Wicked Weaves

by Lavene, Joyce

“What was it like then? I was there, but it kind of left me in the cold.”

  I stopped, grabbed him by his handsome but incredibly thick head, and kissed him. “It was in the past. That’s what it was like. Now can we focus on helping Mary?”

  He put his arms around me and kissed me again. “You mean by finding the monk, finding the missing guy who might’ve killed the dead guy, and maybe the son that no one knew about?”

  “That’s exactly it.”

  He kissed me again, this time longer and with more feeling. “I only have about thirty minutes before Bailiff’s Court. I don’t know if we have time to do all that. But the dungeon is only a two-minute walk. We could go there instead.”

  I was tempted. That last kiss had me tingling all over. But I was resolute, and Chase’s radio went off again. It was a conspiracy to keep us apart.

  “I have to go.” He kissed me again. “This may take a while, and I’ll have to clean up the vegetables after court. Do you want to have dinner tonight?”

  “You know I do.”

  “I’ll pick you up a little after five.” He smiled at me and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

  “I’ll be waiting.” He started to walk away, and I grabbed his hand. “You know Alex doesn’t hold a candle to you, right?”

  “I know. Just wondering if you knew. See you later.”

  I wasn’t sure how Chase could be jealous of anyone, but I’m sure even someone who looks like him can have inferiority issues. I managed to walk all the way back to Wicked Weaves before I realized I’d meant to swing by the Monastery Bakery. I guess that’s what they call having your head in the clouds.

  Mary was back, and the shop was open. The police were gone, but a few reporters were still hanging out. Customers were jammed in the shop, wanting to buy baskets and gossip. I put on my apron and helped Mary sell some baskets.

  By the time the rush of customers was over, I was sweating and thirsty. I grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge hidden behind a panel in the wall. Every shop had places they hid their modern conveniences, except for the cash registers. They kept those out front. They were merchants, after all.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back,” Mary scolded, a bead of perspiration on her upper lip. “Were you out chasing that boy again? I tell you to leave him alone. You ain’t his mama.”

  “No, I was doing a different kind of chasing.” I smiled, thinking about Chase.

  Mary laughed. “I know that smile. You found a real man to spend some time with, didn’t you? That’s good. A girl your age should be with a young man. Did I ever tell you about the first boy I ever kissed?”

  Have I mentioned that Mary’s second passion after basket weaving is storytelling? I read online that Gullahs are master storytellers. They weren’t kidding.

  Mary lit up her pipe and grabbed the basket she’d been working on, and we went out to sit on the back steps and weave. “Mind that knot. It won’t hold if it’s sagging. You have to make it strong. Don’t forget, everything rests on each coil of the basket supporting the next coil.”

  I listened to her talk about a young boy who’d taken her fishing and managed to share her first kiss. I watched her hands for a while before I started on my own weaving. Her voice continued, singsong, in the background of my thoughts while I threaded the old end of the palm through the next coil and cut the leftover grass. I coiled and stitched and added until I had the sides of my basket several inches tall. I tied a new slipknot and got ready to start the next coil.

  “Why, Jessie, child, you got the hang of it! Look at you! Not even a drop of blood, either. You gonna be weaving baskets for sale soon enough.”

  I was pleased with her praise. I admit it; I’m an overachiever. I like it when people tell me I’ve done a good job and I can see I’m working at an above-average level. We were actually bonding for a change instead of arguing.

  I thought this might be a good time to tackle Mary for more information. I couldn’t help her if she didn’t tell me everything I needed to know. “Did you hear what happened to Ham today?”

  “Ham?” She turned her head, and her fast, brown fingers stopped flying through her basket. “Oh, you mean my brother, Mvuluki.”

  “Is that his real name? No wonder he never uses it.”

  “It means rememberer in our language. It’s a beautiful name.”

  I didn’t want to comment on a name I wasn’t sure I could pronounce. “I was going to talk to him about Joshua, but someone attacked him while he was working on a horseshoe.”

  “No! Who would hurt Ham? He’s a gentle soul. And why were you mixing up in my business? I didn’t ask you to talk to no one about me and Joshua.”

  I stopped moving the palm leaf and bone in my hand. “Someone has to do it! You’re so busy denying there’s a problem, you’ll be in prison before you realize what’s happening. Didn’t you ever hear that old song about the lights going out in Georgia? They hung that poor man, actually the woman’s brother, before she could say the tracks were hers.”

  She stared at me like I was crazy. “What are you talking about, Jessie? You children ain’t got a lick of sense between you. Who cares what some old song says?”

  “I think the thing you should focus on here is that Joshua was killed, and your brother was attacked. The two of them are both from your home in Mount Pleasant. Abraham is probably here somewhere and maybe your son, too. Someone might have it in for all of you. Or Abraham wants to get rid of you, Joshua, and your brother so Jah will turn to him.”

  “That’s crazy talk.” She started working on her basket again. The coils of grass had to be fed constantly to maintain the foundation of uniform thickness. That was one of the first things I’d learned. Mary’s basket was losing uniform thickness, so I knew she was upset.

  “It’s not crazy. Joshua is dead. Ham was attacked. Merlin told me you bought a leather funnel from him that could’ve been used to force-feed Joshua alcohol.”

  “I bought it to put tobacco into the pouch,” Mary defended. “Why would Merlin even think I would use it on Joshua?”

  “Maybe because Wanda thinks you killed Joshua.”

  “That’s even crazier. And who cares what Wanda thinks, anyway? This whole place is nothing but gossips and crazy people. I don’t know why I stay here.”

  “Because it’s your home now. Like you told me, you’re not running away again.” I covered her busy hand with mine. “I can help you, if you let me. We can’t let the police add up two and two and get five. That would mean you’d go to jail.”

  “If I had one idea of what you were talking about, Jessie, maybe I could help. But what you’re saying don’t make no sense. How can two and two make five?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But what might matter is Lord Simon. What happened to him?”

  Mary groaned, then took a puff from her pipe and gazed off in the distance. I could hear the sound of children singing in front of the store and horses going by on the cobblestones. The day was beginning to cool down, even a small breeze fluttering through the flags that waved in the Village.

  “Lord Simon.” She puffed on her pipe again. “Well, I guess there’s some truth behind all that crazy talk. He died, almost right here where we’re sitting. But I didn’t kill him, either.”

  Nine

  I kept my hand steady as I heard Mary speak. Was I wrong about her? Was she some kind of super murderess? She was sitting here telling me another man had died on these steps, but she didn’t have anything to do with that, either. Did the police know about it?

  “You know I was always afraid of them snakes when we went out in the swamps to pull sweetgrass.” Mary paused and smoked her pipe, gazing away as though she could still see her younger days. “I put turpentine on my shoes to scare those snakes away. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes I think it just made them mad, and they ran back after me.”

  I wasn’t sure what that story had to do with Lord Simon, but it was her way of imparting information. I
kept moving my bone over, under, and through, pulling the stitches tight. My basket was actually starting to look like a basket. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be even on the sides, but I began to feel I was getting the hang of it.

  “Lord Simon was one of them fancy-pants boys who lived up at the castle with Livy and Harry. He thought he was so fine. I didn’t have no time for him. If I couldn’t be with Joshua and Jah, I sure wasn’t gonna be with no fancy pants.”

  “And you told him you didn’t want anything to do with him?”

  “Too many times to count.” She looked at me and poked me with her bone. “Mind that stitch, child. Pull too tight, and it will be uneven. Relax. Your hand has to be guided by the Lord to do the right thing. He won’t let you do wrong if you trust in him.”

  “And he kept coming back.” I tried to keep the story moving along with the new rhythm my hands seemed to be developing. I took a deep breath and shook my hands to relax them.

  “Every day. I couldn’t make it no plainer. He just wouldn’t listen.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Jessie! How can you say those things? I should take you inside and scrub your mouth with soap. Didn’t your mama teach you manners?”

  “I was just asking.”

  “Like I’d kill someone! Like I have time to kill someone.” She humphed at me and started working on her basket again. “I think they said he had a heart attack. Some folks blamed that on me. They said I made him work too hard. But when you don’t have love in your heart for a man, it don’t matter what they do or don’t do.”

  “So you didn’t kill him! How is that like what happened to Joshua?”

  She smacked me in the back of the head. “What did I just tell you? Now you’re saying I killed Joshua.”

  I rubbed my head and wondered if it was worth all this torture. “I didn’t say you killed anyone, Mary. All I’m saying is what other people are saying. I don’t think you killed Joshua, and it sounds like Lord Simon had a personal problem.”

  “And that’s the right of it.”

  “But you have to admit, two men dying sounds a little suspicious. And if the police find out . . .”

  “What? What can they do? They’re not gonna find anything that says I killed Joshua like they couldn’t find anything that said I killed Lord Simon. You got to have faith, Jessie. You’re too young to be so harsh on the world.”

  I picked up a new handful of sweetgrass, inhaling the wonderful fragrance. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was too harsh on Tony and Chase. Maybe I should’ve just let things happen and not worry about them so much.

  Maybe my hair should turn blue, and a big diamond stud would appear in my nose. That had as much chance of happening. I worry. That’s who I am. “Mary, you have to help me. Give me something I can use to help find out what happened to Joshua.”

  “Leave it be, Jessie. Everything will work out just fine. I’m not bothered by it.” To show me how not bothered she was, Mary continued puffing and weaving, her nimble fingers racing around the edges of her work. The coils of sweetgrass interlaced with the pine needles to create the wonderful rust color that contrasted with the yellow of the grass. The coarser, thicker black rush was tawny and strong with the delicate strands of grass.

  I wasn’t so easily placated. It’s not enough to say everything will be fine. How will it be fine, and when will that happen? Those are the important issues. “I can help with this if you’ll let me. Someone attacked Ham. You could be next.”

  Mary made a noise in her throat somewhere between a pshaw and a groan. “Now why would someone want to hurt me?”

  “Maybe they want to keep you from making baskets,” I suggested, even though it sounded crazy to me. “After all, you and Joshua were the only two who could weave baskets like this.”

  “Ham can weave some, too.”

  Great! I wasn’t serious about the whole someone wanting to stop the basket weaving. I was about to shift the conversation to something more serious and sinister, like Abraham wanting to keep Jah to himself. That moment was gone like a puff of her pipe smoke. Instead, I was left grappling with the stupid idea of Mary, Joshua, and Ham being in danger from some basket-weaving pervert.

  “I didn’t really mean it that way.” I tried to get the conversation back on track.

  “Oh? How did you mean it then?”

  “I really think Abraham killed Joshua, even though he was his brother. I think he might be after you and Ham, too. Maybe he wants to keep Jah for himself, and if he kills all of his real family, that would take care of the problem.”

  She laughed and slapped her knee. “You know, you must be part Gullah, Jessie,’ cause you can tell some stories! I declare you can!”

  So much for that. Not only did she think it was funny, it was slap-your-knee funny. And I was being serious, too. So much for the nice approach. “You know, if you don’t help me, the police will be sitting here asking these questions.”

  “I hope they can make a basket faster and quieter than you.”

  “Fine. I give up. You don’t want me to help. I won’t help.”

  I was following through on a downstroke when Mary grabbed my hand. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, child. You don’t know how much it does this old heart good to have someone like you here right now. But you can’t help me, Jessie. Only the Lord can take care of this mess. Then I can go and find Jah.”

  There was nothing I could say to that. I was in serious danger of crying on my basket, adding to the bloodstains with my tears. Maybe no one would want to buy this basket, but no one could say I didn’t put everything into it.

  We kept on stitching the coils together as the sun set and the visitors to the Village walked wearily to their cars and went home. The noise level didn’t change at first, since everything had to be put back in place every night when we closed. The minstrels continued playing as they walked back to wherever they spent the night. Horses’ hooves hit the cobblestones as their trainers took them back to the stables after another long day’s performance.

  Then slowly, as the night cooled, the smells drifted away, and the storefronts closed. The tired giants, knights, flower girls, and even the fairies, huddled around tables eating dinner and finally turned in for the night.

  Mary and I closed up Wicked Weaves, counting the money and re-sorting and stocking the baskets. “Not a bad day,” she said. “With all those TV and police people, I expected worse.”

  “If that’s it, I’m heading out.”

  “Not going to see that new beau?”

  “Does everyone know everything around here?”

  She looked out the window. “Not hard to guess. I think he’s waiting for you.”

  I followed her look and saw Chase. He waved and smiled. My heart pounded and I forgot what I was saying. I said good night to Mary and floated out the door.

  We ended up eating with everyone at the Pleasant Pheasant. Every night the rotisserie and alehouse offered whatever it had left over from the day to the characters that made up the Village. Since it was free, almost everyone ended up there. There wasn’t always as much to eat, but I don’t think many people went home hungry.

  It was a rowdy group, as usual, that night. I saw Tony, sans fairy, with some of his friends. Seeing him made me think about Mary and her brother. I wished Tony and I were closer. People always made a big deal about us being twins and both working at Renaissance Faire Village. But it was a bigger deal to them than it was to us. It was almost like a default position that we were both there.

  I wished I knew some way to change that. We were all we had left of family in the world, yet sometimes it didn’t seem like we were family at all, much less two halves of the same egg.

  “Halfpence for them.” Chase tossed a coin on the table.

  “They aren’t worth that much.”

  “What’s up, Jessie? Still brooding about Mary?”

  “Yes and no. She won’t help and told me to lay off. I guess that’s pret
ty clear. I was thinking more about me and Tony. Do you have a brother or sister?”

  “Nope. I was lucky. My parents knew they were blessed when I was born. Why try to improve on perfection?”

  I looked at his big, stupid grin and was more depressed. “I’m going home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I thought we were going back to the dungeon. There’s no point in you staying in that little hut they gave you this year. You can stay with me the rest of the summer.”

  I was tempted. I wanted to stay with him. Then that part of me that worries took over. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Chase. I think we should each keep our own place.”

  He laughed. “Please tell me you’re joking. This isn’t an apartment or a house. It’s just for the summer.”