Protecting Rayne

by Emily Bishop

  The old woman’s gaze swept down to my bare toes. “I see that.”

  “Come on in,” I said.

  Mama Kate looked over her shoulder, up at the sky then into the RV. She’d never been good indoors, not in all the time I’d known her in Moondance. But she buried whatever misgivings she had and clambered up the stairs, using the door handle for leverage.

  She squeezed her broad hips through the door, the beads on her arms rattling, and lowered herself onto one of the benches at the kitchen table.

  Mistress looked up from her cleaning and meowed.

  “Yes, old soul,” Mama Kate said. “The storm’s coming but ain’t nothing you can do about it. Cleaning won’t help.”

  Mistress meowed again and placed both front paws firmly on the table.

  “There’s a good one.” Mama Kate scratched her behind the ears.

  “Would you like some tea, Mama?”

  “You got that green tea?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then no thanks,” she replied. Mama Kate’s accent was a mixture of everything I’d ever heard, a little twang, a little drawl and rasp. I loved it. To my mind, she was well traveled, and that appealed to me. Or it had before this whole Jarryd thing. Falling in love changed things.

  “What can I help you with, Mama?”

  “You’re leaving again,” she said. “Leaving Moondance, yes?” She stroked Mistress’s back, and her beads rattled again. She swung her head and looked up at me. The scarf tied around her head was aquamarine and complemented her soulful eyes.

  “Yeah, I don’t have a choice.”

  “Why’s that, girlie?”

  “Because… well, some things happened.”

  “The actor,” she said, with her usual spooky intuitiveness.

  “I—yeah. How did you know?”

  “Girl, I hear things. Also, Jerr got an outside TV at the Bar and Grill yesterday.”

  “Oh,” I said. That ruled out intuition. “So you heard. Or you know.”

  “I know that you’re a damn fool if you leave Moondance now. You can’t let what other assholes think rule your life. What are you gonna do? Everywhere you go, there’s assholes. Every damn town is packed full of ‘em from here to New York to Texas. Hairy assholes, fat assholes, gassy assholes.”

  I snorted in spite of my mood. “Mama, I get your point.”

  “Then? Why you wanna leave?” She sniffed, scratched the tip of her nose.

  “Because… it’s complicated. It’s not about me. It’s about Jarryd, too, and I won’t condemn his career with who I am.”

  “Condemn his career, hot damn,” Mama Kate said. “You sure think a lot of yourself if you think you can do that. Girl, you’re being dumb. You’ve got to reach out and grab your opportunities while you still got the chance, understand?”

  “Jarryd’s a person, not an opportunity.”

  “Tomato, tomato,” she said, and she didn’t even pronounce the words differently. It made not a whit of sense. “He loves you from what I hear. From what I see.”

  “Mama, I don’t have a choice.”

  “You’re right there, girl. You can’t run from your destiny.” Mama Kate infuriated me at times like this.

  She was right, of course. I couldn’t run from whatever fate had in store. “Who says being with Jarryd is my destiny?”

  “You think it’s coincidence you came back to Moondance to live in your momma’s home, right at the same time he arrived here? That your meeting was chance?”

  “It could be.” I folded my arms across my chest and set my jaw.

  “Pah. Stubborn. You’re as stubborn as your mother before you,” Mama Kate said.

  I took it as a compliment.

  But Mama Kate wasn’t done with her lecture. She leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and quit rubbing Mistress. The cat didn’t take kindly to it and batted her for more attention. “A long time ago, when I was a young woman like yourself, I had the opportunity to be with a man I loved. He was a traveler, but I wanted to stay in Moondance under the trees and stars.”

  “A traveler?”

  “That’s right, girl,” she said and sighed. “He was a businessman. One of those professional men who sees the world. I told him I wouldn’t leave and that he should go. I didn’t want him to stay for me, when he had his whole life ahead of him.”

  “And did he go?”

  “Oh, he argued at first but yes, eventually he did go. And I never saw him again,” Mama Kate said. “I heard he got married though, and he had a couple kids.” She shrugged. “Maybe, if I’d dropped my ego and let it happen, it would have been me with the happy family.”

  My jaw dropped. I’d never figured Mama Kate for a woman who cared about having a happy family. She seemed so settled in herself, in her little spot in the trees with the folks who came and went. Her camp had always been homey.

  “How would you feel if this actor of yours left at last, found himself another woman, married her, had kids?” Kate asked.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. How would I feel? Shattered. It’d break me into a million pieces watching him find someone else, and likely, I’d end up hearing about it in the long run, since he was famous, but it didn’t change anything.

  “I have to leave. Staying would mean hurting him.”

  “You can’t always put people ahead of yourself,” Mama Kate said. “What about what you want?”

  “What I want? All I wanted was to come to Moondance and live happily in my old house. That was all. I wanted to feel at home somewhere instead of like a stranger. And now, I can’t do that.”

  Mama Kate sniffed. “Let me ask you something, girl.”

  “What?”

  “Do you feel at home when you’re with him?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Kate heaved her bulk off the bench and nodded—a quick bob of the head. “Then what you need the house for, huh?” She drew me into a brief, one-armed hug then let go and trundled off, down the steps.

  The wind had picked up outside, and raindrops splattered the windows. I rushed to the door. “Mama, don’t you want a ride back to the RV park?”

  She waved over her shoulder without replying and walked on, her face upturned to the sky, the coming storm whipping the tail ends of her aquamarine scarf back and forth.

  I watched her until she reached the exit of the fairgrounds then shut the side door of the RV and muted the noise of the wind and thunder.

  Mistress sat and studied me from bright yellow kitty eyes.

  “Are you ready, gorgeous?” I asked. “It’s time we hit the road.”

  For once, Mistress didn’t have anything to say.

  Chapter 27

  Jarryd

  I stormed down the dirt road between the trees toward the RV site, driven by the thought of Aurora alone, upset. I’d done this to her. I’d wanted her too much and been blinded to the possibilities. Now, my eyes were open.

  She would be mine before the day was out.

  I reached the first plot and passed a couple, positioned on lawn chairs outside it. They chatted amiably but stopped at my passing and sat up a little straighter. I pushed on, under the rumbling cloudbank.

  The weather matched my mood perfectly. Droplets of rain splattered the grass—not a full rain, just the sky clearing its throat. I shuddered but put my dislike for storms aside. Aurora was more important than that.

  I wound between the lots, ignoring heated stares from folks packing up their things, or lounging outside, regardless of the coming rain. Perhaps, folks in Moondance were used to this type of weather, or they’d ceased to give a fuck.

  “That’s Jarryd Tombs,” a man whispered, to my right. I marched on before he lobbed insults at me, or asked for a selfie. Either was possible now. Whispers or outright chatter followed me through the park.

  People came out of their homes and watched my passing. Me in my new pair of jeans and the shirt Aurora had picked out for me. It was almost as
if the news had spread on the air itself, carried by wind currents.

  How the hell did they know I was here before I’d even passed their trailers? Another question that didn’t warrant much investigation.

  I rounded the side of another plot and walked the short span toward Aurora’s spot. My guts dropped, twisted. Her RV was gone. I was too late.

  “No,” I grunted and clenched a fist. “No fucking way. I’m not letting this happen.”

  She couldn’t have gone already. This wasn’t how our story was meant to end. I’d written enough hit blockbusters to know that this wasn’t over yet.

  I cast around, searching the trees that stood tall, bark dark and leaves ruffled by the coming storm then scanned the RVs closest to Aurora’s plot. Surely, one of them would know which way she’d gone.

  I’d follow her, catch her, whatever it took to make her see sense.

  The RV closest to me was a glitzy machine—all black and silver, with a lightning decal on its side. It was three times the size of Aurora’s, and the doors were shut tight, the curtains drawn in the windows.

  I walked up to it, raised my fist, and banged on the door. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

  No answer.

  I knocked again, this time louder than the wind, which howled and plucked at the hem of my shirt, lifting it to reveal the v which trailed beneath the lip of my jeans. “Hello?”

  The latch on the door clacked back. A woman appeared in the crack, frowning out at me. Bright red hair, freckles, a little overweight and in her forties, she looked me up and down. “You’re famous,” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I mean, it doesn’t matter. I need your help.”

  “My help? For what?” she asked and inched the crack smaller. “Storm’s coming. I’m not going out in that.”

  “I don’t need you to go out in it,” I said. “Please, ma’am. Please, do you know the woman who was parked in the spot adjacent to yours?” I shuffled back and pointed to the lot. “Aurora Bell.”

  The redhead’s eyes flickered wider. “Oh,” she said. “You’re after her. That’s your girlfriend, right? The one you left Felicity Swan for?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not the whole truth. It’s important I find and speak to her. Can you tell me which way she went? Did you see her leave?”

  “No. And I don’t much care which way she went. She was the one who did all that voodoo out there at the fairgrounds. Bad magic. She was one of those witches, the dark, evil kinds. You should stay away from her.” She slapped the RV’s door shut and locked it again.

  I stared at my reflection in the sleek black gloss, my fists clenched and the muscles of my forearms corded, pronounced. The wind teased my hair, tugged at my shirt and pressed it flat over my abs, now.

  “She’s gone,” I said and stared at my reflection. “Someone has to know.”

  I jumped off the RV’s steps and marched to the next vehicle in the line. This one was about the same size as Aurora’s had been, and all in chrome and silver. No lightning strikes here. I banged on the door and it flew inward. “Shit!”

  “Hey!” a man yelled inside. “What’s the big idea?” He appeared, a guy in a robe that strained over his thick body, and pointed a finger at my chest. “I could’ve been naked, dude.”

  His hairy legs stuck out of the bottom of the robe, and his toenails had been painted pink. I blinked at them, shook my head. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t expect it to be unlocked.”

  “Grandpa? Grandpa, I wasn’t done with your toenails,” a little girl squeaked from deeper in the RV.

  “Coming, darlin’,” the man replied then ruffled his thick gray hair. “What do you want? I’m in the middle of a torture session, here.”

  “Grandpa!”

  “Yeah, yeah, beauty session. Sorry, princess.” The man gave the girl a thumbs up.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” I said. “I’m looking for the woman who used to stay in that lot over there? Aurora Bell. She was a fortune-teller at the local fairgrounds.”

  The guy leaned out, and I shrank back to allow him space. “Nope,” he said. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”

  “I’ve got to find her,” I said.

  “Then you shouldn’t have lost her in the first place.” And the grandpa shut the door on me.

  I traveled from RV to RV, knocking on doors, finding some of the vehicles empty, and others occupied. The neighbors were less than helpful. Every one of them called Aurora some variation of “witch,” except for one little old lady who didn’t seem sure what day it was, let alone who I was talking about.

  Meanwhile, the storm growled and spat above me, a creature preparing for its attack. Finally, I hopped down and stood facing Aurora’s lot, hands in the pockets of my jeans, burning from the inside out.

  “I have to find her,” I grunted.

  “Hello.” Light and airy, I recognized the voice instantly, though the last time I’d heard it had been at the fairgrounds on the same night I’d met Aurora and this had all started.

  I turned and offered the popcorn girl a smile. “Felicity,” I said.

  “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t think you’d remember me,” she said and twirled one of her pigtails. “That’s so cool!”

  “Of course, I do. Best popcorn I’ve ever had. And you pointed me to the fortune-teller’s tent,” I said.

  “Yeah.” She craned her neck and spied the empty spot I’d been obsessing over. “I’m sad she’s gone.”

  “Did you see her leave?” I asked, and hope exploded in my chest again, fireworks, sparking and flashing in the dark. “Aurora, did you see Aurora?”

  Felicity wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah. I kind of helped her pack up her tent. I hope you’re not angry with me because of that. I tried to talk her out of it kinda, but it didn’t work.”

  “She went to the fairgrounds!’

  “Yeah.”

  I itched to set off. “Thanks, Felicity. Have a good afternoon.” I brushed past the girl and made it two steps—

  “Hey, wait!” the girl yelled. “She’s not there anymore, now. She’s already left.”

  “What?” I looked back.

  “Yeah, she packed up and left I think. I mean, I didn’t see her leave exactly but when I walked home, her RV was gone from the fairgrounds.”

  All those fireworks fizzled out. “So, you didn’t see which way she went?”

  “No, sorry. But—”

  I gripped my forehead and massaged my temples. Gone. She couldn’t be gone. Christ, how had it come to this?

  “Mr. Tombs?”

  “Yeah.”

  The teenager shuffled over, shivering from the wind, her arms crossed over her red and white striped uniform. “I think she didn’t want to do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think she likes you.”

  I blinked at her. Shit, had this girl seen the news reports, the blurred pictures of Aurora and me? Jesus, that’s not humiliating at all.

  “She left because she was scared, I think. I don’t know much about love and romance but it looked to me like she was afraid. and that was why she ran. Maybe, if you find her, you can convince her to stay.” Felicity spun toward the empty lot again. “It’s going to be awful quiet without her around. Awful boring.”

  “Thanks,” I said, because what the hell else could I say? The whole point of my presence here was to find her, yet no one could tell me where she’d gone.

  “If it helps, I saw Mama Kate heading toward her RV before I went to help my sister pack up the popcorn machine.”

  “Mama Kate?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she’s the old lady of the forest. She’s friends with Aurora. I think she might know where Aurora went, but I can’t be sure. I mean, I don’t want to tell you that she knows and then she doesn’t. I—”

  I marched over and Felicity cut off. “Where does Mama Kate live?” I asked.

  “Th-through there,” Felicity said and pointed to the forest, behind the chromed-out RV. “There’s a clearing
a few minutes’ walk in. She should be there, now. I think. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I replied. “Thanks a lot. You’ve been helpful.” I smiled again, broader this time, by way of encouragement, and the teen gave me a double thumbs up. “Where do you live? Are you going to be OK to get there in this?” I pointed to the clouds.

  The wind whined, now, a low groan between the vehicles.

  “Yeah. I’m right over there,” she said and pointed to the black and silver lighting strike RV. “I’ll be fine. You go ahead. And, Mr. Tombs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hope you find her. You guys make a cute couple.”

  “Thanks, kiddo,” I said and patted her on the shoulder.

  I made for the forest, slipped a little on a patch of wet grass but kept my footing. The forest during a storm—what fresh fucking hell was this? Two of my worst nightmares mixed into one. I hadn’t told Aurora, but the forest creeped me the hell out. At least, being alone in one did.

  I wasn’t exactly cut out for hiking. Probably had something to do with my LA lifestyle, but I’d never backed down from fear, and I wouldn’t now. I charged between the trees, and the light dropped by half.

  It was murky, quiet but for the rumble of thunder, and the starting patter of rain on the canopy overhead. I drew my cell phone out of my pocket and tapped the flashlight app to illuminate the twigs and mulched leaves on the forest floor.

  I scanned the trees, tried orientating myself, but it was futile. All I could do was head inward and hope I’d find this Mama Kate’s camp before true dark. I strode along, over rocks and roots, thankful for the ankle boots I’d bought at Nancy’s clothing store.

  “A visitor,” a voice rasped, from behind a tree trunk to my left.

  I froze and moved the flashlight over, searched for the source of noise.

  “I know your face,” the woman hissed and stepped into view.

  Gray hair trapped beneath a long, turquoise scarf, broad hips enclosed in a long, swishy skirt that brushed the roots and dirt. Her eyes were diamonds in her skull, glittering in the dark, and beads clattered as she moved toward me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, though I already had an inkling.