Sunday morning brings with it more unrelenting gloom, which is somewhat unusual for this state, this time of the year. They’re all still waiting for an Indian Summer that hasn’t yet materialized. Prompted by Emily’s continued sleepless hysteria, though the others manage to calm her down and insist it must have been some sort of prank, because there aren’t any houses to speak of for nearly a mile in both directions of the road, those who are interested nonetheless agree to inspect the grounds on a fact finding mission.
This posse consists of Emily and Denise, Jeremy and Clay, Grace, and the documentarians among them, Lydia and Tony, all trailing around behind Kidwell, as he makes his rounds with a grim determination. After he somewhat reluctantly concludes that putting up a nice, sturdy fence on both sides, at least as far back as the cabins on one and the barn on the other, is probably something that needs done anyway, the Garverick sisters go one further and suggest he install a few video cameras on site as well. He shoots them a dubious glance until Lydia chimes in with her verdict.
“That’s probably not a bad idea,” she tells him, giving Kidwell a cautious smile, “I’m just thinking from a legal standpoint, especially if we’re gonna have people here to visit…”
“Yyyyyyeahhhhhh…,” he eventually agrees, rubbing his chin, lost in thought. Then jokes, “wow, this is turning out to be way more involved than I thought!” before they all move on.
Though cloudy, it hasn’t actually rained much this week. Therefore there’s not much mud, therefore really no footprints to be found – suspicious or otherwise – in the clearing between the main house and Emily’s cabin. Still, she remains adamant, that the figure she saw was at least seven feet tall, in a top hat and dark trench coat, yet obviously quite skinny despite his height.
“He almost looked like somebody standing on stilts, you know what I mean? That awkward, kinda wobbly, skinny…”
“Well then I’m sure that’s what it was!” Clay says, “some jackass, fuckin around on stilts!”
They all reflexively cast their eyes around the property, as though this insight might lead to spotting such a character right now. Then, Denise asks Harry if he has any maps or anything detailing this property’s layout. He replies that he doesn’t believe so, although it inspires the next, much more fruitful question, Jeremy wondering what’s in these woods, and up the hill behind here.
“I remember going down that lane some as a kid,” Kidwell replies, nodding at a dirt path, wide enough for vehicles, cutting a diagonal slant through the forest, just in front of and beside the barn. Then chuckles and adds, “but I can’t seem to recall what it actually leads to. As far as those woods,” he nods in the opposite direction, those south of Otherwise, “your guess is as good as mine. And then up that hill behind here, there’s a pond, obviously, which I think everyone’s pretty much checked out at this point, and beyond that I think you eventually start to run into some houses here and there. Although then again, you’re talking probably close to a good mile. There’s also apparently an underground spring around here with some sort of access tunnel, or at least there used to be…”
“An underground spring?!” Emily blurts out. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
While Kidwell shoots her a serious though nonplussed expression, shaking his head no, to which she replies that who knows what kind of “weirdos” are probably hanging out down there, including the man on stilts, Jeremy once again diffuses the situation, suggesting they split into teams and inspect the land beyond this place.
“Mmm, I’m saying let’s just call the cops now and be done with it,” Emily counters.
“No, I actually kinda like Jeremy’s idea,” Denise allows, grinning as a proper co-conspirator would. “Who wants to go where?”
Kidwell raises both hands and announces, “count me out! I did enough exploring around here as a kid!” He laughs and adds, “much as I would like to get out of all this work you’ve just assigned me…”
“Should we try to rustle up some of the others? They might wish to see this. Maybe they need a break anyway,” Grace proposes.
“Good idea. If we’re crazy enough to go poking around in this shit, we should probably bring reinforcements,” Emily says.
“Really? Thank you so much!” Grace enthuses, seemingly sincere as she does so, “thank you for saying it’s a good idea!”
Kay is up in the workshop on the main house’s third floor when the posse arrives, accumulating people for their expedition. She loves this room and can easily imagine waking every morning, grabbing a cup of coffee and coming up here just to hang out, without any specific projects in mind. After all, she had been lying in bed, watching their little mystery solving troupe goof around in the clearing, before deciding to venture over here today. As those cabins are raised maybe six steps off the ground, and each – of the new ones, anyway – designed in identical fashion, with a giant, shin high front window, the only window, set just to the right of the front door, eating up most of that wall, she’d had a clear view, and lay there a good half hour debating whether she should join them, if only to rub elbows with Tony, though laziness won that particular battle.
She’s feeling pretty damn energetic now, however. Granted, that episode Emily describes is a little creepy, but everyone seems to agree it was a prank. Plus it’s kind of her fault for not having hung any curtains. Because the living arrangements were not decided when they arrived, sure, none of them were prepared, but she and Denise did at least pin up a blanket there for the time being. You can always move it out of the way if desired, as she had this morning.
Mostly, Kay has sat up here watching Kathy work. She has proven very friendly and helpful. While the artists are expected to use as many materials from the property as possible, that’s going to present a slight challenge for the two of them, and whoever else is working with pottery. Kathy has been kind enough to offer Kay usage of her enormous clay sack, but she’s been too intimidated and rusty feeling to start, preferring instead to just watch this master in action today.
“As it so happens, North Carolina has an overabundance of really excellent clay. Right below our feet,” Kathy says, as she’s glazing one preexisting piece, otherwise completed earlier in the week, “but…I’m guessing Harry probably doesn’t want us digging the crap out of his campus here.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
At the wooden bench where they are working, Kathy turns her head to smile at Kay, with those always distant seeming, large and bright blue eyes, suggests, “maybe you and I can go on a little scouting mission in the woods tomorrow, though.”
“Okay!” Kay nods, readily agreeing.
As if by magic, though, Jeremy leads this pack up the stairs into their workshop, suggesting basically the same thing moments later. In a sense, though, it’s remarkable that nobody has really gotten around to this exploration already. Of course Clay felt the need to grab a handgun from his truck’s glove box, and shove it in the waistband of his jeans. This causes Marcus, a tall, slender black man, who is coincidentally centering his project around some concept of war as a form of addiction, to throw his hands in the air with exasperation. He was only returning from a cigarette break out on the roof and just passing through.
“Is that really necessary, bro?” he asks Clay, before drifting down the hall to the room he’s claimed for his project.
“Yeah, really, Clay,” Kay seconds, “bit excessive, don’t you think?”
Clay shrugs one shoulder and says, “never know what we might find out there. Possibly dinner.”
Out the side of her mouth, Denise cracks, “can’t be any worse than what Chef’s gonna feed us.”
“Okay, listen,” Jeremy announces, clasping his hands together, “let’s get to the point, here. Anyone care to join us on a little fact finding expedition? We’re putting together a few different teams.”
Kay recognizes this as a golden opportunity to spend time with Tony, but doesn’t want to appear too eager. So instead she pretends to waver, and make it look as though Kathy has to coax her into it. And they expect that this will represent the entirety of their group, until Tom Drucker, who is over in the corner making some list about the paint supply available, says he’s been meaning to sketch some trees and wouldn’t mind joining them.
Once they have gathered outside, next to a storage shed behind the main house, they reach a quick agreement determining who will go where. Tom, the only one among them who has really done any research at all, says he believes there is a swamp somewhere, off of that dirt lane leading northeast, and he would prefer to go there. The couples meanwhile stand around looking at one another, thinking that protocol surely demands that they stick together. Until Emily volunteers to lead a group in the opposite direction, south into those woods, and Jeremy casually waltzes over to join her.
“Oh no. Huh uh,” she tells him, “go form your own team. What fun is that, anyway? We’re supposed to be getting to know one another.”
“Okay then,” Jeremy laughs, pointing the way as he says, “guess I’m heading up a team…going straight up the hill.”
Denise and Lydia join him, while Tony, whom Emily believes is surely acting on one of those guy things by not throwing in with either of the other males, says he’ll go with her, and Kay casually agrees to do the same. Grace has already joked about having plenty of experience as a tour guide, and will act as Tom’s eyes while he sketches. Clay, the last to commit, simply says, “the swamp sounds cool,” and enlists with them.
Emily and her crew strike off south, across the clearing, reaching the woods in between the Druckers’ big old cabin and that brick schoolhouse. The latter is about halfway illuminated even though they haven’t seen anybody coming or going, nor spotted anybody in the visible classrooms. This entry point is chosen because it avoids climbing that hill, which, though open and covered only by a bit of short grass, looks like much more work than necessary. Out this way these trees are almost exclusively those tall, weird looking pines with no branches up until the very top, too, spaced out well, situated on only a modest incline, their needles providing a relatively smooth walking surface.
The other two groups only break off beside the barn, where the dirt lane begins. Jeremy’s team also sees no reason to scale that hill until absolutely necessary, therefore are skirting some of it by going around the pond. With handshakes, nods, and bows at the waist, they split here, as Jeremy, Denise, and Lydia are soon confronting this mostly calm, impenetrable blue-black surface, reflecting only gloom this grey morning, its shape not quite circular, more like a flower with six or seven rounded leaves. Meanwhile, over in the woods, charting a diagonal northeast path thus far, Tom has already whipped out his sketch book. Armed with a pencil, has begun drawing trees, the details remarkable given his speed.
“What’s with those?” Clay asks, walking beside him, with Grace leading the way by a couple of steps.
Tom crinkles his face into a smirk, neatly framed by his goatee, and offers, “eh, you know, I might use these in some of my landscapes.”
“Landscapes?” Clay says, having apparently not witnessed any of Tom’s work thus far.
“Yeah…I like to paint a little bit,” Tom replies. Though continuing to stare at his work, without looking up from it, he asks, “but what about you? Got any…artistic inclinations?”
“Noooo. Noo noo noo. I’m just visitin,” Clay declares. “Denise is my girlfriend, uh, so…but wait – couldn’t you just, like, look these trees up in a book? Or online or something?”
“Yyyyeah, you could,” Tom hesitates, “but, I don’t know, it’s not quite the same. There are features about the landscape,” here he does glance up, and begin gesturing ahead of them with his pencil hand, “that are gonna be distinct, plus for the most part, I mean, every tree looks a little bit different. You get to where you can spot them, and know them by name, but even so…”
“You know these trees by name?” Grace asks, visibly impressed, as she turns around to face them for the first time in a number of minutes.
She’s enjoyed this peaceful outing, passively observing the scenery on this quiet, slightly cool late morning, with just a hint of breeze. Only vaguely paying attention to that little chat behind her, although the last phrase did catch her ear. If thinking about them at all, she was considering for a second that it’s pretty amazing Tom can walk and draw in such detail like this, at the same time. Granted, they’re not moving at the briskest pace in the world, but still.
“Yeah, for the most part,” he says with a casual shrug.
“Bullshit,” Clay challenges.
“Tom’s really good,” Grace tells him. With a trace of a smirk herself, adds, “and somewhat famous, too, you might say. You’ve got a painting hanging in the governor’s office, don’t you? Kathy was showing us pictures.”
“Something like that,” Tom replies, in typical nonchalant fashion, though allowing a small, proud smile that wordlessly confirms it.
“Okay, then, so…what’s that?” Clay points down at Tom’s current drawing, and then to a tree on the left, the one he’s been sketching. It’s a short, notably crooked pine, with randomly ragged clumps of needles and tiny, almost deformed looking cones.
“That’s a jack pine.”
“Okay…what about that?” he asks, of a blackish grey tree, with white flowers, and leaves consisting of odd numbered leaflets.
“Black locust.”
“Mmm hmm. And then what about those?” Clay says, jabbing a finger at a cluster of thin, spiny, somewhat shorter trees.
“That is what you would call the gum, or quote unquote woolly, bumelia.”
“Bumelia?” Clay questions, as though half disbelieving and half on the brink of vomiting, somehow.
“Yeah,” Tom proudly insists.
Clay offers both companions a sly smile and says, “I really wanna call bullshit on this, but…it’s not like I’m gonna remember this crap anyhow, to double check yer work.”
“Here,” Tom volunteers, flipping over the top page, “I’ll write the names on the back.” And upon scribbling jack pine to label that sketch, continues flipping through the book to label others.
“Come on, let’s get moving,” Grace says, as they’ve stopped completely during the course of this mild debate, “we should see where the lane ends now.”
Like the story so far? Pick up the entire tale from your favorite store below!
Kindle version:
jasonmcgathey 