Its breath smelled of rotting vegetation, like a compost pile that had been inexpertly turned.
Kay was still silent.
Zoe watched as the tusked creature reached out a claw to touch her wrist. She felt a million tiny spiders crawling on her skin, tickling and frightening her. It pulled her hand away from Kay’s with hardly a thought, its strength so far beyond hers that it was like she was an ant and it the human. The mouth and face bent down to take a bite.
“Stop it!” Kay said.
“You must wish me to make it stop,” Emrys said.
Something wet touched Zoe’s hand making it sting and burn as if there were a fire inside the bones of her fingers burning its way through the flesh to the outside world.
Zoe heard a groan, only vaguely aware that she was the one groaning. She hadn’t know she could make such a noise.
“All right! I wish you’d protect her,” Kay screamed at Emrys.
With that Emrys backhanded the creature that was touching Zoe. Her hand still felt like it was a burning torch. She held her eyelids closed, scrunching them shut even more tightly, refusing to look at a hand that she imagined was a blackened ruin.
Kay was sniffling softly. Zoe moved to offer a comforting pat, but even that simple movement seemed to fan the burning flames.
“I could heal her, too,” Emrys said.
“Why do you want my soul?” Kay sniffed.
“I have no interest in your soul,” Emrys said. He made a sound of distaste. “That is for you and your god, if you wish. No, I am interested in the power you give me in the mortal world to effect changes and to keep the town safe from the likes of them.”
He gestured casually with his hand behind him, where the other creatures were still watching, listening.
“Why would you do that—keep the town safe, I mean?” Kay asked.
“Because it was a promise I made long ago. I keep my promises, and though later humans try to bend me to their will, always I work with that first promise I made, keeping later promises only as far as they allow me to uphold the original one.”
“Why did it have to be me?” Kay was holding onto Zoe’s undamaged hand much too tightly.
“It was your ancestor who offered the service that extracted the first promise, Child of the Blood. She” —Emrys gestured to Zoe— “is also an ancestor, but the Blood runs so thin in her veins I can barely hear her unless there is another of the Blood with her.”
Like Taran, Zoe thought. He, too, had some “Blood” in his veins. It was why together they could see Emrys but they couldn’t really communicate. Only Kay had enough.
Kay was crying now. “What else do you need?”
“I need to be able to protect the town. I need to hear from you from time to time. I need your presence in Corbin Meadow at least half of each turn of the moon to ground me in the physical world. If not, the wish keeps me out of the world, and those there, who would make the town over in their own likeness, would run amok.”
Emrys disappeared when he said that. Zoe wasn’t sure why, but Kay was disengaging herself from Zoe.
“Let’s go inside,” Kay sniffed.
Chapter 35
Taran drove quickly towards Zoe’s home. He’d check out her yard and then when he knew she was safe, he’d head over the Fisher home. He wouldn’t feel right doing it the other way.
There was an unfamiliar car in the driveway, a copper-toned Honda CRV that looked almost new. Virginia plates warned him that it probably belonged to Kay. Taran drew in a breath, not certain how he felt about that.
Getting out of the car into the air that still felt like a warm oven, albeit one that had been cooling off for hours after its maximum heat, he paused to look at the car more closely. There were suitcases in the back—a bunch of them—and several bags, as if Kay had thrown her home together to bring it all with her. The coffee cup that sat in a holder looked like something Kay would leave around. The SUV was far neater than he’d expect from his ex-wife, but everyone changed. He’d changed in the time she’d been gone.
Something bothered Taran about the day, and it took him a moment to notice the absence of sound. He heard a car down on Main, which was several blocks away, but there were no birds. No dogs barked. Both of those were unusual in this part of town where the lots were large and almost everyone had a hunting dog even if they never went hunting.
It made the back of his neck twitch. Although he wanted to delay going to the door because he didn’t want to see Kay, he needed to check on Zoe. Taran hurried to the front door, rang the bell. Waited.
He glanced down at his feet, looking at the dark black shoes against the cement porch upon which he stood. No sound came from the house after the bell echoed its way through. No one walked quickly to answer the door. No voices from inside. The house might have been empty.
Taran rang again, listening. The bell rang. He could hear that. He thought he heard a moan, like someone was injured. He pulled open the screen door that he’d battled with Zoe over the first time he’d arrived. It opened easily with its usual squeak, a sound that made him pause and look around like he was a thief sneaking into a bank.
Nothing happened. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked.
Taran dropped his hand, considering trying to break down the door, but this was Corbin Meadow. The men of the Meadow may have specialized in building wooden furniture, but they weren’t too shabby when it came to wood carpentry, either. Doors here were solid core, often carved like Frank’s, and always difficult to break down. Only the people who lived in the newer sections, in homes built by outsiders, had doors that a thief, or a determined police officer, could easily break through.
Instead, Taran hurried back to the driveway and around the garage. The grass was longish and wet on that side of the house, like it got less sun and was happy about it through the long dry summer, growing too quickly to keep up with. There was a large laurel near the edge of the garage and then behind the bush was more grass but there were concrete squares in dull red, scored to look like little squares of brick that he could step on as he walked around the side of the house.
The air conditioner sat in a small enclosure on that side, across from that of the neighbor. Taran followed the path between the two machines and came around to the backyard. He didn’t see much, though the yard looked more shadowed than it should have. He felt as if he’d started his journey with the sun high in the sky and he’d only just made it to the backyard when the sun was beginning to set. He knew that wasn’t true, but that’s how the shadows made him feel.
Taran looked around but saw nothing. The back of the house stuck out around the patio, blocking his view. He followed the path, which went from brick stepping stones to a nice pathway with real brick that wound in front of low bushes that lined the house beneath the windows that looked out the back.
He walked the brick path, watching as the shadows that had been so long receded towards the trees that divided this property from that of Mrs. Fisher. No one was on the patio. Shadows were moving away from the glass door.
Taran considered going up to the slider and pounding on the door but decided he would only spook the women, probably Kay and Zoe. He didn’t want Kay terrified of him when they first saw each other again. He hurried back around to the front of the house.
It was still too silent. There was something waiting. Taran didn’t like it.
He couldn’t wait to get into the house. There was something there. In his mind’s eye he saw what it was—the creature with the long oddly shaped nose and the strange, rough skin. He didn’t want to believe it, but couldn’t help knowing deep down that this thing, this creature, was a problem.
At the front again, Taran rang the bell. This time he heard someone coming to the door.
Zoe opened it. Her face was pale. She had her right hand curled protectively against her chest, as if she’d injured herself. He saw nothing wrong with it.
“Taran?” Her voice held a question.
“I was ju
st checking to be sure you were okay. I had a report that Mrs. Fisher, in the house behind you, saw something moving in her yard. I wanted to be sure it wasn’t the intruder coming back,” Taran said. He felt stupid using their lie, but he had no idea what she’d talked to Kay about.
His ex-wife appeared behind Zoe, looking at him. A slight frown crossed her face upon seeing him. She turned away without saying a word.
“I think we’re okay,” Zoe said. She looked back at Kay. Didn’t try and open the screen. “I think you should go check on Mrs. Fisher.”
The front door closed in his face, leaving him frustrated. Something had happened between the two women. He wanted to know what that was. He hoped Zoe would clue him in later when Kay was gone. He had given up hope that Kay might ever tell him what was going on in her life.
Chapter 36
After Taran left, Kay sank down on the sofa in the family room—apparently this time the casual sitting area was acceptable. And then she began to cry. Zoe tried to comfort her sobs but had no idea how to do so. The grief that came out was so loud, so deep that it echoed inside the deepest places of her body, her cells reacting, contracting against the pain the other woman was sharing.
Zoe got up and found tissues, using only her left hand. She had finally braved a look at her right hand and it looked normal, though it ached and burned and there was no sign of the pain abating. She paused in the bathroom to run some cool water over a finger. The burning increased as if the very touch of something was too much for that hand.
Instead, Zoe carried the tissues out to Kay who was now doubled over and sobbing just as hard as when Zoe left. The sobs were so constant, so long and loud, that Zoe wondered how the other woman was breathing. She tried patting her on the back but such a gesture seemed so futile in the wake of this pain.
Worse, Zoe didn’t understand why Kay was crying. Her own pain, the pain in her hand, was physical but she wasn’t crying. Kay had come through unscathed but she was sobbing as if she’d lost everyone and everything she’d ever loved. Was it seeing Taran again? Was she not over her ex-husband? It seemed over the top drama if she were crying for Taran. Plus it felt out of character for the woman who had walked through her door earlier.
Zoe got up and rummaged around, finding a bag of really old, really cheap tea. She set a pan on the stove and started water to boiling. It wasn’t ideal, but they could at least have something soothing to drink. She’d read enough British mysteries to know that when you didn’t know what else to do, you made tea. Zoe wanted to giggle at herself for doing so, but she bit her lip and continued on with her preparations.
Kay’s sobs may have begun to slow by the time the tea had steeped in the mugs. Zoe brought the first one over for Kay, setting it carefully on the table. Then she brought her own. She hoped her hand would heal soon enough. If only Kay would have wished to heal her as well.
Zoe settled back on the sofa, close to Kay, put her hand on Kay’s back and rubbed like she remembered her mother doing to her. Her hand made little circles around and around like she was spreading lotion on Kay’s skin, though Kay was fully dressed and Zoe had no lotion. It was a soothing gesture for her and she hoped that Kay felt it as well.
Slowly, as Zoe’s arm began to tire, Kay’s sobs became hiccups and finally sniffles.
“I’m sorry,” Kay said.
“It’s okay,” Zoe said. She leaned forward and took a sip of her own tea, awkward at using her left hand but she didn’t trust her right.
Kay said nothing but used three of the tissues, honking behind the thin paper she pressed over her nose. Finally she wiped the bottom of her nose and looked at Zoe sadly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Mostly,” Zoe said.
Kay looked at Zoe’s hand. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s incredibly painful. Like it’s on fire or something.” Zoe didn’t move her hand. Kay didn’t reach out to take it, which was a relief. There were those who would. Zoe’s father would immediately reach out and touch if she told him her hand was in pain.
Kay took a breath. “I’m not sure I can do it.”
“Do what?” Zoe asked.
“What that creature asked me to do,” Kay said. “I can’t. I know he says he’s not a demon, but my momma warned me about him, warned me that demons are tricky and that they lie to get their way.”
Zoe sighed. She understood Kay’s fear a little. She didn’t agree with Kay’s assessment, perhaps because she’d spent so much time living across the country among people who didn’t worry about their immortal soul in the same way as people did in the South. Oh, Westerners worried, but it was a different worry, not a purely Christian worry.
“I mean, am I already damned? Was that a test? Risk your life to save my own soul? Could God judge me for that?” Kay wailed.
Zoe was certain a judgmental god could. Her god, the god she found in her church, would probably understand the desire to save a life. And wouldn’t standing aside as someone else suffered be a worse sin?
“I can’t imagine God would do that,” Zoe said finally, carefully.
Kay blew her nose again and sipped her tea. “I don’t know how I can do what the creature asks. I really don’t. I think I need to leave. Go back to Virginia and never return.”
“Can you wait a little?” Zoe asked. “Can we ask it a few more questions?”
“Like what?” Kay asked.
“I want to know why those women died. Why did my momma die? What attracted those creatures to certain women and not others? I’ve been here for three weeks and nothing happened until yesterday, and suddenly they wanted me dead, too” Zoe said.
Kay nodded. “I guess if it will answer my questions and I don’t ask anything of it, I might be okay. At least as okay as I am now.”
It occurred to Zoe that questioning the creature could be considered soothsaying, but if Kay hadn’t thought of that, she wasn’t going to bring up the idea. She needed answers, if not for the law, then for herself.
Kay sipped her tea.
Zoe sipped hers. It was hard to hold the mug with her left hand. She kept wanting to steady it with her right. She finally set the mug down and watched it cool, while Kay sat silent sipping hers.
Zoe wanted to demand they go out and start asking questions right then, but she didn’t want to spook Kay. So she sat silent, waiting, her hand throbbing. She listened to the refrigerator click and the air conditioning hum. Her stomach started to knot, probably from the pain. She wondered if taking an aspirin would help.
“And maybe ask what I need to do to help my hand heal,” Zoe said. She wanted to ask Kay to ask Emrys if he could heal the hand, but she didn’t want to push. She needed to get answers first. Maybe then Kay would feel better about making a healing wish.
Kay nodded. She finished her tea. Set the mug on the table and looked at Zoe.
“Let’s get this over with.” She stood up and went to the door. Zoe followed more slowly.
Chapter 37
The Fisher house was catty corner behind the Hyer’s, but that didn’t mean it was particularly close. While there were areas in Corbin Meadow where neighbors might stand out in their backyards chatting with the person behind them, the lots in this part of town started getting progressively larger. When Taran took the road that wound down to the right, he drove down a hill that curved away from the Hyer home and then, where the incline flattened out, he took a right. It was known in the office as “the curve” because so many accidents happened there.
Corbin Meadow officers patrolled a lot of roads in the area. As a rural town, the footprint was larger geographically than it was in population, which meant there were many curved roads. For one to stand out as “the curve” said something. The trees near the roadside didn’t help, shading the pavement almost all day, which meant that when it iced up, it never melted. There was the added issue of visibility when someone needed to make a left turn onto the road from the one Taran had just turned down. Drivers often took their life into their hands the w
ay people barreled around the curve, flying down the incline.
The city council often talked about doing something about “the curve”, but nothing ever seemed to happen. A traffic light had been proposed but there was no money in the budget. A stop sign had been there at one time, but it had been knocked over one too many times by a driver failing to stop that the town had given in and taken it down. Too expensive to replace.
The latest suggestion was one of the roundabout things that they had in the cities now. Taran hoped that didn’t go through because he’d be the one who had to explain to folks what exactly the roundabout was and why it was there. Half the drivers would probably forget and try and go straight, flying over any raised curbs or landscaping to get to the other side. If the driver was drunk, chances were the car would flip over. At night a wreck might not be found for hours, which didn’t bode well for the driver.
Taran sighed, glad the side road, at least, was quiet. Mrs. Fisher lived on the second house on the right. The first house was nothing more than an old single-wide trailer on a plot of land owned by Harlan Dicky. Dicky’d been there forever and used to have a cow that he’d milk every morning. Someone had complained a little too long and loudly, and when his last milk cow had stopped producing, the town council had refused to allow him to keep another one. Now, Taran heard, Dicky was petitioning for goats. The council would probably have to allow it as there were several backyard goats on one-acre plots on the other side of town.
The Fisher house was set back on a long concrete drive that curved around three trees strategically placed to minimize the view of the house from the road. The total lot was over an acre and the house was sprawling though still small compared to the McMansions that went up in some places. It was originally built in the sixties, a split-level thing with lots of angles and windows, designed by an architect who admired Frank Lloyd Wright but didn’t have the talent to emulate him.
Souls Lost (Appalachian Souls Book 1) Page 14
