Wisp of a Thing

23

On his way back to Needsville, Rob topped a hill and slammed on his brakes. Traffic was blocked in both directions. In the rearview mirror, he saw the car behind do the same thing, stopping an inch short of Rob’s bumper.

He sat shaking, his heart pounding. On the satellite radio, Ricky Skaggs sang about Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen.

A pickup had gone off the road and smashed into a tree, and now a state police car, ambulance, and tow truck clustered near it. The trooper efficiently directed traffic, and Rob waited as a vehicle traveling the opposite direction made its way slowly around the wreck. The driver rubbernecked to see details.

EMTs carried the injured driver on a stretcher to the ambulance. The victim was huge, and the two big men carrying him visibly strained with effort. Rob recognized Bliss as the third rescuer, holding up the IV bag of clear fluid attached to the victim’s arm; she didn’t notice him in the line of cars. The ambulance passed Rob as it headed toward the interstate, lights and sirens blazing.

The trooper motioned Rob around the wreck. As he passed, a shudder ran through him as if he’d crossed some unseen barrier. The odd atmosphere of Needsville started at this exact point, and as he drove the rest of the way into town, it only got stronger.

At the Catamount Corner, Rob checked his e-mail and did a quick, fruitless search on the Internet. Evidently Rockhouse Hicks’s musical career had faded so thoroughly that not even cyberhicks who knew every concert played by Uncle Dave Macon could remember him. This both delighted and saddened Rob; the shit-heel deserved it, but at the same time, what a fate to befall a musician who’d once shared the stage with the immortals.

The room phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Bliss said. Her voice sounded a little odd. “I just finished my shift. Can I see you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’m at the hospital in Unicorn. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

Forty-five minutes later, Peggy Goins pushed open the door behind the Catamount Corner, lit her cigarette, and nearly screamed. Her first thought was that the dark shape huddled beside the wall was a bear cub, which meant the momma bear wouldn’t be far away. Then she sighed with relief.

Bliss Overbay sat on the ground, her back against the building, legs drawn up, and head down on her knees. She still wore her dark brown EMT uniform and cap. Peggy fluttered her hand over her chest. “Lord a’mercy, Bliss, you almost scared me out of my skin. I should be standing here just a skeleton, you know that?”

Bliss’s eyes were red, and tears glistened on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Peggy,” she said in a trembling voice. “I just didn’t know where else to go. I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t want to do it inside, and I just had to rest a little….” She began crying again, the kind of big sobs kids make when they’ve lost the battle to be brave.

With her cigarette held safely aside, Peggy knelt and put her free arm around Bliss’s shoulders. “There, there, darlin’,” she said gently. “I know something’s happened—now, you just tell Peggy all about it.”

Bliss nodded. “Uncle Node. He went off the highway in his truck.” She looked up and met Peggy’s eyes. “Right at the county line.”

Peggy’s jaw muscles swelled as she gritted her teeth. “That six-fingered sonuvabitch.”

“It was because of me, Peggy,” Bliss blurted, still crying. “I stood up to him in public, and he couldn’t do anything about it, but Uncle Node was right there with me, and I didn’t think to protect him.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Peggy said, and sat on the ground beside her. The gravel dug into her legs through her starched and ironed jeans as she let the other woman snuggle into her embrace. “You’re not responsible. You’re the regent, not the queen.”

“The queen’s in elementary school,” Bliss said bitterly. “It was my responsibility.”

“Bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French. Uncle Node’s been around almost as long as I have, and knew the risk of standing up to Rockhouse.”

“I can’t let him get away with it, Peggy,” Bliss said, resolve finally breaking through the tears. “He hurts too many people. That nephew of his alone has killed how many poor girls who did nothing to him but love him.”

“Honey, ain’t a girl in these mountains don’t know what she’s getting into when she lies down with a Tufa boy. It’s just a shame the Tufa girls can’t do it so easy. But then again, there’s things we do that the boys can’t even imagine.” She remembered the looks on young men above her, long-haired and scraggly-bearded hippie lads, their eyes wide with wonder as they experienced just what a Tufa girl could do in an intimate moment. It had been a time of free love, and Peggy embraced it with a fervor that these now-nearing-retirement men no doubt still wistfully remembered. But that was too long ago in the world’s years to dwell on now.

She nodded at the treetops looming over them. “What do you think is moving them boughs around?”

“The wind,” Bliss said, like a child to a patient parent.

“That’s right. That wind brought us here, that wind still guides us. And she whispers to you far more than she ever has to me. I’m sorry you never got to be just a girl and play and have fun with the boys, but you just weren’t picked out for that. Until Mandalay is ready to step up, you’re on one end of the stick, Rockhouse is on the other. If you jump off, he goes all the way up. And don’t nobody want that, including him, I imagine. Am I right?”

Bliss thought about the rank, primitive place Rockhouse called home, and the solitude he endured because no one from her side trusted him, and no one from his own loved him. They only feared him, which kept them in line but also kept him isolated. She nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You here to see that boy Rob again?”

Bliss nodded.

“That sister of yours has been poking around him, too.”

“Yes. She knows he’s different. She thinks he can help her.”

“Nothing can help that girl. And if he ain’t careful, she’ll latch on to him and pull him down with her.”

“It’s not all her fault, Peggy.”

“No, but it takes two to tango, if you know what I mean.”

“My God, Peggy, she was a child. She was his child.”

“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.”