Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

And yet…

Those eyes. That dark hair falling from its tie in wild, loose strands around her face. Those lips, unadorned yet still full and delicious. And that voice …

He sighed. There was a time and place for everything, and this was neither. Craig was not a virgin; he’d been called to the ministry as a young adult, so he’d sowed his share of wild oats, and knew any future sex would have to wait until he found a woman he truly wanted to be his wife. He’d dated several women since deciding to be a minister, and almost married one of them. He could acknowledge the attraction, accept it, and yet not let it control his life.

But he could not understand why it had to be a battered, barely grown war hero from an obscure ethnic group. What, he thought half-seriously, was the Good Lord smoking?

“That was weird,” Bronwyn said as she settled in at the kitchen table and propped her crutches against it. “A preacher trying to save souls in Needsville.” The weirdest part was that the intangible defenses that kept most outsiders at a distance, like those reporters, apparently hadn’t impeded the young minister.

Her father put a fresh cup of coffee in front of her and sat down in the opposite chair. “Yeah, reckon it’s a weird time. What with that Internet and all them cell phones, Needsville’s almost part of the world these days.”

“The world ain’t ready for us, Daddy,” she said with certainty. “I’ve been out there and seen it. We’d be like tulips in a windstorm.”

He nodded. “Can’t say I’d be sorry to go back to the way things were ’bout twenty years ago.”

“Before I was born?” she teased. “Am I that bad?”

He looked at her evenly. “Might do it differently with you if I could start over.”

“Daddy, you did fine. Some things are just born wild, and it takes a while for ’em to run it off.”

“You run yours off yet?”

She looked down at the coffee. From this angle, it reflected her father’s face. “I sure ain’t feeling too wild these days. Don’t know if it’ll come back or not. Part of me hopes it does, the rest of me…” She trailed off with a shrug, then took another sip of her drink. “I don’t even know where the rest of me is right now.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said with certainty. “Although I’m worried to hear you paraphrasin’ Ronald Reagan.”

Bronwyn smiled, then looked around. “Hey, where’s Mom?”

“She went out to check something in the garden. Said she’d be right back.”

She looked out the window. Her mother was on her knees at the bottom of the yard, picking the beginnings of weeds from the dirt. Her autoharp rested on a folding chair nearby. A mockingbird flew down, perched on the chair, and pecked once at the instrument’s strings.

Bronwyn couldn’t hear the sound, but the scene made her smile. As a little girl she’d sat in that same chair plucking those same strings, aching for the day she could coax music from them and fly on the night wind.

“I can carry you out there,” Deacon said. “Or push your wheelchair.”

She shook her head. “No thanks. It ain’t that. It’s…”

“Couldn’t play Magda?”

She nodded. “How’d you know?”

“Expected to hear you playing last night, and didn’t.” And it was normally true: a full-blood Tufa who’d been away from home all this time would’ve spent half the night playing. The silence once her door closed told her family everything.

“It ain’t that I can’t play,” Bronwyn said quietly. “Everything works. This hole in my arm went right through, so it healed up pretty quick, like you said.”

“It’s the hole in your head giving you trouble?”

She smiled. Many times in her youth, her father had accused her of having extra holes in her head. “I wasn’t shot in the head, Daddy, I had a skull fracture and concussion from the IED. It makes some things… fuzzy.”

“Like what things?”

“Like… music.”

They were both quiet for a long moment. “You tell your mama?” he asked finally, no accusation or judgment, just a question.

She shook her head. “You gonna tell her?”

“One of us is.”

“Okay, okay. I will.” She sipped her coffee and watched the porch chimes wave in the breeze without quite sounding. “Did I hear the phone ring before I got up?”

“It was that Major Maitland. He’s a slippery fella, isn’t he?”

“He may be president someday. What’d he want?”

“See how you were. See if them reporters was still around. I don’t think he believed me when I told him they wasn’t. I reckon he suspects they’re hanging out in the trees like squirrels.”

“That’s what he’s used to,” she said. “He’ll never understand this place.”

“Not many from the outside would. He said people from Hollywood are calling. I got the idea lots of money was involved.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’d tell you he called.”

Chloe entered through the back door, stepped out of her sandals, and went to the sink. As she washed a pair of fresh tomatoes she said, “Bliss Overbay’ll be stopping by to see you.”

“Good, I ain’t seen her in weeks,” Deacon deadpanned.

“Not you, ” Chloe scolded. “Girl like Bliss ain’t got time for an old man like you.”

“That’s ’cause I’d flat wear her out,” Deacon said with a grin.

Bronwyn recalled the bird, the bells, and the haint she’d put off last night. “Bliss is coming to talk to me?”

“Course. You saw her yesterday, so you knew she would.”

“Didn’t know it’d be right away. Thought she might give me some time to settle in.”

“It’s your home,” Chloe said as she dried her fingers. “How settled do you need to be?”

Bronwyn sighed. “Reckon you’re right.” But she knew Bliss would not be making a simple social call. In the hidden, complex world of Tufa authority, Bliss Overbay wielded a mighty stick, and when she swung it, all the Tufa ducked. There was etiquette to a meeting like this, and Bronwyn would have to at least try to fulfill her part of things.

Chloe poured herself a cup of coffee. She kissed Deacon on the cheek as she passed him, then sat in the only other open chair. “You’ll have to talk to that haint tonight, too.”

“I will. Damn, Mom, I just got out of the hospital.”

Her mother slapped her hand on the table so loud and hard, it was like a pistol shot; in fact, Bronwyn might’ve reflexively jumped aside if she hadn’t been trapped by the pin frame. Her chest constricted and her eyes went wide.

Even Deacon looked surprised. “Honey?” he said to his wife.

Chloe’s voice shook with suppressed anger. “Yes, I know, I’ve heard all about your sacrifices, your injuries, all about what a hero you are. And you know what? I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve spent the last two years playacting, and now that you’re home where the real work is, you’re trying to avoid it. You will see Bliss when she comes, and you will listen to your haint tonight. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

Bronwyn could barely breathe. A new image, one she’d never recalled before, came unbidden through her fog of memory, shaken loose by her mother’s slap. It was the same flash of orange light, but then it turned white, and she realized it was a flashlight. Beyond it was a swarthy face with a jet-black mustache and dark, panicky eyes. He said something she couldn’t catch—her Arabic was terrible—and then reached for her.

She shivered, and realized she was sweating. When she looked up, Chloe and Deacon both stared at her. “One of them flashbacks?” her father asked softly.