Kim's mind spun. What on earth had happened today? "I—I didn't mean—I mean, I meant—" she stammered.
Her father reached out as if to pull her close, but stopped himself. "Consider yourself hugged," he said, eyeing his own filthy hands and sweaty torso. "If I really did hug you, I think you could consider it absolute proof that I've been drinking. But I really haven't. At least not since last night." Kim's eyes flickered toward the house, and her father's next words told her he again had guessed what she was thinking. "Your mother's giving me one last chance," he said. "We had a long talk this morning—not a fight," he added quickly, reading the expression on her face. "A real, genuine talk." He hesitated, and Kim had the feeling he was trying to decide how much to tell her. Then he went on, and again his words surprised her. "I know I haven't been the best father," he said. "And I'm not going to make up any excuses. I'm not going to try to blame my failures on anyone but myself...."
He continued to talk directly, honestly, to her for five minutes, and concluded, "I'm not asking you to forgive me, and I'm sure not asking you to forget. All I can do is apologize for what I've put you and everyone else in this family through. I know there's no way I can make it up to you, but I'm going to be better from now on." As Kim's eyes flooded with tears, her father smiled, his face lighting up. "Of course, practically anything would be better than what I've been, wouldn't it?"
Kim hesitated, then nodded. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around her father's neck and feel him wrap her up in the kind of hug she hadn't felt since she was a little girl. But another part of her—the part that had learned not to trust what her father said—held back. As she was sorting out her emotions, trying to decide what she wanted to say, her father seemed to read her mind the same way her brother always had.
"Don't say anything," he said. "In fact, if I were you, I think I'd be pretty suspicious right now."
She looked up at him, gazing into his eyes for the first time in years. Was he telling the truth? She wanted to believe him, wanted more than anything to trust what he was saying. Unconsciously, her fingers went to the small golden cross her great-aunt had given her, as if somehow the amulet might guide her.
"It's okay," her father told her. "Why don't you go in and talk to your mother?" He glanced up at the sun. "I've got about three more hours to get this mess cleaned up, and if I hurry, I just might make it."
Kim watched as her father went back to work, hacking at the thick vines that were still wound around a few of the old oak and willow trees that shaded the grounds, and hauling the vines down from the lower branches. The kudzu fought him, reluctant to give up its hold on the trees, but in the end it crashed in a jumble around his feet and was fed to the consuming fire. Watching until the flames had devoured the vines, Kim finally turned away and went into the house.
She saw the change as soon as she entered the kitchen: the boxes stacked against the far wall this morning were gone; their contents, she would discover, had been put away in the cupboards above the long counters. The kitchen itself was scrubbed clean, the rust stains gone from the sink. The tired refrigerator they'd brought from Shreveport was gone; in its place was a gleaming new one, and the old-fashioned range on which her mother had somehow managed to cook dinner the night before had vanished as well, replaced by an immense double-ovened, six-burner affair that looked like it should have been in a restaurant.
"Mom?" she called out. "You here?"
"In the studio," her mother called back.
The studio, too, had been transformed since yesterday. The rest of the windows had been cleaned, and everything unpacked and put away. Molly was in her playpen, playing with a doll. Her mother was perched on a stool, a stick of charcoal in her right hand, carefully eyeing a canvas on the easel before her. When her mother turned to look at her, Kim instantly understood that the changes she'd already witnessed weren't confined to the yard, the house, and her father.
The strain, the misery, she'd seen in her mother's face was gone. Everything about her was different. Her eyes, which had looked so exhausted this morning, were sparkling, and she seemed somehow to have gotten younger.
"Come and look," her mother said before Kim could speak. "Tell me what you think!"
Almost warily, Kim approached the canvas, not sure what to expect. As she gazed at it, she realized that whatever she might have guessed her mother was working on, it would not have been what she was looking at.
It was a sketch of an outdoor scene, but it bore no resemblance to the ruined landscape that lay beyond the windows. Drawn onto the canvas was a formal garden. Although it was still little more than a charcoal sketch, the composition her mother had limned gave Kim the eerie feeling that she was somehow looking into the past. It was as if her mother had imagined the garden as it might have looked a century ago. There was only one human figure in the garden, and even though it, too, had been realized with a few quick strokes, Kim recognized it as her father.
But not the father she'd known most of her life.
This was the father she'd met outside a few minutes ago, his expression open, his eyes seeming to smile though the image was barely developed.
So it wasn't just toward her that he'd changed, Kim thought. Her mother had seen it, too. "What happened?" she asked quietly, her eyes remaining on the figure as she waited for her mother to answer. "Would you please tell me what's going on? This morning—"
"This morning seems like a lifetime ago," Janet replied. She moved closer to Kim, looking at the image of Ted over her daughter's shoulder. "Something happened to him last night," she said. "It's like—" She hesitated, searching for the right words. "It's like he finally woke up," she said. Choosing her words carefully, she related the day's events. "He's been working all day," she eventually finished. "A truck showed up with the new stove and refrigerator, and after he helped me with the kitchen, he went to work outside, and—well, you saw for yourself what he's been doing."
When she went up to her room a few minutes later, Kim tried to pull it all together in her mind. Only this morning the house had been filled with tension.
Her father had been gone.
Her mother had been ready to leave him—had even told her she was going to.
And now everything was different.
But how long would it last?
Despite what her mother and her father had both told her, she still wasn't ready to believe it.
Something, she was sure, was wrong.
Very wrong.
CHAPTER 18
How much farther?" Luke Roberts asked. Jared glanced around, uncertain where they were. When they left the school half an hour ago, he'd thought about going back to his house and following the same trail Scout had led him along in the early hours of the morning. But as they started out, he had the idea that he could find the trail just by heading east from the edge of town into the woods. As they made their way along the labyrinth of paths, though, everything started to look alike. A couple of times he'd caught Luke eyeing him suspiciously, and at one point could see that Luke was about to ask him if he even knew where he was.
Despite his uncertainty, Jared silenced him with a look, unwilling to admit that they might be lost. Then, fifteen minutes ago, they came to a place where two trails crossed, and he'd known.
This was it, he thought. This was the trail.
But how had he known?
He'd scanned the area carefully, looking for something that stood out, that he might have remembered from his predawn foray with Scout. But there was nothing. And besides, when he was here before, he'd made his way through the darkness with nothing but moonlight, just following where Scout led.
And yet he knew. This was the right trail.
"This way," he announced.
"Yeah, sure," Luke drawled, hitching up the jeans that threatened to slide off his hips. "This don't look any different than any of the..." His voice died away as Jared fixed him with the same look that had silenced him a few minutes earlier.
Now, th
ough, Jared slowed.
Close.
They were very close.
Once again he scanned the forest, looking for any sign of a cabin. Off to the left, barely visible through the tangle of kudzu that was spreading everywhere, he could make out the glimmering of sunlight on water.
A lake. Had the cabin he'd seen early this morning been close to a lake? He didn't know.
"Ahead," he said softly. "It's right up ahead."
Luke's brows arched skeptically. "I don't know," he replied. "Maybe we oughta just go back to town and go get a Coke or somethin'."
But Jared was moving along the trail again. A slight breeze had come up, and he stopped. "You smell anything?" he asked, sniffing.
Luke shook his head. "Do I look like some kinda hound or something?"
That was it! The dogs he'd heard last night! He could smell them! "Come on," he said. "We're almost there."
Once again Luke hesitated, but in the end gave Jared no argument. Leading the way, Jared crept forward, waiting for the dogs to begin baying.
This afternoon, though, they were silent, and suddenly Jared knew why. If he could smell them, he was downwind. They couldn't smell him.
He came to a bend in the trail. Though there was still no tree or rock that he remembered, he knew that as soon as they rounded the bend, they would see the cabin huddled in the small clearing. And a moment later, there it was.
Now, in the bright sunlight, Jared could see the lake. It lay only a few yards beyond the cabin. The bank was low and muddy, and there were a couple of old wooden rowboats—so worn they didn't look as if they could even float—lying on the shore, tied uselessly to a tree with rotting cotton rope.
Curled up in the shade of the cabin were two dogs.
"That's it," Jared said softly. "You know who lives there?"
Luke said nothing, but Jared knew immediately that he'd seen this cabin before. "Come on," he said, his voice rising. "Tell me!"
"Jake Cumberland," Luke Roberts finally said. "This is his place."
"Who is he?" Jared pressed.
Luke's expression turned wary. "Just a trapper," he replied. "He's always lived out here."
Jared's eyes narrowed. "You're scared of him, aren't you?"
Luke paled, but shook his head.
"Bullshit," Jared said. "Tell me the truth."
"There's ... stories," Luke admitted. "About his ma."
"What kind of stories?"
"She was supposed to be some kind of voodoo queen or something." Luke's eyes shifted away from Jared. "An' they say she worked for your uncle before she disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Jared repeated. "What do you mean, disappeared? You mean she just took off?"
Luke shrugged. "Nobody knows. Leastwise, nobody I ever talked to knows. But my ma says the last time anyone ever saw her was the night before your uncle hung himself." He reddened slightly. "My ma says she heard your uncle might have killed her. She says there was all kinds of talk about him and Jake's ma. Like maybe they were gettin' it on, and she was gonna tell. So he killed her." As Jared's fists clenched and his jaw tightened, Luke held up his hands. "Hey, don't get pissed at me. All I'm tellin' you is what I heard."
But Jared was no longer looking at Luke. His eyes were fixed on the cabin. It cowered in the humid afternoon heat like an exhausted, dying dog. Every one of its windows was cracked—several panes were missing entirely—and whatever paint the weathered boards might once have worn was long gone. There was a sagging front porch with no railing, and most of the roof was covered with corrugated metal, badly rusted by the Louisiana heat and rain.
Though he wasn't certain why, Jared knew the cabin was empty.
His eyes shifted from the cabin itself to the two hounds.
As if sensing his gaze, both dogs scrambled to their feet, tensing. As they caught sight of him, they went on point, tails held straight back, eyes fixed on him. As Jared took a step toward them, the wind shifted and the two dogs caught his scent.
He moved a step closer, and now the dogs lunged forward, the wail of their baying ripping the quiet of the afternoon.
"You nuts, Jared?" Luke Roberts demanded. "What if Jake's in there?"
"He's not," Jared said. "He's nowhere around here."
"How the hell do you know?" Luke asked, but Jared didn't bother to reply.
He moved closer to the two dogs, now struggling at the end of their chains, their teeth bared, their baying dropping to low snarls as they tried to get at him.
He stopped a foot beyond the reach of the nearest dog—the one whose chain was a foot or so shorter than the first, who leaped and thrashed as it struggled to get closer.
"You want me?" Jared asked, squatting low and extending his right hand out toward the snarling animal. "That what you want? You think you want a piece of me?"
The dog howled with rage and threw itself against its chain, lost its balance, and skidded in the mud the morning's rainstorm had left. Writhing for several seconds, it regained its footing and lunged at Jared once more.
Jared extended his fingers until they were within inches of the dog's snapping teeth. "That it?" he taunted. "That what you want?"
"Are you crazy?" Luke called. "If he gets loose—"
But Jared wasn't listening. "Try it," he whispered. "Go on, just try it. See what happens."
He darted his fingers out, and the dog's jaws snapped shut on them.
Luke howled as if he himself had been bitten. "Jesus!"
"Got a taste?" Jared whispered, his eyes fixed on the dog. Abruptly, the dog dropped back to cower on the ground. While the other animal continued its baying, still twisting to get at Jared, he reached down and put his fingers around the cowering dog's neck. "Not gonna do that again," he said softly. "Not ever gonna do that again!"
His fingers tightened around the animal's neck, and then he gave it a fast, hard jerk.
The animal screamed once, a high-pitched shriek of pain that was cut off as its neck snapped. It dropped back into the mud.
Luke stared mutely at the limp animal. "You killed him," he whispered.
Jared turned to look at him. "He bit me," he said, his voice reflecting no emotion. "What did you expect me to do, pat him on the head?"
The second dog, silent now, sniffed at its litter mate's lifeless corpse. Then it slunk back until it was huddled against the wall of the cabin.
Removing the chain from the dog's neck, Jared picked it up.
"What are you going to do with it?" Luke asked, his voice trembling.
Jared made no reply. Instead, he turned and carried the dead dog into Jake Cumberland's cabin.
The door closed behind him.
Jake Cumberland had been out on the lake most of the afternoon. The battered bucket that served him as a makeshift creel held half a dozen catfish—plenty for him and the two hounds. After he'd caught the last fish, about an hour ago, he thought about heading back home and taking the hounds out for a while. Check a few traps, maybe even do some hunting. But after being up most of last night, he felt tired; what his ma would have called bone-weary. It would've been okay if he'd slept through once he got home last night, but after the dogs had set to baying long before dawn, he'd been unable to get back to sleep. Just sort of lay there, trying to figure out what might have spooked them.
Probably just some critter, he'd told himself over and over again. A possum, maybe, or a 'coon. Except he'd known right away it wasn't a critter. The hounds had a different sound to them when they were on the scent of something they wanted to hunt. And this morning, when they jerked him awake with their first howl, he'd recognized it right away.
They were warning him.
That was why he'd lit the lantern and gone to the door.
He hadn't seen anybody.
Hadn't even heard anything.
But he'd still known someone was out there.
Out there, watching his cabin.
As he'd stood in the doorway, peering out into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of who
ever was hiding in the night, he heard an echo of his ma's voice whispering to him when he was just a boy: "You can feel him, child. When he's around, you can feel him. And you gotta be careful, real careful. 'Cause he's stronger'n you, child. Never forget that. He's stronger." So even after the dogs finally quieted, Jake had stayed awake, the lantern turned low, waiting for the dawn to come. When the eastern sky began to brighten, he didn't go to bed, but instead set about his usual chores. He tidied up the cabin and fed the dogs. Checked the traps he'd baited the day before, then spent the hour when the thunderstorm tore through skinning and cleaning the three rabbits that were all the traps had produced.
Finally, after frying up some of the rabbit meat to tide him over till supper, he'd headed out in the rowboat, telling himself he was going fishing, but knowing he'd probably spend most of the afternoon just dozing in the sun. But he hadn't really dozed, because even in the daylight his ma's words kept rolling around in his head like the last few beans in a coffee can.
"When he's around, you can feel him."
Who'd she been talking about? When he was a little boy, he always figured it must have been Mr. Conway. But even back then, he'd never really been sure what his ma was talking about, because he never felt much of anything at all when he saw his ma's boss. Not until that night.
That last night, back when he was only a boy...
Jake woke up to the smell of smoke and the flicker of candlelight, and knew before he even saw her what his mama was doing.
Getting ready to work her magic.
That was what she called it—workin' her magic. "But don't you be tryin' it," she'd warned him the first time he'd awakened in the middle of the night and found her sitting at the little table in the corner of their cabin. "Little boys got no business with this kind of magic." She sent him back to bed that night, but he stayed awake, peeking at her from beneath the folds of the single thin blanket that was all he had to keep him warm, even on the coldest nights.
And ever since, whenever he awakened to find his mama hunched over the scarred table, her hair wrapped in the blue bandanna he himself had saved up to buy her for Christmas one year, he tried not even to stir in bed, so she wouldn't know he was awake. Tonight, though, he slipped out of the bed and went to stand by his mama, watching worriedly as she prepared the effigy.