Black Locust Letters

by Nicolette Jinks

  Betty nodded. “But he sounded pretty sure of it when he said good-bye.”

  Liza scoffed. “Men. Good for a dose of the drama. But you listen to me, girl, if you're seeing his hide, you'd best do no more than see it. Don't let him open that mouth around you, he's got a way with words.”

  To cover her expression, Betty checked her mailbox, and found an invitation.

  Curious, she opened it, read it, and sat down to muse it over. Though the envelope had been a stranger's handwriting, perhaps a clerk had looked up Tango's address, the invitation itself was in a handwriting well-known to Betty.

  Liza gave the break room a heavy sigh as though she viewed a place of utter tranquillity instead of what was essentially a perpetual battlefield of shears versus mint as the mint tried to overtake the cracks in the walls and the shears fended them off as long as possible. They both stared at the stove.

  Even in the summer someone kept wood in the stove and the kettle on, but with the cooler weather, everyone crowded around the blue-flecked enamel and watched the flames through glass which needed frequent cleaning. The old stove had been cast iron and it had rusted through, so Mr. Gresley had bought a new one from Gary's Appliance Manufacturing.

  Rumor had it that Gary had watched when his competitors opened a truckload of imported electronic appliances, smooth and glossy white or red ones, according to common report. Exactly what had come out of the truck, however, was a subject debated as sorely and enthusiastically as any political issue at the holiday table. What was known was that Gary couldn't stop laughing for weeks after, not until a ghost frightened him into hiccupping. The hiccups, unlike his laughter, had never been cured, and you could see this very plainly in the pattern of the enamel he sprayed on every new appliance.

  “What are you reading?” Liza asked.

  “Just an invitation.”

  “Oooh, what's it to?”

  “Nothing so exciting. Here, look for yourself.”

  Betty handed over the envelope and card.

  Liza eagerly read the card. Betty watched as her face faltered, then fell to confusion. Liza held it flat to the table and said, “You can't accept this.”

  Betty had been expecting a laugh over it, then to toss the card in the fire and forget that it had ever happened. Her brows crumpled together as a new idea set in.

  “You don't think I want his affections, do you?”

  “I don't know what to think of fence-sitters.”

  Without meaning to, Betty got to her feet and towered over the table, as if that would drive the message home.

  “I am not a fence-sitter.”

  Liza opened her mouth to argue, but a new voice said, “What is this?”

  Liza hid the envelope under her palms. “It's nothing, Mr. Gresley.”

  He twitched his fingers, beckoning for the envelope. Liza gave Betty a 'sorry, I tried' expression and obeyed. Mr. Gresley read it, both unsurprised and unaffected by its contents. Then he said to Betty, “This is what you are going to write back. Listen well.”

  Chapter 13

  The club was unbearably loud, blaring against her eardrums as she opened the side door, music spilling into the street along with the flicker of gas lights. She thought about backing down and hailing a taxi to take her home again, but a press of giggling freshmen girls shuffled her inside with them.

  Inside, Betty froze. The club was an old gymnasium, polished wood floors still marked with basketball lines, pizza and popcorn sold where the concessions stand was built into the wall, the stage possessed by a croaking Richard Welch who seemed to have donated his night off for the club's benefit. They had remodelled the stairs, making two platforms, one for eating, another as a lounge furnished with red vinyl like in the diner.

  It was here she collided into a woman who jerked, saving her soda at the last second, and glared. “Who do you think you—Betty?”

  “Liza?”

  Betty thought they must wear identical expressions of surprise. What would Liza say at work? Who knew how Mr. Gresley would respond.

  The man Liza was leading up the stairs blinked at Betty, eyes going between them. “Do you know the human?”

  His phrasing was not lost on Betty, nor was Liza's wince and indecision.

  “Works at Tango,” Liza said.

  “What is she doing here?”

  Liza shook her head and Betty stammered, “I was invited.”

  “Did you say you were Betty?” He asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Yes” Betty said, wondering why he wanted to know. The man frowned, studying her suddenly from head to toe. It wasn't a sexual appraisal, but a professional one. He reached for Betty's face, to tip her chin up and bare the throat.

  “The morning show. You have not been as cheeky lately. I would even call you distracted. By what?”

  Betty felt sick to her stomach to think he would know all of this, but when she looked to Liza, her lips were set in a grim line and her eyes implored her to answer him.

  “Who are you?” Betty asked, meaning to sound casual but sounding frightened instead.

  He chuckled, a rough noise, and bore fangs when he smiled. “Ferdinand. I report to the General.”

  First or last name, Betty did not know, but since he had not given her his rank, she presumed he did not want her to know. Yet he mentioned the general, so he wanted to have Betty's opinion of her own father. She said, “I am sorry for all who have duties to him.”

  Ferdinand angled his head and studied her. “What brings you here?”

  The quiet song ended with the blare of a man's voice, but Ferdinand watched her lips, no doubt accustomed to lip reading over loud noises.

  “Thomas.” She had other interests besides, but he was the most pressing, a threat and a warning whose meaning was lost on her.

  At first, Ferdinand said nothing and she thought he would ask her again, but he jerked his head to bring her around the corner of the wall where the music was muffled.

  “Thomas Eldestein. Crow. Aerial battalion.” His orange eyes were staring at her, unblinking. “It is my night out on the town. No one here knows enough to tell you one way or the other about Tom. What makes you ask?”

  Betty glanced away, unsettled by his gaze. How much could she say?

  This made him nod. “That was you, then, at the market. Didn't get the warning. You're out of practice, not talking to either camp, aren't you?”

  Betty swallowed, not wanting him to know that he was too right. Ferdinand pulled Liza close in to his side. “No more talk. Go listen to Incubus. Dance some. That's why you're here. If you want gossip, go to the neighbourhood dinner Saturday afternoons.”

  With that, he left Betty to the beat of drums reverberating through the night.

  Betty found the neighbourhood dinner by watching out her window at the streets for the march of women and children. She followed the line of women and children with a plate consisting of a gelatin mould containing colorful bits of fruit. Approaching the house, so similar yet so different to her own, was an awkward affair and something that she nearly backed down on twice. But presently the door opened before she could knock, her offering of red gelatin was studied and accepted, taken out of her hands, the door left open for Betty to find her own way down the narrow hall.

  They had the dining room where Betty had a living room, and the living room was a makeshift nursery for the entire assortment of neighbourhood kids.

  In the kitchen, a luxurious add-on which Betty did not have, several women gathered around the stove, making light talk which tapered off at the sight of Betty. She smiled meekly, suddenly feeling like a stray dog begging for scraps.

  “Hi, I'm Betty. I live just down the road.”

  The one who held her gelatin nodded. “I'm two over, the one with the dog who won't shut his mouth. Sorry about that. Name's Della.”

  One by one, the others introduced themselves, but it was only Della's name that she could remember.

  Betty passed the afternoon making casual talk, and ev
entually they realized she was the morning voice for Tango, and their behavior warmed noticeably. They heaped plates for everyone, and Betty was horrified to see that they had tuna and lime gelatin sandwiches, which she felt obligated to swallow. She did so as best she could without tasting, and was glad that the rest of the offerings were more appealing: Green bean casserole with potato chips to top, a very delicious chocolate cake she was amazed to discover got its moistness from a can of tomato soup, coleslaw made with apples and celery, and a cordial of tomato sauce and celery.

  “What made you finally decide to come?” Della asked, cutting through a rant about the bin collection day and inducing silence throughout the party.

  Betty shifted, feeling uncomfortable to admit to the truth. “Ferdinand suggested I come.”

  “Ferdinand?” Repeated Della, eyebrows raised.

  Betty hesitated. “Do you know him?”

  “Claire's son. Number 85. Where did you meet him at?”

  Betty didn't like being on this side of the information ring, but if she wanted to get anything, she needed to give some. “I was at the rockability club.”

  Della laughed, not an amused laugh but one of surprise. “There's a lot more to this story than we are hearing! Talk, now, talk. Don't fret, we will think kindly of you.”

  But Betty did worry, still, there wasn't much to be had for it if she wanted to find out about Tom. So, uncomfortably, she said, “It sort of goes back for a while. Jenny at the market? The wool seller? She's sort of a friend. At least, I think she saved my skin not long ago.”

  “Yes, Sunny Glenn has become...temperamental towards who it will tolerate,” admitted Geri, number 23.

  “Well...I always get wool from her.”

  “You said so! Why? Do you knit?”

  “Crochet.”

  “Oh, good, there's a sewing club every Tuesday morning at the Jive Café,” Geri said, then she paused. “What day do you have off? It's during your shift.”

  Betty smiled. “I would actually have to look. The schedule changes a bit, and we do an extra recording every now and then.”

  “Anyway,” prompted Della. “Jenny? How does she come into you seeing us?”

  Betty licked her lips, not knowing how to breach this. It felt as though she were breaking the trust they had made over the last hour or so. “Well, I wanted to ask Jenny about someone at work I was...worried about.”

  Realization dawned on Geri's face. “Tom. You were asking about Tom.”

  “My boss said he was gone and that's why I went to the Autumn Festival. And then the days kept on passing and there was no one who was willing to talk about him, so...I found my way here.”

  They were suddenly solemn, looking at one another as though making a nonverbal decision.

  Betty sighed. “He's dead, isn't he?”

  Geri's eyes snapped to hers. “Oh, no. They sent him out. Didn't say where, but since there's no open combat, there's only one place he could have gone.”

  Betty blinked, surprised. “What?”

  “They sent him out to enemy territory. Intelligence in the worst of places. Not quite an execution, but good enough to be one.”

  “Why?”

  Geri shrugged. “He talked too much to the wrong crowd.”

  Chapter 14

  Betty made the short trek home, glad that she lived so nearby because the rain came down like someone was pouring a hose over a shaking bedsheet. In no time, she had a fire roaring and her clothes drying on the backs of chairs. Her thoughts worried at her, demanding satisfaction, turning into restless nerves when she reviewed how very little she had to show for her efforts.

  The wine had been meant to give her courage, but all it had done was turn the room into a warm haze and make the handwriting on the envelope fuzz over. Still, she drew it to her lips and breathed in the scent fading but subtle and still there. Quickened her pulse, made the room swim in her vision.

  Was this her second glass or third? She'd been distracted, anxious, dreading the popping of the seal yet unable to draw away from it. She was doing this tonight, and for all her procrastination she wouldn't deter from it. Her finger slid into the open gap the wax blot tugged beneath her knuckle then it gave way. The flap angled open and Betty stared at it an instant, exhilarated and woozy. Then she tipped the envelope over and shook out a letter decorated with a flourishing swirl.

  Hands shaking, she picked it up and smoothed it out, but she couldn't focus on the fine script. She closed her eyes.

  She woke in time to hear Welch's voice on the radio read off the hour as 1:35 AM. She would have to be awake in 2 hours.

  Then she realized it was a day off and she resolved to read them - right as she fell asleep again.

  Morning had broken through Betty’s red and white plaid15 curtains, casting a pink hue over her legs and shining directly into her eyes. Betty groaned and rolled over, falling off the couch with a soft thud that she hardly felt. She rubbed her eyes and smacked cottonmouth from her thick tongue. It took her a few minutes to realize it was dawn.

  Betty hadn't seen the sun rise in some time. The studio didn't have exterior windows to cut down on outside noise, and her days off she usually was standing over the stove, and that room had westward facing windows.

  There on the table as she sat up was the cause of her rumpled clothes and stiff joints: A wine bottle, not quite empty. Betty felt like a lightweight—back in her days with Slim, she would take whiskey and bourbon to match him and she would still spring awake in the next morning—well, in the afternoon.

  As Betty stood up, something fell from her lap and she re discovered the cause for her admittedly self-induced malaise: A letter, cottonwood paper, sap ink, brilliantly fresh burst of sweet black locust. She took it with her to the kitchen, dropping the letter on her window seat as she made coffee in her perculator—which she realized she had to first make a fire to boil the water with.

  Her toes had gone numb and when she poured water into the tin perculator, it was cold as well water. While the fire smouldered into life, Betty watched it with disgruntled unamusement from her perch on her mattress, wrapped up in a blanket with her fingers cupping her toes, feeling like a slug or caterpillar.

  She glared at the letter, but could hardly blame it for merely existing. After all, it had been made by others, ink pressed upon it, hands delivered it, all independent of the will of the letter itself. It wasn't as though the letter had done anything. Then all at once, she realized she, too, had been made, delivered, and written upon, used as a tool, a method of communication. But the letter hadn't a mind, hadn't a will. Betty had both, didn't she?

  The smoke began to drift up the chimney instead of filling up the house. Whatever would the landlord say if she offered to put up half the cost to install a gas oven? Clarkin's report about electric pyros had her frightened of wires and chords, but being in Geri's house with the gas oven had given her a taste for the wonders of instant flame.

  At last with coffee, Betty sat in the living room with the letter and flipped it open.

  My dearest singer, you sounded forlorn today, as though adrift in nearly forgotten memories. It is a day of remembrance, and while I can not suppose to imagine what your recollections are, I can share mine.

  Betty frowned, trying to think of which day this could have been. Was this from her morning of the Carnival? It was the most recent Remembrance Day, the last one was back in May, and she hadn't been receiving the letters then. His calling her forlorn—she presumed the writer was a he—surprised her, but as she thought upon it, she had been distracted on that day. Had her thoughts been turned towards Tom? She couldn't recall. So she read, intrigued.

  Today I remembered the various missions I have served, so unlike the common soldiers orders to go here or go there, where they have a hope for rescue by Valkyries-you see, for me there was no such hope, as I was among the Valkyries (though it must be said I do not make an attractive face for the role, yet none who I saved expressed much disappointment in the discovery)
.

  We were all of various forms and abilities, a big pool who operated in two or more smaller units. I also worked as a Will-O-the-Wisp, there were not many of us in that section, and I would tell you more of what I did if only I could. Were it not for my anonymity, I would not even reveal the term.

  How, then, to relate what I wish to without speaking of what I should not? We had a saying, that any place you could use a foggy mist, you could use a Will-O-the-Wisp. Whatever you are imagining, it could not be far from the truth. My most thrilling times, sorry I cannot help but admit to my enjoyment, were the Cuckoo missions.

  It was an insurmountable danger to be in the nest of the enemy, but such a sweeping victory. It came at great cost, for I could little resist, or afford to resist, meeting so many good people and securing their friendship, only to betray it. I fancy that a number of them owe to me their lives, though I have not seen them since. When I could, I was as Loti, though this did not please my superiors and more than once I came to regret my mercy.

  She read this paragraph over a few times, puzzling it out. From her memories, Valkyries were beautiful maidens or sometimes ugly hags who swept down from the heavens to carry away the viking men who died valiantly in battle, to take them up to Valhalla where they would live in an endless circle of glorious battle and great feasts.

  The way it read here, though, was more as reinforcements rather than collectors of the dead. Betty was not so sure about the will-o-the-wisps, but she thought it was a Celtic folklore, something about lights and leading weary travellers to their demise. She would have to look up the reference to the bird, though, she wasn't that great of an ornithologist.

  I allowed myself a great many luxuries in life: Friends, family, unbridled pleasures, and the disappointments associated with them, but there is one thing which I have wished for yet never had, and I fear rejoining the mist without experiencing the joys of sorrows associated with it.

  I hope one day soon to to fall in love, and perhaps to have a family. It would be a grave regret were I not to experience at least the first. I think this is what remembrance day is for, to reflect and consider, and to be grateful for what we have, and to look forward with the knowledge that one day, today will be but a memory as well.