The Past Is Never Read online

  It was obvious to anyone that Mama and Daddy loved Pansy best. Willet and I were ordinary children, but Pansy was charmed. When Daddy was home, he sang soft songs we’d never heard before and carried her around like a precious object. Every single morning, Mama brought Pansy a glass of chocolate milk in bed. Pansy wouldn’t get up without her special treat, and Mama indulged her—though Willet and I weren’t allowed food in our beds. I did small chores even as a toddler, but Pansy never helped out around the house. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt, to see Mama and Daddy dote on Pansy, to feel second best though I was there first. There were times I wished Pansy would go away, times I wished she’d never been born. Shameful thoughts from a petty child, but still.

  There was no explaining why our parents chose to give in to Pansy’s demands so often and so willingly. At first, I thought they felt sorry for Pansy because she was so ugly, with her old man hair, splotchy skin, and bizarre infant teeth. But the coarse hair fell away, and in its place wild and silky dark curls appeared. She lost her natal teeth, and her complexion smoothed and softened until it was something people wanted to touch. Even I could see it. I loved her as much as I resented her. She was a beautiful child. Who doesn’t love a beautiful child more than an ordinary one?

  Pansy floated on her back, still as a log on the surface of the deep water. Her skin was tanned, as it was by the end of every summer. Willet and I burned and peeled and freckled, but Pansy’s skin soaked in the sun. Everyone wanted to be tan back then and I envied how easily it came to her. Everything seemed to come easy for Pansy. She could float for hours. Sometimes she fell asleep. I couldn’t float for ten seconds without lifting my head and looking around, worried I might miss something important. Willet would not be tamed. He hurled himself into the water again and again, all banshee cannonballs and Tarzan yells. Only Pansy seemed at peace on the water. She had faith the world would hold her up.

  We splashed around for hours, and by midafternoon I was half starved.

  “I could eat a gator,” Willet said.

  Pansy didn’t open her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “We ought to call you Dandelion instead of Pansy,” Willet said. “Someday you’ll just up and blow away.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Pansy’s voice was as calm as the water.

  “There’s wild berries across the road,” Willet said.

  “What if they’re poison?” I was a worrier from birth.

  “They’re just brambleberries, no different than the ones in the store.”

  We told Pansy we’d be right back. We didn’t think twice about leaving our six-year-old sister alone in a deep pool in the middle of nowhere. She was a stronger swimmer than either of us would ever be. We figured she was charmed and, like most children—hell, like most people—we thought primarily of ourselves.

  Willet led the way to the leggy bushes, which grew in a clearing a little further into the woods than I cared to travel, but my hunger was stronger than my fear. The black raspberries were plump and sweet, and we ate them as fast as we could pick them.

  Willet wiped his hands on his shorts and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a sec,” he said.

  “Don’t leave me here!”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I followed him until he turned and told me I was acting like a baby. I hung back and waited. The sound of branches popping beneath Willet’s footsteps faded. The scent of smoke, sweet and smoldering, drifted through the air and I figured it for the lingering aroma of a fire built by Boy Scouts or some family avoiding campsite fees at the state park. The berries grew large and angry in my stomach. I rubbed my aching belly and wished for Willet to reappear. I closed my eyes and counted, telling myself Willet would be there when I reached ten, then twenty, then fifty, then one hundred. My too-small swimsuit dried and wedged in my butt. I tugged at it, angry with Mama for not buying me a new suit that summer. Clouds rolled in, sending the clearing into shadow. A swarm of gnats gathered around my face and I waved my hands to keep from inhaling the pesky creatures. The sky, which had been blue and clear all morning, turned gray and menacing. I’d had enough.

  “Willet!” I shouted. “Willet, this isn’t funny!”

  The tall trees swallowed up my voice. It was like one of those bad dreams where you scream for help but don’t make a sound. A hot wind traveled through the woods; the leaves on the trees quivered and quaked. Dark gray clouds blocked out the sun. The first fat drop of rain hit my bare shoulder. I called for Willet once more, then walked in the direction he’d disappeared. The sky let loose a roll of thunder. The rain swept through in heavy, blinding sheets and the dust beneath my feet turned to mud. It was an angry storm.

  Up ahead, something moved. It was a person, darting among the trees.

  “Willet!” I chased after the darting figure, already thinking about what I’d tell Mama when we got home. “You are in so much trouble!” I hollered.

  The storm grew darker. My feet slipped on mud and slick fallen leaves. I put my hands out to avoid crashing into the trees surrounding the clearing. They seemed to pop up out of nothing. Thunder cracked and the ground shook. I’d been caught in bad weather before, but this was worse than anything I’d ever seen. The rain was so thick it looked like something you could grab by the handful. Clouds obliterated the daylight. It was dark as night until a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. In that flash of light I saw a dark creature lurch across the clearing. It hunched forward. It wore tattered, ill-fitting clothes, and in the lightning glow, the creature’s skin seemed to be the same color as the clay from the quarry—a slick greenish gray. It reminded me of the trolls from children’s storybooks. It carried something in its arms, something too large to be lugged through the woods in a storm. I stood very still, hoping to escape the creature’s notice. I barely breathed. At the next bolt of lightning, I tried to spot the creature again, but it was gone. I stood frozen in the downpour, afraid to move forward or go back. What had I seen? Was it a monster or a vagrant? Was it the Devil himself? Was Daddy right about this being Satan’s sanctuary?

  Anything seemed possible in the midst of that dark storm. I thought of Margaret Halsey, a classmate who’d told her mother she was having a sleepover with a girlfriend but instead spent the weekend with her boyfriend at his family’s deer lease, not far from these woods. Margaret wouldn’t talk about what happened, but she’d come back changed and not for the better. Some people said a gang of rough boys had violated her with the barrel of a hunting rifle. Others said she got drunk and let her boyfriend and his friends do what they wished, and she enjoyed every minute of it. People avoided her, as if whatever had happened might be contagious. If it happened to her, it could happen to me. She’d been touched by evil, and I wanted no part of it. If I stood very still and remained silent, maybe the evil would pass me by.

  The rain slowed. The violent stinging sheets became soft drops. Clouds rolled apart and soft fingers of light began to creep across the sky. Steam rose off the trees, the mist clearing away irrational fears. I told myself I was being silly, imagining things.

  “Willet!” I called out.

  When he didn’t appear, I turned back on the path to the quarry. Willet would be there, probably wondering where I was. Maybe I missed him in the storm or maybe he’d circled around and gone back a different way. I shook like a dog, water flying off my hair and skin. My hands were stained purple from the berries. Leaving the woods, the sun hit me with a blinding brightness. Any coolness from the rain disappeared, melted into sticky sweat between my thighs. The quarry water lay still and peaceful. I circled the lip of the quarry, looking for Willet to pop out of the woods or waiting for him to rise up from the deep water, gasping from holding his breath. Out of the rising heat, Bubba Speck appeared. I couldn’t figure where he’d come from; suddenly he was just there. Bubba was shirtless, and even at sixteen it was clear he would be a fat man someday. His pudgy belly sagged over the waistband of his shorts and his breasts were larger than mine, which had barely begun
to announce themselves to the world.

  When we were younger, Bubba and Willet were good friends. They shared a fascination with building things, mostly explosive devices fashioned from old car parts and match tips and household cleansers. In seventh grade, they set off a small bomb in the girls’ bathroom at the junior high school. The principal had told the sheriff and the woman from the local news that it was only by the grace of God no one was hurt. The grace of God was something a lot of folks believed in back then.

  “What are you doing, Bubba?” I hollered.

  Bubba tossed a rock into the still water of the quarry.

  “Have you seen Willet?”

  Bubba tossed another rock. It was like he couldn’t hear me, like I wasn’t even there.

  “You got no right to ignore me, Bubba Speck!”

  Bubba looked up at the sky, pointed a finger to some spot above his head. I looked where he was pointing, but all I saw were dissolving clouds and the bright, white sun. My vision filled with fiery spots that flared and went dark. By the time I could see again, Bubba was gone.

  Between Willet and Bubba, I didn’t know what to think. Why were they treating me so mean? I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to deserve such treatment. I resolved to ignore Willet for the next week at least and to tell Mama how he’d abandoned me in the woods and hid when I called him. I was running down the long list of things Willet had done to make me mad when I realized something was wrong.

  Pansy was not floating on her back in the quarry where we’d left her. Pansy was not sitting on the edge of the quarry with her feet dangling in the water as she sometimes did. Pansy was not walking on the path into the woods. Pansy was not climbing the oak tree with the swing. Pansy was not anywhere at all. The berries I’d eaten expanded and rose into my throat. I spewed out a hot mess of the sweet fruit, splashing my bare feet.

  I yelled for Pansy. It seemed I’d spent the whole afternoon shouting for people who wouldn’t answer.

  “Willet! Bubba! Pansy!”

  I called their names over and over, but no one called back. I held on to the idea they were playing a joke on me. Any minute they’d burst from behind a tree and laugh at me for getting all worked up. But they didn’t come out, and even the birds seemed to have gone silent. The sun, bright and hot and unforgiving, dipped in the sky.

  It was getting on toward suppertime, and I thought about Mama at home making cornbread or stirring a pot of purple hull peas. Maybe Willet and Pansy were on their way home without me. Maybe they were teaching me a lesson. I played the last week in my head and tried to figure out what I’d done to make them angry. Instead, I devised a long list of slights I’d suffered. Someone ate the biscuit I was saving for breakfast. Pansy kicked me hard enough to leave a bruise when I asked her to get her laundry sorted. Willet called me an “idget.” Ordinary sibling grievances, but there I was, alone, abandoned for some reason I couldn’t fathom. My chest felt heavy and tight. I was lightheaded and ashamed. I didn’t know why. My face burned, but my arms prickled with chilly goose pimples. With no option but to stand there or walk on, I set off down the road toward home. I was halfway there, on that stretch of hot, shadeless road, when I heard Willet call my name. Any anger I held against him fell away. I’d about convinced myself the whole world had disappeared during that storm and I would walk in the door of our house to find Mama vanished and no supper on the stove. When Willet caught up with me, I threw myself around him like a spider monkey. His skin smelled sharp and sweet, something unrecognizable rising from his sweat.

  “Where were you?”

  “Jesus, Bert, I’m right here.”

  I started to tell him about the storm and the creature in the woods and Bubba, but he interrupted me.

  “Where’s Pansy?”

  “I thought she was with you.”

  “Why in the hell would she be with me? She was in the quarry.” Willet’s face shimmered with sweat. His eyes were all pupil.

  My chest got real tight then, and I felt starved for air. Everything went woozy and dark until the world was the size of a knothole. I grasped Willet’s arm to keep from keeling over. “Maybe she went home without us.”

  Pansy had never walked home alone.

  Willet shook me so hard I bit my tongue. The metallic taste of blood crept through my mouth. “How could you leave her?” Spit flew from Willet’s lips.

  “I thought she was with you. I thought you were playing a trick on me.”

  “We have to go back.”

  “But it’s nearly suppertime,” I said. “Mama will be worried.”

  “Worried? She’ll be damn near crazy if we come home without Pansy. Goddammit, Bert, make some sense.”

  My head felt fuzzy. Normally, I was the sensible one. Pansy was young and still prone to fanciful thoughts, imaginary friends, bursts of sudden temper. Willet was unpredictable, wild and untamed in the way boys brought up with too much freedom tend to be. I followed the rules. It drove Willet crazy. He warned me I was on a path to spinsterhood. Men hate that shit, was how he put it. He had a way of drilling down to the heart of things, but now he seemed unable to focus. The world spun in the wrong direction, and I wondered if the berries we’d eaten were poisonous, if this was all a sick fever dream. We stood there arguing far too long. The sun dipped closer to the horizon. Finally Willet told me to go home. He turned to go back to the woods, back to the quarry where we’d last seen Pansy. I shivered as a vision of the creature from the woods came to me, but Willet was already a good piece down the road. I didn’t call him back. I didn’t warn him. I didn’t trust what I’d seen and, anyhow, I knew Willet wouldn’t believe a crazy story about some monster in the woods.

  “Be careful,” I whispered, though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

  A HOLE IN THE ground, a depression in the earth, a gaping wound, an open mouth. That’s what it was—a greedy open mouth drinking in rainwater and sucking sunshine into darkness. At night when the stars hid behind clouds and the moon was reduced to a sliver, people brought offerings to feed the mouth. They tossed their sins into the muddy water and hoped to be cut free from guilt or shame. Sacks of bones, mostly canine, lockboxes with love notes from someone else’s husband, the sticky remains of an unformed child, a bloody knife, a hunting rifle, a broken mirror, a single leather glove—these things sank into the deep water and lodged among the gray stones left unearthed. Of course it was an evil place. It held too many secrets to be anything else.

  The things he knows can’t be found in books or newspapers or in the scrawled notes of local historians. The things he knows, he knows deep beneath his skin. He gathers the stories of the ghosts and combines them with his own. They melt together like candle wax. Lately he’s begun writing everything down in a small notebook, everything he can remember and all the things that are deeper than memory.

  —

  The quarry was dug by slaves in the earliest years of the nineteenth century. The slaves had fled the nearby cotton fields and were caught by the brutal man who owned the land. The man promised to break them with labor a cotton picker could never know. He chained them to one another and forced them to dig with pickaxes and shovels and bare hands. The men worked from first light until dark without resting. If a man grew thirsty, he drank muddy water from the ground. If a man needed to urinate or move his bowels, he did so while continuing to work his tools and his hands through the earth. Each evening, the plantation owner brought meager rations of cornmeal mush and cold beans. The men pulled the slop up with their filthy hands from a communal bucket. Soon enough, the weakest of the men fell ill and died. The plantation owner left the man’s corpse chained to the workers as a reminder of what might happen.

  “This man’s soul now toils in hell,” he told the men. “You’ll join him soon enough, but until that day you’ll toil for me.”

  The men talked about the bad feeling they got when they dug. One said they were digging in the mouth of hell. One lost his mind and used a small shovel to hack off his leg and free hims
elf from the shackles. He bled to death, and the work went on around him. All of the men gave their lives to the quarry.

  The plantation owner who’d ordered the work gave his life, as well, though not as quickly. He used the first stones unearthed from the site to lay the foundation for a house for his daughter. His slaves, the ones still working in his fields, carried the stones in slings around their necks from the quarry to the home site nearly a mile away. They dug a level trench in the earth and lay stones in like a puzzle until they’d made a foundation so stable only God himself could move it. The plantation owner worked beside his slaves to build the house. He wanted it done right, and he imagined showing it to his daughter and her fiancé with a sense of pride, telling them he’d built it himself. He used the best pine logs available and put in windows to capture the morning light. He put in a fireplace and a woodstove. He constructed walls for three bedrooms and imagined his future grandchildren sleeping peacefully there.

  But when the house was finished, it didn’t please him. Something about it looked askew, though he’d measured every angle himself. The house was as square and level as any house could be, but it sat wrong on the plot of land. He knew this and it made him angry. The house was constructed from his plans and his vision, so there was no one to blame but himself. Nonetheless, he found reasons to whip the men who’d worked on the house. He accused them of sabotage.

  At his daughter’s wedding, he could think of nothing but the disappointment she would feel when she spent her first night in the new home. His wife told him he was being silly. She said the house was fine. She said the daughter was lucky to have a father who would provide such a generous wedding gift.