Read The May Queen Murders Online
Authors: Jude,Sarah
one about Birch Markle. But they’re bedtime stories to give little girls
nightmares. That’s al .”
Heather disregarded Mamie’s tales, but I couldn’t. I needed their
truth. They were mythic and strange and disarming, as much a part
of my life as tending to fields and brushing dirt from the house. To
hear the stories over a pinewood fire, the smel s of clove tea and flo-
ral powder on old woman skin, was a joy lost once Mamie quit talk-
ing. Heather couldn’t take it away again.
I liked doing things the old way, the Glen way, and it was worth
paying attention to the omens — especial y the life and death ones.
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Suddenly, the clinic’s CB radio hissed to life.
A voice echoed through the static. “Timothy, you there?” No pri-
vate telephones existed in Rowan’s Glen — lack of phone lines — but
the few businesses kept radios to make cal s. The rattles and clicks
of disembodied souls talking across the airwaves were common
enough background noises at my family’s clinic.
I was reaching for the radio when Papa jogged out from his office.
If someone called, he usual y needed to deliver a calf or diagnose a
horse with colic. I often tagged along as his assistant. It was good
practice, and Papa claimed I had “the touch,” cats rubbing against my
legs, dog kisses slathering my cheek and neck. I could calm a Saint
Bernard nervous for a nail trim by scratching behind its ears.
Papa adjusted his glasses and clicked a button on the receiver. “I’m
here.”
“Listen, Timothy.” Sheriff Meriweather’s voice was deep, grim.
“You gotta come out. Something’s down by the river.”
“Some
thing?
” Papa and ran his hand along his hair, slicked back in
the early 1900s style worn by many of the Glen’s men.
The radio spewed another jittery clatter before Sheriff spoke. “We
ain’t sure what it is. Scavengers have made off with some pieces.
There’s fur.”
My stomach lurched. Animals died all the time. I’d witnessed all
means of death, from the beloved old cat that shut its eyes for a final
time to the runt pup of a litter that couldn’t survive. Accidents on
the highway. Predators. Living off the land instilled knowledge of
life cycles and perpetuity, but I was yet to be comfortable around the
dead.
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I gulped loud enough that Heather stopped picking at her red
thread bracelet. My mother made the women in our family wear
them — even those who didn’t share her Mexican blood. The brace-
let warded off
mal de ojo.
The evil eye. The Scottish side of the Tem-
pletons humored her traditions, despite their own peculiar folklore.
“What’s going on?” Heather mouthed.
I hushed her with a finger against my lips. Papa glanced at us,
hesitating before he pressed the receiver close to his mouth. “You
reckon it’s one of the missing dogs?”
Sheriff made a noise. “Too big for that. Cliff’s guessing a horse.
Since you’re the animal man ’round here, you gotta take a look. But
there’s something more. There’s blood, lots of it, all over the grass.”
"
Most Glen folk wouldn’t cross Promise Bridge. The land was rocky,
and little but the occasional dandelion was brazen enough to root on
the bank. Promise Bridge was where I washed the linens in the river,
but it was also the place Heather and I spent hours searching the
shore for old things, drawing, sometimes lying in the marsh grass.
The rickety bridge crossed to Potter’s Field, a cemetery of unmarked
graves sleeping outside the woods. The granny-women, older wom-
en bearing herbs and stories, tended the graves. Always returning to
the vil age before dusk, before the forest awakened.
Papa left the clinic with a curt “be back soon,” but as it was near
closing, Heather and I locked up and stalked a few beats behind.
She wanted to see what was down by the river, and because I always
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did what she wanted, I came along. We lingered behind a limestone
mound and waited for Papa to cross the suspension bridge of rusted
chains and wood before we followed.
The water’s depth was il usive, deep enough to allow for Deni-
al Mill upstream. For a century, the Denial clan was its caretakers,
most recently Flint and his son Jasper. While it once ground wheat,
it became a hydropower mill supplementing the Glen’s solar panels.
Every so often, a branch wedged in the wheel to halt the turning.
Someone then had to take on the dangerous task of wading through
the water to remove the obstruction and get the wheel moving again.
The building’s exterior was old stone, the wood trim faded red paint,
and when the sunset hit the mil , the wal s looked edged with blood.
Heather halted in the middle of the wavering bridge. My vision
swam from trying to hold stil . I needed to move.
“You hear something?” She pointed back to a bush growing near
the rocky bank. “Look.”
All I saw was a bel adonna shrub forming the buds of purple
flowers that would eventual y turn to fat, black berries. The leaves
rustled. My chest tightened. Black bears wandered the woods, and
if some animal was torn up . . . Human skin was no match for bear
claws.
I scooted Heather another step and whispered, “Go slow.”
The bush rustled again, and a young man emerged to fix the eye-
glasses falling down his nose.
Rook.
His hair was coffee-black and combed back. The sleeves of his
button-up shirt were rolled to his elbows, and the worn threads of
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his suspenders were near breaking. His barn boots had seen better
days, lots of scuffs marring the toes. The more I gawked, the higher
my pulse rose, and then he waved.
“He must’ve seen us and decided to follow,” Heather hummed be-
side me.
The Meriweather and Templeton families were close. For as long
as I could recal , Rook had been there, bringing fresh brown-shelled
eggs or stopping by to walk Heather and me to school. Our families
laughed over Sunday suppers, and when the harvest was good in
the Meriweathers’ field, we’d find clumps of radishes or bunches of
rainbow carrots in a crate on our step. Sometimes, Mama sent me to
their house with a loaf of bread and retired picture books for Rook’s
little sister. It was good to share with others.
Running with Rook was expected, yet not that simple at al . Two
winters ago, I was sick with the flu for a month. Instead of carous-
ing in snow-laden fields, I lay in bed. Once I recovered, Rook was
no longer a gangly kid from down the road. He was tall with broad
shoulders and a good laugh. When I saw him again —
real y
saw him
— I understood how much we’d changed. He’d gone from being a
neighbor boy to a boy I thought about.
“Call him over,” I urged.
“You.” Heather’s elbow jabbed me. “Since you want him to join us
so bad.”
My shoulders tightened, and I breathed in before beckoning him
closer with a wave. The invitation eased his smile, and the sun caught
him in a way I wanted to remember later when drawing. I smiled
back. He jogged toward us, undaunted by the rattling bridge. His legs
1
were fluid as he closed in, and then his palm rested on my shoulder.
Maybe he didn’t notice the way I jumped when he touched me.
“What are you doing? Trailing Ivy?” Heather asked.
A deep dimple cut his left cheek. He cleared his throat and gave a
wing-flap wave behind him. “I was checking the bel adonna. There’s
lots coming up. It ain’t native, but it likes the soil. We gotta clear it, or
the fields’ll poison.”
Heather once said Rook’s voice was honey, but I thought he spoke
with deeper tones, hickory roots burrowing earth and bitter moon-
shine. His voice was made to read books aloud at sunset when we
huddled around a bonfire. I’d listen to Rook’s stories and Heather’s
singing. I listened and drew because that was what I knew to do. It
was a good way to spend time, an easy way to forget worries.
“I-is that true?” I asked. “That bel adonna poisons the land?”
“Wel , it’d take a hell of a lot to actual y get into the soil.” Rook
knew every plant rooted in the Glen’s earth, right down to the Latin
names. “But my mama makes me clear it out before planting. She
ain’t completely crazed. The berries are toxic, and only a few can kil .
What about y’all? Where are you headed?”
“Your daddy called Uncle Timothy to Potter’s Field. They found a
carcass,” Heather explained.
“Mind if I come?” Rook asked, to which Heather said yes, but he
hadn’t asked her. His hand found mine, his skin warm, cal used, and
thril ing
to touch. We’d grabbed hands while climbing trees many
times growing up, but touching him now was like a dandelion scat-
tering inside me, seeds full of possibility.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Heather crossing her arms.
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She wheeled around, tugging my hand away from Rook’s hold.
“Come on, Ivy.”
Helpless but to go, I looked to Rook over my shoulder. He strolled
over the swaying bridge. I’d linger with the same leisured pace as
him, but Heather was rushing and breathless.
For April in the Ozarks, it was no shock the wood was slick with
humidity. Yesterday’s rain saturated the settlement, and soon mildew
would creep over the horse fences. We’d get out there with vinegar
water to clean off the black rot. It’d come back, and we’d clean again.
Seasonal rituals and predictability of chores gave purpose and bal-
ance.
We reached the other riverbank and trundled down a dirt path.
With the sun drooping low to the horizon, an uneasy hush fell over
the vil age. Vultures circled overhead. A rancid smel , like meat that
hadn’t salt-cured quite right, drifted from Potter’s Field. All three
of us covered our faces. The loudest sounds were Heather’s mouth-
breathing and the swish of long skirts.
Potter’s Field lay in a valley surrounded by blackberry thickets.
We hunkered down in a cove and used rocks to shield us from the
graveyard of the abandoned. A half dozen men stood around, fore-
heads gleaming with clamminess and skin greenish like they were
fighting back the sicks. Of the men, the one I knew best was Sheriff
Meriweather — Rook’s father. He and Papa were descendants of the
Glen’s founding families. Sheriff wasn’t as tall as Papa; he was stockier
with hair the color of nutmegs flecked by silver. Despite being head
of police in these parts, he was more carpenter, and during growing
months, Sheriff tended fields with Rook to supply a vegetable cart
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his mother took to town. Rook was the spit of his mother’s side, lean
and pale and dark-haired Irish.
Along with Sheriff, several other members of the Glen’s police —
hillmen wearing a star pinned to their britches — crowded around
something on the ground. The grass in Potter’s Field was brown.
Except for one wide puddle of red.
Sheriff’s boots slopped through the puddle and revealed it deep
enough to soak his soles. “Timothy, as you can see, it’s a hell of a
mess.”
Papa pushed past the barrier of farmers, and I caught only the
briefest glimpse of pink meat slick with fluid. He opened his medi-
cal bag and snapped on blue exam gloves. They seemed out of
place against his modest shirt and vest. Most veterinarians I’d seen
in books wore white jackets, but Papa was never like them, instead
looking like doctors from over a century ago.
“Gross,” Heather whispered and craned her neck over the rocks.
She pushed up on her forearms.
“Don’t get too close,” I said and pulled her back.
She brushed my hand off her shoulder. “What? There ain’t any-
thing dangerous.”
“You’ll blow our cover.”
Papa took a syringe from his bag, uncapped it, and jabbed the
needle into the carcass. One of the men staggered before vomiting
beside a gravestone. Sheriff raised an eyebrow. “One of you’s gonna
need to grab a bucket from the river and clean up that mess. Show
the dead some respect.”
Papa withdrew the plunger, and the tube filled with blackish
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sludge. “This isn’t normal decay. This carcass is fresh, but you see
how the bel y’s torn open? Decay won’t cause flesh to burst for weeks
unless it’s extremely hot. Ozarks are warm but not enough to do that,
not yet. Something ripped it open.”
Rook shifted beside me, took off his glasses, and averted his eyes.
What could’ve done this? Maybe it was my suspicious nature, but
I couldn’t help but feel something bad seemed to have roused and
come to our land.
“What kind of animal was it?” Sheriff asked.
Papa coughed into the crook of his elbow. “It’s Bartholomew, the
Logans’ wolfhound.”
I covered my mouth to keep from crying out.
Not Bart.
Despite
being the size of a small pony, he was just a juvenile. When he stood
on his hind legs, he put his paws on my shoulders to dance. Heather
reached over and stroked the back of my head.
“Are you sure that’s a dog?” another man asked.