The Farm

bedroom, confused eyes wide in panic. Her daughter had been trying to tell her something.

Scarecrow creature. Man in the black hat. Goats.

Why had Jett called Mark?

Katy should have been able to protect both of them. That was why she'd gotten divorced, why she'd married Gordon. Why she'd given up a banking career. None of it meant anything without Jett.

Sacrifice. It meant the same thing as 'motherhood.' Fathers never understood. They shot their sperm and went about their business.

But what had Katy been doing these past few weeks?

She looked down at her clothes. This wasn't her. The clothes didn't fit. They itched.

She shook the sleeve of her dress and bits of straw fell out.

The key was warm in her hand, almost electric.

The light shifted with the rising of the sun, and a shaft of yellow fell across the dark slot in the middle of the bureau. A keyhole glared in the brass workings beneath the double handles.

'Open me' Rebecca said, the words hollow and muffled, as if spoken from the depths of a coffin.

'You're dead.'

'But you're not' One of the hens cackled in the barnyard outside, a frantic and rattling punctuation to the eerie stillness of the attic. 'Not yet, anyway.'

Katy approached the bureau, avoiding the gravity of the mirror. The key lifted her hand as if magnetized and she followed it be tween the dusty cardboard boxes and linen-draped humps of furni ture. She pushed the key into the bureau lock, or else the key pulled her hand, she couldn't be sure. Then the lock was turning and the doors groaned open like a death angel spreading its wings.

Chapter Twenty-six

'I'll take Jessica now,' Gordon said.

Mark looked up from the table. Jett had plowed her way through a glass of chocolate milk, half a Spanish omelet, two strips of bacon, a piece of white-bread toast slathered with margarine, and still had a cream-cheese cinnamon bun at her elbow. Mark was drinking coffee, the house brand, and wished the woodstove had been stoked recently. He was not used to the mountain chill, and the general store had obvious shortcomings in weatherproofing. The twin aromas of fried liver mush and onions fought for domi nance in the air. However, the place was not without charm, if you didn't count the six-foot-four guy standing over him who set off every bullshit alarm in Mark's body.

'I thought I was supposed to take her back to your house,' Mark said.

'Plans have changed,' Gordon said. His smile was midway be tween smug and confrontational and he was outfitted in his Sunday best, collar stiff and uncomfortable, the kind of clothes built for sitting upright in church or lying prone in a coffin. Gordon's face was flushed, as if he'd jogged a half mile before walking in the door.

Jett looked at Mark with those wide, pleading eyes. He'd let her down plenty already. He'd fucked up with the drags, he didn't take the steps that could have saved his marriage and his family, he hadn't grabbed on to the things that were most important in his life. And now they were drifting out of his reach, like fairy dust or pot smoke, insubstantial, unreal, pieces of a lost and long-ago dream.

He could sit here and drink coffee or he could tell Gordon Smith to go the fuck down the deepest hole in hell.

'We're still finishing our breakfast,' Mark said. 'Adolescents need their nutrition. Haven't you read the parenting manuals?'

'I know what's best for her,' Gordon said, his gaze unwavering. And for Katy. You had your chance, after all.'

Mark's grip tightened around his coffee mug. He didn't know whether to dash the liquid onto Gordon's three-hundred-dollar jacket or to shatter the ceramic and bring a shard up to slice his own jugu lar.

'It's okay, Dad,' Jett said. 'Call me when you get back to Charlotte.' She reached across the table and put her small fingers on his forearm. Her nails were painted dark violet to match her eye shadow. His girl had style, at least. And a flair for the dramatic.

'I don't feel comfortable leaving things as they are,' he said to h er, hoping his expression revealed he was worried and didn't want Gordon to know.

'We'll get by, Daddy,' she said. 'You know what Mom always says.'

The words were like rabbit punches to the kidney. That was a K atyism, said when bills were stacking up or some medical problem arose. When things seemed darkest, when love seemed e phemeral, when only fools believed 'forever' was more than just a weapon in a poet's arsenal. 'We'll get through this together' had been one of those lines that still rang even after the 'together' part was over.

Coming from Jett, the words were almost a mockery, an echo that whispered of failure. Because they weren't getting by. Jett had told him the weirdest damned stories, and after he'd gotten past his initial instinct to assume she'd graduated to hard drugs, just like her old man, he had almost started to believe her. Tongues could lie, but eyes had a difficult time. Especially the eyes of the young.

'When can I see you again?' Mark asked her.

'We'll talk about that,' Gordon said. 'The three of us. We'll let you know.'

Gordon reached down and took Jett's wrist. She wore the expression of a prisoner being hauled away after court sentencing.

'It's okay, pumpkin,' Mark said. 'I'm glad I got to see you.'

They stood and hugged, Jett giving him an extra squeeze. He stroked the top of her head and stooped to kiss her cheek. She was on the doorstep of womanhood, and he'd miss her crossing the threshold. Gordon would be ushering her through that passage, because Gordon was stable and wealthy and reliable. The kind of man every woman needed as a husband and every daughter needed as a father.

Except the corners of Gordon's mouth flirted with a smirk. Which Gordon was the real one?

'Call me,' Mark said as the pair walked down the aisles of the store, between rows of bark birdhouses, snow shovels, bushels of apples, pumpkins, dried Indian corn, and gourds.

After they left, Mark sipped his coffee. It had gone cold and bitter, a fitting juice for his heart. His daughter had told him Katy was possessed, a man in a black hat was stalking her, a scarecrow had attacked her, and goats were trying to eat her. It sounded like a di- rect-to-video movie, and yet her face had paled and hands trem bled as she told her tale. Despite her talent for drama, she had spoken with quiet conviction, as if fully expecting not to be believed. She'd finished speaking, crunched some bacon, a couple of dark red crumbs on her lower lip as she'd asked, 'What now, Daddy?'

It was a question Mark pondered as he finished his coffee and the tables around him filled with lunch customers.

The key turned in the lock with a sharp groan of relief. The bu reau gave forth a smell of lilacs so strong that Katy nearly sneezed. Beneath the floral sweetness lay the stink of something warm and wet, like damp and rotted hay. The bureau was empty except for a rumpled pile of clothes on the middle shelf. Katy looked behind her, half expecting Rebecca to finally seep out of the shadows. But Rebecca hadn't harmed her yet, so why should she be frightened? After all, Rebecca had been part of this house long before Katy's arrival.

Katy was tempted to ask Rebecca what was so important about the clothes that they needed to be locked away. Maybe Rebecca had her own motives. Jealousy might stain the soul even unto death, though Katy couldn't imagine the grave being much colder than Gordon's bed.

She pulled the tangle of clothes from the shelf. A plain flan nel shirt, pocked with tears, loose threads, and moth holes. Except the sleeves and cuffs were moist, painted a color that was darker than the shadowy attic. A pair of faded jeans was beneath the shirt, and under the hump of clothing was a battered planter's hat. As she pulled the hat from the shelf, something heavy thumped to the floor, barely missing her toes. She bent and picked it up.