Vigil (34 page)

“Well,” I said. “He’s clearly confused.”

“Clearly,” said Callum, looking relieved.

* * *

I awoke to the noise of my window opening.

I sat straight up in bed.

Vigil climbed inside, dark as a shadow, lithe as a cat.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“I just busted some criminals,” he said. “Thought you might want to write an article about it.”

I clutched my covers tight. “I thought you retired. I thought that you didn’t need to catch anyone except The Phantom.”

He crawled up the bed, snatching the covers away from me. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that. And… I don’t know. It just seems like maybe this city could still use someone like me. And I kind of miss it. So, tonight, I just thought I’d put the costume back on for old time’s sake.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Can’t you see the headline? ‘Vigil Returns’?”

It did have a certain ring. “Well, okay. I guess that makes sense. And I think Henry might like that story.”

He grinned. “Good.” He ran his hand over my bare thigh, all the way up to the edge of my white t-shirt. I still liked to sleep in that. It was comfortable. “Don’t you ever wear actual clothes that cover any meaningful parts of your body, Cecily?”

I slapped his hand away. “I thought you wanted me to interview you.”

“We could call it that if you want,” he said, putting his hand back, sliding it up over my belly.

I gasped.

“Shh,” he said. “You’ll wake up your roommate.”

I ran my hands over his shoulders, encased in their black spandex. “Well, I have to admit, I kind of missed the costume.”

“Admit it,” he growled in my ear. “The mask turns you on.”

“The mask turns me on,” I breathed.

“You know what turns me on?”

“What?”

“You,” he whispered, and his gloved hand traveled higher to close around my breast.

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unquiet slumbers

1984

The wind whistled through the cornfields, fluttering the stalks like a restless ghost. Outside the tenant house, Floyd Earnshaw—Daddy to Cathy—raged as he banged on the front door.

“Get in the closet, babies,” said Mama Galloway to Heath and Cathy. She was already urging the children inside the linen closet and shutting the door after them.

Mama Galloway wasn’t really Cathy’s mother. She was a hired hand who lived on the tenant house of the farm. She did some cooking, some housekeeping, some cleaning, and she helped with the planting and harvesting. Heath was her son.

Daddy had been drinking whiskey that night. He drank a little bit of it every night, but some nights more than others, and some nights, it made him mean.

Some nights he only came down to kiss on Mama Galloway, in her little tenant house, right in the shadow of the big farm house. But some nights he yelled and growled, and then Cathy was afraid of him.

Those nights, when Mama Galloway heard his heavy fist on the door, his slurred voice outside, she would hide Cathy and Heath in the closet.

It was like that on this night. Mama Galloway shut the door after them. “Hush now, little ones,” she said. “Daddy won’t be happy to find you here.”

Cathy bit down on her fingernails, peering through the slits in the door to the closet. She was seven years old, and she wasn’t supposed to bite her fingernails anymore. But when she was nervous, she couldn’t help herself.

Heath was bigger than her. He was eight years old, and he was her favorite person on earth. They played together every day. Heath was never like her big brother Matt, who always pulled her hair and called her a sissy baby.

Heath touched her arm in the darkness of the closet. “It’s okay, Cathy. He won’t find us. He never does.”

She nodded. The closet was full of folded sheets and towels, and it smelled like laundry detergent.

She and Heath were quiet. They could hear Mama Galloway outside, opening the door.

“Floyd, what are you doing down here?” she said.

“I’m looking for my girl.” Daddy’s voice. It was heavy and slurred, the way it always was when he’d had a lot of whiskey. “My Catherine. Is she down here, Wanda? You know I don’t like it when you let her sleep over with that boy of yours. It ain’t right, boys and girls in the same bed.”

“Oh, they’re only children, you know that. They’re innocent little babes,” said Mama. “Why don’t you sit down here? I’ll get you some coffee. You could use it, hon.”

“Don’t want coffee. I want my daughter. Where is she?”

Daddy’s voice was getting louder as he got close to the closet.

“Floyd, calm down,” said Mama.

“You down here, Catherine? You naughty girl, running off like that on your old daddy. When I find you, I’m going to beat your backside black and blue.”

“Floyd—”

“No,” roared Daddy. “She’s not yours, you know, Wanda. That little girl is mine and her dead, sweet mother’s. And you ain’t nothing but hired help, when it comes down to it.”

“Sit down and stop it,” said Mama. “You been drinking, and you’re going to regret saying all this in the morning. Whenever you do this, you always apologize to me.”

“You force me to apologize, woman!”

“Ow, Floyd, don’t grip me so tight.”

A crashing noise.

Cathy squeezed her eyes shut. Heath wrapped his arm around her protectively. It was going to be a night where Daddy broke things, then. He got like that sometimes when he drank too much. Last time, he broke a vase that Mama Galloway had gotten from her grandmother. It had been beautiful, all purple and glazed and wonderful. Cathy missed it. But Daddy had called Mama Galloway’s grandmother a “gypsy whore” and smashed the vase against the wall.

Mama had cried. Cathy and Heath had huddled in the closet and listened, and they were both afraid. But the next morning, Daddy and Mama were all made up, kissing while Mama scrambled eggs in the kitchen.

“You do,” said Floyd. “You get inside my head, and I can’t stop trying to make you happy. You’re a witch. A gypsy witch, and you cursed me.”

“That’s right,” said Mama, but her voice was strained. “Cursed you with love, you big lug. Now let me go.”

Mama told them sometimes. She told them how she used to travel with her gypsy family, doing fortunes and making jewelry and working odd jobs. But she gave it all up after the night she met Daddy. She came to work on the farm, moved into the tenant house, and she never went back to her family.

“Shut up, you stupid bitch,” growled Daddy.

Another crashing noise.

Mama screamed. “Floyd, stop!”

“You stupid, stupid bitch,” said Daddy, and it sounded like he was concentrating real hard on something.

Mama was making gurgling noises.

Cathy pressed her eyes up against the flats of the closet and looked outside. Daddy had his hands wrapped around Mama’s neck really tight. Mama’s face was turning red.

“Heath,” whispered Cathy.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Daddy was muttering, a slurred litany.

Heath saw what was happening. He opened up the door to the closet. “Stop it, Daddy.”

Daddy looked up to see Heath. He flung Mama away.

Mama fell into the end table, and the impact of her head against the wood made a loud cracking noise. It looked like it hurt. But Mama didn’t even cry out. She didn’t do anything at all.

“What are you doing in there?” said Daddy.

Heath ran over to Mama. “Mama? Mama?”

Cathy started to cry.

And then Daddy saw her. “Catherine? You
are
down here. Hiding in the closet with that boy.” He stepped towards her, but he was shaky on his feet.

Heath was shaking Mama. “Mama? Mama, wake up!”

“What did you do to Mama Galloway, Daddy?” said Cathy. “What did you do to her?”

Daddy advanced on Cathy. He pulled back his hand and slapped her hard across her cheek.

Cathy screamed.

Heath got up. “Don’t!”

Daddy looked at him.

“You killed her,” said Heath, his dark eyes flashing. “You killed my mama.
You killed my mama!
”

Daddy backed away from Heath. “I…” He looked afraid.

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