Songs for Dark Seasons

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Songs for Dark Seasons Page 21

by Lisa Hannett


  Behind her, Mama’s ghost makes whoa whoa whoa motions. Or were it go go go? More is more, the best charms ain’t subtle, you gots to mesmerise as them witches does, spread yer magicks by touch and by glance--

  Puckering, Daisy cherries up her lips. Blots. Adds more red. Repeats ’til her smile’s gots a PVC gloss.

  Still ain’t got nothing on Miss Maggie’s shine.

  Weren’t much she begrudged her pretty neighbour--not Butcher’s taking Mag under his wing, not old Gerta’s doting on her above anyone else, not even the damage she’s done since she showed up here in Butcher’s Holler. Absentmindedly, Daisy reaches to her neck. Grazes the scars no-one talks about, like there ain’t no-one else but her recollects how they got there. Exhaling, she lets her hand fall. She gits that the sweet old witch must of pinned new memories into folks’ hatbands, keeping ’em from accounting for them finger-shaped burns on Daisy’s neck, or even wondering whose hands fit them marks. What she don’t git is how Mag never took more advantage of her granny’s kindness. How she ain’t hightailed it soon as her crime were covered up. How she never took them gorgeous curls of hers, them fey-tilted eyes, and hit the pageant circuit. How she ain’t got no ambition. No exit strategy.

  Almost, God forbid, like Mag were set on staying put.

  Fact is, Daisy can’t recall a time when Mag weren’t here in the Holler, setting this dim corner of the country alight. It’s been how many years, now--twelve? fifteen?--that the pinmaker’s been stuck in these boonies? Yep, far as Daisy reckons, Mag’s set to stay that many more again. Even with her luck ’n’ all. Even with her glowing looks.

  It don’t make one whit of sense.

  * * *

  Since Pa’s still out calculating the days Maberry’s cows gots left to roam God’s green earth, Daisy fixes to do a bit of roaming of her own. First she puts on a knee-length dress, careful not to muss her face paint as she slips the floral thing over her head. The summer cloth’s a tad too flimsy, but hangs nice on her lean frame. And if she unbuttons the collar just right, then cinches the waist-ties like so ... Well, she reckons it has a desiring effect, don’t it just. No doubt the talk-show ladies would agree.

  Mama’s ghost ferrets a cardigan from the trunk at the foot of her bed, holds it out. Hovers closer and closer ’til Daisy can’t pretend not to see it.

  “Prude,” she says, shrugging the oversize thing on. When the busybody gots her back turned, Daisy slinks a gold-sprayed belt round her middle. Poses a minute with hands on hips, imagining she cuts an hourglass shape. Now, she wonders: boots or shoes? Spinning on the balls of her feet, she eyes the polka-dot heels she’s practically wore flat, sashaying up ’n’ down the long concrete aisle in Pa’s chop-shed. Them pumps make her walk better’n any fashion model, Daisy reckons, but she ain’t so sure they’ll survive the cross-country trek to Jax Kellermin’s place.

  Let Mother Nature decide, she thinks, popping outside to check the weather. Northerlies gots teeth this morning, full-snapping at the grey sky. Downwind from the abattoir, Daisy wrinkles her nose, snorts out a lungful of steaming innards, iron, earthworms. Underneath that stank, though, is a different scent--the sort what lifts the spirit, makes the air crisp like apple pie and somehow just as golden. Maple and oak leaves turned to spiced mulch. Wet stones doused in the river’s spray. Mushroom rings squishing up through moss-covered loam, dank as cheese left out the icebox.

  Most folk is happiest lolling through sultry dog days, but Daisy ain’t overly fond of sweating. Summer wipes the artful colours clean off her face, leaving a clownish mess. But Fall. Fall smells like cinnamon and cloves and hot ale. It’s fresh-mown hay and goose down and, sometimes, if winter’s too antsy, snow-dusted wool. Soon, nights will darken long before supper and drag on ’til well after breakfast; cold hours best spent snugged under blankets. Spinning tales by the woodstove. Cuddling up to other bodies, warm and clean as soap.

  Daisy breathes deep. If that’s Fall brisking the air, then welcome change is a-coming. The promise of an end before the next beginnings.

  Goose-fleshed, she goes back inside.

  Boots it is.

  Don’t take much more to finish gussying. She scrubs her teeth with sassafras powder, her pits with lemon, her fingernails with juniper and lye. Widens her smile with a swish of petroleum jelly. A daub of honey goes behind each ear and in the faint shadow of her cleavage, a bit of secret sweetness for Jax to discover, to nuzzle, maybe to taste.

  Sure, she’s a tad younger’n him, but that don’t matter. She’s pink in the right places. She gots handfuls above and below her braided belt. Small handfuls, but worth grabbing all the same. Nothing wasted.

  After helping herself to a couple T-bones from the icebox, Daisy plastic-wraps and double-bags ’em. Now certain the steaks won’t juice down her dress, she tucks the parcel under her arm and sets off. Primed to barter with Jax the colourman for some of his winningest dress fabric.

  And if Jax ain’t hungry for beef this morning? Well, Daisy thinks, she gots herself other meat to offer.

  -- 3 --

  On the far side of his cabin, Jax’s drying shed stands on a concrete platform long and wide as a barn. Built it hisself, he did. Tall sturdy pines serve as columns and beams, timber felled from the woods ringing his property. Corrugated iron caps the open-sided structure; under a plastering of leaves, the roof’s green ripples and ridges is slowly succumbing to rust. Still does the job, though. In springtime, it sluices off the worst of the rain. All summer, ain’t no colour-bleaching sunshine can git through it to ruin his cloth. Come winter, Jax nails up sheets of ply or gyprock to keep snow and sleet from blowing slantwise under the pergola, soaking his wares. But while the weather’s fair he don’t hang so much as a shower curtain from the eaves. Simply lets the wind blow where it will, doing the hard slog of drying all that fresh-dyed fabric for him.

  From afar, ain’t nothing fancy about the place--a kid could of drew it with no more’n a stick of charcoal. Beyond its four corner posts, everything’s fading. The forest’s in its dreariest brown outfit, the river’s traded diamond sparkle for mud, the sky’s forgotten where its blue cloak is, so’s put on a grey hood instead. But inside, strung from the rafters, is a labyrinth of colour Daisy loves gitting lost in. Eyes wide, she drifts quiet as a cloud, floating in a rainbow dream. Lengths of cotton, hemp, flannel, linen--even silk--billow round her as she wanders. Dye drips and patters gently alongside her as she tiptoes from one end of the shed to the other. Purple splats on the cement floor, yellow plinks into ever-growing puddles, every possible hue pat-pat-pats on her head and shoulders. Wending her way through bright pumpkin and cranberry and tie-dyed passages, she slowly follows the smoky trail of Jax’s whistling.

  In each cloth corridor, the air is damp and close. There’s a tang Daisy can’t place, can’t shake. Pungent as witch hazel, sharp as copper, with fumes that tickle the back of her throat. Struggling not to cough, she swallows. Once, twice. Holds her breath. She ain’t quite ready to let Jax know she’s here.

  Reaching the maze’s far end, she peers through the narrow gap between a candy-striped blanket and five or so metres of satin--a gorgeous bit of material, that, ever changing colour in the breeze. One second it’s black, the next it’s plum. The next it’s a shimmering bruise.

  It’ll cost a lot more’n two T-bones, Daisy reckons, to git her a dress sewn from that. She looks up at Jax--hunkering over his workbench, warbling as he siphons dye into Mason jars--then back again at that first-place-winning satin. Finer’n anything folk sell in Main Street boutiques, and here it won’t cost near half as much. Although, at this time of year, when rich fabric merchants is overwhelmed with contestants’ custom orders, it ain’t like they don’t hire Jax hisself to tint their overpriced wares! And when they does, well now, they all expect Jax will trim a few yards off the bolts for hisself, then colour these scraps and sell ’em cheap to the backwater gals. Ain’t like them fancy vendors is keen on serving the likes of Daisy anyhow, nor having her plain face
dulling their swanky joints. Even better: Jax ain’t opposed to trading goods for goods, services for services. And since the work he does is that good, the money he makes them shopkeeps that considerable, they don’t refuse him an angel’s share of their cloth.

  Hard to refuse him anything, Daisy thinks, gaze fixed on the broad-shouldered colourman. Smiling, she takes in the curls scruffing his tanned neck. The muscular, pot-stirring arms, on full show in a flimsy white tank top. The nip of his waist. The perfect fit of them rolled-up cargo pants.

  For a second, she watches a possible future unreel before her like a picture show. The maybeness of the next few minutes project from her mind onto a layer of wish-gauze clouding the air between her and Jax. In this vision, a better version of him turns, sensing she’s there. Flashes them rugged, uneven teeth. Beckons her over with a wink. Lifts a jar of starshine, the liquid sparkling and twinkling like a bedazzled gown in the spotlight, spitting disco-ball sparks round the room. Says, Made this one special. Just fer you, Daisy-gal. And then--

  A silvering black sheet flits across her vision, then falls away with the wind. Daisy flutters through as many dream-frames as she can before blinking back to the here ’n’ now. She can’t hardly breathe, she wants it all so bad. Wants it to be real, and true.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says. Glass clunks on the stainless steel workbench as a jar slips from his grip. Scarlet water splashes up his front and all over the counter. “Scared the shit out of me, kid.”

  Heat rises up Daisy’s neck as Jax nervous-laughs. Don’t let him rile ya, she thinks. You got this. Plastering a smile on her face, she exhales slowly so’s the old scorch marks won’t go livid under her makeup. With a fair swagger, she sidles up to the table. A series of dye-filled kegs is lined up along it, amongst a mess of steel ladles, dishes of salts and powders, bottles of vinegar, beakers and urns and screw-top containers. Nothing sparkly. No Miss Universe glitter.

  Casual-like, Daisy leans against the cold metal.

  “Brung some fine cuts for ya,” she says, looking up at Jax through a flutter of lashes. “Thought we might make a trade.”

  On the trip over, the steaks had gone a mite warm but Daisy holds the package out anyway. The plastic crinkles between her fingers, the meat flopping soft. Soon as Jax gits a hand on it, she yanks the bag back, aiming to reel him in at the same time. Licking her lips. Tensing for a kiss.

  The maneuver don’t quite work the way she’d pictured it.

  Instead of Jax stumbling into her--immediately feeling the heave and thrust of her bosom like them chisel-jaw guys does every week on TV, giving in to them urges Daisy knows they both gots, taking her in his powerful arms, tearing the buttons off her dress, aching to git her naked and on her back--instead of all that, well, Jax just lets go.

  Staggered, Daisy collides again with the table. Jars rattle, spoons clatter, and shallow dishes slop their jewel-hued liquids. Within seconds, the spillage soaks through her skirt, straight to the butt. Defiant, she refuses to wince.

  “Porterhouse?” Jax nods at the bag. “How much is Butch asking?”

  “What? No.” Forcing herself not to frown, Daisy lifts her chin. Straightens her spine. Puffs out her chest. Thinks seduction. Locking her gaze on his, she prays to God her voice comes out steady.

  “This here’s just between me ’n’ you,” she says, pressing the package into his hands. Pressing close. “I thought, y’know. We might have some fun.”

  Soon as the offer’s spoke, Daisy starts to shiver. Clotheslines creak as a chill rushes through the shed, setting the hangings all aflutter. Some negotiation, she thinks, mentally kicking herself in the arse. Should of mentioned the silk first. At the very least, she should of laid out the terms of their trade. Only fools jump straight to the final offer.

  Can’t unspill milk, Mama use to say, but ya can replace it with a dram of moonshine instead.

  “Oh, darlin,” Jax says after a minute. Now he shifts closer. Rough fingers brush hers as he accepts what she brung. Catching his grin, Daisy throws it back twice as wide. Moonshine indeed. No way he ain’t felt them sparks.

  “That’s mighty kind,” he says, clearing his throat. Bare feet slapping concrete, he turns away and crosses to the blue plastic cooler parked in the shed’s corner. Crouching, he knocks the white lid off. Ice clatters as he shifts tinfoil-wrapped bundles, unloads a couple bottles of soda, then nestles the steaks inside. His knees pop when he stands.

  “Now ain’t ideal,” he says, firm but not unkind. Even so, Daisy’s traitor lip starts a-trembling. She bites down, hard, as Jax bends and scoops up the drinks. “What with the harvest nigh, the county fair looming, and all them would-be Miss Butchers Hollers to dye for ... ” He passes two bottles to Daisy. Wrenches the cap off a third and takes a swig. “It’s hell busy, see? Ain’t got no time for dallying--no matter how enticing that may well be. Gots to earn my bit of fun, y’know?”

  Daisy nods, clutches the cold sodas with fast-numbing fingers.

  “Speaking on which,” Jax continues. “I needs Mag--”

  “Course you do.”

  “--to double my last order. Four lots instead of two. Reckon she can handle it? Hardest nails she can make, soonest done. Ain’t nothing she ain’t managed before ... ”

  Again, that trembling lip.

  He ain’t even looking at me no more.

  Before the moment can, she lets a bottle slip through her fingers. It smashes with an oddly hollow bang, and a surprising geyser of fizz.

  “Daisy!”

  How she loves her name on his tongue.

  Jax dashes to the nearest hangings to check for backsplash. He skims the candy-stripe, lingers on the luxurious black. Palms grazing the swelling, sighing, oil-slick satin. Finding no damage, he releases pent breath. Cants his head and takes a step back. Looses a long, low whistle through the gap in his teeth.

  “Real beauty, ain’t she?”

  “Sure,” Daisy whispers. “Sure is.”

  -- 4 --

  Drought’s shrunk the cornfield so’s it ain’t half so big as it were last year. Mag scoots through it in no time, them slack-jawed scarecrows spying on her all the way to the forest. Up ahead, Butcher’s red ’n’ black flannel marches in and out of view as he heads for the narrowest curve of the river, the shortest path home. Around them the woods is gitting ragged, scrappy. Great gaps of grey morning sky is opening where once there was blossoms, cobwebs, vine-garlands strung between trunks. Paper-bark birches, sugar maples, sticky-sharp cedar is all shucking their pretty summer green, all turning feral, stripping to bare essentials, arming theirselves to survive. Now they’s mostly sporting dagger-tipped twigs. Spear-pointed branches. Hardened needles to stab and stab at winter’s cold guts ’til, at long last, it bleeds spring.

  Mag dawdles, boots skidding on a damp carpet of leaves, as she wends through the forest. She runs her callused hands over rough bark just to feel the life rumbling beneath. Scrapes lichen patches off boles and boulders, whispering a rhyme as she crushes the orange flakes with her nails. A second later she’s plunging her fists into the riverside muck--quick quick!--snuffing the tiny, flame-feathered phoenix suddenly roaring off her fingers. Wrist-deep in the mud, she rocks back on her heels. Shuts her eyes. Tries to squash the panic, the flutter of dread, fast as she done that traitor firebird. Breathes in time with the water’s slow, swirling rhythm. Sucks in lungfuls of cool, open air. Listens to the rattling wind.

  Git ahold of yerself, girl. Rein that shit in.

  Her filthy hands is still shaking when she reaches the split-log shack Granny Gerta built. Plywood hutches and a chook shed prop up the place’s forest-side wall, where a winter’s worth of fat cotton-tails is fenced in with half a dozen bantams and one screwed-up leghorn with no beak on its featherless face. From pens further out back, three fussy angoras bleat unhappiness at gitting their hoofs wet. Round the house’s foundations, railway sleepers box in Gran’s thriving herb garden. A shadowed patch at the end of the drive regularly turns out pumpkins
, carrots and spuds for Butcher’s cook-pot.

  Ain’t nothing fancy, this cabin of hers, this workshop, this home. The planks is dingy and frost-split, the eaves blistered with wasps’ nests. The stone chimney tilts too far south for Mag’s liking, while the other cobbled-tin smokestack is crazier’n a whistling Dixie. Peak-roofed and moss-shingled, the shack’s got a single window under the gable and an off-centre door--and a twelve-year-old Daisy propping up the jamb.

  In tights wrinkling round her ankles and grass-stained at the knee, Butcher’s daughter strikes a sassy pose. Slim hip jutting like it were sheathed in sequins, not a simple calico dress. Blotches of dye marring the shoulders and sleeves of her cardigan; when she twists to grind her boot into the stoop, Mag sees the colourful mess also spreads down the girl’s back. Don’t seem to bother Daisy none. She wears her wrecked sweater prouder’n Joseph done that dreamcoat of his.

  Not for the first time, Mag peeps the scars poking out from Daisy’s collar. Some neat piece of hexwork could easily camouflage them mutilations, she reckons. Maybe a bone-pin bowtie? A fancy filigree necklace? A chain of bone snowflakes might do the trick--it were one of the first spell-patterns Gran ever showed her, one Mag’s practised over and over, so she gots the jabbing sequence and varnishes truly down-pat. Would that be enough? Or maybe she should fashion something so common, it don’t bear noticing? A bib of some sort? A white ribbon to knot beneath Daisy’s throat, flexible despite its being covered with smooth, plain pins? Dip the whole thing in clear, vanishing-resin ... Would that cover it?

  Too easy, Mag thinks, lowering her gaze. Butcher’s girl were a lesson, weren’t she just. One neither of ’em could ever afford to forget.

  “Jax brung this round for ya,” Daisy says, blushing, lifting a bottle of fizzy orange-water. “Said I should have it meself if you wasn’t back before the ice melted.”

 

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