by Celia Roman
Old Mother snapped upright and pointed one thin finger at me, that eerie white film still covering her eyes. “Heed the old man’s warning.”
The hand lifted away from me and I sucked in a deep breath as my heart skipped into a rapid fire rhythm. Agony radiated from my chest outward, leaching the strength from my limbs. The world went sideways and my hands flopped onto the porch, and the last thing I remember, Old Mother stood above me, looking down on me with her mad, mad eyes. “You should’ve paid attention, Sunshine,” she said, then the deep wood took me into its black soul, and I was no more.
I groaned and lifted a hand to my aching head. Dear Lord, Old Mother packed a punch. Things kept up like this, next time she seen something, I was liable to need a doctor.
A soft palmed hand smoothed over my cheek. “Easy, darling.”
I risked slitting an eyelid open, waited through the stabbing pain, and at last focused on the woman sitting beside me. “Missy? What’re you doing here?”
“Caring for you.”
She leaned down and touched her lips to my forehead, and them same old smells hit me, strong and sharp and achingly vivid. Fresh mowed grass in the spring, a tomb closed to the night air, swords clashing on a bloody field, and something new, the vision of an ancient man sporting a long, white beard, his hand held toward me.
I shook it off. What was Missy’s was hers alone to keep. She wanted me to know something, she’d surely tell me.
I rubbed a hand over my face, scrubbing away cold sweat. The muscles in my chest pulled and a deep agony shoved a gasp out of me.
“What is it, darling?” Missy asked.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, a whopper of a lie if ever there was one. “Time is it?”
“Seven thirty or so.”
Lordy, had I been out that long? What, about four hours since I got home? I slit my eyes toward the window, squinted at the thin light streaming through the curtains. Seemed a mite strong for that time of evening, but who was I to say what was right or wrong? Right then, seemed like I was lucky just to be lying there.
“In the morning,” Missy continued.
Panic slammed into me. I sat straight up in the bed, unmindful of the pain lingering in my torso. “What?”
She patted my hand, wrapped it in both of hers. “Trey found you half an hour ago. You were lying on the porch fully dressed and cold as stone. What happened, Sunny?”
I flopped onto the mattress and stared up at the water stain curling across the ceiling. “Old Mother come to see me yesterday.”
Missy’s hands clenched mine in an iron grip. “Tell me.”
I related what I could remember to her, something about warnings and how I should heed ‘em, and rounded the tale out with the pain give me by Old Mother’s vision.
Missy slumped back, her shoulders hunched. “That sounds an awful lot like a heart attack to me.”
“Naw,” I scoffed. “I’m too young.”
“No one is too young for heart problems.” She clucked her tongue, heaved a sigh, and them violet eyes of hers went firm. “You’re going to a doctor and that’s all there is to it.”
I opened my mouth to protest, and her violet eyes glinted. “I can take you or Fame can. Your choice.”
I snapped my jaw shut. Like as not, Fame’d dump me in the woods for a day or two for back talking him the other night, or worse. Being family wouldn’t excuse me from payback, only mellow it a little. I’d as soon avoid any if I could help it.
“All right, all ready,” I muttered.
She beamed at me and patted my hand again. Good little girl, the pat seemed to say, and I scowled whilst she chattered on about how the rest of my week was gonna go.
The front door opened and closed, interrupting a litany of words like bed rest and stay off your feet and no work for a while. Heavy footsteps hit carpet and linoleum, and a minute later, Riley filled the bedroom’s entrance. His auburn hair sticking up ever which way and his skin was ashen under his tan.
Missy twisted around toward him. “You’re just in time. Sunshine and I were discussing the rules for her week off.”
He nodded once and stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “What can I do?”
“How about asking me?” I said.
He glanced at me and away, and a faint smile curved his mouth upward. “I can take the week off and stay with her.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
Missy smacked my leg, effectively shushing me, and it was then I realized that I was stark nekkid under the covers.
I yanked ‘em to my chin and glared at her. Fine thing, it was, when a woman’s own kin neglected to fill in important details.
“That won’t be necessary, Riley,” Missy said, like I hadn’t uttered word one. “We’ll look after her during the day.”
“I can be here at night.”
And just like that, my whole week was planned out for me.
When did ever body forget I was a grown woman fully capable of taking care of my own dang self?
Missy and Riley chattered on for a few minutes more, then Trey stomped into the trailer and hollered for Missy, and Riley slipped into the bathroom to fill the tub so I could take a hot bath.
A bath, not a shower, like I was still five and my stick straight hair was up in pigtails.
Gentry arrived a minute after that and the distinct sound of a fingernail flipping against thin metal echoed through the trailer.
“Don’t open that cage,” I hollered, and Riley poked his head outta the bathroom, scowling at me like I lost my mind.
Maybe I had. The past day was a surreal blur in my memory, too weird to be anything outside of imagination. I pinched my arm hard and yelped (Yup, it hurt.), and Riley shook his head and retreated to safer climes.
Gentry poked his head in my bedroom holding the birdcage by the top handle. “This cage?”
“That’un,” I said, gentle as I could. “Find some lettuce or something and poke it in there, wouldja?”
His face lit up like it was Christmas and away he went.
Me, I flopped over on the bed and muttered ever curse word I ever learnt into my pillow.
Chapter Thirteen
Soon as the front door closed on my kinfolk, I flipped the covers off my legs and rolled outta bed.
Like he had some sorta sixth sense, Riley appeared in the bathroom doorway, filling it from top to bottom and side to side, and scowled at me. “Get back in bed, Sunny.”
I scowled right back and yanked the covers back over me. Dang Missy’s hide for stripping me down. “I got stuff to do.”
“You can do it after you see a doctor.” He strode across the room, snatched the covers away, and lifted me in his arms. “Bath’s ready.”
I clutched his shoulder, not a bit ready to give in, ‘specially since stubborn was the only thing standing between me and him. “You said to get in bed.”
“And now I’m saying take a bath.”
Faint humor underscored the mild spoken words. My scowl deepened and, ornery cuss that I was, when he set my feet on the bathroom floor, I shooed him out and locked the door behind him.
That’d learn him to mess with Sunshine Walkingstick.
The bath was warm and steamy and scented with the rosemary and orange bath oil Riley dug up from a supply give by a client for services rendered. A mild infestation of pixies, if I remembered correct, and I usually did.
I pinned my hair up and stepped into the bath, and while I was soaking, turned my noggin to figuring out how to slip my handlers so I could get some work done this week. The warm water lulled me into a stupor before any ideas turned up, and I pulled the tub’s plug no closer to solving my dilemma.
My limbs was shaky and weak as a newborn foal when I got out. I weren’t fool enough to believe it was the water what sapped my strength. My mouth twisted into a frown. What in tarnation did Old Mother do to me? Weren’t no ordinary vision, sure as tootin’. Last time, I lost a morning. This’un, she mighta actually done some damag
e on top of the stolen hours.
Riley was sitting on the end of my bed when I come out, waiting for me. He glanced up, eyed the towel wrapped around my middle, and sighed.
I grinned real cheerful like. He wanted to see me nekkid again, he was gonna have to work for it.
“Ain’t it about time for you to go to work?” I asked.
“Called in and took a personal day.”
I opened a dresser drawer, rummaged for a t-shirt, and shut the drawer with my hip. “Missy and them is just up the hill if I need help.”
“I want to be here.” He slapped his palms to his thighs, rubbed ‘em good. Got up and paced around, then plopped back onto the end of the bed. “Missy thinks you won’t see a doctor unless I make you go.”
She was right about one thing. I weren’t gonna go see no doctor. Riley carrying me there had not a blessed thing to do with it.
“What’s with the cage?” he asked.
I fished out panties and slid ‘em on under the towel. “Old Aunt Sadie caught that critter and give it to me to figure out. Thought it might be eating her pumpkin patch.”
He twisted around, eyed my legs real subtle like under lowered eyelids. “She’s still alive?”
“And kicking.” I waited patient as a saint ‘til he took the hint and turned back around, then dropped the towel and shimmied into a t-shirt and jeans faster’n greased lightning. “I gotta figure out what that critter is.”
“You don’t know?”
“Nobody knows ever thing.” I grabbed a pair of socks and Daddy’s hunting knife, and flopped onto the bed next to him. “Gotta lot of studying to do today.”
“I saw the stack of books.”
“Got more coming soon, so I need to get cracking with them what’s out there.”
“Good week for bed rest.”
I smacked him with the socks, gentle so as to do no harm. “A body can’t spend all her time laying about.”
“This body can. You’ve got an appointment in a couple of hours.”
“What for?”
“To have your heart checked.”
I bit back my first reply. It weren’t fit for his ears a’tall and I done spent my monthly allowance of curse words into the pillow. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me.”
“Then there’s no harm in having it checked.” He looped a casual arm around my shoulders and tucked me against his side. “Humor me, baby.”
Well, if he put it like that, how could I not? So I let him fix me breakfast whilst I counted quarters into the cussing jar, then he carried me to the doctor, a young Asian feller what weren’t much older’n me. As I suspected, I got a clean bill of health. Well, mostly. Seems the good doctor found an anomaly in my heartbeat. Told me to rest up real good and come back in a week, and I fumed and huffed while Riley stood there looking satisfied as a cat eating a canary.
That afternoon, after Riley treated me to a hot lunch in town, we sat side by side on the couch and divvied up reading between us, me searching for anything what might shed light on the growing painter problem, Riley trying to identify my newest houseguest.
I started with the issue of Foxfire Magazine devoted to local legends and tall tales. I read this same issue cover to cover some few weeks back when Riley come to me on Belinda’s half, so it was somewhat fresh in my memory. Now, I slowed down and studied the blips handed down from one generation to the next, or made up on the spot to satisfy a young’un’s bedtime scare.
Several mentioned painters direct. In the frontier days, when houses was far apart and neighbors couldn’t spit into each other’s yards, folks relied on themselves and the kin living with ‘em for protection. They was well aware of the dangers lurking in the deep wood, beyond the boundaries of the living dug outta the land one stump at a time.
Still, if them tales could be believed, it weren’t unusual for a body to fall prey to wild animals. Painters seemed dangerous in a particular way to early settlers. Least, they was more tales told about ‘em than other feared creatures. Mighta had something to do with the way they attacked, at dusk when folks was tired from a long day of hard labor. Mighta had something to do with the eerie nature of their cry, like a woman screaming, some said.
Memory stirred. I thought on it and finally come up with the cause. BobbiJean heard screaming the first night the chickens was got. Was it a painter she heard, and if it was, was there any connection between it and the livestock’s disappearance?
When I was done with the magazine, I dropped it into the pile stacked between me and Riley and stretched good. Whilst I was absorbed in my study, he’d perched himself on the edge of the couch, knees widespread, forearms on his thighs, and held a thick encyclopedia of fairies in his hands. Ever once in a while, he glanced over at the critter sitting in its cage atop my desk and muttered under his breath.
After a minute watching him and trying not to laugh at his studiousness, I said, “Any luck?”
“I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about fairies.” He flipped a page, scanned it, and eyed the critter good. “Brownie?”
“Naw,” I said right off. “Brownies is helpful critters. Not a speck of mischief in ‘em.”
“How do you know this one is mischievous?”
“I don’t. I just know it ain’t no brownie.” He looked over at me, one eyebrow arched, and I shrugged. “Plus, I seen a couple, enough to know what they look like.”
“Back to the drawing board,” he muttered, and I bit my cheek, containing a laugh.
If I’da knowed getting his help’d be so entertaining, I woulda roped him into it a long time ago.
Riley leaned back, slumping into the couch’s worn cushions. “What about you? You find anything?”
“Tall tales, legends. Nothing to explain why them painters is acting the way they is.”
I pursed my lips together, hesitant to tell him about the human eyes of the painter me and David found. Letting Riley read an encyclopedia about fairies weren’t nothing a’tall. He couldn’t get hurt sitting on my couch a-reading, but the more I told him, the deeper he’d sink into this dark, dangerous world I lived in. Did I really want him to see that side of me? Did I really wanna throw him in harm’s way without proper cause?
Riley tucked a finger in the book, holding his place, and slid his free hand up and down my thigh, up and down, soothing me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?” he asked gentle like, and the wealth of patience in his voice sparked something in me, something lonely and small and in need of the friendship he offered.
“That painter me and David found?”
“What about it?”
“It had human eyes.”
His hand paused and them hazel eyes of his widened. “What?”
“Human eyes,” I repeated. “Like mine or yourn. You know. Round of pupil? Not like a cat’s a’tall.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t seem important.”
He sat there a long time just looking at me, his expression dead and flat and somehow bleak. At last, he said, “What kind of animal has human eyes?”
I don’t know why, but his answer lifted a weight off my shoulders I weren’t aware bore down on ‘em. “Shifters and such. Transmogrifiers.”
“Like werewolves?”
“Them’s the most common.” Or the most talked about anyhow, but that didn’t seem pertinent, and I weren’t sure I wanted him to know more about them sorts of critters nohow.
“You ever hear of panthers in this area turning into humans?” His shoulders shifted impatient like under his t-shirt. “Or humans into panthers.”
“No, but that don’t mean they ain’t none.”
“Maybe that’s what you should be looking for, then. It might explain the panthers singling you out.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. I hadn’t told him word one about my suspicions along them lines, so how’d he know? “Who you been talking to?�
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“Missy told me about the panther you saw on the trail between here and Fame’s. And then the one at the wedding?” He shrugged, this’un looser and casual. “Seems logical.”
I clucked my tongue at him. “Riley, honey, ain’t nothing logical about monsters.”
“Sure there is.” He held up the book he was a-reading and waggled it at me. “Every creature in here operates by rules of some sort, biological or societal or whatever. You just have to figure out what rules govern the panther-humans.”
“If they is human.”
“You’ll figure it out.” He flopped over on me and planted a big smooch on my mouth, and sorta laid there for a minute, looking at me all serious. “Don’t ever hide anything from me again, Sunny. Not anything.”
I couldn’t quite agree to that, but lucky for me, he drawed his own conclusions and went back to his studies. Me, I picked up the Foxfire book like he hadn’t rattled me good, and pretended to search for answers ‘til the butterflies in my stomach settled down and I didn’t have to pretend no more.
Not long after, I set the book down having learnt not much more’n what the magazine told me. I coulda turned to some of the books tucked into my book cases, but Mooney’s tome on the Cherokee was right at hand, so I curled my knees up on the couch and let it fall open in my lap to a random page. I flipped back to the beginning of that section, “The Eastern Band,” and began reading from there, refreshing my memory on the early history of them Cherokee what managed to escape removal from the remnants of their traditional lands during the Trail of Tears.
I don’t know how long I read, but it musta been long enough for the words to knock me out. Riley woke me late in the afternoon, informed me kinda sad like that he hadn’t figured out what the critter was, and fixed me some supper. I put on one of The Police’s albums and we spent a pleasant evening flirting and laughing and having a high ol’ time together.