Black Locust Letters (22 page)

It
was only after she'd finished dinner that she saw that he had been
working out a way to incorporate the code into recipes, denoting
them by putting an absurd typographical error in the recipe. She
doubted that he'd had much success with this attempt at the code
because he soon gave up using it, but she noted down what recipes
meant what.

When
Betty returned to the last half of the book, she stumbled across
something that gave her pause.

Granna's Sticky Caramel Buns.

Welch had talked about those. But Betty wasn't sure what the
message being conveyed was, but she'd keep it in mind.

Before the night was over, or rather once the sun had
scarcely set, she had other visitors: Her father and a crew of
others, filling her house so full that she had to take down the
laundry and the line so people could move without stringing
themselves up on it. All the while, Betty muttered that they
wouldn't have such trouble if her father didn't hire such tall men,
but no one seemed to hear her.

Betty was not happy with the intrusion of so many people, but
she tolerated it as best she could. They sat down together,
gathered in the den, with people sitting as much on the floor as
they were on chairs or the sofa, and they began to practice
talking, interpreting messages back and forth, not very
sophisticated messages, but difficult ones filled with nuances. She
had to remember things Slim had taught her long ago, and then learn
new things altogether. Betty included Never Were words in practice
so that she could communicate to them in the same sentence without
raising alarm on air.

Betty did not talk to her father. Her father resisted the
urge to talk to her. It was an awkward affair, much the same as
being the new wife of Henry VIII must have been in a bygone
era.

When
she got tired, she did not hold the matter up for debate, simply
grabbed a blanket, rolled up in it like a caterpillar preparing a
cocoon, and went to sleep. Eventually, they let her be.

Betty would have been more concerned about her neighbours,
but Clarkin had called one thing very correct: Her walls were thin.
And if anyone had been curious what she was saying, they only had
to place an ear to the wall to hear every single word. It was
likely, too, that they wouldn't have even had to do that, just kept
the household quiet and pulled the chair into the right location in
the room and listen through the wall like that. Betty took some
comfort in this.

Her
father and all the General's men were still there in the morning.
They had eaten her icebox and cold pantry clean of everything, so
Betty ate a small portion of toast and jam for breakfast since the
men had eaten every egg and scrap of ham or sausage. The one
advantage to their presence was that she did not have to ride or
walk into work, just got in someone's car and let herself be driven
there.

When
they were driving out of her street, she saw a neighbour on a walk,
and they waved. Betty doubted that they were on the road taking a
walk at four a.m. for the fun of it, and she knew for certain it
was not in anyone's routine except for hers.

Once
in the station, they dropped Betty off to her usual routine, and
for a time it was as though nothing was different from
usual.

Then
during her break, she wandered into the break room, and found both
day hosts and Welch seated around the table. Welch looked like a
cat who had been petted the wrong way, and the other two were less
rested and looked more like a cat who had been dunked by the tail
in a creek then blow-dried. They sounded like it, too.

Betty left the break room without her coffee.

She
didn't have long to ponder events as the commercials were over and
she ran through the weather again. But when the songs came on
again, she heard low voices in the hallway, and when she next saw
it, they had maps too close-up for her to know what country it was
set in, and corresponding maps of smaller scale where they had
circles and x's and all kinds of swoopy lines to indicate movement.
In some places they had viciously scribbled away to erase a
movement, or to protest it. Betty would have found it amusing to
have listened in to a particular scribble which looked like a
Snoopy tumbleweed.

“
Right,” one of the generals said. “We need to move this
squadron here. “

And
they spoke of the code names of the units and the directionality
and distance and speed. Betty pondered how to use all the key
phrases without sounding too strange, and on the next news on the
hour, she began to use the relevant information. She also added
words of caution to the Never Weres who were going to be taking
their units nearby one of the scribble zones. She riddled this in a
speech about team work and the difficulties of being alone, unless
you have someone you can count on to help you work through the
hardest times.

She
repeated the same keywords again in the next set, stressing trust
and healthy relationships. How much they listened to her, she
didn't know, but she hoped that troops would cooperate and put both
halves of the messages together, so that the fewest people possible
died.

Time
passed. She received and sent more messages, and she wondered how
people were responding to them.

During her next break, the reports must have come back. They
must not have been positive, from the look on her father's face.
When she set her jaw and raised a brow, he said, “They are confused
and rebellious. They don't want to follow their leaders. It's hell
out there.”

Betty had no idea what he meant by that, how true it was, or
what sort of problems the troops were facing.

But
her soft hearted speeches stopped this time, and became railing
reprimands, citing all kinds of folklore and an anecdote about her
dog who refused to listen to her mother, and how that dog would eat
the garbage, and it would always get sick and never learned its
lesson. Betty said it was because the dog was too much of an animal
to learn from mistakes like that, and she couldn't believe that
some fully aware adults were every bit as bad as that
dog.

Near
the end, her father interrupted her with a thumbs up.

She
cheered up considerably.

Ten
minutes later, she was stretching and just turned off the mic for
songs when her father once more looked in, and he had a piece of
paper. “There was a strike. We need to move these men
here.”

Betty looked at the map. They had moved the primarily Never
Were units straight into the tumbleweed scribble. It had earned a
few more scribbles, which oddly enough did not make her feel any
better about moving troops precisely there.

“
That doesn't look safe.”

“
We
need them on the ridge. They're a relay unit.”

“
How
much information do you have for these maps?” Betty
asked.

“
We
have photographs.”

“
But
how good?”

Her
father frowned, and her suspicions were confirmed.

When
she went back on the air, she gave the General's message, but also
stressed that they needed to be up high, and warned of their bell
being in danger at that place.

Less
than an hour later, they yanked her off the air
mid-sentence.

Betty jumped upright, furious, and slammed the door open to
the hallway. “What happened?”

“
With me.” A man took her by the elbow, and they went into a
quiet room off to the side where all the papers were stored
together in filing cabinets.

Before Betty could be shut in with no answers, she shouted,
“You are required to send a representative! Explain this behavior
at once.”

The
man grunted and shut the door. Once it was shut and locked, locked
for goodness grief, where did they think she was going to go? Betty
let out a shriek muffled by her fists clutched to her face and she
wished that she could let that shriek fell to tears.

Betty groaned, then for a while she paced this way and that
around the silent room, wondering who they would send or if they
would even bother with it after all. She really wasn't sure why
they'd taken her off the air, if things were going well. But the
longer that they made her wait, the less certain she was that she
had done no harm. What if she'd mistaken the circumstances, or said
the wrong thing at the wrong time?

Perhaps she really had goofed it up. Betty bit her lip and
swallowed a half-formed sob which the filing cabinets wouldn't have
cared about if they'd heard.

What
had she done?

For
a time, she sat on the shortest of the filing cabinets, focusing on
taking deep breaths and nothing else, and she worried. Had she done
the right thing? Would Clarkin survive? Had she been right to have
used Slim the way she had?

Outside, she heard a man yell, “Strike's a hit!”

And
then came corresponding yells. Betty swallowed another long gulp of
air, and gazed out the window where the moon gazed down on
her.

And
then she saw a crow fly from the east.

Not
knowing why, Betty stuck an arm out the window, as she wasn't able
to get anything else out, and then watched as the crow came
nearer.

When
it settled on the window ledge, Betty motioned for it to come
inside. It did. Once it hit the floor, it transformed instantly
into a man, naked but for a few feathers hidden in his hair, and
soon he was shivering.

“
Tom?”

Betty searched in vain for a blanket, and settled for taking
off her sweater and handing it to him, which he tied about his
waist like a positively ridiculous looking apron. He assumed her
seat on the filing cabinet, and looked marginally less
ridiculous.

Betty didn't notice. She was staring at him as though she had
seen a ghost. Had he always been thin enough to count ribs, or was
that a new thing? And what of his hair, did it always have streaks
of grey? He was smaller, she was certain, and his cheeks had turned
gaunt.

“
You're alive?”

“
Takes more than a beating to kill me,” he said with a
shrug.

“
What are you doing here? And why now?”

“
I
had to lay low, then it was out to scouting around.” He would say
nothing more on the topic, Betty could tell by the way he set his
jaw but she tried anyway.

“
And
why?”

“
Shh.”

Then
the door opened, and Betty was glad to see that Tom had shifted
back into a crow, apparently hiding beneath her sweater. It took a
few seconds for Betty to place the visitor. A woman. Tall, lean.
Brunette and beautiful with perfect teeth.

Clarkin's partner.

Olivia.

She
hadn't come to explain Betty's lock up, that was for certain, and
it was doubtful that Olivia even knew, or that she'd been given
permission for the visit besides.

“
What are you doing here?” Betty demanded.

Olivia looked as though she were examining something rather
unpleasant while staring into the sun. “I came to give you
this.”

In
her hand was an envelope tied with red baling twine and addressed
to Her Sweet Song. Betty refused to take it.

“
Why
do you have it?”

“
It's from Hannah.” She laid it down on the tallest filing
cabinet, one that Betty would have to stretch to reach to the top
of. “He asked me to give it to you.”

Betty didn't know what to say. The revelation of who was
behind the letters was not as surprising as who he had chosen to
deliver the message.

Olivia turned to leave and paused with the door open. “I
guess you must have found out, if you're working with
them.”

“
Found out what?” Betty didn't feel like correcting her, not
if the slightest thing that displeased Olivia brought her a bit of
pleasure.

“
That the Ladybird sent him to seduce you.”

Betty didn't reply.

Olivia left.

Betty nearly sat down on Tom before feeling him squirm and
standing abruptly again, pacing to the window.

“
You
might have asked her for a blanket, you know,” Tom said. “I get
that the two of you are pissing at one another, but really, it is
cold in here.”

“
Tom.”

He
went quiet, and his voice was surprised. “You don't believe what
she said, do you?”

“
Is
there a reason I shouldn't?”

“
Because he's lost his pinfeathers for you.”

Betty checked to see if Tom was serious.

“
Not
in the literal sense. It's a saying, that's all.”

“
Maybe if I see him again, I'll cut them off myself,” Betty
said with a vehemence stemming from worry rather than
seriousness.

Tom
held the letter out to her. “This isn't over. That strike isn't
enough. The Russians have a Rift.”

“
So?”

Tom
sighed. “So they plan on blowing it up.”