Alex Bledsoe - Wisp of a Thing

“Hell, me neither, boys.” Rockhouse closed the station wagon’s door. A couple of the men jumped at the sound. Rob couldn’t figure out why this old man made these big, strong farmers so tense, but they all looked like they expected violence to erupt at any moment. “I’m just here to fetch my nephew home before he gets into any trouble. I told him not to come up here, but he’s got a new city girlfriend and wants to show her off.”

Without taking his eyes off Rockhouse, Vanover said, “Jim, go fetch Stoney Hicks. I saw him polecattin’ around inside earlier.” One of the big men nodded and went inside.

Bliss grabbed Rob’s arm and pulled him into the shadows near the edge of the forest. “I thought you said Rockhouse never came here,” he whispered.

“He never has before,” Bliss said, her voice tight. Of all the times to be saddled with a non-Tufa. “Something’s up. Just stay here and be quiet, okay? This doesn’t concern you.”

Bliss strode out of the darkness and stood in front of Vanover, facing Hicks. The beefy hill men looked visibly relieved when they saw her. Rockhouse belched a little, then squinted at her. “That you, Bliss?”

“You know it is, Rockhouse,” she said, folding her arms.

Her presence took away a bit of his bluster, and he stood quietly until the side door opened and Jim led two people out. One was the tall, handsome young man Rob had noticed earlier. He held the hand of the girl behind him, and when the light struck her face, Rob saw that it was indeed Stella Kizer.

Before he even consciously realized it, he stalked out of the shadows. “Hey!” he yelled. “Stella Kizer!”

She turned toward his voice. Her face looked pale and splotchy, as if she’d been crying. She seemed to recognize Rob, and opened her mouth to speak.

Before she could, Stoney said simply, “C’mon, Stel.” She lowered her eyes and turned away.

“Hey,” Rob said as he reached the group, “I’m a friend of the lady’s husband, and I’d like a word with her.”

Bliss grabbed him by the arm. “Stay out of this!” she hissed.

He twisted out of her grasp. “Her husband’s worried sick about her, and the cops are looking all over for her. I figure the least she could do is tell me what the hell she thinks she’s doing so I can pass it on to them.”

Stella looked stricken, torn between obeying her new paramour and talking to Rob. Stoney opened the back passenger door.

“So what’s the deal, Stella?” Rob demanded. As he waited for her reply, he spotted several familiar rolled pieces of paper on the vehicle’s floorboard. So she had the rubbings.

“Y’all best back off,” Stoney said, his voice thick with alcohol and arrogance.

“I got no quarrel with you, friend, I just want to hear what the lady has to say for herself,” Rob said.

Stoney stepped in front of Stella, his broad chest belligerently pushed out. Rob looked up into the handsome face’s dull, almost lifeless eyes. “I ain’t your friend, city boy. I’m about to sing your dyin’ dirge.”

“Stoney!” Rockhouse barked warningly.

A line from one of the tombstones behind the fire station jumped unbidden to the front of Rob’s thoughts, and he fired back, “Yeah, well, I may just leave your body lifeless for the flies, pretty boy.”

The onlookers gasped. The music inside the barn stopped dead. The only sounds were insects in the woods and a distant airplane far overhead.

“See what you done?” Rockhouse said to his nephew, his voice high with outrage. “Now, get in the goddam car, Stoney. Now. ”

Stoney held Rob’s gaze. “This ain’t over, short stuff,” Stoney said, then followed Stella into the car. Rob thought he caught a last, pleading look from her as the door closed, but before he could respond, the station wagon was already driving away in a cloud of dust turned hellfire red by its taillights.

The music picked up as if it had never stopped. Rob turned to Bliss. “They had her husband’s tombstone rubbings in—”

She took his hand and yanked him away from Vanover and the other men, all of whom stared at him as if he’d grown a second nose. When she had him back in the shadows out of earshot, she grabbed him by the throat. He was astounded at her strength.

“If you ever do anything like that again, Rob, I swear to God, I’ll kill you,” she roared, although her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m not exaggerating for effect, I mean it. I’ll physically kill you, and no one will ever find your body.”

“You people take your epitaphs mighty seriously,” he croaked, trying to get free of her grip. Maybe this was why she frightened Tiffany Gwinn.

“You just presumed to be something you most definitely are not. You represented yourself as something you can’t possibly be.” She yanked him close. “And your mouth wrote a check that I guarantee your ass can’t cash. And that makes it my problem.”

She released him and stepped away. He took a moment to catch his breath, and wondered if she’d done any permanent damage to his voice. “Okay, that was seriously messed up,” he gasped. “Here’s a hint—if something’s supposed to be secret, you shouldn’t carve it on your damn tombstones.”

“What the hell do you know about it?” she snapped. Calm down, Bliss, she told herself, you don’t have the luxury of a temper.

“You threatened to kill me,” he said.

“No, I promised to kill you. I’m sorry about that. Just give me a minute, all right?” She turned her back and lowered her head. She’d completely blown everything, thanks to Rockhouse’s unexpected appearance. Rob had seen the truth, but she’d had no time to explain it, to tell him what words and songs and stories really meant to her people, and why the wrong thing quoted at the wrong time could do irreparable harm.

He started to reply, but didn’t. Despite the attack and her demonstration of an almost super-human strength, he was moved by the way she suddenly seemed small and fragile. He started to reach for her, when movement in the corner of his eye stopped him.

Curnen peered around a tree at the very edge of the forest. It was the first time he’d seen her standing fully upright. She wore a different tattered dress, this one a couple of sizes too big that fell off one shoulder, and her hair was haphazardly brushed back from her face. It was both comical and touching, as if she’d wanted to dress up and look nice but literally had no idea how.

She put her finger to her lips, then nodded that he should come closer. Bliss, still turned away, did not notice. Curnen repeated the gesture, and playfully smiled. She stretched one six-fingered hand toward him, tentative and shy, and he couldn’t help himself. He reached toward her.

Her long, supple fingers closed around his hand, and she yanked him after her into the woods.

Bliss whirled. Rob had vanished, and only the vibration of the tree branches showed evidence of his passage. She caught a whiff of Curnen’s distinctive odor. No doubt she’d appeared demure, and helpless, and like a lost little girl to him. And now he was gone.

The images from that first dream before she’d met Rob sprang unbidden to her mind: a white hand clawing out of a grave, and the two figures fighting, one in a blood-spattered dress. She felt a chill, and heard the wind rustle the trees far above. The bonfire flared, and the conversation outside the barn died down. Even the music paused. When the night wind spoke, the Tufa listened, but only a few could hear it clearly. She was one of them.

Bliss bit her lip, clenched her fists, and plunged into the forest after her sister and Rob. For a Tufa, the woods were as vast as the seas, and she was looking for a lone man adrift in them. But she had to try. At least she had a pretty good idea where they’d gone.