My Neighbor Said I Peeped, So I Showed the Village the Footage

1: 1

My first day back in my hometown, the woman next door came to borrow my cat to catch mice.

In my last life, I said yes. I carried the cat over to her house myself.

I never guessed she'd turn around, tear her own blouse open, slap herself across the face a few times, and run out barefoot,

screaming that I'd assaulted her.

The whole village poured out and beat me, smashed my things, and in the end they crushed every bone in both my hands and both my feet,

so I could never paint again. I lay dying on that bed for a month before the sickness took me.

My cat was drowned in the pond too, thrown in as my so-called accomplice by that woman next door.

After I was dead, she moved away, and before long she was auctioning off my paintings as her own.

On the strength of those spirit-filled canvases, she didn't just earn the title of woman painter, she became a rich woman. Living easy, living well.

Now, reborn, facing the same neighbor come knocking at my door, I shook my head, cold.

"Just buy a pack of rat poison. It costs pennies."

...

"You... and you're supposed to be from the city! Who knew you had such a rotten heart!"

"Do you have any idea how many kids in this village get poisoned every year swallowing rat poison by mistake? You tell me to buy rat poison, you want the whole village wiped out?"

The woman next door, Stella Pruitt, froze for only a moment after I refused, then started loudly accusing me.

Her raised voice drew the neighbors nearby.

Aunt Marlene, sour-faced with her hair slicked flat across her forehead, curled her lip and chimed in. "Corey, don't you have a cat? Lend it out so everyone can use it. Fat as it is, it can't just eat and never move, or it won't live long!"

Hearing her actually curse my cat, the anger boiled up in me.

I'd found Tiger in a trash heap, raised him on water and milk drop by drop, and he'd been with me ever since.

To me he was family.

I scooped up Tiger, who'd wedged himself in at my feet to watch the show, and shot back, ice-cold, "So generous. Why don't you lend yourself out instead?"

"You're already way overweight. Better get moving fast and slim down."

"Otherwise..."

I didn't finish, but my expression said the rest for me.

Aunt Marlene lost it on the spot. "You rotten little punk, how can you talk like that? I only gave you a bit of friendly advice. Fine, don't take it, but why put a curse on me?"

"Forget it. I see how it is. This Corey Floyd is a city man, looks down on us village folk, doesn't want anything to do with us."

"So what if he's from the city? City people still eat the grain us farmers grow! What's so noble about that?"

"Right, whose cat doesn't go out and catch mice? Only his cat is special."

"Won't even do one little favor. Cold-blooded, that one!"

Hearing the villagers back her, Stella Pruitt found her nerve again, reached into my arms, and grabbed a fistful of the fur at Tiger's neck, yanking hard to drag him out.

Startled, Tiger raked his claws across her arm, leaving a few bloody streaks.

Stella shrieked and let go. "Damn animal!"

Tiger pulled his claws back and burrowed into my arms, shaking with fright.

But Stella, with her arm scratched, had turned herself into the victim, screaming for money, or for Tiger to be beaten to death.

I was anxious to get Tiger home and calm him down, in no mood to wrangle with them. My face went cold. "You brought it on yourself getting scratched. If you don't like it, we call the police, and I'll have my lawyer talk to you."

At the words police and lawyer, Stella lost her nerve.

But she wasn't willing to let it drop either. She grabbed Aunt Marlene, the one who'd spoken up for her first. "The whole village saw it, you city man bullying a widow like me! Ma'am, when the police come, you'll testify for me, won't you?"

Aunt Marlene snatched her sleeve back fast. "I've got tofu stewing on the stove, I need to run home and check it."

The others who'd come to watch didn't want to get pulled in by Stella either, and one by one they left.

Left with no one on her side, Stella glared at Tiger, seething. "Little beast!"

Then she swung her hips and walked off.

I shut the door at once and carried Tiger back to the living room to settle him down.

Once Tiger had calmed, I called a friend and asked him to find me a new place to live, somewhere with clean hills and clear water and honest people.

This might be my hometown, but the villagers were ignorant and vicious.

I had no intention of staying.

When Tiger fell asleep, I left him in the living room and went to my temporary study to deal with some work first, then started packing my things to move.

I was only halfway done when someone pounded on the door.

"Floyd, get out here!"

"You dare bully a woman from our village, today we're peeling the skin right off you! Beat you to death!"

The pounding grew harder, joined by the sound of someone kicking violently at the door.

I couldn't make sense of it. I hadn't even stepped outside today, so how had I bullied anyone? Who exactly had I bullied?

"Crash!"

The door burst open under the assault.

Five or six villagers stormed in, full of menace.

Aunt Marlene, the one I'd mocked that morning, was at the front. The moment she saw my packed belongings, she lit up as if she'd found proof of a crime.

"Floyd means to run!"

"Quick, smash his things, take his ID, make him pay for the filthy thing he did!"

2: 2

Aunt Marlene finished shouting, then grabbed a stick and started smashing first.

My favorite dishes were shards of porcelain on the floor in no time.

The cans and food pouches I'd bought for Tiger disappeared into Aunt Marlene's pockets.

Her narrow eyes glittered. She said she was looking for an ID card, but she was really hunting for anything worth taking.

The other villagers followed her lead, either breaking things or slipping items into their clothes.

I meant to stop them, but they moved through the house like a swarm of locusts, greedy and merciless, so I stepped back into an empty corner and stood quietly.

Smash it, steal it. Whatever I lose today, I'll get every piece back once I call the police.

I stood in the corner where nothing would reach me and watched, cold-eyed.

Aunt Marlene tore through my things, and worst of all my carefully painted scrolls, unrolling them one by one, dropping them on the floor, trampling them at will.

I could stop caring about possessions. Broken things can be bought again.

But my paintings were my life's work.

"Stop!"

"You broke into my home. Stealing, smashing. That's a crime already!"

"If you don't stop, and I press charges, it won't just be paying me back. You'll go to jail!"

The villagers rummaging around froze on the spot.

They were ignorant and vicious, and gutless too.

They bullied the weak, but faced with the law they pulled their necks in, meek and pitiful.

In my last life they beat me crippled, then knelt at my bedside terrified, old and young alike, weeping until they were a mess, begging me not to press charges. I softened. I agreed.

And then they bared their fangs and let me die in that bed, in agony, degree by degree.

Remembering those days, crying out to a heaven that never answered, that despair and pain, my eyes darkened. I warned them:

"There are cameras in this house. Whoever took something, whoever smashed something, it's all right there!"

"None of you can deny it!"

One villager dug into his pocket at once, ready to put back the pair of solid silver cups I loved.

But Aunt Marlene, the one leading them, suddenly gave a cold laugh and jabbed a finger at my face. "You did a filthy thing, you violated a woman of this village, and you've still got the nerve to order us around?"

"Let me tell you, today we're not just smashing your things. If we beat you to death, that's ridding the people of a menace!"

"We're not scared of the police coming either!"

That was what her mouth said, but her eyes were rolling, and she quickly spotted the camera I'd mounted high in the corner. She dragged a table over, climbed up, and knocked the camera out with two blows.

She planted her hands on her hips, pleased with herself. "What camera? There's no camera. All this broken stuff, you did it yourself, resisting arrest."

Hearing that, the other villagers tucked the items back into their clothes with clear consciences.

A few even grabbed a couple more things while they were at it.

Aunt Marlene jumped down from the table. "A few of you, tie that Floyd guy up! A man who does something lower than an animal, he should be dragged to Stella Pruitt's to kneel and confess!"

That was when I finally understood why they'd come.

I was stunned. "You've got the wrong man. I didn't even leave the house today."

"You say you didn't leave the house. Then where's your cat?"

"Tiger? Tiger's in the house..."

I said it while looking around, but there was no sign of Tiger anywhere. And I finally understood the wrongness that had prickled at me during the smashing. Tiger hadn't reacted.

As close as Tiger and I were, if someone bullied me, even a fight he couldn't win, he'd have thrown himself out and scratched twice.

I started to panic. Nothing could have happened to Tiger, could it?

I was about to push through the villagers to find my cat when Aunt Marlene suddenly bellowed, "That Floyd guy's going to hit somebody and run! Quick, grab him!"

Hands reached for me from every side.

Pinching me, pounding me, hitting me.

The agony of my last life, hands and feet crushed bone by bone, rose up again. I was back on that day. I didn't dare struggle. I only shielded what I could of my vital points.

They trussed me up, dragged me out by force, off to my neighbor Stella Pruitt's house to be forced to apologize.

Even more villagers had gathered at Stella's.

Her sobbing carried out of the house. "I won't go on living! After my man died I kept myself decent, stayed faithful to him, and I never thought I'd be defiled by that Floyd animal! I can't face my man! I can't go on living!"

The moment I appeared, Stella froze, then came tearing out of the house and lunged at me like a madwoman.

"You beast! You deserve a thousand cuts! I'll take you down with me! I'll do it!"

I watched her calmly, didn't flinch, didn't dodge. When she was almost on me, I suddenly asked:

"Spreading lies gets you a prison sentence. You sure I violated you?"

3: 3

Stella's eyes flickered and went shifty. She stopped hitting me and stopped shouting too, just covered her face and kept crying.

The villagers who had marched me over frowned, and Aunt Marlene, at the front, slapped me straight across the face. "Shameless animal! You force yourself on a woman, and then you threaten her!"

"You live closer to Stella than anyone, and you're the only new face in the whole village!"

"Who else would do something this filthy, if not you?"

"That's right. We're all decent people. None of us would even give a widow a second glance walking past."

"Yeah, yeah. I didn't even come out today, but when Stella screamed, I think I saw a man darting toward that Floyd guy's place!"

"I saw it too. He was skulking around outside Stella's yard."

One after another, the villagers piled on, building their case against me.

Now they had more than suspicion. They had witnesses.

I found the whole thing bitterly absurd.

I'd only moved in two days ago. I didn't even know all their faces, hadn't spoken with any of them. And yet here they were, dead certain I was a lecher, a criminal.

This was what it meant to say that once someone wants to condemn you, they'll never lack for an excuse.

I waited until the wave of shouting accusations died down, then looked at each of them in turn, my gaze a warning. "Slander and false rumors are all being recorded by law. Every word you say, if any of it is a lie, you will be held responsible."

Stella stopped crying and spat at me viciously. "Floyd, quit putting on an act to scare people."

"What you did to me, Heaven sees it, and my dead husband sees it too!"

"I came to borrow your cat, and you refused right in front of everyone. I never thought that once everyone went home to cook dinner, you'd quietly let your cat out, then say you were coming to my house to look for it. But the moment you got inside, you threw me down and tore my clothes."

Stella wore the look of someone reliving something unbearable, and she wailed at the top of her voice.

Aunt Marlene patted her back with concern. "Stella, don't worry. We'll get justice for you, no matter what!"

Stella shook her head, her expression dazed. "What good is justice to me?"

"I've been violated, my name is dirt now, I can't go on living in this village. I, I might as well be dead!"

Stella's face turned to resolve and she made to run outside.

Several villagers rushed to hold her back.

Stella broke into sobs again, and that shrill, keening cry twisted something in everyone's chest.

A few of the women couldn't help wiping away tears.

At that point, one of the male villagers who had come with Aunt Marlene to trash my house suddenly spoke up. "Why don't we have that Floyd guy pay Stella some money, so she can move somewhere else."

Stella's crying dropped lower, and she traded a discreet glance with the man who'd spoken.

So it seemed that in this life and the last, Stella framing me had all been arranged in advance.

But why? Why had she fixed on me?

Whatever her scheme was, I'd been given this life again, and I wasn't going to let it work!

I refused the man's suggestion outright. "I won't pay a cent!"

"I never touched her. If you don't believe me, call the police."

"I trust the police to do their job right. They won't wrong an innocent man, and they won't let a guilty one walk."

As I said it, I fixed my eyes on Stella.

Whether her nerves were just that strong, or for some other reason, she didn't so much as flinch.

"Floyd, if you dare call the police, I'll kill myself right here in front of you!"

"Right now only the people in this village know. Call the police and it'll be in the news, and then every town for miles around will know that I, Stella Pruitt, was... I'd have nothing left to live for at all!"

"But I really didn't do anything to you. I never even left my house today!"

"This has to go to the police. Your good name matters, and so does mine!"

"You're a grown man, what good name do you have? And a thing like this, so shameful, would Stella really lie and frame you over it?"

Aunt Marlene, who'd led the ransacking of my house, flew into a rage.

The villagers who'd been swayed by my firm stance now leaned back toward Stella's side.

"That's right. When something like this happens to a woman, she can't even show her face. Why would she lie about it?"

"This Floyd kid, decent-looking, seems like he's not a bad sort. Who'd have thought he'd do it and then not own up. A man like that staying in the village, if we let him off today, tomorrow whose wife or daughter gets hurt?"

"We can't let him off easy!"

"He has to pay for it!"

The villagers roared, worked into a frenzy, looking at me the way you'd look at a mortal enemy.

Their eyes merged with the eyes that had beaten me like madmen in my last life, and I knew that if I didn't do something now, the tragedy of that life would play out all over again.

4: 4

"Catch a thief with the goods! You keep saying I did something to Stella, but none of you cornered me inside Stella's house. That's true, isn't it?"

I looked straight at Aunt Marlene, the one leading them.

Her face was sour, but she nodded anyway.

The man who had traded glances with Stella cut in, anxious. "So what if we didn't corner you? Someone saw you running out of Stella's house!"

"You did it! You forced yourself on her!"

"Where's the proof?"

Last time, Stella tore her own clothes, messed up her hair, gave herself a few cuts, and ran out crying that I'd tried to force myself on her.

Everyone had me cornered inside her house, so they believed at once that she'd escaped my clutches.

I never got a chance to defend myself.

This time I never left my house. They came and called me out of my own home.

Stella says I did something to her. Well, if I did, there'd be marks left behind, wouldn't there.

Done and not done are two different things.

Bring in enough people to examine her and they'll see that every mark on Stella she put there herself.

I never touched her at all!

They heard me out, then turned uncertainly to Aunt Marlene, who'd been the first to speak up.

She shot me a scornful look and reached for Stella. "Fine, we'll examine her. Get a few more of us women, we'll all look together, so that Floyd guy can't keep crying he's been wronged."

"But listen, Floyd. If we all confirm you did something filthy to Stella, you'll pay for it! No more talking your way out of it!"

"I agree. But you have to promise you'll be fair. Otherwise I'm still calling the police and taking Stella to the hospital for a medical exam."

"Tsk. We women don't stoop to bullying young folks. What's there is there, what's not is not!"

"And if we've wronged you, you call the police. Let them arrest us right along with you!"

"I will."

My words choked her off. She glared at me with venom, shoved a hand hard against my shoulder, and marched off cock-sure, dragging Stella toward the house.

While we waited for the result.

The villagers guarding me couldn't help talking it over. "This whole thing, could there be some misunderstanding?"

"Sure, this is his first time back in the village, but his grandpa, his great-grandpa, they were all decent, honest men. Maybe he really didn't do it. Maybe Stella saw it wrong?"

"Stella was never one to stay put, not even while her man was still alive. This time, Floyd's probably the innocent one."

"If you believe him, why didn't you say so before? What's the point of saying it now, after the fact?"

"I just... I just felt bad seeing Stella cry so hard. But Floyd's been calm from start to finish. Not one bit rattled. Doesn't look like a man who did something wrong."

"So, do we keep him tied up or not?"

The men guarding me traded looks for a moment. Nobody spoke.

I spoke up myself. "Keep me tied. The exam won't take long. Let me loose once my innocence is settled."

"All right. Floyd here's a reasonable man."

"We'll untie him once it's cleared up, so those women can't go running their mouths."

That was what they said, but they'd warmed to me a few degrees. Some asked what I did for work in the city, how many hundred thousand I pulled in a year, some asked why I'd come back to live in the village, others fished around about whether I was seeing anyone and how much I had saved...

I answered every one.

And watched them at the same time.

For now, they held no real malice toward me.

The tragedy last time, all of it, came from Stella stirring the pot.

Just wait. This time I will not let her off.

We'd chatted a while when Aunt Marlene, the one who'd examined Stella's body, came out of the house.

Her face was dark, and the look she gave me was strange.

She just stared at me and said nothing, so I asked her straight out. "The exam's done. Stella wasn't touched by anyone, was she?"

"Wrong! Stella was violated by an animal!"