Art's Blood (8 page)

Almost immediately the cabin door opened and Ben emerged, wearing only boxer shorts. “Aunt E?” He peered into the night, straining to see. “Is something wrong?”

“I think there’s a fire down on the road— maybe Dessie’s place! We’d better go down and see. Is Kyra…” She paused. “Have you seen Kyra?”

“No,” he called back, sounding puzzled. “Isn’t she over there? Gimme a second to get some clothes on and I’ll meet you at the car. You might want to grab some rakes and shovels in case they need help with brush fires.”

As Elizabeth went back through the house she called Kyra’s name but still there was no response. She was throwing two rakes and a shovel into the back of her jeep when Ben appeared, clubbing his long hair back into a doubled-up ponytail. The dogs were howling again and more sirens could be heard. “Did you find Kyra, Aunt E?” he asked as they hurtled down the road.

“Not a sign of her. I don’t understand—” Her words were cut off by the sight of Dessie’s house, windows glowing red and flames shooting from the roof. Three fire trucks were parked in the yard of the little house, and yellow-suited volunteer firemen aimed heavy fire hoses at the conflagration.

Ben and Elizabeth left the jeep at the foot of their drive and sprinted across the paved road to the fire. It seemed confined to the house; the barn that The 3 had used as a studio was untouched, and the surrounding vegetation, still damp from a heavy rain the day before, was not in danger of burning.

“Jerry!” Ben hurried over to a heavyset man who, though completely togged out in firefighting gear, was leaning against the truck and seemed to be observing, rather than engaged in, the work at hand. “Was there anyone in the house? The girl who lives here—”

“She’s over under that tree, Ben. Howdy, Miz Goodweather. Yep, that little gal come runnin’ down your road just about time we got here. Said she had her a feelin’ somethin’ was wrong. Tried to run in the house after some of her things but we had to stop her. She’s all tore up about it, some picture of her mama, I believe she said.”

In the glare of the fire engine headlights, Elizabeth could see Kyra leaning against the trunk of the big sugar maple that dominated the little yard. The girl was looking away from the house, and once again she was obsessively rubbing the tattooed roses on her left hand. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and she didn’t turn when Elizabeth sat down beside her.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Kyra said softly. The words were soft and devoid of emotion. “I could hear music over at Ben’s cabin and thought I’d go over and talk to him for a while. There was a flashlight there by the bed and I thought I could find the way. But when I got outside, I had this funny feeling that something was wrong and I just started walking down the road. Then I heard sirens and I started running.”

She hugged her knees tighter. There were no tears and her face was a mask. “When I got to the top of the hill by the old graveyard, I could see the flames. And then the black car. It was on the road above our house, just sitting there with its lights off. And when the fire truck came down the road, the black car took off around the mountain.”

“Was it a car you recognized?” Elizabeth asked. “It might have been just someone passing by, maybe watching but then afraid of being suspected when the fire truck arrived—”

“I recognized it,” said Kyra, her voice still lifeless. “It’s always around. The driver’s a mean-looking guy in sunglasses. Sometimes he pretends he’s reading a newspaper, or looking at a map, but really, he’s watching me. I call him my nanny.”

T
HE EARLY MORNING MISTS LAY HEAVY ON
F
ULL
Circle Farm. “For ever’ fog in August, they’ll be a snow in winter” was the local saying, but though Elizabeth had tried keeping track of these fogs and the allegedly resultant snows, she had never been able to prove or, for that matter, disprove this particular old wives’ tale. What was important to her about these frequent morning fogs was that they provided a cool interval before the heat of the day— an interval she was using now to pick her tomatoes.

Kyra was still asleep— exhausted after the events of the previous night. Ben was in the house— working on the farm accounts, he had said. “And when Kyra wakes up, I don’t think she should be alone. I’ll be right here if she needs me, and I can get that billing done.”

The tomato vines, heavy with fruit, were sagging on their baling twine supports. The lower leaves were spotted and rusty with incipient blight. They would have to be clipped and burned, but the upper parts of the vines were continuing to put out tender new growth and starlike yellow blossoms. Elizabeth began to fill her plastic milk crate with the long, firm San Marzanos and Romas that would form the basis of herb-rich sauces to be stored in the freezer, as well as providing leathery oven-dried tomatoes bursting with the concentrated flavor of summer. There was also a small basket for the tiny grape tomatoes whose seeds a cousin had brought from France— the first choice for a tossed salad or eating out of hand. Finally, there were the enormous slicing tomatoes— the aristocracy of the garden— deep crimson Brandywine, dark Cherokee, Black Krim, and a bright yellow nameless beauty whose seeds had come from Miss Birdie, a little bland in taste perhaps, but so gorgeous in company with the others. Elizabeth laid these giants carefully in her big willow basket, envisioning a cobalt blue platter heaped with rounds of red and yellow interposed with slices of creamy fresh mozzarella, the whole glistening with generous amounts of olive oil, a prudent sprinkling of balsamic vinegar, shining crystals of sea salt, and fragrant ribbons of fresh green basil.

She laughed as she realized that her mouth was beginning to water at the image she had conjured up. “Eight-thirty A.M. and thinking about dinner already. Elizabeth, you are
hopeless!”

The sound of a car’s straining engine cut through the peaceful morning air.
What new adventure?
She carried her basket to the end of the row and peered down the road.
Too early for Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s not the farm truck. Whoever it is, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to get much farther.

Below the barn she could hear tires spinning desperately on the gravel, a moment of silence, and the sound of the vehicle backing.
Probably just someone who took a wrong turn,
she assured herself and began loading the crates and baskets of tomatoes into the back of her jeep. But then she heard the high-pitched whine of a car engine being pushed to the limit and around the corner of the barn shot an ancient green Volvo, bucking and swerving on the steep road.

“Ouch!” Elizabeth winced as the low-slung car hit the water break, a deep trench across the road used to carry rain off into the ditch. There was the scrape of metal on rock but the Volvo kept coming. Elizabeth quickly stepped out into plain sight and signaled the driver to stop. “You’re going to tear up your muffler if you try to make it any farther!” she shouted, hurrying toward the car.

But the driver had pulled over to the side and stopped the engine. She put her head out of the window and called out in a slightly accented, flutelike voice.
“Namaste.
Is this the place where Kyra has found refuge?”

Without waiting for an answer, she got out. She was a small, fair woman whose pale hazel eyes were ringed with kohl. Her trailing skirt of rainbow-hued gauze did not quite hide her rather dirty bare feet, and her sagging breasts swung loosely inside a long sleeveless tunic of thin lavender material. A length of white cheesecloth was draped lightly around the tangle of faded blonde hair carelessly pulled back and twisted into a knot secured by an orange lacquer chopstick. Apart from the kohl, she wore no makeup. Her face, framed by dangling beaded earrings and smiling up at Elizabeth, was pretty in an old-fashioned way.

“Namaste.”
She pressed her palms together just under her chin and bowed slightly. “I am Willow. Aidan is my son.” Her expression saddened and a single tear tracked its way through the kohl.

Elizabeth hesitated. She started to put out her hand, stained and sticky from the tomato vines, reconsidered, and wondered if she should instead bow in return. Settling on a friendly nod, she said, “I’m Elizabeth; yes, Kyra’s staying with me for now.” She studied the smaller woman briefly.
As Laurel said— aging-hippie type. Probably forty-something. And what’s with that accent? Oh, yes, she and Aidan lived in India for a few years.

“Thank Spirit that Kyra is safe.” Willow flicked her eyes heavenward, then fixed Elizabeth with her pale gaze. She continued in her soft, singsong lilt. “I felt guided to speak with Kyra about…about recent events. I rose before dawn so that I could arrive early when our energies were strongest. But when I saw the house…all blackened, smoking ruins…I did not know….”

Her eyes closed and, flattening her palms against her midriff, she inhaled and exhaled slowly and deliberately three times before continuing. “Many official cars and trucks were there and I saw uniformed men poking about in the rubble. I felt trapped in some terrible nightmare— Boz dead, my beautiful son in jail— and fear for Kyra overtook me. I parked by the studio and stayed in my car, taking deep, healing breaths. At last a man came to me and shared what had happened. He said that he was the sheriff and he assured me that Kyra was unharmed. He shared that you had taken her into your home and he pointed to your driveway.”

Willow smiled and held out her hands, palms up. “And here I am. Spirit is working in all things. Kyra is safe and the fire has harmed no one.” Her expression hardened and the lilting accent disappeared. “And they can’t fucking blame my beautiful Aidan for it— since they have him locked up. Maybe this will start them looking for the real murderer. I mean, how could anyone think that a gentle soul like my boy could have done something so—?”

She shook her head vigorously and made a gesture with her hands as if shaking them free of some noxious substance. “No, I will give no more energy to that thought.” The accent returned. “It is in the care of Spirit. I have been guided here to support Kyra, to help her to embrace this transition in her life.”

Willow opened her arms wide and turned in a slow circle, her multicolored skirt flaring out around her. “How beautiful it is here— the loins of Mother Earth,” she trilled, motioning to the wooded slopes above them, “and her bounty.” She encompassed the garden tiers and the baskets of tomatoes in a vague wave. “There is deep harmony and healing in this green place.” Reaching up, she suddenly pulled the gauzy wrap off her head. “I sense that this will not be necessary here.”

“No,” agreed Elizabeth, “you won’t need that. The gnats were bad back in May but they’re mostly gone now.”

“Gnats?” Willow smiled indulgently. “Oh, no, no, no, the veil is a protection against evil influence and negative energy. Sri Namanandapura blesses these veils and bestows them on his disciples.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, and closed it again.
Take a deep healing breath, Elizabeth,
she admonished herself.

“So, Willow, let me get the rest of these tomatoes into the jeep and then I’ll give you a ride up to the house. I’m sure Kyra will be glad to see you.”

The tomatoes were stowed in the back of the jeep for the short trip up the hill. Willow climbed in beside Elizabeth, confiding that though, on principle, she didn’t believe in SUVs, she could see that one might be necessary on a mountainside farm.

“I visualize myself on a farm someday,” she said in a dreamy voice. “A place of rebirth— of healing and enlightenment— my own milk goats, sheep— I’ll learn to spin and weave. My dream is to make all my own clothing from cloth I myself have woven— just like Gandhiji. I see, too, a beautiful organic garden with healing herbs— and perhaps a hospice for AIDS patients. But I have to be able to travel as well.”

Elizabeth said nothing, having heard such fantasies before. Travel and farms were, in her experience, incompatible. Milk goats required milking— twice daily. She smiled quietly, remembering her own years of keeping a cow— milking in all weathers, early and late. A neighbor had once asked her, “Know the difference ’tween bein’ in jail and keepin’ a milk cow? Iffen you’re in jail, you don’t have to milk the durned cow.”

Willow helped carry the tomatoes onto the porch. The cheerful twangle of a bluegrass banjo blared from the CD player in the living room, and through the kitchen window Elizabeth could see Ben and Kyra sitting together on the built-in corner bench, coffee mugs in hand. Kyra, who seemed much recovered from her shock of the night before, was actually giggling at something Ben was showing her in a magazine. Her hair had been washed and had dried naturally, leaving a fluffy mass of black ringlets curling around her face. Without the heavy eyeliner and dark lipstick that she usually affected, Kyra looked very young.

Elizabeth led her visitor into the kitchen. The two young people were still engrossed in the magazine— a Roz Chast cartoon spread in
The New Yorker,
Elizabeth noted. Kyra looked up with a start as the CD ended.

“Willow!” She jumped up and ran to hug her friend’s mother. “What’s happening with Aidan? Did you see our house? I tried to get our stuff out but they wouldn’t let me….” The girl’s pale face was taut with suppressed emotion. “At least most of our paintings and other pieces were in the studio.” Continuing to cling to the little woman, she whispered, “Tell me Aidan’s all right.”

“Now, now, little one, calm yourself.” With gentle firmness Willow held Kyra to her. “All shall be well. Aidan is in Spirit’s hands. I have surrounded him with a pure white light and given him into Spirit’s care. I have also,” she said, stroking Kyra’s hair back from her face, “retained an excellent lawyer who assures me we will have Aidan out on bond quite soon.” Once again, the Indian accent had disappeared.

Elizabeth sent Kyra and Willow to the front porch to talk while she and Ben sorted and washed the tomatoes. Through the open window they could hear Kyra telling her visitor about the fire. “Terrible, terrible!” Willow exclaimed in response. “But only material objects were lost— all
maya,
all illusion. And Spirit is obviously looking after you and has sent you to the right place. I sense that Elizabeth will be good for you— did you know she’s a nurturer?— her aura is a beautiful green.”