Crimson Fog February 2013

Fog

crimson

February 2013

Family Café a mother’s love unauthored letters You don’t believe in me

Dear Readers, Of all the demons stalking our nightmares, the most terrifying can be those relegated to the shadows—those we can never quite see. Our previous issue of Crimson Fog Magazine traversed oceans and millennia to find its subjects; this one spans the delicate, winding fault line between life and death.

First, we present “Family Café,” an unnerving look at what happens to emotional wounds left to fester—and what happens to those who inflicted the wounds.

“A Mother’s Love” explores the ease with which a mother can unknowingly discard one of the imperative questions of motherhood: Who’s caring for my child?

“You Don’t Believe in Me” affords an ominous reminder of the precariousness of life, the nearness of death—and the words we don’t want to hear from the other side.

And finally, we present a new feature in Crimson Fog Magazine, a sneak-peek chapter of an upcoming thriller from TM Publishing, Unauthored Letters. In this chilling work, a woman with a psychologically troubled past receives mysterious letters—teasing, twisted missives that prick at her still-healing mind—letters from, as far as her family can tell, no one at all. This sample chapter steals a look at the men whose decisions set the course for the woman’s life—and her sanity.

We hope you like this edition of Crimson Fog Magazine. If so, feel free copy the mag’s URL and share the love—or the chills.

Thanks for reading,

Andrea Jakeman

Managing Editor, Crimson Fog Magazine

Contributors Authors Cezarija Abartis Sylvia Spruck Wrigley Tara C. Allred Pamela Troy Managing Editor Andrea Jakeman Layout Design Chris Taney Editors Daniel Friend Nyssa Silvester Savannah Woods

Cover art by Zanastardust Letter from the Editor art by fauxto_digit Creative Commons license, some rights reserved. Flickr.com: Zanastardust. Flickr. com: fauxto_digit

Table of Contents

Family CafĂŠ

Credits

7

I was not there to eat...

Special Thanks Brett Peterson

You don’t believe in me

But that hasn’t stopped me yet.

Because white dresses never go out of style

A Mother’s Love

Where there’s a will . . .

Sneak peek: Unauthored Letters

35 7 23

17

www.sxc.hu

Family Café

The restaurant

Cezarija Abartis

was a family restaurant featuring hamburgers, fries, milk shakes. I myself had no family. I stepped off the hot pavement and into the relative cool of a room filled with checkerboard-patterned tablecloths and red vinyl-covered chairs. It was like stepping into the past. The linoleum was green as hope in summer. On the wall were framed photographs: three towheaded kids at the beach—probably Kittredge’s kids—a calendar, a photograph of these same kids, older now by a few years. In my purse was a gun.

The vintage air conditioner over the door struggled against the summer heat, and a ceiling fan labored to create a breeze.

The air was heavy with grease and salt at the end of the day. A fly catcher hung in the corner. Next to it, one feeble philodendron dangled from a pot.

My husband used to fill our house with plants: dieffenbachia, coleus, bromeliad, rubber tree. He would sing as he watered the plants: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” or “Ain’t No Sunshine.” We used to come to this restaurant, though he played guitar in the one out by the mall.

The waitress, a college-age girl who was not in college, lumbered up to my table and took the pencil from her apron pocket, the ketchup-stained, white cloth hiked above her waist as if she were a dumpy old lady. “What can I get for you, Miss?

Coffee? Pepsi?” She stared at me as if she knew me, was trying to remember. crimson fog - 7

Family Café But I had stared at her too.

“Coffee, thanks.” I turned over the menu, but I was not here to eat. The sunset coming in through the window was, for a second, green, but that may have been moisture in my eye.

“End of the shift for me,” she said. “Then I go home to my baby. Work there too. It never ends.” She shook her head with resignation and good humor.

had been a waitress when I was in school, and I’d determined then to finish college and get out of that life. Which I did.

On the radio, a classical music station was playing a Bach violin partita. The partita did not sound lonely but assured and self-aware. I would’ve expected pop music in this kind of restaurant. My husband used to be in a rock band, but he had also studied

I was not here to eat.

Was the baby Kittredge’s?

No, I decided. I could attribute all manner of bad behavior to him, but only a fool would allow his girlfriend to keep working at his restaurant. He was not a fool.

She would’ve been pretty if she’d been twenty pounds lighter. I had lost my pregnancy fat by dieting and jogging— I hadn’t thought Brian would like a fat young mother. She slouched toward the kitchen, her thick-soled, white shoes scuffed and worn on the sides. I 8 - February 2013

classical guitar, and he talked about music with me.

I had quit my teaching job the day before yesterday and left Cincinnati without packing anything. I had moved there to live with my mother, but the anguish had wormed back into me. The calendar told me Kittredge had been released.

I, however, was not released. I returned to this town, where Brian and I had gone to school and married and had a daughter, and where they died and my life ended. I had thought

Cezarija Abartis I could move away from the pain, cut its head off.

The waitress brought me a mug, and I sipped it black. She did not wear a wedding ring. For all I knew, she was a widow too.

The name tag pinned to the top of her apron said Cassie.

“Have you had enough time to decide?” she asked.

“Yes, I have. But I was wondering where the owner was.

Don Kittredge?”

“He’s not here on Sundays.

He has three other restaurants. He and his wife usually

as a cry in the night. “I heard he was in jail for a few months and recently got out.”

She stiffened. “I wouldn’t know about that.” The overhead light shone on her round, unknowing face.

I wondered if she was really that unknowing.

I thought about going to my motel room and returning to the restaurant tomorrow, but something changed my mind.

I had driven six hours and felt I was on the verge of achieving my desire. “I had a fam-

“I was wondering where the owner was.” visit their kids Sunday evening.” She pointed to the wall with the photographs.

I nodded. Something about this waitress looked like me a while back, the height maybe, the way she wore her brown hair in a pageboy. “A family man.”

“Yes.” The music on the radio lengthened, became as keen

ily too until a couple years ago. An idiot driving too fast on the icy road rammed into my husband’s car. My baby daughter was in the back seat.

She was in a child seat, topof-the-line model. They were both killed.”

“You’re the wife and mother . . .” Her hand went protectively to her stomach. “Sorry, so sorry.”

Crimson fog - 9

Family Café “Yes, I know. The world is filled with accidents. I know that. Train wrecks, lightning strikes, electrocutions, fires, drownings, disease, trees falling. You are not responsible. I know that.”

Her watery eyes focused on me with suspicion and pity.

“What do you want?”

“Eternal life? My husband and daughter back. But I’ll settle for talking with Don Kittredge. He bought himself a good lawyer. I want to talk to Don Kittredge.” I looked at my purse where the gun rested.

Her voice was tired and low.

“He’ll be in tomorrow.”

“I want to see him tonight. I guess I have an impulse-control problem. I stayed with my mother after my—after the accident. And then she died last month.” I looked to the window, to my ghostly reflection and the darkening parking lot with its struggling cones of light shining down on the black tarmac. “And now I’m back home. I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Kittredge. Are they happily married? Do they 10 - February 2013

have a puppy?” I tried to keep my sarcasm from screeching.

“Is his name Fido?”

She brushed at her apron.

“They don’t like animals. They like things clean.”

“I like things clean too, now.”

Puzzlement passed across her tense face. My husband once had a cat who was semiferal. The cat was afraid of me

Cezarija Abartis Below: www.sxc.hu

but watched me, followed me around, wanted to like me. I think the waitress wanted to like me. She looked toward the counter. “Are you going to order food? Or just coffee?

The kitchen will be closing in a while.”

“Yes, I’ll have apple pie.”

She seemed relieved and left. I pulled out a piece of

paper on which I had written Don Kittredge’s address, but he did not live there anymore. He lived somewhere else. He lived.

I fanned myself with the piece of paper, but it was small and did not cool me off.

She brought a plate with apple pie and set a knife and fork on top of the napkin.

Crimson fog - 11

Family Café “Here it is.” She added, by way of further explanation, “Mr. Kittredge is a good boss.”

The coffee was strong and good, but the pie was mealy and bland. Cassie hovered beside me. Her brow glistened with perspiration. A strand of hair stuck to her cheek. “Mr. Kittredge is a good man.”

She was protecting him.

Perhaps I was wrong and

She shrugged.

I’m not sure what lesson I was giving her: that Kittredge was not infinitely good, that the world ground you up, that someone always paid. I pushed the pie away.

“How old was your baby?” she asked me.

“Lucy was two.”

Sadness sharpened her face, and the features didn’t seem

She was protecting him.

Perhaps I was wrong he was the father of her child. I wanted to find out where he lived and put an end to my anguish. “Glad to hear that.”

“He always pays me on time. He said he’d save the job for me when I had my baby.”

She pulled at her skirt to even it out. “After I had the baby, I came back.”

“Who covered your hours?”

“He hired part-time people.”

I pushed the knife and fork aside. “Then they were let go when you came back?”

12 - February 2013

unformed anymore. “Awful,” she said. “Look, the pie’s on me.”

I almost laughed, but then I said, “Thanks.”

“I used to work at Mr. Kittredge’s other restaurant, out by the mall, but this one is closer to my apartment.”

I had taught girls like her: They floated through life, not planning, not thinking, not wanting more than the next Saturday night party. Well, we were both here. My plans and ambitions came to the same place as hers.

Cezarija Abartis “Mr. Kittredge helped me out.”

“The father of your baby wasn’t able to help you?”

“No.” She gave a reluctant sigh. “It was a mistake. We weren’t in love.” She looked at the empty parking lot and shook her head. “I’m going to make this right. I’ll do right by the baby. My mom and dad will help.”

This girl, who I thought was soft and puffy, had a steelsharp edge.

me move to a bigger apartment while Mr. Kittredge was in jail. They’re good people. They both swore off alcohol. They volunteer at the Salvation Army.”

I had been so certain of the truth. But I was wrong then and wrong again.

“I love my baby,” she said.

“I take good care of him.”

She sat down opposite me at the table and knit her fingers together. She sat straight as if this were church. “I hated

This girl, who I thought was soft and puffy, had a steel-sharp edge.

“Anyways, he’s dead. He left me, went back to his wife and baby daughter.” She stared at me, with a look of infinite pity. For me or him or herself? She continued.

“He died in a car crash too. It was in the papers. I think it was Mrs. Kittredge driving. I think she was drunk, but Mr. Kittredge swore he was the driver. Mrs. Kittredge helped

a man once, when he left me.

And then he died. My hate turned to guilt.” She tilted her head as she searched my face.

“You don’t look like someone who would hate forever.”

My hands were in my lap, flat. “I’m exhausted.” I let my purse slip to the floor. It dropped with a heavy thump.

“Let bygones be bygones.

I found another path.” She Crimson fog - 13

Family Café stared at me. “He loved his wife.” Now I thought the pity was for me. “I want you to know that.”

I leaned forward and the knife slipped off the table and clinked on the floor.

In one graceful action, she bent and picked it up and placed it on the table between us. She folded her hands and waited.

Someone in the kitchen changed the station on the radio. Johnny Cash was singing about love’s fire.

They switched it again.

Louis Armstrong’s trumpet blared “Melancholy Blues” with resignation and acceptance of the mystery. Outside, the moon had risen and gleamed clear as the clouds feathered away

14 - February 2013

into the night sky.

I had been so certain of the truth. But I was wrong then and kept being wrong.

Perhaps I could somehow be right.

“We gotta close,” Cassie said, her eyes moving around the old restaurant.

“You take care now.” She stood up, inhaled deeply as if she were breathing fresh mountain air, and lifted her hand in a wave that was like hello. She walked to the kitchen with a light, dancelike step.

I had quit my teaching job, but the principal didn’t want me to quit. Maybe they would hire me back. The principal felt sorry for me. People felt sorry for people. We were a sorry bunch.

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A Mother’s Love Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

Carmen scrubbed the remains

of the burnt scrambled eggs from the frying pan while Ana played with her dolls and picked at a tortilla. “María says that my eyes are very pretty.”

“They are, darling, they are.” Carmen was sick of hearing about María, the new teacher at Ana’s preschool in Santa Fe. The washing machine beeped, demanding her attention.

“María says that white dresses never go out of fashion.”

Carmen nodded absently as she tugged the mountain of damp clothes from the machine, including the white dresses that she’d foolishly agreed to get for Ana in a moment of weakness. María says, indeed. María didn’t have to wash the damn things.

“María says that she’ll take me to see the river.”

“That’s nice, darling, but right now I need you to finish your breakfast and put your dolls away.”

Ana carefully placed the dolls into a box under the table, wandered to the hallway, and checked her reflection in the mirror. “You look fine,” sighed Carmen. Four going on fourteen.

“María says she wishes she had a pretty girl like me. She only had boys but they are gone now.”

“Enough about María. We’re late.”

Carmen bundled the girl into the back seat and rushed to the preschool. As soon as she unsnapped the car seat, Ana jumped out, calling, “Bye, Mama,” as she dashed across crimson fog - 17

A Mother’s Love the pedestrian bridge to the school. Carmen leaned against the car, listening to the shrieks of laughter as her daughter disappeared into the crowd of children. That was the one good thing about María: Ana couldn’t wait to get to the preschool each morning. Carmen climbed in and leaned against the steering wheel, exhausted

wasn’t waiting by the bridge where she normally sat, and there was no sign of her inside the small school room. The staff was cleaning up, and it took Carmen a moment to get anyone to pay attention to her. They seemed bewildered when she asked where her daughter was, even going so far as to tell her that the child had already been picked

That was the one good thing about María: Ana couldn’t wait to get to the preschool each morning. before her day had properly begun. She wished she could join the children, playing games and singing songs all day long. A car honked loudly behind her, and Carmen pulled away from the curb with a sigh.

•

Carmen arrived half an hour late that evening, filled with guilt that she’d left her daughter waiting. But Ana 18 - February 2013

up. Someone ran to find Mrs. Martinez, the manager.

Carmen struggled to keep her panic under control when it became clear that Mrs. Martinez didn’t know where Ana was either.

Finally, a young teacher who had been clearing up tables overheard the conversation and piped up that she’d seen Ana about ten minutes previously. “She said that she was going to see María.”

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley “Of course.” Carmen forced a smile to her lips. “She’s quite taken with María. I’m not complaining about that, honestly. And I’m sorry that I’m late.” She rubbed her temples. “But I really don’t think it’s appropriate for María to wander off with my daughter when you know that I’m on my way.”

Mrs. Martinez grabbed the teacher’s arm. “What exactly

find María so that we can go home.” Pale faces stared back at her. “She talks about María every day,” Carmen said in a trembling voice. “Every day, she sees her. She must . . .”

“Ana does talk about María all the time,” agreed Tanya.

The panic forced the words from Carmen’s throat. “She does work here, doesn’t she?”

Mrs. Martinez shook her head.

“What exactly did she say, Tanya?

Did you see who she was with?” did she say, Tanya? Did you see who she was with?”

Tanya shook her head. “I didn’t let her leave with a stranger,” she said in a frightened voice. “Ana was alone in the back when I saw her, telling me how happy she was that Maria was there. I didn’t realize!” Tears began to drip down her cheeks.

Carmen resisted the urge to slap the useless young teacher—it wasn’t her child that was missing. “So just

“I thought María was a friend at home,” Tanya said.

Carmen stared wildly. “She told me . . .” All those evenings of María said, and now Carmen couldn’t remember anything about the woman.

“She said she was going to take her to the river.”

“La Llorona,” whispered Tanya. Mrs. Martinez gasped.

“Don’t be silly,” snapped Carmen. La Llorona was a story told by old women: a weeping woman dressed in a Crimson fog - 19

A Mother’s Love white gown with a veil covering the black holes of her eyes. They said the mother had drowned her two young sons and now haunted Santa Fe in penance. They said she searched for boys to throw into the river, chasing after her own. Carmen’s thoughts ground to a halt. Dressed all in white. Snatched young

20 - February 2013

children. Dragged them to the river. Drowned them.

Strong arms caught her as she sank to the ground. “La Llorona,” she whispered.

Just as she thought her chest might burst from panic, she heard a familiar cry of, “It’s not fair!” followed by the rush of her daughter into her arms.

Carmen knelt on the ground,

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley Below: Flickr.com/badjonni

gripping Ana tight, the tears streaming down her face.

“Ana, my darling baby, Ana.” Ana squirmed out of her grasp, confused by her mother’s tears. “Don’t cry,” she said. “Why are you crying?

Are you hurt?”

“You must never, ever leave without me again. Where were you?”

“I was with María,” she said.

The other women stepped back a pace, but Carmen’s moment of superstition had passed.

“Can you take me to meet María? She really shouldn’t really be taking you away from the preschool.”

“She left without me.”

Ana pushed her bottom lip out. “She’s gone back to the river. She’s trying to find her little boys.”

“And she didn’t take you with her?”

“María said that little girls couldn’t help,” Ana said, aggrieved. “She took Toby instead, even though he didn’t want to!”

“Toby?” A woman in a business suit walked into the school room and looked around. “That’s my son. I’m sorry I’m late.” She gave Ana a fond smile. “Are you friends with Toby? Where is he, anyway?”

Crimson fog - 21

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Sneak Peek: Unauthored Letters Tara C. Allred

Winter 1984 (Excerpt from Chapter 1)

Milton Haight looked out

across the Pacific. From the expansive view of Robert Brownell’s estate, he watched the fog as it rolled across the peninsula, up the rolling hills of the elite Southern California town of Palos Verdes, and along the private lane toward him.

At midmorning, the fog swirled, beckoned, and moaned, as if Robert Brownell’s ghost was trapped within. Perhaps he was begging Milton not to reveal his last will and testament. But it was too late. The recently deceased could not change their wishes.

But if he could . . . If so, Milton would not be there. Rather, his boss, Issac Warner, would be the one ringing the Brownells’ doorbell. Yet Warner was not there.

Instead, the housekeeper escorted Milton inside, where he felt lost amid the ornate marble, the Persian rugs, and the array of museum-quality sculptures and paintings. He contemplated the situation in silence as he followed the housekeeper down the hall toward the study. Then the French doors glided open and Milton stepped inside, where a sudden light-headedness swept over him. crimson fog - 23

Sneak Peek: Across the expansive room, two pairs of eyes stared at him.

One set was dim and gray and belonged to the stern, protective face of Robert’s close friend, Rick Downley. The other eyes sparkled green, brimming with tears, and belonged to Robert’s fifteenyear-old daughter, Becca.

Both sat in chairs that faced the distinguished desk.

Milton drew in a breath, then cleared his throat.

“Hello.” His small voice faded as it crossed the room.

Rick reached for Becca’s hand, and his voice boomed through the silence “Where’s Warner?”

Rick remained seated.

“Why?” Milton sighed and wished he could speak the truth, that Warner was absent because he did not want to be there.

Yet he could not be that bold.

Instead, Milton reflected back to precisely 9:32 this morning, when Warner had thrust the documents into Milton’s briefcase and pushed Milton out the door, alone, to face the grieving group.

At that moment, since this was a prized account, Milton had questioned such odd behavior.

For many years, Warner had

“Where’s Warner?”

Milton inhaled again and stepped past the ornate artifacts, elegant furniture, and limitless masterpieces while noting the coldness settling around him.

“Where’s Warner?” Rick demanded.

Milton paused and looked at Rick. “He . . . he couldn’t make it.”

24 - February 2013

managed all the legal documents centered on Brownell’s wealth. The seasoned attorney took pride in this association, and although the Brownell family was private and disconnected from the community, Warner claimed to be one of the few who actually knew Robert Brownell.

Tara C. Allred Of course, no one really knew the recluse well, except perhaps Rick Downley.

For this precise reason, Milton struggled to find his voice as he now faced Mr. Downley. Against his suddenly dry throat, he managed to say, “Warner had a conflict.

So he asked me to go over some details with you.”

to know how to manage the erupting tension.

Since Rick refused to offer him a seat, Milton took the only spot available, the sleek office chair stationed behind the large executive desk. Such placement gave Milton hope for a sense of authority, yet as he settled across from Rick’s stone-focused face, the dense

Surely, Rick saw through the lie and sensed the truth.

Rick studied Milton’s thinning blond hair, his eyes, his nose, his mouth, neck, torso, knees, and then his toes.

Surely, Rick saw through the lie and sensed the truth. That to avoid facing him, Warner had delegated this unpleasant duty to the newest member of his practice.

So Milton stood there, regretting he had not succumbed to his early-morning desire to wear his prized Armani suit.

Instead, he felt completely unprepared, too inexperienced

cloud in his brain thickened.

Rather than entertain Mr. Downley’s powerful stare, Milton reached for his briefcase and shuffled through the bag.

The file was right where Warner had placed it, clearly labeled, easy to find. However, Milton searched aimlessly while hoping to clear the haze trapped within his mind.

Amid such sluggish thoughts, he questioned if the time for small talk had ever existed.

At last he raised his eyes, only to see Rick’s face roiled in anger.

Crimson fog - 25

Sneak Peek: “What did Warner tell you?”

Milton asked cautiously.

“What he didn’t tell me is that he was sending you.”

“Yes, well . . . he’s concerned that before Robert passed away . . . he may not have told you all the details of the will.

Everything might not be as you’d hoped.”

Rick glanced at Becca. Fear

26 - February 2013

covered her face. Like a father, like the guardian that the will specified him to be, he placed his arm around her. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’m here to take care of this.”

The concern lifted from her face. “Do I need to be here?” She asked Rick, yet watched Milton.

Rick shook his head. “Not if you don’t want to be.”

Tara C. Allred Below: www.stockfreeimages.com

“I don’t.”

She stood, as did Rick.

“Since Warner isn’t here,” he said, “we can discuss all this later.”

Becca nodded and then hugged him. “Thank you.”

A smile crept across Rick’s face. Then his lips grazed her ear. “Why don’t you go lie down,” he said quietly. “You

look tired, and I know you didn’t sleep well last night.”

Something in the exchange disturbed Milton. As quick as the inappropriate thought came, Milton dismissed such scandalous speculation; certainly the family was odd, but Downley was at least twenty years her senior.

Once Becca exited the room, Rick’s soft demeanor also fled. Instead, he stared directly into Milton’s eyes.

“You know Warner should be here.”

“Yes.” “And you know that I was there when Rob and Warner drafted that will.”

“I know that Warner understands your concern—” “No,” Rick cut him off.

“You know if there’s been any change—then there’s been a mistake.”

Milton heaved out a sigh. “Warner and I wish there were. As I was saying, Warner tried to find a loophole. He’s looked. And his only counsel for you is to walk away from this.

Crimson fog - 27

Sneak Peek: You don’t have to fulfill Robert’s wishes.”

“Let me see the will.”

Without protest, Milton handed over the file. On the top lay the previous will, signed in 1980, that everyone had come to accept, value, and regard; hidden underneath lay the one-page handwritten will, with the firm’s sum-

However, Warner wants you to know you don’t have to be the executor over the estate, and you don’t have to be her guardian either. You don’t have to fulfill any of Robert’s requests.”

Rick glared at Milton.

“What happens to Rebecca?”

Milton gazed down at the papers, then carefully scooted

“Let me see the will.” mer intern shamefully listed as the witness. Until Robert had died, no one had known of the modification.

Now Milton watched while Rick’s neck muscles tightened and his gray eyes narrowed as he read. Then silent fury followed.

“This is a mistake.” He tossed the file back at Milton.

“You know that.”

“I wish it were.”

“So what happens to Becca?”

“Since the final will doesn’t mention those items, we refer to the 1980 document.

28 - February 2013

the documents into an orderly stack. He picked up his Warner & Berk ballpoint pen and clicked it twice before glancing back at Rick. “If you chose not to care for her . . . because she has no living relative, she’d go into the care of Child Protective Services.”

“No,” Rick stated firmly.

“She has me, and that’s enough.” He strode over to the window and stared out over the fog-covered peninsula.

Meanwhile, Milton glanced back at the documents.

Although the 1980 will requested that Rick Downley

Tara C. Allred be the executor over the estate and Becca’s legal guardian, the handwritten modification had altered Rick’s inheritance. Robert had left his friend with nothing.

With Rick aware of these changes, Milton’s task was complete. Milton tucked the file back into his briefcase and prepared himself to leave.

“Warner will be in touch.”

“Wait.”

Milton sunk back into his seat slowly. “Yes.”

hundred AD from Teotihuacan, Mexico. Do you know what ‘Teotihuacan’ means?”

Milton shook his head. “‘The City of the Gods,’ or ‘Where Men Become Gods.’

Rob purchased this at an auction in Zihuatanejo. He bought it for Mia while they were staying in La Vida Que Cubra and when he learned she was expecting. A symbol of his love.” Rick studied the statue. “But then she died, when Becca was only two.”

With Rick aware of these changes, Milton’s task was complete.

Rick turned around and, in a controlled voice, said, “Stay.

I want to show you something.” He moved swiftly past the antique books, the gallery of fine art, and the custom furniture, until he stopped at an enclosed curio cabinet in the far corner of the room.

“Do you see that?” Rick pointed at a small terracotta statue of a woman holding a young child. “Four

He glanced back at the young attorney. “Did you know that?”

Again, Milton shook his head.

“Mia died when Becca was two,” he repeated. “And Rob needed a friend—so he turned to me. He relied on me. It was me who gave him the strength to cope . . . and in exchange for all I offered him, he promised me a chunk of Crimson fog - 29

Sneak Peek: his inheritance. We discussed this, just like we discussed all our business affairs. He mentioned stocks, bonds, gold, specific property. All this in exchange for the friendship I offered him.

“I gave him a great deal. Our lives intertwined in business, in travels, in personal affairs, in the caring for his daughter. He needed me, and I was there. I was always there, like a brother.”

Milton nodded, searching for a way to wrap up the conversation. Yet Rick was absorbed in his thoughts. “I did everything I could for Rob. I tried to save him. I did. But it became clear he was past any point of help.

He was miserable, extremely depressed. It wasn’t a question of if he was going to take his life, but rather when. That’s why our discussion of Becca carried such weight. When he asked me to care for her when he was gone, I understood. I knew what would be required of me. I accepted that duty. Of course it’s a huge 30 - February 2013

responsibility . . . but I love that girl.”

Bothered by Rick’s tone, Milton placed his hand on his briefcase and glanced at the door.

“Let me see the document again,” Rick said.

Milton bit down on his lip.

Against his wishes, he carefully opened his case and retrieved the will. After he

Tara C. Allred Below: Flickr.com/TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

handed it over, he painfully watched Rick rescan the words that minimized his past and alienated his future.

Once the verification was done, Rick dropped the document onto the desk. “You’ll pay, Brownell.”

Then he strode back to the curio cabinet, and with one jerk of the wrist he flung the cabinet door open and grabbed

the Teotihuacan statue. For long, heavy seconds, he stared at the figure. Slowly, his fingers glided over its ceramic hair, nose, lips, and breasts. In time, his eyes lifted and he scanned the entire room, taking in the array of world wonders, only to realize none of these riches were his.

When his eyes turned back to the statue, he touched it

Crimson fog - 31

Sneak Peek: one more time. Then his face twisted into an grin. He drew his arm back and launched the statue across the study.

A deafening crash filled the room and chunks of plaster scattered across the floor.

“Enjoy hell, Rob.” Milton flinched and Rick smirked.

“Does hell bother you, Mr. Haight?” Without waiting for a reply, Rick returned to the cabinet, swung the door shut, and snapped the latch back into its place.

A knock sounded from the study’s entrance.

“Yes,” Rick said coolly.

Becca’s head appeared in the doorway. “Is everything all right?” Her voice sounded shaky.

Rick studied her, smiled, and nodded. Then his index finger beckoned her back

32 - February 2013

into the room. “You didn’t lie down, did you?”

She kept her eyes on Milton.

“Come,” Rick ordered.

She obeyed, and after approaching him, he locked her into a hug. For a few uncomfortable seconds, Milton watched as Rick held her tight. Finally a sob slipped from her lips.

Rick grabbed her shoulders and held her at a distance.

“Your father took care of you.”

He grinned. “And”—he wiped a tear from her cheek—“it’s official. He’s made me your guardian.”

Becca glanced at Milton, then back at Rick, and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said to both of them.

She returned Rick’s hug and said softly, “This is good.”

“Yes. It’s very good,” Rick said.

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www.sxc.hu

You don’t believe in me Pamela Troy

You don’t believe in me. Not yet.

You believe in this book, the feel of the pages between your fingers, the illustration with my name printed below: Frau Simona Perdik. It’s a photograph of a woman—no, a girl really, not much older than you— with black hair arranged and piled so high on her head it looks like a braided headdress. She doesn’t smile, and she seems not so much clad as bolted into a long, dark, embroidered dress with lacy cuffs and jet buttons. A jeweled cross is pinned to her high collar.

In the picture, I stand before what is supposed to be a park, one of my elbows resting on a metal railing, the statue of a weeping angel looming behind me. Beyond that are the bare branches of winter trees, and beyond those, an artificial moon in a painted night sky. All are the hues of rain clouds.

It is an image from a carte-de-visite my husband commissioned because he got tired of the women who kept knocking on the kitchen door. The maid would come in her apron to summon me, and I’d follow her to find them standing on the back steps, peeking up at me under the shawls pulled up to cover their hair, objects clutched in hands already extended slightly, eager to offer them to me.

A lost child’s rubber ball, a last letter from a brother who stopped writing years ago, a baby’s rattle, a young girl’s comb. An extended hand and a quick curtsey and an, “If you please, Frau, if you could just tell me . . .”

“We can do better than back-door meetings with servants,” Karel would say. Hence the thick stack of carte-de-visites, which he kept in crimson fog - 35

You don’t believe in me a drawer of his desk in the census office at City Hall.

Sometimes, under certain circumstances, he would offer one to a well-dressed and troubled visitor. People often came to him in search of a name. There were matters of inheritance and reputation, runaway spouses and children, long-lost relatives . . .

Karel would question them, assess their willingness and ability to pay, and if he felt sure, hold out the card. “My wife, you see. She has a gift.”

There is another sound that touches the very edge of your hearing, and you think how funny it is that raindrops hitting a window, or pages being turned by another reader in another nearby alley of books, can sound like someone whispering.

Why did you pick up this book? Perhaps because it’s small but also thick, and that can invite a reader to reach out for it and heft it in one hand, feel the roughness of its slightly frayed cover. Heaven

Why did you pick up this book?

You believe in the shelves that flank you, and in the books nearby, all washed in a white light that is not candlelight but sometimes sputters as if it were. The weight of the brightly colored sack strapped to your back. You believe in the noises that come in faintly from outside, of rain and engines and sometimes a long, wet hiss.

36 - February 2013

knows how long it’s been on the shelf. The pages are yellow, and the name of the author, Dr. Roderick Travilla, has vanished almost entirely.

I suspect you chose it because on the spine, you could still make out the word “Spirits.”

You were hoping for ghost stories on this rainy day, and you are disappointed to be reading about me instead.

Pamela Troy As you opened it, my eyes also opened.

I could tell you the kind of stories you want, but of course, anyone could. There were the tales my schoolmates told, like the young mother who was seen, years after her death, standing

window at our church frightened me so much as a child I could barely look at it. It showed the dead rising on Judgment Day, throwing off their shrouds to reveal their leprous skin, their black, twisted lips and sunken eyes, their arms spread as if they were puppets being

It showed the dead rising on Judgment Day beside her own grave in her winding sheet, staring angrily down at the neglected flowers. There were the stories my parents’ cook told me, about the wicked queen with the basket, who flew through the night gathering the souls of Jews and heretics and unbaptized infants, and the back street haunted by the bloodied, headless, limbless torso of a soldier, a horrid thing that would float out of the fog towards people who unwisely took walks on misty days.

Priests told ghost stories too, though that’s not what they called them. A stained-glass

pulled up by the angel hovering above them.

That was when I was very, very young of course, before my confirmation day and before I saw Mansur. You’ll read about Mansur if you turn the page, though I’m beginning to doubt you will, because I can see you purse your lips impatiently. And who would blame you? “Quite aside from its presumed connection with our continued existence after death, the study of the unconscious, of those incorporeal beings who inhabit our innermost recesses, of which we get only oblique Crimson fog - 37

and tantalizing glimpses through the faulty prism of our physical senses . . .”

How Dr. Travilla does go on!

He used to bore us too, standing in our parlor and telling us his theories—a tall man, as are most of the English, and oh, so pale, with a blond fuzz of a goatee and hands and face thin and white as boiled noodles. Dr. Travilla told us, and (now that you’ve turned the page) tells you, that Mansur did not truly exist, but was “an aspect of Frau Perdik’s personality.” He quotes Dr. James and refers to “the psychology of consciousness.”

I always wondered if I should have been insulted by that—especially when I thought of Mansur swearing through my mouth as I twisted in my chair during our séances. Sometimes, when Mansur was especially angry or amused, he would tuck his fiddle under his chin and scrape out wild music only he and I could hear.

You bend your head a little more over the book as I draw closer. Are you truly that 38 - February 2013

interested in such nonsense?

Does its silliness reassure you?

When I first saw Mansur standing beside the altar as I walked with the other girls into the church, he looked big and rough to me. I thought he was some gypsy boy who’d wandered in to watch us in our confirmation dresses and veils. Surely somebody would notice and drive him away, I thought, but instead he caught my eye and, when he realized I could see him, pointed his bow and shouted at me. I fainted and Papa had to carry me out.

Dr. Travilla could never explain to my satisfaction why Mansur, if he did not truly exist, had dwindled as I grew older, as all objects dwindle when you become an adult.

After I bore all six of my children, after the pretty girl in that picture had been enveloped by a stout matron with a double chin and a fat-woman’s laugh, I no longer saw a big, rough boy. I saw a small, frightened animal in an ill-fitting costume, no more than twelve, in need of a good

Right: www.sxc.hu

You don’t believe in me

Pamela Troy

Crimson fog - 39

You don’t believe in me meal and a hot bath, and prone to shouting because he always expected to be beaten. Perhaps that’s why he drifted away from me at the end and finally vanished entirely. He was proud, the poor little mite.

I didn’t know and I still don’t know exactly where he is buried, but at the time I knew it was unmarked, in a forest, along with many others.

difference, but it was important to both of us, given the size of our family and the need to keep up appearances on Karel’s salary. They made appointments instead of merely knocking on our kitchen door, and they came in through the front entrance and were invited into the parlor. Most of them were women, though a few men came too. Instead of holding

I didn’t know and I still don’t know exactly where he is buried Perhaps in your time, under what is now a city street, there are still a few rotten scraps of that harlequin suit wrapped around his bones, a broken fiddle in the earth beside him.

You’ve stopped and raised your head again. You think of drops striking a metal gutter beneath the window, so that it sounds, not just like a whisper, but a foreign whisper, a voice with an accent.

The others, the ones Karel brought me, had money.

That was the only significant 40 - February 2013

things out to me, these visitors kept them tucked in pockets and reticules, producing them only when asked.

A bronze horse, a key, a ring, each thrust into my hands with a plea and sometimes an embarrassed laugh: “It’s probably nothing, but if you could just hold it for a moment . . .”

And I would sense . . . what?

The air and light between objects, the smell of autumn leaves. Someone folding his arms on a desk, leaning on

Pamela Troy them and staring, drowsy with boredom, down at the pattern of afternoon shadows on the wooden floor. A man standing on a street holding a stein and drinking from it as he watched a carriage go past, the beer cooling on his upper lip as he raised his head and saw the dust settle on the road. A girl lying on a cholera bed gasping with fever, feeling herself wither and empty and wondering at the nastiness of it all, the stench and the indignities that God inflicted even on good girls who said their prayers and slapped away the groping hands of men.

missed. He merely described my husband as a “civil servant,” never mentioned Karel’s avocation, the fact that he spent much of his days recording names and dates taken from old records, graveyards, school and employee rosters from ten years, fifty years, a century, five centuries before . . . a project, the city council said, to repair our history, to reconstruct lives or at least the names forgotten by invasions and occupations and destruction. Name after name, year after year, decade after decade, with little but dates and, perhaps, “blacksmith” or

A touch can conjure up so many scraps of other lives, most of them meaningless A touch can conjure up so many scraps of other lives, most of them meaningless, the debris that fills the white spaces between the lists of names my father, and later Karel, compiled in their cramped civil-servants’ office.

That was what Dr. Travilla

“seamstress” or “merchant.”

All separated on the pages by such thin, white spaces.

Barely a quarter of an inch, those spaces, but so deep and terrifying. How can the dead not cry out at what isn’t seen?

Sometimes our visitors had nothing to put in my hand.

Crimson fog - 41

You don’t believe in me Sometimes they just wanted to talk to Mansur. It did no good to tell them he was vulgar and malicious and probably a liar. They were willing to ignore the contempt in his voice.

“Your mother forgave you in the end.”

“Your brother is still alive.”

towards me, thump, thump, thump, and Mansur played his fiddle and grinned to see Dr. Travilla and the other scientists running around and around it, stamping their feet to find the wires. It stopped in the middle of the room, three feet away from me, leaving gouges on the floor where

“Your brother is still alive.”

“The baby is in heaven.”

They were the ones who wrote to The Society, drawing Dr. Travilla with his notebook and his notions and his dreadful German to Vebrenz.

(Thank God Karel and I spoke English.)

You’ve stopped reading again. You raise your head and stare at nothing and frown because you’re listening. Water drops on a tin gutter, and the rustling of old pages. Again you lower your head to read.

Ah, now you are interested and amused. You have come to where they tied me to the chair, and the dresser marched across the room 42 - February 2013

its heavy feet had trod. There were no wires, no cords, nothing but me with my back arched so that two of the chair legs rose from the floor, Mansur’s laughter coughing up from my chest.

That story has no proper ending. Like most true stories, it just stopped. The dresser remained where it had walked. They wiped their foreheads, and they untied me, and they shook their heads. Dr. Travilla was due back in England, and the others had only come because he’d insisted. Karel and I were tired of it all. We already had our first four children, Karel’s work, lives to live.

Pamela Troy Right: www.sxc.hu

As I recovered in my chair, rubbing my wrists, Mansur’s music still in my ears, I felt I had said my piece.

And you grin now, because you don’t believe, because you’ve missed the spaces in between and see only the letters on the page, not Dr. Travilla’s white, frightened face, his thinning hair disarranged, his pinc-nez dangling

from its chain, or the wrongness of a wooden dresser waddling across a room. It’s ink and empty words, and all that’s been imparted is your own, ridiculous vision of that moment.

The year I turned fifty, Karel and I visited London.

Dr. Travilla’s name was on the spine of a small, thick book at a sidewalk bookstall. I picked Crimson fog - 43

You don’t believe in me it up, opened it, and smiled to see my picture. For a moment I considered buying it, but then I set it gently back on the bookstall table, took Karel’s arm, and walked away.

At that moment, I didn’t know that I would be dead in five years. I knew it minutes later, when, as we stepped down some pavement steps, the hem of my skirt brushed a red-streaked and infectious gob that someone had spat.

Three blocks away, a holloweyed man with legs like sticks leaned against the brick wall of an alley and wept as he vomited blood into his hands.

I could no longer see Mansur, but I saw that man.

You’re standing very still now, staring straight ahead.

The book is still open in your hands, but this time your eyes

44 - February 2013

are focused. You are looking at the window at the end of the stacks, and you notice that sunlight is hitting it. There is no rain anymore to patter on a gutter, and there has not been for some time, yet the whispering continues. And suddenly, you’re afraid to turn around.

I am not an angry child like Mansur, and so I won’t shout what he told me that day in the church. Before you close the book, before my own eyes close again, I will lean forward to murmur his words so clearly in your ear that you will, for the rest of your life, imagine you could feel my breath against your neck.

It’s the only message the dead have for the living.

“You will die too.”

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