by Alex Bledsoe
“Time doesn’t work the same for everybody. And it works real different for us.”
“Ah. So not only have you broken the laws of your country once today, you’ve now broken the laws of physics?”
“I just don’t want you to be any more blindsided than you have to be.”
There was something new in her voice, a kindness he’d seldom heard before. He bowed his head slightly and said, “Well. Thank you, then.”
She turned to face the house. The SUV’s headlights were still on, illuminating the faded wood. It might have been painted once, but the color had long since leached down to a slate-toned neutral gray. Except for the dogs, there was no sign of life. Then the headlights automatically clicked off, leaving them in almost-darkness.
“Chez Wisby,” Bo-Kate sighed.
“This is where you grew up?” Nigel said. “I know you said it was poverty, but somehow I imagined something less … poor.”
“No, this is it. Looks about the same, too.”
“Did you play in that refrigerator, then?”
“Daddy keeps his beer in there. And his venison in the freezer.”
“Venison is … Wait, don’t tell me.…”
“Deer meat.”
“Dear me.”
“Ha.”
“And the stove? Does it work, too?”
“What, you’ve never heard of a cook-out?” He couldn’t see if she was smiling, but he felt her humor.
“And we’re supposed to stay here,” he continued. “Despite the, ah, rustic portico kitchenette, I hope we do get to sleep indoors.”
“Yep.”
“That was a perfectly pleasant-looking motel back in town, bobcat or no.”
“It is perfectly pleasant, but I’ll never stay there. It belongs to one of the others.”
“Ah. The great schism you mentioned.”
The humor left her voice, replaced by the hard steel he knew so well. “It’s not a ‘schism,’ you pretentious jerk. It’s a separation, one that’s been around since the Tufa first came here.”
“And you’re here to heal it.”
“I’m here to end it, smart-ass. That’s different.” She pointed to one of the gables. “That was my room. I’d crawl out the window and jump to that tree to go see my boyfriend, Jeff. He was one of … the others. I tried not to like him, and he tried not to like me. But it was no use.”
“Your parents didn’t approve of him?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“How very Romeo and Juliet.”
“It’s not a joke, Nigel. His parents would’ve shot me on sight, and mine would’ve done the same to him. You ever risked anything like that for love?”
“Then it truly was love?”
“It truly was a kind of love,” she said, her voice distant.
“But not the kind that lasts.”
She looked down at her boots in the snow. “I’m done talking about this.”
“Of course,” he agreed gently.
When she spoke again, her voice had its normal sarcasm. “So I should also warn you, my family will call you a nigger to your face.”
His eyebrows rose. “Will they?”
“They will. They’ll watch you like a hawk, and treat you like a Martian. They won’t hurt you, because you’re with me, but I just want you to be prepared.”
“No worries. I’ve been called a Martian before.”
This made her smile. “All right, then. Let’s get this over with.”
When they moved, the dog Stinkerbelle trotted around the side of the house and disappeared. On the porch, Nigel followed her example and stomped to dislodge the snow from his boots. Then she stepped to the door and firmly knocked. It rattled against the frame.
“Put your pants on, everyone, the prodigal has returned!” she called out. There was no answer. She opened the door.
Inside was an enormous room, made even larger by its singular lack of furniture. A semicircle of straight chairs was arranged around the hearth, where a tepid little fire fought the winter chill. Oil lamps burned on two small tables in the corners. Beyond this, bright electric light radiated from a kitchen where three people sat at the table. To Nigel, it was like standing in the nineteenth century and looking into the twenty-first.
On the wall was a large, strange painting of a baby, maybe a year old, standing on a chair. The baby’s head seemed to float just above its body, with no neck to attach it. It was disconcerting, and to Nigel, a little creepy.
The two people visible in the kitchen, an old man and an elderly woman, turned to look. The man immediately jumped to his feet, his fists clenched, as if he expected a fight. He wore overalls and a John Deere baseball cap.
“Hey, Paw-paw,” Bo-Kate said as she took off her coat and handed it to Nigel. “That Memaw with you?”
“Bo-Kate,” the old woman said. She didn’t stand up, but her whole body grew tense.
“It’s Bo-Kate,” the man said to the third person, who sat just out of sight. Only a pair of slender, feminine bare feet could be seen.
“Just toss ’em on a chair,” Bo-Kate said to Nigel, and he draped their coats across the backs of two of the seats. Bo-Kate grinned, but didn’t move any closer to her family. “Reckon y’all are surprised to see me.”
“Surprised ain’t the word,” Paw-paw Wisby said. His given name was Beauregard, but even people unrelated to him called him Paw-paw. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”
Bo-Kate raised her chin and sang in a sweet, pure voice:
To thee I’ll return
Overburdened with care
My heart’s dearest solace
Will smile on me there.
For a moment, there was no response. Then the bare feet withdrew from sight, followed by the scrape of a chair across the floor as the unseen person rose.
Nigel gasped as the newcomer stepped into the doorway.
She was a staggeringly beautiful, dark-haired girl of about twenty. Despite the weather, she wore scandalously short denim cut-offs and a threadbare, tight T-shirt with plainly nothing under it. She leaned against the doorframe and said in a low purr, “And who’s your friend, Bo-Kate?”
“You just settle down, Tain,” Bo-Kate said. “He’s mine.”
“Yours? You can buy and sell niggers again? I sure didn’t see that on the news.”
“I warned you,” Bo-Kate asided to Nigel. To the girl, she said, “I just mean he’s with me. Keep your hands to yourself. And any other body parts that might be inclined to trespass.”
“Let’s not be too hasty,” Nigel said, and stepped forward. With British formality, he said, “I’m Nigel Hawtrey. I’m Ms. Wisby’s executive assistant.”
“Listen to him talk all fancy,” Tain said. “Where you from, boy?”
“Manchester, originally.”
“That in England?” Tain asked. The word came out, Aingland.
“It is. A beautiful place.” He looked her up and down appreciatively. “Though not as beautiful as some of the scenery around here.”
“Stop it,” Bo-Kate said to Nigel.
“No, let him keep going,” Tain said. “I like the way he talks.”
“Tain is my cousin,” Bo-Kate said. “My folks took her in after she got into some trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” Nigel asked.
“Oh, not that kind,” Tain said. “What can I say? The trouble with trouble is, it starts out as fun.”
“Now Mom and Dad are trying to teach her the straight and narrow, to make up for me turning out like I did. Right, Memaw?”
“We took her in ’cause she’s family,” the old woman said, still seated.
“That’s right,” Tain said. She stood in such a way that her long legs and slender figure were highlighted against the bright glare from the kitchen. “But I’m not too straight, and I’m definitely not narrow.”
“Don’t make me throw a bucket of water on you,” Bo-Kate warned. “Where are Snad and Canton?”
�
��They’re around,” Paw-paw said evasively.
“Snad is out trapping coyotes,” Tain said. “Canton is tomcatting around with that middle Adams girl. I’m sure they’ll come running when they hear their baby sister is back.”
“Don’t be telling her nothing, Tain,” Paw-paw snapped.
“It ain’t like it’s a secret,” Tain said.
“We’re here to stay for a while,” Bo-Kate said to her parents. “We’ll take my old room. No need to do anything special for us.”
“Why are you here, Bo-Kate?” Paw-paw said. “And don’t bullshit us by saying you missed us. The only way you’d miss us is if you were shootin’ at us.”
“I see where you get your wit,” Nigel asided to her.
Bo-Kate ignored him. “Paw-paw, I’m here to do what Rockhouse Hicks never could: draw us all back under one pair of wings.”
“That can’t be done, Bo-Kate.”
“Sure it can. It just needs a little outside perspective. And believe me, I’ve got that now.”
Memaw raised one gnarled hand and folded her fingers into a series of gestures. Bo-Kate raised her left hand and pretended to turn a crank on it with her right one; her middle finger rose. “Your signs don’t mean a thing to me, Memaw.”
“You think—”
“I think I’ve been on the road all day today, and I’m tired. Come on, Nigel, before Tain makes your dick bust out and go dancing across the room to her.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Nigel said to Paw-paw and Memaw. “Miss Wisby,” he added with an extra nod to Tain.
“Stop it, before you boldly go where every man has gone before,” Bo-Kate said, and dragged him away from the kitchen.
“I see he’s a personal assistant, all right,” Tain called after them. “Y’all have fun. Try not to bust the bedframe.”
Bo-Kate led them up a staircase Nigel hadn’t noticed when they came in. Nigel flashed a smile back at Tain as he followed. She was already watching for it, and simply nodded in response, like it was no surprise at all.
“Sharin’ the same room?” Tain called after them with a mocking smile.
The second floor was dark, and Bo-Kate did not turn on any lights. Nigel could barely see to follow her as she made her way to one door and opened it. Only when they were both inside did she throw the switch.
The bedroom had a vaulted ceiling and a bed with a canopy. It was also pristine, as if the owner had left that morning, not a decade or more ago. Nigel stood holding their luggage, staring.
“This room is on top of the house we saw from outside?” he said. “Where exactly does it fit?”
“It’s like that TV show, Doctor Who. It’s bigger on the inside.”
“Oh, how quaint. We share a cultural reference.” But his humor did not mask his confusion.
And yet the strangest thing about the room wasn’t its apparent freshness, but its decor. It looked as if it had come right out of the 1950s. Framed pictures of Elvis and other original rock-and-roll figures lined the top of the bureau, and magazine pages showing the same people were lovingly pinned to the walls. They weren’t faded, but as fresh and glossy as if they’d been hung up yesterday. It didn’t match up with the Bo-Kate he knew, who must, like him, have grown up in the ’90s. Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain belonged here, not Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins.
“How old did you say you were?” Nigel asked as he put down the suitcases.
“That’s not a polite question to ask a lady,” Bo-Kate said as she sat at the vanity and took off her fur-topped snow boots.
“I apologize for my rudeness, but either you were the biggest fan of Grease there ever was, or we’re going to sleep in a rockabilly museum exhibit.”
She chuckled. “I liked that kind of music when I was younger. Especially him.” She nodded at a photo on the wall. “Byron Harley. He died not five miles from here, did you know that? His plane went down right up on the mountain in the middle of the night. He burned up, along with Guy Berry and Large Sarge.” She bit her lip as she looked at the picture. “God, he was gorgeous, wasn’t he?”
“I’m not qualified to judge.”
“Since when did you become an art critic?”
“Now that you mention it, my parsnip, who was that rather strange youngster in the painting downstairs?” Nigel asked.
“Ah, some relative or other.”
“His head did not seem to be attached to his body. Was that an artistic style at some point, or another of your people’s delightful quirks?”
“That was practicality, my Continental employee. Because the winters were so bad around here back before the Civil War, artists spent the cold months painting generic headless portraits, then when they got commissions in the spring, all they had to do was add the heads.”
“This one didn’t quite add it all the way.”
“Well, there’s good artists and bad artists, Nigel. You should know that by now.”
“That’s a cosmic truth,” he agreed. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and said, “So: what now?”
In one motion she stood and peeled off her sweater and blouse, then unhooked her bra and let it fall. She kept her chin high and her eyes locked on his. “If I told you I was older than these mountains around you, what would you say?”
Nigel made no effort not to look her up and down. He placed the luggage at his feet. “I would say … why, Grandma, what lovely breasts you have.”
She smiled. “All the better to silence you with, my dear. Now, get those clothes off and get your ass in bed.”
7
The little room was silent except for the wind whistling around the door. Rockhouse ignored it, too traumatized even to consider trying to make a fire. The light around the door gradually faded and finally disappeared altogether.
He sat at his table, his hands before him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his injuries before he lost the light. It surprised him that it had been considerably less painful than getting his throat ripped out, but maybe that was just due to shock.
He couldn’t believe what had happened to him. Not long ago, he had been the most powerful man in Cloud County, and now he was this: mute, crippled, and isolated. What had he done to deserve such a fate? He knew better than to ponder that question, because the answers always came to him with ease.
It began with that stupid bet with the Queen over his prowess with his axe. As the Feller in the Queen’s Forest, he had a position of power and influence over all those who lived outside the royal city. To retain that power, he’d needed only to do his job and shut up. It turned out he could do neither.
When the bet was lost, he could have released his people from their vow of fealty to him. He could’ve accepted exile alone, and left them to live out their lives in peace among the earth and greenery of home. But he hadn’t even seriously considered the idea. If he was going down, he was taking them with him.
And then, over and above the exile, there were the things he’d done to his own family. Seducing his sister with a combination of magic and intimidation so that she’d conceive a child of pure Tufa stock, to counteract the gradual intermingling of his folk, first with the Asians who became the Native Americans, then with the Europeans who eventually followed the Tufa’s own route across the ocean. Then he’d seduced the child of that union, his daughter Curnen, in an attempt to intensify the pure bloodline even more.
But before any of his seed took hold in her, her husband—that annoying, smug bastard Brushy Dale—realized what was going on. On the night Rockhouse Hicks should have been enshrined as the newest star of the Grand Ole Opry, Brushy accused him before the other musicians, then beat him mercilessly.
Still, he got his revenge as he always did. He cursed Curnen to slow oblivion, and sent Brushy to spend eternity as a stone in the forest. And then he forgot about them both, which proved to be his fatal error.
Of course, none of the Tufa understood why he did those ostensibly terrible things. They had no idea what it was like to carry his
burden, no concept of the rage and responsibility that motivated him. His goal was always the same: keep the Tufa together, under his hand, until the day the Queen regretted her actions and allowed them home. Allowed him home.
He clung to that single thought as the eons passed, even though he knew that day would never come. In all the timeless years of her existence, the Queen had never, ever changed her mind.
Suddenly something moved in the room behind him.
He felt its presence as it took slow, light steps across the floor. It also gave off a faint, foxfirelike glow. The air grew charged with anticipation as it moved, not closer, but simply back and forth. To see it, he’d have to turn.
He didn’t want to do that.
But at last, he could resist no longer. Because he knew what he’d see.
He turned, the old chair squeaking as his weight shifted.
The woman wore a long black gown with immense hanging sleeves, all tattered and worn. She radiated the faint pale-blue light. A black veil covered her face, so he could not tell her age. But he knew her purpose.
He looked around for his electrolarynx.
“Don’t seek that mechanical voice, Tigh-na-creige,” she said, using the pure form of his name. “It’ll do nothing for you now. Nothing you could say will change your fate. That’s why I’m here.”
She lifted the veil. Beneath it was a beautiful mature woman of about forty, with dark hair falling around her face in waves.
Rockhouse mouthed her name. Radella.
“Your day has ended, by your own vile hand,” she said. Her voice had a distant quality, as if miles—or eons—separated them. “I am simply here to make it official.”
She smiled then, a smile so vicious and cold that it made his eyes well with new tears.
She tilted back her head, opened her mouth, and emitted a wailing shriek that filled the little room as if it had a physical force, pushing the air toward the walls and out through the myriad cracks and openings. Rockhouse suddenly couldn’t breathe, and he got to his feet to flee. But the abrupt movement, combined with his injuries, made him dizzy and he fell to the floor.
The sound continued, growing, if possible, even louder. It encompassed oceans of pain, sadness, and torment, a cry that had often heralded death among the Celtic peoples. But here it announced more than a simple passing from this world to the next. It told of cessation, nonexistence in a void that never ended and was all encompassing. It announced Rockhouse’s doom.
