Four and Twenty Blackbirds (10 page)

5
Blood Tells

I

Newly fueled with information about long-gone family members, I decided to step up my hunt for information about closer relations. It took me half an afternoon of dedicated searching, but I finally found it. I located the cemetery right away, and you'd think finding an entire road right nearby wouldn't be so hard. Turns out the two-lane strip springs off the street at an angle that makes you think it's only a driveway. I must have passed the turnoff a dozen times before I saw the green sign, bent nearly to the ground.

Pine Breeze Dr., it said, plain as day—once I'd pulled up alongside it and craned my neck until my head was horizontal. I turned my small black car, affectionately dubbed the Death Nugget, up the steep road and downshifted.

Both sides of the drive were overgrown with hundreds of years' worth of vegetation that arched across the sky and made the day feel darker than it should have been. I rolled down my window and hung my head out, craning my neck to scan the sharp, tree-cluttered hills that loomed in close around me.

I drove slowly, but there were no other motorists to grow angry with me. No one came up behind, and no one approached from the other lane. This was the forest primeval, barely outside the city limits. Its dense thoroughness left me disquieted; this was not like the mountain, where the woods are patchy and easy to navigate. These trees were knitted together with infinite nets of kudzu that blocked out any friendly squares of light. This ravenous, parasitical weed spilled down over the grass and extended its needy tendrils to the road, where they were only barely stunted by the occasional traffic.

Yellow flashed sudden and brief, high up to my right.

I hit the brakes and slid to a stop, once again thankful for the solitude. I backed up and set the car's parking brake, then climbed out and peered up the hill. A bulldozer was parked in place where the green thickness cleared. Then, as I stood longer, a straight line implied itself. Then another. A wall, or a corner. Part of a building lost in the woods. I got back into the car and maneuvered it to the rock-strewn track.

My tires spun against the whitish dirt, spraying it out behind me in a telltale cloud. I wasn't approaching quietly, but there was nowhere to park down on the street, where the asphalt disintegrated into a deep ditch instead of a shoulder. About fifty yards up the hill, I pulled up next to the bulldozer and shut off my car's engine.

Another bulldozer and a couple of trucks shared the spot with me, and though I didn't see anyone manning them I could see they'd been busy. The foundations of two small buildings lay in rubble, and a third was half-demolished.

When I got out of the car I was greeted by silence, and again I had to remind myself that I was barely a stone's throw from civilization. "Hello?" I called out. "Is there anyone here?" Birds scattered from the treetops, but otherwise I received no reply. It was a Saturday, after all. I shouldn't expect to see any workmen.

"Hello?"

My scuffed old combat boots crunched in the gritty mess of weeds, pebbles, and crushed concrete. Beside one of the machines were scattered a few pieces of broken tile. I picked one up and turned it over in my hands. It was black and charred, as were the others. One smokestack held its ground, marked in construction-worker spray paint with a bright orange
X
that signaled its days were numbered. "The furnace house," I said to myself. They'd started their demolition with the charnel rooms.

I tossed the tile into the square pit beside the smokestack and turned my attention to what remained. A gymnasium squatted beside one of the buildings I recognized from Dave's pictures. I approached it first, but found it locked with a thick chain. I might have wandered around the fringes to see if I could gain entry, but the door on the other structure had fallen off its hinges, and the open doorway beckoned.

On, then, to easier conquests.

I paused at the tattered threshold, a pang of nervousness seizing my chest.

"Hello?"

No one responded and no human sounds approached or retreated, but my own breathing was loud in my ears and my heart knocked heavily against my rib cage. And just on the edge of my peripheral hearing . . . what was that? I could swear I heard an echoing heart, a repeating, lurching breath that mimicked mine.

"It's this place," I said, stronger than a mumble. "It's this creepy-assed place. There's nobody here."

A brownish lizard ran up the doorframe and darted inside, but everything else was still. Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard water dripping, but I could have been mistaken. I shook the half sounds out of my head and forced myself to proceed.

The small, rectangular concrete porch cracked beneath my weight where rain and time had weakened it. Inside I saw a set of stairs, and what was possibly an office, with a big wood desk. Also I saw soda cans and cigarette butts, and newspapers camouflaged by a dusting of dead leaves.

The lizard popped its head around the wood and licked its shiny eyes, then disappeared. I thought about the knife I had in my car's glove compartment, and about the flashlight in the trunk. It was broad daylight, and all the windows in this building were broken or open, so I didn't need the light. But I might want the knife, with its curved, serrated blade. It was a good knife, a solid, sharp knife—supposedly a climber's knife. I joked from time to time that I could filet a bear in under a minute with that knife.

I refused to remind myself of Dave's warnings about transients and vandals—but on the other hand, I might need to pry open a lock, or get into a drawer. With this handy, ego-preserving excuse, I ran back to my car and grabbed the weapon. I then returned to the dilapidated porch, feeling much safer.

After another moment's hesitation, I followed after the lizard.

Once inside I was slightly more at ease. The first floor was open and mostly empty, littered with a few overturned tables and chairs in addition to the inch or two of miscellaneous trash that covered the floor. There wasn't anyplace for a human-sized threat to hide.

This must have been the cafeteria. The dish room and kitchen at the far end confirmed my suspicions, but did not interest me much. The major fixtures—stoves, ovens, and appliances—had long since been stripped out, and the place was a boring shell. I returned to the front door, and to the stairs I'd seen there. The next floor was no more exciting. A pool table missing two legs leaned against the floor, and a faded cork dartboard hung on the wall next to a cracked chalkboard.

I went back outside.

Once in the sun, I realized I'd been holding my knife with pale-knuckled fingers. I coughed a laugh and folded it closed, putting it down into my boot and letting the belt clip cling to the edge of my sock. I rubbed my hands together to wipe the weapon's glaring red imprint out of my palm.

To my left, on the outside edge of the clearing where I stood, was a one-story, faux-marble Georgian lump with Latinate lettering announcing the Lapton Building. I recognized the name, and I was not remotely surprised. The valley has three or four local families with nothing better to do with their money than to build stuff they can carve their name on, and most of them have been doing it since the Civil War. Three of the original five superfluous columns that flanked the Lapton Building remained, though the overhang and the porch had fallen in years before. I stepped inside unhindered by the door, which was lying in the front yard.

It was like walking into a vacuum.

The air was utterly motionless, and hung around my head as if it were a sedating gas. Feeling faint, I reached one hand for the wall to steady myself. I watched dazedly as my hand went through the weak, old plaster, but I did not hear the sound of it falling in chunks to the floor. A ball of wadded newspaper tumbled by the entryway, accompanied by a platoon of leaves. A dark bird flew briskly by a window, but I did not even hear the startled flapping of feathers, or the rustle of wind-pushed papers.

I reclaimed my hand and clutched it to my collarbone. "It's just this place," I said again, though my voice was not so sure. "What
is
it about this place?" Seeing that I'd dusted myself with white plaster leavings, I slapped my hand against my thigh and left a pale handprint there on my jeans.

Two signs pointed down opposing wings—one read Boys' Residences, the other (predictably enough) said Girls' Residences. I waded through the debris like it was honey, struggling against the disorientation that crept up on me from all sides.

I followed the sign that pointed to the right and came to three doorless rooms.

Each white-painted, concrete-block cell held at least one rotting set of box springs and two chests of drawers, which could only in good conscience be called chests, for all the drawers were missing. Stray metal hangers tinkled together like wind chimes when I opened the closets, but nothing else remained inside them. Every room had a largish window covered on the inside by a metal grate that could have been sturdy chicken wire. Huge tiles hung down from the ceiling, damp and moldy, and dead wires straggled from the holes to mingle with the hanging weeds.

A discolored scrap of magazine thumbtacked to one wall turned out to be a heart-encircled picture of Donny Osmond. Graffiti beside the photo declared that Michelle, Tammy, and Sharon had shared this room in 1978. It also said that Michelle Wants Them All, Tammy Has Them All, and Sharon Does Them All. Nice.

In the next room I was rewarded with more teenage scribblings. Lisa and Penny lived there, also in '78. They too had an inordinate fondness for Donny, in addition to several other alleged heartthrobs whose faces I didn't recognize.

But where was Leslie?

Next room.

"Leslie Was Here."

I read the handwriting out loud, though to see the words had made my throat squeeze shut. I didn't see any other names, or anything at all to indicate she hadn't been alone. Her room was indistinguishable from the others as far as the contents went, but I snooped around it anyway, hoping to find . . . hoping to find heaven knew what.

I found nothing. I left the room wishing for a souvenir, but there was nothing to salvage.

I trudged back to the front, where a secretary, nurse, or receptionist's desk was lodged in a corner. Its top drawer was empty, but the next one down held a stack of mail. I rifled through the assorted scraps of stationery until I saw my mother's name. A paper clip held a note to the envelope.

"Another one from A. Have sent the letter to her file in Brach."

Brach. Another rich old family likely to have a building named after it, if I looked around hard enough. I took the empty envelope and folded it over, wedging it into my back pocket and wanting to leave. By that time, any destination would have sufficed. The atmosphere was overwhelming in the dormitory—if I didn't leave it soon, I was going to pass out.

The air lightened when I stepped outside, but the heaviness did not release me completely. The weight followed, or rather I carried it with me. My walking felt more labored, and my head seemed stuffed with cotton. Again at the edge of my conscious hearing came the heartbeat, just slow and distant enough not to be mine.

"I'll check that one more place, and that's all. Then I'm leaving." The knife casing in my boot rubbed reassuringly against my ankle. I thought about pulling it out, but then I thought about being stopped by a cop and I decided against it. Better to appear unarmed, if caught. Besides, if there were only hobos or other humans present, they would have made their presence known; and any other unknown watchers were unlikely to be intimidated by a four-inch blade.

"I'll leave it there for now. One more place, though, before I go. Just the one."

I couldn't be sure if I was talking to myself anymore. I knew there must be ghosts—surely there had to be ghosts in a place where two thousand people had died a hundred years before. Yes, there had to be ghosts, and therefore I should be unafraid if they wanted to watch. What harm had ghosts ever done to me?

Leslie.

My mother's name. No. I was focusing on it. I was only imagining it.

Leslie.

The second time I knew I'd caught it, each consonant sliding out from an ectoplasmic throat. I took a deep breath. No, I'd never come to harm from a ghost, but the only ghosts I knew were Mae and her sisters and Cora's easily dissuaded specter—and they were surely not the only dead people, so I could hardly consider them representative of the spirit world as a whole.

"Who's there?"

My question invited the presence closer. Something was different about this entity. Something about its voice, or its touch, suggested more strength than mere spirit had ever shown me. I clenched my fists and held them against my thighs, refusing to move. A faint, chuffing gust of air came and went close against my skin. It was sniffing me, smelling me—tickling the sticky inside crooks of skin at my elbows and under my chin.

It snorted a hard puff of stale air against the side of my face.
Not Leslie.
It didn't sound pleased.

"No," I admitted. "Not Leslie."

It drew close again, dusty breath rasping against my ear and ruffling my hair.

But I know you.

"No. I don't think so."

I know you,
it insisted.

"You don't." My fright-induced patience was growing strained. "Go away. Let me alone. I'm not here for you and there's nothing you want from me."

Ah.
It withdrew.
Now I do know you. And I will do as you command, for it was you that brought me here.
A hateful laugh, distinctly audible, bounded throughout the clearing and echoed itself into nothingness.

I felt alone again. Shaken, confused, and suspicious, but at least alone. I didn't care who the being thought I was, so long as it left me.