Kind Nepenthe Read online

  Kind Nepenthe

  Matthew V. Brockmeyer

  © Copyright Matthew V. Brockmeyer 2017

  Published by Black Rose Writing

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  © 2017 by Matthew V. Brockmeyer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-909-1

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  For Tara, who never gave up on the dream.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  BRW Info

  ONE

  “Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, and let the earth devour her own sweet brood.”

  —Shakespeare, Sonnet XIX

  “Ring around a rosie, a pocketful of posies,

  Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

  —Children’s Rhyme

  1

  Rebecca Hawthorne couldn’t deny it anymore. Her little girl had grown strange since they’d moved to Coyote’s compound. And it wasn’t just her obsession with ghosts and her refusal to use the outhouse. Or her compulsion to find all the dead ravens in the forest and play with them like they were toys. Stacking them up into shimmering black pyramids, their wings entangled, beaks hanging open.

  No. It was something deeper.

  A fog seemed to have settled on her, hazing her once lively five-year-old glow, the way a bright pane of glass might slowly turn opaque from the elements: her head always lowered, as though weighted down by thought, her eyes dull and haggard. And no matter how much Rebecca tried to cheer her up, that moody grayness remained.

  Megan had always been full of questions, but lately they’d taken on a darker tone.

  “Mommy?” she asked as they climbed up the trail, stepping through the patches of light and dark that fell on the forest floor. “Are we going to stay here forever and ever?”

  Rebecca shook back her long auburn dreadlocks, pushed up her glasses, and tried to laugh the question off. “Don’t be silly. Of course not. Only until we can make enough money to buy our own land. Somewhere we can grow our own food. Have chickens and goats. A flock of ducks. Wouldn’t you like that? Your own land with some baby ducks to take care of?”

  “Yes. But, Mommy, if there’s no such thing as ghosts, why do people say this place is haunted?”

  Rebecca pressed her bottom lip between her teeth, wondering where in the hell Megan had picked up all these stupid stories. Was Calendula feeding her this crap? Coyote?

  “Oh, sweetie, people say all kinds of things. It’s just a silly story. Ghost stories can be fun, but ghosts aren’t real.” She quickly tried to change the subject. “Those sure were some good huckleberries, huh, kiddo? We were lucky to find some this late in the season.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe I’ll make pancakes tomorrow morning and we can put the rest of ’em in. Sound good?”

  Megan merely nodded, and returned her gaze to the ground.

  Rebecca lifted her face to the breeze that swept along the river, over the mossy rocks and bracken ferns and up the steep hillside of manzanita and madrone. A storm was on its way, blowing in over the hills to the west. All the weather forecasts she’d been hearing on the little transistor radio were warning of an El Niño winter: warm Pacific currents from the south bringing heavy rain and wind.

  “I think we’re going to get some weather, kiddo.” She gazed out at the tall redwoods and Douglas fir along the horizon, their branches stirring lazily beneath a gathering of dark clouds. Three buzzards circled far in the distance, honing in on something dead. “Yup, a storm is definitely coming. Feels like a big one, too.”

  Megan looked up at her, all brown eyes and a smattering of freckles, mouth a purple smear of huckleberry juice. “Should I be scared?”

  “No, no, sweetheart.” Rebecca stopped and put down her harvest basket. “A rain will be good. The forest will love it and it’ll probably keep the frost out of our garden.”

  She knelt to fix the collar on Megan’s second-hand coat, straighten her frayed corduroy jumper, and gaze into those big eyes.

  “Do you remember my Granny Kay?” she asked, licking her thumb and rubbing at the purple stains on Megan’s mouth.

  Megan nodded her head, squirming away.

  “Well, she loved the rain. When it would rain hard at night we would cuddle up on the sofa, wrapped up in a big blanket, and tell each other stories.”

  “I have a story. Can I tell you my story?

  “Sure, kiddo. Let’s hear it.”

  “This is the story of the little girl who lived on a boat in the bathtub.”

  “She must have been very small?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she a princess or a faerie or something?”

  “No. She was just a little girl.”

  “Okay, well, what’s the story?”

  “One day her mommy came to the bathtub and the little girl and her boat were so small that the Mommy didn’t see them, and she pulled the plunger and—swoosh—the little girl on the boat went down the drain, and she was washed out to sea, where there was a bad war clock.”

  “A war clock?”

  “Yes, a war clock. You know, a boy witch.”

  “Oh, a warlock.”

  “That’s what I said, a war clock.”

  “Right. Yes. So, what happened next?”

  “Well, the war clock was very bad and very hungry, so he ate her up.”

  “He ate her up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “That’s it. He ate her up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Well, yeah. But it’s so sad. I like stories with happy endings.”

  “You think it’s too sad?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Well, I’ll change it for you, Mommy.” The girl looked off into the woods for a moment, utterly still. Wind rustled through the dead leaves. “So, then a magic owl came down from the crystal forest and rescued the little girl on the boat. Plucked her right out of the war clock’s belly. And the war clock got filled with water and sank to the bottom of the sea. Then the magic owl took the little girl back to her mommy, who said, ‘Oh, where were you? I was so worried, I thought I’d accidentally let you go down the drain.’ And the little girl said, ‘No, Mommy, I’m fine and now we have a new friend, a magic owl.’ And the momm
y, the little girl who lived on a boat in the bathtub, and the magic owl all lived happily ever after.” She glanced up into her mother’s face. “Is that better?”

  Rebecca forced a smile. “Oh, yes, much better, sweetie.”

  The preschool teachers back in San Diego all agreed Megan was gifted. What a good story. Though it was a little dark, it would actually make a great children’s book.

  The magic owl.

  Did Megan think of Calendula as a magic owl? Her mind clung onto that one positive aspect of the story. He did juggle for her. That was a type of magic. Wasn’t it?

  2

  The dog—a purebred shar-pei—was going apeshit as usual: snapping and growling at the end of its tether, its face an ugly knot of wrinkles and fangs.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Diesel said as he limped over to the cooler, bent down—careful not to put too much weight on his bad leg—and dug his huge mitt of a hand into the slush of ice and water. His knuckles were bloody from where he’d scraped them against the truck’s underside, hauling on the socket wrench, trying to loosen up the rusty bolts on that old tranny, and the cold felt good. He relished it a moment before wrapping his beefy fingers around a Bud and pulling the beer from the cooler.

  Goddamn, if that transmission hadn’t almost slipped right out of his hands, tumbled off the jacks, and crushed DJ’s head.

  He splashed water on his face, cracked the beer open, and gulped down half of it. It spilled from the corners of his mouth and into his beard, now more gray than the fiery-red and pumpkin-orange it had been in his youth.

  He’d gotten oil and transmission fluid all over his good flannel shirt and jeans. Amber was going to give him a world of shit about that. He should’ve worn overalls. Probably had a few pairs in the toolshed, buried in the back somewhere.

  He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his front pocket, shook one out and lit it. He was a little spun; he’d been up for a few days. But he had it together. Just had to breathe and concentrate on relaxing. He wanted another bump, another hit, but he had to pace himself. And he had to get some sleep tonight. He knew where that lack of sleep brought you. Knew it all too well: that terrible, soul-shattering paranoia. Shadow people lurking in the corners. Scores of tiny insects crawling over everything. And he was never going there again. Never. Especially now. After he had gone so far, accomplished so much. This was his second chance and he wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  Maybe DJ had some Xanax. That’s what he needed. Something to take the fucking edge off.

  3

  The path wound down through a patch of cedar. Megan ran ahead and Rebecca watched her scurry along, her little face so serious as she scoured the forest, searching for mushrooms and wild greens.

  They were hiking along an overgrown logging road that had been carved into the hillside fifty years ago to haul out the ancient redwoods that used to dominate the forest. It was nothing more than a path now, meandering along above the Santaroga River, on the far-eastern border of Humboldt County, California, near the corner where Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties meet. The Emerald Triangle.

  Lichen draped the skeletal branches of the tan oaks like pale-green spider webs. As they walked along, the afternoon sunlight cut through the canopy in coppery shafts that brought Rebecca’s mind back to an illustrated Grimm’s Fairy Tales book she used to read as a little girl. She thought about Hansel and Gretel trying to find their way back home after the birds had eaten their bread crumbs and, indeed, that’s how she felt now: lost.

  A part of her was so fucking over it and wanted to leave this place. Just run away and leave behind this mess she had gotten herself into. But leaving would mean giving up on the dream. That dream of making enough money to buy their own land. That dream that made her heart flutter and had brought them to this dark corner of Northern California.

  Calendula was so adamant that if they just pulled off one more marijuana harvest for Coyote, they’d have enough cash to buy their own property. Then they could start an organic farm and live off the land for real. But she didn’t know if she could stay here any longer. All the compromises she’d been forced to make were too much, and Megan’s moods seemed to grow more somber every day. She wondered what would happen if she just up and left. Would Calendula refuse to go? Could she leave him, after all they’d been through together?

  And at this point, she wondered, what was there to go back to?

  “Mommy, look!” Megan bounded off the trail and down the steep hillside. She slid quickly through the fallen leaves.

  Rebecca nervously followed behind. “Careful, Megan. Careful.”

  As she watched Megan slip down the hill, Rebecca’s heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t see the river from here, the land just disappeared, sinking down into nothingness, but she could hear it: a low murmur of cold water moving over rock.

  She was always terrified that Megan would somehow fall into the river. That’s what they said happened to the little boy, that he’d drowned here, back in the early seventies, when the place had been a hippie commune. Supposedly his mother had been tripping on acid when she found the corpse and had gone mad, and now his ghost haunted these woods.

  That’s what people said, but people said all kinds of things about this place. She doubted if half of it was true.

  Megan came to a stop in a patch of whitethorn, excitedly pointing down at a brown and yellow clump of flesh that bloomed up from the carpet of decaying leaves. “Look, Mommy. Look!”

  Rebecca slid down to her, careful to disturb the hillside as little as possible.

  “Good eye, sweetie. Now, what’s this mushroom called?”

  “Chanterelle, Mommy. Chanterelle is the orange one and oyster is the white one that grows on the trees.”

  “Oh, you are so smart.”

  Megan smiled, eyes ablaze with satisfaction while Rebecca knelt into the damp leaves, her ropey dreadlocks falling over her shoulders. She pushed her glasses up her nose and gently broke the mushroom off at the soil line, placing it in her harvest basket. So far, they’d found oyster and chanterelle mushrooms, plantain and miner’s lettuce. This was going to be a good lunch. Not only sustainable and healthy, but free, which meant a lot, because they were nearly broke and almost out of groceries.

  They’d spent just about the last of their cash on diesel for the grow room. Coyote was supposed to have been back a week ago with money and supplies and they hadn’t heard a word from him. Typical. At least the pot was nearly done and ready to harvest.

  “Let’s get a move on, honey.”

  They climbed back up to the path and continued along the trail. The land began to plateau near the rusted skeleton of an abandoned excavator, an ancient relic from the logging days. They stopped in a small copse of bay laurel. Rebecca squatted and brushed her hand over a patch of crimson-and-green, clover-shaped foliage blanketing the ground.

  “Now, what’s this plant called?”

  “Redwood sorry.”

  “Redwood sorrel. Taste it. Tangy, huh?”

  They each put a few small leaves in their mouths. Megan made a sour face and spit out a green clump. Rebecca laughed and began to pick the greens in a delicate and random manner, gently thinning them so that it appeared none had been taken at all, careful not to pull up any roots.

  She could make a spicy pesto with this, though it did have a trace amount of oxalis acid in it so she couldn’t use too much. She would have to mix in the plantain, miner’s lettuce and whatever other greens she could find. It was still too cold for dandelions. She found herself smiling. This is what it was all about. Teaching Megan to live off the land. Be one with nature.

  Then, looking up, Rebecca saw that Megan was standing atop the rotten stump of a redwood
, her back to her. How’d she get up there so fast?

  The stump clung to the edge of the hillside, its exposed roots—dug into the crumbling rock and earth—the only thing keeping the bank up, erosion having washed away the land around it. The river lay below, a moaning maelstrom of rushing water. Megan swayed slightly, leaning forward so that she hung over the edge of the river bank.

  “Careful,” Rebecca shouted. She could see Megan’s little fingers twitch as her hands slowly balled into fists. Megan eased further forward, a little stick figure framed in amber light, bent over the edge, seeming to hang in the empty space past the stump.

  Rebecca gasped. She is going to fall into the river. She leapt up, basket tumbling aside, and frantically started to run.

  Reaching the stump, panting, the coppery taste of fear flooding her mouth, Rebecca held her hands out and tried to keep her voice from trembling as Megan began to sway back again.

  “Come on, honey, let’s get down from there.”

  Megan mumbled something Rebecca couldn’t make out, her eyes half shut.

  “Megan? Megan!?”

  Megan opened her eyes.

  “Please come down from there.”

  “I’m just looking at the river.”

  “I know, but it’s dangerous.” Rebecca held out her hands.

  Megan blinked twice, very slowly, then stepped off the stump and into her mother’s arms. Rebecca clutched her to her chest then strode away, past the twisted hulk of metal and rust, trying not to squeeze her too tight, fighting to slow her breathing and stop her panting. Telling herself, It’s okay. Everything is okay.

  4

  Diesel Dan eased his bear-sized hulk down to sit on the cooler and concentrated on not grinding his teeth. He watched as his son, DJ, crawled out from under the F250. The boy gave him a curious look, and for a moment Diesel could see himself through his son’s eyes: panting, water dripping off his face, beer foam hanging off his graying red beard. Keep it together, he told himself. Keep it together.