The Farm

the bone. The whole arm went numb, but he kept a grip with his right hand, even though his blood pressure plummeted and his skin grew cold as he went into shock. As the sickle reaped its sick harvest a second time, Mark let go, and as he fell to his death, he concentrated on Jett's face but all he saw was the long, endless tunnel of a final failure.

Chapter Thirty-two

Katy pushed the Subaru a little fast for the winding road that followed the river, but she was in a hurry to get as far away from Solom as possible. She switched on the headlights as they passed the general store, noting that the store's porch light wasn't on. Usually, its deep yellow glow flooded the valley, drawing insects from the riverbanks and reflecting off the plate-glass window of the post office. All the buildings were dark, even the True Light Tabernacle, the squat brick building with the teepeelike steeple.

'Looks like Solom shut down for the night,' Katy said over the sweet, aching strains of Westerberg's 'Runaway Wind.'

'What?' Jett cupped a hand to her ear, and Katy turned down the volume a little.

'Solom,' she said. 'Something weird's going on.'

'Hey, not our problem, Mom.'

'Got your cell phone?'

'Yeah, but it's about as useful as frog's wings in this valley. Where's an ugly cell tower when you need one?'

'I thought we might call your dad.'

Jett's grin flashed in the green glow of the dashboard lights. 'Are we going there?'

'No, I just thought we ought to tell him. He should be back in Charlotte by now.'

'Damn, Mom. This is an emergency. Forget about your pride for a sec, okay?'

Katy eased up on the gas pedal. 'There's a lot you don't know, honey, and a lot that you don't need to worry about.'

'Come on, I saw the way you guys were looking at each other this morning. There's still a spark, just like Paul says in this song.' She reached over and cranked the volume as Westerberg plowed through a chorus fraught with romantic desperation, and then she turned it down again. 'I never saw any spark between you and Gordon. Not even hatred. Just a pair of flat-out fucking zombies.'

'No cussing, honey,' Katy said automatically, but was thinking: out of the mouths of babes. Jett had seen what Katy refused to see. But Katy had larger issues to consider than sparks, happiness, or love. She had to make good she had to provide Jett stability, she had to make up for a failed marriage by making the second one work. She had to have a happy family whether she wanted one or not.

Except that perfect plan hadn't exactly worked out, had it? She'd ended up playing second fiddle to a woman who couldn't even hold an instrument.

She glanced into the rearview mirror, wanting to see the outline of Solom vanishing into the past, one more wrong turn on the road to wherever she was meant to wind up. The full moon had risen and segued with the setting sun so that full darkness had never touched the sky. It had gone from deep purple to milky silver, though the hills lay beneath it like black sleeping beasts. A few wisps of ragged clouds spread themselves across the dust of the Milky Way. Katy had never noticed how few streetlights there were in Solom, and how the stars stood out by contrast, even while fight ing the dominant glow of the full moon.

'Up ahead is where Gordon's wife wrecked' Jett said pointing to a steep cut of bank that led down to the river. Hard trees danced just beyond the headlight beams. 'The kids at school said the car flew off the road and flipped. She wasn't wearing her seat belt and—'

'Her head was cut off.'

'I saw her, Mom. You weren't lying.'

'I never lie to you.'

'Bullshit. You lied about lots of things.'

'Only to myself.' Katy found her foot going from the accelera tor to the brake.

'Mom? What are you doing?'

'She needs to stop,' came the voice from the backseat. Even with Westerberg singing over a tortured blues guitar lick, the voice carried and filled the interior of the car, as if it was coming from the speakers.

Katy swerved the steering wheel, bouncing to the narrow shoul der as the tires grabbed for traction. Jett jerked forward straining against the seat belt. 'What the fuck?' she said her voice reverting to a prepubescent screech.

Rebecca, or what there was of her, leaned over the front seat. The milk-white threads of her ghostly flesh caught the sick glow of the dash lights. Her head was on, her face nearly blank, though her black lips held the hint of a smile in the mirror. Even ethereal and dead with a gruesome wound around her neck and the shadows of her bruises on her face, Katy noted that she was beautiful. The first wife whom Katy could never replace.

Jett wriggled from her seat belt and flung the passenger door open. 'Get the hell out, Mom!'

Katy's fingers hesitated on the seat belt latch. Westerberg was singing about the dice behind somebody's shades. The soft, eternal whisper of the river blended with the music, and the night air car ried the smell of mud that had spent eons working its way down from the high granite peaks. Rebecca had died here, and hadn't been allowed to haunt this place. She had been banned from mov ing to some greater reward or perhaps a greater punishment than any cruelty this world could administer.

Weren't ghosts supposed to haunt their place of dying? But Rebecca had been bound to the Smith house, perhaps the place of greatest happiness or sorrow in her life. Not here, by a cold and re morseless river.

Katy could hop in a car and run away, but Rebecca was destined to stay with Gordon.

Their gazes locked in the mirror, and Rebecca gave a slight nod as if she understood Katy's thoughts.

'They found me here,' Rebecca said.

Jett pounded on the hood with her fist. 'Mom, get the fuck out'

Katy released her seat belt, but didn't get out. Instead, she killed the engine, taking the headlights with it. In the vacuum of silence, the night sounds filled the car, surrounded her: a breeze rustling the dried weeds along the river, bullfrogs croaking in a symphony, a short spill of water churning against the rocks, the engine ticking as it cooled.

'But you didn't die here,' Katy said, the deeper, less calm part of her mind screaming: you 're talking to a ghost!

'No.'

Jett ran to Katy's side of the car, pulled open the door, and pulled Katy's arm. 'Get out, Mom. Get away.'

'It's okay. She's not going to hurt us.' Something made Katy add, 'She can't hurt us. She's dead.'

Jett kicked the side of the car in frustration. 'I don't think she's nearly dead enough.'

'Look at her. She's trying to tell us something.'

Rebecca's smile widened in the mirror, and though it was still a creepy, elusive, unnatural thing, Katy turned to face her. She ex pected a corpse smell, a graveyard wind of what passed for breath among the dead, but there was none. Ragged flesh circled Rebecca's neck. However she had lost her head, it had not been by a clean stroke. Something, perhaps a piece of dull, jagged metal, had worked and rasped and gnawed at the meat. Rebecca was wearing the dress from the closet, the one with the autumnal print, though the dress was as translucent as the woman wearing it. The bustline would have been flattering if not for the wound.

'I died at the Smith house,' Rebecca said, her dark eyes far away, as if staring into the cold waters of the river Styx.

'But what about the car wreck?' Katy said.

'Gordon brought me here.'

'Did the Circuit Rider kill you?'

'No. I'm a sacrifice.'

'A what?'