by Faith Hunter
* * *
I didn’t sleep well. The cats were difficult, up half the night, mrowing and yodeling and walking across the bed, especially Jezzie, who kept sticking her nose into my ear and breathing. It wasn’t like her. She had never done such a thing before. I got up a little after three a.m. and put them out, but it had snowed unexpectedly during the night and they started caterwauling, so I got back up and let them in. After that, there was no going back to sleep for me. Of course, the cats then curled up on the bed and fell deeply to sleep for the rest of the night. They must have wanted the whole bed for themselves.
The house had chilled down, so I put fresh logs in the Waterford (checking first to make sure the strange branches were still ash—they were), and made coffee. On the couch, in my jammies, robe, wool socks, slippers, and an afghan, I checked e-mails. I discovered that at about two a.m., all the surviving deer from the accident had died. They had been walking in a circle, clockwise, not eating, not drinking, just walking, constantly, at the University of Tennessee’s forestry, wildlife, and fisheries department, where the living ones had been taken. Within minutes of each other, near dusk, they had buckled, fallen, and died. Their bodies were still redlining, according to a PsyCSI tech who had been dispatched to the site. The deer were going to receive necropsies and then be cremated ASAP, in case they had something contagious.
Rick had pulled a late-nighter and had replied to my reports with comments and a few questions for clarity, which I answered, and amended my reports to reflect the corrections. Report-speak was a language all its own and had to be searchable, in multiple law enforcement databases, often with their own languages and terms.
Occam had sent a text to ask if I was okay, since I had left the neighborhood scene so quickly, and also because he had seen that I was going to be late tomorrow—well, today, now. I sent back a quick comment that I was fine, and would see the unit soon.
I was dressed for work by five a.m. in a long dull green skirt, leggings, layers, and my dress boots instead of my field boots. Shortly after, I called Mama’s number. The Nicholsons were farm people and got up when the roosters started crowing, sometimes by four a.m., so they could make it to morning devotionals, which took place at dawn. Sometimes the family ate breakfast before church, sometimes after. Life on the compound of God’s Cloud of Glory Church was both strict and fluid: strict in the sense that everything revolved around church, and church had rigid schedules, and fluid in that families could do what they wanted with their daily schedules, otherwise, so long as they worked at something that supported the church—woodworking, working the fields, sewing, animal husbandry, or whatever needed doing on the land that supported them.
I listened as the call rang. It was still strange to know Mama had a cell phone. It was an old-fashioned one with a flip case, but she knew how to use it.
“Nell?” Mama said, picking up, the sound of Nicholsons loud in the background: a baby wailing, children singing a familiar song about Noah and his animals two by two, skillets and pots banging in the kitchen. Breakfast in such a large clan wasn’t usually a single sit-down affair, but was generally done in stages, groups coming and going for a couple of hours. Loud and gregarious and full of energy. The exact opposite of my daily routine, solo and silent.
“Hey, Mama.”
“You’un feeling better, honey? You feel good enough to come to breakfast? I’ll make you some French toast, just the way you like it.”
Right. I had the flu. I was certainly on the road to hell, lying to my mama. “I feel great. I’ll be there fast as I can get there.”
“Drive safe. I’ll alert the guards at the gate to expect you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Bye.” Alert the guards at the gate? I had thought that kind of stuff was done.
I gathered my things, put the cats on the back porch with food, water, and a cat litter box that I kept for very cold weather, tied the old cat blanket from last winter to the hammock, and closed up the house. The cats would spend a few hours getting settled into the hammock, which would be a game, flipping, rotating, and rocking, and then once they settled into it they could sleep away the day.
Out front, the sky was black with a heavy, wet snow falling, and I mushed my way to the truck. The snow slop wasn’t truly frozen, and I was able to drive most of the way down the mountain, the tires picking up clods of mud and snow slush. I needed to get a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and that was on my to-buy list as soon as I could afford it, but it would be a while. The upgraded solar panels and batteries had taken a considerable chunk of change from the sale of John’s gun, and I wasn’t ready to become a truly modern woman and go into debt. Yet.
The guards at the church’s twelve-foot-tall gate were carrying shotguns and rifles, but they let me in after I presented my driver’s license. Inside, there were dogs and armed men patrolling the grounds, and that sort of thing was supposed to have been finished under the new leadership in the church, but it seemed old habits were too established to let that occur. Or maybe something else had reinforced the old patterns.
Here, there was only a light dusting of snow, and though it was still falling, it was melting even faster. The day was yet too gloomy to see the tree I was interested in, so I drove on to the Nicholson house and parked beside Daddy’s red truck. The house was a three-story saltbox-style block of a house, with more rooms up under the eaves, big enough for all three wives and all the children. I cut the engine and pulled a plastic baggie from the glove box. Before I could get out of the Chevy truck, the front door opened and Mud came tearing out at a dead run. She leaped off the porch, yanked open the heavy truck door, and threw herself at me in a hug tight enough to cut off the blood to my lower limbs. I hugged her back just as tight.
“I missed you,” she said into my middle. She had grown since I’d been gone. Maybe a whole inch.
“I missed you too,” I said softly.
Mud pulled away, backing to the house, jerking on my arm. “Did you’un bring me a present? Mama said I wasn’t to ask but—did you?”
“Of course.” I held out the baggie and shook it. Mud snatched it from me and said, “Dust?” Then, squealing, “No. Seeds!” She turned and raced inside, leaving me climbing the steps to the porch. Mud was whatever I was, species-wise. Nothing was more precious to either of us than living, growing things: seeds, roots, cuttings, flowers, even pollen.
“You spoil that girl.”
I flinched and my hands fisted. The result of training and bruises from Spook School self-defense classes. In the same instant, I saw the man sitting in the shadows, on a rocker. Still. Silent.
“Sam?”
There was a shotgun across my brother’s knees. He stood and met me halfway, in a hug that surprised me. Sam and I had spent all the years of our childhoods fighting and arguing; hugging had never been part of our relationship. Tentatively, I hugged back.
“You’un gonna steal the bubblegum in my pocket?”
I chuckled into the rough wool of his pea coat. Rather than answer, I reached into his coat pocket and took a piece. “For later,” I said. “Thank you.” I stuck it in my own.
“We’uns got us a problem, Nellie,” he said. “When you’uns done with breakfast, we need to talk about Daddy.”
“Okay.” Daddy had been shot not long ago. I had seen him on my last visit and he had looked a mite puny but nothing to cause the concerned tone in my brother’s voice. Was Daddy sick? Not healing right? Did he have cancer? Heart disease? None of that ran in our family, but I had a bad feeling about it. I couldn’t make myself ask, and I hoped it was just a bad guess. Sam opened the front door, like a gentleman, and followed me in. Small talk with Sam had never been easy, but I gave it a go as he closed the door and unwound his scarf, asking, “So, how’s married life?”
My brother smiled, showing teeth, his eyes crinkling up. “Better than fine. Finer than frog fur spilt three ways.”
“I’m g
lad. Marriage should be a happy thing,” I said, shucking out of my coat.
“I’m sorry yours was bad, Nell.”
That stopped me and I shrugged, uncomfortable with the topic of my marriage. I said, “Better the Ingrams than to live with the colonel. Way better, brother of mine.”
“That is the God’s own truth, sister,” he agreed.
“What kinda seeds are these?” Mud shouted over the din, a clamor that suddenly crashed down on me. Sam patted my shoulder. “Home sweet home. Come get me when you’uns done with women’s talk.”
“Okay.” I moved through the controlled chaos to the kitchen and hugged Mama. “Love you, Mama.”
“Love you too, baby girl. Sit a spell.” I did and she dished up breakfast and slid a quart jar of honey to me. “Eat you’uns’ French toast,” she demanded to all the bodies at the table. “Sam! Daddy’s busy. You come on and eat. Give that wife of yours a morning in bed.”
“What. Are. The. Seeds!” Mud shouted, jerking my jacket.
“Mindy, you mind your manners!” Mama demanded.
In the living room, three tiny little’uns started resinging the song about Noah and the flood.
“Brighamia,” I shouted to my sister, as half a dozen older little’uns raced through the living room, screaming. I shook my head at the culture shock of being home again. No. Not that. Just being here. Loudly I said, “It’s a succulent bellflower from Hawaii. The common names are alula, olulu, or pu aupaka. Read up on it. Only plant a few at a time,” I cautioned her, and caught her eyes with my own. I added, “You’re going to have to make it grow.”
Mud’s eyes went wide. “Make . . .”
Make. It. Grow, I mouthed. We hadn’t talked about her ability with plants. Nor my own. That was a discussion for private places, surrounded by rich soil and clean water and the soul of the earth.
“You . . . you know?”
I gave her a twitch of a smile and said, “I am.”
Mud sucked in a breath, eyes so wide I feared they’d pop out of her eye sockets. She took off as if her britches were on fire.
“Nell, you let that child get ready for devotionals and eat,” Mama said. “You want tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, Mama.”
“Coffee for me too, Mama,” Sam said.
“Gitchur own cup, Samuel,” Mama said briskly. “You ain’t a visitor, and I ain’chur maid. If I hear you been making Miss SaraBell get you’un’s coffee, I’ll tan your bottom.”
Sam laughed and got a mug from the cabinet. It was chipped, the lip brown with coffee stains, the enamel cracked and worn, the shine long gone. “I take good care of my wife, Mama.”
“You best do. Get a plate, Sam, if’n you want French toast.”
Across the room, as the minutes before sunrise arrived, the sister-wives, Mama Carmel and Mama Grace, gathered up all the children still eating and led all the young’uns out of the house, to devotions, all of them waving to me and to Sam and to Mama. They were all dressed for the cold, but didn’t stop to talk. Which was strange, as all this morning felt strange. And I realized that Mama was skipping morning devotions to have a cup of coffee with me. Which was incredibly sweet. Or . . . maybe not. If Mama had something to say, she would grab the first opportunity and say it. An impromptu meeting. When I was growing up, such meetings had been a precursor to me getting a good whipping.
Not wanting to start a conversation that I suddenly didn’t want to have, I ate Mama’s delicious French toast, made with real vanilla, heavy cream, butter, sugar, and her secret ingredient. Whatever that was. No one knew. As I ate, Daddy ambled out of the back. With a cane. Mama watched him, lips tight. Sam watched him, his expression a mirror of hers.
Daddy joined us at the table and sipped on a cup of coffee, his eyes on me. He looked bad. I had been gone only a little while, a couple of months, but Daddy had lost weight, maybe thirty pounds. His face was gray and tight with pain. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew my daddy was in trouble. Yeah. This wasn’t just breakfast. It was a meeting, in the odd quiet of the strangely deserted house, just Mama, Sam, Daddy, and me, hastily engineered by Mama when I called.
My French toast gone, I sat back in my kitchen chair, the mismatched spindles pressing into my spine. Mama put on a fresh pot of coffee to percolate, no longer looking at her husband or her son, or even at me—working, keeping busy. Like I did, when there was trouble. I frowned and got up, pouring myself, Mama, and Daddy more coffee from the pot that was ready, and leaving the coffeepot on the table in front of Sam to pour his own. “Daddy?” I asked. “You got a broken leg or something?”
“Jist a bit of digestive upset. Mama Carmel’s got me on half a dozen decoctions and infusions. I’ll be right as rain again soon. Good to see you, Nell.”
“But, Daddy—”
“No. This is not a topic for discussion. You’uns say grace yet? No? This is a Christian household. Sam. Give thanks.” Daddy lowered his head, and that ended any chance for me to speak to Daddy’s health.
I sighed, the breath little more than a whisper. I had been right. Daddy was sick and was being contrary about seeking medical help.
NINE
In the middle of the nearly unbearable silence of breakfast I finally asked, “How are things? How’s the land?” And the most important thing—other than Daddy’s lack of health—“How’s the . . . the trees?”
Daddy looked up at that, set his fork down, and sipped his coffee, his eyes boring into me, just as they had when I had played hooky from work or lessons when I was a child. Back then Daddy had let silence do his dirty work for him, letting it build until I started crying and confessed. I couldn’t help but remember the whippings that followed. My heartbeat sped, my breath came too fast. But I was far too old to get a whipping. And for that matter, I was too old to fall for the silent treatment. So I frowned at my father. And thought about the tree I had fed with my blood and that had healed me and that was now tied to Brother Ephraim. And waited.
“You’un got a specific tree in mind, Nell?” he asked a couple of aeons later.
“Yes. One behind the church. An oak.”
“And how would you’un know that a tree was acting strange, Nell?” Daddy asked. “Should we’uns have sent for you’un when it started changing?”
“She’un’s not a witch,” Mama said, her tone strident. “Nell did not curse that tree.”
“I did not curse anything,” I said calmly, though all I could think of was that if my gift had been made known to the church when I was a child, it was possible that I’d have been burned at the stake. And that I had to protect my sisters from the church finding out. I knew that, yet I had given Mud seeds and told her to make them grow. I was stupid beyond belief. And I had to deal with that soon.
“A little bird told me that there might be problems here,” I lied. “Law enforcement officers hear things.” The truth in fact, but in context, still a lie. “The tree. Changing how?”
“Some things are best seen in person,” Sam said. He pushed back from the table and stood. “Let’s drive down.” The tree wasn’t far. But Daddy couldn’t walk that distance. Daddy had cowed the family from doing the right thing for him. But I wasn’t part of this family anymore, which gave me lots more leeway to say what needed to be said. That was why Mama had arranged this impromptu, intimate breakfast.
I watched as Daddy struggled to his feet and got the cane beneath him to take his weight. “We’uns is talking about your health. Soon,” I said.
“You’un getting uppity since you joined the police,” Daddy said, affront in his voice.
His hand was white from the stress of standing, his face pale. A slight tremor raced through him, and I thought he might fall. “Sure. That’s as good an excuse as any.” I stood. “Can you drive, Daddy, or are you too sick for that?”
Without a word, Daddy turned and led the way outside, where he got in his tr
uck and drove toward the chapel.
Sam and I followed, wrapping up in warm clothes, my brother chuckling beneath his breath. “Nellie, you’un got big brass ones, that’s all I got to say.”
I had learned what the saying meant at Spook School, and thought it was silly, as testicles were small, easy to remove, and easily injured. I had seen enough farm animals castrated to know that for a fact, but it sounded like Sam was giving me a compliment, so I just gave him a “Humph” and got in my truck. Sam got in the passenger side.
Oddly, the temperatures had chilled during breakfast and snow fell heavily around us, flakes as big as my fist, drifting down in the still air, settling into a melting white mush on the ground. The sunlight was dim and distant, the world gray and black and white in the headlights. Sam and I drove toward the back of the chapel, the road with a single set of tracks in the layer of white, the porch lights we passed casting glowing circles on the snow.
The headlights of Daddy’s truck caught the chapel in the background, painted white against the white snow, trees black and stark. Bright lights fell from the paned windows onto the pristine expanse in arched, pointed shapes. The sound of voices singing muffled through, yet were clear as a childhood memory. The notes of “’Tis Winter Now, the Fallen Snow,” seemed proper and appropriate, and for some reason I couldn’t explain to myself, felt sad, melancholy. Maybe because I knew something bad was wrong with Daddy.
The headlights stopped on the garden spot where the tree that healed me grew. A few months ago it was just an oak tree, surrounded by plantings I had rooted or seeded there when I was a child. Now it was surrounded by a cement brick fence, gray and dull in the snowy light. The fence was about ten feet on a side and ten feet tall. There were cracks zigzagging up and down through the mortar, and the top wasn’t level. The bricklaying looked sloppy, unlike the usual careful work of the churchmen, who tended to take pride in craftsmanship. And then I saw the reason why the bricks were out of plumb. Roots grew up through the ground, pushing high and lifting the foundation, making it appear that the wall had been frozen in motion, a blocky lizard or snake. Branches pressed against the walls and poured over the top, draping down the sides, cracking the mortar even more. Thorns gleamed wetly in the headlights, spikes sharper than needles. The leaves looked wrong. Just wrong. The garden spot, with its beautiful flowers, was no more. This was the tree that had healed me when I’d been shot, had grown inside me. It was also what Brother Ephraim’s soul was attached to on the church land.