Gather Her Round

by Alex Bledsoe

  “You think we don’t fit in?”

  “Fairies?”

  “That’s one word.”

  “This is a lot to accept, Bliss.”

  “I know. If you need some time, or want to stop seeing me altogether, I’ll understand. Not everyone can. Accept it, I mean.”

  “You’re not worried that I might tell people?”

  “Tell them what?”

  She had him there. He had no proof, and if he went around claiming the Tufa were actually a bunch of fairies, he’d be shipped to the mental hospital in Bolivar before the sun went down. “Well, you’ve got me there.”

  “Do you think you can accept it?”

  She looked so lovely in the firelight, he couldn’t begin to get angry. He touched her cheek. “You’re still you, right?”

  “Always have been, always will be.” She knew he didn’t get the irony of that comment.

  He pulled her close. “I may have other questions, as we go. But I do want to keep going.” After they kissed, he added, “I assume you want me to keep this secret?”

  “It’s probably better for everyone if you do.”

  “Right. Well, then, I guess it’s only fair if I tell you: I have a secret, too. If it gets out, it could cost me my job, my friends, everything.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked at her with total seriousness. “I’m a Democrat.”

  She giggled. And she kept giggling even as he kissed her, scooped her off her feet, and carried her upstairs to her bedroom.

  25

  The crowd at the storytelling festival watched Janet’s every move now, rapt in a way that only people fully emotionally invested in a story could be. Janet knew this story had it all: danger, romance, betrayal, a monster, and a sense of inevitable reckoning. It was why she’d chosen to tell it, and she wasn’t surprised by the response.

  She’d been noodling on her guitar throughout, and now she made eye contact with the sound man, who raised the volume gradually until it was loud enough to provide real accompaniment. She sang:

  And the winter went by with its snow and ice

  Until the spring spread its petals anew

  And everyone with the truth in their blood

  Knew something was coming, and soon.

  I was just a girl, and I could only watch

  I didn’t know the threads in the skein

  But as they drew tight to form the fabric of their lives,

  I knew the truth would pour like rain.

  Because it doesn’t matter how well you hide it

  Or how many secrets your heart has beside it

  The truth has a way of coming out on its own

  Even when you stop, or try to postpone

  Because only the fire can burn off the sh—

  She stopped in mid-word, and everyone laughed, releasing some of the tension that had been building. Some, Janet thought smugly, but not all. Just like she planned.

  “Almost forgot we had some kids here,” she said, and the sound man took her cue and eased the guitar’s volume back down.

  Janet looked out at the crowd. She blinked sweat from her eyes and tried to see if any of the Tufa had driven over to catch the show. It wouldn’t be like them, she knew, but then again, you could never tell. There were a few heads of jet-black hair, but none seemed to connect to her the way another Tufa would. This was a totally mundane audience, and she was giving them tons of Tufa secrets in such a way that they’d never, ever believe them.

  Of course, in her head, the story unfolded as it had all those years ago, with the real people and their real names. Luckily she was good enough, and practiced enough, to redact on the fly.

  “So, once again, we have to jump ahead a couple of months. Things progressed as they do: one girl grew more pregnant, another girl continued to plug away at both her music and her senior year of high school, the game warden and the paramedic found a lot of new ways to do the oldest thing in the world—”

  She paused for knowing laughter.

  “And the girl with the secrets in her head waited for the old luthier to finish his job. Some things can’t be rushed, and a guy like that puts more of himself into his work than most of us do. Every curve of the wood re-created a woman he’d known as a young man. Every notch in the bridge was perfectly cut to hold his own dreams. It’s a slow way to work, and to a lot of people, a ridiculous one. After all, most luthiers can bang out a banjo in a week. But for him, there was only one way, and it took as long as it took.

  “And so all these stories began to draw together, on one day in the late spring. It began with the pregnant girl giving her troubled fiancé an ultimatum.”

  26

  “Dude, I can’t do this. I can’t do this whole wedding thing.”

  Renny wore only a huge T-shirt that said, HI, Y’ALL on the front and BYE, Y’ALL on the back. She paced as much as she could, leaning back to balance the weight of the growing baby. Although she couldn’t imagine it getting much bigger, the granny-woman acting as her midwife assured her that everything was fine, and that she wasn’t having twins. “He’s just a sizable one,” she said, using the male pronoun.

  Renny had been using it, too, ever since the old woman held a pendulum over her gravid stomach and it swung in such a way that indicated the baby was a boy. Renny accepted it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a boy. Hell, she wasn’t sure she wanted a baby.

  And now Duncan looked up from his computer and snapped, “Then what the fuck do you want to do? We’ve rented tuxes, dresses for your damn bridesmaids, catering—”

  “Asking your mama to cook for everyone is not catering.”

  “You got a problem with my mama’s cooking?”

  “No!” she almost yelled; then she put her hands over her ears. “Can you please just let me say this, okay?”

  “Sure,” Duncan said. “You’ve been saying shit all along, why should this be any different?”

  She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “Duncan,” she said slowly, “I don’t like who you’ve turned into these past couple of months. I don’t like who I’ve turned into, either. We’re the worst of both our parents, and it’s because of this damn wedding, isn’t it?”

  Duncan knew he could never answer truthfully. “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s just blow it off. What do you say?”

  “And not get married?”

  “No, let’s just go do it. Drive over the county line and find a justice of the peace. Right now.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious!” she cried desperately. It wasn’t like the way she normally raised her voice: there was real fear and real pain in it, and he saw a look in her eye that was new, and broke his heart.

  “All right,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and leaning forward to accommodate her belly. “It’s fine with me. But you should put on some underwear.”

  “Are you sure?” she said in a small voice.

  “Yes, you definitely need underwear.”

  That got a smile. “No, about eloping!”

  “Of course. If it’s what you need, it’s what we’ll do.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was crying, but it wouldn’t surprise him. She cried a lot these days. The tough, acerbic girl who used to slam him against the wall and undo his belt and pants with one hand had become weepy and pitiful.

  “You know, it’s all because of Adam,” she said.

  Duncan’s whole body jerked at the mention of the name.

  “If he was here,” she continued, “it would all be okay.”

  “It’ll still be okay,” he said, stroking her long black hair, staring off into the distance of time to that day in Half Pea Hollow.

  * * *

  “It must be dead,” Max McMaynus said. He sat opposite Jack’s desk, sipping coffee. He scowled and said, “Man, no offense, but this coffee takes like ass.”

  “I’m not qualified to make that comparison,” Jack said dryly. “So I bow to your superior knowl
edge.”

  “Ha fucking ha,” Max said. “Look, Dolph spent all winter looking for it and never found it. I’ve been out there, and I assume that little Tufa honey has, too.”

  “Her name is Bronwyn,” Jack said, annoyed. “And if she hears you call her that, she’s liable to change your voice for you.”

  “My point is, we haven’t found a sign of it. And really, has anyone actually seen it?”

  “We all saw it that night on the trail cam. You saw it right there in front of you.”

  “I’ve been pondering about that. Suppose we didn’t. Suppose we just saw a bunch of piglets, and one big—not gigantic, just big—sow? I mean, think about it: we were expecting to see a monster, so we saw one. But all we had to compare it to were the other pigs.”

  “And the trap. It was too big to get through the gate, remember? And you shot it.”

  Max frowned. “Yeah, that’s a good point.”

  “And we weren’t the only ones that saw it. That Gowen boy said he did, too.”

  “He was hysterical.”

  “I’m inclined to think the hog was the cause of that, not the effect. Look, I hope it’s dead, too, Max. I really do. But until more time passes or somebody finds a carcass, I’m not willing to accept that. If you don’t want to be involved anymore, I understand.”

  “No, that ain’t what I meant, Jack. Yeah, it’s hard to take off time from my practice, but I hate those damn pigs no matter how big they are. I hate the way they smell, the noises they make, the way they leave their shit everywhere. I hate the way they tear up the forest. I’m always up for killing a few more of ’em. I just don’t like…”

  “What?”

  Max sighed. “Wasting my time, man. My patients are going to start looking around for another vet if I’m not in my office some more. Plus…”

  “What?”

  “You and I know it’s important to get rid of these pigs. But it doesn’t sound very good that a vet spends his spare time shooting animals.”

  “If we haven’t found any trace, and nobody’s reported seeing it, by the Fourth of July, I’ll go along with you and call it. Fair enough?”

  “That’s three more months.”

  “Yes.”

  “And until then?”

  “Dolph’s looking. Bronwyn’s looking. So am I. You have the longest commute, so you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I won’t call you until we have something solid.”

  “No,” Max said with another sigh. “That’s not fair to the others. I’m in for a pound.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said sincerely. But he was troubled that, since the winter discovery of the den, no one had seen hide, hair, scat, or track of the monster even he had begun to refer to as Piggly-Wiggly.

  * * *

  Janet waited patiently while Don Swayback read over the story she’d e-mailed him earlier. She was a little annoyed that he hadn’t already done so; that was the point of sending it, after all. But since she also insisted (politely) that she hear any critique in person, she guessed she couldn’t complain.

  She watched his eyes scan down his screen, his face studiously unreadable, and at last had to look away. Knowing he was reading her words was the most nerve-racking thing she’d ever experienced. How did full-time reporters stand it?

  Then she remembered that night with Mandalay, and amended her thought. Nope, she thought. Second most nerve-racking.

  She looked around at the accumulated detritus of the Weekly Horn office, wondering how old the newspaper was, and how long some of those pictures had been hung on the tacky ’70s paneling. In the background, the office manager muttered her theory that all journalists were eternal, world-class slobs as she swept the back room.

  Janet had moved on from the Piggly-Wiggly story, and had written off her adventures with Mandalay as a quirk in the girl’s nature. After all, she’d heard nothing from her since that night, and that suited Janet just fine. School, the newspaper, and Little Trouble Girls kept her plenty occupied.

  Don had approached her after a concert at the weekly barn dance, asking if he could do a feature about Little Trouble Girls. While interviewing her for that, they’d started talking about journalism, and she asked if he’d look at some of her work. It couldn’t hurt to get a professional’s opinion. And he earned her respect by getting the band’s name right, and not calling them the Little Trouble Girls.

  Besides, Don was part Tufa, and had been accepted by Mandalay into their group. He still lived outside Cloud County, but he covered it exclusively for the paper, and understood the need for discreet censorship. Like Alvin Darwin, he filled in the blanks so no one else came looking. Which was why Janet wanted him to be impressed with her work.

  Finally Don said, “Well. That was interesting.”

  “Worth coming in on Saturday for?”

  “Interesting,” he repeated.

  “‘Interesting’ doesn’t sound like the best thing.”

  “It’s the best thing about this. Who are you writing it for?”

  She felt her cheeks burn. “Just the school paper.”

  “Not what. Who?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve written this like you were talking to your best friend.”

  “I like to think of my readers as my friends.”

  “Not when you’re writing a news story. For features, yeah, sure. But this is a story about an animal that’s killed two people, and is still on the loose. Do you think it’s a good idea to refer to it as ‘the porcine predator’?”

  “Seemed catchy,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

  “That’s not the issue. How many people in your school knew the boy and girl who died?”

  “A … lot.”

  “Lot of them are family, too. Cousins and such. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you think they’ll feel when they read, ‘On that day, she left home for the last time, not knowing she’d never see her family again’?”

  Janet couldn’t meet his eyes. “I guess it might hurt.”

  “Yeah. Look, Janet, I understand why you’re here. I know what you’re looking for.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “Validation. And you’re a good writer, there’s no denying that. This isn’t a criticism of your ability. But unless you’re writing for a big-city paper or some Web site with an international audience, you have to take your readership into account. I’m not saying lie, or leave out uncomfortable truths. But those truths should serve a purpose. This,” he said with a nod at his screen, “only serves the purpose of your ego.”

  Before she could reply, he held up his hand. “You know who Quentin Tarantino is?”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s pals with Robert Rodriguez. Know him?”

  “I’ve seen the Spy Kids movies.”

  “Okay. So, here’s the difference between them. Rodgriguez’s movies say, ‘Look how cool this is.’ Tarantino’s movies say, ‘Look how cool I am.’” He looked at her steadily. “Which do you want to be?”

  Janet made her good-byes and left as quickly as she could without running. In the car, she turned the radio up all the way and cried, letting out the humiliation she’d choked down. But when it was done, she headed back to Needsville with a new, clear-eyed determination.

  * * *

  Bliss and Jack sat in her living room. It was an airy, sparsely furnished space, the opposite of the clutter and knickknacks of her prior house. When that one burned down, there had been no way to replace so many of the personal objects and family heirlooms she’d lost. So she’d simply let it be, and gradually decorated it as she found pieces that seemed to have the appropriate feel.

  Bliss sat at the edge of the couch, her guitar across her lap, playing S. J. Tucker’s “Dream of Mississippi.” When she finished, she looked back at Jack, who reclined with his sock feet tucked behind her. She asked, “Did you like that?”

  “I did. Is it one of yours?”

  “No. Sooj Tu
cker wrote it. She’s from a different set of hills, over in Arkansas. You said you played piano a little; we could play together.”

  “I said I knew what one was. I haven’t played in years.”

  She put the guitar aside and crawled back to snuggle with him. “I’m willing to bet I could motivate you to get back to the keyboard.”

  “Oh yeah? Exactly how?”

  She was about to tell him when the doorbell rang.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she climbed off him. “Hold that thought.”

  When she opened the door, Mandalay stood there. She looked particularly serious, so before she could speak, Bliss said, “Jack’s here.”

  “I know. I saw the truck.”

  She called back inside, “I’ll be right back, hon. See if there’s anything on Netflix we can watch tonight.”

  She stepped outside to join Mandalay. The spring night was cool, and the breeze tangled Mandalay’s dark hair. Bliss wore hers in a single braid down her back. “What’s up?”

  Mandalay said, “I’m here to warn you. I’m going to do something tonight that might have repercussions.”

  “On me?”

  “Indirectly. On you and Jack.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone. I don’t want even the slightest little hint to get out on the night winds. But I’d make sure your phone’s turned on tonight. Your professional skills might be needed.”

  Lots of people called Bliss for medical help or advice, the same way they’d once contacted Appalachian granny-women back before modern communication. Bliss was happy to fill that role, but this seemed far grimmer. “Okay, now I’m a little concerned. What’s this about?”

  “The deaths of Kera Rogers and Adam Procure.”

  “You sound as bad as Jack. I don’t think it’s off his mind for more than ten minutes at a time.”

  “In that case, yes, I am that bad.”

  “Have you found out something?”

  “I’m going to.”

  “Using those bones you took?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I should come with you. Let me grab—”