Chapter 6 – Nooses and Ragdolls
I sigh as I roll my car to a stop in the middle of the street that runs in front of my Addieville, boyhood home.
Several signs stand askew in the yard – a political bulletin from several years ago proclaiming a candidate’s name over a field of red, white and blue; a church display pleading for repentance while warning that the end draws near; a cardboard sign advertising daycare services in black-marker letters smudged in the rain. A dog of some blend of pit bull sadly stares at me from a chain. I loiter in the road, wishing I could remember birthday parties hosted in that house, or mornings spent tossing a baseball back and forth between friends. But I lack such memories so many might believe to be common in such rural landscapes. The truth is that such memories are rare, and most of those who consider Addieville their home possess no such memories at all.
The dog yawns. It hasn’t growled or barked once at my car, and it shows no sign of viewing me as any kind of a threat. The dog’s likely spent the better part of its life chained to the zone of that front yard, and that dog’s likely learned that nothing’s worth the effort of straining against its chain.
Three more gnarled stumps sit in the yard, remnants of the oaks that once shaded the home. My resistance falters, and my memory drifts back to that morning we woke to find so many of my mother’s dolls hanging from the trees with tiny nooses knotted around their necks. I cannot return to this community in search of whatever tiles remain for me and deny such events that tossed me upon a boneshaker’s trail.
So I lean back into my seat and stare a little harder at that single-story home. I’m going to have to face the darkness if I want to grasp Mr. Turner’s magic. If I ever want to wield the power of those tiles, I’m going to have to own my fear.