Ted? Well, that’s a good question, hon. He left me. Right after what happened with the Petersons. Said it was “survivor guilt.” Said he needed to clear his head. I’ve only heard from him twice since. Both times by postcard, telling me he was okay. Telling me he’d call soon.
Last I heard from him … well, almost a year ago now.
Technically we’re still married. But no, I don’t expect I’ll ever see him again.
OLIVER SHEPARD
Like I said earlier, after what happened with Mr. Kolchek, the whole neighborhood could talk about nothing except Marmalade. Honestly, I don’t know what I really believe. I’m a college graduate now, and at the time… Look, all this happened the summer before I left for college. Too bad I couldn’t have left a little earlier, right? To see my father and the others do what they did ….
Anyway, suffice to say Marmalade was in high demand over the next couple months. That poor little cat was passed around like a donation plate on Sunday morning. After it “cured” Mr. Kolchek of his cancer, it moved on to the Parkers, then the Clarkes, then … let’s see … I guess the Fosters were next.
…
Oh God, it was so long ago. Let’s see… John Parker had the measles. He was cured. Mrs. Clarke, a nice lady who runs the flower shop on Main Street, she had shingles, I think. Something like that. I remember people complaining that she was “wasting” the cat on such a small thing. As if there’s only so many pulls at the miracle machine, right?
Sarah Foster, I remember well. She had been diagnosed with diabetes. Late I guess, only after it had affected her eyesight. She was essentially going blind. That was the one, I think, that got my father and the others talking.
…
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It cured her blindness. For all I know it cured her damn diabetes. I wouldn’t know because the Fosters moved away along with a bunch of others.
Look, I may as well get it over with and just tell you what happened that night. I’d rather just … my God, it was horrible. Just horrible.
Okay, first you need to understand that, in a way, the neighborhood folks were… well hell, there’s no good way to put it. They were taking sides.
On one side, you had those who thought Marmalade was a bona fide miracle worker. That she could cure anyone of whatever ailment they were stricken with.
What bothers me is, why did it happen that particular summer? Why had the cat done nothing but chase mice and sleep all day for the last however many years it had been around? The people who believed, they said it was like a window, you know? A period of time in which God had given us this cat to perform miracles, and that one day the window would close, and Marmalade would go back to just being a cat again.
The other side was something different. Mr. Singer—you know, the one who fixed her sewer line—and a few of the other men from town, my father included … they’d been meeting, see? Privately. Down at the bar, most times. I don’t know many details. I was only invited once and left after a while because it’s pretty boring listening to a bunch of grown men drink and talk about a cat. But they had their ideas, alright. At first, guys like Mr. Singer had bought into the miracle thing, just like everyone else.
Until, well … look, word has it that, one night, Mr. Singer took the cat, without anyone knowing, and put it on his wife. She’d been a sickly thing as long as I’ve known her. I want to say it was lupus, or something like it.
Well, I guess it didn’t work.
And from that point on, as far as Mr. Singer was concerned, the cat wasn’t a miracle from God anymore. It was a demon from Hell. A dark spirit sent to earth to steal souls. And that, he’d said, was what it was really doing. Curing, sure. Folks don’t dispute that. But it was also, some thought, stealing those folks’ eternal souls. Part of some bargain. Hey, I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m no mystic or mythological scholar, and I’m not religious.
But my father—a deacon at the church, mind you—he sure bought into the demon angle. He and my mother both. So did a few of the others. At the end, when they’d heard what was going on at the Petersons’, they all met up at our house. I was pretty young then, just nineteen, so there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. Like I told you before, I tried. Ultimately, I just went with them, thinking … I don’t know … maybe I could help in some way. Cool things down.
Man was I wrong.
…
I’m getting to that. I’m trying…
…
Okay, sure, if that’s how you want it. It’s your show. Or book, or whatever. What kind of book is this, anyway?
…
Sure, whatever you say. Hey, hand me my cigarettes, will you? This ain’t easy.
…
Thanks. Right, so where was I? The Peterson kid.
Jesus, what a mess.
So, Hank and Wilma Peterson had a daughter. Sweet little girl. She was in first grade, I think. What would that make her? Nine? Eight? Anyway, pigtails and little blue dresses, black hair, big brown eyes, and rosy cheeks. A real cherub, this girl. Her name was Emily. Emily Peterson.
No one’s sure exactly how it happened, or who was around when it did, but the story I heard was that one afternoon, Emily was eating a bowl of apple slices in her backyard. There’s a little swing back there …
oh god … give me a second.
…
It’s that same tree, you know? Where the swing was tied. The big, gnarled oak in the backyard.
Sorry, I’m alright now. Let’s just get through this.
Okay. So, Emily was eating some apple slices while sitting on that swing and, apparently, a big chunk got stuck in her throat. She choked to death. By the time they found her, lying on the ground, her face swollen and purple, eyes and tongue bulging, she’d already been dead a good ten or fifteen minutes. It was her father, Hank, who’d found her. Going for something in the shed and he’d seen her lying there … screamed and screamed ….
They were gonna call the paramedics. Sure, who wouldn’t? But then, as you know, they thought of another way.
The girl, after all, wasn’t coming back. That was obvious. And based on what I saw when I went into that room … she certainly looked good and dead.
