CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

1

RICHARD DECIDED THEY should probably check into a motel before heading to the house, just in case. No telling what might happen later in the remains of this day, so, ‘better safe than sorry’ became his instant mantra. He drove back out to the rural fringes of town and got them a double room, at a place called the Nightlight Inn, not far from Illinois 72 and the old Penfield Monument Works—where most of the region’s grave markers were still made. Richard carried their luggage in, and sat two leather bags on the beds, opting to leave the third suitcase containing Michelle’s ashes and their emergency cell phone outside, in the vehicle. Then, after pondering a moment, he turned a light on and the television on low, and locked the unit up behind them before pulling away from the cheerless L-shaped motel. He couldn’t explain why, but Richard felt the need to keep his dead wife’s remains nearby for right now. It was just an unseen urge to stay close to her, he guessed, to keep the three of them together as a family for as long as possible, until Michelle’s birthday came and brought the inevitable, the unthinkable along with it . . .

September twenty-ninth.

They started back again, past the deserted Monument Works—its chicken-wire fenced yard was dotted with stone tablets, he noticed, some blank, some only half finished, leaning like little soldiers in jumbled rank—only they took a different route this time. Not wanting to traverse the same path twice, Richard circled long way around and stuck to the outskirts, avoiding the obligatory road construction and entering town from the north. He took Shaw Woods Road, winding his way through a deep and heavily forested area named after one of the original village’s stalwart founding fathers.

Blackwater Valley was actually part of the Rock River Valley, the so-christened Rock having dug its own mighty course directly through this prairie region, twisting and flowing southwesterly for 150-some miles before emptying into the fabled Mississippi River. The small town lay nestled within a slight lowland depression—as if hiding here in the middle of the heartland amongst the rolling hills and fields of corn—which often kept it slightly cooler, in both winter and in summer, than any of its outlying environs. Farther south were farming hamlets such as Ogletree and Davis Junction; to the north, Rockford with its cookie-cutter suburbs (the largest neighboring city, next to Chicago) and beyond that, the Scottish-founded area of Argyle, Illinois. Eastward you’d find tiny Irene, unless you blinked. While to the west, across the river, more corn-growing burghs like Lightsville and Westfield Corners awaited. Yes, nestled safe and sound, they were. Or so it seemed.

Richard and Katie cleared the expanse of woods abruptly, crossing in and out of the shadow of the ancient and decaying Shaw-Meredith House as they descended toward the heart of town. Richard frowned and turned the radio on, surfed around and tried to get some local news, something about that grisly route collapse maybe. Finding none, he settled for some music instead. On their right lurked Hebrew National Cemetery shrouded behind its trees and high, wrought-iron gates, and down a ways on the left came the Old North Cemetery.

The town itself, population of roughly 7,700, cradled its dead protectively at its center, as did most Midwestern towns. Soon they passed another graveyard on their right, Calvary Catholic Cemetery this time, its mausoleum visible off in the rear. Richard zipped by, keeping a wary lateral eye on his daughter, and thought, Three boneyards right in a row, sitting almost triangulated to each other. Like they were planned that way. Indeed, the cemeteries had probably come early on as the rest of the township began to spread out, growing in all directions.

Augustus Shaw’s old hilltop Gothic Revival home and the aptly named Shaw Woods surrounding it (where Richard had hunted as a young boy, in a clearing known to locals as Duck Blind Point) covered most of the north end, which they’d just passed through. Back down to the south the Reed Farm and the Monument Works marked that edge of town, near the bypass. Closer in, running crossways, was the Honey Run Road, which would deliver you to the doorstep of Cassie Patrick’s Honeycomb Haven—an apiary run by a retired widow, who in her spare time, besides bee-keeping and bottling homegrown honey, made little cross necklaces from horseshoe nails to sell—and then on to the new ethanol plant, out past those abandoned grain silos still owned by Admiral Lawrie. At the northeastern borders was an apple orchard and several acres of land kept by the Blessing family, used for growing Christmas trees and harvest-time pumpkins, while southwest you had the Anasazi Bridge (where poor young Ollie Echols drowned himself in 1977) crossing the meandering Rock River there. Farther along it you’d find Jasper Park seated on the river bend, with its sandy baseball diamond and red-brick shelters and its historic old gallows tree, an imposing Eastern cottonwood once used in early pioneer days for both public hangings and midnight lynchings alike.

There were other small businesses, as expected—Lehman’s Candle & Quilt Shoppe, the Gospel Book Store, Meg’s Café and DeRango’s Countryside Meats, Styx & Stonze Botanicals, the Prairie Dairy—sprinkled throughout the gently sloping layers of midtown proper. Plus the usual dregs and derelict dives, out around the railroad tracks, where prostitutes and their pimps still lingered in the deserted freight yard’s shadows on most nights.

Town Hall meetings were the last Thursday evening of each month, at the renovated Riding Club horse stables on Platt Street, Richard recalled. Everyone was welcome, the prostitutes included. It was a typical Midwestern scenario: small town that yearned secretly to be a big city, but remained stuck with its feet mired right where it was; ever part of the Corn Belt, ever sitting on the deadly rim of Tornado Alley. Michelle and he had gone to school and grown up here together, fallen in love as mere children, really, then had fled Blackwater Valley as soon as they were able, in order to start their lives anew somewhere else. But that’s how it was. You either ended up staying your entire life in a place like this, until they planted you here, or you couldn’t get away fast enough. Upper midwest America, absolutely.

And at the center sleeps its dreaming dead in their neat, muted triangle, if they do dream at all. Now who in hell had said that? Richard blinked the thought away, changing radio stations.

He found some crackling Led Zeppelin and left it there, drumming his fingers along with the slow, deliberate beat. Looking at the rows of quiet, old-fashioned homes floating by, with not one now but two church spires visible, and with the peak of the condemned bell tower rising above the trees, Richard found himself shivering despite the warmth. Hearing the jazzy-bluesy “Tea for One” moaning out of the speakers was uncomfortably eerie for some reason. Maybe because he’d traveled these same roads in his youth, listening to this same staticky music by day and by night. No other music came close for him and the circle of friends he was a part of back then. The mighty LZ was the be-all and end-all of rock bands. If you didn’t like it, hey hey, you could hop on out of the car any time you pleased. Watch your step, ma’am, and thank you for choosing Greyhound—

He smiled, recalling the title of a Zeppelin album Michelle had listened to endlessly, a title she’d used more than once to describe these very same residences of her then-hometown.

“Houses of the Holy,” Richard murmured as he drove.

“Is that the name of this song, Daddy?”

He glanced over at his daughter. “No, hon,” he said, laughing. “Just thinking again.”

“Oh.” Then: “Is this song older than me?”

“It sure is. It’s way older than you, Katie-Smatie.”

“Oh,” she acknowledged, and fell silent.

Richard’s gaze returned to the dwellings lining both sides of Ralston Avenue, the street they were on now, even as one song ended and another Zep tune kicked in—this time it was “Thank You”; the station was obviously in the middle of a block here—and he couldn’t help but think again on Michelle’s moniker. There was a song by that title also, “House of the Holy”, but not on the particular album of that name. It got held over and came two years later, on their next release. But that was Led Zeppelin: they did what they wanted, conformed to nothing and to no one, like the marauding Viking hordes they sang about. No label that was put to them ever stuck. They somehow managed to remain untouchable, above the critics’ sniveling reach, beyond the manipulations of the music industry as a whole. A record-company exec’s worst nightmare. But oh, the magic and depravity they made for a time.

“Thank You” did its famous organ fade-out to near silence before fading back in and ending full tilt. The third song they rolled out was “The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair”, a remastered gem from the group’s rare BBC sessions. Wasn’t it known as “Willow Tree” at one time? Yes. He couldn’t help smirking, thinking how this always reminded him of “Moby Dick” each time he heard it, with a little “Travelling Riverside Blues” thrown into the mix. Pure fun, this was . . .

Richard looked in the rearview mirror and caught himself grinning, like that dopey kid back somewhere in his boyhood, but when he glanced forward again and spotted the girl on the yellow bike, sailing off a side street and straight into traffic, his hands squeezed so tightly on the steering wheel that some of his knuckles popped.

She was beautiful and leggy and tanned all over like his wife had once been, wearing white shorts and a white halter and tiny headphones over her ears, and for one startled moment the sweat froze in his pores as he involuntarily jabbed at the brake. It was enough to screech the tires, send the Blazer sideways a bit. The girl shot them an annoyed scowl over her shoulder as she flew past, and suddenly Franklin had to fight back the urge to scream at her. Scream at the top of his lungs for her to watch out, because someday she was going to get herself killed doing that shit. Get herself killed leaving the library one moon-splashed summer’s eve . . . perhaps . . . yes, run down by some lunatic in a giant dirty old shipwreck of a Pontiac Parisienne, with the words WASH ME traced onto its side, who’ll keep right on going maybe. Just keep right-the-fuck on going—and who drives a Pontiac Parisienne anyway? . . . who in hell even owns a behemoth like that anymore?—while she dies there twisted and broken in the road a few minutes later, according to the statement of the librarian. Dies so terribly, voiding her bowels and bladder in her final ruinous throes.

And they’ll never catch the bastard. That’s the kicker. The night librarian disappears immediately after, and they’ll never catch the bastard who did it. Never catch anyone. Oh . . . dear . . . God, why did my Michelle have to die like that? Answer me. The leukemia was already killing her. Wasn’t that enough? Richard glared up at the lofty church steeples now, felt that stark bitterness seething within his guts once more. Why not take this one, too? he thought contemptuously, from some barren-black place. Right here in the street? She’s not doing anything either, you son of a bitch. Just riding her bike, minding her own business. But that’s about your style, isn’t it?

He snapped the radio off in the midst of Robert Plant’s banshee-like wail and loosened his grip, unclenching his teeth, hoping Katie hadn’t seen him. Fumbling to unwrap his berry flavored Rolaids, he popped one into his mouth and began to chew it. He watched the young girl in his mirrors as she pedaled her yellow ten-speed away, riding with no hands.

“Daddy?” Katie said, making him jump. “Have I ever been here before?”

“You mean to Blackwater Valley? No, babe. You’ve never even been out of Maine, until now.”

“Oh. That’s funny . . . ” Her gaze sharpened, but went dreamy as her thoughts drifted unspoken. Richard resumed his speed and eyed her for a moment. He sometimes wondered about children—wondered about them the same way he wondered about the nighttime stars and microorganisms in the sea. And each time he wondered, he always ended up shaking his head in a dumbfounded kind of awe.

Not every kid was empathic either.

“True,” Richard said out loud as he crunched, then slowly looked in his daughter’s direction. She was already staring at him, naturally.

“Still thinking?”

He rolled his eyes comically and she laughed. “Yes, Katie-Smatie. Still thinking. What are you doin’ over there?”

She shrugged. “Nothing much.”

“Hmm.”

After a pause: “Daddy?”

“Yep?”

“How long are we going to be here?”

“A couple of days, hon, until the twenty-ninth.” Again, the knuckles whitened a touch on the steering wheel. “Until Mommy’s birthday.”

“Oh. Right.” She stared out her window, squinting tiredly in the sunlight, which had come out and stayed.

Richard watched her some more, then glanced at the glove compartment. Taking in a shaky breath, he let it out and turned his eyes to the road. One moon-splashed summer’s eve. He would do what he’d come here to do, fulfill his wife’s last wishes, if he could; her dying earthly requests—first, try to make some kind of lasting peace with Michelle’s parents (if at all possible) and second, take his wife’s ashen remains from the suitcase behind him, on her birthday, and scatter them at the place of her special choosing. Where they’d first fallen in love so long ago: their own hallowed ground, where the first hand-holding and that tentative, terrifying very first kiss happened. Then he would go. He’d take his six-year-old daughter and head east for Golitha Falls, Maine. Back home to the empty Dutch Colonial with its sad little greenhouse awaiting them there on Charismatic Lane. And he would try to begin anew. Try to pick up everything and continue on without her, finish that damned second novel his agent and publisher were still waiting on, by now so overdue. They would try their best, widowed and orphaned, try to go on without her in their lives.

Their angel, their shining morning star.

He drove onward, made a right and a couple of lefts to get around some street repairs being done. Old-timers around town were fond of telling visitors that there were only two real seasons to contend with here in the great state of Illinois, this land of Lincoln: winter and road construction. The old-timers relished in the relating of snippets of wisdom like these. Sometimes to the point of driving a person bats—or rather, once again for illustration, what old-timers preferred calling ‘shack-wacky’.

Richard took a quick detour through an alley and swung past a small yard sale wrapping up business for the day, at last turning onto the thoroughfare called Brazier Drive. This was it. He shook his head, not knowing any answers, not knowing what the outcome of this all would be. Only time would tell that.

Then he blinked, sitting up wide-eyed in his sticky seat. He stared out the windshield and a smile came grudgingly over his lips.

“Still there,” he said. “Check it out, Katelyn Jane Franklin. It’s still there.”

2

Chip Priewe sat in his police cruiser on a sidestreet next to the Memorial Hall, sipping strong black coffee from a Styrofoam cup he bought at Meg Bilobran’s little café, around the corner. He blew on it and sipped, blew and sipped, and observed the dark green Chevrolet Blazer with the man and the small child inside, coming down Ralston Avenue. He watched as they went past Memorial Hall (taking note of the strange vehicle’s Maine plates), watched—blowing and sipping—as seventeen-year-old Julissa Quigg, who sang in the church choir, came tear-assing across traffic on her yellow bicycle. The Blazer went into an abrupt skid, its driver overreacting slightly. The girl wasn’t actually going that fast, didn’t really come close to them, but the Blazer with the mean-looking CPS grille guard out front lurched nonetheless, locking its brakes and causing everyone to look in their direction.

On they went a moment later, continuing along Ralston Avenue and out of his sight while the Quigg girl disappeared the other way, most likely headed home for dinner. He watched her go, following her white shorts and long sun-bronzed legs as they pumped.

No harm, no foul. Still, she did have those stupid earphones on, listening to music instead of paying attention to the street sounds around her. He’d have to mention it to her sometime, put the fear of the law into her. Or not. Who knew? Like to put something into that one, truth be told.

Priewe stared at his left hand briefly, at the wedding band on his ring finger. He snorted, squirming uneasily; the thought of his ill-conceived and even more ill-fitting marriage tightened his insides. It’d been one of the worst mistakes of his life, had almost ruined him. No wonder you had people going around in such desperate states. Desperate straits and desperate states, amen to that. Nervous Nellie types, jumping at shadows and turning gray with worry and leaping off bridges and such. Nervous as cats. You saw them all the time, shuffling to and fro like they were set for the rubber room or something. Total human wrecks, because of the choices they made.

He glanced at the old Civil War cannon resting in front of Memorial Hall, wondering not for the first time if it was really still loaded, like that retired history-buff Navy prick Jack Lawrie always claimed it was. Wondering how easily, if need be, one’s head might fit in front of its gorge, and if that said head might disintegrate wholly from one’s shoulders were the huge, dormant Union beast to awaken and recoil one last roaring, deafening time—

Sipping cautiously at the hot coffee, Chief Priewe swallowed and whistled through his teeth. Not a pleasant prospect, no sir, but one to consider nevertheless. If need ever be. And what was it with these kids, anyhow? He enjoyed music, too, like anyone else. Well, good music at least. He didn’t get all this horseshit, this mindless garbage being passed off today. Who in hell needed illiterate shit blaring into both ears all the time, or a cell phone jammed against their head every waking moment? Only dimwits, he’d concluded, low-bred idiots afraid of having an actual coherent thought come at them. Heaven forbid that should happen. Just another example of the buzzsaw this country was headed for, with today’s generation of dopes at the helm. What a fucking future. Human flotsam and jetsam, every one of them . . .

Some static traffic issued forth from the car’s police radio and Priewe leaned forward, listening. He tuned up the volume, but nothing else came. Piss shit. He’d been monitoring what was going on just east of town—something big, by the sound of it—for the last hour or so. It had started with a call between a couple of Ogle County boys fielding reports about a section of the roadway that had fallen in, out beyond the interchange. No injuries or anything, nothing unusual to speak of. After a time a shout had gone out for the Rockford cops to the north, could they please come down, because it appeared they had themselves a possible ‘situation’. Odd. Several minutes later an order was given by some unknown voice for an ambulance and for the county coroner, if she was available, and to keep unwanted gapers away from the sinkhole vicinity. Crime scene procedure, he couldn’t help thinking. Odder yet. The radio traffic intensified for a bit, culminating with an ambiguous request for a tarp or canvas of some kind—maybe a swimming pool cover would do. Priewe had chimed in, curiosity getting the better of him, saying he could snag something quick and be out that way in ten to fifteen minutes tops. But he’d been sharply rebuked by that unknown voice, informing him that his assistance was not needed, and how everyone should stick to their own jurisdictions for now. He had radioed an affirmative 10-4 back, and then had listened to the stinging, intentional silence which followed.

So, here he sat, uninvited to the dance, while something big went on out there—really big and decidedly odd, he gathered—even as extra uniforms from Rockford made their way south to take part. Here Chip Priewe sat, blowing and sipping on his coffee, not needed. Well, they could take that jurisdiction and stick it in their ass. He knew who they were, these Rockford men given the green light over him. He used to do a lot of security work in that town, years ago, so he knew them all right. Knew the ones on the take from the squeaky cleans, knew the juicers from the wife beaters, the fine upstanding family men from the closet pedophiles. They were the same ones who, back then, had pegged him and his kind as ham-and-eggers, or nickel-and-dime rent-a-cops. That was before he landed this gig, though. He was a full-fledged Chief of Police now, Constable of his own jurisdiction. So fuck them all, flatfoot cunts that they were, for leaving him out of their loop. Trying to hold him back, always keeping him down.

Like the cunt waiting for him at home did.

He took another swallow, jaws clenched tightly. Worst mistake of his life, without a doubt. He wondered where his deputy chief was during all of this, why that inky black bastard hadn’t checked in. Or the other fuckwits for that matter. Well, he would ride them good enough later on, let them know who called the shots out here. Dish them all the grief and the boondocks dirt-water rounds they could handle, because in the end it only came down to one thing. The age-old, everlasting Golden Rule: shit rolls downhill. No matter which way you plugged it, shit always rolls downhill. That was the reason you had people going around in such desperate states these days, afraid of any and every little thing which might happen; afraid most of all, he truly believed, of their own undoing. Nervous Nellie types—

Like the driver of that Chevy Blazer, for instance. Jumping at shadows. And what did they have to be so nervous about, anyway? A man and a little girl like that. In a small town like this? Made you stop and wonder, yes.

Snorting again, Chief Priewe thought he would have to keep an eye on them for sure, these strangers in his town. For the time being, though, he merely sat, and blew and sipped, listening to the police radio and trying not to think of what waited for him back home.

3

Meanwhile, something stirred inside the condemned bell tower, which stood sentinel over town, haunting its gloom there. It moved slowly at first—this flesh thing—shambling, quiet as a nun. Its left side wasted and gone limp, the thing dragged itself to the rotted stairs and began inching up them, knowing where all the breaches and weak spots lay, mewling as it maneuvered, barely audible; a whispering of dust motes in its empty, soundless lair.

The old rope still dangled from somewhere above, hanging in moldered ruin, witness to all these many cascading decades. Pigeons fluttered in sudden alarm. When at last it reached the top, it pulled itself with one good appendage onto the squared walkway and began rounding the great and rusted iron bell, searching out the belfry openings in this hushed, secret still. North, east, south, west. Ahh. Shafts of setting sunlight streamed in, creating an orange glow like diffused hell licking in at the weather-blasted peak of the tower. Ahhh. The thing looked across scant fields, high above the tallest of trees, trying to blink the brightness away, shielding eyes that peered like blood blisters from the hoods of pale flesh in its face. It squinted painfully and spied the boxlike Memorial Hall in the ruddy distance, an idle police car beside it. And something else, someone in overalls (Syd Cholke?) way up on a ladder, trimming tree branches back from the power lines above Brazier Drive.

But when it saw the tall man standing and holding hands with a small child, down near the deserted Lawrie Theater, this being froze and began to tremble. It stared and it stared, until the blisters which were its eyes seemed about to burst. Then it fell back into the cloak of its crawling darkness and shuddered, howling out piteously from a rictal, tongueless gape of mouth.

The mourning doves and remaining pigeons took wing in their bright terror.

4

The building stood just as it had the last time Richard saw it, more than eight years before. Vacant and deteriorating: a relic the good citizens of Blackwater Valley simply refused to tear down. It was done in what might be called a Byzantine style, with longish breast walls and topped by an Oriental-like dome on its roof. The place had once been known as the Midday Theatre, because of the daytime matinees screened here in its early years.

He vaguely recollected that a handful of workers lost their lives when the dome collapsed during the initial construction in the 1920s. But from the mid ’70s on, it would be called the Lawrie Theater, named after the former Navy admiral who purchased it and ran nightly movies there with his wife Lorraine.

In 1986, the year Chernobyl melted down into a dead zone and the shuttle Challenger disintegrated in the frosty skies over Florida’s celebrated stretch of Space Coast, the building closed its doors for good as giant, multi-screened monster showplaces began to blight the landscape. Most small theaters could not compete, and ultimately went the way of the drive-ins and mom-and-pop grocery stores. At least he assumed Lawrie still owned it, anyway—Jackson Lawrie owned property and structures all over town, including the Nautical Museum and the old bell tower. Most of the properties sat unoccupied, like this one.

He noticed some scattered plastic letters that had been left behind on the rigid canopy over the theater doors, letters which might have once spelled out movie titles such as Peggy Sue Got Married or Stand by Me, but now resembled only an errant jumble, like alphabet soup up on the marquee billboard. On the elongated side wall of the theater was a mural, faded and peeling badly, but intact just the same. The mural Michelle and he had painted.

They parked and got out, Richard leading his daughter by the hand. In truth, he had forgotten all about this painting until a few seconds ago. Now his gaze swept over it with fondness, taking in every detail again, every little nuance. There was a lush pine forest, its needled spires reaching for the heavens, and a castle sitting on a mirror-glass lake while the dark Mountain of Power loomed gargantuan in the background. An empty skiff floated ominously alone, moored, abandoned among some water-draped rocks. And his favorite: a large ruffled owl in a greatly gnarled black maple (part of its beak and one big unblinking eye chipped away and missing), and the mandatory shining knight upon a white steed, all poised beneath a cloud-riddled chalky blue sky. Plus two signatures in acrylic gold and the tiny ’88 scrawled in the lower left corner, obscured by ivy which crept along the crumbling foundation.

It struck him suddenly that the hands of his deceased wife had helped create this—had stroked and daubed and had coaxed it into being, with brush and sponge and exterior semi-gloss—once upon a long time ago. He reached out to touch it but hesitated, unsure, not knowing what ruminations he might stir and bring to life here.

They had both finished college by then and were home planning their futures together. It’d been Michelle’s idea, and naturally, he had gone along with it. The theater was already vacated and Lawrie, whom Richard had done scores of odd jobs for while growing up, had no immediate plans for the structure and said he didn’t mind. Coupled with the fact that George Deadmond, Michelle’s father, had a whole garage full of leftover paint cans he’d probably never find a use for. So, two lovestruck kids (Richard had been 24 and Michelle only 22) spent most of that sweet summer making promises in the daytime, making love at night, and leaving behind their own visions of grandeur on the side wall of the empty Lawrie Theater.

Something caught his eye, and he glanced up. A wooden plaque was affixed at the top center of the mural above the sunrayed cloudburst. He chuckled aloud when he read the words engraved into it: HERE BE DRAGONS. The sign had been the finishing touch, a private joke between Michelle and him, because dragons there were. Some of course were visible, like the one preening near the lakeshore or the one rearing up before the knight’s lowered lance, but others they had hidden in the background, painted and blended them devilishly in where you had to look hard to find them. Like the one squatting fat and obscene and leering out from the forest wall, or the one crouched beneath the castle’s drawbridge. Or the one slavering and lurking in the mouth of a shadowed gorge in the vast mountain, surrounded by kindling-stacked bones of the dead and the recently devoured. Yes, here be dragons.

“Know who painted that picture, hon?” said Richard finally, gesturing to the mural.

Katie shook her head. “Uh-uh. Who?”

“Your Mommy and I did. See our names at the bottom?” He moved closer and pulled at the clinging ivy, glancing back at Katie. She was nodding, her eyes big and sparkly. “Before I was born, right?” she asked.

“Yep, sweetie. Before

(squash, anybody?)

you were born—” He blinked stupidly, his words wavering before trailing off, and he stood immediate and straight. What the hell? His mouth was dry; he licked his lips. Noticed his heart had revved up, just a beat or two. Katie was frowning at the mural, her brow creased in thought, and Richard felt that tug at his guts again. No, oh no. Don’t do this . . .

But all she said was: “Daddy, why is her name changed?”

Richard caught his breath. “That was Mommy’s maiden name, Katelyn. Before we got married. Michelle Deadmond. Then she took my last name, and she was Michelle Franklin.” He beeped her little nose playfully. “Same as your last name. Katie-Smatie Franklin. Got it?”

She giggled, the sharp edges leaving her beautiful round face. “Got it.”

Richard looked up at the painting, his own frown deepening now as he felt the breeze touch his skin. It gave him a warm feeling gazing at its distant hills and fields like this, bringing back vibrant remembrances of days which had passed by much too quickly. But there was something else just under the surface, something bad, like the lingering traces of a forgotten nightmare, hanging on to you the way cobwebs did after you’ve blundered into them. Like a stain beneath the pleasant memory, one he couldn’t quite place. Couldn’t put his finger on. But he felt it clear as day, and it

(get your nice, ripe squash here!)

chilled his bones. He moved instinctively back a bit, vaguely aware of some harsh distant sound, a sudden rush of birds in flight somewhere. He was startled when a gruff voice came from above.

“Heads up!”

Richard caught sight of a stout workman in the trees, dressed in big overalls with an orange-and-yellow reflective vest over them, standing on a ladder pruning back branches. A twig fell to the sidewalk and he moved his daughter away. He stared up again, and realized with some embarrassment the person on the ladder he’d figured for a man was in reality a woman, her breasts large and heavy and her close-cropped hair tucked under the NASCAR cap she wore. Katie looked, too, and the worker squinted down through thick safety glasses.

“Need some help, son?”

“What?” Son?

“You look like you’re lost,” said the woman, smiling back at them with tanned features. She wielded a long pole saw in both hands, leaning out to smartly take down another branch.

“No,” he told her, “just browsing, is all.”

“Ah. Sure is a hot one though. Too hot.” She paused. “Like that motor oil commercial on TV back in the old days. You know? ‘It’s hot. It’s too hot. There’s going to be an accident.’ Remember that one?” She barked laughter, throaty and deep like a lifelong smoker would laugh.

“Seventy-two,” murmured Katie absently, gazing at the mural.

The female tree trimmer glanced down. “How’s that, sweets?”

Richard cleared his voice and spoke up. “She says it’s seventy-two degrees out.”

“Oh dearie, it must be warmer than that. And with this humidity—”

“Eighty-eight,” Katie declared, and Richard felt his face flush. Hoo, boy. How should he explain this? He looked up at the woman, shading his eyes. “Humidity is eighty-eight percent, I guess.”

“How in the world does she know that? The radio?”

Shuffling his feet, he said, “I don’t know how she knows it, but she does.” He glanced lovingly at his daughter, then looked skyward. “Can’t explain it. Sorry.”

“Huh.” The worker seemed speechless at this, reduced to grunts. She adjusted the cap on her head and reached out to trim away a good-sized tree limb. That accomplished, she leaned over and said, “Browsing. You looking to buy?”

“Oh, no. Just taking a peek at my handiwork here. I painted this thing, years and years ago.”

“Is that right? You really painted it?” She raised the glasses to her forehead, peering down with that big smile again, one eyebrow cocked quizzically. “You from the Val?”

“I used to be,” Richard said. “But no, not anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman nodded. “Once you’re from the Val, son, you’re always from the Val. Didn’t you know that?”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”

“Mm, you do that. I’m Sydney, by the way. Holler if you need anything.” She lowered the safety glasses onto her nose. “Nice to meet you two.”

“Likewise,” he told her, his voice rising. “This is Katelyn. I’m on the wall there, left-hand corner.” He gestured toward the spot, looking up and tipping her a wink. “Under the ivy.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she might’ve winked back before returning to her work. Richard started to lead Katie away but paused a moment longer, staring at the crumbling mural again. The warm feeling was gone, fragmented, replaced instead by a persistent gnawing at the back of his brain—like the clicking of a beetle trapped behind a section of paneling. He frowned hard, trying to make some sort of connection out of his broken thoughts. He could not, however, and yet he shivered just the same as if

(the bastard grinned at me)

an unseen icy hand had brushed the small of his back.

Christ, what in hell is it? What’s wrong?

“Come on, hon,” he said to Katie, walking back to the Blazer with her. They got in and drove slowly down to the end of the block, parking across the street from the peach American Foursquare home with the neat brown trim and the copper, crescent man-in-the-moon weathervane mounted atop its roof pinnacle. Richard shut the engine off and sat a while, thinking. Or trying not to think. One of the two. There were remnants assailing him now, snatches of his own warring memories, some filling him with joy, some only with hurt and self-pity. Some with fear. He didn’t care anymore. He’d driven the past three days to get here and he was tired and he didn’t care. At some length, he turned to face his daughter.

“This is it, I guess,” Richard said quietly. “Ready?”

“Yes,” she said, but she neither looked or sounded very sure.

“It’ll be okay. Hop out your side, sweetie. Let’s go in.”

As Katie was rounding the front of the vehicle, Richard got out and dropped the locks with a click, checking each door handle. He beeped the SUV’s alarm system, activating it. Richard met her halfway and took her by the hand, pausing to scan the windows of the house.

“Love you, Katie-Smatie,” he let her know.

“I love you, Daddy.”

As they crossed Brazier Drive, a small boy brandishing a super-blaster water pistol chased a small girl down the sidewalk. “If you do, I’ll tell!” the girl screamed as she ran. “I’ll tell! I’LL TELL!” A curbside mailbox bearing the street numbers 1422 stood out front with a newspaper folded into the lower holding compartment, so Richard slid it out. It was an evening edition of The Rock River Guardian. He smiled faintly, and tucked it under one arm as he continued walking. Far off somewhere floated the dreamy sound of a Fleetwood Mac song. Somewhere closer, someone out-of-doors popped a beer can tab as the Chicago White Sox crackled on a radio in the background. Nearer still, a large dog barked once, sharp and lone and distinct.

Houses of the Holy, Richard thought as they walked up to the hushed Deadmond home.