Wisp of a Thing

16

“Is something wrong?” Bliss asked as she drove.

Besides the fact that it got dark so fast, I worried that I was passing out? he almost said, but didn’t. Instead, he decided to play his last card. The Tufa weirdness grew deeper with each revelation; he couldn’t wait to hear her explain this one. “This afternoon, while I taking a nap… I met your sister Curnen.”

Bliss didn’t take her eyes off the road. She said, “Hm.” How could Curnen be so stupid? she thought. Then she realized what time of year it was, and what this cycle in particular meant. When the last leaf fell, the curse on Curnen would become permanent and irrevocable; the girl would become a wild animal, lost to herself, her family, and the Tufa.

And what did this mean for her, for Bliss? The night winds had blown her into Rob’s path, and she was doing her best to sense and follow their desires. Was Curnen, all feral instinct and instant gratification, working with or against the winds? If she was defying them out of selfishness and fear, then it would resolve itself soon enough. But what if the winds really were blowing both sisters into the path of the same man? What could be the reason? Or the ultimate outcome?

The immediate problem, though, was explaining Curnen, and many other things, to Rob. He’d already proved an enigma with his ability to see things that should be hidden to non-Tufas. She’d promised to help him, but how far did she dare trust him? What was the right thing to do?

Finally she said, “I guess you’ve got some questions about Curnen, then.”

“Yeah. She’s been coming into my room for the last two nights, hasn’t she?”

“Did you get rid of something that looked like a piece of blue glass on the windowsill?”

“Yeah.”

“That would’ve kept her out. So yes, she’s probably been visiting you.”

“Why?”

“She’s not entirely…”

“Normal?”

“I was going to say… Well, normal’s as good a word as any. No, she’s definitely not normal.”

“What is she, then?”

Bliss didn’t answer. They drove in silence for several minutes, and eventually turned onto a gravel road. Finally Rob asked, “Hey, where are we going?”

“There’s a place up here where some of the local musicians gather. I thought you might like to see it.”

“What’s that got to do with the magic song?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Is Rockhouse Hicks going to be there?”

“No, Rockhouse isn’t welcome. Most people have the same opinion of him as you do. The only place you’re likely to hear him play is the Pair-A-Dice. That’s neutral territory.”

“You still haven’t answered my question about Curnen.”

“Yes.” She paused. “You know the stories they tell about mountain people being all weird and cousin-marrying and inbred? They always leave out the reasons. Before there were roads, you could live on one side of a mountain and never see folks from the other side. They might be five miles away as the crow flies, but it’d be thirty miles up and down, and over dangerous trails at that. People didn’t mix much, and there’s still a few people around here who live like that. They keep to their own… for everything.”

For a long moment, the only sound was gravel under the tires.

She continued, “And you really can’t understand unless you’re from here, which I thought you were at first, especially when you found that graveyard. That’s still the damndest thing.”

“But I’m not a Tufa.”

In the light from the dashboard, he thought he saw her smile. “The Cherokee called us Nunnehi.”

“You know,” he said, annoyed, “I’m getting real tired of you half-assed telling me things. Either trust me or don’t, but quit dangling carrots in front of me, okay?”

Bliss stopped the truck so suddenly, the tires slid on the rocks. When she turned to look at him, Rob noticed her eyes reflected light like an animal’s.

“Rob, this isn’t easy for me. I’m used to keeping secrets, not revealing them.”

“Okay, then, let’s take it one thing at a time. What’s the deal with Curnen?”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Her parents were brother and sister.”

Rob blinked. “And she’s your sister?”

“Yes.”

“So your parents—”

“No, no, we only have the same mother. My daddy was fine. Curnen’s father was… well… an important person in these parts, at one time. And very, very good at getting what he wanted, even to the point of using threats and force. Which was why…” She looked out the windshield at the trees illuminated by the headlights. Dust from the abrupt stop drifted lazily through the beams. “It’s hard to talk about something so personal.”

“I know what you mean,” he said with no irony. “So she’s retarded? Or ‘challenged,’ I think they call it now?”

“‘Challenged’ is better because it’s more accurate. Something was done to her, and she can’t escape it. But she’s resisting it the best she can.”

“Why don’t you help her, then?”

Bliss’s voice choked. “Because I can’t.”

He wanted to ask more, but there was something in her voice, a pain so similar to his own that this time, he reached over and took her hand. At first she allowed it, then squeezed his fingers and pulled her hand free.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It slips up on me, too.”

“Will she hurt me?”

“No. She wouldn’t. If she’s visiting you, she senses something about you.”

“Like what?”

“A… kinship, for lack of a better word.”

“Because of my hair?”

“No. Something deeper. Something painful.”

He started to reply, but the memory of the way she’d snuggled her cheek into his hand overwhelmed him. The girl, like her sister, like Rob, carried around more pain than a being should have to. They were all three bound by it.

Bliss put the truck back in gear and drove on. Light showed through the trees ahead.

“Looks like a good crowd,” she murmured. They rounded the last curve, and Rob saw two dozen other vehicles parked neatly parallel along the road. Past them stood a huge old barn. In the moonlight, the roof sported immense painted letters urging people to SEE ROCK CITY, although Rob couldn’t imagine a lot of tourists passed it. Bliss parked at the end of the line.

Rob had heard many types of singing in his life, but never anything that filled the air like this music. He sat transfixed, as caught in the melodies as a deer in headlights. He distinguished fiddles, guitars, accordions, and each rang with a purity he’d never encountered, as if somehow the song reached directly into his heart and connected with his emotions.

“You all right?” Bliss asked with a knowing smile.

“I hope so,” Rob said. “Unless I’ve died, and this is heaven.”

“What if it’s hell?”

“Like Mark Twain said, heaven for the climate, hell for the company.”

This made her smile. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

They grabbed their guitars, and Bliss took the cooler from the picnic basket. Then they walked up the road toward the barn. Rob saw a vast shimmering starfield above the trees, brighter than he’d ever seen before. He blinked as several dark objects quickly flew over just above the treetops, momentarily blocking the stars as they passed. They were too big for birds or bats, but he couldn’t imagine what else they might be. Kites at night?

Bliss stopped and turned to him. “I almost forgot, I have to warn you about something. They’ll offer you drinks. Mostly homemade, but somebody always brings beer. It’s very important that you don’t drink anything except the stuff I brought in this cooler.”

“Why?”

She ignored the question. “I need your word on it. I know you’re honorable, and if you say you won’t do it, you won’t do it.”

“Why?” he asked again.

“I promise I’ll tell you later, and you’ll believe me then. But I need your word now.”

He sighed. “Okay, I promise. I won’t drink anything except what’s in your cooler.”

He followed her up the driveway, and almost immediately the music drowned out the sound of their feet crunching gravel. He didn’t recognize the song, but it carried that eternal, timeless quality only the best tunes embody.

He glanced back the way they’d come. The road disappeared so thoroughly into the darkness that he worried it had vanished. “What if I decide to leave on my own?”

“You’d never find your way out,” Bliss said. “Just like no one who isn’t invited will ever find their way in.”

When they reached the barn door, the dozen or so people gathered there all warmly greeted Bliss. They were big men and small wiry women, dressed exactly as Rob imagined working-class mountain folk would dress. To one side, a prepubescent girl danced on a flat board thrown on the ground while a young man marked time with spoons that echoed the tempo of the music inside. The girl watched her feet with grim concentration, the lace hem of her dress fluttering like a line of white butterflies.

A large man in overalls and an Atlanta Braves cap sat on an old crate at the side door, a cigar box on his lap. Moths and other insects circled the light above him. “Hey, Bliss,” he said as he hugged her.

“Hey, Uncle Node. How are you doing tonight?”

“If things get any better, I might have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.”

“Sounds like quite a crowd.”

“Yes indeedy. Something in the air seems to’ve called everybody out tonight.”

Bliss nodded toward the dancing girl. “Clementine’s getting pretty good at that flatfooting.”

He smiled proudly. “She sure is. I reckon by winter, she’ll be ready to move inside.”

“Reckon so, too. Noah Vanover, this is my friend Rob. He’s a musician, too.”

“Never woulda guessed with that guitar case,” Vanover said with a grin. He offered his hand. “How y’all doing? Call me Uncle Node, everybody else does.”

“Good to meet you, Uncle Node,” Rob said. The man had an immensely strong handshake.

“Quite a shiner you got there,” he said, nodding at Rob’s black eye.

“Tiffany Gwinn,” Bliss said. “Rob stood up to her and lived to tell about it.”

“Now, that I would’ve purely loved to have seen.”

Bliss dug in her pockets and produced what looked to Rob like two small rocks. “This should cover me and him,” she said, and handed them to Vanover. They clattered against other stones when he put them in the cigar box.

“Always a pleasure, never a chore,” he said with a smile. “Y’all have a good time.”

They entered to the right of the bandstand. A pile of guitar, fiddle, dulcimer, and other instrument cases rested against the wall, and Bliss propped hers among them. She leaned close and yelled in Rob’s ear, “It’s okay to leave your guitar here!”

Rob nodded, a bit overwhelmed. The building’s interior seemed bigger inside than it had appeared outside, like a hillbilly TARDIS. Bright overhead lights hung from wires spaced among the wooden crossbeams. Stacked in a stairstep fashion and covered with blankets, hay bales provided rough bleacher-style seating. The band riser was made of old shipping pallets covered with particle board.

At least three hundred people were crammed inside. They lined the walls and covered the hay bale bleachers, while perhaps a third of the crowd filled the hard-packed dirt dance floor in the center. Couples danced in old-style formality, but some individuals also flatfooted on pieces of wood just like the girl outside. And everyone sported the “Tufa look”—dark hair, dark skin, and seemingly perfect teeth.

“How often do you do this?” Rob hollered into Bliss’s ear.

“There’s something going on here most nights,” Bliss called back. “Lots of people still don’t have cable or the Internet. This is what they do instead.”

He followed her around the dance floor. They all seemed to know Bliss; she waved, smiled, hugged, and shook hands with almost everyone they passed. Rob was sure she introduced him to a dozen people, but he couldn’t hear a thing over the music and crowd noise. When they reached the hay bleachers, they sat with the cooler between them. He’d never seen anyone look so at home, so happy, as Bliss did at that moment.

The song finished, and the crowd applauded both the musicians and the dancers. The flatfooters held hands and bowed in a group: hefty men, skinny boys, and hard-looking women in long dresses. They gathered their boards and left the dance floor. Some of the musicians left the stage, and new ones took their place.

The squat little bandleader, who held a guitar that his stubby arms could barely reach, said, “Thank y’all. Hey, if you see a banjo player on one side of the road and an accordion player on the other, which do you run over first?” He paused for effect. “The accordion player. Business before pleasure.”

The crowd laughed good-naturedly, while both the banjo and accordion players pretended to beat the man with their instruments.

“Play ‘The Seven Nights’ Drunk’!” someone called.

“Naw, not that ol’ nonsense,” the man said, and a chorus of boos responded. He just smiled and shook his head. “See, that’s why I’d rather milk cows for a livin’ and play just for fun. Then I can play what I want to!”

The round little man waved and left the stage to a smattering of applause. The other musicians milled around, waiting as the next performer came forward.

“See that girl?” Bliss said. She indicated a teenager who now stood at center stage, tucking a fiddle under her chin and talking to the old man who played lap dulcimer. “Page Paine. She’s only fourteen. She may not be the best fiddler in Tennessee, but the ones that can beat her don’t run in bunches. A guy from Nashville heard about her, wanted to sign her up and turn her into the next Taylor Swift.”

“Didn’t happen?”

Bliss shook her head. “Nope. That’s not the reason she plays music.”

Page stepped up to the microphone and said, “Hi, y’all.” The crowd applauded again, and a few people whooped. Page smiled shyly. Her long-limbed, gawky body seemed to consist mainly of elbows and knees. “Heck, I ain’t even played nothin’ yet.” There was some laughter at this. “This first number we call ‘Knee Hig ’Em.’ It’s sorta made up.”

“What does ‘Knee Hig ’Em’ mean?” Rob asked Bliss.

“‘I don’t understand.’”

Carefully, he repeated, “What… does…”

“No, that is what it means. It means, ‘I don’t understand.’”

“Oh, sorry. In what language?”

Before she could answer, the drummer, a long-bearded young man in a faded tie-dye shirt, counted four and the band began to play. The other musicians melded together and formed a mass of sound over which Page’s fiddle soared. There was no other word for it: her skill was secondary to something ineffable, something spiritual that came directly from her soul and touched each person in the audience through the medium of her playing. Musicians dream of connecting this way, Rob knew, and to witness it—to experience it—gave him chills.

He recalled a book he’d read about the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. He’d talked of “the ancient tones,” undernotes that sustained while the fiddler played the melody, allowing the music to fill more space than seemed possible. For the first time, Rob understood what the old master meant. Page certainly did.

When she finished, she bowed and tossed her hair dramatically. The applause was genuine and enthusiastic.

“Holy shit,” Rob said as he clapped. “Do they realize how good they are?”

“Oh, yes,” Bliss answered simply.

Page pointed her bow at the back of the room. “I do believe I see my cousin Bliss back there,” Page said. “I bet we can get her up here if we try hard enough.”

People turned to look and began shouting good-natured encouragement. Bliss looked at Rob, and he nodded. She hopped down off the hay and crossed the dance floor, once again running a gauntlet of well-wishers and friends. She didn’t get her guitar, but instead climbed onstage and stood next to Page, who was half a head taller.

Page leaned down and whispered something to Bliss, who nodded. Then she said something to the band, and once again, the drummer counted off.

This song was completely different. It had a deep, primal rhythm that was more African than Appalachian, and Page played sharp percussive notes, not the soaring ones that filled every corner of the room. The crowd didn’t dance, and most of the extraneous conversation dropped off, as if in respect.

Bliss stepped to the microphone and sang the first verse:

Page leaned in to harmonize on the chorus. Unlike a lot of women’s voices, they didn’t aim for the higher registers, but kept their harmonies low, and bit off the end of each line:

Then Page, still playing, sang the next verse:

Again they harmonized on the chorus, which they sang twice, and the band dropped away until the only sound was a single long, mournful note from Page’s violin. Bliss stepped back to the microphone.

Page joined her, but sang only a sad, mountain-style wail while still playing the same long, quavering note. Rob couldn’t imagine how she kept both melodies straight, but the effect was chilling. There wasn’t a sound in the place now other than the music.

Bliss sang:

Then Page, along with the drummer and upright bass player, joined in on the final verse. The addition of these male voices added a last, sepulchral aura to the song.

The other musicians built to a crescendo, then dropped off sharply, leaving only the long, wailing violin note quivering in the silence. Page snapped it off like a gunshot, and there was a moment of total, dead silence before the crowd began applauding and whooping its appreciation.

Rob was flabbergasted. The music being played here, by these people, was on a par with the best stuff he’d heard anywhere. It was the kind of music he wanted to play, the cosmic antithesis of the shallow, technique-oriented reality show crap that had inundated him. These were world-class players, and here they were in a barn in the middle of the Smoky Mountains playing for the sheer hell of it.

Below him, a big man packed into a too-small lawn chair looked up at Rob and smiled. “Want a beer?” he said, offering a can.

Remembering his promise, Rob shook his head. “No, thanks. Makes me act stupid.”

“Drink is the curse of the workin’ man,” he said. “Course, work is the curse of the drinking man.”

“And drink is the work of the cursing man?” Rob deadpanned. The big man howled in laughter, until Bliss’s voice again came through the speakers.

“Thanks, y’all. I got kind of a surprise of my own for you, a friend of mine from the flatlands who’s a heckuva picker. Rob, come on down. Rob Quillen, ladies and gentlemen!”

Rob hopped off the hay bleachers and followed Bliss’s trail to the stage. If anyone recognized him, it didn’t interfere with their enthusiasm; he saw no whispered asides or pointing fingers. Amazingly, he also felt no qualms, just an eagerness to join these players.

A teenage boy, shirtless beneath overalls and sporting a scraggly soul patch, stepped in front of him just before he reached his instrument. “I think you’ll be wanting to use this instead.” He held up an electric guitar.

Rob said, “No, I’ve got my own.”

The boy smiled. “You can’t rock the hills with a whisper, son.”

Rob took the instrument to avoid any trouble, but as he put the strap over his head, he felt more complete than he had in months. The instrument felt amazing in his hands, perfectly balanced and as comfortable as if he’d been playing it for years. It was a first-generation Telecaster Esquire, with the finish worn in places by years of playing. He looked for a cord to plug into the jack, then realized there was a wireless unit taped to the strap. The boy who’d given him the ax turned on an amplifier, which buzzed and chirped when Rob touched the strings. He gave Rob a thumbs-up, then disappeared into the crowd.

Rob stepped onstage next to Bliss and Page, grinning. “What are we playing?”

The drummer pointed a stick at him. “One of yours.”

“Mine? You don’t know any of—”

“Tell us the changes, we’ll be fine,” one of the others assured him. It was a woman in her thirties, with tight jeans and short hair. Rob swore she hadn’t been there a moment ago, but now she was, holding an electric bass.

At once he knew exactly what song to play, one that was musically simple enough the band could easily get it and run with it. “Changes are one-three-five, Bo Diddley style.”

A wiry man with leathery skin and an eye patch carried a banjo onstage. “Care if I join in?”

“You ever played Chuck Berry on that thing?” Rob asked.

“Once. Down in Louisiana, close to New Orleans.”

“Hop onboard, then. Everybody else clear?”

They all nodded as if playing a brand-new song off the tops of their heads happened every day.

Rob stepped to the microphone. “I’d like to thank everyone for making me feel so welcome. This is one of my own songs; hope you like it.”

He began to play, and the others listened as he strummed the first stanza in full before he began to sing:

The drummer caught the beat after the first few bars, and then the bassist and one-eyed banjo picker followed. After only the briefest disharmony, they sounded like they’d played the song a thousand times. Grinning like an idiot, Rob charged into the chorus.

When he paused after the chorus, Page contributed a long, heartrending fiddle riff that caught him so by surprise that he almost missed the cue to begin singing again.

This time he nodded for Bliss to harmonize with him on the chorus, and she did, taking the high end and adding just enough Joplin-y growl to really accent the song’s grit. She sang as if she could read his mind.

Rob jumped into the air, came down with his feet spread wide and tore into a solo. He wasn’t a show-off, he believed in sacrificing everything for the sake of the overall song, but this time the music burned out of him. He felt sweat run down his cheeks and nose as he huddled over his guitar, and he finished with a flourish and a full 360 spin. The reaction was ecstatic.

The banjo player stepped forward and took the next solo. It brought a spontaneous cheer from the crowd; Rob couldn’t blame them.

When he stepped to the microphone again, he decided to really see how good these guys were at following him.

“Wait a minute!” he cried, and waved his arm for the band to stop. They did, right on cue, except for the steady rumble of the bass and the tapping on the drummer’s hi-hat, just as Rob imagined it.

The crowd, smiling and clapping, waited to see what he’d say. He felt as if they hung on his every word, that he could do no wrong, and that the musicians behind him would accurately anticipate his every move, on a song they’d never even heard before. He never wanted this moment to end.

“You folks would call this a love song, wouldn’t you?” he asked the crowd, and was rewarded with cheers. “Well, I’ve learned a lot about love songs over the past couple of days. This song used to have a happy ending, where the guy runs off with the girl, but that doesn’t seem right, does it?”

The crowd booed and shouted “No!” and “Uh-uh!”

“Yeah, I agree. I mean, the guy is cheating on his wife, and in your love songs, he wouldn’t get away with that, would he? So I’ve kinda made up a new verse just now, to end it differently. Tell me what you think.”

He turned to the band and shouted a four-count before launching into the final verse.

The crowd roared its approval, and with a wild cry of abandon and joy, he launched into the final chorus. The band came in right on cue. Both Bliss and Page leaned in to harmonize, and they held out the final crescendo until he swung his guitar up and dramatically brought it down. The crowd applauded, cheered, and whistled, and Rob watched them with amazement. He felt Bliss thread her fingers through his, and glanced over at her. She was smiling, and he thought at that moment he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. He took Page’s hand, and when the others had lined up with them, they bowed in unison.

When he stood, his eye fell on a woman in the crowd who looked for all the world like Stella Kizer.

He froze and stared. She followed a tall, ridiculously handsome man as he worked his way to the back of the room. She momentarily turned toward him, and he saw that her face was drawn tight and tired, with dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days. In fact, she looked so different, he wasn’t entirely certain it was her, and she vanished into the approving throng almost immediately.

By the time Bliss handed him a bottle of water from her cooler, Rob was exhausted. He wiped sweat on his shirttail and drank half the bottle at once. Another group of musicians was onstage now, and he followed Bliss into the cool outside air. Everyone he passed told him how well he’d played.

At the edge of the clear space around the barn, a group of small children stood together tossing bread crumbs and corn to three enormous emus that had emerged from the forest. The birds, skittish and uncertain, caught some of the pieces in the air, which made the kids laugh. The noise caused the birds to back away, but they didn’t run off into the darkness.

Bliss led him to a bonfire, deserted except for some teenagers banging rough tunes on bongos. A canvas camping chair stood empty, and he held it mock gallantly for Bliss. Then he dropped to the ground beside her. The night’s breeze was the perfect temperature to take the edge off the fire’s warmth.

“That… was… amazing,” he said, still grinning. “I’ve never played with anyone who could follow stuff like that without rehearsing. I sure can’t do it.”

“Good thing you were leading, then,” Bliss said. In the orange glow, she appeared untouchably beautiful.

“Do I get my explanation now?”

Bliss smiled tiredly. “Yes, you do. I know what I need to know about you.”

“Which is what?”

She looked at the people milling outside the barn and clustered around the fire. “Ah-ha. There’s Annie May Pritchard.”

She pointed across the fire, where a teenage girl danced to the sultry beat provided by the drummers. She had black hair in a ponytail and her eyes were closed. She wore low-slung jeans and a tank top that left her stomach exposed, and her bare feet stirred a small cloud of dust.

“What do you see?” Bliss asked.

“A pretty girl dancing.”

“That’s all?”

“What else should I see?”

“Look harder.”

He did, then shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe if I knew what I was looking for—”

Bliss licked her lips. He’d played with the Tufa, with her Tufa. Even if Mandalay was right about why, it didn’t change what had happened. And now she had a promise to keep. “This’ll hurt for a second,” she said, and before he could respond, she thumped him solidly right on the stitched lump.

“Ow!” he cried, and closed his eyes against the pain.

He felt her hands on either side of his head from behind, holding him in a rock-solid grip. “Don’t close your eyes, Rob. Look.”

He blinked. Across the fire, he saw the same young girl dancing, except…

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

It was the same girl, the same Annie May Pritchard, but now she wore a shimmering wrap that alternately covered and revealed a lean, supple body. Her skin shone in the firelight, alive with rainbow colors. Tall, pointed ears rose from her hair. And from her back sprang two enormous, gossamer wings that flexed to the same rhythm.

He blinked again. Once more, she was just a dancing teenage girl.

He sat very still until Bliss removed her hands. “So what did you see?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t have a clue,” he replied honestly, his voice barely louder than the crackling fire. “What was I supposed to see?”

“Tell me what you did see.”

“It looked like that girl there turned into… Tinker Bell or something.”

Bliss nodded. “Not far off.”

“And exactly why did I see that?”

Cut us, we bleed red. Tickle us, we laugh hard. Whack us in the head, we get dizzy. Now Mandalay’s words made sense. “Somehow, your blow to the skull the other day opened you to… well, things most non-Tufa people don’t see. I realized it when you saw those tombstones behind the fire station, and then when you were able to find them again after you reinjured yourself. And when I heard you play, at our picnic and here tonight, I knew that it was the truth. Even though you’re not Tufa, apparently the right whack to the right head will do it.” We can’t be that different from them, Mandalay had said. “I know it sounds squirrelly, but you saw it, didn’t you?”

He swore that when he focused on Bliss’s eyes, her ears were tall and pointed in his peripheral vision. Yet when he looked directly, they were as normal as his own. “You didn’t slip anything in that water, did you? Acid or something?”

“No.” She looked into his eyes as her heart pounded out a foxtrot in her chest. “So. Do you believe me?”

“I’m looking for a magical song, I’m in no position to judge.” He should’ve been afraid, or at least nervous, but he felt inexplicably safe with her. “So what are you people?”

She looked down, summoning the courage to break the Tufa’s greatest taboo. Carefully, she said, “We were here before the first tribesmen came over from Asia and became the Native Americans. We were here when the first Europeans laid claim to these mountains, as if they were something you could own, like a hat or a gun.” She gestured at the trees. “The forest is our home. When you enter it uninvited and unaccompanied, you enter our world and have to abide by its rules. Many who do, are never seen again. But the ones who are invited, who are brought by us—”

Before she could continue, a vehicle missing its muffler came out of the night. An old station wagon parked awkwardly, right in front of the barn.

Bliss got to her feet. “You have got to be fucking kidding,” she whispered.

The door opened, and Rockhouse Hicks lurched to his feet. He held unsteadily on to the door. “Y’all havin’ a hell of a time, ain’t you?” he said in a loud drunken voice.