The three pile once more into Kelly's Subaru. They're going to make the rounds and see if they can spot the widow at any of her signature destinations. First on the list, since it's not only the most obvious pick but also the closest, is Holy Trinity. From the backseat Mason watches its steeple grow nearer. Darkness will fall within the hour. Already the sky is turning a dusty purple, the sun ripening like a peach as it nears the horizon.
A handful of vehicles are parked by the entrance. None of them are the widow's grape-colored 1980 Plymouth Volaré with wood paneling and collector plates. They drive on. It's in fact Liza who suggests Edgar's grave site. Kelly maneuvers them toward the Catholic cemetery, the one encircled by a mossy wall of low-built fieldstone, put there by Rourke's father. She's done asking questions, resigned to being a cog in this ambiguous adventure. The cemetery stands on one of the only prominent hills in Grillow Rock. It's predictably small, with giant spruce trees interspaced among clusters of headstones. Mason is reminded of his first date with Liza and her ranting about the Old Guard, how there are about twelve surnames in town that pop up over and over again. Physical evidence of this conspiracy unfurls before his eyes, chiseled into stone.
He's been to Edgar's plot before, years ago, accompanying the widow on a different shotgun anniversary. But it's plain she's not here. Nobody is here except them and the abundant fauna who treat this peaceful space like a nature preserve. As they're completing a lap in the cemetery's roadway, Mason's spots an enormous bluejay darting from the lowest branches of an evergreen.
"Where else?" Kelly wants to know.
He racks his brain thinking of places the widow frequented when she was of sound mind. The list is short. She was always a recluse, an introvert, maybe even a hermit, venturing out only when necessary. The grocery store? Rochester Park, where she and Edgar were married? The Citgo, where he now swindles Joe Eggert into selling him cigarettes? Mason voices all of these prospects so Kelly won't have to drive around aimlessly. He promises to reimburse her some gas money.
"No big deal," she shrugs, not very convincingly, and certainly not turning down the offer.
Half an hour later, after exhausting every option, and as the final sunrays are sapped from the sky, they return to the Moynihan farmhouse. Mason is all but debilitated. He sees that his future is going to change for the worse. Inside, he sloshes three cocktails together, using up the last of the booze, and they sit around drinking in silence. Or rather, the girls sit while Mason paces. They have more or less maintained a buzz since fifth period. Liza throws him piteous looks, chewing her lip, offering implausible suggestions from time to time, for example that he hides out in her and Patty's basement, or that they run away together to the Twin Cities. Her concern is so real she appears even sicker to her stomach than him, and for this he feels a great pull of affection.
The phone rings. Mason swoops to pick it up, for it's such a rare sound that he knows it must be related to the widow in some way.
A man with a heavy Midwestern accent (even by Grillow Rock standards) is on the other end. He identifies himself as Lou, the proprietor of someplace called The Wagon Wheel. Mason thinks it might sound vaguely familiar. "—Yeah, I got an old lady here who's three sheets to the wind. I mean, all discombobulated. Couldn't even give me her home number. I had to take her ID and look it up in the phone book. First time I used one of those in a while."
"Wagon Wheel?" Mason is breathless, locking eyes with Liza. "Where's that?"
"Out on HH past the creamery. Village of Vanderpoint technically, but not too far from Grillow Rock. Should I keep her happy till you get here?"
"Please!" Mason doesn't mean to shout the word. He wants to kiss this beautiful good samaritan through the phone line.
"Okay then." Lou sounds just as thankful to be rid of his burden, and now that relief is on its way, faintly amused. They hang up.
YOU ARE READING
Ragnarök
HorrorA fifteen-year-old foster kid, Mason, is willing to do almost anything--keep any secret--to avoid being plucked from relative comfort and dropped back in "the system." Meanwhile his guardian of four years, an old widow named Mildred, has secrets of...
