TEN
The cats were on the front porch, yowling, when I got home. I let them in, fed them enough cat kibble to keep them around without keeping them from working, and while they ate, I stirred up the last of the coals in the stove, added some kindling and winter wood that would burn fast and hot, to warm the cold house. The chill of fall had left the place miserable, and I’d need a shower to wake up in the morning. For tonight, I was simply too tired to wait on hot water. I dumped some beans into a pot, checked them for rocks or grit, rinsed them, and added more water, leaving them to soften on the warming shelf above the stove. Then I used the tepid water in the stove’s water heater and a washrag, standing in the tiny bathroom behind the kitchen to give myself, my face, and my feet what Mama called a sink bath. I brushed and braided my wind-snarled hair, pulled on my winter flannels for the first time this season, and climbed the stairs to my cot. At least it was warmer upstairs. After a few spoonfuls of cold stew, I fell into bed with the cats for what would surely be far too little sleep.
As the chilly sheets warmed and sleep enfolded me, I thought about my woods. I had never been away for so long at a time before. And never so late into the night. It was strange to contemplate, but I felt as if they were sighing with relief at my return. As if they had missed me.
I lifted a hand out from the covers and touched the wood floor, feeling, somehow, the chill of the wind outside, stirring the trees with the thought of winter’s sleep. Feeling their leaves closing off with the season as they changed color and fell. It felt as if the woods had been searching for me for hours and were finally at rest. At the fringe of the property was the darkness I had felt, restless and fragmented and afraid, if broken shadows could be any of those things. But it seemed calmer than before. That had to be good. In the distance, gunfire again echoed through the night, new and worrisome.
I rolled over in the warming bedding, pushed a cat’s body off me, closed my eyes, and let sleep take me.
* * *
I was awake at five a.m. on Friday, gripey, gritty eyed, cold, and wanting coffee. I hadn’t used any of the battery power the night before and so had lights to help wake me, and soon had coffee percolating on the woodstove and fresh wood heating the house. To make it easier to heat the main part of the house, I kept the extra bedrooms closed off in the winter—the bedroom once used by Leah and John, and the bedrooms upstairs that had been used by his second and third wives, Brenda Bell and Leota, the wives who had left him when he couldn’t give them babies, long before he married me.
I’d met them a time or two after I married John and before we left the church. They were happy women, full of satisfaction, with a passel of young’uns between them. After they each had divorced from John, they had married brothers, twins, and lived in a huge house of merged families. They seemed nice enough and happy enough, and if I was honest, I was glad they hadn’t stayed with John. He’d not have needed me if they had stayed, and I might have been given to the down-the-hill Hamiltons, Maw-maw’s folk, or given as a junior wife or concubine to the colonel. Or maybe not, if Sister Erasmus was right about Maw-maw and Mama conniving to keep me out of the colonel’s hands. If John and Leah hadn’t been around, maybe my family would have found another way to keep me safe. I wanted to talk to them soon and . . . and see if I could determine the truth from the untruth of John’s tales to me about my family. Just thinking that he had misled me left a hurting place in my heart.
I showered while the coffee perked, and washed my hair. There was enough leftover power to dry my hair with the handheld hair dryer that I seldom used. And I had one clean gray skirt I could wear, with leggings underneath for warmth. Over two T-shirts and a buttoned blouse, I added a thick, hand-crocheted cardigan. On my feet I pulled two pairs of socks and my best pair of heavy, lace-up ankle boots. The boots were scuffed and needed to be polished, but they were comfortable and warm enough for all day. The outfit’s colors didn’t match, but the soft grays and greens didn’t clash either. I could shuck layers as the day warmed, if it warmed. I braided my waist-length hair into a crown around my head and slipped a thick hairband around my neck, one I could pull up around my ears and over my head to hide the crown, which might be considered too proud for a childless widder-woman to wear in public.
Dressed, I stopped and looked at myself in the mirrors. And frowned. I was wearing clothes the church would approve of. Until just this moment, I hadn’t even noticed that . . . that I didn’t own anything that the church would scowl over except my gardening overalls. I didn’t wear jeans like T. Laine, or the wildly patterned, filmy skirts like JoJo wore. Or the flesh-hugging tank tops and slacks that Paka wore. I was . . . I was still a churchwoman.
I studied myself, my face pale in the mirror. My skin was good thanks to the creams and oils I made for myself, but I could use some makeup, some blush to pinken my cheeks. Maybe some lipstick. And mascara, though I feared I’d poke out an eye with the wand. Makeup. And lessons to use it. Maybe some colorful shirts. Pink. Red. And maybe I’d get my ears pierced and buy some earrings. Tingles flew through me at the improper and unholy thoughts. And I smiled. Next time I had money, I’d stop by the CVS and peruse the aisles.
I ate an apple, drank two cups of coffee, and rinsed the beans and added fresh water, salt, and a packet of hot peppers and herbs I kept premixed for beans. I dumped in a cup of apple cider vinegar and some dried onion. Putting the stew pot on the hottest part of the stove, I set the dampers to last the day, then surveyed the house. The sheets needed to be changed, the stove’s wood ash cleaned out, and sachets in Leah’s old closet needed to be replaced. Out in the garden, the trellis was listing, needing to be staked up. My tools were going to rust if they didn’t get cleaned. The dead plants needed to be pulled, diseased leaves removed. But none of that was urgent; it all was going to have to wait.
I picked up my keys and small bag and let the cats out. I stood on the back porch and knew that no one was on my land. No one was watching. I walked through the dark and started up the Chevy, pulling out of the drive and down the mountain.
I beat the rush-hour traffic and stopped at the store to pick up a big bag of flour, some flax meal, and black quinoa, wishing I had money to buy one of the insulated coffee cups that the special agents used so often. This was what the churchmen taught—that association with nonchurch members would change a body and soul, sending a believer into covetousness, idolatry, and sin. I was already heading down that road to damnation, but I discovered that I didn’t care. I wove through the near-empty streets with a dark resolve, hands clinging to the steering wheel with a death grip, as if making this drive was sealing me into something I had never imagined and would never be able to return from.
I was at the hotel early. There was no light under the door at the room, and so I went back to the lobby and got the desk clerk to remind me how to log on to the hotel Wi-Fi. Once in, I e-mailed them on the laptop that I was downstairs. I also discovered several orders for herbal treatments and oils, and the good news that I had received nearly fifty dollars through Old Lady Stevens’ PayPal account, which meant I could stop by her place, pick up the money, and buy more groceries. I could also put some cash aside for the stove wood I’d need in order to get through the winter. I firmly turned away the temptation to buy lipstick and fripperies. When I got paid—if I got paid—by Rick’s agency, I’d see about giving in to that particular delicious sin.
* * *
The smell of coffee met me at the suite’s common room when I opened the door with my card key, that and stale pizza, and multiple creatures under stress. Unwashed humans and cats, sweat, sleeplessness, and frustration gave the air a strong, unpleasant tang. It made me wary, and I stopped just inside the door, surveying the small space.
Tandy and T. Laine looked the most strained, which made sense as they had pulled the all-nighter. They were curled on the sofa, heads at either end and feet in the middle of the sofa as if they’d been playing footsie. T. Laine was dressed in wrinkled black sweats and a flamingo pink turtleneck T-shirt, and was wrapped in a blanket. Tandy was dressed in what looked like flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. It was an intimate scene, too personal and cozy for my comfort level.
Tandy stopped my reaction with, “We haven’t been fooling around, Nell, despite the comfy impression.”
“Good God, no,” T. Laine said, swearing. “I adore Tandy, but having sex with a guy who can tell what I’m feeling would be miserable. I couldn’t fake anything.”
Tandy offered a small tired smile, as if they’d had this conversation often. “True. There’s no cheating with an empath, but then again, we always know what our partners want and need. Empaths make the best lovers.”
“I’ll make you a coffee mug with that on it for Christmas, but since you’re the only empath any of us know, I’ll have to take your word for it. I need my bed.” She called louder, “Rick! Nell’s here and we can pass the baton. I’m beat.”
Pass the baton?
The door to the room with the super-king-sized bed opened, revealing the foot of the bed and the rumpled covers with Paka still curled in the twisted blankets. Rick was dressed, like T. Laine, in sweats with socks on his feet. He turned and crossed the room to tap on one door into an adjoining room. Occam stepped out instantly and glided past the king bed without looking at the occupant.
Unlike the others, Occam was dressed for the day, in black jeans and a black T-shirt, though without shoes. The tops of his bare feet were thinly dusted with a lace of light brown hair and his toenails were rounded and smooth. Something about the smooth toenails struck me as so very odd. John had never smoothed his nails. He had kept them clipped, but the ends had been jagged and the nails themselves had been thick and rough. They had always been rough on the sheets, ripping them more than once. And they had been grating on my calves and thighs. I’d hated his toenails. But Occam’s were . . . nice. Even his fingernails were rounded and smooth.
A flare of something unknown sped through me, and I dropped my laptop on the low table, went to the coffeemaker, and busied myself at the machine. When I had a fresh pot gurgling I turned around and caught Tandy watching me. His face was solemn and intent. I realized that he’d felt my spike of . . . whatever that had been. And my reaction after. He gave a small nod that I couldn’t interpret.
I glanced at Occam. He was eating a slice of cold pizza, his blondish head bent to capture the cold pie in strong white teeth, his hair swinging forward and curling on the ends. Such long hair wasn’t all that rare to see on a man, but such beautiful hair was. His hair gleamed in the lamplight. It had to be the cat genes.
When all but Paka were assembled, and coffee had been passed around, and a second pot started, Tandy said, “To rule out God’s Cloud of Glory Church and to search for signs of HST, the FBI is making RVAC flyovers of the compound at dawn. We have prelim footage and some still shots of panel vans that could match the description of the snatch-and-grab kidnapvan used by the kidnapmaniacs, except they had plates and the camera angle wasn’t sufficient to determine if any vehicles had a dent to match the kidnapvan.”