Wisp of a Thing: A Novel of the Tufa (Tufa Novels) (26 page)

“Only in the way outside people reckon things. She’s a truer Tufa than you in some ways. She’s a
sprite,
if you ask me, and I don’t mean that ol’ fizzy soda pop.”

“She’s just a girl who’s trying not to blow away,” Bliss said firmly. She was no longer crying.

Peggy hid her smile. Of course, she’d known just what buttons to push to get Bliss outraged, which in turn got her focused on something other than herself. “Well, you’re family, you’d know better than anyone.”

Bliss got to her feet and helped Peggy stand. “I have to meet Rob,” she said. “I have to take care of some things before anyone else gets hurt.”

With her cigarette still held safely aside, Peggy again hugged the younger woman. “You do what you have to do, Bliss. Listen to the winds, they’ll tell you.” Like a mother, she patted the younger girl on the back.

*   *   *

When Rob came downstairs, Bliss stood alone in the lobby. She walked quickly across to him, then stopped as she was about to throw her arms around him. Her beseeching look was so different from her normal demeanor that he didn’t realize at first that she was asking his permission. He held out his arms and she leaped into them. When she squeezed, he hissed through his teeth at the pain across his back.

She drew back, concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Just not so hard, okay? Here.” He tucked her arms in close, so that her hands were flat against his chest. She snuggled against him. “There. Now—what’s wrong?”

Bliss wiped her eyes. “Worked a bad accident out on the highway between here and the interstate. Uncle Node ran off a curve and hit a tree.”

So
that
was the wreck. “Is he all right?”

“No, he’s not. And we don’t know if he will be.”

She took Rob’s hand and led him outside. It was now dark, and the night air was colder than it had yet been, heralding the approach of the mountain winter.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and wiped at her eyes. “You do remember Uncle Node from the barn dance, don’t you? He sat outside taking the money? Stood up to Rockhouse?”

“Yeah.”

“I think his neck’s broken. He may be paralyzed. He may even die.” She took a deep breath. “I had to look into his eyes.…”

He put his hand lightly on her shoulder, a gesture that felt wholly inadequate. “I’m really sorry.”

“Rockhouse did it, you know. Because of what happened at the barn dance. We embarrassed him in front of a crowd. He couldn’t do anything to
me,
and if anything happened to
you,
it would attract too much attention after that girl disappearing, so he took it all out on Uncle Node.”

He wondered if she knew about the boys who’d tried to beat him up. “Like every other crime around here, I guess calling the police would be a bit pointless.”

She nodded. “It’s not a ‘crime’ in any legal sense. That’s why I’m scared, and angry, and don’t know what to do.” She shivered a little. “And it’s cold.” She turned to face him. “I suppose you’ve been going over the stuff that happened the other night. I bet you’ve about talked yourself out of believing most of it, haven’t you? Well, it was all true. Every bit of it. And it’s really important now that you believe it.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you have to leave. Seriously. Rockhouse holds a grudge like a mountain holds gravel. Curnen has come to you, and you let her. That means
her
curse might very well take
you.
”

“I can’t leave,” he said seriously and carefully, “until I talk to Stella Kizer.”

“You won’t find her, Rob. Nobody will, not the police, not her husband, no one.”

“Is she dead?”

“No, but she doesn’t want to be found. She wouldn’t leave if she could.”

“If that’s the case, then there shouldn’t be any problem with her telling me that herself, should there?”

“No, but like I said, she won’t talk to you. You won’t be able to find her.”

His eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’re right. But guess what I
did
find today?”

“What?”

He sang the first verse of “The Fate of the Tyrant Fae” with a haunting, minor-key melody that insinuated itself into his head even as he sang.

If he’d drawn a knife and held it to her throat, he doubted she could’ve looked more frightened. “Where the
hell
did you hear that?” she gasped, and looked around the deserted street to see if anyone overheard. “Have you sung that for anyone else?”

“Why? Would it bring down the wrath of Rockhouse on me?” He made no effort to hide his irritation.

“You went to Cricket, didn’t you?” she said, but her tone made it clear she wasn’t really asking. “You saw the poem in the back of
The Secret Commonwealth.
And you saw the painting.”

He said nothing. He wanted to tell her about Rockhouse’s spectral appearance in Atlanta, and how it spawned this whole chain of events, but suddenly he didn’t trust her.

Finally she said, “I’m guessing there’s no chance you’ll promise me to never sing that song again, anywhere, ever, is there?”

“Not without a better reason that the ones you’ve been giving out.”

Finally she said, “Okay,” and took a deep breath. “I need to tell you more, then. So you’ll understand and believe me and never sing that song again because you know what will happen.”

“So tell me, then.”

“Not here. We need to go to my place.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I have something there that will convince you.”

“Will this ‘thing’ help me find Stella Kizer?” he said, knowing he didn’t sound nearly as harsh as he wanted.

“Yes.”

He thought it over. It could be another trap, one more deadly than a couple of hillbillies with baseball bats. But he’d learn nothing sitting in his motel room. Bliss was really his only link to the Tufa society, so he had no choice.

He gestured at his car. “My chariot awaits.”

24

He didn’t know what to expect. The idea of Bliss’s “home” conjured up so many different images. Would she live in a dilapidated mountain shack next to an outhouse? Or a haunted, gabled mansion with only a single light burning in one high bedroom window? Maybe it would be a trailer, like Doyle and Berklee, or just a cave with a witch’s cauldron hung over the fire at the entrance.

A narrow wooden bridge that did not inspire confidence appeared on the gravel road ahead of them. He slowed and crept onto it. Beneath it, he saw a shimmering creek whose depth he couldn’t judge in the darkness.

“You don’t have to go so slow,” Bliss said, “it’ll hold.”

The car lurched slightly as one of the bridge planks shifted, accompanied by a loud clattering sound. “Ever seen
Sorcerer?
” Rob said, his hands tight on the wheel.

“I wrote a song about this bridge once,” she said. “‘The Cider Branch Special.’ That creek is called Cider Branch, and when a car comes over at normal speed, you can hear the bridge rattle all the way down to the house. Lets you know you’ll be having company in about five minutes.”

Evidently, the bridge was accurate, for five minutes later, the headlights illuminated a mailbox with
OVERBAY
spelled in reflective stickers. Lack of space forced the final
Y
beneath the rest of the word.

The moonlit view that greeted him was breathtaking. The driveway led into a small valley, with a lake in the center. At the water’s edge, with a back patio perfect for fishing, rose a narrow two-story house with big arched windows. He couldn’t make out its color in the dark.

The gravel driveway widened into a parking area beside the house. From this spot, wooden steps led down to the water. Bliss got out and walked to the side door, where a security light snapped on as it sensed her movement. She searched her ring for the right key. By the time she found it, every bug in the valley swarmed around the light.

“Nice little piece of land,” Rob said, impressed. “I bet it’s gorgeous during the day.”

“It’s been in the family for a long time. We used to farm down there—” She gestured toward the opposite side of the lake. “—but I decided to let it grow back up. I’m not much of a farmer, and I enjoy woods more than fields.”

In the moonlight reflecting off the lake, he saw the ripples of something big moving just below the surface. “You got an alligator in your pond?”

“Maybe,” Bliss said as she opened the door. She swatted at the bugs as they tried to enter her house. “I sure wouldn’t go swimming in it.”

He couldn’t tell if she was kidding, so he followed her inside. A tiny harp identical to the one on his motel room door chimed its little tune.

The kitchen looked like any country kitchen: dishes in the drain rack, little iron trivets hanging on the wall, hand-stitched hotpads piled next to the stove. Homemade magnets covered the front of the refrigerator, tiny country people painted on wooden silhouettes. All held crude little musical instruments.

“You live here alone?” he asked.

She nodded. “I put the last stitch in a quilt when I was sixteen. If a single girl does that, it’s supposed to curse her to never marry. So far it’s been true, and when I see some of the marriages around me, it doesn’t feel like a curse.”

“And you don’t have any other family? Well, besides Curnen?”

“No. A train hit Mom and Dad one night on their way home.”

“Wow. I’m sorry.” He almost mentioned that Doyle claimed no knowledge of Curnen, but decided to keep it to himself.

A big covered pot sat on the stove. The burner wasn’t lit beneath it, but there was a smell he couldn’t quite identify. He asked, “What are you cooking?”

“Groundhog,” she answered as she looped her key ring on a hook by the door. “But it’s not cooking yet, it’s just marinating.”

“Groundhog?”

“Sure. Ran over it yesterday.”

“It’s
road kill
?”

She laughed. “It was fresh, I promise. I threw it in the truck and brought it straight home. Skinned it, cleaned it, and now I’ve let it soak overnight in warm salt water. Tomorrow I’ll start it boiling.”

“You boil it?”

“Yeah. You open all the windows, boil it for twenty minutes, then throw the water out. You do that twice more, then you bake it.”

“Why do you open the windows?”

“You ever smelled boiling groundhog?”

Before he could answer, she lifted the lid and peered inside. An eye-watering odor filled the room. Rob gagged and stepped around the divider wall into the dark living room. He groped along the wall until he found the light switch. If it smelled that bad just soaking, he sure didn’t want to be around for the boiling. He fought down his gorge, then said, “I’ll just wait in here until you finish with that.”

“Okay,” she answered, and he heard the scrape of a spoon inside the big pot.

He browsed slowly around the room. Photographs, old musical instruments, and odd symbolic knickknacks covered the living room’s walls. There was no television or computer. One shelf of an old, heavy bookcase held a slender upright line of vinyl records pinned between heavy bookends. Rob glanced at the records, then looked again. They were thinner than normal albums, and their blank paper sleeves had faded yellow with time.

He pulled one out and slid it into his hand, careful to touch it only on the edges. The plastic surface was wrinkled in places, making the grooves look like terrain readouts on radar. The disks themselves were bare black plastic, and only dates were written on the sleeves:
5/23/68, 8/4/70,
and so forth.

He heard the lid clang down on the noxious groundhog, and called out, “Hey, Bliss, what are these? Home demos?”

“Do you always just pick things up without asking?” she said as she joined him.

“Just wondered what kind of albums you’d have. My curiosity took over. I’m sorry.”

She took the record from him. “When my dad was in Vietnam, Grandpa and some of his brothers recorded some music, then took it over to Asheville to a place that could make them into records. It was fairly inexpensive, which I guess is why they’re so thin and wobbly. They’d mail them to him, and he told me the only record player they had was a cheap plastic one with a burned-up motor that he had to spin by hand.” She tilted the disk so the light struck its surface. “See how some of the grooves are almost gone? He played them so much, he plumb wore ’em out.”

“You should get them transferred to digital.”

She smiled patronizingly. “That would defeat the point, wouldn’t it?” Reverently she returned the record to its place, then turned out the lights.

He followed her back into the kitchen and noticed a piece of blue glass on the windowsill behind the sink. “You trying to keep Curnen away?”

“It keeps away more than just her.”

“Like what?”

“Other things that live in the woods that you wouldn’t want in your house. Would you like a drink?” she asked as she opened the refrigerator.

“Sure.” She handed him a beer, and took one for herself.

He popped the tab and was about to drink when he caught himself. “Wait a minute. If I drink this, will I end up ‘under your spell’?”

She did not smile. “You think I’d do that to you?”

“I’m asking.”

She took the beer from his hand and put them both down in the sink. “Never mind. This isn’t really a social visit, is it?” She looked up at him, her expression grim. “Do you remember how I told you the Tufas were descended from fairies? That the real Tufas still have fairy blood, and all the things that go with it?”

He nodded. Hearing it spoken so simply, in a normal kitchen, made it sound even weirder.

“Well, I have a bunch of it,” Bliss continued. “A bunch of Tufa blood, a bunch of Tufa magic. And I’m a First Daughter, just like my mom and my grandmother. The first girl child in the family. That’s why I’m considered … well … a leader.”

“Really.” He tried for a neutral tone, but the skepticism seeped out.

Her eyes flashed. “I’m not
joking
with you, Rob.”

“I didn’t say you were. But it
is
hard to accept.”

“Try
living
it,” she snapped. “I have to exist in the mundane world, you know, not in some storybook. Knowing who and what I am, and having to keep it secret all my life, ain’t very damn easy. I brought you here to convince you that you could get hurt if you stay and keep asking questions. And the only way to do that is to also persuade you I’m telling the truth.”