He could sit here and drink coffee or he could tell Gordon Smith to go the fuck down the deepest hole in hell.
"We're still finishing our breakfast," Mark said. "Adolescents need their nutrition. Haven't you read the parenting manuals?"
"I know what's best for her," Gordon said, his gaze unwavering. And for Katy. You had your chance, after all."
Mark's grip tightened around his coffee mug. He didn't know whether to dash the liquid onto Gordon's three-hundred-dollar jacket or to shatter the ceramic and bring a shard up to slice his own jugular.
"It's okay, Dad," Jett said. "Call me when you get back to Charlotte." She reached across the table and put her small fingers on his forearm. Her nails were painted dark violet to match her eye shadow. His girl had style, at least. And a flair for the dramatic.
"I don't feel comfortable leaving things as they are," he said to her, hoping his expression revealed he was worried and didn't want Gordon to know.
"We'll get by, Daddy," she said. "You know what Mom always says."
The words were like rabbit punches to the kidney. That was a Katyism, said when bills were stacking up or some medical problem arose. When things seemed darkest, when love seemed ephemeral, when only fools believed "forever" was more than just a weapon in a poet's arsenal. "We'll get through this together" had been one of those lines that still rang even after the 'together" part was over.
Coming from Jett, the words were almost a mockery, an echo that whispered of failure. Because they weren't getting by. Jett had told him the weirdest damned stories, and after he'd gotten past his initial instinct to assume she'd graduated to hard drugs, just like her old man, he had almost started to believe her. Tongues could lie, but eyes had a difficult time. Especially the eyes of the young.
"When can I see you again?" Mark asked her.
"We'll talk about that," Gordon said. "The three of us. We'll let you know."
Gordon reached down and took Jett's wrist. She wore the expression of a prisoner being hauled away after court sentencing.
"It's okay, pumpkin," Mark said. "I'm glad I got to see you."
They stood and hugged, Jett giving him an extra squeeze. He stroked the top of her head and stooped to kiss her cheek. She was on the doorstep of womanhood, and he'd miss her crossing the threshold. Gordon would be ushering her through that passage, because Gordon was stable and wealthy and reliable. The kind of man every woman needed as a husband and every daughter needed as a father.
Except the corners of Gordon's mouth flirted with a smirk. Which Gordon was the real one?
"Call me," Mark said as the pair walked down the aisles of the store, between rows of bark birdhouses, snow shovels, bushels of apples, pumpkins, dried Indian corn, and gourds.
After they left, Mark sipped his coffee. It had gone cold and bitter, a fitting juice for his heart. His daughter had told him Katy was possessed, a man in a black hat was stalking her, a scarecrow had attacked her, and goats were trying to eat her. It sounded like a di-rect-to-video movie, and yet her face had paled and hands trembled as she told her tale. Despite her talent for drama, she had spoken with quiet conviction, as if fully expecting not to be believed. She'd finished speaking, crunched some bacon, a couple of dark red crumbs on her lower lip as she'd asked, "What now, Daddy?"
It was a question Mark pondered as he finished his coffee and the tables around him filled with lunch customers.
The key turned in the lock with a sharp groan of relief. The bureau gave forth a smell of lilacs so strong that Katy nearly sneezed. Beneath the floral sweetness lay the stink of something warm and wet, like damp and rotted hay. The bureau was empty except for a rumpled pile of clothes on the middle shelf. Katy looked behind her, half expecting Rebecca to finally seep out of the shadows. But Rebecca hadn't harmed her yet, so why should she be frightened? After all, Rebecca had been part of this house long before Katy's arrival.
Katy was tempted to ask Rebecca what was so important about the clothes that they needed to be locked away. Maybe Rebecca had her own motives. Jealousy might stain the soul even unto death, though Katy couldn't imagine the grave being much colder than Gordon's bed.
She pulled the tangle of clothes from the shelf. A plain flannel shirt, pocked with tears, loose threads, and moth holes. Except the sleeves and cuffs were moist, painted a color that was darker than the shadowy attic. A pair of faded jeans was beneath the shirt, and under the hump of clothing was a battered planter's hat. As she pulled the hat from the shelf, something heavy thumped to the floor, barely missing her toes. She bent and picked it up.
A sickle, the same as the one that hung on the wall of the barn. Except this one was clean and had a honed edge, while the one in the barn was rusty from lack of use. Katy held the curved piece of steel before her. Could this be the same one from the barn, only with the blade polished and sharpened? When was the last time she had been in the barn?
Short pieces of straw were scattered among the clothing. At first Katy thought the hat was unraveling, but the straw was tucked into the folds of the shirt, adding another scent to the strange mix. She laid the sickle on the shelf and lifted the shirt toward the shafts of light leaking from the nearest vent. The wet sleeves slapped at her arms as she carried the shirt to the mirror. The mirror reflected the faint light and allowed her to recognize the pattern. It was the same shirt worn by the scarecrow in the barn.
And the sleeves were dark red with drying blood.
Katy tossed the shirt to the floorboards in disgust. Maybe someone had killed an animal in the shirt, then stowed it away in the attic. Then why was the blood not completely dried? Neither Gordon nor Odus had killed any farm animals since Katy and Jett had moved in. Certainly not in the last day or two.
"Blood in the attic?" Katy asked half to herself and half to Rebecca, though she still didn't quite trust the opinion of a ghost.
Behind the dresser, the lid on the long wooden box creaked open, then fell closed with a soft thwump.
Every country attic had rats or squirrels or possums. She had disturbed some nesting animal, that was all.
Katy remembered the clothes in the box, coarse fabric like those that had adorned the scarecrow. Except they had been dry, and not under lock and key.
Tiny scurrying under the dresser. The quick claws of some rodent. Clicking on wood.
Katy dropped the shirt and gripped the wooden handle of the sickle. It fit her palm as if personally carved for her.
She backed toward the attic door. The clicking multiplied as more small, sharp toes scrabbled among the boxes, furniture, lamp shades, and the huddled hulk of an old wheelchair. Katy reached the door with its folded ladder and pushed downward. The door had no latch, and should have swung free. But it stuck tight as if someone were on the other side, bracing it closed.
She placed her foot on the door, slowly sweeping the sickle in front of her, reaping air as if to ward off the unseen creatures that flirted with the shadows. That's when she looked back at the dresser. On the stool, perched before the mirror, was a woman in the same dress that Katy was wearing. A pale, delicate, freckled hand swept the silver-handled hairbrush in curling motions as if smoothing tangles. Except there was no hair.
The woman had no head.
The body turned on the stool, the hairbrush descending to rest in her lap, a ragged, transparent stump of flesh protruding above the lace collar. "Am I not pretty enough for him?" Rebecca asked.
How can you speak when you have no head? How can you speak anyway when you're dead?
Katy climbed onto the narrow access door, then began jumping, staying hunched so she wouldn't bump her head on the joists. She couldn't look away from that headless figure, the woman whose place Katy had taken in the Smith house, even though the scurrying was on all sides and shapes wriggled in the eaves.