The Calling (Mae Martin Mysteries Book 1)

by Amber Foxx

  “Mae. Please. I’m fine. Let’s start getting me fit and trim.” Mrs. Hoggard set her lips in a thin line and pulled her shoulders back, her peach-soft cheeks reddening. “Anyway, if anything were wrong, I’m afraid you’d be the last person in the world I could talk to about it.”

  That’s about as subtle as a train wreck.

  After Mary Carter’s workout ended, Mae checked at the front desk for any changes in her appointments and learned that Patsy had scheduled a fitness test and two follow-up training sessions for the coming week. The front desk attendant gave Mae three DVDs. “Ms. Johnson left these for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mae took them and started back into the trainers’ office, but was stopped by the front desk worker’s reminder. “That’s a shared office. You’re not supposed to keep your personal stuff in there. It’s got to go in your locker.”

  This place has more rules than school. Annoyed, Mae took the DVDs to her locker, hoping to get in and out quickly without running into her mother. The employees’ lockers were at the far end of the main locker rooms, so she had to walk the length of the green-and-white tiled floor. From the showers came shouted conversation among the women who had been in the water aerobics class. The loudest, of course, was Rhoda-Rae.

  “Oh, that was good. I think I about worked my biscuits off. Did you have fun, Arlene?”

  “I did, thank you, Rhoda-Rae. I had a lot of fun. It was harder than I expected, though.”

  “Bless your heart. That Kathy works us to death, I know. You did great for your first time, though, sugar. You just keep coming back. At least you can’t feel yourself sweat in the water.”

  Acting so sweet and nurturing, with that hint of superiority, compliments and encouragement, all calculated to make Arlene feel inferior to Rhoda-Rae. Mae opened her locker, put in the DVDs, and noticed that her cell phone showed a new text message. From Arnie. U won’t blv it! Call at noon.

  Had he won the trip?

  The shower curtain whipped back off the end stall, and Rhoda-Rae, in a white terry robe with a towel around her head, sashayed out, singing along with the music piped through the speakers. At first she didn’t seem to see Mae, then did a theatrical double-take.

  “Well. Thank you for helping me get the job, Mama,” Rhoda Rae said sarcastically. “Thanks for pushing me to go after it when I couldn’t even believe in myself enough to try.”

  “I believe I’ve said that once,” Mae said, feeling her stomach muscles tighten. “And I like the job. It’s going well.”

  Rhoda-Rae walked to a locker and spun a lock, seeming to pose, as if she needed to stand like a mannequin and look her best even in her robe and towel and flip-flips. “Goody for you.”

  “I’m Mary Carter Hoggard’s personal trainer.” If she had to run into her mother, Mae hoped that mentioning this would make some good use of the encounter. “She gets in around six forty-five to warm up before we do her workouts at seven.”

  Rhoda-Rae took her scrubs and white shoes out of her locker without looking at Mae and said, “I can’t imagine why you’re telling me that.”

  “I thought you might want to know.”

  Rhoda-Rae swished over to a dressing room, opened the short wooden door and stepped in, closing it behind her. “Don’t know why on earth you thought that.”

  Below the door Mae could see her mother’s slim white legs and tapered feet, nails painted the color of ripe strawberries. Rhoda-Rae stepped out of her flip-flops onto a towel she dropped on the spotless tiles. Since the other women were emerging from the showers, Mae felt she should avoid any argument with her mother, even though she hadn’t gotten her point across. “I’m going back upstairs, Mama. Have a good day.”

  “You hang on a second, young lady. I’m not through with you yet.”

  The scolding-mother tone, at work, in front of other members, embarrassed and irritated Mae. She began to wish she hadn’t even said goodbye, just walked out of the room. “I’ve only got a couple of minutes.”

  “After how many months?” Rhoda-Rae’s legs left the floor and reappeared one at a time in tan hosiery, then in lavender pants legs. Her feet slipped into the white shoes, she opened her dressing room door, and spoke though her floral top as she pulled it over her head. “You have plenty of time for Arnie. You can give me one more minute. Telling him he was going to win that trip. Honestly, what business do you have, saying you can see the future and getting him all worked up about that?”

  Mae had to explain it came from Malba praying for Arnie. “It wasn’t my idea, it was—”

  “He said you told him.” Rhoda-Rae sat on the dressing room bench and tugged on one shoe’s laces as if she would snap them, and tied a bow. “Told him to take his blasted walks later so he could see when he won.”

  “Did he?”

  “Win?” The tone of contempt and disgust seemed more suited to saying someone had been sick on her at the hospital than that Arnie had won the trip. Rhoda-Rae jerked her other laces tight, tied them, and stood. “Yes, he won.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Mae said, stunned by her mother’s attitude. “Where are you going?”

  “Where are we going? I’ve got Arnie Gaskins all romantic and mooning over me about going to Pu-erto Rico.” The name of the place came out with a bad, exaggerated Spanish accent. Rhoda-Rae paced over to her locker, spun the dial again and yanked her purse out, returned to the dressing room to grab her wet bathing suit, and jammed it into a plastic bag. “If you had kept your mouth shut, he’d still be walking his fat behind around the block at seven o’clock and I’d never have heard a word of this. I told you nothing good would come of using that sight, and you’ve gone and done it. It’s nothing but trouble, always was with your Granma and it still is.”

  The other women in the locker room, openly watching and listening as they toweled and dressed without dodging into the modesty of dressing rooms, glanced at each other, some wide-eyed, some tight-lipped and frowning. There goes my reputation on the job. “Mama, I didn’t—”

  “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

  Rhoda-Rae walked to a counter where several hair dryers sat in front of a mirror and began to comb her hair. In the mirror, her eyes met Mae’s with a quick blaze of green fire, then turned to her own face.

  “I didn’t use it. I don’t do that.” Mae hoped this would sink in with the other women as well as Rhoda-Rae. “You have a good day, Mama. It was nice running into you.”

  It squeezed Mae’s conscience to say it, but she was at work—she had to. She left and ran back up the stairs.

  In the trainers’ office, she sat down and caught her breath. She shouldn’t be winded. It was the Rhoda-Rae effect pounding in her chest. Right now, Mama might be down in the locker room, doing her hair and make-up, and complaining about her ungodly daughter and her psychic visions. Mae hoped her mother was too ashamed of her to talk about it.

  On her half-hour lunch break, Mae carried her phone, sandwich, and water bottle out to the community softball field. It was a short walk from Health Quest, and she sat in the bleachers, enjoying the spring sun and the smell of mud, and the good feelings that echoed from a ball field. She needed to be in a better mood when she called Arnie.

  He answered so quickly it was if his phone never rang. “Hey, Mae. You got my message.”

  “Yeah. Congratulations.”

  “I did what you said. Started watching Wheel again, and sure enough, last night it was: ‘Arnie G, claim your vacation in sunny Puerto Rico’.” He sighed. “Can’t talk your mother into wanting to go, though. I don’t know what’s the matter with her.”

  “She won’t say why?”

  A crunching sound suggested he was probably eating his lunch, too. Salad. “M-mm.” He swallowed loudly. “We’ve had some hard years. Not a lot of romance in ’em except for those books she reads. I thought this would do the trick.”

  Mae suspected what the problem was, but it would be cruel to tell Arnie. “Do you have to use your trip by a c
ertain time?”

  “I’ve got time to talk her into it. I thought we’d go in April, when it’ll be like summer there. Give me time to get more in shape, too.” He paused, and when he resumed, he sounded less optimistic. “Guess if she won’t go I could give it to you and Hubert, for your birthday.”

  “That’s sweet, thank you, but if she won’t go, you should just go anyway. When will you ever get a chance like this again?”

  “Go without her? I don’t know. It’s what I’ve wanted for us.”

  “It’d be pretty to walk on a tropical beach instead of around the block in Cauwetska.” Mae shooed a fly away from her sandwich, took a bite, and tucked the wrapper back over the food. “Show her some pictures. Maybe she’ll want to go.”

  “It’s not the place, honey. It’s me.” His voice cracked. “I don’t think she ... wants to try any more ... with me.”

  “Arnie, don’t say that.”

  “She’s mad at both of us. Me for everything in general, and you for saying I’d win this trip. Do you know she thinks you used some kind of psychic power? Can you believe that? I told her you were just a good guesser, like I am—but she’s saying you’re like some kind of pagan or something.”

  “I said you’d win because Ms. Cherry said she’d pray for you to win. That’s why I told you that.”

  “Did you?”

  Mae thought. No—she’d never got that far. The server had tripped and spilled the water before she’d had a chance to say it. “I meant to, if I didn’t.”

  “I’ll have to thank her.” He sighed again, and she could hear him chomping on his salad, hear other voices in the background, and restaurant clinks and clanks. “And I’ll have to pray for your mother to come around. She’s a good woman, you know, Mae, she really is. Strong willed, got a lot of feelings in her, but she’s not bad. She’s got a good heart.”

  No, Mae didn’t know that. And if Rhoda-Rae had a heart at all, she might have given it to Dr. Hoggard. “You do that, Arnie. Pray over it. I need to go. I’m happy for you getting that trip. You’ll have fun, with or without her.”

  He sounded doubtful. “Thanks.”

  Mae finished her lunch and walked around the diamond. A strong temptation to use the sight tugged at her. If she knew for sure that Rhoda-Rae was seeing Dr. Hoggard, cheating on Arnie, she could tell him.

  Mae paused at second base. If she was going to spy on her mother like that, she might see things she didn’t want to see, like she had with Charlie and Bernadette. She walked to third. If there was anyone she’d want to check out it would be her father. He still hadn’t written again to explain. Maybe that was her answer, though. Something so bad he couldn’t tell her. Would she want to see that? No, the sight was still off limits. Even if she trusted what she could see, there was that whole business of people thinking she was a witch.

  She started back down the road to Health Quest, pausing to pick up a couple of soda bottles from the grass by the road, and a bee inside one of them stung her middle finger. She dropped the bottle, the bee flew out. Re-collecting the litter, she cut across the lawn to Health Quest, holding that finger out. Already red and swelling, it wouldn’t bend. What a day—bad luck had already pitched her Rhoda Rae and the treadmill accident, and now this. Strike three. She’d be walking around giving everyone the finger. Patsy would probably think it was a sign, like Mae should tell the whole of Northeastern North Carolina to f___ off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mae’s birthday fell on a cool but bright April Tuesday. She had lived through the winter to be twenty-seven, and it dispelled the spooky feeling she’d had about the name and age on that grave. It wasn’t a sign. With that superstitious cloud dissolved, Mae looked forward to a simple family party at the Ridley farm.

  She worked her early shift at Health Quest, finishing at noon, and came home to relax before the twins got home from school. Coming into the kitchen to fix lunch, she noticed no cats on the porch. The empty space looked odd on such a sunny day, and she realized she hadn’t filled their water bowl in the morning. They’d be back to sunbathe if she took care of this.

  She had the sliding glass door half open when her cell phone rang. Something moved on the porch, but she didn’t get a good look, turning back to grab the phone.

  Mae didn’t recognize the number, but it was a 757 area code. Tidewater Virginia. “Hello?”

  “Mae. This is Dana Sheehan.” A short pause. “I need a psychic.”

  This shot out of the blue was the last thing Mae needed. “I appreciate your asking me, but I don’t do that anymore.”

  “You have to. I need your help.” Dana, beneath her crisp and forceful speech, had a tremor in her voice. “The lady at Healing Balance said you were the best but you’d quit. So I asked Randi for your number. This is important.”

  “I doubt I can help.” The only reason she would ever do this again was if someone was lost. “But what is it?”

  “Charlie.” Dana sounded close to tears. “He’s gone. I need you to find him.”

  Mae hesitated. Part of her wanted to help, and part of her wanted nothing to do with this. Missing people were serious, but a psychic search for Charlie? That could bring up some scary things, like that wolf creeping through Bernadette’s closed bedroom door.

  Remembering her back door was open, and bees and wasps could get in, Mae turned. A copperhead snake’s wedge-shaped head slid over the door sill.

  Mae tried to force herself to be calm, but her heart thudded, adrenaline shaking her hands. Lots of people she knew had found copperheads in a laundry basket or a dryer or somewhere, but this was her first encounter. Folks said they’d picked the snake up between two shoes, or drove it into a laid-down trash can and shut the lid. Grabbed it with kitchen tongs. Getting that close to a poisonous snake terrified her, but she could handle this. She had to—she had no choice.

  “Mae? Could you look for him?”

  The snake held still, as if it had discerned her at the same time she discovered it. Its slit-pupil eyes seemed to stare at her. “Yes—no—I don’t know. Gotta go. Snake.” She ended the call.

  If she tried to shoo it back out, would it strike at her? She’d met plenty of other snakes, but never come face to face with one of these. Word had it that they didn’t try to scare you like rattlesnakes or cottonmouths, that a copperhead’s way to warn you off was a bite.

  Mae moved slowly across the kitchen to the far side of the door. If she could get hold of the edge she could slam it shut. It would be an awful thing to do to the snake—but it was the only thing she could think of. Pin it in the door frame. It lifted its head, and seemed about to crawl in further. She started to shove as the snake made a sudden move to change directions towards her. To her horror, it was now stuck in the space between the two sliding layers of glass. The snake began to wriggle, but couldn’t get free. The more it struggled, the further it became wedged, until the whole snake was in, like some specimen on a lab slide, its mosaic brown body jammed in a partially flattened double-S shape between the panes.

  If she opened the door further, she might kill it with the friction, or it might bite her when it got free. Closing the door all the way might pull on it too, and the thought of hurting it, of what it might feel like to be that poor stuck snake made her cringe. She couldn’t do it.

  But if she went to Buddy’s to get Hubert, it would make her the kind of woman who asked men to do the scary, ugly stuff. She ought to be able to handle it. Mae went out the front door and around the side yard. Maybe she could get something from the tool shed and pull the snake out.

  Joe was trimming Ronnie’s hedges by hand. When he nodded to her, his lined, narrow face and long, flat nose, his slightly red-rimmed eyes, caught her attention as if she’d never really looked at him before. Mae was reminded of how she’d always avoided him, embarrassed because she was never able to make out half of what he said and because he seemed unable to follow her accent either.

  “Got you a snake there,” he said. She looked around
at her porch door. Joe had a clear view of the snake in the glass. A few unintelligible words preceded “... if that don’t beat all.” He clipped a minute stray growth on the hedge. “Shouldn’t go messing with snakes.”

  “I didn’t mess with it. It tried to come in the house and when I tried to close the door on it, it crawled in there. I want to get it out.”

  Joe set his clippers down on the boxwood, shook his head the way he did when he had no idea what she had said, and strode around to the front of Ronnie’s yard, coming around to Mae’s side of the hedge. He reached into the pocket of his faded blue work pants and brought out a folding knife.

  She made an effort to speak slowly, so her mountain twang would make sense to him. “You’re not gonna kill him with that, are you?”

  “Got to.” Joe walked to the porch, and Mae followed. Joe tapped on the glass. The snake didn’t move. “Hot in there.” He put his hand on the glass. “Coldblooded ...” A few lost words. “Take that door off, he come out and bite us. He can’t get out or he’d be out.” Taking a piece of twine from another pocket, Joe stepped back down into the yard, picked up a long stick and began tying the knife to it.

  Appalled yet grateful, Mae realized what Joe planned to do. Slide the knife in and kill the snake.

  With his knife attached to the stick, Joe returned to the door and stood at the narrow opening, slipping his wrist in and angling the stick and knife up towards the snake’s head. The dark brown markings on its coppery back, dulled by the layer of pollen on the glass, were still beautiful. Mae could see its ribs expand side to side and its heart beating.

  “Yo’ time is up, snake.” Joe jabbed the knife suddenly before Mae could look away, and he struck the snake in the side of its throat below its jaw. Blood pulsed out, the body convulsed weakly within the pressure of the doors. The heart still beat, the ribs still moved. Then stopped. The slit-pupil eyes looked dull, as if a light had gone out.