Not Flesh Nor Feathers (Eden Moore 3)

5

Revitalized

They were still wrapping up the last of the construction, but the North Shore Apartments would be ready by spring;—in time for me to get moved in before school started, or so I hoped. I was already planning my living space and collecting household goods. I was already chatting up friends with pickup trucks.

But they weren’t finished yet. Down by the river, workers were laying down turf and rocks to cover the banks they’d stripped; and along the waterfront, cement was being poured. Rumors were being stifled.

One of the workers wrote an anonymous letter to the newspaper, but they wouldn’t print it. So he sent it on to the local free rag that sits in racks outside of coffee shops.

They printed it. And I read it.

Everybody did.

We all believed it too, to some degree or another. Nothing surprises us around here when it comes to government corruption. Ever since the big Tennessee Waltz bust—when a whole slew of state and local officials were brought up on federal corruption charges—we’ve all figured that the ones who remain in power are just better at being crooked than the ones who got caught. No one thinks for a minute that the city is being planned and operated by honest men and women.

This really begs the question of why they keep getting voted into office. I haven’t got a good answer for it, except for the obvious one: money. The winners all seem to have a lot of it.

But down by the river where the new apartments were going up on the north banks, bad things were happening. The letter sent into the local rag summed it up while missing the point.

I’m just a guy trying to earn a living. That’s why I took the job at the north shore, same as the rest of them down there working. But what I’m seeing is enough to drive you crazy.

Money flows in all the wrong directions, but that’s usual. Do you even know who’s paying for these things? Do you even know who owns the property? Did you know it was Jane Reynolds? It’s her company, anyway. You’ve got to give her credit for thinking ahead. When she was Mayor, the way she fought for the north side development—you didn’t think she was doing that for the north shore economy, did you? No way. She just saw another opportunity to make a killing, that’s all, and that’s why she pushed for the rezoning over there.

And she’s the reason people are getting fired and quitting left and right, too. She doesn’t want people to know what they’re turning up down by the river. Everybody knows the whole city’s sitting on history, but there are laws about what happens when you turn it up. You’re not supposed to bury it again and pour concrete over it. You’re not supposed to pretend you never saw it.

But that’s the policy here when you’re working for Jane. You keep your mouth shut or you get thrown out on your ass. You close your eyes if you see something you shouldn’t.

Those apartments and that little strip mall center they’re trying to put up next to them—none of that should’ve been built. It should’ve been roped off and checked out. There’s weird stuff down there.

And I know at least two guys who left this job, even though it pays well enough to keep most of us quiet. Two of them found something bad down there, and neither one of them would talk about it. One of them went home and went crazy. He wouldn’t come back to the site, anyway. His wife won’t let anyone talk to him.

So it’s up to you people, then, since it doesn’t work when we try it—you’ve got to go to her and demand to know what’s under the concrete they poured yesterday afternoon. Go and ask her, even though she’ll lie to you. I want to know, too. I want to see what’s under there, but I need the money too bad to get myself fired for being curious. But none of this is right. It’s screwed up bad, and even though the housing is on track, I’ve got a bad feeling that it’ll never be finished.

We should’ve called the authorities before any of it ever got started. We should’ve left that spot alone.

I reread his letter a couple of times while sitting in Greyfriar’s, sipping on a cup of coffee and waiting for Harry to call. I had a question for him. It was going to surprise the hell out of him, but I didn’t know who else to direct it to.

The letter in the paper distracted me, though, even if it didn’t really surprise or bother me. It was easy to infer the obvious—that the crew had turned up artifacts, maybe even human remains of some kind, and then built over them. I was curious about it, but not too excited or worried. It’s something you get accustomed to, living in a city like this one. Every place, every spot, every home and every business is sitting on top of somebody’s dead ancestors.

It’s easy to understand why the reconstructed South is so rife with superstition. If you’re uncomfortable living on top of a graveyard, you’ll just have to find another part of the country to squat in. Entire neighborhoods here are built on Civil War battlefields. You can’t go to a McDonald’s without seeing a historical marker recounting all the people who died there a century or two ago.

But it’s funny how many people know about the undocumented stuff, too. The secrets live on in urban legends and in small pockets of family lore. The city remembers, even when it would prefer to forget.

Someone always knows.

I thought of Caroline, and I wondered what she knows.

But I didn’t wonder for long, because my cell phone rang and it was Harry. First, he wanted to know if I was absolutely sure about the upcoming visit and if I had any reservations at all, because I’d have to speak now or forever hold my peace. Malachi was bouncing off the walls, and if I was one hundred percent positive that this was what I wanted, they’d be there on Friday.

Yes, I was sure. Well, I wasn’t really—but I told him otherwise. I’d made up my mind, and that would have to be good enough.

“Listen, I need to talk to you,” I said, not sure of how I meant to phrase what I meant to ask. “I’m having some trouble . . . with my abilities. ”

“What kind of trouble? And with what abilities, specifically?”

I tried to clarify. “It’s draining me, Harry. It’s eating me up a bit, every time something happens. It’s wearing me out. ”

He paused. “Let’s start with the first thing—it’s draining you, you say. What precisely? Are you seeing things, getting headaches? That sort of thing?”