The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal Book 1) Page 33

  Pain.

  And anger.

  “James?” he calls out. “Is that you?”

  “Damn straight,” I reply, bumping up the steps until I finally reach the porch.

  “It's late,” he continues. “What are you doing here? Have you been drinking again?”

  “I just came from the hospital,” I tell him. “No, actually, that's not entirely accurate. I came from the hospital via a bar, but that doesn't mean I'm drunk. You know when you have a few shots of whiskey, and it's not enough to make you drunk but it is enough to make it so people look at you and think you might be drunk? I'm about there right now. But I needed a drink, 'cause I was at the hospital with Emma and Ramsey. Remember them? My family. I was at the hospital with my family, except they're not my family anymore.”

  I wait for him to reply, but he's simply staring at me as if he doesn't understand. Realizing that I might be swaying slightly, I reach out and steady myself for a few seconds, and then I sit on the railing that runs along the front of the porch. It's not exactly comfortable, but then again I'm not here to be comfortable.

  “You told Emma to leave me,” I continue, feeling another flash of anger. “All those years ago, you told her to get out of Deal and take Ramsey with her. Don't even begin to deny it, 'cause I know it's true. I heard it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.”

  “I remember Emma,” he replies, sounding a little plaintive and lost. “She's probably at home waiting for you, James.”

  “Don't do that.”

  “Don't do what?”

  “That thing where you get confused and forget that time has passed.” I pause for a moment, while taking care to make sure I don't look too drunk. “You're not gonna get away with that now, old man. You might have gotten away with it this afternoon at the station, when you rolled in and acted like you thought you were still in charge, but it won't work now. Not between us.”

  “Ramsey's a lovely girl,” he continues. “When's her birthday again?”

  “August eighth.”

  “I must remember to get her something this year. Does she still like dolls?”

  “She's eighteen years old, Buddy.”

  He stares at me. His eyes are all watery, like he's about to cry.

  “Ramsey's a little girl,” he says after a moment. “She likes dolls...”

  “She's eighteen,” I mutter, edging closer. “She's basically an adult, give or take, so no, I don't think she likes dolls anymore. I don't know what she does like, though, because several years ago one of my best friends went and told my wife to take her away from me. Then again, Buddy, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. You were always one for cutting corners, weren't you? You never stuck to the rule-book. You were the one who encouraged me to take a swig of whiskey at work any time I was struggling, or to stop by the bar on the way home. You were the one who shot Mikey Cane even though you could've restrained him instead. You were the one who taught me how to be sheriff, and look how that turned out.”

  “James -”

  “You know,” I continue, warming to my theme, “I've often thought I should reopen some of your old investigations. The ones where you allowed everything to taper off to nothing. Like the Molly Abernathy disappearance, or pretty much any case involving the forest. Should I do that, Buddy? Should I go snooping around and try to figure out what you were hiding?”

  Suddenly the screen door swings open, and I turn to see Harry coming out from the hallway.

  “Is everything okay out here?” she asks cautiously, as she ties a cord around her nightgown. “James? What are you doing here?”

  “Reminiscing about the past,” I tell her, “with an old man whose memory doesn't work properly. To be honest, things are a little one-sided so far.”

  “I don't know what he's doing here,” Buddy tells her, still sounding a little lost, “but it's okay. This is James. He's my friend.”

  “Maybe you should go,” Harry says, coming over to join me. “Dad's been calmer this evening, but he's still not very lucid. He barely even remembers who I am at the moment.”

  “Well, that's convenient, isn't it?” I reply. “I hope when I'm older, I can forget all the shitty things I did, and just sit on my porch like I'm some kind of model citizen. Who needs guilt, when you can just get dementia and forget about it all?”

  She sighs. “James -”

  “He told Emma to leave me,” I add. “Did you know that? I didn't, not until tonight. Your father told my wife, several years ago, that she should take Ramsey and get out of town. And guess what? That's exactly what she did. Because people around here have always trusted Buddy. They've always looked up to him and taken his advice seriously.”

  “Emma's a grown woman,” she replies. “Buddy might have given her his opinion, but he didn't make her do anything.”

  “He sure helped.”

  “Blaming him won't change anything.”

  “I just want to know why he did it.”

  “And that's something he can't ever tell you!” she says firmly. “Some days, his dementia's so bad, he can't even tell me why he just poured salt onto his cereal, or why he went to the toilet in the spare bedroom, let alone why he did something that happened almost a decade ago!”

  “It's in there somewhere,” I mutter, turning back to look at Buddy's blank, confused face. “He can't just act like it didn't happen.”

  “James -”

  “And he shot a man in cold blood,” I add, turning back to her. “Did he ever tell you that? Mikey Cane was dangerous, sure, but your father basically executed him in the forest. Mikey could've been taken alive, but dear old Buddy decided that was too much effort. What were his exact words again? Oh yeah, I remember. They're burned into my fucking memory.”

  I turn back to Buddy, who still looks utterly lost.

  “What's done is done,” I announce grandly, repeating Buddy's words right back at him. “Mikey dying was the right outcome. Doesn't matter one jot how it came about.”

  I wait, but Buddy's staring at me as if he barely even knows who I am.

  “That's what you said to me,” I remind him, “right after you murdered a suspect. Right after you executed him, and right before you started teaching me to be more like you. And then there's the Abernathy case. What really happened to poor Molly? Something about all of that never quite sat right with me.”

  “It's time to go home, James,” Harry says, taking my arm and starting to lead me toward the steps. “I don't know what the hell you thought you'd accomplish by coming out here, but -”

  “I could've worked things out!” I yell angrily, pulling away from her and heading back to Buddy. When I reach him, he pulls away but I grab him by the shoulders and lean closer. “She was my wife, and Ramsey was my daughter, and now they're neither of those things and it's all because you told Emma to leave me!”

  “James, stop!” Harry hisses.

  “Were they competition?” I sneer, leaning even closer as Buddy lets out a pained whimper. “Is that it? Did you figure I needed to be lonely and alone, just like you, so you could mold me into a better cop? Did you take it upon yourself to reorganize my life so that I wouldn't have anyone? Or did you need to crush me, just a little bit, so that I wouldn't ask too many questions about all the secrets you've been keeping?”

  “Stop!” he blurts out. “Leave me alone!”

  “I'm right, aren't I?” I ask. “You were trying to mold me, to make me the perfect successor. But you needed me to be a broken man, without any family responsibilities, because you knew that was the only way to keep me from asking what the hell is out there in that forest!”

  “Please!” he sobs. “I don't know who you are!”

  “That's enough!” Harry hisses, grabbing my arm and pulling me away before shoving me so hard toward the steps that I almost fall down. “Get out of my house, James!”

  Grabbing the railing, I turn to go back to Buddy, but Harry pushes me down to the path and then manhandles me until I reach the gate.

/>   “I'm not done with him yet!” I say firmly. “He might be a scared old man right now, but you have no idea what kind of things he did back when he was -”

  Before I can finish, she slaps me hard, sending me stumbling back against the fence with a sharp stinging pain on my left cheek.

  “Don't tell me what I do and don't know about my own father!” she hisses furiously. “He was a bad guy at work? He did mean things to you and interfered in your marriage? Well, tough! And guess what? He wasn't exactly the greatest father, either! And when he got home each night, he didn't magically stop being a loud, angry, lying asshole!”

  I stare at her, but even in my drunken state I can tell it's better not to argue with her right now. In fact, I think her anger might just be sobering me up a little.

  “And I get it,” she continues breathlessly. “You want to yell at him and shake him and make him apologize for everything he did to you! But that whimpering, sobbing, forgetful old man up there on the porch can never, ever say anything to make things better. Do you know why? Because he doesn't remember anything. He doesn't remember shooting some suspect in the forest. He doesn't remember telling your ex-wife to take your daughter away. He doesn't remember beating me every time I got a bad grade at school, and he sure as hell doesn't remember...”

  She hesitates, with tears in her eyes, before finally shaking her head.

  “Never mind,” she mutters, taking a step back. “Trust me, I've tried yelling at him. It doesn't help. He just gets upset, and I end up feeling like an ass. The part of him that did those things just doesn't seem to be in there anymore. And if that infuriates you and makes you feel like he's getting off easy, then join the club, James. I'm furious too, but the person I'm furious at... He's sitting on that porch but I can't say a word about any of it. So what the hell am I supposed to do with all that anger, huh?”

  Staring at her, I realize that she seems to be on the verge of breaking down completely.

  “Harry,” I say finally, suddenly feeling a lot more sober. “Harriet, listen, I'm sorry. I just...”

  “Now if you'll excuse me,” she adds, interrupting me, “I have to go and clean him up, and tell him everything's going to be okay, and wipe his tears and tuck him up in bed. Because he's my father and he doesn't have anyone else. You should go home and drink some water. A lot of water.”

  She delivers those last few words with a sneer, as if she truly hates me right now, and then she heads back to the porch. Buddy's up there, sobbing and asking her what's wrong and who I am, but she quickly starts telling him not to worry. I watch as she leads him inside, and for a moment she and I make eye contact as she pulls the screen door shut, but then she disappears inside and I'm left standing alone in the cold night air.

  “I'm sorry!” I call out, even though I know she probably can't hear me now. “I'm sorry, Harry! And Buddy! I'm sorry to both of you!”

  I wait, just in case I might hear a reply yelled back at me from inside the house, but a moment later I see a light flickering to life in one of the upstairs windows.

  Turning, I start stumbling along the street. I'm not drunk, I'm just sick of the madness that fills the world all around me. And I'm going to do something about it, and about the vast, dark forest that's still just about visible beyond the bright lights of town.

  Forty-Three

  Esther

  Two days earlier

  “It's okay,” Ramsey says, supporting me as she carefully lowers me down onto the grass. “I'm going to make sure you get help. Just rest for a moment and we'll figure out what to do.”

  I try to reply, to tell her it's hopeless, but the pain is too intense. I can feel my ribs splitting open as my old injuries return, and I know it's only a matter of time before the split runs all the way up through my breastbone and I'm left carved wide apart. I've felt those fault-lines in my flesh and bone for so long, but I never thought they'd burst open like this. I thought they'd stay healed forever.

  “What the hell's happening to you?” Ramsey continues, staring in horror at my wounds as they re-open all across my torso. “Did you fall? Did you cut yourself? You were fine a moment ago!”

  “It's old!” I gasp, reaching down with bloodied hands and feeling my split skin as it eases aside. Already, my bloated liver is starting to push out from my body, and I can hear more ribs cracking under the pressure. “He put me back together when I was just a child, but now he doesn't need me anymore, not with you around! He promised to let me go home! He swore I could go home once you came! He said I could be a little -”

  Suddenly my breastbone cracks and I cry out again, tilting my head back as a fresh wave of pain rips through my body. My hands are trembling now, dripping blood back onto my ravaged belly.

  “Do you have a phone?” Ramsey asks, her voice filled with panic. “Come on, there has to be a way to call help!”

  “He promised I'd get to go home!” I sob, feeling a rising sense of fury as I realize that I allowed myself to be tricked. No matter what else happened over the years, I always believed that he'd give me what I wanted. I served him dutifully every day, carrying out his every wish, I trusted him and now he's discarding me as if I'm no more than a piece of trash. “That's all I ever wanted!” I groan. “It didn't even have to be forever! Just one day would have been enough! I just wanted to see them again. I was just a little girl when he found me. He said I could be a little girl again and go back to my parents.”

  My whole body is shuddering now, shaking violently as blood flows freely from my split-open torso. I can't even move my arms and legs, but a moment later I feel Ramsey reaching under me, and finally she lifts me up and starts stumbling through the forest.

  “Wait,” I whisper, realizing that she's going the wrong way. She's carrying me away from the tunnels. “He won't... He won't let you leave...”

  “I'm going to find someone to help you,” she tells me. “I don't know how, but I'm going to get you to safety.”

  “You're going the wrong way,” I groan. “You need to go back.”

  “If I'm walking away from those tunnels,” she replies, “then by my reckoning I'm going the right way. I'll watch the sun as it moves, I'll figure out how to get back to town, or at least to the road. There's no way I'm leaving you out here to die.”

  I try to tell her that she won't get far, but suddenly the pain erupts again and I feel my ribs splitting even further apart. All I can do is let out a howl of pain, not only because my body is falling apart, but also because after all these years I've finally realized that I'll never get to go home again.

  He lied to me.

  ***

  When I wake up and open my eyes, I feel for a moment as if I've simply been sleeping. As if there was no pain, no blood, and I simply slipped out of consciousness for a few minutes. My body feels still and calm, and at first I don't dare move in case all the pain comes rushing back. Finally, however, I blink a couple of times and look up at the darkening sky, and then I turn my head to see Ramsey sitting just a few feet away. She's watching me intently.

  “You're not getting worse,” she says, with a hint of disbelief in her voice. “Everything that happened just... stopped.”

  I stare at her for a moment, before reaching down and touching my chest. Sure enough, my ribs are still broken and there are still thick, split wounds in my flesh, but they're not getting any bigger. For a moment, it occurs to me that maybe I've been granted a reprieve, but then I realize that maybe by pure luck Ramsey managed to get me to a part of the forest where the devil's influence isn't quite so strong.

  I'm still in agonizing pain, but I've been in pain all my life. It's nothing new, and I've learned to hold it at bay.

  “I can't explain any of this,” Ramsey continues. “I didn't even notice at first. You were screaming, and then you passed out, and then I kept carrying you through the forest and suddenly I looked down and saw that your body had stopped breaking.”

  Turning, I look around and see that we're in a section of the forest abo
ut five miles from the witch's chamber. Ramsey carried me a long way, and for the first time in many, many years I really must be away from the devil's influence. I listen to the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze, and I realize after a moment that the leaves are all I can hear. That ever-present whisper that I heard in the tunnels, and in the area immediately close to the tunnels, is gone. That doesn't mean he's not here, or that he's not aware of what's happening, but his power is limited. He can't reach this far from his little house and hurt me.

  “So are you going to start telling me what the hell is going on here?” Ramsey asks. “Because I've got to be honest, I'm just about starting to freak out right now.”

  “How did we get this far?” I ask, still trying to understand. “He should never have let you keep walking. He should have found a way to lure you back.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  I turn to her.

  “You keep mentioning someone,” she continues. “You're always talking about him, and about what he wants. Who is this guy? Is it the thing from the tunnels?”

  “No,” I reply, wincing a little as I feel a sharp pain in my chest. What if this is just a test? What if the devil is testing me one final time, to make sure I'm worthy of going home before he delivers on his promise? “The thing in the tunnels is just the guardian. Something left to help me watch over the witch.”

  “Okay,” she continues, “but that doesn't explain much. When he was close, I felt this fear in my chest. Real, heart-stopping fear, like nothing I'd ever experienced before in my life. Do you want to start by telling me what the hell that was all about?”

  I stare at her for a moment, before realizing that I have to tell her the truth. Part of the truth, at least.

  “Do you know the stories about this forest?” I ask.

  “There are lots of stories about this forest. Too many for anyone to remember.”

  “But the stories about the devil, about how he pokes his head out from the tunnels from time to time?”