July 1935
Arthur found his sister grasping at the rocks on the river bank. He pulled her out and propped her against the shed that stood between the water’s edge and their house. Dorothy’s eyes wandered over Arthur’s shoulder and fell on her niece, who was standing with her crutches.
“Beverly?” she said.
“Lucky she saw you through the window.” said Arthur. “What were you doing out here at this time of night?”
Arthur tried to help her up, but she batted his hand away and lifted herself to her feet, steadying herself against the shed again. The movement winded her and Arthur smelled the liquor on her heavy breath.
“You have to let me help you back to bed.” he said.
“You’re mad at me Arty?”
Whatever anger he had he swallowed. Last month he’d scolded her after a fall broke their mother’s clock and Dorothy’s tooth. She’d wandered off in a stupor and it had taken an hour to find her in the dead of night. He was afraid that someday she might disappear entirely, leaving behind a note that she was done being a burden to her family. Arthur’s sister had always been by his side and he wasn’t going to leave hers. Besides, Beverly adored her aunt and couldn’t afford to lose one of the few people in the world who truly loved her.
They shuffled into the room the ladies shared, which had belonged to Arthur and Dorothy’s mother. All the old furniture from that room was gone, including the huge armoire. Dorothy rolled into one bed and Beverly eased herself off her crutches and onto her own bed.
Arthur glanced at the sled leaning against the wall. It made his stomach churn. Today had been Bev’s birthday. She’d asked for the sled, even though she might not live to see the next snow storm. No doctor could figure out what was wrong with her, but it was clear that her internal organs were failing her just as her muscles had. However, having the sled made her happy and her father wasn’t about to quash her painfully optimistic demeanor.
“Arty.” said Dorothy. “I’m sorry. I wanted Momma’s props out from the shed. I thought maybe holding a seance would help me feel better.”
An open magazine lay on Beverly’s pillow. She’d been reading one of her aunt’s old stories by the light of her grandmother’s red framed hurricane lamp.
“You should try writing again.” Arthur said to Dorothy.
“It always lifted such a weight off you.”
She turned her eyes towards a moon phases zodiac map that hung on the wall. Even in her state, she heard what he wasn’t saying. Their mother had warned about the danger from the items in the shed, about the Drifter returning.
“I’m out of control, Arty.” she said. “I can’t write without control. I hoped a seance might make me feel powerful again.” She turned back with a sloppy smile on her face. “Isn’t that the sanest thing a drunk ever said?”
“See how you feel in the morning.”
Arthur turned to Beverly and tucked her in. Her wall bore her own collection of occult symbols, along with photos clipped from newspapers. She claimed each picture contained a ghost image. Her father noticed a new addition. It showed a burning brick building.
“Is that the ‘27 Betz factory fire?” he said. “I don’t remember seeing this in your collection.”
“Abby gave that to me for my birthday.” she said. “She thought I’d like it because it happened the year I was born. And it has a pretty good ghost in it.”
“Abby had to mail it.” said Dorothy. “Because her shit parents won’t let her come around.”
“Sorry, Bev.” said Arthur. “Where’s the ghost?”
“There’s somebody in the middle third floor window, just standing there like nothing’s wrong.”
Beverly found such joy in her macabre collection. It wasn’t that she liked fires and death. It seemed to Arthur that she was trying to figure out the other world. She took after her aunt in her quest to find control over darkness.
Her school mates teased her and said she was crippled by a curse of the devil. Her two or three real friends were intrigued by her sunny adoration of all that was spooky and strange, which is probably why their parents had forbidden them from visiting since Arthur pulled his daughter out of school just after Christmas.
“One more thing before my birthday’s over.” she said. “Can we visit Uncle Randall in jail?”
“Of course. I’ll arrange it.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. He went back to his own room. On a hook over the door hung a uniform reading “Eastwater Correctional Institution.” Arthur had taken up work as a prison guard. It was a steady job that suited his physical stature. It also allowed him contact with Randall, as long as they both were careful.
He kept Dorothy’s rolltop desk in a corner. Her typewriter sat in the center of it. She’d asked to dispose of both, but Arthur knew she’d want them back some day. He kept them here so she wouldn’t have to look at them. He’d stuffed a stack of mail into one of the slots and seeing this reminded him of something. From the stack he snatched a letter addressed to his mother.
“Metropolitan Property Insurance received all real estate formerly belonging to Betz Company Women’s Home Remedies after the destruction of its primary facility in 1927. During site demolition, Metropolitan discovered several intact items intended for Betz customers. One such item belonging to you remains in the company’s custody and may be retrieved at any time before 31 July 1935.”
The letter was only a few weeks old, but Arthur couldn’t be surprised that an insurance company had kept odd packages in storage for eight years until some clerk came across them. Unsure of whether he wanted his mother’s stuff, he’d shoved the letter in the desk when it had first arrived. Beverly’s wall made him think he should at least go see what it was.
In the morning he went down to the Metropolitan Insurance warehouse. A polite but unfriendly woman met him in the lobby and took him to a dimly lit basement room filled with boxes. She pulled one out for Arthur, a wooden crate with rope handles. The sound of glass jars rattled inside.
“Do you know what’s in it?” said Arthur. “They used to deliver tincture of opium to my mother’s pharmacist. I don’t know if it would have had her name on it.”
“No.” said his guide. “If it were something like that, we would not have sent you the letter.” She scanned some pages in a metal binder. “It's full of jars.” She shrugged. “Hourglass shaped.”
Arthur wasn’t expecting that. He had to wonder if these were pain jars. What else could they be? He had never known where they came from. They brought back the memory of Bonnie, who’d claimed she had died in a horrific fire shortly before Beverly was born, before she came to Arthur and Ethel and claimed Beverly was her own child. Before her suitcase full of those jars had exploded and killed Ethel.
He also remembered he’d seen this kind of box before. He’d seen them at the house when he was a child, but what he remembered was seeing them leave, not arrive. A sudden realization struck him. Had his mother filled her jars with her pain and then shipped them back to the factory? He imagined rows upon rows of these things. Bonnie’s jar had exploded when the liquid inside had finished flowing from one chamber to the other. What if that happened to hundreds or thousands of such jars stored together?
There’s someone in the middle window, just standing there as if nothing’s wrong.
“I don’t want it.” said Arthur.
“You have to take it now.”
He hired a cab and lugged his new treasure home. When he came in the kitchen, he found that the round table that had been in there was now in the front room. A scarlet cloth covered the table and a polished wooden box sat on that. Arthur put his own box down and inspected the other one. It featured a pair of glass doors hung by brass hinges on the front. Someone had mounted pictures behind the glass so the interior was obscured. Together the two pictures depicted a barren landscape overrun by armed skeletons.
The sound of Beverly’s crutches hitting the floor echoed through the hall. In that moment, that sound travelled through the spaces and surfaces of the house in such a way that it reminded Arthur of the exact sound Bonnie’s cane made moments before she shot Beverly's mother. Bev arrived in the front room.
“It’s like an astro ball box.” she said. “The picture is called the Triumph of Death. It’s a joke, really.”
“You and your aunt share a sense of humor.”
She opened the doors, revealing a brass bell mounted inside. “The spirit rings once for no and twice for yes. It’s a trick, course. Auntie made it for me, but she told me not to tell you.”
Arthur remembered the time when they were children and Dorothy had broken into the shed. They had seen their mother’s spirit cabinet with its crimson curtain. They had also seen a shadow creature emerge from it, a creature that had disintegrated into insects when illuminated by the hurricane lamp that now sat on Beverly’s nightstand. He could at least be grateful Dotty hadn’t pulled that thing out.
“Daddy,” she said. “Now you have to let us do it.”
Dorothy, as usual, had outsmarted him. Arthur nodded as Beverly sat in a chair. He picked up his rope handled box and went to the girl’s room, where he found his sister dressed and looking alert. She was reading through one of her occult books. He set the box down and Dorothy looked up.
“Don’t worry, Arty.” said Dorothy, as if she were reading Arthur’s mind. She probably was. “Momma failed because she was alone. The circle can keep us safe, even if there’s only two of us.” She pointed to the box. “What’s that?”
Arthur took a deep breath and said, “Why not do the real thing?” He tapped the box with his toe. “This is a box of pain jars that belonged to Momma.”
Her face dropped. “What are you saying?”
“What do you think? Beverly’s been in pain her entire life and who knows how much is left? I’ve wondered for a long time if we could get some of these jars…”
“How much good have you seen it do anyone?”
“Momma was so far gone that at the very best, these things just helped her survive.” said Arthur. “Beverly is happy despite everything her body is going through. If anyone’s life could be improved, it’s her’s. The only reason I haven’t tried to find them…”
“Is because they killed Beverly’s mother?”
“I want to ask Ethel for her permission. Maybe with that blessing, it will be okay.”
“I know Arty. To best honest, the thought has occurred to me too.”
“I know it hurt you before. I don’t want that again.”
“I’m already hurting.” she said. “Can I tell you a secret I’ve kept with me all these years? By the time Charlie died, I’d already given up on writing. I was losing my mind.” She gripped her head. “All these voices were in my head. You remember how I used to go into spells and see Daddy? He wasn’t the only one. So many came to me, and I couldn’t understand them or talk to them. I was starting to forget who I was. That’s why I wanted to conjure so badly.”
“You needed to figure out how to control them?”
“I attacked Charlie because I was scared. I never really wanted the money all that much. I just wanted to feel powerful again. No matter what he did, he didn’t deserve to die.”
“You didn’t kill him.” said Arthur.
“No. And I realized that the moment before I conjured Momma’s spirit. She came, but I think the spirit world felt my weakness. The voices became worse, not better. Arthur… if I can do it right this time, maybe I can make them leave me alone. I have to, somehow, or I’m afraid I’ll end it all.”
Arthur grasped her hand. He asked if she was sure and she squeezed hard, nodding as the tears covered her face.
“I need something from Ethel too.” she said. “If she could forgive me, even if the spirit isn’t all of her, it would mean something to me.”
They stood and went back to the front room. Dorothy began pulling curtains across the windows while Arthur sat near his daughter and explained what they were going to do.
“Your aunt and I decided that we’re going to try a real seance. There are supposed to be three of us. Dorothy brings the spirit over, I talk to the spirit, and Randall understands what it’s trying to say. That’s the safest way, but we don’t have your uncle so the two of us will have to do.”
“You’re really going to do that?” said Beverly.
“You can’t reach over to the other side.” said Dorothy. “You have to make it come to you. Everything must be as close to death as you can make it. No light, no noise… like you’re buried underground. It’s almost like tricking the spirit world into thinking you’ve died.”
Beverly looked a lot less enthusiastic than she had a few moments before.
“What does that mean?” she said.
“I’ve heard about people going into the hospital and for a moment they die. I suppose if that happened fifty years ago, they’d just pass over, but these days they sometimes come back. And they have stories about what they saw.”
“I still don’t understand, Aunt Dotty.”
Dorothy looked at her brother. Arthur shook his head. It was best that Beverly didn’t understand that her aunt’s heart had to stop. It had happened any number of times, whether she wanted it to or not. The trick wasn’t getting her started back up, it was walking her over when she wanted, not when the spirits wanted.
“I can do it.” said Dorothy. “There are some things I can think about. I’d rather not say.”
“Auntie?”
“Let’s sit, Bev.” said Arthur. “You’ll see.”
They made the room dark and sat around the table, holding hands. Arthur had a pen and paper. As Dorothy’s breathing slowed, he moved his grip to her wrist. He felt the pulsing in her veins slow and then he felt it cease. Arthur counted to himself.
one, two, three
breathe
one, two, three
“Daddy? Daddy! What’s happening?”
breathe
one, two, three
“There’s someone else here!” shouted Beverly.
At last it had come. He breathed out the word that his mother had taught him.
“Praemonitus.”
It was the same word that Bonnie had called him before unleashing her terror That word had stopped him from throwing her out. It had caused him to pause just long enough to let her do what she wanted to do. The rest was his fault, really. He’d always felt so. But it was also the word that brought Dorothy back. Her heart would start again in a moment.
A figure was standing in the corner. There was no light to illuminate it, but still the shadow was visible to him. It walked over without a noise. As the figure approached, Arthur saw that it was a woman covered from head to toe in a black lace veil. He couldn’t see her face and her hands were tucked beneath the veil.
“Ethel?”
“Mommy?”
Arthur realized that Dorothy’s pulse hadn’t returned. His grip on her wrist tightened. He shouted at her.
“Praemonitus!”
Dorothy opened her mouth and sucked in a big drag of air, as though she meant to breathe in all the air in the room. She opened her eyes and then there was a flash. It didn’t come from her, nor from anywhere in particular. Then the room returned to darkness.
“Arthur.” said Dorothy. “It’s your turn.”
“She’s already here.” he said.
Arthur used what little sensation he had left in his fingers to feel around for the pen and paper. Then he began to write. He couldn’t see what he was writing, but he was still able to fill the page with marks. Ethel continued coming closer to him. As she did so, Arthur wrote more furiously. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, though he could see her in his peripheral vision. Now she was standing over him, leaning towards his shoulder as if looking at what he was writing.
He thought of Bonnie, of how she was covered because her body had been burned beyond recognition. Is this why Ethel wore the veil, because that is how she died also? Arthur saw the dark fabric ripple. She was pulling it off. The veil slid away and fell at Arthur’s feet. He stopped writing. He did not want to look up. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. It felt like bones gripping him. He did not want to look. But then again, there was that compulsion. What he wanted never mattered. Arthur lifted his head.
Beverly screamed.
The flash consumed them again. The house shook. The shaking strengthened until books began falling off shelves. Momma’s clock fell down once more, this time smashing into pieces. Arthur jumped up and pulled open the curtains. The three were alone in the room. Dorothy was slumped over in her chair. Arthur propped her up again, as he had the night before. Her eyes opened, but they weren’t focused.
“Is she okay?” came Bev’s unsteady voice.
“She just needs rest.” lied Arthur. “She’ll be fine.”
Beverly remained in her seat while her father helped Dorothy into bed once more. She lay on her back, eyes wide open and staring at a water spot on the ceiling. He called her name. She looked, but said nothing.
“Dotty?”
“I should know you.” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”
Arthur fell to his knees and bent over the bed, placing his arms around his sister and his face against hers. It seemed that Ethel had not given permission or forgiveness. She had gotten her revenge. Even after everything, Arthur never thought Ethel would do this. But he had to remember what Momma had always said.
There may be ghosts, but there is no life after death.
He had let his hope delude him, but now it was obvious he had not really seen Ethel. He had seen a piece that remained, a shadow of pain and anger removed from everything else that Ethel had been. Moderated by no other feeling, her rage crushed Dorothy without remorse.
Perhaps when they had summoned their mother before, they had been lucky to reach the part of her that was willing to destroy whomever threatened her children. Since the Drifter was the last thing that came before Dorothy had made the last hourglass, it was the Drifter that had borne Momma’s rage.
Ethel had never forgiven Dorothy. Once she was dead, it was foolish to think she ever could. Dorothy was still here in some way, the way visible to everyone else. But Arthur wondered if she was still here in anyway that mattered, or if he could retrieve what was lost.
“Am I dead?” she said. “I remember feeling like I was dying for so long. I remember… falling in the water. My heart stopped. I died. I didn’t come back, did I?” She reached out a hand and touched her brother's hair. “Are you here to take me over?”
“No.” said Arthur. “You’re not dead. You’re just tired. You should sleep.”
“Daddy?” called Beverly.
Dorothy’s eyes closed and she fell into a slumber. Arthur rose. He loved Ethel. He craved her approval. But what did it matter now? She couldn’t do this to Dorothy and think she would still matter to him.
Arthur pulled the lid off the box. He was going to help the only person left, whether her mother cared or not. He tossed the top aside and pulled away the brown paper wrapping. His face fell when he saw that the jars were empty and cracked. He pulled one out after another, looking for something intact. It didn’t matter. Ethel had destroyed them. Arthur fetched a jar and shattered it against the wall.
“Daddy!”
He rushed back out to the front room. Beverly was worried. He tried to reassure her. Then he noticed the paper on which he’d written the message from Ethel. It was filled with signs and symbols he didn’t recognize. Holding Beverly close as though she might disappear through a hole at any moment, he spoke to her in the most hopeful voice he could manage.
“Only Randall can understand the writings of dead people.” he said. “Maybe he can help us understand what your mother wants.”
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Thank you for reading! This was part 7 of 12. For those who have been reading all along, I appreciate you sticking with it. If anyone else would like to read the previous parts, here you go.
