The Day of Small Things (40 page)

(Birdie)

D
orothy looks like a crazy woman, eyes all bugged out and hair straggling down as she comes running through the graveyard to the bench where me and Belvy are talking over what to do. I had seen her slip her cellphone from her pocket, but I already knowed who it was and what she would say. Somehow I am outside of time just now.

“Calven’s come back!” she hollers.

Belvy and I swap raised-eyebrow looks. We may be old and we may have our different ways, but we both know that this battle we have been called to ain’t over that easy. “Where’s he at, Dor’thy honey?” I ask and I see her lips tighten up. She stands there before me and Belvy, trying to catch her breath so’s she can say the rest of what I already fear.

Dorothy pushes the cellphone back in her pants pocket and takes a deep breath. “He’s somewheres up the mountain looking for that little girl he thinks so much of—that Heather.”

As the words leave her mouth, I feel the cold breath of a Raven Mocker stirring the air and somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the echoing of his ugly laughter.

“Who were you talking to just now, Dor’thy?” I ask and she busts into tears.

“It was that woman—Karen something—the one from Asheville who stays with Heather when her folks is away on business.”

Dorothy starts in to jabbering a mile a minute. “She said it was not an hour ago, Calven come pounding on the door in a great hurry to see Heather. Karen said that Heather laid out of school today and that she took her camera up the mountaintop to get pictures of flowers and toadstools and such for some nature project she had to do. Heather told Karen she’d be up there till near dark, as she hoped to get a good picture of a sunset. So Karen told Calven all this and he lit out up the road.”

Dorothy is looking back and forth from Belvy to me. Belvy has that stern look she gets when she’s about to have a Seeing and I reckon my face is full of grim death and thunder and I can tell Dorothy can’t make pea-turkey of none of this.

Then she finishes up and it is as bad as I thought.

“The reason this Karen called was to tell me that Calven’s mama and her friends had drove up just now looking for him and Karen told them he was up the mountain with Heather.

“She said she invited them in but they said no, they’d ride on up the road and find him. So they went on up that way and then Karen got to thinking that Heather and Calven might decide to come down by way of my house and she wanted to let him know his mama was looking for him.”

Oh, Lord, I am afraid when I hear these words. I turn to Belvy and she still has the Seeing look on her. I wait a minute and then she nods at me.

“We’ll go together, Birdie.”

“Where are you aiming to go, Birdie?” Dorothy stares at me like I have lost my mind. Belvy is already getting up and heading for the car.

“Birdie Gentry!” Dorothy cries out. “You can’t—I asked you for help but I didn’t mean for you to—these fellers are rough men—criminals what ought to be in jail—they like to killed that jogger—”

But I am on my feet too and making my way down the path to where Dorothy’s car is parked. I can see Belvy has already got herself in and her seat belt fixed ready to go.

Dorothy is hustling after me, fumbling in her pocket for that little phone. “I’ll call 911 and then we’ll go over to my house and wait. There ain’t no way you two—”

I know what she is thinking—what can two old women do? Me, eighty-five—and, law, how strange it seems to think that I’m that old, and Belvy older yet. But if I’m right about what we’re facing, youth and strength ain’t what will defeat this evil that’s after Calven—no, it’ll take the Gifts and the Powers that go with them.

Dorothy is still yammering and getting first on one side of me and then the other, like a dog herding a cow. She hasn’t stopped fussing long enough to mash the buttons for 911.

Just then Belvy reaches out the car window and points at her. Dorothy shuts her mouth and stands stock-still.

“Dorothy.” Belvy’s voice is the sternest sound I ever did hear, a voice that won’t never take a no. “You tell the police on the phone which way to go and then you take us to where the boy’s likely to be.”

I climb into the back and reach up and lay a hand on Belvy’s shoulder. It’s good to know that we’re fighting on the same side now. She don’t turn round but reaches up and pats my hand and I can feel the Power running and tingling between our fingers.

Dorothy is on the telephone now and she is explaining things to the 911.

“… it’s the same ones broke in at Wildcat Reach Saturday … and run down a feller.… Yes, up on Bear Tree Creek.… About three miles from the bridge … Laurel Branch Road … They went up the road that goes around to the top. But there’s two ways up to where they are, my road and the one right before it.… Yes, that’s Godwin Holler, always has been, though the new folks there has changed the name to Goldfinch Lane. You best have a car go up each one; that way you’ll have them in a trap.… No, there ain’t no houses up there … one old barn, that’s all, and some pasture, most grown up. Mainly what’s up there is the worst laurel hell you ever saw …”

(Calven)

H
eatherrr!”

Hollering wasn’t easy with sides aching from the exertion of trying to run up a steep path. After one more shout that trailed off into a cough, Calven put his hands on his knees and leaned over to catch his breath.

He was following the almost invisible trail that he and Heather had used many times before—a narrow footpath snaking through the woods, sometimes bending deep into the trees, sometimes paralleling the gravel road that zig-zagged through overgrown fields and pastures to the mountaintop. The path was a harder climb than going by the road, but if Heather was taking pictures of flowers and such, it was likely that she had come this way.

To the right, the trees were tall, with little undergrowth, and through them he could catch a glimpse of the gravel road. To the left lay the laurel hell—a shadowy thicket of gnarled trunks and roots and dark glossy green leaves. He and Heather had argued—he called them
laurel trees but she had insisted they were rhododendrons.

“And they’re
bushes
, not trees, even if they’re as tall as some trees. We have a book at home—I’ll show you.”

And she had—but in spite of the book, he still thought of the dark tangle of growth as a laurel hell. That’s what Mama’s old boyfriend Bib had called them and Bib had a world of stories about people who got lost in such places and never came out.

“You go deep enough into one of them hells,” Bib had said, “you’ll find the bones of all kinds of animals that wander in … or get chased in … and can’t find their way out nohow. You’ll see them old twisty trunks growing up through rib cages or out of eye sockets.… There’s some says the laurel traps things on purpose, so as to feed off of them.…”

Calven looked toward the dim shadows where the trees gave way to a jungle of contorted trunks and stems, spreading out … lurking … reaching …

Shitfire!
he admonished himself.
That was just old Bib funning with me—making hisself feel big by scaring a little kid
.

He and Heather had explored the edge of this particular laurel hell but it hadn’t been all that interesting—just the maze of twisty trunks that made progress slow, the litter of brown curled-up leaves crackling underfoot, and the blue of the sky glimpsed through a lacy pattern of green above. Flowers didn’t grow there and the laurel wasn’t blooming yet. There wasn’t any reason to think Heather would waste her time in the laurel hell—particularly now, with the sun gone behind the mountain and the shadows closing in.

Calven shivered. Then he remembered the babysitter
had said Heather was hoping to get a picture of the sunset. He smiled.

She’s likely at the top or near it. With that high range to the west, the sun’ll go down pretty early. I may as well go up the car road the rest of the way—be quicker
.

His running shoes crunched on the gravel as he trudged past the fork in the road that led down to Dorothy’s place. He could see the faded green of the painted metal roof but the rest of the house and yard were hidden by the woods in between.
Ol’ Dor’thy—won’t she be glad when I get back!

As he studied the little rectangle of roof far below, Calven realized that he was about to cry. Biting his lip, he turned away and resumed his climb up the last steep switchback before the summit.
That place down there—it’s more like home than anywhere I ever lived. My own room … regular meals … even ol’ Dor’thy fussing at me makes it more homelike. At least she does it cause she cares.…

The lump in his throat was painful now. He dragged his hand across his eyes and sniffed.
Cut that out, now. You want Heather to see you boo-hooing like a baby girl?

A movement on the ridge above caught his attention and he stopped. Clearing his throat, he made a megaphone with his hands and called.

“Heaaatherrr …”

The figure on the ridge turned. There was a moment’s hesitation and then she waved and started down the road to him, the camera around her neck bumping gently as she came.

“Heather … Heather … Heather …”

Like mocking echoes, the calls sounded below him.

Calven whirled around. Four switchbacks below, an anonymous-looking black SUV was creeping up the road.
At one open window was his mother—her head halfway out, one hand cupped at her mouth, and calling.

“Heatherrr … where are you?… It’s Calven’s mom.… I need to talk to you about him …”

On the road above, Heather stopped.

“Calven? What’s going on? Where have you been, anyway? You missed—”

“We ain’t got time to talk.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the trees. “We got to get away from them!”

The car drew closer, tires grinding on the loose gravel. Now Calven could see Darrell at the wheel and Pook beside him, dark glasses swiveling from left to right, alert for any sign of his prey. And behind Pook, still leaning out the window, still calling, Calven saw his pretty, lying, hateful mother.

“Heather … don’t listen to Calven … he’s confused … sick in the head … we need to find him … get him help …”

“Calven?”

Heather was pulling back on his hand now as he tried to drag her with him deeper into the woods. “Wait a minute! Is that really your mother? Why are you running away from her? What does she mean—”

Down below, the SUV was momentarily out of sight but the sound of its relentless progress could be heard as the engine strained and the high, sweet, false voice went on calling.

“Heather honey, can you hear me? Be careful of him—”

The girl’s face was frightened now and she jerked her hand loose from Calven’s grip. “What’s going on?”

“You got to believe me, Heather.” Calven forced himself not to make a grab for her hand as she moved a few
paces away from him—and back toward the road. “Listen, those guys with my mom, they’re real bad guys—criminals. The one with the sunglasses—”

Calven’s stomach heaved at the memory of Pook’s face as he talked about what he would do with Heather while waiting for the ransom. The pink, glistening tongue on the pale lips …

At any moment, the SUV would round the bend and Pook would spot them. “Heather, we got to run before they see us. It’s not me they’re after—they want to kidnap
you
and make your folks pay a big ransom. They … they could hurt you bad. Please, Heather, you
got
to believe me!”

“But … is that really your mother?”

“Yes, that’s my mother. And I reckon this whole thing is her doing. She’s …” His voice broke but he went on. “She’s no good, just like those guys she’s with.”

Tears were streaking down Heather’s sunburned face and her mouth was turned down, half-open in a silent cry. The grinding of heavy tires on gravel seemed almost deafening to Calven and he held out his hand once more.

“Please, Heather.”

The girl made a tiny whimpering sound, like a small trapped animal. Then, just as the SUV nosed around the curve, she took Calven’s hand and the two plunged into the woods, running for the gloom of the laurel hell.

Down on the road, the big car halted. Doors opened and slammed. There was one last call.

“Heather, honey, we’re coming to get you.”

And then the sound of feet, pounding through the woods after them.