Where Darkness Dwells (18 page)

She let out a shallow, hitching breath, as if she were about to cry. Without seeing her, he knew she gripped her rag doll desperately.

"I'll talk to my mom. I'm sure it'll be okay."

They were quiet for a while, and he could sense her relaxing. Her breathing became deeper, heading toward sleep.

Staring into the murky blackness of the ceiling, he listened to his own words still ringing through his head. If Jimmy was dead, then he was looking down on him from heaven right now, looking into Jacob's heart and seeing how much he missed him, and knowing that he loved him.

That's only If. If means jumping to conclusions. If doesn't mean a damn thing
.

He shook his head, angry at himself for thinking the worst, for growing comfortable with it.

Ellie's small hand reached out from her lower mattress and squeezed his forearm, nearly startling a scream from him.

"Thanks, Jacob."

"It's okay, Ellie."

"Jacob?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you… can you be my brother?"

Emotion choked the words in his throat. "I'd be happy to."

Ellie didn't say any more, just squeezed his forearm again before pulling away. He could feel the trace heat left by her touch. Such a small hand, small as a doll's. He closed his eyes, shutting out the darkness of his bedroom, returning to the darkness of his thoughts. He flashed to the memory of George's body floating in the swamp muck and his mom clearing the debris from his face. He'd felt unexpected joy when it turned out the body hadn't been Jimmy. That momentary elation was now a pit of guilt eating away at him. Having Ellie sleep nearby sharpened his guilt. She was so young and alone. Someone had struck down the only responsible person in her life. No one deserved that. No one. He wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy. Not even a colored deserved that.

George Banyon was dead. Jimmy was missing.
Missing
, he reminded himself.
Only missing. Missing just means he's not here. He's somewhere else. Somewhere safe.
He had to believe it. Had to.

As Jacob's thoughts began to twist with sleep, he resolved to do whatever he could to find his brother. And though he wasn't crazy about Ellie sharing his room, he felt better knowing she was safe. And that he wasn't alone.

7.

Like every other night since entering town, Cooper retired to his bed above Calder's Mart, with a full stomach and a reassuring ceiling overhead. As he began to dream, it was as like every other night.

Running through the furrowed cornfield, his heart pounding, fearing capture, adrenaline stripping his nerves raw. Finding the house, THE house. Remembering to give the knock he didn't know he knew until his knuckles hit the door, and then waiting as whoever was playing the pipe organ stops, comes over to answer the door. The screech as it opens, and the old lady with the rheumy eyes allowing entry into her house. THE house.

She doesn't say a word, this stranger, his savior. She doesn't even look over her shoulder at him as she leads him down a narrow hall, down a flight of rickety stairs. On the landing, seeing his own reflection in a mirror, his skin uncommonly lost in shadow, slick with sweat. The old woman disappearing around a corner. His fingers touching his face, unbelieving, still staring at the reflection.

And remembering the old woman, hurrying to catch up to her farther down the hall. When he finds her, she smiles, her two remaining teeth telling of hard life and advancing age. Someone so put upon, living an inelegant life of burden, and still she offers her home to strangers.

She opens a door to a small, unlit room. Walks to the far corner. Feels along the wall, finds the hidden door, presses a fake panel, opens it. She smiles her two-toothed smile, and she gestures for him to enter the hidden room.

When he enters, only rejoice, his fear subdued, not gone, not forgotten. Simply pushed aside.

For inside this hidden room, his wife, his father-in-law, all he could ever hope for. Salvation.

Cooper woke, the sun at an odd angle, too high in the sky. He blinked, rubbed the crust from his eyes. He checked the time. Late morning. He had slept the night through. He jumped from bed, a plan corkscrewing through his brain, ending in an unwavering conclusion. That house. Horace Blankenship's old house. He couldn't remember much of his dream. Just that he had the urge to step inside the house, to take possession of it. The feeling was overwhelming, blocking all other thoughts.

Cooper cleaned up, and then left his rented room above Calder's Mart, heading straight for Harvard Square Bank.

8.

Jimmy tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and bound his bloody hands. He'd known hard work. His whole life had been hard work, his dad having died when he was three. Straight away, he'd started helping his mom around the farm. Jacob couldn't even waddle yet, but somehow, Jimmy knew from the moment their mom dried her tears that he would need to look after Jacob, and that his mom needed him, too. And he worked. Small chores at first. Cleaning up after himself. Taking his dishes to the sink. Making sure he didn't leave a mess. Soon enough, he starting sweeping the floors and feeding the animals. When he was old enough for school, he worked before and after class. He'd taken over much of the farm's responsibilities by the time he was eleven. Still, since taking up a shovel and pickaxe and working next to Benjamin and Harold, Jimmy had never worked so hard in his life. Had never come close.

His palms had no skin. Swinging a pickaxe and wielding a shovel for hours on end rubbed away his skin to nothing. They felt coated in liquid fire, as if lit kerosene had been poured into his open palms, left to sear and bubble.

The thought of returning to work chipping away at the "Paradise" was maddening. Knowing his captors had imprisoned Harold and his family for so long only made it worse. For the first time since entering the Underground he was both coherent and desperate enough to flirt with the idea of escape.

"Don't bind them so tight," Benjamin said from where he slumped along the floor nearby. It was the first time the younger of the two Negro men had initiated a conversation with him. Benjamin kept to himself, occasionally speaking with his father-in-law in muted tones, always after their work was through, always with a leery eye cast in Jimmy's direction.

"I have to stop the bleeding," he said, gritting his teeth.

"But you wake tomorrow, you gonna rip off whatever skin you got left." Benjamin's shoulders were thick with muscle and his rough cotton shirt was a tatters strewn across them like seaweed. Jimmy wasn't sure if the uncertain light was playing tricks, but looking at Benjamin's hands, he saw no sign of bleeding, only a hint of callusing. "You intend on stopping the bleeding, but in the end, you just bring yourself more grief. Trust me, the air down here has a peculiar way with injuries."

Jimmy loosened his makeshift bandage, just enough to get the tingling back to his numb fingers.

"What a white boy like you doing down here, Jimmy?" Benjamin shifted his weight closer, until he could speak without fear of anyone else overhearing. Jimmy wasn't used to a colored man speaking to him so openly, especially one he had never spoken to. Just being around colored people wasn't an everyday occurrence. Their kind tended to keep to the unincorporated village of Lewiston. It was an afterthought on the map five miles away, yet their populations rarely mingled. In the aboveground world that felt so far away, if he came across a colored person, he'd feel an adrenaline surge, not from fear of danger, but more from fear of the unknown.

He tested his bandages and found the pain lessening. "It's stupid." Jimmy was ashamed, not wanting to admit risking his life to chase after an old woman's folktale.

"What am I gonna do, laugh at your plight?" He shook his ankle enough to rattle his shackle.

"White Bane," Jimmy said quietly. "Ever hear of it?"

"That big old devil fish? Sure I have. Even down here you hear tales. Most times whites ignore you like you're not there, so you hear plenty. You were trying to make something of yourself going after that legend, weren't you?"

"I guess. We saw a light, me and my friend George. We went through a small tunnel. You know the rest."

"Big mistake, boy. White Bane could've gotten you before you even made the other side that tunnel. Tell you the truth, you might've been better off." Benjamin sighed and stretched his arms over his head.

"That was you, in the tunnel when they grabbed me, wasn't it?"

"I don't recall much what happened that day."

"What were you doing so far from the stables?"

"What do you think?" Benjamin said.

Was Benjamin trying to escape when they came through from the underground lake? Jimmy tucked the little nugget of information away for later consideration. Benjamin wasn't a happy man. No one would be under the circumstances. The only men who seemed happy were the former miners brought Underground and put to work in exchange for their immortality. It seemed like Benjamin's personality had a hard enough edge that he might be a valuable asset if Jimmy ever figured out a way out of here.

After a while, Jimmy spoke up. "You seen White Bane?"

"What do you think?" he repeated.

Their conversation lagged again. Benjamin reclined and a moment later closed his eyes. Jimmy thought he had gone to sleep. Only after his ears attuned to the cavern's quiet did Jimmy realize a couple of men had stumbled close to where they rested.

"Where that nigger girl at?" one man said, slurring thickly.

"Let's just get another bottle instead."

Jimmy feigned sleep, closing his eyes to slits. He could see Benjamin wince at the mentioning of his wife, a woman Jimmy had never seen within sight of her husband. While Scully allowed for the male slaves to rest after long hours of labor, Edwina never returned.

Thinking of Louise, and just how much he had let down both her and the baby, his stomach clenched like a fist. He couldn't have just acted responsibly. He had to go on one last adventure. Now he felt certain he'd never see the sun rise or set again.

"Oh lord, it's been too long," one drunk said, laughing. "Gonna get me that girl." The voices were louder, closer. Jimmy recognized one of them, but couldn't quite place it.

"That's what you get for drinking yourself 'til your willy ain't nothing more'n a keg-tap on your bladder."

"Yeah, well she gotta be somewhere 'round here."

"Gimme that bottle."

"Fine, here 'tis."

The two men entered the stables and stood staring straight at Jimmy.

The shock of seeing the two men, and recognizing one of them clear as day, forced his eyes wide. His hand went to his ankle shackle, tracing the chain tethered to the wall. The heady odor of mule shit and hay chaff intensified. Jimmy tried backing away, but the stables were a dead end. No place to hide.

"Why you little shit," Charles Banyon said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, coming to a drunken stasis somewhere in the middle. He gripped a bottle in his hand.

Jimmy gasped. He scrabbled back, not sure what to do, even less sure what George's father might do. Benjamin still hadn't moved. He could have been a dead man.

He found his voice. "Mr. Banyon, it's Jimmy, George's friend."

"You fucker… comin' down here…" Charles Banyon slurred, staggering forward, waving his index finger in the air. He grasped the stone wall and held on to it as he walked. His eyes glistened with anger. The bitter stench of his urine-drenched clothes filled the stable stall.

"Mr.--"

"Don't say nothin' boy." Banyon dropped the bottle and it shattered on the floor.

"But… George--"

"Goddamn bottle--"

"Mr.--"

"I ain't no mister. Shut your trap," Banyon snapped, looming over Jimmy.

Jimmy didn't say a word. He tried to plead with his eyes, tried to show Charles Banyon how much he wanted to leave this place. How much he wanted to live

He had to do something. Quickly.

"This is all your fault, boy. Now we can't let you go running 'round down here, then go back up top. Back to school. Talking. Spilling all to every open ear. This place ain't for kids, this place ain't." Charles Banyon teetered over, and for a moment, Jimmy thought the man was going to pass out. But as he leaned over, his hand came to rest on a rock the size of a summer-ripe cantaloupe. He shot a noxious breath from his nose, grimaced, and then hefted the rock. His face contorted to a sneer, slightly softened at the edges by his stupor.