Black Locust Letters

by Nicolette Jinks

  “Now this bell was meant to be unsteablable. It had traps and fastenings and all kinds of measures to protect it, so complex that only the chieftain knew its secrets. Exica was a Gromil herself, a modest one, and she fell in love with Tate, a handsome man from an equally powerful family the Feigons. In order to prove her love, Exica watched her chieftain very well and one day when her love could no longer be contained, she stole the bell and gave it to Tate. Tate took the bell, which was very small, and cast it into the furnace and Exica and the other Gromils melted with the death of the bell.”

  Betty blinked in surprise. “That is depressing. And alarming.”

  “Most of the stories do go like that, if stealing the bell happens at the end. If it happens at the beginning, then it's some quest for redemption or to die with pride or something like that.” Jenny gave Betty a long, considering look which made Betty shift uncomfortably. “The storytellers meet every third Thursday at the drag races. They would be able to tell you more. I'm not sure how accurate what I told you is.”

  Betty nodded, swallowing as she considered involving herself still further into the Never Were affairs. Would she be safe? She doubted that Jenny would refer her to an event without reason to think that she would be well, but one never did know.

  Nothing was as it used to be, not any longer.

  Chapter 16

  Betty couldn't believe that she was sitting in the passenger seat, heater on full blast, in the cramped interior of the sports car with Slim.

  He smoked a cigar, one from her father's stash she recognized by the blueberry scent, in one hand and drove with the other up a winding road. Normally Betty abhorred being in a tight space with a smoker, but it meant that his right hand was on the wheel, not holding her hand.

  “You still haven't told me where we are going,” Betty said, peering out the window at the steep incline out her side of the car. She had a couple of ideas where they could be headed, in large part because these roads didn't go very many places.

  “If I were to tell you where we were going on a Sunday drive, then it wouldn't be a surprise when we got there, would it?” It could have been an arrogant dismissal, but the way he said it was warm, charming, and he had a roguish grin which made her smile, too. “Besides, look at the trees! The frost has been kinder to them here. It's like the whole hillside is ablaze.”

  When they rounded the next switchback, Betty had to admit that he was right about this: Yellow-leafed aspens stood out against red maples and dark evergreens, and there were some trees whose name she did not know with massive orange leaves. The wind had not yet brought these down, and she thought that the hills would look like this for perhaps all of a week before their beauty was stripped barren by a storm.

  Slim held his cigar between his teeth while he downshifted, making the car rev with power. Below them, a nearly dry creek bed wound its way through bushes and boulders. Betty heard something—a picnic basket, most likely-slide in the trunk of the car, and then came the clink of glass bottles, brought either for drinking or target practice.

  Slim was dressed in his best, choosing a charcoal suit and tan shirt, the first two buttons undone, his finger tapping out a beat on the wheel, the way it always had when he was nervous.

  “It's either the fishing lake or the lookout,” Betty said, to which he smiled in the way she knew meant that she had guessed wrong.

  “We've been to both those places. Nah, it's time for something new.”

  The heater at her feet was scorching through her leather boots, but when she moved, it meant that she had to lean in towards Slim, not something that she wanted to do. When he gave her a hopeful grin, she corrected him. “James, we are to be meeting on business.”

  “Talker-Interpreter exercises only today, Betty. This is how we train all our teams.” He motioned to the rocking car, to the open window, and jabbed his thumb at whatever was clunking in the back.

  “Not in a conference room somewhere?”

  She sighed in annoyance, wondering why she had agreed to go with him after her shift. Thank goodness he had said that they could meet at a parking lot outside a shopping mall. She didn't want her neighbours knowing about this, but she could ill afford to fall under her father's suspicions by neglecting Slim.

  “Retention in a classroom setting is too low for the importance of the work. Besides, we are supposed to have a meeting of the minds, to draw references and allusions together, to have conversations we can recall later. Memorizing a bunch of words is all fine and dandy if you're just going to order a knight to K23, but it won't work in our line of duty.”

  “Then how did you expect it to work last time?”

  He held up a finger. “It did work, because I was guiding you and because the interpreter spent so long with you.”

  “Who was it?” It had never occurred to her that if Slim had been feeding her the information, that meant that someone else had been receiving it.

  “Ah, Betty, let's not dig into the past.”

  “James.”

  She could hear the thrumming of the engine's cylinders now, the first time that his cheerful patter had come to a stop long enough to notice the engine noises. He tried to smile. “Betty, it wasn't just you and one other. There's a whole network of us. You were just a trainee, an experiment, really, to see how well a new system would work.”

  Betty sighed and tried not to feel betrayed, tried to not feel like nothing, the way she had all those years ago. It wasn't working.

  Slim continued, “I know how hard this is. You wanted to be free. With your father being who he is, I can't much say that I blame you. He's left you alone now.”

  Betty didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

  They came upon the dirt road turn off for the lakes, and Slim didn't slow down so she knew they were passing those up. The lookout would take another hour to drive to, and she didn't know how she liked sharing a car with him while they talked about this.

  It was just too much for her, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stay pouty and angry at him for much longer if he continued to be his charming, understanding self.

  “Betty?”

  She didn't answer, not until she heard his finger resume its nervous tapping on the wheel. She sighed and looked to him, saying, “Yes?”

  “I never told you, never had the guts to, I know that's cowardly, but I haven't dated since you.”

  She laughed, but it wasn't a kind laugh, it was an abrupt, angry, bitter sort of laugh that made him wince and her feel guilty.

  “But I suppose that you laid several girls in the meantime, haven't you?”

  “No,” the word was flat, hard, in the tone that he used when he truly meant something. “No, I haven't, and there are those who say there's something wrong with me. But the truth is that I haven't been with any other girl because....they're not you. And I feel like shit. I have ever since you left.”

  Her heart soared and plummeted and twisted in agony. What was she to believe? His words made an impact on her, she couldn't deny that. Those words were things she had wanted to hear him say years ago.

  But it was years ago, and she'd moved on. She had. Hadn't she? Betty glared out the window, eyes unfocused as nearby tree limbs blurred by.

  “Why didn't you come out to find me, then?”

  His face went pale and he gripped the steering wheel too hard. “I thought I wouldn't have to.”

  “What do you mean by that?” She snapped back, angry, no, furious. Did he think that she would come crawling back to him out of want of money? Or that she would be a frightened, scared little girl needing a big man's protection?

  Slim's face was set, studying the road in front of him, his expressions blank, a fall back to his training. For an instant, she thought he would practice his silence, too, but with a visible swallow, he made his throat work.

  “I thought... I hoped that you loved me enough to come back. Or at least to say something to me, to tell me what it was that went wrong. You never said anythin
g, you just up and left. I came home one night and half the house was empty. I would have started a search party but for your note.”

  Betty winced and looked out the window. The note! She'd forgotten its exact content, but the basic idea had been to tell him that she had gone away of her own free will and that she did not wish for him to follow.

  Betty wondered, now, how that had made him feel. At the time she had been thinking only for herself; if she'd thought about him, she wouldn't have gone through with it.

  Out of fear of being followed, she hadn't quarrelled with him or her father in the days before, so that she could know that slipping away would be a sure thing. She'd never stopped to think what effect it would have on Slim, and now she felt bad about it.

  And then she felt angry about him making her feel that way, so she crossed her arms and slumped against the car door, looking out at the road with a fixed stare which was soon making her stomach turn over on the winding roads.

  “You thought I couldn't care for myself?”

  “I thought that I had no idea how I would live without you in my life. I kept hoping that you would feel the same, and I'd hear something, anything from you. I had so many questions and I was so furious that I didn't dare to seek you. People told me that you were alive and well, and I had to be content with that. What was the hardest, I think, was that one day at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, I realized that you could only have dropped your life and left so completely because of the way I had treated you.”

  Slim tossed the cigar butt out the window and closed it, the car swaying slightly with every turn of the handle, and then the car instantly grew much warmer as the heater didn't have to compete with an open window. His face was now nearly grey, and he continued before Betty could speak.

  “That was a shitty realization. Know how that feels, to know you're the reason the love of your life walked out the door, days before the wedding? Made me think on all the things I'd do differently if you gave me the chance. I didn't know why you'd stayed away, and I tried to understand that you just didn't want me anymore. I do more things for myself now; all the laundry, the dishes, the cooking. I'm a proper working house husband now. I swore I'd show this to you if you ever let me.”

  “James...” Betty's throat constricted and she wouldn't have been able to say what was in her stunned mind even if he hadn't held up a finger.

  “Let me finish first, please. I have only so much bravery left in me. I thought, when I last saw you, that you had turned mean-spirited, but it didn't take me long to realize that the truth of it is that you're scared of your father, aren't you?”

  Betty didn't know how to respond to this. She whispered, her voice husky, “I don't know. Maybe. I'm not comfortable with him.”

  Slim nodded as though this explained it all. “Well, that cast everything from the last few years into a new light. And, damn it, I know they all think I'm his lap dog, but I'm not. I hate the bastard. Know how many men I've seen him kill with his 'real men are tough and tough men should be able to do this' mentality? For sweet Mary's soul, let the men get there a day later if time isn't important.”

  They turned off onto a gravel drive, one that was heading towards the cabins Betty knew existed for officer's weekend getaways and secret training sessions.

  Betty said, her voice shaking, “I didn't know that was what you thought of him.”

  “Oh, it wasn't, not when you and I were together, but once you left, I saw the way he raged and fumed, and heard what he said, and I knew that none of it was true. Once you hear someone offend someone you love so thoroughly, you have to wonder what else they've been lying about. That's when I started to get wise.”

  The car slowed down still more, until it was moving at the pace of a fast walk, because brambles dangled over the road in places and he didn't want to scratch up the paint on his car. Betty worried that the road would simply end, but instead the gravel came thicker again and soon they were turning into a nice cabin with a mowed lawn and a bbq grill out the side with the porch.

  While Betty examined the woods around her, making note of the presence of purple leaves, Slim parked the car, turned it off, and continued, “So you see why I had to take us away from all the signals. No chance someone will be listening in to us.”

  “You trust me?”

  “Who else could I trust?” Slim tried and failed again, to smile. “I wish that I'd been smart enough to figure this all out while you were still mine; before I chased you away. I'm sorry for that. I was dumb, arrogant, and a million other things, and completely undeserving of you. I won't ask your forgiveness, not until I've earned it, and I'm not there yet.”

  He reached for her hand and when he took it, her fingers were cold. He rubbed them, and life began to flood into them again, and throughout even more of her body, places that he hadn't touched in a long time. She felt her cheeks burn and she realized with no small horror that he hadn't lost his charm. James brought her hand up to his lips and he seemed at once to be in a great hurry to escape.

  “I brought lunch. Hamburgers, American cheese, pickles, lettuce, the whole works, potato salad, and some of that strawberry custard pie.”

  Betty blinked in surprise at the last. “Does one of the stores make it now?”

  James blushed visibly under her scrutiny. “I found the recipe in the wooden box you left behind. I know you always made it for celebrations. Thought you'd like it now. Sorry if it doesn't taste very good, it looks a little funny, I don't think I let it cool enough before I put the strawberries on top.”

  “You made it?” Betty said, shocked. For him to do more than open a can of beans was a fascination in itself, much less for him to bake a custard pie.

  He cleared his throat. “I told you, I cook now; quite a bit, actually. It gives me something to do. There's a shrimp sandwich roll, too, but I've never made it before, so it's true to recipe, and we know how that can sometimes lead the well-intentioned astray.”

  Betty laughed, unable to resist, because those were her words which he had turned back on her. It made him smile, and his whole face changed into something warm and inviting. It made her giddy. A small part of her cried out in warning, but an even greater part of her, the part which had been hurt, wanted his words to be true and she wanted to be back in his arms again.

  Had he still been her father's man, she'd be even more reserved still, but to have those words said to her, to have him put his faith and his reputation into her hands? She had not expected that. She had expected talks and parables and any number of other things. But she hadn't expected her Slim back, turned into exactly the sort of man she'd always dreamed of finding.

  When he got out of the car and popped open the trunk, she knew she was in trouble of losing her heart to him all over again. Should she? Could she?

  Yesterday she'd have said there was no way that Slim could have redeemed himself in her gaze, but in just the matter of a day, he was crumbling that resolution. But why? How could she take him seriously, how could she trust him again?

  Betty swallowed hard, and made the resolution that she could not trust him, not until his actions reinforced his words. But how was she to resist him?

  There came a shuffle as he set down the cooler to open the door for her. She felt herself coloring and when he didn't take away the hand he'd offered to help her out of the car, she didn't have the strength of will to pull it back. It was warm, soft, and strong. And she remembered him from before.

  Renewing the familiarity was comfortable and soothing, because she knew that at least she had no need to fear for her personal safety around him. She knew also his expressions and what moves he liked to use, and so she was not caught by surprise when, while he poked life into charcoal in the bottom of the grill, his hand went from hers, around her elbow, and settled across her waist. She leaned against him like this, burying her head in the fabric of his jacket so she wouldn't have to breathe the smoke.

  Betty knew she should pull away. There was no doubt in her mind that he mea
nt to seduce her, and she should resist his attentions. But she felt drunk on his scent of spicy cologne and sweet tobacco, on the comfort of knowing that this was a man who her father approved of, yet who did not approve of her father. She saw behind closed eyes, happy holidays and a traditional turkey, presents beneath a Christmas tree, she heard the pattern of the way he brushed his teeth, and she knew how long he liked his showers and that his favorite drink was buttered scotch with extra brown sugar. All the abandoned hopes and dreams trickled back while he said nothing, just held her, while hamburgers hissed on the grates and he closed the lid.

  Betty laughed for joy when he set up the citronella candles on the tablecloth he'd brought and then poured the wine. They watched the sun set, his arm over her shoulders, beneath a blanket in front of a small camp fire, eating their picnic. He'd forgotten the plates, so they ate out of handkerchiefs and when it came time for the pie, they ate it with a serving spoon meant for the potato salad, straight out of the tin. It was too dark by then to see any defect in the pie, and it tasted sweeter than when she made it with her own hands.

  Soon, she yawned, fatigue claiming her. James laughed.

  “Tired so soon?”

  “It's night time,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

  “It's five o'clock,” he teased. Then admitted, “but you are right. We should return. The deer will be on the move now, and I should watch the roads carefully.”

  Betty nodded and helped him clean up their picnic, then he doused the fire and they got back in the car. He paused, hand suspended over the keys, reached instead for her hand.

  When he held her, she smiled at him, feeling warm and comforted in a way that she hadn't in a long time, as though for once she didn't have to watch after herself solely and completely. It felt good to have an ally. When his lips met hers, it wasn't unexpected.

  At first, she sat there, doing nothing, her heart pounding in her ears as her mind screamed at her to draw back as she breathed in the lingering taste of burgundy wine and pickles. It felt so good. But those screams were muffled by the raging course of her body and heart, and she softened her lips, kissing him back with the fire of one who has gone too long without, and he responded in kind. When they finally broke off several minutes later, Betty couldn't think the whole ride home except to replay that kiss over and over in her mind.