Silk and Stone (34 page)

She spotted white louvered doors on adjacent walls. Charlotte pushed one open and studied an enormous bath with a sunken tub and twin vanities. Peering around a silk Chinese screen, she scrutinized a peach-colored toilet and matching bidet. She had read about bidets but
had never seen one; the strange device intrigued her. She turned a handle and watched a jet of water shoot upward. Amazing. Aunt Alex had to wash her privates, just like an ordinary human being.

There was a single louvered door at the opposite end of the bath. Charlotte eased it open. An elaborate dressing room met her stunned gaze—a small, almost claustrophobic room of deep white carpet, crammed with racks of clothing and shelves filled with shoes, belts, purses—a veritable department store of fine things. She pressed a light switch, and a chandelier glittered softly overhead in the center of a domed ceiling. Along one wall was a long, low dresser before an enormous mirror surrounded by lights. And lined up on the dresser were rows of tall jewelry boxes, gilded and delicate, with tiny drawers.

Jewelry. Breathless with wonder, Charlotte sat down on the satin cushions of a bench at the dresser’s center. She slid the tiny drawers out and gazed at an endless variety of earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings—gold, sterling, and polished gemstones of every color and size. She lifted a pair of clip earrings from one velvet-lined drawer—diamond clusters, sparkling in the light.

Charlotte removed all four of her own earrings—cheap silver hoops and gold studs. She pushed her hair back and fastened the diamond clusters to her ears, then stared at herself sadly in the vast mirror. She thought she looked as invincible as a person wearing diamonds, one of Sam’s handmade sweaters, and jeans could look. Satisfied, she scanned the dresser for more prizes. A small gold box was nestled among the bigger cases; she flipped the lid open, then gave a low sigh of awe.

Aunt Alex’s gold necklace and pendant. Charlotte couldn’t resist. She slipped the necklace over her head and arranged the filigree pendant on the center of her chest.

“What are you doing in here?”

She jumped. Tim loomed in the doorway, dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt with the arms cut off at the shoulders. He was too large and muscle-bound; she
thought of a cookbook photograph, one with diagrams showing the best cuts on a bulky red steer. He was all shoulder, shank, and brisket.

Sam had warned her to avoid him and his sarcastic comments whenever he visited from college; Sam said—and it didn’t sound like a joke—that she’d go after him with a knitting needle if he tried to intimidate them.

Charlotte couldn’t let anything like that happen. “Just exploring,” she told him. She jerked the earrings off and dropped them on the dresser. The pendant felt like a guilty weight over her heart. “I got lost. This house is so big, I need to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back.” She was talking too fast, with a high-pitched tone. She sounded frightened when she meant to sound friendly. “I’ll make a nice loaf of pumpernickel to carry around with me.”

“You aren’t lost. You think you can go anywhere in this house you goddamned well please.”

Having a cozy familiarity with obscene language, which she had been forced to cultivate at school to parry comments about her large breasts, Charlotte blurted out, “If I tell you I’m lost, I goddamned well am.”

She regretted that immediately. Fury replaced the sour expression in his eyes. He took one long, quick step into the room, snatched her by an arm, and shook her so hard, her teeth clicked together. “Stay where you belong,” he said in a low voice. “And don’t rummage through my mother’s jewelry. You won’t get it. Not any of it.”

“Let go of me! I was only admiring it!”

He twisted her arm, grinding his fingers in. She struggled but he wouldn’t release her. Charlotte felt light-headed with pain and shock. “I won’t come back here again, I swear. Stop it. You’re hurting me. Just leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.”

But he bent over her, putting his face inches from hers. “Let’s get something straight. You and your sister can pull this accommodating shit on my mother and Orrin, but I don’t buy it. I’ll make you wish my mother had never brought your little cherry ass into this house.”

He grabbed the pendant. The heavy chain sawed at the back of her neck, and Charlotte threw up a hand instinctively. She hit him in the jaw. He gasped. “You little bitch. I’ll get that necklace off you whether you like it or not.”

Charlotte cried out as he dragged her off the bench. He swept a leg beneath her, and she fell on the carpet. He planted a knee on either side of her and wound both hands in the front of her sweater. She clawed at him, but he pulled the sweater over her head and threw it aside. The necklace clung stubbornly, the pendant sliding under the center of her bra. “Jesus,” he said under his breath as he stared down at her breasts encased in the sheer white material. He grabbed her hands and jammed them under his knees. Charlotte was beyond coherence; she made furious and terrified sounds. Her hands felt crushed.

“You think you and your sister can take over this house?” he asked sarcastically. “I’ll show you who’s in charge.” He pulled her bra down and mauled her breasts, squeezing one in each of his powerful hands, bending over her, smiling at her. “I can even do this, and you won’t tell anyone, because if you do, I’ll say you’re lying. A lying little bitch who wants to cause trouble.”

Her hands numb, her breasts already feeling bruised, horror shooting through her brain, Charlotte was reduced to strangled groans. He squeezed them roughly again, then snagged the necklace in one hand and drew it over her head. Holding it above her dazed eyes, he whispered, “
Do you understand
? Say it.”

“I … understand.”

He got to his feet and stepped over her as if she didn’t exist. He scooped her sweater off the floor and threw it at her. “Get out of here, Keep quiet about this, and stay out of my way when I’m at home, or I’ll demonstrate this lesson again.”

Charlotte rearranged her bra and pulled the sweater back on with hands that felt like shaking wooden blocks. She wanted to scream. She wanted to kill him. He watched her, his mother’s beautiful necklace hanging
from his fingertips, the pendant swinging lazily. “Hurry up, Cousin,” he said softly. “I’m losing my patience.”

She staggered to her feet and ran.

She didn’t stop until she was in her room. She huddled on the bed, in the dark, staring blindly out a window. The night—the whole world—was rainy and cold. She was dimly aware of her arm and breasts hurting, and the raw, stinging line across the nape of her neck. She heard movements, and her gaze shifted frantically to the light coming from beneath the closed door to the bath she and Sam shared. This house wasn’t safe—Charlotte would never feel safe here again. But where else could they go? She didn’t want Sam to give this up for her sake.

Sam knocked on the door, then opened it and peeked in. The fog from a hot shower curled around her robe and the towel wrapped around her head. “I thought you were getting ready for bed,” she told Charlotte, sounding concerned. When Charlotte stiffened and didn’t answer, Sam padded over to her and sat down, putting an arm around her. There had been so many times like this in the past month, times when they had sat together silently, no words needed to give comfort. Sam didn’t suspect the difference this time.

“We’ll be all right,” Sam said finally, her voice tired and hollow. “Next week you’ll start school in town, and I’ll start working for Aunt Alex. Life will feel more normal when we’re busy.”

Charlotte leaned against her, shivering, filled with the one fear she couldn’t share.

Clara adjusted a bandanna over her long, graying braids, hitched up the sagging waistband of her voluminous print skirt, smoothed her leather jacket, and padded into the elegant, perfume-scented confines of Naughty Nice on worn brown boots that laced up above her ankles.

“Hello, Mrs. Big Stick. You want some new lingerie for Valentine’s Day?”

Clara peered over a rack of lacy teddies. Patsy Jones,
short and thin and well-dressed, with her black hair cut off in a sleek bob, gazed back at her from behind a small gold cash register atop a delicate table painted white and gold. Patsy was Keet Jones’s oldest granddaughter, about eighteen. “You know what I came for,” Clara answered.

Patsy glanced toward the door furtively, as if someone might walk in and catch them at any second. “You’re a few minutes early. She’s not here yet. Her shift starts at two.” Patsy shifted nervously. “Mrs. Lomax’s secretary drops her off and picks her up. I don’t think she goes anywhere without Mrs. Lomax knowing about it.”

“Hmmmph.” Clara wasn’t surprised. She glanced around the elegant shop, one of several Alexandra Lomax owned. The ravenmocker had made certain her prize wouldn’t stray. Clara’s gaze shifted back to Patsy’s. “You’re a good girl, one who respects her elders and helps when her grandfather asks her to.”

“This gives me the jitters,” Patsy admitted. “If Mrs. Lomax found out, she’d probably tell the manager to fire me. And I need this job. I’m saving money to go to the university next year.”

“What are you going to study?”

“Social work.”

Clara nodded politely, though she thought social work was something that just came naturally to people. “That sounds interesting. Plenty of folks around here could use social work.”

“Hmmm. I saw Jake Raincrow last week. He came to my cousin’s house about a dog. My cousin took it in—it was a stray. Nothing special. He was going to shoot it, but he asked around if anyone wanted a dog. Jake came.”

Clara was annoyed at the way Patsy connected Jake and
social work
in the same breath, as if Jake were some kind of community threat. But she couldn’t resist looking at Patsy hopefully. “Did he say much?”

“No. Just said he’d find it a home. Cousin Odie told him the dog doesn’t act like it’s got much tracking sense, but Jake took it anyway. Odie doesn’t understand why a tracker would care about a dog like that.” Patsy stacked credit card invoices and watched Clara somberly. “Jake’s
too quiet. He makes people nervous. He doesn’t make sense. And lately he’s got this look about him—like he’s daring anybody to cross his path. People say he might be dangerous.”

Clara thrust her jaw out. “If you want to do social work, then you tell people to mind their own business. You tell ’em I said so, because I’m trained to know about these things. Jake’s not dangerous—not to those who don’t deserve it. When he’s ready to take up with the rest of us, he will. Something will pull him out of himself.”

“My sister says he didn’t have girlfriends in high school. Not ever.”

“Seems to me that you Joneses don’t have much to do if you spend so much time pondering someone who’s going about his own business without bothering anybody.”

Patsy ducked her head. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean any disrespect. I forgot, he’s from your clan.”

“I’m
proud
of him, you hear? There aren’t many souls that strong in this world, and the ones that are, they
shine
, you hear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Big Stick.” Patsy looked anxious, as if “social work” had gotten her in over her head and she should call for reinforcements.

Clara shook a finger at her. “And let me tell you another thing—” A bell tinkled on the shop’s pretty glass door, and Clara clamped her mouth shut. Samantha walked in. Clara had seen her only that one time, when she was little more than a baby, but the memory of that stern, self-assured child was indelible.

The girl didn’t seem to notice Clara. She moved with the firm, forward grace of someone much older, and her eyes were tired—with shadows underneath, but hooded with a kind of quiet determination. She was medium height, and her face was pretty in an old-fashioned way, with a blunt jaw and small, tight mouth. Her hair was the deep blond color of old gold, straight, fine, and just long enough to brush her shoulders.

She was neatly dressed to the point of severity in a white cloth coat, a long wool skirt belted at the waist, and
plain flat shoes. She carried a huge cloth tote with a wad of knitting sticking out the top, and a brown lunch bag with the top precisely folded. She wore no jewelry except a simple wristwatch with a thin leather band, and she held her belongings with the most beautiful hands Clara had ever seen—boneless-looking and porcelain-smooth, with slender, tapering fingers that ended in the perfect tips of unpainted nails.

Clara liked the no-nonsense look of her and felt bad for her situation. But Clara had to make certain she wouldn’t bring doom on Jake and his family. Alexandra was an evil spirit, birthed in a hole somewhere, human in appearance but without human roots. A ravenmocker envied flesh-and-blood people, and used them to work its will.

And poor Samantha would never escape from a ravenmocker.

Clara stepped out from behind a rack. “Make yourself scarce, Patsy. Me and Samantha have to have a talk.”

Samantha’s head jerked up. She stared at Clara and slowly dropped her belongings on a table. Patsy knew better than to question a medicine woman’s directions. She went to the back room.

“You look familiar, ma’am,” Samantha said. “Have we met?”