“What can I do for you?”
Blue slathered on her accent as slow and local as possible. “I’m not selling anything, I promise. My name’s Blue Sargent and I live in Henrietta and I’m doing a geology project. I heard there was a cave round here. Could you possibly point me in the right way?”
Then she smiled as if the woman had already helped her. If there was one thing Blue had learned while being a waitress and dog walker and Maura Sargent’s daughter, it was that people generally became the kind of person you expected them to be.
The woman considered. “Well, that does sound familiar, but I don’t reckon I … Have you asked Wayne? Bauer? He’s good with this area.”
“Which one’s he, now?”
The woman pointed kitty-corner across the highway.
Blue gave her a thumbs-up. The woman wished her luck.
It turned out Wayne Bauer wasn’t home, but his wife was, and she didn’t know anything about a cave, but had they asked Jimmy down the road, because he was always digging ditches and you knew you found all kinds of things in ditches. And Jimmy didn’t know, but he thought Gloria Mitchell had said something about it last year. They discovered that Gloria wasn’t home, but her elderly sister was, and she asked, “What, you mean Jesse Dittley’s cave?”
“You don’t have to look so smug,” Gansey said to Blue as she buckled her seat belt.
“Sure I do,” Blue replied.
The Dittley farm was directly at the base of Coopers Mountain. The swaybacked wood-frame house was surrounded by partial cars and entire sofas, all overgrown. The abandoned tires and broken window air conditioners inspired the same feeling in Blue as the cluttered kitchen-bathroom-laundry in Monmouth had: the urge to tidy and impart order.
As she climbed out, she turned the name Jesse Dittley over and over in her mind. Something about it poked the back of her mind, but she couldn’t think what. Old family friend? Sex offender from a newspaper story? Character from a picture book?
Just in case he was the middle one, she made certain that she had her pink switchblade knife in her pocket. She didn’t really think she would have to stab anyone, but she liked being prepared.
She stood on the slanted porch with fourteen empty milk jugs and ten cats and knocked. It took a long time for the door to open, and when it did, a puff of cigarette smoke came out with it.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?”
She peered up at the man. He peered down at her. He must have been close to seven feet tall and was wearing the largest white wife-beater that she’d ever seen (and she’d seen a lot). His face was mild, if surprised; the booming, Blue decided, was from chest capacity and not from malice. He stared at her shirt, which she had made from ribbons and soda can tabs, and then at her face.
“Excited to meet you, is what I am.” She peered past him into the house. She saw more recliners than she’d ever seen in her life (and she’d seen a lot). Nothing hinted where she might have heard his name before. “Are you Jesse Dittley?”
“I AM JESSE DITTLEY. DID YOU NEVER EAT YOUR GREENS?”
It was true that Blue was just shy of five feet and it was also true that she hadn’t eaten her greens, but she’d done the research and she didn’t think the two were related. She said, “I lost the genetic roll of the dice.”
“DAMN STRAIGHT.”
“I’m here because folks are saying you have a cave.”
He considered this. He scratched his chest. Finally, he looked to where the Camaro sat sodden in the pitted driveway. “WHO’S THAT?”
“My friends,” Blue replied, “who are also interested in the cave. If it exists.”
“OH, IT EXISTS.” He let out a hurricane-sized sigh. “MIGHT AS WELL TELL THEM TO COME IN OUT OF THE RAIN.”
The Camaro was theoretically already out of the rain — well, perhaps not Gansey’s left shoulder — but Blue didn’t argue the point. She gestured for the others to join her.
Inside the farmhouse was much like the outside. Machines half-dissected, dead plants in dry pots, dusty bedspreads balled in corners, cats peering from inside sinks. It was gray and colorless and dark in the rain. There was something sort of sideways about it, like the hallways were a little too narrow, or a little slanted, or just slightly wrong in some way.
Jesse Dittley. The familiarity of it was driving her crazy.
In the living room, Malory sat on a brown recliner without blinking an eye. Gansey remained standing. He looked a bit faint.
Blue sat on an ottoman without a chair. Jesse Dittley stood next to a card table covered with empty glasses. He didn’t offer them a drink.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CAVE?” Before they could answer, he added gloomily, “IT’S CURSED.”
“My,” said Malory.
“I don’t so much mind about curses,” Gansey said, his old-money Virginia accent sounding elegant and affected beside Jesse’s. “Is it near here?”
“RIGHT OVER THERE,” Jesse reported.
“Oh! Do you know how long it is?” Gansey asked, at the same time that Blue asked, in a friendly way, “What sort of curse?”
“MY DADDY DIED IN IT. AND MY DADDY’S DADDY. AND MY DADDY’S DADDY’S DADDY.” Jesse concluded, possibly erroneously, “IT PROBABLY HAS NO END. YOU ONE OF THEM AGLIONBY BOYS, THEN?”
“Yes,” Gansey replied precisely.
“DOES THAT DOG WANT WATER?”
They all looked at the Dog. The Dog looked a bit faint.
“Oh, if it’s not too much trouble,” Malory said.
Jesse went to get water. Gansey exchanged a look with Blue. “This has turned unexpectedly ominous.”
“Do you think there’s a curse?” she asked.
“Of course there is,” Malory replied. “It is on a ley line. Apparitions and lightning storms, black beasts and time slipping.”
“To us, just the ley line. To everyone else, a curse,” Gansey finished wonderingly. “Of course.”
Jesse returned with a chipped glass mixing bowl full of water. The Dog drank ravenously. The Camaro had an exhaust leak, which had a dehydrating effect upon its occupants.
“WHAT IS IT YOU WANT WITH THE CAVE? I RECKON THERE ARE PLENTY OF CAVES WITHOUT CURSES HERE.”
Gansey replied, “We’re exploring another cave system and we’ve reached a section that’s blocked. We’re trying to find another way into it, and we think your cave might do it.”
How neatly the truth worked.
Jesse took them out the back door, through another screen porch, and into the mist.
Outside, he was even bigger than Blue had thought he was. Or possibly, now it was easier to compare his size with the house and find the house wanting. As he led them across a vast cow pasture, he didn’t duck his head against the rain. This lack of concern struck Blue as noble, though she couldn’t quite convince her own head to follow his lead as rain dripped off her earlobes.
“This weather reminds me of this dreadful climb I went on with this fellow Pelham,” Malory muttered, producing an umbrella from his person and sharing it with Blue. “Fourteen kilometers each way, and all for a standing stone that looked like a dog in certain lights. The man went on and on about football and his girlfriend — a terrible time was had by all.”