She’d been so young when her family lived in Merristown, but when the view of fields opened to her left, replacing the rows of boarded-up shops, and houses in various stages of disrepair, she knew exactly where she was. The fields were where she’d last seen her brother, Simon, thirteen years earlier. Now she was on her way to the house of the man accused of shooting him. And concealing his body.
Abby and Simon Madden were city kids, so when their parents bought a house in the new subdivision on the edge of Merristown, they were in awe of the surroundings. It was once a true country town, their father had said, where he had visited long-gone cousins when he was a boy. A farmer’s acres spread to the north. They could follow the brilliant new sidewalk right up to the split-rail fence that cordoned off a field of corn. To the west, the Blue Hills rose. They looked especially blue on cloudy days without sunlight glaring off the rock formations that jutted out sharply between the spruce trees.
Abby and Simon were forbidden to visit these attractions. No one lived in the hills, they were told; too rugged, too steep, too wild. The cornfield belonged to Farmer Hatt and the children must not trespass. On the second Saturday in their new home, the family made the trip up the road and around the bend to where Mrs Hatt sold produce at her roadside stand. It being spring, she had only tart rhubarb, plus jars of preserves. She said come summertime, they’d be overflowing with fresh offerings.
Abby now turned left onto that same road that fronted the Hatt farm. Why, of all the soil-testing companies around, had they contacted 3rd Rock Industries? She stopped the truck before a closed gate. There was a lock on the gate, but a footpath led to the front yard. Weeded over vegetable patches were to the left of the house, beyond them, the ghostly remains of a small orchard and a scattering of skeletal berry bushes. Outbuildings rose on the right, and behind the house lay the fields.
Abby stepped onto the long porch, but before she could rap on the door with its peeling red paintwork, it opened inward. From the shadows of the house Abby had previously entered only once, a woman said, ‘Come on in, Abby.’
Mrs Hatt appeared smaller and older, her hair pure white and thin. She set a teapot, cups, and saucers on the kitchen table. Hard-looking cookies were displayed on a floral-patterned plate.
‘I’m here to get a soil sample. It seems your husband called?’
Mrs Hatt sat down, nodding her head.
‘I have to dig, and I’ll need the gate opened to bring my equipment in.’
‘We can have a cup while we wait. The old man will return shortly.’
To say it felt awkward sitting with this woman, a stranger now, and the ‘enemy’ back then, after what happened to Simon, was an understatement. The plate of cookies, along with Mrs Hatt’s age, reminded Abby of another neighbour, old Mrs MacDonald.
Dina MacDonald had owned the house behind the Maddens. The yards were fenceless, and after seeing her little dog outside, the Madden children quickly made her acquaintance. Abby and Simon would wander into her kitchen to snack on oven-fresh cookies or cinnamon rolls. Abby could spend hours with Bippy, a terrier mix. She’d begged her folks for a furry companion but was always told they were not a dog family, and her father was allergic to cats.
Displayed throughout her home were framed black and white photos, some with a sepia tint, of another canine. When Abby asked about the big scruffy pet, Dina told her about the Old Grey Dog, a friendly dweller of the in-between who warned all the MacDonald clan when their time on this earth was drawing to a close. She explained the photos were kept in honour of her family, who had passed on.
‘Will everyone see a ghost dog or something?’ Abby had asked.
‘It’s only for MacDonalds, weren’t you listening?’ Simon had said.
But the ‘or something’ part of her question lingered in Abby’s imagination. She couldn’t shake the new knowledge that there were things from the in-between that could visit people, and the neighbour’s next words fuelled her thoughts. ‘The dwellers of the in-between are sometimes attached to a family, and sometimes they are attached to a land. Sometimes both.’
Once Abby learned of the in-betweeners, she wondered if the Maddens had their own death creatures. Did they have something to guide them when they died?
Abby sipped the tea. Small talk eluded her, and her eyes roamed until she spotted something through a window at the back of the house. She stood, walked down a short corridor, and opened the back door. ‘What is that?’ she said to Mrs Hatt, who’d shadowed her.
‘Oh, never mind that, come in and wait—’
Abby stepped outside. The fields were muddy. She could see why they wanted the soil tested. Only weeds grew. But sticking up from the land were… things.
The earth squelched beneath her work boots as she aimed for one of the strange-looking sticks. It looked like a broom handle, topped with a stuffed paper bag. A face was crudely drawn on the wrinkled brown surface. There were at least a dozen of the figures planted in the mud. Chills ran up Abby’s back… the muddy field, those creepy things….
‘Mrs Hatt, did you know I work for 3rd Rock Industries? I mean, how? And did your husband ask for me when he called the company? What’s going on here exactly?’
Abby stormed back into the house, heading for the front door when it flew open, and Farmer Hatt entered the home. Two tall, husky men were behind him.
Toward the end of that summer, when the Maddens had been living in Merristown for five months, the parents announced they’d be leaving the children on their own overnight. Simon would be starting high school in September, making him ‘old enough’ and after all, it was only for one night while they attended a wedding in the city, and thought it best to stay in a hotel afterward.
It didn’t take the Madden children long to decide their newfound independence meant they could wander outside—anywhere they chose.
‘We can sneak into the cornfield,’ Simon said. ‘Maybe even up beside the farmhouse. There are a few crab apple trees and some berries. Let’s bring a bag and we can load up.’
‘You mean steal?’
‘They have too much. Half will go to rot. Think of it as we’re helping them out. We better wait until dark to make sure no one spots us.’
It was an adventure after a dull summer of almost daily rain, broken up only by the days that were far too humid to stay outside for long. Weeks of indoor boredom had come to an end.
Abby followed Simon along the sidewalk to the cornfield. They each wore rubber boots and had a plastic bag stuffed in a pocket. They traversed the sludge between the rows, under the bright, rising moon. It was a full moon, and they barely needed the flashlights they carried. After a few laborious minutes, Simon stepped sideways, instructing Abby to follow. The stalks slithered over her arms and back, feeling like giant fingers, as she walked through, but she soon stepped into the field next to where the corn grew. It was rocky and seemed less muddy. ‘This might be easier,’ Simon said.
At first it was, then the rocks became large and jagged. Abby’s legs grew tired. She didn’t want to complain. She didn’t want to spoil anything, or Simon would never take her with him again. She was about to moan out loud anyway when Simon stopped. He just stood there.
‘What are you doing?’
Simon moved his body oddly. ‘I’m trying to get my feet out of the mud. Stuck.’
‘Good afternoon, Abby.’ Farmer Hatt looked older, too, as could be expected. He and his goons were blocking her way. The two men standing behind the farmer looked practically identical, but one was fair and balding, the other had long, pitch-black hair.
‘I was just leaving,’ she said.
‘No, no, I can’t let you…do that.’
They pulled her back into the kitchen and forced her to sit at the table.
‘You don’t know Barry and Kenneth. They live in the old house their father built, in the woods north of here. They help me out on the… they used to help me until the land went bad again.’
‘Look, I don’t know how you tracked me down or what you want. As far as I’m concerned, you should be behind bars. If you don’t let me leave this house, you will be!’
Mrs Hatt returned to the table with her teapot. ‘More tea, dear?’
‘I don’t want your tea! And don’t “dear” me, what do you people even want? Obviously, the land is bad, but what’s with those faces on sticks? Why are you trying to hold me here?’
They let her rant, refusing to answer, letting her protests die down until she simply stared at them.
‘Now, then,’ Farmer Hatt said. ‘We’ll just sit quietly. Mary will serve our meal, and we will eat. Then, when it begins to grow dark, we’ll commence.’
Abby didn’t plan to eat but took a few bites of the stew and bread, figuring she’d be useless if she didn’t replenish her strength.
Mrs Hatt…Mary…did offer one titbit. ‘The faces on sticks, as you call them, are meant to ward off the beasts. Like the one who took—’
‘Enough! She will see as she sees.’ Farmer Hatt drew out the words, making them sound like a sermon; She WILL SEE, as SHEEEE sees.
Mary nodded and rose to clear the dishes from the table. Abby wracked her brain for an escape plan but came up empty. Even the knives were snatched away before she could grab one. They were only butter knives, but she was desperate.
They brought her to one of the taller effigies in the field. This one was thicker than the others, made with a fence pole. They wrapped cords haphazardly around her, tying her to the pole. One arm was positioned at an odd angle, and as she wiggled it to ease the pain, she felt the ropes give. They gagged her with cotton batten, shutting off her protests and any chance to scream. She recalled how a witness had helped clear the farmer of her brother’s disappearance. It was the yelling that made the woman look out her bedroom window, toward the fields that night. It was bright, with the full moon… just like tonight.
The brothers pulled up the other broomstick figures, tossing them to the ground before joining the farmer and his wife. They stood in a semi-circle before Abby. The farmer’s voice once again transformed into that of a preacher.
They had reached a spot where the rocks petered out, but the earth was so muddy and soft that Simon began to sink. ‘Don’t… just stay back, Abby! Let me get out of this.’
Abby was not about to step forward. Quicksand, she thought. Then she spotted something dashing along the open fields to the west. It was a silhouette, the shape of a dog, or….
‘Simon,’ she said, ‘wolf!’
Simon looked to where his sister pointed at the scurrying form with a down-turned tail.
‘Just a coyote. They’re common around here, Dad said. That’s why the farms that wouldn’t sell to the developers can’t keep chickens. Anyway, I’m going to try to get out of my boots. We’ll have to go back.’
‘You’re going to walk in your sock feet?’
‘Well, I’m not going to stay here all night!’
Simon sank some more.
The shadows to the west grew closer. More than one coyote approached, and they were huge. The one in the lead appeared so much larger than the others. Its eyes flashed red in the moonlight. Its tail was down, and its ears stood up. It broke into a sprint—headed straight toward them.
Abby let out a gasp, then a scream and turned to run. She’d go get help from Mrs MacDonald. Then the shots rang out.
She turned in time to see Simon flinch. His body jerked each time the gun was fired. An enormous shadow loomed over him. The coyote, but it wasn’t a coyote. It stood on two legs. It looked at Abby and its face was serene. No snarling teeth, no angry eyes. More shots rang out, and the creature snatched Simon up in its arms. It ran through the field, westward. Toward the Blue Hills.
Abby panicked. She was crying and screaming and trying to run after her brother, then turning to run home, then back to the corn. It was through the corn that Farmer Hatt reached her. He pulled her by the arm back to his house, all the time saying, ‘I tried to kill it. I didn’t mean to hit the boy!’ Abby gazed through the corn to the departing canine figure and suddenly it vanished. It did not reach the end of the field but simply was gone right before her eyes.
Inside the Hatts’ farmhouse, Abby’s whole body shook as she tried to remember her telephone number. Finally, she remembered that her parents were not even home and wouldn’t be until the following afternoon.
‘That’ll give me time to think,’ the farmer said. His wife led Abby to a spare bedroom, giving her an old nightgown to wear. The garment flowed out on the floor, much too long. She didn’t sleep. She stared at the shadows playing on the ceiling, and at one point, stood to gaze out the window. She thought she saw the coyotes again. Staring at the house.
Abby stepped to the side of the window. She stood there in the dark for a long time, thinking about how the creature had simply vanished into thin air with her bleeding brother in its arms, of the Blue Hills, of the in-between. She woke in the morning beneath the bed quilt that smelled sour and old, with a clear thought in her head: the coyote-beast is our family guide to the afterlife.
‘Of this soil, I am the keeper! Of the bounty, I am the reaper!’ Farmer Hatt shouted into the night. His followers repeated each last word, Keeper! Reaper! ‘Of this curse, I am the sweeper!’ Sweeper! ‘This curse will be swept from my land, and this foul bloodline will see termination!’ Termination!
As the four of them chanted and bellowed beneath the moon, Abby tried to speak through the mouth full of cotton, ‘Whrrrr oomee.’ What are you doing to me? She continued to struggle against her restraints, her left arm twisting and squirming loose within the bindings.
The farmer fell silent. From a pocket, he brought a knife, then three more, handing one to each of the others. They held the blades up in the moonlight—these were no butter knives.
Famer Hatt had a glint in his eye. He cocked his head, and an amused grin spread across his mouth. ‘I suppose you deserve an explanation before we end this.’
Abby’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the deadly weapons. She nodded, shook her head, then her body shook, just like that night long ago.
‘Just bring her home,’ Mrs Hatt said the morning after Simon was taken.
‘I will, Mary, I will! Just… I have to make sure she’ll tell the truth! I didn’t mean to shoot her brother.’
Abby said, ‘I know. You were trying to save him. The animal was going to attack, and you shot at it. My brother got hit by accident. Then the beast thing took him away. And…ate him and that’s why he’s gone.’
Close enough, thought the Hatts. They drove Abby home.
She told the story to her parents, then again to the police who arrested Farmer Hatt, anyway. It was months until he was free. Simon’s muddy boots were discovered in the field, but they couldn’t find a body, or any trace, other than a bit of Simon’s blood in the soil. But that could have been from wounds caused by the animal, Hatt’s lawyer argued. They were convinced the farmer had buried the boy somewhere, until, many weeks later, Mrs Bright, whose house overlooked the far end of the rocky field, returned from an overseas holiday and learned of the horrid occurrence. She’d thought the animal was running off with a goat or something that night she peeped out of her bedroom window. She didn’t hear the gunshots, but the girl’s shouts did wake her. She thought it was an animal carrying another animal, but she surely saw it take off toward the hills. Then she went back to bed.
This testimony, along with Abby’s insistence that a beast carried her brother off, meant there was no choice but to release the farmer. While he was away, the unattended farmland had begun to die. The story of the boy snatched by animals put a stop to further development of the subdivision. No one builds where new people are afraid to live. Young families began to move away, and eventually so did the Maddens.
The farmer, his wife, and the goon brothers stared toward the hills. Waiting.
‘We have to let them see, dear,’ Mrs Hatt said, as if reading the questions on Abby’s mind. ‘They have to see us end the bad blood.’
‘It is that bad blood from your brother that ruined our land. The crops came back, but now… everything died again,’ the farmer added. ‘Only spilling your blood will correct the balance. The scripture tells all.’
To what kind of dark scripture he referred, Abby had no clue. It made no sense to her. Even if the creatures return, even if they witness her… murder… why would that stop them?
‘Can’t we just do it?’ the balding brother asked, ‘It’s getting cold out here. Gotta get back ho—never mind, there they are.’
The coyotes appeared, creeping toward the farmhouse.
Won’t they attack, afterward? Do these people really think the coyotes will slink away?
When the animals were closer, the farmer pointed the tip of his knife to Abby’s chest, ‘Look here! Witness the eradication of your kind!’ he called.
Long-haired brother stood to her left; his knife-holding hand lax at his side. The ropes were loose enough on that side. She eyed the knife.
‘Come and seeeee!’ the farmer bellowed as the flashing eyes of the coyotes approached. Then the pack parted and the large one, the guide, emerged from behind. It ran toward them.
Abby wiggled her fingers between the ropes, pushing her arm out. All eyes were on the approaching beast.
The ropes burned her skin as Abby forced her arm through and, in a quick motion, grabbed the knife from the brother. She jabbed his thigh with the blade, then manoeuvred the knife to cut through the ropes. She continued to slice the bindings left-handed and was able to wiggle free. All the while, the farmer stared open-mouthed at the long-haired brother, who had fallen to the ground crying like a baby, holding his wounded leg.
The grand coyote was before them. Abby took advantage of the confusion and jabbed the knife into the fallen brother, then slashed out wildly, cutting them all, as they stood stunned, forgetting the weapons in their own hands. A final swipe slashed the farmer-preacher across his wrinkled throat. His blood spurted out, seeping into the mud.
‘There’s your bad blood!’ she said. The beast grabbed Abby in its arms and ran off. Growls and snarls of the other coyotes erupted behind her. Where are you taking me? she thought as she jostled in the dark hirsute arms, her head bobbing against the musky-smelling creature. I’m not dying….
The rugged jaunt soon became smooth and soundless. Only Abby’s own voice echoed in her mind. I killed him…I killed a person… at least one…The night became illuminated with a bluish glow. They stopped in a clearing amongst soaring spruce trees. Many coyotes were there, circling her, curious eyes upon her. An elderly woman entered the clearing, holding an oil lantern and walking with the aid of a crooked stick. ‘Welcome, Abby,’ she said.
Dawn’s light woke Abby, and she saw people stirring around her. They quickly dressed in the simple grey clothing that was placed next to each of them. He was thirteen years older, but she immediately knew Simon. Her brother shook her hand. ‘Long time, Sis,’ he said. They walked through the trees to a huge log home. It looked like a resort lodge.
Inside, Abby was told all about the life. ‘We need you here, Abby,’ Simon said. ‘When the moons turn full, we need someone to take care of us. Bring clothing for when we wake. Dress our wounds if we are injured. We need meals prepared while we mend. It is painful…changing.’
Abby didn’t understand where exactly she was, and she certainly didn’t plan on becoming a glorified cook and nursemaid to a pack of supernatural pups. ‘You expect me to assist that woman? Are we in the Blue Hills?’
‘Lavina is the only one here who doesn’t transform. She is old and will be unable to continue her role much longer. You will be in charge. Are we in the Blue Hills? Yes… and no.’
Simon along with a few others explained that their home in the hills was not reachable in normal space, but the coyotes could find doorways. If anyone from ‘down there’ managed to scale the rugged escarpment, they’d see only the trees and rock formations. No coyotes, no lodge, for these things were just out of reach of the natural world.
‘And you are now, too, Abby.’
‘How? Why me? Why you, Simon? I thought you… died.’
Lavina spoke, ‘I was once like you. My daughter was taken by the coyotes. I mourned her loss greatly. I was a young widow, and she was all I had.’ A middle-aged woman approached and sat beside Lavina, patting her hand.
‘After suffering for a couple of years with loss and guilt, one night I too was brought here. Reunited with my darling Armina,’ she smiled at the woman beside her.
‘You all live up here? How do you get food? What do you do with your lives?’
‘Sis, I have to explain something to you—’
‘One thing? More like a lot of things, Simon.’
‘Yes, well. One thing is, we don’t change into coyotes under a full moon, but we awake as humans the day after a full moon. What I mean is, the coyote is our natural state, my natural form now. During full moons we grow larger, hungrier, then we become human for a few days afterward.’
Abby asked Simon if he remembered their old neighbour, Mrs MacDonald. Her brother had a faraway look in his eyes, then nodded.
‘I thought that great coyote last night—’
A burly fellow raised his hand in a little wave, and Abby nodded at him. ‘I thought he was escorting me to the afterlife, like the MacDonalds’ Grey Dog.’
‘Not the afterlife, between the ever-after and our old world is this place.’
‘The in-between,’ Abby said. ‘Why did they take you?’
‘To save me, first from sinking in the mud, then from bleeding out. This is my home now, yet we often cross back to your plane. Especially during full moons.’
‘And me? What if I don’t want to stay?’
Abby stood behind Farmer Hatt’s house. Simon, along with the burly coyote-turned-man, whose name was Anthony, had guided her through the portal. They gathered what remained of the bodies; her wild slashing, followed by the attention of the coyotes, had managed to do all of them in. Some parts looked… chewed. One broomstick was replanted in the ground, and upon it was the putrid head of Farmer Hatt. His vacant eyes gazed at the night sky, the brilliant stars, and the waning moon. The men brought the remains to the hills. Abby drove the company truck back to the city. On Monday, she told her boss she showed up for the assignment, but no one was home.
She continued studying for her engineering degree while she considered it all. She kept an eye on the news. There was no mention of the brothers. Abby figured it may take years before anyone noticed their absence. The Hatts were soon reported as a missing couple. Eventually, the property was auctioned off. Abby fought the urge to tell her parents about Simon and some elders who turned out to be her father’s long-lost cousins. They would never believe or accept it. She convinced them it would be therapeutic for her to occupy the Hatt’s farm. The old house and barren land on the edge of a dying town would be cheaper than even a studio apartment in the city. They reluctantly helped her buy the place.
Once she had access to the home, she found foreclosure notices tucked away in a desk. The auction was the final step of a zombie foreclosure, the bank assuming the Hatts had simply fled. Also in the desk, Abby found the scripture to which Farmer Hatt had referred. It was handwritten on the pages of a leather-bound journal. Unable to cope with the fact that he had failed his crops, and had shot a young boy, perhaps it was he who invented this strange lore, his own religion. The looming loss of his property seemingly pushed him to seek out Abby as a sacrifice to save all. The delusional writings were merged with reality, though, with references to the coyote people of the Blue Hills.
For her final school project, Abby documented her efforts to reclaim the land, omitting the fact that she occasionally sliced the pad of her hand open and dripped blood into the soil. The more she read Farmer Hatt’s book, the more the rituals made sense to her, but they needed altering. Hers was good blood, and it nourished the land. She had great success reviving the cornfield. Upon graduation, she moved to the farm full-time and sold produce for a living, along with a ‘fun, new kind of scarecrow’. The items were modelled after the Hatts’ broomstick figures, but Abby used waterproof cloth for the stuffed heads, with a variety of cute and funny faces painted upon them. Whenever she had a selection available, the unique lawn and garden ornaments were scooped up.
Occasionally, she felt the fields needed more blood than she could spare, and luck would have it, she always found a source for a fresh supply. She hunted for prospects in the city or sometimes happened upon a tourist passing through the town. She chose wisely. Only the good blood would do. Of this soil, I am the keeper. Farmer Hatt’s knives were the sharpest and the quickest. There were leftovers to deal with, of course, but her furry family always savoured them.
Every night of a full moon, Abby stood behind her house and awaited the coyotes. Simon had said they needed her help but didn’t want to turn her, as they had turned him. The night he was taken, his blood was purposely mixed with that of the coyote people, else he would have died; bled to death. She would choose one day, but for now, she was content with the great coyote-beast, burly Anthony, carrying her up the hill through this realm to that other, to her second home. She was happy tending to her pack.
