Black Locust Letters

by Nicolette Jinks

  “You must take care. Here, now, Charles, do you have anything to drink? I daresay that Betty didn't sample an ounce at the Carnival.”

  Betty sat upright, shifting uncomfortably as a bit of straw poked through her dress.

  “Wise woman.” Charles motioned vaguely over his shoulder. “Under the loose straw. Blue Star Hard Cider. There's tart, caramel apple, and original in the icebox. Might be a lager in there, too, if you dig. Pass me an original. I'll hide it if we see any coppers running about, but I think they'll be looking at the jetpacks and cars tonight, not hooved vehicles.”

  Clarkin did so, finding the lager for himself and giving Betty the caramel apple cider she indicated. She watched with bemused interest as he popped the lids off using his shoe, but Charles seemed accustomed to the trick. It was the first time she'd had a Blue Star, and this particular one tasted like a spiked cream soda rather than a cider. She didn't mind, cupping it in her palms as the wheels of the wagon clattered down the road at a speed nearly equal to the motorized vehicles. When one passed, she thought that the car bounced much more than the wagon did.

  Clarkin grinned. “You're feeling better. I should have realized you were getting cold.”

  “Hey, Hannah, what you think of the owl?” Charles called in soft tones which implied more danger than the words themselves conveyed. Clarkin's expression grew serious, and he stood behind Charles, leaving Betty to stare after him.

  Her eyes slid down his form. Where before she had only seen him as lanky, now she saw him as sinewy. His movements were graceful, and when the wind blew his cape to the side, she saw that beneath his clothes, he had sculpted muscles, the work of a martial artist or a runner rather than a heavy lifter. She found herself wondering what it would be like to grasp that body close to hers, how it would feel to move with hers and in her. A blush again covered her cheeks, but this time it was out of shame rather than embarrassment. She wouldn't entertain any more thoughts like that. Where the head went, so did the body. So she wouldn't let her head have any more leeway.

  Minutes later, the wagon turned down the road which would run perpendicular to her own street. Though she'd intended to instruct them to let her off at the end of her street, the horses already began their turn and it was not long before they came to a snorting, tail-switching stop in front of her house. Clarkin returned, looking at her a little sheepishly.

  “I did not mean to leave you alone for so long. Charles had a question.”

  “It was quite alright.” What she really wanted to say was that it had been necessary, that it was for the best.

  Clarkin reached to help her stand, eyes gleaming. “There are no lights on in your house. If you live alone, it might be best on a night like tonight if you would spend the wildest hours in a safe café. I can walk you back after.”

  Though it was said lightly, the rush of anticipation coursing through her body hit her full in the gut. Her instinct for self-preservation made her pull away. “I am accustomed to wild nights, and as Charles has said, it is a nice street. My neighbors are home. I will be fine.”

  Clarkin glanced at the nearby houses, two of which could be seen couples with their infants in chairs before their fires, and he slowly nodded. “And your walls are thin, I suppose. That is good.”

  He jumped over the wagon's side to help her climb down, then escorted her once more through the garden gate and to her door. It took her an embarrassing minute to find her keys, which had slid into the lining of her clutch, and when she opened the door, she said, “Thank you for watching out for me this evening. Good-bye.”

  Clarkin's face fell. “Good-bye, not good night, or until next time?”

  “Decapitaria Hannah. I'm General Bernard Cratchet's daughter. I can't be seen with Never Weres.”

  “I'm fine with cloak and dagger games. Adds to the excitement to use the back door,” he said with a wink.

  His roguish charm strummed her body into fire again, but his blatant disregard for her will made Betty's words harsh. “Good-bye, Hannah.”

  She felt the stab of regret as she stepped through the door and shut it firmly. Love had already made her its toy once before. She wouldn't do it again.

  Not even when her heart stung when she heard the front gate open and shut, this time without a cheerful whistle. He might be gone for good this time. Why didn't that make her feel relieved?

  Betty lay on her single mattress which was flat on the floor, without a bed frame or more than one lumpy pillow. She'd recently made a lacy throw using shell stitches, and this she pulled up to her face, nuzzling it for comfort while she stared out the crack in the curtains, where she could see the pinpricks of stars.

  She was unable to sleep.

  For the first time since she had moved on her own, she found the place lonely and the silence stifling. Memories she had tried to shove away encroached on her again. Ghosts of the past. Circumstances she had tried to push away from her mind even while she bore their lessons first and foremost.

  She remembered a handsome, chiselled face, as though he were standing in front of her. James Legrand, who insisted they all call him Slim, the man who she had trusted with all her heart, and who had proved unworthy of even a fraction of it.

  She'd met him upon graduating high school, when she'd gone to the wedding of her friend the evening after. He was the groom's brother, and she and Pearl were thrilled that she was getting on so well. Pearl and Betty could be sisters, if all worked out. Betty had just started as an intern at Alpha Bravo Charlie station, a glorified way to say that she wrote copies and made coffee.

  Slim was an aide for her father's office; it hardly surprised her that she didn't know him earlier since she avoided her father's office at all costs. She'd immediately fallen for him, for his easy smile and perfect turn of phrase. It had been easy to fall in love, and Slim proposed within the year.

  Her father encouraged the match. That should have been her first warning sign, but she'd taken it as nothing more than a paternal reflection of her happiness and approval of a match well-made.

  Wedding plans soon were in order, and when her superiors at the station found out, they threatened to cut her loose. The General had spoken to them, and soon she had reassurances that her immediate supervisor was mistaken. He still did not approve of having a soon-to-be married woman working for him, though, and within a month of the wedding, he fired her.

  Next day, a g-man on her doorstep begged her to return to Alpha Bravo Charlie. Her superior had been reassigned, and only she knew what he had been working on prior to his leaving. She assumed the position, of course. But within the week, she found notice of her former-boss's obituary hidden with all the others, and within the next two weeks, Slim began to ask her to write in things for the host to say. Simple messages, which she at first did not understand.

  Then over the next days, she noticed strange events in the news, and began to put together the code he was using her for. Burnt toast resulted in a building fire. On the wharf made someone go missing. The song final countdown meant car accident.

  When she confronted her father about it, he not only knew that Slim was sending these messages through her, he said he was sending them through Slim. Pearl's husband was implicated as being in the ordeal, as well. She had already started to move in with Slim, and was already ruined by his cunning words and sensuous hands.

  When she told Slim she no longer wanted to be part in the murder gang, he'd demanded to know where she would go and who would have her now that she was deflowered. The whole base knew of their evenings. He'd told them. Bragged about it. Besides, her father had given her her post. If she didn't do her job, he'd take it away.

  For a few days, she played the submissive lamb and did as they said, but every news post sickened her. Betty knew this would not work. She'd gone to Tango Lima Romeo station and secured work as an intern there. Yes, a step down, but a much-needed move, and then she'd spent two days walking the streets of Sunny Glenn, a suburb near Tango Lima Romeo, and found a house t
o rent.

  So, she waited until the night when Slim was out on maneuvers. She packed up all her things and moved out of his life three days before the wedding.

  Tonight, Betty reluctantly recalled events with Slim. How had he seduced her? When had he first showed signs of wishing to manipulate her position to his agenda? She couldn't be sure.

  What about Clarkin? Where his intentions merely an honest interest in her, or did he want to use her, as well? Had she been too harsh on him? Had she been inviting him one second and scorning him the next? If her body would conform to her will, then this wouldn't be so difficult. Why couldn't she just accept the truth: He was a demon.

  She couldn't be with him.

  Ever.

  Chapter 8

  That morning a letter waited in her window box, propped up at an angle amidst the frosted remains of a thyme plant. Betty smiled upon seeing it, and the smile warmed her heart when she saw a familiar handwriting across the top addressing 'The Beauty of Sunny Glenn'.

  She smelled it and held it to her chest for an instant. Then she went inside and did the same as she always did: She shut the letter in the drawer with all the others. Then she went to work.

  Despite herself, Betty blushed when she talked about the Carnival and she was glad no one could see her do it.

  “The fireworks were spectacular! Brilliant choreography yet again, Mr. Mills. If you were lucky, you probably were able to see them even if you weren't in the meadow. Senior Police Officer Number 3231 Bravo says, 'We are very happy to report that last night there were minimal disorderly arrests and everyone has returned home safely.'

  “Praise is high in general for the catering provided by Marina court and yes, I was there in the thick of it. Maybe some of you saw me. Made me feel a bit Italian with a masquerade ball feel to it, a significantly memorable night and a thrilling experience.”

  She tried not to think about Clarkin as she said this. She'd been trying not to think of him all day, and by now her shift was drawing to a close and she had to admit complete defeat. She couldn't forget Clarkin's boyish grin, and she couldn’t deny that if he had been a man, she would be lost in puppy love by now.

  Once more she went through the routine—weather, roads, events—and then she signed off. No sooner did she have the door closed to the studio than her boss called her over.

  “You said you had fun?”

  Betty hesitated, not sure where this was going. “Yes?”

  He grunted. “The sponsors like you. One said you rode home in a wagon.”

  Was that a statement or a question? She did not know how to respond to that. “I did.”

  Her boss chewed on his tobacco once. Twice. Swished it around to the other side of his mouth. “Read up on the War Orphans Fund. You're joining Welch as a guest on his show for the fundraiser.”

  Welch? That arrogant, woman hating ape? She gritted her teeth. “All right, what does my schedule look like?”

  “Same as always, with an added shift.”

  She looked at the calendar with smoke stains on it hanging on his wall. That meant a morning show, the guest night show, followed immediately by her morning show again after. What sort of an ass boss did that to his employees? Ah, yes: Hers.

  She shrugged. “It will be a good pay check.”

  He nodded. “You can sleep when you're dead, and that day will come all the sooner if you continue to speak so casually.”

  With that, he went back to his work, motioning that the subject was closed. As Betty left, she wondered what he meant by that final line.

  At home on her fraying sofa, Betty reached to mark the orphan drive on her calendar and blinked in confusion. In tiny letters, squished in the corner of the date book, she had written RC with a question mark after it.

  All at once she remembered Jenny's invitation and she tensed, her pencil poised over the page. Outside, birds warbled and she knew they would be taking baths in the low spot of the concrete, if Betty were to look out the windows to see them. It wasn’t that she had forgotten the promise of answers; it was that she did not know how badly she wanted them. Asking an acquaintance was one thing, but going into strange territory strictly for reconnaissance was another, a level of commitment she didn't know if she wanted.

  Would she even be safe if she were to go?

  But now Tom's absence at the station was noticeable, even to Betty, because now she received jumbled assortments of papers rather than a concise report and she found herself putting the report together before and sometimes after her shift. What had he done that no one wanted to discuss?

  With a frown, she slashed through the RC and instead wrote in: WOF, Welch. Betty went back to her crochet, but the shells wouldn't turn out in a smooth arc, her tension all wrong. On the line the week below, Betty picked up the pencil again and wrote RC, but when she returned back to her project, the stitches still would not go into place.

  The next week passed, during which time Betty worked overtime to prepare for a War Orphans Drive which was to take place the following evening. She'd been skipping breakfast to get to work before anyone could alter the news (so far nothing alarming), and so she went to a diner for a cheeseburger and a strawberry shake to celebrate trudging through her hefty to-do list.

  She was diving through the whipped cream on her shake when the door swung open and Clarkin and a bombshell brunette entered the diner. As it was lunch during a busy hour, they took the only table open to them, one which was three away from her own mini-booth. Clarkin took his seat with a relaxed ease that he'd never shown around Betty, and the woman gave him a smile which showed off perfect teeth.

  The woman was a hair taller than Betty, with a natural grace that implied she'd spent time training, and there was a hard set about her lips and a quickness to her smoldering gray eyes that made Betty think the woman had been one of those who had served on the front. A spy, perhaps. She spoke with cheer and frequently touched Clarkin's hand or shoulder, once brushing his shin with her toes as she crossed her legs. Betty's perspective made the woman's antics all too clear, but Clarkin's own expressions were hidden, as he sat with his back to her. Betty's shake started to melt.

  Not one to be put off her well-earned food, she ate it quickly, leaving a bit in the bottom when the woman met her gaze and winked. Disgusted, both with the woman and with herself for feeling the green monster jealousy, Betty left three ones and abandoned the diner.

  At home, a letter sat in its customary place. Every day after work, a letter waited for Betty on the windowsill, and every day, she picked it up, smelled it, and put it away in the door.

  She'd been pondering those words ever since, and without context of any sort, they made no more sense now than they had while she shook sugar into tea in the frantic few minutes of paid advertisements pouring through the radio speakers.

  Misery sank in again, and she took all the letters out of her drawer and laid them on the mattress on the floor in the warmest corner of her home. The titles were each different, though the address was the same. One was written to Her Grace. Another to Her Sweet Voice. Yet another to Her Tender Smile.

  No one had ever spoken to Betty like this. She found the ribbon made of a farmer’s baling twine, and she slowly untied the square knot. She put the twine beside her knee, settled the pounding in her heart, the worry that whatever was written inside was less than complimentary, and she opened the top fold of the letter.

  A steady hand wrote:

  To The Swell of My Song:

  I know not if my advances are welcome, but it is my intention to make your sun gleam brighter. It is my desire to make the hardships of toil and labor lighter with my every deed. I...

  Betty stopped reading.

  Everyone knows no good comes from the deeds of a devil. Even if she didn't think that the writer was a devil, but rather some other race that never was. Betty frowned.

  It was impossible to continue this way. She stayed up late at nights, finding the words to be wary of, spent her mornings being parano
id until the day she had to know what was going on, and she was determined that day would start today.

  Chapter 9

  The day was too fine, brisk yet but beautiful, for anyone else to be indoors—even the librarian read outside. For Betty's part, she was happy or perhaps relieved to have no witnesses to the way she read through one paper then the next, grateful for their careful preservation, if banal content.

  First clues were in Steven Meyers' Nature Watching column, and after six months she followed a duck recipe over to Mike Cady's A Woman's Guide to Her Oven column. Before three weeks were up on that, though, the editor ceased that column citing factual inconsistencies. Betty thought they may use a hunting tips series, but by the end of the second month, she decided the code was either very clever, or just non-existent.

  Betty threw the last paper down, annoyed, and tried not to think of the letters in her purse, the letters that might contain clues if she were willing to break the seal, but what would be the cost?

  The next evening, when she should have been grumbling to herself about working the morning shift after attending an evening convention, Betty found herself thinking about Clarkin and That Woman. With a mind to spiting Clarkin's fickleness, she dressed in a simple black dress, one with a tulle-edged swing skirt which came about her knees and was lace from the sweetheart neckline up, a semi-transparent affair which would have been forbidden by her father if he had known. That Woman had seemed so dominant, so aggressive, and perhaps a bit older than him. Maybe that was the sort of woman he respected, preying on the girl-next-door for his kicks.