The Steep and Thorny Way(12)

Mildred chewed her bottom lip and released a vibrating Hmm from the back of her throat. “I’d have to sell it after I wore it once or twice,” she said. “You can’t eat satin.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.”

She gave a brusque nod. “All right. I’ll make the trade.”

“I’ll slide off the undergarment while you go fetch the bottle—just as long as no one is about to barge in here.”

“The door locks.” She turned a built-in knob on the door to show me. “I’ll knock when I’m back with the bottle.”

“All right, then.” I clenched my hands again.

“I’ll be right back.” Mildred swung the door closed with a force that rattled the bookshelves.

I heaved a sigh of regret for promising one of my nicest unmentionables for a wicked bottle of hope. I wasn’t even supposed to wear the satin step-in on a day that wasn’t the Sabbath. But my regular cotton one smelled too much of sweat after I shot at Joe’s head in the woods, so I’d chosen to wear the pink one when I packed up for Fleur’s.

I slid both my brown dress and the step-in over my head—a feat I accomplished with lightning-fast movements—and I kept thinking how fragile and terrorized Joe must have felt when I pulled the gun on him while he was naked. Vulnerable was the word that came to mind. A once-fine grape with the skin peeled off.

Mildred knocked on the door no more than three minutes after she’d left. “Are you decent?”

“Just a moment.” I fastened up the white buttons of my bodice. Without that step-in between it and me, my dress felt like flimsy layers of leaves hugging my skin.

I unfastened the latch, and Mildred hustled inside and shut the door behind her. I handed her the undergarment, and in exchange she gave me a little brown medicine bottle with a dark liquid sloshing about inside it. NECROMANCER’S NECTAR, said the label on the side, penned in an elegant, cursive hand. Pentagrams and other diabolical symbols encircled the words.

I held the bottle an arm’s length away. “What in blazes is a necromancer?”

“A person who raises the dead . . . or the spirits of the dead”—Mildred stroked the pink satin in her arms, as if the step-in were a long-lost cat—“to divine the future and explore unresolved matters. I wouldn’t chat with Reverend Adder about this concoction, but there’s nothing dangerous about it, I swear. It’ll allow you to communicate with your father.”

My arm slackened. “How do I use it?”

“Take one spoonful at midnight, and then head immediately out to the set of crossroads on the highway. Draw a circle in the dirt. Step inside.”

I frowned. “You want me to wander down the highway on my own? After dark?”

“Going to him in the place where he’s been spotted the most is the surest way to guarantee a strong connection.”

My shoulders sank.

“He looks so lost, Hanalee.” She took hold of my left elbow. “So goddamned desperate. Pardon my French, but there’s no delicate way to phrase it.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to see him like that another night.”

I nodded and tucked the bottle into my right pocket. “If this makes me sick—”

“It won’t.”

I chewed my bottom lip and fingered the smooth glass.

She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “Sheriff Rink’ll be here soon.”

“Why’s he coming over?”

“Just a friendly visit.”

“All right.” I slipped my hand out of my pocket. “I’ll get going. Thank you for trying to help.”

“You’re welcome.” She opened the door and led me past the smells and the racket of the whiskey-production process, and she steered me through the traffic of children darting through the house with toys and breakfast dishes.

Out on the front porch, I leaned over and picked up the valise. “Hey, Mildred, did you know Joe Adder very well when he lived here?”

She snorted and pulled at her stained apron. “Do you honestly think he and I would have been chums?”

“I just—”

“Don’t you remember how he looked in church, Hanalee? The slicked hair? The handsome suits? Those big brown eyes?”

I stood up straight. “He’s also the snake who hit my father with a car, don’t forget.”

She hunched her shoulders. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s back in the area.”

“I’ve heard that.” She peered down at her boots and scraped her right sole against one of the boards of the porch. “But w-w-why’d you ask that question? What’s he got to do with me?”

“Robbie Witten told me he’s not right in the head.” I shifted my bag to my other hand. “He said Joe’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous to himself, maybe. Not to you or me.”

My eyebrows shot up. “How do you mean?”

Before she could answer, I heard an automobile motor puttering in our direction. Mildred’s eyes strayed to the drive in front of her house.

I turned and spotted the sheriff’s black patrol car cruising toward us, rocking back and forth from all the dips and potholes in the Markses’ dirt drive.