A Natural History of Hell: Stories Read Online Free Page A

exception. I slowed as I got close to the place, and right across from the sign, I stopped and studied it—about two by three foot, made of tin, fading white with black letters. It was attached to a short rusted post. The berry bushes had grown up and partially over it, but now that I’d stopped I could make out its message. It said—WORD DOLL MUSEUM—and beneath that—Open 10 to 5 Monday thru Friday.
    The next morning I got up, and, instead of driving to town, I took a shower and put on a white shirt and dress pants. I took a cup of coffee out under the apple trees. Instead of writing, I sat there, smoking and wondering into the heart of the cornfield what the hell a word doll was. At 10:30, I got in the car and drove toward town. The sun was strong and the sky was clear blue. The corn had begun to brown, it being summer’s end. At the bend in the road, without hesitating, I pulled into the driveway of the Victorian. The chickens were in a clutch over by the corner of the house. The place was still. I didn’t hear any television or radio playing. I walked slowly to the porch door, scuffing the gravel in the drive in order to let anybody listening know I was there. The screen door on the porch was unlatched. I opened it and called in, “Hello?”
    There was no reply, so I entered, the screen door banging shut behind me, and walked to the main door of the house. I knuckle-rapped the glass three times and then folded my arms and waited. The lilacs bordering the porch gave off a strong scent, and a wind chime in the corner over an old rocker pinged in the breeze sifting through the screen. I was about to give up and leave, when the door pulled back. There was a thin old woman, a little bent, with a cloud of white hair and big glasses. She wore a loose, button-up dress, yellow with white flowers.
    “ What do ya want? ” she asked.
    “I’m here for the Word Doll Museum,” I said.
    My pronouncement seemed to momentarily stun her. She reached up and gently grabbed the door jamb. “Are you kidding?” she asked and smiled.
    “Should I be?” I said.
    Her demeanor instantly changed. I could see her relax. “Hold on,” she said, “I have to get the keys. Meet me over by the barn.”
    I left the porch, and the chickens followed me. The entire gray structure of the barn, like some weary pachyderm, was actually listing more than a few degrees to the south, something I’d not noticed from the road. The door was hanging on by only the top hinge. The lady came out the back of the house and walked with the help of a three-pronged cane over the lumpy ground of the yard. As she drew closer, she said, “Where you from?”
    “Not far. I pass your place on the way to town every morning, and I saw the sign the other day.”
    “My name is Beverly Gearing,” she said and held out her hand.
    I took it in mine and we shook. “I’ m Jeff Ford, ” I told her.
    As she passed by me toward the ramshackle barn, she said, “So, Mr. Ford, what’s your interest in word dolls?”
    “ I don ’t know anything about them.”
    “Well, that’s OK,” she said, and opened the broken door.
    I followed her inside. She shuffled over the hay-strewn floor. Swifts flew back and forth in the rafters, and the holes in the roof allowed sunbeams to cut the shadows. On one side of the barn were animal stalls, all empty, and on the other there was a wall of implements and tools and a small room built within the greater structure. Over the door to it was a wooden sign with the words Word Doll Museum burned in script and shellacked. She fished in the pocket of her dress and eventually came out with the key. Opening the door, she flipped on a light switch, and then stepped aside, allowing me to enter first. The room was painted a light blue. There was a window on each wall that looked out at nothing but bare plywood, and inside, window boxes fixed up with plastic flowers.
    “Have a seat,” she said, and I sat in a chair at the card table at the