Chapter Thirteen Frankie
THIRTEEN FRANKIE
We hurried back down Main Street with Pearl, my arm linked through hers, the snow and sleet blasting our faces.
Pearl was trembling, perhaps from the cold, perhaps from the shock of what had happened to her mother.
We made a quick stop at home so Uncle Thomas could grab his medical bag.
We could not speak openly in front of Pearl, but we exchanged worried glances.
The Stoddard home is only a few houses down from ours.
Benjamin Stoddard, the most powerful man in town, owns the factory, so theirs is the grandest house on Main Street, a two-story brick building with a large carriage house out back, which contains both an automobile and the finest carriage and sleigh in town.
Every window of the Stoddard home was lit, as if they were hosting a party, waiting for guests to arrive. Although it looked warm and cozy inside, I felt a terrible apprehension as I gazed up at the house and wondered what was waiting for us.
Pearl led us inside, where we peeled off our sodden coats in the great entry hall, with its polished maple floor.
It felt strange, being in Pearl’s house. I hadn’t been since the day I’d run out when I was thirteen and Pearl wanted to show me what kissing Charlie Dunn had been like.
I’d visited often when I was a girl. I never cared for playing with dolls, but I would come and play dolls with her—I always enjoyed Pearl’s company.
Her parents, I knew, like many adults in town, felt sorry for me, the orphan, the odd girl, and they praised Pearl for inviting me to their home to play with her lovely china dolls.
Pearl enjoyed tragic games—games where the dolls were crushed to death and we had little funerals for them; games where there was a terrible accident and we had to try to save them.
Her favorite game was tea party, and of course, one of the cups always held poison and it was a bit like Russian roulette, to see which doll was going to get that cup and die a dramatic and agonizing death.
Her parents knew nothing of these games.
They simply saw their sweet daughter, smiling in her beautiful dress mail-ordered from Boston, who’d taken pity on a girl less fortunate.
Even then, she was like a clever and wicked little fox, my Pearl. Even then, I loved her.
“Mother’s in her room,” Pearl said now, leading us up the wide maple staircase.
We found Clarice Stoddard in her bed, being tended to by her husband.
Despite his wealth and prominence, Benjamin is known to roll up his shirtsleeves to help repair equipment when it breaks down, to drink and play poker at the back table at Loon’s Call, and, according to all the men who work for him, to be a kind and fair boss.
Uncle Thomas counts him as a good friend—perhaps his closest friend in Boone’s Ferry.
Benjamin dotes on Pearl, his only child, his princess.
As congenial a man as he is, I am always more than a little uneasy in his presence. Should he ever learn what’s going on between his daughter and me, I am quite sure he’d be far less than congenial.
Clarice was pale, and there were two long, bleeding scratches on her right cheek. Her hair was uncharacteristically disheveled. Cloth bandages had been tied around her left forearm, but the blood was seeping through. Her right arm was badly scratched as well.
“Mrs. Stoddard,” Thomas said, beginning to gingerly unwrap the bandages to take a look. “What on earth happened?”
“She was attacked,” Benjamin said, spitting the words out through a clenched jaw. “By an intruder in our own home.”
Uncle Thomas looked back. “Pearl, do you think you could bring us some warm water in a basin? And some clean cloths? And perhaps a small glass of brandy for your mother.”
Pearl nodded and left the room.
“It was the knackerman,” Clarice explained breathlessly.
My uncle and I exchanged looks of disbelief, but there was something else there in my uncle’s face and my own: apprehension, even fear.
“I was in the front room, writing a letter to my sister,” Clarice went on, the words tumbling out.
“And suddenly he was there, right behind me! Must have let himself in the kitchen door. And, well, he was… he was stark naked.” She looked terribly flustered.
Her pale cheeks colored. “I swear to you—not a stitch of clothing on! Filthy and wet and dripping blood. Like an animal.”
“And you’re sure it was him?” I asked. “You’re sure it was the knackerman?”
Clarice lifted her chin, gazing at the ceiling with a wince. “It was him all right, but he seemed… different. I demanded to know what he was doing in my home, but it was like he didn’t hear me. He kept limping toward me. His breathing was off. He made a funny chugging sound, like a train.”
As Uncle Thomas pulled back the last bit of fabric, I saw the wound beneath the bandages and hissed in a sharp little intake of breath.
It was a human bite; a very deep one that had torn away bits of flesh and left a ragged edge of skin. I could make out the tooth marks. I tried to keep my face calm, not show my own horror. My uncle was stone-faced, calm as ever, as he inspected the wound.
I did what I always do when faced with something incomprehensible: I pulled out my notebook and pencil, to keep busy.
March 11. Mrs. Stoddard. Human bite wound. Says the knackerman attacked her.
Mrs. Stoddard continued her story. “I picked up the poker from the fireplace and struck him in the shoulder. But he did not slow. In fact, he did not seem to feel the pain! I struck him again, right in the head as hard as I could, but he lunged at me, grabbed me by the arm. We struggled for a long moment and then he sank his teeth into my arm.” She began to cry.
“That’s enough, Clarice,” Mr. Stoddard comforted his wife. “You needn’t go on.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Stoddard said.
“What would make him do a thing like this? I’ve met the knackerman.
We’ve done business with him for years—he comes and sharpens our knives.
We’ve bought snowshoes and tallow from him.
He’s not the most civilized man, and his accent makes him difficult to understand at times, but he’s polite enough.
The man who attacked me today, he was not the man I’ve known all these years. This man, he was… a monster!”
There was a pounding at the front door downstairs and we all jumped.
“I’ll see who it is and let the doctor and Frankie fix you up, my darling,” Mr. Stoddard told his wife, patting her gently on the shoulder.
I wanted to tell him to be careful, to not open the door.
We soon heard men’s voices from downstairs, quiet at first, then raised. This was followed by feet on the steps coming up. Pearl returned with a basin of water, clean cloths, and a glass of brandy.
“You’re a love,” Mrs. Stoddard said to her daughter. She glanced nervously into the hall. “Who was at the door?”
“Luther St. James and Reverend Davies with a group of men,” Pearl reported. “They came to see how you are. Father’s talking with them.”
Thomas took the brandy and handed it to Mrs. Stoddard. “You drink this now,” he said. “It’ll settle your nerves.”
She held it in shaking fingers and gulped it down.
I took the empty glass and she touched my hand. “Thank you, dear. You’re so kind. So good to help your uncle like you do.”
I nodded at her and smiled.
“I remember you when you were just a little girl,” she said, her hand still on mine. “How you and my Pearl would play for hours, just lost in each other’s company. Such vivid imaginations you girls had. You’d be whispering and giggling together all afternoon. Do you remember?”
“I do,” I said, keeping my eyes on Mrs. Stoddard, not daring to look over at Pearl. I felt my face and ears redden.
Uncle Thomas stayed completely focused on the task at hand, cleaning and dressing the wounds on Mrs. Stoddard’s arms, taking special care to flush the bite wound. Clarice winced, and Pearl came and stood next to the bed, taking her mother’s hand.
I handed Uncle Thomas each item he needed before he even had a chance to ask for them. I chanced an occasional look at Pearl, but she did not return my gaze.
It was oddly thrilling, being there in Pearl’s house with her, our secret a living and palpable thing; a dangerous thing that no one else must ever get wind of.
I did my best to focus on tending to Mrs. Stoddard, but all I could think was how very much I loved her daughter, the weight of the secret between us seeming to suck all the air out of the room.
“You rest now,” Thomas told Mrs. Stoddard once he’d finished the bandaging. “You’ve had a terrible shock. I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow. We’ll change the dressings then.”
“Please see our guests out, Pearl,” Mrs. Stoddard said, and Pearl dutifully kissed her mother’s hand, then let go of it.
We followed Pearl downstairs to find a circle of men in the front room: Reverend Davies; Luther St. James and his son Henry; Emile LaRue, the foreman at the clothespin factory; Michael Knapp, who ran the general store; Pearl’s father, Benjamin; and my cousin Chauncey Banks.
My jaw clenched. Though we had grown from the children we once were, Chauncey was no more civil to me now than he had been as a boy, when he tormented me, referring to me as it, never she.
As cruel as he was, the worst thing about him was how everyone in town—the girls especially—loved him, thought he was the smartest, most charming, most handsome young man in Boone’s Ferry.
He had them all fooled. It seemed only I saw him for what he was: a shiny apple with a horrid writhing worm in the rotting core.
Luther, Emile, and Michael were carrying rifles and lanterns.
Chauncey rushed forward when Pearl entered the room, wrapped his arms around her. “Pearl,” he doted. “You poor thing.”
My whole body thrummed like I’d been struck by lightning as I watched Pearl, my Pearl, melt into him, hug him back tightly. He kissed the top of her head while I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
The way they embraced, comfortably, without hesitation—it was clear this was not the first time.
My hands clenched into tight fists and I dug my short nails into my palms.
Were Pearl and Chauncey sweethearts?
How had I not known?
The worst part: though it was a shock, it didn’t surprise me. Not entirely. It was what was expected of a girl like Pearl. What all the girls our age were doing. Courting young men, thinking of marriage, as they were taught to.
I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, made myself look away from them before I gave in to the urge to punch Chauncey in his chiseled jaw.
I say it is Pearl who is the wicked one, but truly it is me.
I looked up to find Mr. Stoddard gazing at me coldly, questioningly.
“What’s going on?” Uncle Thomas asked, looking around the circle of men.
“Is it true?” Reverend Davies demanded. He is a small man with a face like a rodent and a surprisingly loud voice. “That the knackerman awoke from death?”
“I—” my uncle began.
“Margaret came to me today,” Reverend Davies cut him off. “She was very distraught. She told me the knackerman died overnight. That you said so yourself. And then this morning, he was gone.”
“Thomas?” Benjamin snapped.
Pearl let out a little whimpering sound and Chauncey pulled her tighter.
My uncle opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get any words out, he was interrupted by Luther.
“We’re going out there to find the son of a bitch.” He was swaying slightly, reeking of whiskey, and clearly in no state to be carrying a gun. “Just because he died once don’t mean he can’t die again.”
“I’m not sure that—” Thomas started to say.
“Tom,” Benjamin said. “That man attacked my wife! Who knows what he might do next. Whether he’s come back from the dead or not, he’s clearly out of his mind. Running naked through the town!”
Chauncey let go of Pearl, turned to Mr. Stoddard. “We’ll get him, sir. We’ll find him and make him pay for what he’s done.”
Benjamin gave Chauncey a pat on the shoulder.
“The knackerman is ill,” Uncle Thomas interjected.
“He needs medical treatment. If you can catch him and bring him back to me, I might be able to help him, to learn what’s making him behave this way.
” He left off the rest, the part I was thinking: to learn how it’s possible that he came back to life.
“I won’t be able to do a thing if he’s got a bullet through his heart. ”
Then a terrible thought struck me: Would it stop him? If he’d already died once and then got up and walked away, would a bullet actually end his life?
Try as I might, I couldn’t take my eyes off Pearl. She looked at her father, then at the floor, anywhere but my direction. She fidgeted with the buttons on her dress. Buttons I had undone with my own fingers.
I willed her to meet my gaze. Silently dared her.
Look at me, damn it.
Chauncey, on the other hand, seeing me looking at her, caught my gaze and gave me a terrible smirk, the one he used to give when he’d spit on me, when he’d show me the dead duckling in the jar.
I swallowed the coppery blood in my mouth as I continued to gnaw the inside of my cheek.
“It’s like the horses, ain’t it?” Luther said. “He’s gone mad like the horses.”
“We don’t yet know that the two illnesses are related,” Uncle Thomas reasoned, his voice sounding thin, unconvincing.
“Will it be like the flu?” Michael asked, panic in his eyes. “Will we all be sick in a matter of days?”
“And how does a man who has died get up and go walking through town, naked in a snowstorm?” Emile asked.
“Witchcraft!” said Henry St. James. “Sorcery.”
“We should go see old Charlotte Albone,” said Emile. “She knows about these things, don’t she? Maybe she’ll have a potion or a charm or—”
“A blast of buckshot is the only charm I need,” Luther said.
“I think,” my uncle said with composure, “we must gather facts and do our best to remain calm.”
Luther stepped forward, so much liquor on his breath that I was sure if I’d lit a match, the man would breathe fire. “The problem is, we can’t do that, Doc. Not when there’s a dead madman loose in the woods, attacking our women.”