David Barbour - Shadows Bend

“What’s the matter?”

“Now I gotta go back.”

“No, Archie, you go up a ladder. Remember, the ladder is up and the snake is down.” She had had to explain this several times throughout the evening. Archie would remember for a while, and then, for no apparent reason, he would want to go down a ladder or go up a snake. Glory figured it was the same sort of confusion children had when they learned left from right, but it still puzzled her. Snakes and ladders were so entirely different, after all.

Across the room, the illuminated dial of the radio flickered. Beatrice paused in her monologue for a moment and bent her head to listen to the ominous weather report-the impending dust storm was going to be more severe than originally anticipated.

“Damn it,” said Beatrice. “The last big one about took half the shingles off the roof, and I still haven’t had those replaced.”

“Well,” Glory said, “we’ll take care of that as soon as I can find a job.” Archie impatiently tugged at the hem of her dress. “Auntie Glory, it’s your turn.”

Glory dutifully rolled the die and moved her game piece three spaces. Ladder. A long one. She rolled her eyes and slid her piece four levels down the board.

“Auntie!”

“What?”

“Ladder is UP! SNAKE is down!”

Glory laughed at her mistake. “See,” she said, “you did it so many times now you’ve got me doing it, too.” She mussed Archie’s hair and put her piece back. It didn’t make sense-the ladder was clearly at the bottom of her space. She should have known not to take it down, especially after explaining to Archie. She frowned.

Beatrice gazed at her sister’s features for a long moment and smiled at the familiarity. “Glory, you don’t know how good it is to see you again. After Daddy ran you out of the house, I cried for a month of Sundays. You know Auntie and me begged him to let you come home.”

“I couldn’t have-even if he apologized,” said Glory. “You can’t take back words like that. Not when you say them to your own daughter.”

“He was angry. He was afraid of what the neighbors-the church would say. He hated himself for what he said up until the day he died.”

“Who told you that? Auntie?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a bigger goddamned liar than he was,” Glory said bitterly.

“At least Daddy wasn’t afraid to say what he thought—” She noticed Beatrice looking at Archie at her feet, probably checking to see if he had caught the harsh tones. She reddened a bit, embarrassed that she allowed her anger to overcome her better judgment.

Beatrice glowered. “Kindly watch your language around my son,” she said in a low voice. “He heard plenty enough gutter talk from his no-account father.”

“I’m sorry, Beatrice.”

Beatrice put out her cigarette and took a drink from her glass of lemonade. “So, did you ever go back and finish at Vassar?”

Glory gave a deliberately curt response. “No.”

Beatrice knew from her sister’s tone that there was no point in pressing for more. “That’s too bad. You would have been the first girl in the family to—”

“I know, I know.”

An awkward moment of silence lingered over them until Archie broke the spell again. “Aunt Glory?”

Glory moved her game piece, thumping it down space by space on the board. “Sorry, Archie. Your mother keeps pestering me.”

“Yeah, Daddy use to say so all the time.”

“You watch that tongue, boy, or you’ll be out picking a switch off the weeping willow!” Beatrice’s tone made it clear that she was only half-kidding. Archie feigned a wide-eyed expression of mock fear and opened his mouth into a big O. It forced a smile out of Beatrice. Glory laughed.

“And now that song you’ve been waiting to hear yet again,” said the voice on the radio. “Be nice to your shoe salesman. It’s The Inkblots! ‘Christmas in June’!”

Archie jumped up from the floor, nearly knocking over the game board. “Momma, my song’s on! My song’s on!” He ran over to the radio and turned up the volume.

Glory looked a question at her sister.

“Yeah, he loves to sing along with it,” said Beatrice. “Must have giggled for a week the first time he heard it.”

Outside the wind howled with increasing intensity. They could hear the clatter of shingles on the roof, and Glory was reminded of the night before, the sounds of the dazed desert animals on the roof of Howard’s car assaulting her senses.

Archie listened intently to the chorus on the radio, and when it came again he clumsily sang along:

Christmas in June, What a happy pause. Sing a Yuletide tune, Hello, Santa Claus.

Oh, its Christmas in June,

And its just because!

Glory smiled at Archie’s determination. She was about to offer him some encouragement and praise when she was distracted by a loud flapping noise, an odd sound, that rose steadily in volume, as if some giant canvas sail were approaching.

Glory looked up, concerned. “Beatrice, do you hear that?”

“What?”

They both heard a loud thud on the roof.

“Oh, hell! If that’s another broken branch off Mrs. Appleton’s tree, I swear—” Beatrice stubbed out her cigarette and got up to go to the front door.

Glory sensed something was very wrong. “Bea, wait!” She ran up to her sister and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t go out there.”

“Why not? I’ve got to see if there’s a hole or not.” She brushed Glory’s hand away, annoyed, but then she saw the genuine fear in her sister’s eyes. “Glory, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Glory hesitated. She didn’t know where to begin, or whether she should even recount the weird things that had befallen her since her path had crossed with the odd couple of pulp writers back in Thalia. “Beatrice I—”

The radio suddenly went dead, and Archie’s voice awkwardly trailed off into silence. He turned to give Beatrice a questioning look, but before she could reply, all the lights went out in the house, without even a flicker, and everything was pitch-black. And now, through the moaning wind, their ears more sensitive in the dark, they all heard the skittering sound on the roof-like giant clawed footsteps racing across the shingles.

“Momma, where are you?”

Beatrice took a few disoriented steps and bumped into the coffee table, knocking an ashtray halfway across the living room. “Damn!” She fumbled for her lighter and flicked it; sparks flew from the flint, but nothing happened. She flicked the wheel twice more before the wick lit and gave off a reddish yellow flame-barely enough to see by. “I’m over here, Archie.” Guided by the faint light, Archie ran for the safety of his mother’s arms. Beatrice craned her neck to look up at the ceiling. “What in God’s name is that?”

Glory quickly locked the front door. “Beatrice, where are your candles?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Quick, let’s go there. It’ll be safer.”

“Safer?” Beatrice said, guiding them through the dark hall with her lighter. “What do you mean?”

The strange sounds on the roof seemed to follow them into the kitchen, somehow tracking their movement from above. Suddenly, they ceased.

Beatrice found a few candles in a kitchen drawer as Glory picked up the phone. “I’m calling the police. Is the back door locked?”

Beatrice lit one candle and set it on the kitchen table. She lit another for herself before shutting her lighter. “No, I’ll get it.” Candle in hand, she hurried over and locked the back door, which had a small curtained window in its upper panel. The swaying shadows of tree branches jittered and rippled against the fabric as distant lightning flashed outside. Beatrice thought she heard something other than the trees creaking outside, but the roll of thunder obscured the other sounds.