Art's Blood (16 page)

She sleeps
naked,
whispered Evy, disapproval vying with awe in her expression. Mother sent me to wake her once and the sheet had slipped down…. Her voice trailed off and she picked up one of the wisps.

While Evy rummaged the drawers of the bureau in search of more lingerie, I was drawn to the untidy pile of books protruding from under the dust ruffle of the four-poster bed. I had been a voracious reader all my life and had already exhausted the meager resources of the bookshelves in the Endicott summer home— all comfortable old favorites— Louisa May Alcott, Gene Stratton-Porter, Mark Twain, and the like. But here were five books I had not seen before. The authors were unknown to me at the time but now I know that these were all books that had been banned in Boston— Hemingway, Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis…I picked up the book on top, attracted by the title that gleamed in gilt letters on the black leather binding—
The Well of Loneliness.
I sat on the edge of the unmade bed and traced the words with my finger.

Oh, take the silly old book and read it later, cried Evy. Helen’s gone for the weekend. She’ll never know you borrowed it. Let’s try on her clothes. She was already pulling off her middy blouse. Look at this dress! It’s got no back at all!

And I did take and I did read and I knew at last that I was not alone.

Reba came in to light the lamps and chided me for sitting in the dark. Why, you like to give me a fright, just settin’ there, staring at nothin’, she scolded. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. She fussed around the room, straightening a magazine on the coffee table, needlessly plumping up the throw pillows on the sofa. Little Kyra was sound asleep when I took her tray up, Reba said. I’ll check back later to see if she wants somethin’. The expression on her worn face was softer than usual and she was clearly delighted at the prospect of having Kyra under her wing once more. Yes, it’s a great pity. Poor Reba— never to have experienced motherhood except in her surrogate care of other people’s children. But I believe that she would defend her little Kyra as fiercely as a tigress her cub.

At last she left me in peace. Reba is an excellent woman and I would be lost indeed without her. When I go, she will be handsomely rewarded for her solicitous care of me. But, how she does fuss!

The Well of Loneliness—
I had a hidden copy for years and eventually came to recognize its many weaknesses. Therehave been so many other books dealing with the subject more frankly, more beautifully. But I treasured it, for it had been a clarion call— awakening me to the reality that there were other women whose desires turned to women, not men.

I felt— how shall I say it?— I felt as if a veil had been lifted and now I could see. I also, at the tender age of fifteen, felt that it was enough to know that I was not a monster, unique in the history of the world. I would keep my feelings, but— and it was a solemn vow to myself— I would never reveal my true nature. It was inconceivable that I could ever do such a thing and risk bringing shame on my family.

All these fine resolves came back to me that chilly April morning at the Center. It had begun to snow— outside the kitchen window, fat fluffy flakes swirled and sat on the pink blossoms of a young peach tree. Miss Geneva rattled some sticks of wood into the cookstove and quickly had a fire going, all the while reassuring me that the freak snow wouldn’t last long. Caro’s like a little squirrel, she said fondly. She would stay snuggling in a warm bed all day if I’d let her.

I busied myself filling the teakettle at the sink for I could feel a blush rising. Unbidden images filled my mind— soft pink limbs intertwined in creamy sheets. But one couldn’t, I told myself. One would become a pariah, an outcast— beyond the pale.

A
S SHE OPENED THE DOOR TO THE CHICKEN RUN,
Elizabeth was aware of an ominous stillness. There was no sound from the new gang of chicks that should have been peeping and scratching about in the deep litter of the chicken house or even venturing down the little ramp out into the morning sun. And the three old hens that normally met her at the door, bustling and eager to see what delicacies were in her scrap bucket, hunched in a wary little knot at the far end of the enclosure. With a grim foreboding, Elizabeth set down the bucket of vegetable trimmings and freshly pulled weeds, grabbed the worn hoe hanging by the entrance to the chicken house, and stepped inside. A cluster of black, yellow, and gray chicks were huddled in the corner behind the can of feed, and in the middle of the floor, a huge blacksnake had a fluffy gray and white chick squeezed tight in several loops of his thick body. His jaws were wide around the chick’s head and neck as he endeavored to swallow his victim.

Down slashed the hoe, with all the force Elizabeth could muster in that confined space, breaking bones and opening a gash just behind the reptile’s shiny head. She hooked the heavy, still-writhing body out of the chicken house and out of the enclosed yard, hoping to avoid traumatizing the chickens any further. The broken head of the snake looked up at her with one dimming black eye, and the pale mouth gaped and closed with an inscrutable message.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of chopping at the bloody pulp of thick muscle, Elizabeth lofted the snake’s head into the nearby bushes with a flick of the hoe. She stood panting and wiping the sweat from her eyes. At her feet, the headless body continued to coil in lazy curves. The movement was measured and beautiful and utterly nightmarish. She shuddered and stepped back, wondering how long it would take before the snake’s body accepted the fact of its death.

“Mum!”

The shocked exclamation broke the silence and Laurel descended upon her mother like an avenging angel. Her blazing red dreadlocks were quivering with indignation. “I was coming up to see you and Kyra and— why did you kill that snake? I thought you always caught the blacksnakes and moved them.” She crouched mournfully by the still undulating body, long cords of auburn hair falling forward around her face. “He’s so beautiful; he must be almost six feet long. You always say they’re good snakes— rat killers and stuff like that. Why didn’t you just take him across the river like you usually do?” Her voice was harsh and on the edge of tears.

Elizabeth wiped her face again on the sleeve of her faded blue work shirt. “Oh, Laur. He’d killed a chick— you remember that really feisty gray and white one that I said might be a rooster— and was swallowing him— or trying to. I doubt he could actually have done it.”

Laurel’s silence accused her. Elizabeth started to explain but no words would come. Finally she caught up the satiny black corpse with her hoe and tossed it, still writhing, into the bushes. “A coon or something’ll get that tonight,” she informed her daughter tartly. “If not, I’ll come bury it tomorrow.”

Laurel still crouched there, looking at the ragged patch of blood-soaked dirt. “It looks like some kind of battle went on here. I was walking up the road and kept hearing this thwacking sound over and over.” Indignation had replaced sorrow in her voice.

“He wouldn’t stop moving.” Elizabeth took a deep breath, hating the shaky way her own words sounded. “I probably killed him with the first couple of blows but he kept moving and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t suffering.” She touched her daughter’s shoulder. “That snake was in the chicken house yesterday and he got away from me when I tried to catch him. I could have killed him then, but I didn’t, and now the chick is dead and it’s my fault.”

Inside the chicken house, the survivors had recovered from their fright and were pecking and scratching unconcernedly around the unmoving gray and white body. Elizabeth picked it up gently, noting that the fluffy form was still warm. For a moment she thought there was a heartbeat, but then she realized that it was her own elevated pulse she felt. The chick’s limp and dangling neck, wet and elongated from the blacksnake’s attempt to swallow its prey, was obvious proof of death, but for another moment, she cradled the little body in her hands. Then, leaving Laurel to refill the waterer and scatter feed for the old hens, she carried the dead chick outside and tossed it too into the bushes, to await a scavenging coon or possum.

“Is Kyra still asleep?” Laurel emerged from the chicken yard and looked up toward the house. “I get the impression she’s more of a night person—”

“Kyra’s in Asheville, at her great-grandmother’s.” Elizabeth started up the road. “She—”

“But her car’s down at the workshop.”

“Ben and I drove her in last night.” Elizabeth stopped and sat wearily on a large flat boulder by the side of the road. “It’s a long story….”

When she had heard all the details of the attack on Kyra, Laurel hurried ahead, saying that she would call her friend at once. She moved more quickly than her mother, who, at fifty-three, was content to climb the steep gravel road in a deliberate and meditative fashion. Watching her long-legged daughter striding effortlessly up the hill, Elizabeth remembered how, when she and Sam had moved from Florida to the mountains, she’d despaired of ever getting used to the seemingly near-vertical land that was Full Circle Farm.

It’s all bloody up or down!
she’d wailed after slipping on the slick grass or the loose road gravel yet another time. But she had learned at last to go slowly, to wear boots instead of sandals, and to stop and enjoy the view when out of breath.

Elizabeth watched as the three dogs met Laurel and followed her joyfully through the periwinkle-blue front door. The house that she and Sam had built looked much older than its real age. The board-and-batten siding had been left to weather and darken as it would, and the trees and shrubs that they had planted during those early years had attained full maturity. Most people, seeing the typical mountain look of the house with its capacious front porch and shiny metal roof, assumed that it had been an existing structure, added on to by the newcomer couple.

And that’s what we wanted. Sam and I never wanted to stand out. We tried to learn the old ways, plowing with mules, milking a cow, raising a garden, but we brought something of our background to add to life here. A quiet melding.

Laurel was coming out the door as Elizabeth stepped onto the porch. “Mum, I just talked to Kyra. I’m going to head back to Asheville so I can see her before I have to go to work.” She reached over to hug her mother. “Sorry I couldn’t stay awhile but I’ll be back out before long.”

Laurel hurried down the steps, then paused and turned. “Mum, Kyra said to remind you that she definitely did not want the police involved. She was kind of agitated and said that it was really important that you not call them.”

Elizabeth watched till the tall figure disappeared around the bend below the big barn. The heat of the day dissuaded her from going to her garden to battle the weeds.
Like the poor, they’re always with us,
she decided.
I’ll go back down when it’s cooler.

She had just sunk into a rocker to consider her next chore when the insistent ring of the phone demanded attention. With her standard and slightly pessimistic mental response
— What new adventure?—
she sighed and pulled herself up.

It was Phillip. “Elizabeth, have you seen Aidan? Has he been out there yesterday or today?”

Her negative reply brought an explosive response. “Son of a bitch— I bet they’ve skipped. He was supposed to be staying at his mother’s place, so I went by there this morning to see what he could— or would— tell me about Boz. His mother owns this big old ramshackle place in the Montford area, and a girl who said she rooms there told me that— what’s her name— Rainbow—”

“Willow,” Elizabeth interjected.

“Whatever the hell it is— Princess Shiningstar Go-lightly or whatever she calls herself packed up last night and took off. Told the girl to take care of the cats and that she’d be in touch eventually.”

“What about Aidan— was he with his mother?”

“The girl I talked to said not. Said he’d been there for an hour or so in the morning, helping his mother pack up stuff, but left in a borrowed car around noon.”

“Oh, shit.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Phillip, someone attacked Kyra yesterday afternoon.”

She quickly outlined the details of the incident and explained that Kyra had been insistent that the police should not be called. “It was weird; she was adamant about it. She said if I did call the sheriff, she’d deny that anything had happened and say that she’d cut her hair herself. I backed off because she was so emotional and—”

“Jesus Christ— I’m not believing this. And Kyra’s with
who
now?”

“Her great-grandmother. Out in Biltmore Forest in a house like a fortress. And with a housekeeper who combines the elements of a perfect servant, a mother hen, and a tigress.”

“And would it be too much to hope that nobody’s tidied up the crime scene?” Phillip spoke with exaggerated politeness. “I’d like to take a look.”

“I’m pretty sure nothing’s been touched. Ben had deliveries this morning and Julio’s—”

“I’m on my way.”

Forty-five minutes later, from her shady seat on the low rock wall beside the workshop, Elizabeth could hear the crunch of gravel and the sound of an approaching car. Hawkins’s anonymous-looking gray sedan pulled to a stop next to the little bridge that led to Julio’s house. Elizabeth stood and walked over to the car.

Phillip was scowling behind his dark glasses as he emerged and slammed the door behind him. “You still think nobody’s messed with anything since the attack?”

“I’m reasonably sure nobody has— do you want me to show you what we saw?”

She walked him through the various pieces of the puzzle— the overturned coffee cup in the workshop, the window where Kyra was standing when the attack occurred, the little pile of torn clothing, the scissors and the hair clippings, as well as the container half-full of used motor oil. Hawkins examined everything without comment, silently picking up the scissors with a pencil and dropping them into a paper bag. The corncrib elicited the most intense scrutiny— the dry dust under its attached shed was trampled with footprints, a muddle of overlapping marks.