Light as a Feather

  Chapter 2

  We went home and ate dinner, chicken and mashed potatoes or spaghetti with sauce from a can were two of mom’s specialties. I don’t remember which it was that night. I do recall it took some talking to convince them to let us go back out, but after my father got into his fourth beer, he no longer cared about what we did or where we went. At least not Danny and I. Robin always got his concern, and she always got his smile.

  “Where you goin’?” he slurred just slightly, but I could hear the Miller Lite talking.

  I hated how those cans piled up on the counter and next to his chair in the living room. How the pull tabs ended up behind the furniture and how I had cut my foot more than once on them while walking through the house. They were like roaches infesting our lives. My mother picked them up dutifully and never said a word, at least not that I heard.

  “Over to Matt’s. Matt Chambers,” I said.

  “All of ya?” It came out as one word of gibberish, olivya?

  “Yessir,” we said, a chorus of innocence.

  Robin gave him her widest eyes and he hugged her. The hug lasted a little too long. Then he kissed her on the cheek, a wet smack that made me sick and left a shiny spot just east of her lips, west of her ear.

  “Yeah, okay. Whatever,” he said.

  Once John McNeill was on board, Shannon McNeill never argued. Instead, she brought him another can of liquid stupidity and cleaned up his empties as we back over to Matt’s. I looked back at her before the door shut, wondering if she might be all right and she smiled at me. I don’t know if he beat her that night, but her look said she was glad it wouldn’t be me. That was our bond, mom and I. A good whoopin’ from John McNeill that brought up the purple bruises.

  Mom always catered to John—I stopped calling him Dad when I was nine or ten. She did her best to make sure he was happy. It was her second full time job and she worked harder at that job than any other. If she neglected those duties, someone got hurt, and that someone was often me. I liked it that way. It kept Danny and Robin out of the path of his fists and his belt. That evening, we were all escaping, so it was going to be a good night. At least that’s what I told myself as I walked the solid white line of US 49 like it was a tight rope between my house and Matt’s.

  There were a hundred reasons we could have stayed at the Chambers’ house. They had a VCR. They also had an Atari video game system. They always had plenty of snacks and their parents were funny, present, and loving. They could’ve had nothing more than a pile of rocks at their house and it would’ve suited me…as long as I wasn’t my house.

  I told myself mom loved us on that short walk, and I think she did. But after that weekend, we never heard her say it, and I never heard anything but profanity from my father after that weekend. That is, when he spoke in my direction at all.

  It was already dusky when we arrived at the Chambers’ front porch. The shadows stretched impossibly far and their tops faded into the darker shadows where the sun could no longer reach. The sunset was pretty that night, as bright and colorful as any I can remember. Like I said before, it’s funny what you remember and what you forget. Looking further down the road, there was a light on at Alex’s house, but it was too late to bring him into the mix. He would have to live that particular adventure out vicariously on Monday in Mr. Mossberg’s Social Studies class.

  “Hey assholes! Over here,” Sean said from our left.

  Sean and Matt were waiting for us in their driveway. They each had backpacks slung over their shoulders, the kind a Marine might wear. Their father was a Marine, a retired Master Gunnery Sergeant with Viet Nam stories. He only told us the happy ones, and I gathered there weren’t many of those, so we heard the same tales over and over. Bob Chambers was a quiet man, always kind as I remember, at least until that fall. We joined them and brought the team to a total of five. Just enough according to Sean’s rules.

  “You dickweeds ready?” Sean said.

  “Don’t say that,” Danny said.

  “What’s a dickweed?” Robin asked.

  No one answered, but there were plenty of shrugs as Sean walked down the driveway and across the road. I’m not sure any of us knew at the time, and I’m pretty sure I don’t know to this day what a dickweed is.

  We caught up with him and walked five wide to the opposite edge of US 49 where we stared across the street into the field beyond. The corn had been plowed a month previous and the remnants stood like broken soldiers in their ranks. In the failing light, the street lamps kicked on and flickered to life with an audible buzz. Moths and other such worshipers gathered in the low-pressure sodium glow.

  “Tell us about the house,” I said.

  I regretted the request, but there it was, out in the open. Sean looked at me and the others and started walking in the gravel along the shoulder. I could see the glint of the street lamp on his braces as he smiled. He wasn’t afraid. I was. I was also worried about my younger siblings. Still, the rush of nervous energy was too much to pass up and the crunch of our sneakers in the gravel just added to the suspense.

  “Well,” Sean said, “About two hundred years ago, a family came over from Russia and moved here to Walker’s Woods. Of course, it wasn’t Walker’s Woods back then, but you know what I mean. They meant to farm the land and stuff.”

  “What did they grow?” Robin asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s not important,” Sean said.

  “Of course it’s important,” Robin said. “How can they be farmers and not grow anything?”

  Matt, Danny and I stared at Sean, waiting for him to fix the plot hole.

  “Asparagus,” Sean said.

  In the story I’d heard, it was only one hundred years ago, and they’d farmed wheat. Asparagus, however, was a nice touch. It added a extra factor of disgust for a group of kids who didn’t like their vegetables and his announcement was met with a series of ughs and sour faces. We cut into the line of trees—Pignut Hickories, Candlewood Pines and Logan Elms—and followed the old six-foot chain link fence along while Sean talked. It got darker as we moved away from one street lamp toward the next and the overcast evening didn’t let much light from the thin crescent moon get through. Matt clicked on a flashlight and sent its beam on ahead of us.

  “The family had a little girl named Nataliya,” Sean said.

  Matt’s flashlight searched the fence until he found what we all knew was there, a cut place in the wire mesh just big enough for a person to squeeze through. It was damage left by a car that had run off the road some years before and the hole had never been repaired. Sean paused his story long enough so we could all duck through.

  “What was her last name?” Danny asked.

  “Kozlov,” I said. “No idea how to spell it.”

  Sean checked the air as if the answer was up there somewhere and then nodded.

  “That’s right,” Sean said. “Nataliya Koslov.”

  “What were her parent’s names?” Robin asked, looking at me.

  Sean checked the air again, frowned, and looked at me, but I didn’t know. I still don’t. I shrugged.

  “Yuri and Olga,” Sean said.

  I’m sure those names weren’t right, but Robin gave a satisfied, “Oh.”

  With the whole group back together on the other side of the fence, we continued our trek, the fellowship of the ring headed for Mt. Doom. There was nothing between us and the Russian House but a half dozen or so acres of crumbled clay, open farm land and our own courage. Matt’s flashlight made the trip a little easier, but each time some dried corn husk crunched under my feet, I jerked a little.

  “The Koslovs moved here with the American Dream. What they got was sickness and worse,” Sean said.

  “What’s worse? Did somebody die?” Danny asked.

  “Worse,” Sean said.

  “Worse than dying?” Robin said.

  In our minds, there was nothing worse than dying. That is a revelation that comes to a much older mind.

  “Nataliya…”
Sean said. He paused, took Matt’s flashlight and turned it on his own face. We all stopped to hear what he had to say next.

  What he said next was, “Nataliya was possessed.”

  My backbone stiffened.

  “What’s that mean,” Danny said.

  “It means, little man…that a demon got inside her,” Sean said.

  Danny grabbed me. I patted his hand, and then pulled it off of my arm.

  “Like a ghost?” Danny said.

  “Kind of, but demons are mean…and very powerful,” Sean said.

  He took the flashlight off of his face and turned back toward the old farmhouse, now only a few hundred feet away. We sped up and stepped in time with him. The sound of our feet moving together, crunching through the clods of dirt and dried corn husks had gone from creepy to comforting.

  “How’d a demon get inside her?” Danny asked, his voice trembling just a little.

  “No one knows. Some say it was because her father beat her and her body was weak, so when God wouldn’t answer, she prayed to the devil for help. Some say it was an Indian curse on their stolen land. Some people say the land they built the old house on was haunted when they got there. And other people say it was witchcraft. Doesn’t really matter which is true. What matters is that little girl did terrible things,” Sean said.

  Matt stopped walking. I hadn’t noticed at first, but Danny and Robin were on opposite sides of me, tugging on my arms. The four of us turned to face him and Sean lit him up with the flashlight. It made his skin look pale, or else he had gone pale from the story.

  “Like what?” Matt asked.

  “Remember I told you they were all sick?” Sean said.

  “Yeah,” Matt replied.

  “She poisoned them. That’s how it started anyway. Just a little bit in their dinner each night.”

  “Did it kill ‘em?” Matt asked.

  “No. Her mother caught her doing it. That’s when they found out she was possessed,” Sean said.

  “What else did she do?” Robin asked.

  I’d heard of a few other things, but wondered what Sean would come up with. I’d never heard that her father beat her. It brought an image of my own father to mind. For the first time since that day camp, I’d seen Nataliya as a person and I felt a little sorry for her.

  “She killed their workhorse with her father’s rifle. Her father beat her almost to death that day. It was the only way he knew to control her. She used to shout cuss words at her parents and anyone else that came to the house.”

  “Cuss words?” Danny said. “Like…dickweed?”

  “Just like that,” I said.

  “She also used to show herself to people. You know…take off her clothes and offer herself not only to the men that would visit, but also to the women.”

  “What does that mean?” Robin asked.

  “It means…” Sean started but I interrupted.

  “It means she did bad things, Robin. Very bad things. Things you’d never even think of doing.”

  I fixed Sean with a stare and he backed down. I’d hoped all the hugs and kisses, all the drunken slobbering John had lavished on Robin was still innocent, that she was still unaware of the filthy things in the world. That was my hope. I wasn’t about to let Sean Chambers educate my little brother and sister… to educate any of us in that way.

  I’m sure he was blushing, but it couldn’t be seen in the ever-darkening night. The house was large now, only steps away. The closer we got, the sicker I felt. Still, it was better than being at home and risk taking a beating of my own.

  “I heard the land is still owned by the Koslov family. I don’t know why they haven’t torn this old place down,” I said.

  “Too scared. Nobody wants that haunt on them,” Sean said.

  “So why are we here?” I asked.

  “We’re just visiting, not tearing down her home.”

  I felt, even then, that Sean was making bits of the story up. A child wouldn't know how to poison her family...or be able to shoot a horse with a rifle, would she? And the part about visiting making us somehow safe from a curse? It didn't feel right to me. It felt like someone was going to jump out of the woods and say boo, just like at that day camp. Still, my neck hairs were at attention. It didn’t matter that I didn’t believe in ghosts or curses…or in any of Sean’s bullshit. I was scared.

  “Get back to the dickweed part,” Matt said.

  Sean nodded and we all walked again. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

  “That’s right, she called them dickweeds and other stuff. But that next night, once she got up enough strength, Nataliya went into her parents’ bedroom…”

  “And?” Robin said.

  “And she cut their throats with her dad’s shaving razor.”

  “She k-killed them?” Danny said.

  “Dead as dead is dead,” Sean said.

  Danny grabbed my arm again. I let it stay that time. Robin was holding on to tough a little better than Danny and I couldn’t tell if she was buying the ghost story or not.

  “What happened to her?” Matt said.

  “Well,” Sean said. “There are stories that go all the way back to the 1800’s. People say they’ve heard her screaming all the way over into Walker’s Woods…back behind us and into the campgrounds over there beyond the hillside. Some claim to have seen a little girl walking around the house at night, but when they approach, she lets out a terrible scream and her face turns all gross. A friend of mine said he saw her once, and he shit his pants when he did.”

  “You said shit,” Danny said.

  “So?” Sean said.

  “You shouldn’t say that.”

  “Shut him the fuck up, will ya Todd?” Sean said.

  Danny’s eyes grew two sizes and I knelt down and whispered to him.

  “Get used to the bad words, okay. It’s grown up talk. This is grown up stuff we’re doing.”

  Grown up talk is what Danny called it when John yelled at mom and called her a dirty fucking whore or a filthy cunt. Those were two of John’s favorites. I understood why Danny was so against those words. Words like that used to make mom cry, back when she still cared. By the time I was thirteen, John had ruined her to the point that she had no emotions left. She just went about her daily duties of keeping us clean and fed and making her shifts to pay the bills, but there was only a shell of a woman left where mom used to be, not a real woman anymore.

  “Really?” Danny said.

  “Really,” I replied.

  He seemed to like that.

  “So where is she?” Matt said.

  “Nataliya? Sean said.

  And as if he was the ringleader of a circus, in perfect theatrical style, he walked up the rickety wooden steps to the front porch and turned, arms spread wide, when he said, “She’s still here.”

  Matt had his flashlight back. He scanned the porch’s rotting and broken deck with his flashlight, the busted out windows of the downstairs and then the front door which hung only by its top hinge. We followed the beam and one by one, we all joined Sean on the porch. It was grown up stuff we were doing. Even when I think about it now, I can’t remember ever using as much courage or as much ignorance again, and I don’t remember ever doing anything with darker consequences. It was the most exciting and at the same time, the lousiest night of my life.

  Sean opened his pack, took out another flashlight and slid the white, plastic, thumb switch to the on position. A glowing eyeball appeared on the wall next to the front door. He walked over and gave the door a shove. It didn’t move. That one hinge was rusted in place.

  “Locked?” I said.

  My body shuddered.

  “Don’t know,” he replied.

  We can go home now.

  Sean had other plans. Back in his pack, he pulled out a Ka-bar and stabbed its heavy blade into the door jamb next to the knob. After a few wiggles the door popped loose. It would’ve moved, I suspected and the Ka-bar bit was just for show. Sean was all about the show. The windows were
mostly broken, and it would’ve been easier to crawl through one of them. It was a nice touch though, the breaking and entering part.

  “Remember,” Sean said. “It won’t work if you don’t believe.”

  “I believe,” Danny said.

  “Me too,” Robin said.

  She looked nervous for the first time that night. Her eyes were as round as full moons when she looked around the place, and like me, she jumped at every new creak or groan.

  “How about you two?” Sean said, looking at me and then at his brother.

  “Yeah, sure,” Matt said.

  I nodded. Sean shoved the door open and that one ancient hinge groaned under the weight of the solid slab of wood. Overhead, I saw the moon peek through a gap in the clouds, a wink and a slimy grin, like it knew something I didn’t.

  “Then come on in,” Sean said.