Page 3 of Brimstone Hollow

I could go into my history—from the time I was a child, waking up gasping, frantically pulling loose from the clutches of whatever feral darkness lurks inside me, the feel of its claws under my skin, the hammer of my heart—it’s an almost nightly occurrence.

But I don’t. What I say instead is “Yes. Of course.”

“Well, I don’t,” Katie says. “In fact, I’ve barely dreamed at all since I had the baby. And I’veneverhad a dream like I had last night.”

“Okay,” I say. “Tell me about it.”

She turns and walks toward the window again. Looks out at the steeple.

I watch her in profile as she takes a deep breath and then says, “I was standing in my father’s church. But there was no roof. It was just the open sky above. The sky was purple, stormy-looking. But there was no rain. And then, I heard singing. It was my father’s voice. He was singing ‘Praise for the Fountain Opened.’ Do you know it?”

I nod. It’s an old hymn. Beautiful but definitely not for the faint of heart. It’s more commonly known by its first line, “There is a fountain filled with blood.”

“Yes,” I say. “I know it.”

“It’s so strange,” Katie says. “I don’t think I could’ve told you any of the words from that song, but in my dream, it was so clear. I stood there in the church, listening, and wondering where he was. And then the singing stopped.”

She closes her eyes in memory and, for a moment, the only sound in the room is thewhirrof the box fan.

“There was a flash of lightning,” she says. “It began to rain, but… it wasn’t regular rain. It was a rain of blood. I shut my eyes against it and, when I opened them, he was standing there. My father. He was speaking to me. No…shouting. But there was no sound coming out. It’s like he was screaming for help, but… all I could hear was the rain. I lookeddown and there were snakes all around him, crawling up his legs. And then he jerked forward, suddenly, dropped to his knees. He looked up at me and opened his mouth. But all that came out were bugs. Locusts. They swarmed around me, their wings cutting like little knives. Then I woke up.”

“Katie…” I start, though I have no idea what to say. Dream interpretation is not typically the purview of a private investigator.

“That’s not all,” Katie says. “I woke up and I saw a hand. A disembodied hand, but… it was wrong. Not skin. More like it was made of light. It shimmered. It was hovering in the air, writing on the wall next to my bed. It wrote a message in blood.”

“What did it say?” I ask.

“It said,The king has been judged. His kingdom is no more. My father’s name was King. Ezra King.”

She walks back to the chair and sits down. Then, she takes another drink of water from the bottle and holds it to her face. With it still pressed to her forehead and her eyes closed she says, “Miss Gore, please understand, I’m not crazy.”

“I don’t think you are.”

She shakes her head and says, “I have a degree in chemistry. I do water analysis for an environmental company. I live in an HOA fifteen minutes outside Louisville with my husband, who’s an attorney. We both drive Volvos and we host a Derby party every year. I didn’t come straight here from the loony bin.”

“Okay,” I say, despite the fact that her supposedly idyllic life sounds about as palatable to me as a trip to the psych ward.

Her eyebrows knit together and her cheeks redden and, suddenly, she looks less like a sophisticated, well-educated, classy young mother and more like the little girl she once was.

“Take your time,” I tell her.

“Miss Gore,” she says. “I’m here because I think the dream was… Well, I had the dream and then woke up with the phone ringing. It was the police in Mount Zion. They were calling to tell me that my father, EzraKing, was dead. That he died on Friday night of a snakebite. They found him yesterday morning.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head.

“I’m concerned that something isoffabout it.”

“Off? What do you mean?”

“Well, the policeman told me that there wasn’t an autopsy.”

“There’s still plenty of time,” I say. “You said they only found him yesterday, right? I know it’s a shock to hear—”

“No,” she says. “No, there isn’t going tobean autopsy.”

“What? Have they already scheduled the funeral?” I ask.