Fairy Circle (11 page)

Derek was at the shop. Her mother was busy with her Grandmother in the kitchen. Saffron had to go through there to get her dinner to bring to work. She was torn. She was afraid to go to work and afraid to tussle with her mother, but also afraid to meet her Grandmother’s glassy eyes and give a pretend-cheerful greeting.

She took a deep breath, forcibly straightened, and emerged from the beamed doorway into the kitchen, which was filled with afternoon sun and the smell of chocolate chip cookies. It was teatime. Grandmother didn’t know her name most days, didn’t know where she was, but she
never
forgot teatime. Saffron’s mother was cutting slices of cucumber at the thick and scarred kitchen table, a long apron protecting her bright, swishy skirt.

“
Have you come to collect clothes for the needy?” Grandmother rocked by the tall window that looked out on the herb garden. She had a ball of alpaca yarn in a child’s sand bucket by her feet and was well into some intricate project. A spider sat unmoving in its web in the top corner of the window.

“
I’m afraid I haven’t much to give to you today. I’ll go see what I can spare.” Grandmother’s voice was strong but clicking as if her throat was filled with marbles. It didn’t fit her frail-looking frame.

“
Oh, no, Mama. You can get those things later. Saffron is just here to say, ‘Hi’.”

“
Can I get you some tea? A snack?”

Saffron scratched her head, gave her Grandmother’s probing eyes a slight wag ‘no,’ then scurried to the fridge.

“
The tea will be done soon, Mama. Please, just relax.” Audrey cleared her throat. “How are your doilies coming?” She snatched at one of her own errant curls and pushed it back behind her ear. Her teeth were clenched behind her pursed lips.

“
Well, I am tired, you know. That motor car broke down again and Edward and I had to walk all the way from town and didn’t get back to the farm until dinner!”

“
Oh, my! You must be exhausted.”

The old woman tee-heed and nodded in agreement. Her blue-veined hands trembled slightly as she worked. Right now, she didn’t know that her husband was long dead, her children grown, but she never dropped a stitch and could crochet an entire table mantle in a day, complete with curlicues and seashells and without missing a loop.

Audrey leaned toward Saffron behind the cover of the fridge door and whispered as she returned half a cucumber in a Ziploc bag to the produce drawer. “Derek’s coming to bring you to work…” Audrey peeked over the top of the fridge door to check out her mother, then she dipped back down, “I don’t want to move her right now.”

Saffron nodded, owl-eyed. Fine, she wasn’t too keen when her Grandmother came for the ride to work anyway. Yesterday, Grandmother leaned out the car window to tell two kids on bikes that the U.S. government was going to send men to the moon. But still, red-faced Saffron had gotten out of the rear seat thankful that Grandmother wasn’t calling them ‘
little effers
!’ That was a phrase her real Grandmother would never have used when she was with it; but these days she used it often when her eyes glazed and her shoulders slouched as if she were slowly morphing into a goblin and relishing the harsh texture of the bad words like candy on her tongue.

“
Just let me run to the bathroom, I’ll only be a minute.” Audrey stopped and inspected Saffron for the first time that day. She reached two fingers toward Saffron’s forehead and stopped just short of touching when Saffron jerked back a fraction of an inch.

“
Saffron, what happened to you, your forehead, you have a humongous red welt there…”

“
Nothing, Mom!” Saffron slapped a pale, freckled hand to the painful bruise and covered it as if it were a shameful part of her body. “Don’t worry…just go to the bathroom.”

Audrey quickly pulled her hand back. She contemplated pushing Saffron into a confession, but only for a moment. She would let this slide. She remembered the clunk she heard a short while ago and put two and two together. The next thing, and there always was a next strange thing with Saffron, the next thing she wouldn’t let slide. Audrey trotted from the room.

Saffron shut the fridge door with one wooden arm. She straightened when she caught her Grandmother’s eye, suddenly studying her with unnerving intensity. Saffron spun around and busied herself with slicing a piece of lasagna. She put freshly baked cookies in another container. Her fingers were shaking when she sucked the melted chips off of them.

Grandmother was still staring. It was unlike her to have such concentration, staring and crocheting at the same time.

Outside, something moved past the window above the sink, slow and unclear. It was very large. Saffron saw it out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked, it was gone.

Now another dread filled her. It drowned out the fear of her Grandmother in icy waves. Saffron crumpled into a chair at the kitchen table, giving her back to the window over the sink and whatever was out there in the dark, cloudy afternoon. She locked her eyes on Grandmother, who wasn’t looking at her anymore.

“
Who does she think she is, coming up to the house like that?” Grandmother dropped a loop, harrumphed, and corrected her mistake.

Saffron kept her saucer-big eyes on her Grandmother, never blinking, even though her insides rattled and shook like balls in a bingo cage.

Grandmother looked up at the window over the sink. Her eyes narrowed, focused, and followed movement. “Don’t be playing cat and mouse with me, you.”

Saffron shook in her chair and still couldn’t turn to look. White noise roared in her ears and made it hard to understand what Grandmother was saying.

“
You know, Missy, maybe if I had chosen to live in Arizona I wouldn’t mind you so much. You’re like a walking air conditioner. Sheesh. You’re making my teeth chatter. If you cause them to chatter right out of my mouth and onto the floor I shall be very upset. Saffron doesn’t do quite the job keeping this floor clean that I used to do, now, does she.” Grandmother looked at Saffron, gave her one gruff nod in challenge.

Saffron eyed her Grandmother from between her fingers. She took offense to the cleaning crack and at the same time realized her Grandmother was right. The kitchen, which had just been warm, too warm in the aftermath of baking cookies and summer heat, was now cold enough to blow light plumes of icy breath.

Grandmother eyed Saffron. “Why is that one hanging around here anyway? She looks so morbid! She was never around before. Does she want something from you? She’s looking at you.”

Saffron sucked in her breath. Milky eyes, bashed-in skull, the trail of something gray and snakelike peeking through a rip in her back.

Saffron didn’t answer. She watched her Grandmother’s eyes refocus on the window above the sink.
Grandmother slapped her crochet hook and the doily on her lap. “You
can
see her; can’t you?”

Saffron never said a word, never moved her body. She stared at the cracks that traveled out from the crown molding high up on the wall until she felt her eyes cross from the concentration. Grandmother didn’t remember her own daughter when she had left for the bathroom, but now she knew who Saffron was? Did that mean she was with it right now? Saffron forced her eyes to the cracks in the wall.

“
Saffron?”

Saffron could hear pure joy in Grandmother’s voice.
She must be so happy that, for once,
someone won’t think she’s crazy.

But Saffron couldn’t do it. She couldn’t admit to seeing that thing. She wouldn’t look, wouldn’t look. She wanted that dead woman away from the house. What was she doing here? The woods were bad enough, jumping off the cliff outside her window even worse; but what was she doing
here
now? Saffron just wanted to get ready to go to that stupid convenience store. This was exactly what Li had been afraid of, why Li had grown so scary last night. It was all about that woman out there, whoever she was. The other ghosts didn’t bother with her; why did this one?

C
ame for you.

Saffron shrieked a low, frightened mouse hiccup. Whose voice was that? Where did it come from? Was it inside her head or outside? Saffron crossed her arms and began to rock on her seat - not far - only an inch back and forth very quickly. Her wary eyes met her Grandmother’s expectant ones. She finally realized Grandmother was still waiting for an answer. She cleared her throat of the possessive little talons that held her voice captive.

“
I feel sick.”

Grandmother dropped her eyes, dejected. After a brief, tense silence, she resumed her crocheting.

G
et out!
Saffron screamed in her mind.
Get out! Get out!
GET OUT!

The cold left all at once.

“
Well, good riddance to that silly cow.” Grandmother scrutinized the limp doily in her veined hands. Her voice became harsh and deeply thoughtful, “Nobody uses doilies anymore. Am I dead?” She didn’t look up.

Saffron didn’t know if the old woman was asking Saffron if she was dead or asking herself. Her voice was so low.

“
No, Grandmother; God, no.” She found the strength to stand. “Now, please. Just stop this.”

“
Ah well, what a pity.” With her perfect dentures Grandmother gave a rare smile.

Saffron rolled her eyes and used both hands to brace herself on the thick kitchen table. Where the hell was her mother? Who the hell not in high school took so long in the bathroom?

Saffron had known the ghost was real the first time she saw her. Saffron knew the fairies were real too, and the gnomes, the pixies, the other…things. She started gnawing on her thumbnail. Had she been hoping deep, deep inside that people were right? Had she been hoping she might be crazy? Crazy would surely have taken the pressure off of her.
Oh, she’s crazy, she’s seeing things.
And then it really wouldn’t be her fault, right? She couldn’t be blamed if her mind was going and she truly didn’t realize it. She watched her Grandmother, braver now that the woman wasn’t studying
her.
Saffron bit her thumbnail down too low - half of it was gnawed clean - but the other half was still mostly attached to bloody skin. She left off and started on the other thumb. She called her Grandmother crazy. What did it mean that they were both aware of the same ghost?

The tires of Derek’s bug crunched over the gravel driveway. Audrey came breezing into the kitchen, showered and beautiful and smelling like fruity French perfume. The plastic, amber-colored bracelets clacked on her thin wrists and a new Mexican skirt swirled above her string sandals. She must be expecting company that evening. Saffron didn’t like it when Audrey had people over to their cave. Audrey and Derek and their eclectic friends. Their favorite thing to do was play Wii Play. Followed by We Drink.

Audrey smiled wide. “Give me a kiss before you go.”

Saffron winced at the pain in her thumbs, both bitten down to the skin, and quickly pecked her mother’s mineral-powdered cheek. Audrey continued to smile. “Have a great night at work!”

Saffron fake-smiled in return and hoped she lived through the night.

***

Saffron was tossing salads when Coco’s archenemy came strolling into the shop with a three-year-old child, his arms and legs spilling out of an Earth Mother body sling. The child looked odd, all heavy gangly in the sling, but there was something else Saffron couldn’t figure. Finally, she realized that the oddness was the way the boy was bent and tucked…so he could snack on his mother’s left breast. Saffron turned three shades of green and dropped the oily salad spoon. The kid burped some milk up on the floor.

It was widely thought that Coco’s brother, Reginald, had sired the lad, but no one was positive. Reginald didn’t know either, but he came up with money every month to help raise the child of his long since ex-girlfriend. Coco told all who would listen that she knew for a fact that the baby was someone else’s, but never expounded further on her theory.

“
OMG.” Saffron muttered as she spied mother and child between the jars of sour pickles that sat on top of the deli case. ‘Skin pickles’ Coco called them because some of the clerks reached into the jars without gloves and there was always some unidentified cloud of something that swooshed up from the bottom of the green liquid when it was disturbed. Coco knew it was sloughed skin from gloveless dips past.

Currently, Coco was in the back of the store, stocking, and Saffron prayed she would stay there until this person and her child checked out. Saffron jumped over the dropped spoon, washed her hands, and then trotted to stand ready behind her register. She bit her bottom lip, scanned the parking lot, and hoped no one else would pull in. Where was the girl now? Over the tops of the rows, Saffron could see she had the cooler door open where the whipped cream was shelved. “OhmyGod,” Saffron muttered as Coco came sauntering from the back. Saffron waved her away.

“
No, problem, I got this one.” Saffron mumbled.

“
What?” Coco’s voice rang out like a trucker’s at a wrestling convention.

“
I got this one; go back to stocking!” Saffron hissed even lower.

Coco came closer, holding her ear. “Girl, I can’t hear a thing you’re saying. Speak up for God’s sake, scream it if you want. If you got something to say…LET IT OUT!” Movement caught the corner of Coco’s eye. She turned to focus on it, on
her.
Coco’s hands simultaneously went to her hips as her eyes narrowed. The girl and sucking child arrived at the counter just as Coco made it to Saffron’s side.