“Sort of,” Ben said, tucking his greasy dark strands of hair behind his ears. Cello was suddenly aware of Ben’s smell filling the cab of the truck—it was mostly sweat, but there was something else, some strange and not unpleasant scent spilling from his pores. A kind of melting, minerally sunscreen. Cello cracked the window, letting the vegetal fragrance of summer pour over him and dissolve Ben’s scent.
“What about you?” Ben asked. “What are you using the money for?”
“Not for Shakespeare class,” Cello said.
“No, seriously, why? You got a girlfriend you’re trying to impress?”
“Sort of,” Cello said. A thought of that terrifying morning discovery jolted through him—the pained twist of Joanie’s face and the mussed blankets in the empty crate.
“That’s what I thought,” Ben said, half smiling out of the passenger side window. “What’s her name?”
“None of your business,” Cello said.
“There it is again,” Ben said, his smile widening. “The old ‘none of your business.’”
“We meeting again tomorrow?” Cello asked.
“Your girl must have expensive taste, if that’s not enough to tide you over.” Ben tapped the space next to Cello, where the money lay in a lump under his thigh, skimming his leg.
“Yeah,” Cello said, leaning forward. He sped toward the college, suddenly desperate to deposit Ben where he belonged, so he could get to the ancient, falling-apart Stuckey’s where he was supposed to be.
* * *
It was well past noon when Cello rolled the pickup back into its customary spot worn into the earth ruts beyond the kids’ trailer. He grimaced at the creak that erupted when he pushed the door just wide enough to slide through. He hastily brushed the dirt off the seat and closed it with his back. Cello folded the paper towel into quarters and tucked it gently into his pocket. Leaning against the truck’s hot, metal side, he waited.
He was still simmering from his unsuccessful visit to Stuckey’s. The sinister dip in the mulch hadn’t been touched since Cello’s last visit, and the money from earlier was still there. He left the Crown Light sign as it was and added the extra hundred, agitated by the slow-moving thief and his own wasted time. He mulled over the kidnappers’ bizarre and apparently sluggish behavior, and admitted it seemed typical of Mother Joseph.
Before he could suss out Sil’s reaction to the missing truck, Sabina came running out to him from the tree line, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Where you been, Cello? You took the truck?”
Cello nodded. “Sil know?”
“No, he doesn’t. Already passed out thanks to his precious new experiment crop.”
“Letta?”
“She’s with Joanie.” She looked at Cello carefully. “Did you say something to her? To Joanie?”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Cello pitched himself away from the truck’s dusty side.
Sabina shook her head. “She’s not right.”
“Of course she’s not right—somebody took her child!”
“I know, but—” Sabina paused, looking somewhere beyond Cello’s ear. “This is something else. You better come. We need help.”
Cello turned to look where Sabina had gazed off. A thin smudge of smoke hung in the air. He started toward it, and Sabina followed, wincing down at the ground as she ran. Maybe Joanie had hurt herself, or one of the little kids—the smoke, though, was what worried him. If Joanie had damaged the garden, that would bring the fury of not just Letta and Sil, but Mother Joseph.
The source of the smoke, Cello noted with relief, wasn’t one of the plots. It was a small bonfire with everyone but Sil gathered around it. This fire was much larger than the ones Letta sometimes set to check in on the Vine. Only one figure moved around the chest-high flames. Cello would’ve been able to spot Joanie from the sky, that’s how well he knew the boundaries of her body. As he and Sabina got closer, he saw that Letta stood off to the side, Emil clutched in one arm, and the other clasped against Miracle’s small shoulder, holding her close. From that distance, it looked half like Letta was trying to protect them from harm, and half like she was about to sacrifice them to the fire.
Marcela hovered nearer to Joanie. Joanie’s body was angled now, toward the flames. There was momentum there, something coiled and wild, so sudden and violent that Cello believed she might pounce on the fire herself. Cello and Sabina fell toward them, Sabina joining her sister and Cello closing in on Joanie.
“Cello will help me,” Joanie said, nodding at him over the crackle and hiss of the fire. Cello noticed, now that he was close, that the fire burned through a large crate—a large, very familiar crate. He looked away as the baby’s former little bed burned.
“Cello understands, don’t you, Cello?” Her voice turned soft as she swiveled toward him and gripped his forearm. Cello knew it shouldn’t feel thrilling, her hands on him this way, but it did. It wasn’t the usual thrill he felt at Joanie’s touch; Cello’s chest burned with fear. “He’ll do anything I say.” She said it so the sound of the fire and the wind covered it over for everyone else. She’d meant for only Cello to hear.
There’s no getting out of this, her hot, dark eyes said.
“Joanie,” he said, “what are you doing?”
“A worship.” Her hands still held his arm, but loosened a little. They loosened enough so that he could get away if he wanted. But he didn’t want to; Cello stayed still as an obedient, leashed animal.
He stared into Joanie’s face, trying to pass through the frenzy he saw there. “What? Is this something you’re doing for Junior?”
She turned her head sharply away. “Don’t call him that,” she said.
“You know I’ll help you, of course I will. Just explain it to me.” Cello’s eyes darted to the others arranged around the fire, willing Marcela or even Letta to lead them back to the trailers, away from the fire. “Isn’t there some other way to do this? A safer way?” Cello leaned over her, the fire scorching beside them.
“No, there’s no other way. I don’t really even understand it myself. All I know is that it’s going to work.”
“Work for what? To do what? Joanie, you could get hurt, or hurt one of the kids,” Cello said as his knees buckled and his body suddenly drooped toward her.
She stepped away from him sharply. “I would never hurt one of the little kids. How could you say that?”
“No, I mean, of course you wouldn’t. Not on purpose. But there could be an accident.” Cello pointed to where Letta held Emil and Miracle. “Look how scared they are.”
“I didn’t tell them to come down here, Cello.” She moved closer to them, closer to the fire. “Tell Letta to get them out of here.”
“What if the fire spreads?” Cello said, backing up to where Letta stood with the kids.
“You think I don’t know how to control a fire?” Joanie sneered at him, snapped back into her new, terrible purpose.
Cello motioned to the others, still frozen where they stood, to get back, to disappear. Marcela and Sabina got the idea and started to pull the little kids away, only they had some trouble moving Letta along. Letta was unusually stiff, gaping at Joanie. Cello turned back to Joanie with the same gentleness he’d used with her infant.
“But what’s all this for? What’re you doing?”
“It’s going to tell me where my baby is,” she said, grabbing onto his wrist.
“Who’s going to tell you?”
“The Vine,” she snapped. Joanie dropped her hand and Cello felt his body suddenly very hot in the place her skin had touched his skin. “You going to help me?” Her voice was less, somehow—not just quieter, but drained of that single-minded aggression.
“I’m with you, Joanie, I’m always with you. But first, let’s do something about the fire,” Cello said.
“I’m going to put it out,” Joanie said. “I need th
e ashes.”
Cello thought of the scrap of paper towel tucked into the pocket of his jeans that bore the footprint of her baby. He thought for an instant about showing it to Joanie. Almost immediately, he thought better of it. He didn’t want to push her any further. Joanie moved to a bank of blackberry brambles and pulled a shovel from the ground. When she’d returned to the blaze, she began to shovel soil onto the flames. Cello took the shovel from her when she slowed and quickly got the fire out.
Joanie watched silently. “Can you get something to hold the ashes?” she asked.
Cello nodded, but waited for the fire to go entirely out. He felt the charred earth’s heat through the soles of his shoes as he tamped out the last of the flames. He left Joanie leaning against the shovel, and headed up to the trailers. Cello didn’t see anyone outside, only Sil, snoring in a golden nest of spent Crown cans.
He knocked on the door of the kids’ trailer and then felt embarrassed about knocking and just pushed his way inside. Marcela and Sabina sat on Miracle’s bed. Both girls shone with sweat, and sat the exact same way—one leg tucked underneath, the other foot on the floor.
“What the hell happened? Did she set that fire by herself? Where’s everybody else?” Cello asked. The girls looked at one another and then lifted their faces toward him.
“It was so weird,” Marcela began.
“Joanie started that fire, and just kept adding stuff to it. Our stuff,” Sabina said. “And Letta didn’t say a thing. She was the one who seemed scared of Joanie.”
“Why?” Cello asked, running a hand over his rib cage where the bruising from his last beating still lingered. “Why didn’t she wake up Sil?”
“You should be kissing the hem of Letta’s garment for not waking up Sil,” Marcela answered. “Hell, at first I thought Joanie was covering for your ass, distracting them, throwing that fire together. I was like, man, she’s dedicated. Maybe she really does care about Cello.”
“What’re you talking about, Mar? Why would Joanie need to cover for Cello?” Sabina turned a confused face on her sister.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Marcela patted her sister’s leg, but Sabina seemed more irritated than calmed by the gesture. She muttered something and turned to face the wall. “But that fire.” Marcela nodded as she spoke. “It was just weird. Do you think Joanie’s possessed?” she asked. Her eyes were wide, her fingers twisting through one another.
“People don’t get possessed.” Cello snorted. “It’s not like that at all. She’s just upset about the baby,” Cello said, trying to keep his voice kind.
“That’s the thing, though,” Marcela said, so slowly that Cello could practically see her choosing her words. “She doesn’t even seem upset exactly. She’s focused. Too focused. Like she’s trying to do something that can’t actually get done.”
“Like get back Junior?” Sabina asked.
“I don’t know, probably,” said Marcela.
“Where is she? She still by herself?” Sabina stood and headed to the door. “You shouldn’t have left her alone, Cello.”
“She sent me up here to get something,” Cello said, his voice rising. “You could have gone down there to stay with her if you’re so worried. Y’all can’t expect me to do everything.”
“You’re right—I’ll go,” Sabina said quickly. “What’d she want from in here?”
“Something to hold the ashes. She wants to use them for whatever this is.” Cello pressed a weary palm against his forehead. “I don’t know.” He sat on Joanie’s stripped cot, setting his hands on either side of his legs and pressing into the thin mattress. His body ached with the extra labor of the ginseng harvest, and his eyes were gritty with not enough sleep.
Sabina reached under her bunk and pulled out an old faded pillowcase. “Y’all should check on Letta, too.” Sabina kept her eyes on the fabric in her hand as she folded it into a neat square. “Help her with the little kids. Let’s try to keep her in some kind of a good mood.”
“You’re sure bossy today,” Marcela said, her voice quiet, her words not quite a joke.
“You’re bossy every day—how about that, Mar?” Sabina rushed out of the trailer, slamming the door behind her. Cello looked at Marcela, and they both looked toward the still-banging door.
“So?” Marcela said, holding out a palm. “Where’s my money?”
“It’s here.” Cello reached into his pocket and peeled out Marcela’s share, counting it into her outstretched hand.
“Wow,” she whispered down into the cash.
“You got four more coming.”
“Four hundred?” Marcela squealed.
“No, four regular. Four, like, dollars.” Cello peered through the window for signs of movement, or the silky flash of Joanie’s hair.
“Still, that’s pretty good. Are we meeting back up with Ben? What was his guy like, the guy you sold to?”
Cello remembered the bright clean kitchen, and the way Dr. Santo and Ben had spoken to each other, so easily and precisely, like people in a training video. Cello didn’t tell Marcela about that.
“I don’t know, he was a guy. I told Ben we’d meet up again tomorrow—but I don’t think we should be making any plans with Joanie like this.”
“Come on, we all know Joanie can take care of herself, even if she’s, you know, not exactly all there. Do you think Joanie would give a rat’s ass if one of us was in a mood?”
“Course she would.” Cello recited it only out of loyalty. He knew that if Joanie were in Cello’s place, she’d meet Ben and his guy until she made as much as she needed. He knew that with the caustic certainty he knew someone had dipped Junior’s thin-skinned baby foot in motor oil. He imagined the skin, so sensitive it couldn’t be in the sun, flaring red and blotchy from the slick, chemical contact.
“Everyone’s been acting weird, and I hate it,” Marcela said.
“Let’s try to get everything back to normal, alright? We’re supposed to pick the rest of Sil’s hybrids today,” Cello said as he and Marcela left the trailer, fanning out toward the largest Vine plots. “He won’t like this.”
“Sil’s got bigger problems. Anyway, he’ll just make us work extra tomorrow. Letta will make sure her money keeps coming. She won’t let anybody get in the way of that, not even her precious Joanie.”
“Maybe.” Cello frowned.
“Hello? Have you lost your mind, too?” Marcela scolded. “You wanna split up—I’ll go check on Letta, and you get moving on Sil’s plot?”
“Sure,” Cello said, peeling away from Marcela.
“Well, bye and good luck to you, too,” she called.
19
The silence after the fire was enormous; all of the birds and squirrels nearby had fled the intrusion. Joanie waited by the pile of ash, stamping at the places that still winked out at her, smoldering. She squinted up at the figure marching down the hill toward her—it wasn’t Cello, and the figure didn’t move with Marcela’s loose swagger. It was Sabina; she could tell by the carefully controlled, uniform steps. Sabina held out a square of folded cloth, her head down.
“You okay, Joanie?” she asked, eyes still averted.
“You can look at me, you know. There’s nothing to be scared of.” Joanie tried to make her voice kind, inviting. But it wasn’t coming out right. It was like the intensity of the fire had leaped straight into her throat. “Listen, do you want to help me? Cello said he would, but you’re here now. I think it’s better if you help, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Sabina looked up, her face open, maybe even a little pleased.
“I mean, the Vine knows you now. And it’s better if a girl helps. Here, let’s get all of the ashes into this bag.” Joanie knelt down and began sweeping the fire’s warm residue into a pile. “What’re they all saying up there?” She tried to make it seem harmless, a perfectly normal question.
Sabina crouched down and joined her in scooping handfuls of ash into the bag. “Mostly everybody’s confused. Why didn’t Letta get mad at you?”
“Because I’m doing something even Letta doesn’t understand. And if it works, she’ll be better off.” Joanie brushed her hands clean on her denim shorts. “Come on. Let’s go to the chapel.”
Sabina followed behind, matching her stride so that their two sets of legs left a single set of footprints. The little green cove they had built together was almost invisible, but the atmosphere was thicker.
“Go grab a cutting for me, and meet me back over here as quick as you can.”
Joanie circled the tiny chapel, searching for the creature she had hidden. It was exactly where she left it—it looked like a bright, white stone in the grass. Joanie clutched the plastic bag with the rat’s body inside, tying it closed more tightly against the scent of decay.
“Joanie?” Sabina untangled and handed over a twist of the Vine. Joanie accepted it, looking for the best place to break into it.
“Here, come closer to me.” She waved Sabina beside her. Joanie snapped open the Vine so that only a trickle of sap emerged.
Sabina gasped as the green bleed perfumed the chapel.
“What’re you doing?” Sabina asked.
“Hold it for me while I drink. Don’t let me take too much. And as soon as I’m done with it, bury the cutting right away. Right here.” She pointed to the ground beside the chapel wall.
“How much is too much?” Sabina asked, uncertain.
“You’ll know.” She put a hand on Sabina’s arm, not sure if she was steadying herself or her foster sister. “The Vine will stop you. It doesn’t want either of us to get hurt.” Joanie cleared her mind, opening it wide to whatever the Vine had to show her. Sabina took the cutting, as carefully as Joanie had taken up the serpent during her trial, and held it to Joanie’s lips.
Joanie lapped at the broken cutting like an abandoned kitten drinking from a rag soaked in milk—careful at first, then taking more, and much more. A thirst overtook her, and she swirled into a vision of kneeling beside a river, drinking down as much water as she could. As she drank from the river, she grew stronger; her vision was sharper, her hearing almost painfully keen. Her skin tingled, like it was answering back to the river she had drunk. Everything went quiet, as quiet as the clearing after the fire, and Joanie’s arms were suddenly heavy with the weight of her baby. A wash of green tinted her vision, and she sank into it, gratefully. For a moment, Joanie couldn’t find her way out of this soft merging with the Vine; she had never felt so close to anything. From far away, Sabina was shaking her. Just before Joanie lifted out of the vision, she saw a dark gap in all that jade—the dark shadow of Mother Joseph.
Daughters of the Wild Page 19