Chevy Stevens - Always Watching

Five minutes later, I found Mary’s place. The railings around her property were old and peeling, bleached by the sun to a faded gray. A rusted metal saw blade was bolted to the top of her front gate, the bottom lined by tire rims. The gate was open, and I pulled in her driveway slowly as two dogs, one a black Lab, the other a sheepdog, came running from behind the house, barking. The underside of the sheepdog’s fur was wet and sandy. As I parked my car, I noticed the dense forest surrounding the house, and in the distance the familiar hum of the river. I imagined the dog following the trail of a deer, or river otter, barking at crayfish.

As I climbed out of my car, a woman with snow-white hair, long and braided to hang over the front of her shoulder, came out and stood on the porch of the home. Smoke billowing from the chimney scented the air. She was wearing a man’s denim jacket, a few sizes too large, with a fur collar pulled tight around her throat. Her skin was pale but looked weathered and tough, her face lined. Her hands were in her pockets as she watched me walk toward her. The dogs circled and growled, causing me to pause a few times, but she never called them off. I pushed my way through them, and they fell back, the sheepdog leaving a streak of sand and fur on my legs. As I came closer, I studied the woman’s face, trying to place her. She had to be in her early sixties. I couldn’t recall her, but she’d been pretty, and was still very attractive. Her features strong, her cheekbones high, and her eyes a bright and sparkling green.

Finally, she spoke. “Do I know you?”

It wasn’t a casual question. It was a demand. Did she recognize me?

“I’m not sure. That’s what I’m here to find out.” I smiled pleasantly. She didn’t return the gesture. “I lived out at the commune for a while….”

Her body stiffened. The hand that had been reaching for one of the dogs was stuffed back into her pocket, leaving me wondering if it was a nervous reaction. When she caught my gaze, she turned away and abruptly said, “I have to collect the eggs,” then walked toward a little coop at the back of the house.

She hadn’t told me to go away, so I started to follow, then on the left I noticed a barn with a corral, where two horses munched on hay, their heavy bodies shifting back and forth, the plumes of their breath in the air. I caught the smell of horse and was drawn toward it, wanted to run my hands through their thick manes, breathe in the musky warmth at their necks. But then I picked up another odor from the barn, something familiar, old manure and musty feed, damp earth. I felt ill with it but didn’t understand why. Still wondering at my body’s reaction, I hurried after Mary. “You used to live at the commune too?”

She glanced at me again, without breaking stride, then gazed up at the sky and said, “He’s always watching.” I was thrown by her words, by the eerie tone, then the way she was holding her head as she looked upward struck me as familiar. I stopped dead in my tracks. My brain superimposed my memories over her face—and I recognized her.

“Cedar, your name was Cedar.” She’d been a devoted member, always singing at the campfire and meditating with Aaron. Something else clung to the corners of my memories, twisting in my guts, my heart thudding a warning.

Bad, something bad.

She stopped and pivoted, took a step toward me. I took a step back, my heel catching on a rock, causing me to stumble.

Her eyes were filled with anger. “I used to be Cedar. My name’s Mary.”

She spun around again and continued on to the chicken coop, where she picked up a bucket outside the door. I hesitated, and then followed, gagging at the thick odor of chicken manure and dander as she pulled eggs out from underneath squawking hens, her back to me.

Over the shrill squawking, she said, “I was young and stupid. We really thought we were changing the world.” She laughed. “We weren’t changing anything. Just getting high and screwing our asses off.” She laughed again, but in a raucous, fun way, and I began to relax slightly. Something about the woman’s rawness appealed to me. Felt real and authentic. What she might say could hurt, but she’d tell it like it was. I was proved right a moment later, when she turned and said, “Your mother was beautiful—you’ve got her looks.”

I kept my face composed. “You remember my mother?”

“Kate. Sweet woman, but a little…” She made a motion by her head. I was caught between wanting to defend my mother and knowing it was true. I decided not to say anything, but Mary must have seen something in my eyes because she said, “Don’t get me wrong, I liked the woman. But it had to be hard growing up with your mother’s head in the clouds all the time.” She assessed me again, looking hard in my eyes like she was trying to see into my life, what I’d become. She said, “Commune wasn’t a good place for kids.”

I took the opening. “That’s what I was hoping to speak with you about. Do you know much about Aaron, or Joseph, since they left?” I said the last part cautiously, in case she was still in touch with anyone.

She shook her head vehemently. “No. I’ve put those days behind me.”

“So you don’t know about the center in Victoria?”

Another quick shake.

I told her everything I knew about the commune while she continued collecting eggs, then I said, “I’m not sure where Joseph is these days, or if he’s even alive, but I think Aaron’s been sexually abusing young girls.”

She turned, frowned. “Why do you think that?”

“There have been a couple of cases that were dropped, but I have good reason to believe they’re true.” She didn’t ask anything further, just went back to her task, so I added, “Do you remember Aaron being inappropriate with any girls?”

She looked at me again, her hand still under a hen, who was pecking at the skin on top. I cringed, thinking of the pain, but Mary didn’t even flinch.

“Don’t recall anything like that,” she said. “But I was only twenty at the time. Running away from my rich parents because I thought I had it so hard.” Another laugh, which stopped abruptly as a bitter expression passed over her face, like she’d just opened a painful memory. Her tone changed, dropped low. “If you’re going around talking to people about them, you better be careful.”

“What are you afraid might happen?”

“People like that, they don’t like it when you don’t see things their way.”

So she also knew there was another side to Aaron. I wondered what had happened to her at the commune.

“Do you think they’d come after someone who spoke about them?”

Mary didn’t say anything for a second, then just nodded.

I didn’t know if she was afraid of a lawsuit, or that they might choose some sort of violent means of silencing potential witnesses, but I certainly didn’t want her to be scared to speak with me.

“I can understand that you might be concerned, but I don’t believe he would risk drawing more attention to himself—not now.” I explained about my own abuse and that I’d made a report.

She said, “Sorry to hear that he messed around with you, but it doesn’t surprise me. Lots of sex and drugs at the commune. People telling themselves that what they’re doing is okay as long as it’s all in the name of love and peace.”

“Yes, and I don’t think he’s ever stopped, just moved on from victim to victim. We may never know how many lives he’s ruined over the years.” I added, “There was a girl, Willow. I’m trying to find out what happened to her.”

“Willow? I thought she left?” Mary’s expression was puzzled.