by Alex Bledsoe
He dialed 911 on his cell phone as he jumped out of the truck. No one used this old highway anymore, and there were no houses within five miles. The only building was the abandoned remains of an old roadhouse nightclub, its parking lot overgrown with kudzu, two faded wood cutouts of what looked like dice or dominoes still mounted on its roof. This was the last place he’d expect to find a pedestrian, especially one who dashed into the road right in front of him.
He knelt beside her. From the way her eyes stared at the overcast sky, he knew she was dead, and he almost threw up. The emergency dispatcher asked him calmly to describe the victim.
“Sh-she looks about thirty,” he told the dispatcher. “She’s got red hair, and she’s wearing clothes like they did twenty years ago. No, I don’t see a purse anywhere.”
Following the dispatcher’s instructions, he tentatively touched her neck for a pulse. Her head lolled to one side the way it could only if her neck was broken. He nearly screamed.
“Y’all, please hurry!” Sizemore said, tears filling his eyes. “I don’t want to be alone here with a corpse!”
The dispatcher stayed on the phone with him until the police and ambulance arrived. The paramedics quickly loaded the body onto a stretcher and carried it away, while the state trooper sympathetically took his statement.
One of the paramedics, a woman with long black hair, put a hand on Sizemore’s shoulder. He recognized her as one of the Needsville Tufas, although he didn’t know her name.
“Don’t feel too bad about it,” she said gently. “It was an accident, that’s all.” She leaned closer. “And really, this woman died twenty years ago.”
Sizemore didn’t understand the strange comment, but the EMT’s smile and touch eased his panic. She hummed a tune he almost recognized as she climbed into the ambulance and closed the door. Red lights flashing, it drove away into the mist.
NOTES ON SOURCES
All song lyrics are original, with the exception of two stanzas from “Hares on the Mountain,” a traditional English ballad first printed in One Hundred English Folksongs: For Medium Voice, a landmark 1916 songbook edited by Cecil J. Sharp (1859–1924); one stanza of “Pretty Saro,” another traditional English ballad, first published in Alan Lomax’s North Carolina Booklet in 1911; and “Little Omie Wise,” which first appeared in The Greensboro Patriot (North Carolina) newspaper on April 29, 1874.
And of course, “Wrought Iron Fences” by Kate Campbell, from her 1997 album Moonpie Dreams, and used by her generous permission. She gets honorary Tufa status for that.
The painting The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke by Richard Dadd is currently on display in the Tate Gallery in London. Its presence in the United States is entirely fictional.
BOOKS BY ALEX BLEDSOE
Blood Groove
The Girls with Games of Blood
The Sword-Edged Blonde
Burn Me Deadly
Dark Jenny
Wake of the Bloody Angel
The Hum and the Shiver
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Bledsoe grew up in West Tennessee, but now lives in Wisconsin. Besides his tales of the Tufa, he also writes the Eddie LaCrosse and Memphis Vampires series. His official website can be found at www.alexbledsoe.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
WISP OF A THING
Copyright © 2013 by Alex Bledsoe
All rights reserved.
Cover photographs by Sarah Ann Loreth (woman) and Irene Lamprakou (trees) / Arcangel Images
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
“Wrought Iron Fences” written by Kate Campbell, Ira Campbell, and Johnny Pierce copyright © 1996 by Large River Music Inc. (BMI)/CedarSong Publishing (BMI). Used by permission.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Bledsoe, Alex.
Wisp of a thing / Alex Bledsoe.—First Edition.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3413-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-0826-3 (e-book)
1. Musicians—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Great Smoky Mountains (N.C. and Tenn.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.L456W57 2013
813'.6—dc23
2013003720
e-ISBN 9781466808263
First Edition: June 2013