The Reservoir Read Online Free Page B

board and pokes his head through, imagining the girl crawling in on her hands and knees, poor little thing. He goes out, so that he can come back in just as she did. The sun is winking through the trees at the verge of the smallpox cemetery, casting the fence in sharp relief. As he lifts the loose board again, the sun angles in and a yellow glint catches his eye. He hurries through, reaches into the thick wire grass, and pulls out an inch-long watch key. The tube-shaped key has fancy little curlicues around its bulging middle and an open heart for a crown, attached to which is a metal loop, presumably for a watch chain. The loop is somewhat sprung out.
    Lucas looks around. No one appears to have noticed him. He pockets the key and continues his search of the grounds. After a while he goes back and finds that the water level is dropping apace. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the key. Could it have been hers? She had no watch that he could remember. And yet he feels that it must be hers. Perhaps she caught it somehow going through the fence. But then it would have been on the other side. Ah well, he tells himself, it could still be hers—maybe it fell out of her pocket.
    In the evening he walks back to his little row house in Oregon Hill. His mother lived with him for ten years until she died; for the past six years he has lived alone. He never married and doesn’t expect he will now, he supposes because of his funny jug-ears and his clumsy way around women. He has his work, and in his off hours he takes long walks and does odd jobs for the neighbors, mostly plumbing, and if they can’t pay him—and most can’t—he happily accepts a meal. Now he does something strange. He takes the key out and puts it in his mouth. He closes his eyes and pictures the girl; in his mind she is holding the key in her hand shortly before she died. It’s a comfort to him having something that she owned and touched, though he wishes he had a piece of clothing or a lock of hair. The key will have to do, and since it’s not necessarily an article belonging to a woman, there’s no need to tell anyone of his discovery. He takes it out of his mouth and attaches it to a cord, loops the cord around his neck, and tucks it into his undershirt.
    In the morning Mr. Lucas heads back early to the reservoir so that he can refill it. In the terra-cotta muck at the bottom he spies some old cans and long-buried stones. He’s inclined to go down in there and start looking around to see what wonders might be revealed. But he would have a hard time explaining to Mr. Meade why he was knee deep in mud when he was only supposed to open the supply valves. Reluctantly, he heads back to the pump house and turns on the water.
    On the same Sunday morning Mr. Richardson arises at nine, dresses for church, and after breakfast heads over to Grace Street Baptist with his family. Reverend Hatcher is preaching on Malachi 3:6, “For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” The constancy of the Lord is soothing, but on the other hand there’s the refiner’s fire, and the Lord will be a swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, false swearers, and those that oppress hirelings and widows. There is but a narrow path one can tread on the way to righteousness and thus to heaven. Strange how meek and friendly Hatcher seems man-to-man, while up on the pulpit he’s God’s own scourge. He can make you remember every bad thing you’ve ever done, said, or thought, and wish you could take them back. Richardson tugs at his collar and pats his wife’s knee; she ignores him.
    His mind goes away from the sermon and out to the reservoir, where a pregnant girl was found yesterday. It was odd. Why would she go out there on a cold night to kill herself? There has never even been a drowning there that he knows of. Plenty of suicides all over town during his time—hangings, shootings, a few train-track messes, a couple of poisonings, lots of