Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

  But as she emerged from the woods, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of someone waiting for her. There, in the middle of the lane, clearly expecting her, was Jolene.

  Wearing that dress of mottled green, and her pale green apron, she looked as if someone had just set her down in the middle of the lane, rather than looking as if she’d walked here. There was no dust on her feet, and not a hair out of place. She was as cool and composed as a statue, without a sign that the heat bothered her, nor of impatience. How long had Jolene been waiting? A minute? An hour? And why was she here in the first place?

  On an impulse Anna did the little twist in her mind that allowed her to see the Glory. And golden light erupted in her face, as if the sun had taken Jolene’s face.

  Anna fell back a pace with a gasp, nearly blinded, before she managed to shut the vision out. When she could see again, Jolene was still standing there in her pretty green dress and apron, regarding Anna with her head tilted to the side.

  Better say somethin’ afore she thinks I’m a-bein’ rude. “Arternoon, Miz Jolene,” she stammered. “Aunt Jinny sent me out fer flares.”

  “So I see. And your aunt showed you how to see magic as well, didn’t she?” To Anna’s relief, Jolene sounded faintly amused rather than irritated, or worse, angry. “I can show you how to do much, much more than she can ever teach you, you know,” she added abruptly.

  “I’m certain-sure y’all knows more’n Aunt Jinny ever could,” Anna temporized, trying to gain some time to think, and a little breathless with what felt like rising panic. Just a few weeks ago, the worst she had to worry about was whether her aunt would be happy with how she did the chores! Now, suddenly, there was magic in her life, and an extremely powerful person interested in her. And that made her nervous, for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate.

  Why would Jolene make such an offer? She didn’t know Anna. She wasn’t kin. Had she actually made an offer at all, or was it just a boast about what she could do if she cared to?

  Better not reckon on eggs what ain’t been laid, much less hatched.

  But if she had actually offered to teach Anna more magic than Aunt Jinny could, what would she demand of Anna for such learning?

  “Ain’t no doubt,” Anna agreed, trying to draw Jolene out more. “Aunt Jinny’s a good Root Woman, but ain’t no doubt y’all knowed more’n her.”

  Jolene continued to regard her with that unsettling lack of expression on her face. “I am willing to teach you,” she elaborated.

  Anna felt queasy. It seemed rude to refuse. It seemed ill-advised to accept without knowing all the strings that were attached. “I dunno why y’all’d spend time doin’ setch a thang,” she replied, ducking her head shyly. “It’d be mighty kind of y’all, but I’m jest one liddle gal that ain’t nothin’ t’ nobody. I cain’t even pay y’all back—”

  Jolene chuckled, and smiled thinly. “There is no question of payment here. I am not interested in claiming such a payment from you. It is in my own self-interest to see that magicians within my orbit are properly trained, and you have a potential power that I fear your aunt is ill-suited to guide. I’d rather see you schooled and controlled than ill-taught and a hazard.”

  Anna inwardly bristled at the implied insult to her aunt, but tried not to show it.

  “But I wouldn’ want y’all to waste yore time—” Anna temporized.

  “But it is my time to waste,” Jolene countered. “Besides, it won’t take long, at least this time. And again, I shall not ask you for anything in return. I will never ask for any sort of payment for teaching you. Among my other reasons, it amuses me to do so.”

  “Yes’m,” Anna replied, now completely at a loss for any words at all.

  Jolene waited for her to say something else, then finally crooked a finger at her, in a way that suggested Anna had better not refuse. Anna put the basket down in the grass of the lane and moved closer to the woman, reluctantly.

  “I am going to show you how to do something very useful,” Jolene told her, as Anna looked into those startlingly green eyes and flawless face, and felt unfinished, awkward, and grubby. “I am going to show you how to find the magic of the earth, and draw it into yourself so that you can use it.”

  “Yes’m,” Anna said, mesmerized by those eyes, which did not look at all human right now. “Thenkee, ma’am.”

  “Thank me by learning quickly, before I grow bored,” Jolene replied. “Now—permit yourself to see the magic again—I’ll make sure not to blind you this time—and watch what I do.”

  Slowly, and with patience Anna had not expected, Jolene showed her how to find all the sources of Glory, not growing on the earth, but under the earth: tiny rivulets that gathered the way rivulets of rain water gathered into thin trickles, then flowed into tiny streams, then joined into cricks and rivers. Soon she found she was able to see these things easily, and that there was a thick, rich river of the stuff flowing right down the center of the Holler and on to—well, she couldn’t see that far. “But don’t touch that, not yet,” Jolene cautioned. “You aren’t strong enough.”

  And she showed Anna how to connect herself with some of those trickles and rivulets and draw them up into herself through her bare feet, until she stared at her own hands, half elated and half aghast, as they glowed with the power.

  Could Aunt Jinny do this?

  A’course she c’n. She puts th’ Glory inter things, it’s gotter come from somewhere.

  “Now use that power—thus—” said Jolene, and pressed the tip of her index finger to the center of Anna’s forehead, bathing the inside of her skull in Glory—and making the incipient headache vanish.

  Her doubts vanished. This was good! She felt better than she ever had in her life! And if she could learn to do that—think of the good she could do, herself!

  “Kin—y’all do thet agin?” she gasped.

  It took three more repetitions before Anna could work the trick herself, but when she did, the relief was not unlike the relief and release she’d felt on eating to satiation for the very first time. As if something inside her that had been starving was finally full.

  “Now use the rest of the power to refresh those flowers,” Jolene said, with a tiny smile of satisfaction. “Just send a bit of power into them; we’ve been standing here so long they are sorely wilted.”

  Anna held her hands over the basket and let the Glory rain down out of her hands like a gentle mist onto the roses—and to her elation, the wilted petals revived and freshened, until they looked the way they had when she’d just picked them.

  “That will be how you put magic into potions, more or less, and that’s enough lessons for today, I think.” Jolene looked like the proverbial cat in cream. “You’ll surprise your aunt, which will amuse me no end. Jinny is such a prickly creature. She’s like that creature you have here with the spikes all over it—”

  “A porkypine?” Anna ventured.

  “Yes, that. When you cross her even the slightest, it’s a hiss and a rattle, and she bristles all over.” Jolene laughed at her own wit. “It’s so amusing, and I never get tired of doing it. As if she could ever endanger me.”

  Anna laughed weakly, because Jolene seemed to expect it.

  “Now, run along on the rest of your errand, and I shall be about mine,” Jolene continued, and turned to walk away, down the lane toward the road. But then she turned back. “And mind—don’t tell Virginia that I helped you. Unless she guesses it. Then you may.”

  And she turned back and somehow managed to get out of sight in no time, despite taking what seemed to be a leisurely pace.

  And it was only after Anna had found the patch of tiger lilies and had picked the rest of the basket full of flower heads that she remembered that Jolene had said she had an “errand”—

  —and had gone off toward the Holcrofts’ farm.

  But Matt and Maddie didn’t have the G
lory, or Aunt Jinny would have said something.

  So what could Jolene possibly want with the Holcrofts?

  Cain’t be. Must be somethin’ else, she told herself.

  * * *

  Aunt Jinny greeted her harvest with pleasure, and immediately set her to pulling the petals off the roses and lilies and putting them in two big pots. She covered both with enough water to submerge all the petals completely, covered each pot with a plate, and set them at the hearth where the soup had been cooking. Then she and Anna sorted and cleaned the rose hips and carried them up to the other loft, where she spread them out on a clean sheet to dry.

  By then it was suppertime, and the mushroom soup was nothing short of amazing. “Et it all, it don’t keep, an’ it gets mushier with cookin’. It ain’t like bean soup what gets better,” Aunt Jinny admonished, and Anna didn’t have to be told twice. After supper, Jinny took the pots of petals off the hearth and strained petals out of the pink- and yellow-colored water through cheesecloth, pouring the fragrant liquid into bottles that she filled to the top, then corked and put away on a shelf. That meant three pots to clean instead of one tonight—though the pots that had held the petals smelled so good it could scarcely be called “cleaning.” Anna just regretted that there wasn’t anything left in the pots to dab on her wrists and temples.

  “We’ll do lavender from th’ garden termorrer,” Jinny proclaimed. “It’s been a easy day fer y’all, so might’s well do a lesson in gatherin’ th’ Glory an’ puttin’ it in potions. So, le’s go outside. Works best when y’all’s got your bare feet on earth.”

  “What’d y’all do when it’s winter, Aunt Jinny?” Anna asked, as Jinny took that same split-wood bushel basket that she’d had Anna fill with flowers and filled it full of potion packets. “Cain’t go barefoot on snow!”

  “Th’ best y’all c’n,” Jinny said philosophically. “It ain’t so hard. Floor’s wood, an’ it jest takes a liddle more strenth t’pull the Glory up through it.” She led Anna down off the porch and onto the grassy verge between the cabin and the garden.

  The last of the daylight gilded wisps of clouds overhead, tinging them with pink and yellow. The garden spread out below them, sloping ever so gently down toward the lane. Lightning bugs flashed here and there among the plants. In Anna’s mind it was just as beautiful as a field of flowers, if not more so. That garden meant comfort and prosperity in a way no flower garden ever could.

  Jinny recaptured her attention by putting the basket down between them. “Now, make that liddle trick what let’s y’all see the Glory.”

  Anna nodded, and found that, after Jolene’s tutelage this afternoon, it was literally as easy as opening her eyes. The garden glowed with magic. The “shield” over the garden was a haze of golden light. And everywhere under her feet, the Glory ran like rivulets of clean rain in the sunlight.

  Without thinking, and without prompting by her aunt, she began what Jolene had taught her—drawing the power up into herself. And she only stopped when she got a look at her aunt’s startled expression.

  “Y’all niver larned thet by yoreself!” Jinny exclaimed. Then her eyes narrowed. “Y’all was gone a good long time this arternoon . . .”

  Anna bit her lip, but didn’t dare say anything.

  “Tarnation!” Jinny spat. “It were Jolene! Weren’t it?”

  “Yes’m,” Anna muttered guiltily, dropping her eyes to stare at the ground.

  “What’d she make y’all promise t’larn thet?” Jinny demanded. “An’ look me in th’eye, Anna May Jones!”

  Anna looked up—but thankfully, saw that the expression on her aunt’s face wasn’t anger.

  It was worry. And a little fear.

  “Nothin’, truly!” she hastened to say. “Not one thing! She said it were her—” Her brow furrowed as she strove to remember the exact wording. “She said it were in her interest to see thet magicians in her orbit were prop’ly trained, an’ thet it ’mused her t’vex y’all.”

  “I c’n b’lieve she said thet,” Jinny replied, looking relieved, but in a sour tone. “’Bout wantin’ t’vex me, that is. I ain’t what she wanted, an’ she ain’t niver gonna let thet go.”

  That last made absolutely no sense to Anna, and she didn’t even try to puzzle it out. “What’d she mean by magicians in her orbit?” she asked her aunt, instead. The phrase had puzzled her.

  “Them of us as got th’ Glory what’s livin’ around about these here parts. I ain’t entirely sure how big thet territory is, but I knows it means at least from the Holler all th’ way to Ducktown an’ past th’ Burra Burra mine. All’a th’ Ducktown basin an’ inter th’ mountains.” Aunt Jinny paused. “She’s the strongest thang in these here parts, an’ don’t y’all ever fergit thet. Not for one minute. And that’s ’nuff questions fer now. I reckon she larned y’all not on’y how t’ draw up th’ Glory, but how t’ put it in thangs too. An’ thet’s why them roses weren’t wilted when y’all come back t’ th’ cabin this arternoon.”

  Anna nodded, biting her lip.

  “All right then.” Jinny stood next to the basket with her hands on her hips. “Show me.”

  Anna spread her hands over the basket and let the Glory sift down into the basket like a rain of golden dust. Jinny watched for a moment, smiled spitefully, then said, “Stop.”

  Anna closed her hands and bit her lip. “Am I doin’ somethin’ wrong?”

  “Not wrong, ’xactly.” There was that spiteful smile again. “Jest provin’ thet Jolene don’t know ever’thang. Y’all’s wastin’ half th’ Glory, doin’ it thet way. Watch me.”

  Aunt Jinny sketched three little signs in the air, then opened her own hands and let the Glory drop into the basket. But it didn’t just dust down onto the potion packets; the power made dusty little green and gold ribbons that spiraled around each other and deliberately down into the basket of packets, moving around like lazy, miniature whirlwinds. “Green fer healin’,” murmured Jinny. “An’ gold fer strenthenin’. These here is fer Winter Fever. Y’all cain’t just sift down raw Glory on ’em, like y’all did on th’ roses.” She closed her hand and the little whirlwinds collapsed down into the basket.

  “Was them magic signs y’all was makin’?” Anna asked breathlessly.

  “Yes’n’no. They ain’t magic thesselves, cause they don’t do spit without y’all got the Glory behind it. But this’s how m’ Granny larned me t’ make th’ Glory do whatcher want.” She nodded sagely. “Jest y’all watch. This’un here’s fer healin’—”

  She moved to stand beside Anna so Anna could see the figure the right way around, and traced the figure in the air, her fingers leaving a glowing line behind them. She repeated it patiently until Anna said, “Reckon I got it now.”

  “Then put th’ Glory inter it,” her aunt told her. “An’ show me.”

  When Jinny was certain Anna could, indeed, trace and empower the sign, she moved on to the one for “strength.” And then she showed Anna the third one.

  “This’un’s more important than t’other two, ’cause what it does, it says, ‘Don’t let no one meddle with what I done.’ ’Tis like pourin’ wax atop a jar of jam; seals in all the good, don’t let no bad come in.” Jinny peered at her through the deepening twilight to make sure she understood the seriousness of that last sign.

  She did, of course, at least once Jinny had pointed out what the sign was for. There’d be no point in having such a thing if there weren’t a need for it. And if there was a need for it—well the only reason someone would meddle in a healing thing was if they wanted to cause harm.

  “Say, Aunt Jinny—can these potions cure Winter Fever?” she asked, thinking, of course, of her Pa.

  But her aunt shook her head. “Even with all th’ Glory in Tennessee, they cain’t cure nothin’. They c’n on’y he’p the one y’all give it to, make thin’s easier with his breathin’ an’ all, he’p him last. On’
y God c’n cure Winter Fever, an’ th’ likes of y’all an’ me ain’t God.”

  She sighed. It seemed cruel that a person could work magic like this—but the magic had its limits. It was magic! It should just—work!

  “There’s rules t’ these here thangs,” her aunt said, as if she had read Anna’s thoughts. “So, le’s finish up these potions an’ go inside afore the skeeters et us both up.”

  11

  ANNA had made three trips down to the Holcrofts’ farm, and each time the little baby angel statue was closer and closer to being finished. What Josh was doing with the stone seemed as magical to her as what she was doing with Aunt Jinny. The angel’s furled wings looked more and more like feathers, and the pink granite of the baby’s head and body looked more and more like flesh instead of stone. Finally, on the last trip down, she’d seen a completed work where the stone was as soft and smooth as an egg, and Josh was finally satisfied with it. She was able to run back up to her aunt to tell her that the long-awaited trip to Ducktown would be in two days.

  By this time, she’d had several lessons from Jinny in how to shield herself from the harmful effects of Ducktown and its earth, air, and water. Those lessons went swimmingly well, thanks to what Jolene had taught her—especially the part about using the Glory to heal her aching head when she had used it for a little too long. What was even better was that each time she did that, it took longer for her head to ache, and it didn’t hurt as much. By the third lesson in shielding, it scarcely ached at all after working from after supper until full dark!

  But it was hard to keep her mind on the lessons, however, when thoughts of Josh kept intruding.

  Because by the first of those three visits to check on the progress of the statue, it had been obvious that he liked her company. And by the third, he’d been giving hints to his sister Sue—hints his sister ignored—that he would really have liked Sue to take herself elsewhere. Sue remained stubbornly there, not saying or doing anything, just braiding straw for hats. There was plenty of straw in the barn, and Sue professed to liking the shade and the relative cool of her brother’s workshop.