Alex Bledsoe - Wisp of a Thing

He indicated the girl with the rapturous expression. “And that’s your sister, Curnen?”

“Yes,” she said with certainty.

“Somebody stitched her into a tapestry before she was born?”

She took a deep breath before saying, “Time doesn’t work the same for everybody.”

“I need more than a fancy beach towel to convince me of that, Bliss.”

“Keep looking at it.”

Rob was about to reply, when he noticed something so obvious, he couldn’t believe he’d missed it before. The axman in the tapestry also had a familiar face, and when he looked more closely, he saw that each hand wrapped six fingers around the ax handle. “Is that… Rockhouse Hicks ?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He tried to cover his shock. Cavalierly, he said, “I suppose there’s a story behind it?”

“There’s always a story.” She reached out and gently touched the fabric, tracing the edge of the axman’s blade with her fingertip. “This man was the queen’s forester, which was a title as well as a job. He organized the forest so that only the right trees were cut, and had absolute control over the people and animals that lived in it. But he wasn’t the brightest thing in the woods, so he made a stupid bet that he could split a hickory nut in half with one stroke of his mighty ax. The queen, who adored gambling, got wind of it and came to watch, and this threw him off. He failed, and as a result, he was banished from the kingdom, and the forest.”

“And this happened when?” Rob asked.

“Before we came here. Before the people of the forest followed the forester to this new land. Ironically, although he couldn’t split one damn hickory nut, he managed to split the Tufa in two.”

“And nobody’s noticed that he’s been around for hundreds of years?”

“Oh, that kind of magic’s not hard at all. It’s the same thing that makes people not see the cemetery behind the fire station. People notice what they want to. The people who stay in Needsville know to leave Rockhouse alone. The people who leave town forget about him. Visitors just think he’s colorful. So he just goes on, piddle-assing with his music and being a bastard to everyone.”

Rob pointed at the figure of Curnen. “So why is your sister there?”

With no emotion, she said, “Haven’t you figured that out? I thought the six fingers would make it obvious. My sister is also his daughter.”

The full meaning of this worked its way through his brain. He looked into her grim, unsmiling face. “Your mom was Rockhouse’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“And… so his musical career was ruined because he got caught with Curnen ? His daughter, who is also his niece?…”

“Yes, it’s just… Chinatown,” she said wryly. Then she stared at him in surprise. “Wait, you know about his career?”

“Is it a secret?”

“It’s very old news.”

“That’s the nice thing about the Internet. All news is current.” He didn’t want to bring Howell into it if he didn’t have to.

She took a moment to collect herself. “Well, as for Curnen destroying his chance to be a star, yes, but no. He did get caught with her. But his career was ruined because he broke Tufa rules and tried to permanently leave Cloud County. That’s hard for a Tufa to do. You’ve heard of Bronwyn Hyatt, haven’t you? She joined the army to get away, but she ended up right back here, and quite a bit the worse for wear. The powers we worship and follow used the events of the war to bring her back, and they did the same thing to Rockhouse.”

He studied the faces of Rockhouse and Curnen; there could be no mistake, it was them, but that story explained nothing, not least of which how the girl had stayed young while Rockhouse aged normally. “Rockhouse’s fall happened almost sixty years ago.”

“Yeah.”

“And all this is possible because ‘time doesn’t work the same for everybody’?”

“Yes, yet again.” She reached up and brushed the tapestry so lightly, it didn’t visibly move; only the slight puff of dust that rose from it said she’d even made contact. “Rockhouse led our people across the ocean to the west, and they settled here. But eventually other people began to arrive, the first human settlers, and as our folk and theirs began to mix, he got restless. He saw that the Tufa were losing their identity and becoming more like these newcomers. So he decided we should all only breed with each other, to keep the Tufa bloodlines pure, and with a lot of persuasion and manipulation, he managed to get my mother pregnant with Curnen.”

“How did your father take that?”

“It wasn’t pretty. But as you can imagine, Rockhouse’s whole save-the-tribe-through-incest program never really caught on. Most of the Tufa just ignored him and went on their way, blending in and falling in love with whoever they wanted.”

“What did Rockhouse do then?”

“At heart he’s a petulant child. He just said ‘screw it,’ and struck out on his own. Picked up a banjo, a pair of cowboy boots, and some songs. Took Curnen and her boyfriend, Brushy Dale, with him. Brushy was his guitar player, and Curnen sang backup. They did all right for a while. The night winds will let us leave, as long as our intentions are pure. But once the winds realized he never intended to return, they made sure he had no choice. They used his own proclivities to disgrace him.” She paused. “When Brushy Dale learned what Rockhouse had done to Curnen, he pulled a knife and threatened to kill him, in front of a bunch of other people backstage at the Opry. That’s how everyone found out.”

“Where is Brushy now?”

“No one knows. Well, maybe Curnen, but she can’t say. He never came back to Needsville, and Rockhouse swears he left him in Nashville.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Not for a fucking moment. I think Rockhouse cursed Brushy just like he did Curnen. I don’t know exactly what he did to Brushy, but he cursed her to become a wisp of a thing, a ghost that’s never actually died. She’s fought it, but he’s strong, especially when he wants to hurt someone. Fewer and fewer people remember her, and when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree this year, she’ll be lost entirely.”

Rob nodded, but said nothing. What was there to say? This was so much to absorb, it left him speechless. The lump on his head tingled and itched, distracting him as well. But he finally said, “I have a story for you now. I wasn’t going to tell you, because I thought it sounded ridiculous, but after what you’ve told me…”

Like her, he reached up and gently touched the fabric. He heard a sharp intake of her breath, but she didn’t try to stop him. He lightly tapped the face on the fabric, making the tapestry ripple. “This was the guy who told me about the magic song that night in Atlanta. Rockhouse Hicks. As he looked on his old album covers. I didn’t recognize him the way he is now, old and with a beard. But it was him.” He turned to Bliss and smiled without any amusement at all. “I’ll believe your fairy tale if you’ll believe mine.”

Bliss stared at him. “That’s not possible.”

“That’s a little pot–kettle, don’t you think?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. He couldn’t have been there. He can’t leave.”

“He’s chained to this spot?” Rob asked, wondering if she’d recognize the song title.

“Yes. So you didn’t see him. You saw a haint. An apparition.”

“A ghost?”

“No, not a ghost. He’s not dead, it wasn’t his spirit.”

“Then what was it?”

She waved her hands in front of her face. “Stop badgering me, let me think.”

He returned his attention to the tapestry. Now that he understood its secrets, he saw lots of other familiar faces: Peggy Goins and her husband, Marshall, were there; the portly MC from the barn dance; even Stoney Hicks. Or was he just projecting onto these stylized visages?