The Hum and the Shiver (24 page)

Suddenly he got chills as Bliss sang:

Well, I went to see my Shady Grove

She was standing in the door,

Flowers and braids all in her hair

And little bare feet on the floor.…

The lyric described the girl in the doorway precisely. She caught his eye and winked before turning away and fading into the night outside.

Don continued to play, but he felt disconnected, as if he’d somehow stepped into some parallel universe where songs came to life. Andy nudged him with a foot and nodded that they should join Bliss at the microphone for the final chorus.

Don was no shakes as a singer, let alone a harmony vocalist, but he somehow stayed on key as they finished the song. The applause was genuine and enthusiastic, and as it reached its crescendo Andy leaned close and said, “I bet you’re related to Benji Oswald, aren’t you?”

Too surprised to speak, Don just nodded. Andy laughed. And the whole purpose of this evening, to find Bronwyn Hyatt, was completely forgotten.

*   *   *

He had no idea how long he played. It seemed like hours, yet when he finally looked at his watch again, it was only ten thirty. The crowd had thinned a little, and he felt an inner certainty that it was time to leave. He said good-bye to the other musicians and put his guitar back in its case.

“Good show,” Andy said as they shook hands. “Hope to see you back.”

“Hope to
be
back,” Don agreed.

“You know, you’ve got more Tufa in you than you think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Your great-grandmother was a First Daughter. That carries some weight.”

“In what way?”

Andy shrugged evasively. “We’ll talk more if you come back.”

“You said ‘if,’ not ‘when.’”

“That’s because it’s entirely your call, man. If you want to feel like you did onstage again, come on back next week. If it was too weird for you…” He trailed off with another shrug.

Bliss joined them. “What sort of nonsense is Andy telling you now?”

“He invited me back next week,” Don said.

“Well, shoot, that’s what I was about to do,” Bliss said. “You’ve got a nice sound.”

Don smiled. “Thanks.” He looked around at the departing crowd. “Listen I hate to ask this, but I don’t suppose either of you know Bronwyn Hyatt, do you?”

“Why?” Andy asked.

“To tell you the truth, she’s why I originally came here. Her father said I’d find her here, and I’m supposed to interview her for my newspaper if I want to keep my job. But…” He shrugged and smiled. “Guess I got carried away.”

“That’ll happen,” Andy said.

“I know Bronwyn,” Bliss said. “You just missed her tonight. She left about the same time you got here. I’ll mention you to her when I see her.”

“I appreciate that,” Don said. “But don’t put her on the spot or anything. She’s been through enough.”

Bliss cocked her head, as if this response pleasantly surprised her. “I’ll remember you said that.”

Still jovial, Don walked back to his car. He looked around for Shady Grove—no, he corrected himself, for the girl who’d reminded him of the song—but did not see her.

*   *   *

Don stopped his car at the end of the gravel road, looked both ways into the darkness, then pulled out onto the highway. The instant he did, bright headlights blinded him and a distinctive siren blared. He slammed on the brakes, stopped in the middle of the road, and held up his hand to block the light.

“You best put up both hands, boy,” a man’s voice said through a loudspeaker. Don recognized it, and did as instructed.

The headlights went out, and now he saw the flashing red and blue ones atop the state trooper car parked beside the intersection. Bob Pafford got out and switched on a flashlight, which he also shone right in Don’s face. He took his time approaching the car.

Don felt the kind of dread that comes only from anticipating not death, but pain. Pafford tapped the huge flashlight on the window. Don rolled it down.

“You’re parked in the middle of the road, boy,” Pafford said with belittling patience. “That’s a traffic hazard.”

Don said nothing.

“Where you coming from?”

“Visiting some friends, sir.” He hoped his tone was flat and noncommittal, but suspected that any answer would be the wrong one.

“You been drinking?”

The question took Don by surprise. Actually, he’d had nothing to drink, not even water, since he left home, and was suddenly aware of his own ravenous thirst. “No, sir,” he said.

Pafford leaned down and shone the flashlight in Don’s car. Then he blasted it into Don’s face, studying him for a long moment. Finally he stood with a sigh and said, “I ain’t getting paid to chat with you high-yellow Tufa bastards. Get on out of here, boy, before I decide you were resisting arrest.”

Don was speechless. He put his car in gear and drove carefully away, watching the rearview mirror for any sign of pursuit. The cherry-top lights blinked out just before he topped the first hill, and he didn’t feel truly safe until he was in his own driveway and five minutes had passed without Pafford roaring down the road toward him.

He sat alone in his living room, all the lights out, for a long time. Susie had pulled a double shift, so the house was empty. It seemed impossible, but had Pafford truly not recognized him? He clearly thought he was one of the local Tufas, not the reporter he’d chased away from the Hyatts; was he that stupid, or was something else at work? Fairies, he’d learned earlier that very day, could hide their true appearance behind something called
glamour.
And if he was a Tufa, and the Tufa were fairies …

“Oh, come on,” he said aloud. That was as crazy as believing the real Shady Grove stood in the barn door, like a shade summoned by a song.

No, not a shade. Around here, they called them
haints.

22

The First Daughters of the Tufa met irregularly, but always on the full moon. There was no arcane significance to this, only the practical: they convened deep in the forest and wanted to avoid flashlights or anything else that might allow them to be followed. There were those who resented the power of the First Daughters, especially among their opposite number in the Tufa clans led by Rockhouse Hicks.

Bronwyn’s recovery would have astounded her grim army doctors. Less than a week after her surgery, she no longer needed the cast, and had replaced her crutches with a single walking stick loaned to her by Carvin’ Ed Shill. The handle was shaped like a rattlesnake’s head, complete with the little pits along its lips. The motif continued to the tip, which was a genuine rattle from a huge diamondback, shellacked and varnished to impenetrable hardness.

When Bliss arrived to pick her up, Brownwyn limped down the yard under her own power. Kell and Aiden flanked her but didn’t actively help. With the setting sun flaring through the thin cotton dress, Bronwyn looked like she was edged with flame. Considering the topic of the upcoming meeting, that was truly a bad omen.

“You’ve come a long way, baby,” Bliss said.

“This isn’t Virginia,” Bronwyn said, “and I ain’t Slim.” Up close the pain and effort tightened her face, but her determination kept her going.

Kell opened the passenger door and helped Bronwyn inside. Aiden watched with evident concern. “Be careful,” he called to his sister.

Kell kissed her cheek and said, “Remember, that cane’s for walking, not whacking people.”

“I never whacked anyone who didn’t need it,” Bronwyn said. She turned to Aiden. “And don’t look so serious, I’ll be back before you go to bed.” She glanced up at the house, but saw no sign of her mother. There wasn’t much Chloe could say, but it still sent a pang through Bronwyn; the meeting was to prepare for Chloe’s possible death.

“I’ll take good care of her,” Bliss said. Once they were on the road, she turned to Bronwyn. “I guess you know we’re going to talk about your mother. Everyone will want to know if you’re ready to learn her song.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“Show me.”

Bronwyn closed her eyes, then began to sing:

Boys on the Cripple Creek ’bout half grown,

Jump on a girl like a dog on a bone.

Roll my britches up to my knees,

I’ll wade old Cripple Creek when I please.

Bliss nodded. “That’s good.”

“Mom keeps after me. Says it won’t take long to learn her song when I’m ready.”

They reached the turnoff for the road that led to the meeting. Once they went behind a stand of trees, they would be invisible from the blacktop. They went down a hill until the headlights revealed five other cars parked along the road. Bliss parked her truck; then she and Bronwyn began the descent to the meeting place on foot.

It took longer than normal because of Bronwyn’s injuries. She remembered her first time here, brought by her mother to meet the latest generation of First Daughters, all children like herself. Once a daughter reached what they called “the age of cognition,” she was offered the chance to join her mother in the group, an honor few declined. Bronwyn had not, either, although she’d often wished she had. She suspected some of the others did as well.

There was no light to mark the way, only the cool overhead moon turning everything gray, and the shimmering fireflies that danced in the trees and grass. Here and there, a patch of foxfire glowed on a fallen limb. Bliss stayed close, ready to act if Bronwyn fell but otherwise content to let her struggle on.

They reached the clearing, where eleven other women waited for them. They ranged in apparent age from childhood to close to a century, but not even the oldest betrayed any sign of infirmity. Local legend had it that you could
kill
a Tufa, but they never did just
die.
That wasn’t accurate, but it wasn’t a total lie, either.

Bliss stopped. The other women stayed back, mere shapes in the darkness. Bliss raised her chin and sang:

I’ll eat when I’m hungry,

I’ll drink when I’m dry;

If the hard times don’t kill me,

I’ll live till I die.

Bronwyn cleared her throat and sang, in a considerably weaker voice:

I’ll tune up my fiddle,

And I’ll rosin my bow,

I’ll make myself welcome,

Wherever I go.

Bronwyn fought the urge to roll her eyes as she and Bliss made the same elaborate sign with their left hands. She wanted to maintain the solemnity of the occasion, but couldn’t shake both her annoyance at the pretentiousness and the sense that, in this day and age, these arcane convocations were just plain silly. Only the very real threat to her mother would ever have gotten her down in this valley again.

“Welcome, sisters,” said Peggy Goins. She hugged Bliss, then kissed Bronwyn on the cheek. “Ain’t had a chance to properly welcome you back yet. The last time I saw you, there were five thousand people in the way.”

“I should’ve invited you out for some iced tea and pie,” Bronwyn agreed. It was etiquette to say it, but she also meant it; she’d sat in her house and waited for everyone to come to her, like some queen bee. “Same for all of you. My mama would be ashamed of me.”

Bliss turned suddenly and looked behind them up the hill, toward their parked vehicles. She raised a hand for silence. “Someone’s coming.”

“No, someone’s here.” The voice was young and feminine, and as the girl stepped into the moonlight, they all recognized her. “Someone who’s got as much right to be here as any of you.” As if to prove it, she sang:

I’ve no man to quarrel

No babies to bawl;

The best way of living

Is be no wife at all.

“Carolanne,” Bliss said. “I thought you and I had settled this.”

“You mean you thought I agreed with you because I quit arguing,” the girl said bitterly. She was seventeen, with black hair cut shoulder length and held back with pins. “I just know when to stop wasting my time. You say I can’t be part of this, and I say I can. I
am
a First Daughter. I know my mother’s song, and I’ve ridden the night wind.”

“Yes, that’s all true,” Peggy said. “But you don’t have full Tufa blood. That’s nothing anyone can change, and it’s no one’s fault. It simply is what it is.”

“Can all of you
prove
you have one hundred percent true blood? Is there a blood test they can do for this? You work with blood every day, Bliss Overbay, so tell us.”

“We know,” Bliss said. “And we also know you’re
not.
You should go, Carolanne.”

“Not before I tell you high-and-mighty First Daughters what I think about your little club.” She held up her left hand and made a gesture they all knew, the first of the Four Signs of the First Daughters. Bronwyn heard someone gasp in surprise.

Bliss showed no emotion, and responded with the appropriate countersign. Then she made a sign herself, and Carolanne responded. “See?” the younger girl said defiantly. “I pay attention, I learn. I’m as good as any of you. You’re lucky I don’t take what I know over to Rockhouse’s people. I bet they’d be just tickled to have this information.”