by Rebecca Ore
“Betty’s not supposed to pick up my mail.”
Lula shrugged. “She was doing you a favor.”
“I’ll talk to the postmistress.”
“If Betty asks her for your mail, the postmistress will give it to her.”
“Arrgh, I’ll get a box in Taylorsville.”
“You planning to bring drug or smut into the county?”
Maude picked up the box and knew from the outside return address, Karmachila, that, at the least, Douglas had come back to talk to Susan, and that inside were the stones from the magical beach at Point Reyes. I don’t want to open the box. She rattled the box, wondering if she could shake the truth into the stones.
“Stones we gathered from a beach,” she said to Lula.
“You haven’t opened them.”
“But I know these stones,” Maude said. “I don’t need to open them right away.”
“Geomancy,” Lula said. “It’s the first magic anyone learns.” She unfolded Maude’s Village Voice and scowled at the headlines, then, with just her fingernails, picked open the first page. Maude felt trivially rebellious. “You’ve got to pick up your grannie before ten in the morning.”
Supper was cold cornbread and pinto beans. Lula said, “I don’t waste electricity.”
When Maude took her books to her room, she noticed that all the bulbs had been changed to 25 watts. But the blender was still where she left it. She looked through the walnut side cabinet and found a 60 for the reading light and two 100-watt bulbs for the overhead fixture.
Lula caught her changing the bulbs and said, “Electricity burns the eyes.”
Lula woke Maude up. The windows were mostly dark. “Sun’ll be up soon, if you want more light.”
Maude felt disoriented. “I read late. I don’t have to get my grandmother until ten, right?”
“If you woke up now, you could read by natural light and not waste money.”
“I think the estate has enough for me to live reasonably.”
“You came to leech off her.”
By now, Maude couldn’t possibly go back to sleep. She got up and took her books to the dining room, where some light was coming in through the east windows. “Who hired you?” she asked.
“I needed a place. Your grannie needed a helper and all her closest kin left her here.”
“Where were you before?”
“With other kin.”
“Don’t they need you anymore?”
“Sent me out. Cruel man.” Lula disappeared into the kitchen. Maude felt guilty for asking, but could understand why the man asked Lula to leave. She knew Lula’s abrasiveness stemmed from insecurity. No, from anger at her dependency. Lula wanted the authority and power she felt around her.
Maude could grow up to be Lula.
At the hospital, when Maude asked about her grandmother, a nurse came out and said, “We need to talk about her discharge plans.”
Maude followed the nurse into a closed office. The nurse, an RN, looked over a chart and then said, “She’s malnourished. I know it’s common among you people…”
“I bought her a blender. I just got here. I went to college.”
“Sorry. Her regular doctor says she won’t last out the winter. The hospital resident is quite upset.”
“I was upset when I saw her.”
“The other woman there, Lula?” When Maude nodded, the nurse went on, “Lula says you weren’t there when your grandmother fell.”
“I wasn’t. Lula could have called the ambulance herself.”
“You should have someone reliable there at all times.”
“Grandmother wants Lula.”
“Your grandmother isn’t able to make the best decisions. You might want to hire a practical nurse.” The nurse stood up.
Maude nodded and followed the nurse to her grandmother’s room. Partridge was sitting on her bed, dressed neatly, wearing gloves and a hat even, a sling holding her broken arm. An orderly with a wheelchair came in just after Maude and the nurse.
Partridge said, “Why can’t I stay here longer?”
“Because you’re not really sick anymore,” the nurse said.
“I am so sick.”
“We’re going to give your granddaughter instructions on how to feed you.”
Partridge shook her head slightly. “I’m such a burden.” Maude said, “No, you’re not.”
Partridge said, “I’ve got Lula to take care of me. You can get away.”
“She’s too old to be responsible for another old person,” Maude said. “I wasn’t doing anything important with my life.”
Partridge stood up, her good arm pushing her off the bed. The orderly steadied her and helped her into the wheelchair.
When the MiniCooper crossed what Maude felt was the hospital’s rational boundary, her grandmother moaned. “So you feel it, too?”
“Magic. I’ve been bad to magic.”
“You want to go away? Leave here and live with me somewhere else.”
“Betty says you were on welfare in California. For being crazy.”
“I faked being crazy for the welfare. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was.”
“Just take care of me best you can. I don’t want to be a witch anymore. I want to just die.”
“You’ve got to start eating better.”
“Lula was doing best she could.”
“She refused to consider using the blender to make your meals. She sleeps in the bed with you. It’s disgusting.”
“We used to all share beds.”
“Grandmom, we’ve got to hire someone reliable.”
“I need Lula. I might need her real bad.”
Betty’s Essex was parked beside Partridge’s house. Maude felt sticky, as though spiders had been spinning webs over her while she slept. She helped Partridge out of the car and held her up for the walk to the house. Betty was sitting in the living room, visible in the window, but she made no move to help Maude with the door or her grandmother. Maude got the door open and her grandmother inside it.
Betty and a woman Maude’s age sat in the living room with Lula. The woman wore a brocaded silk dress and had kohled eyes. She had the other family body plan, a body that looked chunked out of oak, dug up from a bog and bleached. Her nose was snub, her cheekbones broad and boxy, her hair black, eyes grey, but not so perfectly grey as Betty’s. Betty said, “Maude, this is Terry. She’s my favorite niece. Her husband’s going to be buried in the family cemetery along with Partridge.”
“Partridge isn’t dead yet.”
“Neither is her husband, but sometimes the men who marry our women aren’t agreeable to being buried in their wives’ plots. Your daddy wasn’t. He wanted to be cremated in an electric fire and spread out over Adanta. But John’s different.”
“Is her husband old?”
“No, he’s young. And he’s kin. I reckon they could get an annulment for consanguinity, if this were the Middle Ages and we were Catholic.” Betty smiled.
Terry said, “I’m not expecting to lose John soon, but it’s an eventuality.”
Maude nodded and took Partridge back to her room. Lula followed, but Maude said, “Hadn’t you better go back and mind the guests?”
“You do that. I’ll take care of Partridge.”
From the living room, Betty called, “Maude, come back here and talk to us. Lula can put your grannie to bed.” Terry watched Maude come back and sit down. Betty said, “Partridge will be buried in our cemetery. You two should get to know each other. Terry’s moving back here while her husband works in Richmond. Terry is a potter.” Terry nodded. Maude wondered how much of the surrounding magic Terry felt, whether she worked with it or not. “It’s a strange county,” Maude said. “It has no roots in the continent.” Maude remembered her stones then. Was this woman a counter or a player?
Betty said, “Miss Allen at the post office gave me your mail.” She handed Maude a postcard from Douglas. He’d mailed it over a week ago.
“I’ll get my ow
n mail, thanks,” Maude said.
Betty didn’t bother to argue. She just smiled and looked at Terry as if pointing out that Maude, after all, had been declared paranoid. Betty stood up and said, “I’ll leave you to talk. Maude can take you home.”
The two women didn’t say anything as they listened to Betty’s car drive away. Then Terry said, “Amazing how she keeps that old car running.”
Maude said, “You’d swear it was magic. So your husband works in Richmond?”
“He’s a computer tech.”
“The postcard Betty gave me is from a man in Berkeley who’s an engineer. And you’re a potter. Could I see some of your work?”
“Sure. I make memorial urns. I also moved here to hunt my hawk. Betty’s letting me live on the old farm.”
Maude was a sucker for falconry. “Where did you go to school?” she asked, almost as much to distract herself as out of genuine curiosity.
“Swarthmore.”
“I went to NYU, but I spent time around Columbia. I was in the Strike of 1968. Do you remember who Mark Rudd was?”
“The student radical?”
“I remember him going around a radical meeting getting cuddles from the women. It reminded me of alpha ape behavior,” Maude said. Maude hoped she’d found someone local who didn’t think Marx was a demon.
“Why don’t you come over and stay a while. I’m sure Lula has things under control.”
“I really shouldn’t leave Partridge alone with her long. She deconstructed our blender.”
“What?”
“She put the cutters in with the knives, the motor, I suspect, where power tools had been kept, the blender jar with the measuring cups, the rubber gasket with the canning jar gaskets—the really old style gaskets for the shouldered jars.”
Terry said, “How many gaskets did you try before you found the right one?”
“It wasn’t that bad. All of the old canning gaskets were cracked. But you can see why I’m nervous about leaving Partridge with Lula.”
“Remember, Betty said you were to take me home. I didn’t bring my car,” Terry said, as though she’d expected Maude to be polite, not merely useful.
Maude said, “I can’t stay long.” They went outside and drove off in Maude’s MiniCooper.
“Turn here,” Terry said. They went to a place at the base of Wart Mountain where the family founder, a man with eidetic memory, made his fortune, not a large fortune by national standards, but sufficient for western Virginia.
“Roare’s place,” Maude said. “I’d wondered where you’d find open enough land to hunt falcons.” She guessed almost a thousand acres were in pasture.
“Betty owns it now. I think it looks like Scotland. John and I were in Scotland for our honeymoon. The Highlands have a wonderful feel to them, the lords and the crofters.”
“Is the old house still standing?” Maude asked. She saw it then, a vernacular classic, two stories in front and a wing off the back, porches on all sides, and three chimneys on the outside walls. There’d be a loft over the kitchen and dining wing, two large rooms downstairs off a main hall, two upstairs to match, with a window at the top of the stairwell, opening west. “Same house.”
“We’re going to build something modern. The old house seems too creaky.”
“Haunted?”
“Powderpost and clicking beetles.”
“Haunted by insects.” Maude knew that another name for the second species was deathwatch beetle.
“Oh, do you believe in hauntings? I’m planning to do an oral history of the family myths.” Terry started to take Maude’s coat. “Look, while you’re here, why not see the hawks and some of my pottery.”
“I really need to go.” Maude wondered why Terry insisted.
“I was so afraid I’d only have old kin here. And you like hawks. I could tell by your expression when I mentioned them.”
Maude said, “Show me, then.”
“I just have one now, out on her block, her perch. Here’s something I made.” Terry picked up a shallow dish from the entryway table and showed it to Maude.
The pot was thin-walled with a slight asymmetry at the lip. Maude asked, “Is it a lamp?”
Terry said, “It’s a ritual lamp.” She looked at Maude as if confused for a moment about whether the ritual could be real.
Maude sensed Terry was embedded in magic whether she believed in it or not. “I like it. I’d like to buy something from you if I could afford it. Now, the hawk?”
They went through the house, which was paneled in beaded sealing. When Maude was a child, she’d wondered why people put ceiling wood down their walls, but later saw the name in print. She touched the raw pine, polished by generations of hands touching it. Terry said, “We’re thinking about taking the paneling out and using it in the new house.”
Maude said, “You’d have to fumigate it.”
They went through the front hall and out the door to the side of the stairs. It opened up onto a porch. Just beyond the steps, Maude saw a redtail. Terry said, “Meet Belle.”
Maude had seen prairie falcons in California that seemed tainted by magic. But this redtail hated both her jesses and any attempt to make her a hawk icon. Terry put on a gaundet on the porch and went out to the bird. “What I really want is a gyrfalcon, but that would be illegal.”
“You could get away with keeping a gyrfalcon if you just hunted on your own land.”
“Belle, want a rat?” Terry pushed the gaundet under the redtail’s breast. The hawk stepped onto the glove. She looked at Terry’s hands, then swiveled her head to look at Maude, then swiveled the other direction to stare at a small outbuilding. Terry, hawk balancing on her glove, walked over to the building.
“Need help?” Maude asked as Terry began opening the shed’s door one-handed, the hawk flaring its wings.
“Could you pick up two mice? There’re other gauntlets on the porch.”
Maude saw the box of hawk gear and two gauntlets. One looked like a medieval relic, its leather quilted and studded, a gold ring at the bottom of the wrist. The other looked like an all-leather welder’s glove. Maude felt more comfortable putting that one on.
She caught the mice, though, in her bare hand, as Belle the hawk watched, head forward, cocked. When a mouse squeaked, Terry said, “Lay the mouse on the gauntlet, hold its tail. Belle’ll jump over.”
Belle jumped onto Maude’s glove and grabbed the mouse. Her talons were blunt, not pointed, and she seemed more like a constrictor than anything else as she throttled the mouse with her feet and then swallowed it headfirst. Dinosaur kin. Maude touched the hawk gently with her other hand. The hawk seemed utterly indifferent to being touched and that indifference isolated Maude in her primate’s tactile curiosity. The bird seemed to say, You touch. I eat But Maude knew the bird had no words in its head, perhaps visual maps like dreams. How did a hawk organize her mind?
The hawk stared back at the outbuilding where the mice were caged. “Can she have another mouse?”
Terry said, “Belle’s very predaceous.”
Maude touched Belle’s breast again. This bird did seem quite realistic.
“Terry, do you ever feel as though you’d stepped into history. Or myth?”
Terry asked, “What do you mean? I’ll take Belle now.” As Terry came toward them, the hawk tried to fly and fell below Maude’s glove in a tangle of hawk leashes, jesses, and wings. Terry steadied the hawk with a hand to its back and helped it onto her gauntlet. The hawk flared her feathers, then settled them in discrete jerks.
“Did you ever hear about Bracken County magic?”
“Sure. The locals all think Grandpa Roare cut a deal with the devil for his success. He was successful way before he came here. All the poor locals, they’re just jealous. We can put the hawk up now and I’ll show you my horse and the dogs.”
As they walked to the stables out from the house, Terry said, “Betty gave me the dogs.” They were penned near the stable. Maude had never seen a breed like them bef
ore, talllegged hounds with rough coats spotted brown on white, almost like a liver setter. They bayed.
Inside the stable, a small grey horse moved around a stall. “She’s a Connemara-Arab cross,” Terry said. “Excellent for following hounds.”
Excellent for the Wild Hunt, Maude thought. “Do you also like to either hike or fish? There’s a good tailwater fishery around here for brown trout, and the Appalachian Trail isn’t far.”
“It’s odd to make artificial places for trout.”
“They don’t seem to mind that their water’s being oxygenated by turbines.”
“I wish sometimes that we didn’t have powerlines and cars, that we rode horses and hunted with bows and arrows, nets, and hawks. ‘The fowlery I defy and all his craft.’”
“That’s from Chaucer, a few years after the Black Death brought on the Renaissance by shifting power from the killer lords to the merchants.”
“You’re too cynical, Maude.” Terry seemed dream-drugged. “Paranoid, maybe.”
“Most people throw that word around without knowing in the least what they’re talking about.”
“You don’t trust Aunt Betty. She’s a marvelous character in her old car, with her jewels and gloves, her art collection, maintaining a presence in the county.”
“A presence?”
“Style, taste. Courage. But I am glad you’re here so I can have someone from the family my age. In the country, you can only trust family.”
Maude realized Betty brought this woman here, just as her grandmother brought her back. I am tempted by magic. I hadn’t realized that before. I feel so cheap and cynical when I attack it. “Well, let me know when you want to get together again.” She realized she’d stayed longer than she’d wanted. Had Terry charmed her?
Terry said, “John’s coming down for the weekend. We should have dinner.”
5
* * *
YOUR GRANNIE HITS ME WITH HER CAST