Dark Arts (23 page)

“Detroit,” Scott said, laughing.

“Not my proudest moment,” Maxwell said.

“Good weekend, though,” Bernie said.
“Detroit was fun, we got to see the Stooges, met Iggy Pop.”

“You met Iggy Pop?” Miranda asked.

“Yeah, nice enough fellow, too,” Maxwell
said. “Give you the shirt off his back if he’s happening to be
wearing one.”

“I’m going to go look for April,” Scott said
as they got to the veranda of the main cabin.

“I’ll get out there too,” Bernie said.

“What just happened?” Gladys said as she
came through the door with Samuel. “We were just on our way out and
someone said you were in a fight with a man in a suit?”

“Steven Sands paid us a visit. Pulled up,
started asking about the book and his daughter. We’ll have to keep
an eye out for her, make sure she turns up sometime today.”

“What about this fight?” Samuel asked, his
voice not as strong. The air was becoming more difficult for
him.

“He gave me a slap, so I put him down, put
him in his car and they got out of here.” Maxwell pointed at his
slightly reddened cheek and Miranda’s eyes went wide.

“He got you,” she said, “Looks like one of
his rings cut you.”

“Still bleeding?” Maxwell asked.

“No, it’s small,” Miranda said.

“You know that’s going to come back on us
somehow,” Gladys said. “You should have come to us.”

“I was afraid he would turn the whole place
upside down, don’t blame him, mind you, but he didn’t want one of
us to take him around. He wanted to go on his own. He was more
interested in the book anyhow. Then things turned when he tried to
treat me like one of his kids.”

“I understand, Maxwell, there’s history,”
Samuel said before taking a labored breath. “Just let us take care
of Sands, all right?”

“Absolutely,” Maxwell said.

Gladys shook her head. “We’re going to Sam’s
trailer to play some cards in the air conditioning.”

“Maybe have a little wine,” Samuel said with
a mischievous smile.

“Behave, you two,” Miranda said.

“Oh, I can handle him,” Gladys said as they
passed them on the stairs.

After Maxwell’s right hand was cleaned up
and his rings were washed, he joined Scott and Bernie as they
searched for April. Word went out that there could be someone lost
on the farm, and before the sun set, every tent, camper, motorhome,
both beaches, the nearby woods and all the cabins were searched.
There was no sign of her.

Morley Parker retired from the Ontario
Provincial Police three years before he set foot on the Webb Farm
on that humid day. When word reached Archer Hardware that there was
a missing girl, and the police decided not to look for her because
she had habit of going off on her own, he rallied his oldest
friends, Patrick and Richard Young, to join him in helping with the
search. They followed him in their pickup truck without
hesitation.

Seeing the Webb Main House on the top of the
hill almost made him smile. He was always invited to the smaller
holiday parties there, and the few he attended were lighthearted,
enjoyable affairs.

His wife, Carrie, didn’t like the place much
though. She believed there were rituals performed on the farm, that
the family was involved with paganism. Morley knew it was true, but
he didn’t share her dark impression. To him the Webbs and their
friends were naturalists who brought some old, different religions
to Ontario from Europe, and they were always helpful when called on
in the community. They kept their beliefs out of any public
activity too, so if you didn’t know better, you’d assume they were
just down to earth, good people. Their absence in church was the
most noticeable difference.

The spread of tents in the broad field
nearest to the road was bigger than anything Morley had ever seen.
He was a little happy his wife hadn’t lived to see such a large
gathering of pagans, she would have crossed herself, got back in
her car and driven as though the devil were on her heels. “I’m
going to the main house, Rick,” he told his long time friend. “You
mind finding Allen or his son, Bernie for me? They’re probably
directing the search.”

“No problem, we’ll stay close just in case
you find Allan first.”

Morley walked up the main path to the house,
noting that most of the visitors seemed busy, they wore serious
expressions that told him that everyone had taken up the cause.
April may be a rich girl, but she seems well liked, was his first
thought. The sun was getting low, there were two hours of daylight
left at the most.

He returned his attention to the path,
favoring an ache in his knee he hadn’t felt since he was still an
Officer. He remembered the last time it acted up; he reported to an
address where a family had discovered a box of old dynamite in a
basement crawlspace. Walking that greasy wooden crate up the stairs
and out of their home was the most nerve-wracking minute of his
entire career.

“Pardon, Officer,” said a tall priest coming
down the path. He had a half dozen young children following him
silently.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Morley
replied, startled. “How are you, Pastor?” He asked, fishing for a
name.

“We’re doing well, kind of you to ask,” the
Priest replied, smiling broadly.

“What brings you and this little flock to
the Webbs?”

“Just taking my orphans for a stroll,
they’ve been cooped up for a while, I’m afraid. I’m glad I did. It
gave me the opportunity to offer the little support we can for
April.”

“God giving you any advice on where I might
find the girl?” Morley asked.

“Oh, you won’t need his help to find her. A
good thing, since I haven’t heard from him in a while. He is
mysterious in his way.”

“Sure. I haven’t seen you around, are you
new to the Parish?”

“I was here some time ago, and am just
returning. It is good to be back though. So much has changed,” the
Priest said, looking across the field at the bottom of the hill.
The sunlight came out from behind a cloud then, and he seemed to
grow pale. “We should be getting back, I don’t want to tire the
little ones.”

“Have a good day, Pastor,” Morley said. The
clothes and especially the little black shoes the children wore
reminded him of old silver plate photos of his grandparents.
Everything about the pastor and his orphans seemed a little
off.

He was only feet away from the veranda when
the screen door banged open and a vision appeared that moved him to
remove his Blue Jays baseball hat. A raven-haired woman who flashed
him a smile descended and gave him a warm hug. “You don’t remember,
do you?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss,” he replied.

“Susanne,” she said. “It is good to see you,
Morley.”

“I’m sorry, it’s been, what? Thirty years?”
he said, remembering her as a senior in high school. “Where did you
get off to?”

“I returned to Italy after I graduated,” she
said, leading him up the steps into the kitchen of the main house.
“I moved to Spain for my husband then. He passed away a few years
later, so I took turns living with different sisters.”

“What brings you back?”

“My niece, Miranda,” she replied. “I’ll be
moving in with her for a while to see if I enjoy Canada enough to
stay. I think I will, but it’s too soon to say. Who were you
talking to on the path? I only heard your voice.”

“New Pastor coming back to town,” Morley
replied. “He seemed a little strange, maybe from the old country
too?”

“Only one Pastor has been here for cards
this week,” she looked to a stout woman.

“Pastor Villaro,” the stout woman
answered.

“Oh, it wasn’t him. He baptized all three of
my kids, I’d know him,” Morley said. “This fellow looked like he’d
just spent a month on a boat, pale, pretty thin.”

“He wasn’t invited,” said Allen as he came
in through the side door. “Nothing to worry about though.” He had
scratches on his face, and a well-stitched rip on his lip.

“What happened there?” Morley said.

“Nothing to worry about,” Allen said. “Here
to help look for April?”

“Sure am, brought a couple friends with me,
and Terry’s offered to bring everyone from the hardware store here
to help if we need more people. Is Mister Sands here?”

“No,” Allen replied. “He’s not as worried as
we are about this. We’re just about to head off to the Erikson
farm. We bought their place four years ago when Old Yves passed
away. You’re just in time.”

A young, well-built man with blonde hair
came to the door, he looked anxious. “Ready to go?”

“Looks like we have enough volunteers,
Scottie,” Allen said with a nod. “Thank your guys for me. I’ll ride
in your pickup, I’m still not driving.”

“Wait,” Morley said. “The Erikson farm has
been abandoned for what, twenty, thirty years? It’s got to be nine
miles from here, why would she be there?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve got one of those
hunches,” Allen said.

Morley knew not to question it. Allen and
his father had helped him and other police officers more than once
when people went missing, and the grave expression on his face told
him that they would definitely find something.

They were joined on the road by a massive
1958 Edsel four door, its pointed rear fins only topped by the
front – an oval front grill feature with paired headlamps. They
arrived at the Erikson farm and Morley wasted no time in directing
Patrick and Rick to check the few structures still standing. The
barn had fallen down long before, leaving only a few small storage
sheds and outhouses in various states of disrepair. That was, other
than the main farmhouse.

Allen looked across the overgrown fields.
The forest had been encroaching on the abandoned farm for at least
two decades, and tall grass had grown in everywhere else. The
farmhouse was a husk. Old and dilapidated when the Webbs bought the
land, they had since removed glass and any fixtures from the
inside. What was left overlooked the overgrown fields with hollow,
dark windows.

“We should start there?” Morley said,
pointing at the house and the two ramshackle sheds beside it.

“We’ll find that a car has come through
behind the house,” Allen said, moving with long strides.

Morley followed him, a chill running down
his spine as he glanced back towards a dark second floor window.
The boards over the first floor windows and door looked intact, and
he didn’t see evidence that anyone had gone towards the house at a
glance. There was no trail pushed through the grass, or other
signs. He still could have sworn that something moved in that upper
floor window. “We should check the house,” he said.

“No,” Allen told him firmly. “Stick with the
group.”

He stared at the pair of open windows in the
dilapidated house for a moment then nodded. His eyes never stopped
scanning the way ahead, and as they came around the rear, he saw
what Allen predicted. The grass overgrowing an old tractor trail
had recently been pressed down. “Pat, Rick, over here.”

They rushed up to flank them on the left,
looking through the grass and nearby tree line. Experience had
taught Morley that it was easy to miss things in nearly hip-high
grass. They followed the path of the car, and Morley shook his
head. “Come and gone. It looks like whoever went in took the same
path out, going a little off trail here,” he pointed to a length of
the trail where the grass had been pressed down by tires in a half
loop running off and on again. “By that old coal chute.”

“She’s up ahead,” Allen said, pointing to
the end of the path, where the gutted husks of farm equipment
occupied a yard with tall grass. His pace grew faster until he was
running.

“Slow and careful,” Morley said as he
struggled to keep up with the tall man and his younger companions.
The words would fall on deaf ears, he knew, but he had to try. He
also had a feeling that he was leaving something important behind
at the rear of the old house.

“You guys see something up there?” asked
Patrick, his speech slurred thanks to his missing top teeth.

“Nothing yet,” Morley replied, shouting over
his shoulder. “Can you watch the house?”

“On it, Morley,” Rick said.

“I can hear her,” Scott, Allen’s nephew
said, redoubling his pace into a reckless run.

The blonde youth disappeared behind an old
rust covered tractor and immediately shouted something Morley
couldn’t make out, then he screamed; “help!”

The world blurred past as Morley and the
entire group, suddenly led by the longhaired, stocky Maxwell, broke
into the circle of broken down farm machinery. Scott was cradling a
girl in a filthy summer dress in his arms on the ground. Her fair
hair was caked with crimson, the fingers on her left hand had been
bashed into awkward angles, and Morley could not see her face.

His limited emergency medical training told
him that he had to check her vitals, and keep her still, and that
Scott had broken the second rule by pulling her partially into his
lap.

He knelt down and could immediately see that
she was still breathing. One of her eyes was closed, the lid and
cheek caked in blood. Her other was open, a beautiful blue eye
staring out of a ravaged face. Her lips had been cut away, and
someone had sawed at her nose with a rough blade or unsteady hand
from the bottom. Her smile had been replaced by a grimace of bloody
teeth and gums.

Weak, raspy but sweet sounds came from her
that were more animal than human. He interpreted them as
expressions of relief, and sometimes she seemed to be trying to
reassure Scottie, who kept telling her; “I’ve got you, you’re going
to be okay.” She raised a still perfect hand and touched Scott’s
face as though she was making sure he was really there.

He moved in, catching a fearful glance from
her. “You remember me? I’m Mister Dell. You used to play with my
girls, Celeste and Mary.”