The Tree Goddess Read online

  Realizing he was not guilty at the moment, Jeff reaffirmed the original answer. “No, I wasn't down there.” In truth, Jeff and his friends hadn't gone down to admire their treasure that afternoon. They played basketball until Mother called him home.

  Bill's final evaluation would be a confirmation of Jeff's answer from his wife. He met Karen back in the garage and asked, “Was Jeff downstairs in the crawlspace when you got home? I asked him if he was down there and it looked like he was getting nervous.”

  “No, Jeff was across the street with his friends at Frank and Stephanie's house.”

  Bill sighed, “Honey, I don't know what to say. I went down in the crawlspace and saw nothing. And even though Jeff was acting suspicious, I saw no evidence of him fooling around down there. You must have heard the screaming coming from outside or on someone else's TV.”

  His explanation only provoked tears in Karen's eyes. The screaming was so real for her and she wanted to help that person.

  Bill was comforting to his wife. “It's okay; you're under stress, getting used to the new house and working that stressful job. The mind plays tricks on you when you feel anxiety.” Bill was getting very hungry and wanted his wife to cheer up. “Come on, I'm starving. Let's go out for pizza.”

  And so the Greenstarts went out for their family dinner that evening, and the horrible screaming heard in the crawlspace was forgotten. Of course Jeff was clueless of Mother's incident and unaware as to why Wednesday night was a pizza night, instead of the usual meatloaf.

  Going to bed at her usual time, Karen woke up around 2:15 in the morning under a terrible spell of thirst. Although she enjoyed pizza as much as you and me, Karen found that sometimes the sausage was very salty, which required she shoot down a couple tall glasses of water in the middle of the night to get back to sleep.

  In between gulps, she paused and listened to a faint noise. Did the Zickmans get into another fight? The newlyweds next door were so young and appeared to be so much in love. But quarreling was often heard through their windows. Tonight the very, young Mrs. must have stepped out for a bit of weeping from maybe another fight of “you-don't-love-me-as-much-as-I-love-you.” Karen gently pulled the curtains back but could see no one standing in the Zickman's driveway. But the weeping continued, very disturbing and agitating.

  Now Karen slowly opened the backdoor and stepped out into the chilled, autumn, night air. The smell of burning logs, probably from someone's fireplace, hung in the distant air. But no weeping was heard outside. Surely this wouldn't suggest that the sound came from within her own home! She stepped back into the warm house where the soft cries continued to be heard. Pretending to be clueless of the origination, Karen walked through various rooms of the house. But the sound was loudest in the kitchen… in the pantry… from the floor where the crawlspace panel was located!

  Rather than fall spell to another attack of anxiety, Karen laid there on the floor with her ear to the weeping, listening to a poor woman who questioned how and why such a terrible misfortune could have happened to her. Karen really wanted to help, but wouldn't dare go down into the crawlspace. No one would probably be down there, anyway.

  The experience in the hot tub; the screams heard earlier in the day; and now the cries of sadness from below the floor: perhaps it was time to be strong and consider that someone was reaching out and offering a premonition. Bill mentioned that Jeff appeared suspicious when asked of the crawlspace. It was so obvious now; Karen's son was doing something down there in the afternoons, something awful! The weeping was met with a promise to get to the bottom of whatever terrible thing Jeff hid from his parents.

  * * *

  A child who approaches the teenage years should draw new concerns for any loving parent. Being that Jeff was in a new school and neighborhood, perhaps he was exposed to drugs or promiscuous girls. And maybe these things were done in the crawlspace after school. There was only one way to learn the truth. Karen left work early, mentioning a family emergency and headed home where she parked some distance down the street. Carefully approaching the house, her intention was to avoid any detection from Jeff. But the rapidly, beating heart and heavy breathing suggested another attack of anxiety. Not now! Karen needed to be strong! The truth can sometimes be painful and disturbing. But it's needed in those challenging moments of motherhood.

  Karen slowly opened the backdoor and softly walked across the ceramic, tile floor. Sure enough the pantry was open, and the panel to the crawlspace had been removed! A group of noisy kids could be heard crunching along the crude flooring. And then they emerged before Karen had a chance to peek down into their realm of taboo activities. It was their conversations of filth that were most disturbing; her own son declaring that he would never stick his “manhood” in that “crevice”, citing that he was saving it for something real.

  One of the boys challenged “Oh yeah; well what if we threw Kristy down in that…”

  “Oh; Hi, Mom! You're home early!” Jeff immediately recognized his mother.

  So did one of the other boys, “Hi Mrs. Greenstart!

  Mother only glared at the rowdy, obnoxious boys who wore faces of guilt and that of up to no good. “What are you doing down there, huh?”

  Jeff resembled a startled deer. “Nothing! We were just down there. That's our fort.”

  “Yeah Mrs. Greenstart; that's our fort. We have a club, Grave Robbers Anonymous. Call 911!” Paul laughed

  Karen didn't find Paul's explanation the least bit funny and met the attempted joking with firm rules. “You do not play down there! That's not a place to hang around and do whatever while I'm gone!”

  Her son exhibited signs of defensiveness and smart mouth. “Okay Mom, we won't. Jeez, we get the point.”

  But Mother wasn't done with her investigation. With dread, the boys watched as she descended the stepladder while dictating that Jeff send his friends home and begin homework.

  Now the #1 of rule of Jeff and his club was to always close the trunk and cover the hole up with rocks before going back upstairs. And it's a good thing for Jeff that he continued to follow this rule. Mother looked around the crawlspace and journeyed over to an area where a collection of crushed soda cans, a shovel, bolt cutters, some screwdrivers and a wooden handle for a paint roller laid. She wasn't sure what they were up to with all the tools. Maybe they were just being boys and playing. The rest of her time was spent looking at the boxes of items along the far wall, planning a day to go through them all.

  That night, during dinner, Father broke the silence. “Your mother says you were down there in the crawlspace with your friends. Do you have anything to say about that?”

  Jeff once again became nervous. “It's our fort down there.”

  Father spoke with a tone of disappointment and that of suggesting dishonesty. “Now yesterday I asked if you were down there and you told me, no. And today I find out you and your friends are down there. Now I want some answers. What are you doing down there?”

  Mother added more, “Jeff, I found a shovel, some tools and lots of soda cans. You guys play with tools? And what's this grave robber game you're playing?”

  Father dropped his fork on the plate as a psychological effect that would suggest sudden outrage. “You better not be digging holes down there! Are you digging holes?”

  “No sir.”

  “Alright, I'm going to tell you this once, and only once. You get those tools out of there and clean up your mess. And if I find that you've been going down there any more, there will be hell to pay; you hear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Chapter 17

  Working the nightshift is a challenge for anyone. The mind and body must be tricked into living during the dark hours and sleeping while the rest of the world goes by without you. Remove merely one hour of a day's rest, a nightshift worker is catapulted into a walking coma as he or she struggles to remain conscious. And the old saying of “you can't get something for nothing” applies while maintaining consciousness in such a walking coma. Ir
ritability, lack of concentration, fits of rage or anxiety and an occasional sensation of passing out could be experienced. With these facts in mind, why in the world would Stephanie's husband, Frank, stay up during the morning and afternoon to drink? I suppose it's similar to the functional alcoholic who stays up until midnight, passes out and rises at dawn for work the next day. But as you read Frank's story, you might wonder if the 3rd shift hours in combination of alcohol abuse turned Frank into the monster that he was.

  A couple years before Jeff moved in the neighborhood, Paul learned of his stepfather's potential of violence on an afternoon upon returning home from school with friends. Being the inconsiderate beasts that children can be, Paul became rowdy in his bedroom while Frank tried with all his might to sleep in the next room that was darkened with shades and exterior noise drowned by the sound of FM radio static. Usually Frank slept like a rock. 12 beers in the course of the morning and early afternoon would ensure of this. Not to use outdated phrases, but a bomb could go off in the next room while Frank continued to soundly sleep. But on that day, Frank had difficulty.

  The young boys giggled and laughed. And then there was a slam that rattled the floor.

  “Those damn kids!” Frank jumped out of bed, grabbed a bowling ball from the closet and hurled it through bedroom wall towards the direction of the rowdy kids. The ball punched through both layers of drywall so that Frank could see the startled faces of boys who had aroused the Incredible Hulk into becoming angry. He used colorful adjectives while ordering them to “shut up”. Fortunately, the destructive bowling ball did not hit one of the children. And Stephanie learned that night of what would happen if she ever scolded her husband again!

  Then there was the year that Frank's favorite professional baseball team appeared in the World Series playoffs. Just as many fans felt that a title was long overdue, Frank truly believed that his team would make it that year. He sat in the chair one early evening, having already guzzled 10 beers. But it was anything but a party. His team wasn't doing so well.

  A recent litter of golden retriever puppies lay near their momma in the kitchen. Stephanie and Frank felt that mating the pure bread golden retriever might prove to be a small business to earn additional Christmas money, vacation money or whatever. But the puppies were getting bigger, bolder, louder and anxious to play. They now interpreted Frank's shouting at the TV to be calls for play as they answered his shouts with excited barking.

  He growled with colorful adjectives, “Shut up!” Then Frank crushed an empty, aluminum beer can and whipped it at the dogs. The golden retriever puppies saw it as play and a toy to entertain them.

  Then Frank rose from his seat and staggered into the kitchen for another beer. Popping the tab, he stopped dead to watch another poor play on the diamond. “You could have stolen base!”

  An excited puppy rose on its hind legs and put its paws on Frank's legs. Outraged at what he interpreted as another stupid move by his team, Frank vented the frustration by cocking his right leg back and kicking the dog, like a football, into midair and on the other side of the family room.

  Serious, internal damage had been done as the lifeless puppy lay on the ground. Its mother nervously approached and sniffed the tragic end. But Frank didn't care. The puppy deserved it. He left it to lie on the ground, a message to the mother that her puppies needed to be controlled. And at the end of the game, Stephanie had entered the family room. Frank belched, smashed his final, empty beer can on the end table and told his wife, “I think there's something wrong with the dog! Why don't you check it out?”

  * * *

  It was an unusually warm, Saturday afternoon in November with the thermometer at 65 degrees. Paul's mother put on her jogging shorts to enjoy a run on a day that was totally unheard of in Mapleview (for November). Playing with his friends and secret “Grave Robber club” outside, Paul was briefly called in the house by his stepfather to help move a large, awkward recliner chair from the family room and into the den.

  But the chair would not fit, no matter how angled or flipped up-side-down it would be. Frank was becoming increasingly irate, producing the odor of metabolized beer that wafted through the air.

  “Turn it this way, Pauly. Pauly, turn it this way. Hey, you payin' attention?” The chair was shoved in brut force but only smashed the boy's fingers.

  Paul cried out, “Ah! Ouch! You crushed my fingers. It won't fit! I'm trying to tell you that the other end is too big!”

  Frank dropped the chair on the floor, “You know Pauly, we're all alone and no one is here to see anything. I'm gettin' a little fed up with your crap and your smart mouth attitude.” He dragged the recliner chair out of the way so he could get to the boy who ran into the corner, in cover, from his stepfather. “I think it's about time someone knocks the crap out of you!”

  Paul's entire body was lifted over Frank's head and then thrown to the ground. Although the wind had been knocked out of the child who now gasped for air, Frank repeatedly picked him up and body slammed him to the floor; again, and again and again. Not satisfied with the beating, the large man knelt on the ground and proceeded to punch Paul's feet and twist his ankles. As Frank always said, “If you want to beat your wife or kids, you beat their feet. No one can see the bruising underneath shoes and socks.”

  Finally catching his breath, Paul screamed in agony from the twisting of his ankles. He managed to kick his stepfather over, get up and limp over to the corner of the room. But the monster quickly approached and repeatedly clobbered Paul's head with the bottoms of his muscular, tattooed forearms. Although the forearms didn't bruise Paul's head, it really hurt and caused a strained neck that was accompanied by a headache for a couple of days.

  “When I tell you somethin', you listen!” Then Frank stormed over to the door in his testosterone and beer-fueled rage to yell out to Paul's friend, “Pauly's grounded for the day! You can go home now!”

  Stephanie returned some time later to take sight of the recliner chair on its side near the entrance of the den. “Oh, were you moving that?”

  Frank sat on the sofa, finishing his beer. “Yeah, I want you to help me move it in there. Your smart mouth kid is grounded. He wouldn't help me.”

  Stephanie was ordered in the den and told to take the other end of the recliner chair. But just as Paul had discovered, the entryway was not wide enough to accommodate the chair.

  “Frank, it's too wide! Maybe if we take the door off the hinge?”

  Snapping a reply of BS with colorful adjectives, Frank insisted that the chair could make it through. He used brut force to push the chair through. But Stephanie watched as the paint from the woodwork chipped which soon turned into torn wood with splinters sticking out.

  “Frank, you're damaging the wall!”

  It was a mistake that cost Stephanie dearly. She knew not to raise her voice to the man. The chair was dropped and then dragged out of Frank's way. Stephanie nervously apologized and ran over to the corner of the room. And just like Paul, she was picked up and slammed to the floor. Then he punched her feet in all his strength and twisted her ankles. From his bedroom, Paul could hear his mother screaming in torment. How he hated his drunken stepfather!

  * * *

  A surprise, early arrival home by Mrs. Greenstart, combined with her mysterious need to investigate the crawlspace, was taken as a warning by the boys. It was time to dispose of the mess that lay in the wooden chest. But disposing of their treasure took on a meaning that was different from simply disposing of a body just to avoid getting caught. The boys wanted one last party, the grand celebration of them all! Just about every possible abuse and mutilation had been done to the corpse and the boys had grown tired of it. But what could be done that would both dump the body to a new location, while at the same time serve as major entertainment?

  The afternoon following Paul's severe beating, an outrageous suggestion had been provided. Although funny, the boys decided to take a serious risk with an end result that had the potential to permanently chang
e the neighborhood, forever.

  Now I don't think the reader can fully appreciate the near impossibility of the ghoulish plot. To begin with, there was no way that the wooden chest could be transported out of the crawlspace and to its final destination in one sweep. The project would require that it be done in steps. And if the boys could actually find the perfect moment to move the chest in these successive steps, the question remained if they actually had the strength to move it. There were two things that worked in their favor. Each of the boys was comfortable with handling the corpse. And it was mid-November which meant that darkness fell on the neighborhood by late afternoon.

  Wasting not a moment, all 9 boys of the club gathered around the burial after school on Monday, and positioned ropes behind the woman's body. The woman alone probably weighed 130, or more, pounds. The old, wooden trunk probably added an additional 50 pounds. First lifting the corpse from her burial and then pulling the “coffin” from the ground eased the total weight required to lift.

  The body was gradually carried to the stepladder and then all 9 boys stood around the entry, above, barely pulling the lifeless corpse up onto the kitchen floor. Little did the boys know that she lay very near the spot where Adahelm murdered her 30 years ago. The wooden chest was much easier to transport and lift up onto the kitchen floor. And while the 2nd step of transport went under way, Jeff remained in the crawlspace, filling the robbed grave with stones, only to discover that more needed to be taken from other areas of the storage space. He had to act quick! Mother would be home soon!

  “Are you guys getting that thing out of here?” Jeff was frantic!

  “Yeah, they're rolling it out behind the garage, now!” The “coffin” had been placed on a sheet of plywood which rested on a large, Radio Flyer wagon. Waiting just outside the backdoor, the corpse was successfully placed back in the wooden chest; the lid shut and then rolled out underneath a bush behind the garage. Not quite dark and soon time for the neighborhood kids to go home for dinner, the transporting project needed to be interrupted where it would wait for the next step.