“But there’s something else,” she said, smiling a little at his last comment.
“I know,” he replied stubbornly. “And I don’t care.”
But Mode had said that as well. And he’d been wrong. Over time, he had cared. She knew it wasn’t fair to compare Colt to Mode but she couldn’t do that again. She needed to know what she was, who she was, of what she was capable.
She had to know those things before she let anyone else in.
“I need some time. I need to figure me out.”
Colt nodded but looked hurt. He started towards the door and had his hand on the knob before he turned and looked at her again. “I had to do that, too, Liza Jane. I had to figure out what I was and where I needed to be. And I did. I belong here. And you do too. You’ll see.”
And then she was left alone–bare feet, bald head, banana nut bread, and all.
***
It was after midnight, and Liza couldn’t sleep. Every dead person she’d ever lost had visited her in her dreams, giving her random pieces of advice and talking over one another so loudly and with such intensity that she’d finally had to wake up to make them all shut up.
Her great aunt Agnes had been particularly vocal and she'd never even met her.
“Oh for God’s sake, cut it out,” Liza’d hollered into her pillow. “I get it; I get it.”
And she did get it. She knew what she had to do.
Again.
And this time, she’d do it right.
At 12:30 in the morning she slipped into fleece-lined jeans from LL Bean, threw on two layers of flannel shirts, and then buttoned up her black wool coat. Lastly, for luck, she stuck on one of Nana Bud’s old white crocheted hats.
She looked like a homeless hipster, but at least she was warm.
A little blinking light on her phone signified a new voicemail. She knew it was from Detective Kroner but, for now, she ignored it. If she were right, she’d have news for him soon enough. Good news.
And then maybe he’d never bother her again. That would be great news.
The roads were treacherous, covered in black ice that had her sliding from one lane to the other. The county only had two snow plows. Once it finally did snow, they’d have their hands full. And her driveway would not be a priority.
She needed to make friends with some snow plow guys ASAP. But first things first. First she had to prove she wasn’t a mind killer.
It didn’t take long to reach the spot where she’d need to park to reach the location where Cotton’s body was discovered. When she pulled over to the side of the road, however, she hit a patch of ice, and her tire went over the embankment into the ditch.
“Well, shit,” she grumbled. Well, she’d worry about that in a minute. Nobody was looking. She’d fix it when she had to.
In the meantime, she had other things on her mind.
Using her flashlight, Liza braced herself against the howling wind and ice pellets and made her way to the police tape. She might have been a witch and in tune with nature but she was still scared to be out in the middle of the night by herself. It was creepy as hell and every dark shadow made her jump. As a kid, she’d been terrified of The Wizard of Oz and those darn flying monkeys and, to be honest, they still gave her the creeps.
It was all still there, the police tape that was. Nothing had been disturbed. But then she recalled the leaves she’d taken with her, the ones she’d slipped under her mattress back at home. She’d hoped they’d tell her something in her dreams.
And they, along with all her head relatives, had.
Now, Liza turned her back to the police tape and faced the direction of her car again. Rather than walk the path that would take her straight to it, however, she began to walk diagonally. The icy wind was at her back now and pushed her forward, freezing her to the bone. She didn’t care. She was on a mission.
It didn’t take long until the train tracks were in sight. A train was currently coming down the track about a hundred yards away, moving much faster than she’d anticipated. The noise was astounding and the wind it kicked up chilled her blood and bones. She’d never been that close to a moving train before, and it actually blew the hat off her head. Liza waited until it passed on by before retrieving the hat, now mud-covered, and pulling it back down over her ears.
Using her high-beam flashlight she scanned the ground near the tracks over and over again, looking for the things that could mean the difference between her reputation and jail time.
It took twenty minutes of stumbling over rocks and sticks and leaves, and she was just about to give up when she finally saw it.
There, poking through the wet leaves, was a steel-toed work boot. If one hadn’t been looking for it intentionally, they might have missed it. Indeed, several people had probably walked right over it and either not seen it or not realized its significance.
“Ah ha!” Liza cried as she whipped out her digital camera. The flash nearly blinded her in the blackness of the night, but her excitement was overwhelming.
After taking several shots and being careful not to move the boot, she moved on a little bit further and trained her eyes and flashlight upwards.
She was right again.
There, hanging from a skeletal tree branch, was a pair of glasses. Although the lens was missing from one side, they still caught the glare of Liza’s flashlight and nearly blinded her.
Feeling vindicated, and not caring about the late hour, she first made a call to Colt.
“Stay right where you are,” he warned her. “I’ll be right there. Do not move.”
And then she called the police.
***
Liza had promised Colt to stay put, but it was too damn cold. She wanted warmth; she wanted to wash her hands, and she wanted to be far away from the spot where a man had died.
So Liza headed to town, to her business.
She was singing to herself, feeling joy budding in her heart when she pulled into the parking spot in front of her building. She hadn’t killed anyone. She hadn’t been responsible for his death. It was an accident.
Liza heard the howling as soon as she neared her door.
At first, she thought it was the wind ripping down Main Street. The wind was fierce that night. She’d felt it all through her for hours.
But that was no wind crying for help. It was a woman, a woman in terrible pain.
Forgetting the key and using her own means of opening locked doors to get inside, Liza rushed in only to find her business in disarray again. Papers were tossed around, bottles of lotions broken, and a pillow on her settee had been slashed, the stuffing spilled out like snow.
“Damn it to hell!” Liza screamed, fury raging inside her.
But then she heard it again, that cry of agony.
Flipping on lights as she went, Liza headed straight to the treatment room. And there, lying on her massage table, was Athalie McClure. Athalie, waitress at the buffet. Athalie, the woman who had refused to take her drink order, instead sending someone else in her place. Athalie, the very pregnant woman Colt said he’d dated briefly in high school before he discovered her servicing two members of the football team behind the scoreboard at halftime.
And now, here she was, bleeding all over Liza’s new sheets from Macy’s. Destroying them again.
“You did it last time!” Liza cried. “It wasn’t Cotton at all!”
“You’re a witch! Your kind should be burnt. Your soul will burn in everlasting hell! You need to repent. You need to turn to Jesus and,” Athalie momentarily forgot her sermon and let out a horrendous wail that would’ve shaken Satan himself.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Liza muttered, running to her stack of towels. She looked at her nice expensive ones and then shrugged and reached for the ratty ones instead. She wasn’t that forgiving. “Have you called an ambulance yet?”
“No time,” Athalie panted. “Oh my God, I am dying. God have mercy on my–“
“You’re not dying, you’re having a baby,” Liza said a
s gently as she could.
Still, before she went to work on the wailing criminal before her, she called the hospital and ensured they were on their way.
The poor girl might have cost her thousands of dollars in damage, but at the moment she looked frightened and pained, and Liza couldn’t feel anything but pity for her.
She also knew the ambulance wouldn’t make it in time.
At first, Athalie resisted the words Liza chanted over her, the soothing touch she used on her trembling stomach and shaking legs. But then, as the pain decreased, she pleaded for more and between curses at the man who had done it to her she begged Liza for forgiveness.
And there, in her massage treatment room, Liza Jane Higginbotham delivered a tiny howling, little girl, the daughter of the woman who had ruined the best sheets she’d ever owned not once, but twice.
Liza figured that if the night ever ended and she ever made it home, she’d earned herself a bath of chocolate martinis.
***
“I guess we owe you a cup of coffee Miss Higginbotham,” Detective Kroner said, the closest thing to an apology he could muster. “I mean, who would’ve thought it could a happened like that?”
“Well, I knew it wasn’t me,” Liza retorted.
The Bluevine girls had come over and decorated her tree, so at least part of her house looked festive. She was even thinking of stringing up some lights outside. But she’d wait until everyone was gone so that she could do that little bit of the work of herself.
Just for the fun of it.
“I've heard trains doing that to a person, hitting’ them and knocking them plumb outta their shoes but…” Detective Kroner trailed off there and shook his head in disbelief.
“And Detective,” a deputy piped in. “He did have that Benadryl in him from them bad allergies he had. Probably didn’t even know what hit him.”
“The coroner looked back over the autopsy. There was a large bruise inside his hairline, but it got overlooked because it didn't look like it was enough for a head injury,” the Detective shook his head again. “Cotton always did like walking by the tracks at night when he had things on his mind. Liked to hear the night train. My guess is it knocked him into the woods, and he walked a little ways kinda stunned. Got lost maybe and then just dropped over dead.”
Liza was sure that some people would still accuse her of being the one responsible for making him die in the first place, that she’d somehow made the train hit him. There would always be those who believed; always those who wanted to think badly of her.
But there was nothing she could do about that.
“And it was right kindly of you not to press charges on Athalie,” the deputy added.
“She has a newborn. She won’t sleep for a year,” Liza laughed. “That’s pretty good punishment.”
But, the truth of the matter was, that baby (named Glory Nevaeh–or “Heaven” spelled backward) needed her mother. Liza wasn’t going to stand in the way of that.
She was sentimental, too. She’d even sent a gift to the hospital.
Chapter Nineteen
“TAFFY” CORNFOOT was her first customer of the day and Taffy was as chipper as ever.
“Well, I know what all happened here to your business but I gotta say, you’ve done a better job than ever putting it back together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier place. And right here in Kudzu Valley,” she gushed while Liza rubbed on her shoulders.
“Thank you, and you know what the best part is? With the insurance money, I got to hire help!”
She could still hear Mare out front, ringing up the register and talking customers into things they didn’t need. She was much better at that part than Liza had ever been.
“I’m just glad people are coming back around now that they know I didn’t kill anyone,” Liza said.
Taffy pushed Liza’s hand away, sat up, and looked at her, barely keeping her modesty sheet covering her sagging breasts. “Oh honey, you think we don’t know what you done here?”
“Huh?” Liza asked. "You mean people still think I killed Cotton, and they don't care?"
Taffy snorted. “Oh please. Jessie and her husband’s new money? Well, that uncle of his drank everything away. No way he had an inheritance. And my legs haven’t been swollen in a month. Not since you got here. Whistle getting that gig up in New York City as the replacement Santa at Macy’s? There were hundreds of people in line for that. And poor little Bridle…”
Liza’s cheeks flushed as she looked down at her heavy boots, a far cry from her high heels. Sometimes a girl had to make adjustments, no matter how painful they were. “I couldn’t help Bridle.”
“Please,” Taffy grunted, a very unladylike sound. A large rosy nipple slipped out, and she didn’t even bother to cover it up. Liza looked away for the sake of modesty. “We know about the rest. That was a different kind of magic. Her cancer’s in remission, that’s for sure, but it was pure old fashioned friendship that helped her. The little gifts? The calls? The visit you done when nobody else was there? And shaving yourself baldheaded to keep her company? That’s magic not even a witch can make–that's friendship. The best kind of magic.”
Taffy, finished with her speech, flopped back down on the table. “Now rub, girlfriend, rub the tar out of me. I got four ex-husbands got me stressed. Beat ‘em out.”
***
From toddlers to the elderly in wheelchairs, the whole town was gathered out in the streets when Liza left, all waiting to see the lights turned on up and down Main Street. Carolers stood on the front porch of the courthouse, singing Christmas songs out of tune and out of synch while elementary school children clogged on the sidewalks, a complicated routine that made it looked like their feet were on fire. Some looked like they were really into it; some looked bored, but all knew their steps.
Dozens of parents knelt before them, tablets and digital cameras videotaping and flashing lights to preserve their little darlings for years to come. Soon, their images and videos would be smeared across social media.
Liza stood and watched, her heart full of love for her new place. Someone walked by rolling a little cart, selling glow-in-the-dark bracelets and inflatable SpongeBob balloons. There was a food stand by the steps, eight people deep waiting, and the scent of sweet kettle corn drifted over to Liza's door and made her mouth water.
It would take a while to get used to the inconveniences.
To not be able to run to a big chain grocery store and buy organic fruit and veggies when she wanted, that could be a problem. To watch a newly released movie at the cinema on a whim, to go with her girlfriends to a bar, or go to a bar in town at all…those were sometimes hard to take.
But it was going to be home. After locking the door behind her, Liza walked over to the mailbox on the sidewalk, opened it, and closed her eyes. The thick envelope slid down the chute and landed with a “thump.”
Liza said a silent goodbye to the last vestige of her marriage. It was over for good. The papers were signed. She never had to see Mode or hear from him again.
The feeling was bittersweet. She’d loved him once.
The singing stopped when she reached the end of the sidewalk but then an audible groan went up through the crowd. Someone had apparently flipped on the lights, but the town remained dark.
The lights, all the lights the volunteer fire department had strung up and down Main Street and Broadway were out.
Somewhere, a small child began to sniffle and then another one wailed. Even the older folks flashed looks of disappointment between each other.
With a smile and a wink, Liza raised her hand, waved it around once, recited words that were second nature to her, and the entire town suddenly transformed into a magical winter wonderland.
A small boy, maybe six years old, looked up at her and gasped. Liza gazed down at him, winked, and began to walk away.
***
Bridle, looking much healthier with her glowing cheeks and bright smile, was almost animated. She sat on Colt's front
porch, wrapped snuggly in a colorful patchwork blanket, enjoying the night sky from the handmade rocking chair when Liza approached the top of the driveway in her truck.
Someone, Colt she’d imagined, had wrapped all the pillars on the porch with white twinkling Christmas lights and had hung a beautiful wreath on the front door. Candles were burning in all the windows, upstairs and down, and an inflatable Santa Claus was filling his sleigh with the help of the elves in the front yard. Animated deer, strung with lights, filled the yard and Liza laughed as she watched them move their heads up and down.
It looked like a fairyland and she knew he’d done it for his sister. And maybe even for himself. He loved Christmas as well.
“I decided to enjoy being outside for a while,” Bridle explained, as Liza neared.
Her voice was still brittle but stronger than it had been the last time Liza’d seen her. A new light burned in her eyes that had nothing to do with the tiny bulbs surrounding her.
“I don’t blame you,” Liza agreed, settling on the stairs by Bridle's feet. “It's beautiful here. The sky looks bigger somehow.”
Bridle nodded. “Colt always knew he’d build his house here. He said he felt close to the gods here. I think he’s right.”
Liza said so as well.
“Thanks for the visits and the little gifts,” Bridle said shyly. “I love the bathrobe. I live in it, which is why it’s being washed. It was starting to stink.”
“I bought myself one after my husband left me,” Liza admitted. “It got to smelling so bad I finally had to trash it. But they don’t make any better.”
“You know, you’re the only one other than family who really came by and visited me through all this,” Bridle confessed. “Thanks for that, too.”
Liza didn’t know what to say, so the two women sat in companionable silence. Until Bridle broke it again.
“Why won’t you give my brother a chance?” she asked suddenly, never missing a beat with the rhythm of her feet as she rocked back and forth. To Liza, the rocking sounded like a song, a melody that was both foreign and familiar to her.
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