Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(115)

I dropped my hair and moved back to my seat. “I think I can keep that from happening. I think I made mistakes because I didn’t know what I was and those mistakes caused the leaves and vines to grow. If Mud—Mindy—lives with me, I think I can keep her from making the same mistakes.”

“Lives with you’un?” Mama said. “No. I forbid it. It was hard enough with her staying with you while you healed. Mindy is too young to live away from home for good.”

“She’s too young to move out,” Daddy said.

“But she’s not too young to have churchmen hovering around her like bees to flowers?” I asked. “Not too young for a churchman to ask for her?”

Mama’s mouth went firm and I recognized one of my own expressions—stubborn and boxed into a corner. Mama said, “We’uns protecting her.”

“For how long? How well?” I didn’t add that Mama had been taken by Brother Ephraim (may he burn in magma forever), raped, and punished. I didn’t ask after my half brother, who was part Ephraim. I didn’t have to ask after him because the fact of him was there between us all, like a pack of playing cards spread, faceup, on the table. “Mindy can’t marry into the church,” I said. “You know that a husband would disown her if she grew leaves. Some might even burn her at the stake, if it was discovered after she married that she wasn’t human.”

“Where’d it come from?” Daddy asked, one hand lifting toward my leaves. “One of us is carrying that trait?”

“Probably,” I said. “Probably more than one of you. Probably you and Mama both got the trait in recessive genes. Probably Priss and Esther and Judith got it too in one form or another.”

“My other girls ain’t grown no leaves,” Mama said.

“No. I’m thinking it needs a specific stimulus in the teenaged years. Fear. Danger. Fighting for your life. All my other sisters are older or well established in good and happy marriages. As young women, teenagers, they never had to fight for their lives. Fighting for your life seems to start the process of change into whatever I am.”

“You had to fight for—” Mama stopped. I hadn’t told her about the man who tried to rape me years ago. “Esther was raped,” Mama said, the words bald and unadorned by the usual prevarication of a churchwoman talking about sexual abuse. But Mama had been raped too. Maybe she was tired of putting a good face on an evil.

“I know she was,” I said. “But not one of us knows if she grew leaves. It’s possible that she and Jedidiah Whisnut are hiding it.” The mamas looked at one another fast, and back to their mugs. “Jedidiah loves Esther to the moon and back. He’d hide most anything to protect her.” I didn’t add, And she hadn’t been on the ground when she was attacked. She hadn’t scratched the attacker and found his blood on her hands. She hadn’t fought back. She was too well trained to fight. She had taken whatever was dished out. I didn’t know what kind of woman Esther had turned into since the attack. This conversation made me want to find out.

I said, “I don’t know enough about genetics to figure out how it might work. But Mud—Mindy—is the same kind of creature I am. And she’s at risk.” I took a big breath and said all at once, “I want her to come live with me. I want you to give me custody.”

Mama burst into tears.

Daddy patted her shoulder.

Through her tears, Mama demanded, “You’un think it’s my blood that’s bad, don’t you’un?”

I scowled at her. “You stop that right now, Mama.” At my tone Mama’s head jerked up and her eyes went wide. So did Daddy’s. “Being whatever I am isn’t bad or good. It just is. And no. I really think it’s a combination of you and Daddy together.” I looked at his middle. “It’s possible that’s what is wrong with his belly. He might know tomorrow. After the surgery.”

“Who all knows this?”

I scowled. If Daddy was thinking to control the information he was being foolish. “I told Sam.”

Daddy scowled back. “That tree in the compound. That part of this mess with you growing leaves?”

The man was entirely too smart. “Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”

“You’un gonna be fixing that tree?”


“I’ll be trying as soon as I leave here. Now. You all talk it over and decide. I need to get Mud moved into my place soon so she can start public school.”

“Public—” Mama’s words cut off sharply.

“Public school,” I emphasized. “Mud will need a proper education to fit in the human world. In the townie world.”

“What about church services?” Daddy asked.

And I knew I had won, because this was Daddy’s negotiation tone. Some of the tension left my shoulders, though I didn’t let that show.

I pretended to think about his words for a while, trying to decide what I could give up and what I wouldn’t. I tapped my fingertips on the table and then clenched my fist, knowing I had given something away to the master negotiator. I scowled and glared at him. “We’ll both come to Sunday services once each Sunday. We’ll come to weekday morning devotions or evening devotions once a week. The exception to this rule is if I’m on a difficult case, or Mud has exams, in which situation we’ll make up for half of missed services.”