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The Secret Things

By Peggy Trotter

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Chapter One
The woman’s cerulean eyes bugged. She tugged the screen door against her cheek, pinching her pale face like a vice. A wispy squeak exhaled from her parted lips. Brock Langston’s itinerary drained through the soles of his feet into the tongue and groove porch floor.
Dead wife standing.
Mouth-drying emotion bloomed a hoard of imaginary hornets in his brain. He sucked the moist mountain air into his lifeless lungs and buckled his hand against the white doorframe of the front door. He stared at her and tried again. “Jenna?”
The pulse at his wrist throbbed as he gripped the frame. Her gaze flared a blue flame. A slight shake of her head was her only reply.
The vinyl siding collapsed under his suction-cupped fingers. One more time. “I’m your husband.”
Her shuddering breath tripled into rhythm-moaned words. “A…unt…Ellen.”
He wanted to grip her, shake her—no, truly he could barely resist cradling her close, clasping her tighter than ever before. Anything to knock the terror-mingled discombobulation from her face.
How long had he dreamed of her? Still dreamed of her. Those expansive innocent eyes, so tinged with confection one moment, coy and flirting the next. The blanched skin couldn’t deny her delicate features. No, there could be no mistaking her. It was Jenna. His Jenna.
He scanned beyond her into the interior of the house. No one could have heard her mere breath of a call. Sanity revisited him like a puddle of warm mercury, calming the skull hornets, and he drove his fists into his pockets. Time for equilibrium. “It’s me, Jenna. Brock.”
The six-paneled door slammed, her screams reverberating through the walls of the home. Even her pounding feet echoed through to the porch. “Aunt Ellen!”
He spun and faced the darkening slope of the front yard. Smoky Mountain crickets chirruped about him in the dusk, and he fixated on the distant haze to ground his thought processes in this surreal place. Yet the gray mist only added to the hallucinatory atmosphere. Be real, man. It couldn’t be her. His wife was wrapped in white satin, six feet under.
His shiny black car winked at him from the driveway. Haywood McCoy awaited his arrival in this jumble of dirt tracks. But the mountain man would lose no sleep if Brock failed to show. And right now, he couldn’t care less about the interview. The magazine article’s order of importance had tumbled to naught.
Exploring the curvy roads to locate an elusive destination darted from his brain. He turned to face the house. How could his deceased wife be here? Alive?
Well, he wasn’t leaving until he found out. He jostled the change in his pocket to loosen his muscles and knocked again.
A nagging premise plowed a furrow across his brain. Not a flicker of recognition had appeared on Jenna’s face. Only terror. Confusion. He scraped his short fingernails down the side of his cheek. Why hadn’t she answered him?
The door screeched open, and an older, owl-faced woman peeked out. “Yes?”
Definitely not the person he wanted to see. Brock’s brows bunched, peeking over the short, white-haired lady. The dimness of the interior impeded his attempt to catch sight of Jenna. His surveillance ceased when he met her weathered blue stare. Her features puckered into a frown. The smell of roast beef drifted from the interior and enveloped him. Darkness descended around him while insects popped against the porch light.
“May I speak to the woman who answered the door?” Good. His tone appeared relatively normal.
Her face pinched into stillness. “Well, I…I mean, she’s…”
“Please.” He feared spooking her. But he had no choice. “She’s my wife.”
The lady’s breath snagged and she pressed a fist to her lips. “Oh, dear. Oh, my. Oh, glory. I—just a moment.”
The door thudded shut once more, and Brock rubbed his temple. A simple conversation seemed like fording Lake Michigan. Carbon dioxide rushed from his lungs.
Jenna…alive. Why couldn’t he quite take this all in? Three years buried, that’s why. Brock swiped away a stray moth.
He paced the porch floor, pausing only to take unsteady breaths. At last the door opened, and a tall older gentleman, perhaps in his sixties, stepped out.
“Help ya?” He spoke in a slow deliberate way, the syllables alive with southern twang, reminding Brock he was deep in the mountains of Tennessee. His brown eyes, sharp as a cattle prod and wreathed with lines, perused Brock’s face.
No point in not being direct. “I need to speak to the woman who answered the door. Jenna. She’s my wife.” He pulled the wallet from his back pocket. “Here. Our wedding picture.”
“Uh-huh.” The old man nodded, squinting a mere glance at the small photo and shifting to take in Brock’s sleek car in the driveway. The man hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “Reckon it’s late. Probably better talk in the morning, don’t ya think?”
“What? No.” Brock yanked his hand through his hair. “Please. I need to speak to her.”
The gangly man turned and grabbed the doorknob. “You call the town marshal in the morning. He’ll know how to get ahold of us.”
“But—”
The door slammed, and the light went out. Hope expired. Brock hammered his hand deep into his pocket. If he angered them, he’d never get close to her. With a restrained growl he strode toward his car.
He forced himself into the interior and backed down the rock drive onto the dirt road. While his thoughts rotated at warp speed, he punched the green phone button on the steering wheel. No signal. Who would he call anyway? His parents? His sister? Bro? Right now, voicing the events seemed impossible. He barely believed it himself. At the T, he racked his brain to retrace his way back to the small town of Mavey.
Memories of Jenna flooded his mind, and he clenched the wheel grips. Emotion strangled him. Whom he’d buried, he had no clue. But this was the least of his worries.
With a grunt, he turned left. For the next ninety minutes scenes of their life together converged in his brain as he navigated the winding roads back to his motel.
Jenna was alive. Alive.
 …… 
Jerrica Rankin’s fingers dug into her opposite sleeves, trying to make herself tighter, smaller. Her breathing came like a woman in transition labor, her heart an out-of-control bronco. Sweat doused her face.
This could not be happening.
She rocked, head down, on the edge of the bed and let her long straight hair brush forward, shutting out the world. Last act. Curtain closed.
Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Shhh.
The man’s dark stare haunted her. So probing. So petrifying.
“‘Cease striving and know—’” Panic interrupted. Her fingers convulsed against the cotton material, turning into a thousand spiders. The deep yawned to her. The edge of blankness.
She fastened her gaze on the worn volume near her bed. “Jesus, Jesus.”
Say it. Proclaim it.
“‘Cease striving and know that I am God.’” The old adversary, panic, drifted further away.
“‘He will never desert me, nor will He ever forsake me.’” More space gave her room.
“‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.’” Brevity ruled, but peace beckoned. Spiders became goose bumps.
“‘Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’”
Her tightened muscles uncoiled, and her two fingers crawled to her carotid. She anchored the wall of hair behind her ear and flicked a glance at the clock. One hundred and forty-two. Good. The rate of her pounding heart had slowed already.Jerrica surveyed the room, focusing on the pink log cabin quilt, her desk, the flat screen TV, the stacks of classic movies, and back to Uncle John’s aged Bible. She was home. In her room. Levied in safety.
The knock at her door shot a cry from her throat. Safety? Only a bogus illusion.
“Honey, it’s me. May I open the door?”
She pinched her eyelids closed briefly to still the new tremor. It was only Aunt Ellen. Had the visitor left? The abnormal breathing pattern set in again and in the darkness of her room, she grappled to control it. “Yes.”
Her aunt popped her face through the crack and flicked on the light. Jerrica cringed. Aunt Ellen was wreathed in shiny placation, but her gray-streaked hair seemed awry. “You okay, dumpling?”
Jerrica sucked in her lips. The nicknames. More fake assurances. All was not well. The accelerator pedal pumped her adrenaline, and her heart lurched back to Indy 500 speed.
Her aunt blinked and edged the door wider, the false bright smile like a neon sign flashing danger. “I think we need to discuss something, lambiepie.”
“Not now. Please, Aunt Ellen.”
The older woman maneuvered through the door. She stood twiddling her fingers, Stooges style, before propping herself on the far bottom corner of the bed. Such a dear sweet soul. Always supporting. “Remember our prayer?”
The twitch below her left eye went viral and Jerrica pressed a finger to it.
“Well, sweetums, this may be the answer.” Aunt Ellen folded her fumbling hands in her lap, her sing-song voice akin to a hundred cymbals.
Jerrica had never prayed for terror. But it always seemed to find her. And now it stood on her front porch. How she wished she could stay strong for Aunt Ellen. This lady had prayed over her, fed her, nursed her, tolerated all her freakish quirks.
But resisting the irrational fear was like holding a milk jug lid above her head in a drenching downpour and expecting not to get wet. Old enemy, numbness, bled through Jerrica’s brain like hot lava. Burning, consuming, distorting. Blotting out everything.
Aunt Ellen patted the quilt, giving her a start. “John’s downstairs talking to the visitor right now. Let me go check on things, and then maybe you could come down? Sure would be nice to clear things up.”
That man. She shook her head, but Aunt Ellen had already turned to open the door.
“Be right back.”
The door yawned open with a sinister creak after her departure. Always. Like a repetitive Frankenstein black and white talkie. Jerrica scrambled around the bed to shut out the imaginary Boris Karloff, glancing at the movie stack where the exact movie lay, mocking her. Then her aunt and uncle’s voices drifted up the stairs and across the open balcony.
“Well, where is he, John?”
“Who?”
“Oh, you know good and well who. The man on the porch.” Impatience stained her aunt’s tones.
She leaned out the door as they disappeared below the open balcony.
“Sent him on his way.”
“John Rankin, what were you thinking?”
Jerrica stepped from the room as their conversation grew softer. Uncle John probably hightailed it to his study beneath the stairs with her aunt in hot pursuit.
“Can’t let in a perfect stranger at dusk, Mary Ellen.”
A door closed below. Jerrica shot inside her room and pressed hers shut as well. Her fingers groped to twist the lock and flip off the light. In the darkness, she rested her forehead against the wood. Weak lightning flashed at the window. Storm coming.
That iconic silver screen laboratory thunderclap resounded in her brain. Curse that silly movie. Her bed transformed into the still operating table. When her fantasy Frankenstein elevated from the stainless steel surface, it was the stranger.
Only this was no movie. No remote control could turn it off. This was reality. She moaned, slid to the floor, and huddled in the corner.
Please, Lord. Please let this monster disappear.
 …… 
Brock thumped again on the Police Station’s door. He’d spent most of the night googling the tiny town of Mavey, studying the buildings, playing and re-playing what he’d say. Most people didn’t stop in the town marshal’s office to demand a meeting with their dead wife.
The tall, two-story brick building stood a block and a half east of Main Street, identical to the image on his phone. He stepped back. Age buckled the bricks, but, to the right, a concrete ramp updated the place. “Mavey Police Station” arced across the door’s glass pane, indicating he’d reached the right place. Movement inside caught his eye. A compact, dark-headed woman strutted in small firm steps toward the door and flipped the dead bolt.
“Good morning.” Her cheery voice rang out as she swung the door open. Her short figure turned and sauntered back the way she’d come. “Gonna be another scorcher today, huh?”
“Yes, uh—good morning.”
“You must be lost.” She smiled and waved a hand at him before disappearing behind a wall to the right. She reappeared behind a window and slid it open. “We get folks in here all the time needing directions to Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. I have some maps if you prefer?”
With a deep breath, he bellied up to the glass. This woman had no idea. “Sorry, no maps. Just need to talk to the town marshal.”
She blinked and drew back. “I see. Do you have an appointment with Chief Rankin?”
Brock glanced around the small, empty waiting room. Was she kidding? “No.”
She sat at her desk and picked up a pencil to tap it on a stack of papers. “What’s this concerning?”
Weariness from lack of sleep and tension weighed on him. He exhaled audibly and leaned forward. “Please, it’s urgent.”
The woman’s brow rose, and she tugged the front of her red suit jacket. “Name?”
“Brock Langston.”
She wrote it on a scrap of paper. Then she proceeded to peck away at the computer. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll check and see if he has a slot in his agenda.”
He spun and settled into an armless upholstered chair. He clasped his hands between his knees and stared at the warped, weathered floor covered in new carpeting. Agenda? The four empty chairs nearby merely stood to collect dust. If the town had a thousand residents, he’d be surprised. What could the marshal have on his schedule for the day?
While he took in the aging foyer, his mind shot back to the questions simmering in his brain for the last ten hours. For the umpteenth time he wondered how Jenna had arrived at such a place. Virtually the middle of nowhere.
And why hadn’t she called? Texted, emailed? Anything? Even before the wedding they’d pledged to—the door in front of him opened. The irritating woman stood there, clad in her professional demeanor.
“He’ll see you now.”
Brock stood and strode to the door. Down the hall she opened a door to the left and swept her arm to the opening.
Behind a battered desk, the officer stood well over six feet tall. Red-headed with small patches of white above his ears, his grip made Brock feel sorry for anyone who stepped outside the law in this tiny hamlet.
A small wooden sign on the huge desk spelled out “Town Marshal.” The man settled into his seat behind the desk. “Robert Rankin.”
“Brock Langston. Thanks for seeing me.”
The officer indicated a beat-up wooden chair. From the nicks and age, it must have survived Alexander the Great’s Balkan Campaign as a battering ram. Brock nodded as he seated himself facing the huge oak desk.
“You’ve been one busy little camper.” The older man slapped his desk. His stocky build made him an intimidating presence even though he pushed sixty.
“I’m sorry?”
“Gotta call from my brother last night, and my fax machine is stacked with documents this morning. That’s more business than I generate in six months.”
“Brother?”
A slow grin vined across his face. “I think you met him last night?”
Cold dread built a subfloor in his stomach. All in the family. “I see.”
With a slow ease, the big man reached for a file on his helter-skelter desk and flipped it open. He slid on a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and squinted at the contents.
“I’ll need a little information.” He rotated, his sausage-like fingers hovering on his computer keyboard. “First of all, your wife’s full name, including her maiden?”
Brock gripped the armrests and glanced to the lone window in the closed office. “Jenna Loralynn Price Langston.”
The marshal’s voice droned on. “And the last time you saw her?”
“Our wedding reception. Three years ago. We were married on her birthday.”
“Uh-huh. Her age?” More tapping on that incessant keyboard.
He cocked his head to block out the noise and calculated. “Twenty-one.”
Robert lowered his glasses and glared at him. “You were married on her eighteenth birthday?”
“Yes, sir.” Brock ignored the long pause.
“Last known address?”
Brock shifted. “Uh, I’ll have to check the exact address. She never lived in my house. I know it was in South Pinewood Mobile Home Park. My address is Seventh and Grand, Washington, Indiana.”
An invisible thread snugged the sheriff’s wiry eyebrows into a tuck above his nose. “Hmmm. Cause of death?”
Brock stared at the sterile white wall behind the desk. “Plane crash.”
A squeak split the air as Robert leaned back in his chair. “Which one?”
Dread nailed in four-penny memories of agony. The frantic calls. The drive to Knoxville. Endless meetings with the police. Continuous layers of grief, thickening, sickening.
The funeral. The burial of random body parts. Acid reflux burned the back of his throat.
“You okay, son?”
Brock moved his jaw in a circle. “The Browning 707, north of Knoxville.”
Robert let the chair fall level and rested his forearms on the desk. The man’s glare latched onto him, and after a good long stare, he turned to input more information into the computer. “All right. Let’s start here. I’ll need both sets of parents’ names, addresses, and phone numbers. I need a little time to organize these documents to verify them.”
Brock leaned forward and clasped his knees. “My parents are not a problem. They run a construction business in Indianapolis. Jenna’s father is dead. But her mother was institutionalized a week after the funeral.”
The marshal nodded and flung the file closed. “Gonna take some time to follow these leads. I’ll contact the Knoxville police and the folks in your hometown. Either way, Mr. Langston, this is one messy situation.”
Brock hung his head and nearly crushed his molars. “Can I at least speak with her?”
Chief Rankin’s head spasmed, and he shot a crooked smile. “Well, I got good news. Ellen’s frying up chicken tonight, and we’re invited. Five o’clock. Get your glad rags on. We got lots to talk about.”

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