Black Locust Letters

by Nicolette Jinks

  “Where to?”

  “What?” His question had caught her off guard, and she realized now that the start of Sanctuary was passing by his headlights.

  “Our place or Sunny Glenn?”

  “I want to go home.”

  He hesitated.

  “Sunny Glenn, James.”

  Too late, she realized that she should ask him to drop her off a street or two away, but knowing Slim, he wouldn't think kindly on making her walk alone in the dark. So she let him drive her home.

  His jaw was stiff, she saw, as they drove beneath the street lights hissing far above. They were half way to Sunny Glenn, the streets barren of humans but prowling with Never Weres, when he said, “So, it's still your house or mine?”

  “I have all my stuff at my place, and there's work in the morning.”

  He grunted, accepting this with better humor, but Betty wondered at the nature of her reply. It hadn't been an explanation that they weren't a couple, that she didn't trust him enough to take him to bed. No, she had pulled up a paltry excuse, something that wouldn't offend his pride. Why? She tried not to groan at herself. What was she doing, leading him on like this? She didn't fear him, so she had no excuse for that. No, she was sparing his feelings. Why should she even care, if she was only meeting him to hold up the appearance of working for her father?

  Betty didn't have a suitable reason by the time they reached the corner for her street, and Betty pointed to her house so he would pull over. He parked with a wheel on the sidewalk, turning to look at her. His gaze made her shift uncomfortably as she tried to formulate a farewell.

  “You're stunning. Every year, you've grown more beautiful,” Slim said, his eyes brimming in the faint light coming through the windows now that his headlights were turned off.

  Betty blushed, pleased with the compliment despite herself. “Thank you.”

  She picked up her small purse, not sure how to leave. Did she thank him for the dinner? But to do so would be to admit that it had been something more than just a training session. One where they had spoken far too little.

  “Betty?”

  She looked at him, at his high cheekbones and the profile of a straight nose caught in the lamp light, at the shine to his eyes. “Yes?”

  His hands, smaller than Clarkin's, cupped her cheek. “I still love you.”

  Betty swallowed, not sure what to say. Did she return the affection? Yet it felt wrong, like a lie, to tell him otherwise. “You hurt me pretty bad last time.”

  “I know.”

  Her eyes welled with tears, and she didn't see when he leaned in, only felt his lips caressing hers. She wanted to slap him, she wanted to kiss him more, she didn't know which way she wanted more, so she at last followed his lead and kissed harder.

  The rain thudded on the roof and Slim's windows were fogged up by the time they withdrew from each other.

  “I need to go inside.”

  James nodded and gave her a sad smile. “I know.”

  Before he could say anything else, Betty opened the door and retreated up to her door, not bothering to close the gate, and she found her keys in record time. It wasn't until her door was shut and locked that she heard his car start up again, then drive away.

  Betty sank onto the chair in the entryway, hiding her face in her hands and breathing in and out slowly. What was that? What had she been doing and why had she let herself do it?

  Then, before she could finish chastening herself, her eyes adjusted to the dark and she saw on the floor beneath the slot in the door lay a crisp cottonwood letter with its caring handwriting.

  All at once she felt a deep pang of guilt.

  Betty gathered the newest letter up to her chest, found the rest in a pile on her coffee table, and she went to her bed to lie amongst their scent.

  Chapter 17

  In the morning, Betty had no clearer idea of what had happened than she had the night before, but as she went to work, her feeling of confusion was slowly replaced by one of anger, and by the time the fourth hour was upon her, she had to fight to keep the fury from her performance.

  She wanted to tell the world, “Know what? Last night, I went on a 'training session' with my ex, and he turned the evening into a full-fledged date, and now he expects me to just accept his apology and be happy with him? The world doesn't work that way, hunny27, the world is a cursed place where you don't get second chances. So pack up your butter lips and stay home with your custard pie.”

  But she couldn't say that, not on the air, and not where Slim might be waiting and listening to her. So she kept that bottled up and instead vented her cries at the vandals on Elm Street.

  “They think what, that what they do can be undone with a dab of paint? Maybe for a fence, or the side of the building, but this isn't something that can be painted. You're mutilating sculptures. Those take special cleaning to repair, and no matter how much you try, they'll never be the same again.”

  On the next hour, her rage abated, and she felt resigned.

  “The Cold War remains mere threats, and there are those who would preach fear and scare everyone into making bomb shelters, but I say, let us be glad that we do not need them, and that Sanctuary is too remote of a place for it to be of any interest to bomb, besides.”

  The hour after, she felt a brief resurgence of her righteous anger, but nothing that she couldn't keep from venting on the radio.

  Then came her final hour, and towards the end, she was beginning to wonder if her ill feelings toward Slim were justified at all.

  By the time she signed off, she felt weary, as though it were the end of a very long day instead of the middle of a normal one.

  Liza wasn't around to speak to, so the wandered home listlessly, walking her bicycle instead of riding it, choosing to avoid Sunny Glenn market out of the desire to just keep out of everyone's sight. Presently, the weather turned, driving wind and icy rain which may or may not turn to snow, and she chained her bike outside of the first place that served hot drinks.

  She realized it was the Corner Café where she had met with Clarkin over drinks, and the memory brought a faint smile to her lips before she buried her head in shame.

  What the hell was she doing with her life? Flirting, one way or another, with two maybe three men, heart being pulled into shreds, not knowing which way was up and which way was down.

  The waitress brought her a hot coffee with the whipped cream on the side, and Betty clutched the drink between shaking hands.

  Maybe she was being too hard on Slim. Maybe not. He could have been turned into the same lying scum as her father. And he did have a way with knowing what to say to her. She shouldn't forget that, no matter what. Still, she wanted him to be true. But until he proved it by doing something, she wouldn't put her faith in him.

  Betty made a promise to herself: She wouldn't fall for him, not again, until she knew he was dependable.

  An hour or more passed at the café, and though they got busy, the waitress didn't give Betty a sour look. She must have seen the bicycle outside and known that Betty wanted to avoid the storm for a while.

  Forgotten in the corner, Betty withdrew an envelope. This was the one that Jenny had read, the one with the misspelled Bell.

  Betty opened it, expecting another long letter, and was surprised that it was only a paragraph.

  Dearest Songstress, if you read this in time, I ask of you not to go to the changing of the hour, as is in your habit to do. It may be for the best to avoid all the area for some time. I cannot say more, and even having said this, I have spoken too much. Please heed this warning, should you happen upon it.

  Surprised, Betty looked at the letter for a date, but didn't see one, nor on the envelope. Unlike regular mail, Never Were's didn't postmark mail. How long had it been in her possession? Some time, likely, since she seemed to remember it from long ago and its edges were frayed by her handling.

  Despite the rain, Betty settled her bill and rode home, knowing she would be soaked through. Her purpo
se now was to check the other letters, to see if there was a more recent warning she had missed.

  Once she was home, in dry clothes, and was reading her letters over a cup of hot tea with her feet propped up by the fire, Betty saw several more references. There was Exica mentioned here, and Gromil at another place. Other names were slipped into the text, ones she did not know, and whose meaning would transform the message of the letters.

  Betty found her calendar. Thursday still had D.R. written on it with a question mark, from when she had made the note following Jenny's information. In the time since, she'd decided that it was best not to go, but what about now? She frowned.

  Who was playing her, Slim or the sender? They each claimed to want her for their side. She wouldn't know any more if she were to dawdle in making her choice, but neither did she want to choose without sufficient information. Betty sat back in her chair, and decided: She would play with them both, for now.

  Chapter 18

  It was overwhelming, to be assailed on all the senses at once like that. The squeal and chirp of tires against asphalt, the roar of unmuffled rat rods, the vibrations of the noises thundering through her skin, then, when the noise faded with the press of the clutch, came the stink of burning rubber and gasoline. The bleachers filled with standing, jumping people screaming encouragement and giving victory pumps with their fists while others behind them were in a bitter argument which would forever go unnoticed by those around them.

  There was a man over loud speakers, and though he had the same throaty timbre as Welch, he was not Incubus. This man's role seemed to be solely to announce the winners and the next events, introducing the drivers and their cars, each of which were named. Crazy Charlotte. Frankenbride. Dubyabomber. Blazing Betty. Murderin' Mary.

  Big back tires and low fronts seemed to be in vogue, as well as paint jobs detailing flames or grins like on fighter planes, and no matter their color scheme or tire preference, chrome was everywhere, so much chrome that they could have done with half the spotlights with the way the cars reflected it.

  The track itself wasn't much, enough for four cars abreast. But the races were just one activity they did: Singly, the drivers would go down the track making as many drifts as they could, or being fancy and doing spins or popping a wheelie or making their car go up on one side of the wheels, the other side spinning in the air.

  Watching them made her fear for an imminent crash, which the crowd apparently looked forward to with eagerness, and so Betty wandered to the place where food wagons parked in a circle around picnic tables. It was here that she found the first of the storytellers. They'd started a bonfire, one with clogging smoke which was from burning the half-rotted, painted pallets piled not far away.

  The men spoke in low, quaking voices which were almost lost when the announcer blared or the cars chirped their tires, but it didn't take long for Betty to realize that she was listening in not on a conversation but on a story.

  He finished by saying, “...but when they looked in the coffin, what was there was not a body, but a single blue hair ribbon, proof that her death had been a hoax and it is said the lovers are still upon the plains, riding through the grasslands for now and eternity.”

  Thus satisfied, a father collected his now-excited son and daughter, taking them in the direction of the stands. Six others sat beside the man, comfortable with their blankets in their laps and half-watching eyes which turned on Betty as she seated herself, awkwardly.

  The woman who had squinty eyes, perhaps from all the smoke in the air, leaned into Betty's shoulder and took two deep sniffs. She turned to the others.

  “Human. Natural scents.”

  Whatever Betty had been thinking of saying was now gone for good. She blinked in surprise when the others grumbled or nodded, and the storyteller looked to her curiously. “What brings you here, my dear?”

  “I—I came to hear a story. Or two.” She looked down at her gloves, feeling the weight of their eyes pressing down on her.

  “Did you come to the drag races and discover us, or did you come to the races to discover us?” he asked, an edge to his voice that Betty didn't understand.

  “Jenny said I should come.”

  “Jenny?” repeated the man, mulling the name over his tongue.

  “Laverish's wife?” asked the woman sitting next to her.

  Betty shook her head. “The yarn merchant at Sunny Glenn market.”

  None of the people looked like they recognized the name, but that didn't stop the storyteller from saying, “And why did she refer you to us? For what story would she have us tell? Speak the name.”

  Intimidated, Betty swallowed nervously. “I don't know the name. It's just references. Augurs and bells.”

  At this, three of them stiffened visibly, and the storyteller leaned forward, his voice so low that she understood him only by the way his lips moved. “How did you come by these...references?”

  Her chest shook and she suddenly feared that she had been asking the wrong things in the wrong places, and all the warnings of the last few weeks rang in her ears.

  “Letters. Sent to me.”

  “She stole them,” muttered a wide-eyed woman with curly hair. “Stole them, she did.”

  Frightened, though she couldn't be sure why, Betty insisted, “No, I didn't steal them. They're mine.”

  “Who sends them, then? Why not ask your correspondent?”

  “I don't know who it is.” Shaking, Betty reached into her purse and withdrew the one addressed to Bell, the warning. She thought it would be the least damning if anyone read it. The woman beside her sniffed, then snatched the letter and breathed it in as though she were going to drink the letter. The others watched her, carefully concealing their emotions.

  “Too much perfume. Just her smell and tree petals.” With this dismissal, the woman passed off the letters to the others and she rubbed her nose as though her sinuses had been burned.

  “Avian,” said the wide-eyed woman after scratching the paper.

  A man took it next and examined the script. “Love letter.”

  Then a fourth took it and tapped his finger along the edge. “Military. Officer.”

  As one, they nodded and said, “Changeling.”

  Betty's eyes flew to the storyteller, who alone seemed to command a silent authority over the others. She demanded in a whisper, “What do you mean changeling?”

  “They are talking about you,” he said. “A human welcomed into the fairie world.”

  “Human wives are taken often enough, but there's usually something remarkable about them,” said the slump shouldered man.

  “Beauty,” said the wide-eyed woman.

  “Spirit,” said a redhead who had up until now been silent.

  “Horsemanship, archery, grief, something.” The squinty eyed woman leaned in closer, sniffing at Betty, then said into her face, “What is it that has drawn him to you?”

  From the way they were all staring at her expectantly, she realized that this was no casual question. They wanted to know. At first, she panicked. What was there about her that stood out? Not her eyes, not her face, or anything! She wasn't an archer, she couldn't ride a horse, and she had never been called high-spirited. What...

  “My voice.” The realization dawned on her as she said it. “He's in high praise of my voice.”

  The silent woman pursed her lips. “Morning show.”

  As one, they all stared into each other's faces, acting for an instant as though Betty were not in existence at all. The storyteller said, “Wave talker.”

  Immediately, the squinty eyed woman objected. “We can't train a wave talker! The Ladybird hasn't given her consent.”

  “But how can we not? How can we turn a blind eye to this golden apple?” spat back the wide-eyed woman.

  “Perhaps we had best act on the authority granted to us in the letters,” recommended the redhead, who addressed Betty next. “We will answer your questions but will not provide further details. Tell me what it is that you
r lover has spoken of?”

  He wasn't her lover, but Betty didn't want to contradict them now. She said, “It's letters I have received, that is all... he said he feared the stealing of the bell, mentioned someone by the name of Loti, and has said something of cowbirds.”

  The storyteller nodded. “There is no story to be told on the cowbirds, save warnings that females count their infants and examine them for obvious differences from the rest of their brood. Cowbirds, sometimes called cuckoos, are brood parasites,28 they lay eggs in other's nests to be raised by the host. They are aggressive but tend to think kindly on those who have raised them, and think about their host species as family while their mates are more often dalliances.

  “Now...augurs, you mentioned augurs? Bird watchers, denoting those who read signals from the birds for signs from their god or gods. It is the common belief that an augur should ascend a high hill before the clock strikes midnight. The night must be pristine, cloudless, with or without a moon, it does not matter, but the timing and the weather should play into the reading of the signs. If the signs are seen from the east, it is seen as favorable, if from the west, unfavorable. Falling stars, lightning, blood moons, they all count as signs, too, but the most important are the birds. Who appears, who disappears, and what are they doing. They say that the most important hill here is not at the top of the mountain, but in town, some place high where the city may be seen, but sheltered and wooded and quiet.

  “Loti is our guardian. He keeps us safe. She warns us of coming evils. There is one story of Loti where she falls in love with a German prince, but when they meet face to face, he had no more interest in her than he did in a bar wench. So Loti knew she would never achieve his love, though she tried by becoming his servant and doing him great deeds, keeping him from being tricked by the Baron's greedy plans, saving him twice from hunting accidents by taking the form of a swan and flying to get help, and finally the day came for his wedding to a princess from a faraway land, and so it was that Loti said goodbye, but she spent the rest of her life caring for him with the same affection that she always had.