Long Black Curl

by Alex Bledsoe

  Bliss watched them pile into their vehicle and only then realized the bell had stopped tolling.

  * * *

  The little room with the bell rope was basically a closet. The rope went up through a hole in the ceiling, and there wasn’t even a light switch, so to see what you were doing, you had to leave the door open. Mandalay was about to leave when a sudden gust of wind slammed the door in her face. She felt the room fill around her with the presence of something she couldn’t put into words, but most definitely recognized. It wasn’t the ghosts of her own past, or the haints of others. Rather it was something expansive, and terrifying, and greater than even her simple feelings could encompass. She held her breath and fought not to turn, not to see what was behind and around her, because she doubted her consciousness could contain it.

  These were the ones who made the songs. These were the ones who made the night winds blow. If they had a name, only they knew it.

  Because of who she was, she could hear them speak clearly where most caught only vague whispers. But she had never seen them. No one had. Or if they had, they never lived to tell about it. But now they were there, with her, hovering near the body of the old man whose hubris caused the Tufa to be sent away.

  Music hovered with them, a conglomeration of tune and melody like something Ligeti might have infused into the universe if he were a god.

  Mandalay forced herself to breathe. She had often idly wondered why the night winds continued to be so interested in a small band of outcasts thousands of miles from their ancestral home. Surely the Queen and her court, back beneath the island’s green earth, gave them plenty to worry about. But they’d always been there for the Tufa, guiding and hinting and occasionally taking direct action.

  But never had they been there like this. Never had their direct action involved their actual presence.

  Mandalay, something said in her mind, in a voice different from her own inner one. There cannot be a caesura.

  Her voice trembled like a child’s frightened by a storm. “Wh-what do you mean by that?”

  You have until the full moon to find your opposite number … or take the crown yourself.

  “Crown? What crown?”

  If you do not do one of these things, then we will leave you. And your people. Forever.

  “Wait…” She wanted to look around so desperately, to see the faces of her deities, but she continued to fix her gaze on the blank surface of the door before her. “I’m just a kid, I can’t—”

  The last light of the full moon.

  “Oh, come on,” she said impatiently. The full moon, she knew, was coming up on the night of February 3, mere days away.

  Things must go forward. Songs cannot be sung in reverse.

  “Now, that’s just—”

  But she knew they were gone before she finished the sentence.

  “—plumb crazy.”

  She warily opened the door. What had visited her had departed. But its words vibrated in her head like the reverberations from a massive subwoofer connected to God’s own surround sound.

  * * *

  When Bliss went back inside, Mandalay stood beside Rockhouse’s body. There was something different about her, a break in her normal enigmatic certainty. “You okay?”

  “A little overwhelmed,” Mandalay said. “While I was ringing the bell, something … really hit me. He’s gone. The one who brought us here, who kept us here, is gone.”

  Bliss put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “And you’re not.”

  “No, I’m here all alone now. Who am I without him, Bliss? I mean, for … for forever, I’ve used him as a reverse barometer. If it sounded like something Rockhouse would do, I knew I shouldn’t. If he thought it was a good idea, I knew it wasn’t. Now…” She sighed, sounding old and tired and defeated.

  “You’re not alone, you know.”

  “Yes, I am. That’s part of the job description. I know you mean well, but … from now on, I am alone.”

  Bliss said nothing. The ancient ache in Mandalay’s voice, coming as it did from a twelve-year-old girl, reinforced the truth in the words.

  Mandalay managed a smile. “Don’t worry, though. Now … someone needs to go up the mountain and get Rockhouse’s favorite banjo. And the axe. They need to be with him, wherever he is.”

  “Who do you trust?”

  “You or Bronwyn, but I need you here and she’s way too pregnant for the hike.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

  Mandalay smiled again. “And the rest of the First Daughters will be getting their families ready. So who do you think?”

  “One of the Silent Sons, then?”

  “Yeah,” Mandalay agreed. “Send Snowy Rainfield.”

  “Snowy? Why him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “He just popped into my head.”

  “Okay,” Bliss said, took out her cell phone, and scrolled through her contacts.

  * * *

  When Snowy reached the top of the mountain and saw Rockhouse’s door, he sat down on a fallen tree and waited to catch his breath. He was in pretty good shape, but the climb was deliberately rigorous. Even with Rockhouse dead, the spells and secret powers that protected the place remained in force. He looked around at the trees, but only a pair of big crows sat in the bare branches. They watched him implacably, and their caws had the ring of malicious laughter. He got a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

  As he sat there, another man came up the trail, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he, too, fought to catch his breath. He didn’t notice Snowy at first, and when he did, he let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Snowy Rainfield, what are you doing up here?” Junior Damo asked.

  Snowy stood up. “Running an errand for a friend. What about you?”

  “I was just … uhm … h-hiking, you know.”

  Snowy stood up. He was taller than Junior, younger, and more powerfully built. Driving a truck had done nothing for Junior’s muscles. “Junior, you’re the worst liar I know. Tell me why you’re up here, or I’ll beat it out of you. And you know I can.”

  Junior wanted to appear tough, but it wasn’t his best skill, especially without a crowd watching. “Hell, Snowy, I just wanted to see what was left up in Rockhouse’s home.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I want a souvenir.”

  “Yeah, or maybe you’re thinking about moving in when nobody’s watching.”

  “And what about you?” Junior said with false bravado. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here on official funeral business. You can come in and look around with me if you want, but don’t touch anything, and don’t try to sneak anything out.”

  “Well, goddamn, Snowy, ain’t you a peach. Why you being so nice to me?”

  “It’s easier to keep an eye on you when you’re underfoot.”

  Junior gestured for Snowy to precede him to the door. Snowy did, but said over his shoulder, “Try to hit me with that hikin’ stick and I’m liable to shove it somewhere you won’t like and turn you into a popsicle.”

  “Yeah, you’ve made your point, you know,” Junior muttered.

  Snowy pushed open the door and stepped aside to let the light shine in. The bloodstains on the floor were still shiny, and dust hung in the air from the earlier disturbance. Junior said, “Looks about like I expected.”

  “You ever been up here before?”

  “No,” Junior said. He waited to see if Snowy would acknowledge the lie, but either he didn’t catch it, or he didn’t think it worth mentioning.

  “Well, I need Rockhouse’s favorite banjo, and the Fairy Feller’s axe.”

  “Reckon that’s his favorite. That Fender Rustler there.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, he had six fingers on each hand, and that’s a six-stringer.”

  Snowy looked at the other banjos, all of which were five-string. “Good point. Hadn’t thought of that.” He picked up the banjo, half-expe
cting some kind of electric shock from touching the old man’s stuff. “Do you see the axe anywhere?”

  “Naw. Where you figure he’d keep it?”

  “If I knew that, it’d be the first place I’d look.”

  There wasn’t much to search. The furniture was very basic, and the little chest of drawers that held his threadbare clothes was the only thing that took any time to inspect. As they went through his pants pockets, Snowy said, “Junior, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know that you wanted to take over for Rockhouse. You’re practically wearing a sign around your neck. If you were trying to keep it secret, you did a really bad job.”

  “I wasn’t trying to keep it secret,” Junior said, and again Snowy either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the lie. “Why should I? Somebody’s got to take over, right?”

  “There’s a fair number of us who think we should all be under Mandalay now.”

  Junior laughed, then choked it off when Snowy glared at him. “Snowy, that ain’t never gonna happen.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “What united us all under Rockhouse?”

  “We weren’t all under Rockhouse. Some of us—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Rockhouse was the thing that we all agreed on. Whether we were part of his bunch or Mandalay’s, we knew he brought us here, picked this spot, told us how to behave and how to interact with the other folks as they started to settle in around us. He was the thing we had in common. He was the one thing we was all afraid of. Mandalay cain’t never be that.”

  Snowy stopped searching and looked steadily at Junior. After a thoughtful moment, he said, “Hell, you might have a point there.”

  This emboldened Junior. “So since Mandalay can’t be the one to fill that, we need someone who can do what she does, but for my folks. And also work with her when it needs to be done, which Rockhouse never could do.” His bravado left, and he said sincerely, “I can do that, Snowy. Nobody expects it, but I can.”

  Snowy smiled. “Might be, Junior. But you’ll have to take it up with your bunch. And you best not forget that Bo-Kate’s nosin’ around, interested in the same job.”

  “Oh, I can handle her.”

  “Really? How?”

  Junior grinned. “Now, Snowy, I can’t be giving away all my secrets, now, can I?”

  “I reckon not.” He closed the last drawer on the dresser. “Well, that axe ain’t here, is it? I bet Bo-Kate has it.”

  “Won’t do her any good,” Junior said.

  “Well, that remains to be seen. I have to get this banjo down to the funeral. I assume you’ll be there?”

  Junior pulled out a small envelope edged in black, an old-style obituary notice. “Found this under my door. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Well, we best get going.” With the banjo in one hand and Junior’s arm in the other, Snowy took them out the door. It closed on its own behind them.

  13

  It would have been the perfect time to break into almost any house in Needsville and Cloud County, because everyone, the entire Tufa community, gathered on Emania Knob to say good-bye to Rockhouse Hicks.

  Well, almost everyone.

  Bo-Kate and Nigel sat on the roof of her family house. He was terrified of heights in general, and the slanted, rough-shingled surface only added to his fright. Bo-Kate seemed not to notice, though; she stood astride the roof’s peak, peering over the tops of the trees with binoculars she’d gotten from her father. They were old, and the rubber grips were cracked and dry-rotted, but they seemed to work fine.

  “Would you look at that,” she said. “I’ve only seen that many people on Emania Knob one other time.” She held out the binoculars. Nigel took them without standing. “You won’t be able to see anything sitting down.”

  “That’s all right. You paint a vivid word picture.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. One foot skidded on the shingles, and he almost threw himself flat to keep from sliding off. Bo-Kate laughed.

  He repositioned himself with as much dignity as he could. “Now, what is it I’m looking at?”

  She pointed. “That way. The top of that flat hill.”

  Nigel looked through the binoculars. “My goodness. That is indeed quite a gathering. And all for the funeral of that old man you visited?”

  “He was the cheese, that’s for sure.”

  “Yesterday you said you didn’t kill him.”

  “I didn’t. But apparently he died anyway.”

  “I think you bear some responsibility.”

  Bo-Kate waved her hand dismissively. “There’s not a person on that hill who’s sad that the old bastard is gone.”

  “And that makes murder acceptable?”

  Bo-Kate gazed at him in a way he’d never seen before. She had the look of someone debating whether to kill a pest or simply chase it out of the house. “Nigel, you’ve done nothing but criticize me since we got here. It’s getting old. I’ve told you what I’m doing, and I’ve been honest with you. If you’ve got a problem with it…”

  She let the unfinished threat hang between them.

  Nigel sighed. “My apologies, Bo-Kate. This is all very new to me, and I’m unsure how to navigate this situation.”

  She looked at him for another long moment. Then, apparently satisfied, she took the binoculars and resumed watching the distant ceremony.

  “Is your family there?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Mom, Dad, my brothers, and Tain.”

  “Why aren’t we attending?”

  “It’s all about marketing, Nigel. This isn’t the time for our product reveal. We don’t want it to get all tangled up with funeral stuff in people’s minds. When we unveil ourselves, I want the moment to be all about us.”

  He nodded and said nothing.

  She grabbed the front of his coat and kissed him. “Now, come on. We have another important errand to run.”

  * * *

  Rockhouse’s grave was only three feet deep, thanks to the frozen rocky ground. Even with the fire that had melted the top layer of soil, they couldn’t dig any deeper. But it was enough. Here on top of Emania Knob, there was no way Rockhouse could summon uphill the blood that Bliss drained from his corpse. And without that, he was, as his own song title said, chained to this spot. Or at least, everyone hoped he was.

  The grave had been dug on an east–west line, and the body would go in with the feet pointing toward the sunset. The superstition was that, since the Summerlands and Isles of the Blessed were all to the west, the rising spirit would see them and know which way to go. But Rockhouse’s spirit wasn’t going anywhere.

  Mandalay stood by the grave, dressed in a long-sleeved black dress, with her hair pulled severely back in a bun. She wore her puffy winter coat but still shivered with cold.

  The log coffin lay beside the grave, ready to be rolled in when the ceremony was finished. Leather straps held the lid on. Inside, Rockhouse’s mutilated hands were crossed over his chest, and the banjo Snowy brought was tucked in beside him, along with a copy of his only vinyl album. Mandalay had taken the news about the Fairy Feller’s axe with equanimity; it wasn’t exactly a surprise. It was, however, a problem that would have to be addressed.

  For now, though, there was nothing to do but put the old man in the ground.

  Noah Vanover, known to all as Uncle Node, stood as gatekeeper to the mountaintop. He checked that everyone who arrived was either someone he knew, or brought one of the black-edged funeral announcements. It was an academic screening, since no one would be able to find their way to the mountain if they weren’t meant to be here, but in these community-wide ceremonies, it was important to observe all the proprieties.

  Bliss stood with Bronwyn and the Hyatt family. The two men, Deacon and his thirteen-year-old son Aiden, were dressed in uncomfortable-looking suits. Chloe and Brownyn wore simple black dresses, and Chloe had added an appropriate black veil. Bronwyn looked miserable, and kept shifting her position, trying to find
a comfortable way to stand.

  Finally she said softly, “Y’all, I got to walk around a little. I’ll be back when the service starts.”

  * * *

  “And now where are we off to?” he asked as Bo-Kate drove them along the deserted country roads.

  “To the home of Bliss Overbay,” she said. “She’s … What do you Brits call a person who fills in for a king when he’s too young to rule?”

  “That would be a ‘regent.’”

  “Yeah, well, she’s the regent for the other half of the Tufa.”

  “And who’s the king?”

  “Not a king, a queen. Her name’s Mandalay.” She said the name with distaste. “But I’ll deal with her when the time comes.”

  They drove vigilantly through the mountains. The snow was gone from the main highway, but once they returned to Cloud County’s much less traveled roads, it became an issue. Bo-Kate handled the SUV with great skill, steering through the couple of times they skidded and continuing unerringly higher until they stopped at a battered old mailbox. The name OVERBAY was painted on it; the artist had misjudged the size, so the final Y was on a line below the rest of the word.

  Bo-Kate put the vehicle in park, lowered the windows, and turned off the engine.

  “What are we doing?” Nigel asked after they’d waited for several minutes.

  “Listening,” Bo-Kate said.

  “For?”

  “Any sign that Bliss Overbay isn’t up at Emania Knob right now.”

  Nigel heard nothing but the winter wind and the occasional bird. Eventually Bo-Kate put the SUV back in gear and turned down the driveway. They picked their way over a rickety bridge above a creek, then emerged into a small valley.

  * * *

  Junior stood next to his wife, trying to ignore the great wheezing gulps of air she sucked in around her cigarette, a habit no doctor or husband could convince her to abandon. She clung to his arm as if he were all that held her up.

  Above the heads of all the assembled Tufa, the bare tops of the trees waved in the wind. They seemed synchronized, like the hands of a crowd during the slow part of the encore. The clouds thinned enough for the sun to almost break through, making them luminous.