Peripheral Visions: The Old Lady on the Edge of Town

Peripheral Visions: They coalesce in the soft blur of darkest shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late.

The Old Lady on the Edge of Town

It started when Darren was nine. He and his best friend Freddie had found their way inside the old water tower that lay on its side at the end of a long road that led past all the houses, all the shops, across the bridge, and into the fields.

The tower wasn't towering any longer. It was a great round tank, well-rusted, with one side badly crumpled. The rust had made a hole in the side of the tank.

It was Freddy who made the dare to go through the hole and check out what lay inside. Darren imagined darkness, spiders, pools of tainted water. Snakes. Scorpions.

"Come on!" Freddy laughed. "Or are you afraid?"

Darren crouched and looked through the hole. "No, I'm not afraid," he said happily. Crawling through, careful of the jagged sides, Darren entered the tower for the first time. The top had come off at some point, and the summer afternoon sunlight lit the inside. There was a floor of soft yellow sad – sand from the river, Darren thought. Maybe the tower had once held river water and the sand had built up over time? Maybe the weight of the sand had been the reason for the tower's collapse.

Darren laughed and walked over to where the crumpled side of the tower formed a bench. It was irregular and slanted, but it would do.

Freddy came through the hole in the side. "Awesome," he said.

"This is gonna be a great clubhouse," Darren said. "Good job, Freddy."

The boys sat in the sand and talked about everything they would do in their new hideout. Baseball cards. Marbles. Darren drew idly in the sand, erasing his work after each depiction of a car or a tree or an animal was done and then starting afresh.

"Hey, want to go back to my house? Mom will make us lunch," Freddy said.

Darren was in no hurry to leave. He felt relaxed and at home inside the tower; he felt safe. It was a sensation he had hardly ever felt in his life.

But Freddy was looking at him like he was hungry, and so Darren agreed.

Freddy went through the hole in the side first. Darren heard an adult's voice greet him: "Well hello, young man. Are you my new neighbor? Have you just moved in?"

To his surprise, he heard Freddy give a scream, and then he heard the sound of running feet.

Darren scrambled out, mindful of the jagged edges. Freddy was still running. Then he stopped and turned.

"And another one! I don't usually get so many visitors all at once," the voice said. It was a woman's voice – an elderly woman's voice, but filled with warmth.

Darren looked up at the woman. She had white hair and eyeglasses and wrinkles like an old apple. She smiled at him sweetly, and Darren smiled back. Then he finished crawling through the hole and stood up. "Freddy!" he called. "What are you doing?"

"She's a witch!" Freddy yelled back. "Look out! Don't let her get you!"

"She's not a witch," Darren scoffed. "She's nice."

"She's a witch! Everyone knows about her! She's the old lady on the edge of town!"

"Well, it is the edge of town," the woman said. "And I guess I am an old lady. But am I witch?" She turned to Darren. "What do you think?"

Darren rolled his eyes. "I think he's crazy."

Freddy was running again, and this time he didn't stop.

"I'm sorry about him," Darren said.

"You don't have to apologize for his behavior," the woman said. "You're only accountable for your own."

Darren had never heard that before. In fact, he'd only ever heard the opposite: When his siters did bad things or said bad words, he was the one who got punished for it. He was the older brother, his parents told him; he was the model his younger siblings would follow. If they were doing bad things, they reasoned, it must be because he was showing them how.

The truth was, Darren learned more about bad deeds and bad words from his little sisters than he ever knew existed in the world. He wasn't sure how the things they did were his fault, and he wondered how he could be so very bad without realizing it.

But the thought that he was only to blame for his own actions – now, that made sense.

"Yeah," Darren grinned.

"You like that? Well, young man, it's the truth," the woman told him. "And you look like a very nice young man to me. What's your name?"

"Darren," he said.

"I'm Thelma," the woman said, offering him her hand.

Darren had never seen a woman stick her hand out to a stranger like that before. He had always assumed it was something only men did. After a moment's hesitation, he shook her hand. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"Come inside if you like," Thelma said. "Have a sandwich."

Darren tagged along behind her as she made her way to a nearby shack. As they drew near, Darren saw it wasn't a shack; it was a trailer with a wooden addition built on, and it was well screened by a fence with a high gate that vines wrapped around. Dark green leaves shaded a tiny yard, and flowers grew in abundance. There were small bushes, too; one bush was dotted with tiny purple blossoms. The blossoms were fragrant. Darren paused to investigate.

"You like my lavender?" Thelma said.

Darren looked up and nodded.

"Too bad you only showed up when it's almost July," Thelma told him. "You'd have liked my lilacs."

Darren shrugged.

Thelma reached down to a spiky-looking plant next to the lavender and pinched off a small sprig. "Try this," she said.

Darren accepted the sprig. It was covered by needle-like green leaves.

"Try them," Thelma said. Then, in answer to Darren's questioning look, "Pick off a leaf or two and chew them."

Darren did as she instructed. A wonderful taste blossomed on his tongue. He gave the woman a startled, grateful look.

"Rosemary," Thelma explained.

"Like in the song?" Darren asked.

"You mean the song that goes, 'Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme?' Yes, that's right. And I have all the others here, too, except for parsley. I never did like parsley much. But the others... they are essential. Sage..." Thelma pointed to another plant, one with dusty green leaves. "Thyme," she added, pointing to another plant that had lots of tiny leaves.

"What do you do with them?"

"They're good for cooking," Thelma said. "And some of them are good medicine, too."

"Are you a doctor?"

"Well, some people call me that. I'm really more a herbalist."

"What's that?"

"In my case, a kind of traditional healer. Which is why your little friend called me a witch. Some people think I have magical powers." Thelma laughed. "Because I grew rosemary, sage, and thyme. Because I make poultices out of lavender. Because I make the best chicken soup in the world! Can you imagine?"

"That's silly," Darren said.

"It's very silly," Thelma told him.

***

The inside of her house seemed perfectly ordinary: A small kitchen with an uneven wooden floor covered in dull linoleum; a living room that seemed dark despite the windows. There was a book case with big hardbound books on the shelves.

"Is that an encyclopedia?" he asked.

"Yes, among other things. There's an encyclopedia, and also a medical cyclopedia," Thelma told him. "And lots of books about plants and herbs, of course, and books about birds and insects."

"You must like science," Darren said, staring longingly at the encyclopedia.

"Do you like science?" Thelma asked him.

"Yes," he said. "But they stopped teaching it at school. They said it was a 'divisive conception.' I don't know why science is divisive."

"It's a 'concept,' Darren. Conception is something else. You'll learn about that later. For now, though... you seem fascinated with my encyclopedia. Would you like to look at a book? How about we start with 'A?' "

Thelma took the book off the shelf and handed it to him.

Darren immediately began riffling through the pages.

"What are you looking for?"

"Anatomy," Daren said. "My parents used to have an encyclopedia, but they gave it to the Freedom Moms for the big bonfire a couple years ago."

"Ah, yes, the Freedom Moms. My favorite nemesis," Thelma said.

"What kind of sis?" Darren asked. Then: "Oh! Here it is." He showed Thelma. "You see? Plastic pages with a man. You start with his skin..." Darren turned the page. The man's skin disappeared, and now he was red muscle and white bone at the top of his head and two wide eyes. "And then..." Darren turned the next page, and the muscles disappeared. "See the organs?"

"I see." Thelma touched one and then another of the man's organs. "Do you know the names of all the organs?"

"No. I used to look at this before I could read. This and all the other drawings and photos. And the atlas. The atlas had a picture of the galaxy!"

"You looked at the atlas too?"

"Yes, I looked at all kinds of stuff. Then I showed my mom the anatomy drawings and she called me dirty because the man is naked. She told me I couldn't look at the encyclopedia anymore."

"And then she let the Freedom Moms burn the books," Thelma said. "The whole encyclopedia. The atlas."

"Not just the encyclopedia and the atlas," Darren said. "A lot of books. I really liked some of them."

"Which ones?"

"Tom Sawyer. And Ten Thousand Leagues under the Sea. And Alice in Wonderland. Oh, and Jaws."

"Your parents let you read Jaws?" Thelma asked, with a smile. "After telling you that you were dirty for learning about human anatomy?"

"Well..." Darren looked guilty. "They didn't know I read it. I got it from the book swap bin at the library. Before they closed the library."

"Oh my, it has to be hard to be a bright little boy in the world as it is now," Thelma said, looking at him sadly.

"I don't know," Darren said. "It's pretty neat that there's a clubhouse right here near your place."

"A clubhouse? You mean that water tower?" Thelma laughed. "Darren, you keep hold of your imagination. And your smarts, too, if they'll let you." She gestured at the encyclopedia. "I don't have an atlas. But if you want to learn the names of the organs in the human body, and anything else that interests you, you can read my encyclopedia."

***

Freddy didn't play with Darren again that summer. He started by offering excuses, then finally told him that his mother had told him Darren was off limits.

"Why? What did I do?"

"You hang around at that witch's."

"I go to our club house! And you haven't come back to it."

"No, because the witch is there," Freddy told him.

"She's not a witch. She just likes to grow lavender."

"What's that? Does she smoke it?"

"No!" Darren said, though he wasn't sure whether she did or not. "She cooks with it. And makes medicine."

"It's not medicine," Freddy told him. "It's potions!"

"It is not," Darren said. Then: "What's a potion?"

"I don't know," Freddy admitted. "But my mom says that she makes potions. And spells!"

"She spells?" Darren laughed. "What's wrong with that? I spell! I went to the spelling bee last spring."

"Yeah, and you bombed out."

"Just because I didn't know how to spell 'indelible.' But I know how to spell all the words the other kids got eliminated for. Like 'celestial' and 'mechanical' and 'onomatopoeia.'"

"You don't know how to spell ono-whatever," Freddy scoffed.

"Actually, you're right, I don't know that one," Darren said, and then he and Freddy laughed.

Freddy got serious. "You shouldn't play in that clubhouse," he said.

"Why not? It's great!"

"Yeah, but my mom says it was never a water tower. It used to hold toxic waste."

"It's a toxic waste tower?"

"It was never a tower. Just a big tank. And then it got dumped there or something... anyway, that's why no one ever lived around there, except for the w... I mean, the old lady at the edge of town."

"Her name is Thelma," Darren said.

"You call her by her name?"

"She's nice!" Darren insisted. "She's not a witch."

Freddy shrugged, then pulled a marble out of his pocket. "See my new aggie?"

Darren thought they were friends again until Freddy said, "I can't play with you. Mom said."

"But what about here at school? At recess?"

"I don't think so."

"Or in P.E.? When we play dodgeball? We always play on the same team. I'm the best at dodgeball. The other team always loses. You have to play on my team for dodgeball."

Freddy wavered. "I think it's different if it's school," he said.

"So, okay. You want to see my new baseball card at recess?"

***

Despite what Freddy said, Thelma didn't have a black cat. She had a little white dog.

"Hey, Daisy," Darren greeted her as Daisy pranced back and forth at the lip of the door to the kitchen.

"Hello, Darren," Thelma called from the living room.

Darren made sure his shoes were clean before he walked through the kitchen. Entering the living room he saw Thelma sitting on the couch against he far wall, instead of her usual chair near the entry from the kitchen. "Hi," he said.

"Well?" Thelma gestured at the coffee table in front of the couch.

Darren's eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the gloom, but he could see a dark mound on the table and a bright, large rectangle next to the mound. Then he realized what he was seeing: A birthday cake and a wrapped gift.

"Is that for me?" he asked, grinning.

"It's not Daisy's birthday, nor mine," Thelma said. "How old today? Thirteen?"

"Thelma," Darren said, sounding annoyed.

"Fourteen, yes, I know," she chuckled. "Why don't you get a couple of plates from the kitchen and a knife to cut this cake, and then you can open your present?"

Darren found the requested items, brought them into the living room, and sliced into the cake happily. "Here you go," he said, laying a slice of yellow cake onto a plate and handing it to Thelma. "Thank you," he added.

"Oh, it's nothing. I just went and got a box of cake mix from Rube's."

"It's not nothing. It's everything," Darren said, cutting himself a piece of the cake. "Thank you."

"Well, not quite everything," Thelma said after they both had taken a bite. The yellow cake was buttery and moist – better than cake from a mix should be, Darren thought. Thelma picked up the rectangle, which was wrapped in bright yellow gift paper, and offered it to Darren. It was large – so large she held it with both hands.

"Aw, you shouldn't have," he grinned, taking the gift from her. He could tell it was a book – but it was a huge hardcover. A coffee table book? Fine art photos? He couldn't imagine.

"Open it up," she encouraged him.

Darren ripped off the paper and stared at the book. It was an atlas. "Wow," he said. "This must have cost..."

"Not so much for an old woman who saved most of her money all her life," Thelma said.

Darren placed the book on his lap and opened it up. It was all there: The Earth, a globe hanging in space... not the flat Earth that looked like a pie plate full of continents and ocean that the public schools now taught about. Darren paged through, looking in wonder at the countries and the topographic maps of the ocean floors. Flipping back to the start of the book he found a section on the solar system and the galaxy. "This is incredible," he said. "How did you get this? I thought they were outlawed."

"Not illegal," Thelma told him. "They can still be sold. They just have to be covered in ugly brown paper wrappers in the book stores so that little kids don't see them and get the idea that the Earth is round."

"I don't know what to say," Darren admitted.

"How about you don't say anything. You just learn about the world as it really is," Thelma told him.

Darren lost himself in the text. "Hey, look at this," he said. "There's a little section here that says they found planets orbiting other stars. Is that true?"

"Oh, yes," Thelma nodded. "I remember when they found the first one... it was in the mid-nineties sometime. Ninety-five or ninety-six... it was more than forty years ago. Maybe just about forty-five years now. I was a young woman then. Oh, it was in all the newspapers and on TV. That's when the news really the news... reports about all sorts of things, not just the approved versions of events that the Media Secretary okays." She sighed. "We thought we knew too much back then. We thought the news business was determined to ruin our day. We should have been more grateful."

"Uh, yeah," Darren said, not really understanding. He read some more. "Look, here's a section about the moon... it says that the moon's diameter is four hundred times smaller than the diameter of the sun, and the distance between the moon and sun is four hundred times greater than the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Isn't that a weird coincidence?"

Thelma smiled. "Many things are strange about the world, Darren. It doesn't all have to make sense or be explained by a book that was written four thousand years ago."

Darren only vaguely understood what she meant; he was re-reading the text about the moon, fascinated at the idea that human beings had once actually traveled there and walked on its surface.

***

"Did something happen at school?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you're upset, Darren."

The young man sat in the chair across from Thelma's. "It's not important. Where's Daisy? Think she might to go on a little spaziere?"

"She knows that that means," Thelma cautioned. "Don't get her too excited. She's an old girl now, like me."

"Bet you wish you never taught me any German," Darren smiled.

"I only know a few phrases, it's not a whole language. And don't change the subject. What's got you so bothered? A girl?"

Darren scoffed.

"A young man like you... seventeen?"

"Eighteen!" Darren laughed, enjoying her teasing way of always cutting a year off his age.

"You should be squiring a young woman around, not spending all your time with a spinster like me."

"You're a spinster?"

"Well, I was married once. Then the government forced a divorce on us."

Darren didn't understand at first. Then he did. "Oh... you didn't have a husband, you had a..."

Thelma nodded. "Yes, a wife. Her name was Bina. She was from India. She's the one who spoke German. And also French, and also Hindi... and her English was quite excellent. I never knew anyone so smart."

"What happened to her?"

"She was deported, even though she had come to the U.S. when she was sixteen and become a naturalized citizen. Something else the government took away."

"I'm so sorry," Darren said. "I didn't know."

"I never told you," Thelma pointed out.

There was an uneasy silence.

"Just like you've never told me..." Thelma started.

Darren stared at his hands in his lap.

"...that you don't like girls that way?"

Darren nodded. "No one knows," he said.

"I think they probably do," Thelma said. "But people don't want to see the things that make them afraid or unhappy. And since we live a so-called 'LGBT-free Zone'... I suppose it has to do with the amount of local funding we get from the government. Nobody wants to admit it, but these things do weigh on a town's budgeting score."

"Fags like me diminish the worth of the whole community," Darren said. It was a paraphrase from one of the teachers at school.

"Is that what happened today? One of the teachers said something?"

"I was called in to the principal's office, but not because of that," Darren told her. "My mom went to him."

"She did? Why?"

"She was saying something the other day about fake news and how the liberals tried to make us believe things that weren't true. She talked about how people never landed on the moon, and I said that they did. She said the moon landings were faked by some billionaire or something. I said that wasn't true, and we left a lot of equipment up there, including mirrors that they used to bounce lasers off to measure the exact distance between the Earth and the moon, and that's how we know that the moon is wobbling."

"Wobbling?" Thelma asked.

"Its because a huge meteor hit the moon hundreds of years ago. How could we know that if were hadn't left mirrors up there? And how could mirrors be up there if we never landed there? And she said that was a Chinese lie and I was being brainwashed."

"I see," Thelma said.

"Well, I thought that was the end of it, but today the principal said my mom came to him crying and saying that her son was being stolen away from her by..." Darren hesitated.

"Go ahead," Thelma said. "I'm pretty sure I've already heard it."

***

"She's a witch," the principal told Darren. "And she steals young people."

"Steals them? What does that mean? I'm right here. No one has stolen me," Darren protested.

"She steals them way from the truth. She steals them away from God's light. She steals them for the Devil."

"You can deny the moon is a place and that we went there all you want, but it doesn't change history," Darren said.

"History has changed plenty in the last twenty years," the principal replied, a grim smile on his face.

Darren was perplexed by that, but didn't allow it to sidetrack him. "The moon goes around the Earth," he said. "The Earth goes around the sun. The sun is one of many suns in the universe."

"No," the principal told him. "The moon is the light that rules the night. The sun is the light that rules the day. Nothing more. The sun and moon both go around the Earth. It's common sense. Any idiot can see it with his own eyes, and it's a blasphemy to deny the plain truth. You know what we do to blasphemers, don't you Darren? Do you want that for yourself? Do you want that for your mother? Because we believe in shared responsibility. A family has to answer for the crimes of a son, a daughter, a brother, a cousin."

"What sense does that make?"

"We teach Biblical truths at this school," the principal told him, ignoring the question. "If we didn't, we wouldn't get any federal money, and people here are too poor for home schooling. You have to understand that her lies become your lies, and your lies endanger everyone at this school and everyone in this community. If inquisitors come here, we will all be in trouble. We might all burn: Homes, fields, families. You understand that, don't you?"

Darren stared at the principal in disbelief. He had never known the world was so corrupt – so very corrupt.

***

"Darren?" Thelma asked softly.

Darren sighed. "He said you're a witch and you're stealing me, and that's what witches do: They steal children. The principal said that you corrupt young people. He said you indoctrinate kids. Well, I tried to tell the principal I'm not a child. I'm a man. I can think for myself, and no one has ever 'indoctrinated' me except his lousy school. And then he said I could either write an essay about how the moon landings were lie that the Chinese invented and a billionaire paid for, or I could be expelled. And he said if I didn't want to be expelled then I had to promise not to visit you anymore. And I said I do your yard work and fix things around your house. And he said, don't you do it for free? I don't know how he knew that. And I said, yeah, so what? And he said that proves I've been indoctrinated, because that's socialism and you're turning me into a white slave." Darren blew out a hard breath in frustration. "He said I'm breaking my mama's heart and he's gonna call the sheriff on you if I don't write that essay and keep away from you." Darren shook his head. "I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna write an essay I know is a damn lie."

"Language, Darren," Thelma said gently.

Darren's jaw was clenched in rage he was trying not to show. He looked up. "What's a white slave?"

"Darren, I think you should do what you need to in order not to get into trouble."

"Why? You lived your life the way you want. Why do I have to live my life according to the lies other people decided they wanted to believe in?"

"Most of my life was lived in an America that was more or less a democracy," Thelma said. "That changed. There was a civil war... no one wants to talk about it now. People call me a witch because they believe it, some of them, but also because it's a way to say they disagree with who I am and how I lived without bringing up stuff no one wants to get into."

"Divisive concepts," Darren said with contempt.

"You're a teenager. It's normal to question older people's beliefs and judgment. But remember that older people run the world, and they want you to echo their beliefs so they feel comfortable handing you the reins someday."

"So what do I do until then? Pretend to believe the bull... I mean the, the, what's that word you like?"

"Malarky," Thelma said.

"Do I pretend to believe the malarky they talk about?"

"Well, maybe, if you have to," Thelma said.

It was as if she hadn't spoken. "I'm gonna write an essay all right," Darren said. He had grown up in the years since they had met. He was six feet tall now; he had a man's smell; his voice was deeper. Now his words were a growl she had never heard from him before.

Thelma watched him in silence. Then, as if talking to herself, she said, "A boy needs to become a man. A man needs to determine for himself what he can and cannot do." Then, clearly addressing Darren, she said: "If you're going to write that essay, can you at least wait until late next week?"

"What?" Darren looked up at her, not sure what she meant.

"Maybe turn it in next Wednesday or Thursday."

"But... why?"

"Because," Thelma said, smiling at him, "I have an idea... but the time has to be right for it to work..."

***

Darren had wanted to write his essay over the weekend and hand it in on Monday, but Thelma had insisted that he wait. "Trust me," she said, and he did. He made a show of telling the principal he was "researching" the subject and he wanted to be sure he understood all the "real facts" so he could write the best essay possible.

The principal rewarded him with a smile, saying, "I'm glad to hear you are delving so deeply into your Bible studies."

Darren bit his tongue in order not to respond that it was reading the Bible that had made him an atheist. Even at his impetuous age, he knew that not even the community's fear of drawing attention from the inquisitors could save him – and probably his entire family – from the consequences of such an admission.

Thelma had said "Wednesday or Thursday." Unable to wait until Thursday, Darren handed in his essay on Wednesday. Then he waited to see what would happen.

***

The principal had not called Darren into his office as Darren expected. But when an emergency school board meeting was called for Thursday night, Darren had no doubt as to why – and when his American Faith and Civics teacher relayed to him that he and his parents were expected to attend that meeting, the summons was hardly a surprise.

The principal caught sight of Darren in the hallway outside the gymnasium and walked over, his face hard. "You just remember," he said to Darren, "I tried to help."

He had thought he was ready for anything, but Darren was astonished, hurt, and angry at the way he was blamed and demonized at the meeting, with speaker after speaker addressing the school board with harsh words. Some called him a "devil spawn," and some called him an "irredeemable victim of the liberal agenda," whatever that was. It must have been bad; Darren saw that it made his mother cry harder than all the previous insults combined. The meeting concluded, after more than four hours, with a demand from a loud contingent of townspeople that the issue be taken up not just by the school board but by the town council.

Darren was informed that he would not be allowed at school Friday, but he and his family were expected to be at the town council meeting to account for themselves.

Then Freddy raised his hand and was invited to step up to the microphone.

"I've known Darren Skaife since I was six years old," Freddy said in a small, trembling voice.

"Speak up!" someone called from the room.

"Speak up, into the microphone, please," the chief counselor said.

"I... is this better?" Freddy asked, leaning forward.

"Please proceed," the chief counselor said.

"So, I said that I've known Darren since we were six," Freddy said. "And he was always a good kind of a normal kid. Until the day we went to her her house – the witch's house!"

A murmur passed through the room.

"We were gonna play in the collapsed water tower," Freddy continued. "Darren said it could be a club house. But then the witch came over and we realized her shack was right nearby. Well, I ran away, but Darren didn't. When I turned to look back, he was just standing there, and she... the witch... she was holding her hand out over him, like she had him in her control. And that's how he's been ever since."

Darren stared. Holding her hand out over him? What was he talking about?

"Did you continue to associate with Darren after this enchantment?" the chief counselor asked, his eyes darting to Darren and then back to Freddy.

"My mom told me I couldn't play with him anymore. But I still saw him at school. And he would talk to me, and when he talked to me, I felt dizzy and the lights got bright... and it was like I was floating outside of my own body..."

Some people in the rooms yelled curses. Others cried out in wordless shock. A few hissed through their teeth. Darren rolled his eyes but didn't bother to glance at his parents; he knew they'd believe anything Freddy had to say. Hell, he thought, they'll believe anything anyone has to say about me.

"Didn't you tell me before this meeting, in confidence, about some other things that happened?" the chief counselor asked.

"I..." Freddy looked shocked. Then, as the chief counselor stared at him, he said, "Yes. Yes, sir."

"Will you tell everyone here what happened?"

Freddy took in a deep breath as if to steady himself. Gripping the microphone, his eyes lowered, he said, "We... sometimes he'd have me come to the club house..."

"You meant the so-called water tower?" the chief counselor asked. "Which is actually a discarded tank that once contained toxic waste?"

"I guess. I mean, yes, sir. Well, we went to the water tower and Darren, well, he made me look at dirty magazines. And then he... he said... I mean..."

"Just say it," the chief counselor told him.

Freddy started sobbing.

"I'll say it then," the chief counselor said. "Under Darren's influence you and he experimented with devil sex. Isn't that what happened?"

Darren couldn't believe what he was hearing. Freddy was talking about something that had happened when they were fourteen. Yes, there had been pornographic magazines – Freddy had brought them from home, saying he had found them in the garage. The two had speculated they must belong to Freddy's father. Freddy had pawed over the magazines, breathing hard, and then had invited Darren to "mess around." Darren, curious, had gone along with it. Why not? Freddy was his best friend, even if they had to keep their ongoing friendship a secret from his parents.

Well, not anymore. Darren stared at Freddy's tearful performance with disgust.

The room, meantime, had devolved into shouting and screaming, with cries of "Sodomy!" and "Corruption!" A woman shrieked, "Satan has come to our town!" so loudly that the hubbub subsided for a moment.

The chief counselor took advantage of the lull to lean forward, eyes intense, and say, "I believe this young man we're meeting about today – Darren Skaife – was brought under the influence of dark Satanic forces and has been captive to them ever since. His offenses are grave: Sodomy, heresy, insolence, disrespect, and disobedience."

"My boy!" Darren's mother wailed. Darren stared at the floor, his teeth gritted. She had always loved the spotlight, and she was working hard to wrest it from Freddy.

But Freddy wasn't ready to surrender the attention of the room. "He's cursed!" Freddy cried out. "And I know what the curse it: Homosexuality!"

Darren shook his head. He knew the pamphlet Freddy was quoting from: His father had made Freddy read it and Freddy had shared it with him at the club house. They had laughed uncontrollably at the tract – of course, the marijuana cigarette Freddy had brought along that day probably had something to do with that, as well.

Darren wondered if Freddy would mention the joint next. That would be awkward: His dad sold weed to everyone in town – the sheriff, the pastor, and even the chief counselor.

But Freddy didn't get the chance. The townspeople had seized on the subject of Darren's homosexuality. "The witch is turning our children gay!" screamed the woman who had cried out about the devil coming to town. A profusion of men's voices rose and clashed, all of them shouting about "faggots" and "gender identity." One of them was repeating something about cats and litter boxes in school restrooms.

Cats? Darren wondered.

"Burn the fucking witch!" someone cried.

The room became an inferno of demands to march to Thelma's house and set it aflame.

Darren felt real terror for the first time. He hadn't been afraid for himself, but now they were talking about hurting Thelma.

That was when he started to regret his determination to fight back.

"This town council will not countenance extradoctrinal action," the chief counselor declared loudly into his microphone. "We will proceed according to the law. Hear now the determination of this town council! Tomorrow morning, Saturday, May 23, 2043, at eight o'clock, the city's officials and all interested parties will march in solemn procession to the home of Thelma Reeves, where we will confront her with the charges of witchcraft and corruption of the youth. If she surrenders, her execution will be swift, accomplished by public hanging. If we must do battle with her to take her into custody, she will die by the maximum prescribed penalty: Burned at the stake.

"These are the punishments handed down across centuries," the chief counselor intoned.

"Stone her!" someone screamed.

The chief counselor stared hard into the room. "We are Christians," he warned. "Don't let me hear such a barbaric suggestion again."

***

Thelma hadn't been at the meeting. Darren wasn't sure she would know that a crowd was coming to her house the next morning. He tried to think of a way to warn her, but his father marched him to the punishment closet – every home of the faithful had one – and locked him in.

Darren pounded on the door.

"Make as much of a fuss as you want, demon," his father told him from the other side, his voice muffled by the thick wood. "Tomorrow, once the witch is dealt with, the pastor will diagnose you and determine how many of you possess my child. Are you legion? Or are you one spirit?"

"For fuck's sake," Darren whispered to himself.

"You will be driven out," his father continued. "And if the damage you have done to my child is too great for his redemption, we will gladly surrender him to God's purifying flame in hope that his soul can still be salvaged."

"Dad!" Darren cried. "You know I'm not crazy. I'm not sick. I'm not possessed. You can't let them do this to me – or to Thelma! This is insane! The whole thing is nuts!"

"You speak in my son's voice, but I am not fooled by your lies," his father said. "We will stand strong in our faith, and you will not confuse us."

The sound of his father's retreating footsteps vibrated in the floorboards.

"Dad!" Darren cried.

But his father didn't return. Darren spent the night wishing he believed in prayer, and seething with anger that a monumental injustice was about to unfold in the name of godly holiness, with no God to look down in judgment or to intervene. Deep in the night he sobbed from frustration and exhaustion. Then he slept for a few hours. Then he woke with a start – and a plan.

***

"Mom," Darren called. "Mom?"

No one came.

His father had left a few minutes earlier. Darren had heard him talking to his mother, his voice coarse and angry. Then his heavy footfalls had thudded toward the front door and silence had fallen over the house.

The time was now.

"Mom," Darren repeated. "Mama? Mommy?"

It took several minutes of such plaintive pleading for her to come to the door of the punishment closet and say, "Darren? You know I can't..."

"Mom, the demon left me," Darren said.

"You – what?"

"In the night I started to pray," Darren said. "And God came to me."

"God came to you?"

"God came to me and he reached into my heart and he took the demon by the throat and crushed the evil. I am shattered with guilt and shame! I want to see the witch burn. I want to see her die for the curse she placed upon me and the shame she brought our family."

A key rattled in the lock and the door opened. Darren squinted into the light. His mother stood there, a blurry silhouette.

"Oh, my baby!" she cried, kneeling on the floor and embracing him.

Darren hugged her back briefly, then tried to pull away. She clung tighter. "Let us pray!" she cried.

"First let God's work be done," Darren said, matching her faux-biblical style of speaking. "As she burns, my soul will be purified and the ashes of the evil I was compelled to do will fall away. Mine soul will be faultless as new light. I will be reborn!"

Darren hoped he hadn't overdone it.

His mother trembled, then burst into a new fit of sobbing.

Darren held her for a moment more, then gently disengaged. "I'm a man now, mother," he said. "Let me go and do the things a man is charged with."

"Oh, my son!" she cried dramatically, raising her arms. "Go!"

Darren went. He went as fast as he could.

He went by bicycle, since his father had taken the car.

***

The crowd were approaching Thelma's house by the time Darren got there. They were marching up the most direct thoroughfare from the town's center. Darren had taken a more roundabout way, hoping to beat them. It looked like he had succeeded – though by not by very many minutes.

Darren squinted into the morning light. Were the mob carrying torches? They were; the torches waved to the rhythm of the hymn the crowd were singing. The melody came faintly to his ears across the distance.

"Christ on a biscuit," Darren muttered, opening Thelma's gate and pushing his bike into her yard. Then he stepped up to her door and knocked urgently.

Thelma opened the door right away, as if she had been expecting him.

"They're coming," Darren said.

"I expect they are," she said. Then: "Come in. I made waffles."

***

Darren sat at Thelma's kitchen table, ignoring the plate of waffles and arguing with her.

"Thelma, they're gonna hang you. Or burn you, or... I don't know what!"

"And?" Thelma asked mildly, pouring him a cup of coffee.

"You gotta go!"

Thelma sat across from him with her own cup of coffee in her hand. "Go where? This is my home. Are they going to burn my home? Then they might as well burn me with it."

"Thelma – "

"Listen to me, Darren. I'm seventy-eight years old. I've lived. You're the one I'm worried about."

"But – "

"Enough," Thelma told him. Darren stared at her. "Anyway," she added, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall, "I think I've got it handled."

Darren looked at the clock and was shocked at how late it was: Almost quarter after nine.

"Less than an hour," Thelma murmured.

"And then what?"

Thelma smiled at him.

"Thelma, they've got torches!"

"Of course they do," she said, her words almost a sigh. "And I've seen this movie before. But it's time to give it a new ending."

"What do you – "

Darren was cut off by a voice on a bullhorn. "Thelma Reeves!" Darren recognized the voice of the chief counselor. "The time of reckoning has come. Leave your house. Surrender yourself to us. Embrace God's mercy with the last minutes and hours of your life! Otherwise, the flames of Hell will devour your flesh forever."

"I really wish people would just talk like normal again," Thelma said to Darren. She got up from the kitchen table. "You stay here," she said.

"And what are you gonna do?" Darren demanded.

"Just watch," she said, with a mischievous grin. Thelma walked the few steps to the kitchen door, opened it, and stepped out into her yard. Darren couldn't see the crowd from where he sat at the table, but he could hear them.

"Get the hell offa my property!" Thelma shouted in a voice louder and stronger than Darren would have thought possible. "Y'all are trespassing."

"Now, Thelma," the voice of the town's mayor came back. "You know the street is public."

Another voice interrupted hum – the sheriff. "Tremble before Jesus, devil woman!" he commanded.

"Sheriff Flanders? Is that you? The pimply kid with the stutter all grown up now?" Thelma laughed. "You come back to steal more honeysuckle outta my garden?"

"Don't you test our resolve!" the sheriff shouted back. "We will come in there and set your house on fire and listen to your screams as you burn alive!"

"The prelude to burning in Hell," the pastor's voice rose now.

The sheriff started to say something, and the pastor's voice ran his over. Then the two of them seemed to have some sort of hushed conversation.

Are they arguing over who's going to showboat right now? Darren thought in exasperation.

"You better just come on out!" the sheriff called.

The pastor started in with what seemed like a sermon. Or was it an exorcism? Darren wasn't quite sure. Thelma drifted back into the kitchen, still holding her coffee cup. "I need a refill," she said to Darren.

Suddenly, someone screamed, "Fuck this for a game of sixes!" There was a crash against the side of the house, and Darren caught sight of dancing flames.

Thelma stepped over the door and shut it.

"Don't worry," she said. "The house is covered with aluminium siding. All that little Molotov cocktail's gonna do is leave a black spot." She took a pull from her coffee cup and looked at the clock. "I hope the pastor gets back to his rites of exorcism," she said. "We've go about thirty more minutes."

"Until what?"

Thelma grinned, her eyes dancing. "Until my powers reach their peak," she said.

"What?" Darren asked.

"Ever hear the aphorism 'When in Rome?' It means you have to talk to people in their own language," Thelma said. "You have to meet them where they are if you want to get through to them."

Darren started at her. How did she intend to reason with such an irrational crowd?

Thelma stepped back to the door and pulled it open. The smell of gasoline drifted into the kitchen. Darren assumed the fire must be out. Thelma stepped out into her yard again.

"Pastor, don't you have a little more to say?" she called.

That started the "rites of exorcism" all over again. The pastor droned on and the crowd's cries, which had been continuous since they had arrived, started to taper off. Darren imagined they must all be as bored as he was starting to feel. It was weird, he thought, how a situation like this could be so dull.

Time dragged on. The pastor shouted a lot about Jesus and the power of the angels. Thelma leaned against her door frame, sipping her coffee and looking casual.

Then, as the pastor's last cries faded, she straightened up and walked through the yard. Darren gingerly approached the doorway, peeking out to see her standing at the gate to her yard. Darren glimpsed the crowd beyond her. He glanced back at the clock on the wall. Less than ten minutes remained until the moment when whatever Thelma was planning either had to work, or she – and he too, probably – were toast. Burnt toast, he reflected.

"You have all come here prepared to do battle with the powers of darkness," Thelma cried. "Good! Because you have brought the darkness with you!" She raised her arms, the coffee cup hooked incongruously from a finger. "Did God send you? Did he? I tell you, he did not! But he did warn you – he warned you of the End of Days and the coming of false prophets! He warned you of the perversion of faith into gullibility... and you have been gulled!"

"Listen, little lady," the sheriff's voice began.

"Silence!" Thelma commanded in a ringing voice. "You will now witness the darkness that God prepares for you, the unholy, the unrighteous, the violent mob of sinners some to do harm to his servant!"

"You ain't no servant of God!" the paster shot back.

"See now! See it!" Thelma cried. "Even now the world darkens around you as God reveals and excoriates the darkness in your souls!"

In was true: Darren could see though the door that the spring morning was visibly darkening. Were clouds rolling in? He couldn't tell from where he stood, so he ventured to the living room and tried to look through the windows there. All he could see through the windows was the green of Thelma's garden: Trellises, trees, bushes.

Darren glanced at the door across the room, next to the couch. He supposed Thelma's bedroom lay beyond that door, and her bedroom must also have a window. But he hesitated: He had never gone beyond the living room. Somehow, he didn't want to start now.

Thelma's voice was growing even louder than before, her words sounding more dramatic. Darren went back into the kitchen.

"See how your own lust and greed and selfishness quenches the sun!" Thelma cried. "See how God withdraws his light from you, who refuse to see his righteousness or to repent of your follies!"

Darren gasped: It was like twilight outside.

"O, sky eternal," Thelma cried, shaking her arms, "show the darkness of God's wrath!"

There were cries of alarm from the crowd. Some were screaming, "Work of the Devil!" Others were shouting, "God's wrath!"

"O, darkness of perdition, descend on these, who have heard the Devil whisper in their hearts and told one another it is God's words and God's will come upon them; but behold! They are wicked, and because of their wickedness the Lord God withholds his eternal light," Thelma declaimed in a way that fell between revival preacher and opera singer.

The day rapidly grew darker and a cool breeze stirred.

"Is she doing this?" someone shrieked.

"We have sinned! Oh God, oh lord, mea culpa!" someone else bellowed in a panicked voice. "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!"

"Come, O host of avenging angels, come like the stars themselves and hurl yourselves from the heavens in flames to cleanse and purify the Earth with your holy might!" Thelma cried. "Burn those who came here with threats of fire and dreams of flame! Burn away this wickedness!"

Screams and cries for forgiveness rose in a profusion of voices. "The stars!" someone screamed. "The stars are out!"

"The angels come!" someone else shouted.

"The fires will rain down!" Thelma cried out.

More screams: "It's the apocalypse!" "No saving rapture has taken us away – truly we have been deceived by the Evil One!"

Darren stood in Thelma's kitchen, dumbfounded. The room had grown dark as night; the world outside, too, was dark. Somehow, night had fallen.

Then a voice cried out: "Thelma! Have mercy! Thelma, save us!"

The entire crowd took up the plea: "Thelma, intercede! Save us! Save us, Thelma!"

As the crowd's cries and lamentations grew louder, Thelma shouted again: "O Lord, hear how your people beg to return to your bosom; O God of highest heaven, look down and see how the dark that swaddles your children has opened their eyes to your light! Call back your killing angels, that they should not swarm from Heaven like falling stars and beset these poor sinners, but rather show thy mercy and permit your lost ones to find their way to your truth once more!"

Long moments passed with nothing but the sound of the crowd sobbing and crying out for God's forgiveness. The cool breeze sighed softly across the land; Darren could hear it, could feel it through the open kitchen door.

Then the world began to brighten again.

Cheers erupted from the crowd.

***

If took almost an hour for calm to return. Thelma sent the crowd of townspeople away with instructions to "Go forth and sin no more." Darren thought that was sounded kind of Catholic; that faith had been outlawed years earlier, but no one seemed to mind Thelma's' words.

"And remember," Thelma called after them, "God is watching – and so am I!"

Thelma joined Darren at the kitchen table. He sat there still feeling weak, his adrenaline rush having subsided and left exhaustion in its wake.

"Coffee's still hot," Thelma said, offering him more with a gesture of the half-full pot. "I could use some after all that shouting. How about you?"

"No, thanks," he said.

"Eat your waffles," she said, pouring him a fresh cup anyway.

"Thelma? What the hell just happened?"

"Darren, language."

"Yeah, well in this case it seems appropriate."

Thelma sat down and saluted him with her coffee cup. "It's thanks to you," she said.

"Me? What did I do?"

"After you read to me from the atlas about the moon and the sun – and eclipses, a perfectly natural phenomenon that happens with predictable regularity – I started learning more about astronomy."

Darren thought about the many times they had discussed the stars and planets. Thelma had never mentioned anything about eclipses before, but maybe that was because she was always asking him about his interests.

"You learned how to predict eclipses?"

"Oh my, no, that would be too much work and too much math. But I did poke around on the dark web and find a site that lists all the eclipses past and future for, oh, centuries. And when I saw that a total eclipse would be visible this morning with totality at 10:03, I got an idea about using superstition to 'reason' with superstitious people. It was just a matter of getting the timing right."

"I can't believe they fell for that. How did no one else realize what was happening?"

"How do people ever ignore obvious realities while chasing after elaborate and bizarre fantasies?" Thelma asked him.

Darren shrugged. She was clearly right; her plan had worked.

Thelma pulled open a drawer in the table and produced an envelope and a packet of cigarettes. Darren stared, astonished, as she lit up and took a drag. He had never seen her smoke before.

"I didn't tell you how I met Bina," Thelma said, before he could ask her about the cigarettes. "We were both actresses. We met on Broadway. After movies and plays and books were banned, and she was deported, I moved here to forget my earlier life, my onetime fame. I never thought I would act again. I have to say – I think a deserved a Tony for that."

Darren nodded, having no idea what to say.

"I will be fine, here on the edge of town," Thelma told him, "but you – you need to go. Not just to some other city, but out of the country." She held up the envelope, then pushed it across the table at him. "Go as far as this ticket and this cash will take you, and then keep on going until you are safe and free. Until your mind is free. Until your heart is free. Until you find yourself in a place where you can be who you are and love who you will."

Darren stared at her, suddenly overcome with the deep and indisputable intuition that this was goodbye. Then he reached over and picked up the envelope. Thelma puffed on her cigarette, watching him with fond eyes. She winked.

***

"Hey, Darren, aren't you from Oklahoma or Ohio or somewhere like that?" Padraig asked.

"Somewhere like that, yeah." Darren looked across the office at his colleague. "What for?"

"There's an eclipse coming up next month that will be visible from heartland America," Padraig said, examining something on his computer screen. "Says here it'll take place June 2. Think your parents will sacrifice an animal to it?"

"Why the hell would they do that?"

"Isn't that what they do in America?" Padraig asked. "I mean, ever since the place went super-religious."

"No," Darren said. Then: "Actually... maybe. I don't know. It's not like much communication comes from America anymore, since the internet blackout there."

"Yeah? I thought you had some kind of dark web back door chat with your mother or something."

"Yeah, that's not my mother," Darren said. Then: "Well, actually – she kind of is."

Padraig was back to staring at his terminal. "Says here it will be the first total solar eclipse visible from heartland America since August 12, 2045."

"No," Darren said. "That's wrong. I saw one on a Saturday in May of that year."

"Not what is says here. Not unless you mean you saw it on April 8, 2024... that was the last one until August 12, 2045."

"Yeah, well, I saw one in May. I remember it well. It was only three years ago."

"Gaige, I'm telling you. Look here for yourself."

Darren crossed the office to see for himself. Leaning over Padraig's desk, he scrolled through the charts on the site. "Naw," he said.

He and Padraig called up two more such sites, with identical results. Darren scratched his head, perplexed. "I know it was in May of 2045," he said. "I got expelled from school that year just a couple weeks before graduation, and the eclipse I was just a couple days after that."

Padraig glanced across the office at Sandra's desk. She was staring at them with an eyebrow cocked.

"Guess we better get back to it," Padraig said. "The inaugural edition of the Chiclipéid Gaeilge ain't gonna compile itself." He sneaked a glance back Sandra's way; she was still glaring at the two of them. "Encyclopaedia Britannica of Ireland! The Irish save civilization once again," Padraigh said in a loud, lusty voice.

Darren retreated back to his own desk, laughing. Outside the weather was sunny. It didn't rain as much in Dublin as he'd expected it might – though global warming lmight have had something to do with that.

The bright afternoon not withstanding, Darren found himself recalling the eclipse that had darkened the small town where he'd grown up.

No, he thought. The light had gone from that place long before. It was the eclipse gave it a chance to creep back in... at least a little.

Darren felt a need to check his dark web email and see if Thelma had replied to his latest letter. Sandy would be fine as long as he met his deadline, and he always met his deadlines. Calling up his email, Darren smiled, reading Thelma's latest missive. She'd had no more trouble since that May morning. She said her joints ached some, but otherwise all was well. Freddy was now tending her garden, so she was free to soothe her arthritis by holding a cup of coffee as she sat reading in her garden.

"No eclipse since 2024?" Darren asked himself. He shook his head and chuckled. "I guess you can't put anything past the old lady on the edge of town."