Two Windows, One Door
Now, I ain’t from Kilruane but I was part of the search party. That’s how I know about the deer tongues.
Sure. It was a long ass time ago now. I didn’t say anything on account of giving my word to Sheriff Adlow. That’s Willie Adlow, not his predecessor and sibling Christian. Christian gave Kilruane a good name for that short time before he went missing. Willie…well, Willie had what folks call a wild hair up his ass.
Rumor has it old Willie is basking in the sun down in Mexico. Rumor puts him in a whorehouse the Tijuana side of fugitive. One of his last busts left the seizure report a few digits short of the Oxy the boys on the scene counted. Just saying.
I’ve gone on too long about Willie. Nah, can’t blame them Kilruane whispers on the younger Adlow. Those stories were around long before I was hanging off Mama’s teat down in Kibkibbney. Some of those whispers include things about Christian going missing but the disappearing act is deep in the Kilruane blood. Like I said, I was part of lil’ Bobby Joe’s search party up there.
Which is the only reason I’d ever step foot in that foresaken place. I was raised right, you see. Don’t go up to the bald of the mountain. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t ever step foot in Kilruane.
We all got the same education in Kibkibbney.
Bobby Joe had been missing for over 24 hours when we got the call. I wasn’t police but they were that desperate.
When they found Mary Ellen, she’d wet herself. Wouldn’t talk neither. Just shaking, her eyes darting in any direction away from who was talking to her. Like she was hearing or seeing stuff the rest of us couldn’t. Her folks, obviously relieved, told us she’d been playing with Bobby Joe by Dorcha Creek. They went with her back to the police station where they had a kiddy shrink. Boy, did she have a story.
Took hours, apparently. Part of it was what folks expected. Bobby Joe had the bright idea they cross the creek and investigate the smell wafting over the ridge. But it was Mary Ellen who noticed the smoke.
Stew. Said it smelled like a stew. Made ‘em hungry so they made their way up and over the ridge. They walked a spell before coming upon a clearing. Now, this is where it gets weird.
The clearing was ringed, nearly perfectly, by poplars and ashes. On each tree, a deer tongue lay nailed through. A fire was going in the middle of the clearing with a little cast iron pot hoisted over it. The pot was tended by an old woman, dressed in dirty tatters. A couple of windows hung behind her with no house. There was something boiling in the pot and Mary Ellen swears it was thyme and something that reminded her of all the blood in her mouth when she lost baby teeth. The old woman would bring her hand to the boil and spoon out a bit into her palm, painting her face with the steaming rust. Drawing symbols like.
Said the old woman had wings like a jarfly too. More on that later.
That child told all. Said Bobby Joe started to cry and the old woman stuck her tongue out and laughed. Her tongue, according to the child, would start bleeding from the middle like stigmata. Mary Ellen said she grabbed Bobby Joe’s hand and made to pull him away; make a run for it.
Now, Mary Ellen’s strong for her age. All the Kilruane folk said it. Reckon Bobby Joe was compelled to acquiesce but then they heard something that spun both of ‘em around. A voice.
No one believes this part. Mary Ellen said he tore himself away and shot into that clearing. Said the old lady and fire and boiling froth were all gone and that a door sat between those windows now. Said it like they all winked out asunder from this world in that tiny second they’d turned around. Also said that door was ajar.
The door sat between them windows but still no house. Right easy to dismiss this. We got bottle trees on the mountain a’plenty. We all ‘spected she saw some light glint off a bottle, make her think that. Folks tie all sorts of things to branches on the mountain. Not just in Kilruane either. To catch the haints, you see?
But Mary Ellen swore it so and we let her speak.
Two windows and one door and no house. Just there and behaving like the air around them had no say in it. Bobby Joe run off toward the door and inside. Because of the voice. That familiar voice. The voice of his mother.
Much like the elder Adlow and former Sheriff, Bobby Joe’s mother had gone missing a while back. Lots of folks go missing in and around Kilruane. Mostly ladies but flyers for younguns and gents will sit next to them on post office walls all up and down the mountain.
Bobby’s mother went missing back in ‘02. His daddy never recovered and spends his weekends cleaning the sad end of cheap bottles. Bobby Joe learned to sprint amok through the trees and memories of the mountain. The boy with dirty britches and the world’s brightest smile. But Bobby’s heart still longed for Mama.
So, when you place the voice of his mama next to that much love and longing it won’t mystifying as to why a boy would bolt for a weird door.
That’s where her story ended. Guess we all fill in the blanks with the door closing and lil’ Mary Ellen making like a bat outta hell back down the ridge.
We found the clearing on day three. Big Jim O’Connor stumbled on it and nearly lost his lunch when that stink hit him. You see, the August heat had the deer tongues ripe. Flies swarming too.
It was me who found those wings. Just some poplar twigs twined together, sap running off them. Clearly, there’d been something akin to a harness fashioned to them as well.
Last thing we saw up there before trekking back was a circle in the center of the clearing. About 3 yards in diameter. Just dirt and rock. Nothing grew there. When you stepped inside, it was quiet. The flies, which were deafening, would not enter. And it was cold.
I’ve asked the local Kibkibbney P.D. about the girl, how’s she doing and if Bobby Joe ever turned up. Nothing but tragedy, I’m afraid. Girl just sits in her room, staring out the window and mumbles about “The Night Room” or some such poppycock. Bobby Joe never turned up and his old man got pretty lit up on corn whiskey and took a tumble off Heartsore Drop. Ranger found his body last June.
I won’t go back. Maybe that makes me cold or I’m just a coward. It pains me but something just ain’t right up there in Kilruane.