Another Place

Sourwood leaves shook in the Canterville wind. Gusts of humid air descended and rattled the chimes on the porches. Princess Bailey turned the key in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle. She put her fingers through her curls and looked out at the vacant lot ahead. She drove down a red road lined with swamp lilies and cattails.

Two months ago, a man she had never seen before promised her his life. He coaxed her behind the back shed and undid her tulle dress.

“You ever think about touchin’ ‘em?” he asked.

“What?”

“Their bodies.”

Her dress caught around her ankles. She tried to pull the fabric up with her toes.

“My daddy doesn’t let me anywhere near the bodies,” she said.

“Do they ever get up and walk around?”

“You’re scaring me.”

He laughed.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Easy,” he said. He released her and let her bruise against the wooden wall.

She bent to the floor to pick up her skirt.

“What they say about you is true, then,” he said.

“What do they say?”

“That you’re a regular attention whore.”

“Please, stop,” she said.

“Oh, please, stop,” he cooed.

She bit her lips. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t you go playin’ victim now on me,” he said. “I see how you are. You look at your own reflection when I touch you.” He lifted his hand to her chin.

Princess Bailey picked up her skirt and she ran to the car.

She hid her face in the wheel and hit it again and again.

“This is what you get,” she cried. “This is what you get.”

She drove to the Pâté Mortuary. The sleeping mortician did not stir from his chair.

“PB,” he said, “Why do you smell like a goddamn barbecue?”

“I don’t know, Daddy. I’ll wash the smell out of my hair.”

“She’ll wash the smell out of her hair. Where’s that fool husband of yours? Didn’t he go with you?”

“He never goes with me.”

“Well, he’s working hard, like a man should.”

“Then I guess you know where he is, Daddy.”

“Enough of that sass. It isn’t ladylike.”

“Sure, Daddy,” she said. She went upstairs and wrapped herself in the down.

Today Princess Bailey stopped on the side of the scarlet road. Signs read Bait and Tackle, Embroidery and Linens, and PEACHES AND FIREWORKS. The air above the asphalt swam. She wished that she had her mother, or someone to reach down through the mist, and say to her, “This is just a little day that will pass like anything else. You’ll see.”

Princess Bailey went into the old liquor store.

She placed the pregnancy test on the spotted counter and tried to still her hands.

She asked for cigarettes. The man looked at her driver’s license and then back at her.

“Princess,” he said. “Princess Bailey? Is that a real name?”

“Yes.”

“Well, which one is it?”

“Princess Bailey, altogether, like that.”

“Gee, you must have gotten a lot of shit for a stupid name like that.”

Princess Bailey looked at the man and laughed.

“My mother called me ‘Princess,’ because that’s what she thought I’d be when I grew up,” she said.

“Well, I like it,” he said. “Are you sure you should be smoking?”

Princess Bailey went home with the brown paper bag crumbled up in her purse. The Accountant sat at the mahogany desk and watched her.

“Take a walk with me, PB,” he said.

She took his hand.

They went outside beneath the willow tree.

“The wildcats, PB. You know they damage the foliage? PB? PB, are you listening to me?”

“Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“What?”

“Hmm?”

“What in the hell are you thinking about now?”

She touched the tree bark.

“Think of all this old tree has seen,” she said. “Years of love and death.”

“Watch out for ticks,” the Accountant said. “You need me to get your head out of the clouds. Someone has to tell you regular, everyday things. The facts of life. You don’t got anybody else.”

“You’re right. I don’t have many friends.”

“It’s because your mind is always off in some other place. Sometimes I think you forget that we are married.”

“Are we?”

“And you’re always making something out of nothing, PB. Just let the cats fend for … say, do you remember when I took you to Atlanta, and you started crying over that banjo player?”

“What were you saying about the cats?” Princess Bailey asked.

“I don’t like how you’ve become a personal cat charity. All those sardines attract pests, PB. A roach the size of my face crawled into the living room yesterday morning. It almost crawled into my coffee.”

“Did you let him go?”

“Did I let him go? No, I killed it! ‘Let him go.’ Will you listen to yourself? Do something, PB. Do something about those doggone cats. You should call a rescue. I’m sure they’d love to take them off your hands.”

“I called them already,” Princess Bailey said. “They just told me that since I can’t domesticate them, they’re likely to end up dead. She said either I trap them and take them in myself, or they die in a shelter somewhere. I can’t do that to the Jazz Cats.”

“The Jazz Cats? You’re bugging me.”

“They named themselves.”

“Is that supposed to be cute? Let’s go inside, will you? Will you make me hashbrowns and biscuits?”

The Accountant locked himself up in his office, and Princess Bailey closed herself behind the bathroom door. She took the pregnancy test. She left the room with her eyes half closed and looked through the leather address book that the Mortician kept on the armoire.

Old Lady Dean lived on the outskirts of the Pâté Mortuary. She loved to feud with the Mortician and the Accountant. Sometimes, it was over some stray bramble that spilled over her fence. She could not stand the sight of hearses and demanded they be parked in a covered garage. She hated the Mortician with a murderous fervor that was not understood by anyone but the two of them.

When the Mortician told Old Lady Dean that his daughter’s mother had “lost her marbles,” out in the Georgia sticks, she told him that was his affliction to deal with. But when a beat-up Toyota carried the daughter, frail with scratched knees, to the Mortician’s front porch, Old Lady Dean decided to make amends as much as she was able.  She knocked the knocker as loud as she could to provoke the Mortician (he had already seen her there) and held out a plate of lemon cookies. “How’s a fool like you gonna raise a thirteen-year-old girl alone,” she said.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Old Lady Dean answered. “I want you to know that the man you’ve hired to mow your lawn is the spitting image of the crook I saw who was wanted for the murder of an entire family of eight in Alabama. That’s his wife and seven daughters, murdered with a hatchet, and then burnt to … ”

“It’s me,” Princess Bailey said. “I called to ask you for help.”

“Oh, it’s you, Princess. I was just pickling.”

“I think I’m in the family way,” Princess Bailey said.

“The Accountant must be happy.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“He can’t stand children. And it’s not his baby.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s been a long time since I performed my conjugal duties.”

“How long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Two years.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I just can’t stand the sight of him.”

“Is this child a love child?”

“Will you help me? You won’t, will you? It’s just that I know from my father that you practice witchcraft and use ‘bad’ medicines.”

Old Lady Dean set the phone down on the table. She rummaged through cabinets with glass bottles of all different sizes, full of elixirs and herbs and potions.

“Come here at sundown,” she said.

Fireflies danced in the warm, heavy air. Tarmac wound in a ribbon as smooth as a tumbled stone. The cream house at the end of the cul-de-sac looked like a wedding cake. Tulip poplar trees gathered around with their feather leaves dripping off the boughs.

A strange man, dark and gnarled, rapped at the door three times.

Inside the great hall, Mac Owens, a housewife, set down her brandy on ice.

She peered out at him and revealed a floral print dress.

“We don’t like solicitors,” she said, although she was home alone. Her right hand wielded a rifle.

“I’m not selling anything. I’m looking for a girl. This girl.”

He held up a beauty pageant photo.

“You a friend of hers?”

“My name is Lake Thomas, and I have a message for this girl here.”

“You a peepin’ Tom? A stalkin’ type?”

Mac laughed.

“I’m only playing games,” she said. She had despised Princess Bailey for seven years, ever since she caught her husband whispering the girl’s name in the shower. She would have led Lake to Princess Bailey even if he were an axe murderer.

“That girl lives in a little house behind the Pâté Mortuary,” she said. “She’s there with her husband. If you ask me, she’s lucky to have him. And he, well. I don’t know if he’s so lucky.”

“Thank you,” Lake said. He let Mac slam the door in his face.

The drive to Pâté Mortuary took seven minutes. He drove down the rust-colored roads and whispered to himself.

The furniture, carpet, and paintings in the little house behind the mortuary were a faded navy blue. In that place, Lake looked like a forest tree, strong and lanky and living. The Accountant looked at him through narrow eyes.

“I’ve come to give you a message from Hunter,” Lake said.

Princess Bailey wrestled awake on the couch.

“Hunter,” the Accountant said. “Not that nut job they locked in the hooscow all those years ago. What’s he want with her?”

Princess Bailey could not speak. She opened her mouth.

“Can’t you see she’s unwell, fool?” the Accountant said. “She’s not going to run off after a goddamn lunatic at this time of night. And what kind of a name is that, ‘Hunter ’? What exactly does he hunt? Does he hunt venison, quail, people? Is that it?”

Princess Bailey took Lake’s wrist. She held it as tight as she could.

Lake nodded and left.

In the middle of the night, Princess Bailey gripped the edge of the countertop and screamed. She felt a horrible pain in the right side of her pelvis, and she crumbled to the floor. A pool of blood escaped her body.

The Accountant did not wake up.

Princess Bailey ran cold water. She picked up the blood and tissue off the bathroom tiles with vinegar and rags. She looked down at the foreign substances on the floor and felt a new grief stir in her body.

At sunrise, Princess Bailey stood outside the house. She carried one suitcase. She knocked on Old Lady Dean’s door.

Old Lady Dean peered out.

“The effects of your cure, is it?”

“I’m going away,” Princess Bailey said. “I’ll need you to feed the cats while I’m gone. Here’s money.” She shook as she crumbled the twenty-dollar bills into Old Lady Dean’s hand. “This should keep you in chicken and sardines for a month. At the end of the month, I’ll come here in a pickup truck. I’ll come here with the man I love. We’ll take all of the cats with us in the back of the truck. And Old Lady Dean, I won’t forget you.  We’re going to take you shopping. I’m going to become rich, you know. I’m going to get out of these scrapes and I’m going to become an actress.”

“You might as well say you’re going to Mars,” Old Lady Dean said.

“If I said that, I’d intend to do it.”

Princess Bailey stood outside till the sun was high in the sky.

Lake pulled up in front of her in his car.

“Come on,” he said.

Princess Bailey sat in his car for hours before she asked, “Is he alright?”  

“It depends.”

They fell into silence.

Lake and Princess Bailey walked up a narrow staircase that wound around four times. There was a faded green door with a knocker. Lake opened the door.

Princess Bailey did not recognize the man who stood there. He wore a ribbed, white shirt. His black hair fell to his shoulders.

“I’ve brought someone of yours,” Lake said.

Princess Bailey stood in the hall and looked in on him.

“Leave us,” Hunter said. But Lake had already gone.

“I’m going to burn down the church,” Hunter said.

Princess Bailey said,

“Okey Dokey Artichokey.”

“I just need to get ready.”

All around them were pages. There were notes full of scribbles and words, and there were paintings and receipts, and letters and coupons. When Hunter said, “Ready,” he tripped over an easel and the papers fell all over the floor.

“You still paint,” Princess Bailey said.

“Enough small talk,” he said.

“Didn’t you ever hear that no talk is small talk?”

“Then how do you explain them?”

“What?”

“Presidents.”

Princess Bailey said nothing.

“You can sit down,” Hunter said. She already had. “Would you like a limeade?”

“Is that all you have?”

“Starka.”

“What’s that?”

“Booze.”

He went to get her some.

“I don’t really know what to say,” Princess Bailey said. “I’m not as clever as I used to be. I always seem to make everything worse … I, I am so awkward in a crowd, in a social setting.”

“Don’t say such things,” Hunter said. “Be proud. You subject yourself to limitations that you invent because … What I mean to say is … you’re just untethered. That’s what you are.”

She smiled.

“Did something happen to you?” he asked her. “You’re weak.”

“Do you know how hard it is to start a fire?” Princess Bailey said. “Once, at summer camp, I blew through a whole book of matches.”

“I know how to start a fire,” Hunter said.  

Faded boards blockaded the church windows. Stained glass caught the light. The wooden panels had once been the color of dove feathers and were now corroded.

“Remember this place,” Hunter said.

Princess Bailey’s stepfather, the minister, was a man with twisted appetites. His wife, Julia, had ebony hair that fell in torrents to her waist. She was the great-granddaughter of a Bruja in Catemaco. Whispers in the congregation claimed that Julia held the same idolatrous habits as her forebears. Housewives felt that the minister had been wronged into wedding her, and because of this they did not hesitate to help him with his lusty schemes.

Women and children in the church lined up outside the minister’s office door to yield themselves to his desires. The women were dressed in pink stripes and pacifiers, and the girls were adorned in heels and eyeliners. The minister had a white room with a white bed where he acted out his strange impulses. Whenever Princess Bailey or Hunter thought about Jesus’ tomb, they did not see stone and dirt, but rather an ivory room with linoleum floors and sheets smelling of bleach.

One day, Julia vanished. Princess Bailey was thirteen years old, and she tried to drown herself in the lake. Julia’s absence did not surprise the congregation, who thought that she was “off her rocker” ever since she had thrown ambrosia salad in the minister’s face at the church spring picnic. But the disappearance of Julia led to strange events that no one could explain.

The baptismal pool in the center of the sanctuary filled with blood. Locusts danced in the tithes and offerings box. The pulpit turned so hot that the minister’s hands were charred. That was when Hunter Gutierrez began to have visions.

Hunter was an orphan whom the church elders kept in their custody. They prided themselves on their charity, when in fact, Hunter weeded their yards, mended their fences, and polished their cars enough to earn his keep. His clairvoyance proved to be as useful as his handiwork. Hunter’s visions made men rich. He knew exactly when it would rain on crops. He could even tell which officials would be elected to the government.

It was a day after Hunter discovered the reason behind Julia’s disappearance that the minister had him locked away. Hunter told the elders that her body was deep in the forest, at the bottom of a well. The congregation felt that he was a mental case. By the time a fisherman and his dogs found Julia at the bottom of the well, they had already forgotten the boy.

“Do you remember when they took you away?” Princess Bailey asked.

“I try not to,” Hunter said.

“We slept together on the ground the night before,” Princess Bailey said. “You’re so grown up now. When I look at you, I feel almost sick.”

Hunter touched her hand.

“Do you hear that?” he said.

A choir sang in the deserted church.

Pigeons gathered above the lot on the telephone wires. Sunlight filtered through the boughs of the trees and cast crimson and blue prisms off the stained glass. The song was unfamiliar to them. They knew then that the minister had gone and that his congregation had abandoned him. Hunter thought of all the men who had beaten him with switches from the woods. He saw them old, in reclining chairs, watching the television. Hunter dropped the matchbox in the grass. Princess Bailey remembered the time that a cruel woman had washed her mouth out with soap and shaved her head. She imagined the woman was now a grandmother, not much different than Old Lady Dean.

“If they are gone, then who do we kill?” Princess Bailey asked.

They stood together in the churchyard. The dandelion seeds swayed in the air and landed in the silt.