Chapter Fifteen Frankie #2
And this was not the girl who had embraced Chauncey, who had been held passively in his arms while he kissed the top of her head yesterday.
This was my Pearl. My secret love, my secret wife with her wicked little fox smile.
I felt the heat rising between us, the way our two hearts seemed to pound out the same rhythm, and there was that pull, that magnetic pull that pulsed through my whole body and was stronger than anything I’d ever known.
I grabbed Pearl’s hand, held her fingers to my lips, kissing them. “Then you shall have me. Now and always.”
Tears filled her eyes, trickled down her cheeks. “If only we’d gone away the other day, run off when I asked you…”
“It’s not too late,” I said without thinking. “We can run away together, just like you said. To a place no one knows us.”
“You can’t—”
“Is everything all right, girls?” Mr. Stoddard’s voice came from the kitchen. He must have been inches from the doorway to the pantry.
“Yes, Father,” Pearl said, jerking her hand away from my face, wiping her tears away and stepping out into the kitchen.
“Frankie was just helping me look for the last of the applesauce, on the top shelf. I thought it might be something Mother could eat, and I couldn’t reach.
” Her voice was high and squeaky, like a little girl’s, her face splotchy from crying.
Mr. Stoddard’s eyes moved from Pearl to me, his face stony, jaw locked.
“The doctor’s waiting for the compresses,” he said to me.
AFTER SEVERAL ROUNDS of hot compresses, we cleaned and rebandaged Mrs. Stoddard’s bite wound. The scratches appeared to be healing normally, so we left them open to the air. In the entryway, we pulled on hats, coats, and heavy boots. Mr. Stoddard came and shook Uncle Thomas’s hand, thanking him.
He said nothing to me but watched me warily.
“We’ll be back tomorrow morning,” Uncle Thomas said. “Send for me if things worsen before then.”
Pearl was nowhere to be seen.
I opened the front door and Uncle Thomas and I walked out into the storm. Heavy snow fell, the wind swirling it, pushing it into drifts. We walked as quickly as we could down Main Street, back toward home, heads bowed against the wind, feet sinking deep into the snow, slipping with each step.
The storm warped the familiar landscape, blurred our vision, made it difficult to stay on the road, to even know where the road was.
We soon found ourselves disoriented, even on the short walk.
Uncle Thomas grabbed hold of my arm, clinging to me so as not to be separated as we trudged on, bent forward like weather-worn trees.
I was sure I saw shapes, dark forms moving, following us. Figures made of swirling snow and shadow hovering just at the edge of my vision.
I thought of Benjamin Stoddard’s face when Pearl and I came out of the pantry.
I thought of Chauncey, his smirk.
And it was his voice I heard whispering from the snow, from my long-ago childhood: You’re nothing but an it.
Then it was the knackerman’s voice I heard in the wind.
I’m the knackerman. What more is there to know?
And it was his shadow I saw before us now. He was on horseback. On the back of Shirley with yellow gleaming eyes, teeth bared.
I clung to my uncle, pulled him along faster, as the shadows seemed to stretch and bend nearer to us, closing in.
They whispered, the voices all running together, mixing with the cold wind that swirled around us, blew right through our sodden coats.
Were we going the right way? I studied the shapes of the houses, picked the one that I told myself was ours, and pulled Uncle Thomas toward it.
As we trudged on, I could feel something, someone, just behind us.
I could hear it breathing, even through the heavy snow.
But I was determined to get us home, and tried as best I could to put it out of my mind.
I pulled my uncle faster, running now. I couldn’t help but glance back once, needing to know, but was met only with darkness and a blur of white.
When we arrived at home at last, my heart pounded as I closed the door and latched it. I peeked through the window, saw only a whiteout. Margaret hurried into the front hall, looking flustered.
“Thank God you’re back! I was just going to send for you.”
“What is it?” Thomas asked with renewed worry.
If it was more of this strange new illness, I wanted no part of it. I wanted to run to my room, hide under the covers in my bed like a child.
I recalled their words now, both the knackerman and Clarice Stoddard. Can you hear them?
And I had heard them, hadn’t I? Out in the snow.
“It’s Emile LaRue,” Aunt Margaret cried. “They’ve just carried him in. Oh, he’s in a terrible state, Tom.”
Uncle Thomas drew in a breath, handed Aunt Margaret his coat and hat, and headed for his office. I stripped mine off and hurried after my uncle.
Emile was laid out on the examination table.
Luther St. James and Michael Knapp stood over him, still in their coats and boots, leaving great puddles of water on the floor.
Emile was unconscious but I could see his chest rise and fall ever so slightly.
His clothes were soaked and dark with blood. His skin looked gray in the dim light.
“What happened?” Thomas asked matter-of-factly, rolling up his shirtsleeves.
“Found him lying in the snow down by where the river bends,” Luther said. “Looks like he’s been attacked.”
“Help me with this,” Thomas directed me, as he began to take off Emile’s sodden, bloody layers. I came forward and helped peel off the man’s coat, his shirt and undershirt, gently lifting Emile to get them off. His skin was cold to the touch, splotched and waxy.
“Margaret,” Thomas called, “we need hot water, towels, and blankets. And bring hot water bottles.” Then he turned to me. “We’ve got to get his temperature up.”
I lit the gas lamps in the exam room and yanked open the curtains. Other parts of the state had electricity and the benefit of electric lights, radios, electric stoves even. But the lights had not come to Boone’s Ferry. We were too far out, our valley too isolated.
As we worked to undress him, Uncle Thomas and I soon understood the source of most of the blood. Emile had a wound on the left side of his neck. While Thomas continued to examine the man’s body from head to toe, I began to clean the neck wound off with a towel—it was deep and bleeding heavily.
I immediately recognized the circular pattern of teeth marks.
“My God! Is that a bite?” Luther asked, leaning in to look closer. He smelled like sweat and whiskey. The white scar on his forehead glowed in the light of the gas lamps.
Thomas nodded, peering down at Emile’s neck. “I’ll have to sew it up to stop the bleeding.”
“A human bite?” Luther pressed. He was breathing hard now, panting.
“Yes,” Thomas said, his own jaw clenching. “It looks like a human bite.”
“The bastard’s still out there!” Luther snapped.
“Inhuman,” said Michael Knapp. “That’s what he is.”
“Please,” Thomas pleaded, the patience leaving his voice. “I need you gentlemen to back up and give us room to do our work. You can go out to the waiting room.”
Margaret bustled into the exam room, carrying towels and a large metal bowl of steaming water. Her face was flushed, her hair coming undone.
“Like hell,” Luther said, lurching toward the door. “We’re going back out there to hunt that knackerman down. Put a bullet between his eyes before he attacks anyone else.”
The bowl slipped from Margaret’s hands, hitting the floor with a terrible clatter, hot water splashing down the front of her dress, scalding her, as she let out a piercing scream.