Burning Bright - By Ron Rash Page 0,48

would be nothing more to them than a bit of nature that had managed to stray into the city and would soon return to its proper environment.

But Boyd did worry, off and on all morning and afternoon. He couldn’t remember Allison ever having a fever that lasted three days. He thought about calling the Colemans’ house to check on Jennifer, but Boyd knew how strange that would seem. Despite the carpool and their daughters’ friendship, the parents’ interactions were mostly hand waves and brief exchanges about pickup times. In their six years as neighbors, the two families had never shared a meal.

Though Boyd had work that he’d normally stay late to finish, at five sharp he logged off his computer and drove home. Halloween was five nights away, and as he turned into the subdivision he saw hollow-eyed pumpkins on porches and steps. A cardboard witch on a broomstick dangled from a tree limb, turning with the wind like a weather vane. At another house a skeleton shuddered above a carport, one bony finger extended as if beckoning. A neighborhood contest of sorts, and one that Jim Coleman particularly enjoyed. Each year Jim glued a white bedsheet over a small parade float. He tethered its nylon cord to a concrete block so that his makeshift ghost hovered over the Coleman house.

There had been no such displays when Boyd was a child, no dressing up to trick-or-treat. Perhaps because the farm was so isolated, but Boyd now suspected it had been more an understanding that certain things shouldn’t be mocked, that to do so might bring retribution. As Boyd passed another house, this one adorned with black cats, he wondered if that retribution had already come, was perched in the scarlet oak.

It was almost dark when he pulled into the driveway behind his wife’s Camry. Through the front window, Boyd saw Allison sprawled in front of the fire, Laura sitting on the couch. The first frost of the year had been predicted for tonight and from the chill in the air Boyd knew it would be so.

He stepped into the side yard and studied the Colemans’ house. Lights were on in two rooms upstairs as well as in the kitchen and dining room. Both vehicles were in the carport. Jim Coleman had turned on a spotlight he’d set on the roof, and it illuminated the ghost looming overhead.

Boyd walked into the backyard. The scarlet oak’s leaves caught the day’s last light. Lambent, that was the word for it, Boyd thought, like red wine raised to candlelight. He slowly raised his gaze but did not see the bird. He clapped his hands together, so hard his palms burned. Something dark lifted out of the tallest limb, hung above the tree a moment, then resettled.

In the living room, Allison and her schoolbooks lay sprawled in front of the hearth. When Boyd leaned to kiss her he felt the fire’s warmth on her face. Laura sat on the couch, writing month-end checks.

“How is Jennifer?” he asked when he came into the kitchen.

Laura set the checkbook aside.

“No better. Janice called and said she was going to keep her home again tomorrow.”

“Did she take her back to the doctor?”

“Yes. The doctor gave her some antibiotics and took a strep culture.”

Allison twisted her body and turned to Boyd.

“You need to cut us some more wood this weekend, Daddy. There are only a few big logs left.”

Boyd nodded and let his eyes settle on the fire. Laura had wanted to switch to gas logs. Just like turning a TV on and off, that easy, his wife had said, and a lot less messy. Boyd had argued the expense, especially since the wood he cut was free, but it was more than that. Cutting the wood, stacking, and finally burning it gave him pleasure, work that, unlike so much of what he did at his job, was tactile, somehow more real.

Boyd was staring at the hearth when he spoke.

“I think Jennifer needs to see somebody else, somebody besides a family doctor.”

“Why do you think that, Daddy?” Allison asked.

“Because I think she’s real sick.”

“But she can’t miss Halloween,” Allison said. “We’re both going to be ghosts.”

“How can you know that?” Laura asked. “You haven’t even seen her.”

“I just know.”

Laura was about to say something else, then hesitated.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Laura said.

He waited until after supper to knock on the Colemans’ door. Laura had told him not to go, but Boyd went anyway. Jim Coleman opened the door. Boyd