Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

  Storm 2 bad, she wrote. Sorry. Sad!

  She folded it tight and handed it to the critter, which ran away under the bed and did not return.

  “Eat,” Jinny ordered, as she stared at the empty floor. “Thang ain’t gonna give it to him till he’s alone. No point in y’all starvin’ whiles y’all wait.”

  She didn’t feel as if she could eat, but with Jinny staring at her as if her aunt was willing her to eat, she picked up the spoon and made an attempt, all the while keeping her gaze fixed on that spot under the bed where the piskie had gone.

  They finished dinner and had cleaned the dishes when it finally trotted out from beneath the bed again. When she saw it was carrying a folded paper, it was all she could do not to grab the note and the critter together in her eagerness to see what it said. It held the bit of paper up to her, and she took it, with a nod of thanks. It giggled and rocked back on its heels.

  Figgered. Sad 2. Pa and Ma said all right.

  For a moment she couldn’t make out what that last sentence could mean. Then it suddenly struck her. He’d asked Maddie and Matt if he could court her, and they had said yes!

  Wordlessly she held the scrap out to her aunt, who scrutinized it, and smiled and shrugged. “Like I tol’ y’all, it’s gonna be a long courtship. Plenny of time fer one or both of y’all t’figger out thet mebbe marryin’ th’ fust person near yore age that y’all lay eyes on what ain’t yore relative ain’t the best ideer.”

  “I’ve seed boys afore!” she objected.

  “But did they see y’all?” her aunt asked shrewdly.

  She bit her lip, because she knew very well what the answer was.

  But her aunt took pity on her and patted her hand. “An’ mebbe y’all will suit. He’s got th’ Glory, y’all got the Glory, an’ there’s been wuss thangs to git hitched over.”

  Then she changed the subject. “Send ’im ’nother note thet I reckon it’s gonna keep rainin’ temorrer, which I do, an’ y’all will see ’im on Monday.”

  She almost cried in dismay. But there wasn’t anything she could do about the rain, and if Aunt Jinny was right (and why wouldn’t she be?), it would be better to let him know.

  The little piskie was still just standing there waiting, as if it had figured there was going to be another exchange of notes. She rubbed out what she had written as best she could, wrote a new one, and folded the note and handed it to the critter, which ran off, just as before. In a much shorter time than she had expected, it returned. Sad! read the note. Miss U already.

  So that was all right.

  Even if it was all wrong.

  “Thenkee kindly,” she told the piskie, who took that as the dismissal it was, and skittered away.

  Aunt Jinny seemed to take pity on her then, because the next thing she knew, her aunt had taken out some corn from a bag she kept separate from the parched corn she often used in meals. “Y’all know what this is?” she asked, holding out a handful.

  It was—odd. Round in shape, and hard and shiny, nothing like the rectangular, matte flint corn Jinny grew and dried to have ground into meal. “No, ma’am,” she said, baffled.

  “It’s poppin’ corn. An’ we’re gonna et some.” Before she could ask any questions, her aunt had dropped a little bacon fat into the stew-pot, dropped a couple of handfuls into the fat, and clapped a lid on it. Then she put it by the fire.

  The first explosions took Anna by surprise, but the delicious aroma coming from that pot surprised her even more. It didn’t take long after the first explosions for the last to die off. Jinny had pulled the pot away from the fire as soon as the popping began, and now she took the lid off, grabbed the pot with rags wrapped around her hands, and tilted the contents out into a bowl. She set the pot back down, sprinkled salt over the fluffy white and fragrant bits, and set to eating. Anna got a handful and tasted it, and was won over immediately.

  “I c’n see there’s gonna be a lot o’ letter writin’,” Jinny said between bites. “Leastwise, ’lessen we c’n larn th’ both of y’all how to scry.” She was silent for a moment, as she seemed to roll that notion around in her mind. “Happen I ain’t got a lot o’ paper t’ spare. Josh might hev more; he got proper schoolin’ till he started workin’ fer Cavenel. We’ll arst him ’bout thet when he comes up t’ arst fer my blessin’. An’ we’ll see iffen he c’n larn scryin’.” She sighed. “Then I’ll hev t’ figger out a scryin’ bowl or somethin’ fer y’all.”

  “What ’bout Josh?” she asked.

  “He c’n figger thet out fer his own self,” Jinny said. “He works with stone, likely he c’n make somethin’ outa flint.”

  But the notion that Josh might be able to learn to scry and then the two of them could talk to each other every single night before bed made her so happy that it completely washed away the unhappiness she’d felt when Jinny had said tomorrow was going to be rainy.

  It was no night to be hanging out the window, looking at the moon and wondering if Josh was looking at the same moon, wondering if she was looking at the moon . . .

  Instead, she tucked herself properly into bed, and although she intended to lie there and think about Josh and wonder what he was doing, no sooner had she settled in, listening to the rain drum on the roof, than it was morning.

  Jinny was stoking the stove, so there would probably be baking today. And it was Sunday, which meant a full bath. When she climbed down the ladder, Jinny greeted her with, “We’ll be hevin’ our bath in th’ rain, so I’m a-warmin’ up th’ place. An’ since we’ll be a-hevin’ our bath in th’ rain, we’ll be gettin’ whatever in the garden looks like it’s gettin’ puny afore thet, ’cause it won’t matter a hill o’ beans how wet an’ muddy we gets.”

  She sighed. Wet, cold, muddy, and Aunt Jinny was still not going to let her go see Josh, most likely. No point in putting up her hair with those pretty hairpins—she just took both braids and pinned them in a sort-of bun with a splinter of wood. Then she got dressed, leaving off the petticoats, tied her drawers up above the knee, tied her skirts up, and went out to take care of the hogs and chickens.

  By just before lunchtime, she and her aunt were filthy, soaking wet, and half frozen, but they had a good lot of produce gathered that would otherwise have gotten ruined. It wasn’t until they were both clean and dry and Jinny was dishing out dinner that it occurred to her that if she were stupid enough to insist on going down to the Holcrofts—by the time she got there, she’d be just as soaked-through muddy and mucky as she had been after working in the garden. And never mind all the other things Aunt Jinny had reminded her of—she purely didn’t want Josh to see her looking like a drowned cat!

  “I reckon y’all’s a-pinin’ fer young Holcroft,” her aunt said with a smirk, passing her cornbread. “Wall, it come t’me thet we c’n kill two bird with one stone. Y’all hev been havin’ trouble scryin’, but I reckon scryin’ someone y’all know will come easier, an’ y’all got motivation t’try an’ see the boy.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I c’n do thet?” she demanded.

  “It’ll jest be a-seein’ him,” her aunt cautioned her. “Unless he larns how t’scry back, y’all won’t be able ter talk. But I’m thanking we jest needs t’git y’all over that stile of not bein’ able to see. Once y’all c’n do thet, I reckon we c’n get y’all a-talkin’ t’ th’ Marsters I know.”

  Anna could cheerfully have seen all of those unknown “Masters” to perdition. It was seeing Josh she wanted to do!

  Aunt Jinny didn’t say anything more about it, but for once Anna didn’t linger over the good food. She was on fire with impatience as she and Jinny worked through all the produce they had brought in from the garden, preparing some of it for storage and the rest for meals for the next few days. She knew very well that Jinny was aware of her impatience, and was amused by it.

  She ain’t never been in love, Anna thought resentfully, using that loaded word
“love” for the first time even in her own thoughts. So she thinks it’s funny. But it wasn’t funny. It was exhilarating and scary, and had her insides and sometimes her thoughts buzzing around like a hive of disturbed bees. And right now the only thing that seemed to make those bees settle was the idea of seeing Josh.

  Finally, they finished drying the last nugget of tomato, shelling the last pea. Finally, Aunt Jinny got out her black glass plate and directed Anna to settle herself down on a stool beside the stove.

  “All right,” she said, as Anna fixed both eyes on the plate. “Fill thet there plate with th’ Glory. Make the sign I showed y’all over it. An’ concentrate on seein’ Josh.”

  Carefully, she gathered the power to her, blocking off all the distractions around her, like the feel of her hair drying, the warmth of the stove at her back, the cold of her bare feet. She brought up the power from the earth under the cabin, and it answered to her easily; she directed it into the plate, and it flowed there with docility. When it felt as if the plate was humming in her hands and was drinking all the light in the room, she took one hand away from it briefly, and made the glyph Aunt Jinny had showed her the last time over the pool of blackness in her hands.

  And she didn’t even have to do anything more. The black void became a window, a window that showed Josh in his workshop, shaping the stone on his workbench with a smaller chisel than before, the little stove showing a good fire through the slits in the door.

  None of the little critters was nearby—evidently they didn’t find carving stone as enthralling as Anna did—but one of the calico farm cats sat on the toolbench, drowsing in the heat.

  The sense of triumph she had for finally conquering the task was almost as sweet as being able to see Josh—even if he was unaware of her.

  “Good,” was all Aunt Jinny said. “Now we see if y’all c’n talk to Young Raven. Then we’ll try for Rufous Taylor over to Asheville.”

  Anna just sighed.

  16

  ANNA had lost track of the days and the weeks; it was easy to do that when every other afternoon was full of Josh. He wasn’t “absent-minded” anymore during their afternoons; in fact, he took great pains to show her what he was doing with the little angel, even going so far as to have her hold the chisel and use the mallet, and carve away bits of the marble where it didn’t count. He explained everything to her in great detail, eagerly, offering her his knowledge as some other boy might give her a flower. He was unconsciously kind—that is, he was kind without even having to think about it—things like making sure all the kittens in the barn cat’s litter were being fed by their mama, and not losing his temper with Susie even when she deserved it. It inspired Anna to be the same. Everything about her feelings for him had deepened, until she thought she understood (and completely forgave) her mother’s obsession with her father. There were times she was so happy with him that she’d even forget to breathe.

  Her aunt got a letter from Ma that made Jinny tsk with disapproval. Ma, it seemed, had lost faith in Jinny’s potions, and was now relying on patent medicines from the Company store, since they eased Pa’s cough and the “potions” didn’t. “Thet’s on account o’ they’s opium in thar,” Jinny said darkly, but said nothing more, and Anna dismissed it from her mind. They still sent the baskets anyway, since Ma hadn’t said a thing about not wanting the potions to sell on anymore, and Jinny added what she thought would slip by Pa’s eye in the way of foodstuffs.

  The summer came to an end. The summer vegetables had all ripened and been harvested, and all but one of the pigs and the sow—now almost large enough for slaughter—had been driven down to the Holcrofts’ farm, where they joined others in a larger sty until it was cold enough to slaughter them. Jinny planned to slaughter their own pig, and of course the sow would be kept for breeding next February. All the autumn vegetables were nearly ripened. And frost was on the grass and leaves nearly every morning, except in Jinny’s garden, where her magic (and Anna’s) kept it off, lengthening the growing season for as long as they possibly could, because fresh vegetables were so much better than preserved.

  Jolene continued to appear at irregular intervals, teaching Anna bits of this and that.

  In her turn, with Josh as the example at the front of her mind, she was trying to be kind and befriend Jolene, who surely could not have many woman-friends. It had occurred to her that the one thing Jolene probably wasn’t able to provide for herself was . . . baked treats. Remembering the greed of the Little People, the piskies, and all, Anna took to carrying a carefully wrapped square of honey-soaked cornbread or a bacon sandwich with her. It wasn’t as if this was in vain—if Jolene didn’t happen to intercept her, Josh was always going to welcome a gift of food. Jolene certainly did respond to the homely gifts—and to Anna’s other overtures of friendship.

  She began teaching things to Anna that not even Great-Granpappy had mentioned in his book. The oddest of all, in Anna’s mind, were the illusions, which, to both their surprise and delight, she was particularly good at. “What d’ I need them fur?” she asked, astonished. “They ain’t real!”

  “Because, silly girl, illusions take less power to make and hold than the real thing—and you might not be able to get the real thing when you need it,” Jolene said lazily, creating the illusion of a massive, copper snake that rose above them, then vanished into sparks. “What if, despite what the Ravens say, there was a bear?”

  Anna no longer feared bears, thanks to the Ravens, but she held her tongue.

  “You create the illusion of something the bear fears, and while it is staring at it, you flee. What matters is not if it is real, but if you persuade someone or something else that it is real.”

  Old Raven—and often, Grandmother Spider—also appeared from time to time to teach her the Cherokee Earth Magic, which could not have been more unlike Jolene’s, and yet sprang from the same power. It was a contradiction she finally just accepted, and kept the two separated in her mind.

  And with the shortening daylight, Josh couldn’t work as late. So sometimes he came up to Jinny’s cabin to share supper, and afterward he would sit on the porch with his arm around her while they watched the night, and the magic in it.

  Those hours made Anna so unspeakably happy she thought she might float up to heaven.

  * * *

  “And where are you going so fast, on this warm afternoon?” called a lazy voice from the side of the lane to Anna’s right.

  Since Anna hadn’t been paying attention to anything except how quickly she could get to the Holcrofts’ farm, Jolene’s question, coming without any warning at all, startled her so much that she yelped and tripped, flailing to keep herself from falling.

  Jolene laughed, and seemed to separate herself from the undergrowth, her green gown and apron had blended into it so well. Today she had three of those little jewel-like lizards arranged around her, one in an apron pocket, one on her shoulder, and one draped in her hair, like an unusual comb.

  “Not only hurrying, but paying no heed to what is around you.” She tsked. “That is likely to get you into trouble. What if I had been a panther?”

  “The Ravens done promised there ain’t no panthers ’tween here an’ the Holcrofts,” she replied, and could have bitten her tongue for revealing where she was going. She had, thus far, managed to keep the fact that Josh was courting her a secret from Jolene. Or at least, she thought she had. Certainly no one else knew about it but Aunt Jinny and the Holcrofts. Aunt Jinny wouldn’t tell Jolene anything if she could help it, and the Holcrofts wouldn’t have thought it something appropriate to tell a stranger.

  “The Holcrofts?” Jolene’s eyes gleamed. “Let me see—you are traveling on swift feet, you are so preoccupied that you pay no attention to what is going on around you, and you are flushing with something other than the heat. I very much doubt that Susan Holcroft is the the cause of this. So—it must be Joshua!”

  Anna felt her che
eks flushing violently, and Jolene clapped her hands in glee at having had her guess confirmed. “So it is Joshua!”

  Anna did not ask How do you know the Holcrofts, because it was perfectly evident that Jolene knew just about everyone between here and Ducktown. It was perfectly evident at this point that everyone, in turn, “knew” Jolene. She was not the sort of creature to go overlooked.

  And I still don’t know what she is. Aunt Jinny still just pursed up her lips when Anna asked. Powerful witch? Mythic being? Something else? The only thing that Anna was sure of was that Jolene was no ghost. No ghost could ever make the people in Ducktown react to her the way that Jolene could.

  “But there is something more here than just a girl flying to her lover,” Jolene continued, narrowing her eyes with speculation. She paused, then ordered, suddenly, “Tell me what it is.”

  A wave of pure power washed over Anna’s unshielded self—because she had never thought she would need to shield against Jolene. Anna tried, she really tried to stop herself from telling. But the words came out of her mouth anyway. “Josh has magic. I’m helpin’ t’larn him how to scry, so’s we c’n talk ev’ night.” So far, it didn’t appear that Josh had enough magic to make the trick work, but Anna had no intention of giving up without a good fight. Much as she liked using the little “black mirror” that Josh had made for her (with black enamel paint and a hand-sized picture frame and its glass) to see him before she went to bed at night, she would much rather have been able to talk to him as she could with Aunt Jinny and two of the Elemental Masters her aunt knew.

  And she clapped both hands over her mouth, but it was too late.

  “Oh, really?” Jolene’s lips curved in a little smile. “I knew that Joshua is a stone craftsman, but he is also one with power? How very interesting.”