| |
“Enid, it’s not in this direction ... I’m telling you, there were more of those scraggly trees around. I don’t know why I let you drag me out here in this heat to search for some old coot’s grave.”
“Oh, you don’t know everything, Mava, it was nearly twenty years ago, and don’t you think maybe they cut some of the trees down by now? I remember the road running alongside the fence just like it is here. We have been all over the damn cemetery in the last half hour, and I’ll bet you ten dollars this is the spot.”
“Yeah, you would bet on anything wouldn’t you? That’s what got us in the cheap-ass joint we’re in now, isn’t it? You bet, but you don’t win.”
“Now Mava you know that’s not my fault. The cards just haven’t been lucky lately. My luck will turn around soon, you wait and see. And besides, if you hadn’t picked up that skuzzy little weasel Barry, we’d have more than enough money to find a better place to stay.”
“Humph, you didn’t think he was a weasel when he was coming on to you, did you? Just because he chose me instead of you, you’re just jealous he ended up taking me back to the motel that night.”
“You’re such an idiot Mava, the creep had you from the get-go, you practically threw your body at him, and he didn’t have to work hard. But you didn’t have to let him have all of our money too.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know he would find my purse under the ... oh geez! Did you hear that?”
“What? Did I hear what?”
“That noise, like a whining. Come on, let’s get outta here; this place is giving me the willies.”
“You’re just changing the subject because you know I’m right and you can’t stand to lose an argument.”
“I’m not kidding Enid; I heard something.”
“Well, it’s not a ghost, silly. Everyone knows ghosts don’t go around spooking people in the daytime, and it’s only a little past six o’clock, not exactly haunting time now is it? It’s probably the trees rubbing together. I’m surprised with your bad ears you can hear anything at all, you certainly never hear me.”
“Shut up Enid; it was your bright idea to come looking up old flames today. You never had much use for your husband when he was alive. Why bother looking for his grave now?”
“Mava, I told you to get going earlier today, if you weren’t so damn lazy we would have been here before the office closed and looked up the grave number. But no, you needed to have your beauty sleep, hell; you’d have to sleep for a month to get rid of your uglies. And Richard wasn’t such a bad husband, and you know it. He let you stay with us whenever your current boyfriend threw you out. I just had an urge to visit him today, can’t say why, kinda strange the way the idea popped into my head and all, but since we were in town anyway ...”
“See there it is again.” Mava interrupted her companion, and both women simultaneously looked toward the scrub line of dying trees as the source for the low moaning. With barely a whisper of wind, it was doubtful the sound was emanating from that direction.
“What the hell was it?”
“Nothing, it was nothing! Since we’ve already spent so much time looking anyway, let’s just find Richard and get outta here.”
“Fine,” Mava sputtered, “If it’s so important to you to visit his rotting bones, but I don’t want to spend one extra second in this place, it’s just too damn creepy.”
Why is Mom fighting with Laverne? They always get along so well. It was a strange argument, and Lilly was surprised to hear her mother swear. She was always such a lady. Probably the heat is getting to them too, she thought. Such terrible heat. Why is it so uncomfortable ... and why doesn’t someone turn on the air conditioning? What time is it anyway? It must be close to dinnertime, my stomach hurts, and Papa is probably home by now. She wondered what terrific dessert Laverne had made for them. Her girls, Laverne always called the twins. This was always funny to Lilly since Laverne was only a young woman herself. When the twins were five, Laverne came to live with their family to help out with the housework and give Elizabeth a break from chasing after two highly charged imps. So, what are they fighting about, Lilly wondered again. Maybe I should go break it up. If Papa heard them, he would be upset not knowing which side to take. Papa! The memory of her dad jerked Lilly from the daze.
Voices, she heard voices. But they weren’t her mother and Laverne; she wasn’t a young girl at home. She was trapped in a stone room with her sister. And they were dying.
“Kate! Kate!” she reached as far as her arm would go trying to feel for her sister’s body. “I hear voices outside!” With no response from Kate, Lilly tried to bolster what little strength she had left to reach the crack in the wall far above her head.
“Help,” she rasped through parched lips and throat. But the words drifted back to her, lifeless. Where are my shoes, I took them off somewhere in the dark, they have wooden heels, maybe I can tap an SOS if I can just find them quickly. The voices were starting to fade. Either the arguers were finished with their debate, or they were moving away.
Tap, tap, tap, tap. The energy she exerted was about all she had left, but was it enough to get the women’s attention?
Tap, tap. Her hand dropped from the weight of the effort.
“Did you hear that, Enid?”
“What? That tapping? Yeah, probably a woodpecker, I’m sure the trees are full of birds.”
“Well, maybe, but that didn’t sound like no woodpecker to me.”
“Oh, shut up Mava, you are always so melodramatic like you’re some expert on what a woodpecker sounds like.”
“Help, please help us!” Kate roused to the tapping noise her sister made and crawled her way up the wall to add her feeble voice to the plea.
Mava’s head spun around in the direction of the row of crumbling vaults as shivers went up her spine. “Enid, that was a voice ... and there is nowhere else for it to come from except one of those little brick houses over there.”
Enid was as white as a ghost herself and was taking small steps backward away from the source. She heard the same sound and could barely find her voice.
“Mava,” Enid pleaded, shaking from head to toe, “get over here away from it. Whatever it is ... it’s no concern of ours.”
“What are you talking about you ninny, ghosts don’t cry for help, do they? There is someone in there. We can at least find out what’s going on.” Tentatively Mava crept forward toward the vault and called out in a low, unsteady voice. “Hello, who are you?”
Kate nearly fainted again, but the surge of adrenalin pushed her face back up to the crack. “Help us, please help us. We’re trapped.”
Within ten minutes of their call to 911, Mava and Enid stood on the sidelines, beaming with the pride of heroics, as two emergency vehicles stood at the ready for the twin’s emergence from their tomb. A fire truck was called to help open the heavy stone door with thick metal bolts holding it closed, and in a matter of minutes, the dying girls were gingerly brought out. Dehydration and the desert heat nearly claimed two victims.
Right on the heels of the emergency team’s response was a car with Ben’s staff, screeching to a stop in front of the vault. Alerted by the State Department of the search for the girls, the local police immediately informed the field agents that someone had been found.
Minutes after the rescuers brought the girls out, Elizabeth was notified. When the girls were stabilized they would be flown back to Washington, and Ben would send a car to pick her up and she could start to breathe again.
***
AS IF FROM AN ACT IN a faraway play, Franny saw the scene unfold before her closed eyes, and her bobblehead danced up and down slowly. “Aiee” she gleefully clapped her rheumy hands together. “Thank ye my Laury, for settin’ the lassies aright! Ye’re brother will be grateful, he will, for savin’ his babes.”