Ralph Sûreté Part 1

Sorry I'm so late! I only just got back from Utah. Anyway the detective from the city has finally arrived. Addie, I couldn't remember what Ophelia's father's name is, so I'm leaving the officer's name blank for now, if you tell me his name, I'll put it in. Also I couldn't remember if you named the Deputy. Ralph has been in town for two days so any reactionary pieces you post will have to have happened during those two days. Hope you like it!

Ralph Sûreté Part 1

The refrain in Elvis Costello’s This is Hell comes to mind as I drive down the deserted road that passed for Main Street in this damn town. I’ve been banished here for two days.

This is Hell, this is Hell

I’m sorry to tell you

It never gets better or worse

But you get used to it, after a spell

For heaven is hell in reverse

Except for the getting used to it bit, it’s a pretty damn good portrayal. Figures I would get stuck with this stupid case. I swear Captain Jones has it in for me. If I don’t catch the psycho murderer running loose I may die from over exposure to this damn town. There is no Starbucks here. There is a store that sells only porcelain figurines and no Starbucks. I’m gonna die here. I miss the city. I want coffee. I think I’m going into withdrawal. I had a dream about coffee last night. It was wonderful, but then I woke up. God, I sound like a whining five-year-old. Like I said: Withdrawal.

I pull up in front of the tiny police station and park my sedan next to a rusty police cruiser. I enter the building, and Deputy Ben Johnson looks up.

“Hey, Detective Sir-etty.”

“It’s pronounced Syr-taeh.” How many times have I told you this? “Where’s Officer ________?”

“______ is with his daughter, Ophelia.”

“Right. Ben, if you could hand me the file on the homicides, I would like to review it again.” And the sooner I solve this case, the sooner I can get the hell out of here.

Ben nods and hands me the case file. “The murderer sure is a deranged madman.”

I try to ignore that the man is ogling at my suit, I’m sure he’s never seen one before, and get to reading.

This is Hell, this is Hell

Damn it, now I have that song stuck in my head.

I’ve been over this file so often over the last two days I could probably recite it word for word. This case bothers me. And for reasons besides its location. See, I’ve had some experience with deranged madmen, and it had been bothering me how these murders happened. In one case I had, the murderer was killing bald, Caucasian men in their forties, turned out he had a boss who fired him that fit that description. Another case I had, the murderer was killing prostitutes and he put red lipstick on each of the corpse’s lips. My point is there is always some connecting factor. The victims in this case all appear to have been killed in overdramatic ways, but none of the ways are really connecting. I page through the file again. Suddenly it occurs to me that something’s missing.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the autopsy?”

“Isn’t it in there? Hang on,” he riffles through some paper on the cluttered desk. “Here ya go.”

I look through the autopsy. I love that moment when it suddenly makes sense.

See, all the victims appear to have been murdered in a horrific, over-dramatic manner. The last one, a Pastor John Hart, was apparently beaten unconscious, and then died from either the smoke fumes or the flames when the perpetrator set his house on fire. The keywords here are ‘appear’ and ‘apparently.’ The murderer is trying to give the appearance of insanity, and not doing such a terrific job. The only real connecting factor is that all the victims happen to live nearby. I’m guessing the murderer wants to cover up one murder with other murders. But who is the target victim? Has the murder killed him yet? Or does he still need to?

“Ben?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The murderer isn’t a psychopath.”

“How do you figure that?” Ben asks, rubbing his eyes, sleepily.

“Have you seen the autopsy report?”

“Naw, ______ and I figured we’d skip it. Anyone can see how they died,” Ben stretched and yawned.

Of course they didn’t read the autopsy. “You should have read the autopsy.”

“So some expert in a lab can tell me that Eli was hung?” Ben says sarcastically.

Hey, I can be sarcastic to, Ben. “No, so some expert in a lab can tell you that Eli didn’t die because he was hung. So some expert can tell you he was shot twice in the chest with a .45 automatic. So some expert can tell you that all the victims were killed with a gun.”

Ben knocks over an empty mayo jar that was serving as a pencil holder. “They were shot?! But… what?”

“The killer was giving you a show, Ben. He wanted to give the appearance of a psychopath.” Ben looks at me mutely.

“Would you mind looking up who, in this town, owns a .45 automatic?”

Ben snaps out of it. Great. Soon as we find and arrest the murderer I can get the hell out of here. My dream of Starbucks is soon to come true.

Azalea, Part Eight

“Would you like some more potatoes, Caleb?”

“No.”

“Hannah?”

“No, thanks.”

“Elizabeth?”

“I’m full.”

“I’d love some, Azalea—those are yummy.”

I slowly and deliberately rotate my body towards the offending sound, my left eyelid twitching with images of smacking Jezebel upside the head with the hot spatula currently clenched in my hand. Why is this monstrous fiend tainting my dining room table with her hideous immorality? Why is she devouring my family’s supper like it’s a complimentary Thanksgiving dinner?

“I adore your cooking, Azalea,” she tells me cheerfully as I grudgingly scoop seconds onto her plate. “Thank you so much for letting me eat with you! You didn’t have to go through all of this trouble for me.” Okay, reality check: I didn’t go through “all of this trouble” for her. I didn’t even know she was coming until she showed up at the front door thanking me for the invitation—or, rather, Warwick’s invitation. It’s a good thing I was planning for leftovers. Or maybe that’s a bad thing; there wouldn’t have been enough to accommodate her otherwise.

Oblivious to the poisonous glare I’m directing at her blindingly pink lips as they chew what was supposed to be tomorrow’s lunch, she compliments, “This is delicious. How do you cook them?”

“They’re just roasted in olive oil…and garlic…and thyme…” I mumble, scooting my fork across my half-eaten plate.

“And the chicken?”

“It’s a Greek recipe,” I answer after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s marinated in yogurt.”

“Mmm, I thought I tasted Greek yogurt.” Nodding, she continues, “What’s your secret for the green beans?”

Okay, seriously? Is my husband not enough for her? Is she trying to steal my meager culinary skills now, too?

I’m considering telling her that I boil them in donkey intestines before Warwick intercedes, “Parsley and basal, right Azalea?”

“Yup,” I affirm through clenched teeth.

There’s blissful silence for a few moments as everyone either chomps noisily or gulps down a glass of wine (I’m the latter), and I take the chance to glance at the grandfather clock in the corner. Just one more hour until we have to be at the church to mourn last night’s loss. I can survive an hour…unless, of course, the murderer decides to break into the house and kill us all like he did Pastor John.

As I’m told, John was eating his own dinner just before death arrived on his doorstep—literally. And yet somehow Warwick thought it fitting to commemorate the poor man with a nice “family” supper.

On the bright side, due to pure physical impossibility, Ophelia’s name has been cleared from her father’s daunting list of suspects. The public has miraculously realized that unless she inherited magical powers that allow her to commit crimes from behind steel bars, she’s not guilty, and contrary to popular big-city belief, we Midwesterners aren’t big on witch-hunts. That’s more of a European thing.

For a few measly seconds, I’m able to pretend that I’m not sitting next to a lying, cheating bastard on one side and his imbecilic mistress on the other, but that heavenly vision is eventually broken by piggish groans of satisfaction.

“I’m stuffed,” Jezebel announces, planting within my head a daydream of fattening her up like Hansel and Gretel and tossing her in my gingerbread oven.

Good God. I’m starting to sound like the murderer.

Patting his rounded stomach, Warwick glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “You did a good job on the chicken this time. It wasn’t as dry as last week’s.”

“Thanks.” I think my sarcasm is lost on him.

He nods as if to say, “You’re very welcome,” but instead asks, “What’s for dessert?”

My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets in an effort to strangle him with my optic nerves. I just cooked that entire dinner for him and his slut, and he has the audacity to ask for another course? Since when do we even have a family dessert, anyway? And why the heck should it be my responsibility to bake a freakin’ soufflé for his girlfriend?

I’m sure my face is white with rage as I calmly rise from my seat to return to the kitchen for vanilla ice cream and gingersnap cookies, and possibly a bottle of cyanide sauce for the other adults in the room. Why, for Christ’s sake, did the serial killer pick the pastor’s house and not City Hall?

Madelina, Part 6

I never considered myself the most holy person. My family didn’t regularly attend church, nor did we proclaim ourselves of one single religion. So it sort of struck me as odd when I discovered the next murder victim. 

Ophelia was being held in custody. Or so I heard. And unless she magically escaped, I somehow doubted she killed this person. 

A part of me really wanted to go visit her. Even though we didn’t know each other that well, I still felt obligated to do so; even if only to assure her that I belived she was innocent. 

And that’s how I found myself redirecting the now daily walk I took towards where Ophelia was being kept. I was so caught up in thoughts of what I would say to her, when suddenly I saw it. 

A house should’ve been there. I recognized that immediately, and for a moment, that was about all that processed for me. It was the charred remains, the burnt structure of what was once a home. I knew immediately from the close proximity it shared with the nearby church that it was the priest’s home. It had been burned to the ground.

The priest was dead. Even he wasn’t safe from these horrific attacks.

And I was pretty sure that unless Ophelia magically escaped, she did not commit this one.

I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. I couldn’t even bear being in the same vicinity of this.

I didn’t even bother going to see Ophelia now. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I safely reached home again. 

Madelina, Part 5

When I woke up the following morning, it took me a moment to process why I had this sickening fear pressing on me.

            And then it hit me.

            The bonfire. The sparks. Screaming. Running. The cow—the disgusting, disfigured, burnt corpse of mammoth proportions in the bonfire; our bonfire. A tradition sacred for years in this hellhole of a town, but a tradition nonetheless. And someone had screwed with it.

            All I had wanted was an escape. Albeit a mental one at that, but simply an escape. I had thought the fall festival would give that to me, but apparently not. The town had still been in shock after the unexpected murder, but everyone had still been excited for the festival. I think they had all been looking for an escape too.

            Maybe a walk would be good for me. Yes, a nice long walk through the streets (and far away from the site of the festival) would suit me. Some fresh air would certainly clear my mind.

            I stepped outside into the early fall day and the sun greeted me with its sparkling rays smoothly gliding over the earth. Normally happy scenery only evoked the opposite feeling in me, but after the past couple of days I would take anything happy.

            It was just a little stroll through the neighborhood. Nothing much; I planned on returning home very soon. But although I had only been dealing with this weirdness for two days, somehow I wasn’t surprised when I heard the scream.

            It took me a moment the realize the scream was directed at me and it wasn’t much of a scream of fright…more of an exclamation to get my attention. Of course when I saw the expression on my neighbor’s face, there was definitely fear there.

            “What?” I asked, slightly annoyed. If I had to hear a recounted experience of last night’s bonfire I swear I would strangle someone.

            The woman who had called my attention and now answered was certainly one of my neighbors, although she lived farther down so unlike the closer ones she had never had a reason to call the police on me or my mom before. We were still on good terms, in other words. She was middle-aged, lived alone, and I could never remember her name.

            “Eli, h-he was h-hanged in Farmer Harris’ barn!” she exclaimed, fear making her voice tremble.

            Now this took me a moment to process and also to remember who Eli was. Before the shock had even fully consumed me, I allowed it to take hold of my voice as I cried, “What?!” So very profound, I know, but there really wasn’t much of a response one could give to this news.

            She nodded quickly and stammered out the next words. “He was found this morning with a—with a bouquet of roses at his feet.” She looked about to burst into tears.

            “Roses?” I asked, confused.

            My kind, (yet clearly mentally unstable at this moment) neighbor nodded again. “Didn’t you hear? Last night at the bonfire a note was found. I-It said, ‘Enjoy the fire. Stop to smell the roses. It won’t last long.’”

            I stared blankly for a moment. Why was I always receiving this information second-hand? “Who found him?” I asked.

            “Ophelia,” she said and the woman finally burst into tears.

Madelina, Part 4

When I woke up the following morning, it took me a moment to process why I had this sickening fear pressing on me.

            And then it hit me.

            The bonfire. The sparks. Screaming. Running. The cow—the disgusting, disfigured, burnt corpse of mammoth proportions in the bonfire; our bonfire. A tradition sacred for years in this hellhole of a town, but a tradition nonetheless. And someone had screwed with it.

            All I had wanted was an escape. Albeit a mental one at that, but simply an escape. I had thought the fall festival would give that to me, but apparently not. The town had still been in shock after the unexpected murder, but everyone had still been excited for the festival. I think they had all been looking for an escape too.

            Maybe a walk would be good for me. Yes, a nice long walk through the streets (and far away from the site of the festival) would suit me. Some fresh air would certainly clear my mind.

            I stepped outside into the early fall day and the sun greeted me with its sparkling rays smoothly gliding over the earth. Normally happy scenery only evoked the opposite feeling in me, but after the past couple of days I would take anything happy.

            It was just a little stroll through the neighborhood. Nothing much; I planned on returning home very soon. But although I had only been dealing with this weirdness for two days, somehow I wasn’t surprised when I heard the scream.

            It took me a moment the realize the scream was directed at me and it wasn’t much of a scream of fright…more of an exclamation to get my attention. Of course when I saw the expression on my neighbor’s face, there was definitely fear there.

            “What?” I asked, slightly annoyed. If I had to hear a recounted experience of last night’s bonfire I swear I would strangle someone.

            The woman who had called my attention and now answered was certainly one of my neighbors, although she lived farther down so unlike the closer ones she had never had a reason to call the police on me or my mom before. We were still on good terms, in other words. She was middle-aged, lived alone, and I could never remember her name.

            “Eli, h-he was h-hanged in Farmer Harris’ barn!” she exclaimed, fear making her voice tremble.

            Now this took me a moment to process and also to remember who Eli was. Before the shock had even fully consumed me, I allowed it to take hold of my voice as I cried, “What?!” So very profound, I know, but there really wasn’t much of a response one could give to this news.

            She nodded quickly and stammered out the next words. “He was found this morning with a—with a bouquet of roses at his feet.” She looked about to burst into tears.

            “Roses?” I asked, confused.

            My kind, (yet clearly mentally unstable at this moment) neighbor nodded again. “Didn’t you hear? Last night at the bonfire a note was found. I-It said, ‘Enjoy the fire. Stop to smell the roses. It won’t last long.’”

            I stared blankly for a moment. Why was I always receiving this information second-hand? “Who found him?” I asked.

            “Ophelia,” she said and the woman finally burst into tears.

Azalea, Part Seven

Sick of Azalea yet? I don't blame you--four posts in a row of my characters is enough to make anyone want to take her head to the nearest brick wall. The good news: I'm finally caught up on posts! Now the rest of you need to post something to dissapate the Azalea monopoly...

A small town equals a small population. A small population equals a small group of possible friends. And a small circle of friends—combined with that small town factor again, simply because of cramped quarters—equals tight friendships. What all of this means, you ask? It means that it’s really easy to find yourself childless one day and the godmother of a baby girl named Ophelia the next.

Eighteen years ago (don’t even think about calling me old or I’ll sic our neighborhood serial killer on you next), I was welcomed into Wildewood’s unofficial society of godparents. Because we have so few people and so much religion to go around, that amounts to just about everyone above the age of twenty…or below, but let’s be nice and say twenty. Poor Ophelia should have known she’d be unlucky in life when she found out who her mom had chosen to pair her up with—me. Not the baker, or the school principal, or nice old Farmer Harris. Heck, even the bartender would have been an improvement. But she didn’t pick them; she picked me.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little extreme in my criticism. After all, I do give her birthday presents…and Christmas presents…and graduation presents, when I remember…

Yeah, yeah, I know: I’m a sucky godmother. I’m not the one who came up with this whole “responsibility” idea in the first place, so don’t blame me; blame her biological mother, the one who up and left her daughter and husband for a life of adventure and mystique, sending only the occasional letter to make up for a lifetime of damage.

One such letter came today.

I haven’t opened it.

Yet.

Any minute now, my acidic curiosity is going to eat through my ethical resolve. I don’t know why she sends these things to me, but I guess it’s to ensure that Ophelia’s dad doesn’t keep them under lock and key, even if that doesn’t sound like something he’d do. Who knows what goes through the woman’s mind—she’s delusional. It’s a wonder Ophelia turned out as well as she did.

I count the letter’s possible subjects on my fingers to curb my need to steam open the envelope (I wonder if that actually works in real life) and decide that because Ophelia’s birthday has long come and gone, the next holiday is miles away, and a Halloween note has never reached my mailbox in the history of my godparent-ing, it must be Mommy Dearest’s way of showing concern that her daughter is living in what is soon to become nothing more than a giant cemetery.

She can’t possibly know about the pain and suffering Ophelia has endured in the past few days, the loved ones she has lost in a tragic whirlwind of cruel murder, and the cold, clammy fear that must be encasing her veins at this very moment.

Then again, neither can I.

Sighing and muttering to myself, I propel my lazy butt up from the kitchen table, letter in hand, and grab my keys from the wall hook.

“Caleb?” I call, a little quietly so as not to wake Warwick from his nap on the upper floor.

My son swipes the pads of his fingers over the buttons of his PS3 controllers as he answers, “Yeah?”

“I’m going out. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Miraculously, he pauses the game to look me in the eyes. That’s a first. Maybe we should live in life-or-death situations more often.

“You can’t go out,” he tells me, his expression so stern that I’m not sure whether I should laugh or sit back down. “What if you get…”

While he searches for the right word, I hustle over to plant a gentle kiss on his forehead before heading toward the garage.

“I’ll be fine, sweetheart. I’ll be back in an hour. Trust me.”

The fact that I’m able to drag myself out the door is a miracle in itself. One second more of the anomaly of my son actually paying attention to me and Ophelia’s going to be on her own today.

Of course, Caleb’s sudden interest in my wellbeing isn’t the only force working against my will to make it to the jail. There’s also the murderer to worry about. But that’s just a minor detail, right?

At the very least, he—or she, but somehow I’m more inclined to say “he”—gives me an excuse to use my car for transportation rather than a pair of tennis shoes. Not that I’d be taking a daytrip to the jail in the first place if our lovely little maniac had gone to wreak havoc in Miami.

As I drive cautiously through the windswept town, my foot just barely touching the pedal so as to stay below the demanded fifteen miles per hour, I suck in a breath at the emptiness of the wasteland we call home. It’s different from the, dare I say it, charming village of the past, where kind, if sometimes straw-headed southern bumpkins milled around with their rosy-cheeked children skipping on ahead. Now the sidewalks are lonely slabs of concrete, shunned even by the doors of the shops, which are shut tight in fear of the person who may come striding up to knock any minute now. The people have taken Warwick’s warning to heart and locked themselves in the solace of their homes, where no one will know who’s dead and who’s alive, and nobody will be here to see the murderer if he shoots out my tires and shatters my window with a snow shovel…

When I finally pull into the jail—at a speed well over fifteen miles an hour, mind you—I realize that I’ve never been so elated to see a cop car in my life. I wouldn’t even mind if someone rushed out to give me a speeding ticket, just as long as they had a loaded gun on them. It’s dangerous out here.

Azalea, Part Six

I grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, just a short train ride from New York City. New Canaan is a fairly small town, but New York? Well, you know about New York. Busy, bustling, blunt masses of people you will never see again and who don’t even see you as you walk right past them. The cops don’t sleep, and neither do you if you have an apartment anywhere near a street.

I guess you could say that I saw my fair share of disturbing newspaper articles and television reports as a kid, what with millions of people for insanity to infect with its contagious bacteria, but I can honestly admit that I have never once heard of any crime as repulsive as today’s.

Even worse: it happened just down the street.

More frightening still: I was planning to drive to the scene of the murder to buy my grieving family (my kids and me for our friends, Warwick for his job) some pumpkin bread and pecan Danishes before I caught wind that the pastry chef hadn’t had a chance to bake anything this morning—he had been too busy baking himself.

“Dear lord,” I gasp, collapsing onto a kitchen stool across from my husband, who has yet to say a word about last night’s fight. I’m not sure whether I should feel grateful or remorseful for the more important events occupying his mind.

“Done up with icing and everything,” Warwick finishes gruffly. He’s biting into a glazed donut as he says this, and I can’t help but wonder if he picked up his breakfast when he went to survey Wildewood’s newest homicide.

I hold my stomach a little tighter and keep an eye on the nearest trashcan in case he pulls out a frosted finger petit four with nail-flavored sprinkles next.

“So we’ve had three people murdered in all,” he mumbles, though I’m pretty sure he’s talking to himself at this point. “Eloise Huffington in the salon.”

With the dagger, I think before I can stop myself. Whoops. That was disrespectful, but a forgivable slip-up.

“Eli in the barn.”

With the rope. Okay, now that one was inexcusable.

“And Finn in the bakery.”

With the kitchen utensils. Hm. As far as I know, that’s not in Clue.

“You know what’s similar in all of them?” he asks, not even pausing for my answer before continuing, “There are two things, actually. First off, they all happened in town.”

I blink at him, beginning to wonder if he’s already started his drinking binge for the day. “It wouldn’t be our problem if they happened in Chicago, would it?” I joke weakly.

He rolls his eyes. “I meant that they all happened while people were out and about, not in their houses. So I’m going to issue an emergency lockdown.”

“Can you even do that as mayor?”

“I can certainly declare it unsafe to be outside.”

“Why not evacuate the town? Then there would be no risk of being killed at all.”

“That’s too drastic,” he growls. As if a lockdown isn’t. And while we’re on the topic of my husband’s ignorant and hypocritical nature, as if having a serial killer prancing through the cornfields doesn’t call for being a little drastic! Oblivious to my judgment, he continues, “I don’t want mass hysteria.”

I raise an eyebrow but stifle my next comment, knowing that there will be no changing his mind. If I want my children to be safe, I’ll have to take them out of here myself. Secretly.

Sighing, I accept, “All right, then. What’s the second thing?”

“The second ‘thing’ is actually a person,” he tells me, something like a sneer forming on his lips. “Without evidence, there’s no way to put her in jail, but coincidences don’t lie. She was dating the baker, having some sort of an affair with the high school student, and her mother was friends with Eloise…as well as with you.”

I start at the prospect of being linked to the murderer, but as I settle back into the stool, a pit forms in my stomach, hardening into a nervous ball that assures me that there is something horribly wrong with Warwick’s assumption.

“Not Ophelia.”

“Yes Ophelia,” he contradicts, still smirking. I feel like slapping his overly talkative mouth right off his face. “The sheriff’s own daughter just dug her own grave.”

Azalea, Part Five

A small cut. Minor burns. Two hours spent waiting for the doctor to appease the hordes of angry peasants (or, rather, scared victims of a freak fireworks accident) before we can get our three stitches and skin treatment and be on our merry way.

Elizabeth, always such a brave little trooper, sits patiently as her slender little arm is sewn back up with a needle that probably would have made me sick with anxiety.

“I wish it had happened on my forehead,” she tells me on the drive home.

I furrow my brow at her in the rearview mirror. “Why, honey? Wouldn’t that have hurt more?”

“Maybe,” she admits, “but then I’d look like Harry Potter.”

I giggle. How cute is that? The things kids say.

After a brief pause, I giggle a little more.

And more. And more. Until suddenly I’m laughing so hard that I have to press my chest against the steering wheel to keep it steady because my hands are shaking with each gasp that racks my body. Elizabeth smiles tentatively before joining in, not realizing what is so hysterical but wanting more than anything to join in. I really don’t know why I’m laughing. There’s probably something wrong with me. Maybe I sprained my frontal lobe while I was banging my head against the tile last night.

In any case, I guess that after crying so much I need to laugh a while to balance everything out. The sun might start rising at one p.m. and the teenagers at dawn if I don’t get my universe back in order.

I find it amazing that I can be so free-spirited when I spent the last two days of my life choking on melancholy over Eloise’s death, but as I lead my little witch—who is, in fact, waiting for her letter from Hogwarts to arrive in four years and preparing by impersonating Hermione for Halloween—into the house and lock the door and set the alarm behind me, I feel like things are at least slightly closer to being back to normal.

Normal, of course, does not apply to my son curled up on the living room couch rather than gluing his eyes to Mario Kart in the basement, nor does it aptly describe my eldest daughter without a phone in her hand to text her friends about how unfair it is that her mother isn’t letting her out of the house this week.

My face falling instantly, I put a gentle grip on Elizabeth’s uninjured arm and ask, voice wavering, “What’ s going on?”

“There’s been another murder,” Hannah announces tearfully. On second thought, maybe she won’t be so eager to go into town after all.

Caleb frowns at the floor. “He went to our school.”

I feel my shoulders slump limply at my sides, losing the fight against gravity, and when I glance down to assure myself that Elizabeth is still alive and well beside my hip, I’m surprised to find them still stuck in their sockets.

A teenager this time. A child. A boy who never had the chance to graduate from high school, fall in love, get married, raise a family of his own—a boy who never truly lived. The thought of it nearly breaks my heart, but to my incredible guilt, I feel only relief that my own kids are safe and sound, right here in this room.

No sooner do I slide into the cushions between Hannah and Caleb than the garage door soars open, propelled into the wall with the force of forty jet engines. This means, of course, that the Ares himself has arrived on the premises.

Warwick stomps into the room in a huff, takes one look at our pity party on the couch, and exits in even more of a huff.

Caleb raises an eyebrow at me, and Hannah sighs heavily.

“All right, I’ve got it.”

The rubber band connecting me to my children is stretched almost to its breaking point as I follow my husband into his study, where, somehow, he has already managed to pop open a bottle of expensive scotch.

“This whole town’s going to Hell,” he growls without even turning to look at me.

Scrunching my nose at the stuffy aroma of alcohol, I propose, “Maybe we should go away for a while. At least, until they catch…whoever’s doing this. Whoever is awful enough to…to…”

“Are you crazy?” he snaps. I bight sharply into my cheek to remind myself that this is not the time to get soppy, not when he’s in a mood. “I’m the one keeping this inferno together! Without me, everyone’d be doomed! Doomed, hear me? I can’t go out of town now, not in this crisis. I’d never get elected as senator, governor—even reelected as mayor—acting like a burrowing rabbit!”

Clenching my fists, I argue, “Then let me go! I’ll take the kids to New York. We can stay with my sister.”

“Oh, your sister! Now that’s a great idea,” he snorts.

“Don’t you start with that! There is absolutely nothing wrong with my sister. Just because she’s going through a divorce—”

“She never could keep a relationship going for more than a month.”

“That’s not true, and even if it were, it’s certainly no business of yours.” I’m so livid that crimson smoke is billowing out my ears like I’m Mount Etna, and as I ride out the door on my chariot of lava, I threaten, “Maybe I should follow her lead.”

Seconds before the door closes, he finishes the conversation with a low hiss, if only to get the last word. “We’re not leaving Wildewood.”

Azalea, Part Four

My first post in weeks--I've been lazy, stockpiling all of these on my computer and forgetting to put them up...

The sounds of the party echo across the empty cornfield separating our backyard from Farmer Harris’s slanting barn, whose humped shape looks as if it’s bowing down to the stars above as I squint at it through Warwick and my bedroom window. Next to it, the night’s festivities seem like a little society of ants, with their candied crumbs and miniature wooden crafts intermingled with incongruent dancing—some humiliatingly out-of-date, some stolen straight from MTV, and some that can’t be classified as anything under the sun. That, my friends, is the world-famous Wildewood Fall Festival.

Okay, not really. But from the way people flock to the revelry like kindergartners to cupcakes, you would certainly think there was something more to the thing than a small-town get-together.

Despite my sarcasm, I’ve never actually skipped the celebration before tonight. When you live in a place like this, anything out of the ordinary seems like New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Eloise used to get all dressed up for it—more dressed up than usual, I mean. The first time I ever talked to her, she was twenty-something years old, lingering next to a tub of tooth-marked apples, garbed in a strawberry gown that was so tastelessly out of place that I couldn’t help but start up a conversation with her. She already bought this year’s masterpiece: a new autumn dress, brown ankle-boots, lacy gloves, and gold earrings that brushed the tops of her shoulders. She had been so excited for it to arrive in the mail that she had stayed perched in her bay window from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon last Monday until the postman finally moseyed up to her door with a box as wide as he is tall. The whole ensemble’s probably collecting dust in her closet right n—

KShboom! Pewpewkaroom!

The sound of gunshots drives me out of bed and onto the chilly floor, where I huddle in a heap of spilled sheets until I realize that the supposed bullets are actually fireworks. They usually save some from the 4^th of July to use for the Fall Festival.

Rolling my eyes at my own jumpiness, I tug myself back onto the mattress to watch the remainder of the undoubtedly short show. My eyes find the window again, only to find that the fire is on the wrong side of the horizon.

No sooner are my feet back on the ground than the screams begin, and chaos fills the scene as everyone tries to escape the flames by swerving in different directions, causing collisions left and right. Was that Elizabeth’s voice? Hannah’s? Caleb’s? Are my children in that disaster?

Wearing only a pair of pajama pants and a thin camisole, I dive through the bedroom door and down the wide stairway, which seems to take an eternity when I’m imagining how quickly a blaze can spread across a dry field. I stumble a bit in the lightless void that comprises kitchen, but I’m able to make it all the way to the garage before I realize that I don’t have my car keys.

Keys…keys…what the heck did I do with those demonic little gremlins?! There are a thousand and one places I could look, but I have neither the time nor the patience to play hide-and-go-seek tonight, so I grab the only pair of shoes within eyesight—I never thought I’d actually thank God that my son leaves his sneakers loafing about the house—and dart into the crisp night air.

A plus of forcing myself onto the treadmill every day: I’m in pretty good shape when it comes to running. Add that to a sudden burst of maternal adrenaline and you have yourself a golden tri-athlete with the motivation of a distressed hippopotamus. By the time I’ve hacked my way around the cornfield to the inferno, though, my sockless feet are wailing with anguish over a new generation of cherry-colored blisters. I allow myself a moment to catch my breath only because it is obvious with one look that the situation here is not as bad as my overactive imagination believed. The misdirected fireworks haven’t caused too much damage, as most of the fire has either been put out or is currently holding on to its last breath. The worst of the trouble is occurring in the crowd, full of panicking people acting as if the apocalypse is upon us. With the heels of my hands pressing heavily into my knees while I soothe my irritated lungs, I squint into the darkness to spot my kids. Is that them? No, those are the people who live in the green house… Wait, there th—no, that’s not Hannah. This is impossible.

“Mom?”

My spine snaps to attention reflexively at the sound of Caleb’s voice, uncharacteristically nervous. That’s not to say that he doesn’t immediately shake me off when I yank him into my arms, but I consider this normal for a thirteen-year-old boy.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” he questions in astonishment.

“I’m here to make sure I still have a family,” I mumble. “Where’re your sisters?”

Ignoring my question, he sighs, “That’s ridiculous. You’re overreacting.”

“And they aren’t?” I reply, raising my eyebrow as I gesture towards the bumbling population of Wildewood.

“You have a point.”

“Mom!”

This time, the voice calling me belongs to my youngest daughter, Elizabeth. Expecting a hug from my six-year-old, I’m completely thrown off guard by the sight of blood.

“Elizabeth!” I screech, not caring enough that I just exhausted my running ability to stop from shooting to where she sits shivering on the ground, her left arm limp at her side.

“She’s all right,” Warwick assures me. I didn’t even notice him standing there. Right next to Jezebel, of course.

“All right?!” I yell. “All right?! She’s bleeding through her coat! How can you possibly say she’s all right?”

Grimacing, he retorts, “It’s a scratch—it’s not deep at all. The thing just grazed her, and it was one of the tiny ones. The same thing happened to a lot of people. Someone screwed up the fireworks this year.”

Probably trying to be helpful, Jezebel adds, “All she needs is some Neosporin and a Band-Aid—”

“She needs to get it washed, cleaned, patched up, and possibly stitched,” I growl furiously, picking my crying daughter off of her straw seat. “And I’ll need to talk to the doctor to see if she should be getting a Tetanus shot, too, because who knows what they put in explosives? So, no, I don’t think Neosporin and a Band-Aid are going to be much help.”

I spin around, my hair shooting poison-tipped arrows at them as it whips behind my head. I take two steps before I realize that I’m going to have to walk all the way back to the house, so I swallow my pride and turn around yet again, ordering, “Drive me home.” Warwick glances at Jezebel, then opens his mouth to say something. “Now.”

Nodding in awe of my startling tone, which would undoubtedly put even Hades to shame, he follows me to the car like a scolded dog with its tail tucked between its legs. Caleb and Hannah pile into the back, and my husband pulls out into the street without saying goodbye to Jezebel.

No one is brave enough to utter a word during the short drive home.

Pastor John Hart

“Our Heavenly Father, kind and good,

We thank Thee for our daily food. 


We thank Thee for Thy love and care.

Be with us Lord, and hear our prayer.

Amen.”

The grace done I unfold my hands and dig into the beef casserole.

“This is mighty good casserole, Maria,” I say to the empty chair to my right, “I must thank Millie when I bring her back her dish. You remember Millie don’t you? The two of you used to chat up a storm.”

My daughter, Nellie, worries that I still talk to her mother. Honestly, it just wouldn’t be natural for a man not to talk to his own wife. Just because Maria’s been in heaven for several years now, doesn’t make a difference.

“Papa, you know Mama isn’t there, don’t you?” She will say.

“Don’t you worry none about me pumpkin,” I tell her, “they’ve got good hearing in heaven. She can hear me just fine.”

Then she looks at me all concerned and pats me on the arm. Good grief. Why must she make a habit of worrying over me? Nellie keeps going on about some old-folks home, Sunny Meadows, Sunny Fields, or something like that. I’m not an old folk; I’m only sixty-nine. No need to be hasty. Besides I don’t know what I would do without my sermons.

“I’ve finished my sermon for Sunday. It’s a bit of a comfort piece. There have been terrible happenings in town. Murder. Can you imagine that? In our little town it just doesn’t seem possible. I must admit Maria, I feel shaky at the thought. Just a few days ago, Finn, from the bakery, remember him? He was killed. I won’t tell you how; it was terrible. The poor boy, he didn’t deserve it. Remember the strawberry scones he made? Do you remember how we used to have them on Sunday mornings? I’ve still been having one every Sunday. This is going to be the first Sunday that I’ve gone without one. It’s not a very important thing really, but it makes my old heart ache. The only thing a person can do is trust in God. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. All this death makes me sad though. People shouldn’t die so young.”

I finished eating, piled the silverware and my empty milk glass on top of the plate, and carried it to the sink. I turned on the faucet and scrubbed at the plate with a sponge. Maria’s mother gave us the sponge; Maria was so pleased with it because it was a good, long-lasting sort from Europe. I thought it was a ridiculous amount of excitement over a sponge. Both women are in heaven now, but their sponge lives on. It's funny how such unimportant things can hold so much significance. Like Finn’s strawberry scones. I sigh as I put the dried items into their proper places.

“Honestly, Maria, what is the world coming to?”

The doorbell rings, must be Millie come to get her dish back. She shouldn’t be wandering around this late, not with a killer roaming our streets.

I open the door.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?
(1 Corinthians 15:55)

Maria, darling, I believe I have met the devil.

__

Bible quote found at: http://www.bibleinsong.com/Promises/Troubles_life/Death/Death.htm