Under-Heaven Page 5

“I heard screams last night,” Ricky said. His chair creaked. I imagined he was tilting it back on two legs.

  “It happens most nights,” I said.

  Oddly, Ricky didn’t ask where the screaming came from. Maybe his uncle had already explained it to him; or maybe, like me, there were certain things he didn’t want to face. Ricky’s chair creaked again, and just the thought of looking back in the direction of the trap caused my monster to growl.

  “Looks like there aren’t as many houses as yesterday,” Ricky said.

  I nodded. “It changes every day—”

  “Bet I can count them before you!” Ricky announced.

  Laughing, I leapt down onto the grass and counted as quickly as I could. Ricky raced down beside me. We were both furiously mumbling and pointing as we spun in slow arcs.

  One, three…ten…twenty-one—

  “Forty-three!” we yelled out at the same time.

  “I was first!” I yelled, not really sure but willing to see if he would fall for it.

  “No way. I was,” Ricky said. “And you were sticking your tongue out like you need it to count or something.”

  “At least I don’t count on my fingers,” I jibed back.

  “That’s only because my shoes are on and I couldn’t use my toes.”

  The latter sent us both into fits of laughter.

  When the silliness passed, we settled onto my stairs and I explained that I’d never seen less than thirty of the small homes and the most I had ever counted was fifty-two. Without going into details, I added that people came and went fairly often in Under-Heaven and that their little white houses came and went with them.

  I heard a door open and close. It must have been my Grandma Clara arriving through the back. I knew I should have hurried in but Ricky and I were still talking when she came out and leaned on the railing above us.

  “So who’s your new friend?” my grandmother asked.

  We got to our feet.

  “My name’s Ricky,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  “I’m happy to meet you, too, Ricky, but I’m guessing there might be a certain gentleman waiting across the way for you.” The expression on her face suggested it wasn’t really a guess.

  Yes, ma’am,” Ricky said. He glanced at me then down at the grass near his feet. I was horrified to actually be able to see the tan color spreading from his knees all the way up to his waist. Thankfully, it stopped there.

  “Now, now,” Grandma Clara said gently, “I don’t think any harm has been done here. Missing a lesson or two isn’t the worst thing. Even so, why don’t we all get today’s discussions out of the way?” Ricky and I looked at each other and back at her. We both nodded.

  “Tomorrow, Nate,” my grandmother said, “why don’t we skip a day so you can take a little free time.”

  I perked up, but Ricky’s depressed posture didn’t change.

  “Ricky,” Grandma Clara offered, “what do you say I smooth things over with a certain angel?”

  He looked up, eyes wide, smile returning to his freckled face.

  “Would you, Ms. Clara?”

  “Of course, Ricky. Let’s get you back home.” Grandma Clara held both our hands so we couldn’t romp all the way across the neighborhood to Ricky’s house.

  With angels there apparently wasn’t much smoothing over needed. Grandma Clara simply winked at Ricky’s Uncle Sedrick who was sitting patiently on the first porch swing I had seen in my neighborhood. I knew from my own experience that souls arrived in Under-Heaven with one special item from their life. For some it was positive, like a favorite hairbrush or a lawn statue; one time I had actually even seen a cheerful elderly woman arrive with an antique car. But some items were not seen as positive by their owners—items like my own lobster trap. The way Ricky settled down beside his uncle suggested he was probably one of the lucky ones. I hoped that meant his swing carried good memories. I clamped my mind shut at further thought of my own special item.

  “It’s kind of you to escort my young rascal home, Clara,” Sedrick said pleasantly.

  “No problem at all,” Grandma Clara said. “Your nephew and I already have an understanding about what happened this morning.”

  “Oh good,” he said. “So I shouldn’t have to go over all that again. Splendid.” The man’s lopsided smile was infectious. I grinned. Ricky smiled, too, but whether it was in response to his uncle’s demeanor or the lecture he’d just avoided, I couldn’t have said. As we walked away, Grandma Clara turned back to Sedrick.

  “By the way.”

  “Yes, Clara?”

  “I’m willing to give these two young men the day off tomorrow, if that would work for you?”

  Again his face lit up with the infectious smile.

  “Of course. Of course. I’ve a ton of things to attend to in Heaven anyway. Ricky and I will finish up today, and then he’ll have a deserved break. Thank you for the suggestion.”

  The walk back to my house was brief and quiet, but silence was always comfortable with my grandmother. We skirted the tall cherub fountain and its large water-filled basin. There were five or six people kneeling and gazing into the water. I, of course, now knew what they were doing, but fear of what I might learn would never have allowed me to glance into that pool. I felt a slight sense of panic just from being so near it. I gripped Grandma Clara’s hand tightly, encouraging her to make a wider arc around the gushing marble sculpture and was relieved as she veered away.

  “About Ricky,” Grandma Clara said as we settled down in my kitchen. I braced myself because I knew how much his colorful clothes had bothered her when we first saw him. Then, after the morning’s events, it must have been at the top of her mind. “I think befriending him is too dangerous.”

  I shook my head. No matter what she said, my mind was already made up. I liked Ricky and, though I didn’t understand why his clothes weren’t as white as mine, I knew he was a good person.

  “I’m worried, Nate.” Grandma Clara pointed at my pants.

  As I stared down at my sneakers, which had already been black from my lesson-skipping guilt, I saw my jeans now sported several inches of blue.

  “That could be the beginning of a slide to the underworld,” she said.

  I had never liked her word “underworld” because it sounded too much like Under-Heaven, and it gave me the willies to think I was anywhere near Hell. Though I felt certain my color problem would only be temporary, I nodded.

  “I’m sorry about skipping the lesson today,” I said, in hopes of derailing any further discussion about Ricky.

  “You don’t have to be sorry, Nate. You have every right to make friends. It’s just that…well, I know you like Ricky; I do, too. But maybe you need to be careful how much time you spend with him. Maybe it’s something for you to at least think about.”

  Probably the most appealing thing about Under-Heaven was that I was the one in charge. I knew my Grandmother Clara’s suggestions were only that. She would never try to force me to do anything. Of course, her warnings about the underworld had been ever-present as I suspected her advice about Ricky would now be, but warnings were not the same as orders. Besides, she had such a kind manner that even if she had been able to order me around, I doubt she would have done it.

  “There’s something else, Nate,” she said. “I really do trust the goodness of your soul, but I’m worried that losing a friend will be hard on you. As much as neither of us wants to think about it, we have to accept that Ricky could wind up in the underworld.”

  “It won’t happen,” I insisted. “He’s good.”

  “I think you’re right, Nate,” Grandma Clara said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. Sometimes good people go down there, too. In many Under-Heavens, this one included, souls aren’t judged by their actions. Instead, they’re judged by their own feelings of guilt.”

  “You mean Ricky wouldn’t actually have to do anything wrong to go to Hell?”

  She nodded. “In this Under-Heaven you
just have to believe you did something wrong. Here, your own belief makes your color change.”

  “Why is Ricky like he is, then?”

  “Only he and his angels know, Nate,” Grandma Clara said. “But he must feel very guilty about something.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s bad,” I asserted.

  “The demons don’t care, Nate. If he’s ever colorful enough, they’re going to come for him. And I pray you’re not too close if and when that happens.”

  7

  A Bloody Past

  Ricky and I often hung out on the curbing of the road. Not only did it make for a great place to sit, it was also far enough from the cherub fountain that I didn’t get shivers unless I looked directly at the mirror-like spots of water where people stared. Ricky was already at the curb when I finally finished up my Greek mythology lesson and was able to join him. Unlike his usual smile, he greeted me with a serious expression.

  “I have something to tell you, Nate.”

  “I’m game.”

  “Nate, it’s scary.”

  My mental prison door shook.

  “What?”

  “It’s about the red stain on your shirt, Nate. I’ve been asking around, and I know why it’s there.”

  I was thankfully sitting down because otherwise I think I would have crumpled to the grass. My stomach felt as if an invisible pair of hands were twisting and squeezing it. I could barely breathe.

  Ricky slid closer and put a hand on my arm.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded. Fear zigzagged through my body. I felt the urge to vomit, which was especially odd since I wasn’t even sure souls could vomit. We didn’t eat, so what could come back up?

  “Tell me,” I said, touching the red spot on my shoulder.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” Ricky said.

  I knew he was right. The monster inside my head was jumping up and down, pounding on the prison door, roaring with delirium that Ricky’s information might let it out. At any moment, I feared it might be free to rip and tear at my sanity. I stiffened and swallowed hard. I was petrified to know, but I also knew that sooner or later I would have to face those memories.

  I dug inside myself and grasped what few granules of courage I could muster. Now had to be the time. My monster clawed at the bars. I prayed that I could survive with my friend at my side.

  “Nate?”

  If it weren’t for the firm grip Ricky had on my arm I think I might have tipped backwards into the grass. I tried to speak but couldn’t make myself say the words. Invisible hands twisted and tore at my midsection. Gales of fear ripped through my body. I gritted my teeth.

  “Nate, do you want to know?”

  I forced my frozen neck muscles to move. Almost imperceptibly I nodded.

  It was a sign of true friendship, because Ricky did one of the most embarrassing things of all for a young boy. He pushed closer until his hip was beside mine. His arm slid around behind me until he had one hand on each of my shoulders. My friend embraced me tightly before he spoke.

  “Nate, a red stain means you were murdered.”

  Razor sharp talons tore long gashes across the mental prison door. The door exploded outward…

  It was during the second week after school let out when the sheriff returned. Whiskey and I had been romping through the myriad trails around the local mica mines when we heard the siren. Fear clutched at my chest. Since my father had recently been involved with the police, I feared he might be at the center of this commotion as well. The mines were on the western side of town, just beyond Staber’s Golf Course. Normally, Whiskey and I would have skirted the edge of that place on our way home, but in my rush to find out what had happened, we went right through the fairways of holes three and ten. I’d like to say we were greeted with waves and smiles as we raced past a dozen or so golfing men, but only dour and rude expressions were offered our way.

  One older man had been getting ready to swing when we burst through a small clump of bushes within a few feet of him. Menacingly, he raised his club but dropped it when Whiskey spun and bared his teeth in my defense. I won’t describe the gesture I received, but it was better than a golf club beside the head. We raced on.

  The siren fell silent before we reached Main Street, but it was obvious where the sheriff had gone. People flanked both sides of Main Street and every head was craned down the hill toward the docks. Clusters of people were hurrying down to see what was going on.

  The Coldwell coast consisted mostly of steep, craggy cliffs that rose fifty feet above often crashing ocean waves. The main village had been built above the only actual beach for several miles in either direction. Whisky and I followed the other people down the steep access road to the beach and commercial marina. As we crested the last small hill before the road made its final precipitous plunge to the docks, a gust of wind filled our noses with the strong smell of salt and seaweed. Below us, Shore Road ran to the left and right, parallel to the ocean, dead-ending just a few hundred feet each way. A wild array of wooden docks and sea shanties lined the short street on the ocean side with only a few walkways and short strips of beach for the occasional swimmer brave enough to brave the notorious Coldwell undertow. On the inland side were various fishermen’s bars and bait shops with two diners also built against the steep slope. If you walked to the end of the road in either direction, you were greeted with sheer, stone inclines that only a person with ropes and hooks could have climbed.

  As I looked down at the main pier, I suspected that more than one car had raced down the paved hill and right out onto the wide, main wharf. Probably in response, two horizontal rows of wooden posts protected the entrance to the pier. Tires were stacked five-high over the top of each pillar. I wondered if a car would bounce off or just hit hard and stop. Foot traffic could pass, but it would have been impossible to drive a vehicle past the blockade. Parked in front of the tire surrounds was a Lincoln County Sheriff’s cruiser. Blue lights were flashing along its roof. I studied the people clustered on the wharf but couldn’t make out the cause of the commotion.

  Then the breath caught in my chest. Miss Kane’s double masts were poking up like two weathered telephone poles at the end of the dock.

  What was he doing back so early? Normally, he came and went like clockwork, out with the sunrise and in just before dusk. The only two exceptions I could think of was the recent time he had called the Sherriff and the one time over a year ago when he had his ravioli night. Though my father’s near-ancient lobster boat had an inboard motor, it also had three small sails which, though not impressive, allowed it to crawl back to shore in the event of a breakdown. So when one day the old Evinrude had quit, he was forced to return the Miss Kane under strictly sail power all the way back from Campfrey’s Ledge, which was about six miles off the Coldwell coast. Apparently, lobster boat hulls had little similarity to sleek sailing schooners because my dad likened the ordeal to trying to blow a ravioli across a bowl of pudding. He had not made it back to the dock until three in the morning.

  Pushing my way down the hill, I was anxious to learn what could possibly have pulled him off schedule this time. Staring at the Miss Kane’s masts at the end of the pier worried me all the more because after offloading his catch, my father normally moored her a few hundred feet off shore and brought his skiff up onto the beach to save docking fees. I’d never seen him tie the Miss Kane to the main pier for more than a few minutes. That combined with his early return and the presence of the sheriff suggested trouble—probably serious trouble.

  The Sherriff’s last visited Coldwell so my father could report another lobsterman had shot at him while they were both at sea. Though the gunshots went wide and my father had no proof, his report ruffled a lot of local feathers. That, of course, meant more vandalizing of my father’s traps. But even worse were the knives someone had left sticking out of my father’s buoys at sea and the two drain plugs pulled from the Miss Kane’s hull the week before. Fortunately, she had taken on less than a foot of water
by the time my father found her early that morning.

  As I stared at the chaos on the docks below, Whiskey pranced at my side, no doubt, wondering why we had stopped. It’s doubtful he would have understood my fear. What if something truly terrible had happened? Knowing Whiskey was right and that I was being a baby, I began pushing my way down through the throng again.

  Fishermen are a rough and rowdy bunch, but they wouldn’t normally have hurt a child. That was likely the only reason I was able to shove my way through the clogged pier. Most eyes were watching a small Coastguard patrol boat slide up alongside the wharf a little further down. My eyes, however, went immediately to my father who was sitting on a weathered post beside the sheriff. I could see blood splatters on his face and neck. He had several large red smears across his chest. His left arm was wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth that, judging from his bare upper body, I surmised to have been his tee shirt. The sheriff, clad in a brown uniform and a wide brim hat, seemed to alternate between asking questions and scribbling in a small notebook.

  I pushed through the last of the mob and raced to my father.

  “Dad, what happened?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll tell you and your mom about it later.”

  I knew my eyes were wide, and I couldn’t take them away from the bloody make-shift tourniquet on his arm. I didn’t remember ever seeing so much blood. I’d always had a weak stomach, and it threatened to heave at the sight.

  “But you’re bleeding.”

  My father shifted his body in an attempt to hide his wounded arm, but when he saw my eyes still drawn to the blood, he waved his good hand to get my attention. I blinked and focused on his drawn face.

  “Nate, listen to me. I’m going to be fine. I’m with the sheriff now, but later I’ll be home so we can talk about this, okay.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Thompson,” the sheriff said, “but I need to ask you a few more questions.”

  “Nate,” my father said in a quavering voice, “go home and tell your mom there’s been another incident. I’ll be home as soon as I can or I’ll leave a message at the Danvers house.” The Danvers were a wealthy elderly couple that lived only a few hundred feet through the woods from us. They were the closest people we knew with a phone. “Do you understand, Nate?”