Scott Nicholson - The Farm

"Nobody."

"You're as crazy as you look."

"No wonder the girls flock to you, with lines like that."

"Whatever." Tommy slid down from the barrel and reached into his NASCAR windbreaker. He pulled out a paper bag that had been twisted into the size of a hammer handle. "Here's your quarter ounce. Fifty bucks."

Jett peeled off the bills with a trembling hand, hoping Tommy would think she was nervous instead of insane. She put the paper bag in her backpack without looking at its contents. "Thanks. I've got to get to class."

"Sure. Plenty more where that came from, just say the word." She left him lighting another cigarette, her heart throbbing, wondering how she would make it through math with the man in the black hat's voice buzzing through her skull.

Katy lay on the bed, listening to the ticking of the tin roof as the sun warmed it. The afterglow of sex had faded, and only a faint stickiness remained. Her toes were cold. Her robe was tangled around her. She must have fallen asleep because the alarm clock on the bedside table read almost ten. She forced herself out of bed, legs heavy, head feeling as if it were stuffed with wet rags.

On the way to the bathroom, she paused at the linen closet to get a clean towel. The closet was still a mess from moving, strewn with garbage bags full of winter clothes, boxes of shoes, and bun-dled-up coats. The door bulged open, with mufflers, pajamas, and dish towels oozing from the crack. Had Rebecca been this messy? She kicked the clothing away and opened the door, and a shoe box fell from the shelf and bounced off her shoulder. As she put it back, she noticed a string running down the inside of one wall. She thought it might be a light switch and gave it a tug, peering into the darkness above. There was a slight metallic rasp and the squeak of a spring. Katy pulled harder and saw a small wooden door descending. It must be an attic access.

Curious, she took a flashlight from the bedside table and carried one of Gordon's heirloom rockers to the closet. Climbing unsteadily onto the rocker seat, she grabbed the lip of the door and pulled it down until it bumped the shelf. Rough pine rungs had been hammered onto a set of steel bars, making a folded ladder. She shone the light into the opening and saw the ribs of the ceiling joists and the dull galvanized tin of the roof. Cobwebs hung in large dusty beards and the air was stale and humid. Katy shucked her robe so she could climb more easily and grabbed the highest rung she could reach and pulled herself up. She held the flashlight in her left hand, keeping two of her fingers free for gripping. She nearly lost her balance, but managed to get a bare foot on the shelf for purchase, knocking off the shoe box again in the process.

With one more heave, she got her other foot on the lowest rung and stood, poking her head into the attic. Louvered grilles were set at each end of the attic to allow air circulation, with wire covering the openings. The old house must have once been insulated with shredded paper, because bits of gray fluff hung to the wooden support posts. Pale fiberglass had been rolled out in places, though a large section had been floored around the opening as a storage space. Katy focused the beam on the boxes, old lamp shades, and small pieces of furniture that were stacked around the floored area. A fuzzy orange ball bounced among the clutter; then she realized it was the flashlight's beam reflected in a dusty mirror.

Katy climbed through the access hole and crawled on her hands and knees to the mirror. A space had been cleared away in front of it. Two rolls of lipstick, a makeup kit with several peach shades of face blush, and a silver-handled hairbrush were arranged before the mirror as if some woman had tended her appearance here. A small glass spray bottle lay on its side, and it took Katy a second to realize what was out of place: the bottle was free of dust, as if it had been recently used. One of the cardboard boxes was open and a cotton dress hung over the edge, bearing an autumnal print with a frilly white collar.

Behind the mirror was a long, wooden box covered with books. The box appeared too large to have fit through the access hole. Katy wondered if someone had carried the boards up one at a time and assembled the box in the attic. If the box were meant for book storage, it would have been simpler to nail shelving boards between the joists.

So something was inside the box.

Maybe books, maybe air.

Maybe a piece of Smith family history, something that would help her better understand Gordon.

Or understand Rebecca.

As Katy crawled past the clutter, she regarded her reflection in the mirror. Because of the dust, her reflection was fuzzy. Katy tried to grin at her double that was crawling closer. In the dim light, the reflection became distorted and for a moment, Katy's face was narrow and pinched and snarling. But was it her face? The fragrance of lilacs rose over the odor of dry wood and blown insulation.

She closed her eyes and forced herself forward, knocking over a stack of Mason jars filled with a dark substance. One of the jars broke, emitting a fetid smell and spilling a tarry liquid on the plywood floor. Katy brushed the shards of glass away and eased her way beside the box. She carefully removed the books from its top. The lid was hinged, with one end held in place by a hasp that was hooked with an open, rusty padlock. Katy removed the padlock and laid it to the side, propping the flashlight so that its cone of light swept over the box.

The lid lifted with a groan, and Katy broke a fingernail as the lid banged back against the floor. She gathered the flashlight and brought its beam to bear on the box's contents.

Katy nearly bumped her head as she drew back from the sight.

A prone figure was laid out in the bottom of the box. Its suit was faded black, spotted gray with dry rot. The arms were crossed over the chest, a straw boater hat resting on them, and straw spilled from the stained sleeves. The face was made of cheesecloth, with white buttons sewn for eyes. A gash in the cheesecloth represented the mouth, and filthy cotton wadding bulged from the opening. The scarecrow was almost a replica of the one in the barn, except this one had never been in a field.

What had she expected to find? Rebecca's body?

She wouldn't have looked otherwise.

Katy was about to close the lid when the flashlight glinted off something tucked in the scarecrow's jacket. She reached toward the dusty figure and pulled the object into the light, a small chain trailing behind. It was a locket, its gold plate peeling away in spots, the alloy beneath smudged and worn. Katy opened it and played the light over the portrait that was set in the locket's base and covered with glass.

The woman in the black-and-white photograph was beautiful. Though the hairstyle was not of any identifiable era and she'd seen no other photographs of her, Katy knew it was Rebecca. No wonder Gordon still thought of her and fantasized about her. She was ethereal, cheekbones fine and thin, eyes dark between soft lashes. She wore a dress with a frilly collar, and Katy recognized it as the dress with the autumnal print.

Gordon must have placed the locket here. But why go to all the trouble of making a scarecrow, an oversize fetish doll? Looking at the objects stored in the attic with new interest, she realized that none of these things were Gordon's. The books were mostly romantic suspense, Mary Higgins Clark, Daphne du Maurier, and Anne Rivers Siddons. The few pieces of furniture might have come from a college girl's sorority room, thrift shop junk made of cheap wood. Perhaps Gordon had set up the attic as a shrine to Rebecca's memory, though there was certainly no loving arrangement to the clutter.

Gordon studied religion and probably saw symbolism in ordinary objects. The locket was more than just a picture memory; it must have been an aged heirloom, and Katy found it hard to believe that Gordon would banish it to the attic. Maybe Rebecca's loss had been so devastating that he'd put her things out of sight and out of mind, though he hadn't the heart to throw them away. Katy played the light over the scarecrow once more. f ad the mouth twitched? perhaps mice nested in the wadding. She let the lid drop with a wooden bang and backed away to the mirror, propping the flashlight on a ceiling joist so that it shone down like a stage spotlight. She hooked the clasp on the locket's chain and placed it around her neck. Her reflection seemed pleased, smiling back at her through the snowy film that covered the glass. Katy picked up the tiny spray bottle and sniffed.