Sketch № 14: Shadows on the Horizon
The O’Connor house, practically the oldest structure still standing in little Applewood, Connecticut, has been through enough renovation over the years so that you wouldn’t immediately guess its history. The first time I saw it, a couple weeks after I came to town in April, I thought it was just another farmhouse. It’s set back from a rural route that curves around a big front yard on an incline. If you see it from the back and ignore the sounds of the occasional car swooshing by, it seems like it could be out in a field somewhere, alone and distant.
Edna Mary O’Connor — the last remaining O’Connor in town and sole occupant of the house — agreed last week to let Mrs. Creaverton, Roscoe, Violet, and me organize volunteers for Operation Reverse the Rot. That’s Mrs. C’s name for it. We think we’ve finally figured out the secret for cleaning up the damage, the “rot” as Applewoodians call it, that’s been eating away at nearly all the buildings in town following the mysterious 7.2 Quake. And what better place to start than with the famous O’Connor house?
It didn’t take long for us to get people signed up and work started on ripping down broken shutters and shingles, replacing windows, and stripping peeled paint; and it didn’t take long for Nessie Fyne and Pastor Sweeney, along with a group of followers, to show up on day one and start hassling us.
This past Thursday, as the sun descended on our worksite, so did they.
They gathered across the street from the O’Connor house and spilled into the road, Sweeney in front of them all.
As we worked, we noticed the group filing behind Sweeney and Nessie, their shadows and faces long and dark against the horizon.
“This can’t be good,” Doc Graham said, coming up to Violet and me and wiping his forearm across his brow damp with perspiration. At his arrival next to her, the ever-stylish Violet hurried to run her fingers through her short black hair, probably to make sure no flyaways messed up her perfect “I’m cleaning up a house” look, complete with silk scarf around her neck. Graham’s in love with her. Violet wants everyone, including him, to think the feeling isn’t mutual.
Roscoe and Mrs. Creaverton were next to join our little group, and then a few others who’d been out helping us over the last couple of hours. Our two sides sized each other up until Sweeney and Nessie crossed the street to us.
Mark Raynid, a reporter for the now exclusively online The Applewood Timber, stood with our side and asked the approaching figures, “Pastor Sweeney, Nessie. You decide to come out and help Reverse the Rot?”
“Is this on the record, Mark?” said the pastor with a smile. The breeze didn’t stand a chance against the spray he’d used to sculpt his white hair into, ironically, his usual windswept look. Nessie’s own tight smile pushed up her puffy cheeks, and the bangs of her blond pixie cut were strangled in a barrette to the side of her forehead.
“Pastor,” Mark replied, “is there a such thing as off the record?”
Mrs. C eyed Mark. She’s not his biggest fan. He has a tendency to report anything that gives off even the slightest scent of scandal.
His photographer, a woman I only know as Reggie, stood behind him as she usually did, and she snapped a picture of Sweeney and Nessie with her phone.
Nessie said, “We just came by to see what all the fuss was about, why the O’Connor house was so lucky to receive such attention when so many other homes and businesses and families are suffering across Applewood.”
Roscoe said, “Operation Reverse the Rot had to start somewhere.”
“Of course,” said Nessie, her voice as sweet as the cakes she sells at her bakery, Ambrosia. “But one might think the place to start would be Pastor Sweeney’s Our Lord of the Ascension church. After all, so many people feel the church is their second home.”
“Going by that logic,” said Mrs. C, “we also could have started at the Newman Community.” That’s Father Jack’s church, the same Father Jack who runs the charitable organization Father Jack’s Table, whose volunteers have experienced cycles of record wakefulness and sleep. Jack had been weeding the O’Connor garden all afternoon with no indication he’d given any thought at all about where Reverse the Rot had started.
Sweeney’s eyes shifted to a point behind her. “I’m surprised to see you here, Miguel, Clarke, Brandon, Portia.” His voice landed heaviest on Portia, and I turned to see her look down at the ground. “I thought you were all too busy with your own personal endeavors to help out with your town’s crises.”
A couple months back, Sweeney had set upon a crusade to break up Roscoe’s literary salon, of which these four young adults were all members. The pastor and Nessie conspired to shut down the Café Confictura, and they tried to guilt Sweeney’s congregation into forcing these aspiring writers to put down their books and pens and pick up jobs that were “more useful” in helping Applewood rebuild. The salon members have enough to worry about, as they’re the only residents who have been afflicted with a brain fog that’s seriously impeded their former artistic genius.
Portia, a devout member of Sweeney’s parish, was the one who originally brought Sweeney’s sermon to Roscoe’s attention, and Roscoe has been working overtime with his writers to validate them and hopefully lead them past the brain fog. Now, she looked like she wanted to say something in response to Sweeney, but then she closed her mouth and cast her eyes down again.
Brandon, who also belongs to Our Lord of the Ascension, spoke up: “Pastor, we’re just doing a little bit, our own small part, as a piece of a bigger project. We think that’s the key to fighting the rot. And that way, our own studies don’t suffer.”
Reggie the photographer snapped another photo.
“Walk with God, son,” said Sweeney, “and may the Lord be with you all.” He crossed back over to their buddies.
Nessie hung back a second and said to Mrs. C, “Phil, you’re looking a bit thin these days. Are you unwell?”
Mrs. C’s first name is Phillipa. She hates being called Phil. Nessie knows this. Mrs. C gave her a warm grin. “Thank you so much for your concern, dear. I feel better than I have in years. My energy is up, my weight is down. I even joined Tank’s Gym.”
Doc Graham added, “And your latest blood tests are phenomenal, given that you still likely have Syndrome 43.”
The doc’s experimental plant-based diet that Mrs. C had to adopt after learning she’d contracted a strange kind of allergy to animal protein has done wonders for her. You guessed it — Syndrome 43 is another fallout of the Quake, one that has turned deadly for several people in town who didn’t have the benefit of the doc’s instructions.
“Well,” said Nessie, “just don’t get too bony, Phil. No one’s going to visit the café of a proprietor who looks ill. Just trying to be helpful.” With that, she trotted after Sweeney like a really stupid dog.
“That woman . . .” said Mrs. C, turning her back on their group.
Mark asked the doc, “Just how has that diet been going? You have much success with anyone other than Mrs. Creaverton?”
“We have,” said Graham. “The results have been extremely encouraging.”
“But none of this has been researched, correct?” said Mark. “No trials, no oversight?”
“I’m aware of the doubts many of my peers in the medical community have expressed,” Graham said measuredly. “But right now I’m just advising my patients with known plant-based recipes that have been proven as healthy substitutes for animal protein.”
“And what do you think is the endgame for this Syndrome 43?” said Mark.
Now the doc fell quiet a moment, before he said, “Off the record? I mean, for real off the record.”
Mark considered this. “Yeah, okay.”
“I have no idea. I don’t know what I’m doing with it, no one does. It’s uncharted territory.” He turned to Mrs. C and reached out a hand, which she took and squeezed reassuringly. “I’m just doing the best I can for my patients.”
It was a nice moment. We all know the doc is working hard on figuring out just what Syndrome 43 is all about. It was a nice moment to cap a productive first day of work on the O’Connor house. Even the pastor’s entourage eventually went home without further incident.
And then yesterday, in the Sunday edition of The Applewood Timber, this headline exploded on the screen:
Doc Admits ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’
By the time we all gathered at a front table in Café Confictura — Mrs. C, Violet, Roscoe, Graham, and I — in shock and disgust, we’d all read the article about a hundred times. It downplayed all the good Graham had talked about with Mark Raynid, and it focused on various “anonymous sources” who all expressed dire alarm over the doc’s “careless treatment.”
I don’t think any of us could believe it when Mark himself had the audacity to walk into the café.
In a flash, Graham was out of his seat, the rest of us quickly following. He said to Mark, “How can you call yourself a journalist when I specifically said that quote was off the record?”
Mark held up his hands. “Hey, you said it was off the record. But if you read the article closely, you’ll see I attributed the quote to someone who overheard you say it and specifically went on the record to tell me their thoughts.”
“Who is this yellow little rat I want to step on?” Violet blurted.
“Sorry,” said Mark. “They wish to stay anonymous. I’m gonna grab a latte, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I mind,” Mrs. C roared, but Graham touched her shoulder gently.
“Hey,” he said grimly, “he was just doing his job. Let him spend his money here.”
“Thanks,” said Mark jovially, and went to the counter as we all sank back down.
“Sweeney and Nessie were far out of earshot by the time you said that,” Mrs. C rumbled, “and aside from Mark and Reggie, we were surrounded by friends.”
“Or so we thought,” said Roscoe.
“So who was it?” said Mrs. C. “Who’s the rat in our midst?”
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Clarissa J. Markiewicz is also the author of Christmas In Whimsy — a heartwarming, fun novel readers compare to Hallmark Christmas movies, and recipient of Readers’ Favorite 5-star Seal — and the genre-bending new-age mystery The Paramour Pawn.
This and any related blog posts are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to living or dead public figures, entities, places, events, and the like, are of a fictional, opinioned, and/or parodic nature. No healthcare professionals have been consulted in writing this. Any advice given or inferred is anecdotal and used at your own risk. Consult your doctor in all healthcare matters. ©2024 Clarissa J. Markiewicz. No portion of this or any related blog post may be used to train any AI application without explicit consent from the author.
