Fiendish (5 page)

I knew all kinds of stories about people from the old families who had a special way with fire. I had just never known a person to actually be able to do it in real life. Certainly no one in my own family.

“Shiny,” I said, and even to myself, I sounded awed and out of breath. “That was amazing.”

She just shook her head and stared down the sidewalk like it might still be worth her while to go stalking after the boys and really light them up. The air around her smelled like matches, and I was glad when she finally turned her back on them and headed for the park.

Union Park was square and grassy, taking up nearly the whole block. Over by the picnic shelter, a bunch of women in capri slacks and sleeveless blouses were gathered, hanging green and white crepe paper and laying out covered dishes. The sight was familiar, and although Shiny and I had never been invited to attend church picnics even when we were little, it heartened me to see that at least some things hadn’t changed.

Shiny cut across the lawn to the war memorial, where a skinny black girl in a yellow sundress sat on the little wall in front of it, holding a big wicker bag with a wooden handle. Her hair, which had been rolled into fat twists the last time I’d seen her, was cut so short now that it stood out an inch from her head. She was fiddling with it, twisting a piece between her fingers.

As soon as we got close, she slid down from the wall. “Punctuality is not an empty virtue, Shiny Blackwood.”

She was a little shorter than me, which made her a good deal shorter than Shiny, with tiny wrists and narrow shoulders. The wicker bag looked nearly as big as she was.

Shiny waved her off. “Punctuality is for people with reliable transportation. You remember my cousin, Clementine?”

The question sounded so casual that suddenly, it wasn’t casual at all, and Rae came closer, taking tiny, careful steps.

“Well, sure,” she said after a moment. Her voice was unexpectedly low, like the sound of a bell. “Of course I do. You don’t just forget a person. Although, to be fair,” she said, turning to me, “I can’t say that I’d have known you on the street. But that’s mostly the hair. And also that I’ve not seen you in a very long time. Would you like to say where you’ve been?”

Her way of talking was slow and precise, almost like a grown-up. Or at least, someone playing a game about grown-ups. She was standing with her bag hooked over her arm and her head cocked, like a cat will watch a pot simmer on the stove.

“I was hidden down in the cellar,” I said, wondering if it would ever get easier to say the circumstances aloud. If it was possible to ever stop feeling like I was waking up into some kind of new and bewildering dream, going from nothing to everything all at once. “For a long time. Kind of like in a story.”

Rae frowned, then reached out and touched my arm like she was feeling for an edge or a seam. “Well, that
is
a situation.”

Beside me, Shiny was looking grim. “And it’s worse. Even now that she’s out, Myloria still doesn’t remember her.”

Rae’s eyebrows went up. “She doesn’t recognize her at all, not even as family? Well, I supposed it could be that hair.”

Shiny shook her head. “What I’m saying is, Myloria thinks Clementine never existed, and that’s got to be some pretty serious craft, to keep working even once it’s broken. Show her, Clementine.”

I pulled out the trickbag and offered it to Rae. The little knot of cloth seemed very shabby suddenly, not nearly remarkable enough to account for the hugeness of what had befallen me.

Rae only leaned closer and then took it, looking shrewd. “Now,
that
is something. Let’s find someplace we can lay this out.”

She led us over to the playground, where a red plastic play-tunnel, with a curve in the middle and round openings all along the side for windows, stretched between the jungle gym and the slide. She tromped up the ladder with her bag slung over her arm.

“Well, come on,” she said when she’d reached the top and Shiny and I were still on the ground. “I’m not doing this out where just anyone can see.”

Shiny and I followed her up into the play-tunnel, scrunching our knees to fit. Rae was already sitting cross-legged, picking at the knotted string, then dumping the bag onto the sandy floor.

At first, it was hard to say what we were looking at. The insides of the bag were just the kind of odds and ends that always seemed to wash up in the back of a junk drawer or get lost under sofa cushions.

Rae hunched over the little heap of knickknacks. “Now there’s a funny thing,” she said, but she said it strange and slow, like she was talking to herself.

She was studying a plastic baby doll head. Just a bitty one, about the size of a shooter marble, but I could tell its eyes were meant to open and close when you laid it on its back. They didn’t, though, because they were glued shut.

“Ick,” said Shiny. “More like
creepy
.”

“That’s from the Tiny Tot doll,” I said, touching the plastic head, covered all over with coarse, slippery hair. “I had one from Spangler’s.”

Rae was sorting through the junk, moving each piece around like she was working a jigsaw puzzle. There was a cut-up playing card—just the middle part of a suicide king, knife jammed into the side of his own head. Stuck to it with yellowy Scotch tape was a scrap of paper that said
Danger Begets Caution
, with a bunch of tiny stars and crosses drawn around it.

The whole assortment made very little sense, but Rae seemed to be arranging everything into some kind of order, so I could only surmise that it meant something to her. She sat with her mouth pursed and her knees up, squinting at the pile.

The thing she seemed to find most disagreeable was nothing but a little white bone, dry and old, picked clean, but when I reached for it, Shiny swatted at me like it was dirty.

“What?” I said, snatching my hand back.

Rae shuddered. “That’s a black-cat bone. They throw it in a pot and boil it with sticks and things, until all the meat and skin is off. It’s twice nasty, but some of the old-school hexers swear by it.”

The idea was more horrible than I could contemplate, and I was in full sympathy for them not wanting to touch it. I didn’t want to touch it either.

The last thing in the bag was a curl of hair, tied in the middle with a little piece of thread.

I reached for it. “That’s mine.”

Shiny scowled, rubbing the curl between her fingers. “This was
never
your hair.”

I grabbed it from her, letting the ends brush against my hand. “It is so. It feels just like it, and it’s even the same color as it used to be.”

Shiny leaned against the wall of the tunnel, shaking her head. “That’s not how your hair was when you were little, though. It was dark, sure. But it was all fine and soft.”

The way she said it was so unbearably sad I could only fidget with the coarse little curl and touch her cowboy boot with the toe of my sneaker.

“Okay,” Rae said finally, watching me dust the back of my hand with the lock of hair. “So here’s the thing. It’s clear enough this wasn’t originally made for you—the king of hearts is all wrong for a girl, and that’s not your hair. But someone gave it to you anyway, and that is
crazy
, giving away a trick this valuable. I mean, you can’t even pay money for something like this. And that’s not even the weirdest part.”

“What, then?” I said. Everything about everything seemed pretty weird.

Rae held up the scissored-up playing card. “Well, this is for protection from any kind of harm. But this—” she pointed to the cat bone, but didn’t touch it. “This is to contain a harmful thing. It’s like they couldn’t decide if it was a spell to protect or a spell to bind, but whatever the intention was, they both mean the same thing. Someone really wanted you locked up.”

We were sitting quiet in the tunnel, contemplating the contents of the trickbag, when suddenly from down below, there was a shrill, bright cry. “Yoo-hoo! Girls!”

Rae peered out one of the little windows and then ducked down fast. “Oh, good God, here comes trouble.”

“Shit,” Shiny whispered, grabbing the pile of junk and stuffing it back in the little flannel bag.

“What? What are we doing?”

Shiny shoved the bag into my hand. “Wanda Tuttle. Don’t look or she’ll come over here.”

But it was too late. A tall, fluttery lady was already coming across the playground to us with her frilly blouse frilling and her high, honey-brown hairdo wobbling all over the place.

“Shiny Blackwood,” she called in a voice so dripping sweet it hurt my ears. “What are you all doing up there in that playhouse? Not getting into trouble, I hope!”

Shiny rolled onto her hands and knees and poked her head out of the tunnel. “No, ma’am. Just enjoying some shade.”

“Even so, why don’t you be a dear and come on down. I’d just hate to hear that anyone had been getting into any sort of mischief, or God forbid
drugs,
around where the babies play. And is that Rae Dalton up there? Rae, honey, I’m not going to have to tell your mother you’ve been hanging around with
folks
, am I?”

Rae peeked out of the tunnel and shook her head, hugging her wicker bag.

We sat very still in case Mrs. Tuttle might go away, but she stood at the bottom of the jungle gym, heels sinking into the sand, waiting.

Finally, Shiny and I clomped down the ladder, Shiny slipping in her boots and me trying not to let my dress get away from me, while Rae crawled out the other end of the tunnel and slid neatly down the slide.

As soon as all three of us were standing in front of her, Mrs. Tuttle turned to me and stuck her hands out like she was planning on grabbing me by the face. “And who’s your little friend?”

Shiny stared back without changing expression. “This is my cousin. Clementine. DeVore.” She said my name like it was a strange, heavy thing, almost an accusation.

Mrs. Tuttle studied me and let her hands drop. “Well, I have to say, I wasn’t aware that Magda DeVore had children. We’re all still just so sad about the accident, of course. Those old houses are a tragedy waiting to happen, with all that bad wiring.”

Rae made a noise under her breath that sounded like
hunh
.

Shiny was more direct. She looked Mrs. Tuttle in the eye. “That and a can of gasoline.”

“Well,” Mrs. Tuttle said, looking away. “I wouldn’t know about that. It’s been real good to meet you, Clementine. I hope you enjoy your stay and y’all stay out of trouble.”

Then Wanda turned and prissed herself back into the picnic shelter with her tidy friends and their tidy casseroles, heels sinking precariously into the sand.

For a minute, none of us said anything. Far away, a train whistle sounded, long and steady, getting fainter.

Shiny stood in the shadow of the jungle gym, so still it looked like she was shaking. Her whole skin seemed to be buzzing, ready to fry anything that brushed up against her.

Then she took a deep breath, letting it out between her teeth.

“What was
that
?” I said, reaching to touch her arm, then snatching my hand back. The air around her felt hot as the air over an open flame.

Rae gave me a kind look. “That’s Wanda Tuttle.”

“She’s the
mayor
,” Shiny said in a hard voice. “Back before the . . .
before
, when Aunt Magda was still on the town council, Wanda was just Councilwoman Tuttle, but after the fires, she ran for mayor on this bullshit campaign of unifying the town after our
tragic accident
out in the Willows, like she doesn’t hate us crooked folks just as much as the rest of them do.”

Rae stood balanced on the edge of the slide with the wicker bag against her chest, biting on her bottom lip like she was sorting through all the things she had on her mind.

Then she stepped down and said, “Look, don’t mind Wanda. I’m not sure she means well, but I don’t think she means to be hateful, either. She might not like craft, but she’s got no love for vigilantes like the coalition, and that’s something.”

“Not enough,” said Shiny. “Not even close.”

Rae considered that. Then she gave a curt little nod. “It’s been better, and it’s been worse, but no matter who’s in charge, this whole town is just one long-ass war between folks who can work craft and ones who can’t.”

Shiny crossed her arms and stared off toward the picnic shelter. “It’s not a war, it’s an occupation.”

I wanted to reach out and take her hand, like I would have back when we were little, but that was such a long time ago, and next to me, she felt dangerous to touch.

PART II

HEAT

THE FISHER BOY

CHAPTER SIX

I
watched my feet as we left the park, not knowing how to feel right in my own skin. My town was not a place I’d ever been inclined to feel wrong in. Now I couldn’t tell if things had been so much different before or if I’d just been too young to know better.

Rae wandered along next to me, twisting a piece of her hair like she was deep in thought. “So,” she said finally. “Do you have any idea what you could have done to make someone want you gone?”

The question gave me a sinking feeling and I shook my head. “I mean, I was just little. I couldn’t have done anything bad enough to warrant the kind of craft it would take for Myloria to forget me. Rae, you should have seen it—it was like I’d been erased right out of her head.”

“I’ve got to admit, I kind of thought that when Shiny said Myloria didn’t remember, she might have just meant Myloria was being Myloria.”

Ahead of us, Shiny stomped along at a reckless pace, her boots clopping on the pavement. I still had a yen to stop and look at all the paintings, but she strode past like she’d seen them a million times before, and it occurred to me that she probably had.

We passed under one of a girl dancing in a dove-colored dress with a raggedy frill of lace around the collar. Her arms were held over her head like a ballerina, her hair flying out in a pale halo around her head. Her hands were long and fierce looking, almost like claws.

At one end, a pair of girls stood side by side. Their faces and haircuts were different, but they looked alike, dressed as maids and holding a giant silver plate. In the middle of the plate, a man’s head sat in a puddle of blood. His eyes were turned up toward the top of the canvas, horrible and sad.

Rae had been watching me closely, and now she caught me by the elbow and pointed. “Your grandma Emmaline did those. The ones of quilting parties or orchards and that herd of spotted ponies down at the end are all from the Ladies’ Auxiliary, but if it’s weird and dark, that’s how you know it’s a Blackwood painting. That one’s supposed to be Salome, like from the Bible.”

“If she’s from Bible times, why’s she wearing a housedress?”

“Well, the stories are from Bible times, but the way she painted them, they’re also pictures of the humors—all the different crafts a person might get up to depending on their blood. I guess Emmaline wanted them to look like they were from around here, like someone you could just walk up to on the street and say hey to.”

I raised my eyebrows, trying to imagine a situation where you’d want to say hello to the beautiful, clawed creature dancing over the head of John the Baptist.

Rae smiled and let go of my arm. “Hoax County has a regular love/hate relationship with the humors. This place used to be thick with hollow craft and old families. These days, folks aren’t too pleased about any of it, but since Wanda’s been mayor, the town council hangs the banners every year anyway, just to show how they’re so damn
tolerant
.”

I considered how Wanda had treated Rae in the park, like she was an entirely different creature from Shiny. “They seem to tolerate
you
pretty well, anyway.”

“Well, there are a lot of different kinds of craft. Your grandma was all about dirt, just like Myloria and your mama, and half the Blackwoods as far back as anyone remembers. Dirt is real. It’s the living, breathing body of the world, and sometimes real things can scare people.”

“Isn’t everything real?”

Rae frowned a little and touched her bottom lip. “Oh, no. There’s all kinds of things that aren’t. Or at least, they don’t start out that way. Is having an idea the same as having a trumpet vine?”

“No, but you could have an idea of a trumpet vine and plant a seed, and then it would grow into one.”

“See, that’s the difference. With dirt, the craft is real to start—the seed and then the vine. The sort of thing I favor starts out pretend. That doesn’t mean it isn’t power. Just that my way is fiddly. It takes longer. And when you do quiet, fiddly things that take longer, people aren’t so scared of you.”

I nodded, but the explanation only made the barest sort of sense. For my mama and Myloria, there had only ever been dirt—reading people’s leaves, mixing pinches of yellow pollen in their hands and sending them away with little bottles of snakeroot in oil, while I drew pictures of birds I’d seen and lay under the table with the dog.

I asked Mama once if she was like a doctor, but she said no. She said a doctor was someone who learned their trade from books. The things she knew couldn’t be written down, only told to you by the ground itself.

I wondered if what Rae was talking about was the same—if she pulled her knowledge directly out of the air around her.

As we walked, I began to pick out the other Blackwood banners hanging along the street. The colors made them easy to spot, all dark and wild—blues and blacks and purples, and there on the front of the empty grocery, a woman so taken up by white light that you couldn’t see her face. Her whole being was eclipsed by a glow that seemed to be bursting out of her skin in one bright, fast lightning bolt.

Rae looked across the street to where I was looking. “Fool’s light,” she said. “That one’s a strange one. It’s the humor that makes all the others kind of just . . . go faster.”

Then she pointed up ahead to the biggest banner, hanging down over the whole front of the empty bank building and showing nothing but a giant star on a black background, painted so fast and so sloppy it looked like it was exploding off the canvas in a spray of colors like a firework.

“See there?” she said. “That star’s for the humors. Those veins of blue at the bottom are the creek. The red splashes are for fire and then dirt is the green, and yellow above that on the other side for air. And all the white there at the top is fool’s light. That star used to be the town symbol for pretty much everything good and right around here.”

“And what about now?” I said. The star looked crazy and jagged and powerful, but nothing about it made me feel very good.

Ahead of us, Shiny snorted. “Now it’s nothing but a fancy seal for them to print on the letterhead at the courthouse.”

We were coming up on a long brick storefront with a big hand-painted sign, and I was glad to see that Spangler’s Sundries and Dry Goods was still open, at least.

Inside, the air conditioning was making a lot of noise to very little effect. The whole place was hot and grimy, full of matched separates in wild prints. I gazed around, remembering afternoons I’d spent crawling on the floor under the racks of blouses and skirts, watching feet go by and counting the pairs of ladies’ shoes.

Behind the little counter, Bonnie O’Radley leaned beside the register. Her hair was as red as it had ever been, and her face was freckled and bored as she flipped through a rumpled magazine.

I bounced across the store to her before I could help it. “Bonnie!”

She just stared back like she didn’t know me from Adam.

I stood with the counter between us, trying not to look crestfallen. “It’s Clementine.”

Her eyes stayed empty, though, and I felt my shoulders sag. It was one thing to be a stranger to grown-ups like Myloria and Wanda Tuttle. The nature of being a kid was that you were half-invisible anyway. But to be a stranger to Bonnie, whose mama had watched me almost every Wednesday and who had played tea party with me under the kitchen stairs, that was something different.

Rae came over and set a hand on my arm. “Clementine’s visiting. Up from Louisiana for the summer.”

Telling lies seemed wrong, but right away, Rae’s story smoothed the line between Bonnie’s eyes and she nodded politely. “Well, I hope you enjoy your stay.”

I nodded back as Rae settled her elbows on the counter and the two of them began to discuss the best colors of nail polish in a mild, breezy way. After a minute, I turned and followed Shiny through the store.

We made our way to the ladies’ section, where Shiny pulled a tangle of brassieres from a plastic bin and then sent me into the little dressing room to try them.

I got into the first one all right, but couldn’t figure out how to get it fastened. Everything about it was the worst thing ever. Finally, I just did the hooks and then wiggled it up where it belonged, slipping my arms through the straps.

The wall mirror had a chunk of glass missing in the corner and I stared at it, because the other choice was to stare at myself. Everything was wrong.

When I was little, I’d see ladies on TV and think how I’d be grown one day and look like that. I’d just never really believed it.

The bra was itchy with lace and the band dug into my back, pinching in weird places.

“How is it?” Shiny yelled through the door, so close she could have been shouting in my ear.

I tugged the front part, trying to get everything to sit right. “Shiny, this is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn.”

I could hear her laughing through the door like she was trying not to. “I’m sorry—I know. That’s kind of just how they are, though. I mean, you get used to it.”

I pulled off the price tag and put my dress back on, then followed Shiny up front to the register. She handed the tag to Bonnie, along with a plastic package of socks and one of underwear, and a wooden hairbrush that looked unlikely to have much of an effect on my hair.

I was worried how we’d pay for everything.

I had no money, and from what I’d seen of the Blackwood house, Shiny had none either, but Bonnie never even touched the register. As I watched, Rae reached into her wicker bag and brought out a little knot of cloth that at first glance did not look much different from the one I’d been buried with.

She set the trickbag on the counter and said, “Two weeks’ worth of being near irresistible to Matt Allen should cover it, I think.”

Bonnie didn’t say anything, just looked away. She cupped the trickbag in her hand like a secret, and then began to put all the socks and underwear into a plastic sack. We left the store with my new things, and Bonnie still taking care not to look at us.

Outside, it was getting more crowded. Across the street, a bunch of men with heavy boots and tool belts were hammering up a half-built stage. People stood watching, mostly little kids with sticky faces, but a few older boys slouched around too, bottom lips stuffed with chaw, spitting on the sidewalk and looking bored.

I caught sight of the ones who’d tried to gang up on Shiny earlier. Now they’d been joined by a bunch of other rough-looking boys, all wearing work boots and worn-out jeans.

Shiny glared at them, shaking her head. “All puffed up like they own the place. They wouldn’t act so big if their friends could’ve seen them a minute ago, practically running down the road, they were in such a hurry to get away.”

Rae waved a bored little hand. “They’re just sassing around, trying to make Eric Fisher think they’re pretty.”

“Fisher?” I said, and my voice sounded all wrong, not just because my throat was hoarse, but because the word itself was so tight and shrill and unnatural.

Shiny glared at Rae and shook her head. “Do not even talk to me about Eric Fisher.”

“Who is he?” I said, studying the pack of boys.

“Just a plain jackass, with a fancy old witch of a grandma who runs every organization and charity club and town meeting.”

I’d been worried I wouldn’t know him. That now that my eyes were open, I could pass him in the street without a clue, but it was easy to see the one she meant.

He was standing with his back to us, not all that much bigger or taller than most of the others, but with a way of carrying himself that made him seem like he owned everything around him.

The evening was still hot, and his undershirt was damp enough that through it, the ghost of a tattoo showed. It started at the bottom of his spine and traveled up to where his hair curled against his neck. The shape was narrow and mysterious, like a black snake creeping up his back. The longer I stared, the harder it was to tell what the picture was supposed to be.

“What’s so bad about him?”

Rae gave me a kind look. “He keeps a few too many of his secrets . . . well,
secret
, for Shiny’s tastes.”

Shiny tossed her head so that her hair flew around her shoulders, all fading sunlight and dust. “And what makes him so special that he doesn’t have to mind what anyone says or does around here?”

Rae shrugged mildly, rummaging in her bag. “Well, he
is
special.”

I stood shading my eyes, looking after him. “Special how?”

Rae fished out a lipstick and snapped the bag shut. Her face was cool and blank and didn’t give away a single trick. “He has a particular skill with living things.”

Shiny made a scoffing noise. “Maybe with some of them. Not so much with people.”

It wasn’t the truth, though. All the other boys seemed to flock to him, ready to laugh at whatever he said, all looking to him for his opinion as soon as they opened their mouths.

Rae twisted up the lipstick and dotted it on. “Let’s say he’s got a skill with living things, but the boy doesn’t like to advertise.”

Shiny’s scowl deepened. “If he was from the Willows, people’d be calling him every kind of crooked and hellbilly just like the rest of us, just for walking down the street, but get raised by Isola Fisher, and everyone treats him like a prince!”

Rae shook her head. “You know that’s not the truth. If he didn’t pretend so hard that his blood was straight, they’d be after him in a heartbeat. He’d have it just as rough as you, so don’t go around acting hard done-by. You could lay low too if you wanted, but you
don’t
, and you can’t have it both ways.”

Shiny gave an ugly snort, but didn’t answer.

“All I’m saying is, if you want to get after someone for keeping their head down and making nice, then get after me.”

But Shiny only laughed and slung her arm around Rae’s shoulders. “Naw, you’re my little witch-girl. You know that. Besides, if you didn’t make nice, we’d never sell a single trick.”

On the other side of the square, Fisher was telling some sort of joke or story. He looked very tanned and kind of wild in the evening light, with his head tipped back and his grin wide, and I told myself that the only reason I was paying him any mind at all was because you were supposed to thank people. You were supposed to show your gratitude when they’d done you something nice.