by Alex Bledsoe
Thunder boomed in the clouds. “Kell’s dead, Dwayne,” Bronwyn said. “As a doornail. As a skunk in the road. As disco. That makes you a murderer. How does that feel?”
Dwayne backed away from her, away from the cliff’s edge, toward the safety of the forest. He raised his hands in supplication. “Aw, baby, please, it was all a mistake, I never meant to kill him.”
She put her hands on her hips. She looked tall, powerful, almost goddesslike. The air around her shimmered as if invisible wings fluttered there. “You stuck a knife in him, Dwayne.”
“Yeah, but…”
She sighed. “The saddest part is, I believe you. I believe that you really could stab somebody without intending to kill them. You’re messed up enough to think that way. But it doesn’t change the ending. My big brother is dead, my parents have lost their first child—because of you. And if you get away with it, you’ll just do it again.”
Another rumble from the storm clouds shivered through the air. He tried his best smile. “C’mon, Bronnie, you know I didn’t do it on purpose. We were just fucking around. I said something that he took wrong, and it got out of hand. I’m real sorry.” He shrugged dismissively. “It was kind of his own fault, anyway. He should’ve known better than to pick a fight with me.”
He never saw Bronwyn actually move, but suddenly one of her hands closed around his throat and she yanked him back toward the edge of the cliff.
Bob Pafford burst from the forest just in time to see Bronwyn and Dwayne vanish over the edge. He yelled, “Hey!” and rushed forward, but they were already gone.
He stared down into the abyss. A lightning flash illuminated the whole valley below, and its accompanying thunder boomed almost immediately. The storm would be here in no time.
He heard the first big splat of raindrops on the brim of his hat. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen: Bronwyn Hyatt and Dwayne Gitterman leaping to their deaths. He moved away from the edge, his heart pounding, feeling both cheated of his prize and, oddly, frightened. He’d have to hurry back to the road, then locate the two bodies that had to be shredded among the trees below. He could use the time to fine-tune the story he’d tell to explain both the video in his car and the murder-suicide he’d just witnessed.
He refused to give any thought to the fact that, at the last moment before the doomed lovers vanished into the darkness, they seemed to suddenly fly upward.
* * *
Dwayne clutched at Bronwyn’s arm, trying to dislodge the choking hold at his neck. She was stronger than he’d ever imagined possible. He kicked madly to find purchase, but there was no ground beneath them. They were in the sky, the stars above them and the great wide valley below, and the rushing night wind filled his ears.
He could not see her face clearly, but her eyes looked different somehow, larger and wider and utterly black. He tried to scream, but the fingers digging into his larynx silenced him.
Now he heard something else: She was singing. But her voice sounded both loud and whisperish, with a melody that seemed to touch feelings in him that had been deadened since childhood.
The arms that hold you are not those of love
You cannot see down nor anything above
You snatch what you want, leaving hot blood and tears
Until the day when all of your fears
Come home to roost, come home to see
Come home to find, no one but thee
Cares for your heart, cares for your strife
Cares if you live another minute of life.…
Tears ran from his eyes, only to be snatched away by the wind. With abrupt, terrifying clarity he saw himself as everyone else did, saw the swath of harm he’d inflicted, and realized the song was true. No one would miss him: not Bronwyn, not Terry-Joe, not his family or his friends. To most of them he’d long outlived his welcome presence. The knowledge that he was hated, despised, and feared, that no love for him existed in the world, wrenched a cry that could’ve drowned out the very wind if it wasn’t choked to silence by Bronwyn’s grip.
He felt her lips against his ear. At first he thought she was kissing him; then he heard the faint words:
“Good-bye, Dwayne.”
She took his earlobe in her teeth, then said, “If you can sing, you can fly. If you can’t, you’ll die. Which is it, Dwayne: the hum or the shiver?”
Then she was gone, and a clap of thunder rattled his teeth. The air around him seemed to glow, and he realized he was now inside the storm clouds.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see another human form in the air beside him. He squinted into the dimness until another flash of lightning illuminated the newcomer. This man had wings as well, and he watched Dwayne with the curiosity a child might have for an insect. It took a moment, but Dwayne recognized him: it was the man who’d challenged him at the Waffle House.
Dwayne desperately reached out and tried to scream for help, but the wind ate his words. Then the other man was gone.
Dwayne continued to scream. The wind seemed to lift him, raising him above the clouds toward the stars. Something writhed within him, like a tapeworm suddenly desperate to escape its host, as his long-ignored Tufa blood attempted to save him. He tried to think of a song, any song. But he’d long ago burned the music out of himself.
The wind sighed its disappointment and released him back to the world. He screamed all the way to the ground.
* * *
When Chloe, Deacon, and Aiden returned home the next morning, they found Bronwyn curled up asleep on the porch swing. Deacon picked her up and carried her inside to her bedroom. Chloe took down Deacon’s charm against death; it was no longer needed, since death had already come.
Then they prepared for their visitors.
34
The irony made the national news for a day.
Dwayne Gitterman, wanted for the murder of war hero Bronwyn Hyatt’s brother, committed suicide by jumping from a bluff that overlooked a Cloud County highway. In a gigantic fluke, he landed on Tennessee State Trooper Robert Pafford, who’d been urinating beside his car. Both were killed instantly. The long combined history of the two—Pafford first arrested Dwayne when he was ten—added to the weirdness. It was too much to be coincidence, some said, yet what else could it be? It was a dark and stormy night; Gitterman could not possibly have seen Pafford before he jumped.
In a week, the national news forgot about it. In a month, no one in Cloud County even spoke the names Dwayne Gitterman or Bob Pafford. None of the old songs were sung for him.
But a new one was written.
* * *
There were old songs for Kell Hyatt, though. Many of them. His body was released for burial, and Bliss brought it back home for a traditional “sitting.” The practice was technically illegal, since the body had not been embalmed, but folks tended to let the Tufa care for their own, even in death.
Chloe, Bliss, Bronwyn, and several other ladies washed Kell thoroughly and dressed him in his best suit. Chloe had broken down only once, when she saw the stitched wound where he’d been stabbed. But it passed, and she and the others worked in what passed for musical silence, humming or singing but seldom speaking.
The men gathered as well, on the porch and in the yard. Deacon led them through the woods to the Hyatt family cemetery. It was on a hillside, with little horizontal outbuildings over some of the graves. They took turns digging, using pickaxes on the rocky soil and hauling the stones aside. They sang as well, bawdy songs of men and women, tales of prowess and exaggeration. By midday, the grave was ready.
* * *
Major Dan Maitland called Bronwyn as she was about to put on her black mourning dress. “I’m very sorry to hear about your brother, Private Hyatt.”
“Miss Hyatt. Unless you’re planning to stop-loss me.”
“I don’t think that would be good for either the image of the military, or for you as a person. Do you?”
“That may be the first thing we’ve entirely agreed on, Major.”
Her new assertiveness made him pause and regroup. When he spoke again, it was with the voice of an equal, not a superior. “Well, whatever the case, please express my sympathy to your family. They’ve certainly been through the wringer this year. How are you holding up?”
She looked at her lingerie-clad reflection in the full-length mirror. Her legs were more symmetrical and the scars were slowly fading. Only the elastic bandage around her ribs spoke of any recent trauma. “Wall to wall and treetop tall. Looking for love in all the wrong places.”
“Any plans for the future?”
“Lots.”
When she did not elaborate, he said, “Well, I won’t keep you, Bronwyn. I know this is a tough time for you. Please know you’re in my thoughts and prayers.”
“Thanks, Dan. For everything.” And she meant it. When she hung up, she added his number to the blocked list on her cell phone.
* * *
That afternoon, Craig parked at the end of a long line of vehicles and walked half a mile up the road to get to the Hyatts’ house. The afternoon sun was murderous through his suit coat. He was stopped at the gate by Aiden and two other preteen boys, all dressed uncomfortably in jackets and clip-on ties. They gave him a serious, challenging group stare.
“I’d like permission to go up to the house,” he said, playing along, “and offer my respects.”
“You haven’t passed the test,” Aiden said grimly.
“What’s the test?”
Aiden and the others huddled together, whispering. Craig tried to keep a straight face. Up the hill, he saw a woman dressed in black step out onto the porch and look toward them. Was it Bronwyn? The distance and the sun made it impossible to tell.
Finally Aiden emerged from the confab and again faced him. “You have to answer a riddle.”
“Okay.”
“How many cats does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“None. Cats can see in the dark.”
Aiden’s face fell. He sighed and, without looking at Craig, said, “You can go up.”
Craig resisted the urge to tousle the boy’s hair as he climbed the hill toward the house. The woman on the porch was Bronwyn, and she watched him until he reached the bottom of the porch steps.
“Hot enough for you?” she asked.
“It’ll do ’til hotter comes along,” he said. “How are the ribs?”
“Sore. But they’ll mend pretty quick.”
“For you, that’s saying something.”
She smiled wryly. “I’m surprised to see you.”
“Really?”
She looked down, shook her head, and grinned. “No, not really. Come on inside, I’ll get you some tea.”
Indoors all the women stepped aside for Bronwyn as if she was some sort of royalty. In fact, only Chloe met her daughter’s gaze; the rest looked respectfully away. Bronwyn did not acknowledge this, but there was a different bearing to her now, something regal that made the deference appropriate.
She poured Craig some tea and then nodded for him to follow. They went past the coffin where Kell lay in state, and down the short hall to her bedroom. When they stepped inside, she quietly closed the door behind them.
He faced her as she settled her shoulders back against the door. It might’ve been seductive except for the sadness in her eyes. “I’m glad you came, Reverend.”
“Craig.”
“Craig. I suppose we should talk about what happened outside the hospital.”
“If you’d like.”
She rattled the ice in her tea. “I’ve been pulled in several different directions since I got home. No, that’s not true, it’s been all my life. Some people wanted me to be one thing, some another. I’ve never taken well to that kind of thing.”
He merely nodded.
“But I think I know what I want now. It’s not what everyone else wants for me. Hell, it’s not what anyone else wants for me. But it’s what I’m meant to do.”
“That’s exceptionally vague, you know. Is that why everyone bowed and curtseyed to you in there?”
She smiled. “Yes. Some things have changed, besides Kell’s death. I guess the best comparison I can make right now is that I’m as certain of my calling as you are, except I can have sex if I want to.”
“That’s a big difference.”
“True,” she agreed, then stepped closer and looked up at him.
He leaned down and kissed her, tenderly. She responded in kind. When they broke the kiss, he said, “I can’t cross some lines, you know.”
“I know,” she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “And honestly, I may try to get you as close to them as possible. I’m like that. But I’ll do my best to respect them.”
“So are you asking me to be your boyfriend?” he said with a grin.
She laughed. “I’m asking you to dinner in Johnson City Monday night. You drive, I’ll pay. But only after…”
“What?”
“Did you go and look at that painting in Cricket?”
“No, not yet.”
“Do that. Then decide.”
“Look at the painting, then decide if I want to go out with you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s so important about the painting?”
She smiled knowingly, teasingly. “If I told you that, it’d be cheating. And that’d be a terrible start to our relationship.”
He stepped closer and kissed her again. This time she leaned up, her lips parted, and it became the kind of kiss that was as much promise as gratification. When they separated, she said, “That was the hum. If you’re good, later I’ll show you the shiver.”
They rejoined the mourners. Craig thought about offering to speak, but figured that would be both rude and unwelcome. He realized he was the only male in the room just before the other men arrived, dirty and tired from grave-digging. With no comment they closed the casket and carried it outside. The women followed, their voices mixing in a song Craig had never before heard.
Bronwyn walked directly behind the casket, playing her mandolin. Chloe clutched her autoharp, and Deacon played long, mournful notes on his fiddle. A few others had instruments, but most simply sang. Craig knew none of the songs, and they seemed to vanish from his memory as soon as he heard them.
After the service, Brownyn and the other women went off together into the woods. Craig started to go with the men, but Aiden suddenly took his hand, the same grim look on his face.
“I’m supposed to walk you back to your car.”
“You are.”
He nodded. “Bronwyn said to tell you this part was private. She said you’d understand.”
“Okay,” he said. He looked back toward the woods, but everyone had vanished into its shadows.
As he drove away, he kept thinking he saw movement along the tops of the trees, as if things flew up from the forest and into the evening’s purple sky. He finally put it down to a trick of the light.
35
Craig visited the town of Cricket on the Monday following Kell Hyatt’s funeral. When he looked up the directions online, he found a link to the town’s official Web site, and read its history with wonder.
The world watched in 1875 as famous British author, statesman, and social reformer Roy Howard dedicated the new town of Cricket. It was to be a cooperative, class-free society, a Utopia where artisans, tradesmen, and farming families could build a new community through agriculture, temperance, and high moral principles. Today, in a gentle mountain setting little changed by twenty-first-century technology, this would-be Shangri-la survives. More than two dozen of its decorative, gabled buildings remain, and Cricket’s dual Victorian and Appalachian heritage is everywhere visible.
The Roy Howard Library in Cricket had one door and a spire like a church, only with no cross atop it. The roof was plated with metal sheets stained to look like the original copper. It stood in a little grove of trees next to the visitors’ center, with no connection to the sidewalk.
Inside, the library consi
sted of one big room, with ten-foot-high shelves along every available bit of the walls. Two standing shelf units took up the middle of the floor, along with a table covered with elaborate first editions.
The librarian, a tall freckled woman with short hair and glasses, stood as he entered. “Welcome to the Howard Library. I have to tell you not to touch anything without putting on these.” She tapped a box of disposable cotton gloves.
“Why?” Craig asked.
“Almost every book in here is a rare first edition over a hundred years old. The oil from your fingers can damage the paper. Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“I’m supposed to ask to see the painting.”
She gestured at the walls above the shelves, where several old-fashioned paintings hung in the dimness. “Which painting?”
“I’m not sure. I was told just to ask to see the painting.”
“By whom?”
“Bronwyn Hyatt, actually.”
The librarian’s expression turned skeptical. “The war hero? Well, she is a Cloud County Tufa, I’ve heard.”
“She is,” Craig assured her.
“Then I know the one she means.”
“Wait for me,” said another voice.
Craig turned. Don Swayback had entered silently, and now offered his hand. “Hey there, Reverend. Good to see you again.”
“Don,” Craig said as they shook. “Missed you in church yesterday.”
“Stayed out in the wind too long,” he said, and grinned as if it were a private joke.
“What brings you here?”
“From what I just overheard, the same thing as you. Somebody told me to come check out the painting.”
The librarian led them to the back of one of the freestanding shelf units. There, hanging on the end piece, was a painting two feet high by a foot wide, displayed in an elaborate wooden frame that made it appear much larger. It depicted a score of diminutive European storybook fairies gathered around a dominant central figure. This main subject faced away from the viewer and held what looked like an ax above his head. He seemed about to bring it down on a hickory nut at his feet. Stems of grass and flower blossoms laced through the image gave it both scale and depth. The style was a kind of hyperrealism, in which the characters’ proportions seemed slightly distorted beneath the wealth of surface detail.