Albion

A ghost story

Part 1.

They’d been seeing the signs for hours, VISIT THE WORLD’S LARGEST TRUCK STOP. And here it was, the scorched sky shrinking it to the size of some kid’s Lego city on the living room floor.

“Hey hey,” said Daddy as he spun the wheel across a vast parking lot cluttered with glittering semi-trucks. “This is really something.”

Mama flipped down the visor and checked her eyes, pulled out a lipstick like she was getting ready for a party. Molly knew this was automatic, a ritual she did before going anyplace new. Rae was deep asleep, candy-chapped cheek pushed up against her penguin’s plush fur, lips pooched out like a fish. Rae had the habit of falling asleep in seconds, and could sleep through anything––thunderstorms, R-rated drive-in movies, 4^th of July fireworks.

Pulling her out of sleep was another thing, like digging up a tree.

Daddy turned off the engine. “All ashore that’s going ashore,” he said in his Popeye voice. “Rae, honey. Time to wake up. You want an ice cream?”

Molly was already out of the car, putting distance between herself and the endless embarrassment of her family. The August heat coming off the blacktop was tremendous, riffling her hair like opening an oven. She flip-flopped across the asphalt, making a great show of looking both ways for her mother’s sake in case she was done with the mirror and watching through the windshield.

She tugged at the oversized glass door but it wouldn’t budge. .An elderly man in a trucker cap and military shades pushed it open for her with a whoosh of icy air as he stood aside to let her pass.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and slipped in. The building looked bigger on the inside than out, like the tent from Harry Potter. An expanse of polished linoleum was dominated by a red Jeep with giant tires that made it look like it was climbing an enormous hill of Budweiser six-packs. It was tilted at a steep angle that gave it the illusion of motion, but that was shattered when you got close and could see the heavy-duty steel bracing behind the bottles. Daddy would probably make some smartass remark to Mama along the lines of what he said when he saw beer commercials. He’d never minded them before he quit drinking, but Molly knew enough to never point this out.

She looked out across the parking lot. Daddy and Mama each had one of Rae’s hands and were trying to pull her toward the building. Rae’s mouth was open, clearly screaming. Mama stared ahead as though it wasn’t happening.

Molly turned down the first aisle. It was all car stuff––oil, reflectors, yellow plastic bottles of brake fluid and octane booster. Then came batteries and flashlights and, for some reason, dog food. On the other side, against the window, was the magazine rack. The garish covers showed cars and trucks and guns, but along the top row were the blonde and brunette heads of models.

Molly reached up and slid one out, aghast to see a nude redheaded woman with watermelon-sized boobs making a kissy mouth at the camera. Juggs was written above in huge block letters. Curious, she opened the magazine but saw the girl behind the counter smirking at her. The girl looked hardly older than herself, wearing so much eye makeup she looked like a raccoon. Molly put the magazine back and continued down the aisle to the bathroom as her family entered the store. Rae was having a full-on meltdown. Molly knew they were in for a rough time the next few hours. Rae’s meltdowns were like her sleep, quick to come and slow to leave. She went into the bathroom and locked the door.

From the front, the house looked like something a little kid would draw, perfectly symmetrical with four windows on each floor and a little door in the middle. The side was more interesting, since somebody had built an addition that included a long screened-in porch. The station wagon crunched along the gravel driveway and pulled up behind a dusty white van. A cadaverous man was loading five-gallon paint buckets into the back. He shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted at them.

Molly’s dad turned off the engine and grinned back at the girls.

“Who wants to be a farmer’s daughter?” He opened the door and got out without waiting for an answer.

Rae was still in a horrid mood, sweaty and overheated with dried candy staining her hands and shirt. Her mom the flipped the visor down again. Molly rolled her eyes and got out. Her dad stood talking to the man.

“That second floor varnish is gonna take a day to dry complete,” said the man. “Best not to set nothing on it.” His voice had a strange resonance like he was wearing a bucket on his head. He smiled at Molly with missing teeth. “This the young lady of the house?”

“My daughter Molly,” said her father. “She’ll be in ninth grade.”

“We don’t got much separation at the Union School. All them grades is mixed together.”

“Molly, will you see to your sister, please?” said her mom. “Maybe show her the barn?”

“Mind that haystack,” said the man. “I set some raccoon traps in there.”

Molly went around to the car door and got it open before Rae had a chance to lock it. “Come on, Sissy,” she said. “You’ve never seen a barn before.”

“I don’t want to,” said Rae. “Dumb barn.”

Using wheedling, bribery, and veiled threats, Molly successfully extracted Rae from the car. The heat of the afternoon sun felt like a smothery blanket. The barn loomed tall, its peeling red door slightly ajar. Slipping inside was like entering another world, the outdoor sounds hushed by an immense quiet. Shafts of sunlight beamed spotlighted circles of scattered straw on the barn floor, dust motes swirling in the beams.

Rae blinked at the gloom, then smiled. She was missing her front teeth too, but just the bottom ones. “It’s magic!”

“Watch out for the haystack,” said Molly. “The man said there’s a trap in it.”

Rae eyed the slaked heap of rotten straw with suspicion and gave it a wide berth as she walked to the center of the barn. She spun around and around in the light-beams, making the dust motes seem to dance with her as she laughed.

A terrible cracking like a giant grinding bones came from above. Rae froze mid-dance, mouth open as she stared up at the roof. A flimsy platform no bigger than a card table was mounted to the wall atop a splintered ladder. The platform started to shake, bits of straw drifting down as a pair of enormous yellow eyes peered at them over its edge. Molly screamed and the eyes launched themselves into the air, a huge shape unfolding its wings as it hurtled above the rafters toward the far wall.

Even in her fright Molly could see it was an owl, and it was just about to smash into the wall. At the last possible moment it pulled its wings in and shot through a tiny hatch just below the peak of the roof. It happened so fast the straw was still drifting off the platform. Rae stood staring in the sunbeam, mouth still open. She hadn’t made a sound.

Molly had the chiming light-foot feeling that always follows a good scare as she and Rae walked hand-in-hand to the house. The long shadow of the windmill standing by the barn like a sentinel skeleton stretched across the sun-parched yard. Molly looked up at the blades, motionless in the afternoon heat. AEROMOTOR was painted on one of them, the big block letters so faded she could barely read them.

The man was still talking to Daddy, smoking a cigarette and holding it cupped in his hand like he was hiding it. Molly noticed Daddy watching it, knowing that if she and Rae and Mama weren’t here that he’d probably be smoking too. She now noticed another man sitting in the passenger seat of the van. As she got closer she could see that the two men were exactly alike, wild gray hair and sunburnt skins. Brothers. Probably twins.

Just as she thought this, both sets of bright eyes turned toward her at the same time. The eyes were just alike too, like a bird’s eyes. Like the owl’s eyes. Molly felt the light-foot feeling get even stronger, like she was going to float off above the barn roof.

“Molly, this is John Walker,” said Daddy. “He and his brother Joe have been helping get the house ready for us.” His voice sounded strange, like he was trying to make the men leave.

“Walkers used to own all this,” said John Walker, sweeping his cigarette hand in a broad circle. “Back in the day.”

“Are you twins?” asked Rae, her voice loud.

“Sharp, this one,” said John Walker to Daddy, not acknowledging Rae’s comment. He dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it into dust with the heel of his heavy boot.

“Why is he just sitting there?” asked Rae, obviously mad at being ignored “Is he sick?”

“Remember to give that varnish a whole day to set up,” said John Walker to Daddy. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a key. “Almost forgot,” he said, handing it over. “She works on them deadbolts. You can get some copies made over at Albion Hardware, not that folks out here need to lock their doors.” He gave Rae his toothless smile. “It’s a safe place,” he said. “Good place to raise up girls.”

“Rae,” said Daddy, “run on into the house. You too, Molly. Mama’s going to let you pick your rooms.”

Walker nodded to nobody in particular. “Was my Uncle Forest built this house. He had him some girls, too. Five of ‘em.”

“Do they still live nearby?” asked Molly, curious despite herself. She did not like John Walker. His eyes made her uneasy.

“No, honey,” said John Walker. “They’ve all been dead this many a year.” He looked at Daddy. “Should say, my great Uncle Forest. House was built back in ought-six. Think the barn got raised some years before.”

The van horn blared, making them all jump. “Joe’s sick of waiting on me,” said John Walker, moving toward the driver door. “Remember what I said about that varnish.”

Mama hunched over the air mattress while she worked the pump. The mattress wasn’t filling up at all even though the pump made breathing sounds, just lay there like a smelly plastic rug.

Mama let out a sigh and set the pump down. “I give up,” she said. “It doesn’t work at all.”

“Should we blow it up with our mouths like a balloon?” said Molly.

“I don’t know. The beds should be here tomorrow or the next day. Maybe we can all sleep in the den. It’s carpeted.”

“The carpet smells weird,” said Molly.

“Let me see it,” said Daddy, coming in. He knelt and looked at the pump. “You have the valve switch in the wrong position. “ He gave the pump several vigorous pushes and this time the air rushed in, making the mattress swell a little. He pumped a while longer, then tried to hand the pump to Mama.

“No, no,” she said. “Keep showing me how it’s done.”

Rae skipped in. “I love my room!” she shouted. “I love my room! It has a closet!”

“All the rooms do,” said Molly.

“My closet has a lady who lives in it!”

“Does not.”

Instead of getting mad, Rae just smiled. “Come see, then.” And she ran across the hall to her room.

“Let’s all go,” said Mama to Molly. “Then your father can pump up all the beds afterward because he’s so good at it.”

Rae had chosen the corner room because of its striped floral wallpaper. The ceiling light made the room yellow with dark squares on the wall, ghosts of the pictures that had hung there for years. Rae was standing with her head in the closet and her hand on the knob, the door open a crack. Molly could hear her whispering.

“Let’s see this lady,” said Daddy.

“Maybe she means the wood on the door?” Molly said. The door’s wood grain swirled and coursed and made strange patterns, some of which looked like faces, some of which looked like animals.

Rae pulled her head out and closed the door.

“She’s shy,” she said. “So she went away.”

“Well I want to meet her,” said Daddy, pulling the door open. The closet was empty except for two wooden hangers on the pole. “No lady here, I guess.”

“She left through there,” said Rae, pointing a small hatch set in the wall.

Molly knelt down and opened the hatch. A set of iron pipes stood like pieces of a broken fence.

“That’s the back of the bathtub,” said Daddy. “They put it there so the plumbers can get at the pipes.”

“She must’ve went down into the drain,” said Rae.

“There never was a lady, Rae,” said Molly.

“There was,” said Rae. “She’s shy.”

Mama gave Daddy a quick look, then took Rae’s hand. “Of course there was. A nice lady.”

“She wasn’t that nice,” said Rae.