The woods encompassing Murden’s peach grove were damp and thick with the essence of summer. Perhaps there was no finer season to stroll beneath the canopy of emerald-hued pillars flanking the lazy hills. A variety of birds supplied a melodic echo to the woodlands too, offering sounds apart from the bustling world that resided just beyond its verdant pathways.
Although Kyle hadn’t ventured into these woods often, he now felt oddly at ease in his ability to locate Murden’s shanty without the apprehension of becoming lost. Within twenty minutes of entering The Bogs, the boy directed his line of vision to the hillside leading toward the old man’s farmyard.
During Kyle’s ascent of the hill, the churning clouds thickened and wands of lightning flickered on the horizon. Maybe the rain would’ve arrived sooner than he hoped, and this prospect by itself instigated a fear in the boy far more distressing than anything he surmised about Ben Murden. At the moment he reached the hill’s summit and set his sights on the shanty one hundred yards in the distance, a cold rain began to gush from the sky.
In his haste to reach his destination, Kyle had hardly prepared for the severe weather. He dressed as he always had—a colored T-shirt and denim pants with no distinct markings. After he was thoroughly soaked by the rain, he remembered his mother advising him to carry an umbrella, but Kyle didn’t know any boys his age who purposely avoided getting wet, and he surely wasn’t primed to mention his phobia of rain to his friends any time in the near future.
Within minutes, the rain began to fall at an accelerated rate. Kyle navigated the debris-strewn field as skillfully as he could, but he slipped and stumbled in the rivers of mud forming under his feet. By the time he found shelter beneath the lopsided overhang of Murden’s adobe, his clothes and hair were saturated. He shivered uncontrollably, but the storm did virtually nothing to diminish the incessant humidity.
Kyle realized that his sudden chill was not associated with the storm, but more of a symptom of his anxiety. It was more than certain that he’d rather confront the old man again before rushing out across the drenched field. After gathering his thoughts, he balled his fist and rapped on the door three times. For several moments, he only distinguished the sound of rain pelting the shanty’s tin roof. There was no immediate noise heard within the cabin, but he guessed that Murden was sleeping.
While standing slouch-shouldered at the door, Kyle noticed the old man’s walking cane propped up against a rusty milk crate on the porch. Murden was certainly in no condition to leave his shelter without the assistance of his walking stick. Therefore, Kyle presumed that he was still inside. He decided to knock on the door again, only this time with a more deliberate series of blows from his fist.
Before Kyle’s hand connected with the wood for the third time, the front door swung open on its hinge. Murden stood lopsided in the doorway, buckling slightly against the door’s frame. A stale scent of sweat wafted through the opening, causing Kyle to turn his head in disgust. The old man still hadn’t changed his clothing from the previous day. Kyle’s eyes immediately focused on the dried bloodstains speckling the front of his shirt.
Murden’s fury was evident when he spoke. “Didn’t I tell you to keep away from here, boy?”
Kyle stammered as he attempted to utter an insincere apology, but the words couldn’t come rapidly enough for Murden. “I need to talk to you,” he finally blurted out. “It’s really important.”
Seeing that the boy was thoroughly soaked by rainwater, Murden snickered at his predicament. He then forwarded a cigarette to his mouth and puffed on it intensely before saying, “Didn’t your mama ever tell you to stay out of the rain?”
Kyle peered sheepishly at the man and exposed a vulnerability that Murden found slightly amusing. Sensing that the boy was in fact serious with his intentions, Murden backed away from the door and invited his guest inside. Although Kyle had already convinced himself that the old man was not a murderer, the prospect of entering his home again caused him to shudder.
“You want to talk?” Murden inquired. “Come on in out of the rain. I just fixed a few leaks in my roof, so you ain’t gonna get any wetter in here.”
Kyle took a moment to establish the blind optimism required in order to contemplate such an offer. Just two days ago, the decision would’ve been much easier, for Kyle suspected that some of what had been uttered about the old man was merited. But after conversing with him, the boy’s opinion changed entirely, and he was actually drawn to the oldster’s plight. With this notion in mind, Kyle opted to follow Murden into his house, but not until muttering a silent prayer to himself.
If the environment outside Murden’s shanty seemed cluttered, the residence’s interior contained all the debris of a disorientated existence. Empty bottles and trash brushed against Kyle’s feet as he inched his way inside. What furniture existed was old and layered with dust and a mustard-colored grease. Unlaundered shirts and undergarments were strewn in several piles in each corner of the room. Cobwebs sprayed the ceilings and walls, some of them peppered with dead insects. The smell was almost too putrid for Kyle to stomach. Years of tobacco smoke and poor hygiene emanated throughout the three-room hovel.
Kyle could not determine a comfortable place to stand. The house had no electricity or indoor plumbing. How did anyone survive in such squalor? Murden, of course, seemed indifferent to the filth, and as he initially indicated, the tin roof did manage to keep the raindrops at bay.
Murden gestured for Kyle to sit down on a torn sofa in the center of the largest room. The couch appeared to be mantled with blood, grime, and an assortment of indefinable substances. Kyle elected to remain standing near an empty wine barrel that the old man had put to use as an end table. Several of these barrels were scattered about the room.
“I would’ve called before coming over, Ben,” Kyle said, “but I didn’t think you had a phone.”
“I reckon there must be a good reason simmering in your mind in order for you to come back here,” Murden assumed while gingerly making his way toward the sofa. After slowly positioning his backside on the cushion, he leaned forward and adjusted the straw hat on his head. Because there was no light within the house, the room was streaked with perpendicular shadows. At a distance of four feet apart, Kyle couldn’t even see clearly into the old man’s eyes.
The boy realized that he would have to select his words prudently when in the company of this man. While trying to organize his thoughts, Kyle’s eyes strayed to the top of the wine barrel closest to him. A single photograph was framed in a bronze encasement. Unlike the other objects strewn precariously throughout the room, this one seemed intentionally set in place. Kyle’s curiosity compelled him to lean closer to the photograph. He saw the image of a beautiful woman, captured in black-and-white film. She had raven-black hair and a mysteriously soulful look in her eyes. Though Kyle couldn’t be certain, he imagined that the photo was quite old, although no particle of dust covered any portion of the frame.
Before Murden became suspicious of Kyle’s intentions, he turned away from the photo and peered at the bare floorboards. He shuffled his feet slightly before admitting, “I couldn’t stop thinking about the story you told me, Ben. I know I should’ve listened to you, but I had to see it for myself.”
“See what, boy?”
“You know,” Kyle said anxiously. “The ghost in your peach grove. I went last night. It was a stupid thing for me to do.”
Murden listened casually to the boy’s confession before flicking the ash from his cigarette onto the floor and massaging it into the wood with his booted foot. “It doesn’t always pay to be too curious, does it, boy? Sometimes you learn more than you’re willing to accept.”
“I don’t know what I was trying to prove,” Kyle murmured. “I just wanted to see if you were telling the truth.”
“And what did you see?”
Kyle paused, only because he didn’t know how to precisely answer Murden’s question. Did he truly see anything at all? Or was his mind instigating a state of hallucination?
Finally, when no other reasonable explanation entered Kyle’s thoughts, he shouted, “I saw a couple of teenagers in there last night. I think something bad happened to them, and I was wondering if you saw or heard anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, that’s hard to say,” Murden answered, puffing on the remains of his cigarette. “As I already explained to you, nothing about that grove is ordinary.”
Kyle shifted nervously as he searched for the proper words to communicate his thoughts. During his silence, Murden directed the boy’s attention to a section of the floor beside the front door. A cloth blanket with red and white patchwork was thrown in the corner.
“What’s that?” Kyle asked, his voice dipping into a whisper. Murden hoisted himself off the sofa and limped across the floor toward the blanket. He smiled at the boy brazenly while bending down to pick it up in his hand.
“Seems that those teenagers you mentioned left behind a souvenir, but I don’t got much use for it.”
Kyle was almost reluctant to ask, “Do you know what happened to them?”
Murden exhaled tiredly before attempting to answer the boy. “Let me put it to you this way, last night wasn’t a good time to be in the grove.”
Upon uttering this, Murden’s voice sputtered through a series of hoarse coughs. The cigarette he held between his fingers slipped from his hand and fell to the floor in a trail of orange embers.
“I need to know more about the ghost, Ben. That’s why I’ve come to see you again.”
“Didn’t you see it with your own eyes?”
“I’m not sure, but I felt like something was there—watching us.”
Once Murden regained his composure, he hobbled over to the nearest window and stared out through a splintered pane of glass. From his position beside the window, he saw some of the peach trees’ naked branches. He seemed lost in an irrelevant memory when he spoke again. “There are chores in life that truly test a man’s patience. Consider the peach tree: even the healthy ones rarely live beyond ten years. I’ve always prided myself on selling the finest peaches to market, boy, and had been blessed by a bountiful harvest for many years.”
“I’m sorry that your trees died, Ben, but I…”
Murden sensed the boy’s disinterest in the information he imparted, but the old man story was more pertinent than Kyle first realized. “Botanists claim that the peach tree is native to China and the Chinese believe that the peach itself harbors special powers.”
“What kind of powers?”
“In ancient times, when someone died, the mourners placed fresh peaches around the deceased. It was long thought that the peach harnessed a natural energy—an energy that promised immortality for all those who were entombed beside it.”
As a lump seemingly the circumference of a plum lodged in Kyle’s throat, Murden shifted his attention outside the window again. Heavy raindrops pelted the glass. During these seconds, an image interrupted the old man’s recollections. He suddenly envisioned himself standing in the midst of his peach grove. The sky was dark and provided faint quantities of illumination to the offerings of this night, but Murden distinguished a single redolent peach laying in a ditch beside a motionless child.
“I remember that night,” Murden’s voice quaked with agony. His twitching fingers embedded into the peeling paint lacquering the window’s sill. “A peach had fallen into the grave beside Sylvia’s body. I didn’t make any connection at first, but now I think differently.”
Kyle plainly saw that the oldster was struggling with his memories. He sought to move closer to Murden, if only to place his hand upon his shoulder and offer him some compassion. But the truth still needed to be determined, and Kyle didn’t want to squander any more time than necessary.
“Ben,” he asked softly, “if you really believe that Sylvia’s ghost is haunting your grove, why haven’t you done anything to stop her?”
Murden pivoted away from the glass and glared at the boy with a heightened ardency working its way into his expression. “You sure do got big ideas for a little fellow, don’t you?”
“I’m thinking there must be some way to end this curse.”
“And you aim to make a difference in this matter, boy?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Kyle assured sprightly.
Murden slunk away from the window and stared at the boy’s face without flinching. He positioned his nose within ten inches of Kyle’s forehead and said, “I reckon that every curse must one day see its end. But in order to stop it, we’re gonna have to go back to the beginning.”
Thunder rumbled from the distant clouds as Kyle pondered the old man’s theory. Murden’s gaze became increasingly menacing, almost as if he was dissecting Kyle’s character in search of a flaw.
“I’m too old and sick to fret about all of these worries now, but a boy as young and ambitious as you might be able to make a difference.”
“What could I do?”
“Sylvia’s spirit will not be at ease until her murderer confesses, so if you wish to extinguish the curse, you must be resourceful in your quest to discover the truth.”
Kyle suspected that Murden had presented an impossible challenge. “That girl was killed thirty years ago,” he complained. “How would I be able to figure out who murdered her now?”
Murden peered at the boy with fiery eyes before saying, “Do you wish to put an end to the curse or not, boy?”
“I do, if that’s what we’re really dealing with.”
Murden directed his attention back to the blanket. He held the material up to his nostrils and inhaled with an exaggerated gesticulation. “The scent of those unfortunate teenagers you came looking for is still fresh,” he remarked. “I don’t reckon there’s any hope left for them, but if it’s future victims you hope to spare, then I’ve already told you what must be done.”
“But where do I start searching?”
Murden did not answer the boy. Instead, he paced back over to the window and stared longingly at the peach trees framed by a pewter-colored sky. It took the man several minutes to harness enough air in his lungs to speak again. His voice was raspy and clogged with phlegm when he said, “It’s best that you go now, boy. I suspect that we’ll have a whole lot more to consider the next time we meet.”
Although Kyle attempted to pry more information from Murden, he remained evasive in regard to the missing teenagers. Did Murden actually have anything to do with their abduction? The blanket indicated that he did, but it made no sense for him to willingly point the object out to Kyle. He already professed his innocence and had no logical reason to contradict his words at this stage.
Kyle also had to examine the possibility that Murden’s declining health may have disallowed the process of pragmatic thought. After all, it was conceivable that the old man was in fact a murderer, but simply couldn’t recall his actions from one day to the next. Kyle was intelligent enough to comprehend this notion, but he refused to lend the matter any significant deliberation.
As far as Kyle was concerned, the old man’s only crime was being too afraid to clarify the mystery of his peach grove to the proper authorities. After all, who else other than a child of twelve years would be likely to entertain the credibility of Murden’s tale? Most adults abandoned their fear of ghosts for more practical solutions. And even when those solutions were not readily evident, people rarely engaged in any sort of supernatural exploration.
Rather than burden Murden with any more questions on this day, Kyle departed from the shanty with a new focus guiding his footsteps, for he was now convinced that a malevolent spirit did haunt the infamous grove. While riding his bike home, he tried to plan for the next stage into his investigation. It rained for nearly the whole journey back to his neighborhood, and Kyle became drenched in the process. Yet despite the conditions of the night, Kyle sensed the chill leaving his body. He no longer felt as frightened of the rain and the distant peals of thunder. His consternation of such occasions seemed at least temporarily suspended. Perhaps he was fi
nally letting go of his phobia by replacing it with something that merited a tingle of dread through spine.
Chapter 14