At this moment in the town of Jericho, Kansas, Johnston Green was finishing a cup of coffee and, for the first time in the weeks since the tragic death of his daughter-in-law and unborn grandchild and the hasty departure of his son, he was laughing.
For the first time since her lover's hasty departure and the tragic death of his ex-wife and unborn child, Mary Bailey was letting herself enjoy a moment of light heartedness as she sipped coffee and laughed over the former mayor's stories.
The atmosphere in town that day was tense, as if trouble was in the air, and the former mayor and current bar owner had both begun the morning turning over dread-filled worries in their minds, but, united over a for once easy to solve problem, a fondness for storytelling, and a different but equally strong love for a certain absent deputy mayor, they had managed to pass the afternoon in a surprisingly pleasant ease, fixing a troublesome length of copper tubing on a still, reminiscing over coffee, and avoiding the fears of their present for a little while.
Their conversation took a more serious turn, however, as Johnston's thoughts and words drifted to his wife, once so jovial, and the absence of laughter in their house these days as they dealt with the bereavement that had befallen them. Mary gave a quiet nod of understanding, and they passed a moment in silence as they contemplated the recent tragedies that had affected them all. Johnston paused, feeling at once both free, having spoken something of the pains he usually kept hidden, and feeling an urge to hide them again. He broke the silence, saying, "Here I am, rambling on. We probably oughta go take a look at that still."
"Good idea," nodded Mary, smiling and taking his cue as they shifted back to a less painful topic. She followed him into the back, where he'd recently passed on his father's trick for fixing copper tubing with sand, and though she smiled appreciatively as he set to work checking to see how the experimental first batch was doing, she couldn't help but continue to feel some of the melancholy that had hovered in the air a few moments earlier. She had been thinking on the subject often, in the past few weeks, and hadn't known how to broach it, but now, she took a breath and opened her mouth.
"You know, if Mrs. Green - the both of you - if there's anything I can do, to help..." she trailed off, struggling for words that would explain what she was trying to express. "I know she probably doesn't want my help, it's just, if there's anything -"
"It's okay," said Johnston, finding it easier to answer her than to struggle through his own muddled thoughts. "Thank you, Mary, really. I appreciate it, and Gail...well, I think it just takes time."
Mary nodded solemnly. "I know what you mean." She gave a smile that didn't meet her eyes.
"Thing is, we're all just muddling through this thing in our own way. Losing someone...it's never quite the same. Each time, no matter how much you think you're used to dealing with things, it's always a shock just how hard it is."
"Yeah," agreed Mary, nodding again. Her eyes had taken on a gleam and though Johnston didn't want to brush aside the real sadness they were both nearly acknowledging, he wished they could get back that feeling of lightheartedness, so rare these days, that they'd had a few minutes earlier.
"You know, my great aunt Milly," he began, switching to his storytelling voice, though not with quite the enthusiasm it had had before. "After my great uncle Cornelius died, she insisted on wearing his hat. It was a musty, flea-bitten old thing, and she insisted on wearing it to nearly every special occasion she'd go to. She must'a worn that thing for twenty years. Then, when she was on her death bed, my mother was asking her about what arrangements she wanted made, since she was really particular about things, and she asked her about the hat. No one wanted to have to bury her in it, of course, but my mother thought she owed her to at least ask. Well, Aunt Milly just shook her head and made a face and said 'You'd better not think of laying me out with that thing on my head.' Everyone was shocked, but she was just as insistent as she had been all those years when people tried to get her to throw it out. Totally changed her mind. You just never know I guess, the strange things people get in their heads." He let out a chuckle at the memory, and Mary chuckled too. Their conversation falling into safer territory again, Mary added a story of her own.
"My dad's grandma was dead before I was born, but every year on her birthday, he'd get out this old record and play her favourite song. Only time of year we played it, and we'd dance around to it, me stepping on his feet, you know. He got upset once when I tried to play it another time, a non birthday, when I was ten. And when I was fifteen, I said I didn't know why we had to do it every year, it seemed stupid." Mary rolled her eyes at the memory her own teenage angst and Johnston smirked, remembering the times his own teenagers called into question the things they deemed stupid. Mary continued, "But you know, after he died, I'd take the record out and play it sometimes. Not on his grandma's birthday, or his own, but I'd think of both, every time."
Johnston smiled, remembering to himself now Mary's father, a man with whom he'd traded many stories and with whom he'd watched the town change over the years. Clearing his throat gruffly, he launched into another story. "And then of course there was my mother's cousin, Bertha. After her mother died, she swore to everyone, she'd see her sometimes. She said she'd wake up early in the morning, look outside, and see her mom out there, hanging up clothes on the line. People laughed at her, said 'Your mom was always working herself to the bone when she was alive, you really think she'd wanna spend the afterlife doing your laundry?' But she always insisted, any time anyone ever brought it up. I don't know what she saw, but she was sure it was her mom's ghost." Johnston smiled wryly.
He glanced over at Mary. She was smiling too, but again, it didn't reach her eyes, and he could tell she was thinking about something as she looked down at the still. "Yeah, weird when that happens, isn't it?" she said finally, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
"Sure is," he nodded. "I heard my share of ghost stories over the years, but no storyteller ever as insistent as Bertha."
"My dad liked telling ghost stories too," Mary said. "When I was a kid, he'd tell them to me every time the power went out, and we'd sit around with a flashlight and he'd try to scare me, with stories about fugitive slave ghosts, and rum runner ghosts, and sea captains, and brides..." She had been smiling through this explanation, but she grew more serious for a moment. She smiled again a moment later, as if trying to dismiss something from her mind. "So I got over being scared of 'em pretty early."
Johnston chuckled. "You were lucky you didn't have a brother. The way Jake and Eric used to try to egg each other on, every time one of them got a notion about scary stories in their head. I can't tell you the number of times Eric came into our room to announce he'd had a bad dream, all because of something Jake told him before he went to bed." Mary shook her head slowly with a knowing smirk. He chuckled again. "Same number of times I'd go by Jake's room and see light under his door, I'm sure. I'd find him sitting up with a flashlight, just telling me calmly he couldn't sleep and thought he'd get in some reading time. Said he didn't believe in ghosts, never wanted me to know he was scared of something, but he wasn't that good a liar." They both chuckled at this.
"So, do you believe in ghosts then?" asked Mary, in a slightly teasing tone.
Johnston smiled, and this time it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Not the kind that walk through walls and appear on stormy nights."
Mary wrinkled her forehead in thought and nodded her understanding. "I think sometimes...maybe our minds do a better job of haunting us," she said.
He said nothing, sensing there was something more underneath her words. He raised his eyebrows, silently encouraging her to continue.
She stared at the counter for a moment before glancing up to meet his eyes. "It's really dumb," she said with a half hearted laugh and shrug of her shoulders. "Last night, I thought I saw something."
Johnston nodded, watching her with a serious expression.
"I guess a trick my mind was playing on me," she said dismissively. "I couldn't sleep, I was thinking about Eric...and other things. So I was lying there, awake, and I thought I heard something down here. Maybe a loose shutter on one of the back windows, I thought. You know how windy it was last night. So I came downstairs. And, for a second, I thought I saw someone, standing here." She paused, rolling her eyes, though her expression remained serious. "Guess that's what happens when you don't sleep for a few weeks, huh?"
Johnston gave her a smile. It was an understatement, and really, faced with the lack of food and stress brought on by the constant barrage of disastrous events that seemed to hit the town, it was probably likely that lots of people were having strange visions and experiencing tricks of the mind most nights. Still, he couldn't help but feel there was more to the story. "So, was it a loose shutter?" he asked casually.
Mary nodded. "Actually, loose window. It was banging open and closed in the wind. I couldn't believe it. I noticed it a few seconds after the figure...I mean, after whatever I thought I saw was gone."
Johnston looked thoughtful. "And the figure - or whatever you thought you saw?"
Mary's expression grew pained. "She had red hair. And a white dress," she said in a quiet voice.
"And she was standing right in here? This room?" he asked, standing himself now.
"Yeah," she answered, looking somewhat puzzled at the new tone in his voice. "Right near the still." She let out a world weary sigh, and looked down at the counter, taking a moment to think on that person whom she must have imagined the figure to be, he thought to himself. His mind was on something else, though, as he glanced around the area in which he stood, bending down to examine the counter beside the still, and then crouching to the ground. Feeling around on the floor for a moment, his hands closed around a small, round piece of metal. Trying to scoop it up inconspicuously, he stepped over to the small window, looking out at the darkening sky. "And this is the window that was open?"
"Yeah," she answered. "Wind was so strong, must've torn off one of the hinges. I fixed it today though. I think it'll hold up for a while. I hope so, anyway. Looks like it could be another storm coming in, doesn't it?"
Johnston nodded, briefly glancing out at the clouds, before glancing down at the object in his hand. Holding it in the grey light, he could see that it was a half of a locket. A locket he thought he would never see again. "Oh, hell no!" he muttered under his breath.
"Sorry?" she asked from behind him. He turned. She was looking at him, her eyebrows raised.
He quickly pocketed his find, and stepped towards her, trying to make his expression firm without scaring her. "Mary, I want you to make sure you lock all your doors. All your doors, all your windows. Make sure they're all secure. Soon as the last person leaves the bar. And make sure you're not alone here. Make sure someone's with you, when the bar's open. And when it isn't, when you're alone, don't let anyone in."
She gave a small laugh, but sensing the urgency in his tone, it died on her lips. She tried instead to give a reassuring smile. "It's okay. I'm used to taking care of the place by myself. And taking care of myself. I'm fine, really." She smiled again. She was touched that he cared but she knew he didn't need to be worrying about her. Not now.
He chose his words carefully. He didn't want her to know how worried he was, didn't want her to be needlessly worrying too, but he needed her to understand his warning. "I know you are, Mary. But I just...wanna make sure you're careful. These days, even people who don't seem dangerous can be a threat. And with you here, alone..." He knew her thoughts would stray to why she was alone, but that was better than telling her the truth. Better she think of Eric, better she think it was April's ghost or a trick of her troubled mind, than what he knew was really out there. He would just have to impress upon her to be careful.
"Just promise me," he said, briefly gripping her arm. "Promise you'll be careful." He thought of Eric, of Mary's father, that this was the woman Eric loved, the reason he might come home, and this was Patrick Bailey's little girl, as he implored her to understand without any more explanation.
She stared back at him, sensing that there was something that he wasn't saying, but thinking that this was Eric's father, one of the only people who loved Eric as fiercely as she did, and this was the man she'd always known as Mayor, whom her father had spoken of with respect and introduced her to when she was a little girl, she nodded her head. "Okay," she whispered.
"Okay," he nodded, brusquely taking on a businesslike expression. "Let's go outside and check on that shutter."
She started to protest, that she'd fixed it herself and he'd helped enough already, but he was already on his way out, calling over his shoulder, "I know, but I wanna make sure it holds up in the next storm."
He really wanted to make sure he was seen around Bailey's tavern, and seen near Mary Bailey. But there was no point explaining, telling the sordid tale that would be required in the explanation.
A half an hour later, he was pulling on his gloves, watching the few regulars shuffling in for the evening, and putting his hat on his head. Mary thanked him again, hugging her arms across her chest as she stood in the doorway. With one last "Take care of yourself," he began the cold march home.
As he walked, he slipped his gloved hand into his pocket, turning over the locket half again, considering what he would tell Gail when he got home. He was torn, as he had been with Mary, wanting to be able to tell her the truth and not wanting to add to her worries. But Gail knew what they were up against, he thought, and she needed to know why it was more important than ever, now, that they work together to take care of each other and the only people they had left, despite their differences. He'd lost his grip on the town but he wouldn't lose his grip on his family, held together as loosely but definitely as they were now. And he knew Gail would feel the same. He would tell her what he had found in the back room at Bailey's, he decided.
When he found her in the living room, he was determined to tell her, but he couldn't quite find the words as he saw the look on her face. She had plenty of words, first making distinctions between keeping Mary alive and doing heavy lifting, but then, it seemed, worrying if she was the reason Eric had left. Johnston sighed, knowing how heavily her youngest son's absence weighed on her, knowing how it compounded the grief she already held for the only daughter she'd ever known, and the grandchild that had kept her hoping for the future. He wanted to tell her, as he'd told Mary, that it wasn't her fault. In this moment, he was too weary to find the right words. He resolved he would tell her his news later, when she wasn't sitting up worrying over Eric. No need to add another worry to her growing list, especially considering her growing conflict over why Eric had left and why he might come back.
He went upstairs and stood over the dresser, pulling out the locket and turning it over in his hands. He traced one finger along the cross shaped in the metal, and for a moment, smiled as he thought back to the day he'd first seen this locket. It was unfair, really, that something with such bittersweet memories could harbour such a sinister omen now. But it was how it was, and it would be no use worrying about what he couldn't change. He would just have to look out for them all himself. Gail, Mary, Eric, when he came back, and of course, Jake, who would never admit that he kept his flashlight on in bed because he was scared. He would protect them all, the best he could, and do what he could to hold them together in the storm that he sensed coming. And tomorrow he would tell Gail. And perhaps, when Eric was back, he'd tell him and Mary both. They would face it together. But for now, he would face it. He slipped the locket into an old sock, and slid it to the bottom of the smallest dresser drawer. Feeling somewhat at ease, he went downstairs to rummage for a snack.
Johnston Green would never get to tell his wife of the locket in his drawer, and the sense of warning that it carried. The next day he left for New Bern to rescue his sons, and in the days that followed, saw his town attacked, led an army of farmers and shopkeepers, and met his death.
His family was drawn together in his death, putting aside their differences as they clung to all that they had left. Eric came home and stayed, finding healing as he was surrounded by those he loved and doing his best to protect them all as his father once had. Gail, overjoyed to have her son back and mindful of the tragedies looming out there every day, began to accept his choices, and over time, to accept Mary. For her part, Mary offered the grieving Greens all that she could, and even Gail began to accept what she gave. Jake left home again, not for the reasons that had once sent him running away, but in order to face enemies that could crush them all. When he came back, he resolved to make the most of the time he had left with the family he had, knowing how quickly it could all be gone.
Johnston Green's family banded together to survive, just as he'd hoped they would, and they bravely faced life without him, and the crises that followed his death: occupation by a corrupt government, a showdown with representatives of said government, complete anarchy in the town they tried to lead, and then, survival on their own again. They faced all these things alongside their friends and fellow townspeople, all the while leaning on each other. But there was one danger none of them saw coming. Something they couldn't have predicted. No one ever found the locket, and so, none of them had warning of the danger it foretold.