The Hollow Ground: A Novel (29 page)

I leaned over the sofa to retch but nothing came up. Resting my head against the pillow I dozed and dreamt that I was in Old Man Hudson’s shack and Ma, Brother, and Daddy were trapped down in the bootlegging hole but I couldn’t figure out how to get to them.

“John?” I heard Gram yell from the bedroom. “That you?” She called “John” again, then again. By the fourth time she called, I was fully awake.

“Gram?” I shouted. “You all right?”

There was no answer. Sometimes she talked in her sleep. Slowly I sat up and waited for the room to steady itself. The wooden figures standing at the base of the lamp swayed like they were dancing, then gradually went still. Through the trees I could see part of the newly abandoned Williamson’s house and beyond that, West Mountain smoking an eerie purple. The gas gauge meter ticked, out of sync as usual with the grandfather clock. I shivered, feeling like I was being watched and I wondered if crazy old Mrs. Novak was out in the yard somewhere plotting against us. I locked the door. The only other occupied house on the street was the Kazinskis and they were far enough away we’d have to scream bloody murder before they’d hear us.

Light-headed, I walked to the living room and checked the clock. Nearly 2:00
A.M.
, which meant it would be at least an hour before Mr. Smythe came,
if
he came. I looked to see if Daddy was asleep in his room but not only were both mattresses empty but they were unmade. The fact that the entire day had passed without Gram yelling at me for that made me more nervous than anything at how sick we might be. Thoughts of the various plagues I’d read about in my historical romances went through my head. Maybe me and Gram were going to die that very night and no one would know till Daddy came home,
if
he came home. I sat down in Gramp’s Barcalounger to rest and heard Gram shout, “No, John. You got to go. I don’t like this!” Then I heard the front door open. “Hello?” I called. “Inspector?”

I stood and again shivered, feeling icy cold even though I was coated in sweat. When I peered into the kitchen, the front door was closed and no one was there. Quickly I crossed the room and locked the door. But then I unlocked it, realizing I must have been mistaken about hearing the door open and knowing that if an inspector came he wouldn’t have a key.

The shuffling sounds of Gram walking to the bathroom followed by the toilet flushing drew me down the hall, but instead of finding Gram in the bathroom, I found her in her bedroom. She was lying on top of the bedspread, still in her housedress and ratty pink slippers, so deeply asleep that her snores caused her cheeks to shake. But if Gram was lying here so deeply asleep, then who had I just heard in the bathroom?

At a trot, I crossed back into the kitchen, flicking on lights along the way. I locked the front door, then dodged onto the porch to make sure that door was locked as well. It was then that my neck prickled. Someone was in the room. I could feel myself being watched.

I let go of the knob and turned. There, in the entrance to the living room, stood a man. He nodded as if in greeting and I said, “I guess you’re Mr. Smythe’s replacement? The new inspector?”

He didn’t reply but merely narrowed his eyes to stare beyond me out the window. His hair was dark and longer than most men kept it and though the porch was lit only by the moon and the light from the living room, I could see his eyes were a pale icy blue.

“I’m sick,” I said, thinking maybe he was confused as to why I was up in the middle of the night.

He still said nothing and only tilted his head as if straining to hear something far away. He was dressed all in black except for a white collar that stuck up from beneath his vest. From his neck hung a large silver cross. In my feverish stupor, all I thought of was how that was the kind of cross used in the movies to ward off vampires.

He raised a finger to his lips as if someone might be eavesdropping on us.

“Did you see an old lady outside?” I said. “That’s crazy Mrs. Novak. I’m pretty sure she’s harmless.”

He lowered his finger but still didn’t say anything. Fleetingly I thought of Gram warning me about the perverts who hung out by the railroad. “They smell fear like dogs,” Marisol used to advise me about those dirty leering men. “Act like you’re not afraid of them.”

“Is it about the fire?” I said, even though a part of me already knew this man was no inspector.

Sharply he quirked his head and I saw that his cheek was badly bruised. With his fingertips he lightly touched the wound as if he’d only just noticed it and it was then I saw that the clothing and flesh of his arm was mauled. His fingers moved from his cheek to the cross around his neck and then his lips curved into a scythelike smile. He first took one step, then another, and then he walked through the couch as if its metal frame and cushions didn’t exist, as if they were made of air.

A sound like a dog’s yelp escaped my throat. “You’re Father Capedonico,” I accused, pointing my finger at him.

He stepped into a patch of moonlight by the window and his image clouded. He seemed too handsome and young a priest to have put such a hateful curse on us and the fact that he looked nothing like I’d always imagined made him seem all at once more and less real.

Bitterly I said, “I knew you really existed. I knew Auntie was wrong. The curse isn’t inside of us. It’s inside
you.
” I again pointed my finger at him, my body quaking with hatred and fear. “Why don’t you leave us alone? Haven’t you hurt us enough?”

From down the hall Gram shouted, “Go away, John! Please. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

“Who’s in there with Gram?” I said. Even my bones tingled. I had to grip the hard back of the wicker chair to keep myself standing.

With his finger he beckoned me to follow him as he stepped through the porch wall to the yard. Through the window I shouted, “I hate you! I hate my daddy too! I know what he did. I know he killed Marisol’s daddy.”

The priest shook his head, then held his hands up and looked at the blood that was on them in disbelief.

“Is that my daddy’s blood?” I cried.

The priest gazed up at the moon and squinted as if the light hurt him. His image was quickly turning see-through and I could make out the shadows and shapes of the lilac bushes behind him. I yanked at the door to open it. The lock snagged and my fingers quivered so badly it took me two tries to push it open. Shaking, I stumbled down the steps, nearly falling to the ground. When I looked up, the priest was gone, but I heard his voice speaking to me as if it was somewhere inside my head: “It all comes back to what happened down there.” Then all I heard after that was a shrill screaming.

“Father Capedonico?” I called, turning round and round, but the priest was nowhere in sight. It was only then I realized the screaming sound was the gas gauge meter shrieking its alarm. The gases had gone too high in the house!

I fled up the steps and through the porch, not even thinking to hold my breath. I understood all at once that the priest had lured me outside so he could poison Gram in her sleep. But I wouldn’t let that happen. Auntie had died while I’d stood there doing nothing. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Gram.

“Gram?” I cried. She still lay on top of the bedcovers but she was no longer snoring and she appeared as still as death. I slipped my arms beneath her and lifted but I could barely budge her. “Gram?” I shouted. “Please, Gram, wake up!” Nausea struck me and I nearly wept thinking again of Auntie. Yanking at Gram’s arms I pulled her into a seated position. Then, hunched over, I hauled her onto my back the way I’d seen miners in photos carry their wounded and dead.

Gram was nearly as tall and heavy as me, her feet dragged on the floor. It felt like forever before I even managed to get her into the hall. Worse, waves of dizziness forced me too many times to count to pause and steady myself. When I finally reached the porch, the sight of the door gave me the burst of strength I needed to fling us down the steps. I hit the ground hard, Gram on top of me, and that was the last I remembered until I woke on a bed in the hospital with Gram in a bed beside me.

*   *   *

Gram kept calling for Gramp.

“He’s gone, Gram,” I said gently to remind her.

“No, he ain’t. I seen him plain as day.” She turned toward me, her glazed eyes weepy. “I saw him sittin’ in the wing chair in the corner of the room, like he always done. He was coughin’. That’s what woke me to his presence.”

Our eyes combed over each other’s faces. Then, slowly, I sat up, expecting the room to shift and slide but everything stayed put. I crossed to Gram’s bed and sat down on the edge and told her how Father Capedonico had appeared to me and how he’d lured me outside to poison her.

I put a hand to my chest, winded. It got me out of breath just to talk.

Gram blinked. “You coulda died,” she said, her voice hushed with amazement. She gripped my hand so hard the bones of my fingers pressed painfully together and she repeated, “You coulda died comin’ for me.”

When she met my eyes, she looked deeply into them as if she wanted to see as much of me as she could.

“Glory be, you two gals were lucky,” the nurse proclaimed as she entered the room pushing a tray displaying two apples and two sandwiches. She had a red face made redder by the white of her uniform and she cheerily informed us that we’d been given oxygen and had our blood tested and we’d be fine. “But we want to keep an eye on you a little longer just the same.” She winked and left the room.

I got Gram to sip some water but she refused to eat a bite until I described what Father Capedonico looked like. When I did she grunted, “He ain’t nothin’ like I expected.” I agreed and then she had me repeat what he’d done as exactly as I could remember it. I paused when I reached the part about Daddy. I studied Gram’s face as if everything I wanted to know could be read there. “When I told him that Daddy killed William Sullivan, he shook his head no. I thought Daddy did kill him. I can’t believe I thought that.” With the heels of my palms I jabbed at my eyes like I wanted to put them out for picturing such a thing.

“Quit that, girl,” Gram said, and she yanked at my hands and clasped them. “What else he say?”

“He said it all comes back to what happened down there. I heard him say it clear as anything. What could that mean?”

Gram said nothing. Her eyes moved from one spot on the wall to another as if hunting for clues and the tip of her tongue traced the creases on her bottom lip. “Gramp must have come to warn me about the priest. And maybe about the house. All he kept sayin’ was ‘Don’t, don’t.’ Maybe he thinks I shouldn’t have no dealings with the Revelopment Authority.”

We were interrupted by Detective Kanelous knocking on the open door. “I heard you ladies were here.” In each of his hands was a steaming paper cup.

“So you came to the hospital at four in the mornin’ to bring us tea?” Gram said as if he were offering us poison.

“No, ma’am. I was already here. Unfortunately my job brings me to the hospital at this hour of night more often than I’d like. Certainly more often than my wife likes.” His big teeth shone faintly yellow as he smiled at his quip.

Gram rolled her eyes and Detective Kanelous took that as an invitation to enter. He placed the two cups on the nightstand beside the bed and then he dragged a chair over from the window, raising his shoulders and wincing in apology for the noise. When he sat, he leaned back and crossed his legs. Gram and I raised eyebrows at each other. Where we came from only women crossed their legs. “The nurse tells me you’ll both be fine,” he said.

Gram turned her face toward the opened doorway and I shrugged in apology. I figured the longer we kept quiet, the faster he’d go away. He bent and picked up a gum wrapper from the floor. He crumpled it between his fingers as he said, “Of course I was concerned when I heard there was an intruder.”

Gram’s head swiveled toward him and she snapped, “Intruder? What nonsense! There was no intruder.” Gram raised her eyebrows at me and I shook my head vigorously in agreement.

“Really?” Detective Kanelous said, tilting his head as if listening for something up by the ceiling. Then he leaned forward and bore his orangey rimmed cat eyes into me. “But you told the orderly a man got in the house. Who did you mean? Who got in? Who couldn’t you lock out?”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” I said, shifting to sit closer to Gram.

Gram’s face flushed. “The girl was sick from the fumes. Who knows what she said.”

Detective Kanelous pursed his lips and stared deeply at me, the same way he had when he’d dropped me off at the house and told me I could tell him anything. “Maybe it was someone you knew?” he offered.

“No,” I said. I squinted, looking at him through the narrow of my eye like Ma did when she was issuing a dare. “I saw a ghost,” I said as matter-of-factly as if I’d said, “the room is warm.”

Gram leaned forward trying to wedge the pillow against her hump. “Poor thing don’t know what she’s sayin’. The fumes got her in the head.” Gram pointed her finger at her head like a gun and cocked her thumb.

“Yes,” Detective Kanelous said agreeably. “It’s not uncommon for carbon monoxide fumes to cause people to see apparitions. There’s a famous case of it actually in the
American Journal of Ophthalmology
—”

Gram cut him off. “Apparitions? My left foot! We know what we saw.”

“Ah,” he said, leaning forward, “so you both saw it. Tell me what happened.”

Before I could stop myself I blathered, “He tried to trick me
outside
so Gram would die from the fumes
inside
. But the gas gauge screamed so I knew something was wrong and I ran back in.” My mouth opened as if trying to get the words to fly back in as fast as they’d flown out.

Detective Kanelous didn’t say anything at first. Then he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. A wave of thick black hair fell forward across his brow. “Sounds to me like your ghost saved you both.”

“Not in a million years,” I said.

“A hundred,” Gram corrected and I wondered what Detective Kanelous would say if I told him about our century-old curse.