Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest

Author:Cherie Priest [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-04-01T07:00:00+00:00

15

Meet Me

Around eleven o’clock that night, Nick called. My phone was stuffed into my purse, which was acting double-duty as a pillow, so the vibrating ring startled me into stupidity. I fumbled the thing open and was amazed to note that I hadn’t awakened either Malachi or Harry, both of whom slept awkwardly beneath the piano and behind it.

“Hello?” I said, keeping my voice down but not to a whisper. Even after hours there was a dull roar in the room, the tired complaints of refugees who wanted to go home. Most of them probably still had homes to go to. As far as I knew, the flooding centered on the old business and tourist districts. The residential areas tend to be on higher ground, or on cheaper ground farther inland.

“Where are you?” Nick asked, as usual without a greeting.

“I’m still at the Choo-Choo.” I rubbed at my eyes and twisted my shoulders, trying to crack my back.

“I just got to the Read House. Can you get down here?”

“I guess,” I said, almost wishing I hadn’t. I ached all over from the swimming and the climbing and the running. I was bone tired, but now that I was awake I didn’t think I could get back to sleep if I tried.

“You’ll have to sneak in, but I really want you here. There’s something fucked up going on.”

“Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

“Yeah. But now I’ve got a better idea of what it is. Sort of. Kind of. It’s all got something to do with the First Congrega-tionalist Church of Chattanooga.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It burned down in 1919. City officials swore that the church was deliberately closed and burned because of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Communities closed a lot of public buildings then, theaters and churches and the like. They didn’t really understand how the flu was spread, so they tried all sorts of things to slow it down. But I’ve never heard of burning buildings to prevent the spread of disease. That sounds excessive, doesn’t it?”

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the side of the glossy black piano. “If you’re grasping at straws, I guess controlled arson doesn’t sound so wacky. But why do we care why the church burned down?”

“Well, contemporary newspapers called the fire ‘suspicious’ too; wrote about it like they didn’t believe the city’s official line. Also: it was Caroline’s church. And that’s when Caroline first went crazy—when her family started sending her to doctors and sanitoriums. Her first stint in the crazy house was in November of 1919. And we don’t believe in coincidence, right? So it had to be related. Somebody burned that place down to hide something, Caroline knew about it, and the rest of the city helped bury it.”

My head was hurting again, throbbing in time with his words. Again I heard that phrase in my head, clear as day and surprisingly loud: the burned up man. “What do you mean by that? Helped bury what?”

“I don’t know. But—Jesus. I don’t even know how to say it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.