The Hungry Dead (19 page)

Cynthia remembered when they first started using the traps. From the time she first saw them, she was fascinated with their gadgetry, although they did not belong to her but to her brothers, Luke and Abraham. Cyrus, her oldest brother, was too addlebrained to be allowed to play with anything so dangerous; for some reason, though, he was very good at making little wooden coffins to bury birds and mice. Luke and Abraham had three traps each, given to .them by Uncle Sal.

Cynthia recalled the serrated steel teeth set with a strong hook and spring, the fiat metal lever where the bait was put, and the steel chain and peg that kept the trap anchored. It started before the traps, though, really. It started with Mama and the things she taught Cynthia and her brothers from the time they were babies, when the whole family lived up above the shop where Mama sold magical herbs, potions, amulets, and books to strange people who came from as far away as New York and Philadelphia. Papa was still with the family then and took them all to visit Uncle Sal and Aunt Edna on holidays.

Cynthia sat with her legs tucked under her in the back seat of the car. She had on a pink starched dress, her shiny black hair combed and brushed. She could see the back of Papa's head and try to imagine the thoughts that were going on there. She could see the left side of Mama's rouged face and part of her left shoulder. If she stood up on the car seat, and Mama didn't catch her, she could see more, could glue her eyes to the snaky, white unraveling road line or watch white guardposts rushing by in endless cable-linked procession until her eyes got sore and she had to sit down before Mama yelled at her.

“You stay in your seat, Cynthia! If we hit a hard bump or Papa has to make a quick stop, you'll go flying right out the window.”

Such a thing seemed unlikely. Especially with the window closed. But Mama must be right, or why would people come from so far away to have her sell them magic things or read their fortunes?

Cynthia and her three brothers, crammed together in the back seat of the sedan, looked at each other and giggled. Luke, all pink-cheeked and polished with his yellow hair plastered down, had on a sailor suit with long pants and a real starched-white sailor's cap. Abraham was wearing a soldier suit with short pants, which made him mad when Papa bought it for him—he had never seen a soldier with short pants—but he felt better when Papa showed him the hat that came with the outfit, a realistic officer's cap with a shiny black beak and imitation gold braid. Cyrus was big and chubby for his age, and he was wearing green trousers like the kind bus drivers wear, a white short-sleeved shirt, and gray suspenders—and he dressed that way most of the time and looked kind of funny because Mama could never find regular clothes to fit him.

Cynthia thought of her Easter basket, which Mama had made her leave at home. “You're not going to spoil your appetite, young lady. Aunt Edna and Uncle Sal will have plenty of sweet stuff for you.” Luke and Abraham had to leave their baskets home, too. But Cyrus was allowed to bring his with him, which was a laugh because his candy was nearly all gone. The pink, crinkly straw was a mess, stained with melted chocolate and jelly beans. Cyrus had saved a few of the yellow marshmallow rabbits to eat last because he liked them best, as did Cynthia; real gooey and soft, they stretched and snapped apart between your teeth, then melted like powdered sugar on your tongue.

“The Easter celebration originally had nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus,” Mama had said. “It was a pagan rite of spring. Rabbits and eggs are symbols of fertility, of giving birth—thus, the Easter bunny delivering eggs. Understand, children?”

Cynthia didn't, not when she was seven years old. Maybe Luke and Abraham understood more. To Cyrus it, meant absolutely nothing; all he understood about Easter was biting the head off a marshmallow rabbit.

When they had been piling into the car, some of their school friends had been starting off for church. “Why don't
we
go to church?” Cynthia had asked.

“Because we don't believe in it,” Mama had replied. “We believe in things that are much older than the church, and a great deal more powerful. Church is for weaklings. It's not for us, as it wasn't for your grandfather or great-grandfather, either.”

“Tell
us about Grandpa,” Luke begged at one point during the long car ride.

“Well, he was a Cunning Man,” Mama began, “as was his father, before him.”

“What's
that?”
Cynthia piped up, though they had all heard the explanation many times before.

“A Cunning Man is a witch doctor,” Mama explained. “The word ‘cunning' means wise, sly, crafty. So Grandpa Barnes was a wise man. In the village where he lived, in England, he was known as a magician. He could do wonderful and sometimes very frightening things that made the people's hair stand on end. He was feared and respected. But he had followers . . . his own congregation, so to speak. His magic wasn't the fake kind that you see on television, it was
real—
it came from his knowledge of demons.”

“What're they?” one of the children asked.

“They live in hell,” Mama said. “They work for Satan, or for whoever knows how to summon them with magic.”

“Did Grandpa know how?”

“The people said he did. They said he could make people die by compelling them to do so.”

Cynthia didn't understand “compelling,” but it sounded horrible.

“You shouldn't fill the kids' minds with this kind of stuff,” Papa interjected.

“But it's all
true,”
Mama insisted. “Besides, it's no worse than the Hansel and Gretel stories—people getting pushed into ovens and all.”

“I disagree,” Papa stated flatly.

To show him that she would talk about whatever she wanted to, Mama stubbornly told still more stories about Grandpa Luke Barnes and his father, Abraham Barnes, both Cunning Men, for whom Cynthia's brothers, Luke and Abraham, were named. The Cunning Men could, according to Mama, fly through the air under their own power and could pass invisibly through walls. They knew how to foretell the future, locate buried or stolen treasure, and cure sick people or animals merely by touching them and reciting magical spells.

Cynthia and her brothers listened with solemn, rapt attention to these awesome stories. Many of them they had heard before, but they always enjoyed having them repeated. They particularly liked hearing Mama tell about Grandpa Barnes' battle with a witch from a neighboring village in England. This old woman had caused Grandpa to come down with a severe case of arthritis. With the aid of certain ancient charms and talismans known only to him, Grandpa consulted his magic mirror. The identity of the enemy witch was revealed in the mirror, and Grandpa knew what to do; he followed her home one night over a dark path in the woods and carefully stabbed each of her footprints with a brand-new knife over which he had recited a special prayer to a demon. The demon made the witch fall dead on her own threshold, and Grandpa's arthritis was cured.

“Poppycock,” Papa scoffed. He was wearing his gray sharkskin suit with the peppermint necktie. He smelled like aftershave lotion, the kind he had once dabbed on Cynthia's face to let her feel how much it burned. His stiffly starched white shirt collar had rubbed the back of his neck red, and his hair was edged in the neat arc of a fresh haircut around his ears. White skin showed in places through his thinning black hair. Cynthia found herself noticing everything about him because he was home so seldom; most of the time he was away on long business trips, and then he would show up finally with presents, like the pink dress for Cynthia, Abraham's and Luke's soldier and sailor suits, and Mama's earrings.

“Sheldon, don't you dare make fun of my ancestors,” Mama said. “I believe firmly that their spirits are with us, protecting this family.”

“You don't believe in religion, but you believe in
that
nonsense,” Papa grumped. “Don't blame me if the children grow up to be a pack of superstitious fools. Why don't you save the spiel for your customers? It's all right in its proper place, when you're making a buck out of it.”

Mama did not deign to reply to this, but her silent anger permeated the closed-in car. She had ordered all the windows to be kept tightly wound shut so the wind wouldn't mess up her new permanent; only a finger-thick crack was allowed in Cyrus' window so he wouldn't get carsick. Mama looked nice, wearing the navy-blue suit Papa had bought her for her birthday. Her lips were red, her cheeks rosy—not pale like when she talked to customers or ironed clothes. Cynthia could see one of her white earrings and her pearl necklace fastened with a tiny hook and chain behind her neck, and the big white Easter flower almost hidden by her shoulder. Her perfume, like the flower, smelled sticky-sweet in the hot, stuffy car.

“Children, listen to me,” she said when her anger subsided. “Don't forget to wish Aunt Edna and Uncle Sal a happy Easter. They'll have some presents for you, I'm sure. You must remember to say thank you. We taught you some manners—don't be afraid to use them. You, too, Cyrus.”

Papa parked the car in Uncle Sal's long gravel driveway and the whole family got out, Mama helping Cyrus with his Easter basket. Looking up at the house, a large and stately building of red brick with a wide veranda and tall white pillars in front, Cynthia was awed and impressed by it, as usual. It was a real Southern mansion. According to Uncle Sal, the man who owned this place prior to the Civil War also owned slaves; then later he became the overseer and landlord of all the sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the valley. Most of the farms were inactive now, although people still lived 'round about, sometimes putting in small gardens for their own use, but mostly earning a living from the nearby coal mines. Uncle Sal wasn't a farmer or a miner; he was an artist who had come here for peace and quiet. There was an old country church on his property, a hundred yards or so from the house, which had once been the Sunday come-to-meeting place for all the farmers in the valley who worked, played, and prayed under the wing of their overseer. Now the hundred-year-old church was Uncle Sal's studio, where he churned out oil paintings of the Good Old Days to be sold to art galleries, department stores, and other customers on commission.

Cynthia loved to go into the church to look at Uncle Sal's work, and she hoped she would be allowed to later. But they always had to go to the house to eat first. She noticed how the gravel stones scampered away as she walked on them or else bounced up and put marks on her white Easter shoes. Mama grabbed her hand and pulled her along angrily, as if it was her fault, while Cyrus waddled in front without a care in the world, swinging his Easter basket. Luke and Abraham, in their soldier and sailor outfits, walked smartly behind Papa, stiffly aware that they were members of the military. Papa rapped his knuckles on the screen door and, without waiting to be admitted, led the way through the living room and into the steamy, good-smelling kitchen.

Aunt Edna came running excitedly from the dining room. “Happy Easter!” she shrieked, letting out a big, silly laugh and pushing her eyeglasses back up the bridge of her nose. Her white apron was stained with gravy and cherry juice. Cynthia and the boys immediately began thinking of cherry pie, while Mama and Aunt Edna hugged and kissed like they always did on holidays.

Uncle Sal had followed behind Aunt Edna to shake hands with Papa. “Let the two sisters smooch each other for a while,” he said in his gruff manner, smiling. “Want a shot of bourbon, Shelly?”

Papa said, “No, not right now, Sal. Happy Easter. I'll take a beer, though, if you have one.”

“Happy Easter, Cindy! What did the Easter bunny bring you?” Stooping over, Aunt Edna hugged Cynthia' so hard it hurt, then turned her loose with a big “Um!” and planted a rough, watery kiss on her cheek. Then she did the same to the boys, which embarrassed them, except for Cyrus, who didn't know any better. The kiss made Cynthia's cheek cold and wet, but she was ashamed to let her aunt see her wipe it off, so she simply waited for it to dry.

Uncle Sal shook hands with all the boys. To Cyrus he said, “That's a real good-looking basket you have there, kid, but the candy's all gone. You're a regular sweet tooth.”

Cyrus held the basket out, so Sal bent over, pretended to select and eat a jelly bean. “Oh, boy, that was good!”

Uncle Sal growled, rubbing his stomach and grinning to make Cyrus feel good. Uncle Sal was a small, trim man with a ragged brown mustache. Around the house he always wore a pair of the paint-daubed blue jeans that he wore in the studio. His manner was gruff, cheerful, and informal, and the children liked him.

“I have some special goodies for you kids,” beamed Aunt Edna. “I'll show them to you now, but you have to promise not to touch them till after supper so you won't spoil your appetites. Do I have your word of honor?”

“Yes, Aunt Edna! We promise!”

“Cross your hearts.”

They did so, getting fun out of it.

“Okay,” said Aunt Edna. “You're going to have a real surprise.”

“Yeah, kids,” said Uncle Sal, laughing. “We have some pregnant rabbits for you.”

“Sal!” Aunt Edna chided. “Watch how you talk around the children.”

“Nothing wrong with being pregnant,” Sal countered. “How do you think they came into the world in the first place?”

Mama said, “It's all right, Sal. I didn't raise them to be frightened of sex.”

“Yeah, but you're scaring them silly with your crazy witch stories,” Papa complained, pouring beer into a glass.

Mama glowered at him, but he didn't seem to notice.