Nocturnes

“We should have stayed in the mountains, old man,” he said aloud. “We should have stayed where there was daylight.”

And with that he stepped from the lip of the ledge, the lantern still clutched in his hand as he brought light at last to the depths of the Wakeford Abyss.

The Reflecting Eye

The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw nearer to their eternal home.

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view…

– Edmund Waller, “Of the Last Verses in the Book”

I

The Grady house is not easy to find. It lies on a county road that winds northwest from 201 like a reptile crawling off to die, the road dragging itself between steep banks of pine and fir, gradually becoming harder and harder to navigate as Tarmac gives way to cracked concrete, concrete to gravel, gravel to dirt, as if conspiring to discourage those who would look upon the blue-gabled house that waits at its end. Even then there is a final barrier for the curious to overcome, for the pitted trail that leads at last to its door has become wild and overgrown. Fallen trees have not been cleared and creepers and vines have exploited the natural bridges, thorny briers and stinging nettles joining with them to create an ugly wall of green and brown. Only the most tenacious will make their way farther, carving a path through the vegetation or working their way over ditches and rocks, tripping upon roots that seem barely to cling to the earth, the trees they sustain prey to the mildest of storms.

Those who progress will find themselves in a yard of gray soil and foul-smelling weeds, the edge of the forest ending in a remarkably uniform tree line some twenty feet from the house, so that nature itself appears reluctant to extend its reach any closer. It is a simple, two-story arrangement, with a gabled attic window above the second floor. A porch runs along three sides, a decrepit swing chair to the east hanging askew by a single rope. Dead leaves lie curled inward like the remains of insects, piled up against the windows and doors. The mummified husk of a wren is buried beneath them, its body sunken and its feathers fragile as ancient parchment.

The windows of the Grady house have long been covered over with wood, and the front and back entrances have been fortified by the addition of steel doors. Nobody has damaged them, for even the most daring of pranksters steer clear of the building itself. Some come out to look, and to drink beer in its shadow, as if to goad its dæmons into taking action against them, but like small boys taunting a lion through the bars of its cage they are brave only as long as there is a barrier between themselves and the presence in the Grady house.

For there is a presence there. Perhaps it does not have a name, or even a form, but it exists. It is composed of misery and hurt and despair. It is in the dust on the floors and in the fading paper that peels slowly from the walls. It is in the stains on the sink and in the ashes of the last fire. It is in the damp upon the ceiling and in the blood upon the boards. It is in everything, and it is of everything.

And it waits.

It is strange how John Grady’s name is rarely spoken except in reference to killings committed by others. No books have been written about him, even in this age of insatiable curiosity about the darkest among us, and the nature of his crimes remains unexplored in the popular imagination. True, if one is prepared to delve into the journals of criminology or the textbooks of violent crime, then there will be attempts to come to grips with John Grady, but all of them will fail. John Grady is inexplicable, for to explain him one must first know about him. There must be facts: a background, a personality. There must be schoolmates and fellow workers; an absent father, an overbearing mother. There must be trauma and conflicted sexuality. For John Grady, there are none of these things.

He arrived in Maine in 1977, and he bought a house. His neighbors dropped by, and he invited them inside to take a look around. The house was old, but John Grady clearly had some experience in construction for he was tearing out walls, laying new floors, filling in cracks, and replacing old plumbing. His neighbors never stayed long, as John Grady was clearly a busy man, albeit one with dubious taste. The original expensive wallpaper was already gone, and a cheap, un-adorned replacement had been put up in its stead. The paste Grady used was of his own creation, and it stank, giving visitors another reason not to prolong their stay. Grady was doing all the work alone. He would talk about his plans for the house, and it was clear that he had already created it in his mind. He spoke of red drapes and deep velvet couches, of claw-toed bathtubs and mahogany dining tables. It was, he said, a labor of love, yet people looked up at that cheap paper, and smelled the rank substance that he had used to raise it, and quickly put Grady down as a fantasist.

John Grady stole children. He took the first, little Mattie Bristol, from North Anson in the autumn of 1979; the second, Evie Munger, from Fryeburg in the spring of 1980; the third, Nadine Lincoln, from South Paris, in the summer of 1980; De

That was his mistake, for Amy was so excited about her friend’s impending arrival that she was hiding in the woods at the verge of her house, hoping to leap out and surprise her. She watched Grady’s Lincoln pull up alongside her friend, saw the man inside lean over to speak to her, and then found herself unable to move as Grady’s big hand grabbed Louise by the hair and dragged her into the car. Amy’s parents heard her screaming, and within minutes the police were on their way, already mounting a search for a red Lincoln.

They did not have to look far. The abduction of Louise Matheson was a crime of opportunity for John Grady. His previous victims had been taken from towns elsewhere in the state, then brought west to be killed, but Shin Pond was barely ten miles from the Grady house. John Grady’s appetites had become increasingly hard to sate, and the release that he gained from their appeasement did not last as long as it once had. It is possible to imagine him, on the day that Louise Matheson was abducted, prowling the roads, his hunger gnawing at him, perhaps promising himself that he was only trying to distract himself from his appetites by taking a ride, that he did not really intend to seek out another victim.

John Grady was a tall, thin man. His hair was graying prematurely and cut close to his scalp, which served only to make his face seem even longer than it was. A calcium deficiency in his youth had given his chin an unfortunate prominence, one that he tried to hide by keeping his head low. He always wore a suit when out in public, set off by a bright bow tie and dark suspenders. There was something dated about him. His suits, though clean, gave the impression of having dwelt for some time in an attic or a thrift store. The shirts were a little frayed at the collars and cuffs. The bow ties looked faded rather than fresh, and bore wrinkles and stains that suggested many years of use.