The Deep Wood (Sunshine Walkingstick Book 2)

by Celia Roman

  “Christ, Sunny.” His hand fell away from mine and he laughed, but it was bitter and hard, nothing like normal. “Just when I think we’re making progress you clam up on me again. When are you going to learn that I’m not letting you go no matter how hard you make it for me?”

  My head swung around and I blinked at him. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  He leaned across the table and pecked a kiss to my cheek, then launched into a tale about the mischief one of his cousin’s kids got up to over the past weekend, and I sat there like a worn down stump, too afraid of moving lest I dislodge the hope blooming irrational and fierce in my heart.

  I let a few days pass before I made a decision on whether or not to visit Libby and ask the questions of her what my own family refused to hear. There was too much at stake here, too big of a gap between what I knowed and what was going on for me to let a chance to learn pass me by.

  Riley uttered nary a word about it after our Wednesday supper, and I was sure not to let so much as a whisper slip to Fame or Missy or the boys about it. I had a right to know my own kin, for one, but for another, I was a woman fully growed. Riley was right on that. Weren’t nothing could stop me once I made up my mind.

  Though I sworn, I listened to the folks I respected, including him, more often than he thought.

  While I was mulling over contacting Libby, me and Riley took another stab or two at identifying Aunt Sadie’s critter. On Saturday, we went to the matinee up in Franklin and et an early supper. After Riley drove us home and parked beside the trailer, he followed me in and plunked down on the couch, fairy encyclopedia in hand.

  I busied myself with laundry (old habits die hard), then picked up a new book on Sumerian mythology I bought way back when and lost myself in the old stories.

  A few minutes later, Riley sat forward on the couch, startling me out of my reading.

  “What?” I asked.

  He glanced between the book and the critter, eyes narrowed. “Hobgoblin?”

  I marked my place in the mythology book and set it aside. “Lemme see.”

  He tilted the book toward me, and I snuggled up to his side and read the description. Small, helpful, mischievous, and nothing like goblins. I run into the latter a time or two. Nasty critters. Nigh on unstoppable when they ganged up on a body.

  Never come across a hobgoblin before, though, possibly ‘cause they was fairly benign, if the encyclopedia could be believed. I weren’t stupid enough to fall for ever thing writ down, but it done me right in the past. No reason not to believe it now.

  I glanced at the critter. It was staring at us round-eyed and curious, like it never seen humans before. “Is you a hobgoblin?” I asked, and danged if the thing didn’t curl up right there and go to sleep.

  Riley slumped back against the couch, a disappointed frown stretching his beautiful mouth. “I thought for sure that was it.”

  “We don’t know it ain’t,” I pointed out. “Dang critter is about the most obstinate thing I ever seen.”

  “Not the most obstinate I’ve seen,” Riley muttered.

  I smacked his leg playful like, and he tossed down the book and tackled me right there on the couch.

  “You’re gonna pay for that,” he said in a mock growl.

  I smacked him again for good measure. “Take it back.”

  “Not on your life.”

  His fingers strayed to my ribs, and the tickle fight was on, with both of us scrabbling to find the other’s weakest, most ticklish spots.

  It’s funny how moments like that linger in your mind, silly moments what mean nothing right then, but later take on a whole world of significance.

  Riley tickled me ‘til I was breathless, then his laughter faded and them hazel eyes of his warmed, and he lowered his head and kissed me, brushing his mouth across mine ‘til I was nigh on desperate to have him there.

  And whilst his weight covered me, pinning me to the couch, and his mouth moved against mine, heating my blood to near boiling, some part of my mind looked down upon us, two lovers entwined, and an epiphany rang bright and true through my bitty heart.

  It was always Riley for me, always had been. Looked like it was always gonna be, too.

  And in that moment, I wouldn’ta wished it any other way.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The path I needed to take struck me clear as a bell the minute I woke up the next day. I throwed the covers off and hurried through a shower and getting dressed, then sat down at my desk with a hot cup of coffee and a stack of old phone books covering the western North Carolina area.

  Turns out, Squirrel is a right common name among the Cherokee. I called ever one I could find, told ‘em who I was and who I was looking for, and got a whole lotta diddly squat.

  Which I shoulda expected. I wouldn’ta told nobody nothing neither, was me answering a stranger looking for kinfolk.

  Calls done, I flipped the last phone book closed and stuffed ‘em back on the shelves where they normally rested. This woulda been a whole lot easier with an Internet connection. Even if I could afford a computer, and I might could now with the Greenwood Five’s haul sitting in my coffee can bank, I’d have to go to all the trouble of getting a phone line or some such. Way out here in the boonies, who wanted that hassle?

  I could ask Riley to borrow his desktop.

  Soon as the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. Riley weren’t too keen on me tracking down Libby, or didn’t seem to be nohow. I could wonder why from sunup to sundown and it wouldn’t do me no good ‘less I asked, but I weren’t right ready to broach the subject again.

  ‘Sides which, he was at church right now, or would be soon.

  I sat back in my chair and scrubbed my palms down my thighs. Weren’t nothing for it. I was gonna have to wait ‘til the library opened tomorrow so I could go out and borrow one of their public computers.

  An itchy restlessness hummed through my blood ‘til it boiled and writhed inside my veins. I stood up and yanked on a light jacket, grabbed my 1911 and strapped it around my waist, and out the door I went. Had to be some chore I could fill my time with. The path around Henry’s memorial probably needed work. Hadn’t visited him good in a while nohow, so I shot off up the trail, hoofing it like the very hounds of hell was hot on my tail.

  The memorial was quiet, peaceful. Fallen leaves coated the ground, near about covering the little angel I placed there to watch over Henry when I couldn’t. I backtracked to the trailer and dug a rake outta the storage shed, and spent half an hour sweeping the memorial and adjacent trail clear.

  The burst of activity did naught to burn off the restlessness crawling under my skin. I sat down on the bench, hands on the rake’s handle, and stared at the endlessly blue sky peeking between barren tree limbs. Nightmare intruded, superimposing Henry’s lifeless, skeletal arms over the trees, and I flinched away from it.

  It was just a dream, was all. Just a dream.

  But still, it lingered and festered in my mind, and no matter what I tried to concentrate on, dinner with Riley tonight or hunting down cousin Libby, or even the problem with the painters, nothing worked. The hellish images stuck there like a blood stain, dark and rusty and awful.

  I stood up and whispered a silent apology to Henry, God rest his innocent soul. No chats today, but soon.

  I plodded home a lot slower’n I left, stowed the rake away, and clomped back into the house. Hung up my jacket and tucked the 1911 and its holster away, then plopped back down in the chair behind my desk.

  The notification light on my cellphone blinked green.

  I opened it up and sighed. Missed call from a number I didn’t recognize, eight two eight area code. My heart flipped over in my chest and my blood jittered and sang. That was western North Carolina. Had somebody I talked to earlier changed his mind?

  I dialed the number back and waited through three rings, and about collapsed in my chair when a vaguely familiar female voice answered.

  “This is Sunshine Walkingstick,” I
said, and just to be on the safe side, tacked on a quick, “Who’s this?”

  “Sunny!” The woman laughed, a low, short chuckle. “This is Libby Squirrel. I thought my husband had gone crazy when he told me you called.”

  “Nope. It was me, all right.”

  “I’m so glad.” She whispered something softly, off line, maybe, then said in a normal voice. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m right dandy. You?”

  “Fine, thanks. Getting ready for Thanksgiving.”

  I hummed a noncommittal response. I done forgot all about turkey day. “How’s that young’un of yourn? He was a cute’un, he was.”

  “Thank you. Charlie’s, well.” She laughed again. “He’s a toddler. Into everything whether he needs to be or not.”

  A soft pang struck my heart. I remembered them days, remembered ‘em fondly. Henry’d been right curious, too, God rest him.

  Libby murmured an aside again, and I gathered she was talking to somebody nearby.

  “This a bad time?” I asked.

  “No, not at all.” A man said something too low for me to hear, and Libby shushed him. “Sorry. We just got back from church.”

  It was a bad time. Disappointment sank through the jubilation of actually reaching her. “This can wait.”

  “Now’s fine, really. Hold on.” The noise on the other end, never loud to begin with, gradually faded. A door shut on silence, and Libby spoke again. “There. That should give us five minutes of peace.”

  And in that five minutes, I might actually work up the nerve to ask her what needed asking. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

  “You’re not an intrusion,” she said, gentle like. “You’re family. I know you have a reason for calling, though.”

  I winced and rubbed a hand over my face. Busted. “I was wondering what you could tell me about my daddy’s family.”

  A long silence filled the other end.

  When I couldn’t stand another second, I blurted out, “I mean, I know you’re my cousin and all, but I got so many questions. He died before he could tell me nothing, and what with being disowned and never knowing nobody on that side of the family…”

  “I understand.”

  The words was so soft spoken, I near about missed ‘em. “Mama writ me a letter the other day. Said he was of the Panther clan.”

  Another hesitation, then a wary, “Yes.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it on air, and finally mustered a repeat. “I got so many questions.”

  “Sunny.” She sighed, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely loud as a whisper. “Can I meet you? Somewhere safe. Somewhere private?”

  “My trailer?”

  “Ok. When?”

  I thought about that real hard. Riley and me had a standing date for Sunday nights, but my curiosity was mighty high. Could I really wait another day to satisfy it?

  The question twisted around in my noggin for a bare second before the answer hit me. No, I could not. After waiting all this time, I couldn’t wait no longer’n I had to now.

  “This afternoon?” I said at last, and Libby agreed and got directions from me. After, I hung up, caught between hope and relief and an odd feeling that I just stepped onto a path what weren’t meant to be trod.

  To be on the safe side, I put Aunt Sadie’s critter in my bedroom on my dresser and throwed a towel over the cage, then sprinted around the trailer shining what was already sparkling. Nerves, maybe, or the voice of my mama prodding me on. Who could tell what drove a woman to spritz up a place what was spritzed as it could get?

  Libby pulled into my driveway at three sharp that afternoon. I stood at the window in the living room, peeping through the curtains whilst she unbuckled Charlie and pulled him outta the backseat. Just him, no husband or other kids.

  Why?

  The simple question pinched at me, tearing off little pieces ever time it reverberated in my mind. Them little pieces drifted off and morphed into new questions, and pretty soon, ever empty space in my noggin was full of the little boogers. Did she trust me that much? Why him? Why not another kid or her husband? What if she’d brung ‘em all? How’d I shake the truth outta her then?

  And weren’t spilling the beans why she come?

  Her footsteps was near about silent on the wooden steps leading to the front porch, and her knock on the door not much louder. I opened it straight off and just stood there, staring at her like the idjit I suspected I was.

  “Hey,” she said. “You remember Charlie.”

  I transferred my gaze to him and attempted a smile, and he stared back, solemn as a carved statue, unblinking.

  “Hey, Charlie,” I finally said, and he took that as a cue to go babbling away in what I figured was Cherokee, since I understood not a word.

  I stepped back, an unspoken invitation to enter, then shut the door behind ‘em.

  Libby swung Charlie off her hip and set him on the carpet, and not for the first time, I was glad Mama put the fear of God in me when it come to cleaning.

  “You want something to drink?” I jacked a thumb over my shoulder toward the kitchen at my back. “I got cold water in the fridge and sweet tea, and fresh made applesauce cake.”

  “Water?” Libby sat down on the couch and slid a diaper bag off her shoulder, then set it down at her feet. “Maybe a slice of the cake for Charlie, if it’s not too sweet.”

  “Not much so,” I assured her, and busied myself tending to my guests. “I ‘preciate you coming all this way.”

  “I would’ve invited you up, but…” She placed her hands flat on her thighs and her gaze seemed to go unfocused a bit. “It’s not safe for you there.”

  I half turned away from the kitchen counter. “Why not?”

  She got up and picked Charlie up, and plopped him into a chair at the kitchen table. “What do you know about us? Your daddy’s family.”

  “Only what I been told recent.” I slipped the mason jar of water back into the fridge, then set a full glass of water in front of Libby and a small plate of cake in front of her son. “Stay away from my grandfather ‘cause he’s a crazy, ol’ coot mixed up in something dangerous. A family feud and whatnot. Stay away from my grandmother ‘cause she’s just plain crazy. You get the drift.”

  “Whoever warned you is right,” Libby said flatly, and her chocolate brown eyes glittered and bore into me. “Tell me exactly what you’ve been told, and who told you.”

  I started with Johnny Walkingstick showing up on my doorstep outta the blue and the warning he give to stay outta the deep wood. Libby listened without moving, standing at the table, a silent guard beside her son. I was beginning to believe them two was carved outta the same slab of stone.

  From there, I segued into Fame’s warning, then the letter Mama writ, and by the time I was done, it was a wonder I weren’t crazy from all the telling.

  When my breath emptied out on the last word, Libby nodded slowly. “And that’s why you called me?”

  “Old Mother,” I blurted out.

  “Who?”

  “A seer. Sorry.” I realized me and Libby was still standing, one on either side of young Charlie, and pulled out a chair and sat, and she did likewise. My manners needed some serious work. “She come to visit somewhere in there and warned me about ‘she of two worlds.’”

  Libby hummed noncommittally. “They were right, all of them, but no one has all the pieces.”

  “Not what they’re telling me nohow.” I flipped my hands over on the table, palms up, a small, helpless shrug. “What’s going on here?”

  “War, cousin.” Libby leaned forward, pressing her rounded bosom into the table’s edge. “A war that’s been raging for three generations. It claimed my grandmother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Libby’s glittering brown eyes hardened. “Your grandmother, her own sister, killed her.”

  I sat back, aghast at the very notion.

  “To claim the leadership of the clan. For power.” Libby shook her head and sat back, too, and
some of the hard eased outta her eyes. “The two-natured are at war, Sunshine, and we need your support.”

  I shook my own head hard, swinging the ends of my stick straight hair into my face. “Oh, no. I ain’t a-getting involved in all that.”

  “You already are.” Her eyes drifted to Charlie sitting quiet like between us, eating his cake one pinched off bite at a time. “Your grandmother came after you.”

  “What?”

  “She’ll come after you again, but you may not recognize her.”

  “Libby, c’mon,” I said, and blew out a sigh. “You want me to understand, you gotta be clear as day about stuff.”

  “Clear as day. Ok.” She stood and pecked a kiss to the top of Charlie’s head, then stepped away from the table. “Don’t worry, Sunny. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Hurt me…” I said, but before I could get much out, she pulled her shirt over her head and draped it over the chair she vacated.

  I scrambled outta my own chair and held a hand out to her. “Now, hold on a dadgum minute.”

  She toed off her tennis shoes and shimmied outta her jeans. “You have to see, Sunny. You have to see what we are.”

  “I don’t gotta see nothing!” Her hands reached around her back toward her bra strap, and I did a one-eighty, cheeks hotter’n fire. “For pete’s sake, Libby.”

  “Just a minute more.”

  Her voice had changed from a smooth cadence to a hitched growl. I whipped back around, and what I saw floored me. Libby’s form was human still, but barely. Black fur sprung outta her skin and her lower face transformed into a snout. She blinked, and in the instances before and after, her eyes turned from the beautiful deep brown of the Cherokee into the bright, sparkling green of a full growed cat.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charlie giggled and clapped his hands, smooshing applesauce cake against his palms. I snatched him up and held him back, and he right kindly patted my cheeks, sharing his cake with my skin.

  The painter what’d been Libby sank to the ground onto four large paws, black furred paws ending in sharp claws, and a tail unfurled behind her. She stretched and yawned, and gleaming white fangs bracketed a long, pink tongue.