Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(118)

“You growing leaves?” I asked her.

Mud released my hand and felt her hair, studied her fingers. “Nope.”

“Good.” I pulled away from the land. Standing, I gathered my blanket into a ball at my waist.

Tandy walked from the tree to stand in front of me. “That was . . .” He shook his head. “Oh my God. That was amazing,” he murmured. “Beyond wonderful. Not anything I could ever have imagined.” His eyes were shining bright red. His Lichtenberg lines feathered down his face and neck, scarlet against his too-white skin. “Thank you for letting me be part of that.”

“I don’t reckon you’un grew leaves?” I asked in church-speak.

“Nary a one,” he answered back in church-speak.

“Thank you for coming. I know it’s made you late to work.”

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

“Me neither,” Mud said. “Let’s go home.”

“Mama and Daddy haven’t said you can move in with me.”

“If’n they don’t let me move in, I’ll jist grow me some leaves,” she said, mischief in her eyes. “I think I know how to do that now.”

“Oh, Mud.” I hugged her for a moment before releasing her. “Well. Okay. What are we gonna do about the rooster?”

“Let it go? Someone’ll claim it and when it wakes them up at three in the morning they’ll get a good meal outta it.”

Together we released the rooster. The mean old bird scratched the earth, giving me the evil eye, as if trying to decide if he was going to attack me, but then he reconsidered and raced away, crowing. I put on my shoes. Tandy in our wake, my true sister and I walked to my Chevy truck and drove back to Soulwood. Back to home.





EPILOGUE




I sat on my porch swing, warm spring breezes dancing across the lawn, brushing newly leafed plants, pale green trees waving in the wind. Birds were singing and squirrels were racing around wide trunks, playing tag and catch-me-if-you-can. A brave lizard raced across the house wall and into a space it believed the cats couldn’t reach. Had they been awake, one of the cats would have caught and eaten him, lizards being a very fine dinner to a mouser. But they were snoozing on the front porch, stretched out in the sun, unmoving, except for Cello’s tail tip twitching every now and then.

Mud was at home, packing for her move here. I didn’t know if it would be a permanent move or not. That would be up to the state’s social services department and a judge.

My cell phone rang. It was on the swing seat beside me. It was Occam’s number. Something leaped in my chest, like a wereleopard into a tree. I answered. “This is Nell.” Nell. Not Ingram. To set the tone.

“Nell, sugar.” His voice sounded rough and coarse, like the voice of a chain-smoking old man. “I didn’t know if you’d answer.”

“I didn’t think you’d call. Seems like we both were wrong.” He didn’t reply, but I could hear the soft purr of his fancy car. “What happened? Why haven’t you—” I stopped, not able to ask why he hadn’t called me.

“I’ve been out of work. Healing.”

“From the fire?”

“You brought me back from death, Nellie. And I thank you for that. But . . . well, the healing wasn’t complete. It’s taken a lot of shifting to heal from the burns.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “I took some time to turn back from being a log.” I risked a small joke. “A truly vegetative state.”

Occam laughed. I laughed with him.

“Nell, sugar, can we have that date?”

“I’d like that.”

Occam said nothing. And I decided to be brave. “How about now?”

Silence stretched between us. “Now is good,” he said after a while, his voice so hoarse it sounded torn.

“You gonna tell me about your life, the things you remember?” He stayed silent. I went on. “From before the cage and the traveling carnival, and the time from your leopard imprisonment?”

“I will. You going to tell me about your family? About John Ingram? About the Nicholsons?”

“I will.”

“Good. ’Cause I got things to say about how I nearly died. And how Soulwood healed me. As well as it could. I been out of work for just as long as you. Burned. Badly burned, with lots of scars that not even shifting to my cat has helped. But healing and still alive because of you and your land. This will be our ‘getting to know one another’ first date.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“And at the end of this date, or maybe at the middle, I promise that I am going to kiss you, Nell, sugar.”

Warmth spiraled through me and settled in my belly. My breath came faster. “A properly improper kiss?”

“The most improper kiss I can think of, Nell, sugar. What do you want me to pick up to eat?”

“You just come. I’ll have a picnic ready when you get here.”

“That sounds right nice, Nell, sugar. I’ll be there in an hour.”

? ? ?

The weather was comfortable enough to allow me to wear a long-sleeved shirt and a silky skirt, my feet bare. At my side was a basket, one with sandwiches, a plastic bowl of fresh fruit, a bottle of Sister Erasmus’ wine. And my pink blanket, clean and neatly folded.