Christopher Rice - The Vines

Some stupid white girl’s not going to chop my daddy down like he’s a damn tree. I don’t think so! No ma’am.

At first Nova thinks it’s her father who has pulled her off the crazed woman—who has sunk to a crouch and is sobbing hysterically, hands raised to defend herself. But the voice in Nova’s ear is soft, and almost a whisper. It’s Caitlin.

“Oh gosh,” Caitlin says, sounding more dazed than panicked. “Now what on earth is happening here ?”

Gosh? Nova thinks. Caitlin’s as crazy as this bitch covered in blood.

The woman collapsed in front of the shed has lost her mind, it seems. Her legs splayed, she’s pumping her hands in front of her face like she’s trying to disperse a cloud of invisible insects.

Caitlin steps over the crazy woman and into the darkness beyond. Despite her lingering anger, Nova is astonished by the woman’s bravery, by the way she pushes the door open just enough to allow herself to step inside what is surely a scene of bloody horror.

“Miss Caitlin,” Willie calls out to her, and Caitlin turns, one finger raised to quiet him. The nod she gives them is both calm and authoritative, as if she is relieving them of their solemn duty so she can face whatever bloody nightmare must be inside the shed alone.

And that’s when Nova sees it. It is small and it is glowing, and it appears to be hovering just above the shed’s dirt floor. Her first guess is that it’s one of those glow-in-the-dark sticks that come with the emergency kits she buys her father for hurricane season, the kind you crack in both hands to illuminate. But there are too many different bright colors pulsating in it—and she can’t think of why one of those would be in the shed in the first place.

Nova is riveted by the sight of the… flower? Is it some kind of flower? Maybe some decoration stolen from inside the—

Caitlin is looking back at her.

It’s easy to miss in the shadows, but the woman is most certainly staring back over one shoulder at Nova, and there is nothing startled or solicitous about her expression. She needs no confirmation from Nova that she too has witnessed the strange, shimmering apparition. Instead, she reaches back and shuts the door behind her, leaving Nova with the conviction that Caitlin knows exactly what the damn thing is and doesn’t want anyone else to see it.

We are not that family, Nova thinks, once the police have separated her from her father.

He is outside now with the uniformed officers who arrived within minutes of the first 911 call, while the two plainclothes detectives who appear to be leading the investigation into Troy’s disappearance have brought Nova to the house’s grand front parlor.

God only knows where Caitlin is. Probably upstairs, laid out on one of the canopied beds, the cops tending to her like nursemaids, even though it’s very possible she’s the one who started this entire mess. But Nova can’t go there just yet; she’s still not sure what the hell that thing was inside of the shed, right where Troy Mangier should have been lying in a bloody tumble of limbs. And so she’s still not sure what, if anything, Caitlin is hiding from them all.

The hardwood floor under their feet is dappled with glitter and confetti. Caitlin’s presents, brought by those who insisted on ignoring the invitation’s polite promise Your presence is our gift , sit in a shiny pile atop a side table sandwiched between two of the house’s soaring front windows and their lush, puddling drapes. And even though she is trying to look submissive and polite— respectful , as her mother would have said, usually after bopping Nova across the behind with a rolled-up magazine because she said something smart—a defensive monologue is building in Nova’s throat like steam inside of a calliope.

We were not the family the cops came to. We were not the family with some son or brother or uncle who’d given himself over to the law of the street and came banging on our doors and waving guns at all hours of the night. My daddy is alive. He works too damn hard and my mother died of cancer, and goddammit, I have never touched a gun in my life, and I shouldn’t be here being questioned by these two smug cops as if I’ve got something to do with the insanity of some crazy blood-covered white lady.

This is the first time Nova has been invited to sit on any of the antique furniture, and only because the two cops suggested she take a seat, probably so they could tower over her like they’re doing now. The bald one studies her closely, while the one with the hairpiece leads the charge, each question tinged with something that sounds more like amusement than suspicion. They smell of too much Old Spice, which suggests they knew which house they were visiting, knew the type of fancy folks they’d be talking to.

Except for her, of course. She is the daughter of the help. If she comes off as sounding too educated, she’ll be the uppity bitch with something to hide. If she plays it cool and quiet, they’ll dismiss her as ignorant and weak. (And if she says anything about strangely glowing flowers, they’ll laugh her off as some wannabe voodoo queen.)

Gripping one hand in the other does nothing to quiet her nerves, or her anger, so she tells herself this is how cops talk to everyone—dismissive, holier-than-thou. Maybe the TV shows have it right, or maybe the cops have started to watch too many TV shows. But that’s got to be it. They’re not talking to her like this because she’s black, and they’re not treating her this way just to punish her for being a young black woman who speaks with greater eloquence than they do. They’re not. They’re not. They’re not, she tries to assure herself.

“I said she worked for the catering company,” Nova answers for the third time.

“Still,” Hairpiece asks. “You’d never seen her before. Company’s been working parties here for a few years now, we heard, but this girl’s new?”

“Have you asked her?” Nova counters.

“We’re letting her calm down first.”

“Good luck. She doesn’t seem very calm to me.”

“But tonight’s the first night you met?”

“We didn’t meet, officially. She was supervising… sort of. But I saw her at the start of the party and not much after. Until I saw them running toward the shed.”

“How’d you know it was them?”

“Troy’s necktie. It was shiny, gold. He could have landed planes with it. Fool should have known to take it off if he was going to…”

“Going to what?”

“Well, I don’t think they we’re going out there to get a shovel.”

“But Miss Percival—you’ve never seen her before tonight?”

“No, I’ve never seen her before, but I don’t work every party…” Because Daddy knows if he makes me work every one without pay, I might haul off and give Caitlin the whack she deserves. She is not like her daddy’s neighbors; she is not the type of black person who believes that seven hours of work—three hours of smiling at white folks, and then two hours of manual labor on either side of that—should be compensated with a trunk full of leftover liquor. For one, she’s never had a real taste for the hard stuff. Second, she’s a bigger fan of fair wages and progress than she is of cases of Diet Coke and a pat on the head.

“So she’s still not talking?” Nova asks.

“Let’s not focus on her.”

“She almost killed my father. You think we should be focused on something else?”

“Story we heard is you did a fine job of coming to your daddy’s defense.”

“Thank you.”

“Like maybe you were ready…”

“Ready? For what ?”