Stones (9 page)

T
he mobile home park was about five hundred yards down the road on the left, almost hidden from view by a row of tall cedars. I drove under an arch with “Silverwood Estates” printed across a rising-sun motif and followed a winding blacktop track, slowing for the speed bumps, until I came to an egg-yellow modular unit with a sign saying “Office” nailed to a deck post. I got a set of keys and Roy Weeks’s handwritten instructions from the mailbox and we drove farther into the estate, looking for unit 99. I missed it the first time by.

“That’s it,” Raphaella pointed. “The one back there by itself, against the trees.”

I reversed the van and drove up a dirt track to my new abode, a “single-wide” mobile home, pea green with white trim around the
windows and door. A satellite dish sat on the roof. A wooden deck ran the length of the trailer. On three sides a lawn enveloped last year’s flower gardens. We sat in the van, looking the place over. It would be private, and pretty quiet, I guessed, tucked up against the forest, separated from the other units.

Inside, it was bright, clean and almost new. The door opened into a little living room. Then there was a galley kitchen, bathroom and shower, and a good-sized bedroom at the back. Perfect.

I stowed my gear in the bedroom. A window looked out across a small patio to where a barbecue stood under a plastic tarp.

“Nice, eh?” I said to Raphaella from the bedroom.

She was leaning against the countertop. “Yeah, great.”

Her face was still a little drawn, her voice edged with uncertainty. “How far away is that church?” she asked.

“About half a mile. There’s a forest between here and there.”

“Good.”

I returned to the van and brought in the four bags of groceries we’d picked up in town.
Raphaella was opening windows when I came in.

We listened to music and talked for a while, arguing good-naturedly about whose CDs to play. Most of mine were either classical or jazz from twenty or thirty years ago. Raphaella had pop and — ugh — show tunes.

“As long as I don’t have to listen to the
WME,”
I complained, and Raphaella threw a dish towel at me.

We compromised, alternating hers then mine while we sipped cola (me) or juice (her). By mutual but unstated agreement, we avoided any mention of the church. Mostly, we talked about school, which Raphaella attended “casually,” as she put it, meaning at most two days a week. She knew about the deal I had made with my father.

“What are you planning to do after graduation?” I asked. “College? University?”

“Oh, my future was decided before I was born.”

When she didn’t continue I urged, “Come on. You can’t say something mysterious like that and let it drop. It’s not fair.”

“I’m supposed to operate a health food store. Like my mother.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

“And she expects me to follow in her footsteps — she’s big on family history and tradition — and become a midwife.”

That one threw me. “Is that a, um, profession?”

“Certainly it is. Midwives are recognized almost everywhere. Lots of women won’t have their babies without one. The irritating thing is, I
am
interested in the things Mom wants, but it’s not enough. I want to learn more about people, about psychology. I’m interested in why people act the way they do, and why they believe the things they do. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Mom’s afraid that if I go to university and I’m away from home for a few years, I’ll abandon her big plans for me. She keeps throwing that whole Park Street thing in my face whenever I talk about it.”

This time, when Raphaella paused, I kept silent. Without my urging, she went on.

“You probably heard some things about me,” she said.

“Just gossip. You know how it is.”

“What did your hear?”

“Well, something about witches and stuff.”

“I might have guessed. It was stupid. I did a seminar on the occult for history class — at
least, some of it. It’s a vast field. I concentrated on Wicca and Voudon, conjuring, spells, exorcism, stuff like that.”

She said it casually, as if she was discussing different brands of toothpaste.

“You know what idiots people can be. After the seminar, rumors started to spread. I was a witch. I was a satanist. I’d find notes taped to my locker or hear remarks in the halls — never to my face, of course. Why would anyone think that because I did research on the occult that I buy into it all? It’s not
what
people believe that fascinates me, it’s
why
they believe it.”

“So you don’t swallow any of it.”

“I didn’t say that. Anyway, it all got so stupid that I decided to transfer to O. D.”

“What about your father?” I asked. “Does he go along with your mother?”

She opened the door a crack, then shut it again. “Don’t have one.”

“He died?”

“No.” Her voice tightened, warning me off.

“Divorce?”

“No. Hey, didn’t you promise me a gourmet dinner?”

I let it drop. Maybe Raphaella’s mom had gotten pregnant when she was single and the
guy had taken off. That kind of thing wasn’t exactly rare.

I put water on to boil for pasta and took vegetables from the fridge.

“I’ll watch,” Raphaella said. “You can teach me how to cook. I can’t boil water without burning it.”

“Old joke. Old bad joke. You sound like my father.”

When the water was rolling, I put in the spaghetti. I peeled an onion, squinting against the tears as I chopped it in half and then sliced thin half-moons off each half. Next I cut florets off a stalk of broccoli.

“Do you like garlic? I forgot to ask.”

“Yes.”

“There’s only one rule about cooking with garlic,” I said as Raphaella began to set the table. “You put it in everything.”

I peeled three fat cloves and chopped them up fine, then grated Parmesan cheese into a small bowl. I put a wide skillet on the stove over a medium heat and when it was hot, poured in olive oil, adding the onion, then the garlic. Immediately, a sweet, savory aroma filled the small kitchen. I tossed the ingredients slowly in the skillet, earning applause from Raphaella. I
put in the broccoli, followed a few moments later by the pasta.

Raphaella stood next to me with her arm around my waist. “You’re frying the spaghetti?”

“Not frying,” I said, tossing the ingredients with a pair of tongs. “Sautéing. Only barbarians fry their food.”

“Oh, excuse me. And what does sauté mean, may I ask?”

“Don’t be technical.”

I transferred the pasta to two bowls and put them on the table, and we sat down to eat. It was Raphaella who raised the subject first. “Tell me about that place,” she said.

“Have you ever been there before?”

“No. Never heard of it.”

“You seemed to, well, know something — from the way you reacted, I mean. Your face went pale.”

“How could
my
face go pale?” she joked. “No, I’ve never been there. But the aura of the place is almost physical.”

“And scary.”

“Terrifying.”

I nodded. “That makes me feel better. I was beginning to think I was a bit nuts.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes.

Then I asked, “Are you bothered by graveyards in general?”

Raphaella shook her head. “Not in the least.”

“So it was that place, the African church, in particular.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve got something to tell you.”

I recounted my nightmare, leaving nothing out. Raphaella reacted as if I’d read her a grocery list. She paid close attention, kept her eyes on me as I talked, but she was completely calm, as if she heard stories like mine every day.

“And you’ve had this dream again?” she asked when I had finished.

“Yup. Once at the store and once at home — last night.”

“Hmm.”

“Exactly. And it scares the hell out of me. I wake up shaking and gasping for breath.”

“I like that about you.”

“Er, what?”

“That you’re willing to admit you’re scared.”

“I wish I could say I wasn’t. You said back at the church that there were spirits there. What did you mean? Ghosts?”

“Not ghost-story spooks. Not movie ghosts.
Presences
. You know, some places are just creepy.”

“But that’s because our imaginations are working overtime. Like in a dark attic or basement in an old house. Whistling-in-the-dark stuff. You seem to be saying that there’s really something there, at the church.”

Raphaella took a deep breath. Her eyes strayed to the window and she seemed to be making a decision. “Yes,” she said.

“You believe in these spirits or presences, or whatever.”

“I think that there are reverent places, just like there are peaceful or beautiful or restful places.”

“And evil places.”

She nodded. “Yes. But not because there’s a troll under the bridge or a dragon in the cave. Because of events that went on there.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m not making fun of you.”

“I know.”

Raphaella had given me her trust, shared something that, in another place, with other people, would bring ridicule down on her like a thundershower. We both knew that what we were talking about wasn’t a clown in a sewerpipe, like in the King novel, or a few
thirteen-year-olds charged with manufactured excitement tittering over a Ouija board.

“When we walk around,” she said, choosing her words, working things out, “we leave our scent behind. It’s — to us — invisible, odorless. We’re not even aware of it. But a dog can track a human through a forest days after he passed by. And I’ve read that female moths give off whatchamacallits, phonemes —”

“Pheromones. Phonemes are —”

“Whatever. A few parts per million of those — things — and male moths can pick up the smell, the message if you want to call it that, from miles away.”

“But that’s a
physical
thing. You figure that, what, after we die something remains behind? What you call a presence?”

“I can’t really explain it. But, well, I’ve never been to one of those Nazi concentration camps in Europe, the ones with the ovens, but I’m sure I’d feel the presence of the dead — the children and their parents and grandparents. They say that’s true of old battlefields, too.”

“Not very scientific,” I said.

“No, but that doesn’t mean much.”

I got up from the table and put on the kettle for tea. Raphaella had brought me a few
boxes of herbal teas of different flavors and blends, some fruity, others medicinal.

I glanced around my new place, at the stereo set in the living room, the little TV hooked up to a dish that pulled signals out of the air and descrambled them, at the telephone. Hightech, modern equipment. And here we were talking about spirits, whatever word we used.

“Do you think everybody who passes that old church gets the shivers?” I asked, using one of my father’s old expressions.

“No. Definitely not. Some people are more sensitive, the way a radio tunes in to a particular station. People like you and me,” she added, smiling.

“Lucky us,” I said.

chapter     

W
e did the dishes and then I drove Raphaella home. Up until then, she would get out of the van a block or so away from where she lived, but to my surprise she directed me right to her house, a bungalow with a big silver birch on the front lawn. I got the impression she was making a statement, pushing things a little with her mother. When I pulled into the driveway I noticed a slender woman in the picture window, hands on her hips, looking at us. Even from that distance the scowl on her face was visible.

“Uh-oh,” Raphaella said in mock alarm. “The riot squad is waiting.”

“She looks peeved,” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Is it me, or males in general?”

“In general. She doesn’t want me to see anyone.”

“She’s training you to be a nun?”

“Dating isn’t part of the plan.”

“So she’s been like this with all the boys you’ve —”

“Yup.”

She planted a quick kiss on my mouth and jumped out of the van. As she walked up the flagstone path to her front door I plastered a smile on my face and waved at her mother. Garnet the smoothie.

She didn’t return the wave.

Back at the trailer, I turned on the miniature TV in the bedroom and took a shower, banging my elbows on the walls of the cramped shower stall, before pulling on my PJs and crawling under the blankets. I flipped through the channels looking for a movie, but had to settle for a courtroom drama.

On most evenings, before I fall asleep, I go over the day in my mind, reliving conversations, second-guessing things I had said or done, hoping I hadn’t made a fool of myself.
But not tonight. I wanted no rehash of Raphaella’s speculations about the church. That whole topic was something to put aside, for a long time, if not for ever.

At some time during the cross-examination of the hero, I fell asleep. I drowsed fitfully, then woke again. The tiny bedroom pulsed and flickered with bluish TV light. On the screen, two long-haired Spandex-clad women with sincere looks and too much make-up were pitching exercise equipment. I used the remote to turn off the set and got a glass of water at the kitchen sink. The trailer was stuffy and warm. I opened the bedroom window a few inches and damp, cool, sweet-smelling air poured in. The rhythmic
chee-eep
of crickets came with it. A dog barked. I climbed back into bed, rolled over and dozed off.