Martha’s finger came to rest on the man with his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “My father,” she said quietly. “He was the coach. And my brother,” she added, gently brushing the face of the boy. “He was the seventh.”
“I don’t remember seeing the name Abraham in the book,” said Ben, confused.
“Abraham was my husband’s name,” explained Martha. “My family name was Garvey.”
“Garvey,” Ben repeated, thinking about what he’d read in Wallace Blackwood’s book. “Milton Garvey. He was the one found—”
“Hanging in a tree in our backyard,” Martha said, completing his sentence. “Yes. I was the one who discovered him. I was seven years old. I woke up in the middle of the night. I still don’t know why. I heard something, or had a nightmare. I called for my mother. When she didn’t answer, I got up to go to her room. That’s when I looked out the window and saw Milt.”
Martha stopped speaking and sat, holding her wineglass in her hands and staring down into it. Ben could only imagine what she was thinking, what memories were running through her head. He had similar memories of his own, memories he was trying very hard to keep at bay. He felt guilty about making Martha relive her past.
“He looked like he’d been crucified,” Martha said, her voice soft and distant. “His arms had been lashed to the branches. He reminded me of the statue of Christ that hung in our church. Only his eyes were gone and his belly had been ripped open. He was eight years old.”
When she looked up at Ben, her eyes were misty. “My father was a good man,” she said. “He never lifted a hand against any living creature. But he was the first one to pick up a stone and bring it down on John Rullins’s head.”
Ben looked away. “I should never have asked,” he said apologetically.
“You asked me if I think John Rullins committed those murders,” Martha said, her voice growing stronger. She paused a moment before continuing. “I don’t know. But I do know that after he was killed they stopped, and that’s good enough.”
The ritual sacrifice, Ben thought to himself.
Martha drained her glass. “I didn’t mean to get so serious,” she said. “You must think you’ve settled yourself in the midst of a horde of mad people.”
“Not at all,” Ben answered. “But I can see now why you thought it best to remove that book from the shelves.”
“Wallace would have killed me if he’d been alive,” Martha said. “He was so proud of that book. Spent most of his life writing it.”
“Why was he so interested in it?” Ben asked her.
Martha shook her head. “I don’t know, really,” she said. “I think perhaps because he knew all the boys from the library.”
“Were any of them his family?”
“No,” said Martha. “Wally had no family. Didn’t grow up in Downing, either.”
“What brought him here?” Ben asked.
“The library,” Martha explained. “There wasn’t exactly a lot of call for librarians back then. When Wally heard about the job here, he took it.”
“And he never married?” said Ben.
“The library was his whole life,” Martha said. “The library and the people who came to it. It was everything to him. The murders devastated him. I think that book was his attempt at understanding them.”
“What about those other books?” Ben inquired. “The ones in the box.”
“Wally was always a little obsessed with the occult,” Martha told him. “He was particularly fascinated with local superstitions and folklore. The Ozarks have a long history of supernatural occurrences. Witchcraft. Hauntings. That sort of thing. Wally read everything he could find about it.”
“He sounds like an interesting man,” Ben remarked.
“He was,” Martha said. “A bit strange, but very interesting. It was impossible not to like him.”
“You mentioned one of the murdered boys was named Settles,” said Ben. “A boy named Settles came into the library a few days ago. Red-haired kid. Lots of freckles. Is that the same family?”
Martha nodded. “Steven Settles,” she said. “Leyton Settles was the brother of his great-grandfather. He was my brother’s best friend.”
“Steven seems like a nice kid,” said Ben. “I just wish I could get more of the kids to come in. Apart from Steven and Titus Durham, I haven’t seen anyone all week.”
“Titus,” Martha said, smiling. “Come in for his bee books, did he?” Ben nodded. “Is that all he ever checks out?”
“I tried to get him to branch out,” answered Martha. “Lord knows I tried. He always took the books I suggested and brought them back a few days later, unopened. Finally I gave up.”
“Why bees?” asked Ben. “Is he . . .” He hesitated, searching for the right word.
“Special?” Martha suggested. “No, I don’t think so. He’s just quiet. Always has been, ever since he was a boy. Keeps to himself. He and Wally were always close. I know he grieved terribly when Wally died. Didn’t come into the library for months.”
Ben leaned back in his chair. “Well, I certainly appreciate the information,” he said. “And the dinner. It was amazing.”
“It was my pleasure,” said Martha. “What with Jerry gone almost seven years now, I don’t get many chances to cook for anyone. You’ll have to come again next week. I’ll make my pot roast.”
“I’d like that,” Ben said.
“What about you?” Martha asked as she shut the photo album and started to clear away the dishes. “Any family?”
“My mother died several years ago,” Ben said. “And my father lives in a retirement home in Florida. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“Never married?” said Martha.
Ben thought about the question. Was what he and Trey had had together a marriage? It had certainly felt like one. They’d shared a home, a life, a love. But would Martha understand it if he told her? He thought somehow that she would. Yet telling her the truth would mean telling her all of the truth, and that was something he wasn’t ready for. Not yet.
“No,” Ben answered as he helped her clear away the empty wine glasses. “I’ve never been married.”
Chapter Five
“How’d you like it?”
Ben took the book that Steven Settles had placed on the counter and returned the checkout slip to the pocket in the back.
“It was okay,” the boy replied. “Better than the movie.”
“They always are, Steven,” Ben told him. “You ready for another one?”
Steven grinned, the picket fence of his teeth broken by a single black hole where he’d recently lost an incisor in a run-in with a baseball. Ben had been wrong about the boy’s age, miscalculating by nearly two years. Anticipating his eleventh birthday in less than a week (when he hoped to receive either a Sony Playstation or a mountain bike), Steven was simply slight of stature.
“Let’s see if we can’t find volume two of Mr. Potter’s adventures,” said Ben. He found it difficult to believe that there was still a child on the planet—even in tiny Downing, Arkansas—who had yet to discover the Harry Potter books. Yet Steven had been completely surprised to learn that the movie, which he’d seen five times, had its origins in the printed word.
Now, four days after leaving the library with the first Potter adventure in his hands, he was back for more. My first repeat customer, Ben thought as he located the book and handed it to Steven.
“It’s longer than the first one,” Steven said doubtfully as Ben walked him back to the checkout desk.
“You’ll be fine,” Ben reassured him. “And this time you’ll know the story before the movie comes out.”
He was stamping the book’s slip when a shadow fell across the desk. Looking up, he was surprised to see Titus Durham standing in the doorway. Titus looked at Steven, who smiled at him, and then at Ben. He nodded a greeting and slid the book in his hands across the desk.
“Right on time,” Ben said cheerfully. “Another day and I would have had to
charge you a quarter.”
Titus nodded again, still not saying anything, and retreated into the stacks. Ben looked at Steven, who shrugged.
“Do you know him?” Ben asked the boy.
Steven nodded. “I know everybody around here,” he said. “It’s hard not to.”
Ben laughed. “I guess it would be,” he said.
“He doesn’t talk much,” Steven continued. “Lives over by Drowned Girl Pond.”
“Drowned Girl Pond?” Ben repeated. “It’s really called that?”
“That’s what we call it,” Steven answered. “The kids, I mean. This girl drowned in it a long time ago—before I was born.”
“Got you,” Ben said. “I guess you guys don’t swim there much.”
“Sure we do,” Steven replied, looking at him. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Well, you know,” said Ben. “Because of the girl and . . . never mind.”
Steven shook his head in a gesture suggesting that all adults were completely out of their minds.
“Hey, shrimpy, you done feeding your head?”
A teenage boy had walked into the library. Dressed in well-worn jeans and a Motorhead T-shirt, he carried himself with the air of someone who wanted to make it perfectly clear that he was there only because necessity demanded it. Books, his attitude declared, were not his thing.
“My brother, Darren,” Steven said to Ben. “I’ve got to go.”
Ben waved at the older boy, who replied with a curt nod. Steven waved his goodbye, and the two of them walked out, Darren’s arm around Steven’s shoulder in a protective gesture, as if the books might at any moment leap from the shelves in attack. Ben watched them go, wondering if Darren had ever read more than a comic book or a Playboy.
“Nice kid.”
Ben gave a start, the voice surprising him. Titus Durham was standing in front of the desk. He’d brought two books with him.
“Steven?” said Ben as he pulled the books toward him. “Yes, he is.”
He looked at the books Titus had chosen: The Silent Song: Communication in the Hive and The Bee’s Year. “More bees,” he remarked.
“Martha ordered them for me,” Titus said, as if that explained everything.
“Looks like you’re the only one who’s ever checked them out,” Ben said, looking at the checkout slip and, as with the man’s previous selections, seeing Titus’s name on nearly every line. “I guess there’s not much call for bee books in Downing.”
“Probably not,” agreed Titus as he picked up his books. “Thank you.”
Titus left. As he walked away, Ben wanted to call to him to come back. There were things he wanted to ask Titus, things he wanted to know. Something about the man intrigued him.
You could follow him. The thought came to him unexpectedly, as if someone else had spoken it. Ben dismissed the notion immediately. He couldn’t just follow Titus. He had to stay in the library. Why? asked the same voice. No one is going to come in.
That, Ben thought, was most likely true. His two regulars—Steven and Titus—had both made their appearances for the day. The chances of anyone else coming in were highly unlikely. Besides, said the voice, you won’t be gone long.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Ben grabbed the keys from his desk and went after Titus. Locking the library door out of habit, he glanced up the street, where he saw Titus walking at a surprisingly quick pace down the sidewalk. Starting after him, Ben tried to appear as if he were simply taking an afternoon stroll through town.
He tailed Titus, keeping a safe distance between them in case Titus happened to turn around, and manufacturing a story he could use to explain his presence if actually confronted. He was, he decided, familiarizing himself with the area. It was a poor excuse, he knew, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
Titus, however, showed no sign of going anywhere but forward. He passed swiftly by the row of stores that constituted Main Street: the grocery, bank, post office, hardware store, video store, and diner. He continued on past the school, finally veering from his straightforward course when he came to the dirt road that intersected the paved one just past Downing’s lone gas station.
Ben almost gave up his pursuit at that point. Following someone on Main Street was one thing, an act that could potentially be attributed to sheer accident. But following someone on a dirt road that led nowhere was something else altogether. If Titus discovered him walking along behind him, how would he explain himself?
Still, he found himself turning and continuing his journey. As Titus walked, more slowly now that he was off the main street, Ben lingered behind, keeping to the side of the road in the event that he had to dart into the trees that lined each side like sentries. Now that they were on what seemed to be the only road going in that particular direction, the possibility of losing sight of Titus became less of a concern. All he had to do, he thought, was keep walking until he came to something—most likely Titus’s house.
After twenty minutes, Ben found himself passing a large pond. Drowned Girl Pond, he thought as he looked at the smooth black glass of the water’s surface. Picturing Steven and his friends jumping into that water, splashing in it and laughing, made him shudder. He imagined the girl who had given the pond its name floating in its depths, her pale eyes staring up through the grass and mud to watch the bodies of the living moving above her. Would she reach up with her cold hands to try and drag them down? He looked away from the pond, concentrating on Titus’s retreating back.
As he’d expected, another five minutes of walking brought him to a house. As he came over a low rise in the road, he was just in time to see Titus enter the front door and close it behind him. Ben stood in the long grass, looking at the house. It was an old farmhouse, its white paint peeling from years in the sun, its windows dark eyes in its weary face. Yet despite its age, it appeared to be well cared for. The lawn around it, what there was of it, was cut short, and Ben could see a corner of a garden in the backyard.
Keeping to the grass, he walked along the side of the house until he could see more of the rear. There, the rest of the garden came into view, a long, narrow bed filled with plants. And beyond the garden, Ben saw a row of white boxes placed in a semicircle. There were seven of them, each about four feet high.
Beehives, he thought. So, Titus did keep bees.
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the house’s rear door. Titus emerged. He walked toward the hives. When he reached them, he removed the top from one and reached inside.
He’s not wearing any protection, Ben thought, horrified. He’s going to get stung.
He watched, his heart beating, as Titus removed his hand from the hive. Ben could see that his fist and forearm were covered in a sticky mess of honey. And in the honey something moved. Ben knew that it was the bees. They coated Titus’s flesh. He could see some of them flying around the man’s body. Surely he was getting stung. Yet Titus held his hand up, looking at it and not moving.
Then he turned his head and looked directly at the spot where Ben stood. Ben felt his heart stop, and he gasped. Could Titus see him? He didn’t see how it was possible. He stood, frozen, waiting for Titus to say or do something.
Finally, Titus turned away again, returning his attention to the hive and to the bees that now flew around him in a thick cloud. Ben breathed more easily. It was as if with Titus’s gaze removed from him he could move again. Although part of him wanted to stay to see what Titus was doing, a stronger part of him told him to leave. Giving Titus a final glance, he turned and made his way quickly back to the road. And once he was there, he began to run.
Chapter Six
He was trying to escape sleep. He knew ultimately he would lose the battle, but he was attempting it anyway. It made him feel better, at least, fighting it as hard as he could. Then, when he did succumb to his body’s demand for rest and the nightmares came again, he wouldn’t blame himself, at least not as much.
Ben poured himself another cup of coffee and resumed unpacki
ng the box. He’d worked his way through most of the living room already. Only three boxes remained. He was working on them slowly, taking his time. It was only just after midnight, and dawn seemed an eternity away.
He reached into the box and removed an item wrapped in the now-familiar white newsprint in which he’d swaddled his belongings. The stuff was piled around him in crumpled drifts, a rustling paper sea in which he and the box had become an island. It was amazing how much of the paper there was. It was amazing, too, how much stuff he had. He couldn’t remember packing so much, and some of the items he scarcely recognized as his own.
The wooden monkey, for example, with its red fez and look of surprise. Where the hell had that come from? He couldn’t recall buying it, and he was sure it hadn’t been a gift. But there it was, sitting on his coffee table waiting for him to find it a place in his new home. He must have packed it, taken it from wherever it had sat in the New York apartment and tucked it into the moving box along with the other odds and ends of his life. But looking at it didn’t bring back a single memory.
He unwrapped the item in his hands. It was a framed photograph, himself and Trey standing on a beach, smiling in Hawaii. They’d gone there to escape the bleakness of a New York February. It had been Trey’s idea, a last-minute decision. Ben still recalled how Trey had burst into the apartment, snow from an unexpected storm dusting his hair and his coat. “Pack a bag,” he’d said. “We’re going to Hawaii.” Ben had been making dinner. He’d thought Trey was joking until his lover showed him the tickets, picked up from a travel agent friend on his way home from work. Two hours later, they’d been on a plane, the spaghetti on the stove back in their apartment still waiting in its pot of now-cold water.
Ben put the photo on the coffee table beside the monkey. It was too soon. He couldn’t think about such things. He wasn’t ready to remember those times. Not now that they were gone forever.