Authors: Anne C. Petty
Cecil sighed again and stood up. At forty, he was well respected in the colored community and on friendly terms with some open-minded whites as well, but he was not like his father. Antoine Rider, the late pastor of St. Christopher’s, had been courageous in life and a source of strength to his flock and family even after his death. Cecil missed him still. He wished his father was here now, to give guidance. He’d looked long and hard into the eyes of that skinny child lodged in his grandmother’s room, and he wasn’t at all happy with what he saw. The boy was lying, of course, concealing his real situation. But there was something else … something in his eyes and sharp-boned face that gave Cecil a start every time the boy looked at him. It was unsettling, like feeling anxiety or dread over something you couldn’t name.
He’d also taken a good look at those ritual markings on the boy’s arms. What kind of voodoo was that? Again, the sense of unease tightened his stomach.
The Reverend Cecil Rider said a silent grace as the aroma of ham and turnips seared in butter and onions reached his nose. Be thankful for what life gives you: he’d always preached that to his flock. But he wondered, as he opened the screen door, what life had just dropped in his path.
Chapter 3
July, Tuesday—Present Day
“Well, that sucks,” Alice said aloud. She highlighted a paragraph on her computer screen and hit DELETE. The introduction she was supposed to be writing for an expensive picture book the Hardison Museum was publishing wasn’t flowing. It wasn’t even trickling. The book was a follow-up to last year’s highly successful Land of Legends Australian Aboriginal art exhibit. The photos were beautiful, the book design top notch, but Alice couldn’t get focused.
Opening her well-worn Guidebook to Australia, a tome larger and heavier than the Greater Miami phone book that she remembered from the years she’d grown up there, she turned to the sacred sites chapter and read:
Sacred sites are vital to Aboriginal culture. Aboriginals claim that Ancestor spirits still linger in such spots, and to enter them without permission or the proper initiations and rituals can be highly dangerous. These so-called “dangerous places” are not listed on any tourist map; in fact, Aboriginal guides will refuse to pass near them or even divulge their existence to outsiders.
Alice frowned. She wanted to explain how the Wandjina rock paintings and artifacts appearing in the Land of Legends exhibit had been blessed by clan leaders and sanctioned by the Aboriginal community. Nothing in the show had come from any so-called “dangerous place,” disturbing accidents around the exhibit notwithstanding, including the fact that she’d had a mental meltdown once the show opened. In her heart of hearts she knew what she’d seen, and felt. The electrical discharge in the Wandjina spirits’ touch during a thunderstorm, she still remembered that. The oversized wild dog that attacked her in the yard of her house in the woods … that’d felt damned real. But what came after … Alice felt the sweaty palms of a panic attack gearing up. She’d taken a leave of absence, gone to a shrink and gotten convinced it had all been in her head, and then tried very hard to get on with her life. But Margaret knew, and so did Nik. They just weren’t saying. The three of them were living as if last year hadn’t happened. On some level it was working.
She did the deep, calming breath technique the shrink had taught her, and her heartbeat slid back to a normal rhythm. Alice sagged in her chair, feeling tired and stupid. Suzanne’s impending funeral was draining away her concentration and making her irritable. She reached for the phone.
“Doris, what’s the deadline on this intro copy for the Legends book?” Alice rarely had occasion to call Doris Manley, the museum’s Education Director, but everyone had agreed Alice should write the introductory chapter for this special collector’s edition book. The exhibit had been her baby, her first big show as Arts Curator.
“Alice, is that you? I was sorry to hear about your mother. There’s no hurry, we don’t need the introduction yet.”
“No, I can do it. I’m flying down to Miami for the funeral, but I’ll be here all this week before that. My uncle Hal’s taking care of the arrangements, so I don’t have much to do. Just show up for the ritual, I guess.”
Alice winced; she hadn’t meant to sound that flip. It was just that she felt removed from the entire death and mourning process. She was dealing with the fact intellectually, but her emotions weren’t connected to it.
“Don’t push yourself,” Doris was saying. “Anytime this week is fine.”
“Right. I’ll get on it, then. Thanks.”
In the lunch room down the hall she found Hannah, her research assistant, leaning against the counter, watching the corporate coffee pot ooze a vile black liquid into a glass decanter that could use a good scrubbing.
“Alice!” Hannah came around the lunch table, her arms extended. “I’m really sorry.”
Alice returned the hug with minimal response. “I’m fine. We’re all glad she didn’t linger. My uncle Hal’s in control of the situation, so...” She shrugged. She was beginning to feel a little guilty that she couldn’t pretend even a small display of bereavement.
“Well, that’s good. We’ve missed you. Nik stopped by and brought us up to date. He’s looking good,” she added.
Alice finally smiled. A vision of tall, skinny Nik with his blonde ponytail and wire-rimmed glasses, rummaging through the museum’s library stacks on his first assignment as technical illustrator, invaded Alice’s mind. She’d been newly divorced and initially not interested, but the attraction had taken hold anyway.
“Have you met Milton?” Hannah was saying.
“Who’s Milton?”
“I told you. Part-time artist hired for the Legends book. Knows his Florida history, but he’s just a little too full of himself for my taste. Says he’s a local history expert. I think he’s a camp activities coach, too, or something like that.”
A gong went off in Alice’s head. “What camp?”
“Apalachee? It’s that one Margaret went to, I think.”
Alice was suddenly very interested. “Where’s he located?”
Hannah poured the dark sludge from the pot into a Styrofoam cup. “Downstairs in the Conservation lab. They promised to find him some space up here, but I don’t know who’s got room. All the double offices are full.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Big burly guy, built like a fullback. His illustration skills aren’t that bad, but Nik he ain’t.”
“How old, would you say?”
“Um, thirtyish?”
Alice turned to leave. “I think I’ll go search him out. If he’s working on my book, we need to get acquainted.”
Alice took the elevator down to the basement where the Conservation lab took up most of the real estate. She went down the hallway, poorly lit and drab as a fallout shelter, and pushed at the heavy double doors to the lab. At a new desk pushed against the wall behind the receptionist area a large man in a yellow golf shirt and khaki pants leafed through the print pieces from the Land of Legends promotional campaign.
“Hi,” she said, approaching him.
Startled, he turned, dumping flyers onto the floor.
“Alice Waterston,” she said, extending her hand. “I was the curator for that exhibit.”
“Oh, cool! I’ve been wanting to meet you!” He pumped her hand up and down. She looked him over. Curly brown hair shaved close on the sides of his head and up his neck, with the top a little longer. Bit of a belly hanging over his belt, sweat rings around his armpits, rundown deck shoes, and white cotton socks bunched around his ankles. He grinned at her, his head tilted sideways. A big old sloppy dog, that’s what he was. If he’d licked her hand and sprouted floppy ears and a tail, she wouldn’t have been half-shocked.
“Milton Crouch, glad to meetcha. I’m just part-time for this job,” he gestured toward the flyers, “but who knows, it might turn into something if they like me.”
“Hannah mentioned something about Camp Apalachee?” She phrased it as a question, giving him the lead.
“Oh, yeah, activities director, just a summer job. The pay’s not that good, so if I went fulltime here, I’d give it up. Not that I don’t like it—the kids are great—but I gotta pay the bills, you know.”
Alice nodded, keeping her distance. “My daughter’s been a camper there for the past couple of years.”
“Hey, that’s cool! What’s her name?”
“Margaret.”
Milton scratched at his wooly thatch. “I’m pretty good with names, but I can’t remember a Margaret Waterston.”
“Sorry, it’s Margaret Sullivan. Her father and I are divorced.”
“Ohhhkay! That Margaret. Skinny little red-haired girl. Hey, she’s your kid?” He leaned forward, the too-small secretary’s swivel chair creaking under his weight.
Alice backed away. “That’s her.”
Milton let out a guffaw that would have dislodged bats if they’d had any. “That’s a ballsy kid you got there!”
Alice blinked. “I’m sorry if she caused any problems for you—”
“No, no, no. She and a couple of guys from the boys’ cabins made a little midnight raid on that abandoned church property just past the camp fence last year. We didn’t catch ‘em in the act, but it was the buzz of the camp for days. Nobody got hurt or anything, so we just let it slide. Scared the bejeezus out of them enough that nobody tried that trick again.”
“I should hope not.” Alice was frowning. “I was just wondering … She told me the camp’s wakeup bell came from the belfry of that same church.” She was fishing, despite her resolve to let the memory of what she’d encountered there fade into oblivion.
“It sure did, and that’s mainly thanks to me. That old geezer who was the pastor, Cecil Something-or-other, wasn’t going to let us have it at first.”
“Really?” Alice moved a bit closer.
“Oh hell yeah. Listen, anything you want to know about that old landmark—well, it’s torn down now, of course—I’m your man.”
“Is that so?” She sat down on the edge of the receptionist’s desk. “You know what, I’ve often wondered about that old church,” she said, throwing out the line and wondering what it would hook. “What finally happened to it? I was on vacation in Norway last February, and after I got back, I drove past the spot and saw it had been dismantled.”
Milton gave her a toothy grin. “The bell tower got hit by lightning and set on fire. The main roof was tin, but the tower was wood shingled and burned pretty good. County’s volunteer fire department is only a mile and a half down the road, so they put it out pretty quick. But the belfry fell on top of the roof and took a wall with it. Last time pays for all.” He grinned and leaned toward her, a conspirator. “The place was a lightning rod. Been hit a couple of times that I know of, maybe even more.”
Now it was Alice who leaned forward. “Really.”
“Hell yeah, the place has a history of bad luck … snake bites, you know?”
“What makes you say that?” Alice’s mouth was dry.
Milton scooted his chair a little closer and held up a huge paw. “First,” he said, ticking off his pudgy fingers, “all kinds of things happened to the construction crew hired to tear the place down. One guy steps on a rusty nail and gets tetanus. Another one gets bit by a coral snake. Standing in all those deep weeds around the foundation, they figured it must have crawled into his boot and started chewing on his ankle—he didn’t even realize it was there until he’d gotten a good dose. Darn near killed him.”
Alice hoped she wasn’t gawking too openly, but she was riveted by his rambling tale as it filled in holes in her personal history of the First Church of the Heavenly Powers, a name the primitive one-room building had not borne since its founding in the late 1800s. Her own part in its history, played out over three terror-filled months near the end of last year, haunted her nightmares still.
“Then you got that first preacher,” Milton continued, “a gold-plated weirdo by all accounts, who also gets hit by lightning and fried right there, right in the belfry. After that, there’s no record of what happened to the church until nineteen seventeen, when it was used as a meeting hall for young black men being recruited into the World War I armed forces.”
Alice’s brain was on fast forward. “What year did the first preacher die? The one you said was hit by lightning?”
“Well, you can look up his obit, February of nineteen-hundred. Cause of death wasn’t listed, but there’s anecdotal evidence from a separate newspaper story and a coroner’s report, if you’re interested.”
“You’re obviously interested in the guy,” Alice said, watching him. “How come?”
Milton shrugged. “I’m a history buff, in case you hadn’t noticed. I do research for the Massalina County Historical Society, and some for the camp, too. Like when we asked if the bell was for sale. I mean, the building had been abandoned for years, what with the congregation moving up the road to a new brick church. They sure didn’t have any use for it. That preacher guy―”
“Cecil Rider,” said Alice.
“Yeah, him. He didn’t want to sell anything from the church, but that bell is pretty valuable. I offered them a hundred for it, but it’s worth more. I saw the maker’s mark on it: McShane Bell Foundry, Baltimore. That one in the church tower was bronze, seventeen-inch diameter, about a hundred pounds, made in the eighteen-hundreds. I’ve started a camp fund to have it restored. Say, how do you know old pastor Rider?”
“I’m a bit of a history buff myself. Job requirement.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot that. You got a degree in history or archeology or something like that, right? I read your bio when I got hired.”
Alice stood up. “Nice to meet you, Milton. I’m glad we’ll be working together.”
“Hey, you betcha!” He waved as she slipped out the door.
Alice rode the elevator back up to the third floor lost in thought. Her mind was circling around the periphery of forbidden territory, events she’d promised herself she wouldn’t get sucked into again. She’d moved on, and yet, there it all was again, right in her face. She went to her office, sank down into the wing chair by the door, and stared into space.
She had to drive past the camp and the old church grounds on her way home, but the church and its blighted past were gone now, so who the hell cared anyway, besides Milton and maybe Cecil Rider. Alice remembered him, hunched over in the January wind, watching her drive away with a church artifact he’d begged her to burn. She silently wished, for the millionth time now, that she had taken his advice.