Dark Inspiration Read online

  Set up in the attic, he pickled the hide in denatured alcohol and was very gentle as he rinsed it clean in water and borax. As it hung to dry, Doug separated the entrails according to the instructions in the Book of the Dead. One container for the liver, one for the heart, one for the intestines. Her sprinkled each with the spices listed in the penciled translation and sealed the jars with wax.

  The skull became an obsession. He extracted the brain as the text described and gave it its own jar. As he scraped the interior clean, he was inspired to use the skull in the fox. He’d fashioned a clay replacement for the rabbit’s head. But wouldn’t the fox deserve her true skull, to make the head perfect from within? He cleaned the bone with dental precision. He memorized the muscles he stripped and replaced them with clay. He was so engrossed in the skull, he barely heard the gravel churn under the Honda’s tires as Laura came home.

  He checked his watch. It was after five thirty. Where the hell did the day go?

  “What is that smell?” Laura said. It hit her like an ocean wave as she opened the front door. Sharp, sterile and just a bit sweet. It reminded her of camping with her father, of the morning smell of the cook stove…

  “Alcohol,” Doug answered. He stood at the steaming sink, soap lathered up past his elbows as he rubbed a pot brush over his skin. “Just cleaning up a little paint project.”

  Laura knew garbage when it was delivered. Paint thinner cleaned paint, not alcohol, and all the paint they used was water-based anyway. Doug was breathing fast and his face was bathed in sweat. She caught him at something he thought he’d be finished with earlier. The “paint cleanup” BS was a Hail Mary pass because he wasn’t expecting her to catch the alcohol scent. You’d think adults would lie better than kids, but they don’t.

  “Dinner’s up in no time,” Doug said as he dried his hands with a dish towel.

  As usual, Doug had still been asleep when she left for work that morning. So their last conversation was the fight they’d had last night. He should have been crawling to her on repentant knees, but instead he was acting as if nothing had happened. The same way he acted whenever the shit hit the fan between them. Laura still had her book bag in her hand and she gripped it hard enough to feel muscles strain. She wanted to pound him with it.

  “Dinner? After our fight last night and then ignoring me? After sleeping in this morning? You’re going to stand there with that guilty look on your face and chat up dinner?”

  Doug gave a surprised look. “You’re still mad from last night?”

  If she hadn’t been, a comment that clueless would have rekindled the fire for sure. All the frustration of dealing with Doug’s bizarre behavior and all the anger stoked by his constant condescension rushed up like welling magma. She couldn’t stand to even look at him.

  “I’m going out,” she said. “I’m not sure where, as long as right now it isn’t here. There’s a thousand pounds of stress I’m carrying from work and I don’t need to add you to it right now.” She wheeled to the front door.

  “Babe? I don’t understand…”

  Laura slammed the door shut on the last half of his sentence. She threw her bags in the passenger seat of the Honda and left a trail of spinning gravel as she raced down the driveway. She got on US 41 with no clue where she was going. She just had to get away from Doug before she really blew a gasket.

  She slammed on the brakes as she entered downtown Moultrie and its thirty-miles–per-hour speed limit. It was after six and the uniformly nonessential shops around the courthouse square were all closed. With no area residents, the streets were deserted. She pulled into a parking space and yanked the car into park.

  Well, now what was she going to do? The town had a gossip grapevine that ran 24/7 so if she went to one of the three local restaurants for dinner alone, it would be common knowledge in school first thing in the morning. Other than the Walmart at the far end of town, she doubted anything was open. She needed someone to talk to and sort this out.

  She looked across the square and saw the Treasured Things storefront. Theresa’s shop. Theresa! She whipped out her cell phone. Theresa answered on the first ring. Her invitation for Laura to visit was out before Laura could ask.

  Doug pulled the phone from its charger. He really didn’t understand why Laura was so angry, but whatever the reason was, he needed to fix it. They had had a few big fights before, mostly after the miscarriage, but neither of them had ever been mad enough to walk out of the house. Their marriage had to be at a new low.

  Doug was about to dial Laura’s cell when a vision of the fox popped into his head. The skull was almost ready. The skin would be pickled by now. He could get quite a bit done with what was left of the night and leave the Egyptian rites for morning when the powerful rays of the sun would fuel Osiris’s power.

  A powerful force stirred above him in the attic. A magnetic phenomenon that drew him upward to finish the fox.

  Laura needed a little time to cool off anyway, he rationalized. She’d be back soon and then they could talk. All she’d do is yell if he spoke to her now. He could certainly make better use of the time up in the attic.

  He dropped the phone back into its charging cradle and went back upstairs.

  Chapter Forty-One

  It wasn’t until Dustin had been put to bed at nine p.m. that Laura had time for an adult conversation with Theresa. They sat in Theresa’s living room, a small room furnished with a well-worn suite of brown starter-home furniture. Despite a workplace full of antiques, Theresa’s home was stripped to the basics. Laura chalked it up to a combination of childproofing and cash flow.

  “So,” Laura asked. “Is getting him to bed always that much of a production?” Putting the boy in pajamas and between the sheets had been like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

  “Oh, no,” Theresa apologized. “Having you here supercharged him. It really says something that he’d be this excited to have his teacher over to the house.”

  “I think we’ve connected,” Laura said. “He’s going to pull through this rough patch he’s in.”

  “How about the rough patch you’re in?”

  Laura squeezed her wedding ring and gave it a spin around her finger. “I wish I knew. I wish I understood what was going on. Since we’ve moved, Doug has really changed. He’s distant, uninvolved. The way he sleeps in each morning, we hardly talk. Then when we do, it seems like he isn’t listening.”

  “Well, if you’re looking for someone to defend the male species,” Theresa said, “you’ve come to the wrong place. My marital disaster produced only one good thing, and I just put him to bed.”

  “Maybe Doug’s just obsessed with this novel he’s writing,” Laura said. “Some Southern saga of family warfare. He won’t let me read it until he’s done.”

  “He was never work obsessed before you moved to Galaxy Farm?”

  “No.” Laura paused. “Well, maybe. Life was so different in New York. Oh, wait. You aren’t going to blame the house, are you? You saw the girls were no threat.”

  “I only know what I feel,” Theresa said. “I’ve never shaken the feeling that there’s something dangerous in your house.”

  “Well, it’s not the girls,” Laura said. “I was going to try the static generator tonight to see if I could contact them better, but then this mess unfolded. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “You can do what you want tomorrow,” Theresa said. “But you’re not going home tonight. You’ve been gone all night and Doug hasn’t even called to see where you are.” Theresa went to a hall closet and pulled out a blanket and a pillow. She tossed them on the couch near Laura. “You’re staying at the Moultrie Hilton tonight. Let’s give Doug a chance to see what he’s missing.”

  Laura had been through too much that evening to resist. She knew she didn’t have the energy to restart a battle with Doug that night. She could head back in the morning for fresh clothes before school. Then the two of them could sort the whole thing out in the afternoon.

  “I’ll take
you up on that offer.”

  Theresa stocked the hall bathroom with a spare toothbrush and towels and bid Laura good night. Laura sat in the living room and contemplated the last year’s chain of events that got her here, that journey from New York City to a friend’s couch in downtown Moultrie, Tennessee. What events were going to unfold over the next year and where would they take her? And would she travel there alone? Despite all that had transpired, she hoped not.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Uncle Mabron was still down there. Somewhere.

  Vernon Pugh stood by the fence line in the moonlit night. The lights in the house below, his house, had gone out an hour ago. Only one car in the driveway tonight. The little Honda was gone. He wished he could count on that more often. Less people at home made him more inclined to continue his search for Sarah.

  Vernon ran the stub of his index finger along the edge of the No Trespassing sign on the post. That bastard Locke had some balls posting this.

  Coyotes sounded their mournful howl and the cool breeze blew in the stagnant aroma of the Galaxy Farm pond. How many nights had Vern walked the pond’s edge, breathing in that algae-tinted scent and knowing he finally had a place to call home. That was the torture of his house trailer existence on the ridge. He had the same sights, the same sounds, the same smells, the same feel of being at Galaxy, but now overlaid with the emptiness of exile.

  Theresa Mayhew-now-Grissom’s Ford Explorer had been at the house one night. He remembered her from high school. Cute back then, a little strange around the edges, kept herself away from the crowd. Vern liked that about her, thought the two of them might go good together. But even she didn’t want anything to do with “Nubs” Pugh. Ended up with Bobby Grissom ’til she tossed him out. Vern figured he sure dodged a bullet with that bitch.

  Seeing the Explorer that night made him even angrier. Those Lockes were living in his house and even having other people over. The thought of strangers trespassing on his family land, setting up in the house he shared with his father, made his blood boil. But that was nothing compared to how it had to make the spirit of his uncle feel.

  Since his father’s death, and his discovery of the hidden passage to the attic, Vern had been in communication with his departed uncle, practically in communion with him. Vern missed the house. He missed the land. He missed the freedom of having a place he knew was his. But more than all that, he missed his uncle.

  His father Alexander had taken him in, given him a roof over his head and food in his belly. He’d certainly done more than Vern’s mother ever had in those ways. But there was always a distance between them, a chasm too wide for either to reach across. Perhaps it was the lack of bonding at an early age, perhaps the radically different social environments the two had. Vern thought he sensed a guilt that plagued Alexander whenever they were together, though whether it was for creating a bastard son or for something else, Vern could never figure out. Whatever the reason for the buffer between them, Alexander may have been Vern’s father, but he was never Dad.

  Departed Uncle Mabron was a different story.

  Since Vern’s first day at Galaxy Farm, Alexander had locked the turret room. After Alexander’s death, it was the first place Vern needed to explore.

  And Vern was heartily disappointed. The room was empty save a bookcase next to the door to the closet. The curtains had long tears in them where sunlight had obliterated the threads. No footprints traversed the dust and Vern realized that Alexander had locked the room to keep both of them out. He saw that the bookcase was not flush with the wall. When he slid it away, he saw it covered a second door, the closet door’s twin.

  The second door was nailed shut. The gap between the door and the frame was filled with red wax embedded with large chunks of salt. A red rose of extra wax bloomed in every corner and carried symbols that looked Egyptian. It sure didn’t look like Alexander was trying to keep people out as much as he was trying to keep something in.

  Vern grabbed some tools and went to work on the door. He cursed his stunted hands as the crowbar he took to the nails repeatedly slipped from his grasp. One by one, he pried the heavy nails from the door frame. Some carried a now-illegible inked inscription along the shaft. With a chisel, he gouged at the wax seal along the door frame, hampered by the poor control his misshapen fingers gave him. Piece by piece the brittle seal fell away. Chunks of salt hit the ground and exploded into dust. He scraped the last bit free of the hinges and turned the handle. The door was locked.

  Now if you are going to nail a door shut, why lock it? he thought. And where the hell was the key? He looked over on the windowsills, but they were empty.

  When he turned back to the door, the key protruded from the lock. A chill shot up his spine. His first instinct was to bolt out of the room, but curiosity checked the impulse. Something wanted him to open that door, was downright inviting him to do it.

  He wiggled the key back and forth, and with a heavy thunk, the tumblers rolled over and the key turned. Vern pulled open the door. The hinges creaked and shards of wax in the posts scattered onto the floor.

  A dark stairway led to the attic. Cobwebs thick as cheesecloth covered the entrance. They waved like a flag from the opening of the door. A smell of chemicals and corpses enveloped Vern.

  A blast of frozen air rolled out of the stairwell and disintegrated the cobweb curtain. It enveloped Vern and he felt his skin tingle and contract. Then, as if two huge hands clasped him behind the back, it drew him up the shadowed stairwell.

  Wondrous discoveries awaited him when he turned on the light. The mounted menagerie lined the attic walls, coated in a blanket of dust only decades could accumulate. He’d seen a few deer heads mounted at friends’ houses growing up, but this collection was staggering. Animals he’d never seen, and animals he knew were protected species sat lifelike as could be. While he knew they were dead, he sensed something behind their glass eyes. The animals gazed at him as if he was a savior.

  These had to be Uncle Mabron’s. His father had inherited the house from Mabron, and Vern was certain that animal-loving Alexander would never have taken taxidermy as a hobby. But why stash all this in the attic? Why not throw it out when Alexander moved in?

  Though the attic felt unnaturally cold, a rush of warmth filled Vern from within. It was a combination of familiarity and safety. He’d only had this feeling for fleeting moments with his mother, but he knew what it was, the way all people instinctively do. It was the feeling of “home”. Whatever presence was here in the attic, and he was damn sure it was Uncle Mabron, was making sure he knew that this house, but more specifically this treasure-filled attic, was the family jewel and it was now passed to Vern’s generation.

  For the first time in his life, Vern felt unconditionally accepted. Not prejudged for the sins of his mother, not dismissed for his misshapen hands, not sheltered out of some pious sense of guilt. Just welcomed, and wanted, as family. He could feel the power that his uncle’s spirit commanded and he wanted to taste that power.

  Vern looked over the animals. A crested owl perched on a pine log caught his attention. The species had a white streak of feathers that circled from under its each eye and across its forehead like two glowing eyebrows. Its large yellow eyes seemed to bore into Vern. Even in the dim light of the attic, Vern could see that the bird had seen better days. There was a sunken spot in its puffed chest and one of its ears was bent. Still, he thought it would look good on the fireplace mantle, mostly because he knew it was illegal to have the rare species.

  He carried the owl down to the turret room. The sunlight through the decayed curtains hit the bird and it shuddered in Vern’s hands. Startled, he dropped the bird. It hit the floor and rolled face up, staring at him. Vern scooped it up and noticed an immediate difference. The owl’s chest was puffed out like it was ready to hoot. Its two ears were both erect, and Vern could swear they were pointed more forward. He stared into its big yellow eyes and there was a sparkle deep within, like a candle a thousand yards down a black
tunnel.

  By the end of the day, the entire ark of animals was back in the house. It was as if Vern knew where each one was supposed to go, where each one used to go, certain he was guided by Mabron’s spirit, finally released from whatever prison the attic had become. By the end of the week, Vern had cataloged the rest of the attic, including the treasures within the great wooden chest. His hands would never master the taxidermy tools, but they had no trouble opening the locket to see the picture of his uncle and what had to be his beautiful bride.

  And life at Galaxy Farm had been a dream for the months between then and the lightning storm. The night the propane tank exploded, so did Vern’s world. Mabron came to him in a dream that night, the first time ever, and gave Vern a specific mission. Sarah, the locket princess was lost. Vern must find her by the pond.

  So Vern spent every second of daylight searching the shoreline for the next few weeks, pushed by the recurring dream that plagued him each night. All other tasks fell by the wayside, and before he could explain what had happened, Galaxy Farm was no longer his.

  So Vern failed. He failed to find Sarah’s remains. He failed to hold on to Galaxy Farm. He thought returning all Mabron’s treasures to the attic and hiding the door from the next owners would return him to his dead uncle’s good graces. But no, he lost contact with his uncle’s spirit. His last week before eviction there were no visitations in dreams, no more of that sense of being welcomed as family. Whether Mabron abandoned Vern out of profound disappointment or frustration, Vern could not tell.

  All that will change, Vern thought. He would redeem himself in Mabron’s eyes. He’d find Sarah. He’d get back the house. He’d make Mabron and himself one family, united forever. A couple of New York transplants weren’t going to stop him. Step 1—Discourage any visitors.