Part 9: Harlow

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A bit longer and a bit early for the holiday weekend, eh? Hope you like it and that you’re enjoying yourselves more than Frank is on his holiday vacation. (psst - if you could click on the ad below, it really goes a long way in helping support the story!)

Previously in the Vines Inquiry— With Frank back in the present, and his body, his parents’ ritual took one more grisly turn.

“Well, well, well,” said Harlow, tapping her fingernails against the backside of a laminated menu. “What goes best with the worship of an old god?” 

Frank tried to sigh but found no air left in his lungs. He was already all sighed out. 

“Stop joking.” He whined into the tabletop, his mouth stretched into a self-pitying oval. 

“Stop freaking out about something that was obviously a bad, alcohol-induced dream,” she said. Then, “Does this hat count as cosplay? I promised on Instagram I’d do Twelve Days of Cosplay…Frank, take your face off this table. They’ve been using the same rag to clean since we were seven years old. And stop trying to ruin the mood!” 

“What mood?”

Behind him, the fourth group in a row shouted “Merry Christmas” as they toasted over toast. He could ignore it as much as he wanted—and he did. Frank could raise his nose at the very idea of Christmas…Well, no. He couldn’t. The man had the desire and ample reason to be a grinch, but he lacked the conviction. No matter how grumpy he tried to be, no matter how many times he reminded himself his actual twin brother drowned on the day, he simply couldn’t shake the magic of the season. That thought alone. The magic of the season. Who the hell was he? An L.L. Bean commercial? The Toast People giggled about last night’s rendition of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’ (more suited to a rock interpretation than one might imagine, apparently) and Frank smiled, happy he too had on a festive knit sweater.

Wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. To be in one of those ads. Great boots. Good hats.

Harlow Voorhees, with a Santa hat poised just-so atop her box braids, was going for the North Pole’s most stacked elf; and succeeding. She shot an Insta story with her McCroy’s menu in hand, showing off the mani and the mug in one quick snap. Red, gold and green beads at the ends of her braids clacked as she tried different angles. 

The pair had come a long way since the third grade when Harlow, ever-tactful, first approached Lil Frank. 

“Why are you sitting alone?” she’d said, a look of disgusted query on her face. 

“Dick got put in another gym class,” said Frank. 

“You said a bad word,” said Lil LoLo. And so, over a chuckle and mirrored missing incisors, the unbreakable Only Black Girl and Only Gay Guy in Gym Class alliance had begun. This was to the great relief of their P. E. teacher as it looked like the two would get along well enough to survive the semester. Or at least not cry in front of her.

Since then, it was like they’d been having one never-ending conversation; no matter how long it had been since they last saw each other in person. 

“Did you know there are no Black characters in Don’t Wake Daddy?” said Frank, flailing to bring the convo back to his horrifying night.

“We know better than to be running around the house that late.” 

He had two competing memories of the evening; the first where he was just drunk—a story he’d repeated to himself so many times it had become diluted with false hope and real vomit—and the second that left him with an earth-shattering new understanding of his parents. An understanding that Rosalind and Richard Vines were working with (for?) a… What had Harlow called it when he’d relayed the story?

“Oh, so an old god?” she’d said. “Classic old god territory. Think Wicker Man, Cabin in the Woods, kind of The Covenant…” She checked her eyeliner in the reflection of Frank’s butter knife. 

“Why do you think I’ve seen any of these?”

Harlow had something called ‘Letterboxd clout’ while he usually fell asleep during the first act. 

“Not even The Covenant?!? You swam!”

After recounting all he’d heard the previous night to Harlow in hopes that an outside perspective might dull the more…culty vibes, Frank instead was left moaning with shaking hands wrapped around a thick-rimmed McCroy’s Diner coffee cup. 

When they were ten, the diner had a contest for a new logo. The winner’s design would be put on t-shirts and dish ware (a tax error from years before had stuffed Lester McCroy’s till) and would earn them free breakfast for life. Harlow Voorhees, already an acolyte of all things syrup and pancake, had taken first prize. 

Thus, this next morning, Frank sipped from a mug emblazoned with cartoonishly-articulated versions of some of Carlisle’s local legends.

The Woods Woman; one of a few local legends about a ‘maiden’ who could be seen running through the streets of Carlisle on nights with a full moon. Her limping steps from shredded feet uneven and hurried. Her face obscured by matted hair full of leaves and the blood of people who didn’t get home in time for dinner. Of course, every year, some eighth grader had seen her “last night!” But even so, Frank wasn’t too proud to admit the idea of a shambling wild person skulking through your town at night gave him a shiver. Because if it were true, it wasn’t really their town then, was it? But those were things better left to childhood, even if they never stopped following you.

And then there were the less credible ones… 

Aquatic terrors that were said to feed beneath the docks. These were bordered on the cup by a couple getting lost in the pines before coming out to see that decades had passed. Cougars stalked a curving sewer pipe that ran parallel to four figures modeled after Harlow, Stella, Dick and Frank. They crept through the supposed miles of tunnels within the doorstop rock that was Carlisle Island—and with just a flashlight and bichon to protect them. (Harlow had wanted the white, fluffy rat ever since she saw Cheetah Girls. Or maybe it was The Silence of the Lambs.)

Amateur ghost hunters and the like caught wind of these rumors every twelve years or so (one out of every four MFA programs, you understand), but their searches always came up empty. The most recent ‘investigators’ had even hired a boat to take them all around the perimeter of the island so they could search the jagged cliffs for secret entrances and hidden alcoves. They left suspicious, if sated. It seemed they could never quite get a clear picture of Carlisle. With the shifting tides, the morning mists. Even along the sheer cliffsides farther up-island; the tall, thick pines shrouded the landmass from prying eyes, Google Earth and god alike.

 “I don’t think they actually said she was a god.” Fran flipped the tabs on the mini jukebox that was connected to the wall in each booth. No song seemed appropriate, though neither did the Christmas sweater he’d pulled from his teenage closet. “Queen-Mother? Dowager empress…?”

“You’ll get there,” said Harlow. 

“And something else. Something with a Hall. Do you think a walkway? Or a banquet? Maybe it’s about going somewhere?” 

Harlow folded the menu closed, mostly for effect, and peered into her friend’s eyes. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to send my deepest regrets with you. I am going nowhere. Including up to that house, if only to avoid getting ‘reaped’ this close to the new year. I’m weird like that. Just not in the mood.”

“Do you think reaped means death here?”

“Reaped always means death, Frank. What do you think reaped means? Be honest with me.”

Frank wagged his head back and forth, finding no alternative definition. 

“It’s death,” said Harlow. “One-hundred percent. Not a doubt in my mind. If they’re for real, we’re talking about some Freddy Krueger M.L.M. that I would like to miss.” 

Harlow chuckled to herself and checked her notifications while Frank tried not to sink into a gaping hole of despair. 

“Frank. Relax. They’re distant. They’re mourning. They drugged you… A demon queen might be a relief in comparison.” 

“A demon queen!” said Frank. “That was it.” 

“Told ya you’d get it.” 

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“Goood morning, Harlow. Merry Christmas Eve, hon,” said an approaching waitress. Her forty-year-old nametag reminded Frank that she was Jean. 

“What can I get ya? Oh, my goodness! Frank Vines? I thought that was you yesterday. In town. Were those…” Jean’s mouth churned, trying to hide her sneering. “Were you with your parents?” 

She arched both eyebrows at Frank: two dark slashes in a discontinued shade that matched her tattooed eyeliner. Jean rubbed a crazy strong hand on Frank’s shoulder, deftly searching even through three layers. Her voice was an airport lounge singer low; with just enough fry to take you back to a time when everyone smoked and airports had lounge singers. 

“It has been a while,” she said, every word coated in gritty Chesapeake clay. 

“Twelve years,” said Frank.

Jean pursed her lips while Harlow looked anywhere but at Frank and her; suddenly enamored with the plastic rack of jelly packets. Jean refilled his coffee and set one wrist on her hip, shaking her head. 

“At least it’s you,” she said. “Almost harmless.” Jean laughed as one eye looked out the glass pane windows that made up McCroy’s curved front; pupils tracking the flurries that were just threatening to turn to flakes.

The diners enjoyed a panorama of the snow-coated parking lot, the single two-lane road that ran by it, and the dense Carlisle pines beyond. Dusty yellow lightbulbs made the whole restaurant—chrome and grease and tiles that had been mopped thousands of times—feel like a warm snow globe. Retro in a way that didn’t threaten your civil rights. 

“What can I get ya, hon?”

“A McCroy’s ‘Good McCroying’ Morning Breakfast Sampler, please.”

The name was new. Harlow mentioned that the local places all had a ‘signature item’ now. For the tourists. In Frank’s day, it’d been called an Andy after Mr. McCroy’s late son. A little grim for breakfast, but it’s hard to cry with a mouth full of pancakes.

“Does it still come with hot coco and whipped cream?” said Frank. 

“When a child orders it,” said Jean. She turned to Harlow. “Is your sister in town and gonna start talking about macros or…? 

“Praise be, no,” said Harlow. “And even if she was, I’d still be asking for the usual, please. Let that matchstick watch me eat. Might learn something.” 

Frank choked on his coffee. “So how is Stella?”

Harlow leaned forward, whispering. “Oh, and Jean. Would you mind if we had two Christmas coffees?” 

“We’re all out of that peppermint-flavored stuff.” Jean lowered her voice. “Praise, Him.” 

“I don’t remember it being so casually religious here,” said Frank.

“The glassest of houses, Frank. And Jean, my bad. I was unclear. I meant two ‘we’re spending the entire holiday with our families and later, I have to do a Skype intention setting with Stella and her new boyfriend whose job description is just ‘barterer.’” 

Jean winked at her, taut neck skin rising to meet a sharp jaw. 

“Loud and clear,” said Jean. She walked away in no great hurry. Good for her.

“I thought you said Stella was doing a technology cleanse for the holidays? And you always spend it with your parents. You love your parents.” 

“And no one on this Earth or above it is questioning that, Frank. But I happen to have an insane hangover that only the hair of many dogs can cure.” 

Frank remembered he never cleaned up the vomit from last night.

Wait, did I vomit? 

After everything that happened in the parlor, he’d walked back upstairs on autopilot. Then, it was morning. He’d called Harlow, waking her, to meet him at the diner first thing. Now, he looked over her shoulder to the counter where Jean, gods bless her, was stirring in a healthy portion of an indeterminable spirit. 

“What is that? The bottle just says ‘liqor.’”

“The U rubbed off!” said Harlow. “And it’s a house recipe. Top secret. You’ll like it.”

“I am not hungover.”

“Well, you must have been drunk because half the things you told make no sober sense.” 

No, I wasn’t drunk. I blinked and it was morning. 

But then the second memory competed inside of him, lifted the first like a body standing up beneath a white sheet.

Frank had been awake most of the night. After that final ‘Hail!’ he’d crept back to his room and shut the door as quiet as he could. Laying there in the dark, he shivered even beneath the covers, trying to explain it to himself. To decode the sounds he’d heard. Part of him wished he’d just gone around the corner to see; at least then he could have silenced his imagination. But what else could it have been?

The noises, his mother’s screaming pain. If she hadn’t torn through her own wrists… He shook the possibility from his mind, but it kept crawling back in the shadows of his childhood bedroom. At some point in the night, someone had opened his door a crack to check on him. Frank laid there, still as he could, grateful for the lack of hall lights to reflect his gaping whites. He held his breath.

The eyes felt foreign, even as he recognized who was watching him…