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To Jacques Post,
my literary shaman

 

PART 1

2DAY? #stoning

 

ONE

STEVE GRANT ROUNDED
the corner of the parking lot behind Black Spring Market & Deli just in time to see Katherine van Wyler get run over by an antique Dutch barrel organ. For a minute he thought it was an optical illusion, because instead of being thrown back onto the street the woman melted into the wooden curlicues, feathered angel wings, and chrome-colored organ pipes. It was Marty Keller who pushed the organ backward by its trailer hitch and, following Lucy Everett's instructions, brought it to a halt. Although there wasn't a bump to be heard or a trickle of blood to be seen when Katherine was struck, people began rushing in from all sides with the urgency that townsfolk always seem to exhibit when an accident occurs. Yet no one dropped their shopping bag to help her up … for if there was one thing the residents of Black Spring valued more highly than urgency, it was a cautious insistence on never getting too involved in Katherine's affairs.

“Not too close!” Marty shouted, stretching out his hand toward a little girl who had been approaching with faltering steps, drawn not by the bizarre accident but by the magnificence of the colossal machine. At once Steve realized that it hadn't been an accident at all. In the shadow beneath the barrel organ he saw two grubby feet and the mud-stained hem of Katherine's dress. He smiled indulgently: So it was an illusion. Two seconds later, the strains of the “Radetzky March” blared across the parking lot.

He slowed his pace, tired but quite satisfied with himself, almost at the end of his big circuit: fifteen miles along the edge of Bear Mountain State Park to Fort Montgomery and right up along the Hudson to West Point Military Academy—which folks around here called The Point—where he veered off toward home. Back into the forest, the hills. It made him feel good, not only because running was the ideal way to rid his body of the tension it accumulated after a long day of teaching at New York Med in Valhalla. It was mainly the delightful autumn breeze
outside
Black Spring that put him in such an excellent mood, swirling through his lungs and carrying the smell of his sweat to more westerly regions. It was all psychological, of course. There was nothing wrong with the air in Black Spring … at least, nothing that could be proven by analysis.

The music had lured the cook at Ruby's Ribs to come out from behind his grill. Joining the other spectators, he gazed suspiciously at the barrel organ. Steve walked around them, wiping his forehead dry with his arm. When he saw that the beautifully lacquered side of the organ was actually a swinging door, and that the door was ajar, he could no longer suppress a smile. The organ was completely hollow inside, all the way to the axle. Katherine was standing motionless in the dark as Lucy shut the door and hid her from view. Now the organ was an organ again. And boy, did it play.

“So,” he said, still panting, his hands high on his hips. “Mulder and Scully been lining the coffers again?”

Marty walked up to him and grinned. “Says you. You know how much those fuckers cost? And I'm telling you, they're pinching pennies till they holler.” He jerked his head at the barrel organ. “It's a total fake. A replica of the organ from the Old Dutch Museum in Peekskill. Pretty good, huh? It's just an ordinary trailer underneath.”

Steve was impressed. Now that he had a better look, he could see that, sure enough, the façade was nothing but a hodgepodge of mawkish porcelain figures and carelessly glued geegaws—and badly painted, too. The organ pipes weren't even real chrome, but gold-lacquered PVC. Even the “Radetzky March” fell flat: an illusion, without the delightful sighing of the valves or the slapping of the perforated music cards that you would expect from an instrument of yesteryear.

Marty read his mind and said, “An iPod with a big-ass speaker. Pick the wrong playlist and you get heavy metal.”

“Sounds like one of Grim's ideas,” Steve laughed.

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought the whole idea was to divert attention
away
from her?”

Marty shrugged. “You know the master's style.”

“It's for public events,” Lucy said. “For the fair, or during the festival if there are lots of Outsiders.”

“Well, good luck.” Steve grinned, getting ready to continue on his way. “Maybe you'll collect some money while you're at it.”

He took it easy on the last mile, heading home down Deep Hollow Road. As soon as he was beyond earshot he stopped thinking about the woman in the dark, the woman in the belly of the barrel organ, though the “Radetzky March” kept playing in his head to the rhythm of his footsteps.

*   *   *

AFTER A SHOWER,
Steve went downstairs and found Jocelyn at the dining room table. She shut her laptop. With the subtle smile on her lips that he had fallen in love with twenty-three years before and that she'd probably have until the day she died, despite growing wrinkles and bags under her eyes (forty-plus pockets, she called them), she said, “There, enough time for my boyfriends. Now it's my husband's turn.”

Steve grinned. “What was his name again? Rafael?”

“Yup. And Roger. I ditched Novak.” She stood up and slid her arms around his waist. “How was your day?”

“Exhausting. Five straight hours of lectures with one twenty-minute break. I'm going to ask Ulmann to change my grid, or mount a battery behind the stand.”

“You're pathetic,” she said, kissing him on the mouth. “I ought to warn you that we have a voyeur, Mr. Eager Beaver.”

Steve drew back and raised his eyebrows.

“Gramma,” she said.

“Gramma?”

Pulling him closer, she turned around and nodded over her shoulder. Steve followed her glance through the open French doors and into the living room. Sure enough, standing in the odd corner between the couch and the fireplace, right next to the stereo—Jocelyn always called it her Limbo because she couldn't figure out what to do with it—was a small, shrunken woman, skinny as a rail and utterly motionless. She looked like something that didn't belong in the clear golden light of the afternoon: dark, dirty, nocturnal. Jocelyn had hung an old dishcloth over her head so you couldn't see her face.

“Gramma,” said Steve meditatively. Then he started to laugh. He couldn't help it: With that dishcloth, she made an awkward, ridiculous spectacle.

Jocelyn blushed. “You know I get all creeped out when she looks at us that way. I know she's blind, but sometimes I get the feeling it doesn't make any difference.”

“How long has she been standing there? Because I just saw her in town.”

“Less than twenty minutes. She showed up just before you came home.”

“Go figure. I saw her in the parking lot at the Market and Deli. They had put one of their new toys right on top of her, a friggin' barrel organ. I guess she didn't like the music very much.”

Jocelyn smiled and pursed her lips. “Well, I hope she likes Johnny Cash, because that's what was in the CD player, and reaching past her to press play once is enough for me, thank you.”

“Brave move, madam.” Steve stuck his fingers in the hair along the back of her neck and kissed her again.

The screen door flew open and Tyler came in with a large plastic bag that smelled of Chinese takeout. “Hey, no hanky-panky, okay?” he said. “I'm underage until March fifteenth, and until then my tender soul can't bear to be corrupted. Least of all within my own gene pool.”

Steve winked at Jocelyn and said, “Does that go for you and Laurie, too?”

“I'm supposed to experiment,” said Tyler as he put the bag on the table and wriggled out of his jacket. “It's age appropriate. Wikipedia says so.”

“And what does Wikipedia say we should do at
our
age?”

“Work … cook … raise allowances.”

Jocelyn opened her eyes wide and burst out laughing. Behind Tyler, Fletcher had wormed his way in through the screen door and was pattering around the dining room table with his ears cocked.

“Oh Christ, Tyler, grab him…” Steve said as soon as he heard the border collie growl, but it was too late: Fletcher had caught sight of the woman in Jocelyn's Limbo. He broke into a deafening bark, which shifted into such a shrill, high whine that all three of them jumped out of their skin. The dog flew through the room but slid across the dark tiles; Tyler was just able to grab him by the collar. Barking wildly and pawing the air with his front legs, Fletcher came to a halt between the French doors.

“Fletcher, down!” Tyler shouted, jerking the leash sharply. Fletcher stopped barking. Wagging his tail nervously, he began to growl deep in the back of his throat at the woman in Jocelyn's Limbo … who hadn't moved a muscle. “Jesus, couldn't you guys, like, tell me she was here?”

“Sorry,” Steve said, taking the leash out of Tyler's hands. “We didn't see Fletcher come in.”

A wry expression spread across Tyler's face. “Suits her well, that cloth.” He threw his jacket over a chair and ran upstairs without further comment. Not to do his homework, Steve assumed, because when it came to homework Tyler was never in a rush. The only thing that made him hurry was the girl he was dating (a pert little cutie from Newburgh who unfortunately couldn't visit very often due to the Emergency Decree), or the video blog on his YouTube channel, which he had probably been working on when Jocelyn sent him to Emperor's Choice Takeout. Wednesday was her day off and she liked to keep it simple, even though everything from the town's Chinese takeout place tasted pretty much the same.

Steve led the growling Fletcher to the backyard and locked him in his kennel, where he jumped up against the wire mesh and started pacing restlessly. “Cut it out,” Steve snarled, more sharply than the situation perhaps called for. But the dog got on his nerves, and he knew Fletcher wouldn't calm down for the next half hour. It had been quite some time since Gramma had dropped in on them, but no matter how often she came, Fletcher never seemed to get used to her.