Cora watched Mackenzie run across the clearing at the back of the house and enter the woods. Since the day she’d driven her jeep through the front gate, she’d been watching Mackenzie run. Through the house, through the woods. The older woman peered from a small window on the second floor of the house. Harrison had been right. They had to get Mackenzie off the property. Cora had known he was right all along but it was like she was seated on a train headed for destruction. The train was going to derail. She could see the track was broken but it was much too late to get off.
It was still light enough for Cora to get a good look at the grounds from her little window. Mackenzie was in the woods, just at the edge of the clearing. Then Ginny’s old white head came bobbing along. Mackenzie had been running to intercept her. Together the two disappeared into the cover of the foliage.
“What are you up to now?” Cora whispered.
She moved quickly down the hallway to the first floor. Getting into the woods from the back of the house without being seen would be difficult. The clearing provided no cover. She had to either exit through the front of the house or the side door. Both options removed her from their line of sight but she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on them either. Without much thought, she slipped out the side door, and slunk into the woods. The sun was quickly dipping down over the peaks of houses in the distance.
Cora didn’t have a flashlight but then she didn’t need one. The woods were as much a home to her as the stone building behind her. Under cover of cascading branches of oak and pine, Cora stopped to listen. Silence. But she knew they couldn’t have gone far. Ella was at the Cooper house and there was nowhere else they could have gotten to so quickly. The leaves crunched under her feet. She had to dart without making too much noise. Walk, stop, and listen, for fifteen minutes it went on.
She was seething inside. Wasn’t breaking Ginny’s finger days ago, message enough for her to keep her mouth shut? Just thinking about wrapping her hands around that thin wobbly neck made Cora feel better. Ginny had been nothing more than an annoyance for a long time. The sentiment for their childhood days together was steadily dimming. The thought of killing Ginny made Cora’s lips curl slightly upwards. She slumped against a tree. She knew if she didn’t find them soon these woods would surely set off some horrible memory for her. She couldn’t afford to be distracted now.
“…cold, manipulative.” The words floated to her. They were soft and broken but it was definitely Ginny’s voice. The space around her was dark, empty. She knew instinctively where she was. But where could they be?
“Cora, …happy…” then nothing for a few seconds. “get….money…what he wanted…” Cora heard her life story being told in fragments. She moved toward the sounds as they became clearer. “…children and whatnot.”
Then she knew. They had to be in the cemetery. It was the only thing that made sense. But how the hell did they get in? The only key was in her pocket. Or so she thought.
The cemetery was surrounded on two sides by a stone wall. It allowed Cora to creep to the edge and sit, her back again the wall, and listen to the entire conversation without being discovered.
“…as far as I could see, everything was wonderful…” Ginny’s voice.
Cora edged around the corner so she could see through the bars. Ginny was sitting on the bench, Mackenzie was standing. The cold dampness of the ground seeped through Cora’s clothing to her skin. She put her hands to her face. Rage coursed through every cell in her body. She heard the pounding of her blood in her ears as though her head might explode. Every word that came to her through over the wall made her angrier. She tried to concentrate on what they were saying. It was her life, her story that Ginny was telling in detail to this girl. This stranger. This nobody.
“..turpentine..” Cora’s failed attempts to abort James.
She started rocking, her back slamming into the stone wall. She hit that wall so hard with her back, it left her cut and bruised. It was the only way she could keep from screaming.
“But why did she treat this one so differently?” Mackenzie’s voice. Softer, lilting.
Cora wanted to smash the girl’s face into a bloody pulp and Harrison wouldn’t stop her this time. Slam, her back hit the wall so hard it shook her teeth. She saw flashes of her father in front of her. She heard his voice in her ears. They mixed with the voices coming from the cemetery. They mixed and they swirled around her. She started rocking harder, faster. “When I tell you to do something, you do it right. Do you hear me?” His voice was right there. He pounded his fist onto the kitchen table. Then he reached for her and grabbed her by her hair. She was five. The feeling of her face hitting the table came next. Blood spilling from her nose and face. “Clean this up!” he screamed. She tried to get the cloth to wipe up the blood but it was coming out as fast as she could wipe. She was on her hands and knees with a rag. His foot hit her side. She fell over. He grabbed her hair again.
“He knew how sick she was…” Ginny’s voice. “…and he never got her help?” Mackenzie.
Now she was ten. She and Harry were standing in the carriage house. It was dark. The smell of horse was all around her though there hadn’t been a horse in the carriage house for years. The floor was dirt and packed so hard it felt like concrete under her bare feet. She could see Harry walking in front of her.
“I just want to look. That’s all, Cora. Relax.”
“This isn’t a good idea. Let’s just go back to the woods.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot. She had a bad feeling inside her.
“I’m just looking for a few small pieces. He won’t miss them.”
“I don’t know when Daddy is coming back. Hurry up.” She felt the edges of her worn white slip dress against her shins. Her brown hair was in her face. She pushed it back and put it behind her ear.
Harry was crouched down in the corner looking at iron scrap metal pieces. There was a fairly large pile that took up almost half of the carriage house. Cora’s father had a preoccupation with scrap metal that started when he was just a child. When he had made enough money he bought warehouses to store his pieces. Then iron ores. His interests extended up and down the east coast.
“You have to listen and watch, Cora. More wars are coming. Big ones…” he’d told her. Hitler invaded Poland in ’39 and her father’s obsession proved lucrative. When the war was in full swing those warehouses, that pile, those ores, were worth millions.
Iron crap metal was so scarce because most of it was used in manufacturing armory, weapons, war materials. Harry was engrossed. He was looking for parts to make a little scooter, or go-cart.
“I’m just going to take this,” He looked up at her and held out his hand. “and this…” Neither of them saw the door open. Cora heard her father’s voice behind her and saw the light flooding in at the same instant.
He stood in the light, his voice booming. She had nowhere to run. They were trapped against the old horse stall.
“Boy, are you stealing from me?” Harry’s eyes were big but he couldn’t move; everything was happening so fast. “Are you stealing my metal?” He grabbed Harry by the back of his shirt and held him. Harry was crying now. Cora stared for a moment. Things were spinning around her. Her father couldn’t kill him, could he? The thought flickered through her head. He could. Her father hated the Coopers and he hated thieves. “What’re you doing on my property, boy? Tell me. Stealing? Filthying my daughter?”
“No, Daddy. I did it. I was giving him the metal to sell. Then we’d split the money.”
The words spilled out. It wasn’t true. She’d made it up to protect Harry. She’d never touched a piece of that old stupid metal. She just needed him to let her friend go.
“I’d send him to town to buy things for me.” She dug in her pocket and produced an old gumball that Harry had given her earlier. Her father dropped Harry and he ran. Cora heard his feet on the floor moving but she didn’t see him go. She felt the old metal chain whip against the bare flesh on her legs and she was blinded with pain. Cora fell to the ground. Run, Harry, run, she thought. The rusted metal chain hit her body again and again.
“…as long as Cora’s father was alive his hands were tied…” Ginny’s voice again.
The wetness in the ground soaked into her dress. She felt chilled, weak and petrified. What was happening? Now she saw just darkness all around her. She was twelve. No sunlight could reach her. She was afraid she would live like that forever. In darkness. Suddenly so much light poured in she couldn’t stand it. “Just let me die,” she whispered. A startled maid pulled her out of the closet. Protocol dictated that the woman not ask any questions about what had happened or why Cora was in the closet. The maid was hired help, a servant. She simply stared, helped Cora to her feet, asked if she could bring her anything then went back to work.
The little girl lay in her bed all that day shaking, sweating and crying. Two days in darkness. She had wet herself. She had thrown up. Her punishment for taking the kerosene lantern from the carriage house for their little fort in the woods. And then lying about it. But If she had told the truth he would have made her bring it back and those nights in the woods meant everything. She’d never admit it.
Cora rocked back and forth, her face in her hands. She wanted to hear what Ginny was saying. She had to focus.
“…and then Edward died…” Ginny’s voice was soft. Yes, Edward died. Her father. The worst humiliation of all. She thought she wanted to die that day. She rocked harder. Only fifteen years old. She stood in her bedroom, grimy, covered with sweat and dirt from the woods. All her chores had been done and then she’d spent a few hours with Harry and Ginny. Ginny had made lemonade and brought it to the swimming hole. The three had shared it and dipped their feet and talked. The sun was low in the sky before Cora decided it was time to go in, to clean up and get dinner started before her father came home.
Now she was pulling the dress over her head and dropping it to the floor. Her under things followed. She dipped the washcloth into the wash bowl.
“Where have you been?” His voice startled her. Turning quickly she grabbed her damp dress from the floor to cover her nakedness. She stared into his eyes but his mood was hard to read.
“Cleaning.” The fewer words the better, she decided. “I want to wash up and make dinner.” Her gaze went to the floor. He was an expert at reading her expression and uncovering her lies.
“Cleaning? In the woods?” before she could utter another word his hand went around her neck pinning her to the wall. His face hovered near her left ear. “Just remember, Cora, I own this.” The voice was whispery but raspy. His breath tickled her face. His free hand grabbed her breast. The hand around her neck loosened and he grabbed her between her legs; pinning her with his body. She dared not move. “I own you.” Only her heart danced wildly. “I will tell you what to do and when to do it. You will be clean until you marry Whitfield. Nothing happens to this,” the hand between her legs tightened hard enough to leave bruises, “until I say so.” He let go and backed up only inches, his hand moving back to her neck.
Hot tears rolled onto her cheeks. His face was still close. “Run in the woods with that Cooper boy and you’ll be sorry. I’ll kill you both. Do you understand?” Cora moved her head up and down slightly to acknowledge his words. He stared down at her nakedness. “Get dressed and make my dinner.” He slammed the back of her head into the wall and left the room.
“And then she started beating James…” Ginny’s voice broke through the fog in her head.
James. That pale boy with light brown hair and blue eyes. His face was there in Cora’s mind but it was hard to separate him from her father. They were fused together. A small boy and an old man. They were one and the same. “thought he was kidnapped….” Ginny’s frail voice came to her; Cora’s mind buzzed. She tried to breathe.
Cora thought about old Virginia. She thought about grabbing Ginny and choking the words from her throat. The thought of leaving her here, dead, for the animals to pick apart was comforting at that moment. She slammed her back against the wall again and realized the back of her dress was wet, probably from blood. But there was no pain. Ginny was so close, right on the other side of the stone wall. Cora knew she could easily exact her revenge. And Mackenzie. Before she sucked the last bits of air into her lungs Cora was going to let her know exactly how she felt about her. Snooping around. Keeping her son away. Mocking her with the information she had. What right had these two? As the moments passed, Cora’s rage simmered to boiling.
Those voices in the cemetery were wrapping up. Her muscles were tensed, prepared for an attack. Mackenzie was inspecting the graves. There was movement towards the gate. Cora closed her eyes, whispering, “Bring destruction on all who oppress me…” her silent prayer. Now what? She knew she couldn’t handle both. Ginny moved quickly from the cemetery. Those old legs were sprightly, agile. She moved away from the cemetery quickly. Cora watched her but let her go. She was an animal on the hunt and she was going to bring back a catch.
And, yes, Harry was going to be there with her just like always.