by Julia Byrd
I shook my head. “Been d-drunk before, bel-believe me. D-doesn’t help.”
If anything, the whisky would make my speech worse. I had drunk nothing but water at Joe’s funeral; nevertheless, I had been unable to eulogize my own brother.
“But you have never been drunk with me. And don’t forget my spell. Now, where are your cups?”
Everett was suddenly thirsty for her potion. He sprung up and claimed three cups from my shelf, rims notched and glass clouded.
“I d-don’t think th-this w-will—”
“Ben, what are you afraid of?” Everett set the cups on the table, then shoved a chair towards me. “You might wake up with a sore head? Sit, have a drink.”
I could think of a few worse things, but I sat. Mrs. Stephens deftly uncorked the liquor and measured us all healthy doses. Why was she so eager to offer her version of a cure? She raised her glass and waited, eyebrows up, for us to follow.
“No ceremony for the whisky?” Everett asked. “No solemn words to be spoken? Shall we thank it first?”
“Youthful creature, the whisky is the ceremony. Now drink.”
The first drink burned my throat, and it almost did feel like magic. Mrs. Stephens told the story of how she had haggled to purchase the bottle from a man who traveled the countryside sharpening knives and who had carried it from Glasgow. I could taste the Scottish peat in each sip. The second drink heated my face. I passed a hand over my smooth-shaven chin. By the third drink, Everett was giggling, which made Mrs. Stephens giggle. Her light laugh was girlish.
She goaded Everett into confessing a previous drunken escapade involving a chicken and a neighbor’s corpulent old hound. The chicken came out ahead in his telling. I assumed a stern expression, but it didn’t last for long.
“Is it working?” Everett asked.
Mrs. Stephens poured our next round. Her cheeks and décolletage were flushed. My sleeves were rolled past my elbows, and the fire had burned low.
“N-not in th-th-the sl-slightest.” In fact, I was both slurring and stuttering.
“Ah! It is, it is,” she cried. “Drink this, then we must move on to my magic spell.”
We swallowed our drinks, and I squinted through one eye to prevent the room from swimming.
“Outside,” she commanded. “All good spells take place in the moonlight.”
She rose, a trifle unsteady but still graceful, and I used the excuse to take her elbow as we filed outdoors. Everett was weaving. Mrs. Toth would not be pleased with me. He pushed past me and out of the cottage yard, then hopped up to sit atop the closest headstone. It looked a bit disrespectful to the deceased, but I couldn’t think why. I balanced my elbows on another stone and canted one foot on its base.
Mrs. Stephens straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Pay attention,” she said, “for this is my spell: There is no error in Mr. Hood’s speech.”
I barked out a harsh laugh. “D-disagree.”
“It’s true. What fault could there be? I hear you, I understand you. Anyone who listens can understand you. Thus, your voice succeeds in its purpose. You sound fine to me, and I like your voice. Everett, will you concur? Tell him your truth.”
He did not hesitate. “I hear you, I understand you, and your voice is fine, except when you’re nagging me about the damned roses.”
“Th-that’s not a s-spell.” I was embarrassed and drunk and angry. I should not have let myself be drawn into this ridiculous situation. “Y-you can’t just say something to m-make it true.”
“On the contrary, that is how all things become true. Have you taken Holy Communion? Have you reassured a nervous child that he is safe? Have you professed love to a woman?”
My mother, this morning. But that was not her meaning, and even in my haze, I did not say it.
“Here, among us, at least, I say that it’s true. Everett says that it is true. If you affirm it, too, then we will have conjured a new truth. Let us all agree and move on to new arguments.”
I straightened and turned away, showing my back to them. “D-do not m-mock me.”
“I would never. I am selfish, Benjamin Hood. I believe you have much to say, and I have a great desire to hear it. But you silence yourself too often. Truly it is self-interest that leads me to tell you I like your voice.”
“Ben,” Everett said softly. I faced him, seeing him twice through my whisky fog. His skin was dark and gleaming against the white marble. He was my friend, my closest friend, and perhaps only because he was paid to tolerate me. “It’s true. Try it.”
“N-no. T-this is n-not a cure, it’s n-nothing.”
“Say my name,” urged Mrs. Stephens. “My name is not nothing, I promise you. There is power in it. There is strength in those things to which we assign strength.”
“No.”
But somehow, I heard ‘no’ with no slur or stutter. The initial tripping consonant was still there, as real as the trampled grass below my feet, but I didn’t mind the sound that emerged. I focused only on the perfect, spherical word I intended to say, and my voice vibrated in the cool, clammy air. What had she done to me?
“Say my name.”
“No!”
“I want to hear my name in your voice.”
Her whispered command was too seductive to resist. I raised a hand to my head, scrubbed at my hair. “Mrs. Stephens.”
“Not that part. That’s another man’s name.”
Infernal woman. Stubborn, demanding, witchy creature. “Mrs. Juno Stephens.”
“Too much.”
“Juno!” I shouted, raised my arms to the sky, then let them fall. “Goddess of Rome, protector of women. Juno.”
My voice was flawless, deep, rolling, and aggravated. Exactly how I have always sounded inside my own head. It was the true sound of the internal voice I had heard when I wrote those notes to her. Could they possibly hear me as I heard myself?
Juno curtsied. “At your service.”
“Say mine next!” Everett demanded, boyish.
I scowled. “Everett Toth.”
He grinned. “Yes, milord?” He swept a bow. “Shall I prune your Cornus alba? Shall I rake your gravel walk?”
Cheeky. “You’ll rake the dirt with your face if you don’t keep a respectful tongue.”
It was the longest sentence I had said in years, and Everett whooped. “The sound of an angel!” he cried.
“This—this willful disregard of my stutter, it is nothing but an act,” I enunciated slowly. “A performance. It’s still there, I am—we are merely ignoring it.”
Juno nodded. “Precisely. Did you expect me to employ an eye of newt and toe of frog? Most of life is some sort of performance.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You are a difficult case, Mr. Hood, but I am glad to have prevailed.”
“Ben,” I corrected her. After I had shouted her name to the stars, she could say mine.
“Ben,” she repeated. Her hands fell to her sides, and she stepped towards me. The black ribbon around her pale throat divided it from her torso. “Now, steel your nerves. I seal your cure with a kiss.”
With another step, she was before me. She put her hands to my temples and dragged my head down. I took her by the waist. Our lips came together, and it felt like a benediction. But she did not only want to bless my lips—her tongue met mine, too. She smelled of sage and whisky, and her mouth felt of silk. Nothing had changed, and yet she changed everything. That kiss proved to me her powers of persuasion. I raised my head only when Everett made a strangled objection.
Juno was breathless. “Everett must seal the cure as well.”
I was drunk and happy enough to see the logic in it. Embracing my friend made no more and no less sense than anything else Juno had said. I swooped toward Everett and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He was smiling, and at first, our teeth knocked together. I tilted my head and delivered a hard kiss. His lips were more plush than Juno’s, and he tasted of Scottish peat, but he did not fire my blood like Juno.
“Say som
ething pleasing,” he said, pushing at my shoulder.
I cleared my throat. “Something pleasing.” Everett shoved me again, harder, and I grinned. “Everett Toth deserves a higher wage.”
“There we have it. Both pleasing and true,” he laughed.
“Tell me something unpleasant and true,” said Juno.
That was easy. “It is very late, and we must turn to our beds.”
* * *
I stood at the gate and watched until they were out of sight, then locked myself inside Maida Green. Had she truly cast a spell over me? Or was it over all three of us? I looked at the manor house on the hill, but it offered no answer. I felt…different. “No, you feel drunk,” I muttered softly, scuffing the gravel as I walked to my cottage. But it sounded fine to me. I sounded like myself.
Chapter 5: Rite of Visitation
In the morning light, I opened my eyes to see a white square on the bedside table. Sticky-lidded and thick-headed, I blinked a few times before it resolved into a folded paper. I pushed up onto one elbow and squinted. Coiled atop the paper was a black silk ribbon.
Snatching at the paper, I flopped back down and kicked my feet free of the ensnaring bedcovers. When had she been in my bedchamber? And why? My reverie of Juno tugging the black ribbon from around her neck had come true. Had she guessed that I toyed with that bow in my dreams? The simple note gave me little indication:
Good morning. –J.
Even a man as dense as I could not fail to wonder at the implication. She had been thinking of me. I held the page to my nose sure I could smell sage. I needed to acquire a bouquet of flowers, and not looted grave flowers. I wanted to see her without Everett’s chaperoning presence. Why had I never seen her in the village? I would have to pay a call at her home.
Everett arrived a little later than usual, looking rumpled. I gave him a mocking salute.
“Would you like some tea, my friend? You appear under the weather. Is your head bothering you?”
“What I would like,” he muttered, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, “is for you to be less cheerful.”
“Nonsense. It’s a lovely day. Have you seen the new berries on the Ilex aquifolium?”
“It’s holly, Ben. I’ve seen it before. Maybe I should have better considered the consequences of unmuzzling your tongue.”
Everett’s sour head did not dampen my plans for the morning. “Maybe this will elevate your mood: I’m giving you the day. Go home and sleep your way back to good humor.”
“You don’t…” Everett canted his head to one side and considered me. “You don’t talk like I’d imagined you would.”
That was not how I guessed he would respond to the offer of a free day. “Don’t I? What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. More like a farmer, I suppose, with no wasted breath. Instead, you talk like a rich man spends endless coin. But I’m not making any sense. How do you sound to yourself?”
“Like myself. My voice sounds like the thoughts in my head.” I paused. “I think.”
“I see. At least we’re not making any sense together.”
“Go on with you. Back to your bed. I’ve other things to do today.”
Everett grunted. “Do these ‘other things’ explain why you’re wearing your Sunday shirt?”
I usually only wore my whitest, starchiest shirt to church. It looked well, or so I’ve been told, against my blue eyes. Earlier I had shaved with care and pushed my hair behind my ears. “Perhaps. You mind your own business. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I gave him a five-minute lead, for I didn’t want him to guess where I was heading, then walked out through the gates. My mother had mentioned the lane just past the aspen grove, so I turned in that direction and strode briskly. The autumn morning was bright, and the sky was azure.
Past the village, the wheat field on the south side of the road soon turned sodden and swampy. Stalks that should have been harvested rotted in several inches of muddy water. A man, presumably the farmer, and a boy leaned on shovels as I approached.
“Morning,” I called over. The farmer’s face was shaded by his hat, but he had a familiar look. I couldn’t come up with a name.
“Indeed,” the man agreed.
“Drainage problem?” I ventured, slowing my steps. The usual stammer in almost every syllable was there, but my discomposure settled in the back of my mind instead of rattling in front like an unstable boulder.
“As you see.”
The boy gave a mournful sigh and plunged his spade into the muck, then tossed a load of plant material and sludge towards the hedgerow. He wasn’t above nine or ten years old. If they planned to scoop out the corner of the field by hand, I didn’t envy them their day ahead. Or two days.
“Need any help?” Damn it. I should have walked past without comment. Perhaps the farmer would decline.
“Well…” He ran a practiced eye over my arms and shoulders, as if I were a draft horse for sale, and down to my rough boots. Despite my desire to get to Juno’s house, I straightened my spine. “If you’ve a minute or two, maybe we could clear the drain.”
I nodded and shrugged out of my coat, then rolled my shirtsleeves to my elbows. “You’re sure there’s a drain under there somewhere?” I asked lightly.
The man grunted. “This here is Michael,” he said, gesturing at the boy. “Son, give the man that spade.”
The boy passed me the tool with evident relief, and I winked at him. “I’m Ben.”
Neither of them seemed interested in my stammer. We poked in the mud for the clay pipe that should have let water pass out of the field.
“Ben. I’m Francis Miller. Appreciate the help. I’ve been after the landowner to invest in improvements in this plot, but he’ll not hear of it. Every two months I’m out here mucking about like a blasted night soil man.”
“Hmm.” I grimaced as I prodded at a clump of weeds at the mouth of the pipe. Somebody was going to have to stick his arm in there, and I wasn’t ready to volunteer. “Wasn’t this land part of the old Maida Estate?”
“Not for nearly ten years now.” Miller glanced sharply at me and dragged another mass of mud away. “What brings you out this way?”
I shoveled in silence while I considered. Should I keep Juno’s name to myself? Was I ashamed of her, or should she be ashamed to have any association with me? “Are you acquainted with Mrs. Stephens?”
Miller’s forehead settled in deep creases. “Aye. You’re not far now, then. Her place is just past those next trees. I’ve heard what people say, and we keep on our side of the fence, but she’s been a good neighbor to us.”
“Is that so?” I prompted.
“Surely. She helped my wife with—” He stopped himself. “Widow Stephens has been a help to my wife in the past.”
The drain emitted a sickly, gulping noise. We dug and dug in silence. I wondered if the mud was endless.
“What do the people say about her?” I asked, unable to restrain myself any longer.
“Oh, nonsense. It must be nothing. Some will see two locusts together and call it a plague.” A surge of water sloshed past. “Ah ha!” cried Miller. He fell to his knees, heedless of the muck, and reached his arm past the elbow into the water. He emerged triumphant with a fat knot of vegetation in his fist.
“Oh, it smells awful,” Michael complained.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” I said. The boy’s scrunched brow made him look just like his father. “We all stink somewhere in that cycle.”
“All right, Ben,” said Miller. He tossed the rotting clump aside, and we watched the water slowly recede. “Thank you again.”
“Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand.” I nodded toward his slimy fingers, and he laughed.
“You were more help in half an hour than the landowner has been in these ten years, so I shan’t repay you with a handshake. Stop in if you ever want some of my Emma’s blueberry biscuits.”
“I will,” I promised. “Michael, keep your nose ready for any m
ore of those odorous plants in the drain.”
The boy grinned, and I returned his shovel. Then I retrieved my coat and went on my way, stopping only to collect a clutch of wild oxblood chrysanthemums from the side of a hedgerow. The aspens on the other side of the hedge had grown around a babbling creek, as my mother had said, and shaded a dense stand of tall plants with flat white flowers.
The short walk remaining gave me little time to consider what I would say to Juno. I had spent so long speaking few of my thoughts, and even fewer of them to women. Her evident interest left me captivated but baffled.
A white clapboard house appeared as I passed the stand of trees. There was a small shed to one side and a privy beyond that, but otherwise, the house stood alone. It was large but vacant-looking.
I waited a long time after knocking on the door, long enough to make me shuffle my feet. Perhaps she was not at home. A deep overhang cast the entrance in shadows, and a nearby potted Crassula ovata wanted more sunlight. I nudged its clay vessel toward the edge of the steps. What if she had observed my approach and decided not to answer the door?
Finally, though, the door swung open, and Juno was there. I thrust the ‘mums forward like a schoolboy.
“Ben!” She smiled then, a sparkle of eyes and teeth. It was my first look at her in daylight. A girlish dimple appeared in one cheek. “You are a welcome surprise.”
“Good morning,” I said, relishing the tolling of my own voice. I could feel a stutter if I thought too much about it, but Juno’s spell meant I did not need to acknowledge it, and neither did she. “I wished to return your greeting in person.”
“Will you come in?” She took the flowers from my hand, her fingers brushing past mine, and gestured for me to cross her doorway.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve kept my word, you know. I have relocated none of your plants in the past two days.”
She swirled past me with a swish of skirts and cast an arch look over her shoulder, and I laughed. “Good for you. But your bad habits have already spread—I stole those chrysanthemums for you.”
Juno stopped and turned, her eyes widening. “You did not!”