I shoved cats out of the way and pulled the afghan over us, holding my sister, not sure if she was happy or horrified or something too complicated for a single word. Time passed. I felt the car on my road again. Surely an hour hadn’t gone by.
“How you think we’ll get them to let me live here?” Mud asked.
“I’ll have to work on that. But maybe the mamas can be persuaded. Maybe we’ll have tea. Talk. Show some stuff.”
Mud giggled into the warm space between my neck and shoulder. “Leaves?”
I laughed with her, a single note of shared hilarity. “If necessary.”
Her merriment faded. “Is Sam one of us?”
“I don’t know. He knows I’m... different, though. And he knows he’s different, though he never mentioned growing leaves.”
“Esther? Priscilla? Judith?”
“I don’t know. But it’s genetic, so even if they’re human, their children might be like us.”
Mud pushed away and stood, smoothing down her skirts and smoothing back her bunned-up hair. “You let me knowwhen you’uns is gonna have that tea. I reckon I’m gonna need to be with you’un for it.”
“I will.” I stared up at Mud as Sam parked and got out of the truck. She had to be nearly five feet tall now. Growing like a weed, though that would stop since she had started her feminine cycle. Mud was going to be a short woman. Which brought a soft smile to my face. “You scared?”
“No. I’m not scared at all. I got you. And you got me. Will I have to go to public school?”
“Yes. And we’ll have to talk about you riding the school bus. Get legal papers so you can stay with me. You’d be a latchkey kid.”
“I don’t know what that is. Can’t be no stranger than growing leaves.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Good. I gotta go now. Thank you for the hospitality.”
“Peace as you leave my home.”
Mud nodded and raced out the door, banging it closed behind her. I curled my legs on the couch, feeling the warmth from her still in the cushion. Wondering what—by all that was holy—I was getting myself into.
•••
I stopped off at the Rankins’ place of business and caught Thad Rankin in the office. “Mr. Rankin?” I asked softly, tapping on the door.
“Sister Nell Ingram, get yourself in here.” The big man stood and enveloped me in a hug. He had taken to hugging me since I went to church with him a few times. Quick, gentle hugs, as if teaching me that hugging a man was an okay thing to do. They hugged a lot at his church. Laughed a lot too. It was a very different church from God’s Cloud. If I ever decided to attend a church again, it would be one like Brother Rankin’s, one full of honest friendship. He let me go. “Take a chair, Sister Nell,” he said, sitting behind his desk in the only other chair. “What can I do for you?”
I took the single spindled wood chair and held out a list of fires that might have been suspicious. “You know I’m withPsyLED. I’ve been looking at some of the recent fires and wondered if you were on-site at these.”
Thad didn’t take the list, just watched me across the expanse of his desk. “Do I need a lawyer, Nell? Black man with an officer of the law in his office?”
“Oh.” I dropped my hand and let a breath go in shock. “Mr. Thad, I would never come to you’un—to you—my friend, with you as a suspect in anything. First of all, I would know you hadn’t done whatever crime it is. Second, I’d be standing with you, shotgun in hand to defend you and yours. And last, you do not need a lawyer unless you tell me you can start fire with your mind.”
Mr. Thad threw back his head and laughed, accepted the sheet of paper, and asked, “What can I do for you on these fires?”
“Did you see anything odd? Smell anything odd? Have any thoughts about a guilty party? Did any of your fellow firefighters act strange at these fires? Any orange flames with purple tips?”
“No, no, no, and no, to the first four questions. Everything was pretty normal. As to the color of the flames, you see all sorts of colors as houses burn, what with all the synthetics and man-made furnishings. So I see orange flames all the time. That’s the most common color of fire, you know.” His eyes dropped to the sheet and scanned up and down, his brow creased as he thought.
“Yeah. I know that. The purple flames?”
“Over the years, I’ve seen green, purple, a strange metal-flake blue, an iridescent rainbow color, though nothing I can recall at any of these fires.”
I deflated and accepted the list back. “If you think of anything odd you might have noticed, will you give me a call?” I handed him my card. “I have a cell phone now.” I waggled my cell at him, showing it off.
