It agreed to harm no human, no mammal, no bird. No vertebrate of any kind.
One last blood feeding,I thought at it.Then no more.One-handed, I placed the rooster on the ground, an offering. The tree pushed rootlets up through the ground. Found the chicken. It wrapped its vines about the rooster’s struggling body, but then it hesitated. Paused.
The vines around my feet tightened. It didn’t want therooster or its blood. It wanted me. It wanted a willing sacrifice. It was asking permission. Waiting patiently, in the way of trees.
I studied the tree’s consciousness, the tree I had mutated and brought to sentience with my blood.If you take only a drop of my blood,I thought at it,fine. But if you take too much, I’ll... I’ll be most unhappy.
The tree extended a single barb. It pierced my toe. Pain and shock jetted up my leg. Drops of my blood welled and trailed down, to drip onto the ground. The tree sucked up my blood. Ate it. The thorn withdrew, leaving a sharp pain in my flesh. I felt the leaf that spooled out of my wound and closed it.
I felt the vampire tree’s rootlets uncoil from my feet. Uncoil from the rooster.
I felt the interest of the tree turn to Soulwood. Knew when it shifted its attention away from me and to the land.
I opened my eyes to meet Mud’s eyes.
“Whoa, Bessie,” she said. “That was... That was...” She shook her head, not having words.
“You growing leaves?” I asked her.
Mud released my hand and felt her hair, studied her fingers. “Nope.”
“Good.” I pulled away from the land. Standing, I gathered my blanket into a ball at my waist.
Tandy walked from the tree to stand in front of me. “That was...” He shook his head. “Oh my God. That was amazing,” he murmured. “Beyond wonderful. Not anything I could ever have imagined.” His eyes were shining bright red. His Lichtenberg lines feathered down his face and neck, scarlet against his too-white skin. “Thank you for letting me be part of that.”
“I don’t reckonyou’ungrew leaves?” I asked in church-speak.
“Nary a one,” he answered back in church-speak.
“Thank you for coming. I know it’s made you late to work.”
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
“Me neither,” Mud said. “Let’s go home.”
“Mama and Daddy haven’t said you can move in with me.”
“If’n they don’t let me move in, I’ll jist grow me some leaves,” she said, mischief in her eyes. “I think I know how to do that now.”
“Oh, Mud.” I hugged her for a moment before releasing her. “Well. Okay. What are we gonna do about the rooster?”
“Let it go? Someone’ll claim it and when it wakes them up at three in the morning they’ll get a good meal outta it.”
Together we released the rooster. The mean old bird scratched the earth, giving me the evil eye, as if trying to decide if he was going to attack me, but then he reconsidered and raced away, crowing. I put on my shoes. Tandy in our wake, my true sister and I walked to my Chevy truck and drove back to Soulwood. Back to home.
EPILOGUE
I sat on my porch swing, warm spring breezes dancing across the lawn, brushing newly leafed plants, pale green trees waving in the wind. Birds were singing and squirrels were racing around wide trunks, playing tag and catch-me-if-you-can. A brave lizard raced across the house wall and into a space it believed the cats couldn’t reach. Had they been awake, one of the cats would have caught and eaten him, lizards being a very fine dinner to a mouser. But they were snoozing on the front porch, stretched out in the sun, unmoving, except for Cello’s tail tip twitching every now and then.
Mud was at home, packing for her move here. I didn’t know if it would be a permanent move or not. That would be up to the state’s social services department and a judge.
My cell phone rang. It was on the swing seat beside me. It was Occam’s number. Something leaped in my chest, like a wereleopard into a tree. I answered. “This is Nell.” Nell. Not Ingram. To set the tone.
“Nell, sugar.” His voice sounded rough and coarse, like the voice of a chain-smoking old man. “I didn’t know if you’d answer.”
“I didn’t think you’d call. Seems like we both were wrong.” He didn’t reply, but I could hear the soft purr of his fancy car. “What happened? Why haven’t you—” I stopped, not able to ask why he hadn’t called me.
“I’ve been out of work. Healing.”
