Fifteen
Immediately the sky behind the house began to darken. We watched, speechless, as the blackest clouds I had ever seen began to roll toward us from behind the house, obliterating the sun. Within seconds the angry cauldron was boiling directly overhead and it was almost as dark as night. A gentle breeze whipped our hair around our faces and caused the flowers to dip and sway in an undulating pattern.
“It will get worse!” I shouted just as a fierce howling wind descended upon us, causing the rotting shutters to bang loudly against the house. “Much worse!”
The wind sent dead tree limbs crashing down around us, and a chunk of roofing sailed from the top of the house just barely missing Tammy. A flash of lightening lit the darkness and I saw an airborne limb slap Mallory in the face.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, going back to her knees to cover her head and wail.
I was about to say we needed to seek shelter when a bolt of lightening forked through the dark sky and struck the ground. We felt the electricity from it singeing our skin as the current passed through our bodies and a loud boom of thunder shook the earth under our feet. Teri, Tammy and I looked at each other. Mallory was still howling and beseeching the heavens.
For several seconds we were caught in the most intense electrical storm that any of us had ever witnessed. Popping, snapping, currents of electricity seemed to form an invisible barrier around us.
“He’s going to kill us!” Mallory howled in between great claps of thunder as she bowed her head and clasped her hands beneath her chin. She glanced up and shouted, “Y’all better ask for forgiveness of your sins before it’s too late!” Then she recited the first verse of The Lord’s Prayer, but stopped short as the first fat drops of rain began to slap her in the face. Ignoring the rain, she bowed her head and hastily finished her recitation.
I looked to the sky, but lowered my head quickly when I saw what looked like golf balls zooming toward me at a high rate of speed. And they felt like golf balls when they began bouncing off my head!
“Ouch! Oh, thit!” I heard Tammy squeal above the noise of the wind and thunder. “Eve, do thomething! Make him thop!”
“Oh, okay,” I shouted incredulously. “Just hold on while I get my magic carpet and fly us out of here.” I didn’t pick the damn flower anyway, Teri did!
Then all other sound was drowned out by the noise the hail made hitting the tin roof of the house. It produced a horrible racket, like several sledgehammers going at full throttle on the roof. I tried to shield my head as pieces of ice dug into my face and arms and legs, and especially my head. The ice was hitting hard enough to cause skull fractures.
I kept one hand over my face, covering it so the hail wouldn’t strike me in the eye and blind me. I turned to check on the others and saw a stream of blood trailing down Mallory’s injured cheek. She was still squalling with her hands over her ears, so I wasn’t sure if her injury had been caused by the tree limb or hail.
“Get in the house!” I yelled, but they couldn’t hear me. Large chunks of hail steadily pounding the tin roof drowned out all other sound. I motioned for them to follow me, then grabbed Mallory’s arm and jerked her to her feet praying that she could get herself together enough to follow me. She did, squealing every step of the way.
Inside the safety of the house we stood huddled in a tight knot as the fury intensified outside. Jagged forks of lightening constantly lit up the room and thunder shook the old house down to its foundation, causing bricks to crumble around the fireplace. The house creaked, groaned and swayed, but much to my surprise didn’t collapse around our heads. Nor did the hail break through the roof as it threatened to do.
When the wind finally calmed Mallory sat cowering in the corner covering her head and chanting Bible verses. Teri gazed solemnly out a broken window at the flattened flowers, trying desperately to make some sense out of what had just happened. Tammy was furiously pacing and glaring at Teri with a look of unconcealed fury.
“We told you not to pick another damn flower!” Tammy spat, enraged and glaring accusingly at Teri. “You knew he would get mad!”
“How could you be so stupid?” Mallory left her corner to stand in solidarity with Tammy. I thought for a second they might physically attack Teri.
All of us were holding our heads in our hands and feeling like we had been hit repeatedly with a combination of iron pipes and baseball bats and we were bleeding from head to toe.
“Are you hurt, Mallory? Did you get this cut on your face from hail or a tree limb?” I wiped the blood from her bruised and swollen face with the hem of my shirt.
“I honestly don’t remember.”
Each of us had several nasty cuts and numerous scrapes and abrasions. The hail had demanded a quota of skin from all of us.
“I have a splitting headache and I really, really want to go home, take some Tylenol and crawl in my bed and cover my head,” Mallory whimpered.
“Me too.” Tammy was quick to agree. “And if I get out of here alive, you better believe I won’t ever thep foot near thith houth again!”
“You won’t ever step foot near this house again, right?”
And what was the diva doing? Why thinking, of course. She was sure she could solve any problem if she deliberated on it long enough, which was unusual for her. Not the thinking part, the fact that while she spent precious time pondering, she was also allowing an unsightly flaw to go unattended on her porcelain skin. I would have bet good money that under any other circumstance, she would have been on her way to her cosmetic surgeon to see if any of her abrasions should require stitches and his skilled hands.
“Why would the child get so angry because we picked a flower?” she asked. “He obsesses over his flowers worse than Lawrence obsesses over his sod.”
“Who cares?” Mallory stormed. “He has already tried to kill us! Why don’t you present yourself as a human sacrifice to him, Teri, so he might let the rest of us live?”
“Oh, aren’t we the humorous one now? When your caterwauling was the only sound I heard above the deafening noise of the storm a short while ago.”
“You caused the storm, you stupid bitch! And don’t you dare pick another flower if we make it out of here alive! If you do, so help me, I will personally tell Lawrence about the FedEx man. And the landscaper. And the pool boy!”
Wow! Mallory meant business!
“Who knows what he will do to us next time!”
Suddenly, I noticed that it was quiet outside. I didn’t hear the rapid fire hail pounding the tin roof. “Listen y’all. It’s stopped.” All was quiet as we ventured back outside. “Be careful,” I said, when we stood on the porch. “All of these boards are rotten and you could fall through. We have incurred more than enough injuries for one day.”
“Amen to that,” Mallory mumbled and groaned.
We carefully placed one foot in front of the other until we stepped off the porch, back into the amazing array of buttercups.
“Look at that.” Tammy whispered, in awe. “Batheball thized hail and not a thingle flower ith broken. How ith that potthible?”
“Baseball sized hail and not a single flower broken. How is that possible?” I translated for a quizzical Teri before she even asked.
Tammy was right. All the buttercups stood ramrod straight and tall. I couldn’t even find one that had been slightly bent. Where was all the hail that had fallen? The flowers should be under at least a foot or two of ice, but they weren’t. They looked exactly as they had when we had first seen them. Not one flower was damaged!
“I looked out the window during the storm and the flowers were flatter than pancakes. Damn! Well one thing is for sure,” Teri said. “The child certainly doesn’t want us picking his flowers. So I suggest we abide by his wishes.”
“No thit!”
“The rest of us were smart enough to figure that out the first time, after Tammy picked one!” Mallory snarled.
“Yeah, Teri.” Tammy was still moaning and clutching her aching head.
“I had to be sure.” Teri said, dismissing the matter as she waded through the flowers and headed for a narrow path that snaked its way through the cornfield.
“Where does she think she’s going now?” Mallory snapped.
“She thinks she’s going to the graveyard, of course,” Teri called over her shoulder like it was the only logical answer to the problem at hand.
“I am in dire need of medical attention and that demented reject from a witch coven wants to visit a graveyard!” Mallory seemed unable to believe what she had just heard from Teri’s lips. I could tell she was on the verge of requiring mind numbing medication. “Do you happen to see the gash on my face? The one with the blood gushing from it!”
“Please, Mallory.” As usual Teri jumped in to make matters worse. “Must you ever embellish? The wound has stopped bleeding and has actually dried and crusted, most unbecoming by the way, on the side of your face.”
“Granted, the flow of blood seems to have subsided for the moment, but there is no way in hell that I am going to a graveyard.” Mallory stood in the ocean of yellow with her arms akimbo, her eyes blaring and her bloody upper lip in a pout.
“I’m sure you’re embellishing the fact, as you tend to do, that your surface abrasions require medical attention. We all took the same beating from the hail as you did, and we don’t require an emergency room visit. Soap and water and a few band-aids would do us all a world of good.” Teri rubbed her head gingerly and continued, “Nevertheless if you insist, walk on back to the cabin. We’ll meet you back there later.”
Mallory ran up to Teri, spun her around, and gritted between clenched teeth, “You know I am not going back there by my damn self!”
Ignoring her fit of temper, Teri said, “Then perhaps you had better stifle your incessant love of whining and follow us. Or find yourself a stump among the flowers to sit on and wait for us to return. Just remember to keep an ever alert eye to the sky.”
“You know, Teri? I hope the little boy takes you with him the next time he appears!”
“No. You don’t. Trust me, I would haunt your ass and keep you terrified every day for the rest of your natural life.”
We were about half-way through the cornfield when Tammy asked, “Are Mallory and I the only oneth concerned that thumthing really thrange is going on and we could have died back there? That wath thum real Thephen King thit. Thouldn’t we be concentrating on getting the hell out of here, inthead of touring a graveyard?”
“Some really strange Stephen King shit, and shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here,” I translated.
“I think you are being a tad over dramatic, as well.” Teri giggled. “For heavens sake, he is just a small child.”
“Quite frankly, my dear,” Tammy said, stealing a line from my favorite movie. “I don’t give a damn. It doethn’t matter how old he ith, he thill could have killed uth. That hail wathn’t a joke! And anyway, he may look like a two year old, but in reality, he’th probably more like two hundred yearth old.”
“It doesn’t matter how old he is, he still could have killed us. That hell wasn’t a joke and he’s probably two hundred years old.”
“Well, he didn’t kill us, did he?” Teri replied. And I think we are all convinced that he could if he had wanted to. He is trying to show us something. Can’t you see that? Not kill us. We’ve just got to figure out what it is. So come on, we’re almost there. Don’t any of you people read Sylvia Browne?”
Some of the tombstones dated back to the 1700's. Delbert Almond had a large ornate tombstone. There was a smaller tombstone beside his with a sad little angel with outstretched arms perched on top.
“Children died young back then, didn’t they? Tharah Louithe, aged 11 and Eliza Jane, aged 12. They muth have been thitherth.” Tammy read, having recovered enough to show some interest in the old cemetery. “Look how thad the angel ith on the grave beside Delbert Almond.”
“Sarah Louise and they must have been sisters,” I whispered to Teri before she even got her mouth open. “The angel on the grave beside Delbert Almond looks sad.”
Mallory was still sulking and sitting in the shade, nervously watching the sky. She wouldn’t even glance at a tombstone, but would occasionally shoot daggers at Teri with her eyes.
“Yes, Tammy, unfortunately, children died very young back then. Yellow Fever came through this area in the 1800’s and almost wiped out the children.”
We walked past the family cemetery with large, elaborate tombstones into the slave graveyard with only slate rocks marking their final resting places. We heard, “Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill” and clutched our chests at the unexpected sound. Whippoorwills only sing at night.
“What wath that?”
“It was a whippoorwill, Tammy,” I said.
“You’ve heard about the birds, haven’t you, Mallory?” Teri asked, with an evil grin curving her lips. “One legend says that a whippoorwill can sense when a soul is departing earth and capture it. Another belief is that if you hear a whippoorwill singing it is a death omen.”
“Screw you, Teri.”
We were deep in the woods now and it would soon be dusk. “We really should head back,” I said. “It will be dark soon and I’m hungry.”
We walked back through the family cemetery and I heard Tammy gasp. “Would you look at that?”
I turned, followed her gaze and was completely astonished. On the child’s grave beside of Delbert Almonds lay a single magnificent buttercup.
Tammy hurried to the grave. “Theth Andrew Almond,” she read. “Beloved thon of Delbert Almond.”
Looking at Tammy with an irritated expression, Teri followed her to the grave and read, “Seth Andrew Almond, Beloved Son of Delbert Almond.”
“Thath what I thaid!”
“That flower wasn’t there a few minutes ago when we passed his grave, was it?” I asked, remembering that Tammy had brought our attention to the sad little angel perched on the headstone and there definitely hadn’t been a flower adorning his grave then.
“No, it wathn’t there.” Tammy agreed.
“Why would he put a flower on Delbert Almond’s son’s grave?” Teri asked, puzzled. Then, the candidate for the Dorethea Dix Psychiatric Hospital in Raleigh actually reached out her hand to pick up the flower.
Fortunately, a loud chorus of, “Stop!” from the three of us, caused her hand to halt less than an inch from the flower and most likely prevented another disaster. Teri looked around and whispered, “Sorry. I forgot. He must be here now.”
“Here? With us now! Not back at the house!” Mallory shrieked, looking like she might leave this world at any minute. Honestly, the girl looked pitiful. Her bruised and swollen face was ghastly pale under the bright red scrapes and her hair almost stood straight up on her head.
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Teri smiled seemingly unconcerned.
“Can we just leave? You see it’s getting dark,” Mallory beseeched. “Who knows what he’s going to do next. And can we walk on the road this time and not go through the woods?”
“Anything to make you happy, precious!” Teri giggled, running over to give Mallory a bear hug. “It makes my day to see a smile on that little cherub face with those fat cheeks.”
“You are a bitch from the bowels of hell, Teri.”
Back at the cabin everyone was ravenous, so I poured charcoal on the grill and lit it, my mind drifting in a thousand different directions. Twice I had been caught in violent storms and once had been attacked by a swarm of near fatal bugs. It was entirely possible that I now had a concussion to add to my growing list of injuries. But this latest storm had definitely been the most severe. It seemed the child had tired of playing games and was rather insistent on making a point. But what that point was I didn’t have a clue.
Teri was slathering barbecue sauce on chicken when she turned to me. “You know he is not going to let it rest until he shows you what he is so determined for you to see.”
“Shows me what? Could someone please tell me what it is we are looking for? And if not, could we at least change the subject for all of five minutes?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she continued, ignoring my outburst.
“Oh, just what we need! For you to freaking brainstorm!”
“Excuse me?”
“Just tell me.”
“Okay. He knew we would go inside the house when the storm came. I think whatever he wants us to find is inside the Buttercup House.”
“Almond House,” I said, correcting her. “And I think he was just pissed about the flowers and that’s why he sent the storm.”
Mallory and Tammy were slicing vegetables for the salad. Mallory’s hands were trembling so badly that I prayed she wouldn’t add a chunk of meaty finger to the vegetarian dish.
“This is not happening.” Mallory fretted. “I mean I saw it with my own eyes, but things like this happen in movies not in real life. My head is throbbing. I am bruised, swollen and scratched all over and look at you, Eve. You have so many bug bites and stings you look like you have chicken pox. If we tell anybody what happened, they are going to think we’re crazy and commit us all.”
“Amen,” Tammy agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment. “I juth want to go home and forget thith night ever happened. Eve, will you take me home tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.” Mallory was quick to add.
“You two are totally pathetic.” As was most often the case, Teri was unable to keep her pie hole shut.
“I would rather be pathetic and alive than a crazy ass bitch and dead any day,” Mallory was only too happy to inform her.
After the meal Mallory and Tammy piled their belongings back into the truck. Teri had convinced me to spend the night and discover what the child was so determined to show me.
Good Lord, I was tired of hearing that! I turned the switch on Dad’s truck, tempted just to go home and crawl in my bed. Nothing happened! Oh shit! I tried again. “It’s dead,” I said anticipating Mallory's screams and covering my ears in advance.
“He is not going to let us leave, is he?” she bellowed, reaching in her bag for her cell phone. “He won’t rest until we’re all dead!“ Then her shrieks turned into a full fledged wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Oh my God, there is no signal! How are we going to get home? I am not spending the night in these woods with that evil little ghoul!”
Checking our phones we found that none of us had a signal. “Then I guess you will have to walk,” Teri said, ignoring Mallory’s keening, as she calmly opened the door and got out of the truck.
“You know Teri, you are really starting to get on my frigging nerves!” Mallory snapped, jumping out of the truck. “If we get out of this alive, I hope I never have to see your fake ass again.”
“Oh, you’ll see me. Next time your cheap ass wants a free haircut.”
Mallory turned several shades of red and raced toward Teri, calling her a few choice words in the process. When she got close enough Teri sidestepped, gave Mallory a little shove and sent her plunging headfirst into the river.
Laughing, Tammy and I jumped into the river with her. It was the only way we had to wash the dried blood from our skin and, plus, it felt heavenly in the late July heat. I asked the diva to throw us a bar of soap knowing full well she wasn’t about to step one pedicured toe into the river water. I glanced up once and saw her using bottled water and paper towels to daintily scrub her porcelain skin.
We swam upriver allowing the current to carry us back down and cool Mallory off. “I wonder if we’ll make it through this night alive?” Mallory whispered.
“Don’t think about it,” Tammy said. “Juth don't think about it. With four of uth, hopefully there ith thafety in numberth.”
“Safety in numbers… right,” Mallory mumbled. She was quiet, for once, as we crawled up the bank and dried off. She might have been bruised, swollen and terrified as all hell, nonetheless it didn’t stop her from scarfing down two more pieces of barbequed chicken and another baked potato. “Swimming always makes me hungry,” she informed us, noisily licking barbecue sauce from her fingers.
The rest of us nibbled at the remaining food as we listened to the night critters beginning to stir. Minks and muskrats scurried down the riverbank searching for their evening meal of delectable muscles. Fish jumped playfully and plopped back in the river. An owl hooted from the tree above us. And something was making an awful commotion as it raced through the nearby woods. Hopefully, it was a raccoon. At any rate, we hastily decided that it was late and time to turn in.
It was evident that Mallory and Tammy were either really scared or really pissed off as they both presented us their backs and pretended to sleep.
Teri and I climbed into the bottom bunks and eyeing me curiously she said, “You know, Eve, I have noticed a remarkable change in you recently.”
“What do you mean?” I was snuggling down under the cover to get comfortable.
“I don’t know. I can’t really put my finger on it, but you seem more relaxed and calmer than you normally are. Actually, you don’t seem like the nervous bundle of energy that I’ve known for the last 15 years at all. You know how stressed you always were. How you bounced from one drama to the next, falling in love with every man who looked sideways at you. It appears that the imbecile falling in love with another woman was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“It probably was the best thing that ever happened to me. Visiting a hypnotist didn’t hurt either.”
“A hypnotith?” Tammy gasped. She and Mallory were wide-awake now, sitting up in bed and stunned by the fact that I had kept such a revelation from them. “When did you go to a hypnotith?”
So I told them about my visit to Marilyn and how I had floated to this very spot on a magic carpet.
“I had noticed a change in you too,” Mallory said. “But I just assumed it was because you weren’t having to deal with Adam’s bullshit anymore.”
“How much doth the charge? What ith her phone number?”
“$60.00 an hour and worth every penny. But she gave me a coupon for a free visit at a Chamber meeting. I think you should all go see her if for nothing more than help dealing with your intense hatred of innocent vegetables. Remind me to give you each one of her cards when we get home.”
“If we make it home.” Mallory said. “And the Amazing Kreskin couldn’t convince me to eat a cucumber.”
Teri sat quietly watching me. “You remembered something while you were hypnotized didn’t you, Eve?”
“Yes.” I took a deep breath trying to muster the courage to relive it. “It took about two weeks, but memories that I had kept buried deep inside have returned, along with bits and pieces of my childhood. I remember birthdays now, Christmas morning, my first day of school, and being sexually abused as a child.”
Teri nonchalantly wiped a tear from her cheek. “I always thought that something bad must have happened in your childhood for you to have suppressed all your memories. I pray that I never come face to face with the bastard that abused you.”
“That’s all behind me now.” I had no desire to travel down that road again. “And honestly, I feel like a new woman. Like a tremendous load has been lifted from my shoulders. At least, I did until all this weird stuff started happening. If the man of my dreams comes along, fine. If not, that’s fine too. Being alone doesn’t terrify me anymore.”
“Well, right now I am terrified enough for both of us.” Mallory said, showing us her ample backside again.
“Well girls, it’s almost midnight and my fake ass needs some beauty sleep,” Teri said pointedly to Mallory’s back, but Mallory refused to acknowledge the comment. “Do you want me to turn off the lanterns?”
“Do you want to lose a finger?” Mallory snapped, flipping over and raising up on an elbow to glare at her.
Surprisingly, Teri only chuckled and left the lanterns on. I had to giggle as I envisioned Mallory tackling Teri to the floor if she tried to extinguish one of the two blazing lanterns that bathed the room in a soft glow.
“Whath tho funny?”
“Oh, nothing.” I yawned loudly. “Good night.”
The next morning I was jerked roughly from a pleasant dream of Robert Pattinson (so what if he’s too young for me it was just a freaking dream!) by the most God awful, bloodcurdling screams I had ever heard. Immediately, I felt all the breath forced from my lungs in a painful “whoosh” as Mallory landed square on my back and scurried under the cover to lay whimpering and trembling beside me. She proceeded to jerk the cover off me as she pulled it over her head. What now?
I was still struggling to force air back into my lungs when I heard, “Thweet Jethuth!”
I sat up and gasped, looked around the room and took deep breaths to still my racing heart. Sweet Jesus was right!
Every glass, cup, bowl, pot and pan in the cabin was filled to overflowing with exquisite buttercups, and scattered around the room. The makeshift vases sat on the table, on the wood stove, on top of the refrigerator and stove, and on every chair.
I had brought a pack of twenty red plastic disposable cups. They were now filled with stunning arrangements of buttercups and lined in perfect little rows on the windowsills, even the windowsills behind our beds. I shivered involuntarily realizing that he had to climb over our beds to get to those windowsills.
“He was in here last night! With us! Wasn’t he?” Mallory’s muffled wail rose from under the covers.
“I believe that would be an accurate assessment.” I had to agree.
“Why are you so scared?” Teri chirped, laughing and spinning gaily around the room. “I think it was a sweet gesture. And aren’t they the most beautiful flowers you ever did see?”
“I thought you detested flowers?” I reminded her.
“Not anymore.”
“Honeth to God, Teri,” Tammy screeched barely poking her head out from under the cover. “You are a certifiable nut cathe. You thould be locked up and adminithered weekly thock therapy.”
With an agitated frown, Teri waited for me to interpret her words.
“You’re a nut case and should be locked up and administered hourly shock therapy,” I translated.
“Don’t ad lib, Eve. She couldn’t have said weekly any plainer.” Then she glanced at Tammy and said, “Or you could grow a spine.”
“So Teri,” I asked scared out of my wits, but hoping to diffuse the argument before they pounced on her. “In your lofty opinion, what does this mean?”
“Well, that’s obvious to anyone with half a brain.”
“What about those of us with a whole brain?”
“He likes us.” She marveled, waving her arms and still spinning around the floral room. “This can only be taken as a grand gesture of affection.”
“Affection my ass! He likes us all right!” Mallory yelped. “A near death experience from a head injury was tangible proof of that!”
“And,” Teri continued, choosing to ignore Mallory’s tirade entirely, “he is also confirming that my observation last night was correct. Whatever he wants to show us has something to do with the Buttercup House, hence the buttercups.”
I didn’t bother to correct her anymore. “Dare I ask what you think he wants us to do next?”
“Go to the Buttercup House, of course.”
“Of course. Please forgive my obvious brain fart.”
“Well, I’m going home,” Mallory announced with no small amount of conviction and finally removed the cover from her head. Although, she kept her eyes squeezed shut so she wouldn’t have to look at the flowers. “Teri, you can follow that little demon straight back to hell if you want to, but I am going home. Are you coming with me Tammy?”
“You better believe I am!”
“Are you coming, Eve?”
“No, I guess I’m going back to the Buttercup House. But I have to warn you. It’s a long walk out and it gets a little spooky in the cornfields.”
“I don’t care how long the walk is or how spooky it gets,” Mallory said leaping from the bed to the door in a single bound. “I’m going home before he turns me into a buttercup! Do you want me to send your dad back for you?” Then, she looked at Teri and snapped, “You can stay here and rot for all I care.”
“Huh!” Teri chortled. “If anything rots it will be the area between your legs with the vast array of semen it soaks in.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.” Mallory sneered. “At least I’m not married.”
Even Teri didn’t have a comeback for that.
“Yes,” I quickly said, “ask him to ride down later and check on us.”
Tammy almost reached out to touch one of the beautiful flowers, thought better of it, and joined Mallory on the stairs.
“If you see the child ask him what he wants,” Teri called as we followed them outside. “Sylvia Browne says if you see a spirit just ask what it wants and it will show you.”
Mallory gave Teri a murderous glare and stormed down the stairs with Tammy close on her heels.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” I asked, watching them trudge up the long, dusty road.
“Oh yeah, it’s you he’s after. He knows those two are useless.”
“Gee, thanks. I feel much better now.”
We fried bacon and eggs and made coffee. Thankfully, I had remembered to bring Coffee Mate. I
was totally addicted to it and found it hard to drink a cup of coffee without it anymore. We sat beside the river sipping the last of the coffee.
An hour later, with great trepidation, we stood before the glorious array of buttercups. I was terrified beyond words that if I stepped a foot into them some horrible act of nature would befall us. Yet, Teri plowed right through them without a care for how many she trampled, and on into the house. I had to admire the girl’s warped determination.
The house had been magnificent in its day. To the right was, or had once been, a mahogany staircase judging from the decaying remains. I was picturing the plantation house, as it must have looked in all its glory in the early 1800's, when Teri quickly jerked me out of my reverie.
“Quit woolgathering and get in here and help me look, would you!”
Mallory was right about one thing. The girl could be a certifiable bitch at times.
We searched the house from room to room upstairs and downstairs. We searched inside every cupboard and every cabinet. Nothing. Teri even lifted loose boards from the floor hoping to find a secret hiding place. Then she went room to room again, staring at the ceiling and searching for anything out the ordinary. Nothing.
We had searched for two hours and had gotten filthy in the process. Amazingly, the diva didn’t even seem to notice, even though she had long strands of cobwebs trailing from her hair and was covered with soot from the fireplaces. We were still searching when I heard a truck pull up outside. It was Dad. Finally!
“Did y’all find anything?” he asked, tromping through the flowers. He put his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes from the blazing sun as he gazed out across the sea of yellow. “I’ve lived him 80 year and I ain’t never seen nothing like this in all my born days! Buttercups bloom in the spring of the year, not in late July.”
“Me either and no, we didn’t find anything. What do you make of all this, Dad?”
“I would say the child loves his buttercups. I’m sure they’s a message here that you girls will have to figure out. Good luck. I would stay and help, but I’m headed to the garden to pick cucumbers so Evelyn can put up some dill pickles.”
“Did Mallory and Tammy tell you what happened?”
“Yep. Them girls looked about as beat up as the two of you. They both swear they heard something running along beside them and giggling in the cornfield.” He motioned toward the buttercups and asked, “I wonder if it’s the same little boy I seen years ago?”
“I’m sure it is,” Teri said. “But we can’t find a single clue as to why he’s still roaming these woods.”
“You gals gonna snoop around some more or do you want to ride home with me?”
“I’m ready to go home and take a bath,” I said. “What about you, Teri?”
For the first time, Teri glanced down at her filthy clothes and body and cringed. “I guess I do need a bath, don’t I? And I promised the husband I would be home tonight.”
We rode with him to the cabin and, amazingly, when Dad turned the switch on his old truck it roared to life. He helped us load our supplies and I, for one, was eternally grateful to finally be heading home.