by Alex Bledsoe
Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m a-goin’ home;
Quiet-like, some still day, I’m just goin’ home.
It’s not far, just close by,
Through an open door;
Work all done, care laid by,
Goin’ to fear no more.
With a sudden rush of comprehension and sympathy, Veronica fully understood what the possibility of going “home” meant to the Tufa. Although they had been here seemingly forever, it wasn’t and never would be “home.” She imagined what it must be like to know there was a place you belonged, yet to which you could never return. She knew her family was originally from Puerto Rico, but that had been three generations ago, and she’d thought herself fully anglicized. But of course, she could go to Puerto Rico whenever she wanted, and had visited twice in her life. These people could not, had not.
The singer finished the song with a long, sustained note, which the instruments supported for as long as he could hold it. When the song ended, the others applauded, and the big man smiled and nodded in gratitude.
The group began to disperse. One bearded man with a fiddle bumped into Veronica and said, “‘Scuse me, ma’am.” When she looked back only two musicians remained, a teenage boy with a guitar and another with a harmonica. They showed no sign they noticed her.
* * *
Logan Durant looked up the hill at Mandalay and said, “Still nothing, I reckon. How long did your sister say this would take?” He patted his harmonica against his palm to clean out the loose moisture.
“She didn’t,” Aiden Hyatt said. “So I reckon it’ll take as long as it takes.”
“Your sister’s tough, ain’t she?”
“She is that,” Aiden agreed, a hint of pride in his voice.
“I wish someone in my family was tough. They’re all just bullies. They don’t do a thing if they have to look somebody in the eye, but they’ll sure as shit shoot ’em in the back when no one’s watching.”
Aiden knew the basics of how Logan’s brothers, led by Billy Durant, shot Gerald Parrish two years earlier. He also knew that Cyrus Crow’s boyfriend, a New York dancer, had publicly kicked Billy’s ass for it. That had kept the worst of the family back on their own land ever since.
Logan, though, was different; as the youngest and smallest, he got even worse bullying than outsiders did. The time was coming, everyone knew, when Logan would bring a day of reckoning to the Durants.
Logan looked around. “My brothers are all here somewhere, too. Surprised they ain’t tried to muscle in.”
“They want to go back?”
“Fuck, no. They know they’d never get away with anything back there. My grandaddy’s told us all about it. He was one of them first ones to come here.”
Aiden nodded. “My grandpa, too. On both sides.”
“So you think you’ll go?” Logan asked seriously.
“Hell, I don’t know. I suppose I will if the rest of my family does. It ain’t like things are great here.”
Suddenly they both realized Veronica was there. “Howdy,” Aiden said with a big grin, one he clearly thought was all sorts of charming. “You must be the girlfriend.”
Veronica’s eyes narrowed. She hated being defined by her relationships to men, and being worried about Justin didn’t change that. “I’m Justin’s girlfriend, yes. But I’m also a human being. And I have a name. It’s Veronica.”
“Wow, dang,” Aiden said, blushing. “Didn’t mean nothing by it.”
Veronica forced herself to calm down. Having a feminist hissy fit in the middle of the woods wouldn’t help anyone, including her or Justin. It just felt so good to have something tangible, something she understood, to get angry about. “Women are people, too,” she told the boys. “You should remember that, if you ever want girlfriends of your own.” Then she walked away.
Aiden looked down, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he repeated.
“Ah, don’t let it get to you,” Logan said. “I hear the girls over there—” He jerked his head toward the cave. “Are all eager and willing.”
“Who told you that?”
“My grandaddy.”
“What did your grandmother say about that?”
Logan laughed. “She just slapped him in the back of his head with a flyswatter, and said she wouldn’t pee in his ear if his brain was on fire.”
They both laughed. Then they started picking a fast, rocking version of the old tune “Forked Deer.”
* * *
Veronica started back up the hill toward the cave, wanting to check in with Mandalay to see if there had been any word. She knew there hadn’t, but she had to feel like she was doing something. She thought anew about simply rushing past Mandalay and the others and going through the cave herself; it hadn’t been any trouble the day before, and whatever the rescue party had accomplished, she knew Justin would pay more attention to her than a stranger.
Yet she stopped halfway there, behind two middle-aged men in lawn chairs. An open cooler of beer rested between them, and they sat looking up at the cave, blank and patient like her father watching a soccer match.
* * *
“This is a hell of a thing,” Sam Roberts said. “Hell of a thing.”
“Sure enough,” Gerald Parrish agreed.
Each of the men had lost children in the last few years, and their urge to comfort each other manifested in a kind of herd instinct, where they simply stayed in each other’s company and never talked about their pain. Sam’s daughter had been killed by a wild boar, while Gerald’s son died from an undetected cerebral aneurysm while in New York City.
Sam nodded at the cave. “I remember hearing tales ’bout that place when I was a boy. Well, overhearing ’em; if my daddy had caught me listening, he’d have tanned my hide, that’s for sure. He didn’t put up with no kids who didn’t know their place. He was so damn country that when he opened his mouth, sticks fell out.”
The two men laughed. Then Gerald said heavily, “Just a shame all of our kids won’t be here with us.”
“Sure is,” agreed Sam. “Surely is that.”
Gerald began to sing. Veronica recognized it as a song from the play Chapel of Ease, but of course didn’t realize that the man singing it was the father of the man who wrote it:
The stones were set to last forever
But the mortar crumbles away
The trees may stand for centuries
But eventually fall to decay
And me, I’m a blink of the great oak’s eye
My time so pitiful and short
So why does this pain cut me so to the quick
And leave a hole in my chest for my heart?
This was too much, so again she slipped away before they noticed her.
* * *
While Veronica had been moving from group to group, a long table spread with paper plates and fixings was set up under a bright orange awning. People stood in line to get burgers and hot dogs from the steam table behind it. The cooking odor was heavenly, and Veronica realized she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. She got in line and picked up a plate.
The man behind the table glanced up and saw her. “Oh! Hello. We met back at my cafe a couple of days ago, remember? I’m C.C.”
“I remember,” Veronica said. “How much for the burgers?”
“Oh, nothing, this is all for family. But…” He looked around to make sure no one watched them. “Do this.”
He made a simple hand gesture.
She repeated it. “Why?” Before he could answer, she added, “It’s because it’s dangerous to drink something offered by the fairy folk, isn’t it?”
He shrugged with a little smile. “It’s just an old wives’ tale. And believe me, around here we’ve got more than our share of old wives.”
She held out her plate and accepted a burger. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. No word about your boyfriend … Jerry?”
“Justin. And no.” She looked over at Mandalay and Junior, once a
gain talking earnestly in front of the cave. “Exactly who are those two?”
C.C. said carefully, “The Tufa are one people, but two … tribes, I guess you’d say. Those two lead them.”
“Mandalay is just a kid.”
“A kid on the outside. There’s a lot more to her than what you see. Junior, though … he’s pretty much exactly what you see.”
Veronica shook her head. Her own studies now dovetailed with her life experience in a way she never would have expected. “So it’s like the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.”
C.C. smiled knowingly. “Pretty damn close.”
“So which one is which?”
He shrugged. “Not sure it matters.”
* * *
While Veronica talked to C.C., Junior said to Mandalay, “This is fucking ridiculous. Did you call them all here?”
“No,” Mandalay said.
“Then what are they all doing here?”
“They just know. Their blood knows. Doesn’t yours?”
“But that damn Vipperman girl is here. My dog’s got more true Tufa blood than she does. Her mama’s family married all kinds of other people.”
“You know as well as I do that it ain’t always about the amount. It’s about how well you listen to the song in it.”
Junior took out his phone and checked the time. “Where the fuck are they? How far did they have to go?”
“All the way,” Mandalay said. She closed her eyes and tried to find that quiet center where she could hear the night winds and the voices of all her prior incarnations, but it eluded her. Here on this mountain, before this cave, she was no different than the rest of her people: she could only wait, and try not to go mad.
“Now that faggot C.C.’s got a damn restaurant set up,” Junior continued. “What’s next, a bunch of dancing girls?”
“Take it easy,” Mandalay warned.
“I am taking it easy. You’re lucky I ain’t taking my people and going home.”
Mandalay laughed. The idea that Junior’s presence had any real value was the kind of ridiculous claim he always made. “Junior, I’d love to see you try. Go ahead, make an announcement. See how many listen to you.”
“You think I won’t?” he said, his defiance paper-thin.
“I know,” the girl said, and turned away.
* * *
Mandalay joined Veronica in front of the cave. Veronica stared into the darkness as she ate the hamburger, willing something to move, to emerge from the shadow. Nothing did.
“I’m glad you’re eating,” Mandalay said. “It won’t be long now.”
“You said that this morning,” Veronica said around a mouthful of burger.
“And I meant it. It’s all in the scale. A year is nothing to a redwood.”
“I’m not a tree.”
“Those are three of the strongest, most trustworthy people I know,” Mandalay said seriously. “Bliss has been my good right arm all my life, and Bronwyn … well, let’s just say she does what’s necessary without hesitation.”
“And the one with white hair?”
“He’s a good man, and he keeps his word.”
Veronica finished the last of the burger. “What do you suppose they’re doing right now?”
“Looking for Justin.”
“Are you sure?”
Mandalay did not answer.
38
Now that the parade was closer, Bliss and the others could see the individuals more clearly. The women wore the sour, thin-lipped expression of prudes determined to stop anyone from having fun. The men were uniformly tall and thin, severely clothed in black suits, and scowled with disdain.
“Wow, who died?” Snowy asked quietly.
“It’s not a funeral,” Bliss said. “There are no funerals here.”
“Then what is it?”
Bronwyn nocked an arrow. “A warning?”
Bliss nodded.
The parade came toward them slowly, and finally stopped about twenty feet away. The final beat of the drum echoed for a moment, and then there was only the sound of the wind.
One of the old women stepped forward. She had the sunken face of a dried-apple doll, and the cold eyes of a woman dedicated to hate. “What are you-uns a-doing here?” she demanded in an exaggerated mountain accent.
“We’re looking for a friend of ours,” Bliss said.
“Your kind got no friends here.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Tufa trash.”
Bronwyn and Snowy exchanged a look. Bliss kept her gaze on the woman and said, “I was born right here.”
A tall, hatchet-faced man with an equally hateful glare moved up beside the woman. “You have been banished, for good and for all time. You have no rights here.”
“We don’t want any trouble from y’all,” Bronwyn said. “We’re here to find a friend. Tell us where he is, and we’ll take him and leave.”
“You have the blood of our kind on your hands,” the man said.
Bronwyn turned to Snowy. “Think he means Dwayne?”
“Have you killed anyone else?”
“Not lately.” She turned back to the man. “If you mean Dwayne Gitterman, then you’re right, and I can live with that. And with yours, for that matter.”
“No true blood will be spilled here,” Bliss said. “None ever has. We won’t be the first.”
“Then turn and go!” the woman ordered, pointing one sharp, withered finger at the cave opening behind them. “While you can.”
“Not without our friend,” Bliss said.
“Look,” Snowy said quietly.
In the middle of the crowd, dressed in the same old-fashioned way, stood Justin. He appeared as serious and pissed off as the others, and showed no sign that he understood who these newcomers were.
“I thought he was off gallivanting with the sexy fairy girls,” Snowy said.
“He’s doing whatever they’re doing,” Bliss said. “He’s got no say-so.” She called out, “Justin, you need to come with us.”
“He came here of his own volition,” the man said. “And just like any who do, he will stay.”
Again Snowy and Bronwyn exchanged a look. Bronwyn stepped forward, raised her bow and said, “Nobody move. I have an itchy bow hand and a bad case of PMS, I’ll take all of you down.”
“Bronwyn!” Bliss exclaimed.
Snowy rushed forward and pushed through the crowd to Justin. The boy’s face retained its scowl as Snowy grabbed him by the shoulders and said, “Dude, remember Veronica? That hot girl who follows you around? She sent us here. She’s waiting for you. Now come on.”
Several of the men stepped from the line, drew revolvers and pointed them at Snowy.
“Well, shit,” muttered Bronwyn, and lowered her bow.
Snowy released Justin, raised his hands, and stepped away. “Okay, okay, I’m going.” He backed up until he was behind Bronwyn and Bliss.
Then the men all pointed their guns at the three would-be rescuers.
“You’d spill our blood here?” Bliss challenged.
The man at the front doffed his hat and put it over his heart. “Our gracious Queen,” he said, “look down upon us, so that those who follow you may witness the damnation of those who deny your will.” The other men took off their hats, the women lowered their eyes, and in unison they all said, “Sláinte.”
“Is he praying?” Snowy asked quietly.
“Near as,” Bliss said. Louder, she added, “We’re not leaving without our friend. So let’s talk.”
Something boomed in the sky, and they all looked up. Above the mountain, a huge, roiling thunderhead drifted toward them. It obscured the distant castle and drained all color beneath it, leaving the landscape in darkness.
“That ain’t no April shower,” Snowy said.
“No,” Bliss said.
It moved too fast for any normal cloud, and thunderbolts skittered around inside it. It settled atop the mountain, and began rolling down it, like a slow avalanche.
>
“Uh, Bliss,” Bronwyn said uncertainly. “What do we do?”
“Run!” Bliss cried. Without waiting for the others, she took off back down the street, toward the cave. Bronwyn and Snowy followed at her heels.
“What is it?” Bronwyn yelled at Bliss.
“Oh, shit,” Snowy said. “Look.”
They skidded to a stop and looked back. The cloud began to roll over the top of the mountain. Inside the billows, momentarily silhouetted by each flash of lightning, appeared to be a horde of mounted riders. One instant they seemed to be solid entities, and the next they were shapes made up of cloud’s vapor.
At the front, leading the way, was a pair of horses pulling a chariot.
And in that chariot stood an unmistakably feminine figure, with one hand raised to hold the whip that drove the horses. Each sweep of the lash sent out streaks of lightning and peals of thunder.
The sight, so simultaneously awe-inspiring and frightening, transfixed the three interlopers where they stood.
“Run,” Bliss repeated softly, then louder. “Run!”
“But what is it?” Snowy demanded as they raced for the passage back home.
Bliss cried out in utter terror, “It’s the Queen!”
39
Although Mandalay and Junior both stood beside the cave, it was Annie May Pritchard, pregnant with her first child, who initially noticed. She stood at C.C.’s tent, putting far too much mustard on her hot dog, when she suddenly cried, “Look!”
At first it was just a breeze that stirred the dirt and dust inside the opening. But soon that wind grew harder and rougher, and quickly became a gale that roared from the cave as if the mountain itself were blowing to scare away the annoying parasites crawling all over it.
C.C. quickly grabbed some plastic sheeting and covered his food. His tent went down almost at once, and many of the people seated in camp or folding chairs were blown over. Young people rushed to help the older ones, and even Junior ran to make sure Loretta and Trey were safe. Veronica caught Mandalay as she almost tumbled down the slight hill.
“What was that?” someone shouted.