Strange Folk, page 10
Lee reached out for her again and settled for the edge of her thigh. “Oh, Ith. I haven’t been lying to you. I haven’t told you some things because I want to keep you safe, and I want to spare you from my issues with my own family. I want you to have a clean slate.”
Meredith sniffed. “But you’re also keeping us from the good stuff. You act like this place is so terrible and dangerous, but it’s not, Mom.”
“Meredith, we just found a dead body in the woods—”
“You don’t get it.” Meredith got out and slammed the car door, cutting her off. Lee slunk after her in defeat.
Glossy vulture feathers hung over the entrance to the cabin, and they had to step over a line of salt and dirt spread across the threshold.
A new black leather book lay on the counter when they came inside. Lee recognized its simple lines and lustrous cover, though it had been a long time since she’d seen one. Belva came out of the back carrying another black leather book, but this one was bulging with inserted pages, and the leather was stained and warped. She had to hold it with both arms to support its bulk. She avoided Lee’s eyes as she hefted the book onto the counter next to the new one. “How was school?”
Cliff shrugged from the table where he nibbled on leftover cornbread.
Meredith stared intensely at the two black books. “Everyone thinks you killed Mr. Hall.”
“I know, darlin’. Most folks around here can’t find their ass in the dark with both hands.” Belva sucked her teeth. “I thought a reminder of your power might help.” Belva picked up the new black book and laid her hand on the cover. “This is a very special time in the life of a Buck.”
“Grandma Mama, we need to talk about this,” Lee interjected.
Meredith thrust her forearm in front of her mother, as if to exclude her from the moment. “Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t speak for me. I’m ready.”
Lee could feel her face heating. She couldn’t let Meredith be pulled deeper into this place, to absorb its desolation and allow it to infect her as it had with Lee. She didn’t know what connection Belva’s work had with Mr. Hall’s death, but she couldn’t allow Meredith to be exposed to that danger. “I am the mother, and you are the child. Belva, this is not happening. I am not okay with this.”
Belva looked crestfallen but unsurprised, and Lee wondered how far she would go. She might have strong beliefs, but there were certain lines that weren’t crossed. The ability to make decisions about one’s own family was sacred here.
Meredith looked from Belva to Lee, as if she could sense the situation resolving itself without her. “Mom, this is fucked up! I have a right to learn. You can’t keep this from me!”
Belva’s eyes softened, and her voice went sweet and soothing as she said, “Opaline, her blood came. She’s ready whether you like it or not. It will find a way to get out. I’m just proposing that we teach her how to control it.”
“I know from personal experience that isn’t true. She should be focusing on school and getting into college.”
“What if I don’t want to go to college? What if I want to learn from Belva and do what she does? You’re so narrow-minded, Mom!” Meredith screeched.
“You just like the novelty of this place. It’s fun for you because you’ve never suffered. You don’t know what it can be like.”
Meredith narrowed her eyes at Lee. “You don’t know how I feel about things, or what I’ve been through. You don’t know anything about me.”
Lee gritted her teeth against the sting. “Ith, how could you say that?” She reached for her, but Meredith stepped back. “I don’t want to fight. I just want to keep you safe.”
“I don’t see what’s so dangerous about it. You should be teaching me to be, like, a curious, open-minded person in touch with their culture, and instead you’re acting like the people who live here are backwards and don’t matter.”
Lee exhaled. “I’m not going to change my mind. This is not a discussion.”
Meredith gave her a withering look and then stormed from the room, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
Lee glowered at Belva, but she just turned her back and began pulling things out of the fridge for dinner. “How could you do that without asking me? You had no right.”
“She can feel the power in the land. It’s her time, and she’s ready. Why shouldn’t I show her how to use it?”
Lee didn’t respond, still waiting for some kind of apology.
Instead, Belva turned around with real pain in her eyes. “I don’t know why it bothers you so much. Your mama went through her own shit, and that’s why she kept you from the work, and from me. But what is your problem with it? What did I ever do to you? Why’d you come back here if you think you’re so much better than all this?”
What did I ever do to you?
Lee thought of that day when she was thirteen and Belva had driven her back after she’d snuck out to her cabin. As her truck disappeared out of sight, it dawned on Lee that no one was going to save them. She was all alone in that house, haunted by the drug-addicted ghost of her mother. She’d never felt so powerless or insignificant. She didn’t want to be anymore. She just wanted it to be over.
She found some of her mother’s pills carefully hidden in a jar of coffee grounds in the kitchen. There were maybe enough to do it—she was still skinny then. She hadn’t figured out how to feed herself yet, and she mostly lived off toast and jelly. She considered her other options—a bottle of dollar-store glass cleaner, a kitchen knife, her father’s old pistol. It all seemed too gruesome. It was the action itself that ultimately kept her from doing it. If she could have drifted off into nothingness, she would have done it.
The urge to undo her existence lingered long after she’d decided never to try, in little flashes when she felt particularly worthless or alone. It changed when she had Meredith. It terrified her to imagine leaving her alone in the world. But that wasn’t the same as wanting to be alive.
None of this was Belva’s fault. But part of Lee was angry that Belva hadn’t stepped in and rescued her, Redbud’s wishes be damned.
“Why didn’t you let me stay here? Why didn’t you take me in?”
She said it without context, but Belva’s eyes were knowing as her face paled. “Oh, hon. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You were so hell-bent on respecting Mama’s wishes back then, even though you knew it was bad. And now, when I’m asking for you to respect mine, you ignore them?”
Belva looked as fragile as she had after they found the body, wobbling on her feet and dropping into the closest chair. Lee regretted having brought it up. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
Belva’s face went steely again. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. I’m the one who’s sorry. You’re right—I shouldn’t have left you there.” She softened. “I was afraid of what would happen to your mama if she was all by her lonesome—but that was too much to put on you.”
Lee understood. She remembered those final moments before she’d gotten on the bus for college, scared of what would happen to her mother when she was gone.
Belva continued. “I learned my lesson, which is why I’m pushing you on Meredith. You think you’re keeping her safe, but you’re just putting her in more danger. We don’t know what’s out there.” She closed her eyes, composing herself. “I still don’t understand why you came back if you don’t want them to know where they come from.”
The question remained: Why did I come here? It had been her only option. This place was a safe haven. But no matter how she rationalized it, the answer never seemed entirely true. If she was being honest with herself, it had felt outside of her conscious mind. The only way she could think to describe it was that she’d been called.
“I came back because I thought we’d be safe here. That’s how I remembered it feeling when I was little. It’s why I came to you when things got bad with Mama.”
“I’m sure that’s some of it. But there’s more to it than that. The time has come, Opaline. I gotta pass on what I know. There’s no one else. Ruby Jo is dead. Your mama is a lost cause. Dreama is a pod person. It’s gotta be you, and when she’s ready, Meredith.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about your work.”
“I’m not saying you’re ready for it. But it don’t change the fact that it’s gotta be you.”
“But, Grandma Mama, I don’t know if I even believe in this stuff.”
Belva raised her eyebrows and closed her mouth. She didn’t respond.
Lee rushed to add, “I mean, I respect that it makes you feel like you have power and control. Who doesn’t want that? I’d love to feel like I have some control—everything seems to be falling apart around me.”
Belva’s mouth curved into an injured smile as she shook her head. “Don’t you talk down to me. I know you been to school and seen a lot of things, but there’s still a lot you don’t know.” Belva turned her back and quietly resumed chopping.
Lee went out to the porch to get some air and found Kimmie curled up on the swing, smoking a cigarette, like a barn cat stealing a bit of comfort.
“Sorry you had to hear that.”
Kimmie laughed. “That’s nothing. If it was my family, y’all’d still be rolling around on the floor.”
Lee smiled at the absurdity of the image. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“Well, here I am.”
“They said you quit the dollar store.”
“Yeah, the manager was pissing me off, so I picked up a shift at Walmart. I bounce back and forth depending on who’s being a bigger dick that day.”
Lee sat down next to her and pulled out a water bottle from beneath the swing, where she’d stashed the last drips of moonshine from the oil can. She took a small sip and let it coat the pain of the day in a rainbow syrup.
“You didn’t tell me you worked with Redbud.”
Kimmie sucked her teeth. “Sorry, girl. She don’t come in much, and she barely talks at work. Didn’t seem worth mentioning.”
“How is she doing?”
Kimmie raised an eyebrow. “You ask her yourself. I got enough family shit. I’m not getting in the middle of yours.”
“Okay, fine.” Lee took another small sip. “The other night, at the party. I saw you drinking from a jar with a black flower on it. Where’d you get it from?”
Kimmie frowned. “Why you wanna know?”
Lee thought about mentioning Mr. Hall, but something told her to keep it close to the chest. “Just curious.”
“I’d keep your curiosity to yourself if I were you.”
“But that black flower is so distinctive. What does it mean?”
Kimmie reached out and grabbed Lee’s wrist hard. “I’m serious. I wouldn’t be asking questions about that. Ain’t no good coming from it. Do you hear me?”
Lee nodded, and Kimmie released her. They sat in tense silence for a bit, and then Kimmie went inside.
Who or what is she protecting? Lee remembered Kimmie disappearing as soon as she’d heard the word “police.” She didn’t want to think she was capable of being involved in a murder, especially one that someone was trying to pin on Belva. But Lee had been gone for a long time. And there’d always been that wildness in Kimmie. You could never predict what form it would take.
Lee checked her phone. Otis hadn’t texted since he’d dropped her off after the party. He would probably wait for her to make the next move after the way she’d behaved.
She tapped on his name, typed an apology, and asked when he was free to get together again. She wanted to see him, but she had another motive. He was her only other link to the black flower. She needed to find out what he knew.
ELEVEN
MEREDITH
This time, Meredith left through the window.
She flashed her phone light twice into the night-darkened trees, and a double flash answered somewhere off to the left. She dashed toward it, dodging sticks and dry leaves and praying that Belva didn’t have a psychic tripwire for sneaking out.
A few feet into the woods, a hand grabbed her arm and another came over her mouth to muffle her scream. She could see Tiffany’s smile gleaming in the half moonlight as she removed her hands.
“Follow me,” she whispered.
Meredith nodded, and they set off through the trees. When they passed the clearing where she’d spotted Mr. Hall’s body, a shiver went through her at the image of his pale, splayed form. It still haunted her that she’d slept so close to a dead body. Was she there, asleep, when he was killed? Did the killer see her? She scanned the edges of the clearing, imagining the killer lurking out there, watching them. Mom and Belva had told her not to go in the woods until they knew what happened to Mr. Hall, and she briefly regretted ignoring their warning.
“Are you sure we’re safe out here?”
Tiffany looked at Meredith for a moment, as if reconsidering her invitation. “Um, yeah. What are you afraid of? Bigfoot?” She laughed. “I forget you’re such a city girl.”
Meredith tried to laugh it off, but the humiliation was sour. “Mr. Hall was killed in these woods. Doesn’t that freak you out?”
“Why should it? Belva’s got no beef with me.” Tiffany looked back the way they came, as if searching for her in the trees. “I’m glad she put him down. He was a mega creep.”
Meredith balked. “Belva didn’t kill Mr. Hall.”
“You sure about that?”
“I think I would know.” Her delivery was firm, but she felt a seed of doubt take root.
Ten minutes into their walk, Tiffany stopped and pulled out two pillowcases from her backpack and handed one to Meredith. “Price of admission is one pillowcase of the black flowers that grow on the Buck property.” Tiffany pointed to the thick, twisting vines sprouted with dark wildflowers that seemed to grow all over Belva’s land. She plucked a bud from a vine and put it in the pillowcase, and Meredith did the same. It was difficult separating the flowers from their stalks, and more than once she came away with a slit in her fingertip. Both of their hands were bloodied by the time they were finished, and she watched as Tiffany wiped hers on a tree branch.
“Offering for the tree spirits.”
Meredith couldn’t tell what was real and what was play here, and perhaps that was why she liked it. She painted her own red streak across the bark.
Tiffany continued into the woods, and Meredith followed.
“When we get there, just follow my lead, okay? They’re cool, but you gotta be careful. They can get kind of paranoid if they think you’re gonna rat. So don’t look like a rat.”
Meredith tried to catch her eye to see if she was kidding, but Tiffany’s face was serious in the moonlight. “Okay. Got it.” A sense of danger was building around this night, and there was something wonderful about it. A night wind whipped against her cheeks, and she felt high with the possibilities. Tonight she would do magic.
When they finally arrived, they entered a clearing illuminated by a small fire and the front lights of what looked like a trailer-type house. People were scattered around the fire and in clusters in the shadows. On the far side, a group of men sat on couches in the grass. Trap played from a vintage car’s glowing sound system off to the right, and as Tiffany led Meredith over to the couches, the bass pulsing in her like the land’s energy below, she felt they were descending into the spirit world.
The men looked the girls over as they stood there clutching their pillowcases. They were maybe in their twenties, and they reminded her of the boys who played drums and slept in the grass on the Venice boardwalk. One of them was particularly beautiful; he had golden dreads; sleepy, hooded eyes; and this beautiful, angular nose over plump lips. He looked like a Greek demigod masquerading as a stoner. Meredith made eye contact with him, and he licked his bottom lip.
“We brought some flowers,” Tiffany said to an older man in a gray plush recliner.
“That was mighty nice of you, girls.” He motioned to one of the men on the couch, and he took the pillowcases from them. “Ain’t you gonna introduce your friend?”
“This is Meredith.” Tiffany nudged her forward.
The man reached out for her hand, and she let him take it. His palm was rough in hers.
“Nice to meet you, Meredith. I’m TJ.” He ran his fingers over her smooth skin. “You Opaline’s kid, ain’t you?” He let go of her hand and made a show of studying her. “I can see it. You’s a Buck woman. Ain’t no denying it.”
Meredith wondered what he saw, and if it had to do with the magic. “Yes. That’s me.”
“I’ll try not to hold it against you.” His expression was playful, but there was something else beneath it. They made eye contact, and fear slithered into her belly. “You angels run along now. Have fun.”
Tiffany pulled Meredith away toward the fire, where they sat in front of it with their hips touching. The stoner god approached and offered them a mason jar filled with a clear liquid and stamped with a black flower. Tiffany said yes and thanked him, but when she extended her hand for it, he pulled it out of reach.
“Y’all wanna go on a night hike? We can drink moonshine under the moon.” He smiled as if this was clever. Meredith felt Tiffany tense next to her, and she waited for her to respond. Her instinct was hell no, but what if this was how you learned about the magic? Maybe it had to happen in the woods, under the moon. Maybe this beautiful boy was a practitioner. She thought, This is what real magic is, out in the real world. It wasn’t the spooky depictions of witchery you saw on television or read about in books. These were real people, with real power. She felt herself evolving right there, her notion of the world expanding to a more nuanced version of itself. She would go wherever she needed to go.
Meredith nodded, and he said, “All right, then.” He helped her up to standing, but Tiffany remained on the ground, avoiding eye contact with the boy. “S’all right. She don’t have to come. It can be just you and me.”
