The Winter Oak

by James A. Hetley

  She saw him. No mistaking that huge old tree with the lightning scar spiraling down from its highest branches to the earth. He stood on the crown of a small hill, and the sun and wind had opened bare ground at his roots. Jo brushed the lingering ice from her jeans.

  Father Oak. She'd just shaken her head at Maureen for years, the voices of schizophrenia and her claim that God lived in everything. That even trees had souls, and voices that could speak if you just sat still enough and listened.

  She clumped up to the tree, leaned on it while she pulled off her left boot and emptied it of melting slush, then did the same thing for her right. Then she squatted down on a gnarled root that somebody's butt had worn smooth through years of contact. Maureen's most likely, although other people might have worshipped at the same shrine.

  The trunk felt warm against her back, warm and strong and thick-barked against troubles. The sun warmed her face, as well, and she left her jacket open to the gentle breeze. Maine weather, you could sometimes change seasons just by walking fifty yards.

  "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been twenty years since my last confession."

  Silence answered her.

  "You're supposed to ask for my confession."

  Father Oak waited.

  "Right. You're a Druid, if you're anything. Not a Catholic priest."

  Jo chewed on her guilt. "Well, I'm going to dump it on you anyway. I'm a bitch. The world hurt me, so I hurt David. I wanted to hurt him. It felt good. Then it felt shitty."

  She stared off into the trees. "And I'm going to do it again. I don't have an off-switch on my temper. Just like that stupid popcorn maker we bought -- plug it in, and it's on. I tried to unplug by leaving Maureen's forest, and that didn't work."

  {Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.}

  She couldn't tell if that was the tree speaking, or her memories of Sunday school. How did those gentle words turn into dogma that justified the rack and the stake? And why would Father Oak trigger memories of old gray smile-wrinkled Sister Anne sitting in a basement classroom of Saint John's?

  Jo pulled out the crucifix she wore around her neck, ran her fingers over the body tortured there, and wondered. It meant so many different things to so many different people. She wore it mainly because it had been a gift from Grandfather O'Brian -- he'd given one just like it to Maureen. It obviously hadn't meant the same thing to him that it did to Mom.

  He'd found warmth and strength and friendship in his religion and his God, not fear. But then, the old man hadn't paid much attention to Saint Paul or the Apocalypse. Grandpa's religion centered more on the Christ who had made sure that a wedding party didn't run out of wine and that everyone at his sermons got enough to eat.

  Grandfather O'Brian and his daughter, such a contrast. Grannie hadn't been that hard-shelled, either, what Jo could remember of her. So something else had happened to Mom. Now Jo had a glimmer of just what that was. Something had scared the shit out of Mom, once upon a time, and she'd fallen into the same power that grabbed Jo when she was scared or angry and turned her into some kind of avenging Fury. And that had frightened Mom even more. She'd chained it with her rosary and walled it off inside a barred iron cell of denial and damnation.

  And then there was Dad. If you're already in Hell, it's pretty easy to believe in the place.

  Jo closed her eyes and relaxed, soaking up the peace and warmth and strength that surrounded Maureen's oak. She fingered the crucifix again, transported back to Sister Anne's class and acceptance. "Our Father, who --"

  A drip splashed on her nose, intruding. She blinked, and then blinked again. The forest lay shadowed around her, late evening, and a gentle rain pattered down through green leaves.

  Green leaves.

  "What the fuck!"

  She staggered to her feet, stiff from sitting, seeing the whole world at a tilt. She grabbed the tree behind her to find her balance, and her hands fell on a scarred welt of bark healing a wound. The lightning strike. This was the same tree, in a different forest.

  {My roots drink the waters of many worlds. God wears many faces. Look behind the mask to find out if what you see is God, or something else.}

  Things moved between the trees in front of her, a gray shadow and a black, and then she stood in Carlysle Woods again, leaning on the old oak and shaking. She pressed her forehead against the rough bark, welcoming the way its edges bit into her skin. It felt solid. It felt real.

  The magic was growing, transforming like some insect larva inside her that would split its husk and emerge as something different. Goddamn Maureen's naturalist images, it'd be a help to know if this was a butterfly or some kind of parasitic wasp.

  Jo was sure that glimpse had shown her Maureen's forest. She'd felt her sister somewhere near -- nearby and in a dangerous temper. Jo had booted her back to the Summer Country -- nothing the kid could do to help Mom. And she had enough troubles of her own.

  The boundaries wore thin. Now Jo could move from real to fantasy while sitting still. How long before she couldn't tell the difference?

  But the sun was warm on her back and the tree felt strong against her chest like David holding her. The quiet forest soaked into her, and she found the calm that had touched her earlier. Maureen could wait. Mom wasn't going anywhere, wasn't dying, nothing urgent there. Even Dad could wait. He couldn't touch Jo any more. She'd broken his power. David was the urgent one.

  "I should ask David to forgive me, right? That's my penance? And go and sin no more? But I'm no good at that. I've never had to learn, never found a man I couldn't stand to lose. Maybe I'd better learn?"

  She hugged the oak, or rather pressed against it because it was far too thick to wrap her arms around. Then she turned and wrinkled her nose at the thought of wading back to the car. Not a fun way to travel.

  But . . .

  She stepped to the edge of the snow and set one boot on the surface. Okay, babe, you will support me. She visualized a hundred tiny snowmen under the sole, raising their stick arms over their heads and lifting. She thought of dandelion fluff drifting from her breath and of soap bubbles blown iridescent from a plastic ring. And then she moved her other foot and danced out onto the snow. It held her.

  It held her all the way back to the car. Anyone who followed her tracks, expecting firm footing, was going to get a bit of a surprise.

  The nursing home sat a block or so off the route back to her apartment. Maybe she could bring some of that serenity and understanding back to Mom, pass some of it in to her where she hid inside that shell.

  Jo pulled into the parking lot and stared at the place, reluctant to move, to get out of the car, to do that hospital thing again. Long and low, wood-shingled walls, with broad eaves and wide windows, it did its best to look like a home rather than a warehouse for discarded people. And it was new, with bright colors inside and carpet instead of tile on the floor, and smelled clean, and the nurses seemed to smile a lot. Mom could have ended up in a lot worse places. Too bad it didn't really matter.

  But the shift nurses recognized Jo and waved at her. They seemed to care. That meant as much to the families as it did to the patients.

  Then she stood at Mom's door again, with the same gut-wrenching scene waiting on the other side. Jo found that there were limits to her new-found serenity.

  She swallowed and pushed through the door as quietly as possible. Mom's roommate had been asleep, seemed to be asleep every time Jo visited. And the doors were new and silent. But the old Naskeag was sitting up in one of the chairs, seamed brown face and sightless eyes turned toward the door. Mary Thomas, her name was on the door, knitting away with strong gnarled hands criss-crossed by tiny scars. Jo wondered if she had been a basket maker -- those were the cuts and scratches and scrapes of a lifetime's craft. Apparently the old woman didn't need to see in order to knit.

  "I swear, Alice Haskell again. Don't you have better things to do than to visit an old lady two days in a row?"

  Jo s
topped short. "I'm sorry, I should have knocked."

  "Oh, mercy. You're that nice girl comes in to visit her mother. I thought you were a friend of mine. Can't see too good no more."

  "If you're expecting a visitor, I'll leave. Mom won't know if I'm here, anyway."

  "She knows, child. She knows." The old lady kept knitting, needles clicking along like quiet castanets. Jo noticed that she was making a scarf, two colors of yarn in a complex pattern. Must be counting stitches and have a hell of a memory.

  "No, you stay. Don't worry 'bout me." The old woman shook her head, waving towards the chair across from Mom's bed. "Lordy, I'm not expecting nobody. Felt you coming down the hall, child, that's all. That's why I got confused. You felt like Alice."

  "Felt me?" Peculiar choice of words.

  "You glow, child. Aunt Alice, she's our witch. What's that whitefolk word she uses, sha-man? We just say witch. You got witch power falling off you like summer rain."

  She cocked her head and stared at Jo, as if she could see Jo's face and feel the shock of her words. "Nothing to be ashamed of, child. Nothing bad. Just how you use it, that's all that matters."

  She talks about it like she was discussing whether anchovies were good or bad on pizza.

  "I'm just a crazy old Indian, girl. Don't mind me. I've got scarves to knit. Ten grandchildren with cold necks, and their mommas all want different patterns so's they can tell the little scamps apart without unwrapping 'em. You go and try to help your mommy."

  Jo felt like a cartoon light-bulb had lit up in her head. "You've been awake, those times I came in before?"

  "Child, any fool could see you needed to be alone with her. Best thing I could do was close my eyes. Now do what you need to do." She made a shooing motion and then ran her fingers along the full needle, counting stitches and tracing each thread of yarn back to its skein. The old woman nodded to herself and started another row.

  Jo did as she was told. The Naskeag woman seemed to bring a feeling of solid Maine granite into the room, rooting it in life and generations and the comfort of an old house. She knew where she stood in the world and knew it was a good place to stand. Jo envied her family.

  And then Dad was there, oozing around the door like the slime he was, and the feeling vanished. He looked startled for an instant, glanced at the old woman, and shrugged. His smile turned mean.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jo found herself on the far side of the hospital bed, backing into the corner behind the bathroom door, instinct again putting Mom between her and the pain. Even if Mom wasn't really there, her bed and silent body still made a wall between Jo and Dad.

  When Daddy smiled like that, he was thinking of ways to hurt. Sometimes it meant his belt across her back or bare butt, sometimes the fists pounding her body -- never her face where some stranger could see the bruises.

  But she didn't have to be afraid anymore. She'd summoned the power of her blood, of the blood she bore from both her parents, and bound him with a curse out of the Summer Country. She was stronger now than he was.

  "Now that's a piece of luck." Good luck or bad luck, he didn't specify. "Finding you here saves me an extra trip."

  He closed the door behind him, setting the lock, putting another barrier between them and any help from people out in the halls of the nursing home. The nurses could open it, of course. No dead-bolts, and they had a passkey for emergencies. But locks gave the residents privacy from each other.

  Jo shook the distractions out of her head. Pay attention to Dad. He's dangerous. Power of the Old Blood or no, he still was dangerous.

  He was here. She'd hoped the curse would keep him away. She glanced at the nurse-call button, wondering if she could reach it before he did.

  He was here, and he was smiling. "I'd planned to find you first, before coming to deal with your mother. But every time I called, I just got that pothead boyfriend of yours. Is he your pimp too, you little whore? Is that how you pay the rent, since you can't hold a real job?"

  "You don't sound like a good man." It was the Naskeag woman, with her half-knitted scarf lying abandoned in her lap and a single long bare needle shining in one hand like a dagger. Jo had forgotten about her, staring at Dad's sadist smile and listening to his words as casually brutal as his fists.

  "I don't think you sound like the kind of man who could be such a good girl's father. She comes here every day to talk to her momma, not like you. I think she's some other man's daughter. Some nicer man, who cared about her mother and his children."

  The old Indian stared with her blind eyes, face aimed at a point just over Dad's shoulder. Jo wondered what she saw. A woman that old, living on the reservation, she'd have seen plenty of evil. Men like Dad. Poverty and drink and hopelessness brought out the worst in people.

  "Shut up, old woman. Shut up and stay alive. This is family business."

  He had a gun.

  It appeared as if by magic, suddenly there. It sat small and shiny and blue in his hand but seemed to fill the room. Time froze around Jo. The steel-blue sights and black hole pointed straight at her heart. She could see shadows in the other chambers, lead-gray with copper rings and black centers, hollow-pointed slugs. Killer slugs.

  "You put the curse on me, witch. You and your witch-Irish mother. Bad blood, old blood from under the hill. But I know how to break it. A curse dies with the witch who spoke it."

  The old Naskeag moved, standing up big and round and bulky like a wave humping up to break on the shore, flowing forward with her knitting needle extended. It had become a knife in her hand, held low, with her other arm above it in a guard. The move looked like something she'd done a hundred times before. What kind of a life had she survived?

  "The child put no curse on you, mister man. You wrote it on your own forehead. The child just read the words out loud. No woman ever dared do that before. Now you finally ran up against one strong enough."

  His hand jerked away from Jo, the gun seeking closer danger and then flashing blue light streaked with orange, and the room echoed. The roar of the shot squeezed Jo's head. He turned back, snapping a shot point-blank into the helpless form on the bed, and her ears didn't register the sound. The muzzle rose back to her and found her and the hammer flashed again and she saw the red of burning powder blaze around a black shadow as it flew out of that short bore.

  Jo shrank back hard against the wall. Plaster stung her cheek, blasted out of a sudden crater next to her left shoulder. He'd missed. Somehow he'd missed, at ten feet or less across the bed. No way he could miss twice at that range.

  The hammer lifted again as he squeezed the trigger, aiming this time instead of a snap shot, taking no chances. His hand trembled and the hammer froze at half-cock. The muzzle turned away from Jo's heart, wavering, uncertain, traversing the empty wall above Mom's bed where blood pooled red and wet across white sheets.

  Jo's ears still rang. She couldn't believe how loud a pistol was, in a small hard-walled room like this. And she couldn't believe she'd noticed that, when her father still held a loaded pistol and tried to aim it at her heart. But she'd moved beyond fear into that space of quiet rage she'd found when she'd called the curse down on her father.

  Words formed in the shattered gun-smoke air, not Jo's voice this time. "You wrote the curse, little man." The Naskeag woman stood, a breaking wave frozen above the granite ledge, apparently unharmed. Her age and blind eyes gave her the aura of a priestess, untouchable unswerving voice of the gods.

  "And since you wrote it in your own blood, you found that it was true. Tried to take another woman, did you? Planting Woman heard the words, and made your balls shrivel into prunes. You couldn't get it up. And then you tried drink and couldn't keep it down. You come through the door stinking of puked whiskey."

  The gun turned inward, seeking, groping, hunting for its target. Dad's arm trembled with muscle fighting muscle, nerve wrestling with nerve. He brought up his other hand to grab the gun and force it away, but the muzzle still turned toward him.

 
; "And now you've harmed a woman, lifted your hand against your wife and daughter and an old blind stranger. You remember the last of the curse, mister man? The words you wrote on your forehead like Cain's own mark for all the world to see? May your own hand turn against you and be your death!"

  His hand turned the gun. Veins stood out on his forehead, streaked with sweat under the cold fluorescents on the ceiling. Strangled noises forced their way past gritted teeth. Jo could stop him with a word. She knew it. She saw her mother's blood dark on the white linen, felt again the shock of the bullet tearing into the wall instead of her own heart.

  I will not say it. Her nails bit into her palms where she clenched her fists. No. Die and burn, you bastard.

  Her eyes wouldn't close. That was part of the magic. She had to watch it through, or it wouldn't work. The gun's muzzle touched his head, pressed into his temple, then skidded sideways on sweat-drenched hair. She saw the hammer inch back on the Smith, shudder for an instant's pause, and then blur forward.

  The shot seemed muffled, as if sound had changed into the explosion of blood. His hand flew back and chunks of something spattered the wall where the pistol bounced free. He stood for a moment and then fell sideways, rigid, like a tree.

  Jo stared at the empty space where he had been. She couldn't move. She couldn't blink. Her back pressed against the plaster wall, cold and hard, gritty with shards blown out of the hole by her left shoulder. She slid down the wall, bit by bit, until she sat huddled in the corner and her eyes sank below the level of the bed. That broke the spell's hold, and she could blink the searing memories out of her eyes. Red seeped over the edge of the mattress, spreading, dripping. Plastic sheet under the linen, she thought, liquids can't soak in. Need it in a nursing home.

  Something dark covered her eyes, a searching hand gentle across her face. Warmth and softness enveloped her, rocking her head in comfort. "It's over, child. It's over. Your momma's free. The Lord knows why it happened, and He understands."