Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
For just a second, everything goes still. I can’t hear the window air conditioner. Or the tinkling of those skeleton keys. I can’t even hear Lo’s voice. It’s like I’m in an old silent movie.
Then all the sound comes rushing back at once.
“—that’s why I went there in the first place.”
“Wait,” I tell him. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Why you went where?”
“Dammit, Dovie. I already told you. The shed.”
“What shed?”
Lo growls in frustration, but nothing is making sense to me. I hear the words, but I can’t put them together.
“Granny Pearl mentioned it tonight when she was makin’ dinner. We got to talkin’ about the old days when she was a girl, and she told me she used to sneak down to town with your nana sometimes.” He’s talking so fast, and I’m staring at his mouth, halfway trying to read his lips to catch it all. “She said there was a boy they both liked that would meet ’em there to smoke cigarettes he rolled and—”
“Meet them where, Lo?” I’m trying not to get angry, but I can’t seem to catch up. I realize he has a deep scratch running down the side of his jaw. I reach out to touch it with my finger and he flinches. “What happened tonight?”
He brushes my hand away, impatient to get on with his story.
“The shed in the churchyard. It was built for the sexton back in the day. He took care of the graves. Dug the new ones and rung the bell for the dead. But now it’s just tools and stuff. Junk, mostly.”
“And you went there? Tonight?”
“Yeah. After I—” Lo freezes like a possum that’s scurrying across the highway in front of an oncoming car. For a second he doesn’t know which side of the road to run to. “After Granny Pearl mentioned it, I couldn’t sleep. I was gonna wait for you. But I couldn’t, Dovie. They were keepin’ me awake. Tauntin’ me and tormentin’ me. And I figured if they couldn’t rest, what right did I have to sleep? So I decided if I wasn’t goin’ to bed—”
“You might as well go check out that shed.”
“I didn’t even have to go in, Dovie. I saw it right through the window. Sittin’ on the work bench in plain view of anybody walkin’ by. A big ol’ skinning knife. Sharp. And I could see blood on it.”
I sigh, and I hope I don’t sound as exasperated as I feel.
“Lots of people around here have skinning knives, Lo. Bloody ones. Daddy’s probably got three in our own shed out back.” Nana made us deer chili the other night from a kill he made and froze last season. And, like everyone else around here, he skins and field dresses them himself. You’d be hard-pressed to find a house in Lucifer’s Creek, or anywhere in Arkansas, without a bloody hunting knife of some kind or another.
Lo’s humorless laugh catches me off guard. It doesn’t sound like him at all. “Give me a break, Dovie. That man’s never skinned a deer in his life. Or cleaned a fish.” He leans in close and lowers his voice. “Riley Alden was gutted. Slit right up the belly with a skinning knife. Opened up so his organs spilled right out of him. Did you know that?”
“No,” I manage to mumble. There wasn’t enough of him left to tell that when I found him. “Where’d you hear that?”
Lo sits back on his heels and looks down at the purple rug. “Sheriff told me when he came to see me that next mornin’. Said that’s what it looked like to him, anyway.”
“Riley.” I don’t mean to whisper his name out loud, but I do. It sounds like a prayer in the dark attic.
I think I might throw up. The room is spinning. It’s more than I can stand, thinking about the beautiful boy with the sleepy blue eyes and the windswept hair dying that way. The pain and the terror of it are enough to turn me inside out.
Lo looks back up, and his eyes are more familiar now. The warmth is coming back into those deep, brown pools. He reaches for my hand, but he’s gentle this time. Careful. “And now we got Brother Turley acting all guilty. Confessin’ his blood sins in writing. And right out loud. Plus he’s got the murder weapon lying right on the counter in his very own shed. Almost like he was hopin’ someone might find it.”
“He wants us to stop him,” I whisper. It suddenly seems so obvious.
“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”
If he can’t stop himself, and his God can’t stop him, maybe Lo and I can.
“There’s another one missing,” I say. “Sheriff came and told me.” I’m afraid to mention who it is. Lo’s teetering right on the edge of a cliff already, and I don’t want him thinking that maybe we could’ve saved her. Should’ve saved her. That’s what I’ve been thinking ever since Sheriff said her name, and the guilt of that has me tied up in knots, but there’s no way to keep it from Lo. He’s gonna find out sooner or later.
I guess he’s one step ahead of me, though, because he says, “Hannah Nelby isn’t missing, Dovie. She’s dead.” Word travels fast in these parts. What we lack in high-speed internet, we make up for with the Ozarks whisper web. Lo’s voice is thick with regret and guilt and unspoken accusations against the two of us, and I flinch like he burned me with a match. “We both know that. And you’re gonna have to dig up her bones.”
He chokes on the words like they taste bitter on his tongue, and a hardness settles on his face. Something desperate and cold. It reminds me of slithering things and skittering spiders and the damp, musty smell that fills up my nose when I snatch a skull from the earth. It almost makes me want to pull away from him, for the first time ever in our lives.
It hits me hard that we’re running out of time to stop these murders and banish Lo’s demons; otherwise I’m going to lose him forever.
“You don’t know for sure that Hannah’s dead,” I argue. “She might be alive still.”
“Dovie.” Lo’s talking to me like I’m a child who isn’t understanding what he’s trying to say. “The blood on that knife was fresh. Wet still.”
That makes my stomach turn over again.
“Come on,” I tell him, and I throw back the quilt to swing my legs to the floor. I reach for my shorts and slide them on, then I find my shoes. “Let’s go see if we can get a better look at that knife.”
Lo and I tiptoe down the stairs and through the dark house. When we pass Daddy’s room, the door is open, and the light is on. His bed hasn’t been slept in. Again. So I’m not the only one running around at all hours.
We slip through the laundry room door as quietly as we can, and creep through the backyard without turning on our flashlights. Phantom follows us across the grass, but when we get to the split-rail fence, he turns around and heads back to curl up on the back steps. He doesn’t want any part of whatever we’re doing tonight, and I don’t blame him.
The trek through the woods is short, but miserable. It’s muggy and buggy and thick with a silence that feels heavy and unnatural. I’m grateful when we step out of the pressing trees and into the open just behind the church graveyard. But then I see the shed Lo’s talking about, and I feel like throwing up again.
We glance around the cemetery to make sure Turley isn’t lurking among the stones.
“Windows are all dark,” Lo tells me, and I look toward the church and the little house squatting next to it. “Maybe’s he’s in bed.”
“Maybe,” I say, but we still move fast, scurrying like roaches looking for cover once we leave the shadowy tree line and duck under the graveyard fence.
The old shed stands fifteen or twenty feet behind the church building, and it’s clear that it’s on its last legs. The white paint is peeling, the tin roof is all rusted, and the whole structure seems to lean at a sharp and ominous angle.
We creep up to the one tiny window and press our noses, and my flashlight, against the glass. And there it is, lying right out in the open exactly like Lo said. My stomach knots up when I lay eyes on it, and a cold dread settles in my gut.
Something awful is going to happen tonight.
I’m not psychic—I don’t even believe in psychics—but as soon as I see that skinning knife, I know it’s bad. Really bad.
It has a black grip and a short, wide blade with a menacing curve to it. The tip is razor sharp. I can tell just by looking at it.
What really gets my attention though, is the pool of red the whole knife is sitting in. It’s the color of rust.
“See the blood?” Lo whispers close to my ear. His breath fogs the glass and I have to use my hand to wipe it away.
“There’s no way for us to know that’s Hannah’s blood,” I say.
“We gotta steal it,” Lo tells me. “If you can get it to the sheriff and convince him to have it tested—”
“We’re no different, you and me.” The voice comes from behind us. We whirl around and I drop the flashlight. It rolls away from me and Turley reaches down fast as the strike of a cottonmouth to snatch it up.
“Shit!” I say, and Lo moves to step in front of me.
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts,” Turley preaches, “murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” He takes a step toward us and Lo presses me between his body and the wall of the shed. “Jesus tells us that in Matthew.” Turley looks almost sad. “But I don’t expect either one of you ever heard that verse.”
“These are what defile a person,” Lo recites in a voice so defiant and strong that it takes me by surprise, “but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Turley’s eyes open in surprise, and he gives us a little nod. He looks impressed. I guess he didn’t realize that Lo knows his Bible every bit as well as he knows his spell book. The preacher takes another step to close the distance between us. Dressed all in black with his coat flapping behind him, he looks more like a demon than an angel of the Lord.
“Left outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying,” Turley goes on, and he studies Lo’s face for a few seconds. “See? You and me are more alike than we ever knew.” He laughs a sad laugh. “You’re the sorcerer, and I’m—” He pauses and swallows hard, like he’s in pain. “Both of us are left out, Lowan Wilder. Abandoned and hated by God.”
“Go to hell,” Lo snarls.
“I will,” Turley admits. “But what about you, Lowan?” Turley turns his gaze on me. “And what about you, Dovie Warner?”
Turley takes one more step toward us, and all of a sudden Lo takes off like a shot, grabbing me by the wrist and jerking me along behind him. We fly through the graveyard, dodging crumbling stone markers and leaving deep footprints across the resting places of the dead.
“The sins of the father shall be visited on the son!” Turley’s words roll like thunder. They slam into us with the weight of boulders rolling downhill, but we don’t stop running.
We’re moving in the direction of the dirt road that leads up in the hills, and it’s not until Lo is shoving me under the churchyard fence that I look up for a split second to see that Turley isn’t hot on our heels. He isn’t chasing us at all. He’s standing by the shed holding my flashlight, lit up by pale moonshine.
Even though he isn’t coming after us, Lo and I don’t slow down until we hit the edge of the woods. We duck into the trees and hide behind a big oak to peek out toward the church again.
Turley isn’t standing in the graveyard anymore, so I put my hands on my knees and crouch down to catch my breath.
“That was a confession, Dovie.” Lo is panting just as hard as I am. “Did you hear him? Admitting he’s going to hell? He all but said he’s a murderer. We gotta get that knife.” Lo starts toward the churchyard, but I grab him by the arm and jerk him back.
“We can’t go back there tonight,” I tell him. “He’ll be waitin’ for us. We’d be walkin’ right into a trap.”
“Goddammit!” Lo explodes in a burst of rage I’ve never seen from him before. He kicks at the huge tree, and I know by the way he growls that it has to hurt. “We’re so close, Dovie! I can feel it!”
We can’t really go back to my place either. Even if we slip in through the laundry room door to avoid the sheriff sitting vigil on our porch, I don’t wanna risk running into Daddy when we’re tiptoeing through the kitchen. With my luck, we’ll both end up sneaking into our own house right at the very same moment, him through the front and me through the back.
“Can we go up to your place?” I ask Lo. “Until we figure out what to do next?”
“Yeah,” he says, and he sounds resigned and exhausted, but not angry. I guess he got his frustration out on that tree. “Come on.” He reaches for my hand to guide me through the undergrowth.
It’s no use, though. The woods are too dark and thick to navigate without a flashlight. It’s only a matter of minutes before we abandon the safety of the trees and step out onto the road.
Even on the road, it’s really slow going. There’s enough moonlight in some places for us to see a few feet in front of us, but there are also long stretches where the trees hang overhead like a canopy, and in those spots it’s dark as a tomb. Lo and I can’t see each other at all, even though we’re walking inches apart, so we cling to each other’s hands and keep moving slowly and steadily up the narrow winding road toward the old Wilder place.
What normally takes maybe forty-five minutes of good, hard walking takes us more than twice that. We’re staggering blind, stumbling over rocks and ruts in the old road, and freezing every few minutes to listen when the snap of a twig or the rustling of leaves just off the road gets us spooked.
By the time the flickering kerosene lantern on the cabin porch comes into view, it’s two o’clock in the morning.
We’re almost to the worn-out front steps when I catch sight of an old shovel that’s leaned up against the railing. In the flickering porch light, I see a big smear of rust red across the blade, and I recoil like Turley himself was standing there with it in his hand. I tell myself to breathe. That the preacher didn’t drive up the mountain and finish Granny Pearl off with her own shovel.
That he isn’t waiting for us inside the cabin. Biding his time until we push open the front door.
“It’s okay.” Lo squeezes my hand. “Dogs got some chickens yesterday and I had to bury ’em. That’s all it is.”
The front door swings open then, and Granny Pearl comes out to look us up and down. I almost cry from relief when I see her.
“You two in trouble?” she asks. She’s wearing an old nightgown and her wispy gray curls look like smoke rising off her head. She holds a flickering candle in one hand.
“Yeah,” Lo tells her, and I admire his honesty. He always says things like they are. “But we’re figuring it out. We just need somewhere safe to sit and talk things through.”
Granny Pearl nods and leans down toward another candle that sits on top of an upturned wooden crate on the front porch. She uses the burning candle in her hand to spark the one on the crate to life. There’s something about the dancing light and the vastness of the ancient forest around us. The heavy press of the thick, humid air and the reflection of the flame in Granny Pearl’s eyes.
The pressure of Lo’s fingers at my wrist.
Before she heads inside to go back to bed, Pearl reaches into the pocket of her nightgown to hand us each a small stone with a hole in the middle. “You look out for each other,” she warns, and we promise that we will.
Lo takes the burning candle from the upturned crate and moves it to the top porch step. We settle there to sit together with that tiny protective flame between us.
I’m rolling the little rock Pearl handed me around in my palm. “It’s a holey stone,” Lo tells me. “Pun intended. It’s good luck to find a rock with a hole in it like that. The old folks used to put a bunch of ’em under their front porch or string ’em up on a wire to fight off evil spirits and nightmares.” He smiles a little, and he’s so beautiful in the shimmering candlelight that something catches in my throat. “Granny Pearl keeps a couple in her pocket at all times. In case of a spiritual emergency.”
I slip mine into my pocket, too, even though I know a rock isn’t going to protect Lo and me from Brother Turley. Not if he’s really the one who’s been doing the killing around here.
And it sure looks like he is.
“What are we gonna do?” I ask. “About Turley?” Lo’s still staring at the holey stone in his hand.
“We’re gonna do whatever it takes, Dovie.” He looks at me and his brown eyes are as bottomless as the water-filled caverns scattered across the Ozark Mountains. “Whatever we have to do to stop him.” Lo is half light, half shadow. His glowing features are silhouetted against the dark with only that candle flame pushing back the endless night that’s pressing in on us from all sides.
For a second, I don’t care about anything. I don’t care about Turley. Or Riley Alden. Or Hannah. Or any of the other hikers. All I care about is sitting here close to Lo in the stillness of this moment.
He pushes himself to his feet, then he bends down to pick up the candle. “Come on.” He reaches for me with his other hand. “Let’s go around back.”
As soon as he says that, I know what he’s wanting to see.
Who he’s wanting to see.
And I guess it’s as good a night as any to visit with the dead.