To be released soon in digital formats as Mud Valley.
We are close to an end. Now is a great time to binge if you haven’t been following along, or to pick up the story at the previous chapter to refresh your memory. Table of contents
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Chapter 48
— The Old Kappens Place —
Lucy rubbed her eyes and slowly assembled a map in her mind from the objects around her.
Glass coffee table, white armchair, large open window above the couch where she lay.
Fuck. She was still in her apartment.
She was meant to leave long ago. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just seconds ago. She had no idea how long she had been out.
Thoughts of the cabin, the forest, the thing in the tree rushed through her, poured in, flowed out. Was it really the end of Harley or had it all been just a dream?
Whatever it was, Lucy felt new — off-kilter like a person living out of her world, but fresh and stronger.
Other worlds rubbed next to her ears. Old, gnarled fingers scratched at her boundaries, a hot breath away from dragging her into a gauzy realm of illusion and the dead.
She rose from the couch. The Rift stirred, rumbled from beneath and shook her to the core.
Pain pushed outward from her temples, blinded her, doubled her over, but Lucy regained control, straightened up and grinned through it.
She fought to stay in the present, guessing at how long she had been away in the vision. A few minutes? A few days?
The phone vibrated on the table. Lucy picked it up and checked the time. Shit, it was 11 p.m.
“Hello?”
“Lucy where are you? We’ve been calling and calling.” It was Sylvia.
“I, ah, I was just getting ready to head out and look for Whit. I felt sick for a while, but I feel better now.”
“Never mind that. Whit is at the Kappens’ house. Can you come? We can’t get him to move or listen to anything. Are you at the apartment?”
“Yes, I’ll be right there.”
“Lucy, he’s not himself.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy could hear the trembling in Sylvia’s voice.
“Well, he says he’s Frank.”
“He says what?”
“Just come, Lucy. Please. He’s not himself and won’t listen to any of us. Just come.”
Lucy pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. Frank? Whit was still tied up in playing Frank like he did at the funeral? It settled any doubts about his state of mind.
He never got over the idea that he owed Frank something, Lucy thought. She had brushed it off before. It would pass. Even after the lodge fire and Frank’s death, Lucy put it down to grief and assumed Whit would bounce back in a few days.
But it was deeper than that, she understood now. Whit probably blamed himself for Frank’s death, being the last one to talk to him on the night of the fire. He must be guilt-ridden about leaving him alone that night and then sleeping through the phone checks he promised to carry out.
“Jesus. OK. I’m there in two minutes,” she said.
Lucy clicked off the phone. Fuck, fuck. She knocked both sides of her head, bashing out the remnants of her showdown with Harley, the dream, or the visitation, or whatever the fuck that was. She needed to concentrate on the present.
“Blanche, what did you do?” she said aloud. It wasn’t condemnation, but a thank you. She’d have to bag the questions for the time being, deal with that crazy shit later.
She hurried down the stairs and stepped through the side door onto Blister Avenue. The solar overlay on the road shimmered like bits of glass in the moonlight. Lucy turned toward the Kappens’ house, a block ahead.
Blanche was nowhere Lucy could see. It had been Blanche, hadn’t it? She’d taken Lucy through the curtain, or to some place she couldn’t understand.
Lucy shuddered. Had she just been to the place where she had exiled thousands of spirits in her lifetime? It’s no wonder they try to claw their way out from there to get into our world, she thought.
She reached the walk in front of the Kappens’ place and followed the stones toward the shuttered green and white, two-storey house. She heard voices out back and saw flashlight beams bounce off the tree tops.
She rushed around the side of the house to the back yard. Erin, Sylvia and Jorge were trying to corral Marco, move him away from the steps leading to the back door.
“If you don’t deal with this Jorge, so help me God, I’ll fucking kill him,” Marco shouted.
Marco was five or six years older than Lucy, early sixties, but he was fit and raged like a bull.
Jorge struggled to keep up to his younger brother. He bumped him away from the door, but he couldn’t keep it up for long.
“The police are on the way,” Sylvia cried. “Marco, what else do you want me to do? Whit won’t listen. He doesn’t even know me.”
“Police?” Marco laughed and threw up his hands. “There’s no police after six o’clock in Jury. They’ll be dispatched from Gold Rush. It’ll be an hour, minimum.”
“But my dad is not hurting anything,” Erin pleaded. “He’s inside and he’s quiet. Let’s wait it out. Stay out here until the police come.”
Lucy stepped out from behind the corner.
“Lucy, thank God, you came.”
“Yes, thank God,” Marco said sarcastically. He smelled of whisky. “The witch of the undead has arrived, healer and super celebrity Lucy Kloot.”
“Marco, sit down and shut up,” Jorge told him.
“Or what? You’re going to stop me? I’m just saying we go in and drag his lunatic ass out here.”
“He’s sick, Marco,” Jorge said.
Marco fell into a lawn chair and sighed. “Fine.” He was losing steam.
Lucy looked at each of them. “Does somebody want to explain?”
“Whit is inside in the bedroom on the main floor,” Sylvia said through heavy breathing. “He’s acting like he lives there and he’s looking for Petra. He calls her mom. I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t talk to him. He doesn’t even hear me.”
“And you think he’ll listen to me? What am I supposed to tell him?”
Erin slapped the sides of her legs. “Well, you used to help people by exorcising their ghosts, right?”
“Not exactly,” Lucy said. “That’s not how it works. Anyway, I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t for years.”
“But this is my dad. Can’t you do it one more time for him?”
“I’d like to Erin, but I can’t. I’ve lost the sight. I’ve lost the power. Whatever I had back then is gone.”
“But you have to try,” Erin’s voice climbed a pitch. “It’s my dad. I’ve only just started to know him again and now he is being taken away. There has to be something you can do. He’s always looked to you. He still talks about you.
“Even if you’ve lost the taste for it, Dad doesn’t know that. Go through the motions and when he sees you doing it, maybe he’ll think he’s cured.”
Lucy shook her head. “Whit and I had a rocky relationship. He didn’t want me to come back to Jury at all.”
“But I think he’ll listen to you.”
“No Erin, no he won’t. He’s angry at a lot of things, me included. I can’t help him.”
“Fuck it.” She climbed the three steps, entered the porch and marched for the next door that led into the kitchen.
* * *
Bonus material
Check out back stories to the characters in the novel Three Lives of Jury (Mud Valley) at the link below.
The Underworld Vents also contains short stories of alternative/historical fiction with The Wagon People series.
Check out the new additions with the Tynoffer Common series, absurdist flash fiction in bits of letters, bulletins and bureaucratic paranormal madness.
wow Terry, that was excellent. I remember reading SOME of the earlier "3 lives of Jury" but it didn't seem as potent as that chapter, (no disrespect of course), but IMO that chapter was perfect!
wow Terry, that was excellent. I remember reading SOME of the earlier "3 lives of Jury" but it didn't seem as potent as that chapter, (no disrespect of course), but IMO that chapter was perfect!