“Mama asked me what I thought about Larry. I told her’un he smells like gun oil and spent ammunition. I told her’un I ain’t interested in getting married. She said, ‘Pshaw. All women want to get married. Even Nell. She likes Ben.’” Mud cocked her head at me. “You getting married to Ben? ’Cause if’n you are, I’d rather be Ben’s second wife than Larry’s. We’uns could all live here and be a family together.”
To hide my shock, I spun to the stove and flipped the sandwich. My hands were cold and shaking. I added a log to the firebox and adjusted the dampers to create a faster-burning fire. I turned on the overhead fans to distribute the heat. Keeping busy so I didn’t say any of the awful things that I wanted to.
“You’un’er thinkin’, ain’tcha?”
Face blank, I nodded slowly.
“You’un’s mad, ain’tcha?”
I nodded, the motion jerky. I moved the hot skillet off the hottest part of the stove and put the sandwiches on pretty plates, with roses around the edges. Wiped the skillet. Found some pretty folded napkins in the linen drawer and brought them to the couch. Placed them on the tray. Arranged it all so Mud could reach it. Pulled Leah’s favorite rocking chair over close and sat in it. The choice of chair was subconscious but telling.
Leah had not been entirely truthful to me when she and John had asked me to marry them, but she had been wise in lots of ways I never had been. And . . . I was twelve when I agreed to marry the Ingrams. That was how I’d always thought of it. That I’d affianced them both, a package deal, to tend to Leah as she died, and to marry John after that. Twelve. The same age as Mud, though I hadn’t had to come to John’s bed until I was fifteen and that had been far too young.
My breath was coming too fast and I felt light-headed. I wanted to sock something. Or shoot something. I folded my hands and studied them as Mud ate. When the tea had steeped enough, I strained and decanted it into her mug and pushed it close to her. “This is a different blend, but it’s good.” I nibbled on my sandwich though I was no longer hungry.
When I thought I could communicate my thoughts without screaming, I said, “Last time we talked, two days ago, you said you didn’t want to get married. Didn’t want to have children until after you were twenty-four.”
Mud sipped the tea and made a face that said, Not bad. Her fingers wrapped around the mug for the warmth, the same way I held my own, for the comfort. “I might not have a choice. Life don’t always hand a woman pancakes and blueberries. Sometimes it’s oatmeal and raisins. Or even cold pea soup with grease on top and stale bread. And if’n I got to marry and you’uns gonna marry, I’d rather be here on Soulwood. With you.”
My little sister was wise in the ways of the church. Wise as I had been, when I made a choice for safety. When I chose to marry John and Leah and move here, to avoid a worse fate. I managed a breath and said, “Or you could just come live with me.”
Mud stopped with the mug halfway to her mouth. Her eyes went slowly wide. Her mouth dropped open. The mug tilted, forgotten, and I grabbed it before it spilled. Her eyes were far away, focused on something only she could see. Then they snapped to me. “You’un gonna marry Ben?”
“I admit I like Ben. But there’s problems with Ben. With any churchman.”
“There’s always problems with churchmen.”
“True.” I handed the mug back to her and said, “Don’t spill it. You know how I told you about claiming land?” She nodded. Sipped. “You remember how the church wanted to burn me at the stake?”
Mud went still as dirt and swiveled her eyes up to me. “Yup.”
I took a breath. “Beings who can claim land like I can, like I think you can, aren’t human. And a sizable number of church folk want to burn all nonhumans at the stake. That means you too. Maybe our sisters. Mama and Daddy. Sam.”
Mud sipped. Sipped again. Picked up the sandwich with one hand and slowly ate half of it. Her forehead was scrunched with thought. “Can we kill the witch killers first?”
I thought about that. About feeding the earth with their blood. Or even sending the vampire tree to kill on church land. No court would ever convict me because no court would understand how I had done it. But more important than getting caught was the morality of not committing murder. “Probably, but I won’t kill unless I’m attacked. Or you or the Nicholsons are attacked.
“I can read the land like . . . like Daddy can read the Bible. I can commune with it. It can heal me if I’m hurt. Save my life if I’m dying. And if I read the land too long or too deep it grows roots into me as a way of claiming me back.”
Mud’s eyes went so wide I was afraid they’d pop out of her head. I hadn’t told her that part yet.
I held out my hands to show her. “I have to be cut free and that makes the land angry sometimes. And then there’s the foliage that grows out of my fingernails and my hairline.” I touched the nape of my neck, finding a tiny sprig there, curled and twisted, newly sprouted, faster than usual, perhaps as a result of the burning. I pulled my hair aside and showed her the leaf, as if maybe she had forgotten my leaves from last time. I put my hand to my belly, feeling the hardness there, from roots that had grown into me and left their mark. I seldom thought about them, unless reminded. And I decided I had told her enough for now. Roots growing inside me might be too much for my sister.
Mud picked up the stew bowl and started eating, thinking. I waited. Nibbled on my own sandwich, smoothing my pants with my free hand. I was wearing black today, with black office shoes and a black jacket, a soft and flowing navy shirt over a black T-shirt, to protect my skin from the weapons harness. I was thinking of stupid things. My heart was racing and my fingers tingled. I cleared my throat.
“You’un ain’t said exactly. I know we’uns not fairies. Is we’uns plants?” Her voice was calm, not excited or panicked. Calmer than I was.
“No. We bleed blood, not sap. We’re meat. Mostly.”
“Would Ben Aden burn you’un at the stake if’n he found out you’un wasn’t human?”
A knowing skirled through me like a dancing wind. “I don’t know,” I whispered, accepting fully what I had just said. “Even if he knew what I am and he still wanted me, I’d be putting him in danger to marry him. I’d be putting all my babies in danger. So . . . No matter how much I might like Ben Aden, I won’t be marrying him.” I placed the sandwich on the plate. It tasted like sawdust. “And if you are the same creature as me, then you need protection too.”
As I spoke, tears had gathered in Mud’s eyes. She put the mug on the tray. And threw herself into my arms. Hugging me so tight it was like being strangled by roots. I hugged back. Realized we were both crying. Rocking. She had grown in the last months and weighed more than I anticipated. The chair was moaning beneath us. I stood and lifted Mud and myself to the couch. Grunted more than I expected. I was getting soft working at PsyLED.
I shoved cats out of the way and pulled the afghan over us, holding my sister, not sure if she was happy or horrified or something too complicated for a single word. Time passed. I felt the car on my road again. Surely an hour hadn’t gone by.
“How you think we’ll get them to let me live here?” Mud asked.
“I’ll have to work on that. But maybe the mamas can be persuaded. Maybe we’ll have tea. Talk. Show some stuff.”
Mud giggled into the warm space between my neck and shoulder. “Leaves?”
I laughed with her, a single note of shared hilarity. “If necessary.”
Her merriment faded. “Is Sam one of us?”
“I don’t know. He knows I’m . . . different, though. And he knows he’s different, though he never mentioned growing leaves.”
“Esther? Priscilla? Judith?”
“I don’t know. But it’s genetic, so even if they’re human, their children might be like us.”
Mud pushed away and stood, smoothing down her skirts and smoothing back her bunn
ed-up hair. “You let me know when you’uns is gonna have that tea. I reckon I’m gonna need to be with you’un for it.”
“I will.” I stared up at Mud as Sam parked and got out of the truck. She had to be nearly five feet tall now. Growing like a weed, though that would stop since she had started her feminine cycle. Mud was going to be a short woman. Which brought a soft smile to my face. “You scared?”
“No. I’m not scared at all. I got you. And you got me. Will I have to go to public school?”
“Yes. And we’ll have to talk about you riding the school bus. Get legal papers so you can stay with me. You’d be a latchkey kid.”
“I don’t know what that is. Can’t be no stranger than growing leaves.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Good. I gotta go now. Thank you for the hospitality.”
“Peace as you leave my home.”
Mud nodded and raced out the door, banging it closed behind her. I curled my legs on the couch, feeling the warmth from her still in the cushion. Wondering what—by all that was holy—I was getting myself into.
• • •
I stopped off at the Rankins’ place of business and caught Thad Rankin in the office. “Mr. Rankin?” I asked softly, tapping on the door.
“Sister Nell Ingram, get yourself in here.” The big man stood and enveloped me in a hug. He had taken to hugging me since I went to church with him a few times. Quick, gentle hugs, as if teaching me that hugging a man was an okay thing to do. They hugged a lot at his church. Laughed a lot too. It was a very different church from God’s Cloud. If I ever decided to attend a church again, it would be one like Brother Rankin’s, one full of honest friendship. He let me go. “Take a chair, Sister Nell,” he said, sitting behind his desk in the only other chair. “What can I do for you?”
I took the single spindled wood chair and held out a list of fires that might have been suspicious. “You know I’m with PsyLED. I’ve been looking at some of the recent fires and wondered if you were on-site at these.”
Thad didn’t take the list, just watched me across the expanse of his desk. “Do I need a lawyer, Nell? Black man with an officer of the law in his office?”
“Oh.” I dropped my hand and let a breath go in shock. “Mr. Thad, I would never come to you’un—to you—my friend, with you as a suspect in anything. First of all, I would know you hadn’t done whatever crime it is. Second, I’d be standing with you, shotgun in hand to defend you and yours. And last, you do not need a lawyer unless you tell me you can start fire with your mind.”
Mr. Thad threw back his head and laughed, accepted the sheet of paper, and asked, “What can I do for you on these fires?”
“Did you see anything odd? Smell anything odd? Have any thoughts about a guilty party? Did any of your fellow firefighters act strange at these fires? Any orange flames with purple tips?”
“No, no, no, and no, to the first four questions. Everything was pretty normal. As to the color of the flames, you see all sorts of colors as houses burn, what with all the synthetics and man-made furnishings. So I see orange flames all the time. That’s the most common color of fire, you know.” His eyes dropped to the sheet and scanned up and down, his brow creased as he thought.
“Yeah. I know that. The purple flames?”
“Over the years, I’ve seen green, purple, a strange metal-flake blue, an iridescent rainbow color, though nothing I can recall at any of these fires.”
I deflated and accepted the list back. “If you think of anything odd you might have noticed, will you give me a call?” I handed him my card. “I have a cell phone now.” I waggled my cell at him, showing it off.
“Well, would you look at that. It’s good to see you joining the world, Nell. It’s real good. You coming to church soon?”
“As soon as this case is closed,” I said.
“We’re having dinner on the grounds every Sunday this month. We’re smoking a whole hog each week, with all the trimmings. Raising money for the Baker girl, the one with leukemia.”
“I’ll make a donation even if I can’t come,” I said.
“The Lord’s work is never done.”
I went around the desk and hugged him, which seemed to freeze Mr. Thad solid for a moment before he hugged me back. I had never taken the initiative with him. I wasn’t sure I had ever been the hugging originator with anyone except family. It felt good. “Later, Mr. Thad.”
• • •
I was only a few minutes late to work. Dusk was the usual time for the EOD—end-of-day meeting—and current case summary, but with us all off for twelve hours, it was more like SOB—start of business. I slid into my seat at the conference room table only moments before Soul took her place. The smell of eggnog and sugar cookies rode on the air. The little tree’s lights were on.
JoJo opened without preamble. “Clementine. Note date and time. Present are all members of PsyLED Unit Eighteen and the assistant director. As of seventeen minutes ago, we have discovered Justin Tolliver’s biological father. His name is Charles Healy.”
I sat up straight. Soul looked surprised. She had been on duty and she clearly didn’t know about Healy, so JoJo must have been working from home instead of sleeping.
“In 1973,” JoJo said, “Healy was incarcerated on weapons charges, for selling stolen military weaponry to third-world companies through contacts he made in the Vietnam War. An undercover ATF officer died in the takedown, and when the ammo was traced to Healy’s weapon, the feds threw the book at him and he was convicted on all charges. He should be eighty years old and still in federal prison, but he disappeared during a prisoner transfer eleven years ago.”
“Where?” I asked.
“United States Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.”
Occam winced. I guessed that meant it was a particularly bad prison.
“Interesting,” T. Laine said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “Yeah. I thought I remembered this. The Tolliver family has connections to a weapons factory. Did the stolen weapons come from the family factory?”
“Ask for the old court records,” Soul ordered. “Did Healy have a steady cellmate in federal prison?”
“Yeah,” JoJo said, clicking and swiping, working on three electronic devices at once. “Guy called Bradley ‘Boom Boom’ Richards. He’s still there, serving twenty to life.”
Soul said, “PsyLED doesn’t have a unit stationed in Texas. The closest is Mobile. Or maybe Arizona, with Special Agent Ayatas FireWind.” She frowned, thinking. “I don’t think we can make either one work. Dyson and Kent?” she commanded, addressing Tandy and T. Laine. “Fly out to meet with prison officials and talk with Mr. Boom Boom. See if you can interview the guards who lost Healy on the transfer.”
T. Laine said, “Whoot! Our first official flight! Overnight?”
Nose in her tablet, her earrings swinging, JoJo said, “It’ll have to be. There’s a flight out of McGhee Tyson Airport to Jefferson County, Texas, in two hours but no flight back from Jack Brooks Regional Airport until tomorrow. Booking now. If you run lights and sirens you can get there in time to make it through security.”
The two disappeared down the hallway, and we could hear them shouting back and forth about supplies, gear, electronic devices, and timing. JoJo’s face was tight, and I realized that her boyfriend . . . lover? some better title? . . . was leaving town with her best friend. She wasn’t jealous. She just wanted to be the one to go away with Tandy on an investigatory jaunt.
“You’ll have to check your weapons in your baggage,” Soul called to them.
“You booking us a hotel too?” T. Laine yelled back.
“Done!” JoJo shouted. “Confirmations for flight and hotel sent to your cells.”
And then they were gone. Soul and Rick exchanged a look that was full of something almost parental, as if to say, Aren’t the little ones cute at this stage? She
slid her wide flashing black eyes to me. “Nell. It will be fully dark out soon. Would you feel up to reading the land near the DNAKeys research facility?”
My instant mental reaction was, NO! but my mouth said, “I thought we had ruled out DNAKeys as part of the problem. What do you have in mind?”
Soul shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. Everything about the case changed when we discovered that some of the Tollivers were pyros. We still don’t know why a pyro shot up the Holloways’ party and the Old City restaurant. We could have more than one thing going on and I don’t want to drop any strands just yet. I want to keep everything in the weave.”
“But the adult Tolliver males smell human. It’s the wives who smell nonhuman. None of this makes sense yet.”
“Unless—” Soul stopped. “Perhaps the males can mask all scent traces as they age. We don’t know enough and I have a bad feeling that we need to move quickly, need to tear the fabric of this case apart and knot it back together again.” Soul slowly twisted her hair into a coil, an unconscious gesture of self-soothing while she summarized. “The Tollivers own DNAKeys. DNAKeys is doing genetic research on paranormal beings to accomplish some amorphous goal. We don’t know what that goal is, so we have to consider the possibility that it pertains to this case. Brainstorm, people.”
“Okay,” I said, following her reasoning and guesswork. “What if the testing at DNAKeys has to do with some genetic problem the pyros have, or a falling birthrate, or a predisposition to some dire illness? Maybe the attacks lead back to that research.”
Coiling her hair tighter, she frowned, staring into space. “I want us to go back over everything we’ve done to this point and get a fresh perspective.”
Rick spoke for the first time, with what might have been amusement. “There’s no evidence for any connection between the pyros and DNAKeys except that it’s a business the Tolliver family owns. There’s no logic, in a world full of paranormals, to suggest that, if we have pyros, then we must have vampires and werewolves involved on the periphery of these crimes.”