by Alex Bledsoe
Oblivious, Aiden pulled the tattered case from beneath the bed. It had once been expensive, and even now only the outside showed signs of age and wear. The buckles were shiny, and when she placed it across her lap and unsnapped them, the green velvet lining was as rich and deep as it had been the day it was made.
But the mandolin inside held her attention. Magda had been built in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1914, according to the history Brownyn had been told when Granny Esme gave her the instrument. She was a Gibson A-5 model, with two sound holes that looked like calligraphied letter f’s parallel to the strings. She was polished to burnished perfection except in places where the finish was worn down to the wood grain, evidence of her nearly century-long use. This was no priceless heirloom to be locked away; Magda had been passed to Bronwyn so she could be used, so the songs embedded in her might grow and be shared.
Granny Esme first played Magda in one of the mandolin orchestras popular at the time the instrument was originally built. It had been something of a scam at first: traveling music peddlers put together small community groups, encouraging the purchase of their wares as a way to participate in the latest fad. But in Cloud County, among the Tufa, the mandolin’s antecedents were already well known, and the merchant was surprised to find families who actually owned Italian mandores. He’d put together a brief tour, sold his entire traveling stock, and moved on. Among old-timers, talk of the Glittering Strings Mandolin Orchestra still passed in whispers, lest the fragile majesty be smirched.
An envelope had been tucked under the strings near the bridge. She opened it and pulled out the card. A generic get-well-soon message was printed on the front; when she opened it, a little speaker played a tinny version of “Another One Bites the Dust.”
“That’s from Kell,” Aiden said.
“I figured,” she said with a wry smile.
The handwritten message inside it read
I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to meet you, but I’m sure everything went well. You’ve always been the toughest person I know; now you’re the toughest person anyone knows. I’m so proud of you, not for joining the army, or for getting shot up, or for killing ten people single-handed; I’m proud of you for coming back to Magda after everything that’s happened. She’s been waiting patiently, just like the night wind.
Love you, baby sister. Now, stop chasing boys, put on some shoes, and act like you’ve been to town before.
Kell
She put the card back in its envelope and placed it aside on the bed. Then she returned her attention to Magda.
She lifted the instrument carefully from its case. She felt its weight in her fingertips. It was not fragile, but she hadn’t touched it, touched her, in two years. She no longer trusted herself.
“Mama tuned her for you, restrung her and everything,” Aiden said.
Bronwyn took the mandolin in her arms. She strummed her thumb along the eight steel strings. The sound was pinched and flat.
“Well, that ain’t right,” Aiden said.
“No,” Bronwyn sighed. She stared at the neck, trying to recall the fingering, any fingering, for any song. Nothing came to her.
“What’s wrong?” Aiden asked.
“Maybe I don’t feel like playing,” she snapped.
His eyes opened wide. “For real?”
As always, she was unable to sustain any passion, even anger. “I lost a lot of blood, Aiden. Between that and my skull getting cracked, they said I might have some brain damage that could affect my memory.”
“You have…” And he whispered the last two words in amazement. “Brain damage?”
She no longer had the patience to deal with him. “You will, too, if you don’t stop being a shit. Now, get out of here and leave me alone.”
Aiden made a face at her, then jumped up and ran out the door. He collided with her wheelchair, still blocking the hall, and tumbled over it. He lay still for a moment, then hollered, “I’m okay!”
Bronwyn burst out laughing, which sent jolts of pain through her whole body. Aiden stood up, put the chair upright, then scampered away.
Bronwyn shook her head. Aiden had always been impulsive, more like her than he was like their even-tempered older brother, Kell. But he never seemed to have her drive to tweak authority, to crush barriers, and seek out anything forbidden. He’d apparently gotten the best of both his siblings, without their bad qualities. Too bad it took her folks three tries to get it right.
She looked back down at Magda. The instrument felt awkward in her hands, and she couldn’t recall at what angle she used to hold it, or the particular way she liked to place her fingers on the neck prior to playing. The images and feelings were there, but tantalizingly out of reach behind the same fog that mercifully hid the events of her ambush.
She carefully placed the instrument back in its case and closed the lid. Then she looked out the window. Down the hill, reporters still gathered at the gate, no doubt probing the family home with telephoto lenses and special microphones. She smiled; technology was all well and good, but nothing could penetrate a Tufa home without permission. And few homes in Needsville were as thoroughly Tufa as the Hyatts’.
Deacon appeared in the door. “Folks are starting to bring in the food. Hope being famous makes you hungry.” His eyes narrowed. “Why is your uniform open?”
“I was showing Aiden my bullet hole,” she said as she rebuttoned it.
“What did he think?”
“That it was cool.”
“Well, he’s just a boy.”
“And he thinks I’m a hero.”
“You’re not,” Deacon said definitively. “He’ll figure that out. Come on when you’re ready.”
Bronwyn sat with her fingers on the top button of her uniform blouse, staring after her father. She agreed with her father’s assessment, so why did his words sting so painfully? Hadn’t she just told Aiden herself that she wasn’t a hero?
Again something rose in her and faded. She got back on her crutches, hobbled to the wheelchair, and backed it clumsily down the hall.
The kitchen and living room were filled with people, all with identical jet-black hair. The buzz of conversation was offset by the idle plucking of stringed instruments, although no songs announced themselves. The little chips of music flitted through the words like butterflies among trees, with the same semi-magical effect. Delicious odors of thick, home-cooked foods filled the air, a striking change from the hospital and military slop she’d grown accustomed to eating.
“Excuse me,” Bronwyn said to the big man blocking the hall. When he stepped aside, a cheer went up, and Bronwyn immediately put on what she called her Meet the Press smile. It wasn’t insincere, but neither was it fully genuine; rather, it did the job the moment required, and she could only hope that it would grow more real with time.
She shook many hands and received many kisses on her cheeks and forehead as she worked her way to the kitchen. At last, exhausted and flanked by her parents, she listened blankly to the well-wishing and thankfulness. The one question she had, though, concerned her older brother, and when there was a break in the festivities, she asked Chloe, “So where is Kell, anyway?”
“He had finals this week,” Chloe said. “He’ll be here come the weekend. Said he might call tonight if he gets a study break.”
Bronwyn smiled. Kell was the master of weighing alternatives, and had no doubt carefully considered all the angles before announcing his intent. Certainly at UT–Knoxville, he’d find it easier to avoid the media carnival in the driveway.
The festivities went on until past nightfall. People began to leave then, and again Bronwyn received many handshakes and kisses. At last Deacon closed the front door, leaving only the Hyatts in their home. “Whew,” he said.
“Nice to be liked,” Bronwyn said, “but it’ll flat wear you out.”
“It’s important they see you,” Chloe said. “You know that.”
She nodded. “I’m a soldier, I’m used to doing what’s good for the group.�
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“You’re not a soldier anymore,” her father said.
Bronwyn knew what he meant. The Tufa left Cloud County at their peril. Depending on how much true Tufa blood they had, all their protection, and all their strength, could be stripped away by distance and time. She knew her father believed that was why she’d been hurt, and for all she knew, he was right. But on this point he was also wrong. “I’m still in the army, Dad, I’m just on leave. My enlistment’s not up for another month, and with all the stop-loss policies in effect, they may not let me out.”
“You’ll be let out,” Chloe said. “If you want to be.” She dropped an armload of beer bottles into the garbage and looked evenly at her daughter. “Do you?”
Bronwyn couldn’t hold the gaze. Chloe, in that elliptical Tufa way, was asking about a lot more than her career plans. “I don’t know, Mom.”
“Will they let you fight again?” Aiden asked eagerly, then yawned.
At that moment the wind nudged one of the porch chimes. Its notes should have been random, but instead they were the first notes of a song every Tufa knew:
The moon shines bright
And the winds alight
On the rocky pinnacle of home
Nowhere but here
Is the wind so near
To the song deep in my bones
“I don’t know,” Bronwyn repeated.
* * *
In the twilight, Deacon and Aiden walked down the hill toward the gate. Three vans and a dozen people were still there, their huge lights drawing clouds of eager insects. All the camera lenses swung toward them as they approached, and questions flew at them.
“Is Bronwyn planning to return to the army?”
“Does she remember being shot?”
“Can she tell us how many people she remembers killing?”
Deacon calmly put up his hands. His left one curled his pinkie and ring finger into his palm, making a variation of a peace sign. When the reporters paused to hear his answers, he said, “Y’all just calm down, we brought you some leftover brownies and we’d like to ask you to be a little quieter so Bronwyn can rest. It’s been a heck of a day.”
The bombardment began again instantly, and he simply stood there, hands up, smiling benignly. It took a moment, but one by one, the most persistent of the reporters fell silent, and looked away in something very much like shame. The big lights were switched off, and they were plunged into darkness while their eyes adjusted. The insects attracted to the glow flitted away into the night.
“Thank you,” Deacon said. “Aiden, hand out them goodies, will you?”
Aiden took the pan of brownies to the fence and handed them across the aluminum gate to the reporters. As he did so, he hummed a tune his mother taught him, so softly, none of the reporters had any idea they were even hearing it. The first to sample the brownies responded with an enthusiastic “Mmmm!” and the others quickly followed suit. Once they’d all tasted them, Deacon dropped his left hand and held out his right with the thumb across the palm, as if indicating the number four.
“Hope y’all enjoy those,” he said. “And please, let my daughter get some rest for the next few days. She won’t be hard to find once she gets back on her feet, and if she remembers anything, I’m sure she’ll want to tell about it.”
The reporters all left within fifteen minutes. Many of them felt a combination of sudden, inexplicable guilt at their scavenger-like scrambling after the story; those without the moral capacity for such feelings, and because of that unprotected by the magic in the Tufa song, dealt with more prosaic digestive issues brought on by Chloe’s brownies. Nothing so crude as poison had been used, merely the kind of intent a true Tufa could sing into anything, even cooking.
* * *
Chloe helped Bronwyn undress and use the bathroom, then bathed her with a sponge. Finally she helped her into a clean T-shirt with the Tennessee Titans logo across the front. “You’ve put on some weight,” was her mother’s only observation about her daughter’s shattered, stitched, and scarred body.
“Yeah, well, hard to jog when you’ve got this cell phone tower wrapped around your leg,” Bronwyn said as she leaned on Chloe’s shoulder and maneuvered to the bed. She sat heavily, then reclined as her mother carefully positioned her leg. The ceiling above her was comforting and familiar, even with the flag banners dangling from it.
“You’ll be out of that thing in a week, you know,” Chloe said as she adjusted the pillows.
Bronwyn nodded. “I won’t mind, believe me.” She certainly looked forward to seeing the look on the doctors’ faces when they saw how quickly she healed now that she was home.
“Aiden asked if you needed him to sleep on the floor in here. In case you had nightmares.”
Bronwyn smiled. “Yeah, he’s suddenly my bodyguard. Good thing you didn’t bring him up to the hospital.”
Chloe lit a candle on the bedside table. It was homemade, and laced with something that quickly filled the room with a softly pungent aroma. It took Bronwyn a moment to recognize it.
“That’s heather,” she said, frowning. “What’s it for?”
“You’ll have company later,” Chloe said. “A haint.”
Bronwyn sat up straight. She remembered Bliss in town, and the bird tapping at the window. “Now, wait a minute—”
“It is what it is,” Chloe snapped. “Talking to me about it won’t make any difference. Talk to it.”
“Does it have anything to do with the death omen I saw today?”
“What death omen?” Chloe asked almost mockingly.
Bronwyn knew when her mother was hiding something behind sarcasm, and said, “Bird pecking at the window trying to get in.”
“Birds can get confused just like anything else.”
“Yeah, that’s what Daddy said.”
“He’s a smart man.” The two women looked into each other’s eyes; finally Bronwyn sighed and turned away. Chloe placed the candle on the windowsill. “The candle should draw the haint here shortly.”
Bronwyn flopped back on the pillow. “Not tonight. Hell, Mom, I’m exhausted.”
Chloe chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Reckon you have a point. But you can’t put it off too long. It’s been coming around for a week already.” She blew out the candle and took it with her as she turned off the light and went out the door.
Bronwyn lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The flag banners rippled slightly in the breeze through the open window. She glanced over and saw the ragged piece of blue glass on the sill, protection against the uninvited. No haint could pass that, even one summoned by the smell of heather. But haints, she knew, had all the time in the world.
Death omens didn’t, though. They appeared only when the end of someone’s life was in the near future. Chloe’s harsh reaction told Bronwyn that this wasn’t the first one, either. The question was always, whom were they meant for?
There was a song, a short little ditty that Tufa children used to make wishes on the night wind, hovering just beyond Bronwyn’s consciousness. If she could’ve called it forth, she would ask the wind for clarity, and for an explanation. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to bring it forward.
She was asleep within moments.
4
Craig Chess watched some of the TV vans pull into the Catamount Corner parking lot while the rest continued on out of town. All the motel’s rooms were booked, and Peggy Goins was making a small fortune with her special “media rates.” As Craig sipped his coffee, the reporters rushed up the stairs to their rooms as if their feet were on fire. Some held their stomachs as if they might not make it to the bathroom.
The Fast Grab convenience store was new in town, built on a lot catty-corner across from the motel. Two picnic tables were set into the concrete patio outside. At the moment only Craig sat there, although earlier he’d had the pleasure of hearing two different men on cell phones explain to their wives how nothing was going on with their pretty young interns. He could’ve gone home hours
ago, but he just couldn’t tear himself away from the chance to encounter more examples of the worst humanity could offer. A minister, he reasoned, had to know the enemy in order to combat it.
That was the other reason he’d stayed in Needsville long after the parade. He needed to know these people by sight and name if they were ever to trust him. For the last two Saturdays, he’d hung out at the Fast Grab, speaking with the clerks and any willing customers. There had not been many.
He’d known coming into this assignment that he’d been given an almost impossible task: ministering to a people with no interest at all in his faith. It wasn’t missionary work, because missionaries brought other things, food or medicine or money, to use as tangible spiritual bait. Craig could offer the Tufa nothing but his own sincerity.
The last person out of the news vans, a young man with a ponytail and a small bar through his septum, walked over to the store. He was clearly not an on-camera personality, but one of the myriad support staff who made sure the reporters looked their best. He sat down across the table from Craig and said without preliminaries, “Can I ask you something?”
“You just did,” Craig said.
The man laughed and pointed at him. “Hey, good one. No, seriously, though. You live here, right?”
Craig nodded.
“What the fuck is up with this place? I mean, I spent some time in Europe when I was in college, and the people in this town are like freakin’ Gypsies or something. Gypsies with great teeth, that is. Is that why they call them the Tootha?”
“Tufa,” Craig corrected. “And it’s a real mystery, all right. Nobody knows how they got here, but they’ve been in this area, mainly in this very valley, as long as anyone can remember. In fact, when the first white settlers came over the mountains headed west, the Tufa were already here.”