AUGUST 10, 1970

         New keys are a beautiful sight to behold, especially at the start of Summer, when the world is welcoming all to step out and embrace new promises.

         “There you go, Mister Newfield,” Mike Parsons said, voice lethargic, eyes red. “The Block’s all yours. Rent’s due every first of the month.”

          Walter Newfield, young, ambitious, a mass of black hair made wavy by a lot of hair gel, smiled. “Work pays off.”

          Mike’s tongue rolled around in his mouth. “Sure does. Reckon you’re might proud, man of what, twenty-five? Already got you a home, three stories at that.”

          The man gave the landlord a soft look. Youthful blue eyes seeing haggard browns of a lifetime smoker and drinker. “The benefit of working from the age of thirteen. Saving every penny.”

          “Heard New Yorkers moved at a faster pace. You might find things too slow here in Valmar. Delaware creeps like the seasons.”

          “I’ve seen,” Walter laughed. “Does everything shut down at dark?”

          “Just about, even up in Wilmington and down Dover. We like our quiet.”
          “Well I’ll be waking up some neighbors with the power tools and hammering. Gotta get the Block, as you call it, ready by Autumn.”

          “Whatchu planning on turning it into anyway?” Mike leaned over the counter in his small gas station, a counter dominated by a large, square ashtray full of a crematorium’s worth of ashes.

          Walter added a cigarette butt to these funerary remains as he took a deep breath. “A breakfast nook on the first floor. My mom had one on Long Island, the Stitch In Time. Always loved that place, spent my childhood in it. Might steal the name since it’s, gone. Bring some city vibe to the South, you know?”

          “Uh-huh,” Mike shuffled a stack of receipts around the counter. Slapped a MOBIL trucker’s cap on his head. “Well, you take of yourself and don’t you go banging no nails into your fingers.”

          They exchanged a laugh.

          “And don’t you go paying no mind to Sarah Ann Lisle while you’re working.”

          “Is she on the town council?”

          “Ha! Hell to the no! Thinks she’s the whole daggone government, though. You stick to your guns and she’ll get the message.”

          “Right.”

          “Now you go on and make Blossom Street pretty again. The Block ain’t seen no love in an age.”

AUGUST 19, 1970

          The Block rested in the middle of Blossom Street, just outside the business center of Valmar. It was one of those Italianate buildings from the 1840s, this one marked in a copper plaque that clearly denoted its construction being completed on June 25, 1849.

          It had all of those bells and whistles that make such a building stand out, perhaps too much in a plain, commercial town like Valmar. Overall she was a three-story brick rectangular block with its grander features higher up. A pedimented window shone like a clear pyramid under the Block’s seashell roof, eaves hanging over and held up by corbels of smiling, bearded faces. Conchs and ornate jellyfish were embedded in them, a taste of the Delaware River and Atlantic Ocean not far off.

          It stood out from the flat-roofed, red brick buildings surrounding it, so the Block had a unique appeal, and what the rest lacked. Access to a sizeable backyard, fenced in, once a tea garden.

          Walter had been into the work for over a week by then, banging and hammering. By now, the Sunday summer heat took hold and he was taking out an old, dusty carpet from the front room. He had hired two local boys, Johnny Heathers and Kevin Meade to do the heavy lifting.

          It was here, at 12:30 pm, that the old woman appeared in the doorway.

          “So you’re the new renter of the Block, are you?” she asked, full of pale wrinkles and an affectionate smile that made her eyes vanish under the white, rose-flooded sun hat. A wicker basket covered in cotton cloth swung under her right arm. “Lisle. Sarah Ann Lisle, of the Business Owners of Gothic Valmar Association. My shop is across the street, Sarah’s Sense, the one with the quilts in the window?” Madame Lisle offered Walter a hand to shake instantly.

          He wiped off sweat and grime using a handkerchief pulled from his jean’s pocket and shook. Nervous grimace. “Walter, Walter Newfield. A pleasure. Ah, Gothic Valmar?”

          “Something the town tried from the 1880s until the Fifties when the Appreciation Parade went bust. They removed the adjective but I refuse, refuse, to alter the Association’s full title.”

          “Newfield, is that Jewish?”

          “Suppose it could be?” he replied, eyes wide, shocked from the inquiry. “But just typical English root.”

          “Well, I would have visited earlier but today is church day and I cannot abide not being next to the lord, can you?”

          Walter shrugged.

          Her expansive smile died. “They don’t do religion on Long Island, Mister Newfield?”

          “Um, see, my mother had a store out on the island, but we’re from Brooklyn. You ah, got the dirt on me though.”

          They exchanged nervous laughter, or at least Walter felt they were both doing it out of nerves. Then, he eyed the basket.

          “Are you collecting things for the church? I can donate–”

          “Oh no, silly. This here’s for you. It’s a welcome to the neighborhood sort of thing. Common around here, probably not so much up North, or so I believe.”

          He felt embarrassed without any awareness as to how he acquired it. “I’ve heard the South is more welcoming.”

          “Why yes, if you consider this the South. The Mason-Dixon Line goes literally right over our heads but I don’t think we’re really Southerners after Lincoln took us over before we could do the vote. We’re more country living than southern hospitality, but close enough.”

          “I heard you’re more gossipy, too.”

          Now her wrinkles tightened up. She moved across the floor as Johnny and Keving got well out of her way. Sarah Ann placed the basket on a recently wiped down pine countertop. “Anyway, Mister Newfield, this is for you.”

          He moved for it, removed the cloth. “Peaches.”

          “Peaches, peach jam I made myself, and a loaf of spice bread with peaches in it.”

          “I see.” Walter studied the fruit selection, finding it odd to receive this selection of what he thought were edible farm implements. “That’s a lot of peaches.”

          “Give them to the boys. They’ll eat them up, best you believe. I watched them grow up. Those Meade boys were never given any limitations. The Heathers are not so different, and I’ll just warn you now that Johnny will ask you for more money, just you wait. Greed is a sin, Mister Newfield.”

          “So I’ve heard,” was the running line he kept using as it seemed most apt. “Had a Catholic mother, had to learn the Commandments and Latin, the whole nine. Thank you very much. It’s a great summer treat.”

          Now the mile-wide smile returned. “You are most welcome. I shall allow you to return to your labors. If you ever need a thing, to know about Valmar, or just need a button sewed back on, you know where to go. And don’t let the peaches rot or you’ll never get the scent out.”

          “I will, and feel free to stop by anytime,” Walter said, regretting the words but doing nothing to stop them from coming out.

          “Don’t know if I will but you’ll fetch a ton of women once they find out a handsome man like you is in town.” She offered him a final, biting smile, and then walked away.

AUGUST 24, 1970

          Walter had taken the third floor for his living space, the second as an expansive office and workshop. With Johnny and Kevin he soon had the first floor spotless. The wooden floor exposed and shined up. He took two days choosing what color curtains to use for the breakfast nook, getting giggles from ladies at Roses department store watching him fuss over it.

          By night orange curtains were hanging and Walter had not one, but two circular metal fans buzzing in his new bedroom to fend off the damn heat. Somehow that worked, until late night.

          He awoke in that curious way where the mind is befuddled as to why, but has become wide alert at an instant. He stayed in bed for a half hour before deciding the heat was the culprit. But no. Both fans were running, windows open. Night air surprisingly welcome.

          It held a tint of saltwater, reminding him of a stroll past a cotton candy store along a boardwalk. But. Beneath this fragrance, he caught a whiff of rot.

          He grunted and rolled off the bed, remembering the remaining peaches were downstairs in room temperature. “Should have bought that AC unit, dammit.” He threw on a T-shirt and pajama bottoms and stumbled down the stairs.

          The place here smelled of fresh paint. But there. The distinct rotten fruit punch came up from behind that bouquet to assault Walter’s nose. He winced on entering the kitchen. 

          There he found the wicker basket, still holding two peaches. Clean. Robust. Fresh. The only thing out of whack were some crumbs from the now gone spice bread.

          He leaned down to smell them, pleased to find them to be a good fragrance.

          “But what the hell is that–”

          A motion out in the main room caught his attention.

          Walter thought one of the curtains had fallen and blown around. But when he entered the room, he found all of them hung and still.

          “Oh, it’s you.” He had an extra curtain, bright orange and crisp, leftover and lying on the counter. Now it was splayed out across the floor, so he picked it up.

          Then a movement near the hallway took his breath away. He perspired, jumped back and eyed the hall as if it was hiding something from him. But his mind wouldn’t stop replaying it, a shadowy figure who moved down the hallway and towards the backdoor.

          He wiped off sweat, then moved into the hall, picking up a hammer on the way. The air went from a soft flow to dead, humid calm. It crawled all over him, sticking the T-shirt to his chest. Walter held the hammer up. Even in the dark he could make out the backdoor had been used. The door, cracked open, revealing the large, green backyard. He pulled it back, tensing as it creaked. A metal hook he had put on its mated loop in the screen door was now off. 

          “Okay you must think you’re messing with some slow guy from around here, huh! I’m from New York, pal. You better run before I get my hands on…”

          The backyard had it all to make it once a tea garden for genteel visitors back in the early 20th century. A fountain sat dead center, out of use (another thing on his vast to-do list) of a cobblestone walkway in uncut grass, while the edges of the yard were bordered by tall redcurrants blushing in red berries. Everything here existed in an enclosed ecosystem, nowhere to go. 

          It was by the fountain where Walter saw the ghost.

          A classic bedtime story phantasm, startling, but not frightening. A shroud or bedsheet, faded orange or mandarin, draped over a guy, blew slightly in a hot breeze.

          Walter thought the guy might be damn tall, but rushed on him anyway, hammer at the ready. 

          He swung hard, so much so he went well into the sheet, caught up in its folds, cold and wet in the hot damn dry night. Fighting. Screaming curses. Hammering and determined to bash this thief’s head in.

          When the hammer sunk into soft grass, he stopped.

          Walter was on all fours, doused in perspiration. Out of breath. He…shivered.

          Suddenly, Walter heaved, that harsh, brutal kind of hurl that produced no vomit, only pain.

          No one. No one was there. Not even the sheet.

          He lurched, wildly searching the backyard as he backed up towards the door. He locked it. Bolted the main backdoor. Stormed around the Block, locking windows, doors, sniffing, moaning.

          “What the hell is that smell!”

          Then he looked down. The T-shirt, sopping wet, chilly. He touched a mucus splattered on the shirt and pulled some of it away, watching it stretch then dip towards the shiny floor.

          He suffered another dry heave and raced upstairs for the bathroom.

          Hung over the toilet forever. Clothes thrown off in haste, he got in the shower and scrubbed himself raw.

          But the stench of rot remained in his nostrils.

          Rotten peaches.

AUGUST 26, 1970

          “You said it was a man in a bedsheet,” Deputy Sheriff Carlson Wade noted, staring at his tiny notepad. He was lean, mean, hair gray as a thundercloud, in shape. Not in the mood.

          Walter finished setting out orders for Johnny and Kevin, who were adding new locks to the backdoor. He was disheartened, not only for the thief, but for his choices after that night.

          “Yes, crazy as it sounds. Listen, I don’t usually call the cops. Hell, I never have.”

          “Is that so? I heard New York was a real bad place. Been there once, you know? The Bronx, about seven years ago, with my brother on his rig picking up some Thanksgiving turkeys. Helluva sight.”

          “Big turkeys, huh?”

          “I’m talking about the Bronx. Ugliest scab in America.”

          “Right. Are you gonna look around back, or…?”

          “Reckon I can if you want me to.”

          He slammed a can of cleaner down on the counter. “Yes I do! That’s your job isn’t it?”

          Wade hitched up his gunbelt. “City boys got no patience.”

          “Not when someone breaks into my home, no.”

          “Well, tell you right now, it’s more than likely one of the Bremmer boys pickling around again. They love setting fields on fire, pinching girlies and such. Hell, last year they was running around with pumpkins on their heads, chased Abner Fitch all around his garage.” He paused to laugh. “He swore they was a gang of killers.”

          “So what you’re saying,” Walter posed to blow his nose. Fidget. That damn rot! “is this is habitual.”

          “It can be at times.”

          “And you don’t smell that?”

          “What?”

          “Rotten peaches. It’s wretched. It started that same night.”

          “The boys might’ve put ’em somewhere on your property, Mister Newfield.”

          “Yeah, well, I searched top to bottom and haven’t found a thing. But it’s in the air, and all the way up in my damn brain.”

          Wade smirked, stained yellow teeth like billboards for decay. “Well I’ll walk around out back, see what I can see. When you getting the fountain up and running? You know Mabel Simmons wanted that thing built so bad folks say she put a hoe to her husband’s throat to encourage him to get it done. Bankrupted them, from what I’m told.”

          Walter stared at him, confounded by the need for local gossip. “Got an engineer coming over tomorrow.”

          “Thing’s more a dedication to her denomination than a fountain,” the deputy went on as if Walter had never spoke.

          “I take it she wasn’t Catholic?”

          Wade laughed. “Ain’t got none of them around here, no, sir. Mabel Simmons was Church of Kage. Old, one of the town founders, built damn near everything.”

          Walter huffed, no time for local yokel lore or this sloth of a man but anything to distract from the smell– “Kage, what’s that? Japanese?”

          The deputy’s smile extended. “No. They was from someplace else.”

          “Look, this is nice and all, sure it’ll make good stories for the customers, but are you going to do a single thing or not?”

          He tipped his broad policeman’s hat, the county or state police variety that gave off cowboy vibes. “Uh-huh. Gonna go look in the back.”

          Walter looked down at the counter. A hanging sign had been delivered right before Wade’s arrival, a thick oaken plaque denoting the name:

                      STITCHED IN TIME

          Carved in a cursive style, it held a country charm. But beneath it he added:

                     EST. NEW YORK, 1953

          It gave him a feeling of being home again, where New York City no longer felt far off. Even when the deputy returned to tell him he (not surprisingly) found nothing of note, Walter took comfort in the promise this signage brought.

          So long as the Block smelled right.

AUGUST 28, 1970

          Walter awoke again, fourth night straight. By now the rot had subsided, but every night he was wandering the Block, catching wisps of faded cloth, chasing ghosts. He made very loud, gruesome threats. Sleep had evaded him.

          But now he was marching around with a Browning Hi-Power in hand. He had bought one, and had the gumption to use it, boys be damned.

          He stood in the nook, now decorated in country paintings of Delaware and photographs from the region he had received from the noxiously kind Sarah Ann Lisle. There were jars of lollipops and black licorice for future children to take free. It had an old country store sentimentality, perfect for Valmar and a soothing vibe for out-of-state visitors.

          Now the windy July night blew his shocking orange curtains like ship sails at sea, making the entire nook appear alive, breathing.

          The rot crept up from the spotless floor into his nose once more, startling Walter, forcing him to raise the Browning, wave it around. He pierced the flowing curtains with its barrel only to find half open windows and the darkness along Blossom Street. 

          Then a slight creak on the stairs made Walter move. He went for the stairs, gun aimed.

          A worn out orange hooded figure blew up on the ninth step.

          “I warned you!” Walter shot once, dead on, chest level.

          The sheet blew on, unabated.

          Then, the figure stepped down, making the step creak hard.

          Walter glanced down. He blinked. The gun wavered. There was nothing in the sheet. No body. No legs or boots heavy enough to have made the sound.

          The sheet drifted down, still making the creaks, and now, a new, succulent sound. 

          Chewing. The kind of swishy chew as when one eats chili or soup. A slurping, sloppy, unwholesome mastication and accompanying swallowing took place, filling Walter’s senses. Rot in the nose, plus this playful, happy picnic eating teasing the eardrums.

          The sheet passed through him as he opened fire until the weapon was spent.

          Walter awoke in a heated gasp on the cold, wet bed. He dry heaved and fell off the side, hitting his head on the floor, seeing the discharged Browning nearby. Rot. The rot scent sent him to a deeper state of revulsion.

          He may have begun to laugh before this delirium sent him drifting away.

AUGUST 31, 1970

          Stitched In Time opened early its first day. Walter had hung more photographs from Sarah Ann over the bullet holes up the stairwell. Out of sight, out of mind. In a week the place had gotten rather popular.

          People were in the nook, eating large helpings of eggs, scrambled yellow or fried, home fries, chipped beef on toast, corned beef hash, scrapple and other meaty meals Walter learned about being in the First State.

          He had a trade basket where customers could take a Delaware postcard in exchange for leaving a picture of themselves for the Visitor’s Wall. It proved to be a hit. Word spread. 

          Customers noted Walter Newfield was a very nice New Yorker with a ‘classic’ accent, fast, jerky motions, but good manners. But most also noticed he was always looking behind him. Jittery. He sniffed a lot and whispers of cocaine plus city boy rushed to the top of the gossip circles.

When he overheard such aspersions, Walter would erupt at that particular customer, often driving them out. The nook’s reputation nosedived fast.

          By night, Walter lost sleep. He guarded the Block, patrolling its floors, the front step, the large backyard and functioning fountain. Passersby saw him on occasion and opened a gossip mill.

          He would find, most nights, the Sheet. Watching him. Fluttering. Chewing. Stinking up the Block. But he never went near it, nor gave nary a threat or pointed a weapon. He would simply glare, about face, and lock himself in his bedroom.

Fingernails were being bitten off. Eyes made a career out of being bloodshot. Spreadsheet for the nook went off the rails.

          A local clique of old women came into the nook one day, going on about how the Bremmer boys, Jake, Clemson, and Luke, were arrested for stealing a farmer’s truck out on Old Pinewood Road. 

          But the Sheet remained. Every night. Eating Walter whole.

SEPTEMBER 17, 1970

          Mrs. Sarah Ann Lisle smiled like a fateful sun. “There we are, Mister Newfield. Another authentic Valmar image. Now this one is Cluck and Eel Bartlett, Moor brothers from Cheswold. Have you ever heard of the Moors? They say they’re Nanticokes or Delaware Indians but mixed with Black and Irish or some such but other people say they’re nothing more than Portuguese who forgot where they came from. If you ask me I think they are who they say they are, but they used to be big on making eel pots and eel traps. That’s what those wicker vase looking things are in front of them.”

          “Right,” Walter wiped blurry eyes. He sniffed and sniffed and snorted.

          “Are you sick? A summer cold is a mess indeed. I didn’t want to say anything but you have been looking a touch ghastly, and I’ll be the first to warn you that people are talking.”

          He straightened the frame on the wall while shaking his head. “No, I’m um, not getting any sleep.”

          “No sleep? In this quiet building? Say it isn’t so!”

          “Wish I could. Damn stench!” He punched the wall. A photograph fell off, cracking the glass covering. Sarah Ann took four steps back.

          “Mister Newfield, have you been drinking or taking any pills?”

          “No!”

          “My mistake, but these days if the problem isn’t liquor then it’s narcotics. Have you tried tea or warm milk?”

          “You know what? I done both, thanks to advice from my customers. They don’t work. It’s fine. It’s… not something I can explain.”

          She took his hand in hers and consoled him. With the other, she picked up the broken frame. “Oh look. The Kage painting. Well, I suppose it’s fine.”

          “Kage?” Walter took it from her hand. “The church, right?” He studied it, having never paid it any mind when she donated it a month or more ago. Seemed common enough. Steeple. Wooden construction. A bell. White paint and an orange roof. A copse of trees. A few people in all white outfits were outside of it under a stained glass window of a fountain under black vines, despite the glass bits being very jagged and small, an intricate tile mural but in glass pieces.

          “Have you heard of it, Mister Newfield?” she asked, still holding his hand and now patting it with the freed one.

          “Deputy told me about it when I called him about the, robber.”

          “Oh? Have you been accosted?”

          “More like manipulated. I don’t know. There’s been a, a wanderer, some guy playing games. He wears an orange sheet, faded. Sometimes it’s frayed at the edges, or shredded. Thing must be smothered in rotten peaches. It’s a cruel hazing or–”

          “Oh. My goodness. You’ve seen the Boy.” Sarah Ann put an open hand in front of her mouth. She went more pale than normal.

          “The. Boy?” It sounded so radical he shook his head violently.

          “I was a girl at the time, around the same age as Devlin.”

          “He has a name. Nice.” Walter dripped sarcasm, and heaved waiting for a tale he knew would be irrelevant to his plight.

          “Devlin Dale was a precocious boy, full of little disruptions he heartily unleashed on Valmar. Petty acts, and hunger. That boy was so greedy, a sin, really. But he was big for his age and Mister Boggs used him to chase off wanderers and deer, kill rat snakes and the like. Do you know about our peaches?”

          “You brought some over my first week.”

          “Yes, but that’s a pittance. Delaware used to be one of the top peach growers in the entire country. We had them everywhere, in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands and we were very, very proud of them. I used to pick them on Robert Boggs’ farm. So did Devlin, although he worked there from time to time.”

          Walter stared at the fountain in the glass, blank. “Sarah Ann, this is fascinating and all, but–”

          “You should always get the full story, Mister Newfield, lest you miss out on key details.”

          “Sorry,” he lied, too tired to argue. “Go on.”

          “Well, Devlin ate more than he ever bothered to work. No amount of talking to him did any good. He would eat and eat to sickness, throwing up all over Valmar then smiling and doing it again. I never saw the like.”

          “He ate lots of peaches?” 

          “Yes he did. We used to pray for the boy, especially when the Yellows came. The Peach Yellows, well, was a blight that took out most of our peach trees. We only have, I think, two or three farms left now? But during the decline, Devlin kept on eating them, even when they were rotten. Full of those plum leafhoppers.”

          “Was he mentally ill?”

          “He was possessed, though few pay heed to that nowadays.”

          Walter thought it through, focused on the stained microglass black vines. “What happened to him?”

          “We prayed for him. You know, to understand greed. To fix him. One day they found him dead in the field, choked to death, laying in a heap of rotten peaches. Eyes open and sticky. Fourteen years old. Such a sad sight.”

          “Are you saying this sheet ghost thing is that kid?”

          “People have seen the Peach Rot Boy before, though I suppose it’s been close to twenty years since the last time.”

          He ignored the quaint, idiotic name for this terrible circumstance ripping apart his life and– “Where?”

          She turned to face the back of the Block and point. “Right out there. Mister Boggs’ field used to extend all the way up to the backyard.”

          Walter felt stifling, hot under the collar. Stomach sank. “So you don’t think this is just my imagination?”

          “Enough people have seen him around Blossom Street and the surrounding area for decades now. I believe they consider this to be preponderance of the evidence.”

          He hesitated, walked over to place the painting on the counter. “What should I do about it? An exorcism or something?”

          “Oh for goodness sake, no! I’ll go over to church tonight for Bingo and get the Body to pray for you. You’ll sleep sound as cicadas in the ground tonight. I know you’re not religious but my church works wonders.”

          “That’s, nice of you. But I was hoping for something much more actionable. I’m beyond tired. Angry. Not thinking clearly. Hell, most of me is thinking this is still some dumb guy and it’s nothing a fist can’t solve.”

          “Men do tend to lean heavily on violence, even when contending with the Beyond.”

          He saw the judgemental expression she cast his way and felt, for a rare moment, embarrassed. “Okay. I’ve got some scented candles to light, and rounds to do to make sure everything is locked up tight. I’ll see you tomorrow? We’re serving sticky buns and coffee for the Valmar Book Club. Customers have been thin lately.”

          “I may do that, Mister Newfield, if for no other reason than to check on you.”

SEPTEMBER 17, 1970

LATE NIGHT

          Walter heard whispers in the dark and rolled, defeated, out of bed. Curiously, he felt well rested, cool, resolute. But he knew what awaited. The analog light clock turned slowly over to read 3:46 AM. 

          He stood in the bedroom, listening. Nothing. He dressed, put the Browning in hand, and made for the stairs. 

          The stairwell slapped him in the unmistakable wretched, rot.

          Peach Rot Boy, he thought, but thinking it did not make it seem amusing. “God help me,” he whispered. Downstairs, he went.

          The Block was empty. He searched all around, going down the halfway on the first floor last. Leaned on a wall for several lost minutes. The backdoor, locked. He unlocked the deadbolt, then lifted the hook from the screen door.

          The Valmar night had a perplexing cicada buzz mixed into a humid haze despite the turning of the leaves. Walter noticed the fountain sparkling, flowing, giving off a subtle ripple sound. Whispers.

          He shook his head. No. This wasn’t right. He moved towards it, slow. Sparkling water rose and fell in constant rain, spritzing him in microdots. His reflection rippled. But the whispers were there. Undecipherable. Growing.

          They increased in volume, becoming a continuous, repetitive, ominous chants.

          Prayers.

          Walter shifted right. Sarah Ann’s church was down the street, close enough to be heard, assuming the flock was praying outside.

          Perhaps they were. Maybe they were that decent, that homely down this way. This ungodly hour. Maybe?

          Except he did not know the words. No matter how loud they got, it wasn’t English.

          Walter surmised German, or some variation. He looked back at the fountain, a lean, glorified birdbath. A high stone tower capping off in a bowl that spilled water over into a lower, larger bowl and then, into the wide circular basin.

          But he had never noticed a collar around the base of the highest bowl. He shone a flashlight on it. Tiny, beaded bits of colored glass shone in the dark. In the center two stained glass words stood out. One had symbols he could never make sense of. Under it, the name of WICKERS & CO., the original builders. He honestly hadn’t paid attention to the fountain’s rebuild due to the damn rot, but now, wiling away in delirium, he remembered. For him, the Boy began here.

Two more words lay under the inscription. Something familiar yet still ancient. One of two, anyway. Old Latin script.

          He stepped back, out of breath.

          “KAGE VORAT,” Walter felt heavy. Denuded. “Kage. Devours.” 

          A series of words clashed in his skull from Sarah Ann and Deputy Wade. The stench of rot heightened all around him as the waters rippled calm and prayers added to the summer’s heat.

          He turned to run for the door.

          Peach Rot Boy rippled ahead of it. Sheet cleaner, smoother than ever. Large and wavy, chew chew swallow liquid sweetness in the salty fall/summer night.

          Walter trembled. Panicked, he stormed the door, heedless of the Boy in his way. The Sheet smothered him as he crashed through the screen door, screaming muffled inside the sinking, tightening, suckling folds.

          Somehow Walter got his face free as he unloaded the Browning into the Boy but each shot caused him to cry out in pain.

          The spotless floorboards stained red. The Boy slid Walter left, right, ramming his face into the hallway walls. Chew. 

          Soon the screams and shooting ended. The Boy fluttered off into the night. Leafhoppers crawled over Walter’s stiff, emaciated face. Bullet holes graced the man’s body as cicada pray chants lessened, lowered, letting the merciless softness of evening resume its hallowed hold over the land.

AUGUST 1, 1971

          “So you from up North are you, Miss Carter?” Mike Parsons asked, hacking up phlegm from two lifetimes of heavy smoking.

          Pamela Carter held a dissatisfied expression to her face as she read the lease, inside a gas station of all places. “Boston.”

          “No kidding! That there’s Revolution territory, ain’t it?”

          “You have some of that up in Brandywine, don’t you?” She eyed Mike with a glare that surely rooted her displeasure. “Price for this Block is stiff.”

          “It is, but it’s historic. Not another building like it anywhere in Valmar.”

          “But is business gonna be good around here?”

          “Well now, Route One’s right around the corner. Everybody in Delaware or traveling through the state’s gonna come right up by Valmar. They all gotta come to us one way or the other. Reckon you’re gonna have truckloads of customers for your, what’d you say you was gonna make?”

          She leaned back. “A bakery. Went to chef’s school. I love making cakes, donuts, pies.”

          Mike licked thin lips with a dry tongue. “Yummy! You speaking my language.”

          “Good to know city and country both love good eating. Hope the locals will eat there.”

          “Oh, Valmar loves out-of-towners. Especially Blossom Street. You’re gonna fit right in.”

          Pamela crossed her arms. “I’d feel more at home if the price for the Block wasn’t so damn high.”

          “Not happy, are you?”

          “No.”

          “What if I told you if you get into the local church around the bend you’d easily get local business? Get it, and keep it.”

          She moved for the gas station’s greasy window with cobwebs in the lower reaches. “That one behind the rowhouses? Is it new? I see rafters around the steeple.”

          “That’s the one. Under construction, old one burned down ages ago and they been practicing in a ruined farmhouse by some old peach trees. Eager folks, those Kage followers. Real community minded.”

          “Okay. Not a stranger to church life. What’s Kage?”

          “Little town used to exist back in Eastern Europe, so I’m informed. Jagged Kage’s, well, it’s sort of a different way of viewing transubstantiation is all.”

          “Oh.” She tensed, signature still not on the lease. Pen hovering.

          “Miss Carter, I ain’t a rich man by far. I just got this station and the lease on the Block, been mine since a spineless man from Chicago signed it to me to pay off a debt. That’s my real bread and butter. Used to rent it but now I’m thinking big, about the future, like you. Been dreaming of getting a buyer who will stick around, do something positive with it. Been a long time since it made good for me.” He offered a pitiful, yellow-toothed grimace.

          “You’re saying you’re desperate to get it off your hands, that’s why it costs so much? Should be the other way around. I mean, I came all this way and I’m taking it, but the loss upfront will delay me making profit beyond the assumed five years. But I guess we’ll see what happens.”

          “All I’m saying,” Mike lit a cigarette, “is a boy’s gotta eat. Now, let me walk you over and give you the neighborhood tour. They’re gonna love the mess outta you.”