Old Wounds (42 page)

41.

A F
EATHER ON THE
W
INDS OF
T
IME

Thursday, October 27

The steady hum
of traffic on the highway was so familiar now, after her weekly trips home, that Rosemary could allow her mind to wander. Scenes of times long past sprang unbidden—clear and complete—into her memory. She made no effort to direct her thoughts, far less to analyze the memories that drifted into her consciousness like feathers caught in a fickle air. But she listened to their whispered tales…and remembered.

A potluck party, the standard weekend gathering for the young, recent arrivals to the community, one of the few the Mullins family had attended. A big bonfire…people sitting around it in little clusters. Mum holding the sleeping Laurie in her lap. Herself—eight? nine?—leaning against her father and sleepily rubbing her face on his shirt. And Mrs. Barbie, who pointed and said to Mum in a harsh voice, They can be such little sluts with men—especially their daddies, can’t they?

Greensboro, and though the traffic slowed, there was not the usual congestion that brought all lanes to a nerve-testing crawl. Her thoughts floated effortlessly through layers of time.

Maythorn and the booger mask she’s making from one of Mum’s big gourds. When it’s finished, she says, I’ll do the Booger Dance like Granny Thorn showed me. Then I won’t have to be afraid of boogers anymore. But you have to promise never ever to tell. Blood promise of a blood sister.

Strip malls and outlet stores, used-car lots and fast-food restaurants: the unlovely legacy of an automobile-based society spooled by in an unseen blur. Rosemary rubbed her little finger against the rough fabric of the car seat. The finger—
the one we cut so I could be Maythorn’s blood sister
—was tingling.
Never tell, no matter what.

At last the first mountains appeared and Rosemary’s foot bore down on the accelerator. Jared was waiting.

Rosie in the pool house, waiting for Maythorn. Just out of sight she could hear the angry voice of Mrs. Barbie: He’s your daddy and you can give him a little sugar if that’s what he wants.

And Maythorn’s reply: He’s not my daddy! My daddy is dead. The angry crack of an open hand on soft flesh.

Her own hasty retreat for home and her shocked report to her mother: Mum, I don’t think Maythorn’s mother loves her!

And the offhand answer: Of course she does; mothers always love their children.

Past Asheville now, its lights already twinkling in the twilight, and on to the final stretch of interstate.

Maythorn at the scuttle hole, a bright red hat pulled down to hide her hair. She looks like she’s been crying, but Indians never cry. When she talks Rosemary sees that Maythorn has lost one of her upper teeth, the pointy one that had been threatening to fall out for a week or more. Maythorn moves through the scuttle hole to hand over the bundle she’s carrying, but the red hat snags on a low-hanging branch. The hat pulls off, revealing Maythorn’s hair: the shining, silky mass of dark hair has been cut and bleached to golden blond, tortured into a semblance of Krystalle’s fluffy curls. With a growl of despair, Maythorn retrieves her hat, tugging it over her ears. She runs back down the path to Mullmore. It is the last time Rosie will ever see her.

Marshall County. In the distance, lights were blinking on in the houses on the hills. The lights danced and blurred through the tears in Rosemary’s eyes.

42.

D
REAM
Q
UEST

Friday, October 28

“She’s determined to
go over there this afternoon with Jared and his father.” Elizabeth’s near-whisper was charged with urgency. “She says she wants to look for Maythorn’s spy notebooks. I’m really worried, Phillip. She’s acting so weird, almost like she’s in a trance. I can’t let her go off like that with Moon and Jared, not when there’s a possibility…Please, we have to go too. Can you be back by one-thirty?”

“No problem; I’m almost done here. Is Rosemary still at the house?” Phillip shifted the cell phone to his other ear and glanced at Mackenzie Blaine, who was ostentatiously absorbed in a lengthy printout. On the desk in front of Blaine was a small digital tape recorder.

“Yes, she is—which is why I’m whispering. She wanted to go in and have lunch with Jared, but I convinced her to invite him out here. Phillip, after what you told me…the thing about the cat and then about the missing girl in Greeneville…Maybe I’m overreacting, but I know I don’t want Rosemary to be alone with Jared till we’re sure—”

“Have you told her what I told you?”

“Kind of…some of it. I started to issue a sort of disclaimer and a motherly warning—she just looked at me with those big soft eyes and said that Jared had
told
her about his wicked ways as a teenager and that
I
should know that everyone makes a mistake now and then. That people
can
change.”

Phillip frowned. Elizabeth sounded near tears—a rare thing. “Listen, sweetheart, I’ll be there at one-thirty. Blaine and I are just wrapping up a few details. There’s a U.S. marshal on his way to take Gabby off the county’s hands. Don’t worry, you and I’ll tag along on this trip to Mullmore.”

The call ended, Phillip shot a look at Blaine. Aware that Phillip’s eyes were on him, he looked up from the printout with an innocent smile. “Sweetheart in trouble again, Hawk?”

Sighing heavily, Phillip spread his hands wide. “What can I tell you, Mac? The lady and I are…involved.”

“I’d say you are.” The innocent smile blossomed into a knowledgeable grin and Mackenzie Blaine nudged the digital recorder in front of him. “This was on Gabby when I did the pat-down. Evidently he had bugs in her house and in your cell phone so he could keep track of your progress looking for that deposition.” Blaine assumed an unnaturally somber expression. “There was some…extraneous material on the recording—nothing relevant to the case; I’ve erased it, out of respect for the lady.” The grin returned. “You
dawg,
you!”

Just as he had promised, Phillip was back before lunch was over. Declining anything to eat—“Took the sheriff to lunch. I owed him a favor.”—he poured himself a cup of coffee and settled at the table with the others.

There was an odd tension at work between these three—Elizabeth, Rosemary, and Jared. Elizabeth, though trying hard to act normally, seemed nervous and talked more than was usual for her. Rosemary was very quiet, lost in her own thoughts. And Jared…

It was difficult to imagine this charming, soft-spoken man as the juvenile terror the old cop had described. He’d jumped to his feet when Phillip entered and was introduced, and although he’d bowed to Phillip’s request not to be addressed as “Mr. Hawkins,” every “Phillip” was followed by a deferential “sir.”

“My father and Uncle Mike are going to meet us at the gate at two,” Jared was saying. “That should give Rosemary plenty of time to look for Maythorn’s notebooks before it gets dark. Of course, the power’s been off at the house for years.”

Elizabeth pushed her chair back and began to clear the table. Phillip stood to help her.

“Just put the dishes by the sink,” Elizabeth insisted, a strange chord of excitement in her voice. “I’ll deal with them later. It’s after one-thirty now and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Only the solid warmth of Jared’s body next to her on the back seat of the jeep anchored her to the moment, thought Rosemary. Without him, she would rise and float away, insubstantial as the dreams and memories that had been her constant companions since leaving Chapel Hill for this tormenting quest.
Dream quest, like Maythorn said, back when we tried to get high.

In the front seats, her mother and Phillip were talking but the roaring, a constant hurring sound as if she were holding a seashell to her ear, made their voices seem thin and far away. Rosemary closed her eyes to concentrate on the memories endlessly dancing and teasing just beneath the surface of her understanding.

The car pulled to a stop and Mum and Phillip were getting out. Jared tugged at her sweater sleeve.

“We’ll have to walk up from here, Rosie. Dad says there’s been some erosion just ahead and the pavement’s fallen in.”

Opening her eyes, Rosemary looked out her window to see Moon, and beside him, slightly taller, and slightly younger, the Uncle Mike of her memory. She looked from Moon and Mike to Jared and back again.
I’ve fallen into a house of mirrors—they’re still so alike.

And now Mike was opening her door and helping her out. The little party set off, up the long curling driveway to Mullmore. With every step, the years seemed to fall away. Rosemary felt blind to the overgrown roadside, the once beautiful landscaping inexorably absorbed by native growth, the gaping cracks and potholes in the drive. It seemed that at any minute she might round a curve and the depredations of time would be undone: Mullmore would stand shining in the midst of its perfectly manicured lawns and gardens and Maythorn would come running to greet them, black braids flying behind her.

Elizabeth hurried after her daughter, whose pace seemed to increase the nearer they drew to the big house. They were all half jogging now, trailing in the wake of the young woman who moved as if drawn by some irresistible influence.

I’ve seen him again…he’s as handsome as I remembered…but thank god, he no longer has the same effect on me. Back then I was unhappy and needed someone who cared…but now…

She looked at Phillip, keeping pace at her side. Had it been her imagination or had he been watching with particular interest when she first spoke to Mike, watching her reaction to this man from her past?
It doesn’t matter what fantasies I might have had at one time about Mike—I’m happy with the reality of Phillip.

She smiled at that solid reality beside her. Phillip winked at her and grabbed for her hand, gave it a brief squeeze, and released it.

No one spoke as the great house came into view. All eyes were on Rosemary, who ignored the broad entryway and led them through the brown and dying weeds to the basement door at the side of the house. Wordlessly, Moon searched through a heavy ring of keys till he found the correct one and put it to the lock.

“Rosemary,” Elizabeth stepped to her daughter’s side and took her hand, “Rosie, are you sure you want to do this? You don’t—”

Blank, brown eyes met hers and Rosemary answered in an unfamiliar voice, high and breathless. “Maythorn told me to meet her here.”

Moon pushed open the door and stood aside. Without a moment’s hesitation, Rosemary went down the steps and into the vast room. Pale throngs of sheeted furniture and stacks of dusty, cobwebbed boxes filled one end of the space, but she ignored them all and walked deliberately toward the furnace that sat in the middle of the basement.

“She looks like she’s sleepwalking, Phillip,” Elizabeth whispered. “I don’t like this; I think we should—”

Phillip raised a hand. “Wait,” he cautioned.

Suddenly, Rosemary dropped to her knees. With her bare hands, she began frantically sweeping the dirt from the concrete apron around the big furnace, cold for so many years. With a cry, Elizabeth started for her daughter, but Phillip held her back.

Rosemary ignored them, scraping at the dirt with filthy hands, pushing it away to clear a small rectangle. At last the frenzied activity ceased and Rosemary sat back.

Elizabeth leaned closer to read, in straggling letters, the words: “ROSIE GOODWEATHER,” a date, and a handprint. As they watched, Rosemary laid her hand atop the smaller impression and her slim body jerked as if she had received an electric shock.

When at last she spoke, it was as if she were a ten-year-old again. Her voice, usually low and musical, was high and shrill, like that of a frightened child.

“I was looking for Maythorn. She was supposed to meet me at the scuttle hole. We were going trick-or-treating and she wasn’t there. I looked in the garden shed and she wasn’t there either. And I did our special call but she didn’t answer. Then I saw the basement door was open so I went down the stairs. Mr. Mullins was there, scraping the top of some wet cement, and he was crying. He said it was allergies but I knew he was crying. I asked him where Maythorn was and he said she was in her room, being punished for talking back. He told me he was fixing a place to set a new furnace on. He was pulling a piece of wood over the top of the wet cement and he stopped and said, ‘Hey, come here, Rosie, you want to write your name?’”

Elizabeth turned to look at Moon. Tears were streaming down his face, but he made no effort to move. “She’s there,” he rasped. “God help me! She’s under there!”