The Residue Burn

On the surface, Grazer’s Knoll seems like a typical, picturesque small town. A little slice of antique Americana on the north end of the Sacramento Valley. The men are strong and stoic. Almost all work down at the lumber mill. The women are lovingly stern, a powerful matriarch. It’s no secret that the sewing circles of the Knoll run the show. 

Kenny was a good kid, the youngest of four. At ten he could already hold his own with some of the tougher chores required around the farm. He’d been in his fair share of dustups with some of the older boys around town, but for the most part he was well behaved. He never complained about his studies, or his siblings, and always kept his church clothes clean. Not to say that he didn’t get into some mischief now and again.

His two older brothers and sister were all in their teens. The trouble they caused cast a tall shadow over any of the questionable deeds he got up to. They all pretended to fear their father, but they all knew who the real heavy hand of the family was. Mother. When things got serious, she never raised her voice or the belt, but spoke with an eerie calm in a tone of finality that put all arguments to bed before they arose. She was the unquestioned voice of authority.

It’s not that she was particularly stern. In fact, when it came to fighting or cussing or other types of casual adolescent misbehavior, she was surprisingly lenient. There were two things, though, that she gave no quarter to: lying and eavesdropping. The way she reprimanded the children in the event of either of these infractions, you would have thought they were the first two of the ten commandments.     

Early Sunday afternoon was Kenny’s favorite time of the week. Saturdays were for hard work, a day to prepare for tomorrow's strict adherence to the lord's mandate of rest. For Kenny, Sunday afternoon was like a mini summer vacation before the week began over again. From lunch to dinner, he was allowed to roam free.

Kenny and Buddy, the family hound, had spent the warm afternoon on the banks of Edgewood Creek under the lush groves that separated the north end of their property from Old Man Gentry’s southern corn fields. Kenny swam and caught crawdads while Buddy foraged through thick groves of chaparral, sending chittering flocks flying from the underbrush. They lazed in the dappled shade of the oaks and elms and dozed as they listened to the breeze rustle through the canopy, carrying the scent of a passing summer and a fast-approaching fall.

Kenny woke with a start. He tried to sit up and found himself pinned under Buddy’s heavy head. He stroked his muzzle before pushing him off. Buddy barely noticed and let out a great huffing snore as he stretched his neck and settled his head against the pillow of the thick grass that grew above the loam of the banks. Kenny sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes blinking as he remembered where he was. 

The grove had grown silent, save the babbling of the unseasonably fat creek. The birds were nesting in the last of the afternoon’s warmth. The winds had moved north, blowing through the fields of drying corn stalks, rattling like windchimes fashioned from hollow bones and chaff. A wave of panic ran through Kenny. How long had he been asleep? He knew “home before supper” meant home in time to help set and serve. He pushed himself up and dusted the sand from the seat of his pants. As he pulled and shook at the edges of his shirt he squinted through the foliage at the low-lying sun. 

“Come on, boy.” Kenny toed at Buddy’s belly.

Buddy stretched and sat up with a curly tongued yawn. He snorted, turned a droopy eye up to Kenny and wagged his tail.

Kenny pulled his shoes over his bare, sandy feet. “Hope we’re not late.” He waved for buddy to follow and dove through the shrubs along the overgrown trail.   

They bounded through the tall golden grass and onto the dusty drive. Kenny could see that the truck was still out, which meant that his dad and brothers weren’t back from fishing. Hunting was not allowed on Sundays, as it was too close to actual work. Fishing, on the other hand, was begrudgingly tolerated by their mom after a compromise was met. Catch and release only. 

“We must be pretty early, Buddy.” Kenny slowed and shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at rocks as he meandered up the road. He didn’t want to be too early. Buddy zigged and zagged along behind him.

As the farmhouse grew near, Kenny spotted the blue Buick parked in the shade of the great oak in the front yard. Pastor Jensen’s car. If the pastor was still visiting, then he had gotten home much earlier than he had originally suspected. Kenny and Buddy skirted the yard through the firewood cache, around the chicken coops and across the tractor yard to the barn. Buddy waddled into the barn and headed to the stalls, where he liked to doze against the doors of the pens.

Kenny made his way into the backyard, peering through the picture window into the living room as he passed. He saw his mother, Pastor Jensen, the pastor’s wife, and Miss Krantz, the town librarian, hunkered in their seats as they conferred. Kenny swung his arms and kicked at a rock as he made his way to the tire swing that hung under the dome of the willow. He climbed on top of the tire and swung his feet as he got it moving back and forth in sweeping arcs that grew longer before starting to subside. 

He stared out over the rolling hills and let the swing finally come to a slowly spinning rest. He eyed the backdoor to the kitchen. His stomach grumbled. He had worked half of yesterday with his mother in the kitchen and could picture the hunk of cheese in the cold box that his mother had hastily stored while cleaning up. If some of it were to go missing, he doubted anyone would notice.

Kenny tiptoed up the three steps, pulled the screen open and peered through the growing crack in the door as he pushed it slowly. The well-oiled hinges groaned but let out no betraying squeal. The coast was clear. He stepped into the kitchen and softly shut the door behind him, leaning against it for a moment while he listened. Murmurings from the living room. No steps. Kenny crept across the kitchen and stopped in front of the fridge, his eyes darting over his shoulder as he raised the lid. 

He found, portioned, and rehid the cheese in record time. A chunk for his back pocket as he nibbled on a smaller morsel. As he passed the entrance of the dining room that led off through to the living room, he turned an ear, making sure the coast was clear. There were no footfalls, but there was something else. Something eerie. He had heard them pray and sing hymnals. He had heard them debate scripture and noticed how the pastor's voice had turned to a lilting sing-song timbre that even Kenny could tell was performative. He had heard a lot of strange things during church meetings, but this was different. Something he’d never heard before. Something that sounded with a sinister sibilant hiss. 

Kenny shoved the last of the cheesy morsel in his mouth and sucked on it slowly as he crept to the threshold of the dining room. He leaned against the molded casing, staying hidden behind it as he closed his eyes and strained to hear. The words floated to him. A hushed chant.

He, by whose hand the land does turn

Cleansing the field of vermin and scourge

And seed and chaff and stalk and stern

We hail his flame, the residue burn

He felt his skin crawl. Before he could open his eyes and creep away, he felt the familiar vice-like grip of a small hand on his shoulder. He yipped, even though everything in him urged him to cry out loudly. He turned to find the angry eyes of their mother and quickly hung his head. Even as he stared at her feet he could imagine the flames of rage licking up from the dark of her pupils.

“Kenneth Robert.” Somehow, she always made that middle name sting. Kenny could remember wincing at the sound of her using his siblings' middle names to reprimand them. “Are you eavesdropping?”

He thought about lying for only the barest moment before letting the truth tumble out. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“If you keep listening in, you’re going to grow another ear.” She grasped his elbow and drew him close as she gathered her composure. “Do not listen to the words of others…”

Kenny knew the words of Ecclesiastes 7:21, and even at his young age he understood that his mother was using the verse out of context. Years ago, he remembered her scolding Adam, his middle brother, in the same fashion. Adam had completed the rest of the verse to her and then pointed out that he had no servants. This had sent their mother into a silent rage that resulted in Adam being essentially shackled to the barn and corral performing chores for the better part of two months. 

“Yes, Ma’am.” Kenny peered up at her as he tried to convey the greatest amount of contrition he could muster. 

Her stern gaze softened, just a little. “You’ve pilfered from the cold case.” 

Kenny hung his head again, this time the notion of lying had passed by even faster. “Yes, Ma’am.”

She narrowed an appraising gaze.

He squirmed.

“Fine.” she waved toward the stairs. “Keep the cheese,”

Kenny glanced up at her nervously.  

“In return you will review your studies until you are called for dinner.”

A glint of surprise flashed across Kenny’s face. He nodded enthusiastically, “Yes Ma’am!” Then softer, with a bow, “Thank you, mom.” 

She crossed her arms and tapped her toe.

Kenny gave her a final nod and quickly headed through the pantry and up to his room. 

After dinner Kenny cleaned so late into the evening, that by the time he got to bed he barely had ten minutes to peruse his latest edition of Scary Science before lights out. 

All three boys shared a room. Adam, and Ben, the eldest, shared the bunk bed, Adam relegated to the top. Kenny’s small single bed was tucked into the corner. Kenny laid in the dark, listening to his brothers whispering back and forth, catching only every third word of the fish tales of the day. As he listened, he swore he overheard Ben say, “...grow another ear…” 

Kenny's voice sounded gravely and a little too loud in his ears. “Hey, guys.”

His brothers became instantly silent. The room filled with the soft hush of the wind against the window, blowing through the fields. The far-away knock of a loose shutter. 

“Guys?” 

The wind for a moment before he heard Adam snicker.

Kenny rolled his eyes in the dark.

“What’s up, Ken?” Ben asked. 

Kenny could hear his warm smile. “Mom said I’d grow another ear if I eavesdrop on folks.” 

Silence from his brothers.

Kenny thought about what he was really asking. “That’s not true, right?” At first it sounded like the wind against the window, but Kenny grew to realize that it was the sound of his brothers stifling their laughter. He rolled his eyes and resigned to accept that they were jerks.

His older brother Ben spoke calmly, only the slightest, guarded tremble of levity in his voice. “Is that what you got in trouble for? Eavesdropping?”

“Yeah,” Kenny sighed. He pulled on the lobes of his ears and muttered, “I don’t want another ear.”

More stifled laughter. 

Ben’s calm voice, “Don’t worry, Ken. those are just stories.”

Kenny huffed. He knew stuff like that wasn’t real.

“I don’t know,” Adam interrupted the comfortable moment. “Depends who you’re eavesdropping on.”

Ben was the first to ask, “Huh?”

“I don’t know,” Adam considered, taking a breath. “If you’re walking down the street, or you’re in a place, it’s not your fault. People are just talking, right?”

Ben and Kenny nodded along in the dark. 

“But if you listen in on important things then it’s different. Then you’re breaking some sort of sin.” He held up a finger. “That’s when you get cursed and grow extra ears.”

Ben scoffed quietly, “Kenny didn’t hear anything important.” He directed his whispers to Kenny. “Who’d you eavesdrop on? Mom?”

Chuckles.

“No, Pastor Jensen.”

A cold silence washed over the room.

Kenny gulped.

“Were they chanting?” Ben's tone was stark.

Kenny’s brothers could hear him nod.

“Same as the Jesup kid,” Adam added ominously.

“Oh, yeah.” Kenny could hear Ben tapping the banister as he remembered. “Billy, right?”

“That’s right.” Adam spoke with the timbre of collusion. “The kid couldn’t help himself. He listened in on everyone. He listened in on Pastor Jensen too. The next morning, he woke up and, wouldn’t you know it, he had another ear on his cheek.”

Kenny rubbed his cheek. He couldn’t tell if it was really tingling or if he was imagining it.

“Geez,” Ben exclaimed under his breath.

Adam added, what Kenny suspected might be a performative amount of gravitas to his reedy voice. “Before he knew it, he was growing ears from everywhere and one night he ran into the cornfield and turned into a corn stalk, ears coming out everywhere.”

“Oh, boy.” Kenny heard Ben shake his head.

“That’s not even the scariest part.”

“Oh?” Ben asked in practiced surprise. 

“The worst part, no one could find him. They even searched the fields. Walked right by, calling his name. But he was a corn stalk so they couldn’t tell. And at the end of the year, they burned him with the chaff.”

“Woah,” Ben.

Kenny pulled the covers to his chin and stared, wide eyed into the dark. He knew the fires well. To him, it seemed like a pretty rotten way to go. He could see Billy Jensen turned to a stalk of corn jutting from the fields of stumps and bent stalks. Then he squinted as he thought of an odd notion, and without thinking he just muttered aloud. “Do you think they harvest Billy Jensen?” 

He heard his brothers suck in a breath, like the hush of the surf retreating, before both of his brothers burst out with a donkey’s guffaw. He heard them slap their hands over their mouths and all three of them froze. Before the count of three their mother’s steps were on the landing. The door flew open, a slab of light cutting through the dark of the room. 

 “If I hear another peep…” 

All three brothers held their breath, shutting their eyes tight.

Their mom let out a harumph and appraised them for another moment before shutting the door.

The three of them willed themselves to sleep.

That night Kenny had a dream.

 He woke in the night and laid in the dark as he listened. His brothers snored and a soft wind shook the windowpanes. He raised his head. The gap under the door was dark. He remembered the cheese. He sat up in bed and swung his feet over the side and listened again. Snores and windy thumps. 

Kenny crept through the dark, down the stairs and into the kitchen. He pulled the cold storage open and rifled through it. There was more cheese than he remembered, and he took more than he needed. As he filled his pockets with dry curds he heard a bark echo through the night outside. 

Through the kitchen window across the western fields he saw Buddy’s silhouette, arched and crooning at the corn fields. From the tattered remains of the crop an orange light glowed. 

Kenny found himself in the western field, wading through the grass toward the spent cornrows. Buddy was gone but the glow had grown warmer, and a wind had risen, carrying with it a chant. 

Weed and vermin

Stalk and stern

Hail the flames

The residue burn

Kenny pushed a broken stalk aside as he stepped into the waste of the harvested field. A glow in the distance. He felt an itch behind his ear. He scratched at it and found a protrusion. A lump. The lump grew and he felt itching sensations explode all over his body and as he felt at them, he discovered more growing protrusions, he stumbled toward the glow his feet sticking. The lumps pushed through his skin and his body stiffened and thinned. His feet rooted. The protrusions burst from his body into ears of corn as he stiffened into a grotesquely contorted pose. Flames began to grow around him. A robed union stood before him, chanting. 

Weed and vermin

Stalk and stern

The firelight lit the faces under their hoods. His mother, chanting, the wet reflection of the flames dancing in her eyes.

Hail the flames

The residue burn

Flames rose and engulfed him as he tried to scream.

Kenny bolted upright with a shout, pulling the covers away and wiping the sweat from his face. He braced himself as he caught his breath, one foot draped over his bedside. He glanced around the room, gathering his dark surroundings. He let out a sigh of relief. He was safe in his room, his brothers snoring away, a soft wind rattling the window, the rustle of fall outside. He took a deep breath and fell back into bed.

He tucked himself in, poking at his pillow and wiping the last of the sweat from his face. As his hand passed over his nose, he felt something. A lump?