Hiss and Make Up

by Leigh Landry

  “Marc, this is Dale. He’s the curator here and a nationally published naturalist.” She grinned her best brown-nosed grin at Dale, as she grabbed Marc’s hand and guided him to stand beside her. “This is Marc. He’s the guy that emailed about the snake yesterday. We actually grew up together.”

  She paused, realizing she hadn’t released his hand. It was warm and comforting, and it didn’t slip her attention that Marc hadn’t let go either.

  “We have a bit of a problem,” she continued.

  “Oh?” Dale scratched his beard. “What kind of problem, and how can I help?”

  Sierra held up her offering. “The kind you bring your boss in a pillowcase.”

  Marc rested on a wooden stool while Dale pulled an empty glass tank from a cabinet. Once Sierra and Dale began to ease the thing into the tank, Marc looked away. But it didn’t help much.

  This was by far the creepiest room Marc had ever seen. Everywhere he looked, he saw bones, pieces of bones, creatures pinned to display boards, dead things in jars, and living things in more glass cases.

  He couldn’t believe he was still in the room. He wouldn’t have walked in at all if Sierra hadn’t fed him that line about the cranky nesting copperheads. She was probably pulling his leg, but he couldn't shake the image of those things stalking him at the edges of the woods.

  If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t need much of an excuse. She’d been so far away up there. That single flight of stairs might as well have put her a whole galaxy away from him. He couldn’t think about anything except being next to her again. Close enough to smell the woods on her. To feel the warmth of her radiating beside him. To touch her.

  But once he walked through the door and into his worst nightmare, any desire he’d had vanished.

  Until she grabbed his hand and pulled him closer.

  She’d dragged him into her orbit, where it was so warm and cozy there that he never wanted to leave. His hand still tingled from her touch.

  “So what do you think?” Sierra asked Dale as they both peered at the glass.

  Marc gathered his courage and peeked at them. He could see the snake, but the view was blocked by Sierra bending over in front of it. He shouldn’t be staring at Sierra’s backside, but it made a nice distraction from the rest of the room. Or, at least, that’s the excuse he was going with.

  Dale tilted his head one way then the other, while the thing slithered up and down the front of the glass. After retreating to a corner behind the desk, Dale reappeared with a small paperback in his hands. A field guide.

  “Let’s see.” He flipped through pages while peeking up at the creature every once in a while. “Ah, here we go!”

  He handed the book to Sierra. She squinted, followed the snake with her eyes, then shrugged.

  “Maybe.”

  “Look right there.” Dale pointed at a particular picture.

  “Oh, yeah, I see it now.”

  “See what?” Marc asked, his curiosity getting the best of him despite his fear.

  Sierra pointed at the tank. “These red crescent markings on the underbelly. It’s a northern water snake. Perfectly harmless. But not native to this area.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” said Dale.

  “Then how the hell did it end up at my sister’s house?”

  “Not just at her house,” Sierra said. “Inside something it couldn’t have gotten in on its own.”

  Marc shook his head and realized he’d been staring in disbelief at a snake. He shuddered and refocused. “But it looks exactly like the other one. Are you sure?”

  “Trust me,” said Sierra. “This is not a water moccasin. But someone went to the trouble of putting snakes in there that looked an awful lot like them.”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  Dale stared at the tank, fascinated with the animal and giddy to add another species to his collection. Sierra, however, had lost her fascination with it.

  “Maybe they wanted you to think these were the babies of the one you killed. Even though that one wasn’t much more of a baby itself. But why would someone want you to think Denise had snakes nesting in her deck box?”

  Marc ran his hand through his hair. “I have no idea. None of this makes any sense. Are you sure those things couldn’t have slithered in there on their own?”

  “Positive. One hundred percent. I knew that yesterday. I just figured one of the kids left the box open.”

  It was possible. But after the other incident, Denise hadn’t even let the kids outside the rest of the day, much less near that box. “Not today. It was closed.”

  Sierra bit her lip. “Marc, someone had to have put these snakes in there.”

  “What the heck for?” He threw his arms up in exasperation. It didn’t make sense. Denise didn’t have time to shower much less get into any trouble or piss anyone off.

  But Josh…

  When Josh was home from work, he still wasn’t home. Denise had made it clear that her relationship was not up for discussion, so Marc had no idea what his brother-in-law might be up to. But he couldn’t shake the weird vibe that told him something wasn’t right. Maybe he was being overly defensive of his sister, but what if all this snake business had something to do with him?

  Or maybe Marc watched too many cop shows.

  “Do you want me to bring the rest of them in or call animal control?” Sierra asked.

  “Oh, do bring them in,” Dale said. “I can make room for them for a while. Then I’m sure we can find more permanent homes for them.”

  After shaking Dale’s hand, Marc thanked him and rushed out the door. He inhaled fresh air like he’d been drowning in that building and hurried down the stairs.

  “I don’t know how you can stand to work in there.”

  “I’m fine up there. Totally at home,” Sierra said. “It’s people I’m not so great with.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  She gave him a playful punch in the arm, and he wanted to grab her arm and pull her against him. Now that she was pillowcase and snake-free.

  But this was Sierra.

  He took his phone out and called Denise. When she didn’t answer, he sent a text. This was the kind of thing that needed an actual conversation, but she needed to know what he found out.

  “Denise?” Sierra asked.

  Nodding, he typed more after she sent her freaked-out reply. He told her to get out of the house, pack up the kids and go to his house, a friend’s house, anywhere else.

  “Crap,” he muttered at her response. “She’s refusing to leave the house. I said it would be just for a couple of days, but she’s stubborn.”

  Sierra frowned. “Well, I guess it’s a lot to pack up those kids. Personally, I’d take my chances with the snakes.”

  “That does not surprise me. But it doesn’t make me feel any better about her staying there.”

  “Her choice.”

  Right. But his big sister had shown him exactly how to be a good protector. She’d watched out for him when they were kids, and now it was his turn to look after her and her kids. He couldn’t stand the idea of something happening to them on his watch. Especially with Josh out of town.

  “I told her to at least go to my place, but she said they have plans, and it’ll be late when they get back. So at least the kids won’t be outside.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you can try to talk to her again tomorrow.”

  He looked up from his phone and found her looking at him, her eyes soft and sincere. That’s when he realized she hadn’t taken the opportunity to make a single snarky comment about his sister. She was being pleasant and downright encouraging.

  Who the hell was this woman?

  “Lunch?” Sierra asked.

  He tucked his phone in his back pocket. “Why don’t you ride with me. I’ll drop you back here later,” he said, opting for an improvised Plan B. If he couldn’t have her up against him, he’d settle for having her in the car with him.
/>   She eyed him for a moment, considering the offer. “Okay. Hang on.”

  She walked to her car and grabbed her bag from under the front seat. Then she paused to look around the area.

  “Lost something?” Marc asked.

  “No. There’s this dog…” She squinted at an empty campsite. “Never mind. Looks like they’re gone.”

  The sun was out now, and even though the park was shaded, it was still getting pretty warm. Sierra slipped off her olive green, long-sleeved flannel shirt and tied it around her waist. Now with only a navy tank top above her jeans, he got a full view of what he’d only had a hint of the day before.

  “Nice tattoo.”

  She looked down at her arm, completely covered from shoulder to elbow in ink, and smiled. “Thanks.”

  It was beautiful, lots of blues and greens with intertwined leaves and branches. It took every bit of willpower he had not to reach out and trace the lines with his finger. A black fleur-de-lis sat in the middle with a pissed off pelican. On her outer arm, he spotted some sort of lizard climbing her skin.

  No, not a lizard.

  A skink.

  “So are we going or what?”

  Marc broke his stare and looked back up at her face. It was softer than he remembered. She still had her edges, but life had worn them. The focus in her eyes was even more laser-sharp than he remembered, but somehow there was still light in those eyes. Still hope.

  Or maybe they were only reflecting his own hope back at him.

  5

  The three-foot wooden pelican sign inside the diner said, “Please Seat Yourself.” Marc slid into a booth along the windows across from Sierra. The table was far too wide. Every cell in his body wanted to be closer to Sierra, afraid she might slip away and out of his life again.

  He glanced at the blue plate special board hanging from the ceiling nearby. Red beans and rice, his favorite, with the vegetable of the day. But the beer and bacon burger he had with Freddy was still taking residency in his stomach.

  Sierra spent a full five minutes studying the two-page menu in silent concentration. Marc asked the server for a few extra minutes, but he looked at the time on his phone and teased Sierra anyway. “I have to be at the stadium in four hours. You think you’ll be ready?”

  He couldn’t help himself. Being this close to her, all he wanted to do was pick at her the way they used to pick at each other. Like they hadn’t lost all those years.

  When she glared over her menu at him, he laughed and held his hands up in defense. “Kidding. I’m kidding.”

  The server arrived a moment later to save him from any potential wrath.

  “I’ll have the atomic q’s,” Sierra said. “And a Coke.”

  “Just a Coke.” Marc handed over his menu, while the server took Sierra’s and left. “Atomic q’s, huh? That’s a long way from all those curries and salads your dad used to fix for us.”

  “Those are still on the home menu.”

  “How is your dad?”

  She shrugged. “Good I guess. Still lives in town.”

  “He can’t still be running that yoga studio, is he?”

  “No. Gave that up years ago. He does landscaping now.”

  “Really?”

  “Small scale stuff. Mostly sells seedlings and fertilizer made from rabbit turds out of his backyard.”

  Marc laughed. “Sounds perfect.”

  “He’s happy.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “How are your parents?”

  The server put their Cokes on the table, and Marc took a long sip to stall. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about them, but it wasn’t his favorite subject.

  “Sorry, you don’t have to—”

  “No, it’s fine,” Marc said. “Dad died a few years ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Sierra took her turn to fill the silence with a long chug of Coke.

  “Thanks. He was sick for a long time. You remember how my dad was always ready for a fight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, by the end there wasn’t any fight. He was just…done. The last time I saw him, I swear he looked relieved.”

  He stirred his straw, and when he looked up Sierra was chewing the inside of her cheek. She always did that when she was nervous or uncomfortable. It made him want to scoot over to her side of the booth and wrap an arm around her.

  “Mom’s great though.”

  “That’s good.” Sierra cleared her throat. “So, who do you think’s after your sister?”

  “No idea. Denise is nice to everyone.” He waited while she made exaggerated choking noises. “Fine, she’s nice to almost everyone. I can’t think of anyone who would do that to her. Especially with the kids there.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” He recoiled. “You think I did it?”

  “No, I meant anyone who might do that to you. Could someone be trying to get to you through her?”

  He looked for some crack in her expression, some hint that she was joking. Nothing. Her serious expression reminded him of that time he brought her a spider he’d found crawling out of his shoe. He'd thought she'd be impressed. Instead, she'd slapped his arm away and squashed the spider into a pulp. Then she'd asked if he was an idiot and what the hell was he doing walking around with a Brown Recluse on his arm. Her expression never cracked then either.

  “You watch too much TV,” he said.

  “I don’t watch any TV, and I’m serious. You’re on the radio, right?”

  “Local sports radio.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re a public figure. Tick off anybody lately? Anybody call in and threaten you?”

  “No.” People would call in all the time telling him to Eat a bag of dicks or Go die in a gutter. All because he’d said something unflattering about one of their favorite players. But he never took any of that stuff seriously.

  Sierra narrowed her eyes, not buying it. “You’ve never had any problems with people? You’ve never had to call the police? Nothing strange has happened recently?”

  “I had some stuff stolen from my house a few weeks ago, but I doubt that has anything to do with this.”

  “Someone broke into your house, stole stuff, then planted a bunch of snakes at your sister’s house. And you think it’s a coincidence?” Her voice rose in pitch with each word.

  She could maintain her composure in the face of any real-life threat. A viper den, for example. But Marc’s refusal to follow her overzealous train of thought was apparently too much for her.

  “No one broke in. They took some welding supplies and a few sculptures from my dad’s workshop. It happened right after I placed an ad online to sell some stuff. Had a few replies but only one person showed up to take a look. I figured one of the no-shows got the address and knew how to make a quick buck off the stuff. I filed a report, but you know how that goes."

  Sierra nodded, but her eyes narrowed. “Wait, you said they broke into your place, but then you said it was welding stuff from your dad’s workshop. Are you and your mom both living there now?”

  “Mom didn’t want to stay in the house without him, but she didn’t want to sell the place. We made a deal. She moved into a townhouse. No yard to mow and lots of neighbors to talk their ears off. And I moved back from New Orleans and bought the house from her.”

  “Smart.”

  It was more than smart. It was a perfect situation for him. He got to live outside of the city with wide open space, fresh air, and a killer view of the stars. The half hour commute for games and work wasn’t bad at all and was more than worth living in Breaux Bridge.

  The waitress arrived with their order. Sierra dove into her mess of chili, peppers, and fries. Marc tried to hide a smile when she licked a stray bit of chili from the side of her mouth. Same old Sierra. The grace and manners of a coyote, but still as cute as anything going.

  “Back to this missing stuff,” she mumbled through a mouthful of food. “Was it worth a lot?”

  “Not really
. But they took a couple of undecorated pelicans my dad made for that big citywide campaign. Remember those?”

  “Oh, yeah! A bunch of businesses put bids on them to sit outside their buildings.”

  “Yep, those.”

  “And weren’t they all decorated by local artists and kids and stuff? I remember that now. Don’t they still have one out in front of this place? I completely forgot your dad made those.”

  “I don’t care about the missing supplies, but I want those pelicans back. I didn’t even tell Mom or Denise they were stolen. They’d be crushed. So I offered a thousand dollar reward for them and ran a notice in the paper.”

  “A thousand bucks!” Sierra stared at him, her eyes wide and hungry. “For some moldy old pelicans?”

  “They’re sentimental.”

  “Sentimental, my butt.”

  He should have known better than to plead sentimentality to her. She never kept anything to remember her own mom, and he remembered her hating the pictures her dad kept up. He should have expected she wouldn’t understand sentimental pelicans.

  She leaned back in the booth, lost in thought. “A thousand for returning them or a thousand for information leading to their return?”

  “I think it just says for information. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Nothing, with Sierra, never meant nothing.

  “What do you think you’re up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” She wiped her mouth, this time with an actual napkin. “So, what are you going to do about the snakes?”

  “I thought you said you’d get them.”

  “I mean about figuring out who put them there.”

  “I don’t know. Keep my eyes and ears open, I guess.”

  Sierra frowned. “That doesn’t sound very proactive.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know, but if someone put them there, don’t you think they’re sending some kind of message?”

  “What message? Hey, don’t put your hand in the deck box. That kind of message?”