Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

  She bit her lip in dismay. Would Aunt Jinny allow her to make the trek down to the Holcrofts’ farm and back in a storm?

  She heard her aunt moving around downstairs, and hurried down the ladder to make her case. She turned to face her aunt, who was just setting the table, and opened her mouth only to have her aunt give her a gimlet stare.

  “No,” Jinny said flatly. “I know what y’all’s thankin’. Not terday. I ain’t a-gonna let y’all git lightnin’-struck, nor soaked an’ chilled an’ git sick, nor take a slip an’ mebbe sprain or break somethin’. Th’ boy’ll be there termorrer, an’ th’ day arter thet, an’ th’ day arter thet.”

  She almost started to argue, when Jinny put the cap on it. “Y’all needs ter show Matt and Maddie that y’all’s responsible afore they’re gonna let their boy come a-courtin’. Y’all thank it’s gonna look responsible t’show up on their doorstep soaked through an’ needin’ t’ git put up by th’ fire an’ fussed over? They’d be a-wastin’ their time, all ’cause y’all couldn’t wait a day. Thank it’s responsible t’ go courtin’ a fever? Y’all might thank it’s romantical thet y’all ain’t gonna let a little thang like gittin’ sick keep y’all apart, but know what Matt an’ Maddie are gonna thank? Once the fuss is over, they’re gonna thank how y’all put ’em out, confusticated their day, an’ caused a ruckus.” Her stern gaze grew even sterner. “They’ll be a-wonderin’ what kinda gal is gonna leave me all alone up here when lightnin’ could hit th’ house, or the pigs or hens could git loose, or th’ roof could spring a leak. What d’y’all thank they’ll be thankin’, thet y’all cain’t bear t’ be away one damn day when wimmin ’round these parts sent their men off ’n niver saw ’em fer years t’fight the war not thet long ago?”

  She shut her mouth. Because, of course, Aunt Jinny was right. She hated it, but Aunt Jinny was right. She wouldn’t look like someone who could be trusted with a household. She wouldn’t look like someone who could be trusted in a crisis.

  In fact, she’d look like her Ma, and her Ma’s Ma, at least if Aunt Jinny was to be believed. A flibbertigibbet. A girl with more hair than sense. Too lovestruck to think straight. Not to be trusted to act sensible any time her man was concerned.

  Someone who needed to be taken care of. Not someone who could take care of others.

  So instead of objecting, she heaved a long, tragic sigh. Aunt Jinny snorted. “Y’all oughter be a actress in a mellerdrama. Come stir th’ mush,” she ordered, and gestured at the pot on the hearth. “It’ll be ready ina minnut. I’m already dressed, so I’m a-gonna run out t’ th’ hens and pigs, an’ let y’all stay dry fer once.”

  Jinny didn’t have skirts to tie up, but she rolled up her overall cuffs to the knee and threw that piece of oilcloth over her head and ran out the door, leaving Anna feeling just a bit guilty that she had taken the chore.

  The rain showed no signs of slackening all through the morning, no matter how many times she went to the door and glared up at the clouds. The continuing downpour curtailed their usual chores by a considerable amount.

  At least the garden looked intact from the front porch. And being as everything was on the easy slope, it wasn’t going to get waterlogged, so there was not much chance they’d lose any produce. No point to run out into the rain to save what they could, as they might have had to do if damage had been done.

  So they tidied up with a vengeance, and not only swept the floor, but gave it a good scrub with a rag mop. They did the washing and strung it across the cabin on a line, and by then it was time for dinner, which Anna ate with a seasoning of gloom.

  “I swan, y’all’s face is more stormy than th’ weather,” her aunt said, with a touch of both humor and exasperation. “Y’all c’n git lost easy enough in Granpappy’s book, why don’t y’all try thet this arternoon?”

  “I wish’t I was Air an’ not Earth,” she replied, crossly. “I c’d make thet there storm blow clean away!”

  “An’ send it a-pilin’ up on Ducktown, an’ mebbe make a flood what’d kill folks?” her aunt demanded unexpectedly.

  Startled, she stared at Aunt Jinny in disbelief. “I—could’a done thet?” she faltered. “Iffen I was Air?”

  “Thet’s why Air’s one’a the dangerest powers there is,” her aunt confirmed. “Iffen y’all ain’t extree, extree careful, an’ y’all jest does stuff wit’out thankin’ an’ plannin’ it over fer days and days, thet’s what c’n happen. Earth’s a slow power, an’ forgivin’. Water, Air, an’ Fire c’n get y’all in trouble afore y’all c’n blink. Afore y’all so much as ponders a-changin’ somethin’ as big as weather, y’all damn well better hev a long talk with whatever Marster’s downwind, or y’all’ll hev a magic fight on yore hands. ’Lessen y’all c’n keep what happens in yore own land an’ yore own hands, y’all better figger out who else is a-gonna be in the path of it, an’ what they’re gonna git in they teeth, ’cause y’all’ll be called to account fer all of it.”

  “Oh,” she replied in a small voice, getting a mental flash of flattened crops and houses knee-deep in muddy water. She swallowed hard, and went to get the book.

  As usual, she climbed up on top of the stove to read it, and despite wishing with every other word that she were down at the Holcrofts’ watching Josh at work, all cozy with him in the workshop—maybe helping out by keeping that little stove tended—talking and learning more about him—

  Well, Pavel’s words eventually worked their own sort of enchantment on her, and she fell back into the story.

  On reaching new shores, Pavel and Sally found that they were by no means the only Elemental Masters in the new United States.

  Initially, they disembarked in New York City, but neither of them could bear the place. In fact, it had the same effect on them that Soddy had on Anna, and having to shield all the time nearly wore them away to nothing in the course of a single week. They could have been in a bad situation, but they were saved by Pavel’s scrying; he spoke to his father-in-law, who spoke to folk in London, who got them the name and address of a Fire Master, and told him they were coming and in need of help.

  The Fire Master, like so many Masters Pavel had met on his travels, was prosperous—though it was by his own efforts, rather than inherited wealth. It was beginning to look to Anna as if being able to practice magic gave you an edge on prosperity.

  When she paused to think about that, it all began to make sense. If you were an Earth Magician, you could virtually guarantee the success of your crops and animals. Presumably Fire, Water, and Air brought with them their own means of making you prosperous, or even rich, as long as you were willing to work at it.

  She returned to the story of the Fire Master that Pavel and Sally took shelter with. Fortunately, he lived in a rural area outside the city limits, and he willingly had them as guests, which took them out of the poisonous atmosphere of the city itself. Having begun as a blacksmith’s apprentice, he now was the owner of his own ironworks, and unlike the more altruistic of his European brethren, he expected to get value for value given when he offered to host them and help them on their way.

  I soon learned why “Yankee trader” signifies the height of sharp dealing, Pavel wrote. The Master got full value out of both of them: a fully stocked cabinet of treatments and medicines from Sally, and expert supervision of some stonework and installation of a “Rooshan stove” in his own home from Pavel. Only when these conditions had been satisifed was he willing to pass them to a coastal trading vessel captained by a Water Magician he knew.

  He advised that we sail further south, Pavel wrote. He told us that we would not find land “for the taking” until we got further south and then into the interior. I did not know what “land for the taking” meant at that time, and naively thought it meant there was open wilderness that belonged to no man. But in his defense, perhaps that was his impression too. I certainly saw nothing at the time, nor have since, to think he was trying to decei
ve us.

  So sail south they did, as slowly as if they had been walking, for the trader stopped at every tiny settlement of more than a few houses, and the further south they got, the more often he was trading his goods for tobacco, which he compressed into tight bales with a machine he had on board for the purpose, and stowed in the emptying hold. Pavel was fascinated by this process; the trader bought the loose, dried tobacco from small farmers once they had cured it, loaded it into this ingenious device, which used a screw, like a printing press, to create compact bales, then weighed the resulting bales and paid the farmers by the pound. None of these farmers raised enough tobacco on their own to bother with owning such a thing, but the money they got from their small crops was enough to make a real difference in their lives. Not unlike Aunt Jinny and her potions.

  For the first time I began to see the Negro slaves I had heard about in New York. It seemed that every farmer had at least a few. We were appalled to see people in a condition that was worse than that of a serf under a cruel boyar, but what was I to do? With a heavy heart we kept quiet.

  The trader was a good host and a good companion, full of stories, and they were sorry to say goodbye to him when they reached North Carolina.

  But there, he left them in the care of yet another Fire Master, who was also a blacksmith, in Wilmington, a coastal city in North Carolina. The city proper did not cause them much discomfort even without shields, and they learned that they could enjoy the amenties the place offered without much difficulty. There was a great deal of farmland available for purchase at prices Pavel did not consider extreme. Many of those who had settled there came from the same part of England as Sally, a few generations back. In short, they began to think about settling where they had landed.

  And we liked the climate and the land, wrote Pavel. Or rather, we liked the farmland outside of the city, and it seemed to welcome us. It seemed to us that this would be a good place to make our home. Until the storm . . . which changed our minds completely.

  It began with a sultry and oppressive morning, and as we all rose early in the household, we all took note of the blood-red morning skies. “This ain’t good,” said our host, and proceeded to direct us, his apprentices, and all his “hired hands” and his two slaves to make the house and forge ready for “a blow.” All fires were put out and smothered. Doors to the forge were closed and barred by stout lengths of wood, and wooden shutters nailed shut over all the windows. Anyone who had left horses at the forge to be shoed in the morning got their beasts back unshod. “I’m lucky I ain’t got no stock, not even a chicken,” said he, and he gathered his household and slaves and us and his two hunting hounds into a single room on the westward side of the house, sent those of his men and apprentices who had homes elsewhere in the city back to their families, and directed us to provision the room that would be our shelter with bedding, two barrels of fresh water, and all the food from the kitchen that did not need to be cooked. The rest, we either hastily cooked and added to the storm provisions, or he had us pack inside as many barrels and casks as he could find. These he sealed, and stacked around the walls of the room. Then everything of value in the house was added, until there was scarcely room to move. I had no idea what all this meant; it seemed a most peculiar sort of preparation for a mere storm.

  But as the “blow” approached, and the winds began, I quickly changed my mind.

  “Reckon it’s a cyclone,” he said, as we looked out from the porch of his home and saw the trees bending nearly down to the ground, in winds so strong I could scarcely believe my own eyes. “Time to hunker down.”

  We retreated to the room, and barred the two doors to the house from the inside.

  Then the winds and rain began in earnest. His powers were useless—but Sally’s and mine proved to be of some utility, as we bent our magic to desperate measures and managed to find ways to strengthen the wood and stone of the house against a wind that tore at it as if it had been a helpless lamb and the storm a starving lion.

  That day and night I envied those who were able to sleep through this. They, at least, could snatch an hour or two of rest. Sally and I dared not sleep, and only ate and drank when someone put food and water into our hands. Although the servants and slaves had never been told what we were, somehow I think they intuited that we were working to their safety, for they cared for us most tenderly.

  Then there was a sudden calm, and Sally and I started up, intending to rejoice, but our host disabused us of the notion that we were safe. “This’s just a cruel, hard trick of the devil,” said our host. “But come outside an’ I’ll shew y’all.”

  By now, it was sunset. We unbarred the doors and stepped out onto the porch into a landscape of utter destruction. We stood in the middle of an island of calm, and around us—all around us—the storm raged, a gigantic wall of wind and rain and fearful lightning that ringed us perfectly. Our safety, as our host had said, was an illusion. In mere hours the storm would be upon us, this time the winds howling around us from the opposite direction. I have never seen the like. Not even the worst that a winter in Mother Rus could bring could match anything so fierce as this. I hope never to see such again.

  Once again we retreated into our safe room, Sally and I mustered our powers, and the storm began anew.

  It was an untold number of hours of desperate work and terror before the winds began to drop again, our host told us that the worst was over, and we fell into a sleep of exhaustion of the sort I have never needed before or since.

  When we emerged again, and saw the utter destruction, the houses and barns blown to pieces, the herds of drowned livestock, trees felled and the bodies of the dead being laid out by the survivors, Sally gave me such a look as told me she would be dead before she consented to live in a place that spawned such terrors.

  Well, this was nothing like anything she had ever heard of before. Was this just exaggeration on Pavel’s part? “Aunt Jinny—” she began. “When yore Granpappy was in North Carolina—”

  “Thet’d be the cyclone he went through. They got them thangs on the coast. Most times they ain’t thet big, but the one he saw was a whopper. There was another like it jest a few years ago,” her aunt said, as usual, anticipating her question. “He weren’t talkin’ thangs up, it were thet bad. An’ they was inland a good piece. It were worse on th’ shore, the sea done run up till a lotta them houses on the coast was so deep in water they was washed off clean away. Sensible folks git th’ bejabbers offen th’ coast when one of them thangs comes in.” Then she snorted. “But sensible folks wouldn’ be livin’ thar in the fust place, iffen y’all arst me.”

  She tried to imagine it, and couldn’t. And she could not blame her Great-Granny for refusing to live where such things could happen.

  After that dramatic incident, Pavel and Sally did stay the winter, however. They stayed to help with the recovery after the cyclone, winter set in, which would have made hard traveling, and then there seemed no good reason to move on until spring, not when their host was so grateful to them that he gave them the best room in his house and feted them all winter long.

  Then, in the spring, they bought a stout wagon, provisioned themselves, and headed west, into Tennessee, where everyone said there was cheap land for sale. This, Pavel noted, was a far cry from “land for the taking,” but it was land that was in the midst of settlements, villages, towns, and even cities, and they had already discovered that the money they had brought with them was worth more in the United States than it had been at home.

  And so, we traveled without incident through the spring, until we arrived at a spot that was for sale by the government that called to both our hearts.

  Little did we know it was not the land that was calling to us. It was the Cherokee chief, Eagle Sight, who became my dearest friend in this country.

  She became aware that her aunt was gently poking her foot. “Supper,” Jinny said. “Told y’all thet y’all’d git lost in
thet book agin.”

  Rain still drummed on the roof, and much as she hated to admit it . . . Jinny had been right. If she’d been given leave to go to the Holcrofts, she’d have arrived soaked and shivering. Maddie probably would have insisted that she at least sit by a fire until she got dry. Then she’d have had to build a fire for Anna to sit by. And she’d make hot tea. All of this would have put Maddie out, and none of it would have allowed her to be alone with Josh.

  And conditions would have been worse when she returned, because the trek was uphill. Longer, more chance of slipping and falling, and certainly more time in the rain. Why did Aunt Jinny have to be so very right?

  And poor Josh . . . would he have been working away over his statue, hoping she would be able to get away and join him, not knowing Aunt Jinny had forbidden her to leave? He’d have understood, of course. In fact, he probably had already thought of all that. But he might have been hoping anyway.

  If only there was a way to send Josh messages!

  Wait— “Aunt Jinny?” she said, as she climbed down from the stove. “Would one-a them Elemental critters take a note t’Josh fer me?”

  Aunt Jinny looked taken aback, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “Wall . . . prolly,” she admitted. “I ain’t niver arst one.”

  She didn’t wait for permission; she gathered magic and sent out a call for a piskie. And almost immediately, one appeared out from underneath Aunt Jinny’s bed. It was completely dry. Had it been there all along?

  Never mind that. “Iffen I give y’all a thing fer Josh, the feller down the Holler what carves stones, c’n y’all give it to him, an’ mebbe bring me back another from him?” She didn’t want to confuse it by referring to a “note,” which it might not understand, so she just said “a thing.”

  The little critter cocked its head to the side, then nodded. Aunt Jinny sighed and rolled her eyes, but rummaged for a scrap of the paper that had been wrapped around their Ducktown purchases, and gave her a stub of a pencil.