Keeper, The Read online

  “Huhh-huhh-huhh.”

  How far away now? Twenty feet? Fifteen? She could tell by the sounds of breaking branches that it was gaining speed. It was getting excited.

  “Huhh-huhh-huhh!”

  Her face crumpled and she started to cry. It was going to get her. She could smell its breath like paper mill smoke and rotten meat. Haunted place. Why had she come? Susan. Tricked by Susan. This was how her life was going to end. Stuck in a fence four months before leaving this stinking town.

  “Help!” she screamed, but no one ever came into these woods. Not unless they were crazy. She stopped struggling and began to whimper. But then she smelled its body behind her, the smell of human sweat and river shit. Then she heard it smack its lips, the sound so wet and greasy. The sound so terrible she knew she’d rather chew off both her legs and hobble through the opening than let it touch her.

  She took a deep breath, in and out. She let her muscles become loose even as she heard it grunt (how far away now? Ten feet? Five?). She made herself count to three Mississippi, even though she wasn’t sure she had the time. One Mississippi. She swallowed and took a deep breath that she held before letting go. Two Mississippi.

  “HUH-HUHH-HUHH!”

  It was so close! She could see its long shadow on top of her! Pretend you’re watching this from far away, she told herself. Pretend you’re home in bed where nothing can ever touch you.

  “HUHHH-HUHHH-HUHHH!” it screamed. In victory? Had it gotten her?

  Three Mississippi. She eased her leg out from between the bars.

  OUT! SHE WAS OUT!

  She scrambled for the first crossbar and hoisted herself up. The thing was so close she could feel it blocking the wind. She could smell its scent of shit and sulfur water. As she straddled the bars, it took a swipe at her dangling leg. She kicked as hard as she could. Came into contact with something firm that grunted in either pain or surprise.

  “HUUUUHHHH!” it shrieked.

  She jumped to the other side of the fence. Rolled in the snow a few times. Then she got up and ran. She didn’t stop until she reached the valley, and she never looked back.

  FIVE

  Mother, May I?

  While Liz Marley fled the Bedford woods in terror that Thursday afternoon, three black cars sped out from Mary Marley’s front curb. Mary waved as they pulled away. Their headlights shone against the rain, and she was suddenly reminded of a funeral procession. She experienced a kind of déjà vu, and she thought about her husband in the past, and her elder daughter in the future.

  Susan?

  In her mind’s eye a little girl wearing black Mary Janes took a baby step toward her. She’d been thinking about Susan a lot lately. Every time her mind wandered or she closed her eyes at night, there was her daughter frozen forever as a six-year-old girl. A cheerful little girl with her whole life ahead of her. A life not yet formed or gone wrong. Mary blinked to dispel the image. Silly to think about the past. Like those people who worried about what lay inside the Titanic. They swam deep under water looking for jewels and instead they found corpses.

  Mary was a tall, handsome woman with clean features and sharply tweezed brows. Her hair was still brown save for the shock of white that framed the side of her face and gave her the appearance of perpetual surprise. Now she looked around the house. Cookie crumbs were scattered across the table. The ladies had tracked mud through the kitchen. Little high-heeled footprints circled the room like dance-step stickers at an Arthur Murray dance studio. She filled a bucket with warm water and Top Job cleanser and began cleaning.

  Today had been a pretty good day. It had been her turn to hostess the monthly bridge game she played with the girls, and she’d won every hand. It was easy. Over the years they’d been meeting, only Mary had had taught herself the nuances of bidding. She stayed up late at night with borrowed bridge manuals from the Corpus Christi Library. On yellow legal pads she wrote complicated notes like: “Clubs against diamonds means no hearts.”

  Out the window she saw that the rain had turned from a drizzle to a downpour. Work would be slow tonight. People didn’t leave their houses in this weather. For a quick second she thought about Susan. If she went for one of her walks tonight without her coat, she’d be chilled to the bone. A skinny thing, just like her father. A mean thing, just like her father.

  Mary blinked, and banished the image from her mind. Usually, she didn’t think about her daughter. It was best that way. It was best, in fact, to pretend she’d never been born.

  Bridge. Right, bridge.

  Today, she and the girls had gossiped about former classmates, divorces, and people who’d given up on being middle-aged and moved to Florida. The girls were old friends from Corpus Christi High School. All except Mary still lived there. They were housewives now, drinking mixed pink drinks with names like Loosey Lucy at the local golf club and complaining about their husbands who worked too hard. When it was their turn to hostess, Mary liked to go to their houses and touch the little ceramic figurines they all seemed to have, or smell the rose potpourri in their bathrooms. She did this when no one was looking, and it felt like stealing.

  For a long time she had thought that she would move back to Corpus Christi, where the owners of things lived, but somehow that never happened. Ted didn’t get the right promotions, and her father never forgave her for running off and getting married. If she hadn’t eloped with Ted, her high school graduation present would have been a trip to Europe. She still thought about the places she would have gone: Madrid, Barcelona, Zurich, Florence, Rome.

  There were a few leftovers in Bedford who still had money—the Martins and Fullbrights. Surprisingly, her girls had located both. But those families were different. Their presence was a reminder of poverty rather than a respite from it. The Martins had inherited their money from Cathy’s great-grandfather William Prentice. The Fullbrights came by theirs by more honest means: Adam was a surgeon. Both lived in big, modern houses with central air conditioning and spanking new furnaces. They dropped money all over town, and told people they’d never leave; this place held their roots. Mary found this logic hard to swallow. Like being a millionaire who lives in the worst part of the Bronx, not because you want to show things off, just because you like being shot at.

  Mary sighed. After Ted died, she had thought that she and Liz would finally grow closer, now that reminders of another era were finally gone. Instead, Bobby Fullbright came along, and it was as if Mary had no family at all.

  Like most of the houses in the area, hers came with high ceilings and a sparseness that could never be filled, not even with clutter. When she was alone, she thought she could hear history within its walls. Memories replaying. Her elder child bouncing a pink rubber ball, the thwack-thwack that was really the boiler in the basement, or she would forget for a moment that the radio was turned on and it was the sound of Liz and Ted laughing.

  These were the things she always thought would happen to her when she was old. But they started after Ted died, maybe because that’s what widows do, ruminate and grieve. Or maybe now that he was gone, she finally had the time to regret.

  Mary looked out the window. Melting snow slid down the valley like a slow, liquid avalanche. In Corpus Christi they used to have jokes about people from Bedford. How many of them does it take to screw in a light bulb? What are you if your cousin is your brother is your uncle? What’s the place that God forgot?

  There were some who blamed her daughter for the darkness that had swallowed Bedford. They were right, of course. Right about the thing that for nine months had lived in her womb. And the terrible dreams, that with every night grew more vivid.

  Last night Mary dreamed that she was standing in her basement. The floor had flooded with water as high as her knees. On the other side of the room, six-year-old Susan had held her arms open wide. The water level kept rising, and Mary had wanted to run to her daughter, but she’d been frightened. Cruel girl. Angry girl. Heart full of ashes, she had thought. The house began to settle, cre
aking and groaning, and then the ceiling came crashing down.

  When she saw Susan on the street now, Mary turned and walked in the opposite direction. But that didn’t stop the nightmares. Mary shut her eyes tight and tried to think of something else. Anything else. Rain. Spring days. Work tonight. In her mind’s eye she saw her elder daughter, six years old. Pretty girl. Angry girl. You could see madness in her eyes.

  The boiler kicked, and Mary cried out. In her mind, it was Susan in the basement. It was Susan, coming home.

  Just then, the back door opened. The sound startled Mary and she jumped. Standing in the kitchen was Liz, looking wet and out of breath. She tracked mud on the freshly mopped linoleum as she walked toward Mary.

  Though her children looked nothing alike, Mary became confused for a moment, lost in time. She thought this cherub before her was the other daughter. Instinctively, she stepped back. She pointed at the muddy floor, “Boots!” she screeched.

  Liz halted. She must have run home from school, because she was panting so hard that her breath was wheezy. She unlaced her boots and held them by their heels with her index fingers. She started toward Mary again. “All of it,” Mary said, still pointing, “Coat, too!”

  “Mommy,” Liz said, still panting, “Something ha-happened.” Her still face crumpled into a look of pain, and she held her arms wide, as if for a hug.

  “Coat, too!”

  Liz took off her coat and rolled it into a ball. Then she looked down at her jeans, which dripped water onto the floor. She sniffled, her nose and eyes runny. She peeled her jeans off, too. Wearing only a red wool sweater and pale blue cotton panties, she stood in the center of the room. Her plump little legs were red and splotchy. Though Mary knew better, she recognized the daughter with whom she was now speaking, she could not help but keep her distance. “Go take a shower,” she said, “I have to cover the night shift for Matt Ambrosia, so dinner’s in half an hour.” With slumped shoulders and still sniffling, Liz skulked out of the room.

  A half hour later, Liz came down the stairs freshly showered, dressed in a light blue Champion sweat suit, and smelling of Ivory soap. “Just in time!” Mary said as she placed a pot of steamed rice and stir-fried vegetables on the table. They sat and said their grace, Mary out loud, thanking God for their bountiful feast, and Liz silently with her head bent.

  “Don’t you like it?” Mary asked after she had portioned out heaping servings of wok-fried broccoli and carrots on each of their plates. “I thought you’d like it, what with your diet.”

  “I’m not on a diet. I’m not fat,” Liz said.

  Mary leaned back and sipped her glass of Gallo Zinfandel. “Fine,” Mary said. “You told me you were on a diet so I made this special for you. I never said you were fat. You’re a very pretty girl.” The wine quickly warmed her ears and cheeks, and she suddenly realized how tired she was. How much she wanted to stay home tonight and share a blanket with Liz in front of the television like normal people.

  “Mo-om,” Liz moaned.

  “Li-iz,” Mary moaned back. “You know, you didn’t do any of that laundry like I asked. It took me at least an hour.”

  “Sorry,” Liz said.

  Mary softened. Liz seemed very sad just then, defeated in some way. This was not the kind of dinner scene she’d imagined when she married Ted. She’d expected a place full of laughter and gentle teasing. “Well, we know you won’t make a good cleaning lady. Not the worst news in the world.”

  Liz smiled, and the two of them almost laughed. “I’m sorry, too. For being short with you before. I just get tired sometimes.”

  “It’s okay,” Liz said.

  Mary leaned forward. “I know!” she said, clapping her hands together. “How ’bout Portland? It might be nice in another month. We could take a day trip to the art museum. I know someone who works there.”

  “Portland?”

  “We could bring a picnic lunch and eat it at that park where the jazz musicians play. They do Charlie Parker. You’ll love him.”

  “That sounds nice,” Liz said.

  “I’ll need to take the Buick to the shop, of course. I think the fuel pump’s on its way out.”

  “Right.”

  “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? A trip? I get so tired of this town. I just want to look at something pretty once in a while. It’ll be nice when you go away to college. I’ll have a new place to visit.”

  “I’d like that, Mom,” Liz said. “We could—” Liz’s voice broke, and she pushed her chair away from the table. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “What is it? What’s wrong, honey?”

  Liz buried her face in her hands.

  “Come on, honey. Tell me.”

  “I—” Liz broke down sobbing. “It was…It wa-was awful.”

  Mary got up and held her daughter. At first, Mary said nothing. It had been a long time since they had been this close, and Mary savored it. She felt Liz’s skin, so soft and full. Every once in a while she forgot the obvious: She loved this girl so much it hurt.

  Finally, and with regret, Mary pulled away and asked, “What is it?”

  “Susan,” Liz whispered.

  Mary tensed. She took a step back and left Liz to cradle herself. “Who?”

  “She came to me. She tricked me into going behind the cemetery.”

  Mary’s throat went dry. Panic set in, and it felt like a car alarm screeching in her ears. The basement. Was Susan in the basement? She walked toward the back door, and made sure that it was shut tight. Then she closed and locked the windows in the kitchen. “In this house? Did she come into this house?”

  “I dreamed I went to visit Daddy, and she was waiting for me. I think she’s mad because I still love him and I shouldn’t.”

  Liz was rocking back and forth now, her eyes shut tight, and Mary wanted to hold her, to make everything right. But if she did that, she’d start crying. She’d start crying and she’d never stop. She owed it to Elizabeth to be strong. To protect her. She looked at her wide-knuckled hands, and the cracks in the ceiling shaped like spider’s webs, and at the walls of this house that seemed to silently close in on her with each passing day. “Liz. I can’t talk about this right now. I just can’t.”

  Liz did not hear. “She wants to hurt me. She’s so angry. Did you ever get the feeling she wanted to hurt you? Do you think maybe she can, because she’s so different?” Liz pulled at the neck of her sweatshirt, and Mary saw red splotches all over her daughter’s throat. That these splotches were shaped like human hands was undeniable. “In my dream she tried to strangle me. And when I woke up I found this.”

  Mary averted her gaze. She felt nothing. Not even numbness. She would never have guessed that the sight of her daughter’s bruised throat bothered her in the least, if she had not gagged into her napkin.

  Liz continued, oblivious. “Lots of people dream about her. Have you noticed that since the mill closed, the dreams have been worse? I’m afraid I’ll go to sleep one night, and I won’t wake up in the morning.”

  Mary squeezed her eyes closed. “Stop it, Liz.”

  “Have you dreamed about her lately?”

  Mary took a deep breath. “I can’t talk about this. You know I can’t,” she said.

  Liz frowned. “I went to the woods today because I’d dreamed about them. Something was waiting for me there, Mom. I think Susan sent it. It…it was a bad thing.” Liz broke down crying. Her voice became a whisper, and she leaned close to Mary, as if afraid that someone else might overhear. “It wanted to hurt me the way Daddy hurt Sus—”

  “Stop,” Mary said. “Stop right now.”

  Liz’s face froze and she tried to control her tears, but they kept falling. “It—” she started. She stopped when she saw her mother’s expression.

  Mary felt herself go cold, and her face became set like a plaster cast. She did not like the feeling. She tried to fight it. Tried to care that her child was hurting. Tried to say the things that needed to be said. The things that had been palpab
ly silent for so long that over the years they had altered the terrain of the house, so that all the doors seemed slanted, and the hardwood floors seemed to buckle with warps in every direction. She tried, just as she’d tried long ago with the other child. But still, she went cold. Dramatic Liz, always making trouble. Liz with her crying over things long buried. Frightening herself with her own imagination. Liz and her nightmares, so inconsiderate that she shared them. Fat little Liz.

  “Oh, Liz,” she said, “Don’t we have enough problems? I hate to see you do this to yourself. Have you noticed the basement? The basement’s a mess. I really think you need to sweep down there.”

  Liz shook her head. “I asked Bobby to take me to her apartment tonight. I haven’t seen her in a year. How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

  Mary leaned in close to Liz. So close that she could smell the Ivory soap on her skin. “Not another word, Elizabeth Rebecca Marley. Not one more word.”

  Liz’s frown hardened, and Mary saw that she was angry. Furious, and for a moment, Mary was frightened. There was something inside this girl, something foreign. Something that surfaced when Mary least expected. A formidable thing, and Mary knew that one day, she would be outmatched. “Did you ever call her after Dad died? I’ll bet you didn’t. I’ll bet you never asked her to come home. You let her live in that terrible place, just like you let her live in the basement. You never even tried to help her because you don’t care.”

  Mary was tempted to strike her daughter. A quick slap to the cheek to bring her to her senses. To shut her up. “Not another word,” Mary said. “You had a bad dream. It’s over now.”

  “It’s like she’s dead to you. Maybe you should take all her stuff to the dump. Just like Dad. You can take my stuff, too.”

  Mary grabbed Liz’s shoulder and held it firmly, too firmly. Liz winced. She didn’t know she was lucky; Mary’s first instinct had been to slap her.

  Liz’s face turned red. “Look at my neck, Mom!” she shouted. “Who did you think did this?”