Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 5

  Right now, Reed and Nate were out with a small party from New York, sweeping down toward Stroudsburg with a swimming stop along the way; they wouldn’t be back until near dinner. Five boats were left. If he was lucky, they’d be gone by noon. If he was lucky. But lately that luck had turned bad, real bad, real fast. Despite the lure of the water and the coolness it promised, few wanted to take the time to seek his place out, travel through the heat and over the hills to a backwater like this, just to ride in a canoe. It was, after all, the Delaware, not the Mississippi.

  “Too old for this shit,” he muttered as he lit a cigarette. “I gotta retire.”

  Trouble was, he could barely feed himself now; retirement meant starvation.

  He rubbed a hand over his short, coarse white beard, then back under his captain’s cap through his hair, thick as it was when he was thirty, forty-four years ago.

  He stood, one hand massaging the small of his back, and wandered onto the dock, checking the river’s level, shaking his head, thinking folks would be able to walk across to Pennsylvania if this kept up. Fish were dying. Every day for the past week he had found dead birds floating on the current. Twice he had seen black bears rumbling along the opposite bank, looking for water, for food. Normally harmless, he figured it wouldn’t be long before they turned mean.

  At the dock’s end he wheeled and walked back, feeling the heat on his head and back, feeling the age in his limbs, feeling the chill when he heard a faint buzzing sound.

  He stopped, and looked to his left.

  The immediate hillside was steep, heavily wooded with little underbrush, and he could see all the way up to the meadow. At the edge of the woods, not far from where dock and parking lot gave way to the riverbank, what remained of a large oak creaked out over the water. He’d been checking it for days, but only from a distance. A large colony of bees lived in its hollow grey-bark trunk, providing him with enough honey to last most of the winter, while he bottled the rest and sold it through Mabel Jonsen. Lately, though, they barely stirred, even when he threw rocks.

  The buzzing faded, and he sighed’.

  Another sign his life was slow-sliding into Hell.

  Movement lifted his gaze above the treetops, and in the hazy sky he spotted a flock of crows circling without calling. They were in no hurry; it almost looked as if they were dozing.

  Something dead up in the meadow, he reckoned; rabbit, maybe a raccoon. Those that hadn’t left the area already were either too old, too stupid, or too sick to move.

  The crows took their time, wheeling at different levels.

  And as he watched, one hand shading his eyes, one of the birds fell, wings fluttering helplessly, as if it had been shot. He waited for the retort, the echo, but heard nothing.

  He grunted.

  A second bird dropped.

  A third.

  The rest sped away, calling as they aimed for the protection of the forest.

  “Be damned,” he muttered.

  * * * *

  5

  The grocery wasn’t large, mainly carrying the staples Mabel’s customers needed so they didn’t have to drive fifteen winding miles to the nearest Acme or A&P. On the left wall a rack of magazines, comics, newspapers, and cards; on the right wall a long, multi-glass-door refrigerator with milk, soda, ice cream, and beer. Once she had completed the inventory, she moved behind the counter in back, leaning forward on her elbows.

  Moss Tully stood at the door, one hand in his hip pocket.

  “So?” she said.

  He squinted at the thermometer she had fixed to the outside window frame. “Eighty-five, gonna hit a hundred, no question about it.” A smooth voice, mostly monotone. “You walk out there today, you’re gonna fry like an egg.” He shook his head, bald from chemotherapy almost a decade ago and never recovered. It was his badge. He bent his knees so he could peer up at the church steeple. “Bet you five hundred it was that damn Turner kid and his gang last night. They got no respect for religion anymore.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference, it’s the UFOs anyway,” she told him, her voice like dark honey. She wore a patched cardigan caped over her shoulders against the fierce wind of the air-conditioning, a shapeless print dress, her mostly brown hair pulled back in a bun and corralled with a hair net. Reading glasses perched on her nose. A face round and flushed, with small emerald eyes that seldom stopped moving, checking, even when the store was empty.

  Moss glanced over his shoulder. “UFOs?”

  “Of course.” She picked up a copy of Weekly World News. “They’re coming, can’t you read?”

  She ignored his scoffing snort. Moss, like most of the other simpletons around here, never paid any attention to anything but making enough money to last through the winter. She, on the other hand, when she wasn’t at the tables in Atlantic City, read constantly, rapaciously, forgetting nothing, sifting everything. The UFOs were a fact, even the Air Force said so, and what with dead birds and critters all over the place, the church bell ringing all hours of the night, it was obvious something was going on here, and just as obvious the UFOs were involved. All she had to do was figure out how. And where. Once she did that, those casino bus trips would be history. She’d have enough money from selling her story to head for Arizona, Alaska, any damn place she pleased. Fifty-one years old, it was time to start thinking about packing it in, unloading this store and getting herself a life.

  She flipped the tabloid’s page and shook her head. ‘Course, this crap about kids eating their mother alive on Mother’s Day, that was made up. She knew that, she wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t figure out how a newspaper like this could print garbage like that. If it wasn’t for the UFOs, she wouldn’t even stock it.

  “There goes old Arlo,” Moss said. “He looks stoned, per usual.” He chuckled. “Guess that bell scared the hell out of his customers last night.” He laughed. “Get it?”

  She could barely see him against the sun’s glare, his outline making him even skinnier than he was, older than he was, which was only a couple years younger than her. Hiking boots, low-slung jeans, a plaid shirt worn from too much washing. Taut, that’s what he was.

  When he turned around, it seemed like the clothes vanished, and her breath shortened as she blinked against the illusion.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Nope.”

  He smiled, face falling into sun wrinkles that gave his face the look of fine leather. “Bet I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking,” she said sharply, “you should get your skinny butt out there and see what’s going on.”

  He sauntered down the center aisle, thumb hooked in his belt. “I don’t think so.”

  She straightened, a hand fussing unnecessarily at her hair. “For God’s sake, Moss, there’s people out there.”

  He didn’t stop. “So?”

  Out of the glare, clothes back, sly smile, left eye as always partially closed. “So?” he repeated.

  “Damnit, I want to know about the UFOs.”

  “Jesus, Mabe.”

  She pointed a slender finger at the door. “You want something? You gotta get me something.”

  He stopped, corner of his mouth twitching. He inhaled, ready to say something, then shrugged elaborately, winked, and turned around.

  Mabel almost told him to stop, she was ready anytime he was, but the UFOs were important. She could always get laid later, after he had found out what, or who, had rung that stupid bell.

  He said nothing as he left, and in that glare he was almost transparent. Enough so that she caught her breath, pressed a hand to her chest.

  Good God, maybe he was one of them.

  Maybe he wasn’t really Moss Tully at all. And that stupid beagle of his wasn’t really a dog. Christ, all it did was sit on the bench outside the hardware store, watching the people, watching the birds. Damn thing didn’t even have a name. Maybe because they didn’t give their pets names.

  Son of a bitch, she thought; son of a bitch.

 
* * * *

  6

  They stood far enough back from the bedroom window so Todd couldn’t see them through the screen and blowing curtains.

  “They all think we’re queer, you know.” Bobby raised herself onto her toes so she could see better. “Even him, sometimes.”

  Tessa shoved the shorter woman off balance. “They do not.” She waggled her thick eyebrows. “Just weird, that’s all.”

  “I am not weird. I am independent.”

  “In this place, that’s weird.”

  They giggled like schoolgirls, and Helen, standing just behind them, wanted to smack them across the head a few times. The trouble was, they were probably right. Three women in one rented house barely large enough for two had been, she knew, the topic of nightly conversations at Mackey’s and the Moonglow since she had returned to the Landing last fall.

  Not that she cared anymore. She had been born and raised here, had left to go to college, and hadn’t even considered coming back until her husband of nine years had decided he had had enough of her, of his stultifying Tucson job, and life. In that order. Luckily she hadn’t found his body, hadn’t seen what the shotgun had done to his head; unluckily the only message he had left was the phone number of his mistress, and two words: the end.

  The money and house had been taken when his clumsy embezzlement had been discovered; her impatience with Arizona ran out the first time she tried to get a decent job and the personnel director called her “honey” five times in two sentences, and “little lady” three times.

  There had been only one place left to go, unless she wanted to stand beneath a streetlamp and hustle passing cars.

  “He’s going away,” Bobby said, disappointed. “Shoot, and I was going to strip for him, too.”

  Tessa punched her arm, and they mock-wrestled each other onto the single bed.

  Helen watched, sighed, and left, not understanding how they could both be going with the same man at the same time and not tear each other’s throat out, even though the man was Todd Odam. He was a nice guy, a decent boss, but he spooked her, moving too quickly and quietly for her peace of mind.

  But then, lots of things spooked her these days.

  Even her own shadow.

  In the small, mostly green kitchen she made a peanut butter sandwich and stood at the back door, watching the lawn die. She rubbed her neck absently, glad she’d gotten the haircut, even though Tessa had wept for what she had called the desecration of her womanhood. So it was short, almost masculine, so what? It was cool, it brushed into place with only a couple of strokes, and it fit her long face, accentuating rather than emphasizing.

  Her arm folded across her stomach.

  Besides, Casey seemed to like it.

  Tessa came up behind her. “If you went to church once in a while, maybe he’d notice you more.”

  Helen closed her eyes, seeking the strength not to strangle the woman. “Just drop it, Markowski, okay? You guys have been on me for weeks, and it’s getting a little tired.”

  “Hey, okay by me. But the house committee wants you to know we’re getting a little tired of you moping around. Either get a second job, or get laid, one or the other.”

  Helen turned in deliberate slow stages, but Tessa had already retreated to the doorway, round face flushed trying not to laugh, one hand up as a false gesture of peace.

  “You die,” Helen told her, lowering her already deep voice.

  Tessa cupped a palm around her ear. “What? Can’t hear you, lady. The air-conditioning’s too loud.”

  “It’s broken, jerk.”

  “Right. And you were supposed to fix it today, remember?”

  Helen did, just then. It was part of the threesome’s rental agreement—she would pay a smaller share than the others so long as she kept the place from falling down and the appliances from running amok. There were times, though, like now, when she hated the skills her daddy had taught her. If she had only had a brother—

  “Oh, don’t give me that look,” Tessa said in mock disgust. “It ain’t gonna work. Just do it, huh? Before we all melt?”

  Helen finished the sandwich and wiped her hands on her jeans. “You know,” she said, kneeling at the cabinet under the sink, “if you watched me once in a while, you could learn cool shit, too.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes. “I am on vacation. The only cool shit I want is beer on ice.”

  “And a man!” Bobby yelled from the staircase.

  Tessa ignored her and leaned against the door frame. “Why do you put up with us?”

  Helen pulled out her father’s old toolbox. “Because we grew up together.”

  And more; they were more sisters than if they had the same mother. Tessa knew that; Bobby probably did too, but wouldn’t admit it.

  “Yeah, but...”

  Something in the tone made her look up.

  “She wants to marry him, Hel.” Tessa’s eyes shone, her lower lip stiffened so it wouldn’t quiver. “She’ll move out.”

  “Okay. Assuming Todd’s crazy enough ... so what?”

  “So you won’t stay here forever either, right?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She hefted the toolbox onto the kitchen table and flipped back the lid. The smell of oil, grease, sawdust, her father. Nothing of her mother at all, except every time she looked in a mirror.

  “Hel?”

  “Christ!” Bobby yelled.

  Tessa looked over her shoulder. “What now?”

  Bobby pointed indignantly at the front door. “There’s a zillion dead moths all over the porch.” She made a face. “God.”

  “So you know where the broom is, dope. Put on some shoes and broom.” She looked back at Helen. “There’s something wrong here, you know.”

  Helen grinned. “Right.” She picked up a screwdriver. “You want to help?”

  Tessa didn’t smile. “I’m not kidding.” A nervous hand tangled itself in her blonde curls. “I don’t mean the fires, the water, that stuff. I don’t mean that. It’s something ...” A wan smile and a shrug. “... I don’t know—else.”

  “It’s not that hard.” She tucked the box under her arm and headed for the living room, pausing to put a hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “What’s wrong here is three grown women living in a shoebox during a wicked heat wave, getting on each other’s nerves. What’s wrong here is two of those grown women messing around with the same guy. And,” she added softly as Tessa opened her mouth, “what’s wrong here is that instead of going on your Canadian trip, you stayed here to look after poor little Helen, who got dumped by a cheating husband and was made a widow, all in less than a couple of weeks.” She kissed the woman’s cheek. “I’ve been here for nine months, honey. If I was going to crack, it would have been long before this.”

  Her friend’s expression was a protest, but Helen didn’t allow her to voice it. She rattled the tools, yelled at Bobby to stop whining and get the broom, and marched into the living room where the air conditioner dared her to do something about it.

  A challenge, she told herself; think of it as a challenge. If you blow it, you can always leave.

  “Aw ... gross!” Bobby cried from the porch.

  Tessa slammed impatiently through the screen door and groaned, “You were supposed to put on shoes, you jerk.”

  “I forgot!”

  On the other hand, Helen thought, who’d take care of the kids?

  * * * *

  7

  Star Creek meandered through the woods, across the meadow, and down to the river. When it had more than a trickle of water. Now, what moisture it held barely moved, and the raccoon on the bank only stared at the weeds growing in the shallow bed. It sat for nearly an hour, just staring, half its tail gone, its right front paw lifted stiffly off the ground. It didn’t move when a crow landed not five feet away; its fur barely rippled when a warm breeze coasted across its back; its eyes didn’t blink when a mostly brown leaf bumped against its nose. When it toppled, there was hardly a sound. Had there been water in the creek
, it would have drowned. As it was, it just died, and the crow flew away.

  * * * *

  Part 2

  Percussion and Reeds

  * * * *

  1

  1

  T

  he night was made for vampires.

  A full moon washing color from the ground and stars from the sky, not quite bright enough to read by, but bright enough for shadows to spread and grow an edge.