“The phone’s ringing.”
Alice sat upright, and then bolted out of bed. In the dark kitchen, she cracked her little toe against a chair leg as she grabbed for the receiver. Motherfuck! “—ello?” Her voice was a frog’s croak. She cleared her throat, curling her foot in pain. “Hello? Yes, this is Alice Waterston.”
She listened in silence to the ward nurse calling from Gull Harbor, informing her in carefully measured tones that her mother Suzanne had just passed away. Standing naked in the predawn darkness, Alice noted the time on the microwave—two forty-five in the morning. It was Monday, July 4. Independence Day. Suzanne’s liberation. The obituary was already writing itself in her mind as she listened.
Nik came into the living room, pulling on his jogging shorts and turning on the light. Alice blinked at him and mouthed, “She’s gone.” Nik nodded, tossing her his well-worn Mycological Society T-shirt. Alice put the phone down for a second and shrugged into it—the shirt engulfed her, the hem reaching halfway down her thighs.
The nurse was saying something about a quiet, peaceful passing. Alice bit her lip. “Right, it’s for the best. We’re all glad she didn’t linger,” she said, her thoughts spiking ahead to funeral plans and back to images of Suzanne and Margaret playing together on the beach. “Thank you so much for calling. Florida Shores Funeral Home, that’s right. They should already have her instructions on file. Yes, her brother, Harold Blacksburg, will take care of the arrangements. You should call him to pick up her things from the hospital—oh, he did already? Was he with her when she...? Well, thank you again for everything. Yes, goodbye.”
Alice hung up and stood quietly, ignoring her throbbing toe, letting the news sink in. It was what she’d been expecting, even hoping for, and yet now that it was true, she felt strange.
Margaret slipped into the living room, rubbing her eyes.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
Alice reached out and pulled her daughter close.
“Grandma Suzanne’s passed on.”
“Oh.” Margaret’s face was a mask, but Alice knew the loss was severe. Suzanne doted on her only granddaughter, and Margaret had adored her in kind. Alice felt the girl’s chest rising and falling. When at last Margaret pulled away, there was a damp spot on Nik’s shirt, just over the mushroom logo.
“What’ll happen to Carlisle?” Margaret raised her head, damp strands of hair stuck to her face.
“Hal’s keeping him.” Suzanne’s Afghan hound had been her companion for the past eleven years, but Alice supposed he could keep Hal company just as well. “Carlisle’s an elegant dog, pedigreed with papers and all, but they never showed him. Poor Carlisle. Hal says he’s pretty sad. Looking for Suzanne.”
“I want him if Uncle Hal doesn’t.” Margaret wiped her cheeks.
Alice watched her pad back to her room, face shielded by her tangled mass of red curls. The bedroom door shut softly.
“Will she be all right, then?” Nik touched her hand.
Alice nodded. “It’ll be hard, they were tight. But yeah, she’ll deal with it. You know how she is.”
“Ja,” said Nik. “And you?”
“Me? I’ll miss her, I guess. I can’t say I loved her. Shit, let’s be honest, I didn’t even like her. But ... there’s a hole.” Alice shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Do we need to do anything tonight?”
“No, Hal’s in control, as usual.”
“Then come back to bed, try to sleep. You haven’t done much of that while she’s been ill.”
“I know.” Ahhhh. Alice leaned against Nik as he massaged the base of her neck with his big hands. Nik was tall and lean as a lodge pole, like his Viking ancestors. His flax-colored hair fell loose over his bare shoulders. Alice yawned and thought about the week just past.
She’d spent the last six days in Suzanne’s hospital room, keeping vigil. The doctors told her the stroke was massive and that her mother might not wake up again and, in fact, might remain unresponsive for however long it took her to die. Your basic vegetative state, she’d told Nik on the phone. She’d called Shelton, her boss at the Hardison Museum, and asked for a short leave of absence to help Hal with doctors and lawyers, and to sit beside the hospital bed waiting for some sign of consciousness beyond the steady hiss of the respirator.
That sign had come the second night, when Alice sat staring at Suzanne’s thin, remote face, thinking about nothing in particular. Her mind had been wandering, mulling over mundane stuff like getting Margaret enrolled in the university’s summer Science Camp for gifted middle-school kids and taking Dawg to the vet for his annual rabies shot. Then she’d seen a single tear pool at the corner of Suzanne’s closed left eye and slide down the sunken cheek into her ear. From that point on until yesterday when Alice had driven the hundred miles back to her own safe haven, her house in the pines near Citrus Park where the museum was located, she’d talked to Suzanne. Saying things she’d wanted to say for years and trying to take back other things, hurtful things, that she’d actually said. But that single tear was all she got for her effort.
Now, settled comfortably back in bed with Nik, all that seemed so pointless. It was over; Suzanne was gone and couldn’t care less how Alice felt about her or what kind of parent she’d been. Alice pressed her back against Nik and tried to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking.
With Suzanne gone, she was now officially an orphan. Which meant she was no longer anchored to a family, had no parent to impress with the way she’d turned out. But had Suzanne ever praised her or openly demonstrated love that she could remember? She couldn’t think of a single instance, but other memories fought their way to the surface.
“Mama, can I come in?” five-year-old Alice asked, peeking around the doorframe. Her mother sat at her bedroom window, watching a summer squall blow sheets of rain through the palms lining the driveway. It had taken her a full minute to respond. Alice knew because she’d counted to sixty-three before Suzanne turned around.
Alice’s memory rendered the scene in CGI detail. She’d approached her mother, holding her breath. “Papa says,” she’d whispered, “that he’s going to the market and wants to know if you want anything.” Suzanne had stared at her as if she’d spoken a foreign language.
Tiny-boned and fine-featured, Suzanne Blacksburg-Waterston sat still as a porcelain doll on the cushioned window seat, her flame-red hair unbrushed and her white satin dressing gown untied. “Come here,” she’d said, and stretched out a thin hand toward Alice. Alice had gone to her, hoping for but not really expecting some sign of affection. Suzanne had taken Alice’s face in her hands and looked her in the eyes with such unblinking fascination that Alice had begun to tremble.
“You have his eyes,” she stated to no one. “They’re not natural. Yellow, with blue rings around the pupil. Who has eyes like that?”
“Papa says they’re hazel,” Alice responded, shaking. Her mother’s fingers reached up into Alice’s thick hair, pulling her head back. “His hair,” she said, “That thick sandy …” Then she’d erupted, scratching Alice’s cheek and hitting at her in a blind fury. “Get out! OUT!” Alice had fled down the stairs at a pounding run, ending up in Hal’s study where she’d recounted between sobs what had happened.
Squirming against Nik, Alice endured the memory to its end. Hal had washed her face, put an antiseptic on the scratches, and taken her out for ice cream. She’d stayed away from her mother’s room after that.
Nik rolled over and fitted himself to the curve of her body, his free arm holding her lightly, reassuring but not binding. His lips brushed her shoulder, and she smiled in the dark. She should marry this man before he got away, the eight-year difference in their ages notwithstanding. The age gap seemed irrelevant to them now, but when he eventually reached his forties, she would be fifty. It was something to think about.
Listening to Nik’s even breathing, she began to doze.
“But why? Why would she call me something like that?” Nine-year-o
ld Alice’s face was flushed, her voice hoarse from yelling. Hal had picked her up from school just in time to derail the shouting match between Alice and a schoolmate. On the way home, she’d poured out her fury and embarrassment, her voice rising until all she could do was squeak.
“She asked me if I was adopted. She said my mother and father are really brother and sister, and if I’m not adopted then I’m a sin against nature ‘cause they would have to commit incest to have me.”
Hal had looked at her with an unreadable expression. In her enraged state of mind, his silence had been worse than any answer. Furious, Alice had plunged ahead. “I looked it up. Incest means that a brother and a sister—”
“I know what it means.” Hal shut off the car. They were sitting in the curve of the long driveway, halfway to the house. “Let’s go for a walk. I need to explain some things to you.” The tone of his voice, normally so reassuring, was constricted, and Alice remembered how much that had frightened her.
They’d walked a block down to the Miami River seawall and sat on a park bench, watching joggers and skaters pursuing their quest for physical perfection. Alice had cried until she had no tears left, and Hal had waited patiently until she’d finally asked, “Is it true?”
“Only half. Yes, Suzanne is my sister, but I am not your father.”
Alice sat stunned. “Then who is?”
“A man you’ve never met, nor ever will.” He’d then told her of the death of Ned Waterston during his honeymoon expedition to Australia with his bride, twenty-four-year-old Suzie Blacksburg. Hal explained how, a few months after their departure, Suzanne had called home, barely in control of herself, with the news that she was stranded, alone and terrified, somewhere in Queensland and that something unspeakable had happened to her new husband. Beyond that, she was not very coherent.
Hal had gotten on a plane and gone to fetch her. He explained how Suzanne, just visibly pregnant, had suffered a mental breakdown upon arriving home and how, when her baby was born, she seemed afraid to hold it or look at it, as if it might have some deformity. She was diagnosed as clinically depressed and spent time in and out of various private hospitals.
Hal confessed with a catch in his throat that when Suzanne’s mental state did not improve as Alice entered childhood, he took it upon himself to become father as well as uncle, ignoring the fact that some day he would have to come clean. He’d apologized repeatedly that she’d had to learn about it from someone who didn’t understand the facts. Poor Hal, he’d been so truly miserable, she’d been afraid he would cry, too. As it was, the incident brought them closer, and she could not have loved him more if he’d been her real father, whose face Suzanne apparently saw whenever she looked at Alice. Why that was so horrible, her mother would never explain. Not even on her damned deathbed.
Over the years, and once Alice had made her own life with a suitable husband and child, Suzanne had managed to reinvent herself. Still living with her brother, she'd become a fairly competent business woman. Something in real estate, Alice remembered. When Hal reached retirement age, they’d bought an upscale beach house on the Florida Gulf coast to be closer to Suzanne’s granddaughter. Alice frowned, remembering. After her divorce, Suzanne and Hal had tried to convince her that moving in with them would be safer, but she’d told them nothing doing. She loved her house in the woods with its second floor deck that faced into a sea beech, pine, and oak. Margaret had agreed with her—they weren’t leaving. Adjusting to life as a twosome had its rough patches, but they were making it work. And then, unexpectedly, there was Nik.
Alice sighed and pressed herself against him. He’d been in the States a number of years, pursing a degree in Mycology, paying his way as a part-time illustrator at the museum, where she’d met him. They began seeing each other not long after her divorce. The fit was good, intellectually and other ways, and most importantly, Margaret liked him. He was her anchor now, with his wholesome Swedish family of parents and siblings overseas who cared for each other no matter what else was going on in their lives. She wondered what it would be like to live in a family like that.
Suzanne had wanted to know all about Nik when Alice finally confessed, a few years ago, they were an item. It was ironic, thinking about it now, how Suzanne had kept Alice at arm’s length for so long and then performed a one-eighty once she became a grandmother—wanting to know every little thing that might have the slightest impact on Margaret’s welfare. Alice smiled against the pillow. Over the past week Suzanne had gotten an earful as she lay trapped on her deathbed, listening without reprieve to Alice’s memoir of love and pain and loss.
“Did you care the least little bit about me? What did you hate seeing when you looked at me?” Alice had demanded of the comatose figure. “Hey, are you listening?”
As usual, Suzanne refused to be interrogated, and Alice was left to fill in the gaps with her own imagination. In life, and now in death, it was the only relationship mother and daughter had ever known.
Chapter 2
July 1953
“Hey boy, you alive?”
Ned cracked an eyelid. Daylight lanced his skull, and he clamped the lid shut. He tried to speak, but there was no feeling in his tongue. He willed it to form words.
“Unnggh.”
“Shit, he is alive! Gimmie a hand here. We’ll lay him in the truck.”
“Dead weight,” another voice grunted.
“Just a skinny kid. Here, hoist up his legs ... holy fuck, lookit that.”
“Snakebite. See them double fang marks?”
“Cottonmouth?”
“Nawsuh, rattlesnake. This fella’s lucky to be alive.”
“Wouldn’t wanna be alive in that shape.”
Ned felt his body lift off the ground. The motion was nauseating, but then he felt a sublime sensation of floating. He sprouted wings and soared high above the pine scrub and palmettos. Far below, he saw a battered gray pickup truck with two dark-skinned men wrestling something into the truck bed. Then his wings evaporated, and he was plummeting toward the tiny figures, landing hard with a loud metallic clunk.
“Hey, watch his head there.”
Merciful darkness descended.
* * *
When the light returned, it was muted. Ned opened his eyes and blinked a few times. He was in somebody’s bedroom. Sun-faded lace curtains shielded the single window, and late afternoon light heated a patch on the bare plank floor beside the bed. Against the wall directly opposite the bed, a chest of drawers in dark wood dominated the room, its top covered by nearly a dozen framed photos. A few were in color, most were black and white, and some seemed quite old. He sniffed. The room had a clean, scrubbed smell.
He tried to sit up and wished he hadn’t. Pain stabbed through his head and his left leg, and he fell back, cursing. His envenomed foot was propped up on a stack of pillows, looking evil and misshapen. It was sticking out of the leg of a pair of faded pajamas, something he’d never worn in his life. Whose? he wondered.
Lifting his hands to rub his eyes, Ned realized with a shock that something else was not right—the tiny scars dotting both forearms were gone, replaced by a pattern of faint overlapping crescents. Ned stared in disbelief. What the fuck? He ran his hands over the skin and its surface was smooth, with no ridges at all. He wet his finger and vigorously massaged a patch of the design, but it wouldn’t rub off. On top of that, the skin of his hands and arms, and probably the rest of him if he could have looked, had turned olive complexioned instead of pasty white and freckled like his mother. Ned was stunned. What had happened to him?
“You’ve been through one nasty ordeal, young fella.” A small black man stood in the doorway, dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark trousers. “But Doc Avery says you’ll survive. The worst is over. We put you in my father’s pajamas, hope you don’t mind. They seemed a pretty good fit.”
Ned didn’t remember any doctor, and he had for sure never seen this person before. He stared at the man, who could have been anywhere from thirty to fi
fty years old for all Ned could tell.
“Where...?” he croaked. His vocal cords felt like they hadn’t been used in years.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, coming into the bedroom. “I shouldn’t have surprised you like that. My name is Cecil Rider, pastor of Saint Christopher’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was two of our church members who found you and brought you here. If the Lord hadn’t brought you to us, you likely would have died out there in the woods.”
Woods! Ned saw in a flash the burning house, his crashing escape through the underbrush, the snakebite ... He shut his eyes and convulsed.
“Easy, now, have a drink of water.” The Reverend Cecil Rider picked up a glass from a nightstand near the bed and held it to Ned’s mouth as he helped the boy sit up.
“Thanks, mister,” Ned said, swallowing the water in a single long gulp.
“More?”
“Naw, it’s just ... my mouth is so dry.” He ran his tongue over cracked lips. “How long I been layin’ here?”
Cecil settled himself onto the faded gunnysack cushion of a cane rocker, crossing one leg over the other and folding his small brown hands over his knee. “Three days. It was day before yesterday when Thaddeus and his son pulled up in the yard with you in the back of their truck. Said they found you on a dirt road inside the National Forest, soaked to the skin from that big rainstorm that passed over. You were out of your head, but alive, so I sent them to fetch the Doc, and he came yesterday. Dressed your foot up and said he didn’t think he’d need to amputate—”
“What?” Ned sat up straighter. “Nobody’s cutting my foot off!”
“Easy, that’s what I’m telling you. The swelling’s gone down a lot, so looks like you’ll survive. The Lord’s doing, like I said.”
“I don’t know about that, but yeah, I’m still here.”
The man nodded and smiled. “You want to tell me your name and how can we contact your ma and pa? They must be worried sick, wondering what’s gone with you.”
Shaman's Blood Page 2
