A Summer with the Dead Read online

“A doctor’s appointment?”

  “No, I’m meeting with my lawyer. I see him once a year to discuss investments, taxes, and such.”

  Maya followed Elly into her bedroom. Two dresses were tossed on the bed along with a small black purse. A pair of low-heeled black shoes sat on the oval rug, and an off-white cardigan lay folded on the rocking chair.

  “Which dress do you think I should wear, honey?”

  “The mint green dress looks more summery. The brown one seems more like autumn,” Maya said. “Especially with those little flecks of orange.”

  “Green it is, then.” Elly hung the brown dress back in the closet and took out a polyester slip and the envelope with the stockings from a drawer. “It’s been over a year since I wore any of these things. I never did like wearing dresses. Pants are more sensible, don’t you think?”

  Maya smiled. “I wore dresses when I worked at the art gallery, and didn’t really mind, but when I quit it felt good to get back to wearing jeans.”

  “When I was a girl, we were required to wear dresses to school. Things have changed since then. These days I see girls dressed like boys, or worse yet, like whores, and the boys now days—heavens, they dress like homeless people.”

  The image of Coty’s nephew, Danny, flashed before Maya’s eyes. Baggy shorts, hoody, facial piercings, tattoos. Homeless people didn’t have a typical look. There were some well-dressed panhandlers on streets these days. Some wanted a job, some just wanted a handout. It was difficult to tell them apart. Some people who used to have good jobs were now homeless.

  I’m homeless.

  “Elly? What will you do if the farm doesn’t sell?”

  Elly closed the drawer and returned to the side of the bed where she took the green dress and draped it across a chair by the window.

  “Then, I guess I’ll just leave it to you.” Elly set the purse on the folded sweater and the shoes beneath the chair. The slip and stockings went beside the purse. “There,” she said with a nod. “I’ll take my bath this evening and wash my hair so it won’t take but a few minutes to get dressed in the morning. Do you mind driving me into Graceville, honey?”

  “Not at all. What time is your appointment?”

  “Nine o’clock sharp. He said to allow a couple hours for our meeting since we have a number of things to discuss. So you can do some shopping in Graceville or come back out to the farm if you want. I can phone you when we’re finishing up.”

  “The weather channel said it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I’ll take an umbrella and walk up and down Main Street. There are several stores I want to check out.”

  “Sounds good, sweety,” Elly said.

  Maya turned, gazing at the furniture in Elly’s room, at the dresser in the back of the closet, at the rocking chair in the corner. She focused her eyes through the lace curtains, at the big barn on top of the hill. The farm would be left to her? She would own it? She would own all that came with it? Everything that stayed here after Elly left … it would all be hers. All the graves.

  Later that morning, it was warm and humid as Maya painted the pantry hallway. Elly said she didn’t care what color, so Maya chose her favorite. Creamy white. It was such a dark and narrow hallway and the white paint brightened it. She managed to pry open the small window between the bookshelves in the skylight room, and she opened the window above the kitchen sink that Coty had pried loose. The cross-breeze pushed gentle air through the pantry.

  Maya relaxed. She enjoyed painting, especially something easy like these flat cupboard doors and simple wooden doorknobs. The job required no masking except around the hinges.

  Maya spread old newspapers over the yellow linoleum and got busy with the project. The creamy white semi-gloss gleamed as her paintbrush spread it across the wood, filling in old nicks, scratches and gouges … covering all flaws.

  “Maya,” Elly said. “I’m going out to the bunkhouse to ask Coty to clean off the skylight and the front porch roof. That wind we had dropped pine needles and little cones all over the place.”

  “Fine. I’ll be right here in the pantry,” Maya said.

  The back door opened and closed and Maya heard Elly’s footsteps crunching across the driveway, and then silence. She felt an immediate drop in room temperature. The pantry grew shadowed and the quiet felt loud…as if it screamed silence into her ears. She heard a faint ringing in her ears.

  Maya sat down on the newspapers. The first time she saw Elly’s house, the day she arrived and paused beside the mailbox out on the county road, she remembered how the front of the house had resembled a face, its two upstairs windows glaring outward across the valley like black, angry eyes. The big living room window looked like a wide-open mouth in the midst of a mute scream, and the chimney resembled an off-center scar, almost like the raw gouge in the kitchen table. Maya lived inside that house now, in the very throat of that mute scream.

  Maya rested the paintbrush on the rim of the can. To her left, sunlight fell through the skylight turning the back room a mustard color. A second later a cloud passed overhead, filling the room with shades of gray. To her right, the kitchen flickered as more clouds raced across the sky. Through the bay window the fields blinked, first with sunlight and then with gliding shadows, as if someone turned an overhead light on, and then off—on and off.

  Maya stood and entered the kitchen, She filled the teakettle and set it on the electric stove. This day was too warm for a fire in the woodstove. Moisture on the bottom of the kettle sizzled and popped as the burner grew hot. Another shadow raced across the fields and enclosed the house. The kitchen grew almost as dark as night. The temperature dropped even more. Maya shivered. She saw her breath.

  To her right, the basement steps groaned. Maya pictured someone reaching for the door at the top. She ran to the basement door. It wasn’t locked! Her hands shook as she twisted the lock closed. A second later the doorknob turned white with sudden frost. The surface of the door crackled as a layer of ice crystals formed, from the bottom up and to both sides. The door resembled a wall of ice.

  “Open the door,” a voice growled.

  Maya stepped back. It wasn’t Coty’s voice. Coty stood in his open doorway across the driveway. Coty and Elly stood there together, chatting and gesturing, often smiling and nodding, even chuckling. Maya saw them both between the parted kitchen curtains.

  I can call out to them. The kitchen window is open.

  She could hear part of their conversation—a word here, a word there. If she shouted they would come running, and if they came she could point to the ice crystals on the yellow door. Maybe they would hear the top step groan the way she did. Maybe. Maybe not.

  Maya shuddered at the thought someone stood on the other side of that door, but she was even more afraid that Coty and Elly would rush inside, and see nothing. No ice. No frost. What if Elly opened the basement door and there was no one there?

  What if I’m seeing things again? Hearing things? What if I’m getting worse, not better?

  What if Elly opened the door and there was someone there? Who would it be? What would happen?

  Elly had admitted seeing things in the basement and Coty admitted seeing the green boy in the upstairs hall, but only she had seen the yellow basement door freeze over. Only she had heard that chilling voice from the basement side. Was the voice real or was she imagining it?

  Maya stepped closer to the door. She leaned close. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Out.”

  Maya whispered, “Who are you?”

  No reply.

  “Hello?” Maya said.

  On the other side of the door the wooden steps groaned again and the ice crystals began to melt. Tiny slivers of ice slid down the old yellow paint. Like slush they dripped to the old linoleum.

  Splat. Splat. Splat.

  “Are you still there?” But Maya knew he was gone, down the stairs, across the dirt floor, into the deepest, darkest corner. Down into the dirt … down into the buried freezer chest with the thi
ck white frost and the brass padlock.

  Outside, sunlight flooded the fields again. A chickadee sang in the hedge. Maya heard Elly’s laugh and then her quick footsteps on the gravel driveway. The back door opened.

  “Coty said he will get to it before the end of day,” Elly said. “Oh good, Maya. You already have the tea kettle on.” Elly paused in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes on the linoleum t the foot of the basement door. “Spill something, honey?”

  “Just tea water.” Maya wiped up the melted ice with a paper towel before returning to the pantry hallway. She picked up the paintbrush with trembling fingers.

  Six weeks ago this farm had promised refuge, a place to escape from Benson, a place she had wanted, with all her heart, to visit since the age of five. A place where she could start a new life. Now, the thought of being alone here made her shiver with dread.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  IT WAS NOW JUNE twenty-eighth, eight and a half weeks since Maya first arrived at the farm. Early that morning, she noticed the vintage electric clock on the kitchen wall was stuck at six minutes after twelve. Maya lifted it from the wall, guessed at the time and adjusted the hands to 9:37 and plugged it back in, but it remained stuck. She unplugged it, slapped the clock with the palm of her hand and plugged it in again. Dead. With a shrug, Maya scribbled “new clock” on the shopping list and set the old clock in the counter beside the sink. She rubbed her wrist where her watch used to be. No unseen hand had left her watch on the steps a second time, or returned it to her bedside table from where it first disappeared. As of that moment, the only working clock was in the upstairs bathroom.

  Maya took the stairs two at a time. The face on the bathroom clock was dark. Its electric cord dangled over the edge of the counter like a flat-headed snake with brass fangs. Elly must have unplugged it at exactly six minutes after twelve last night. Odd, that’s when the kitchen clock stopped. Maya jammed the plug into the wall and spun the hands to 9:40. The clock’s face lit up and the second hand ticked forward. She placed it on the counter facing the door.

  A green glow reflected in the full-length mirror at the far end of the bathroom. Maya recognized Danny’s swirling image hovering there, his eyes deep and shadowed. She turned to face him through the open door. He was arriving at other times now, not just at noon or midnight.

  “Danger.” Danny’s voice sounded distant, as if he strained to be heard.

  “What danger?” Maya asked.

  Danny drifted back toward the far end of the hall. He appeared to be struggling like a swimmer against a strong current. His glow dimmed and then flickered.

  “Wait, Danny. Talk to me. What danger?” Maya asked.

  “Sonosa.”

  “What’s a sonosa?”

  Danny’s voice faded away as the door at the end of the hall swung open. The darkness beyond seemed to extend out, like black smoke into the hallway. It enclosed him, pulled him back through the door. The door swung shut.

  Maya ran down the hall and opened the door. “Danny?” The narrow stairs dove steep and straight into black air. The stairwell smelled sour, like fermenting beer. She remembered Elly’s warning about the stairs being steep and how there was no railing. She took two steps down, her fingertips against the opposite wall. “Danny?” High above the overhead fixture was missing its light bulb. Ahead, the air was the color of India ink and Maya squinted into its depths. A cold, sudden, draft rose up from below, lifting Maya’s bangs. She backed into the hallway and closed the door.

  The sound of the kitchen door opening and closing announced Elly’s return from the garden. Maya hurried back along the upstairs hallway, down the stairs and through the dining room. She found Elly at the kitchen sink, the faucet running. “I picked us the last of the spring rhubarb,” Elly announced. Thought I’d make us a pie.”

  Maya shuddered at the thought of eating rhubarb from a garden where bodies were buried. In the sink, inside the colander, slender stalks of red rhubarb glistened like blood covered bones.

  Elly nodded at the clock on the counter. “I see you’ve started a new shopping list. That old clock must be over sixty years old. I think the manufacture date on its back says nineteen-forty-two. It was on that wall when Harlan and I moved in.”

  “I thought I’d pick up some battery powered clocks the next time we’re in town. Something that doesn’t depend on electricity.”

  “Good idea,” Elly said. “I like those new kind, with the big glowing numbers. You can see what time it is from clear across the room.”

  “Digital.” Maya eyed the basement door. Locked. “They’re called digital clocks.”

  This house plays mental games with me, Maya thought. First my watch and now the clocks. Why does the farm want to keep the correct time a secret? Why does it want to keep Danny from talking? Maya sat down at the kitchen table. “Aunt Elly? Do you know what Sonosa means?”

  Elly’s hands halted under the running water. She lifted her eyes to the open window behind the sink. “Oh, baby girl. I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

  “It’s a name?”

  Elly nodded. “Remember when I was telling you about the new warehouse manager? The manager who took over after the Franks? The guy who showed up here one day, insisting Harlan and I agree to a new contract? That’s him. Angel Sonosa. I had forgotten his last name.” Elly wiped her hands on a checkered towel. “It’s time we had another talk, I guess, but to tell it right I have to go back in time again. Way, way, back, like I did before.” Elly turned off the faucet. “Let me get this rhubarb diced and sprinkled with sugar. Then we can sit down and I’ll tell you about Angel.”

  Ten minutes later Elly settled herself against the back of the sofa. “Thank you Maya, for listening to the ramblings of an old lady. I felt better after telling you that memory the other day, things I’ve never told anyone else. Sharing my memories is like a heavy weight lifting from my shoulders.”

  “You’re Daddy’s sister. Of course I’ll listen.”

  Elly sat straight this time, resting one hand and wrist on the rounded arm of the sofa. “Have you ever known someone so mean you thought they were sent by the devil?”

  “Well, Benson has a definite mean streak,” Maya said. “But Benson is just ordinary mean.”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about an ordinary type of mean, Maya. I’m talking about someone who enjoyed hurting others. Someone who loved to terrify people. Someone who lived for it.”

  “No. I’ve never known anyone like that,” Maya said.

  “You couldn’t judge Angel Sonosa by first impressions. My father and Uncle Felix took me to a Christmas program when I was about seventeen, about six months before my dad died. That was the first time I ever saw Angel Sonosa—in a big church in downtown Chicago at Christmastime. He looked like he glowed, and he sang like … well, like an angel. What a voice! The entire choir sang backup for him, that’s how good he was. He sang Oh, Holy Night and the notes he hit gave me chills. I’m not kidding. Goosebumps raced up my legs and spine.

  “This was back when the Franks were still managing the warehouse and Angel ran the loading dock.” Elly paused and shook her head. “The Franks closed down the warehouse every Christmas Eve and everyone who worked there met at the church to hear Angel sing. I think people were afraid not to go. They were afraid of insulting Angel, and he wasn’t someone you ever wanted to insult. There was a big glossy poster in a frame on the front stoop with his photograph and there were news reporters there. We entered a little side door and sat down in the back of the church just as the choir filed in and lined up across the front. A hush fell over the congregation and then Angel came in last, like a celebrity. I remember how the women and girls in the congregation started smiling and giggling. You’d think with a name like Angel Sonosa he’d be dark and exotic, wouldn’t you? But Angel was blond and blue-eyed. He was vain about his hair. It was thick and wavy and he combed it in a, I don’t know what it was called, but it was high and round in the front like
Elvis used to wear his.”

  “A pompadour?”

  “I don’t know. I thought it was silly looking, but I heard other girls say it was dreamy. But Angel could really sing. I thought anyone who could sing Oh, Holy Night like that, had to be a good person, right?” Elly’s expression changed from awe to disgust. She frowned and swallowed, like there was a bad taste in her mouth.

  “Worse than the Franks?” Maya asked.

  “Oh yeah, much worse. If I told you everything he did it’d give you nightmares, but you need to know why Angel Sonosa was like the devil himself.”

  Elly changed position on the sofa, lifting her sock covered feet to the cushions and sitting criss-cross. “I need a minute though, to decide where to start because there’s so much to choose from.”

  “Start with your first memory after the church. And don’t worry about the nightmares. You can tell me everything.”

  “Okay.” Elly’s eyes were fixed on nothing particular. She stared into her memory. “When Uncle Felix told the Franks I was hired, the Franks stared at me for a moment like they thought it was a joke. “With full pay,” Uncle Felix added before he walked away, and the Franks stood there looking like they were waiting for a punch line. I shouted, “Thanks, Uncle Felix,” and then they understood it was no joke. I was a real driver. Best of all, I was the boss’s neice. Can’t argue with that.”

  “Well, let’s show you around then,” Frank Zoebek said. “Come this way, sweetie.”

  “My name is Elly Pederson.”

  Teisland said, “Touchy little broad ain’t ya?”

  “Uncle Felix said to let him know if I encounter any problems. Either one of you guys gonna be a problem?”

  “Shit,” Zoebek growled. “We just get rid of one crazy-ass driver and we’re already stuck with another one. You’re sure you know how to drive a rig, Elly Pederson? A real, full-size rig?”

  “I can drive cars, trucks, tractors, loaders, cherry-pickers and bulldozers, and I can make repairs if they break down. But Uncle Felix said trucks are all I need to know for this job.”