Time of Grace Read online

  “In high school, I thought I was king. I was popular, athletic, all that stuff that doesn’t matter later, like in college. Or shouldn’t.

  I met Jennifer and led her on, telling her I loved her when I didn’t know what love was. Things got pretty serious, at least for her, and I pretty much found myself using her. I treated her pretty badly, and she was mad or hurt a lot; we fought; we had huge public and private arguments. She was from the other side and not so…well...classy…back then. She didn’t know how to be sophisticated since her family was really bad. I guess she thought I was her way out of that and her big catch.”

  I thought of Judy and her sister Susie. Susie had thought she had a big catch as well and was getting out of poverty and low-class.

  “Going to college, I wanted better, I hate to say it that way, but I did. So, I broke it off with her, only I didn’t do it well; it was more like, to her I said we needed space and time, so she kept thinking we might get back together. She kept hope. And secretly, there were times when I got together with her, and she tried the only way she knew how to win me back; I’m not proud. I led her on.”

  Now Caroline looked sympathetic.

  “Like Jennifer thought she was doing better with me, I thought I was doing better with Grace. Caroline, Grace was incredible; she was a good person, and she made everyone and everything around her better. She was special.”

  Everyone at the table agreed. I felt mollified for now.

  “But she fell for David and liked him all along, and he was better for her. I was mad then, but they made a good couple. I got over it. And I was really, really an ass to everyone back then,” Bernie continued.

  “At least you can see that and have changed.” Caroline smiled. She was straight-forward. “And did you and Grace get married, David?”

  Silence.

  Suddenly, everyone was off to get fresh drinks or use the facilities, leaving me with Bernie, Caroline, Will, and Bobby. Cowards.

  “She was accidentally killed twenty years ago,” Will explained.

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  Bernie told her who I was as a writer, to change the subject. She hadn’t read my writing; that felt strangely good.

  “I never married, just waiting for the right one.” I went back. Without Colli, I could still open up my own lines. If not, Bobby might help.

  “Me, too.” Bernie put an arm around Caroline.

  “You didn’t find anyone special in all this time?” I dug in.

  “Oh. I tried.”

  “Kept dying, did they?” With an evil grin, Bobby jumped in. In some ways, this felt like the night Grace had died with the cruel remarks, but I couldn’t stop either. It was payback. Anyone was fair game.

  “Bobby,” Will muttered in disgust, but like me, waited for a response. It was as if sometimes the air had a nasty, evil vibe to it.

  “I did lose two great girls under tragic circumstances.” Now Bernie squeezed Caroline’s hand as she nodded.

  “You’ve both suffered losses.” Caroline wanted to give Bernie common ground with me.

  “David, I hope we can let the past rest; I’m glad to see you,” Bernie said.

  I didn’t say anything to him. The others trickled back, all asking Bernie questions and getting to know Caroline; I felt her gaze on me, questioning my animosity. I didn’t have a propensity for cruelty; I just didn’t like Bernie. I didn’t like anyone I had gone to school with at the table, except Will.

  Caroline was laughing at something, “I’m only in town for a few days to see Bernie, but I did hear Spring Lake Park was a nice place to run. I plan to try it out bright and early Monday morning.”

  The park.

  I glanced at her again. She looked so much like Grace. If I didn’t figure out something to stop it, she, like many others, for reasons I didn’t understand, was going to die. I knew that.

  Chapter 26

  I said I had plans early the next day and excused myself from the reunion as soon as I could; Will claimed he was tired and left, too.

  We agreed to meet at Annelle’s the next evening and parted. Nothing made sense to me, and what I was thinking was pure insanity. I still disliked the cruel or lost people I had once considered friends. I could see coming back as a mistake or as a chance to possibly answer questions I wasn’t even sure were legitimate.

  I could save Caroline, if my thoughts were right. Or I might hear later from Will that she had died.

  Mainly, I missed Grace.

  Life had cheated me, and I didn’t like Life much.

  I slept uneasily with nightmares about Vietnam and Bernie and re-lived the night Grace died, awakening the next morning with tears on my cheeks.

  Chapter 27

  I swam, spent time with my parents, ate too much; I killed time until I was ready to go to Annelle’s, next door. Will showed up; he said Brad didn’t want to come but wanted to know all we figured out.

  We settled in at her kitchen table, drinking soda, knowing we would soon need something stronger. I told her everything Brad had told me with help from Will, who added details I left out. We told her everything we had gotten from the reunion the night before, talking for a long time. Several times, she shook her head in disbelief at the vulgarity of the stories. For several minutes, she was speechless.

  “They sound horrible.”

  “They were. But I kind of started getting that way, too. I got that way when Bernie and Caroline got there.”

  ‘The blonde girls always die,” she said sadly, “and the ones around her suffer tragedies or misery.”

  “You did okay, and you’re her mother.”

  Annelle sniffed. “You think so? It looks like that, but haven’t you wondered by now, David, why Mr. Stevenson is never around?”

  I felt a lump in my belly. I hadn’t thought it out that far yet. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh is the word. He’s always with one girlfriend or another; he’s done this for as long as I can recall…after Gracie was born anyway. They die, and our lives go to hell.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  “So everyone from back then has had some really bad things happen?” she asked.

  “It seems so. Bobby and Colli were the most bitter. I think Jennifer and I paid our dues back then with the bad things in our lives.” I didn’t tell either about the daughter I was pretty sure was mine. That was my secret. I didn’t tell her about Will, but he did now; Annelle got up to hug him quietly, maternally.

  Finally, she sat again, “Tell me more about Caroline.”

  We did. She would have been shocked to see the woman who looked so much like the daughter she lost.

  “And she’s going running in the park?”

  “Yep. I’m gonna talk to her, I guess if we can make any sense of all this. So far, we have theories and puzzle pieces and coincidences. We need something to link it all.”

  “We have a strange legend that does that,” Annelle told us, “I did my own research after you were here, David.”

  “I thought you might”

  “What I found was…chilling.”

  “That doesn’t shock me.”

  “I called my grandmother; she lives with my mother, and she told me about a lady…a very old lady…and I went to see her, David. She told me a story...”

  “I’m ready,” I said

  “Me, too, “Will said.

  “In Peru, there was a king of the Incas named Atahualpa. Everyone thought him unbeatable and very powerful. He waged wars, was bloodthirsty and very cruel. The Spaniards in their conquests of the new world ambushed him in 1533, killing thousands of his followers and arresting him.”

  “Now we’re to Incan legends? How does that fit?” Will asked.

  “Just wait. Hernando De Soto was one of those conquerors, part of the King’s arrest and imprisonment. The Spaniards threatened and planned to burn Atahualpa at the stake, but Atahualpa panicked because according to his religion, if he were burned, he could not go on to the afterlife.”

  “I
can’t imagine a more painful death than burning either,” I said.

  “I know,” Annelle shivered. “They told the King that if he converted to Catholicism, they would execute him by strangulation instead. Burning was for non-baptized and heretics. He agreed and did what they asked. He warned that if they reneged on the bargain, they would be cursed for five hundred years.”

  “Cursed?” Will blurted.

  “Yes, cursed. So the King was executed: strangled, and the Spaniards did go back on their word in that they did, indeed, burn some of his skin, for whatever reason. So they broke their promise to the King.”

  “Well…that’s pretty bad,” Will said.

  “Right. But it gets better or worse, depending on how you look at this,” Annelle promised. “Hernando De Soto sailed north and began to travel from Florida, across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, to Arkansas. De Soto came here in 1542, planning to march over to what now is Mexico, but they called it New Spain, to re-connect.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “A long way though.”

  “So he gets to this area after searching for riches on the way, and he is thirsty and tired, and guess where he camps and satisfies his thirst?”

  “The spring at Spring Lake Park.”

  “You got it. By now, he had lost half his men, and the ones left were in poor shape. It was a hard journey full of mishaps and problems. They were about done-in. De Soto said his men wouldn’t follow him, had lost all hope, and were angry when they weren’t depressed.

  They had suffered on the ocean trip; then there were torture and deaths from the American Indians, strange diseases and ailments, had almost starved or been dehydrated, and fought among themselves.”

  “There was a woman with them, a mistress of De Soto, that some of his men thought was bad luck or caused him to act foolishly. That part’s unclear, but they had worries about her. The woman is said to have been a blonde, green-eyed beauty.”

  “No way.”

  “The old lady who told me this story had no way of knowing that was a key factor. And I went to the library and found the same accounts.”

  “What happened then?”

  “De Soto went crazy, convinced that his men were planning a mutiny and that the woman was cheating on him with one of his men. He and his most loyal men decided to remedy the situation to regain control.

  On a moonlit night, De Soto and his men hanged the woman and the unruly fellows from trees close to the park.”

  “He hanged her?”

  “So it’s said. The remaining men and De Soto began to have worse problems: they grew ill and couldn’t find their way to Mexico. None of the Indians would tell them where to find the shoreline to follow.

  Within a few weeks, De Soto was dead; calling him a Sun god, his men sunk his body in the river to hide it from the Indians and to make them more superstitious about them. All the men suffered with diseases and starvation, and few made it to Mexico. When De Soto’s wife received the news of his death, she died within days.”

  “Wow. Okay.” Will took it all in.

  “So De Soto does bad things and is cursed. He comes here with a blonde woman and has bad luck; he executes the woman by breaking her neck,” I summed it up.

  “And he dies here.”

  “Does that mean…his curse is still here?” I could hardly say the words as they seemed so impossible.

  “Maybe these are all coincidences, but that would fit, wouldn’t it?” Annelle asked.

  “The women with… who died…” I winced, thinking of Grace. “All blonde with green eyes or light eyes…his last act before he died…white men in a world they didn’t belong, two worlds if you count Peru.”

  “It fits, David. It’s impossible, but it fits. Some people think the ancients or the Indians communed with spirits and had great powers.”

  “You can believe something so far-fetched?”

  “I suspect De Soto and his men believed in the Incan curse with all their minds and souls, and that belief had energy and power.”

  “You’re saying that belief or the curse…whatever…poisoned and cursed this area,” I said.

  “It fits,” Will said, “Indians believed areas could be bad…cursed...poisoned, however, you wanna say it, so why not? We know something has always been wrong here. How many deaths and tragedies have we not connected that go back…really far back?”

  “But what can we do about it?”

  “I’m going to make a pitcher of gin and tonic now because, boys, it’s always been like this, and no one can make a bad place good again; there’s no magic potion or religious ceremonies. The area is tainted.” Annelle got up to get the drinks.

  “Nell was in California. Lu was in New York. So how did it get them?”

  “It’s in us,” Will said, “We carry it with us from here.”

  “Huh?”

  “De Soto died, but the curse didn’t; it went from one Indian land to another.” Will made it make sense. Maybe if we had his body and had it moved from here, but I guess that’s impossible, and who’d we wish it on anyway?”

  “Digging up bodies would be a new low for us.” I chuckled.

  “Can’t anyway since it was thrown in some river.”

  “You have waders, Will.”

  He laughed.

  We took our drinks thankfully as she poured, then sat back down at the table. “This is like some really bad movie and hard to believe, yet we believe it. I don’t think many people would. ”

  “It repeats.” I sat back, sipping my drink. “The curse…and I hate that word…cycles.”

  “I don’t know what else to call it.”

  “You do know how insane all this sounds, right?” Will asked.

  “I believe it. It’s insane, but I do believe it. The darkness gets into people, too… it’s in Bernie Canfield, and my Gracie died because of it.” Annelle had tears in her eyes.

  “Bernie is to blame for Mitzi, Sandra, April, and Grace.”

  “Because he embraces the violence. He is mean at heart,” Will said.

  “I think it could get into anyone; he was just easier than most.”

  “And that woman, Caroline is in danger.”

  I nodded, “I plan to talk to her. But this all sounds crazy. She’s not gonna believe a word of this.”

  “You have to convince her; it’s in him.”

  “You’re a writer. You’re good with words and explaining things.”

  I made a plttt sound. “Hi, Caroline. This Spanish guy five hundred years ago really liked a chick who looked like you, and he was cursed by an Incan king, who was tricked into being baptized. So he killed her, and people had some really bad luck, so now we think your life is in danger from Bernie Canfield….ummm. Does that sound crazy enough to say when I tell her?”

  “You can add that several other women have died and mention the lynchings and phantom killer,” Will said.

  ‘’’Cause Bernie did all that, too? He would have been eight.”

  “No, that wasn’t Bernie; it was the curse.”

  “The curse of the Incan king.” I rubbed my head. “Do you hear how really crazy that sounds?”

  Annelle refilled our glasses. “If I thought it would work, I would salt the earth and pour holy water all over that park, but I do feel it’s in everyone here or at least some people here. How do we know who?”

  Will shrugged. “And maybe we need crosses and garlic.”

  “That’s for vampires.”

  “Silver?”

  “Werewolves.”

  “What is for curses then?”

  I had no answer. This had to be the most comical, insane conversation I had ever had, and yet, Will and Annelle and I were serious.

  “We have a legend and some puzzle pieces; what do we do with this?” Annelle looked helpless.

  “We watch. We stop Bernie from hurting Caroline, if we can. No other girls have been killed or gone missing, right? Only those relating to all of us.” Will pointed out something we had over
-looked. “We may sound crazy, but we can scare away any girls who look like Grace.”

  “Sentinels.”

  “Hopefully, it’s getting weaker; maybe we’re the last. Five hundred years…we are at….” Will did the math, “four hundred forty-four; it’s gotta be getting weaker.”

  “Fifty-six more years,” Annelle said.

  “Of talking insanity about curses, hording animals, and scaring children away…the crazy writer and his crazy assistant.” I shuddered.

  “I only rate assistant?”

  I grinned at Will. “Yep.”

  “How do we do this?

  “I can live anywhere, so it’s time to come home.” I had already thought about this; Will’s medical insurance company was giving him hell about the multiple sclerosis. Many years ago, he had taken care of me and was standing by me now. It was time for me to repay my best friend.

  “I’ll watch if you will,” Will promised.

  “You got it even if I’ll be ninety-four by then.”

  “What else do you have to do?”

  “True,” I agreed. “So, we’ll watch and do our best to help whomever we can, even though people will call us crazy old men.”

  Will’s diagnosis meant he wouldn’t see ninety-four, and I didn’t reckon on it either. But I would watch. And I was going to save Caroline.

  Chapter 28

  “I’m glad you’re moving back,” Will said.

  I told Will I planned to find a large house and hoped he would keep me company as a roommate while we watched together, two grumpy bachelors. He knew I was helping him out, but he appreciated it. “I’m glad you’re available.” I grinned.

  “I could have married once…or maybe…if she had been the right one…it was too early in the romance for us to know.”

  “I didn’t know that. When?”

  “It’s my last secret, David. It was long ago…before you lost Grace…a girl I had started dating.” He sighed. “I never told you ‘cause at times I figured I was helping keep you sane.”

  “You were.”

  “If I had told you, you would have just checked out…gone really off the deep end. But she died, and I couldn’t stand your knowing, so I shut it out of my mind and went on. It’s why I have more of a stake in this than you know.”