The May Queen Murders (3 page)

one about Birch Markle. But they’re bedtime stories to give little girls

nightmares. That’s al .”

Heather disregarded Mamie’s tales, but I couldn’t. I needed their

truth. They were mythic and strange and disarming, as much a part

of my life as tending to fields and brushing dirt from the house. To

hear the stories over a pinewood fire, the smel s of clove tea and flo-

ral powder on old woman skin, was a joy lost once Mamie quit talk-

ing. Heather couldn’t take it away again.

I liked doing things the old way, the Glen way, and it was worth

paying attention to the omens — especial y the life and death ones.

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Suddenly, the clinic’s CB radio hissed to life.

A voice echoed through the static. “Timothy, you there?” No pri-

vate telephones existed in Rowan’s Glen — lack of phone lines — but

the few businesses kept radios to make cal s. The rattles and clicks

of disembodied souls talking across the airwaves were common

enough background noises at my family’s clinic.

I was reaching for the radio when Papa jogged out from his office.

If someone called, he usual y needed to deliver a calf or diagnose a

horse with colic. I often tagged along as his assistant. It was good

practice, and Papa claimed I had “the touch,” cats rubbing against my

legs, dog kisses slathering my cheek and neck. I could calm a Saint

Bernard nervous for a nail trim by scratching behind its ears.

Papa adjusted his glasses and clicked a button on the receiver. “I’m

here.”

“Listen, Timothy.” Sheriff Meriweather’s voice was deep, grim.

“You gotta come out. Something’s down by the river.”

“Some
thing?
” Papa and ran his hand along his hair, slicked back in

the early 1900s style worn by many of the Glen’s men.

The radio spewed another jittery clatter before Sheriff spoke. “We

ain’t sure what it is. Scavengers have made off with some pieces.

There’s fur.”

My stomach lurched. Animals died all the time. I’d witnessed all

means of death, from the beloved old cat that shut its eyes for a final

time to the runt pup of a litter that couldn’t survive. Accidents on

the highway. Predators. Living off the land instilled knowledge of

life cycles and perpetuity, but I was yet to be comfortable around the

dead.

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I gulped loud enough that Heather stopped picking at her red

thread bracelet. My mother made the women in our family wear

them — even those who didn’t share her Mexican blood. The brace-

let warded off
mal de ojo.
The evil eye. The Scottish side of the Tem-

pletons humored her traditions, despite their own peculiar folklore.

“What’s going on?” Heather mouthed.

I hushed her with a finger against my lips. Papa glanced at us,

hesitating before he pressed the receiver close to his mouth. “You

reckon it’s one of the missing dogs?”

Sheriff made a noise. “Too big for that. Cliff’s guessing a horse.

Since you’re the animal man ’round here, you gotta take a look. But

there’s something more. There’s blood, lots of it, all over the grass.”

"

Most Glen folk wouldn’t cross Promise Bridge. The land was rocky,

and little but the occasional dandelion was brazen enough to root on

the bank. Promise Bridge was where I washed the linens in the river,

but it was also the place Heather and I spent hours searching the

shore for old things, drawing, sometimes lying in the marsh grass.

The rickety bridge crossed to Potter’s Field, a cemetery of unmarked

graves sleeping outside the woods. The granny-women, older wom-

en bearing herbs and stories, tended the graves. Always returning to

the vil age before dusk, before the forest awakened.

Papa left the clinic with a curt “be back soon,” but as it was near

closing, Heather and I locked up and stalked a few beats behind.

She wanted to see what was down by the river, and because I always

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did what she wanted, I came along. We lingered behind a limestone

mound and waited for Papa to cross the suspension bridge of rusted

chains and wood before we followed.

The water’s depth was il usive, deep enough to allow for Deni-

al Mill upstream. For a century, the Denial clan was its caretakers,

most recently Flint and his son Jasper. While it once ground wheat,

it became a hydropower mill supplementing the Glen’s solar panels.

Every so often, a branch wedged in the wheel to halt the turning.

Someone then had to take on the dangerous task of wading through

the water to remove the obstruction and get the wheel moving again.

The building’s exterior was old stone, the wood trim faded red paint,

and when the sunset hit the mil , the wal s looked edged with blood.

Heather halted in the middle of the wavering bridge. My vision

swam from trying to hold stil . I needed to move.

“You hear something?” She pointed back to a bush growing near

the rocky bank. “Look.”

All I saw was a bel adonna shrub forming the buds of purple

flowers that would eventual y turn to fat, black berries. The leaves

rustled. My chest tightened. Black bears wandered the woods, and

if some animal was torn up . . . Human skin was no match for bear

claws.

I scooted Heather another step and whispered, “Go slow.”

The bush rustled again, and a young man emerged to fix the eye-

glasses falling down his nose.

Rook.

His hair was coffee-black and combed back. The sleeves of his

button-up shirt were rolled to his elbows, and the worn threads of

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his suspenders were near breaking. His barn boots had seen better

days, lots of scuffs marring the toes. The more I gawked, the higher

my pulse rose, and then he waved.

“He must’ve seen us and decided to follow,” Heather hummed be-

side me.

The Meriweather and Templeton families were close. For as long

as I could recal , Rook had been there, bringing fresh brown-shelled

eggs or stopping by to walk Heather and me to school. Our families

laughed over Sunday suppers, and when the harvest was good in

the Meriweathers’ field, we’d find clumps of radishes or bunches of

rainbow carrots in a crate on our step. Sometimes, Mama sent me to

their house with a loaf of bread and retired picture books for Rook’s

little sister. It was good to share with others.

Running with Rook was expected, yet not that simple at al . Two

winters ago, I was sick with the flu for a month. Instead of carous-

ing in snow-laden fields, I lay in bed. Once I recovered, Rook was

no longer a gangly kid from down the road. He was tall with broad

shoulders and a good laugh. When I saw him again —
real y
saw him

— I understood how much we’d changed. He’d gone from being a

neighbor boy to a boy I thought about.

“Call him over,” I urged.

“You.” Heather’s elbow jabbed me. “Since you want him to join us

so bad.”

My shoulders tightened, and I breathed in before beckoning him

closer with a wave. The invitation eased his smile, and the sun caught

him in a way I wanted to remember later when drawing. I smiled

back. He jogged toward us, undaunted by the rattling bridge. His legs

1

were fluid as he closed in, and then his palm rested on my shoulder.

Maybe he didn’t notice the way I jumped when he touched me.

“What are you doing? Trailing Ivy?” Heather asked.

A deep dimple cut his left cheek. He cleared his throat and gave a

wing-flap wave behind him. “I was checking the bel adonna. There’s

lots coming up. It ain’t native, but it likes the soil. We gotta clear it, or

the fields’ll poison.”

Heather once said Rook’s voice was honey, but I thought he spoke

with deeper tones, hickory roots burrowing earth and bitter moon-

shine. His voice was made to read books aloud at sunset when we

huddled around a bonfire. I’d listen to Rook’s stories and Heather’s

singing. I listened and drew because that was what I knew to do. It

was a good way to spend time, an easy way to forget worries.

“I-is that true?” I asked. “That bel adonna poisons the land?”

“Wel , it’d take a hell of a lot to actual y get into the soil.” Rook

knew every plant rooted in the Glen’s earth, right down to the Latin

names. “But my mama makes me clear it out before planting. She

ain’t completely crazed. The berries are toxic, and only a few can kil .

What about y’all? Where are you headed?”

“Your daddy called Uncle Timothy to Potter’s Field. They found a

carcass,” Heather explained.

“Mind if I come?” Rook asked, to which Heather said yes, but he

hadn’t asked her. His hand found mine, his skin warm, cal used, and

thril ing
to touch. We’d grabbed hands while climbing trees many

times growing up, but touching him now was like a dandelion scat-

tering inside me, seeds full of possibility.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted Heather crossing her arms.

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She wheeled around, tugging my hand away from Rook’s hold.

“Come on, Ivy.”

Helpless but to go, I looked to Rook over my shoulder. He strolled

over the swaying bridge. I’d linger with the same leisured pace as

him, but Heather was rushing and breathless.

For April in the Ozarks, it was no shock the wood was slick with

humidity. Yesterday’s rain saturated the settlement, and soon mildew

would creep over the horse fences. We’d get out there with vinegar

water to clean off the black rot. It’d come back, and we’d clean again.

Seasonal rituals and predictability of chores gave purpose and bal-

ance.

We reached the other riverbank and trundled down a dirt path.

With the sun drooping low to the horizon, an uneasy hush fell over

the vil age. Vultures circled overhead. A rancid smel , like meat that

hadn’t salt-cured quite right, drifted from Potter’s Field. All three

of us covered our faces. The loudest sounds were Heather’s mouth-

breathing and the swish of long skirts.

Potter’s Field lay in a valley surrounded by blackberry thickets.

We hunkered down in a cove and used rocks to shield us from the

graveyard of the abandoned. A half dozen men stood around, fore-

heads gleaming with clamminess and skin greenish like they were

fighting back the sicks. Of the men, the one I knew best was Sheriff

Meriweather — Rook’s father. He and Papa were descendants of the

Glen’s founding families. Sheriff wasn’t as tall as Papa; he was stockier

with hair the color of nutmegs flecked by silver. Despite being head

of police in these parts, he was more carpenter, and during growing

months, Sheriff tended fields with Rook to supply a vegetable cart

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his mother took to town. Rook was the spit of his mother’s side, lean

and pale and dark-haired Irish.

Along with Sheriff, several other members of the Glen’s police —

hillmen wearing a star pinned to their britches — crowded around

something on the ground. The grass in Potter’s Field was brown.

Except for one wide puddle of red.

Sheriff’s boots slopped through the puddle and revealed it deep

enough to soak his soles. “Timothy, as you can see, it’s a hell of a

mess.”

Papa pushed past the barrier of farmers, and I caught only the

briefest glimpse of pink meat slick with fluid. He opened his medi-

cal bag and snapped on blue exam gloves. They seemed out of

place against his modest shirt and vest. Most veterinarians I’d seen

in books wore white jackets, but Papa was never like them, instead

looking like doctors from over a century ago.

“Gross,” Heather whispered and craned her neck over the rocks.

She pushed up on her forearms.

“Don’t get too close,” I said and pulled her back.

She brushed my hand off her shoulder. “What? There ain’t any-

thing dangerous.”

“You’ll blow our cover.”

Papa took a syringe from his bag, uncapped it, and jabbed the

needle into the carcass. One of the men staggered before vomiting

beside a gravestone. Sheriff raised an eyebrow. “One of you’s gonna

need to grab a bucket from the river and clean up that mess. Show

the dead some respect.”

Papa withdrew the plunger, and the tube filled with blackish

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sludge. “This isn’t normal decay. This carcass is fresh, but you see

how the bel y’s torn open? Decay won’t cause flesh to burst for weeks

unless it’s extremely hot. Ozarks are warm but not enough to do that,

not yet. Something ripped it open.”

Rook shifted beside me, took off his glasses, and averted his eyes.

What could’ve done this? Maybe it was my suspicious nature, but

I couldn’t help but feel something bad seemed to have roused and

come to our land.

“What kind of animal was it?” Sheriff asked.

Papa coughed into the crook of his elbow. “It’s Bartholomew, the

Logans’ wolfhound.”

I covered my mouth to keep from crying out.
Not Bart.
Despite

being the size of a small pony, he was just a juvenile. When he stood

on his hind legs, he put his paws on my shoulders to dance. Heather

reached over and stroked the back of my head.

“Are you sure that’s a dog?” another man asked.