The campground was a mixture of store-bought tents of all sizes, pop-up campers, big RVs, and fantastic custom tents. They passed a tall, long tent glowing white from within. A stylized wooden dragon topped the front pole.
This must be Tarl's tent, she thought, then hurried past as she heard the female moaning coming from inside. As she rushed past, a man's silhouette appeared on the tent wall, potato-shaped and obviously naked. Keelie had been hoping to score some food at the party, but now her appetite was gone.
"The party's in the last tent on this row. The tents are arranged in a circle, and then there are rows making streets inside of the circle."
They stopped in front of a medium-sized Coleman tent. Laughter and light greeted them as they pulled aside the front flap and entered. A cloud of sweet blue smoke rolled out.
She'd smelled pot before at parties, but never so much of it in one place. The inside was lit by pillar candles on dishes, and the floor was covered with oriental carpets and big pillows on which the party goers lounged.
"Hey, Raven. Who you got there, girl?"
"This is my young friend Keelie."
Keelie waved at the greetings that rose around her, hating Raven for calling her young. She took her cloak off and put it in the pile of wet garments by the front door.
A smiling pirate with Johnny Depp eyeliner patted the carpet next to him. "Sweet Keelie, bide here a while."
She slipped out of the boots as Raven had done.
"Sit over there by Aviva," Raven said, pointing toward a dark-haired girl in a belly-dancing outfit.
The Johnny Depp lookalike grinned and patted the pillow next to him. Flattered, Keelie lowered herself, only to jump up again when his hand cupped her backside. She glared at the pirate.
"Sorry, sweetling. I thought you had printed instructions on your booty."
"Ha, ha. No." She sat down and arranged her skirts so that no handprints showed. She needed different garb, pronto.
She listened to the conversation, sitting up, very aware of the man next to her. He edged a little closer.
"You're shivering, lass. Snuggle up to Captain Randy and I'll keep you warm."
How old was he? She didn't want to scoot away like some scared child. If she were poolside at a friend's party back home she'd know just what to do.
Raven had settled in across from her, leaning on the muscular chest of a wild-haired drummer, his drum abandoned at his feet. She seemed comfortable.
Keelie experimented with leaning back a little. The pirate put an arm next to her, allowing her to cuddle against his shoulder. It felt warm and nice.
Her pirate took the bottle that was being passed around. "Mead," he whispered in her ear, his breath tickling her. "Sweet as honey. Try it."
Keelie eyed the unlabeled bottle suspiciously. Not that they'd be passing around antifreeze, but it didn't seem safe. She rubbed the mouth of the bottle with her cloak, then took a sip. It was good. Captain Randy laughed as she took a long swallow.
"Warms your tummy, doesn't it?"
"It sure does."
He took the bottle from her and put his lips to it, not bothering to clean it off. Apparently it didn't bother him to share her germs. He winked at her as he drank, and her heart fluttered.
She hoped he couldn't feel the little trembling that had started up in her shoulders and neck. She couldn't figure out if she was scared or excited or both.
His breath blew across her neck and she shivered. His arm went around her waist, steadying her.
"Hey Raven, dance for us!" The cry was echoed by others, and the drummer reached lazily for his drum and started a heartbeat-like rhythm. Raven stood and moved to the beat, belly dancing, her hips sliding side to side, her back arched as her arms snaked sinuously. The beat changed to a darker, faster pace and she shimmied, the muscles in her waist showing as her top lifted with her movements.
Keelie stared, mesmerized, feeling detached from her body. The smoke that filled the tent didn't bother her now and she was feeling warm.
Raven's dance was very different from the fat lady at the Moroccan restaurant. Raven's moves were assured and sensuous.
The partygoers were leaning forward now, avid eyes on Raven's body. She smiled enigmatically, as if she was laughing at them. Keelie felt the pirate's hand on her waist, pulling her closer. She let herself be drawn against him.
This was the best party she'd ever been to in her entire life.
The pirate's hand caressed Keelie's side, fingers moving along her ribs and dipping inside of her bodice in rhythm to the drums. Her breath came faster. If she looked at him, he might take it as permission to go further. She looked up at Raven, instead. Beautiful Raven, the life of the party.
She pivoted on one bare foot and her eyes met Keelie's just as the pirate's fingers touched the bottom of her breast. Keelie's breath stopped. What would he do next? And what should she do? This was the place to let go, right?
Raven's eyes darkened, and her right hand made a cutting motion. Instantly, the drums ceased.
"Aw, Raven." Complaints rose from around the circle.
"Keelie's got to go to bed, folks. Let's continue this on a drier night. Come on, Keelie."
"I don't have a curfew. I'm having fun right here." Keelie turned to Captain Randy for support.
"Let her stay, Raven. I'll escort our fair maiden back when she's ready to go home. What reason do you have to ruin her night?"
"I have two reasons." Raven put her fists on her hips. "One, she's fifteen."
Randy's smile slipped a little, but then he looked at her appreciatively. "Young minx."
"And she's Zekeliel Heartwood's daughter."
The hand left her waist. She turned, puzzled, and saw him scooting farther away on the pillows. "What?"
He looked in her eyes and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "Good night, sweetling. I'll see you again."
Keelie floated out of the tent, loving the Faire, especially the Shire, but peeved at Raven. Who did she think she was, her sister?
Outside, Raven handed Keelie her cloak. It had stopped raining, and the moon shone thinly through the clouds.
"Have fun?"
"Oh, Raven, I didn't know you could dance like that. It was awesome."
"Yeah. It's a party favorite. I'll teach you if you want."
"When? And can I get one of those little outfits with bells?"
"Sure. They sell them here at the Shimmy Shack, Aviva's shop." Raven walked briskly up the hill. "So, you and Captain Randy were all cozy."
"Is that his name?"
"Not exactly. That's his Faire name. His real name is Donald Satterfield. Off-season he's a supermarket clerk in Denver. He lives in his mom's basement and plays computer games all day."
"No." She thought of her handsome pirate. Of his hand on her breast. "Why is it okay to be felt up by a pirate, but not a supermarket clerk?"
"Pirates choose to be criminals. You have to be a lazy bastard to be a loser."
"He has a job." Supermarket clerk wasn't sexy, but it was work.
"He's twenty-eight, Keelie."
"He doesn't look that old. So you quit dancing because you saw him touch me?"
"Good eye."
They'd crossed the bridge and she didn't hear her name this time. All she could think of was the feel of the pirate's hand on her breast. Wait till Laurie heard about this.
As they climbed the hill toward Heartwood, she noticed that the apartment above the shop was still dark. Zeke wasn't home yet. Good thing, because she smelled like mead and weed. Luckily, the walk had cleared her head.
"See you tomorrow, Keelie." Raven peeled off, heading down the path toward the herb shop.
Upstairs, a loud yowl of protest split the silence as she turned on the light. In her father's chair, Knot the cat glared accusingly.
"Good thing you can't talk." She headed toward the bath to erase her sins.
Keelie stretched her toes underneath the toasty warm blanket. As she fingered the soft fleece and snu
ggled down deeper, she thought about the pirate's warm body pressed against hers.
Pirate?
Bolting upright, Keelie was suddenly wide awake, remembering the party the night before. Instead of pot smoke, she smelled baking cookies. Mom didn't bake. She always bought the little elf cookies from the supermarket. A lump formed in her throat. Oh, Mom!
She remembered that Mom would never again buy supermarket cookies. Mom would never hold her again. Mom was dead. Keelie felt a little guilty about the fun she'd had the night before. This place was a fairy tale from hell, apart from the Shire. The Shire was fun.
Mom would've been horrified, especially if she knew how Keelie had let the pirate cop a feel. Lifting her shirt to her midriff, Keelie brushed her fingertips along her ribcage where the pirate had touched her. What if she ran into him at the Faire?
Keelie didn't care what he did in the real world, but she wasn't sure she wanted to repeat last night. Of course, his seductive talk might have been part of his act. Had she fallen for the personae instead of the person? What was real here? She didn't want to embarrass herself by thinking there was more to last night. She'd be cool, like Raven.
Keelie flopped back down and looked up at the bedposts. They were twisted vines, the four posts entwined overhead to form a knot from which flowed billowy white gauze bed curtains that hung to the floor on both sides of the bed. Beautiful. If Mom were alive, if she were just visiting her father, she'd be happy. Especially if he'd asked her to come, and she would hang out with Raven and they would be friends. Keelie could come visit him when she was back in L.A. Living with Elizabeth wouldn't be like being with Mom, but it would be familiar, and she and Elizabeth could talk about Mom, who'd been her best friend, and Keelie and her own best friend, Laurie, would be sisters. She needed to talk to Laurie, to set their plan in motion. Keelie could be back in L.A. before the end of the week.
Rolling over, she hugged the big down pillow tight to her chest and pulled the blanket to her chin. She'd cried a lot yesterday. Wouldn't that just be her luck. The one time she tried to let them flow, they wouldn't.
She closed her eyes and willed herself back to that waking moment, when she thought she was home asleep in her own bed and Mom was downstairs baking oatmeal cookies.
An obnoxious licking noise interrupted her daydream. Keelie opened her eyes and rolled over to discover Knot eating something from a ceramic bowl on a wooden tray by her bed. A glass of orange juice was beside the bowl, along with a green card with something written on it in elegant handwriting. She reached for it, risking a swipe of kitty claws, and read `For you, Keelie."'
The cat lifted his head from the bowl, clumps of oatmeal hanging from his whiskers like grotesque boogers. A glint of smug satisfaction glowed in his green eyes.
Keelie's stomach rumbled when she caught another whiff of the oatmeal, but seeing the grody cat made her lose her appetite. So much for her father's breakfast.
Wow Someone had made breakfast for her. That was a first. Mom had been big on self-sufficiency and independence.
She reached for her orange juice. Knot hissed and swatted at her with his paw. She hissed back, then snatched the orange juice and drank it down without stopping. She plunked the glass down on the wooden tray, where it clinked against the bowl. The cat glared at her with his weird green eyes.
Apparently, her father loved Knot, but not her. Anger bubbled up in Keelie, flowing like hot lava. Knot turned away from her and went back to eating her oatmeal.
She reached for the pillow on the bed and threw it at the cat. The pillow missed him, but it hit the edge of the tray, which toppled onto the floor. The bowl of oatmeal crashed, and the almost-empty juice glass with it. Glass shards and oatmeal globs in an orange juice puddle marred the smooth hardwood floor.
The stupid cat jumped from the table onto the floor, turned around, and glowered at Keelie. He swished his tail as if saying, "Ha, ha, you missed." Then he sauntered off, picking his way through the oatmeal and broken glass, not a speck of oatmeal on his fur.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs, then the door crashed open. Her father pushed aside the curtain. He looked scared. "Are you okay?"
Knot meowed piteously as her father rushed to the side of the bed. "Keelie, are you okay? What happened?"
She wanted to scream, `No, I'm not okay. I want to go home. " But she didn't.
She stared at the cat. "He did it."
Knot meowed, hunched down as if he were the injured party.
"Knot, you rat," Zeke said mildly. He looked at the mess on the floor. "Stay there. Don't get out of bed. You could cut your feet."
He returned with a roll of paper towels printed with unicorns and a wooden trash can.
He didn't seem to own anything that wasn't made from a tree. He threw the big pieces from the broken glass and bowl into the trash can.
Father handed Keelie her once-white Skechers, still stained with mud.
She accepted them, and should've said thanks, but didn't. Anger still percolated through her. Instead, she looked away from father's gaze, "Why do you call him Knot?"
He smiled. "Why not?"
She didn't return his smile; instead, she gave him her perfected teen glare. Mom called it her matador glare because if Keelie were ever to be in a bullring with a charging bull, that look would send the bull running, tail tucked between its legs.
His smile faded. "Your grandmother looks at me like that whenever she's displeased with me."
"Past tense, Zeke. My Granny Josephine died two years ago from a stroke."
"I heard. I'm sorry about your Grandmother Josephine, but I was speaking of my mother. Her name is Keliatiel. You were named after her. And when I spoke with her last night, she could barely contain her excitement about seeing you again."
Keelie stared at her father. Another grandmother. One her mother had never bothered to mention. The thought of having another real live grandmother stunned her. Why?
Father snapped his fingers. "Good news, too. The airline sent a courier out late last night with one of your suitcases." He patted her on the shoulder as he stood up. His fingers were long like hers, but his were strong and brown from the sun. "I'd better get a dustpan and get the rest of this glass."
He stepped out of the room. Knot sat down, lifted his back leg up in the air, backside to Keelie, and proceeded to groom his fur with his pink tongue.
"Gross." Keelie put her feet into her shoes and walked over to him. She nudged him with her foot. "Take it somewhere else, stupid cat." She wondered what her long-lost grandmother thought of Knot. Did she love cats? Would she love Keelie like her granny Jo had loved her?
Knot gave her a baleful stare, then hissed. He swatted at her shoe, then with his tail at full mast, he sauntered out the room.
That was a spooky cat. She wouldn't be surprised if he had a side job riding on the back of some witch's broom on Halloween. However, she'd gotten what she wanted. Knot had left the room.
The sound of men shouting floated through the window. She moved aside the white curtains with one hand and looked down onto the jousting field. Men were already in armor and practicing on horseback.
"Here you go, Keelie," her father said. He plunked a suitcase onto the bed. Disappointment made a sharp pain in her gut. Or maybe it was hunger.
The recovered luggage was her small green tapestry overnight bag: the one she'd packed her underwear and bras in. She'd been hoping for one of her big bags. She looked over at her mud-splattered pants and at the Muck and Mire Show dress that hung on the back of a wooden chair. She still didn't have anything decent to wear. From now on, she'd never forget to pack an extra set of clothes in her small bag. Lesson learned.
She walked over to the bed, flopped down on it, and placed her hand on the overnight bag's green handle. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to scream. She wasn't going to react. She wanted to numb her mind and her body.
Zeke came in and sat next to her on the bed. Father's smile was hopeful, but reserved. As if s
omehow this suitcase was a failed peace offering. "Not the one you wanted, I take it."
She had to admit, Father caught on quickly. "It's my underwear. I thought it would be my clothes." Normal clothes that connected her to life in California. Connected her to Mom.
"I'm sure by the end of the day, your other suitcases with your clothes and the rest of your things will be here," he said. He sounded so sure.
Hope bloomed inside her. "You think so?"
"I've got a feeling. In the meantime, get dressed and go down to the tea shop. Mrs. Butters has muffins and scones baking right now, and by the time you arrive, they'll be fresh out of the oven."
"Sounds good." She remembered Mrs. Butters from the day before. "She's the round gingerbread-man's wife?"
Zeke looked puzzled. "What gingerbread man?"
"From the story, Dad. Remember? The ones you never read to me?"
"I'm not big on fairy tales." He patted her knee and stood.
Keelie watched him walk away, noting how tall he was. She tried to imagine her corporate-executive mom and her hippie rock-star father hooking up, way back when. There were a lot of unusual things in the world, things that defied explanation, and she guessed this was one of them. Opposites attract, she thought. Either that, or mead and weed was popular then, too.
She unzipped her overnight bag, laid it open, and smiled. The contents smelled of lavender and citrus, just like her room back in Los Angeles. She grabbed a pair of Hanes cotton panties and a cotton sports bra. Clean undies. Who'd ever think it would feel like a luxury?
In the bathroom, Keelie grimaced at her hair. She'd gone without conditioner, and with no tools to fix her hair she was doomed to have boinging curls to go with her gross dress. She ran wet hands over her hair and brushed it flat.
She washed her face in cold water and brushed her teeth with toothpaste and her finger. Her toothbrush was still in the holder in her house in L.A., the victim of rushed packing. Stupid Ms. Talbot. She needed a toothbrush, and more. She had to find ye olde drugstore; maybe Raven could help. She was so not asking Zeke.
Of course, that might embarrass him more than her. She imagined asking him for tampons in front of all his groupies.
The Tree Shepherd's Daughter Page 5
