Chapel of Ease (27 page)

Well, clearly
she
knew about him. He laughed and said, “No, ma'am, he was a friend of Rayford Parrish's.”

She pondered this for a moment. People around here did that a lot. I suppose most of us could probably stand to think a moment or two before speaking, but I'd never seen it as a cultural norm before. At last she said, “Well, then, y'all come in.”

As we approached, something poked out beside her feet. It was small, white, and seemed to be grinning. Its mouth was filled with long, sharp teeth.

I stopped dead. “What is that?” I asked, not caring that I sounded like a wuss.

She looked down. “Oh, that's Ketchum.”

“
What
is that?”

“That's a possum,” C.C. said.

“Ketchum, you go on, you're making people nervous.” She nudged the animal with her foot, and it waddled out and across the yard. It wasn't very big, but it was strange-looking, and its ratlike tail sent a familiar shudder of revulsion through me. I hoped those things never crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and set up in Central Park.

Her cabin, or cottage, or tiny house, or whatever the hell you want to call it, was dimly lit by natural light through the windows. It smelled of potpourri and cooking vegetables. It was rustic in the extreme, and cluttered with items I couldn't identify. Many of them appeared to be musical instruments, and from the way they were scattered around the room, they weren't just there for show. Still, I saw the Spotify screen before she closed her laptop, so she wasn't any sort of anti-tech Luddite.

Three cats draped like accent pieces over the old furniture, but thankfully I saw no more possums. A door led to what I assumed was a bedroom, but otherwise the living room, dining room, and kitchen took up one big open space. The table was laden with various drying plants, and something simmered on the stove.

“Excuse the mess,” Azure said. “I wasn't expecting company.”

Aren't you supposed to be a fortune-teller?
I wanted to ask, but all the Southern politeness had rubbed off on me.

She moved some papers from the kitchen table, stirred whatever she was cooking, and said, “Now—what can I do for you gentlemen?”

C.C. looked at me. “Matt here thinks he has a haint.”

“Is that a fact?”

Stated so baldly, it sounded goofier than I'd expected. “Well…”

“Have you seen the dead?”

“Kind of.”

“Was it someone known to you in life?”

“Yes.”

“And has it spoken to you?”

“I guess. I mean, it—”

“Sit down,” she said, and gestured at one of the chairs. I sat, and she washed her hands at the sink. “Any other signs?”

“Uh … not that I know of.”

“How about omens?”

“What's the difference?”

“A sign is something that's supposed to be there but still gets your attention. An omen is something that ain't.”

“Ah. Good to know.” I looked over at C.C., who stood patiently by the front door. With his rugged, rustic solidity, he looked like part of the decor.

“Cyrus, sit down, you're making me nervous,” Azure snapped. To me, she said, “A haint ain't always a bad thing. Sometimes they have something important to say, and that's why they stick around. Did this one tell you anything important?”

“No, we just … discussed work.”

“And what kind of work do you do?”

“I'm an actor.”

She cocked her head and looked at me oddly. “Well. I ain't never met a real actor before. You been in anything I might know?”

“No, I'm mainly a stage actor. In New York.”

“Broadway?”

“Sometimes.”

“Ah, so that's how you know Rayford Parrish.”

“Yeah. Yes, ma'am,” I corrected quickly.

“May I see your left hand?”

I let her take it. “You read palms?”

“I read signs,” she said without looking up. “Sometimes it's in a palm, sometimes in tea leaves, sometimes in the way the clouds move.”

“Must be tiring.” I winced at my own sarcasm.

She looked up. “You're trying not to be a smart-ass, son, and I appreciate that, but your snark is still coming out. Why do you believe in medicine?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you believe that when a doctor tells you something, it's right?”

“Well, I guess … because it works.”

“Do you understand how or why it works?”

“Not really.”

She tapped my palm with one long finger. “This is the same way. It works. You may not know why or how,
I
may not know, but it gets results.”

“It does,” C.C. said.

That made me smile. “I apologize. I'm a little disoriented by a lot of what I've seen the last couple of days, and I tend to fall back on sarcasm when that happens. I'll try to watch it.”

She nodded maternally, and I half expected her to muss my hair. “That's the right thing to say, son. Now, let me see what I can figure out here.”

She got close to my palm, and I had the absurd idea she might lick it. But she just studied it in light I would've thought too dim for such close-up work.

One of the cats stretched, then hopped down from its perch. I noticed that the many knickknacks hanging from the wall appeared to be mostly small animal skulls, some painted with designs and symbols that, to my untrained eye at least, resembled those on the boulder.

At last Azure sat up and said matter-of-factly, “You've got yourself a haint, young man. And let me guess: it's young Mr. Rayford.”

“Yeah. So what do I do?”

“Listen to it. Find out what it wants and give it to it.”

“I would, but I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“You think a haint can't follow you to the big city?”

“I spoke with it last night. Well, early this morning. We had an actual conversation. It didn't mention anything about needing something from me.”

“Then it ain't ready to tell you, or you ain't ready to hear.”

This was all needlessly cryptic. “Okay, suppose I don't want to have a haint. Is there a way to get rid of it? Besides giving it what it wants?”

“Become a haint yourself.”

“I'd rather not.”

She laughed. “C.C., take your friend home, or wherever he's staying. I suspect tonight's going to be pretty eventful for him, so he might want a nap.”

“That's all?” I said.

“Hey, it's your haint, not mine. But if you're leaving tomorrow, and what the haint wants from you is here, then a lot's going to happen real soon. Or…” She trailed off with a shrug.

“Or what?” I pressed.

“Or you ain't gonna be leaving anytime soon.”

I stood up. “Thank you,” I said uncertainly.

Azure nodded. C.C. made a hand gesture at her, which she returned. As we stepped out the door, I said, “We saw a great big deer on our way in. C.C. said it was the king of the forest. Is that a sign or an omen?”

She cocked her head, suddenly a lot more interested. “Did you, now. Cyrus, were you planning to mention that?”

“I didn't think it—”

“Do you know nothing about reading signs, even after all this time?” To me she said, “That was an
omen,
young man.”

“Does that change things?”

“It doesn't change it, son, but it ratchets it up. The king don't come out for just anyone rambling through the woods. He must think one of you is a big deal.”

“It can't be me,” C.C. said.

“No, it don't seem likely, given everything else swirling around this boy.” She looked at my face so closely, I expected her to squeeze a blackhead off my nose. “I reckon the message this haint has for you ain't just for you, son. It's bigger than that if the king is concerned. You best try to find out what it is before something bad happens.”

“To me?”

“Or someone close to you.”

“I don't think Ray would—”

“Haints ain't always what they look like. Might not be your friend. Might be a palimpsest of your friend—you know what that is?”

“No.”

“It's like a sketch of your friend, drawn over your memories. It can fool you into thinking you're talking to him, but all you're talking to is a determination strong enough to come out of the grave to get something done.”

“I don't understand.”

“Most of the time I don't, either,” she said with a laugh. “Y'all be careful, now. Bless your hearts.”

*   *   *

We drove—or rather, bounced—in silence until we got back onto the actual paved highway. Azure's bizarre warnings rattled in my head in the same way I did in the truck's cab.

“Should we have paid her?” I asked. “Or at least offered?”

“She don't do this for money,” C.C. said. “She's a professor at East Tennessee State.”

“She's a college professor?”

“World-renowned folklore expert, if you can believe it. Wrote three books so far.”

“I guess you never can tell about people.”

“That's the pure-D truth.”

At last, when the ride was finally smooth again, I turned to C.C. and said, “I have to go back to the chapel tonight. I have to find out what's buried there. You can call me crazy if you want, but I know I'll hate myself if I go back to New York without at least trying.”

“Do you think that's what the haint wants?”

It was the exact opposite of what Ray wanted, but I wasn't going to let a ghost dictate to me. But then again, Azure had hinted at the possibility that this ghost might not really be Ray after all. If it wasn't, then perhaps finding the secret was what the real Ray, the dead one, actually
did
want. Still, I was sure of one thing. “It's what I want.”

“Are you asking for my help?”

“I am. I have to know. It's a secret that Ray never got to tell, and if that dream ghost was real, it's one he never meant to tell. He was going to weasel out of his promise to tell us.”

“So it's revenge?”

“It's … balance. We're bringing his world to life. He was wrong not to tell us. Even if no one else ever finds out, we deserve to know.”

C.C. frowned as he mulled that. “So can a bunch of actors keep a secret?”

I thought of the great skein of gossip woven by actors in a company. “That's a separate issue. So … will you help? Will you take me back?”

“After being threatened with a knife, and Gerald being shot, and a haint telling you not to, you want to sneak back onto the Durants' land?”

“I do.”

“And dig up something that may not actually be there.”

“You saw the spot. Something's there.”

“I saw a bare patch of ground inside a ruined building. It could just be because the sun never quite hits that spot, so nothing grows.”

“Could be. Only one way to find out.” I took his right hand and kissed the back of it. “Come on. After all this, you know you want to know, too.”

He drove some more, then said, “All right. But we're not going in there all haphazard like we did before. We need a plan.”

“Okay.”

“And I'm in charge. If I say we're done before we get what you want, then we're done.”

“Agreed.”

He turned to me and smiled at last. “And when it's over, you
better
make it worth my while.”

“
That
I can promise,” I said.

 

23

The afternoon took forever to go by. With nothing to do, I was aware of every … creeping … moment, and it was maddening. I tried to nap, but between anticipation of the night raid on the chapel, and the worry (okay, fear) that Ray might show up in my dreams again, that wasn't going to happen. C.C. went off to fix the tractor, abandoned in the field yesterday when Gerald was shot. So I was truly at loose ends.

I kept checking my phone for any signal. Occasionally I got one bar, but no texts from Joaquim or Emily came through. Then it dinged, and I saw I had a voice mail from Emily.

“Hey,” she said. She sounded like an old woman, weak and worn out. “It's not there. I've been looking through his files, I haven't slept, I haven't eaten … it's just not there. It was the last gift he might've had for me, Matt, and now I'll never get it. He really is gone.”

The message ended. I tried to call her back, but there wasn't enough signal for it to go through. I texted her,
Hang on. Going to find out tonight.
But it wouldn't go through.

Frustrated, I went to the kitchen for a drink of either the tooth-rotting sweet tea or something harder, which I couldn't find. As I stood at the kitchen window, Gerald came out of the barn, toting a bag of feed on his shoulder. It wasn't his injured shoulder, but his sling was gone, and he moved as if it no longer bothered him. In a world of haints and little-girl mayors, this didn't seem quite so disconcerting, but it was still weird as fuck. I mean, I'd seen the bullet hole, the blood, the way his face had gone pasty white like old faded linen. And that had been
yesterday.

I watched him carry the feed, knowing what I did about the Tufa, and tried to imagine him naked, with huge wings. He spat on the ground beside the pigs and looked so comfortable in his overalls that for a moment I doubted what I'd seen and experienced. But then, Thorn was their daughter and Ray was their son, so if I believed it about them, I had to believe they got it from their parents. Which meant that, at that particular moment, I was watching an actual fairy scrape manure from his boots on a fence.

I wanted to laugh out loud, but I didn't. Instead I went outside and said, “Can I give you a hand with that?”

“Naw, it ain't nothing,” he said. He continued on to the pen, where three small pigs scurried to the ancient trough. The wind changed, and the smell made me scrunch up my face and breathe through my mouth.