The Scarecrow: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom) Read online

  Gordon sat by the cold fireplace, a book in his lap called The Airwaves of Zion by Howard Dorgan. Gordon had explained the significance of backwoods Gospel radio shows on tiny AM stations, and Katy had nodded enthusiastically while her mind wandered to the fresh asparagus and dill weed in the refrigerator. She’d left the room at the earliest opportunity, and she’d returned to find him dozing. His head was tilted back on the Barcalounger, a delicate snore rising from his open mouth.

  Katy had never noticed how pale his neck was beneath his closely-trimmed beard. His hands were soft, with the fingers of an academician, not a farmer. He had the drawn and wrinkled cheeks of a smoker, though he owned a pipe merely as an affectation. He’d only smoked it a half-dozen times since they had been married, which was good, because the smell of the rich tobacco made Katy’s head spin.

  It was rare that she had a chance to study him in daylight. When they were together, his eyes dominated her, and she felt herself paying attention to his every word. That same power had brought Katy under his spell when he’d delivered his presentation on Appalachian religion at that Asheville seminar.

  After Mark, Katy had promised herself not to fall for a man, any man.

  She was on the type of post-divorce arc she’d read about in Cosmopolitan: no dating until a year after the break-up, then dating only non-threatening men who didn’t appeal to her all that much. The Cosmo rule declared no serious relationship could even be contemplated until two years after a divorce, especially if a child was involved. Katy ignored those kinds of rules, although she’d made a promise to herself to be cautious for Jett’s sake.

  Katy had kept Jett away from the potential replacements for Mark, not wanting to parade men through her life. She’d dated a Roger something-or-other, an insurance adjuster with overpowering cologne and happy hands; a broody food columnist for a Charlotte newspaper who’d nearly had her in tears after just one lunch; and Rudolph Heinz, a tall blond Aryan she’d met in a coffee shop who’d given her a thrilling three weeks but in the end offered about as much emotional stimulation as her favorite vibrator. After those experiences, part of her was ready to settle down again, but the rest was determined to hold out for the perfect situation.

  Gordon changed all that. He was presenting at a conference in the same hotel where Katy’s company had scheduled a seminar. Her bank had eschewed frugality and scheduled the event at a hotel in Asheville, a vibrant community billed as a “gateway to the North Carolina mountains.” In the tradition of such seminars, it combined networking with leisure, the kind of professional vacation that most employees endured for the good of their careers while cramming in as much recreation as possible.

  She’d skipped out of the session entitled “Tax Considerations of Mortgage Points in Refinancing” and was browsing the vending machines by the check-in desk when she saw the schedule for the hotel’s other conference. Written in red marker on the dry-erase board were the words “European Mythology in Appalachian Religion,” with a room number and time listed. To Katy, bored nearly to tears and hiding a run high on one thigh of her stockings, the topic evoked images of snake-handling hillbilly preachers crossed with sacrificial burnings like the one in the old Christopher Lee film “The Wicker Man.” She knocked down a quick martini at the hotel’s bar and slipped into the small room where she first saw Gordon Smith, who was keynote speaker.

  Gordon resembled a slimmer Orson Welles, tall and broad-chested, projecting a vulnerable arrogance. He told the crowd of about twenty, mostly professors who were nursing tenure-track hangovers, about the Scots-Irish influence on Southern Appalachian culture, as well as contributions by the Germans and Dutch.

  Katy wasn’t that interested in the Druids, and religious politics always seemed like an oxymoron to her, so she tuned out most of the speech and planned the evening ahead. The bank had paid for her room, the seminar officially ended before dinner, and she had hours looming with no responsibilities. Jett was staying with her dad, and she’d left her cell phone in her hotel room. She was about as close to free as a single mom could be.

  Gordon pulled her from her reverie with a rant on Demeter and Diane, harvest goddesses who had to be appeased before they would prove generous with their human subjects.

  “Human sacrifice was common among many primitive religions,” Gordon said, his voice assuming an evangelical thunder as if to wake the drowsing audience. “Blood was not only a gift for Diane in the forests of Nemi. Central America, Scandinavia, the South Sea Islands, Africa, India, virtually every continent had bloodthirsty gods, and those gods often demanded the ultimate tribute. Certain Germanic tribes combined human sacrifice with nature worship. If someone were found guilty of scarring the bark of an oak tree, that person’s belly button was nailed to the tree trunk, and then the body was circled around the tree until the offender’s bowels served to patch the tree’s wound.”

  Gordon had the audience riveted by then, and Katy found herself admiring the man’s strong cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and dark, penetrating eyes. He went on to suggest that vestiges of the old worship still lived on in the form of scarecrows, horseshoes, jack-o-lanterns, and Yuletide mistletoe. By the time he’d finished, she’d thought of a question to ask him derived from her own lapsed Catholic beliefs. She waited while he shook the hands of balding, tweed-encased academics, and gave him a smile when her turn came. He nodded, impatient, as if he’d earned his honorarium and the show was over.

  “Professor Smith, could you tell me how Jesus Christ fits into your theories of human sacrifice?”

  Gordon first looked startled, and then he threw back his head and laughed from deep within his belly. “My dear, entire books have been written on the subject. Do you have an hour to spare?”

  His question had not exactly been a come-on, but she didn’t want to eat in the hotel dining room alone, or worse, with colleagues from the bank. So she said, “Yes, I do. How about dinner?”

  She wasn’t physically attracted to him, at least not in the rip-off-clothes-and-let’s-wallow fashion. Even after their marriage, she questioned her original motivation in seeking him out. But somewhere between the oysters and the strawberry cheesecake, he’d become interesting for more than just his obvious intelligence. Gordon didn’t flinch when she told him she was a divorced mother of one. If anything, he’d become more deferential and inquisitive. By the end of dinner, they agreed to a nightcap at the bar, Katy fully expecting the drinks to lead to an invitation to his room. She didn’t have to decide whether she would have accepted the offer, because he never asked. Instead, he made her promise to join him for breakfast.

  A flurry of communication ensued over the following weeks, phone calls at night, emails throughout the day, and even old-fashioned, handwritten letters showing up about once a week. It was the letters that eventually won her over. In person, Gordon was a little cool and distant, but his sentences burned with passion and a playful humor that belied his professorial persona. He invited her to visit Solom, and she drove up with Jett one Saturday, her daughter grumbling all the while, dropping into defensive mode over Dad. But Jett had frolicked on the Smith farm, exploring the barn, traipsing through the woods, playing in the creek, and by sundown Jett wanted to stay for another day. By then Katy was prepared to bed the evasive Dr. Smith, but he seemed old-fashioned about courting, reluctant to do more than kiss her cheek.

  Katy’s decision to accept his eventual proposal came after a few sleepless weeks of soul-searching. She didn’t want a replacement for Mark, especially in Jett’s life, but as Mrs. Smith she would be a stay-at-home mother, something she had never desired until Jett’s drug problems surfaced. Katy blamed herself for being so absorbed in her career that she let her marriage to Mark fail (although intellectually she knew they’d waltzed together over the cliff edge) and then compounded the error by neglecting Jett. Gordon and Solom offered a fresh start, a chance for her to rebuild her relationship with her daughter with a supportive man in her life.

  Gordon had never explained Chr
ist’s position as the world’s most famous sacrificial lamb, but it didn’t matter now. The honeymoon was over.

  Looking back on it now, she realized she’d always been lectured, not conversed with. And she had been the student eager to please, sitting on the edge of her seat, face warm at the prospect of proving her worth as a listener. She found herself flushing now, standing over his sleeping form, bothered that she was only on equal footing when Gordon was unconscious. Even in bed ...

  She didn’t want to think about bed. Their sheets were way too clean and smooth, each spouse’s side clearly marked. A stack of hardcovers on Gordon’s dresser, a water glass, and a case for his eyeglasses. A box of Kleenex on Katy’s side, along with a bottle of lotion, a candle, and a pack of throat lozenges. In her drawer lay birth control pills, clothing catalogs, Tylenol PM, Barbara Michaels paperbacks, lip balm, and beneath all that feminine detritus, a vibrator, her longtime romantic partner in Charlotte. A monogamous and loyal lover, always attentive, considerate, and sober. Everything that Mark wasn’t.

  Katy was afraid Gordon would find the vibrator, but Gordon hadn’t exactly set the marital bed on fire, either. In fact, he’d not even struck a match.

  Maybe professors of religion had to take a vow of celibacy. Though Katy had no moral qualms on the issue, she wondered if premarital sex should perhaps become a legal requirement. After all, you might say “I do” even when the person standing with you before the priest might be thinking “I never will.” Mark had been a real believer in premarital sex, to the tune of two or three rounds per day. He called it the “Protestant sex ethic,” although Mark had been about as Protestant as a Pope. His ardor hadn’t dampened once they had tied the knot and the beautiful miracle named Jett had slid down her vaginal canal. Still, the years had left a growing gap between them, and late-night whispered secrets had given way to accusations and aloofness.

  But that’s not why you divorced him.

  Katy walked away from the fireplace. She had more pressing matters at hand than a good wallow in the swamp of regret. Like the butternut squash in the oven.

  She found herself thinking of it as the “fucking butternut.” Katy made a conscious effort to quit cursing when Jett was a toddler, after the first time she’d heard Jett burp, sit propped up on her wadded diaper, and say “Fuck.” With the kind of toothless grin that melted maternal hearts all the way back to Mesopotamia, Jett had declared her intelligence and the simultaneous importance of surroundings on her upbringing.

  But Jett was on her way home from school, either by bus or with the trustworthy Mrs. Stansberry up the road. So Katy felt comfortable saying it aloud, but not too loudly. “Fucking butternut,” she said, as she grabbed her potholder and reached for the oven door.

  The whisper that skirled from the pantry was probably nothing more than the September breeze bouncing off the curtains and playing around the room, carrying the autumnal scent of Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, and pumpkin. But it sounded like a word. Or a name.

  “Kaaaay.”

  Katy grabbed a spatula between the thumb and mitt of the potholder and spun like a ballet dancer after three shots of whiskey. “Who said that?”

  She was annoyed, both at herself and at whatever trick of physics had made her panic.

  Her heart fluttered, and an uneven rhythm pounded in her ears, like when the natives were asking King Kong to step up to the altar and accept their drugged sacrifice.

  “Kaaaaaaaaay.”

  “Go away.” Katy held up the spatula like a hatchet, hoping to ward off the invisible thing in the corner of the kitchen. Gordon’s first wife didn’t belong here anymore. She was dead. Rebecca didn’t exist.

  This was Katy’s house now.

  And Solom was her home.

  Something stirred in the attic. Damned mice. She’d have to speak to Gordon about them.

  Later. First, she had a meal to prepare.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mark Draper awoke with a roaring headache, unsure of where he was.

  He blinked and looked around, gray light filtering into the cluttered bedroom and revealing that he was, indeed, home. Or hell. Same thing.

  The clock on the nightstand warned him that it was 11:27, its red numerals burning into the back of his brain. That must mean a.m., since the streetlights at night didn’t quite reach his window. In a perfect world, morning or night would make no difference, but in this case, he was pretty sure it meant he’d missed his appointment with Ken Dickerson. And Ken was exactly kind of uptight asshole who would move on to the next contractor.

  Guys like that only give you one strike.

  Mark sat up in bed—he was surprised to find he’d actually undressed at some point—and rubbed his scalp. He thought about calling Ken anyway, begging and pleading for a second chance. He could say his daughter was sick or something, family had to come first. An all-American asshole like Ken might fall for that.

  But so what? Even if you get the job, it’s only a few hundred bucks. That won’t even keep you afloat through lunch.

  Mark had invested in a new business, blowing shredded insulation into attic roofs. It was a nasty job, and sure to lead to brown lung or cancer at some point, but as much gunk coated his lungs already, he doubted the dust would have a chance to stick. And he’d discovered being his own boss had a big downside: dealing with people to score the next gig.

  He glanced at his cell phone. There was another score he could make.

  No. You promised Jett.

  But what Jett didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, right? She was a hundred miles away, off in a new life. Anything Mark did here wouldn’t affect her at all.

  At least Katy no longer mattered. She’d given him plenty of strikes. And he’d gone down swinging every time.

  But, hey, he was off the needle. He’d finally kicked heroin, and that was something, right? Compared to H, the Oxy and coke and pot and booze were practically candy. Nothing to apologize for. Not even to his probation officer.

  Mark reached for the phone. Johnny Divine would hook him up. He could sling a few grams and make rent, and even have enough stuff to get through the evening.

  He was in the middle of dialing when a sudden pain flared through his skull. Mark set down the phone and waited for it to pass.

  She told me she’d do anything to help me get through this. To get clean.

  He picked his jeans off the floor and fumbled a slip of paper out of his wallet. Katy’s husband would be off at work—if you can call flapping your jaws at a bunch of college students “work”—and Jett was at school. He called the number. Even though she was long gone from him, a ghost haunting his cold husk of a heart, his breath still caught when she answered.

  “Hello?” Katy said.

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Mark.” Neither accusing nor defensive, just stating a fact, like acknowledging the existence of death and taxes.

  “How is it going up there on the mountain?”

  “Nice. I’m making pumpkin bread.”

  Pumpkin bread? The Katy he’d been married to had been challenged by toast.

  “Sounds like fun,” he said. “How’s Jett?”

  “Doing well so far. A’s and B’s. I think they’re a little less academically competitive around here than in Charlotte.”

  “She’s always been a genius. But how are those…other things?”

  A pause. “No problems. The change has been good for her.”

  The Change. Taking Jett out of Mark’s orbit and sticking her on a planet in a distant galaxy. But what could he do? All his broken promises and all his lies had fueled that rocket ship.

  “I’ll give her a call later. It’s you I really wanted to talk to.”

  “Mark.” Now on the defensive. It was the way she’d said his name after the hundred other times he asked for one more chance, when he claimed things would be different, when he said he’d do anything to keep his family together.

  “Nothing personal, hon—” Damn, did habits die hard. “
I want to ask a favor.”

  She didn’t sigh, but she didn’t need to, because the silence did it for her. “My enabling days are over, Mark. I really, really hope you pull yourself together and get sober. Not just for Jett’s sake, but because I want what is best for you.”

  I HAD what is best, and you took it away. He wanted to say that, but couldn’t, because it was just another lie. “Things are good here. I’m going to meetings and getting tested and I’ve got this really great sponsor. A Marine Corps drill-sergeant type, riding me hard to work the steps.”

  There was a smile in her words, and it made his chest break open all over again. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “See, the thing is…my car broke down, and I can’t get around. I’ve already lost a job because of it, and I was wondering—”

  “Mark. No.”

  “I know you’re not working, but if you get it from Gordon, I’ll pay it back before he even notices it’s gone.”

  “No. I’ve already lost one marriage because of mistrust, and some of us learn from our mistakes.”

  Sarcasm was good. At least it wasn’t full-on cruelty. Which meant maybe he could work a little guilt trip on her. “It’s not about me, Katy. I want Jett to see her father as a success. I want to be a role model.”

  “She has a role model now.”

  Mark squeezed the phone so hard he though it would spit its battery. “Look, just a few hundred bucks…”

  “You’re still welcome to visit Jett when you can. After your car is fixed.”

  “I…I still plan to come see her for Thanksgiving, if that’s okay.” Stupid divorce settlement. He’d caved because he was too stoned to show up in court, so signing a piece of paper in a lawyer’s office had been preferable to getting grilled in front of cops and judges.