Black Locust Letters (16 page)

Betty made a promise to herself: She wouldn't fall for him,
not again, until she knew he was dependable.

An
hour or more passed at the café, and though they got busy, the
waitress didn't give Betty a sour look. She must have seen the
bicycle outside and known that Betty wanted to avoid the storm for
a while.

Forgotten in the corner, Betty withdrew an envelope. This was
the one that Jenny had read, the one with the misspelled
Bell.

Betty opened it, expecting another long letter, and was
surprised that it was only a paragraph.

Dearest Songstress, if you read this in time, I ask of you
not to go to the changing of the hour, as is in your habit to do.
It may be for the best to avoid all the area for some time. I
cannot say more, and even having said this, I have spoken too much.
Please heed this warning, should you happen upon it.

Surprised, Betty looked at the letter for a date, but didn't
see one, nor on the envelope. Unlike regular mail, Never Were's
didn't postmark mail. How long had it been in her possession? Some
time, likely, since she seemed to remember it from long ago and its
edges were frayed by her handling.

Despite the rain, Betty settled her bill and rode home,
knowing she would be soaked through. Her purpose now was to check
the other letters, to see if there was a more recent warning she
had missed.

Once
she was home, in dry clothes, and was reading her letters over a
cup of hot tea with her feet propped up by the fire, Betty saw
several more references. There was Exica mentioned here, and Gromil
at another place. Other names were slipped into the text, ones she
did not know, and whose meaning would transform the message of the
letters.

Betty found her calendar. Thursday still had D.R. written on
it with a question mark, from when she had made the note following
Jenny's information. In the time since, she'd decided that it was
best not to go, but what about now? She frowned.

Who
was playing her, Slim or the sender? They each claimed to want her
for their side. She wouldn't know any more if she were to dawdle in
making her choice, but neither did she want to choose without
sufficient information. Betty sat back in her chair, and decided:
She would play with them both, for now.

It
was overwhelming, to be assailed on all the senses at once like
that. The squeal and chirp of tires against asphalt, the roar of
unmuffled rat rods, the vibrations of the noises thundering through
her skin, then, when the noise faded with the press of the clutch,
came the stink of burning rubber and gasoline. The bleachers filled
with standing, jumping people screaming encouragement and giving
victory pumps with their fists while others behind them were in a
bitter argument which would forever go unnoticed by those around
them.

There was a man over loud speakers, and though he had the
same throaty timbre as Welch, he was not Incubus. This man's role
seemed to be solely to announce the winners and the next events,
introducing the drivers and their cars, each of which were named.
Crazy Charlotte. Frankenbride. Dubyabomber. Blazing Betty.
Murderin' Mary.

Big
back tires and low fronts seemed to be in vogue, as well as paint
jobs detailing flames or grins like on fighter planes, and no
matter their color scheme or tire preference, chrome was
everywhere, so much chrome that they could have done with half the
spotlights with the way the cars reflected it.

The
track itself wasn't much, enough for four cars abreast. But the
races were just one activity they did: Singly, the drivers would go
down the track making as many drifts as they could, or being fancy
and doing spins or popping a wheelie or making their car go up on
one side of the wheels, the other side spinning in the
air.

Watching them made her fear for an imminent crash, which the
crowd apparently looked forward to with eagerness, and so Betty
wandered to the place where food wagons parked in a circle around
picnic tables. It was here that she found the first of the
storytellers. They'd started a bonfire, one with clogging smoke
which was from burning the half-rotted, painted pallets piled not
far away.

The
men spoke in low, quaking voices which were almost lost when the
announcer blared or the cars chirped their tires, but it didn't
take long for Betty to realize that she was listening in not on a
conversation but on a story.

He
finished by saying, “...but when they looked in the coffin, what
was there was not a body, but a single blue hair ribbon, proof that
her death had been a hoax and it is said the lovers are still upon
the plains, riding through the grasslands for now and
eternity.”

Thus
satisfied, a father collected his now-excited son and daughter,
taking them in the direction of the stands. Six others sat beside
the man, comfortable with their blankets in their laps and
half-watching eyes which turned on Betty as she seated herself,
awkwardly.

The
woman who had squinty eyes, perhaps from all the smoke in the air,
leaned into Betty's shoulder and took two deep sniffs. She turned
to the others.

“
Human. Natural scents.”

Whatever Betty had been thinking of saying was now gone for
good. She blinked in surprise when the others grumbled or nodded,
and the storyteller looked to her curiously. “What brings you here,
my dear?”

“
I—I
came to hear a story. Or two.” She looked down at her gloves,
feeling the weight of their eyes pressing down on her.

“
Did
you come to the drag races and discover us, or did you come to the
races to discover us?” he asked, an edge to his voice that Betty
didn't understand.

“
Jenny said I should come.”

“
Jenny?” repeated the man, mulling the name over his
tongue.

“
Laverish's wife?” asked the woman sitting next to
her.

Betty shook her head. “The yarn merchant at Sunny Glenn
market.”

None
of the people looked like they recognized the name, but that didn't
stop the storyteller from saying, “And why did she refer you to us?
For what story would she have us tell? Speak the name.”

Intimidated, Betty swallowed nervously. “I don't know the
name. It's just references. Augurs and bells.”

At
this, three of them stiffened visibly, and the storyteller leaned
forward, his voice so low that she understood him only by the way
his lips moved. “How did you come by
these...references?”

Her
chest shook and she suddenly feared that she had been asking the
wrong things in the wrong places, and all the warnings of the last
few weeks rang in her ears.

“
Letters. Sent to me.”

“
She
stole them,” muttered a wide-eyed woman with curly hair. “Stole
them, she did.”

Frightened, though she couldn't be sure why, Betty insisted,
“No, I didn't steal them. They're mine.”

“
Who
sends them, then? Why not ask your correspondent?”

“
I
don't know who it is.” Shaking, Betty reached into her purse and
withdrew the one addressed to Bell, the warning. She thought it
would be the least damning if anyone read it. The woman beside her
sniffed, then snatched the letter and breathed it in as though she
were going to drink the letter. The others watched her, carefully
concealing their emotions.

“
Too
much perfume. Just her smell and tree petals.” With this dismissal,
the woman passed off the letters to the others and she rubbed her
nose as though her sinuses had been burned.

“
Avian,” said the wide-eyed woman after scratching the
paper.

A
man took it next and examined the script. “Love letter.”

Then
a fourth took it and tapped his finger along the edge. “Military.
Officer.”

As
one, they nodded and said, “Changeling.”

Betty's eyes flew to the storyteller, who alone seemed to
command a silent authority over the others. She demanded in a
whisper, “What do you mean changeling?”

“
They are talking about you,” he said. “A human welcomed into
the fairie world.”

“
Human wives are taken often enough, but there's usually
something remarkable about them,” said the slump shouldered
man.

“
Beauty,” said the wide-eyed woman.

“
Spirit,” said a redhead who had up until now been
silent.

“
Horsemanship, archery, grief, something.” The squinty eyed
woman leaned in closer, sniffing at Betty, then said into her face,
“What is it that has drawn him to you?”

From
the way they were all staring at her expectantly, she realized that
this was no casual question. They wanted to know. At first, she
panicked. What was there about her that stood out? Not her eyes,
not her face, or anything! She wasn't an archer, she couldn't ride
a horse, and she had never been called high-spirited.
What...

“
My
voice.” The realization dawned on her as she said it. “He's in high
praise of my voice.”

The
silent woman pursed her lips. “Morning show.”

As
one, they all stared into each other's faces, acting for an instant
as though Betty were not in existence at all. The storyteller said,
“Wave talker.”

Immediately, the squinty eyed woman objected. “We can't train
a wave talker! The Ladybird hasn't given her consent.”

“
But
how can we not? How can we turn a blind eye to this golden apple?”
spat back the wide-eyed woman.

“
Perhaps we had best act on the authority granted to us in the
letters,” recommended the redhead, who addressed Betty next. “We
will answer your questions but will not provide further details.
Tell me what it is that your lover has spoken of?”

He
wasn't her lover, but Betty didn't want to contradict them now. She
said, “It's letters I have received, that is all... he said he
feared the stealing of the bell, mentioned someone by the name of
Loti, and has said something of cowbirds.”

The
storyteller nodded. “There is no story to be told on the cowbirds,
save warnings that females count their infants and examine them for
obvious differences from the rest of their brood.
Cowbirds, sometimes called cuckoos, are brood
parasites,
²⁸
they lay eggs in
other's nests to be raised by the host. They are aggressive but
tend to think kindly on those who have raised them, and think about
their host species as family while their mates are more often
dalliances.

“
Now...augurs, you mentioned augurs? Bird watchers, denoting
those who read signals from the birds for signs from their god or
gods. It is the common belief that an augur should ascend a high
hill before the clock strikes midnight. The night must be pristine,
cloudless, with or without a moon, it does not matter, but the
timing and the weather should play into the reading of the signs.
If the signs are seen from the east, it is seen as favorable, if
from the west, unfavorable. Falling stars, lightning, blood moons,
they all count as signs, too, but the most important are the birds.
Who appears, who disappears, and what are they doing. They say that
the most important hill here is not at the top of the mountain, but
in town, some place high where the city may be seen, but sheltered
and wooded and quiet.

“
Loti is our guardian. He keeps us safe. She warns us of
coming evils. There is one story of Loti where she falls in love
with a German prince, but when they meet face to face, he had no
more interest in her than he did in a bar wench. So Loti knew she
would never achieve his love, though she tried by becoming his
servant and doing him great deeds, keeping him from being tricked
by the Baron's greedy plans, saving him twice from hunting
accidents by taking the form of a swan and flying to get help, and
finally the day came for his wedding to a princess from a faraway
land, and so it was that Loti said goodbye, but she spent the rest
of her life caring for him with the same affection that she always
had.

“
Now, the stealing of the bell. What do you know of
it?”

Betty admitted what she had been told, and the man
nodded.

“
To
this I have a bit more to add, to make your visit worthwhile. This
letter you have shown us,” at this, he raised up the letter so she
could see. “It is addressed to The Bell. He is calling you the
bell, the thing which is to be protected and stolen, embellished
and defiled.

“
While you think on that, let me tell you what it means to
have a bell. They are instruments, chiefly used to drive away evil
spirits. It is the clapper, the bit that makes the noise, which
releases its power. It is metal, good, solid metal being an alloy
of copper and tin, which is particularly potent because it is what
was made by the dwarves of The Beneath. The power of the bell is
related to the bell's size, to its shape, and the purity of
sound.

“
Have you heard the church bells ring through the streets,
echoing off buildings and falling to silence in the woods? These
bells, they are what keep us safe, what keeps the darkness at bay.
You must be cautious. And bear in mind the warning that Exica
befell for the sake of an infatuation so terribly
unrequited.”