Body Work

MIRA

Forty-five years ago

Throat tight with panic, ten-year-old Etienne Dexter launched himself off the veranda, bare feet thudding on sun-hot dirt, kicking up dust as he ran. Lurching around the corner of the house, he cut through a ragged mass of weeds that had once been a rose garden, eyes blind to the velvety shimmer of acres of uncut hay and the hot, arching perfection of the Louisiana sky.

As he barreled through the open doors of the barn a nesting swallow arrowed past his head. Heart pounding, he skidded to a halt, the breath shoving in and out of his lungs so hard it felt as if his chest was trying to turn itself inside out.

Agony scored him as he dodged around the skeletal remains of ancient harvesting equipment, although he was neither cut nor burned. Rounding a stack of drums that filled the barn with the thick reek of machine oil, he crouched down, thin shoulders taut as he lifted the trapdoor in the wall, put there instead of a regular door in Prohibition days to hide the fact that Grandpa Dexter had a moonshine still situated practically on top of the storm cellar. Ducking through, he held his breath against the instant need to gag. Crawling into "the pit" — a windowless shed tacked on to the rear of the barn, with a storm cellar beneath — always made him want to throw up.

A shudder of reaction swept him as he leaned against the trapdoor, preventing it from closing fully and shutting him into the dark before he'd had a chance to switch on the flashlight he'd stolen from the kitchen.

Tears ached in the back of his throat and hazed his vision as he fumbled at the button. His fingers, which were normally deft, were shaking and, instead of turning on, the torch popped from his grip, hit the dirt floor and rolled. He grabbed for it, lost his balance and sprawled forward, skinning the palms of his hands. Simultaneously, the trapdoor banged shut behind him, plunging him into darkness.

A sharp, metallic rap told him that the flashlight had rolled through the open cellar hatch and hit the rungs of the ladder. Raw panic spasmed, making him feel physically sick. If he took the flashlight back to his stepmother, Eloise, broken...

The flashlight hit the floor with a clunk and, miraculously, turned on. Light washed up through the hatch, turning the pitch-blackness soupy.

Relief flooded Etienne. He had to find Charles, but there was no way he could go any further without a light, even knowing that his twin was down here somewhere.

Holding his breath against the acrid smell that permeated the wood floor, he got to his feet and started down the ladder, gripping each wooden rung with his bare toes and keeping his gaze fixed on the burning incandescence below. Even though he could breathe, he felt like a diver descending. Logically he knew that the only difference between down here and outside was the lack of light, but a part of him still wanted to bolt. The heavy blackness reminded him of the Lassiter River after a storm, the water thick with mud and so murky it was like swimming in black tea.

Once he had the flashlight in his hand he felt steadier. He would never admit it to either his stepmother or his brothers, but he had always been scared of the dark, and not just ordinary scared. He would rather be beaten black and blue than be locked down here. In the old days, when the Dexter family had had money, the cellar had been used to store blocks of ice in summer and apples in winter, but after the original shed that had been built on top of the cellar had blown down, nobody much had bothered with it. Nowadays the only things the cellar stored on a regular basis were worms and mice and a whole lot of darkness.

He swung the light around, orienting himself. The walls were lined with stone blocks, apart from one section at the rear, as large as a small doorway, where the blocks had been systematically removed and placed to one side. He aimed the beam down the tunnel his twin brother had spent the summer excavating. Distantly, he could hear scraping sounds.

As he started down the narrow tunnel, Etienne's eyes widened with shock when he saw how much Charles had done. The last time he'd ventured into the cellar, Charles had only just begun digging; now the tunnel stretched out, straight as an arrow until it hit a boulder and took an abrupt turn to the left.

He rounded the corner and saw Charles standing in a pool of light cast by a kerosene lamp, ankle deep in mud and perched on a mound of dirt, systematically scraping. Filled buckets of dirt were lined up against one wall, ready to be taken outside and dumped.

For long seconds, disbelief drowned Etienne's fear and the shock that had sent him running in the first place. "What are you doing?"

"Heading for the river."

Etienne blinked at the sheer scale of the project. The river was more than a quarter of a mile away; it would take Charles years to dig that far. He stared at his twin. "You're crazy."

Charles's gaze was oddly blank. "You'll see. The tunnel's going to be way cool."

"What if Eloise finds out?"

He shrugged. "She won't do anything. Haven't you noticed? She's scared of the dark. That's why she thinks it's such a big deal locking us down here." He smirked. "I like it."

Cold gripped Etienne's spine. Even though they were identical twins and looked as alike as two peas in a pod, there had always been differences between them. He liked apples, Charles liked oranges. He was fascinated with models and construction, and it was a fact that Charles was more interested in breaking what Etienne made than in building anything himself. At school, Etienne achieved good grades, but the only thing Charles seemed interested in was making trouble and trying to lay the blame on Etienne.

When they'd been five, switching places and bamboozling people had been fun; now, the way Charles played the game, it had become a nightmare.

Eloise had always picked on Charles more than any of them. Unlike Etienne, Charles hadn't learned the art of being invisible; he always had to answer back. He seemed to delight in pushing Eloise into a rage, especially when she'd been drinking. Lately, he had become her main target.

Once Eloise had locked him down here for a week, feeding him pig scraps every second day. The first two days Charles had gone crazy, clawing at the trapdoor and screaming until he'd lost his voice. Then he had gone quiet. When she'd finally let him out, he had been different in a way Etienne couldn't define. Charles used to be as scared of the dark as he was, but not anymore. Now he seemed to like being under the ground better than being outside in the sun, and he cared even less about upsetting Eloise.

Charles dumped another bucket beside the wall and brushed a lock of black hair out of his face, leaving behind a smear of dirt. "What're you being so prissy about, anyway? This is our way out."

Reality reasserted itself, and with it a heavy dose of dread. "You've got to come now."

"Why?"

The scorn in his voice was biting. Once Charles wouldn't have argued, he would simply have fallen in with Etienne's plans, but now it was almost as if Charles had turned on him.

Misery squeezed at Etienne's chest, along with a replay of the numbing shock he'd felt when he'd found his father lying face down at the kitchen table, his eyes half open, his skin cool to the touch. "It's Dad —"

A high-pitched voice echoed down the tunnel. Charles's mouth curled. "Well, whaddya know? It's that little worm, Stephen. C'mon." He slipped past Etienne, taking the lamp. "We can't let him see the tunnel."

Etienne followed. As they emerged from the tunnel entrance into the cellar, he turned off his flashlight, and hid it behind his back. He noticed that as Charles went up the cellar ladder, he didn't bother to conceal the lamp. Lately he was becoming increasingly cocky.When Eloise hit him, he began to laugh.

Charles pushed the trapdoor wide and stepped through, deliberately shouldering Stephen. When the younger boy reeled back, a mud-coated hand shot out to steady him, leaving a large smear on his shirt. Charles leaned in close. "What do you want, worm?"

Stephen shrank from the contact, his gaze sliding nervously to the mark on his clean shirt. Despite the heat, Etienne noticed Stephen was dressed in long pants, with socks and shoes, his hair neatly combed as if he was going to church — only Eloise never took them to church.

Stephen stared into the pit as Etienne stepped through, his eyes wide. He was too scared to venture beyond the cellar hatch, and there was no way he could see the tunnel entrance, but Etienne didn't trust him an inch. Charles might be weird about a lot of things, but he was right about Stephen. The kid was only seven, but already he was a snake and a snitch. He was Eloise's son; and her pet. When Stephen did something wrong — which wasn't very often because he was so busy sucking up — Etienne and Charles usually got to pay.

As the trapdoor fell shut, a shadow slid through the sunny door of the barn. A split second later, Eloise appeared, the thick outline of her body visible through the cotton of a shapeless sundress, blond hair tangled and trailing around her shoulders, her face bloated and red, as if she'd been sitting in the sun drinking.

She blinked, adjusting to the gloom of the barn, and her expression sent a shiver down Etienne's spine. Her mouth was curved in a smile that people in town never got to see, and her eyes almost seemed to glow in the shadows.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and her smile grew. "Your father's dead."

Excerpted from Body Workby Fiona Brand Copyright © 2006 by Fiona Brand. Excerpted by permission.
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