The Qualities of Wood (29 page)

The trees seemed taller now, the sky a dark, uncaring abyss. Vivian heard the crackling of leaves and twigs, and dirt crunching like asphalt under a roller. Branches reached out to scratch her arms and tiny rocks infiltrated her shoes, digging into the soft soles of her feet. She looked back once in the direction of Mr Stokes's house and saw only blackness. Kicking through small bushes and stumbling over dips and short rises, she moved faster. It was Lonnie, she thought. His temper. When he left town after helping Nowell, the same day they found Chanelle, it looked suspicious, so he came back. He's afraid. What's he doing out here tonight?

A branch snapped somewhere behind her, and she hurried to distance herself. What if Lonnie hears me and thinks I'm Mrs Brodie?

She ran as she had on the afternoon she hid from her father. That day, she was calm at first, plunging into the trees, an excited giggle stifled in her throat. When her father turned away for a moment to spread the blanket for their picnic, she slipped away noiselessly. Pressing her body against the cold bark of trees, she wrapped her arms around the wide trunks, letting herself blend in. At first he called out in the same calm tone he always used, but his voice gradually became louder, more frantic. She found more trees to hide behind, farther away from him, deeper into the woods and just when
she thought she'd had enough of the game, her body did something she hadn't expected. She ran.

‘Vivie, Vivie.' Her father's voice echoed through the woods.

Fearless, she ran until fast breaths puffed from her chest. She was testing him. From her mother she had learned how to treat him, and more than anything else, even though she was only nine years old, Vivian wanted to respect him. She wanted him to come after her, to bring her back.

The minute something happens, that moment is lost forever.

‘Vivie!'

She heard her father's voice again as she raced through these woods, nearly twenty years later and hundreds of miles from that first forest. He must have been frantic, she thought. How could I have done that?

Reaching a small clearing, Vivian scraped her shoulder on the rough bark of a tree. As she looked up from the scratch mark, a tall figure appeared in front of her. A large hand extended from the waist and closed around something shiny. She turned around and began to run back in the direction of Mr Stokes's house. The leaves were slippery underfoot, and her blood throbbed painfully in her ears. A low voice said: ‘Wait.' Her left foot collided with a hard object. She tripped and was catapulted through the air for a dizzying, protracted moment before she crashed into a large, flat rock. Her wrists bent back from the force of the fall, her arms crumbling against her chest. Sharp pain shot up her arm to the elbow. Once she was stable, she rested her face against the back of her hand.

‘Vivian,' someone said in the darkness. ‘Viv.'

Gingerly, she pushed herself up. Her body was heavy. She turned as someone touched her arm and began to pull. A frightened cry escaped from her throat.

‘Viv,' the voice said again.

She raised her head to its familiarity. Nowell. His eyes were wild and his features looked strange, unfamiliar as they had the day he picked her up at the airport. She didn't remember the small dent in the soft tissue under his eyebrow, or the way his nose flared out at the sides. She had thought that his hair was lighter.

‘Oh, God, Viv.' He kneeled on the dirt, laying his large head against her hip. ‘Are you alright?'

She slid down the large boulder and he buried his face in her abdomen. Above her head, the turgid blackness pressed through the leaves, like the dark menacing cloud on the cover of his book. ‘Nowell,' she said. ‘What are you doing out here?' She awkwardly pulled herself to a sitting position.

Dirt fell from his knees as he stood up. ‘Let's go back to the house,' he said.

‘What are you doing?' she repeated. She saw the shiny object still gripped in his hand. Had he found the gun from the attic? Had he taken it out of the box? Was it loaded? She backed away from him on the rock. ‘Is that a gun?' she asked.

‘What?' He looked down. ‘For chrissake, Viv. A gun?' He offered the item on his upturned palm. A flashlight. ‘It burned out on me as soon as I hit the woods. Come on, let's go.'

‘Nowell. What's going on?'

He turned his back to her. In the moonlight she could see the boomerang-shaped scar behind his left knee, where a nail in the bleachers at his high school had caught on his leg. It was delicate and luminous against the rest of his skin.

He walked back to the large rock and sat down. His body slumped next to her. ‘Somebody broke into the house.'

‘It was Lonnie,' she said.

Nowell shook his head. ‘No. Mrs Brodie was looking for that necklace.' The dead look in his eyes scared her, and his lips were deep red as though he had bitten them.

‘Why would she look in the house?'

‘Because that's where it is.'

‘What?'

‘The necklace.'

Confused, she touched his arm. ‘Why is the necklace at the house?'

‘I put it there.'

‘Nowell, please. What are you talking about?'

He looked at her then stared at some point on the horizon, past the trees. The clearing seemed smaller now, cramped. On each side, long, drooping branches leaned over, as though the trees were listening. ‘I took the necklace. I found it out here and I hid it in a secret compartment in the antique secretary. It's been there ever since.'

‘You found it?'

‘Yes.'

Vivian propped her aching wrist with her other hand. She could barely feel the pain in her elbow over the throb of the injury. But it was there, muted. ‘I don't understand,' she said. ‘Did you know it was Chanelle Brodie's?'

Nowell shifted the flashlight from one hand to the other. ‘She was hanging around the house. I saw her several times in the woods. The window at my desk looks right out at the trees.'

Vivian couldn't process what he was saying. ‘Chanelle Brodie?' she asked. ‘You saw her?'

Nowell took a deep breath. ‘Well I didn't know who she was yet, but yes. At the time, I just knew someone was out there and nobody should have been. I went after her once. I didn't find her, but I found the necklace. I walked around for a while,' he continued. ‘I went all the way to Mr Stokes's house. I didn't know him yet either, but I thought I saw him looking through the window with binoculars, which freaked me out.'

Vivian said, ‘Why didn't you ask around, find out who she was and return the necklace?'

He shrugged. ‘Shortly after that, she came to the house.' He looked askance at her. ‘We talked a few times.'

Vivian stood up. ‘You talked?'

‘She was having trouble at school, she said. Her mother was mean and wouldn't let her take a trip with her friends.' His nostrils flared. ‘Kids at school said awful things to her, called her names.'

Vivian involuntarily chortled. ‘Why didn't you tell me about this?' She couldn't believe what he was saying. What exactly was he saying?

Nowell scratched his temple with the end of the flashlight. ‘Vivian, I had feelings…'

Nearby trees rustled and they both jumped. A large figure pushed through the branches.

‘Who's there?' she asked loudly.

‘Lonnie,' Nowell said.

‘What the hell is going on?' Lonnie stepped towards them. ‘How could you leave me there, Nowell? If I knew you were going to pull something like this, I wouldn't have given you Dot's keys. Why did you take the jeep?'

‘Sorry,' Nowell said. ‘I was worried about Vivian.' He turned to her. ‘I saw you leave with those kids.'

Someone stepped out from behind him.

‘Mrs Brodie?' Vivian asked.

There were no traces of her usual heavy makeup. Pale, small eyes flashed in the moonlight and her skin was ashen. She looked up when Vivian spoke to her, then looked at the ground, her blonde hair falling in messy clumps, shielding her face.

Nowell stood up and Vivian stepped over to make room for Lonnie in the clearing.

Lonnie glanced at Mrs Brodie. ‘We ran into each other,' he explained, his voice sharp.

‘How did you get home?' Nowell asked Lonnie.

‘Katherine and Max gave me a ride. They're up at the house.'

‘I'm sorry,' Mrs Brodie said suddenly, putting her hands to her cheeks. ‘About your house.'

‘You did that?' Vivian asked.

She looked away, biting her lip.

‘I found her sitting on a log,' Lonnie said. ‘Then we heard your voices.' His voice rose. ‘What the hell is going on?'

‘I thought you all knew something,' Mrs Brodie said. ‘You move into Betty Gardiner's house and the next thing I know, my daughter is found…' Her voice faltered.

Nowell shifted on his feet.

She went on in a musing tone, as though talking to herself. ‘I've never trusted young men, not since I was young like Chanelle. They'll rip your heart out every time. They start telling you how to act, what you should look like, what to wear. Especially when they look like you.' She pointed her pale finger first at Nowell, then Lonnie. ‘Dangerous. You've got that look about you, just like Chanelle's father.'

Lonnie was watching Mrs Brodie intently. His arms hung at his sides; he clenched and unclenched his fists. Vivian saw the knuckles pop up then recede, his fingers turning white then red at the tips. ‘Who was her father?' he asked, his voice booming into the night.

The question startled everyone. It had never occurred to Vivian that Sherman might have been seeing Mrs Brodie for that long. But why not? Sherman had been dead for five years; Chanelle would have been about twelve at the time. Lonnie said that his father had made trips to the country for years.

Nowell's voice was faint. ‘Dad was her father,' he said. ‘She was our sister.'

‘Seventeen years?' Lonnie said, shaking his head. ‘It was going on that long?'

Nowell looked at his brother. ‘You knew?'

Lonnie's eyes blazed. ‘Yeah, I knew. Dad came out here all the time. What's really strange, Nowell, is that you
didn't
know. I knew something was going on, and it didn't take much detective work when I got here to find out who he was seeing.'

Mrs Brodie looked back and forth between them, her eyes squinted as though she could barely see through the darkness.

Nowell covered his eyes, squeezed the bridge of his nose, then looked at Lonnie. ‘We had a sister, and you didn't tell me?'

‘I knew about the relationship,' Lonnie said, ‘not the kid.'

A bouncing light cast a beam into the clearing. Wordlessly, they waited.

Suddenly, Mrs Brodie stepped forward. ‘Your father was a good man! I won't have any of you saying he wasn't.' Her bottom lip quivered.

A floating whiteness became the sheer nightgown of Delta Clement Burnside, scalloped by a dark blanket she had thrown over her shoulders. Next to her was Mr Stokes, one hand on her elbow and the other holding another flashlight.

‘Evening, Gardiners,' Mr Stokes said. His presence was like a lightning rod, a ground. Everyone seemed to take a collective breath. ‘What's going on?' He noticed Mrs Brodie. ‘Well, the whole neighborhood's here.'

Mrs Brodie stepped into the pool of light. ‘You've never liked me, Abe,' she said. ‘I know that, heck, everyone knows that. You hold yourself to a higher standard, don't ya? You're just like anyone else, you know that?' She leaned towards him, her eyes gleaming. ‘Surely you know that now?'

Delta Clement Burnside's eyes darted to Mr Stokes then back to Mrs Brodie.

‘It's never been a matter of liking,' Mr Stokes said. ‘I object to families being busted up and you're right, in that way, I'm mostly like everybody else.'

Mrs Brodie's pointed her finger at them. ‘I won't have any of you talking bad about him! He doesn't deserve it.' She looked down at her crumpled and dirty shirt. ‘I don't know what anybody deserves. Did I deserve this, did I? First that worthless man who left me, then losing Sherman, and my Chanelle?'

‘Lonnie?' A voice traveled through the woods. ‘Vivian?'

‘It's Katherine,' Vivian said. She reached over and took the flashlight from Lonnie. She waved the light through the tree trunks. ‘Over here!' she called.

Wide-eyed, Katherine and Max emerged from the woods. For once, Katherine was speechless. She clung to Max's arm and looked around at the circle of faces.

‘I need to sit down,' Mrs Brodie said, and they all watched as she perched on the edge of the rock where her daughter had died. She didn't seem to remember the place. There was something unsteady about her, almost other-worldy. ‘That's better,' she said. ‘I'm so tired. Haven't been myself these days. I couldn't stop thinking about that necklace, that little giraffe.' She smiled. ‘Chanelle wore it all the time.'

Katherine came to herself. ‘Kitty, I think we should go back up to the house.'

Lonnie looked over. ‘You're right. We should head back.'

‘Wait,' Nowell said. They all watched as Mr Stokes took a step towards him. Vivian realized that Nowell was holding the flashlight like a weapon, gripped in his fist and raised up by his shoulder.

‘Nowell!' Vivian said. ‘Put that down.'

‘What?' He saw what he was doing. ‘Viv, it's a flashlight.'

And like the first day she met Mr Stokes, she felt like the men were exchanging glances about her foolishness.

Nowell turned toward Mrs Brodie. ‘I have something to tell you.' He scanned the group of faces. ‘Something to tell you all. I met Chanelle before she died.'

Mrs Brodie looked up at him; her shoulders slumped.

‘She came to the house and we talked, that's all. Talked about school and the town. Talked about nothing.' Nowell cleared his throat. ‘She was a nice girl, I want you to know.'