by R. K. Ryals
“Do you need someone to understand you that badly?” she whispered.
He glanced at her, surprised.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “I’ve been living with what happened to my mother most of my life. I’ve learned to live with the guilt, and I’ve used it to do the best I can to make myself better, to make myself into something she would be proud of. Is that why you don’t want me to leave? Do you need someone who understands what you are going through that much?”
Grayson swallowed, his muscles bunching as he stuffed his hands into his blue jean pockets. “And you?” he asked. “Are you so unwilling to accept the fact that I want you near because no one’s ever truly tried to understand or protect you? Aren’t you tired of doing it alone?” He stepped toward her. “The stuff that’s worth doing is never easy. It shouldn’t be easy to care about someone. It’s better when there’s a battle.”
Lyric’s brows rose. “Because it’s fun to fight?” She laughed. “I’ve never had anyone tell me they enjoy arguing.”
Grayson moved even closer, his expression solemn. “No, because the best part of any battle is when the other side surrenders.”
Lyric froze, her gaze trapped by his. She had to admit he was right. There was a pull between them that couldn’t be denied. It had a lot to do with their shared guilt, but it also had a lot to do with what that guilt had made them. It had turned them into people who wanted to quit fighting the world but couldn’t.
Lyric glanced at her backpack. She’d had the cup with her earlier when she thought she was leaving, but she’d taken it into her grandmother’s decrepit house when she’d returned and hidden it. It was safer there, safer kept hidden away from the world. That cup was her war. She’d have to spend her life fighting to keep it whole and unbroken. Not for herself, but for every female still living in her family.
“Don’t you want to be with someone who recognizes the fight in you?” Grayson asked suddenly. “Someone who makes quitting okay? Someone, who when you’re with them, let’s you just be you?”
Lyric reached for her backpack. “How about a cup of tea?”
Momentary silence was met by abrupt masculine laughter. “You and your tea.” He eyed her. “There can be no war if there’s tea, right?”
Lyric smiled up at him. “Tea was meant to take away pain.”
He watched as she unzipped the backpack and removed a wooden box she kept a teapot and two cups in. They were small, the pot just large enough to provide for two tea drinkers, but it had continuously served them well since he’d met her.
“No willow bark,” he muttered.
Lyric threw him a look. “Tired of my family?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I think it’s more likely they’re tired of me. I’m lucky they haven’t attempted to crap on my head.”
Lyric moved to the camper’s small stove. “Oh, they’ve tried. Pride stopped them.”
Moving behind her, Grayson glanced over her shoulder. “Thank God for pride.” There was something about watching Lyric make tea that took all of the tension out of him. It left something else in its stead, a strange sense of contentment that felt like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.
Lyric had small hands, the skin smooth. There was a tiny freckle above the ring finger on her right hand, so tiny it wouldn’t be noticeable if Grayson wasn’t staring. There was something about the freckle, something so alone and stubborn, as if it knew it shouldn’t be there on her finger but it didn’t give a damn. Even more disconcerting was that Grayson noticed it, and that he found himself wondering if he was the only person other than her that knew it was there.
Grayson’s hands fell to Lyric’s waist. “What do you do other than sing and make tea?” he asked.
She froze, seemingly reluctant to answer at first, but then, “I like to run. Not the kind you do to get fit or for marathons, but the kind of running where you go as fast and as far as you can, where you push yourself too hard. The kind where you have to stop because you can’t breathe, but when you look up, you suddenly notice the world. In that moment, I feel new.”
Grayson’s hands tightened on her waist. “I used to have this tree house when I was a kid. It was more dangerous than anything, something my brothers and I built out of old limbs, wood we dragged away from construction sites, and rusted nails. Climbing it was always a risk, but when you got to the top, you could see across two fields full of rolled hay and a large pond covered, more often than not, in mist. There was magic in surviving the climb. There was even more magic in the view, in the country, the clean air, and the way the sun didn’t just rise but captured the world.”
Despite the distracting feel of Grayson’s hands on her, Lyric carefully measured the tea. “When did you get the tattoo on your arm?” she asked.
Grayson glanced down at his bicep. “After I got out of prison.”
“What does it mean?” She turned the heat up on the water.
He shrugged, and as close as he was, she could feel the movement all the way into her toes. She could have moved away from the stove then, but she didn’t. She liked the feel of his hands on her, as if she were trapped between discussion and surrender, electricity lighting her body.
“I don’t really know what it means,” he admitted. “I’ll be somewhere someday and someone will ask me why I have some really silly word like kite or something on my arm.” He laughed. “But it doesn’t matter. At the time, it wasn’t about the tattoo, it was about marking down a certain moment in my life. People don’t always do something because it means something. Sometimes, we just do it for the memory.”
Lyric’s palms clutched the edge of the stove in front of her. Bubbles were beginning to form in the water, steam rising from the pot. Lyric often preferred putting the tea leaves in the pot, but this time she’d placed them in the cups. It was a floral, minty scent that drifted from the leaves.
“What is that?” Grayson asked curiously.
Lyric’s lips twitched. “Chamomile and spearmint.” She glanced up at him. “It’s not always about the tea for me. The taste has to be inviting, sure. Sometimes, though, it’s about what it means. About what it can do for me. Did you know the Romans once used chamomile to prevent nightmares?”
Grayson stared down at her. “I don’t like to sleep,” he admitted.
Her gaze searched his. His arms were circling her waist now, the movement having pulled her into him. He made her feel small but also large somehow. As if holding her was keeping him grounded. It was a heady feeling … powerful. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was helping someone rather than scaring him away.
“The tea will help,” she told him.
Carefully, considering his hold on her, she poured the water into the cups and watched as the color changed. Because of the spearmint, there wasn’t really a need to sweeten the brew, and she set the cups aside to steep.
Grayson could have released her then, but he didn’t. “I want to make love to you,” he admitted.
Lyric grew still, her heart pounding. Her relationship with Grayson was like running; similar to placing her feet against the ground and taking off. It was too fast, the wind pushing at her and begging her to slow down.
Somehow, Grayson understood. His lips were near her ear when he whispered, “Not now,” he promised. “But when I do, I want you to push yourself too hard. I want you to keep pushing until you feel like you can’t breathe, and when you finally let go, I want you to feel new.”
He released her, and she had to fight not to stumble, her heartbeat so loud she could barely hear the cawing ravens beyond the camper. The birds had decidedly good hearing, and they didn’t approve of her relationship with Grayson. She barely understood it herself, but she knew one thing. She liked to run. She liked how it felt to keep moving even when she knew she should stop.
Picking up the cups, she turned to face Grayson, her cheeks flushed.
“Tell me about your brother, the one who passed away,” she said.
Gr
ayson paused, his gaze dropping to the worn floor. “No one asks me about him.”
Lyric held out one of the cups. “Maybe someone should.”
Taking the offered tea, Grayson gripped it in both hands before sitting heavily on the camper’s small couch. Lyric sank down next to him.
Grayson lifted the cup, taking a careful sip before glancing at her. The tea had a strange taste, not unpleasant but unusual, minty, and different. “He smiled the same way some people frown, too often.” He swallowed more tea. “His name was Benjamin. He preferred Ben.” Grayson shifted, his back settling further into the couch, as if just mentioning his brother’s name made him feel heavy. “He was the youngest son, but he wasn’t spoiled. He was happy, too happy. I used to hate him for it, you know. I used to hate that smiling came so easy to him.”
Lyric sipped her tea. “No one likes to be around someone cheerful when he doesn’t want to feel cheerful,” she murmured.
One side of Grayson’s lips rose. “I used to tell Ben that. I was only three years older than him and the closest in age. He followed me everywhere. He thought I was so much better than I really was. He was wrong.” Grayson looked up, his eyes shining. “I wasn’t good. I wasn’t good at all, and my being bad is what destroyed him.”
Lyric watched him. “I’ve heard the story. You didn’t ask him to follow you.”
“No,” Grayson said, “but it wasn’t his fault that I was involved with the wrong people. He died because he cared enough to want to be with me. He died because I was stupid.”
Lyric took another sip of her tea before sitting the cup on the floor at her feet. “We’re all stupid at some point. The only way to learn strength is to make mistakes. Your choice came with heavy consequences, but your brother wouldn’t have wanted you to quit living. You said it yourself. He would have wanted you to smile.”
Grayson’s gaze met hers. “And would your mother have wanted you to become a skirt-wearing hermit who abandoned life to a tea cup?”
Lyric’s gaze dropped. “No,” she admitted. “She would have wanted me to run, to live life battling the breeze, but also to enjoy the stop when it came.”
Grayson yawned. Leaning over, he placed his cup next to Lyric’s; there was nothing except leaves in it now. Grayson felt relaxed, not pain free, but suddenly less burdened by it. The pain death leaves behind never goes away, but it gets easier to live with.
He glanced at the cups on the floor. “No nightmares, huh?” he asked, his eyelids drooping.
The smile Lyric gave him was soft and small. “It’s said chamomile also brings good fortune, and when bathed in, attracts love.”
Grayson’s head fell back against the couch. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you don’t need tea to attract love, Lyric?”
She stared down at him. “My whole life has been about tea.”
His eyes fell closed. “You make a mean tea,” he agreed, “but even if you didn’t know what a tea leaf was, you’d still attract people to you.”
She grew still.
His head rolled to the side, but he didn’t open his eyes. “They’d be drawn to you because you care. People just haven’t gotten close enough to you to figure that out.” His lips twitched. “I’ll make you a promise. I’ll try to smile more if you promise to live life at a run.”
He suddenly fell silent, his breathing deep. For a long moment, Lyric simply watched him while listening to the sounds of the crickets, frogs, and distressed ravens’ caws beyond the camper.
“Quit trying to chase him away,” she whispered to the birds. She leaned over, her lips near Grayson’s ear. “I promise,” she breathed. The caws beyond the camper grew louder, but Lyric found herself smiling. “I want to make love to you, too,” she added.
Somewhere beyond the cawing ravens, a decaying house sat, the structure overlooking the small camper. They were breaking the law camping here—they were trespassing—and living a moment they shouldn’t. Maybe Lyric was never meant to meet Grayson, but she was glad that she’d been standing on the porch clutching the cup that could kill her family when he’d pulled up on his four-wheeler. In retrospect, he’d met her while she was holding her life in her hands, and instead of driving away, he’d asked if she needed anything.
She was going to keep her promise to him.
From this day forward, she was going to live her life at a run. She’d often been told she shouldn’t live life fast, that she should take the time to enjoy it. Yet it seemed right, taking each moment and running with it, pausing occasionally to truly enjoy it before running again. Running meant she couldn’t question herself. Running meant freedom.
She’d been told to quit running, but she wasn’t running away this time. She was running toward.
She was going to keep her promise.
In that moment, as if he’d sensed her, Grayson snored.
When making the tea, Lyric had snuck willow bark into her cup, so she heard when one of her aunts groaned outside of the camper. You had to find a loud one.
In all honesty, Lyric liked the sound. She liked his flaws. Flaws often kept people rooted.
“Give me a chance,” Lyric begged.
The ravens all moaned. One voice stood out amongst the grumbling melee. It was a soft voice, one Lyric hadn’t heard since she was a child.
Run, child. Run free …
~22~
Like with anything else in life, there are bad batches of tea …
~The Tea Girl~
In Hiccup, Mississippi, on a humid night in August, a group of townspeople lounged within the old church in the center of town. There were clouds obscuring the moon but no rain. Occasional flashes of heat lightning lit the sky, a backdrop to the muted voices inside of the church.
“You don’t think you’re overreacting?” a small-voiced Reese Newton asked. She was the wife of Sheriff Richard Newton, and the only voice of reason in the room.
“They’ve been a plague on this town too long!” Bridget Smith railed. “There’s somethin’ wrong about them, and we all know it.”
“Do we?” Reese asked. “Don’t you think you might be lettin’ your feelings for the Kramer boy color how you feel, Bridget?”
The younger woman glared. “This ain’t got nothing to do with me and Grayson. It’s logical is all. How many of you lost men to that family?”
Reese snorted. “There’s been three men in over a hundred years who’ve been involved with those women. Just three men.”
“And my brother was one of ’em,” Mildred Kramer said softly. The room fell quiet, all eyes going to the elderly woman. “I’m not much of one for hysterics, but can you tell me where all three of those men are now?” Her bespectacled gaze rose to meet Reese’s. “Two are dead and the other hasn’t been heard from in years. That’s three families affected in a town the size of Hiccup. Now, my grandson …” Her words trailed off.
Richard Newton stood behind his wife, his expression conflicted. Unlike Reese, he’d always felt a healthy fear for the women in that family, but he also had a healthy respect for the law. “Grayson’s a grown man, Mildred. The choices he makes—”
“He’s my grandson, Richard! I’ve already lost my brother to that family, and I’ve lost one grandson to tragedy. I won’t lose another.”
Reese glanced up at her husband before gazing at Mildred. “Maybe he needs this,” she said carefully.
Mildred stood abruptly, her old legs shaking.
Her husband rose next to her, using his arm to brace her. “Now, Mildred—” John Kramer began.
She pulled away from him. “You think he needs her! She’ll destroy him!”
Daniel Stevens, the Kramer’s hired hand, rose from a pew he’d been sitting on at the back of the room. “She has a point. That family has a dark history. There’s somethin’ incredibly disturbin’ about them. We’re not talking about murdering the girl. We’re just talkin’ about ridding the town of their presence. We’ve put up with it long enough.”
Reese’s jaw tensed. “Old Ma�
��am helped a lot of people in this town,” she argued. “She brought tea and a kind word to many a sick folk.”
“But she wasn’t cozying up with one of our men,” Bridget Smith countered.
Reese threw up her hands. “Oh, for God’s sake, we ain’t living in the past. This is a modern world with modern principles. Quit actin’ like you want to lynch the poor woman. She came here ’cause her grandmother died. She didn’t come here to steal a man.”
Sandra Calhoun harrumphed from her spot near the front of the church. She’d always liked it near the pulpit even when the church was empty. “How can you be sure of that, Reese? I’m sure the three men this town has lost didn’t think those women were here to steal a man either.”
Her husband, Henry, lounged next her, his eyes drooping. “Ain’t no harm in what we’re plannin’,” he said. “Let’s just get on with it.”
Richard Newton glanced at the group. “There’s paperwork I’ll need to look into, and a—”
“This is Hiccup,” Bridget’s father, Robert Smith, interrupted. “You really need paperwork for that? We ain’t doing nothing they won’t have to do later anyway.”
Richard frowned.
Reese stood. “I won’t be a part of it.” She looked at Richard. “And if you are, then you can find a nice comfy place on the couch to call home for a while.” She glared. “A long while.”
She marched to the door, her gaze going over the room. “You are lookin’ for ghosts that may or may not exist. Any of you ever thought to ask what part those men played in this? It ain’t always the woman’s fault, for God’s sake.”
“There ain’t no reason to God’s sake us to death, woman,” Richard muttered.
His wife threw him a look. “Let’s see how that couch is for the sake of your health.”
The church door opened and slammed closed, the sound echoing throughout the room. For a long moment, no one said anything. There was only the slam and its echo.
Mildred Kramer stood, her head held high. “I ain’t a mean spirited woman. I ain’t never done wrong by nobody. I love my family. I’ll do anything to protect them. Judge me all you want, but you’d do the same.”