Fantastic Women

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Beth walked back into the archives room two hours later, nose running terribly from the midewy records room at the courthouse. The floodwaters from a hundred years ago might never have receded by the way the huge old record books destroyed her sinuses. Under her discomfort, she was dazed and more than a little afraid.

“Clina? I’m back. Can you hear me better?”

“Clear as a bell, Beth. Find that proof you was lookin’ for?”

Beth sat down hard in the creaky old chair, not sure how to answer. She picked up the glass image of the long ago funeral scene, her fingertip touching Clina’s white hat. Might as well start talking.

“Everything you said checked out, down to the dates when they had them. I don’t understand how or why, but you’re telling me the truth. How do you remember things so clearly?”

“It’s the only way I know to remember. I kindly think I’m still back here, when all this is going on. At least some part of me is. Reckon we can work together and clear out that pizen I told you about?”

Beth laughed louder than she meant to, but it felt too good to stop. At least until she started sneezing out the mildew. Five in a row took care of most of it, not very neatly.

“And exactly how do you propose we do that?” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I still don’t know what poison you’re talking about.”

“Now that you decided to believe in me, maybe you’ll believe in this. Thar’s a tiny little mine pit, operated before I was born, and all the big ones around it claimed many a life. More than their fair share, some say. The trouble all goes right back to one of the first men to go under the ground after coal for his house. First one to die, too.”

“What happened to him?”

“Rock fall far as I know, same as killed more than’s ever been counted. The way it happened ain’t the problem. Fact is this man was so far off away from home when he passed. His bones rest there still, deep in that pit where he died.”

Beth rubbed her arms, trying to soothe the hairs standing on end. Her grandfather had spoken of going down in the mine and never knowing if even his bones would make the trip back up. No one knew for certain how many met that fate long before anyone kept good records.

“That happened a lot, certainly with all the disasters here,” she said. “How could one man make the land poison?”

“That one man came from across the water, too, a place where the dead was buried together back to the beginning of time. Great, long graves, where even poor folk was kept from being alone after they drew their last.”

“How can you possibly know this, Clina?”

Beth didn’t want to say it, but she couldn’t imagine the education of a woman born in these mountains so long ago went far enough to cover burial mounds in Britain and Europe.

“I hear him is how. He’s been singing, crying his lonesome heart out for all this time. Folks still livin’ and breathin’ catch his song in their bones, on the backs of their necks, in the goose walkin’ over their graves. Once you pass on like I have, you hear his cry so loud and clear you can’t ignore it no more.”

“What’s he crying for?” Beth whispered.

“I reckon what he wants is company. And he’s done all he can to make that happen. I know a touch from when my husband died years before I did. A body so lonesome pulls others to him any way he can. Out of the rock, out of the air, out of the water. That’s the pizen that’s filled this land full of so much blood and sorrow.”

Beth jumped so hard she grunted when someone knocked on the metal door. Damn, she’d forgotten to close it when she came back in. She knew her face was bright red before she turned around, but there was no help for it.

“Hi Beth, how’s it goin’?”

“I’m just fine, Tina. You startled me is all.”

“I’m sorry!” Tina said, putting a ring-laden hand over her heart. “I just wanted to remind you we’re closin’ a little early for the community forum. You can stay as long as you like, but it’s gonna be noisy. Big crowd tonight.”

Something tickled at the back of Beth’s mind. An alert from her investigator’s instinct that she knew better than to ignore, but she couldn’t catch it.

“Great, thanks for the warning.”

When Tina walked away, Beth finally heard people gathering in the conference room. Chatter and movement were loud in the normally quiet space.

“Sorry, Clina. I think we might be done for the night,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I can’t sit in here and talk to myself with the whole town outside the door. Half of them thought I was crazy for going away to college and again every time I leave to work on a story. The other half think I’m crazy for coming back.”

“Sounds to me like you hit it just about right. You in a hurry to get home to your own man?”

“Not at the moment,” Beth said. She didn’t want to respond the same way she did when some of her relatives asked about her single status over and over again. “Just me and my dog.”

“Dog’s company, but you should have you someone to talk to in the middle of the night. That’s some powerful lonely time.”

“You’re right.” Beth started to put the slide back in the protective box, then paused. “Listen, I’m still not sure what you think I can do for this miner. I don’t even know where to start. How could I possibly find him?”

“I might could point you in the right direction, then I reckon it’s up to you,” Clina said. “You’d likely find him easier than you think. This thing in your head that lets you hear me might not be so easy to turn off. It might well work for him and a bunch more folks besides.”

“Perfect. That’s just what I need,” Beth said as she shut everything down. “A bunch of grouchy oldtimers carrying on inside my mind all the time.”

“Might find you learn a thang or two,” Clina said, and Beth was sure she heard laughter. “No way to know til we get there.”