by Alex Bledsoe
He jumped into the crowd and found the center stage spot
The drummer caught the beat after the first few bars, and then the bassist and one-eyed banjo picker followed. After only the briefest disharmony, they sounded like they’d played the song a thousand times. Grinning like an idiot, Rob charged into the chorus.
Play it hard, little bluesgirl
Make that bottleneck scream
Let me feel every word that you’re sayin’
So I know that you know what I mean
A man’s gotta die of something
And I don’t care if I bleed
When he paused after the chorus, Page contributed a long, heartrending fiddle riff that caught him so by surprise that he almost missed the cue to begin singing again.
She saw him in the crowd and flashed him a smile
Said I’ll be done here in just a little while
If you come around back and bring some Johnnie Walker Red
I’ll do things to put the fear of God in your head
He couldn’t say no, couldn’t walk away
He had to dance as long as she had to play
This time he nodded for Bliss to harmonize with him on the chorus, and she did, taking the high end and adding just enough Joplin-y growl to really accent the song’s grit. She sang as if she could read his mind.
Make your move, little bluesgirl
Let that leather jacket fall to the floor
Kick those army boots under the bed now
I’ll hang the do-not-disturb on the door
Your fingers get my skin all a-twangin’
And your mouth makes me holler for more
Rob jumped into the air, came down with his feet spread wide and tore into a solo. He wasn’t a show-off, he believed in sacrificing everything for the sake of the overall song, but this time the music burned out of him. He felt sweat run down his cheeks and nose as he huddled over his guitar, and he finished with a flourish and a full 360 spin. The reaction was ecstatic.
The banjo player stepped forward and took the next solo. It brought a spontaneous cheer from the crowd; Rob couldn’t blame them.
When he stepped to the microphone again, he decided to really see how good these guys were at following him.
“Wait a minute!” he cried, and waved his arm for the band to stop. They did, right on cue, except for the steady rumble of the bass and the tapping on the drummer’s hi-hat, just as Rob imagined it.
The crowd, smiling and clapping, waited to see what he’d say. He felt as if they hung on his every word, that he could do no wrong, and that the musicians behind him would accurately anticipate his every move, on a song they’d never even heard before. He never wanted this moment to end.
“You folks would call this a love song, wouldn’t you?” he asked the crowd, and was rewarded with cheers. “Well, I’ve learned a lot about love songs over the past couple of days. This song used to have a happy ending, where the guy runs off with the girl, but that doesn’t seem right, does it?”
The crowd booed and shouted “No!” and “Uh-uh!”
“Yeah, I agree. I mean, the guy is cheating on his wife, and in your love songs, he wouldn’t get away with that, would he? So I’ve kinda made up a new verse just now, to end it differently. Tell me what you think.”
He turned to the band and shouted a four-count before launching into the final verse.
He was wobbly on his feet when the lights came up
She slipped out the back, he tried to catch up
When he reached the alley, there was nobody there
’Scept a single guitar pick and a long black hair
“See you in hell,” he heard her ghost voice say
“I died here twenty years ago this very day!”
The crowd roared its approval, and with a wild cry of abandon and joy, he launched into the final chorus. The band came in right on cue. Both Bliss and Page leaned in to harmonize, and they held out the final crescendo until he swung his guitar up and dramatically brought it down. The crowd applauded, cheered, and whistled, and Rob watched them with amazement. He felt Bliss thread her fingers through his, and glanced over at her. She was smiling, and he thought at that moment he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. He took Page’s hand, and when the others had lined up with them, they bowed in unison.
When he stood, his eye fell on a woman in the crowd who looked for all the world like Stella Kizer.
He froze and stared. She followed a tall, ridiculously handsome man as he worked his way to the back of the room. She momentarily turned toward him, and he saw that her face was drawn tight and tired, with dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days. In fact, she looked so different, he wasn’t entirely certain it was her, and she vanished into the approving throng almost immediately.
* * *
By the time Bliss handed him a bottle of water from her cooler, Rob was exhausted. He wiped sweat on his shirttail and drank half the bottle at once. Another group of musicians was onstage now, and he followed Bliss into the cool outside air. Everyone he passed told him how well he’d played.
At the edge of the clear space around the barn, a group of small children stood together tossing bread crumbs and corn to three enormous emus that had emerged from the forest. The birds, skittish and uncertain, caught some of the pieces in the air, which made the kids laugh. The noise caused the birds to back away, but they didn’t run off into the darkness.
Bliss led him to a bonfire, deserted except for some teenagers banging rough tunes on bongos. A canvas camping chair stood empty, and he held it mock gallantly for Bliss. Then he dropped to the ground beside her. The night’s breeze was the perfect temperature to take the edge off the fire’s warmth.
“That … was … amazing,” he said, still grinning. “I’ve never played with anyone who could follow stuff like that without rehearsing. I sure can’t do it.”
“Good thing you were leading, then,” Bliss said. In the orange glow, she appeared untouchably beautiful.
“Do I get my explanation now?”
Bliss smiled tiredly. “Yes, you do. I know what I need to know about you.”
“Which is what?”
She looked at the people milling outside the barn and clustered around the fire. “Ah-ha. There’s Annie May Pritchard.”
She pointed across the fire, where a teenage girl danced to the sultry beat provided by the drummers. She had black hair in a ponytail and her eyes were closed. She wore low-slung jeans and a tank top that left her stomach exposed, and her bare feet stirred a small cloud of dust.
“What do you see?” Bliss asked.
“A pretty girl dancing.”
“That’s all?”
“What else should I see?”
“Look harder.”
He did, then shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe if I knew what I was looking for—”
Bliss licked her lips. He’d played with the Tufa, with her Tufa. Even if Mandalay was right about why, it didn’t change what had happened. And now she had a promise to keep. “This’ll hurt for a second,” she said, and before he could respond, she thumped him solidly right on the stitched lump.
“Ow!” he cried, and closed his eyes against the pain.
He felt her hands on either side of his head from behind, holding him in a rock-solid grip. “Don’t close your eyes, Rob. Look.”
He blinked. Across the fire, he saw the same young girl dancing, except …
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
It was the same girl, the same Annie May Pritchard, but now she wore a shimmering wrap that alternately covered and revealed a lean, supple body. Her skin shone in the firelight, alive with rainbow colors. Tall, pointed ears rose from her hair. And from her back sprang two enormous, gossamer wings that flexed to the same rhythm.
He blinked again. Once more, she was just a dancing teenage girl.
He sat very still until Bliss removed her hands. “So what did you see?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t have a clue,” he replied honestly, his voice barely louder than the crackling fire. “What was I supposed to see?”
“Tell me what you did see.”
“It looked like that girl there turned into … Tinker Bell or something.”
Bliss nodded. “Not far off.”
“And exactly why did I see that?”
Cut us, we bleed red. Tickle us, we laugh hard. Whack us in the head, we get dizzy. Now Mandalay’s words made sense. “Somehow, your blow to the skull the other day opened you to … well, things most non-Tufa people don’t see. I realized it when you saw those tombstones behind the fire station, and then when you were able to find them again after you reinjured yourself. And when I heard you play, at our picnic and here tonight, I knew that it was the truth. Even though you’re not Tufa, apparently the right whack to the right head will do it.” We can’t be that different from them, Mandalay had said. “I know it sounds squirrelly, but you saw it, didn’t you?”
He swore that when he focused on Bliss’s eyes, her ears were tall and pointed in his peripheral vision. Yet when he looked directly, they were as normal as his own. “You didn’t slip anything in that water, did you? Acid or something?”
“No.” She looked into his eyes as her heart pounded out a foxtrot in her chest. “So. Do you believe me?”
“I’m looking for a magical song, I’m in no position to judge.” He should’ve been afraid, or at least nervous, but he felt inexplicably safe with her. “So what are you people?”
She looked down, summoning the courage to break the Tufa’s greatest taboo. Carefully, she said, “We were here before the first tribesmen came over from Asia and became the Native Americans. We were here when the first Europeans laid claim to these mountains, as if they were something you could own, like a hat or a gun.” She gestured at the trees. “The forest is our home. When you enter it uninvited and unaccompanied, you enter our world and have to abide by its rules. Many who do, are never seen again. But the ones who are invited, who are brought by us—”
Before she could continue, a vehicle missing its muffler came out of the night. An old station wagon parked awkwardly, right in front of the barn.
Bliss got to her feet. “You have got to be fucking kidding,” she whispered.
The door opened, and Rockhouse Hicks lurched to his feet. He held unsteadily on to the door. “Y’all havin’ a hell of a time, ain’t you?” he said in a loud drunken voice.
17
Vanover got to his feet, and although the music inside the barn didn’t stop, several big, grim-faced men emerged as if they’d somehow heard Rockhouse arrive. They lined up on either side of Vanover.
“Well, butter my ass and call me a biscuit,” Rockhouse said. His hair was disheveled, and spittle hung in his beard. If he was intimidated, it didn’t show. “Y’all got quite a shindig going here.”
“Just turn around and go back the way you came, Mr. Hicks,” Vanover said. “None of us want any trouble.”
“Hell, me neither, boys.” Rockhouse closed the station wagon’s door. A couple of the men jumped at the sound. Rob couldn’t figure out why this old man made these big, strong farmers so tense, but they all looked like they expected violence to erupt at any moment. “I’m just here to fetch my nephew home before he gets into any trouble. I told him not to come up here, but he’s got a new city girlfriend and wants to show her off.”
Without taking his eyes off Rockhouse, Vanover said, “Jim, go fetch Stoney Hicks. I saw him polecattin’ around inside earlier.” One of the big men nodded and went inside.
Bliss grabbed Rob’s arm and pulled him into the shadows near the edge of the forest. “I thought you said Rockhouse never came here,” he whispered.
“He never has before,” Bliss said, her voice tight. Of all the times to be saddled with a non-Tufa. “Something’s up. Just stay here and be quiet, okay? This doesn’t concern you.”
Bliss strode out of the darkness and stood in front of Vanover, facing Hicks. The beefy hill men looked visibly relieved when they saw her. Rockhouse belched a little, then squinted at her. “That you, Bliss?”
“You know it is, Rockhouse,” she said, folding her arms.
Her presence took away a bit of his bluster, and he stood quietly until the side door opened and Jim led two people out. One was the tall, handsome young man Rob had noticed earlier. He held the hand of the girl behind him, and when the light struck her face, Rob saw that it was indeed Stella Kizer.
Before he even consciously realized it, he stalked out of the shadows. “Hey!” he yelled. “Stella Kizer!”
She turned toward his voice. Her face looked pale and splotchy, as if she’d been crying. She seemed to recognize Rob, and opened her mouth to speak.
Before she could, Stoney said simply, “C’mon, Stel.” She lowered her eyes and turned away.
“Hey,” Rob said as he reached the group, “I’m a friend of the lady’s husband, and I’d like a word with her.”
Bliss grabbed him by the arm. “Stay out of this!” she hissed.
He twisted out of her grasp. “Her husband’s worried sick about her, and the cops are looking all over for her. I figure the least she could do is tell me what the hell she thinks she’s doing so I can pass it on to them.”
Stella looked stricken, torn between obeying her new paramour and talking to Rob. Stoney opened the back passenger door.
“So what’s the deal, Stella?” Rob demanded. As he waited for her reply, he spotted several familiar rolled pieces of paper on the vehicle’s floorboard. So she had the rubbings.
“Y’all best back off,” Stoney said, his voice thick with alcohol and arrogance.
“I got no quarrel with you, friend, I just want to hear what the lady has to say for herself,” Rob said.
Stoney stepped in front of Stella, his broad chest belligerently pushed out. Rob looked up into the handsome face’s dull, almost lifeless eyes. “I ain’t your friend, city boy. I’m about to sing your dyin’ dirge.”
“Stoney!” Rockhouse barked warningly.
A line from one of the tombstones behind the fire station jumped unbidden to the front of Rob’s thoughts, and he fired back, “Yeah, well, I may just leave your body lifeless for the flies, pretty boy.”
The onlookers gasped. The music inside the barn stopped dead. The only sounds were insects in the woods and a distant airplane far overhead.
“See what you done?” Rockhouse said to his nephew, his voice high with outrage. “Now, get in the goddam car, Stoney. Now.”
Stoney held Rob’s gaze. “This ain’t over, short stuff,” Stoney said, then followed Stella into the car. Rob thought he caught a last, pleading look from her as the door closed, but before he could respond, the station wagon was already driving away in a cloud of dust turned hellfire red by its taillights.
The music picked up as if it had never stopped. Rob turned to Bliss. “They had her husband’s tombstone rubbings in—”
She took his hand and yanked him away from Vanover and the other men, all of whom stared at him as if he’d grown a second nose. When she had him back in the shadows out of earshot, she grabbed him by the throat. He was astounded at her strength.
“If you ever do anything like that again, Rob, I swear to God, I’ll kill you,” she roared, although her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m not exaggerating for effect, I mean it. I’ll physically kill you, and no one will ever find your body.”
“You people take your epitaphs mighty seriously,” he croaked, trying to get free of her grip. Maybe this was why she frightened Tiffany Gwinn.
“You just presumed to be something you most definitely are not. You represented yourself as something you can’t possibly be.” She yanked him close. “And your mouth wrote a check that I guarantee your ass can’t cash. And that makes it my problem.”
She released him and stepped away. He took a moment to catch his breath, and wondered if she’d done any permanent damage to his voice. “Okay, that was seriously m
essed up,” he gasped. “Here’s a hint—if something’s supposed to be secret, you shouldn’t carve it on your damn tombstones.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” she snapped. Calm down, Bliss, she told herself, you don’t have the luxury of a temper.
“You threatened to kill me,” he said.
“No, I promised to kill you. I’m sorry about that. Just give me a minute, all right?” She turned her back and lowered her head. She’d completely blown everything, thanks to Rockhouse’s unexpected appearance. Rob had seen the truth, but she’d had no time to explain it, to tell him what words and songs and stories really meant to her people, and why the wrong thing quoted at the wrong time could do irreparable harm.
He started to reply, but didn’t. Despite the attack and her demonstration of an almost super-human strength, he was moved by the way she suddenly seemed small and fragile. He started to reach for her, when movement in the corner of his eye stopped him.
Curnen peered around a tree at the very edge of the forest. It was the first time he’d seen her standing fully upright. She wore a different tattered dress, this one a couple of sizes too big that fell off one shoulder, and her hair was haphazardly brushed back from her face. It was both comical and touching, as if she’d wanted to dress up and look nice but literally had no idea how.
She put her finger to her lips, then nodded that he should come closer. Bliss, still turned away, did not notice. Curnen repeated the gesture, and playfully smiled. She stretched one six-fingered hand toward him, tentative and shy, and he couldn’t help himself. He reached toward her.
Her long, supple fingers closed around his hand, and she yanked him after her into the woods.
Bliss whirled. Rob had vanished, and only the vibration of the tree branches showed evidence of his passage. She caught a whiff of Curnen’s distinctive odor. No doubt she’d appeared demure, and helpless, and like a lost little girl to him. And now he was gone.
The images from that first dream before she’d met Rob sprang unbidden to her mind: a white hand clawing out of a grave, and the two figures fighting, one in a blood-spattered dress. She felt a chill, and heard the wind rustle the trees far above. The bonfire flared, and the conversation outside the barn died down. Even the music paused. When the night wind spoke, the Tufa listened, but only a few could hear it clearly. She was one of them.