The Ghosts of Varner Creek (27 page)

"D-dear God," said Sarah.

"Forgive me of my sins. . ." and she waited for Sarah.

"F-f-forgive m-me of my sins."

"Let me walk in your light," said Mama. Sarah echoed. "Make clean again my tainted soul." Sarah had trouble saying tainted, but she tried her best since this seemed important to Mama. "Make me whole again so that I may live in Your kingdom." Sarah followed along. "In Christ's name, Amen."

". . . Amen," finished Sarah.

Mama had tears in her eyes but a strange smile on her face. I felt an odd mixture of happiness, relief, and misery coming from her. "Now, sweetie, I want you to put your face all the way in the water, just like that day down at the creek, okay?"

Sarah thought it was awfully cold outside to be putting her head in a bucket of water, but she did as she was told. She bent over and put her head under the water, letting it come up over her ears silencing the world for a moment. As she did so, Mama bent down and picked up the rock. She was crying as she watched Sarah, and I could see her shaking from little sobs that were escaping her like hiccups. Mama walked right up behind Sarah, and when her little head came back up from the water, Mama’s arms went up behind her with the rock held in both hands. Sarah opened her mouth to get a good breath and when she did Mama came crashing down on her head. Sarah never saw Mama behind her, and didn’t see it coming. Mama had come down at a bit of an angle at the back of Sarah's skull, and her face hit hard on the metal handle of the bucket while her mouth was still open for a breath. Her left front tooth caught the force and cracked down to the root, the separated half flipping out to land on the ground where I'd find it nearly a month later that day at the well with Uncle Colby. Sarah's unconscious body slumped forward, head back down in the bucket. Mama had to quickly drop the rock and catch her to keep Sarah from completely falling over. She gently put her hands on the back of Sarah's head and held her under the water. I thought for sure she was already dead, but after a few seconds her fingers seemed to flinch a bit, and then her hand moved. Mama kept holding Sarah’s face down in the bucket as she came to. Under the water Sarah had regained consciousness to a horrid panic. I felt it hit me like a lightning strike, her emotions shooting outward like an exploding grenade. She was very scared and hurting quite a lot. Her head was pulsing with a throbbing pain and her mouth where her tooth had caught was also torturing her, but it was nothing compared to her fear. She tried to scream for Mama but there wasn’t any voice, only the little bit of breath left in her escaped, and then she couldn’t resist the overwhelming urge to breathe. The water flooded her lungs and she tried to cough it out, but there was no air left to do it with. The panic and pain in her seemed to break like a wave, and then she swayed into darkness. Mama held her for what seemed like minutes, rubbing her back as though Sarah wasn’t dead, but merely a sick child leaning over a bucket to throw up who Mama was trying to comfort. Finally, Mama leaned Sarah out of the water and laid her down on the ground.

There was no life in the little body. Her lips were turning a little blue and already she seemed a deathly pale complexion. Mama pushed the hair out of Sarah's face and kissed her on the forehead. "It was to save your soul,” she told her dead daughter. "I'll go to hell, now, but not you, baby . . . not you, Mama's special angel." She kissed her again. Sarah’s spirit was still standing next to mine, holding my hand. “Mama didn’t mean it,” she told me again.

I couldn’t speak. I was so horrified by what I’d just seen. All those years I thought Pap had murdered Mama and Sarah both, but now it was replaced by this awful truth.

Mama stayed there on the ground with Sarah in her arms for a while, listening to the sounds of Varner Creek at night. The crickets were chirping and somewhere an owl was hooting in a distant tree. The chickens were restless at the sounds of the predator and started making a loud ruckus. "I remember going into the darkness," said Sarah by my side. "But I could still see Mama. I didn’t want to go into the dark by myself, so I tried to stay with her, to stay with my body. I could still see her a little, but it was like we are now, outside looking in. Mama couldn't hear me when I called out for her. She didn't know I was still there in my way."

Eventually Mama got up again. She looked at Sarah's dead body and the guilt assaulted her. But still she was happy, too, in a way. She had found the strength to free Sarah. But now what was she going to do? Her feelings were like a shadow, consuming everything in its darkness. She saw everything as a failure. Her life with Abram, the children they'd had together, the home they'd built together. It was all one huge evil rug the devil had weaved, and now it had to be undone. She'd clear it away, clear it all away. She had to save her children from the fires of hell.

She went back into the house and into her bedroom, walking as though already a ghost. She looked behind the dresser for the shotgun, the double barreled one Pap used to kill game birds, rabbits, and squirrels. She looked at Pap in the bed and raised the gun, but then I felt the change in her. Her mind was falling to pieces but I could feel what it was that stopped her. It was me. She knew if she shot Pap in the bed, I’d hear the gunshot and wake up. Then she’d have to shoot me when I could see it coming, and she didn’t want that. She’d wanted Sarah to go peacefully, but she’d come to under the water and probably suffered. Mama didn’t mean that for her, and didn’t want to make a similar mistake. She’d have to shoot me first, in my sleep so I wouldn’t be scared. I couldn’t hear Mama’s thoughts, but I felt them so strongly, it was as though I could. She was convinced the devil had infected us all, and like an outbreak of disease, the only way to kill it was to burn everything. She felt like she could still save Sarah and me if she acted now. Her and Pap would have to go with the devil, though. Him for what he’d done to Sarah and all the other hateful things he’d done in his life, and her for killing her children, husband, and then herself like she planned. It was worth the sacrifice, though, if it saved her babies.

Mama had just started out of the room towards mine when Pap stirred in the bed. The chickens' ruckus earlier had put him in a light sleep. He opened his eyes and saw her in the doorway with the gun, "Annie?” Mama stopped in her tracks, but didn’t turn around. Pap must have thought some animal was outside at the chickens and Mama had fetched the gun to go see about it, because he rose up out of bed and said, “What is it, snake or possum after the chickens?” Mama still didn’t turn around or say anything. “Well, you’d better give me the gun. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” Pap started getting on his pants like he was going to go see about the chickens, but Mama turned around finally and raised the gun at him. Pap looked at her confused for a moment and then said, “Annie, what the hell are you doin'?" She just stared at him, murderous emotions seeping from her like blood from a wound. Pap was cornered between the bed and the wall and had no place to run. His eyes were wide with fear, "Annie? Jesus Christ, what're you doin'?"

She pulled back the hammer on the shotgun, "I killed her, her and that devil's seed you put in her," she told him. "She's free of you now."

"What?" he said. "Who? What in the Sam hell are you on about? You gone crazy or something?"

"Shut up!" she hissed at him, raising the gun a little more, centering on his chest. "You'll wake him and make it harder for him to go peaceful like."

He was going to ask who again, but he suddenly realized just how serious Mama was. He slowly put his hands up as if offering surrender. “Annie, now I don’t know what’s gotten into to you, but . . . “

"I know about Sarah," she told him. "I know what you’ve been doin’ with your own daughter, you bastard. You own daughter!” she whispered forcefully. “How could you do it, Abram? How could you take advantage of her like that . . . your own child?" Mad tears came, an angry storm brewing inside of her, but still she barely spoke above a whisper. He’d ruined her plans by waking up. She had wanted to shoot me in my sleep so I'd never see it coming, then finish Pap, but now he'd ruined that, just like he ruined everything. She’d have to kill him first. "She was pregnant.” Mama told him. “Did you know that Abram? Did yah know that you had gotten your own child pregnant? Did you know it while you were still laying down with her in sin like you did?"

I felt Pap becoming shocked and terrified. He felt his sins biting at his heels. The hand of judgment was on him and he couldn't find words. He had suffered that nightmare childhood with his uncle, only to become just like the man he’d hated so much, and now it had caught up to him in the eyes of Annie. "Annie, now listen . . ."

"No, Abram," she said with finality. "The devil’s waited long enough," and she pulled the shotgun’s trigger . . . Click! Pap's eyes shut tight as he waited for the blast, but it didn't come. He opened his eyes again. At first he wasn’t sure what’d happened, but then he looked down at the dresser drawer where he kept the shells and realized it was still shut. Mama pulled the second hammer back and fired again, Click! And then she knew it, too. The gun wasn't loaded. She wanted to charge him, to kill him with her own two hands, but she couldn't find the strength. Something in her broke and surrendered. All she wanted was to have it all finally ended, yet somehow she'd been robbed of that. Outside Sarah's body was growing cold under the night sky. Sol was sleeping in his bed, and she had meant to kill him, too. But the gun wasn't loaded. She was going to tear the Devil's web down and clear it all away, but the gun wasn't loaded. It wasn't fair, she thought. The tears were coming now and she lowered the gun. I could feel her surrender, and the hate at this cruel joke fate had dealt her, one more final blow. She laughed an empty and hollow laugh, "Look," she told Pap, "even hell won't have you."

Pap walked around the bed quickly and grabbed the gun. He laid it in the corner and then he looked back at Mama. Sarah's soul and I watched her, a broken human being that could take no more. I half expected Pap to hit her, or maybe even load the gun itself and shoot her with it, but the emotions coming from him were different than anger. They were of guilt and remorse. And for all the evils that Pap had, for the first time ever, I saw him cry. "Annie," he said, but couldn’t finish. He wanted to apologize, I could feel it in him, but he knew an apology was worthless now. The demon inside himself always wanted other people to suffer what he’d suffered, and now it’d won out. “I ain't no good,” he told Mama. “I know. I ain't never been any good." She didn't say anything. All I sensed from Mama was die, die, die, die.
Just let him die and the devil have him. Let us all die.

Pap backed away from Mama and sat on the bed, watching her cautiously. He was waiting for her to scream and charge him in a blind rage. She was waiting, too, but couldn't find the spark in her to do it. What did it matter, she thought? All was rotten. If he hadn't gotten up, she would have finished her plan. She would have killed me in my bed, killed Pap, then set it all ablaze and stood in the fires of this hell on earth. But that was past, now. Sarah was free, and she thought to herself she'd have to be content with that. She was ready to kill herself, but that seemed too good for her at the moment. She should have to bear this pain for awhile, she thought. It would be a righteous punishment, the least she could do for Sarah was to grieve for her a while before escaping the pain of this world. "I'm gonna go, now, Abram," she said flatly.

Pap looked at her blankly. I could feel the loathing in him. He hated himself so much, hated his uncle who'd stolen happiness from him, hated his father who died and mother who’s sent him to live with his uncle, hated Mama for being better than him, hated Sarah for her innocence, and hated me for the same reason. But it was too late for Pap to try and find the goodness within himself. The irreparable damage had been done and all the repentance in the world couldn't change it now. He’d done too much wrong over the years, and now time was the fire in which he’d burn, because they’d all caught up to him.

"Sarah’s outside," Mama said. "Her soul is free and you can’t never touch her no more.” As if in a trance she started walking towards the door, and then she repeated, as though as much to herself as Pap, “I'm gonna go now." Pap thought he should stop her. She’d cracked and he knew it. Maybe he should drag her kicking and screaming to Emma's and tell them all the horrible things he'd done and what had happened. But even now he was a coward. He didn't want to face the judgment of anyone else for what he'd done. And he was scared of what Annie might do. She had lost her mind, there wasn't any doubt. His sins had destroyed her.

He followed her outside to see what she had been talking about with Sarah. When he saw her, he froze. She looked like a life-size porcelain doll of herself, pale white under the moonlight. He walked over to her and knelt down by her. No breath escaped from her, no beat of the heart, and suddenly Pap realized what Mama had done. I felt the grief spring up inside of him. He’d been a cruel man and done terrible things, but he truly grieved for Sarah at that moment. He cried for her, he cried for Mama, and he cried for himself.

Sarah’s spirit was next to me watching as I did, and she told me, “Daddy was broke, and couldn’t fix himself.”

I just watched everything, taking it all in and trying to make sense of it. All their emotions and the things that had happened to them all their lives seeped into me, and what I was getting from Pap felt like poison. I hated him and felt sorry for him at the same time. He had such evil in him, but now I understood that he probably hadn’t been born that way. I understood what Sarah meant; he’d been broken a long time ago. It couldn’t excuse what he’d done, but in some way I supposed it helped explain it.