She held up her ruined hands. Tears filled her eyes. “You will have to help.”
“Gladly. Whatever you would like me to do.”
In gratitude, she laid one of her twisted fists on top of my hands and smiled. It broke my heart.
Chapter Nineteen
Steve and Angie came home for a visit at the end of July. I was surprised. Usually they only came during some big family get-together. They arrived after midnight, and went on upstairs to Angie’s old room. When I went down the next morning I glanced out the window over the sink. Keith and Steve were sitting at the table on the patio. Steve was animated, Keith frowned and shook his head and studied his hands.
Steve leaned forward into his convincing mode. Keith bent into a serious rebuttal and lifted his fingers—one, two, three. I smiled. A gesture I knew all too well. Ticking off one, two, three reasons why something won’t work.
I had pre-programmed the coffee the night before, and whisked the pot outside to refill their mugs before I fixed breakfast. My cheery “Morning!” was met with nearly simultaneous “Morning” from them both, then awkward silence.
My mama didn’t raise no fools. The atmosphere was thicker than my coffee. Bewildered, I made a gracious quick retreat.
In a few minutes, Keith stormed off toward the barn without bothering to come back inside. Steve took off down the lane—I assumed for a walk.
Angie came down the stairs.
“Would you like orange juice?” I tried not to stare. Angie looked like death warmed over. Blue veins visible through her thin white skin. Too-large eyes in her bony skull.
“Yes, please.”
I found myself assessing her in the light of what I had learned from Francesca. Automatically, I started cataloguing the herbs that would help her. Ones for healing and supplying missing energy. I yearned to begin with a little pouch of cowslip, nettle, catnip, and adder’s fork. Then with a start, I realized I had mentally supplied a couple of the magic names as easily as I had once taught myself to think in French because it was a quicker way of learning the language. Fairy cup and devil’s claw for cowslip and nettle. Adder’s fork was the “tongue of dog,” but I wasn’t sure of the secret name for catnip, if there even is one.
In the beginning, I thought all these mysterious names were beyond silly. An affectation. However, Francesca told me the practice had very ancient beginnings. Herbalists had elite status and the use of magic names protected untrained people who might go off tracking down plants willy-nilly if they knew the common names. Without taking precautions grave mistakes would be made.
I had immediately thought of “pharming,” teenage parties with a punch bowl centerpiece containing a random mixture of their parents’ prescription drugs. Washed down with booze, the “trail mix” could be deadly. So could ancient plant mixtures.
Rosemary oil might fix Angie’s dry hair. And definitely chamomile tea for her shot nerves. Lots!
“Pancakes? Or would you rather wait until Steve gets back? I think he went for a walk.”
She stared off into space.
“He and Keith were out on the patio when I got up. I hope they weren’t arguing but neither of them looked very happy. Do you know what was going on?”
“Yes, Steve wanted to borrow a great deal of money. To buy stock options.”
Her sharp bark of misplaced laughter set my teeth on edge.
“For a wonderful investment.”
“Oh, Angie. Perhaps another time, he might have been interested, but we’ve been so hard hit by the drought. Everyone out here has.”
She shrugged. “I’m sure my husband couldn’t believe his father-in-law wouldn’t jump at the chance. No doubt he had visualized Daddy being just thrilled with this opportunity.”
“He was not thrilled. I can tell you that for sure. I know his body language all too well.”
Dumbfounded, I decided to drop the subject until I talked to Keith. “Pancakes?” I repeated.
“Yes. Steve says I must eat.”
I went to the grill and poured on some of the batter, glad to have my back turned and concentrate on this task while I tried to think of how to strike up a neutral conversation.
I wanted to ask her if I could help. I slipped the pancakes onto a plate.
When I looked at her again, she was crying. I walked over. “I don’t care what Steve says. Don’t eat the pancakes if you don’t want to.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong, Angie?”
“Steve wants to have a baby. He wants children.” She dug a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “I can’t carry a baby. He says it’s my fault. It’s all in my attitude. If I would just visualize myself pregnant to full-term, I could make it happen. Just imagine a healthy baby boy growing inside; it would happen.”
I was speechless.
“I’ve tried, Lottie. God knows I’ve tried.”
“Keith told me you’ve had a couple of miscarriages.”
She smiled bitterly. “Not a couple. Five. Dad doesn’t know about the others. I just didn’t tell him. Four of them weren’t Steve’s,” she added. “They were with my first two husbands.”
I put my arms around her and we both cried.
“He’ll leave me if he…he thinks I’m defective. That’s the way he is. Everything in the house has to be just perfect. Everything. And that includes me.”
“Has he ever hit you Angie? Abused you in any way?”
She shook her head. “Never. That would not fit his image of himself as the perfect husband.”
Just then a movement outside caught my eye. Steve was coming back from his walk. Striding purposefully, in the manner of a man determined to overcome adversity, he stooped to check the pedometer he had strapped on his ankle. From the other side of the yard, Keith’s two border collies barked frantically.
I went to the window. Angie rose and stood at my side. A mangy three-legged dog came out of the windbreak and awkwardly loped up to Steve. Old Man Snyder’s mongrel. I would know it anywhere.
When it was about six feet from Steve, it stopped and barked. Then turned, trying to get Steve to follow. When he didn’t respond, it moved closer, then held its ground and barked again.
Steve rose, pedometer in hand. “Get out. Get away.” He drew back his foot and swung at the dog, missed, then moved closer. He didn’t miss the second time. The dog howled and dropped, then managed to struggle to its feet and began barking again.
I flew out the door and swung Steve around just as he was drawing back his foot to kick again.
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
“That dog is sick or diseased.” His face flushed. “It displaces positive energy. You shouldn’t allow that pitiful bone-pile of a canine to contaminate your property.”
Not trusting myself to speak, I scooped up the injured dog and headed for my Tahoe. Keith had driven off to the pasture and there was no point in trying to reach him on his cell phone. It would take too much time to track down my husband. I drove as fast as I could to Old Man Snyder’s house to pick him up before I drove his dog over to the new vet.
Justin Crawford had just graduated from Kansas State University. He was lean, redheaded, genuinely sincere, and expensive. Really, really expensive. He wore a white lab coat which folks found strange as hell. Even harder to take in was his notion that being a vet in a rural community meant working with small animals in an air-conditioned clinic.
Keith planned to take the lad aside and further his education when he had time.
When I turned into Old Man Snyder’s farmyard, the dog began to whimper.
“I’m just going to get him, boy, and take him with us. I’ll be right back.” He started to bark and tried to struggle to his feet. Worried that he would do himself more injury, I picked him up and gently carried him inside the weathered old house.
>
I found the old man lying on the floor. I gasped and laid the dog on a thread-bare rug before I knelt beside Snyder and checked his pulse. I went to the cast iron pump on the sink and drew a cup of water. I propped him up and held the glass to his parched lips.
“Thank’ee,” he said. He drank a couple of sips and then fell back.
“I’ll be right back. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Don’t have no insurance.” The words came in gasps.
“You won’t need any.”
The crew came quickly and confirmed that it was heat exhaustion, and soon would have been a heatstroke. “He is badly dehydrated, Lottie,” Gene Romney called over his shoulder as he helped transfer the old man to the stretcher. “He’ll need to be in the hospital for a couple of days.”
“The county has a fund, but I doubt if he’s ever applied for Medicaid. I’ll oversee everything that has to do with the paperwork. He sure wouldn’t recover from anything here in this house. It’s like a sauna.”
They left. The dog lifted his head and whimpered at the departing ambulance. “He’ll be just fine.” He rested his head again. “That’s what you were trying to tell us, weren’t you, boy? That your master needed help.”
I reached down and lifted the old rug, with the dog on top and carried him back out to the Tahoe. “Next we are going to fix you. And we’ve going to do better than ‘the dog’ even if I don’t know what your name is. You can’t remain anonymous. Like a Dog Doe.” Doe stuck in my mind before I could choose something more sensible.
I decided to bypass the new vet. I wanted the best for this dog who had saved his master’s life. The very best, and that was Keith.
Anger built with every turn of the wheel as I tore back to the farm. I had to get Angie away from that sadistic husband. Tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t allow this to go on.
Steve became the unholy focus of all this last month’s frustrations. I welcomed white-hot rage instead of my usual tears. I have always been ashamed of how easily I cry. Then something dark and sinister welled up. Something sicker than rage. I focused on all I had learned from Francesca. There were spells and plants and rituals to break up a marriage. I shut out that Something urging me to far go beyond that.
Far beyond merely breaking up a marriage.
There were ways to cause great injury to human beings without laying a hand on them. Without leaving a trace.
Poisoning was for amateurs.
Francesca had just begun teaching me about the secret uses for plants. She had hinted that she knew more. Much, much more.
Doe stunk and his foul odor permeated the car. A dust devil swept across the road and I swerved and slowed in the sudden pelting of sand. My skin tingled. Slammed by the sensation that Someone else was present in my Tahoe, I accelerated and sped through the dust.
I glanced in the rearview mirror. It darkened. A shadow shifted.
I skidded, corrected, knew I had over-corrected and was headed for the ditch on the opposite side. Rationality kicked in. I knew the dangers of sudden braking on gravel roads. I eased off the gas pedal, lightly tapped the brakes, and swerved through slow corrections until I stopped.
Arms circling the steering wheel, I rested my head and took deep breaths. What if another car had been coming? I could have killed someone.
When I trusted myself to drive safely, I headed out, chilled by the awareness that in the short time I had taken leave of my senses, I believed. Francesca had warned me that I would come to believe.
My right mind acknowledged the validity of the common medical uses of plants and herbs. But I did not believe they could be used to cast magical spells.
Besides, I would never, ever consciously cause physical harm to another human being.
That Something pounced, mocked. You would, and you have.
In the past year, I had killed a woman and a man.
That’s different. It was my job. I had to. It was me or them.
Shaken, I realized I had wanted to use black magic to banish a man I just hated. Just hated.
Doe gave a faint bark. “We’re nearly home, boy. Your master is safe, and I’m going to take you to the best vet anywhere.”
When I pulled into our drive, Steve’s car was gone. Keith stood in the doorway. I parked and jumped out. I ran over to him.
“Old Man Snyder was on the verge of a heatstroke. His dog came and got me. He’s hurt. Steve kicked him.” I dissolved and threw my arms around his neck. I sobbed into his shoulder. “Oh honey, Steve kicked this poor dog.”
He patted my hair and then kissed me. “I know. Angie told me.” He walked over to the Tahoe, picked up Doe, and carried him to the building where he used to have a small animal hospital. Before his sham retirement, when he theoretically shut down his practice to farm fulltime. When he had naively assumed the new vet would have a modicum of common sense.
“Can I help with anything?”
“No.”
He came out a short time later and said the dog had some bruised ribs, but nothing appeared to be broken. “He needs all kinds of shots. I doubt if he’s ever had any. I’m going to worm him. And he needs to lie around.”
“His name is Dog Doe,” I said. Startled, he glanced at me. “Not doe as in Bambi’s mother. Dog Doe as in John Doe or Jane Doe.”
“Makes sense,” he said cautiously.
We walked to the house. “How long ago did Angie and Steve leave?” At least I wouldn’t have to talk to the bastard.
“Angie didn’t leave. Just Steve. She’s decided to stay.”
Chapter Twenty
Francesca sat on the edge of her leather chair, her hands folded in her lap. She sized me up. “Has something happened?”
“No, I’m fine.”
More accurate words came to mind, but they were terrifying. I’m not strong enough to keep the Devil away. Francesca had warned me that I would be putting my soul in danger if I became her apprentice. She had pointed out that my work to build Saint Helena was hardly the actions of an irreligious person.
I did not want to discuss any of this. “You’ve become very dear to me, Francesca. I will soon be wrapping up my work here. I will miss our chats.”
“You are stopping much too soon, Lottie Albright.” She looked at me sharply with a quick flash of anger in her eyes. “Help me up,” she said curtly. After she steadied herself, she walked over to the worktable on the south wall.
“Now, I wish to go over here.” At the east wall, she pointed to different herbs in five separate jars. “Ladle one half teaspoon of each into a cup. Then heat some water.”
I walked over to the stove and turned on the burner under the copper teakettle. When it was steaming hot, I poured it over the leaves.
“I would like to sit again.” I helped her, then walked back to the counter and carried the cup over to the little table beside the chair.
“Be careful, it’s very hot.”
“It’s not for me. It’s for you.”
“I’m not thirsty. Really.”
“This tea is not for thirst. You are upset today, and this will calm you. You are stopping too soon, Lottie Albright. Much too soon.”
I reached for the tea. “Are you sure you would not like a cup?”
“All right,” she said softly. “You choose the leaves. I’m sad and upset. What do you think I should have?”
I laughed softly. “I think you need a little pinch of bay leaves, mixed with balm of Gilead, and carob.”
“That is correct.”
I went right to the leaves, added them to the cup she liked best and carried it to her. We sipped comfortably. I was relieved that I had been spared an outburst. Wild protests. By now, I was familiar with her sudden flares of temper when I was clumsy, or used the wrong herbs, or if she sensed that I was skeptical about the validity of a ritual.
Calmed
by the taste of chamomile and mint, soothed by the dancing motes of sunshine dappling the wood floor, I realized my fears were ridiculous. I had let my fury over a mistreated dog spiral into anxiety over angry feelings that were perfectly normal.
It had all been perfectly normal.
“You’re right, of course about my being upset. My stepdaughter, Angie, is staying with us until she has a better life plan. My heart goes out to her. I didn’t sleep well last night. And speaking of family, perhaps today would be a good time to focus on yours.” I set my briefcase on the table and fumbled around through the papers. I couldn’t locate my notebook. My eyes blurred. I couldn’t find my cassette tape recorder either.
I had accidentally picked up Keith’s mini voice-activated recorder. He would not appreciate that if he wanted to dictate some notes for his practice.
I couldn’t remember the first two questions I had wanted to ask, which was just as well, because I lacked the equipment to do justice to her narrative. They were probably not important.
The room was pleasantly warm. The healthful odor of plants and herbs was a welcome contrast to the brassy stench of motionless air suffocating Carlton County like a grubby blanket. Outside the compound, breathing felt risky, almost dangerous some days. The air in this room was as welcome as oxygen to a drowning man.
“I will tell you more about my family after you help me mix the seeing herbs.” Her eyes darkened as she held up her useless hands.
“Of course. Let’s start there. You can answer my questions afterward. I’m in no hurry.”
I wobbled to my feet. She directed me to the worktable with the isolated flasks. It was so very, very pleasant to do something simple and physical. I took out various leaves and stems and put them all in the marble mortar. I picked up the matching pestle and crushed the leaves again and again until the mixture was fine powder.
She gazed a beautiful red crystal jar. “Put it in that. Then wash your hands very carefully with the soap lying by the sink. Wash them like you are a surgeon preparing for an operation.” Her eyes were alive with excitement, her breath artificially steady as though a doctor had told her “breathe in, breathe out” during an examination.
Hidden Heritage Page 16
