“You seem agitated, like you wanna say somethin’,” said Edgar.
“No, no,” breathed out Cadence. “No, this story is just…it’s getting very interesting…very intense.”
“‘Intense’ is one way to put it,” said Edgar.
“So did he come back?” asked Ms. Grieves in a quiet voice.
“Oh, if you got a source, then you already know he did,” frowned Edgar.
“I do, but I want to hear it from you,” said Cadence.
“Well, first let me start out by telling you ’bout Mary Anne,” said Edgar. “You see, once I run out ol’ Piper, I got to thinkin’ to myself, strange as it may be, that Mary Anne was on to somethin’ ’bout him, but I was stubborn, a stubborn jackass, and she had basically embarrassed me in front a Burke and his officers, so I dealt with my daughter a little…uhh…‘heavy handed.’
“Now I never laid a hand on my Mary Anne, never ever, but she was a fussin’ and a fightin’ with me for three days straight, so I tell her that I put out a call to Mr. Winnipeg, and we run a special in the paper ’bout keepin’ an eye on the children come Saturday, ’cause that’s when Piper said he was gonna be back.
“I honestly thought that a keep her in her straights, but I was wrong. Come Saturday, she so out a sorts, I had to lock her in her bedroom fo’ her own sake. You see, I had a lock on the outside of Mary Anne’s door to keep her from wanderin’ at night when she was little. She used to be a sleepwalker, and I didn’t want her takin’ a…a tumble down the stairs…
“Now she right ’bout bein’ an adult, and she was an adult, but I wasn’t treatin’ her like one. No, now I was using that lock to keep her in till the clock struck midnight. Way I fig’red, she calm down once she understood that Piper tweren’t coming back to Hamelin.”
Cadence trembled a little, took in a long slow breath, and then released it. Of course, Edgar noticed this little eccentricity and commented upon it.
“You okay there?” he asked.
“I’m…fine,” she said with a weak smile. “Please, continue…Umm…Tell me…did you actually put a warning in the paper, or did you just make that up for her sake?”
“No, I actually had Winnipeg put that warnin’ in the paper,” said Edgar. “I told him that a dangerous child snatcher was on the loose, and we need to inform people ’bout him.”
“Did it work?” asked Cadence dryly.
“You already know it did,” smirked Edgar. “I can tell…However, I’m sure you know what happened next.”
“I do…” she nodded. “But I still want to hear it from you. I only have one perspective of this story, so I want to hear what does and doesn’t match up.”
“Well, in the fairy tale, the Pied Piper takes the children,” frowned Edgar. “Now I fig’re children is easy to lead off, ’cause they don’t know no better. A song and a dance, the promise a candy…you can lead them off wherever. Only this time, in this story, the Pied Piper is mad, so he didn’t come fo’ the children, but we didn’t know that, so we wasn’t prepared…but I’ll tell you what…It a lot harder to take a fully-grown adult than it is to take a child.
“Now the Rats, they was adults. They was grown men. However, I think they also easy to manipulate, ’cause all Piper did was prey on their violence and their bad nature. Being rough customers like that is like standin’ at the edge of a cliff. All Piper had to do was give them a little nudge, and they fall right on off.
“But a Godfearing adult, one who don’t condone such things…they a lot harder to manipulate, but I’ll get to that. First, though, let me tell you ’bout that Saturday. It was June 13th, 1953, one day before Flag Day…
“Now, the Piper in the original story, he take the children on June 26th. Our Piper, he hit us on the 13th instead. Now, I think that number significant to him, ’cause everybody know thirteen a bad number, a…a bad luck number, and twenty-six, that just thirteen times two, so I’m thinkin’ twenty-six represent cuttin’ the new growth, while thirteen is cuttin’ the source of that growth. Piper hit the source the second time around, ’cause he just plum mad ’bout being cheated twice over the same matter.
“Now, as I was sayin’, it was June 13th, 1953, and the boys who just grad’iated from high school, they was on a…a celebratory type a ‘field trip’ out at a state park. This a long-standing tradition in Hamelin…The girls, on the other hand…The girls who just grad’iated? They was in town at the local community center for their celebration.”
“Oh…” blinked Cadence. “That explains a lot.”
“It does,” winced Edgar. “But I digress…So, as I was saying before, it take a lot more to manipulate a fully-grown, God-fearing adult. It ain’t like manipulatin’ children or those biker scum, so Piper really did come back with help.”
“How so?” asked Ms. Grieves.
“He come back with a whole band,” frowned Edgar. “They come in a white flatbed. A…A white truck pull up outside the community center, and off the back a that truck come Piper, but he not the only one.
“Off step a redheaded woman in her late thirties who was carrying a fiddle. After that, a big colored fella step off carryin’ a banjo, and then another middle-aged white man step off, and he carrying a strap drum, the kind with the big white bangers on the ends of the sticks. There was also a bald man with shades driving that there truck, but he never come out a it. Naw, he just drove.
“Now, all four of the others, even the driver, was wearing white suits and white fedoras, identical to Piper’s look, all ’cept for the redhead, ’cause she was wearing a white skirt instead a pants, but everything else was identical…white suit jacket, black tie, white fedora with a black band, black shoes and knee-high white socks on her…
“Stop…” frowned Cadence. “Hang on a second…I don’t see how…how even a band of these…these people could work to manipulate a fully-grown adult who is ‘God fearing.’ Now I may not be much on God, but I do believe I’m a pretty reasonable and rational person—I know I am—and I can tell you right now that…there’s no way I’d just run off to follow the Pied Piper of Hamelin.”
“Well, normally I agree witchya ,” nodded Edgar, “’cause when you got a God-fearin’ Christian like that, it almost impossible to persuade ’em. It almost impossible to persuade even you scientist, evolutionary-thinkin’ types…You got ta offer them somethin’ ain’t nobody gonna turn down, something so awesome, so incredible, that you’d kill fo’ it. You won’t let nobody stand in yo’ way ta get it.”
“And what could that possibly be, Mr. Tannenbaum?” asked Cadence. “What could Piper possibly have had to offer?”
“He offered them the greatest prize of all,” frowned Edgar. “He offered them Heaven…Now, I ain’t talkin’ no metaphorical nonsense; I mean it in the literal sense of straight up Heaven. Ain’t nobody turnin’ that down. So…when you offerin’ somethin’ like that, you got to bring in help.”
“Oh…I…” said Cadence, a glimmer in her dark eyes. “Now you have me intrigued.”
“Well, this next part come in two parts,” winced Edgar. “These two parts go hand in hand, ’cause first you got the violence, and then you got the runnin’…”
*****
Shelly gazed out the windows of the community center as her three best friends made light conversation.
They were all standing by the concessions table, a folding table that had been set up in the community center gym. This was just one table of three laden with food and drink, ready to serve all thirty-five high-school graduates and their two chaperones, Principal Ward and Ms. Terrance, the math teacher.
Shelly scooped out a ladle of red punch from the large glass punchbowl in front of her and filled her disposable, red, plastic cup to the top. She took a sip from her punch and then shook her head once.
“This here is borin’,” she frowned. “Not so much as a car passin’ by…Where is the band?…There got to be somethin’ to do other than just standin’ ’round and sweatin’ in my dress ’cause a the heat. I swear we wastin’ our Saturday.”
“I guess we just supposed to talk to the other girls before we all scatter to the four winds,” frowned Melanie.
“I bet the boys is all havin’ fun right now,” sighed Bernice. “I sho’ miss hangin’ ’round Lonnie and bein’ up in his b’ness. Can’t wait to watch him race again.”
“Yeah,” frowned Shelly. “The boys always have all the fun…Huh…I wonder what Jason is up to?”
“Bet you’d like ta know,” grinned Trisha.
“Of course, I’d like ta know,” said Shelly in exasperation. “I just said tha…Wait…Why you grinnin’ like that?”
Trisha held up a little baked wiener on a stick and waved it around like a tiny flag under Shelly’s nose. Trisha giggled a second later as the other girls joined in, and then Shelly gave her friend a light shove as she giggled in turn.
“You got a dirty mind, Trisha Deforest!” chuckled Shelly.
“You the one that said you wanted to pop out a couple kids fo’ him,” grinned Trisha.
“Yeah, but you don’t have ta bring it up in the middle of our graduation celebration,” said Shelly with a mock frown. “What if the other girls hear?”
“So, let ’em,” shrugged Trisha. “They don’t care.”
“They competition, stupid,” said Shelly. “I don’t want them snatchin’ up my man.”
“Yeah, Trish,” grinned Melanie. “Betchyou didn’t think a that with yo’ teacher-college brain, huh?”
“Oh, you be quiet, Melanie Hasselbeck,” grinned Trisha in return as she gave Melanie a light shove.
“You girls sound like you havin’ a good time,” came Principal Ward’s sonorous voice.
They turned to step aside as the chubby bald man in a brown tweed suit walked up and gave them a once-over.
“Hi, Mr. Ward,” said Shelly politely. “Speakin’ a havin’ fun, we was wonderin’ when the band was gonna arrive.”
“Oh, they be here in a few minutes,” smiled Principal Ward. “Got some a the local church boys to come down and play. Got Byron Maxwell and Artie Holden to come down with a couple a their friends. They just graduated from college, and they back in town to see their folks.”
Shelly knew them, of course. She and the other girls all went to the same church, and those church boys were cute, so it was a smoking guarantee that every girl here was going to be fawning over them once those boys arrived…Nothing like an older man to grab a girl’s attention.
“Them older boys, huh?” whispered Trisha with a grin.
She waved her little baked wiener on a stick next to Shelly’s left thigh, right near the skirt of Shelly’s light-green dress, so Shelly gave her a light shove just as Principal Ward turned his attention upon the both of them.
“Yep, they good, upstandin’, hardworkin’ boys,” nodded the older man.
“Not after Trisha done with ’em,” whispered Bernice.
Bernice had indeed whispered that little dig, but Shelly had heard her anyway.
Shelly smiled as politely as she could as she tried not to laugh, but it was difficult. It didn’t matter, however, as the principal’s attention had turned toward the double doors of the community gymnasium, the doors that led out to the street.
“Speak a the Devil,” said the older man. “Looks like they he…Now what is this? This ain’t the right band!”
The double doors to the community gym had swung wide open and had stayed stuck open, letting in the summer heat.
Shelly turned to look at the band who had suddenly arrived.
Three people in white suits and white fedoras, the woman out of the three in a white skirt rather than pants, had walked in and were standing near the exit and entrance to the street. One of them was a middle-aged man with broad shoulders carrying a strap drum, another was a large black man with a banjo, and the last was a red-haired woman in her thirties holding a fiddle.
“A woman with a fiddle?” asked Principal Ward in audible surprise. “Why, she wearin’ a tie, too! That ain’t ladylike!…And a colored fella? Ain’t no negros in a respectable band!”
The agitated older man walked forward around the concessions table and waved them back.
“You got the wrong place here now!” he warned the three as he walked toward them. “This here a graduation celebration fo’…our…”
His stopped stock still as his voice trailed off in even more surprise. The three strange band members in white suits and white hats parted down the middle, and then the leader of their little band walked in, walking in right between the trio.
This new man was dressed in the same white suit as the other three, a middle-aged man holding a black cane with a silver-ball top, bearing that cane in his right hand, a white fedora in his left, but it was his right eye that caught everyone’s attention. That eye was a solid white with no pupil, as white as freshly-fallen snow.
This new stranger flipped his hat onto his head and then smirked, a smart-aleck look on his handsome face that was impossible to ignore, like he knew something that everyone else did not.
“What in the name a—” began Principal Ward.
He was cut short as the man with the single white eye pointed the tip of his cane toward the room full of graduating girls, and then the redheaded woman began to play on her fiddle, that instrument held fast between her chin and left shoulder, a quick tune that picked up in presence and power as the man with the drum began to pound that drum in a steady, rhythmic beat.
Shelly sucked in her breath as she dropped her cup full of punch to the floor. Her eyes widened as the joy hit her, filling her up to the top, the promise of something wonderful, something amazing, something she had never felt before. She shook in place as her three friends trembled beside her, and she knew right then that they could feel it, too.
“You stop that noise right now!” yelled Principal Ward. “Stop it, I say!”
The man with the white eye turned and pointed the tip of his silver-topped cane out toward the street, and Shelly immediately knew what that meant. It meant “follow,” and follow she would, and she knew everyone else would, too. There was the promise of something so fantastic, so amazing, and so wonderful out there that she simply could not turn away such a prize.
First, though, there was someone in their way, someone who threatened to prevent them from reaching their prize, and Shelly knew that man had to be stopped, and right away.
She and the other three girls worked in unison to pitch over the concessions table, spilling all of its contents to the gymnasium floor to clatter and splatter everywhere.
Shelly then picked up the empty glass punch bowl and rushed forward with it as every other young woman in the place stampeded toward the double doors, even Ms. Terrance, who was thirty-five, unmarried, and rumored to be a man-hater.
Shelly swung the large crystal bowl, and it crashed down upon the back of Principal Ward’s balding head, cracking the bowl and coating the bottom of it with blood as the irate man pitched forward to the gymnasium floor.
She and Melanie and Trisha and Bernice then took to stomping the man with their saddle shoes while he was down, and they did this for a few seconds, but then those seconds ended as the strange band playing the even stranger music walked out the gymnasium double doors and into the street and the summer heat.
Shelly dropped her makeshift weapon and then jogged forward with the others as every girl attempted to leave the community gym at once. There was the most amazing prize waiting for all of them, every single one of them, and none of them were going to let it slip through their fingers, and not one of them, not a single one of them, was going to let anything stand in their way.
She shivered and shook as this insane joy overtook her, and she felt wired, filled with more energy than she had ever felt in her entire life, trembling with a jubilation that could not be fully explained; it could only be felt.
*****
“Now that there was the beginnin’ a the violence,” nodded Edgar. “Piper and his band, they walk back out into the street, and they climb onto the back a that white flatbed driven by the bald man, and then they all start slowly driving down the street, headin’ the whole time out toward the edge a town, playing the whole damn way.”
“So, all of the young graduates followed them out into the street after they attacked the principal?” asked Cadence. “Even the older woman…uhh…Ms. Terrance?”
“Yeah,” frowned Edgar. “Aggie Terrance was considered one a them there ‘man-haters.’ She always mean to the boys. I think she was…was what you call a…a ‘lesbian’…Got plenty a complaints ’bout her. Nevertheless, she hear that music and she come a runnin’ just like the other girls, huge grin on her face, runnin’ like there no tomorrow.”
“Go on,” said Cadence. “What happened next?”
“Well, the library ’cross the way,” said Edgar with a dark smile. “That’s where Tammy Harlowe workin’, and Pearlean Washington just happened to be in there at that moment…”
*****
Tammy sorted through the books on the library counter and picked up one that she thought could be an interesting read later.
“Hmm,” she said to herself as she briefly opened it.
She had let Pearlean in, but the only trouble with that was, of course, her boss, Mr. Merrick. The man had a habit of coming in through the emergency back door instead of the front door, so he would sometimes catch Pearlean amongst the shelves, and then he’d make a point to run her out…Hopefully, he wouldn’t be in today.
She was pulled away from those thoughts by the upbeat sound of music coming from outside, and her head jerked up as her brain registered that melody.
“What is that mu…sic…?” she trailed off.
Tammy’s hazel eyes widened as she sucked in her breath. An unfathomable joy filled her soul, causing her to shake and shiver as a wide grin slowly crept across her full lips. She could not remember the last time she had felt such happiness, if ever, and it was coming from outside, and it was telling her to “follow,” to follow and receive something so awesome that no one anywhere could turn it away, a prize so wonderful that there was no description for it.
Her fingers curled as she gripped the counter, because an energy like no other charged her to the top and more, and now she felt like running, running just to burn off whatever it was that was assaulting her common sense.
Pearlean ran out from between the shelves of solemn books and headed at top speed toward the front doors, Mr. Merrick right behind her. The middle-aged balding man reached up and grabbed poor Pearlean by her cornrows, but the young black woman did not so much as cry out. She turned and clawed at his face, though Merrick was a good deal stronger than her.
“Come here!” he yelled. “You goin’ ta jail this time!”
Tammy could not allow this man to interfere with them. She could not, would not, allow this man to interfere. Both she and Pearlean had to follow, had to get the prize, and this man was in their way.
She picked up a vase with yellow daisies in it and charged, charging like an enraged bull toward her soon-to-be former boss.
“I told you once, I told you a million times!” roared Merrick. “This ain’t no colored library, you stupid, worthless ni—”
The vase shattered as Tammy brought it down hard on the back of Merrick’s head. He went down to the hardwood of the library floor, and then she and Pearlean kicked him for good measure, stomping on him a couple of times, too.
Tammy grabbed Pearlean by the arm after that and pulled her away, and then they both fled out the library doors in order to chase the prize, the prize both of them shook and shivered and longed for more than anything.
*****
“Those two did a number on ol’ Merrick,” explained Edgar. “Tammy’s heels alone put him in the hospital.”
“I see,” said Ms. Grieves
“Now, let me give ya a little history lesson—’cause it important—Back then our house was actually in the center a town, right down there in the b’ness district,” continued Edgar. “My family had owned it since they built it, but we moved out when…when…uhhh…I’ll get to that…
“Anyway, let me tell you again about my Mary Anne. You see, I had her locked up in her room that day if you ’member right, but I had a couple of electric fans goin’ to keep her cool, and her mother come up occasionally to give her some cold lemonade and iced tea along with some sandwiches. Mary Anne had her own bathroom up there, so her room had all the amenities, but that tweren’t the problem.”
“What was the problem?” asked Cadence in a shaky voice.
The young lady took on a wan look, paling for some strange reason.
Edgar chalked that look up to anticipation, but this next part drew in his burgeoning angst, because it was a difficult part of the story to tell.
“Well, her room on the second floor,” he winced. “I should a never locked her up…”
*****
Mary Anne stared up at the ceiling as she lay in her bed and listened to the fans whir, their cool breezes blowing over her.
Her daddy was a stubborn old fool, just a stubborn old fool, and something terrible was going to happen…She could feel it deep in her bones. Not that it mattered…He never listened to her anyway.
“Stupid old jackass,” she muttered.
She pulled at her dress out of a nervous affect. She’d been anxious ever since she’d seen that stranger who had argued with her daddy, and that eye of his, that stranger’s solid white eye, was burned into her psyche.
“That man not someone you wanna mess with,” she muttered. “I seen all kinds a things in that eye a his, and none a it goo—”
She cut herself short as she sat straight up and let out a gasp. There was music playing outside, music playing loud and clear, and that music called to her, filling her with a euphoria she had never felt before. It called to her with such power and such grip that she shook as she rode on a sensation of insane joy and energy that pulled at every fiber of her being.
She had to follow the music. There was a promise there, a call to eternal joy and happiness, and there was no way she was going to pass that up.
She bolted from her bed and ran to the bedroom door, grabbed the knob, and then turned it, but the door would not budge; it was locked tight.
Mary Anne panicked as she rattled the knob and then beat upon her own bedroom door.
“Let me out!” she screeched. “Let me out, Daddy!…Let me out, let me out, LET ME OOOUUUT!”
The music called to her, telling her to follow, clawing at her soul to follow, and she could not possibly ignore it, not now with everything on the line, not now with the most wonderful prize of all waiting for her, just waiting for her to take it.
She turned and stared at the only window in her bedroom, a large window, true, but the only one. A decision was made in a split second, the only decision that mattered, so she sucked in her breath and charged that window in a dead run.
*****
“I heard her screamin’,” said Edgar shakily. “I heard her up there a poundin’ on the door and screechin’ like a banshee, so I take to the stairs to give her a good piece a my mind, but I was only on the second step when I heard the crash…She had dove right through the window of her bedroom. Dove right through it and fell from the second story to our front yard.”
He looked up to see Ms. Grieves trembling, a small tear running down from the young woman’s right eye.
“You okay there?” asked Edgar in surprise. “I know I asked you that before, but…”
Cadence nodded and waved for him to continue on.
“That story reminded me of someone I had been very close with,” she said in a tremulous voice. “Something similar happened to her…umm…falling from a second-floor window. Anyway, continue. Tell me what happened next.”
“Oh…well…” said Edgar cautiously. “She didn’t die, my Mary Anne, but she was messed up real bad, but I’ll…I’ll get to that in a bit.
“Umm…Where was I?…Oh yeah…Now we get to those three Jezebels I mentioned before. They was Linda Crenshaw, Susan Brown, and Mary O’Reilly. It was Saturday, and those three didn’t work as operators on the weekends, so they in town, and they hangin’ out at the Dalber’s again when Piper and his band come drivin’ by outside…”
*****
Linda watched as Susan lifted up one of the dresses on the rack and ogled it with wide eyes.
“Ooo, look at this one!” smiled Susan as she nudged Linda in the side.
“That’s a pretty blue dress,” noted Linda. “Put that on with that hair a yo’rs, and you look like Snow White.”
“Stop joshin’ me ’bout my hair,” frowned Susan. “Everybody say it’s cute. You know I like it short.”
“You got it cut like a boy’s, tho’,” grinned Mary.
“Well, the boys don’t seem to mind,” replied Susan. “It’s psychological, you know. They see a girl with short hair, and they think that girl a tomboy, and everybody knows boys like a tomboy. They feel like they finally got somethin’ in common with a girl who a tomboy.”
“Till they lift up yo’ skirt,” giggled Mary.
“Yeah, and her skirt been lifted more than once,” jabbed Linda.
“You girls is bein’ too harsh with me today,” said Susan with a mock frown.
“It true, ain’t it?” grinned Linda.
“It true for all a us, stupid,” grinned Susan in return. “Weren’t you the one lookin’ for some long summah sausage?”
“Boy, howdy,” replied Linda. “I’m workin’ on Timothy, and he a little reluctant, but he comin’ around. You should a seen his face when I rub my hand up his pants!”
“You little harlot, you!” guffawed Susan.
All three of them laughed, but that laughter died down as they turned and noticed the angry look of old Mrs. Glassford, that angry look coupled by the stern frown of the store’s owner, Mr. Dalber.
“I think you young ladies ought to leave,” ordered Mr. Dalber. “This here is a respectable establishment.”
Linda’s heart leapt into her throat. The last thing she wanted was to get banned from Dalber’s. Hell, it was one of the few stores worth shopping at in this Podunk town.
“I…but…” stammered Linda. “We…We was just shoppin’ Mr. Dalber. That’s all. We wasn’t tryin’ to cause trouble.”
She waited for some backup from her compatriots, but Mary and Susan were as silent as the grave.
“They lyin’!” exclaimed Mrs. Glassford. “I told you they was chatterin’ away like city tramps, spoutin’ all kinds a indecencies!”
“We…but…We…” stammered Linda. “We just…just joshin’ around, Mr. Dalber. We don’t mean nothin’ by it…We just payin’ customers. You know we always pay up front. We never put anythin’ on tab…You can’t kick us out…This the only store we have to shop at!”
“I think you girls ought to leave the store for now,” frowned Mr. Dalber. “You come on in Monday or…or next week when you got the time, and then we talk.”
“They should be banned!” hissed Mrs. Glassford. “That one there called me an ‘ol’ sow pig’! They should be banned from Hamelin altogethah!”
She pointed at Susan, and the young woman immediately shrank in upon herself.
“I…I just wanna…I just wanna buy this dress, Mr. Dalber…” stammered Susan meekly.
“Why don’t I ring that up fo’ you, and then you girls be on yo’ way,” sighed Mr. Dalber. “You come in next week, and we’ll have a discussion ’bout what is and isn’t appropriate behavior in the sto’, okay?”
“That there is unacceptable!” exclaimed Mrs. Glassford. “These girls are just waitin’ in line to be bearin’ children out a wedlock! They openly admit to givin’ ’way their pride to any man with a Yankee grin…They is everything that’s wrong with this here town!”
Linda shook in both rage and humiliation. There was no way she was going to let this old windbag-hag insult them like this, but she couldn’t just open up in a tirade right here in front of Mr. Dalber. The man was being fair enough, after all. It didn’t look like he was going to ban them, but that didn’t mean she was just going to stand around and be insulted, especially by the likes of someone like old gasbag Glassford.
“Now, listen here, Etta…” began Mr. Dalber, but his patient voice trailed off as music, loud and fast music, began to pick up outside.
“What is that terrible racket?” asked Mrs. Glassford.
Linda stiffened as her muscles locked in place. Her blues eyes widened as she gasped from the sheer power that washed over her. An insane, indescribable joy filled her up, a euphoria like nothing she had ever felt before, and moreover, that jubilation offered her something so incredible that she had no words for it.
She could immediately sense that both Mary and Susan were locked in the same incredible happiness she was imprisoned within, the same boundless energy filling them as well, and she also knew that they could hear the call to follow, that call that promised them a prize worth killing for.
Of course, there were two people in the path of their eternal happiness, and that simply wouldn’t do. Linda knew she had to follow the music, follow the promise of that wonderful prize, or she’d end up broken, a shell of a woman who would never find joy again, so there was only one solution to this little problem.
“Out a my way, you ol’ bat!” screeched Linda as she grabbed old Mrs. Glassford by the right shoulder.
The look on the old woman’s face before Linda’s right fist connected was nothing short of sheer surprise. Linda’s knuckles impacted with a sickening crunch, and that stung like mad, but the force of the blow spun the old woman around to where she landed face down on the floor.
Old Mrs. Glassford hit the tiles of Dalber’s, and Mr. Dalber didn’t even have time to react before Linda kicked the downed elderly woman in the face. A tooth flew from the old busybody’s mouth along with a good bit of blood, that tooth clattering across the store tiles.
All three girls proceeded to stomp on the old woman with their low heels after that, and this horrible brutality and wicked savagery finally sparked Mr. Dalber into action.
“Whatchyou doing! Stop!” cried the store owner as he moved to intercept them, but it was too late for him to undo the damage that had already been done.
They pounced upon him next, the three of them together taking him by surprise, and they shoved him backwards into one of the dress racks. That rack plus a number of dresses came tumbling down upon him as he hit the tiles, too.
They ignored the downed Mr. Dalber and ran after that, making a frenzied beeline for the exit doors of Hamelin’s only fine-clothing store.
*****
“Now, Mrs. Glassford barely survived that attack,” explained Edgar. “Linda Crenshaw broke the old woman’s jaw in three places, and all three a them girls tore her up somethin’ fierce with internal injuries from all the stompin’. It was just brutal.
“Mr. Dalber, now, he wasn’t really hurt, so he, a course…he get up and run to call the police and an ambulance, but the police was busy, let me tell you.”
“Yes, where were the police at this time?” asked Cadence.
“Oh, they all hear the music, Sheriff Burke and his officers, but he only have two officers on duty at the time,” said Edgar. “It was rare for every officer to be in the same place at the same time, like that day I run Piper out a town, so it was just the three of them that step outside to see what all the racket about.
“Now, that colored fella in the back a Piper’s truck, he start up with the banjo the moment Burke and his two officers step outside, like he was expectin’ ’em. Burke and Minnows—Minnows, he another officer—get swarmed, and I mean swarmed, by all these young ladies and unmarried women out in the street.
“Now I only tell you ’bout the ones I know from offhand accounts, but Piper was draggin’ the single womenfolk out a every building and house along the way, so it was like one of them modern horror movies with the zombie folk, you know? You know them movies with those dead people just rushin’ the livin’ folk and tearin’ ’em to pieces?…It was like that. Those ladies come down on Burke and Minnows, and those two didn’t know what hit ’em.
“The last officer, Kasey Ricker…You ’member him? Well, Shawna Smithson was riding along with her daddy in his Chevy. Now Shawna only twenty and unmarried like the others, so she hear that music, and she grab the wheel while her daddy drivin’, and their car plow right into Ricker, run him right over. He lived, but he wished he hadn’t afterwards. He in a coma for six months after that.
“Shawna get out a the car after that and join the other girls to a stompin’ and a kickin’ Burke and Minnows, some of ’em even kickin’ poor Ricker while he down and out.”
“That is…is awful,” said Ms. Grieves in slight visible horror.
“Oh, it awful all right,” nodded Edgar. “But see here…After they stomped on Burke and his two officers, that was the end of the violence. Next came the running, and this part both kind of funny and…and terrible sad…
“Those girls, those women, they take to runnin’ after that, runnin’ like they in the Olympics, following the music and Piper’s truck as fast as they can, but it was Susan Brown who was the very first to start tearin’ off her clothes…
“You see, ol’ Ernst Hesch kept his mare tied up outside a Barkin’s, Hamelin’s own feed store, and Susan made a beeline for that poor horse…”
*****
Susan ran toward the promise of eternal joy, reveling in the sheer ecstasy of the jubilation coursing through her.
She could see Farmer Hesch’s dark-brown mare tied to a wooden rail outside of the Barkin’s feed store, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do, something that fit so right in the moment that it instantly clicked.
She pulled off her low heels and tossed them aside, because they were slowing her down anyway. Off came her dress next, up and over her head, and then she quickly undid her bra, jogging all the while, tossing it aside without care. She hopped and skipped a little to pull off her panties, and then she was running wild and free, truly wild and free, as naked as the day she was born.
She quickly undid Farmer Hesch’s mare from its rail, planted her right foot on that wooden rail, and then vaulted herself onto the back of the horse. The startled mare whinnied in surprise, rose up on its hind legs, and then settled back down upon all four hooves. They were off a second later, the reigns in Susan’s hands, the sun on her bare back, the wind in her short black hair.
She rode forward in a trot after that, but not too fast, because both Linda and Mary were running beside her, and they, too, had decided to strip and run in their own natural skins.
*****
“Every one of those women and girls started throwing off their dresses after that,” said Edgar with a slight chuckle. “Now, I had already gone outside at the time, so I had an inklin’ of what was goin’ on, but it was my Mary Anne that I was lookin’ fo’, ’cause after goin’ up ta her room and unlockin’ her door, I saw the broken window with no Mary Anne to be found.
“So I outside, and I witness this, and let me tell you…I never seen so many bare butts in my life… A sea of women’s big bare backsides like peach-colored hearts swaying back and forth…All them ladies just a runnin’ buck neked down the street…Street just a littered with shoes and bobby socks and dresses and panties and bras…Good thing them high school boys that grad’iated was out a town; I know that.
“Anyway, all them girls I mentioned before? They followed Piper and his band truck out past the b’ness district, out toward the residentials…”
*****
Shelly laughed and ran as Melanie, Trisha, and Bernice ran beside her. They were all naked now, naked and free, truly free, and Shelly ran with her heart so light and her mind so unclouded that she could not feel the jabs of tiny pebbles in the bare soles of her feet as she jogged down the street.
That music was the promise of something so much better than anything here in this drab old world.
She turned and looked upon the laughing and smiling faces of her friends, and she knew with all her heart that they had been set free, too. They were all going to get the prize, the prize of something so much more than this, this world of rules and work and responsibility and hardship…
There was no need to worry anymore about what she was going to do with her life. No, none of that was relevant now, so there was nothing more to think about on that. No, none of that mattered to her, and none of that mattered to her friends, either, because their prize awaited, and with it would come love and happiness and freedom forever.
*****
Tammy ran alongside Pearlean. They had both stripped off their clothes and had tossed them in the street just like everyone else, but Tammy had also thrown away her glasses, because there was no need for them anymore.
She could see just fine now, and the only thing in her vision was the prize, and that prize had been offered to them all, and that prize was the most amazing thing in the world.
She looked over at Pearlean’s open, grinning mouth and realized that she, too, had her mouth wide open in a grin, because there was nothing like this feeling, nothing at all, not in all the time she had ever lived, because she had never truly lived until this very moment.
The prize was something that was never just up and offered to anyone, you had to earn it, but now the rules were all broken, now she and Pearlean and everyone else were getting it for free, no strings attached, and that was the most wonderful thing in the universe.
None of the books she had ever read did justice to the prize. It was so much better than anyone could have ever hoped to describe, and she and Pearlean were going to get it.
Oh, yes, their prize awaited, and there was no one left to stop them from getting it, and once they got it, they were going to be happy and free and together with love for all eternity.
*****
Linda turned her gaze and looked upon Mary, and they both grinned as they ran and followed the music and the prize. She turned her smiling eyes up toward Susan as her other best friend rode buck naked on old Farmer Hesch’s horse, just like Lady Godiva, and all three of them together laughed in unison at this strange craziness.
Linda reveled in this new reality, this new reality of her and Mary and Susan and everyone else all naked as jaybirds, all running wild and free to gain something so wonderful it was indescribable.
She followed the quick and jaunty tune of the fiddle, the sharp picking of the banjo, and the rhythmic beat of the drum, all of those instruments promising the prize, and the prize was what she was going to get, and this jubilation, this joy inside of her, inside all of them, filled her with so much love and energy and happiness that she simply could not slow down. None of them could.
All three of them laughed louder than they had ever laughed in Dalber’s, and best yet, there was no one to rain on their parade as they followed the most amazing deal they were ever going to get, and that was the prize, and it was free. They just had to go and get it.
Yes, their prize awaited, and they were going to grab it, take it with both hands, and be overjoyed with love and happiness and freedom forever.
*****
“So, Piper, he hop off the back a his truck, and then he raise the silver ball tip a his cane toward the summah sky,” nodded Edgar. “A bolt of lightning come down out a the clear blue sky and strike the street, and then a…a doorway open up…uhhh…huge, like a giant gate…a…uhhh…”
“Like a portal?” asked Cadence.
“Yeah, like that,” said Edgar. “A…uhh… ‘portal’ open up in the air where the bolt come down, and past that portal there was a sky so blue it made the summah sky over Hamelin look dull by comparison. There was nothin’ but green fields and cotton-white clouds and purple mountains in the distance, and…and flowers, flowers a all kinds and colors past that gate, that portal.
“Now, Joe’s white truck go drivin’ through the portal, and all them women run right past ol’ Piper heading for that portal. All them girls, them women, they all run right in, never slowin’ down, laughin’ and gigglin’ the whole time.
“Shelly Pierson, Trisha DeForest, Melanie Hasselbeck, and Bernice Wheeler all run in first out a the ones I told you ’bout. All four a them girls run in a skippin’ and a runnin’ and a laughin’.
“Then Tammy Harlowe and Pearlean Washington run in, both a them a grinnin’ to beat the band, both holdin’ hands as they ran in, Tammy’s left in Pearlean’s right, their bare feet over soft grass and their bare skin in a cool breeze that only Heaven can bring.
“Last, but not least—and let me tell you, the Lord is a forgivin’ one, ’cause those three Jezebels—Linda Crenshaw, Mary O’Reilly, and Susan Brown all head in last. They was allowed into Heaven at Piper’s behest, so Linda and Mary ran in with their arms in the air, waving their hands above their heads, laughin’ and laughin’, and then Susan brown ride ol’ Ernst Hesch’s dark-brown mare in.
“Now, I mentioned the color of that horse, ’cause the moment that horse cross into Heaven, it turn a pure white, just a pure ivory white, and Susan put that horse in a gallop after crossing through that gate, and that was the last anyone ever seen of ’em.
“So, on Saturday the 13th, June 1953, Hamelin lost one hundred and twenty-nine young ladies, all unmarried, all gone without a trace, nothing but their clothes left behind, those clothes littering the street after that.”
“One hundred and twenty-nine?” asked Ms. Grieves. “The fairy tale says that one hundred and thirty children were taken…Piper even alluded to that earlier in your tale. The numbers don’t match.”
“Yeah,” said Edgar as his face darkened. “’Member when I told you this tale get terribly sad?…One of ’em…One of the young women…One of ’em didn’t make it in…That one woman, that poor woman who got left behind…that young lady was my Mary Anne.”
*****
Mary Anne dragged her right leg along as she desperately tried to follow the others. She hurried as quickly as she could, and the music called to her, but it only filled her with want, not joy; it filled her with anguish, not jubilation, not euphoria…It filled her with a desperate longing, because she knew, she knew, she was not going to make it.
“No…No!” she cried as she struggled to move as fast as she could.
Thankfully, she had on saddle shoes instead of heels, but it made no difference. Her right leg was broken above the ankle, and as fast as she hurried, she could not keep up with the others. The pain was horrific, intense and piercing, but she did not care. She had to try.
“Please!” she wept, tears streaming down her pale and pained face. “Please, don’t leave me!”
She dragged herself forward on her broken leg, never slowing down, though the pain increased with each languid step.
“No! No, please!” she cried. “Wait for me!”
The fiddle played, the banjo twanged, and the drum beat steadily on, and though that tune was intended to be nothing but pure joy, it mocked her instead.
“Please!” she cried out. “Please, don’t leave without me!”
She watched as the others ran through the gateway to somewhere else, all of them bursting with joy, all of them wired full of love and happiness, all of them wild and free, all of them as naked as the day they were born. They were going somewhere infinitely better than here and this terrible grey world of pain, this empty blue sphere of loneliness.
Mary Anne pulled off her dress and tossed it aside as she dragged herself forward. She could hear the music from the other side of the gate, that portal that led to true and eternal happiness, but she could not reach it.
There he was, Piper, the man with the white eye, standing before the gate, and he stared her down with that piercing white eye. He could see through her, see into her soul, and she could already tell that he would not wait for her.
Mary Anne finally fell to her hands and knees as she stared up at him. She was sobbing and wailing and gnashing her teeth, because there was no way she could go on, and she knew it. She could no longer move; her broken leg simply would not carry her, and there was the gate right in front of her, only forty feet away.
She reached out to Piper with her right hand and begged for mercy.
“Wait!” she cried. “Please! Please, wait!…PLEASE! PLEASE, WAAAIIIT!”
Piper tipped his hat with his left hand, and that hat covered his left eye, his blue-grey eye, so only his white eye shone in the summer sun, his figure standing like a white pillar in a summer heat that came off the road in visible waves, that ivory pillar nothing but a final, mocking roadblock, a gatekeeper to true paradise.
The man turned and walked through the portal after that. He was gone as the portal closed, and then it was all just the dull, regular street once more in the sunny summer heat.
Mary Anne closed her eyes, raised her head, clenched her fists, and wailed at the sky.
There was no more future.
*****
“I picked up Mary Anne off that street…” said Edgar as his voice wavered.
The tears were coming now, but he couldn’t hold them back. He wiped at his face as he continued on with his tale, though the telling of it was painful.
“She only in her underwear when I get to her,” he said. “She had dragged herself all that way to follow Piper and his band, but her right leg was broken, you see, so the pain must have been somethin’ terrible, somethin’ awful terrible as she tried to keep up.
“She had been the only one to stick up for Piper, but that man did the cruelest thing of all to her…He left her behind…I should a never locked her up in that room.
“She recovered, but she could never walk right after that…More importantly, though, after Piper took the one hundred and twenty-nine and she got left behind, my Mary Anne was never right in the head.
“She told me everything, you know. She told me every little thing she’d felt at that time, the whole of it, everything that she’d seen, everything that’d happened. You can’t be offered something like Heaven and then be turned away at the gate. It ain’t right…It messes with you.
“So, a year later she vanish on me. Run oft. She took a bus ticket and a thousand dollars a my money and just up and disappear. Beth and I never saw her again…I just pray every day she all right…Hell, she don’t even know her momma died six years ago.”
He wiped at his eyes and sniffed, but he was ultimately surprised as he stared up into the weeping face of Ms. Grieves.
“Whatchyou cryin’ fo’?” asked Edgar.
“Oh…that story…It’s just so sad,” said Cadence as she swallowed hard and wiped at her own tears. “I hate the fact that she suffered so much…I hate it. It’s not fair…It’s so sad.”
“That it is,” nodded Edgar. “That it is.”
He turned his gaze upon a small, dark-wood box up on a bookshelf next to his bed.
“There it is, Ms. Grieves…Cadence,” he said firmly. “In that box is the coin…Thank you fo’ listening to a dying old man’s story, and I ’preciate yo’ time and patience, but please take that cursed thing away from me now. I wanna finally be at peace.”
“Certainly, Mr. Tannenbaum,” said Ms. Grieves as she wiped at her own tears. “Thank you for your story.”
“You welcome,” sniffed Edgar. “Hopefully, you learned a thing or two from it.”
“Oh, I have,” nodded Cadence. “I most certainly have.”
*****
Edgar awoke from restless sleep because of a loud knocking on his bedroom door.
“Mr. Tannenbaum!” cried Laura from the other side of the door. “Mr. Tannenbaum!”
“What, Laura!” he called back. “Come in!”
His nurse and personal attendant quickly opened the door and rushed into the room.
“Mr. Tannenbaum!” she said quickly, her face aghast.
“What is it?” he asked unhappily. “What’s all the ruckus? Why didn’t you just use the intercom?”
“There’s a woman downstairs at the door!” exclaimed Laura. “She a middle-aged woman, a married woman in her forties…”
“And?” asked Edgar. “What she want?”
“She say her name is Mrs. Grieves!” cried Laura. “She say she come to pick up the coin!”
Edgar immediately sat up and felt pure panic rush through him.
“What!” he exclaimed.
“She got identification papers and everything!” said Laura in a vocal panic. “She got official papers from the museum! I think she the real Mrs. Grieves!”
“What!” exclaimed Edgar again. “Then who come…Who did I tell my story…Who did I give the…?”
His old brain put the pieces together as his eyes widened in stunned realization. The clues had all been there; they had been there the whole time, and he had been too blind and too stupid to see the complete picture.
“Oh, no…” he said as a cold, harsh realization settled down upon him. “Mary Anne!…Mary Anne, you didn’t…Oh, my poor Mary Anne…My Mary Anne is gone now…I didn’t know…”
He openly wept into his hands as the sudden grief struck him.
“Mr. Tannenbaum!” cried Laura. “What should we do, Mr. Tannenbaum!”
Edgar sniffed, wiped away his tears, and gave his nurse a poignant stare.
“There ain’t nothin’ we can do,” he replied as he sucked in a choked breath. “My granddaughter got the coin now, and I got the feelin’ she gonna do somethin’ mighty foolish with it.”
*****
Cadence exited her Chevy Caprice and walked out into the middle of a cracked and neglected back road outside of Hamelin, that road marked only by a faded sign marking it as “Calvary.” She had parked on the side of the road just in case, but there was no one out here, no one out this way in the blinding summer heat, so she had no immediate worries of being discovered.
She opened up the dark-wood box in her hands and stared at the gold coin within, that old coin resting within an indent surrounded by a velvet cushion of black. She plucked out the gold guilder, tossed the box aside, and held up the coin until it was at eye level.
“This is for you, Mom,” she said bitterly.
She dropped her right hand and clutched the coin in her palm until her knuckles turned white.
“I have your coin!” she called out. “I got it for you!…I’m giving it back!…Do you hear me!…If you’re real, then you give me back my mother, you shiftless no-good grifter!”
She tossed the coin into the air, a loud “TING!” sounding out from that toss, tossing it high into the air, the gold coin gleaming in the even brighter golden sun, and then the gold guilder fell in a lazy spin toward cracked, light-grey asphalt, falling, falling…
But it never hit the ground.
It was caught in the right palm of a man in an all-white suit, a white fedora on his head, a black band around that fedora, a black tie over his white dress shirt, shiny black shoes on his feet…
Cadence’s breath caught in her throat as she stared into the ivory orb that constituted this handsome, middle-aged man’s right eye.
There was no doubt about it…This man was the legend himself, and he’d showed, though Cadence had not expected him to. She had not expected a living fairy-tale character to suddenly appear right before her.
“Grifter?” asked Piper. “I consider myse’f an honest, hardworkin’ man.”
“You…” swallowed Cadence. “You, you’re real!…You give me back my mother…I got your coin. I gave it to you…Give me back my mom! I gave you your coin!”
“That you did,” smirked Piper. “It’s been a long time in the comin’ too…however…even I don’t have the power to bring back yo’ momma, Cadence March…March…Fig’res yo’ momma would marry someone with the last name a March… Not that it matter…Only thing that matter are the rules I got to follow, and I can’t break ’em, so I can’t bring back the dead.”
Cadence began to cry. Now that she knew he was real, that it was all real, what she wanted was still out of her reach.
“No…” choked out Cadence. “No, please! You have to!”
“Now I can’t bring back yo’ momma, but she was a good woman,” said Piper as he ran two fingers along the brim of his white hat. “She got left behind all them years ago ’cause she stood up fo’ me, so I made sho’ her time here was not so short.
“This world is a gift, but you people always take that gift fo’ granted…You cain’t ’preciate nothin’ lest you start with way worse or nothin’ at all. The only direction for you to go when you start at the top is down, so you better be grateful fo’ the life you have…
“You listen here now. Yo’ momma where she belong. She with the others I led away, if you must know. She jus’ happened ta earn her spot.”
Cadence could only sob as the cold and final realization of what he was saying sank in…She was not getting her mother back.
“No!…It’s not fair…” she wept. “It was all real, all real, and I gave you your coin, and you’re saying…you can’t give me…the only thing I wanted…It’s not fair…It’s not fair!”
“Now don’t you cry, little lady,” chastised Piper. “You did me a service, a mighty fine one at that, so I didn’t say I wasn’t goin’ to he’p you, so I’m go’n give some advice.”
He snorted and shook his head once.
“Go home to yo’ granddaddy, Cadence March,” he said firmly. “You got a home with ol’ Edgar Tannenbaum. He the kind a man that always take in family, ’specially his only grandchild…What you got on yo’ own? You got nothin’, darlin’. Everything you own in the back a that car a yo’rs.”
Cadence held her face in her hands as she sobbed.
“You don’t need ta be out here messin’ with powers you don’t understand, child,” said Piper. “Grief can mess with a person awful bad, and it can make you do stupid things, terribly-stupid things, but you lucky it’s me you messin’ with and not some horrible trickster from Hell…Too many people have walked up to the crossroads lookin’ to strike a deal with the Devil…and them deals always end badly…
“No, you ain’t one a them…and I sho’ am glad you ain’t one of them. Naw, you don’t need no deals with me, Cadence March, ’cause I set ya straight…You jus’ need the truth…and the truth is you jus’ need time to heal, darlin’.
“Now…yo’ granddaddy already fig’red out you took the coin, so you need to turn around, get back in yo’ car, and go tell him what you done. He understand…He used ta be a stubborn man, a real stubborn man, but I think a little divine punishment set him straight. He ain’t gonna turn you away.”
Cadence lowered her hands and nodded twice. The pain was terrible, that pain in the heart that only comes from pure and solid grief, and she shook from it, trembling at her core, but deep down, deep, deep down, she understood Piper’s rebuke, even though she didn’t want to.
“Go on, now,” said Piper. “You got nothin’ to be tearin’ yo’self up over. It ain’t yo’ fault yo’ momma died, but rest assured, she in a better place now…and I can tell you right straight…she want you to go live yo’ life.”
Cadence nodded again but let out one more sob.
“You did me a right and fine favor, Cadence March,” said Piper. “A mighty fine favor…so you got my favor now…Yo’ granddaddy got less than a year to live with that cancer eatin’ him up, so I gonna give you this…”
He took off his spotless white hat and tossed it to her. It flew through the air like an ivory disc, and she surprised herself by catching it, because she was in no real condition to do anything at the moment.
“You tell yo’ granddaddy to put that hat on his head,” said Piper with a cool smile. “The moment he top that hat, his cancer be gone…He do that, that ol’ boy won’t die till the age a ninety. That give you thirteen years with ’im. That thirteen years to spend with yo’ granddaddy, thirteen years in honor of June 13th, ’cause that’s ‘Pied Day,’ the day I had to teach that proud, stubborn jackass a lesson.
“Now you tell that ol’ fool everything I told ya…He’ll believe you…You also tell him I got my coin, I got my parade, and I got my day named in my honor…I think he get the picture.”
Cadence took in several shaking breaths as she nodded in reply. She was terrified, terrified of this mystical stranger in white, but she was also relieved, that relief a settling sensation of calm that was slowly spreading over her, that calm edging out her fear, edging out her grief.
“Now you get on out a here, little lady,” smirked Piper. “You got a whole life ta live.”
She nodded once, took a gulp of saliva, and then wiped at her eyes and nose. She couldn’t see in that instant, and that impairment of vision was only for a split second, but by the time that split second had passed, Piper was gone, vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the bare and cracked grey asphalt of the empty road in his place.
Pied Part II Copyright © 2024 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
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