The next morning I awoke downstairs on the sofa with no memory of getting there or falling asleep. Andrews was slouched in his chair. Sun shouted through the windows. To make matters worse, the phone would not stop ringing no matter how hard I stared at it.
Somehow I got to a standing position but failed to move any closer to the phone. Andrews shot up angrily, scowled, stomped over, and grabbed it.
“Devilin residence,” he said calmly. “Oh, Skidmore, we were just going to call you.”
He held out the receiver in my direction.
I took a deep breath, came to the phone. “Skid. We had an adventure last night.”
I told him the story. He got angry; we argued; he told me not to touch the thread from the gravestone, he'd be over in twenty minutes. I hung up.
“Okay, you were right.” I gave Andrews a glance. “We should have called him last night.”
“Sometimes I don't know what's the matter with you,” he growled.
I saw no point in going over the long list of things the matter with me, including why I'd slept on the sofa. Instead, I made breakfast: omelets with fresh basil from the spice garden and the last of the tomatoes on the leggy vines outside the door. I was making the second round of espresso when Skidmore knocked.
“Come in.” I didn't turn around.
He entered silently; I knew he was glaring at my back.
“Damn it.” He stood just inside the doorway.
“Here's the envelope,” Andrews offered from his seat at the kitchen table, pointing to the countertop.
“We're having a little espresso before we head up to the Deveroe place,” I said, my back still to him. “Want some?”
Skid and I had found over the years that ignoring a problem, in combination with the right amount of humor, could make the problem go away. Or at least it went unspoken, which was as good in my book. That would be the oft-mentioned Book of
Not Saying,
perfected in Blue Mountain generations before I was born.
“Okay then.” He moved to pick up the envelope, sighed. “I reckon I could use a little of that engine sludge.”
“You insult it,” I said, facing him, handing him a cup, “but you drink it.”
“I tolerate it for the sake of our friendship,” he answered pointedly. “What's left of it.”
“I told him to call you last night.” Andrews shifted in his seat. His hair was a blond squirrel's nest, and his sweatshirt looked as if he'd slept in it.
“Maybe it should just be you and me working on this thing,” Skid said to Andrews. “Leave out the middleman.”
“Factory-direct crime solving.” Andrews nodded. “We pass the savings on to you.”
“You get what you pay for,” I said, pouring.
“No kidding, Dev,” Skidmore said softly, “I need you to tell me when something like that happens. Not sit on it all night. What if them boys had found Able again? And now all that trail's nine hours cold. I mean,
damn
.”
“I told him all that,” Andrews put in.
“Now you're just getting annoying,” I informed Andrews. “I've changed my mind about taking you with me up to the Deveroe house.”
“I didn't want to go in the first place.” He leaned back. “I'm on vacation.”
“There you go,” Skid said, sipping.
“Fine,” I told them both. “I'll take care of our little problem myself, then, shall I?”
“Which problem would that be?” Skidmore said, casting a sidelong glance at Andrews.
“I'd be leaving the murder to you, of course,” I answered innocently. “I'm simply trying to do your wife a favor and find her brother.” I finished my espresso in one gulp. “And since the Deveroe brothers were the last to see him, I think I'll head up to their place.”
I turned, set my cup in the sink, and bounded upstairs.
I could hear Skidmore and Dr. Andrews discussing matters, most notably yours truly. Odd hearing my best friend from the mountains and my closest university chum talking without me: country mouse, city mouse conspiring. Most of what they said was lost when I got in the shower, but I was certain I heard Skidmore tell Andrews to meet him in an hour. What they were planning was anyone's guess.
I was back downstairs, khakis and dark green sweater on, within minutes. Skid had gone.
“What were you two talking about?” I asked Andrews.
“You mostly.”
“He left?”
“Without saying good-bye,” he said, mocking.
“Are you going with me or not?” I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
“Not,” he said firmly. “I'm taking a nice shower, a stroll through the grandeurs of nature, then a run at some cheap paperback that has nothing to do with Shakespeare, because, I may have forgotten to mention,
I'm on vacation
.”
“Well, there you are,” I said, heading for the door.
No need to confront him with the fact that I knew he was lying.
Â
The Deveroe cabin sat on a harsh slant near the top of a craggy rise, the dark side of Blue Mountain. Many generations had called the place home. What caught the eye in the morning's light was a lush verdance that seemed to grow from the house itself. Cardinal climber, purple hyacinth bean, morning glory, pumpkin vines all
twined as one around six front porch columns. The roof was covered with sod and growing moss, a green roof that cooled in summer and warmed in winter. The wood was gray with age, unpainted but looked solid. Windows were spotless and hung with white lace. The front yard rivaled Monet's: nasturtiums, mums, cleome, begonias mixed in with butternut squash, chard with purple stalks, and the perfume of giant rosemary guarded the steps. It was easy to see why people might think more than simple agriculture was at work in such abundanceânature had been aided by the supernatural.
I honked the truck horn as a formality: the boys knew I was there; the curtains at the window shivered.
Donny appeared in the doorway grinning. He hadn't changed clothes since the previous night, and his hair was wilder. He waved, stepped off the porch. I kept my eye on the windows, hoping for a glimpse inside, but the house was dark, impossible to see anything past the lace.
“Hey, Doc!” he called.
“Morning,” I answered, suspicious of his tone, his grin.
“Sorry to make you pull up and honk like that,” he went on, coming slowly toward me, his voice too loud. “Like I said, place is a mess.”
In a flash he was standing by the car. His overalls were grimy, flannel shirt ripe. Hair unwashed for decades obscured his forehead. Suddenly his hand shot into the cab and turned off the engine. My keys were in his pocket before I knew what he was doing.
“Don't want you to run off.” His smile was gone.
I was trying to think what weapon I might have in the car, a tire iron, even the flashlight under the seat. He jerked the door open.
“Dixon don't want you to know this,” he whispered, “we had a fight about it, so I got to talk fast.”
I struggled to remember which of the brothers was named Dixonâthe silent one?
“Our house is
sealed
.”
I twisted in my seat. “I need you to give me my keys back, Donny.”
“I will,” he whispered, his eyes imploring me to silence. “But you got to help us.”
“I can't help you if you keep my keys.”
“No, I mean you got to
help
us.” He grabbed my arm, flung me out of the truck, nearly facedown in the dirt. He was dragging me toward the house. I panicked, flailed.
“Hold still!” he growled.
I had barely gotten my feet under me when the silent brother, Dixon, appeared, blocking the way in front of us, wordless and scowling.
“He's the only one can do it, Dix,” Donny said, his face red, fists full of my sweater. “I know your feelings on the subject, but damn. We can't have it like this.”
Dixon stood his ground, still as granite.
I don't know where Dover came from, not from the house, but he appeared, tackled Dixon; they rolled over the nasturtiums. Donny used the moment to haul me closer to the cabin door. Struggling was useless; his forearms were the size of a cow's head and he was used to wrestling wild swine.
I tried sitting; he dragged. I grabbed a smooth black rock set in the garden path and swung it at his head. He ducked and ignored.
I was on the steps, hit my shin, winced. He pulled once and I went sprawling onto the porch, the rock tumbled from my hand toward a pile of garbage that lay in the sunniest corner.
“There.” He stood on the steps, blocking my way back to the truck, and everything was still.
“Christ.” I got my breath, rubbed my leg. “What the hell are you doing?”
The other two were standing behind him in the yard, resigned to whatever Donny wanted from me.
“Fix it.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the cabin door.
I turned. Nothing looked broken, I had no idea what he was asking me to do. I stood. No one moved. The frame was old but steady, the door solid, the hinges clean.
I stood, reached to test the doorknob.
With no warning a shock so hot it seemed electric stunned my hand; I stumbled backward. Donny caught me, kept me upright.
“It's sealed,” he said again. “Us boys can get in and out, but it ain't comfortable. Happened before when we was little, we just went out the window. We can't figure why Truvy did it this time, and since she ain't here ⦔ He didn't finish.
I looked at the doorway again, trying to focus, find a bare wire or anything that would explain the buzzing pain in my hand.
“You mean,” I said, took a step closer to the dark door, “you think your sister put a sealing spell on your house.”
“What did you think I mean?” He clearly felt I was an idiot. “Plus that's how we know she ain't dead: her binding spell's still working. Otherwise, you know, we might have killed that Able Carter.”
A sealing spell could put a field of energy around anythingâa book, a shed, a whole house. Its intent was to keep out unwanted visitors. It took effort on the part of the sealer and usually wore off after time or if anything happened to the person who set the spell. I'd heard about such spells for twenty years, first from people like June and then in my research, but I'd certainly never experienced one.
I took a step forward, raised my hand slowly to the door. My fingers tingled, burned the second I reached for the frame.
I turned. The brothers were gathered behind me on the porch, watching me. I couldn't help but grin, astonished as I was at the phenomenon.
“It feels like an electric current,” I said, aware of the wonder in my voice, “or a hot blade.”
“We feel it.” Donny said plainly. “Tried to drag a pig in last night, after we saw you? Damn thing near did a flip in the door and landed on Dixon's foot. Would not come in the house for love nor money.”
Dixon held out the foot to show me.
“Let me think,” I said slowly, turning back to the door.
I stood for ten minutes or more, shifting weight from one leg to the other, examining every molecule of the frame before my eye caught an upward drift of dust from the bottom of the doorsill. A puff of gray, nothing more, distracted my eye; dust motes shot upward like a rocket. I got down on my hands and knees, still a good six inches back from the door, examined the paper-thin crack between the porch floor
and the doorjamb. A razor of burning air was blasting up through it with a near constant intensity. I stood.
“Excuse me.” I muscled through the trio, jumped the steps to the ground, crawled up under the porch.
The boys were behind me again, this time bent over and peering in after me, still silent.
Jagged rocks directly under the door, most the size of a crouching man, were arranged in a careful, thought-out pattern. There wasn't quite enough light under the porch to see clearly. The dirt was wet; the boards were dripping but thankfully free of spiderwebs, other creatures. I inched as close to the pile of rocks as I could. I felt the heat. I touched one of the rocks, pulled my hand back. It was scalding. The pile was arranged, as far as I could tell, around a small hole in the ground to direct a furnace blast of heat in a thin sheet upward through the crack in the baseboard of the door frame. The crack further defined the stream of burning air. I slithered back out from under the porch, got to my feet, brushed myself off.
“Boys,” I said quietly, “you know there's a hole under your porch.”