The Cabin on Souder Hill Page 9

  “No. Of course not.” She wondered if Pink had heard about her being whisked away in an ambulance, if the story of the crazy woman from Atlanta had merited enough interest to make the local rumor mill. Could that account for the new reticence in his tone, the concern in his voice?

  She shifted her gaze to the road. The pavement wound along a clear river strewn with large boulders and frothy riffles. A moment later, the road swept up a hill then curved down to the left away from the stream. She had never been on this road before.

  Pink cleared his throat. She glanced over, lost in her own thoughts, not having noticed how quiet Pink had become. His eyes were fixed, his expression dull.

  When they rounded the next turn, a waterfall white with cascades came into view.

  “Wow,” Michelle said. “That’s beautiful.”

  “Ever been to Niagara Falls?” Pink asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s where I wanted to go on my honeymoon,” Pink said. “And we would have if it hadn’t been for Isabelle’s mother.”

  Michelle turned to look at Pink.

  “She killed herself. Blew her fool head off with a dang shotgun.” Pink twisted up his mouth. “I don’t know what was wrong with that woman. The day of our wedding, Isabelle’s daddy came into the church, all covered in blood. He said Isabelle was Satan. Can you imagine that picture in the wedding album? He died a few years later in a tractor accident. Isabelle never even went to the funeral. I think that’s why she’s so sick, but she won’t hear it. Screams at me, says I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Doctors aren’t sure, but they ain’t growed tired of taking my money for drugs and tests.”

  Michelle took her eyes back out the window, recognizing the Mountain View Cottages, Holman’s Stone Sales, and Brenshaw Tool and Rental with the line of red tractors parked out front.

  “Since we’re going right past it anyway, do you mind if we drop the dog off at my mama’s house on the way up to the cabin?”

  “Sure, no problem.” She pictured the dilapidated shack. Pink’s mother had seemed full of vitality at Lulu’s, and Michelle couldn’t imagine her living in such a dump. Maybe she’d moved but still lived nearby.

  When Pink pulled into the driveway, Michelle recognized the house immediately—the picket fence, the shutters, the wooden porch—but everything was cared for and fresh. She remembered the enormous tree in the front yard.

  “That hemlock’s over two hundred years old,” Pink said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “Lots of old hemlocks up here, if the dang blight don’t kill ’em all off.” He reached across the seat and lifted Burrito from Michelle’s arms. “I’ll only be a minute. Do you need to use the facilities?”

  “The what?” Michelle asked.

  “The bathroom.”

  Michelle was about to say no but decided she wanted to see the inside of Mattie’s house. “Sure.”

  Pink twisted the knob and walked in. “She always leaves the back door unlocked,” Pink said. “I tell her it ain’t like it used to be up here, with all the transients now, but she won’t listen.”

  When Pink set Burrito down, the dog’s nails slipped on the linoleum floor. “Bathroom’s through there.”

  Remembering Pink’s open admission that his mother was a witch, Michelle was surprised by the interior of the house. It was nothing like she expected. The very sound of the word witch brought to mind all sorts of queer objects—jars filled with strange roots and herbs, newts and lizards. She imagined cobwebs hanging from each rafter, a cauldron sitting off to one side. Instead there were framed prints on the walls with cosmic motifs—moon, planets, and stars—and a metal pentagram on the kitchen table, similar to the one she’d found at the cabin behind the toilet, along with four placemats and a bowl of fruit—bananas, apples, and pears. Nothing remarkable. In the bathroom she noticed some brightly colored stones then another that looked like a crystal and one the color of honey. Next to the soap dish was a plastic cup with a toothbrush and a tube of Crest.

  Michelle quietly opened the medicine cabinet—Vicks, floss, lipstick, eyeliner, nail polish, hand cream, ointments and razors, deodorant. Attached to the glass was a dreamcatcher and next to it a stained-glass ornament of a dove, light from outside illuminating its wings. Above the toilet, a shelving unit filled with colorful towels—red, pink, and lavender. It could have been Darcy’s condo.

  Michelle bent over the sink and doused her face with cold water. How could you know if you were crazy? she thought. The answer that came back was more disturbing than the question: you couldn’t. She studied her face in the mirror. It was gaunt and drawn and nothing like she remembered. Michelle undid her jeans and pushed them down past her knees, checking for the scar where she’d cut herself. She ran her finger over the raised skin, barely red, nearly healed. She felt reassured, until she realized that the only thing the fresh scar proved was that she’d been tromping around in the woods that night. Nobody had disputed that.

  Burrito was waiting at the door when she opened it. “Come here, you,” she said, picking him up. “Why don’t I take you home with me?” She walked past a room, the door partially open, then looked toward the kitchen. When she heard Pink rustling through the kitchen drawers, she shouldered the door open and was peeking inside when Pink rushed down the hallway. “Shit! Don’t go in there!” he shouted, pushing past her, slamming the door shut.

  Michelle bristled with embarrassment.

  “My mama’s altar and stuff is in there,” he said. “That’s her sacred room. Nobody’s allowed. Not even me.”

  “I’m sorry. The dog ran in there and . . . I was just . . .”

  “Hell, I don’t care. Throw a damn stag party in there for all I care. But if my mama came in and saw you, hell, she’d blow a vein in her head, end up like Lulu.”

  Pink didn’t seem upset as he strolled back toward the kitchen.

  Michelle set Burrito on the floor and shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Hey, Pink. I was thinking that maybe—”

  “Let’s get up to that cabin of yours,” he said. “I haven’t seen that thing in years.”

  Chapter 13

  When Emerson flipped the switch at the top of the steps, the lights flickered and flashed in the preparation room below, reminding Mattie of a mad scientist’s laboratory from an old movie. Mattie followed Emerson down the stairs, her eyes pulling around the room, the cabinets along two walls, the slender drawers, the small silver table filled with shiny instruments. Machines and tubes occupied the countertops, while brown glass bottles lined the metal shelf above the sink. The stainless steel precision of it made her stiffen. In front of Mattie was a massive steel table, a fluorescent fixture buzzing above it. On the table was a body covered in a white sheet. She assumed it was Lulu.

  She set the paper grocery sack on the marble tile floor next to the table and proceeded to roll back the sheet.

  “Hold on there,” Emerson said, grabbing Mattie’s wrist. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to look at her.”

  “She’s been disrobed. She’s not ready for viewing.”

  Mattie pushed his hand from her wrist and drew back the cover. “Where’s her amulet? The one that was around her neck?” Mattie glared at Emerson.

  “It’s upstairs with everything else we removed.”

  Mattie rolled up her sleeves, pulled a brush from her grocery sack, and began stroking Lulu’s hair. Emerson reached out again, this time with more urgency, jerking Mattie’s hand from the body. The brush flew from her grip and spun across the floor like a propeller, coming to a stop along the far wall at the base of the cabinets. Mattie went over and picked it up. “Why did you do that?” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Mattie, but I can’t have you coming in here and combing out Lulu’s hair.” His features creased with
annoyance. “There’s laws and rules, and you can’t just do whatever you want. Now, why don’t we go back upstairs and fill out the paperwork so I can get Lulu’s body somewhere cool so it doesn’t decompose before we’re done.”

  “There’s no need of that, Emerson. I’ve brought her dress, her makeup, and when I’m done, you can cremate her, and I’ll get her ashes in the morning.”

  Emerson scratched his head, then peered over at Mattie. “That’s about the craziest damn thing I ever heard, Mattie Souder. Even if I could let you put that dress on her and make her up and all that, I couldn’t have her ashes for you in the morning. I have to wait twenty-four hours to cremate the body, any body! That’s the law!”

  The buzzer went off, announcing that someone had entered the funeral parlor. “Wait here,” Emerson told her, clearly upset by the diversion. “And don’t touch anything.” He hurried up the steps.

  Mattie looked down at Lulu’s face, her wrinkled neck, the mole near her mouth, what Lulu called her Marilyn Monroe mark. Lulu loved Marilyn Monroe, thought she would have made a good witch the way she had cast a spell over an entire nation—not to mention a president and a famous baseball player. Mattie recalled the day Lulu told her she was going to die. “It will be soon,” Lulu had said.

  “No, Lulu. You’re still young.”

  Even as Mattie had spoken those words, she had never forgotten how old Lulu really was. Even though she looked to be in her sixties, Lulu had been born in 1877. Lulu had been the seventh of nine children. Her mother had been married only once for a period of less than five years. Most of her brothers and sisters, like Lulu, had been born out of wedlock.

  A man that Lulu’s mother introduced as her great uncle Johann Krieg had helped raise Lulu—taught her about alchemy, about the Ladder of the Planets, First Matter, the Emerald Tablet, explaining the subtle levels of reality. He’d shown her how to mix elixirs, cure ailments, manipulate the normal processes of time. “It’s not so much magic as using the hidden forces of the universe—forces that exist for anyone willing to look,” Johann had told Lulu.

  When Lulu was thirteen, her mother had shown her a handwritten book, The Philosophia Visita, with entries dated from the late sixteen-hundreds. Inside the book was an etched portrait of her uncle, along with documentation of his successes in transmuting mercury and sulfur into gold. Johann claimed to have been born in Vienna in 1605 and was an ancestor of Lulu’s mother. Despite Johann’s vibrant and youthful appearance, neither Lulu nor her mother ever doubted his claim, even though he should have been dead for at least two centuries.

  Johann had warned Lulu about “puffers,” chemists who were driven by greed and took a strictly materialistic approach to alchemy, eschewing the three levels of transformation—spirit, soul, and body—concentrating their efforts only on gross matter. “They are charlatans, operating purely from trickery.”

  “Why are they called puffers?” Lulu had asked.

  “They are only interested in fanning their bellows, blowing air at their fires. They care not for the essential nuance of alchemy—the emotional and mental state of the alchemist himself—so they are always doomed to fail.”

  Mattie was certain that if Pink ever took an interest in magic, he would have become a puffer, interested only in the outcome, what was to be gained. Mattie often wondered if she herself was a puffer and worried that her own intentions were not pure, her mind and soul muddled. Lulu had assured her not to worry, that to even question her motives was a move toward clarity, toward transformation.

  Johann had opened astonishing worlds to Lulu, things she could never have imagined.

  “I’m ready to die” is what Lulu had told Mattie a month before she passed. Lulu had cheated death for years using the techniques Johann had taught her, techniques Lulu tried to pass on to Mattie. But Mattie lacked the strength to withstand the rapture, growing frightened, short of breath, and collapsing each time they tried.

  “But you can live as long as you want,” Mattie had told her, not attempting to hide the desperation in her voice. Lulu hugged her close and whispered, “It’s not natural. It’s destroying me in other ways.” Johann had managed to live for over three hundred years, but Lulu knew the price for stealing life.

  “I don’t want to end up like them,” Lulu had told her. “They live, but their eyes are dead.”

  Mattie was jogged from the memory when Emerson clopped down the steps, his thick soles echoing in the metallic space of the prep room.

  “How soon can I get her ashes?” Mattie asked, thinking about the full moon two nights away.

  “I don’t know,” Emerson said, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “How about early next week?”

  “Too late,” Mattie said. “I need them day after tomorrow.”

  “Now, Mattie, I know you’re grieving and all, and I know how much you loved Lulu, but I can’t just—”

  “Yes, you can, Emerson. You own the place. You can do whatever needs to be done. And this needs to be done.”

  Emerson twisted his mouth and stared over at Mattie. “Oh, all right. But that’s it! You’re not dressing her up or putting on any of that makeup or anything else.” Emerson stood unmoving, fists on hips. “Besides, why would you want to do all that if she’s going to be cremated? It makes no sense.”

  “What difference does it make to you, Emerson? You don’t have to pay for the dress, or the makeup, and I’m doing all the work. So why don’t you go back up to your office while I take care of things down here.”

  Emerson turned red. “You can’t do that, Mattie!”

  “Nobody but you and me will ever know.”

  “Well, hell, Mattie. You’re ’bout as stubborn as a dang possum.” Emerson glared toward the closed door at the other end of the preparation room. “Let’s at least get her over there into the dressing room.” He scratched his head, shaking it from side to side. “Where the hell are all the dad-blame gurneys!”

  Chapter 14

  Pink took a right turn at the end of Pink Souder Road and headed up the mountain in the direction of the cabin. He told Michelle how he’d built it for Isabelle, how Isabelle had fallen sick a few months after they moved in, and how he’d sold it a year later.

  “That cabin’s probably sold five times since I built it. Loudon told me some folks from Atlanta . . .” Pink started to say then stopped, looking in her direction before taking his eyes back to the road.

  “So you heard,” Michelle said. “I’m the crazy woman from Atlanta.”

  “I don’t judge,” Pink said.

  “Everybody judges, Pink.” When they rounded the turn, Michelle shook her head. “Damn.” A Range Rover sat in the driveway. Cliff stood at the railing of the deck, looking out over the mountains. She knew he’d come; she just hadn’t expected him to get here so soon. She’d been careful to not use credit cards or an ATM. Darcy must have told him after all. She needed more time, time without Cliff hounding her.

  “Just keep driving, please,” Michelle said, slinking down in the seat.

  “Are you okay? You look kind of—”

  “I’m fine. Just go.”

  Pink accelerated up the hill and made a left onto a dirt road then drove about a mile or so before he pulled over and stopped. When he rolled the electric windows down, fresh air swept across Michelle’s face. She felt defeated. How could she learn anything with Cliff trying to get her back home? “Maybe you should take me back to my car.”

  “Are you sure?” Pink said.

  “I haven’t been honest with you,” she said. “And I’m sorry. Please take me back.”

  “Hell, it don’t matter. I’ve been known to spin a tale or two myself.” Pink’s eyes met hers for only a moment before he opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel road. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  Michelle caught up to Pink and walked alongside him. Winding u
p a steep hill, they followed the path along a ridge that gave way to a view of the entire valley, mountains repeating themselves infinitely against a flawless blue sky.

  Michelle wondered where she would stay tonight. An uneasiness began to unravel in her, and for a moment she had no idea what she was doing or where she was, and everything in her life seemed wrong, as though the details of her existence belonged to someone else.

  She stopped in the middle of the path, her head pounding. In less than twenty-four hours she’d become a stranger in her own life. Just yesterday, she’d helped Darcy stock supplements and soymilk—then had stolen Darcy’s car and her gun. The gun. Had she left it on the kitchen table next to the apples she’d bought at the grocery store? Cliff would go crazy finding the gun. And Darcy, what would she say to Cliff? Would Darcy be in trouble with the police? Was the gun even registered? Michelle felt something tighten inside. She bent over and threw up in the weeds.

  Pink came to her side. “You look like hell. Maybe I better get you to the hospital.”

  “No, I’ll be all right. Give me a second.” She squatted down and sat back on her heels then wiped her mouth. When she tried to stand, Pink took her arm to steady her. “Let’s keep walking,” she said. “I feel better now.”

  “You don’t look better. You’re white as soap.”

  “I’m okay. Really.”

  Pink led the way through the woods. She stayed close to Pink as they traversed a wide log that crossed the creek. On the other side they climbed a hill of car-size boulders to a waterfall over seventy-five feet high. Michelle couldn’t believe she’d never known about this amazing place so close to the cabin.

  Michelle spied something in the treetops about thirty yards away, some kind of structure. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

  He nodded and motioned for her to follow. When they got closer, she could see boards attached between the trees, like a walkway of some kind, high up among the branches. Pink stopped beneath the rickety framework. Michelle’s eyes followed the boards through the limbs until they disappeared over the ridge.