The Underneath

by Kathi Appelt

  Only once had the hound paused. Only once. The bobcat. She had stepped out in front of him and stared directly at him. At first Ranger couldn’t figure out why he had paused, he only knew that the cat was staring him down with its yellow eyes. Ranger bayed, but the cat kept staring. He stopped and in an instant, Ranger knew. Kittens. This cat had kittens.

  He lowered his head. He shifted his stance. The cat escaped.

  Now he was lucky to get a bowl of scraps from his master, the man who put the chain around his neck and left him there. The old bullet in his leg burned.

  Ranger tugged at the chain. His neck was still raw from pulling against it earlier. And his side ached where Gar Face had kicked him. The chain was taut, it dug into his fur and skin. This chain. This rusted old chain. This chain that bound him to a twenty-foot circle.

  While the calico cat had been with him, he had hardly noticed this chain. And now, tugging against it, he was reminded of his lost friend, the best friend he had ever known. And Puck, too. His boy cat. What had happened to them?

  And the trees that circled the tilting house, the ones that had watched this old hound for such a long time, who had loved his bluesy notes, lowered their branches and sighed.

  62

  FOR A WHILE Gar Face had been happy with the dog, the one he stole from a farm somewhere to the east of here, near the Sabine River. He was glad for the company, and the hound proved to be a worthwhile companion, a partner in the hunt. True to his master, happy to be out in the open, tramping through the marshy forest, their own swampy kingdom. They were alone in the forest, a solitary man and his faithful dog.

  But there came that night when the two of them cornered a bobcat. The dog was baying at the top of his lungs while Gar Face hurried in to make the kill. But just before he pulled the trigger, the stupid dog moved in front of his rifle, allowing the cat to slip out of his gun’s sight. Gar Face remembered that night, the cat’s eyes gleaming in the dark, all teeth and razor-sharp claws, claws that slashed at Gar Face’s leg as it flew past, leaving a stinging gash down his calf. Gar Face yelled. He didn’t care that the dog had taken the bullet in his front leg.

  Any other person might have felt sorry, so sorry, for an accident like this. But Gar Face was not another person. As far as he was concerned, the dog had betrayed him when he stepped between his rifle and the bobcat. So he chained the stupid hound to a post and left him there, left him in the filthy yard as a reminder.

  Do not trust a living soul.

  Do not.

  63

  THERE IS NO village along the creek today, but a thousand years ago, there was. As she slithered toward its round huts, Grandmother pushed back the anger that she had harbored and concentrated on the many good times that she had enjoyed with her daughter. Ahhh, she thought to herself, soon we’ll have those good times again. And the thought of it made her move more quickly, as quickly as an enormous and ancient snake could move. Ssssoooonnnnn, she hissed. And the watching trees trembled.

  Meanwhile, in the village, as Night Song beheld the etching on the side of the jar, the one of Grandmother Moccasin, she was filled with longing for her mother, the one who had cared for her and raised her. How could she know that this very mother was on her way to meet her?

  The next morning, she gave the jar to her daughter. It was a huge jar, larger than any she had ever made. It was almost as large as the girl herself. Indeed, if the girl stepped into it, it would almost come up to her chin.

  Her daughter wrapped her arms around it, and she could only barely touch the tips of her fingers around the largest part, right around the middle.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” Then she turned and rubbed her hands along the smooth exterior. Night Song stood quietly as her daughter carefully ran her fingers across the hundred crescent moons pressed into the upper rim. Then, she held her breath as the girl traced the shape of Grandmother Moccasin. Night Song was sure that her daughter began to glimmer as her fingers followed the curves and scales of her ancient relative. Then suddenly the girl stood back and asked, “Where? Where is Grandmother?”

  She had heard only bits and pieces about Grandmother Moccasin. Talking about Grandmother seemed to make her mother sad. But today, the day of her tenth birthday, the girl wanted to know more.

  Night Song paused. She was slow in answering; then she told her glimmering daughter, “Grandmother knows all the secrets of the creeks and the trees and the bayous. She’s lived here for a long, long time.”

  The girl listened intently. Then she asked, “But where is she? Where is Grandmother Moccasin?”

  Night Song hesitated, then told her, “Cross the creek to the other side and walk until you get to a place where the ground is so soft, your footsteps will fill with water. Go, and go some more. When you find the place where the cypress trees grow in the middle of the water, where the moss drapes down like curtains so thick they shade the sun, where the land shifts and sways, there you’ll find Grandmother.” She watched as the girl patted the etching of the old snake.

  Then, for some reason she couldn’t explain, she told her glimmering daughter, “No one knows the forest so well as Grandmother. If you are ever lost or need her, she can help you,” and in her heart she believed this. She watched the girl hold the jar away from her to gaze at the carving on the side.

  Here was her very own daughter. Her heart’s desire. A girl made from a love so deep between herself and Hawk Man that Night Song had abandoned Grandmother Moccasin, the one who had taught her the ways of the forest, had shown her the turning of the seasons, and filled her head with stories.

  At that moment, her own child by her side, Night Song felt a rush of gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered. And the trees and stars and water, the whole world, shimmered.

  64

  WHILE NIGHT SONG held her young daughter and opened her heart wide, Grandmother approached the Caddo village. When she reached the other side of the creek, the serpent paused.

  She caught her breath. Even though she had never seen Night Song in her human form, she would have recognized her anywhere. There were the eyes, set wide apart. There was the hair, so black it looked blue.

  She was beautiful in her human form.

  Grandmother hissed. Sssssttttt!!! The memory of another human appeared to her like a stab, the man she had given her heart to, the one she had embraced so long ago. He had robbed her too. And now here was Night Song, ten years in her human skin, bound to a human man. Ten years, she thought. All that time, she had waited for Night Song to return. She could wait no longer. Anger coiled itself inside her like a knot. She whipped her long tail back and forth, back and forth.

  Immediately, she started to charge across the creek to wrap herself around Night Song and tug her down into the waters of the creek. But wait! What was this? Grandmother did not expect to see another, did not expect to see a girl. Who was this?

  As she watched from the opposite bank, watched Night Song embrace the small girl, she blinked. The girl glimmered. There in the sunlight, the girl’s skin shimmered in a myriad of colors, red, green, blue, indigo, yellow.

  “A daughter!” she said. Then she smiled. For she recognized the ancient lineage in the girl’s glowing skin, the old blood, the enchantment. A daughter. She stopped for a moment to consider this new bit of information.

  Grandmother knew she could not force Night Song to return to her serpent shape. Night Song had to do it of her own choosing. She had to come willingly. As much as Grandmother wanted to coil her enormous body around her and drag her into the water, unless Night Song came of her own accord, she would simply drown. Now she would have to convince Night Song to leave not only Hawk Man, but this daughter as well.

  As she paused, the words of the alligator ran through her mind. Does Night Song know the consequences? Does she know that if she steps into her viper skin, she can never be a human again? Does she know this?

  Pish, thought Grandmother. It made no difference to her wheth
er Night Song knew the rule or not. The only thing that mattered to her then, the only thing that had mattered to her for all these years, was getting Night Song back! She cared not at all about the promise she had made to her friend, the Alligator King. She did not see this as a betrayal on her part, only a necessity. She would do whatever she could to reclaim her daughter.

  She looked across the creek again. There. There was Night Song. There was the girl. And one more. Hawk Man!

  Ssssssssttttttt!!!

  65

  THE WORLD IS made of patterns. The rings of a tree. The raindrops on the dusty ground. The path the sun follows from morning to dusk. Soon a pattern emerged to Puck’s life.

  In the mornings he awoke in his cozy den at the base of the old pine and waited for the first light of dawn to creep into the opening. Then he quickly walked to the edge of the creek for a drink of water.

  After his morning hunt, he found a patch of sunlight for napping, followed by another hunt, and then another nap.

  Hunt. Nap. Hunt. Nap. Finally, at the end of the day, Puck crawled back into his den and curled up for the night.

  There is a certain amount of comfort in patterns, for they offer up a feeling of safety. Each evening when Puck settled into his small lair, he waited for the deep, deep dark of night to create a blanket, and then he fell asleep. He knew that the reliable sun would wake him in the morning, and the trusty dark would lull him to sleep in the evening.

  But one night, after only a few hours of sleep, he rolled over and blinked. There was a light outside the door of his den. Had the sun come up early? Had it changed colors? If the sun came up at a different time, was it a different hue? Instead of goldy gold, did it turn into silver?

  Most cats would recognize the moon for what it was, but this cat, Puck, had never been outside at night when the moon began its own cyclical pattern. Always, when night rolled in, Puck had either been underneath the tilting house, or curled up in his little lair.

  The silver light peeking into Puck’s door was inviting. Usually there is no comfort in surprise. But this different kind of light, different from the yellow light of the sun, seemed to beckon him, and he realized he wasn’t afraid at all. He stood up and stretched and walked outside. There he caught his breath. All around, the forest glittered with a silvery cast. Puck looked up. Through the branches of the trees, he could see the pale beginnings of a new moon in the shape of a crescent. If he could have seen his own reflection, he would have noticed that the small patch of white fur on his forehead glowed.

  He walked to the side of the bank and looked below at the tumbling water. It was full of tiny moonbeams, dancing on its surface. Even the other side of the creek, normally so forbidding in its darkness, was coated in silver light.

  As Puck watched, he noticed a dark shape moving along the water’s edge. His fur stood up. He should run. He should hurry back to the den. But then he realized that the animal, whatever it was, was on the other side of the creek. He sat down again and continued to watch. As the dark shape moved closer to the water, Puck noticed that there wasn’t just one, but two, then another.

  As they got closer to the water, the light from the moon illuminated them. Possums! Of course. Puck had seen possums before. Wasn’t he almost named after them? Now here was a large one and two smaller ones, a mother and her kits.

  In the silvery light of the crescent moon, Puck watched the three gather at the water and take deep drinks. Then he saw the mama sit back and begin to groom herself while her babies played. He watched the two splash each other and rumble and tumble together. For a long time they played like this, they chased each other back and forth, up and down the bank, then they grabbed each other in a hug and rolled into a big ball together, over and over. Once in a while, they ran in a big circle around their mother. Finally, done with her own grooming, the mother gathered her babies up and started grooming them. Puck watched as she licked each one from nose tip to tail tip.

  Suddenly his own mud-caked fur felt itchy. He scratched the back of his ears with his hind paws, but it didn’t help. He rolled on the silvery ground. What he needed was his own mother’s rough tongue, he needed his sister’s tongue to reach the spots on the back of his neck, he needed Ranger’s slobbery tongue to give him a good bath.

  That’s what he needed.

  He needed his family. He looked down at the silvery water and knew his mother was gone, but knowing didn’t make his need for her go away. Then he looked up, at the far bank. Where, oh where, were Sabine and Ranger? Weren’t they worried about him? Did they miss him too? Why didn’t Ranger call? Why didn’t he lift his voice into the air and sing his bluesy song? If only Ranger would howl, then Puck could find them.

  On the other side of the creek, the mother possum finished up her chores and bundled her babies close to her side. Then he watched them walk away, back into the deep, dark forest.

  And somewhere, in the middle of that forest on the other side of the creek, Sabine walked out from underneath the tilting house and looked into the night sky. There she saw the crescent moon. It hung in the middle of the inky blue and gleamed.

  Puck, she thought. It reminded her of Puck.

  66

  ANGER HAS ITS own hue, its own dark shade that coats everything with a thin, brittle veneer. If Grandmother had not been so consumed by anger at that moment a thousand years ago, when she looked across the creek and saw Night Song and Hawk Man and their little girl, the three of them standing together in an embrace, she might have seen something different, something sweet.

  Someone wiser than Grandmother might have recognized this old stirring for what it was, the familiar affection that a grandmother feels for her grandchild, an affection as ancient as the trees and wind and stars. At that moment, she could have turned around and returned to her dark lair on the bayou, content with the knowledge that her daughter was well and happy. She could have left them in their happiness. She could have reveled in their warmth and quietly whispered good-bye. She could have.

  She could have chosen love.

  But Grandmother had forgotten how love felt, and so she did not recognize it when it rolled right over her. Instead, when she saw Night Song, encircled by her family, all she felt was hunger, hunger to have her daughter all for herself.

  She curled her massive body up in an enormous coil, like a giant spring inside a watch, completely wound, and waited to strike.

  On the village side of the creek, the threesome, arm in arm, walked away, away from Grandmother Moccasin.

  “I’ll wait,” she said. And she did. Grandmother waited.

  Soon the sun began to set, it dipped below the trees. The ink blue sky filled in the gaps between the branches and leaves. Grandmother waited for the campfires of the village to flicker, to go from flames to embers. Waited for the stars to peek through the thick branches of the watching trees. She waited and waited. She had waited for ten long years, and she could wait awhile longer. She began to hum. From the back of her cotton white mouth, she emitted a low hum, so deep that even the small red wolves, with their ears tuned to lower frequencies, could not hear it, could not feel it. The bullfrogs, known for their low notes, took no notice. Only the snakes, the rattlers, the massasaugas, the corals and copperheads, only they heard Grandmother’s hum, only they knew what it was.

  Grandmother took a deep breath and hummed again. And she watched and waited. And hummed. All around her the vipers gathered, slid up the trunks of trees, crawled underneath the ferns and fallen logs of the dark side of the forest.

  Come to me, she hummed. Come.

  And they did. Whole tribes of them, including her own adopted tribe, the moccasins. There they watched.

  Ssssiiiissssttteeerrrr! they called. There’s a prrriiiicccccce! There’s always a price.

  Yessss! she hummed. A prrrriiiiiiccce! Then she closed her ears to them and concentrated on the one she had come for.

  Finally, from her spot on the opposite bank, Grandmother saw a lone figure walk toward the creek.r />
  A buzz zipped through her long body, each scale glowed. Yessssss!!!

  It was Night Song. Grandmother watched as the young woman knelt beside the creek and dipped her hands in the cool water, watched as she let the water sift between her fingers, watched as she dipped her hands again and held her face in her cupped palms and ran her fingers along her face. It was so dark, all she could see was her silhouette, but it was enough.

  Grandmother curled up on the bank. She began a chant, at first barely audible; but as she intoned the words, the chant grew stronger:

  Come to me, my lovely daughter

  Step into the silky water,

  Slip out of your foreign skin

  Don your diamond scales again.

  Come my sleek and wondrous daughter.

  Come.

  When she finished, she took a deep breath. This was not just any chant. It was one known to the ancient shape-shifters of the waters, the mermaids, the ondines, the lamia: an invisible rope, a lasso that pulled her daughter to her, one magical word at a time.

  The trees knew it for what it was, an enchantress’s call, but anyone still awake in the village beside the creek might think what they heard was the breeze gliding through the branches, making the pine needles clatter against one another. They might think there was a white-tailed deer browsing in the nearby meadow. If they cocked their ears, they might think a small group of scissor-tailed flycatchers was skimming through the breathless air.

  But Night Song was not just anyone in the village. In her veins ran the blood of all her enchanted ancestors, the waterfolk of legend, and there, standing on the bank of the creek, her heart beat like a drum, a wild and ferocious drum. In her ear, she could hear her reptile cousins, the massasaugas, the rattlers, the tiny garters.