Songs for Dark Seasons

by Lisa Hannett

  “Did he now.”

  Daisy smirks and drains the sweet drink. “Says it’ll cost ya some hard nails.” She tosses the empty bottle into a hedge, then filches a smoke from a pouch hung just inside the door. Lights it and takes a drag. “Says he wants two today and the rest spread out, come as they will. Reckons we can handle it.”

  “Did he now,” Mag says again, emphasis on did. Girl’s fibbing something fierce, she knows, but ain’t no pinpointing the what nor why of it. “Best git to it then.”

  Inside, she kicks off her boots and jams her feet into a pair of slippers. Goes to the sink to scrub the forest from her hands. “Leave the door open when you’re done,” she says. On the porch, Daisy half nods, keeps puffing.

  Using a broomstick to jimmy open the window, she lets in a charcoal and iron-tinged draught, a stream of much-needed bright. With a potbelly stove in the front corner and a fireplace yawning in the back, it gits damn hot in this hut. Mag’s small bunk is tucked between stove and entrance, snug in winter and sweltering in summer. A long narrow worktable runs almost from one end of the room to the other. Around it, the walls is hidden behind bone-filled apple crates, materials ranked and stacked by colour and density and size. Taking pride of place above the mantelpiece--where most folks is got their bull-skulls hung--Mag’s nailed up a polished mahogany plaque. Once upon a time it were the lid of a piano bench, but now it’s a shiny showcase for Gran’s original, one-of-a-kind, and most popular styles of pins.

  There’s the smooth and straight ones--bestsellers, these--cheap staples for sewing. Quilt pins, corsage pins, pleating pins for delicate fabric. Some with flat heads, others round, a range with coiled ends, others capped with pearls and rhinestones--pageant gals save their pin money for these sparklers specially. For rich bridal trousseaux, Gran mastered the art of silver-dipping--hatpins and hairpins and bobbin-lace pins--though she were never that keen on this cold finish. Below these is a row of short stabbers, delicate as whiskers, whittled from the ribs of catfish Gran hooked from the river every second morning. And bracketing the collection, long as knitting needles, is a handful of engraved beauties Mag ain’t never been able to copy.

  No question: Gran would hate Mag keeping ’em on display like this. Glued in one place. Useless as fossils.

  * * *

  Most of these ain’t here for the long haul, Gran had said, deft fingers turning, turning, turning bones into beauty. She’d schooched her tall stool closer to Mag’s at the table they use to share. Handing over a straight razor and a few softened bone wedges, the old lady yakked up a storm while they worked. Hands deft as her mind, gesturing at the padded vices and rows of sharpened files already, always, set to rasp them sherds real fine. They ain’t needles, ain’t meant to pull threads what might outlive the hand who sewed it. Pins is ... She blew away dust, flicked the shaft for strength, kept trimming the point. A quick fix, that’s all. Weren’t never supposed to last. Careful and slow, she dipped the neat stick into a series of uncorked jars, watched it soak up charmed resin. Held Mag’s eye, made sure she were watching, memorizing ingredients, recipes that don’t never git writ down.

  In ’n’ out: pins git the job done and disappear. Just like magicks.

  With a wink, she pocketed the hexed product then moved on to a humdrum standing order. Acting for all the world like the other didn’t exist.

  Ain’t nothing permanent in this world, my sweet Magnolia, she’d said, fetching another fistful of knucklebones. Load after load of them blue-white shafts spilled from her palm, clattering onto the worn tabletop like soothsayer’s runes. Let them broken ones go. Sweep up the mess. Start again.

  * * *

  Mag don’t often git a free minute to herself. If she ain’t stompin across fields with Butch, sourcing skeletons for her trade, she’s simmering what bones already she’s got. Soaking and shaving ’em. Sharpening and inscribing ’em. Measuring and fitting ’em for whatever buyers stop round. Dropping off filled orders and collecting new ones. Keeping Daisy in line--the girl gots a decent eye for detail, but she sure does fidget, can’t settle on one task without eyeing a dozen others--and traipsing across hell’s half-acre to Jax’s property. Buying his bottled colours to dye the posh brooches them pageant gals is such magpies for. Steeping a bit of shade into less visible pinnings.

  Hunched over a vice, slow-filing with a fine-grain, Mag thinks about the code hidden in the soda-pop message Jax had Daisy deliver. Wants me to show up at two, does he? Fixing for a fast tumble with his favourite beck ’n’ call gal?

  Mag snorts.

  Daisy’s gaze flicks up. Her chisel stops. After a few seconds, when it’s clear Mag ain’t inclined to share the joke, the girl continues chip-chip-chipping at a tiny fragment of toe-bone.

  It’s not that Mag wants Jax to treat her special. Not at all. She’s a roll in the hay, not a soul mate, not a goddess. She ain’t even a romp--that sounds too exciting, and she ain’t keen on exciting nobody, not like that. Ain’t nothing good ever come of sparks flying.

  She ’n’ Jax is just means to each other’s ends, so to speak. Nothing more. That’s what she bargained for. Nothing special.

  Still.

  Don’t mean she gots to come running the second he calls. And definitely not when she gots to take care of some first-things-first.

  “Go’on git some grub,” she says to Daisy, though it’s only just gone midday. “Finish them shorties up when you git back. Which’ll be ... when?”

  The girl’s features turn fox as she offers, “After the one o’clock soaps is done?”

  Mag raises an eyebrow. “Nice try. You gots an hour, tops.”

  Butcher’s daughter scrunches that over-wide forehead of hers, searches for the catch. Ain’t often Mag sends her off early, nor gives her so long for lunch ... But them dull eyes of hers ain’t made for inspecting the mouths of gift-horses, and Daisy sure knows it. Off she scuttles, quick if not smart, leaving Mag alone at the workbench.

  Humming quietly, she takes out a couple hairpins she’s been hexing--an easy piece of sabotage for that gorgeous Chippewa lass who can’t quite beat runner up in any contest. Rosa? Dora? Don’t matter her name; won’t no-one ever need to recall it. Dumb chit, Mag thinks, painting the gal’s baubles with Gran’s second-most potent shimmer. Poor thing don’t realise Penny-Jean’s purse is bottomless; that no matter how good these here pins is, Maberry’s daughter can and will buy even better. Sooner or later, that rich snoot screws everyone over, if it means gitting her way. Against Penny-Jean, that Chippewa gal won’t never stand a chance.

  But a customer’s a customer, Mag reckons, no matter how hopeless the cause. Ain’t her place to correct delusions, only to poke these here pins in reality’s eye. Git it to see things slantwise for a spell.

  Whatever keeps ’em happy, she thinks, keeps her in business.

  Precise, she daubs and decorates, singes and scores. Like most of her magicks, this one’s a small curse, nothing what’ll git no-one burnt for working nor wearing it--not one more soul’s gointa blaze on Mag’s account--but it’s effective all the same. The stuff she’s brushing on fair reeks for now; but once that wannabe winner tucks these twigs up into her long black braids, ain’t no-one will seem sweeter. Mag ain’t never tested the glamour on herself--she don’t want or need the extra attention--but she’s worked it sufficient times to know how it leaches the lovely from every doll-face in the vicinity, makes it seem there ain’t enough makeup in five counties to pretty them up again, while all of a sudden the wearer’s turned more stunning than ever ...

  But only for a while.

  Only ’til the judges raise them numbered paddles, giving her a row of tens. Only ’til the sash is slipped over her shoulder, the tulip and bluebell bouquet thrust into her arms, the crown nestled on her charmed head. Only ’til the limelight’s snuffed, and folk blink away the stars in their eyes, wondering how she could of won, thinking excitement and homebrew must of blinded ’em all.

  Or, truth be told, only ’til Penny-J
ean takes advantage--as always--and gits folk a-talking. Gits ’em to cry foul.

  With tweezers, Mag lifts the finished pins. Always careful not to handle the pretty things too boldly, too directly. Always keeping an eye on what she’s wrought. Doing whatever she can to not ruin everything with a reckless touch. Each charm draws a teensy clinker out of Mag’s heart-furnace; every lost spark helps dampen the wildfire inside her. Ain’t no controlling the flame inside her, not really. Only managing it. Channeling it into these here bones.

  A beeswax stub burns on a tin plate between her bit of tabletop and Daisy’s; one by one, Mag runs pins through the flame, hoping the small heat will be enough to seal in the magicks. No need to stoke the hearth just for this. She ain’t got much oil to refill her lanterns, and when it comes to government wire-power, well, she prefers affordable darkness. That said, she’s happy to take what candles folk offer, and any other goods that’ll keep her in business. One fancy lady’s maid brung garnets and moonstones for her gown decorators, another a ceramic nail-file perfect for honing appliqué pegs, and one even made a gift of her slippers, so soft and simple a treasure. Little comforts is Mag’s common pay. Nothing overly practical. Nothing to fill her belly or free her of the trade what keeps her on the outskirts of town, near the river and pastures, beside the butcher what keeps her bone-boxes well-stocked.

  High county folk’ll use her, sure enough. They’ll come visit her rundown cabin, they’ll give her the slippers off their pampered feet--but that don’t mean they want her as neighbour.

  Finer’n fine.

  Once Mag is sure Daisy ain’t gointa pop back in saying she forgot something--gots a rabbit’s memory, that girl--she puts the soot-coated distractions aside. Hooks a finger on the ball-chain round her neck, pulls a key out from under her shirt. Shifts her stool away from the timber table and walks down to its furthest end. Hunkering, she unlocks the top drawer without removing her necklace. Tumblers clunk. Wood scrapes against wood as she slides the thing open.

  The types of spells Mag crafts is often little conceits, often for moneyed and disgruntled gals. Unlike the ladies, most cowboys round here wear vanity same way they does holsters--tucked near their vitals, not fully on show, but never quite hidden. Mag reckons them wranglers is too big with pride to ask for her small fixes. But every now ’n’ again she hexes larger wearables for the gals. Petticoats so thick with pins they don’t never need stitching. Corsets so stiff ain’t no fatness could ever roll through. Girdles and garters and criss-cross suspenders for wearing under loose pinafores. And smocks.

  Yeah, she charms the hell outta smocks.

  Gran warned her never to pin nothing for herself, nothing for keeps. Testing a glamour were one thing, she often said; that were just quality control. But taking the work home with you, so to speak, letting it linger at the end of the day? That were another thing altogether.

  Worst harms is domestic, Gran said when she were feeling spiteful, or when Mag were whining for hex-garb of her own. Rapping a spoon across Mag’s smoldering fingers, the old witch clicked her tongue. Swiped pins and tools out of reach. Worst accidents happen at home, she’d scold, wetting a towel to keep Mag chill.

  As if Mag don’t know that.

  As if she don’t know the cost of magicks gone awry.

  As if she don’t remember what got her here in the first place.

  As if she don’t see another piece of her shame rolling its eyes at her each ’n’ every day.

  But this, she thinks, gently lifting a heavy smock out from the secret drawer. This is worth the risk.

  It’s taken months, cobbled together whenever she could steal a moment alone, but now the garment’s click-clattering, near covered with enchanted pins. Carefully, Mag slips it onto a seamstress’s dummy then stands back to admire her handiwork. Two thick straps hold the boxy apron-dress up. The motley fabric--offcuts she’d wriggled out of Jax after a few minutes wriggling on him--were now almost invisible under the sharp, intricate patterning. For each poke she takes from Jax, for each prick she receives, she spends that many hours sticking in bones her own self. Cornrows stripe the smock’s skirt, chevrons point up ’n’ down from neckline to waist, pinwheels spin between the gaps. Every line stiff as day-old grits and much the same hue. The overall shape styled after Daisy’s own clothes, but the cut’s even humbler.

  If she dresses frumpy like them forgettable gals, Mag reckons she’ll be overlooked, too. Unremarkable. Invisible.

  She adds a flourish to a paisley detail, hoping it’ll quash the burning in her belly, the niggle that something ain’t right. Something’s missing ...

  A screen door slams in the distance; Butcher’s daughter won’t be long in coming back. With no time left to try it on, Mag simply adds a tiny arrow on the spine, then lifts the dress off the mannequin. As Daisy comes whistling across the yard, Mag holds it up against her chest, feels the magicks already doing their thing. Ain’t no mirror in here to confirm the sensation, but she reckons the embers freckling her cheeks must even now be winking dark. Them blazing curls of hers is washing out straight and drab. The squint-wrinkles round her amber eyes is digging deeper than ever before. Her mouth twitches.

  Time and again, she seen this spellcraft work in reverse--pin-patterns making dull gals shinier than they’s ever shined--so ain’t no reason it shouldn’t ugly her right up, if the sticking’s done backwards.

  For a second, Mag smiles, picturing how bland she’s gointa look soon. Won’t nothing be fiery about her when she puts this plain-maker on. Nope, she’ll be see-through as water. Ordinary as milk. About as striking as a goose-feather pillow.

  Finer’n fine.

  -- 5 --

  If she hurries, Daisy reckons she can make it to Jax’s and back before her lunch hour’s up. Soon as she’s off Miss Maggie’s porch, she hightails it down the long gravel driveway, set on making a quick pit-stop at home before running upstream to the colourman’s. Won’t take her long at the cabin: food ain’t top priority right about now. Besides, she never did eat much. Scrambled egg whites for breakfast, a few carrots for lunch, a fist-sized lump of steak for dinner. High protein, low carbs, just like them glossy mags at the market prescribe. Gots to keep super-trim, don’t she, so’s she can impress the bikini judges.

  So’s she can wow Jax.

  Most important is fixing her face before he sees her again. It’s so muggy inside the workshop, her mascara’s bound to be running, her eyeliner smudged to shit. If her belly gits the growls, she can swipe some veggies from old Gerta’s garden, chomp ’em on the way, maybe wash ’em down with another of them soft drinks at the drying shed ... But there ain’t no doubt Jax’ll send her scampering, faster’n a raccoon, if she shows up looking like one.

  Her stomach sinks a bit, thinking on him. It don’t feel right, how things was left off between them that morning. What must he think of her now? After she fumbled her come-on. After she acted such a fool, throwing herself at him like that. Sweet Jesus. Everyone knows a gal gots to play hard to git, especially with older guys. If it ain’t a challenge, if she don’t give chase, well, ain’t no-one gointa want her, least of all someone like Jax.

  So she’ll just drop in, all breezy-like, to show him how little she cares.

  Taking the front steps two at a time, Daisy clomps inside. The screen door screeches, bangs shut behind her. Half a dozen strides and she’s across the living room, into the kitchen. Early soaps is showing on the tube; Mama’s ghost gots the volume down, the TV blaring nothing but technicolour from the liquor cabinet it’s set upon. On a low stool beside the hearth, the ghost gots her back turned to the screen. Slowly tearing old newspapers into long strips, she’s dropping frayed shreds into the fire. Each crumpled ribbon flares briefly, blue, gold, then shrinks to a puff of orange-rimmed black.

  “Watch yerself,” Daisy says, edging round the dinner table to reach her parents’ room and the makeup she’s stashed in there. Her own space ain’t fit for such finery. A camp cot beside the pantry is her only bed,
an old suitcase jammed under its sagging canvas her only closet. Figuring it shouldn’t go to waste, she’s borrowed some of Mama’s storage. For now, anyways. Once she wins her first comp--hell, once she so much as places--she’ll buy herself a new tallboy dresser with her earnings and, eventually, a room of her own to put it in.

  The ghost don’t look up as her daughter darts past.

  At the mirror, Daisy whips a brush through her hair. Gouges the black goop from the corners of her eyes. Buffs the smudges from her lower lids. She don’t usually indulge in a second round of gloss, but today’s special. Nothing says easy-breezy like a pair of lips what never lose their shine.

  “Mama, be careful,” Daisy says once she’s back in the kitchen, ready to go. Kneeling, she pulls the stack of papers further away from the embers, tucking the nightie’s hem between cold ankles while she’s down there. With a few firm tugs, Daisy scrapes ’n’ gouges the stool--and the ghost slumped on it--out of harm’s way.

  * * *

  Back outside, she’s halfway across the rear yard when Pa’s voice comes a-bellowing out the chop-shed, making it clear to anyone within five miles how this neck of the woods got its name.

  “Annabelle,” he hollers. “Annabelle come give me a hand!” Forgetting, in the heat of the slaughter, that Mama ain’t fit to answer no more, much less come haring soon as Pa calls.

  For a second, Daisy considers pretending she ain’t heard him. After all, it ain’t like Pa knows she’s home, much less within earshot. Nope, he thinks she’s still at Miss Maggie’s earning a crust. If she dekes round the slaughterhouse, aims for the river from the stable-side instead of taking the direct path past the shed’s front windows, he won’t even catch a glimpse of her shadow flitting by. Squinting up at the sky, she tries to guess where the sun’s at behind all them clouds. Couldn’t of been in the house for longer’n five minutes, she reckons, which leaves about forty for her to spend at Jax’s, assuming she gits there in ten ...