The Kept Read online

  The wind had ceased, and with it, the whistling and moaning of the house. Sometimes he caught himself humming along with it at the base of his throat, and he’d wonder how long he’d been keeping himself company.

  Caleb turned his back on his father’s body, his horrible grimace, and almost tripped over a pile of sheets on the floor. Not sure in their bloodied state what they contained, he nudged them with his foot, then noticed the clean linens on the bed. Even though he thought it had shattered altogether, his heart broke once more, for his mother, for his father, for his brothers and sisters.

  He gathered the sheets and added them to the pile of bodies and broken furniture, and sat on the fence that he and Jesse had constructed to pen the pigs. It had been crooked the first time and they’d rebuilt it until they got it right, their father never saying anything but, “And he built fenced cities in Judah: for the land had rest.” On his knee Caleb rolled a cigarette from the tobacco he’d uncovered beneath Amos’s pillow. Jesse had showed him how to pinch the leaves and wind the papers tight and occasionally allowed him a puff here and there for his services.

  The valley unfolded before him, undulating lands with small patches of forest, everything covered in cottony snowfall. When the wind came, the whole world would quake with movement—every tree, leaf, and blade of grass—moving in waves like liquid. But the snow and wind had subsided and everything was at rest. The world, too, waited.

  The short day grew dim. Caleb vowed to wait until sunset, but the clouds rolled in again, thick and gray like the mounds of sheared lamb’s wool that cluttered the barn at first thaw, and the sun disappeared. Once he’d finished smoking, he would say good-bye. Caleb lit another cigarette. He didn’t like the taste but enjoyed the warm sensation in his throat and his lungs. Before long, the papers burned his fingers and he spat on them, rubbing them back and forth to ease the pain.

  CHAPTER 3

  Their first night together, baby Mary slept between them, and Elspeth worried that Jorah kept the child awake with his constant touching: cupping the heel of her foot in his palm and looking over the miniature toes with delight, placing a finger in the dimples of her elbows, giving her his pinkie and laughing when she suckled on it. Over her husband’s protests, Elspeth took the infant into the main room to feed. She could hear Jorah shifting on the bed to see through the open door, but she held her back to him, silently urging the child to drink. She had been practicing, but the baby at times refused her, or latched on painfully, or, most often, the milk refused to come and Elspeth would look away so Mary could not see her crying.

  Jorah built a crib, and some nights Elspeth would find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching Mary sleep. When he returned to bed, he would recite his observations, speculate on the baby’s dreams, remark on her beauty. He would drop into slumber, his brow clean and smooth, his lips bent into a slight smile while Elspeth examined the shifting shadows on the ceiling until the dawn chased them away.

  On a clear July day, the heat filtering through the trees, Elspeth stood on the bank of the creek, holding Mary in her arms. She’d made a tiny dress from her nicest white scarf and the pillowcase in which she’d carried her belongings away from the van Tessels’.

  Jorah positioned himself on two steady rocks, his legs staggered for balance. He wore a white shirt and his finest trousers, which he’d rolled up past his knees, but the rushing water soaked the fabric anyway. He sang in a register lower than his speaking voice, “O Father, bless the children, Brought hither to thy gate.” He gestured for the child. Elspeth edged closer to the water and reached out and Jorah took Mary in his sure arms and continued the hymn. When he finished, he handed the child’s bonnet to Elspeth. Mary’s large eyes worked against the sunlight. Jorah said something quiet that Elspeth couldn’t hear, and dipped the baby’s head in the rushing creek.

  Elspeth watched the sky. Cottony clouds lazed on the horizon. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Certainly she didn’t think the child would burst into flame or the earth would crack open and swallow her whole, but she didn’t expect Jorah to hand Mary back to her and for the child to act perfectly happy and for Jorah to smile as well, unrolling his pants and saying the Lord’s Prayer. With Mary’s breath on her cheek, she heard herself reciting the passage she’d memorized the night before, “And Mary said, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in his God my Savior.’ ” Jorah looked upon her as if she’d come straight from heaven. This only made her face flush and her legs waver as she retreated back to the house.

  CALEB MONITORED HIS mother through the glass. Nothing made this an interesting pursuit—at such a distance, her breathing was imperceptible—but he could attend her and at the same time measure the strength of the sun as it tumbled down the sky in the gleaming of the window. He focused on his mother and then the sun and back and forth so many times his eyes were adjusting slower and slower and his head throbbed.

  From this spot, he could imagine the path of the killers as they walked around Emma’s body, her life already leaking away, into the kitchen where Amos froze midstride and Mary didn’t have time to turn from the stove, and then through the great room, where they shot Jesse as he ran to Jorah. Even if he hadn’t witnessed the man falling in the waving grass and didn’t know of his father’s capabilities, Caleb would have fled to him, too, and he pressed into the wall of the house, thinking of his brother’s shoulder against his as they scrambled toward safety. There they would lie forever, side by side. Jorah had failed them, hadn’t even gotten up, and Caleb burned every time he thought of his father’s body in bed, and the unused gun in the corner.

  When he was nine and exploring their land for the first time on his own, Caleb had discovered a magic, silent place on the other side of the hill: four humped mounds in a small clearing covered by curving moosewood, the striped trunks gnarled and growing over rocks as if pinning them to the earth. The trees and the grass were well maintained, and Caleb felt at home there, safe. Two days after seeing the man die, Caleb ventured to his private spot to try to arrest the hammering in his chest and stop the nightmares that had plagued him once he finally managed to sleep. The peace had been shattered, though, by a new mound where the turf sat in clumps amid freshly exposed earth.

  ELSPETH HAD GIVEN Jorah the money she’d earned in town, and he’d wrapped it in a kerchief and left for a period. During those quiet nights, she held the baby in the rocking chair, sometimes not getting into bed before a pink flush crept over the sky. She stared out the windows, walking from one to the other, awaiting his return, restless. He came back with a cow and two wicker baskets full of chickens. In his hat, he ferried half a dozen chicks. By then, Mary had begun to walk and burbled the beginnings of words. He placed the hat in the grass—the chicks chirped and squawked and tried in vain to mount the edge of the hat and escape—and he knelt down, holding his arms wide for his daughter, whose lurching steps filled him with laughter.

  Her brown hair grew long and fine and curled at the tips. More and more Elspeth left the care of the child to Jorah, who relished it all, every soiled diaper, every burping. Mary tottered on her feet and chased the chickens around the yard, but they’d turn on her, and—with useless wings flapping—knock her to the dirt. Jorah would drop his shovel or his pitchfork and scoop his tearful Mary up in his arms and place her on his shoulders. She would press her cheek against the top of his head until she cried no more. Elspeth observed this with worry and envy. When the days grew shorter, she left again.

  PAST NIGHTFALL, CALEB sparked the tinder and lit a handful of hay. It reflected off the ice and made everything sparkle. He let it burn. Then, as it illuminated Emma’s face looking up at him, he dropped it onto his brothers and sisters. He shut his eyes and ran.

  The sound came first, a whooshing like a bat flying close to his ears, but all around him. Next came the sudden rush of heat, and he fell. Before he could pull himself from the snow and ice, the smell hit him, the noxious odor of burning hair and flesh. He scramb
led to his feet and—vomiting on his way—fled from the pyre. He followed the path he’d made to the barn, back to safety, and from two hundred yards away, in its shadow, the fire looked like any other. With a ball of snow, he wiped the bile from his chin. He picked up another tight fistful and sucked the water from it.

  With no warning, the wind tugged his hair so hard it hurt his scalp and brought with it particles of ice that stung his face and neck. It drove the flames along the ground, following the tributaries of oil and kerosene, low and slinking like fog. The fire covered his twenty paces in an instant as if following his trail. The house withstood only a couple teasing licks before the roof ignited, the wooden shingles and gutters clogged with pine needles. The attic window, shuttered for the winter, popped behind the wood. He was already running toward his mother. The roof had proved to be little but tinder, and—weakened—it dropped down onto the rafters in less than a minute. The gap between the barn and the house had never seemed so vast. The ice cut his ankles above his boots. He held his scarf to his face against the smell.

  Once through the door, the house roared around him. The heat was astonishing. A section of ceiling closest to the pyre caved in on the living room, and he saw the rocking horse they kept in the corner—though they were all too old for it—crushed by a beam. His mother did not move, despite the stifling smoke and the thunderous noise of the house falling down around her. Caleb screamed, urging her up, his mouth an inch from her ear. He slapped her cheeks. Sweat beaded and rolled down her forehead. He took her under the arms, and dragged her from the kitchen table. She yelped as her feet slammed on the floor. His vision blurred, and when he coughed it felt like he spit flames. He clutched his mother, fighting to pull her along with him, the heat so intense, so close, that he thought they wouldn’t make it.

  The air from outside slipped in the open front door, bracing and new, and it brought life to his lungs. He leaned back and dug his heels into the floorboards, and soon enough he lay gasping in the snow, his mother half on top of him. When the tears cleared from his eyes, he was surprised to find the fire more docile. It was sure to swallow the house, but now seemed like the milk snake he’d seen eat a mouse in the barn: content to finish its job, but in no great hurry.

  Caleb thought of the Ithaca and his father’s rifle sitting in the kitchen next to the door, and his mother’s bag beside the coatrack. They would need them. He allowed himself a prayer—he thought of his mother, said her name, so that maybe God would listen—asking that the wind wouldn’t pick up in the short time he would be inside. He pulled his scarf back over his mouth and nose. The doorframe held. The heat leeched all the moisture from his skin and lungs, leaving behind an aching dryness. He wrapped his hands in his sleeves so he could touch the hot metal and threw the weapons out into the snow, along with an old coat of Jorah’s, his mother’s bag and jacket, a pot, a pan, a bag of oats and one of cornmeal, and a few blankets.

  The wind resumed and the fire screamed with approval. His prayer hadn’t been answered. He threw himself out the door. As he turned over, shimmying away from the inferno, he heard a frenzied hooting. An owl emerged from the small triangular gap above the door, and swooped through the smoke. Then another. The windows cracked like gunshots.

  His mother lay where he’d left her. He wadded his shirt and tucked it beneath her head, and sat in the snow, shivering. He placed the back of his hand on her forehead. The snow seemed to have brought her fever down, but he knew he couldn’t leave her exposed for long.

  Half of the house collapsed. The living room bent outward, then flattened altogether, sparks exploding into the sky like fireflies. Sheets of ash, borne by the wind, their edges glowing orange, floated away like demonic leaves. The flames found the kitchen, and he watched the table withstand the onslaught through the darkening windows and the open door. His head filled with the impossible wish for the table to survive. At that moment, another owl burst forth. As it took flight, its wings beat frantically against the flames blooming from its feathers. He stood and watched it careen through the smoke-filled air, flying erratically in uneven spurts, the light consuming its body, until it dropped and landed in the snow with a hiss.

  CHAPTER 4

  The morning sun, as if recalling the fire, scalded the sky with bright oranges and reds. His mother lay inert next to him, bundled tightly in the few blankets he’d saved. The chill, however, seemed to have done her good; her face appeared less pallid and translucent, more solid. Caleb dripped some water onto her lips and she drank until she coughed and he turned her head so she didn’t choke.

  He threw aside the canvas he’d hoisted to protect them from the elements to find that a few inches of crisp, granulated snow had fallen in his brief sleep. He put on Jorah’s coat, which came to his knees, and he had to roll the sleeves in order to see his hands. The smell of smoke clung to everything and thickened his tongue. He hacked and spat an evil black stain onto the new powder. The house smoldered and popped. Caleb refused to look in the direction of his siblings, not yet ready to see what the flames had left.

  The barn door still wouldn’t budge. They didn’t keep any shovels in the house; they were all in the barn as Caleb would be first to wake in the morning and, if the snow was deep enough—he would leap from the opening to the loft, first tossing a shovel out before him, where it would penetrate the unblemished white like an explorer’s flag laying claim to a new land.

  He shifted some logs in the woodpile so that he stood high enough to push open a window. His fingers held on long enough to pitch himself up and onto the sill but, his boots and jacket slippery with snow, he lost his grip and crashed onto the hard-packed earth below. Above him the rafters lurked dim but brighter than the coal black of the ceiling. The odd stillness of the space made him uneasy—usually his presence would be met with swallows dropping from the darkness and swooping in wide circles and the animals rousing themselves, even though Caleb, as close to one of their own as existed, seldom made noise. The animals were worse off than he’d feared.

  The pump had frozen, and he kicked at it with the heel of his boot—Jesse’s boot—to break the ice that encased it. Caleb filled pails and took them around, dumping them into the bone-dry troughs behind the enclosures that separated the animals from one another. It was as if their bodies had been hollowed out, their stomachs bloated with hunger, their legs stripped bare. He, too, felt as if his necessary parts had wasted away, his empty shell held down by nothing but his brother’s boots. He couldn’t bear to light the lamps. The stench was stunning. He took fistfuls of oats and hopped the fence and tried hand-feeding the horses, who were alive, but barely, their ribs pronounced beneath skin dotted with sores. He poured trickles of water directly into their mouths from the pail. Their parched tongues worked at the water, and even this slight movement cheered him. Two of the pigs had died, and the others had taken nibbles from the carcasses. The sheep were mostly gone—but only the infirm or pregnant were housed in the main barn, the rest were high up on the hill in a small outbuilding. The cows appeared to be the hardiest, but even they were sick, their skin thick and hard, their breathing slow, their reactions muted. Caleb moved between them, absorbing their warmth. The milky edges of the cows’ eyes were exposed as they searched for him, questioned him. He responded by patting their flanks and humming softly. For two years, this place had been his sanctuary. He stood in the middle of the barn, his eyes welled with tears, his chest tightened with anger, and he dropped the bucket with an apocalyptic clatter.

  THE COLD AIR seeping in under the canvas reestablished order to Elspeth’s thoughts. They’d become jumbled in the fire, losing their thread and pitching her into hellish dreams of rotting corpses with their long fingernails pointing, and their skinless jaws opening and snapping shut.

  The sun reminded her unconscious body not of the teasing fires of hell, but of a happy warmth. She was rocking back and forth, the boards making a pleasing creak with each roll of the runners, baby Amos in her arms, the floors slick with the sawdust
Jorah carried in on his clothes and in his hair that would turn their feet pure white by the end of the day. The child slept, warm on her skin, his tiny forehead lined with purple veins like a subtle map of some fantastic land. She would trace those lines, the longitudes and latitudes of their new son—Mary nearly forgotten—as through the window she watched Jorah frame the barn. Soon she would have to rise and put Amos back in his crib, make sure Mary was occupied, and help Jorah and the horses heft the timbers. He would say nothing but she could sense the questions building. Outside, he exchanged his saw for a hammer and she watched him pull a red cloth from his pocket and draw it across his face, and when his eyes emerged, they fixed upon her, dark and hooded.

  Amos grew, and as he did, so did the clouds across her thoughts. She would rock the boy furiously, trying in vain to recapture that feeling, the heat of the baby against her chest, the peace of watching out the window. He hated to be idle, would not give her the rest of sleep, did not depend upon her wholly. When she relented and put him down, he pulled himself up by the rungs of the chairs and stayed standing on his own. His gurgles sounded more and more like words with each passing day, and he possessed a soft mat of hair. In the sun it was like gold, and Elspeth hated it. She caught herself wanting to cut it off, to take Jorah’s straight razor and restore the baby to what she thought of as its natural state. Mary played quietly in the corner, stacking blocks Jorah had fashioned from scraps of wood. She knocked them down and Elspeth bit her lip, wishing the child to stop. But whenever these thoughts struck her, Elspeth would cradle Amos and read her Bible to herself, surprised it didn’t ignite in her hands. She clutched him to her, hard, and once she left a series of finger-shaped bruises on his arm as he wriggled to be free, to be placed on the floor to run through the open door and out into the fields where she would never get him back. The bruises went from black to blue to yellow, but sometimes, even when Amos grew tall and muscled, she would see them on his upper arm, black as pitch, and she would look away.