THE HEAD, Chapter 47
we're going in
Chapter 47
Mrs. Cecilia Cord, aka the witch, was feeling bad about herself. Her boy Jimmy was leading her and Becky Simms to the pink house where he had left the golden head. Normally, Mrs. Cord did not bother with feelings. At least, she did not wallow in them, especially the self-critical kind. She was not rich enough, spoiled enough to indulge in self-doubt. She was a tough, no-nonsense woman, a single mom. She had worked since she was 16 years old, been on her own since she was 18. She’d gotten herself involved with two stupid and useless men, one fathered Jimmy, the other fathered Kimmy, but at least she’d had the good sense to marry only one of them.
As they followed behind her son, on the way to the pink house, Mrs. Cord was feeling ashamed of herself. She had allowed the head to infect her son. She had put her Jimmy in danger. Why? For money. What kind of mom would do that?
She had enjoyed the fortune telling business, had loved getting money out of her neighbors. She had felt important, prosperous, somebody. The Witch!
It wasn’t a scam, not entirely; their customers got value for their money. But she had forgotten she was a mother and neglected to protect her kids. Jimmy was a little shit, but he was her son, and she loved him. She had been insufficiently protective of him.
Maybe she too had been affected by the head. Yes, that was it. She had been infected by the coldness, the inhumanity of the head. It had turned her into a terrible mother, made her coarser and greedier and more unfeeling, turned her into a bad mother, a witch. That is what everyone had called her, the witch.
As she walked along, Mrs. Cord thought, I am not a witch!
What a dangerous unholy thing it was, the head. Did it make that Lannister man murder her neighbor Mitch Nelson and cut off his head? She had harbored a monster in her trailer for weeks, let it infect her Jimmy. For that entire time, she’d been trapped in a mental and moral fog, not realizing her danger, the danger to her kids, the danger to her neighbors.
While his mother was experiencing these unpleasant thoughts, Jimmy led her and Becky Simms to Downing Street. “It’s that one.” He pointed at the pink house but refused to get any closer to it.
Mrs. Cord told her son he could go play. “We will handle this ourselves.”
Mrs. Cord stood there on the sidewalk gazing at the pink house. Was the head in there? She recalled that she knew the lady who lived in the pale green house across the street from the pink house. What was that woman’s name? She was once invited to a Tupperware party at that woman’s house and wound up going home with a whole stack of plastic bowls.
What was her name? Cathy, that was it, Cathy Rummage. A heavyset woman who bleached her hair and painted her fingernails and wore bracelets.
Mrs. Cord felt better. She was no longer experiencing bad feelings and having negative thoughts about herself. She was doing something.
Mrs. Cord and Becky visited the neighbor, Cathy Rummage, who was surprised to find them on her porch but happy to invite them in for coffee. She remembered Mrs. Cord and had been served many times at Red’s Place by Becky Simms.
Mrs. Cord asked Cathy Rummage did she know the man who lived across the street in the pink house.
Cathy Rummage told them the pink house was the residence of an oddball named Franklin Birch, a bachelor who lived there by himself. But lately, he’d got himself a girlfriend. They would never guess who. The deaf and dummy girl, Laura Ott. The one who cleaned houses and painted pictures on windows.
Mrs. Cord recalled that Laura Ott and Franklin Birch were the two who had tried to break into her trailer. She remembered that, when her son had tried to read Franklin Birch, he had developed a horrendous nosebleed. What was that about?
Cathy Rummage said she was pretty sure Franklin Birch had recently dumped the deaf girl because she had seen the poor creature pounding on his door. He wouldn’t even open it. Typical man, take advantage of a girl and then dump her. Cathy felt that if there was any justice in the world, men like that would be arrested for taking advantage of the handicapped.
Mrs. Cord and Becky Simms decided to go to visit Laura Ott. Neither of them entirely trusted or liked the girl, but they needed to know what she knew. Did she know anything helpful about the vulnerability of the head? Did the deaf one know her boyfriend was infected by the head and was living with the thing in his house?
Mrs. Cord and Becky knocked on the door of Laura’s trailer. No one opened the door. Was the deaf one in there? And then, they realized that, even if Laura was in there, she wouldn’t be able to hear them knocking.
Mrs. Cord tried the door and discovered it wasn’t locked. “Come on,” she told Becky. “We’re going in.”
Laura Ott was sitting on her living room floor with a book. Realizing something strange was happening, she looked up and saw a startling sight, two women were invading her trailer.