“Rebecca and some of the others have been talking about a Halloween party,” Denise mentions, as they stomp their way across the tall weeds of this slightly soggy field. “What do you think about that?”
“That’s fine, but we should do something different and cool,” Kay replies, “if I see a freakin pumpkin, I’m gonna puke.”
“Come on, look who we’re trapped here with,” Denise jokes. “It’s definitely gonna be different. Cool, now, that’s debatable.”
They move across a slight rise in the field, during which time, a familiar looking strand of trees drifts into view. It’s that thin arc, in front of which sat the moldy looking circle, devoid of all plant life, that they had measured off with pencils. Except now, in this same spot, there’s a perfectly round pond, of the same apparent dimensions.
“No…fucking…way!” Denise shouts, and sprints down the hill’s small backside.
“See! Now do you see!?” Kay asks, approaching the pond herself, “this is what we were talking about!”
“Whoa,” is all Tom says, open mouthed for once, chin tucked in as he peers over the top of his glasses.
Tony wordlessly unshoulders his backpack and begins extracting his video rig, while the other three walk circles around the pond. By appearances, perfectly round, with a smooth surface whose water – if that’s what it is – from this vantage point has that same greenish-black tint to it. Yet that surface sits a good two feet below the remaining ground, as the sides of this pond are impossibly smooth, unblemished walls of rich red Carolina clay.
Strolling over to the nearest tree, Kay examines the ground below it and picks up the lengthiest fallen limb she can find. “Here’s something we didn’t think to do before,” she explains, and returns, dips the six or seven foot long branch into the pond. Doing so produces the expected ripples, but also, as if to remove all doubt that this is the same place, somehow kicks up a couple of pencils, bobbing briefly to the surface. Yet this branch doesn’t reach any bottom to the well, despite endless poking around.
“Jump in,” Denise challenges, one eyebrow raised, challenging her good friend.
“Pfft. Yeah, right. You fucking jump in there!” Kay says. “Why do I feel like this would be the last we’d see of ya?”
“I don’t know, but…you’re right,” Denise says, and now has the glassy eyed, slightly mesmerized look that most have adopted, upon viewing these weird, cookie cutter stamped ponds. “This is pretty damn bizarre.”
But then, as if forcibly snapping herself from this spell, she commands, “alright, come on! Let’s not get sidetracked,” and leads the charge forward, up the next, much larger hill, toward Owen and Maggie’s trailer. Tom continues furiously sketching, for the remainder of their hike, attempting to capture as much as he can of this latest Welch Pond incarnation before it fades from memory. Tony, walking backwards and continuing to film for as long as the pond remains in view, finally puts his camera away.
Upon reaching the Hazelwoods’ trailer some fifteen minutes later, they find smoldering ash in Owen’s fire pit, but nobody visible outside. Denise suspects that the adorable old couple must have seen them approach, however, for she has barely pulled her hand away from a single knock, before it flies open and she’s looking up at a positively radiant Maggie. Denise is standing on the last step, one removed from the tiny porch area, but the missus of the house, wiping her hands on an apron around her waist, steps aside and tells her to come in, all of them to come on in.
“You remember me, right? From a couple of weeks ago?”
“Of course, of course!” Maggie insists.
“We don’t get too many visitors here,” Owen explains. He is seated in his same curious position, all the way forward in that big easy chair, as he watches a slightly fuzzy evening news.
“So what brings you kids up here?” a beaming Maggie asks, while the four of them settle into the remaining living room furniture. “Oh! And you!” she says to Tom, with a brittle, self-amused giggle. He offers only his wry smirk, though not unkindly, and a follow up nod hello. Then settles into the sliding rocking chair, as the other three have already claimed the couch.
“Well…,” Denise sighs, genuinely winded by this walk, wondering in a flash if she’s already smoked enough cigarettes, in her short lifetime, to impact her breathing, “we’ve just been kinda wandering around still, checking things out…”
“Yeah, and Denise here said you guys might have some answers,” Kay announces.
“Answers?” Maggie replies, lips peeled back as if aghast at this notion. She and Owen exchange glances, though he is far more unreadable, nonplussed. He only blinks a couple of times and returns his attention to the news.
“Yeah, well, um,” Denise clears her throat, feeling more of need for diplomacy, around these older folks, than she ordinarily would, “there’s definitely been some…weird things going on down there. The whole place is weird, really. And we’re just trying to sort it all out.”
“Like our one chef just disappeared,” Kay explains. And if Denise is worried, about the effect of cigarettes upon her lungs, Kay is momentarily relieved, that her jaw seems to have stopped throbbing for the time being. This has put her in an especially loquacious mood, suddenly. “Walked off the job, whatever you wanna call it. You didn’t happen to see a chef wandering around, did you?” she asks, laughing heartily.
Though Owen continues to just watch the television, Maggie starts to shake her head. But then pauses and asks, “was this a he or a she?” Upon receiving the answer to that, she finishes this motion, adding, “nnnnno, I’m afraid not.”
“Okay, well, how about a William Allensworth?” Denise asks, running both hands through her long black hair, as she attempts to get a handle on how to phrase this. “He would’ve – actually, we think he would’ve been that tall man we were asking about last time.”
She studies their faces, as does Kay. Tony is drumming his knees and absently looking around without paying attention to much, while Tom continues sketching. But though she will have to compare notes with Kay later, it seems pretty obvious to Denise that these two are hiding something. It’s almost imperceptible, but she’s certain that Maggie shifts her eyes ever so slightly over to Owen. And that, even from this angle, Denise believes she spots him doing the same.
“You know all about him, don’t you? I mean, I don’t see how you could not, considering everything that happened. He was murdered basically right down the hill from here.” When neither says anything, though Maggie in particular appears nervous as hell, wringing her hands as she leans against a section of wall – partially blocking the little restaurant style window connecting kitchen and living room – Denise presses on. “Let me guess, just a wild hunch, but you know all about the details of that fire, too, right?”
Nobody responds for a good ten seconds, until Owen finally speaks. Even so, he continues to stare straight ahead at the television, his tone entirely flat. “Well, now, we might-a heard somethin about that…”
“Come on,” Denise pleads, not buying his attempts at sounding casual. “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on around here. That’s all. And we came here specifically because you seem like the only people around who might tell us anything.”
Finally, Owen and Maggie share a much more obvious glance, and Owen cranes his neck all the way around to Denise’s left-most seat on the couch, nearly behind him. “Well, we didn’t wanna spook ya the other day, ‘specially since it was yer first time up here. But okay,” he pauses, massaging his chin, stubbled as it is with a greyish-white five o’clock shadow. “Maybe they’s been some wicked things that went on down there on that property. Sure. What place hasn’t seen such, though. And that don’t mean nothin about what’s goin on in the present time, ya know, it might…”
“Just give it to us straight,” Kay prods, laughing again, as he trails off. “We’re all big kids here.”
Owen shoots his eyes over at her, then back to Denise again, before nodding once. “Okay, you want my advice, I wouldn’t come anywhere near this land. There’s something completely foul here, and I don’t know what it is. If it was me,” he says, and looks down at Tom and Tony know, too, wordlessly lassoing them into this suggestion, “I would leave right now. I wouldn’t go back. ‘Cause it’s only gonna get worse.”
After considering this for a moment, Denise says. “Fair enough. But why do you two stick around, then, might I ask?”
“That’s a good question. That’s a real good question. I guess I just don’t see us ever leavin,” Owen tells her.
“I’m not sure where else we would go, even,” Maggie says, the first words she’s uttered in quite some time. “You get to be as old as us, you’re just kinda set in your ways.” With a breezy chuckle, she concludes, “I guess we’re just stuck here ‘til the end.”
“Okay,” Denise declares, clasping her hands together. “Final, and much more contemporary question: do you know anything about the current owner of the property?”
Owen brings his head up and down a few times, to indicate yes, followed by a number of side to side swivels. This latter is done in the weary manner, however, of somebody saddened by and possibly even in a state of disbelief about the topic at hand.
“Lemme guess. They charmed your pants off at first, but now you’re havin some doubts?” Owen says. “No need to answer, ‘cause I already know the answer. Else you wouldn’t be askin.”
“You’ll probably regret gettin mixed up with that place,” Maggie quietly offers.
“That’s the part we don’t get,” Kay explains, “I mean, all you ever hear about anything we’ve read, it’s all about how much money the Kidwells have and how respected they are throughout the region and they’ve donated a ton of money, et cetera et cetera….”
“And I’m sure a lot of that’s true,” Owen allows, “anybody with that kinda money’s gonna be respected around the community and so on. Particularly as they’re probably real chummy with whoever’s writin it. Everything’s real buddy buddy with all the fat cats around here. Everywhere, really.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure that’s true…,” Denise says, trailing off, until a much more pertinent line of attack occurs to her. “But let me ask you this. Do you think there’s any way Harry Kidwell doesn’t know about the history of that property? Or what’s going on down there now?”
Owen’s eyebrows shoot up and he says, “in my opinion? No. There ain’t no way in hell he don’t know the details about that place.”
“We knew Edwina,” Maggie explains.
Though nobody says as much, Kay thinks the somber aura and near total lack of conversation indicates the degree to which they’re all spooked. She attempts some lighthearted chatter with Tony, yet is only going through the motions herself. Thus it’s not all that surprising a disinterested pall has befallen everyone else as well. On top of this she feels exhausted, somehow, even though it’s not quite twilight by the time they return to Otherwise.
After passing the school, Tom says, “until tomorrow!” and salutes them, disappearing into his cabin at a brisk clip. Upon reaching theirs, Denise immediately heads inside, perhaps sensing that Kay’s hoping for a word with Tony outside. And the funny thing is, as if recharged by this return to what increasingly feels like home, her lethargy seems to be gone. She might even call it a second wind.
“You coming in?” she asks.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” Tony replies, running one anxious hand through his close cropped hair, staring down the long line of cabins. Probably call it a night, really.”
“Oh yeah? Heading back to your bunk already?”
He looks over at her now, grinning in sheepish fashion as he admits, “are you kidding me? I’ve mostly been crashing in my little corner spot at the main house. My projection room. Rafael sits up half the night flipping through magazines and, like, cranking this weird Latin jazz. I mean, I’m not saying it keeps me up at night, but…it kinda keeps me up at night.”
Kay giggles and admits, “you know, that’s weird, I guess it never even dawned on me to wonder. I didn’t realize you were sharing a cabin with Rafael.”
“Yeah…,” he groans, sizing up the L shaped pattern of buildings, to the west of where they stand. “I tried living alone in one of the empty ones, but to be honest it was a little bit creepy for some reason. Even though the thing was brand new.”
“A lot of people have been saying that,” Kay concurs, “I mean, that kind of explains why…we thought they would turn into conjugal shacks, but that’s not really happening much.”
“Yeah…I don’t know…I hate to say it but that old man was kinda freakin me out a little bit back there,” Tony admits, pure nerves, continuing to run a hand through his hair.
“What?!” Kay teases, “come on, you’re not thinking about leaving us, are you?”
“I have to be honest, I sort of am. I mean, why risk it? You’ve gotta admit there’s been some weird stuff going on around here. Plus, I mean, everyone’s already kinda forgotten about Jen. It’s just like, eh, she must’ve walked off her job, whatever,” Tony says, mimicking the basic response, shrugging as he says this, “but we don’t know this is what happened. We have no idea what happened to her. Not to mention all the kitchen people who quote unquote walked off before her.”
“Come on,” Kay challenges, “you’ve got to at least stick around for me! Can’t you at least do that?”
Caught up in the moment, she leans in and kisses him, at last. So she’s accomplished this much, this glorious evening. But also, which is no small point, she inspires him to offer afterwards a small, shy smile, and agree, as he says, “okay. Sure. I guess. For now, anyway.”
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