EIGHT
I took Highway 62 and was back in Knoxville HQ by four thirty p.m. It had already been a long day. I updated JoJo on the interrogation in Cookeville PD, wrote up my reports, organized my files, and watered my office plants. I also went upstairs to the vacant third floor and looked around. Construction had begun in the last few days in the huge, empty, wall-less space. The studs in the outer walls were metal, not wood, with foam insulation everywhere. The floor was neatly swept concrete. Wiring extended from pipes in the walls, and plumbing pipes were roughed in. There were orange lines spray-painted all over the floor where walls might go. On the back of the building there was a shaft for a future elevator, in a space that roughly correlated with the emergency stairs.
A makeshift table stood in the middle of the room. I walked across to it and saw two sets of floor plans. One was yellowed and dusty, and showed a lab. The other was newer, and it was a plan for offices.
It was interesting. And different. If the offices went through, it meant having PsyLED brass on hand all the time. FireWind, Soul. And half of our team split up and working up here. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for change.
Which was why I hadn’t gone home yet. Not being ready for change and not wanting to deal with the monsters Strife and Discord. “Time to face the monsters,” I whispered. Downstairs, I gathered my gear and said good-bye to JoJo. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Watch the press conference on YouTube,” she said.
“Yeah. Okay,” I said, not knowing if I would be able to. I might have to catch the high points later. It was a sunny Saturday with fluffy clouds in the sky, but I was too tired to enjoy it.Pellissippi Parkway and Oak Ridge Highway were bumper-to-bumper and I sighed with relief when I skirted Oliver Springs and turned into the hills. There were a few yellow poplars and rare orangey maples standing out against the wash of green. I rolled down the window and breathed deeply, smelling the life and the wonder of the green. Soulwood was waiting for me, and I knew the moment it felt me drive onto its lands. A rush of happiness and warmth rolled through me like the first day of spring. I was home.
***
Mud was in the backyard, training Cherry in the homemade obstacle course between the new greenhouse and the house. My youngest sister was wearing shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt—not clothing she would ever have been allowed to wear were she still in the church. Mud’s short hair bounced with every stride.
In a burst of defiance following her second day of public school, Mud had come in the door, gone to the kitchen, and whacked off her hair with a kitchen knife. A boy had pulled her ponytail and teased her about being a member of the “sex church.” I had a feeling there had been more than that said, enough to leave Mud in tears. The ragged hair had resulted in a trip into town to the hair salon where I got my first short cut. It had also resulted in the purchase of training bras, Mud’s first tube of pale lipstick, first powder compact, and first deodorant. Things I hadn’t thought about for my baby sister.
Mama had nearly had kittens when she saw the short hair and the lipstick, and started a ruckus about me not getting custody. I’d been forced to pull her and the other mamas aside and tell them that the church was known by the younger townie boys as the “sex church.” The mamas and I had a long, plainspoken discussion about that, and about what it meant to the church’s young women in the eyes of the world. It had been a come-to-Jesus meeting for real and sure, and, while they were still speaking to me, the mamas weren’t happy.
Mud hadn’t noticed me drive up. She looked free and happy and adorable and gangly, just like all the other girls at middle school. I sat in the car and watched my sister run, long bare legs in the early fall sunshine. The springer spaniel, Cherry, was totally focused on her, desperate to please her master. In thatmoment, I knew that no matter how bad things got with Esther and no matter how badly my sisters fought, and no matter how hard and expensive it was to get full custody of Mud, it was all worth it. Having Mud here and safe and no longer in the sights of the churchmen was worth anything and everything. I was close to getting full and permanent custody. Just one more hearing. Just a few more thousand dollars in legal fees. And Mud would be free.
I got out of the car and carried my gear, the potted tree, and the bud vase up the steps to the porch and inside. The new air conditioner was purring, keeping the house at a steady seventy-six degrees. The air smelled of cleaning supplies and fresh paint from the remodeling that had only recently been completed. There was a fresh loaf of pumpkin bread on the kitchen table. I put my gear beside it. The house was spotless. No dust on the tables or my desk. No cat hair under the edge of the sofa. No dirt where an animal rubbed against a doorjamb. No dog hair on the sofa. No dirty dishes. Not a single thing out of place. It looked like... like Esther’s place. Too clean. Too perfect.
Also, no mouser cats were in sight. And no Esther. Except for the faint squeals from outside and the AC unit, the house was silent.
Quietly, I put my things away and used the downstairs bath. It had been remodeled, with white tile everywhere, a new sink and cabinet, new flooring, and even an exhaust fan to suck the moisture out. The bath smelled of Clorox and it sparkled. My toothbrush, comb, brush, and hair dryer were lined up perfectly. There was pine cleanser in the toilet. No hair or leaves were on the floor. I sighed. Esther had clearly been in a cleaning frenzy. A common reaction to trauma.
I carried thedeath and decay–stinking clothes to the back porch to put on a load of wash. Someone had started a stew in the slow cooker that was sitting on the gardening table and it smelled fabulous.
Out back Mud and her dog were running and jumping. My twelfth year had been so very different. With a rush, I remembered the utter relief of moving here, away from the Colonel, away from danger, but also away from everyone and everything I knew. The loneliness. The homesickness. There had been no carefree moments like Mud was having. It was all different forher. Cherry raced through a succession of hoops and Mud squealed with delight.
I started the wash, lowered the machine’s lid, and stepped into the day’s last warmth. Mud squealed even higher in pitch and raced to me, grabbing me into a bone-crushing hug. She had gotten so tall. Gingerly, I hugged her back, not quite understanding why there were tears in my eyes.
“Come see the greenhouse!” She dragged me by one arm to the side and back of the house, as if I might try to get away. “I got all sorts of stuff growing.”
We left Cherry sitting woefully outside and entered the greenhouse, which was heated from the sun and muggy from the watering system. It was all built to church standards by Daddy, our true brother Sam, and the Nicholson faction in the church. Mud and I had planted lettuce and spinach and basil and green onions in its raised beds, along with a dozen aromatic and flowering herbs she had picked out herself. All were growing faster and taller and greener than they should have. “I been telling them to grow,” she said. “And they are. Look! This’un’s called Thai basil. Smell,” she said, breaking off a young leaf and holding it to my nose.
I sniffed. “Nice. Spicy. They’re beautiful,” I said, pulling her against me, my arm round her shoulders. I had told basils to grow when I was a child. Mud was a plant person like me, like Esther. I knew it. I felt it in my bones, though I had no real proof yet. I checked Mud carefully every night before she went to bed, and so far no leaves.
Mud started chattering about chickens and chicken runs in the greenhouse. Nattering about herbal vinegars and the teas she wanted to grow and sell to the townies. Happy. We walked together and talked, and then I said I had to get back inside. She hugged me once hard and raced back to Cherry and her agility training.
Back on the porch, I scooped some soil from the bucket I kept there for quick rooting and added it to the vampire tree, re-covering the roots. I also snipped off the browned end of the lavender rose’s stem and tapped the cut end into a bottle of Rootone before I set the stem into a small pot of Soulwood soil. My fingers lingered a moment on the soft petals of Occam’sgift, and my heart lightened, remembering the way he had brought it up from behind his leg.
About half the time, roses could be rooted from single stems, though it was better to cut one fresh off the bush after the flower had withered, and the rose hip was beginning to form, and place it into willow water. I had no willow water on hand, but I figured I might have better-than-even odds, since I used Soulwood soil. I had checked and Sterling Silver was out of patent, so I could legally root it. Legally grow it. I watered the soil, gave it a boost with my own power, and placed it where I thought it might be happy.
I hoped it rooted. I wanted a plant out of Occam’s first rose to me.
Back inside, I didn’t see or sense or hear Esther. I hoped Mud hadn’t killed her and buried her out back.
Or worse, fed her to the land. Or chopped her up and put her in the stew.
The cats were hiding under my bed. The bedroom floor around them was spotless. They rushed out and jumped on the bedspread, all three of them staring daggers at me. I sighed again and said, “I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can do.”
Jezzie sniffed at me and claimed my pillow. Torquil turned her dark head away and started to clean her nether regions, in clear disapproval. Cellomrowed, rolled over, and showed me her belly, asking for a rub. Even knowing that the belly rub request might be a ploy to give her an excuse to scratch me, I sat on the bed and rubbed her for the comfort it brought. I wasn’t a cat lover. I was a dog person. But the cats had claimed Soulwood, and that meant they had claimed me. And they had been the best of company for months, ever since the werecats had tamed them. They missed Occam in my bed. So did I. I missed his scent on my pillow, missed his cat warmth against my back in the night. But for now, the cats were my distraction and my excuse to keep from confronting Esther.
Back in the kitchen, I turned on the new electric kettle for tea and started a pot of coffee. I also put a bottle of Sister Erasmus’ wine in the refrigerator. I seldom yearned for anything stronger than wine. Right now I understood the desire for a good stiff drink.
