FROM AWAY ~ BOOK ONE Page 6

  “Led be dgust adswer yo questiod wid ond of by owd: Aw alla yo Lesgueddes comblede fug-ubs?”

  Wanda shrugs. “I don’t claim to speak for the whole brood, but I’m pretty sure I qualify.”

  Roscoe leans over. Speaks quietly. “You talk to Sylvie?”

  “Hell no.” Wanda shudders. “I could maybe be talked into a drink this early in the day, but no-way, no-how am I going to be chatting with my dear elder sister. Why? Did she do this?”

  “We really shouldn’t--” The words die on his lips as Scooter arrives with a fresh pitcher and a glass for Wanda.

  “Geez. Don’t let me interrupt or anything.” He deposits his load. Sets an empty glass in front of Wanda. Pitcher in the middle of the table. Scrams.

  Wanda grabs the pitcher. Pours for Roscoe. “Well?”

  The man holds his glass. Shakes his head. “Naw, I shouldn’ta opened my gob in the first place. It’s Circle business, Wanda.”

  “Whatever you say, boys. I don’t give a shit. You called me over.” She looks to Burl. Ready to pour.

  Burl empties his glass. Slams it down. Frustrated. “Gah! Whas de poid? Can’d dasde a fugging ding like dis.”

  She shrugs. Pours for herself. Sets the pitcher down. After a moment, Burl grabs it. Refills his glass.

  Roscoe is still torn over sharing the story. “Let’s just say... Lightning and thunder makes your nephew a bit skittish.”

  Wanda frowns. Memory sparking: A late-night phone call blown off too quickly. Distracted by getting her fix. Rushing off to get laid.

  “Aaron?”

  “God-dab chickedshid, whad he is.”

  Without a thought, Wanda launches across the table. Jams two fingers up Burl’s nostrils. Lifts the huge man from his seat, squealing like a piglet.

  “I get you’re in pain, Burl. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit here and listen to you crapping on Aaron.”

  “Wanda! Go Easy!” Roscoe reaches for her, but backs off as blood begins to pour from Burl’s nose. Down over Wanda’s fingers. In agony, Burl slaps at the table. Tears streaming from his eyes. Wanda braces the back of his head with her other hand. Pulls the man nose-to-broken-nose.

  “He’s a good kid. Doing his best. So you just go on and say what you want about him. But you best make sure I’m outta earshot first, or we’re gonna have another tête-à-tête, you get me?”

  Desperate for the torture to end, Burl stammers out something like a “yuh.” Wanda holds on, making sure her point is made. Stopping only when her phone chimes in her pocket.

  She dumps Burl in his seat. Pulls out her phone with her clean hand.

  The Old Men. Again. Fuck.

  She grabs her pint glass. Downs it in one long, ragged go. Excuses herself from the booth. Leaving Roscoe to tend to Burl - now sobbing softly to himself.

  She grabs Scooter’s wet-rag on the way past the bar. Cleans the blood from her fingers as best she can. Drops it back onto the counter along with some cash before heading for the door.

  Before crossing the threshold, Wanda pauses. Digging in her pocket, she returns to the bar. Pulls out her car keys. Slams them down.

  She doesn’t wait to see if Scooter retrieves them. Just exits immediately.

  Scooter keeps his eyes low. Concentrates on slicing limes.

  It’s none of his business anyway.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The old man is waiting outside when Aaron drives up to the lighthouse. Wearing his honest-to-goodness Sunday-best, though he’s shrunk some since first trying it on and deciding it fit. He was big once. His frame still tall and broad. But time has bent him over. Carved his bulk away.

  No cane. Aaron’s supposed to remind him, but he won’t. The old man hasn’t forgotten, so what point could there be in mentioning it?

  He steps forward to meet the car, still in motion. Never takes the chance it might not stop for him. Ready to give chase should it suddenly veer away. He grabs for the handle. Has the door open before Aaron has fully depressed the brake.

  There are audible clicks and cracks as he drops into the passenger seat. A flash across the old man’s face shows he registers the aches and gripes of his age before pushing past.

  Even as he pulls the door closed, he’s adjusting the car’s settings. Heat hotter. Radio volume lower. Reaching across Aaron, he even runs the wipers. Blasts the windshield twice with washer fluid.

  Once satisfied all is in order, he bangs the dash twice with one fist. Points an index finger ahead. Onward!

  So onward Aaron drives.

  Only once in motion does the old man speak. With customary grace and delicacy, as befitting an elderly grandfather: “So. Ya really shit the fockin’ bed last night, didn’tcha, cocky?”

  It was going to be a long day.

  ~

  Bells tinkle.

  Aaron opens the glass door. Steps out of the way. Lets his grandfather shamble into the greenhouse ahead of him.

  “Job ain’t hard. It for damn-sure ain’t complicated. Not but two-steps to it: Call in if ya see something. Scratch yer ass if ya don’t. That there’s the job in full. Ya know who can do that job? Any useless bitch’s tit, that’s who. And from where I stand lookin’ atcha, I’d say ya more’n qualify.”

  Martin makes up for the shuffling baby-steps of his bad leg, by throwing himself forward with the good one. Covering an inch in one stride, two feet in the next. Outside, this spasmodic motion is bizarre enough. Inside - between the congested rows of greenery, baskets and vases - it’s a disaster in the making.

  “See nothing, do nothing. See something... Pick up the god-be-damned phone.”

  Aaron follows closely, ready to rescue any plant-life endangered by his grandfather’s herky-jerky passage. “I’ve done that, Grampy. Two times already. Two times and two false alarms. You think they’ll ever let me forget that?”

  “Holy lifters! Ya gonna waste yer life worryin’ about those jag-offs runnin’ their mouths? They’ll always be ridin’ ya for somethin’-or-other. It’s no call not to do what one thing yer there to do.”

  “Good God, Martin! Has it been a week already?” The middle-aged woman behind the counter looks up from her work. “Put down your old bones, I won’t be but a minute more.” She sets down her pruning shears. Strips off gloves which appear to have been fabricated from dirt.

  His momentum seemingly unstoppable, the old man catches himself on a thick pipe as he passes. Swings to a stop. “Take yer time, Ginny. Don’t mind the chance to use up some of yer oxygen.”

  He lowers himself onto an unusual bench. Untouched by carpenters. Formed from a single tree as it grew. Its trunk slowly guided into the shape of a seat. Its branches bent and woven into arms and a lattice-work back. Ginny’s patience and good planning rewarded over the course of many years.

  Aaron can appreciate the effort, but remains standing. Preferring not to come in direct contact with the warped wood. There’s something distinctly offputting about the strangely inorganic manipulation the tree has undergone.

  Other examples of her craft are scattered around the greenhouse. Grown furnishings, seemingly crafted by nature, but steered at every step by Ginny’s hand. A slow-motion mad scientist, tinkering with life itself. Twisting it across time to suit her own desires.

  “Lard above, just ya look at that.” The old man raises himself to standing as Ginny approaches, carrying an elaborate bouquet. He takes the flowers. Displays them to his grandson.

  Aaron smiles. Makes appreciative noises. Seeing no substantive difference between this and any other bouquet he’s been shown since inheriting the task of toting his grandfather around on the weekly errands leading up to visiting his wife.

  “Yer finest work yet, Ginny. Merry’s gonna love ‘em.”

  ~

  “Bad one last night, wasn’t it?”

  The man nods as he asks. Agreeing with himself. He was there when they arrived. Occupying the good chair by the window. Martin’s chair. Mitch was already working on him. Martin’s barber.


  “Wake you, did it?” Mitch asks without interest. The minimal politeness he can get away with.

  “Wake me? Shook the whole hotel! Like God himself was using it to play Yahtzee and we were the dice.” This marks the stranger’s third feeble attempt at small-talk with the locals. He’s not faring any better than the first two tries.

  True: Weather is generally reliable conversational kindling. But people from away are not engaged in lively barber shop discussions, regardless of topic. They are - at best - merely put-up-with for as brief a period as possible.

  Aaron sits in the waiting area beneath faded photographs of smiling sample-haircuts. Periodically turns the pages of a golfing magazine he has not-read on more than one previous occasion as cover for eavesdropping.

  The outsider can feel the flame sputtering out. He tries blowing on it.

  “Get many like that around here?”

  “No more’n our share, I’d say.” A classic Islander shut-down. Noncommittal. Fatalistic. Maybe where you come from folks can’t hack a little rain, but here we accept what we’re given and don’t bitch about it, even when invited.

  “Had worse last year.” Oliver snips away at Aaron’s grandfather. Doing an adequate job without much to work with. Until this visit, Aaron’s never seen him standing, let alone cutting hair. Customarily, the heavyset man remained seated. Dedicated to holding the second chair in place.

  Now that an Islander has made comment, Martin feels he can chime in. “Even that’n couldn’t lay a finger on the storm of aught-four.”

  The stranger laughs. “Aught-four?”

  The other men look at him. Not grasping what he might find funny. It’s more direct attention than has been focused on the man during his entire visit. He wilts in the sudden spotlight.

  “What, uh... What happened in aught-four?”

  Mitch steps on the chair release. It lowers with a pneumatic hiss. “A storm.” He yanks off the man’s bib-apron without whisking away any stray trimmings. Sentencing the man to days of itchiness for his offense. “Good enough.” Neither question nor statement, but certainly a dismissal.

  The man rises. Pays. Leaves. Without another word.

  The moment he’s gone, the mood changes. The men can speak freely. Martin does. His voice strangely hushed. Tinted with anxiety Aaron has never heard from his grandfather.

  “It’s in the air. You smell it, lads?”

  Oliver nods grimly. “Been so long, I’d nigh-to forgotten ’til I caught scent of it again.”

  “Wish I could say the same.” Mitch reverses the Open sign. Draws the paper blinds down from their spring-loaded rolls. “Most days I wake up sniffing for it. Almost surprised when it’s not there.”

  Oliver sets down his scissors. “Sure-as-shitting it’s there now. Something’s on its way.”

  “On it’s way, Hell.” Martin shakes his head “Yesterday it was comin’. Today, we’re as like to take delivery.”

  Aaron closes the magazine. Listens closely. He’s never heard anything like this from the men. Have they forgotten he’s there at all?

  “Maybe it’s a blessing in a way.”

  “A blessing?! Jaysus-Aitch, Oliver, but ya got a focking strange idea what counts as a blessing.”

  “Well, they don’t believe, do they?” He turns to Aaron. “You’d know better than us ancient artifacts. The Watch... Not a believer among ‘em, is there?”

  Aaron’s so surprised to be included, he doesn’t even think to pretend he’s been reading. “Some... Some aren’t sure. But mostly, no.”

  He catches sight of his grandfather’s eyes, watching him reflected in the wall of mirrors. Intense.

  “Can’t say as I blame a one of ‘em.” Mitch brushes the stranger’s hair from the first chair. Resets his station. “I’m not sure I’da believed it either. Not without it was happening around me.”

  Oliver nods. “Can’t tell me you don’t think it’s past-due. More than time everyone got a reminder what we’re up against. Show the young pups the truth of it again.”

  “Bless ya, but ya’re wrong, there, Oliver.” The men look to Martin. “Ya’re thinking a’ this like some kinda alarm clock? Enough to wake ‘em up, but one slap and she’s turned off?” He shakes his head. “There ain’t no clock-radio setting on our bedside table... That’s a focking time bomb tick-tocking there. And when she goes off? You mark me, lads: She’ll put a damn-sight more to sleep permanent than she ever wakes up.”

  Aaron watches the barbers. Oliver continues trimming. Mitch grabs the push-broom. Sweeps the leavings into a corner. Aaron knows if they felt Martin was wrong, the men would have no trouble arguing. Instead, they’re quiet.

  “And you, yourself, Aaron?” His grandfather’s reflection gives him a hard look. “Where’re yer feet planted on the subject?”

  Aaron tries to hold the old man’s gaze, but can’t. “I believed. At first. But now...” Max’s words have gotten to him. Picked away at what little faith he’d been able to maintain. “You have to admit, it’s a lot to ask. Out of nowhere, you reveal to us this whole history we’ve never heard of. That nobody else knows about. And we’re just supposed to accept it?

  “And maybe I buy in, because why would you lie? And you have this whole operation set up, and why would anyone go to all that trouble? But, then I start to hear the other guys, and none of them has ever seen anything, and none of them really believes. Not really. And then, when nothing ever happens, and you just sit there every night, looking at the same information on the same monitors and nothing ever changes? You can’t help but think...”

  Aaron looks up at his audience. Their brows are furrowed. Eyes full of disappointment.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to believe. I do. I just wish the Circle had some kind of evidence. Something I could see for myself. Something tangible.”

  Hair half-cut, his grandfather pushes Oliver’s scissors away. Stands. He tears the velcro around his neck. Removes the hair-covered poncho. Limping across the barber shop to Aaron, he unbuttons his white dress shirt. Opens it. Revealing his bare torso.

  The thin old man is surprisingly muscular. Knotted and wiry to a degree which puts his scrawny grandson to shame. More to the point are the scars covering his ribcage and abdomen. Dozens of jagged slices, healed hard. Shiny. Dotted semi-circles which must be, but cannot possibly be: Bite-marks. From a hideously oversized mouth. Filled with far too many teeth.

  Gently, he takes Aaron’s hand. Holds it in a space. On his side, where a piece is missing. One of several chunks of his grandfather’s torso that are just plain gone.

  “I prays ya never get more proof for yerself than this, b’y.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You’re there now, aren’t you? Isn’t that what counts?”

  A long, grey ribbon of tarmac hugs the terrain. Splits farmland into squares. The SUV speeds along it. Dips into valleys. Bobs over hills. The only vehicle visible in any direction that isn’t a farming implement.

  “But Mom... He didn’t even care.” Dawn leans into a corner. Letting off steam. Her mom has no idea how fast she’s driving. “I swear, he was ready to just turn around and go home.”

  “But he didn’t.” Her mother’s voice comes through the car speakers. Surrounds Dawn as she drives. “So whaddya say we cut your dad some slack, okay?”

  “He says he thinks maybe they were just screwing with us. Making us wait until the last minute because they know he’s here to get the bridge built.”

  “It’s possible. The one thing I can tell you for sure: That blood-test was there in the folder last night. You saw it.”

  “I know!” Dawn ponders. “You think maybe... You think Dad might’ve lost it on purpose?”

  The car speakers are silent a moment. “No, Dawn. I don’t think that”

  “He’s been talking nothing but crap about this place my whole life.” Dropping into a valley too quickly, Dawn’s butt leaves the seat. Catching air. “You should’ve seen his face when she said we could go
through. He was totally disappointed.”

  “Dawn. Stop. You have to stop. Seriously. I can’t listen to it anymore.”

  Dawn clams up. Surprised.

  “Your father does not play games. He never has. If he’d decided not to go, he would’ve said so and you wouldn’t be there. End of story. There was a hiccup in your trip. There always is. It’s done now. Be grateful. If you can’t get over it, you’re going to be miserable the whole time you’re there, and then what’s the point in going at all?”

  Rounding a curve, Dawn passes a sign: An orange diamond. She’s going too quickly to make it out. It’s behind her before she can grasp what it was intended to warn her about.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yes, okay, fine.” Sometimes it’s easier for Dawn to just go along with her mom. Just to get her to be quiet. Sometimes it works. Other times...

  “You’re there, now. And that’s great. You should at least try to enjoy it.”

  “I will.” Dawn has been venting her frustrations to a usually sympathetic ear. But before the call, she really was enjoying herself. Driving through the island countryside. Finally getting to experience the place for herself. “I am, already. As soon as we got off the boat, it felt like... I dunno. Like I belonged here, somehow. I think you’d like it.”

  Cresting a rise, Dawn spots another orange diamond sign. Inside the diamond is an image she can’t quite make out before sinking into another valley and losing sight of it.

  “You know I’d be there if I could. With work--”

  “No, I know.” She does. But that doesn’t mean she likes it. “It’s just that anytime I asked about coming to the island, Dad would be kinda crappy about it, but you always said you’d take me someday. So, it’s weird to finally be here without you.”

  “I hope you don’t blame me for that. The trip was a surprise for everyone.”

  Dawn squints as the sign comes into view once more. Turns in her seat as it passes. Uncertain what she’s seeing. Inside the orange diamond: Three graphic penguins cross a road.