Blood and Bone: A Smattering of Unease (15 page)

“That would be wonderful.”

Drew stepped forward and enfolded Juniper in his long arms. “Until then, Mrs. Kurst. I will call on you this evening around seven o’clock.”

Juniper laughed. “Until then. And it’s Ms. Henry, now.”

Drew chuckled and descended her back steps. “Very well then, Ms. Henry.”

“See you later, Uncle Drew!” Juniper waved to him as he made his way across the sand.

“Uh-uh. No way!” Geraldine slashed the air with her arm. “Put those pamphlets away. I am
not
leaving this house.”

Julie sighed and swept the pamphlets off the table and into her purse. “Mother, we’re just trying to look out for you –”

“Really?” The older woman asked derisively. “Where were you when I had breast cancer?”

“It’s because of that –”

“Where
were
you?” Geraldine interrupted. “You knew about it. You knew about the mastectomy. Did I even get a phone call? A visit in the hospital?
A get well card?
”

“Mother, I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late for that. You’re lucky I let you back into this house. You abandoned me when I needed someone, anyone, to stand by me. And now that I’m fully recovered, you want me to go to an
old folks’ home?
”

Julie sighed and rolled her eyes. “They are assisted living facilities. You would still be independent, but there would be people there to help you.”

“What are you, fifteen? Don’t roll your eyes at me,” her mother snapped. “
Facilities.
You might as well lock me up in an institution! I don’t need a babysitter.” Geraldine wasn’t about to tell Julie that she was on medication for both her heart
and
high blood pressure.

Standing at the sink, she looked out the window as she washed their lunch dishes. She watched as Julie’s husband, Scott, rode the lawn mower around her yard beneath the summer sun. He was wearing headphones. “I know that idiot is behind this. It was
his
fault you didn’t come. He thinks I’m stupid. I know he wants this house and my land. And
you
aren’t very smart, letting him convince you to railroad me into an old folks’ home.” She paused. “What is he doing out there, anyway?”

Julie turned and clicked the buttons on each side of the high chair tray, sliding it out so that she could pluck six month-old Susie from the seat and deposit the baby onto her lap. “He’s being nice. He thought he would do you a favor.”

“
Oh!
” The teacup Geraldine was holding suddenly fell from her hand and shattered on the kitchen floor.

“It’s only a teacup, Mother. Mother?” Julie grabbed Susie and followed Geraldine to the screen door, which slammed in her mother’s wake.

Julie watched Geraldine pelt across the green lawn, her red plaid shirt and thick, steel-colored braid flying out behind her. She reached the riding lawn mower, waved her arms and screamed, “What are you doing? Stop!
Stop!
”

Scott saw her, smiled, shut the mower off, and lifted up the headphones. “Hi, Geraldine. It’s a nice day for mowing the lawn. How does she look?” He said proudly. Then, he noticed her red face and angry expression. “Is everything okay?”

Her palm connected with his face, and a resounding
slap!
echoed across the yard.

“
Mother!
” The screen door slammed again as Julie came out and trotted to where her mother stood and her husband sat on the mower, shocked, one hand to his cheek.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?”

“You idiot! You just mowed down one of my new perennial beds!”

“Mother!” Julie tried to intervene. “That doesn’t mean you just smack him like that!”

Geraldine rounded on her, her pointed, skeletal face livid. “
YOU!
You brought him here! He just ruined weeks of hard work. My gardens are all that I have. He’s trying to take everything from me!”

Scott turned to Julie. “Damn, is this how she raised you?”

“
Get out!
”

Julie stared, her blue eyes round. “Mother, you can’t mean –”

“I mean it. All of you. Get out! If you ever come back here, don’t bring
him!
”

Susie started crying. Scott dismounted from the mower, his face red. “Geraldine, I’m really sorry. I was just trying to help you. But I’d like to point out that you are a miserable, ungrateful old bitch!”

“Just
go
. Leave me be!”

“Gladly!” Scott threw the lawnmower key down on the seat. “Come on Julie, you heard her. Let’s get out of here!”

Geraldine stalked away, into the house, where she sat down hard on the sofa and breathed deeply, trying to get her racing heartbeat under control. She heard Julie go into the kitchen to grab Susie’s diaper bag and bottle. Then the car doors slammed, and the engine roared to life. The sound receded into the distance.

Emotionally drained, she lay down and pulled the afghan over her. She was going to rest, now. When she felt better, she would go outside and check the scope of the damage and see what, if anything, she could do to salvage her flowerbed.

* * *

Geraldine started awake. The glowing letters on her digital clock read 1:16 a.m. She listened intently, trying to determine what had disturbed her sleep. The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

As silent as her surroundings, she threw her covers aside and slipped out of bed and into her slippers. She moved through the living room across the hardwood floor, her vision acclimating quickly to the moonlit room. She paused to listen again, but all she heard was the low hum of the refrigerator.

She retrieved the key from the coffee cupboard and unlocked the gun cabinet in the living room. Holding her rifle, she stepped out the back door and the motion-activated floodlight switched on, bathing her backyard and gardens with too-bright artificial light. With an oath, she ran down the back step to her vegetable gardens.

All of her carrots, which had just begun sprouting, had been pulled and cut to pieces; likewise, her tiny cucumbers and lettuce heads. Her tomatoes, still small, yellow, and hard, had all been picked and stomped into a yellow mess in the green grass.

Her jaw tightened as she scanned the yard. She saw no one.
Crack!
She fired a warning shot into the air and screamed, “You’ll pay for this!”

Her heart felt like it was going to pound right through her chest. She needed to calm down. She took some deep breaths, turned and walked back into the house, locking the door behind her.

She sat up for a while in the dark living room, waiting and listening. Eventually, she fell asleep beneath her sofa afghan.

Now she had two wasted garden beds to fix.

But the following night, it was her Asiatic Lilies. They had been yanked out by the roots and left scattered across the lawn. To top it off, a rock had been thrown through the mud room window. Pieces of shattered glass had fallen inside Geraldine’s boots and sneakers.

She called the police. The county sheriff came out, viewed the damage, took her statement and filed a report. He said he would have a car come out and cruise by periodically.

* * *

Geraldine pulled the containers out of the shipping box. They were small flower pots whose clear plastic bubble lids protected the plants that protruded from the soil. Or maybe the lids were to protect people from the plants. The containers reminded her of the novelty Venus Fly Traps she’d seen before at pharmacies and dollar stores.

She examined one of the labels. “Amazonian Dart,” she read. “Grows rapidly, producing brilliant fire-red blossoms. Thrives in containers and in ground. Full sun. Water generously at least three times per week. Blah, blah, blah.” She read down further. “Use caution when tending to full-grown plant. Cover plant entirely with a cloth when in close proximity. Full-grown plant utilizes small darts to immobilize annoying predators; darts may shoot a distance up to approximately 2’. This reaction is triggered by heat sensors that are part of plant’s physical traits. Poison is extremely toxic and in some cases may be fatal, particularly to smaller animals. Keep away from children and pets.”

She smiled. “These should work just fine. Or at least, they’d better, at $250 each.”

She had lost another perennial bed by the time she put the darts in the ground. She planted them strategically and inconspicuously.

She wouldn’t let Scott scare her out of her home.

* * *

Geraldine yawned and stretched. Sunlight streamed around her window shade. She looked at her clock and was surprised to see that it was 6:11 in the morning. She had gotten her first full night’s sleep in weeks.

She made her way to the kitchen and coffee. Cup in hand, she stepped out the back door to view her gardens.

She paused when saw something lying on the grass in front of one of the dart plants. Curious, she grabbed a bath towel and a pair of gardening gloves. She approached the plant, tossed the towel over it and knelt to examine the robin. It had what looked like a needle poking out of its red breast. She picked the robin up with one gloved hand and held it at eye level for a closer look.

It wasn’t exactly a needle; it was a tiny clear quill-like cylinder, about two inches long. The end that protruded from the robin’s breast was dark brown. She pulled at it with her fingertips, extracting it easily. The tip that came out, red with blood, was pointed and looked extremely sharp.

“Tch,” she said. “So this is one of its poison darts. What a shame, poor little thing. Still,” she sighed, “I guess in a situation like this, there’s bound to be a little collateral damage.”

She took the robin and the dart to the bare bed of soil where Scott had mowed down her perennials. She cleared a hole with her hands about a foot deep, deposited the robin and the dart at the bottom, and filled it back in. “Rest in peace. I’m sorry,” she said.

She went back to where the covered plant grew at the Southwest corner of her house. She had read the package instructions further before she had planted the Amazonian dart flowers; she knew to stand behind the plant’s trajectory. According to the instructions, the plant didn’t actually “see”; it sensed heat and released its darts according to how warm the target was. Its trajectory was limited, however, as the part of the bloom that housed the darts was forward-facing.

She reached out and gingerly pulled the towel back just enough so that she could lean over and view the plant from above.

She had already seen the bouquet of red blossoms. The shape of each bloom resembled that of a daffodil, except there were several blooms on each stem, as opposed to one. She hadn’t previously seen the darts, themselves, and was curious as to how they grew. The anatomical structure of the flowers had not been included in the package information.

It looked as though, where a daffodil had an anther atop a filament, these flowers had the needle-like cylinders, or “darts”, and, similar to the daffodil, there was a tiny pod atop the dart that seemed a parallel of the anther, which held the pollen in the daffodil. There was one dart per each bloom.

The plant’s toxin must be stored in the pod at the tip of the dart. And the pod apparently stayed behind in the body of the target predator when the dart was pulled away.

But where was the pollen stored? How were the flowers pollinated?

She shrugged. She supposed it didn’t matter.

She grasped the corner of the towel and backed up a couple of large steps, holding the towel in front of her, just in case she stepped within range of the plant’s sensors.

At least she knew the plants worked. Purchasing items from an 800-number on a television commercial, in her opinion, was a foolish thing to do. But after what Julie’s husband (Geraldine would never call him son-in-law) had done to her gardens, she had to see for herself if these flowers were for real. And they were perfect. Sitting innocently in her garden, looking lush and beautiful, they would deliver a surprising and painful message.

Satisfied, she went into the house to clean up for dinner and relax a little in front of the television.

“Still a pity about the robin, though,” she said as she closed the back door behind her.

Except that it didn’t stop with the robin.

Two days later, Geraldine found a dead rabbit lying on the ground a couple of feet in front of the second dart flower. This time, when she examined the rabbit, she found three darts lodged in the body: two in the chest, one in the left cheek.

Her eyebrow furrowed as she removed the darts. “More darts for larger animals?” she murmured. She looked at the darts in her palm, then at the limp rabbit.

She didn’t particularly like rabbits, and there were plenty that liked to come and steal from her vegetable gardens. Garden fencing usually took care of the problem, though, and she did like to look out her kitchen window and see the wildlife that frequented her yard.

Three darts, though.

She would have skinned and cooked the rabbit, but she didn’t know if the toxin would affect her, so instead, she buried the rabbit beside the robin. She had already decided to leave the ravaged plot alone for the remainder of the season. She would plant bulbs there in the fall.

She heard the faint sound of her phone ringing, and hurried inside. “Hello?”