by Trinity Crow
'Touched," she murmured, her voice quietly stunned.
"Ex . . . excuse me?" I pulled my hand back and balled it up inside the shawl knotted at my waist. Her eyes followed my hand and rested on the shawl.
"Don't hold on to that," she told me firmly. "Sometimes security is an illusion that will lead you down a dark path."
I took a step back, not wanting to hear anything she was saying or read the knowing light in her dark eyes.
Her face changed, a playful smile on her lips. "A lot of activity going on in this old place."
For a minute, I wondered if she meant ghosts, then she added: "You girls moving in?"
"Cassie, my friend, " I stumbled over the word, "is. We are just helping her get ready."
"Hmmm. She'll do alright here," the woman said. "But, what about you? You have a patch of dirt to call your own?" A slim eyebrow lifted enquiringly.
"Yes, I… I have a place outside of town."
The smile flashed across her face again. Quicksilver. "I have some pomegranate cuttings I started. Don't have room for them all. You want some for your place? "
My hesitation at her strangeness fled. "Really? I'd love that. That's so kind of you."
The woman lifted the hand full of purslane. "One good deed deserves another."
"I'm Abigail," I said, offering her my name in goodwill. "Abby."
"Delores Mabley," she said. "Mrs. Mabley to you young people."
I smiled at her stern tone. "Mrs. Mabley it is."
"Well, let me go put this away and fetch that plant for you."
A little glow kindled inside me that I could also fit in somewhere with someone. As she hurried home to fetch the seeds and cuttings she had pressed on me, I was swept over with a sense of satisfaction. I'd had my own chat, not about art or history, but something I knew to be equally as valuable, even if not everyone saw it that way.
Mrs. Mabley returned with a cardboard box holding not only the two small trees, but seeds in homemade paper envelopes, carefully labeled, and an assortment of other plants, potted up in margarine and sour cream tubs.
I thanked her profusely, but she waved my thanks away.
"If we all do our part," she said, winking at me, "this old world turns 'round a little easier.
I watched her go, the offering of plants and friendship held to my chest. And she was right, the world did seem to be turning easier and it carried me along as well.
The afternoon flew by. As Amanda's husband, Paul, installed locks on the doors and windows, we hurriedly patched the better of the two bedrooms. While we took the truck to go buy a bed for Cassie, he rolled a coat of quick-drying, white paint over her new bedroom walls.
Truthfully,, the house was still in sad shape, but that one room was a sanctuary from the hard work still ahead of her. The bed was neatly made and across from it, plastic stackable drawers were filled with her clothes and toiletries. In a place of honor on the bedside table was a can of pepper spray. She had bought me one of my own and it nestled in my pocket, a welcome bit of insurance against anyone who would take me anywhere against my will.
It was early evening when Cassie drove me home. She had pressed a cellphone on me, shocked to find I did not know how to use it.
“So that first day? When we left you alone?" she asked, wide-eyed.
“Useless,” I admitted with a shrug.
Cassie laughed, but her look was admiring. “You're really brave, Abby. The things you're doing? And all without knowing how the world works.” She shook her head, eyes warm with approval.
“I had no choice,” I told her slowly. “It wasn't exactly bravery, more like desperation.”
“Well, now you have really good friends,” she said, hugging me. I hugged her back, wondering why I had thought she was distant.
"Ugh, Abby," Cassie pulled back, her face a mask of revulsion.
I stiffened. What had I done? Then I saw she was looking past me, out the window. The fox sat just past the line of scrub, tongue out as he panted in the heat. His dark eyes were fixed on us.
Cassie made a sound of disgust. "You should get someone to come shoot it." Her vicious tone matched the shocking words. "You know they carry rabies, right?"
I stared at her, stunned by the aggressiveness of her response. "He's not hurting anything," I said, not wanting to upset her further.
"Not yet," she said darkly. "You should take care of that thing before he gets too bold around the place."
There was a silence as I tried to think what to say. But there was nothing to say. I was not going to kill an innocent creature who had as much right to his life as I did mine.
"I better go," I said, after an awkward pause. "You'll want to get back before dark."
Cassie mistook my unease and leaned in for another hug. A hug I did not return.
“Oh, Abby, tell me you're not mad. You understand why I want to spend the first night alone, don't you?” Her tone was beseeching.
“Of course I do,” I told her, glad she had dropped the subject of the fox. “I'm not mad at all. This will finally be my first night too.”
"That's right," she said in surprise. Cassie looked over at Rickrack House glowing in the setting sun and shivered unconsciously. Her smile seemed a bit forced. “Well, you have a good night."
“You, too,” I told her, amusement overcoming my displeasure.
“Call if you need anything,” she said brightly.
I nodded, having no intention of doing so. Was it my imagination or was her parting smile tinged with guilt?
Chapter 22
The next two weeks were the happiest of my life. My days in Rickrack House took on a rhythm, and if sometimes an odd or unexplainable thing happened, I managed to push any uneasiness I felt to the side by comparing it to the freedom I had gained. Days took on a routine, one that felt right to me and was untroubled by any conflicts between my New Eden upbringing and the world that had moved on without us.
Mornings were spent in the garden. Each day as I worked a little further and the land responded to my care. The gifts of seeds and plants ignited something in me. So that the early part of each day became a race to fill the fertile beds with seeds and seedlings. And when Cassie dropped off seed catalogs from Mrs. Mabley, my world opened yet wider. I sent back a gift of mint and cuttings from the ancient, sprawling fig tree.
The house took on new life as well. The cinder blocks had all fallen away and I took to lugging one with me whenever I went out to the garden. Here, they could be put to good use and form new raised beds. I had made the inside my own as well. Across the open windows, I tacked screens bought cheaply at the Habitat Re-Store. The furnishings were rearranged, and through much sweat and labor, I added color and a homey touch to the guest room until it became a welcome place to be.
In the once terrifying, quiet room, the windows shutters were now permanently open and every day when I came in from the garden, I opened all the upstairs windows to let the air flow through the house. Potted plants in old cans and cooking pots were arranged on shelves made of boards and cinder blocks by the windows. Lastly, I dragged in the couch and covered it with a bright throw and some of the pillows from downstairs. The room did not just look different, but the heavy oppressive aura had lifted as well.
The furnishings from the unused parlor migrated about the house, until it was nearly empty. I could not see the need for two sitting rooms and I'd had my fill of formality. Enough to last a lifetime. The room now stood empty, awaiting a new purpose.
Nikki and Tasmyn had swung by inviting me on a trip to the farmer's market. The cheerful bustle and the array of produce and crafts was inspiring. In spite of my dwindling supply of money, I bought more plants and seeds, forcing us all to ride home with leaves and branches poking exposed skin and, at times, waving in front of our faces. Any annoyance was overridden by our combined relief at finding a place we might make an income. Tasmyn, it turned out, was very artistic. She planned to sell jewelry and small painted items. I would sell produce, dri
ed teas, seedlings and anything else the land could provide. I had toured the stalls with an eye towards filling whatever gaps existed. Already a row of mint plants, carefully dug and potted, edged the back steps. These would be some of my earliest offerings.
The pomegranate trees, I planted outside the orchard near the wicker gate. With one on either side, they stood like sentinels against what lay beyond the grove of trees. But the feeling of safety was deceptive and with my guard lowered, I found myself being pulled through the gate once more.
The saplings were still stunted, a mockery of what a bountiful, flourishing fruit-bearing tree should be. I felt a flush of shame that I had ignored them for so long. Catching up a bushel basket, I raked it full of leaf litter from under the scrub trees by the falling-down chicken coop. With a burst of inspiration, I entered the leaning structure and shoveled in several scoops of ancient droppings.
Kneeling beside the pomegranate trees, I spread the manure first and then a layer of leafy mulch to hold moisture. This would prevent rain and wind from washing it away before the small trees could take the nutrients up. My basket emptied quickly, making me realized it would take many trips. As I stood, a small, bare twig scratched along my cheek, drawing blood. The fat crimson drop pattered on the dried leaves where it fell. Grimacing, I put a hand to my face. The cut was tiny and more an annoyance than anything else. More than the scratch, was the thought of Texas mosquitoes, who could smell blood for miles. I had no wish to be their donor.
"No harm done," I told the tiny tree. "But I will be more careful next time."
Shaking my skirts free of the dust, I hurried back for another basketful. Back and forth from the chicken coop through the gate, skirting the sharp twig each time, I carefully spread the natural fertilizer and the mulch covering around the base of the orchard trees. There were few leaves to aid me in identifying them, but I could tell cherry from persimmon. Other species remained a mystery to me.
I hurried, hoping to beat the steadily mounting heat of the day, the leafy twig was now something of an amusement. I ducked my head, but it playfully stoked my hair with those baby leaves.
Inside the orchard, my steps slowed. It seemed to me that the trees stood a little straighter, a little taller. I took another step and the springiness of the ground made me look down in surprise. A soft flush of green grass covered the ground. How had I not noticed that? Perhaps it had rained in the night?
Out again, and now I was in the far corners of the coop, wrapping my shawl about my head to avoid inhaling the dust from the powdery manure. Then through the gate, under the waving green branches of the pomegranates, looking ahead to the last of the trees I needed to care for.
I froze.
Pivoting with a slowness born of shock and disbelief, I took in the sentinel trees. They were meters high and covered in green leaves, vibrant as Spring. My breath became shallow as I saw this blatant evidence of the supernatural. thoughts tangled and tripped over one another in my mind racing to make sense of the unknown. Small gains in the vegetable garden I had willfully ignored. The mystery of the fox was pushed aside in my longing for a companion, but this . . . This was too much. Too big. Too unnatural.
Was the land cursed? Was I a witch? Was the spirit of Felicite still here and driving this unnatural growth?
Fear sapped my strength and I fell to the ground, the basket rolling away unheeded.
***
***
I awoke in the spiral, walking that circle. From over the thick wattled fence, the scent of cherry blossoms filled the air and white petals danced on the breeze to land on my hair and clothes. The once barren trees given new life and purpose. And though I should have been afraid, I was not. For I felt wrapped still in the dream from the orchard, the woman, the wheat . . .
It waved like an ocean, the heavy tops of the grain, bending and soughing like waves against the shore. As I walked, the wheat rose up to meet me and brushed against my skin, promising a rich harvest and an abundant life. As I neared the end of the field, a valley stretched out before me, snug farmsteads and fields like patchwork. From the working women, songs rose to the sky.
Daughter . . .
The word floated to my ears and I felt the embrace of acceptance. I came down from the hill and walked among the women, joining them as we lifted stalks of wheat and bound them into sheaves, our voices raised in thankfulness for the good harvest. The song came from my soul, pouring past my lips without pause. It tasted of sweat and hard labor and sounded of the joy of a job well done. It brimmed over with gratitude for the reward of a full cellar against the coming cold. It was the embrace of a mother.
The song transformed the work into more than bread and labor, but steps in rhythm, life in cycles, the earth in seasons. The song fed our heart as the wheat would nourish our bodies. It moved beyond the physical to the spiritual. How I had longed for this heady, celestial ecstasy. Here was a reason, a why to our existence as we toiled beneath the sun. It was not sex and birthing babies. It was not tending the sick and sublimating our own will. It was power and surety beyond ecclesiastical. It was eternal and all encompassing, and as her handmaiden, my place in the cosmos was assured. I longed to anoint myself in her waters and swear my allegiance. To give myself heart and soul to her service, dedicating my life to this feeling of divinity.
The wheat made a low shushing sound, a gentle call. I wanted to yield as the grain did before the wind. Accepting, accepting. Let go of the responsibility of this solo path. Step into her service. Surely this way was the right way.
Daughter . . .
She called to me and sent her blue light dancing over me. Waves and waves of love.
Chapter 23
After that encounter, there were more evenings I found myself drawn to the spiral, driven by an urge to pace the white-marked concentric rings and then turn and walk the measured steps back again. But again, I dismissed it as a price I would willingly pay. I did not sense the hidden goddess here. Her shrine was the well, the orchard. It was only there would the blue lights dance and sacred song swell in my heart, lifting me away from the mundane world.
Inside that waiting spiral, something older than time held sway. I could hear it calling me, but could not sense what it wanted. Only the love I felt for my new home held the fear at bay. But when the urge to pace those white-marked circles came late in the day, dread would rise in me. All the excuses, the reasonings that I had used to convince myself that this place meant me no harm faded against the thrumming under my skin . . . the need that burned in my veins. My eyes would measure the swiftly setting sun against the length that must still be walked. Though my heart pounded from the longing to outpace the shadows to the safety of the house, my feet would not be hurried. And each time, I listened, terror-filled, for the noises in the brush, the sounds that meant whatever walked these woods was drawing closer, but to my relief, they did not come.
And if the seeds I planted grew too rapidly and the windows sometimes shut themselves quietly as the shadows stole over the land, these things were fleeting moments of unease beside the deep peace I had found here. I gloried in the deep-green leaves of tomato and pepper, ignoring the little voice that insisted plants just did not grow this fast. In the weeds beyond the shed, I rebuilt the neglected remains of the chicken coop and found an open structure that might have once housed rabbits and made plans to restore it to usefulness as well. My future and happiness seemed assured.
My daily drink from the sacred well within the walls of Rickrack House had become ritual without my conscious consent. There was no further thought given to what might be swimming unseen in the liquid, bacteria, parasites or contamination. I trusted in that unseen presence to keep me from harm. From that first night alone, when I had paused on my way upstairs, feeling thirst burn in my throat, the sweet promise of the well's water had called to me.
Bypassing the bottles of plastic, chemical-tasting water, I had stepped into the cistern room and drawn a gourd full of the clear, blue water. The cool, swee
t liquid sated my thirst in a deeply satisfying way and an almost giddy sense of being alive filled me. That night I dreamed, of the woman, the wheat . . . daughter. . . and that heady sense of belonging . . . all of it lost in the mists until the day the orchard had bloomed for me.
All alone, with no one to temper the strangeness of my actions, I stubbornly ignored any deeper meaning my actions might hold. Nightly, I knelt at the well and drank of the waters, accepting what was. I pushed from my mind the way the water's level rose to meet me so that I might drink with easy and then retreated so no thought of flood might trouble me. After all, these were small things, harmless really . . . and my dreams were sweet.
In the evenings, I lit the oil lamp beside the bed and read from Felicite's journal. She had filled her days of new-found freedom with her art, carving and painting, tending her garden and reading. She explored the culture of the indigenous people and that of her own forefathers. The margins held scribbled notes, many words I did not know, brixta, oka, deesse . . .
There were unhappy parts as well. She spoke of a neighbor, a clergy man, who she felt wished her harm. The words troubled me as I fought against the memories of the horrific scene by the lake. Sometimes, when the sun slipped below the horizon and the lights from Freyt House could be seen across the fields, I wondered what else shared that house with Tasmyn and Nikki. What walked those floors when the lights went out?
But if late at night, thoughts of my own past came to worry at my happiness, or images of the well as an altar and myself, the supplicant, rose unbidden, I turned away. And if a worrisome connection of communion and the ritual words mixed and mingled in the sleep-drugged regions of my mind . . .
eat for this is my body, drink for this is my blood. . .
Then, the dreams would come and carry me away. Dreams of dancing in the woods with wild abandon, my skin free of the heavy, drab clothes. Dreams of rain falling to cleanse me and restore me to myself, the sense of shame New Eden had imprinted upon us as women and sinful creatures blessedly gone. Dreams of being strong and powerful, and able to defeat those who would come against me.
