Bloodroots

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  "Good," he whispered, and the eyebrow arched even higher, the eyes gleaming with a strange light. "Very . . . very . . . good."

  Reacting at last, Olivia tried to shove him away, but she found herself instantly pinned to the floor, his body on hers, his face just inches from her own.

  "I didn't try to kill you—which isn't to say that I wouldn't, if the mood struck me." His warning came out with a mocking smile, and as she fought to turn her head away, he forced it back to look at him. "So you want to work, do you? Work magic? Work miracles? What?"

  "How do you know about that—"

  "Oh, I know lots of things. Things you'd never ever want to know."

  "Let me go! You're hurting me!"

  "Wrong." He shook his head, still smiling. "I don't hurt."

  Without warning he rolled off and jumped to his feet. Olivia saw his arm reach down, his fingers moving, coaxing her.

  "Come on. Get up."

  She tried to pull away, but he grabbed her arms and lifted her easily. Then he smiled and moved toward the open door.

  "You should get that looked at," he said. "It's not safe to bleed around here."

  To Olivia's amazement, the doorway was empty.

  Limping across the room, she looked up and down the deserted gallery, then sank back against the wall, closing her eyes.

  Someone tried to kill me . . . someone was hiding in my room . . . it must have been him —

  If not him . . . then who?

  "What you doin' to yourself up here, child?"

  Olivia's hand flew to her throat, and she spun around. Yoly was framed in the doorway, her long black robe trailing around her feet, her head still swathed in a kerchief. She was holding a basket and a roll of bandages, and her eyes took a quick inventory of the room before they finally came to rest on Olivia's bloody nightgown.

  "Lord have mercy—"

  Olivia stared back stupidly. She looked down at her hands and was surprised to see how they were shaking.

  "Someone was here in my room," she said. "Someone tried to—"

  "Who was? Ain't nobody up here but you."

  "Someone was. I didn't imagine it." Olivia felt a shiver go through her, and she hugged herself tightly. I'm not the one who imagines things — it was Mama who did that — always her ... "I don't imagine things like that," Olivia said again. She pointed at Yoly's basket. "How did you know I was hurt?"

  The woman paused a moment before answering. "Skyler told me."

  "Who's Skyler?"

  "Sit there." Yoly nodded toward the bed. "Let me take a look at you."

  Olivia did as she was told, trying not to flinch as Yoly held a candle up close to the wound and pressed on it with her big, strong fingers.

  "Someone came up behind me," Olivia said. She was suddenly so very, very tired, and her voice began to sink. "I saw them in the mirror."

  "Who did? Who come up behind you?" Shaking her head in annoyance, Yoly rummaged through her basket.

  "I didn't see his face. He pushed me down on the bed and—"

  "You done it yourself," Yoly broke in, and Olivia stared at her.

  "I didn't. I couldn't have."

  "You done it. Yes, you did. Most likely when you fell," Yoly insisted. "Have a look."

  To Olivia's dismay, Yoly took a candle from the nightstand and lowered it near the floor beside the bed. A hand mirror lay there, glass broken in its frame, silver shards scattered over the rug. As Olivia raised her eyes, Yoly gazed back at her.

  "No," Olivia said. "That's not what happened."

  "Seven years bad luck," Yoly grumbled under her breath. "As if we need any more of that around here."

  "That's not what happened," Olivia said again, but Yoly didn't seem to hear. She reached for the curtains of mosquito netting and began swirling them out around the bed.

  "You use this tonight, girl. We got mosquitoes that'll eat you alive."

  "Someone came up behind me," Olivia broke in. Her voice dropped even lower now, her words almost mechanical. "They pushed me down on the bed. They cut open my leg. Then some horrible person came out of the dark—"

  "Skyler," Yoly said calmly. "That was Skyler."

  "But who is he?"

  Yoly got very still. She was quiet for such a long time that Olivia began to wonder if she'd even heard the question. It seemed to require great effort when Yoly finally roused herself. She shifted the basket in her lap and looked at the wall.

  "You be gone tomorrow," she said quietly. "That's all. You just be gone."

  "What do you mean?" Olivia bit her lip as Yoly held a wet cloth to her wound. The pain was excruciating, and she gripped the edge of the bed, trying not to cry.

  "Not too deep." Yoly seemed to be talking to herself. "Not too bad." '

  Olivia shook her head. "No broken mirror could have cut like that." Another wave of pain rushed through her, and she eyed Yoly accusingly. "You know it couldn't."

  "I knows you did it>" Yoly said firmly. "That's what I knows."

  She clammed up. Only when the injury was finally cleaned and bandaged did Olivia venture to speak again.

  "You still haven't told me about Skyler. You still haven't told me what he was doing in my room."

  "You just forget about Skyler," Yoly said abruptly. "Your food's cold." She put everything back into place in her basket and stood up. "You ain't took a bite."

  Olivia looked over at the tray. "I'll eat before I go to sleep."

  Yoly shook her head and turned away. She was halfway out of the room when Olivia's voice stopped her.

  "Yoly," she said quietly, "who else lives here besides you and Miss Rose?"

  Yoly froze, her broad shoulders stiff and straight. As she slowly turned to look back, Olivia saw her mouth open, saw the flicker of hesitation on her face, saw her expression closing in again, unreadable.

  "Better get that glass off the floor," she said, and was gone.

  Olivia sat there for a moment, thinking. Then she eased herself off the bed and hobbled to the door, closing it tightly against the night.

  She hadn't realized she was still trembling. She picked up the matches and went around the room, lighting more candles, making sure every single one was ablaze.

  Light pulsed into each corner.

  There was no way anyone could hide in here now.

  Yet as she slid down between the sheets, Olivia felt every shadow watching her with hidden eyes.

  BLOOD ROOTS

  'Touch me. . ."

  And that whisper came again—that strange, breathless whisper that wasn't in Olivia's dream, and as she tossed restlessly in her bed, painful memories swept over her once more and the nightmare picked up where it had left off—

  You can look, but you can't touch, and Mama pushing her in front of the mirror and unbuttoning her little-girl dress, and look at yourself, Olivia, look at how pretty you are, I used to be pretty like you, I used to be just like you —

  And don't Mama, Olivia begging, poor little girl child standing there so cold and crying, I didn't mean to do it, I won't do it again—don't, Mama, don't—

  "Don't stop . . . don't stop—"

  And the whisper was a moan now, and it got louder and louder, and it was fear and it was pain and it was ecstasy all at once, and as it sliced ruthlessly into Olivia's nightmare and shattered all the bad, bad memories, she cried out and bolted up in bed.

  Long folds of netting enclosed her, rustling as though an unseen touch had disturbed them, as though something still hovered beyond. Olivia pushed them back and saw that the room was empty. It lay peacefully around her now, bathed in the pearl gray-ness of early morning and a vast, unbroken silence.

  // must have been me. . . that whisper. . . some new detail of an old, old dream.

  Bewildered, she got out of bed and stood for a moment, her hand pressed tightly to her bandaged leg. Well, at least this wasn't a dream, she thought grimly. She couldn't remember falling asleep the night before, only lying there, frightened, in the dark. But now, as she took a
long, careful appraisal of her surroundings, she saw them in the new perspective of daybreak. It

  didn't seem like a horrible place at all—just a shabby, old-fashioned room that had certainly seen better days.

  She began to walk around it, touching each piece of furniture, deliberately pressing her fingers into the layers of dust. She smiled at the marks she left there— mine . . . mine . . . my chair . . . my washstand —and she wondered vaguely who had touched these things before her. Had Mama ever slept in here ... or dressed ... or sang? Or ever been any different from what Olivia had always known? She paused in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. For one split second, Mama's face seemed to look back at her, and Olivia turned away.

  There were no demons in here now, no bottomless shadows for them to hide behind. As a pale bloom of light crept across the walls, Olivia saw that the paper had once been very beautiful, patterned with tiny hearts entwined with violets and roses. Framed pictures hung beneath years of dust. Dead ferns mold-ered in pots. Olivia stood for a long moment in front of the armoire and then hesitantly opened its doors.

  It was full of old clothes, folded and stacked on shelves, draped on pegs at the back, crumpled in heaps on the floor. A wave of mildew wafted out, and Olivia wrinkled her nose, letting her fingers slide down a cream-colored dress with a wide blue sash. It felt greasy and stiff, and she shook it out carefully, feeling a stir of excitement inside. Holding it up to herself, she went back to the mirror.

  It pleased her, what she saw, her long pale hair, her wide brown eyes, the contours of the dress as though it had been made for her to wear. For just one second it was almost as if the light was playing tricks on her,

  winking and sparkling across the faded, peeling wallpaper, making the flowers bright and vivid again, the room clean and new . . . the soft, warm breeze flutter-ing the draperies on the bed . . . the lace curtains at the windows . . . just like my beautiful new dress . . . and roses to go with it, just like the ones on the wall . . . pink and perfume-sweet, big bunches of them, streaming with ribbons and fine French lace.

  "Oh!" Grabbing on to the edge of the mantel, Olivia looked down in dismay. There was something wet on the ledge, something that had dripped down into the dust, leaving soft tiny puddles and a dark smudge on the dress where she'd pressed too close.

  Olivia lifted her eyes and stared at her face.

  Tears coursed down her cheeks and trickled onto the shelf below.

  She didn't know why she was crying.

  She hadn't even realized she was . ..

  Annoyed with herself, she shut the dress away in the armoire. The room was pathetic and old and depressing—how could she have ever thought otherwise? Crossing to the door, she stared out for a long time into a fine, gray mist, then let herself out onto the gallery.

  There was no sun on this side of the house, yet the shadows had lightened considerably since the night before. Now they were the same dull color as the moss that hung down thickly between the columns along the balustrade. Parting some of it with her hands, Olivia could see huge old tree limbs entwined like snakes as well as patches of drizzly sky and thick tangles of leaves and half-dead vines. She understood now why there hadn't been a sky last night—the moss formed a veritable screen between the house and the

  Richie Tankeisley Cusick

  rest of the world. Determinedly she leaned out over the railing and pulled down several more clumps so she could see out.

  She seemed to be overlooking the rear of the property. Fields and marshland, forests and barren stubble stretched on and on like mirages into the mist, halted at last by a twisting band of water bordered by thick woods. There were more buildings huddled below—smaller ones dwarfed by the main house and the encircling jungle of immense trees. The buildings staggered on for quite a distance, ghostly and abandoned in tall weeds. Olivia let the branches fall back into place and turned away with a frown.

  She had no idea now how long she'd be able to stay here at the house—what would happen to her this morning when she went downstairs. There were so many things she wanted to know ... needed to find out. She paused for a moment and rested one hand against the crumbling bricks of the walls. She held her palm there until the wall grew warm, and then she molded her body as fiat as she could against the bricks. She wanted to hold the house to her ... to clutch it against her heart. She wanted it to know her.

  Closing her eyes, Olivia began to hum. It was a strange song ... a haunting song . .. one that Mama had hummed and hummed when she was well and when she wasn't. Olivia knew the tune by heart, but she'd never heard the words and didn't even know if there were any. She only knew that Mama took the song with her, deep inside her, every time she slipped into the dark-fear places where no one else could go, humming and rocking, humming and crying, long, silent dry-eyed tears . . .

  Olivia opened her eyes. She was confused now—

  BLOOD ROOTS

  she didn't know how many times she'd hummed the song to herself or to the house. She didn't know how much time had gone by . . .

  The wall was warm and sturdy beneath her. Warm in the shape of Olivia . . . warm in the shape of me . . .

  And it was strange, she thought vaguely, pushing herself away from the wall, standing straight again. It was almost as if she'd always been here—right here in the middle of this rotting old house. Like she'd always, always been here all these years.

  A roach scuttled down the wall and disappeared between two broken bricks. Olivia watched it and felt sad.

  / don't want to go ... I shouldn't have to leave this place . . . not ever —

  She stopped herself, wryly amused. After what had happened last night, any normal person would have been miles away from here by this time. Yet somehow, yesterday's terrors seemed almost like a bad dream now, spirited away by the slow, balmy breeze blowing along the gallery. Olivia fingered the bandage on her thigh and cried out sharply, surprised that it was still so painful.

  But of course, it must have been the mirror . . . just like Yoly said. -

  What else could it possibly have been?

  She continued her leisurely inspection of the upstairs, but all the other rooms seemed to be locked. From time to time she wiped at a grimy windowpane, but the interiors were deep and murky with shadows, and she couldn't see well enough to make anything out. She had nearly completed her circuit of the gallery. There was only one room left she hadn't tried, and that was the one at the other rear corner of the

  Richie Tankersley Cnsick

  house, directly across the center hallway from her own bedroom. It startled her, then, when she pushed on the door and found it open.

  At first Olivia stood in the threshold, scarcely able to believe her eyes.

  It was a child's room.

  At first glance, it was as dark and musty as the rest of what she'd seen, but as Olivia moved cautiously into the middle of the floor, she felt her heart catch within her. There was something about this room that she hadn't felt in any of the others ... a curious sort of charm ... yet something else, too . .. something almost tragic.

  She crossed to the small canopied bed and gently ran her hand down the sheer pink netting. A quilt lay crumpled upon the rosy coverlet as if it had been tossed there just that morning. There was a low wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and a bureau stood alongside, holding a basin and pitcher. Olivia picked the bowl up carefully, running one fingertip along the finely veined cracks in the porcelain. She saw a hairbrush lying there ... a comb . . . pale pink ribbons. She put the bowl down and let her eyes wander slowly over the toys scattered around the room. A doll with a painted china face reclined in a miniature cradle. A half-finished sampler lay on a tiny footstool. On the bedside table were several books with ragged bindings, and a bonnet hung from a peg on the wall. And in the far corner of the room stood a dollhouse—elaborately decorated and nearly four feet high—that looked amazingly like Devereaux House.

  Totally captivated, Olivia went over to the wall where a group of
framed and faded photographs was displayed. Smiling little girls gazed back at her with

  fixed eyes, just their faces showing above necklets of flowers. The pictures were all in black and white, some in more faded condition than others, yet there was nothing to date them, not even a glimpse of the children's clothing. None of the little girls seemed to be over five years of age, and as Olivia studied each of them in turn, she found herself wondering who they all were and if they had all lived here. Mama? Could she ever have been this innocent and sweet? They looked amazingly identical with their cute, babyish expressions, yet there was something distinctly individual and different about each of them, too— something Olivia wouldn't have thought would show up until they were much older. She couldn't stop staring at their sweet, sweet faces, and as she bent to examine them one more time, her heart wrenched again with a curious ache.

  Olivia straightened up and glanced around the room.

  She had only dimly sensed this feeling when she'd first come in, but now it was too strong to ignore.

  Something sad and regretful that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

  As if something, somehow, were missing, yet she didn't know what it was or what it could possibly mean.

  She rubbed a chill from her arms and turned back toward the door—passing the fireplace, stopping in surprise. Even in the overpowering mustiness, the scent of woodsmoke and ashes hung heavy, and as she approached the hearth, she could still see the telltale glow of dying embers among charred bits of wood. Strange . . . why would anyone need a fire in this heat?

  There was a footstool pulled near the hearth and beside it, a low round table set neatly with a porcelain

  Richie Tankersley Cnsick

  tea service. As Olivia stared in wonder, she saw that one china cup still held a residue of damp tea leaves in its bottom . . . that the lid was off the sugar bowl. .. that three drops of liquid had splashed across a hastily folded linen napkin. She put out a fingertip and touched the tea in the cup.

  Still warm.

  "I know you said something to him—I know you did!"