he made his way down an aisle he heard a liquid gurgle coming from his stomach, so he gently pressed his belly in with one hand and held it there. His nerves were acting up, getting that good old acid flowing. Soon it would be in his goddamn throat.

The last thing he’d wanted to do was attract attention in his hometown, and he had already failed at that; the worst was yet to come, he feared.

Richard found the dairy section and grabbed a twelve-ounce container of cottage cheese (the only food that seemed to help settle his nervous stomach) and went to the ice cream freezer and took out two Creamsicles, one orange and one raspberry. In the checkout line, he grabbed a pack of Rolaids and took out his wallet. Then he walked back outside and climbed into his odorous Chevrolet Blazer, carrying the items in a plastic bag.

“Here, hon. I got you two of them.”

“Thank you,” Katie said quietly, taking them both.

He popped the lid off his cottage cheese and looked down at it. What was he going to eat the stuff with, anyway? His fingers? He started to get back out, but recalled he might have some Dairy Queen spoons in the glove compartment. Before he could think it through, Richard had opened it and was staring at a woman’s turquoise scarf—his dead wife’s winter scarf. His heart lurched and he shot a sideways glance toward Katie beside him, but he was sure she’d already seen. He snatched a red plastic spoon out of the compartment and slammed it shut, diverting his eyes guiltily.

Brilliant, just brilliant. Hasn’t she been through enough?

There were no excuses. He should have gone through the vehicle for any painful reminders, before setting out upon this sorrowing journey. But he hadn’t, and there were no excuses. All the arrangements that had to be made, all the things which had come at him from every possible direction after her hit-and-run death, and still none of it let him off the hook. Not even the reality that he had Michelle’s cremains inside a copper urn in one of the suitcases in back, right now, like a fucking Thermos of coffee . . .

“I’m all right, Daddy,” Katie said, surprising him. “I know why we’re here. I’m all right.”

Richard faltered a smile her way, fighting tears that had welled into his eyes. “Oh,” he barely breathed, brushing the hair away from her round face and touching her cheek. Then his gaze fell away. “You’re more than all right, sweetie. Much more than that. You know?”

After he’d finished his cottage cheese, and Katie likewise her ice creams, they pulled away from the market and headed north on Reed Farm Road, and eventually took Arvam Drive west. When Richard spotted the Nautical Museum, things started looking familiar again. He glanced through the museum’s opened doors as they went by, seeing the mammoth rusted anchor suspended inside, a bygone remnant of some venerable but long-forgotten ship. The rain had slackened now, so he clicked off the wipers, turning onto Kennedy School Road and following it another half mile or so. He passed the hulking relic of the old elementary school and saw a church steeple jutting in the distance beyond it. Two more blocks and it was there, the Nain Lutheran Church, standing on the corner of Kennedy School Road and Glassman Avenue, where it’d stood for God (no joke intended) only knew how long. Richard’s look softened when he saw it, and things came back to him as if he had opened a dust-covered scrapbook. Sweet, darkish, musty things.

“See that church, Katie-Smatie?” said Richard. “That’s the church where Mommy and me were married.”

Katie gazed at it, transfixed. “Can we go inside?” she asked.

He started to say something, and then looked at her. “Sure we can. We’re in no hurry, are we?”

Katie shook her head, eyes huge and filled with wonder.

Richard pulled around the corner and parked across from the church. The two got out and crossed Glassman Avenue, holding hands; Katie still carried a gummy Creamsicle stick with her. They ascended the tree-shaded steps together to the wooden double doors, and Richard reached to grab one of the silver handles.

The door was locked.

A sign to the left read NAIN TRINITY LUTHERAN, and below that REVEREND JULIAN, PASTOR, and still below that VISITORS WELCOME, but Richard saw nothing telling any days or hours for the services. He tried the other door, shrugging, with the same result. “Sorry, Katie. I guess they’re not open today.”

Katie frowned, obviously disappointed. “I thought churches were always open,” she said. “Like hospitals.”

Richard grinned. “Not always, babe.” He squeezed his daughter’s little hand, reassuring her. “Don’t worry. We’ll come back some other time, okay? Before we leave for home.”

“Yes,” Katie sighed. “Some other time.”

They walked past the chapel’s lightning-struck bur oak and down the steps again, still holding hands; Richard said a quick and silent prayer there, hoping miserably that their skunk had not suffered much in its final moments out on Route 20. Then they got back into their green Blazer and continued along Glassman Avenue as the sun peeked through a clouded late-September sky at them.

2

Behind the locked doors of Nain Trinity Lutheran, a large Indian man with deep-set eyes stood guard in the blackness. He was a descendant of the Sauk tribe of Native North Americans, and he stood with his arms folded across a barrel chest, his back to the doors, his long dark hair pulled into a ponytail that flowed down the back of his immaculate suit. His sculpted face held no discernable emotion.

To one side of the church’s pulpit rested a giant, gleaming silver cross in its stone base. On the other side a statue of Jesus Christ towered, robed and bedraggled, arms stretched out pleadingly. Between these two markers lingered the shadowy figure of an old man. This man’s gaze lifted from one to the other, and back again, his head tilted at a curious angle, like a dog watching a flickering TV screen or perhaps hearing one of those silent whistles from the old Johnson Smith catalogs. He closed his eyes in meditation (Messiah or the crux from which he sprang? Chicken or the egg?) and rocked gently around on his heels, swaying mutely from side to side. In the church’s corners burned sleepy-weepy candles, trying but failing to illuminate the confused darkness.

The scent of menthol and pepperwort mingled in the still air with the wafting aroma of incense.

At that moment Simon Julian, pastor of the Nain Lutheran Church, opened his eyes and turned to face the man standing at the doors. He spoke three hushed words to him.

“They have arrived,” were those words.

The Indian gentleman smiled in the flickering gloom.