“We’ll do an investigation, but my money is on a mamacita who stole a bottle of tequila from the bar, got drunk, and dropped a lit cigarette.”
“They must have been freezing up there, with the power off. Maybe they were trying to build a fire. To stay warm.”
“Are you questioning my judgment?”
I sucked in a breath. “No . . . I . . . look, I need to confess. I was worried about you when I heard there’d been a fire.”
“My God, sweetie. Music to my ears. Here’s what I’m going to do. Appoint you as the department’s spokesperson. I’ll even deputize you. You can use your voodoo to help people accept the new rules. Help them understand that freedom can’t exist without order and discipline and sacrifice. Agreed?”
I stared at the mic, unable to force my thumb onto the speaker button. The scarf twisted around my arm, twirling like a snake up and then around my shoulders, the tasseled ends dancing. Alberta slashed a Cut signal across her throat. Both she and Macy leapt for the controls.
I held onto the microphone with white-knuckled fists. “I’d be honored.”
“Are you sure no one else can overhear us?”
“Yes.”
“Amber doesn’t have to know about you and me. We’ll make it work.” He paused. “Eighty eight.”
Love you, in ham radio lingo.
“Say it back,” he ordered.
I released the mic. It clattered to the desk. Alberta ripped the mic cord from its plug. We sat in silence. A kerosene lamp hissed on a shelf, flickering shadows of flames on the walls. I watched my scarf return to an ordinary reality. The tassels curled into patterns on the desk.
It’s your time, Miss Lucy. You can see what to do.
Opal put her small arms around me. Suddenly I realized how young she’d been. No more than a child.
Why did you die young?
Because no one like you was there to stand up for me.
“They’re at the café,” I said. “And I’m the only one who can get them out.”
“THERMAL BLANKET,” Alberta said, stuffing the folded silver fabric into a bulging bag strapped the back of the saddle. It was already filled with scarves, mittens and sock caps. She followed the blanket with various pouches. “Flare gun. Matches. First Aid kit.”
“Granola bars,” Macy added, handing her another packet.
“GPS tracker.” Alberta strapped a band around my wrist. She held up the hunting equivalent of a bad-ass switchblade. The scabbard was leather, etched with a skull and crossbones. “Utility knife. Wear it around your neck at all times.”
I dutifully put the scabbard’s braided leather strap over my head, and patted it gently among the canyons of my jacket and shawls.
Brim snorted. She was not happy that I’d coaxed her from the warm barn.
Friends don’t make friends go out in the cold.
She stood in the knee-deep snow with her long, gray-brown ears pinned back and her upper lip wrinkled in a sneer. Her lower lip, an agile creature that operated separately from the rest of her head, protruded in a pout. Occasionally it tried to suck in one of her hackamore reins, like an old woman rolling a wad of chew tobacco.
The hackamore had long metal shanks attached to a braided nose piece. Pull on the reins and the nose piece tightened. Stop, turn left, turn right. For a pleasant equine and a skilled rider, the hackamore was plenty.
In Brim’s case, I just prayed she’d halt before we hit a tree. Dad put me on ponies at church carnivals. I always fell off. People snicker when the minister’s daughter falls off a Shetland pony. It’s seen as righteous penance.
Brim’s angry ears flattened even more. Her big, brown eyes shifted my way with betrayal. Friends don’t use friends as pack animals.
Cold air pummeled my face with intense sensations, alive with meaning. I saw every tiny hair on the dark skin around the smooth round jewel of her beautiful oculus. The dark well of the pupil had a fire deep inside it; not a hellish one that deserved her name but a heart of bleak, dull sorrows.
I pulled my top shawl over my head and swept it around her head in a hugging motion. We stood there, tented inside the wool-scented warmth, our heads bent together. For a moment she drew her head up, blowing hard out of her nostrils. I waited. Slowly, she relaxed. I leaned my face against the hard, bony plane of her temple.
Thank you, my friend. I am afraid of this journey. I need your help.
She snuffled my shoulder, then blew out a long breath.
I will carry you.
“Last but not least.” Alberta stuck an extra clip of bullets into the bag. “You do have your Lady Parts gun on you, right?”
I patted my lower stomach. Heavy artillery guarding the mound of Venus.
Macy stepped to one side, blonde hair feathering the fleece-lined hood of her coat, mittened hands clutched in front of her, breath puffing white. “It’s not supposed to snow again today. You should have no problem getting to the café in two hours, tops.” She grabbed my gloved hand. “Be careful.”
“I will. But we have to get those women out of there. I just have to figure out how.”
Brim shifted ominously. I patted her neck. If there were any other way, my friend, I would not ask you to do this.
No answer. She was sulking.
Macy tucked a small canister of pepper spray into a deep pocket of my skirt. “In case you need to season a salad,” she said wanly. Macy watched me sadly, as if I were an Inuit about to cast off on a lonely ice floe. Judging by my knitted gray leggings, my all-weather knee-high boots, my long woolen skirt, and multiple shirts and shawls, I might open up to reveal smaller Russian dolls inside.
Alberta put a thickly jacketed arm around Macy. “She’s tougher than she looks, honey. I did a good job. Hell, I’m hoping to upgrade her from her little lady pistol to a .38.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Brim and I are a team.”
“She looks very unhappy,” Macy said.
Alberta scowled at me. “What if this mean dyke of a mule throws you off and heads back here? Do you really know how to control this mule, Parmenter?”
I slowly eased a boot into the broad wooden stirrup on Brim’s saddle, then swung up. I gathered the reins. “I know how to hold on,” I said.
SNOW DRIFTED among the steep hollows and curving ridges around Free Wheeler.
Each of Brim’s plowing footsteps sent echoes into the earth and through my bones. The air came alive; blue-gray in the frosted sunlight, with mysterious whorls of dark, earthy currents rising from the snow and swirling around the empty buildings.
I grabbed the edge of a shawl. The wool, ancient in its magic, grounded me.
This is real, Miss Lucy, Opal whispered. This right here is a kingdom over a kingdom under a mountain and beside a river of death. You’re meant to save it.
I swayed dizzily atop Brim’s back. A saddle has an erotic quality, spreading and intimate. I moved on four legs now, not two. I was much taller, and I walked the earth as a new animal. I put a shaking hand on Brim’s shaggy shoulder. Thank you, again.
I carry you.
As Brim plodded down the lane between the haunted, empty brick shops with their boarded windows and chained doors I kept glancing to my right, at the woods and hollows and caves where the Knights hid.
Brim stumbled. “Easy, easy,” I coaxed. She recovered, carefully putting one hoof ahead of the other, sinking through the soft white layers to the old cobbled main street. Clop. A solid foundation, there.
I glimpsed movement to my right. I pulled on the reins. Brim swiveled her head toward the motion, too.
Suddenly a tall figure separated himself from the background, and then another, shorter one. Gutsy, my feminine guide to all things warrior. Berg, a six-five mountain with a prosthetic right arm inside his coat.
 
; Both Berg and Gutsy were covered in bulky white jumpsuits with white hoods and ski masks. Even their rifles were wrapped in white cloth. Gutsy signaled to me with a forefinger. Then she pointed to the top of the village general store.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I turned Brim and stared, my heart racing, into the snowy forest. Brim raised her head and sniffed the wind, then snorted.
Megan, aka Alaina.
She raised from a squat on the roof, camouflaged in white—like Gutsy and Berg. A rifle was slung over her shoulder. She held up a hand. More of a salute than a wave.
Flames rose up around her. Snow and ice dripped from the eaves, shimmering into deep, glowing puddles.
She’s one of them. Not an enemy.
I WAS BAGGAGE, being prepped for transport. Oxygen tank nestled between my thighs, IV pouches piled on top of me like ready-to-microwave dinners. Flying stateside courtesy of Uncle Sam on a military medical plane, then transferring to Jay’s chartered jet.
One last leg in my military career, then cut free.
Luce. Talk to me. If anybody can get through, you can.
I felt Tal’s hand on my arm. Every physical sensation was strange. The part of me that knew what it might mean was vacant. “Gus,” she whispered. “We’re still trying to get in touch with Lucy, I promise you.”
“We’re not going to tell Lucy about Hana.” Gabby’s voice.
I kept my eyes half-shut. Even the single light over my bed hurt. “Nothing to tell. Was over a long time ago. And Luce knows.”
I heard more whispers. Jay’s low voice, joining the chorus. Then he leaned over me. I caught a whiff of bourbon and cigars. “I can pay Hana off if she’s just here for money.”
“She’s here because she’s in trouble again. She’s scared.”
“Hana always has problems. We understand why, but you need to concentrate on healing, not trying to babysit her.”
“I made a promise to Hepswith. What happened to him . . . what she saw . . . ”
“All right, she can stay,” Gabby interjected. “But let us keep her at a distance. You don’t have your kitchen charms at the moment, big brother. You’re a bat flying with no radar.”
“Then I’ll have to slam into a few walls.”
“Trust our radar.”
I began to drift into another sleep-drugged cycle. “Just . . . let her . . . hang around.”
“Okay, but on our terms, not hers.”
Gabs moved to a corner along with Tal. Very low voices. Not low enough.
“He’s asleep. Good. We can’t let that soul-sucking demon near him.”
“Gus is not going to be unfaithful to Lucy. You know that.”
“Not intentionally. But you and I both know how Hana plays her games.”
“He’ll stay with Doug and me. She won’t have access. We have a big bedroom at the back of the house. It’s where Doug stores veterinary supplies. We’ll renovate it and add handicapped access to the bathroom.”
“He’ll need a wheelchair. Let’s get him a super-charged motorized one. He liked motorcycles when we were growing up in California.”
“Jay will set up a checking account for him. He’ll have plenty of money to play with.”
“Yes! Gus always talks about starting a brewery. Let’s encourage him to start planning. Something to keep him busy during rehab.”
“Tom Mitternich will work with him on the architectural design. At Free Wheeler. It’s time we made a decision about its future.”
“Put a beer brewery in that abandoned ghost town?”
“If the investment fails, so what? Let’s just get Gus motivated. And, hopefully, Lucy will . . .”
“That situation is outside our control. We should tell him about her history. Her . . . liabilities. For her sake, not just his.”
“No.” Tal’s firm voice. “That’s between her and Gus. We promised her.”
“Look, Baby Sister, preserving food means stopping its original life. You save it, but it’s not the living thing it once was. You heat it, you add salt and vinegar, you put it in a jar and seal out the air. It’s beautiful, it’s useful, it’s special. But it’s not alive, anymore. That’s what I get from Lucy. She’s never going to break out of her jar and be fully alive, again. I don’t want Gus stuck protecting yet another hopeless soul.”
“Like us?” Tal’s voice. Angry. “Like he joined the Army rather than compromise our relationship with the Rodriquez family?”
“He seduced our sister. He broke the family bond.”
“Our adopted sister. And Amelia Rodriguez was five years older than him. And he was only eighteen. And she was the aggressor.”
“He abandoned us.”
“He made a mistake. He took responsibility for it. They kicked him out.”
“I took care of you after he left. Never forget that.”
“Oh, as in always looking for a substitute for Jay while pretending you were a big independent California woman and I was just your little stupid cookie-baking sister? Why do you think I left for New York?”
“You didn’t have to leave. You deserted me.”
“’You deserted me.”
“This is all old history. You’ve got Doug now. You and Eve caught the golden ring on the carousel. So did I, with Jay. Now let’s see if we can help Gus catch that ring, too.”
“I agree. But don’t ever talk trash about Lucy to me. Never again. She protected Eve from my ex’s goons. Don’t ever . . . ”
“You’re smelling like burned bread. Calm down.”
“And you stink like rotten peppers. I love you, but rotten!”
“Your brother’s still awake,” Jay said grimly. “He’s blinked about fifty times in the past minute. You might want to apologize to him.”
He had my back.
My sisters converged on me, each grasping a hand. They didn’t say a word out loud. In the past, everything between us would have been said inside our circle, stronger than any spoken language.
“I can’t hear you that way anymore,” I said hoarsely. “Just leave me alone.”
They left the room. No one was happy. Especially not me.
THE BROAD AND majestic Cove sprawled beyond the fringe of skeletal oaks, with the wonder of the Ten Sisters behind it. Snow lay high against the porches of Delta and Pike’s big farm house. The snow was stunning in its illusion; its white was made up of endless shades of color. Above the mists of the gray-white sky the Ten Sisters etched themselves in delicate forevers.
Everything worried me. The exquisitely mysterious shades of blue. They worried Brim, too. She laid her ears back and tossed her head. We were sympatico.
The café loomed ahead, down the alley of a snowy lane hooded by oaks sheathed in ice. The sounds of guitars and fiddles rose from the rambling former farm house.
“Miss Lucy!” Larry yelled as I rode up a back trail behind the Crossroads Café. He waved from the end of the snowy lane, his full-length apron flopping around a tall body that remained lanky even padded by a blue quilted jacket. His title was assistant kitchen manager; his main job duties were bussing tables and washing dishes. He loped up to us. His fuzzy blue hat had huge ear flaps; they flew back like the ears of a happy Beagle when he ran. “Look at you, out here alone! Hey, Brimmy!”
Brim didn’t try to bite him. A mark in his honor.
“I came to offer scarves and caps.” I patted the big bundle tied behind me.
“I think I found some rockycocker tracks over by Stirwater Creek! I took pictures and measurements! The snow covered them before I could make plaster casts! But I’ll be ready next time!”
“Have you seen anything else strange around here?”
“Just Miz Cleo.” His expression fell as he strode along beside us.
“She’s stra
nger than usual?”
He nodded. “I guess ’cause Sheriff Pike got sick. She’s yelling at everybody. I don’t like it when Miz Delta is away and Miz Cleo’s in charge.”
“How many people are staying here during the storm?”
He pulled his phone from a pocket and waggled it at me. “Thirty-seven. I keep count and record their data.”
“You make an excellent observer.”
“Scientist,” he corrected solemnly.
“Scientist. I misspoke. I apologize.”
He sighed. “I admit I don’t have the whole number. I didn’t get to count the ones in the Yellow Jellyfish Room.”
My ears perked. What Larry called the Yellow Jellyfish Room was otherwise named the Turse Nettie Dining Room. One of Delta’s great aunts from the Nettie branch. Turse had been a masterful flower gardener, Delta said. The wallpaper was a florid swirl of blooms and vines. It did appear to be swimming out to sea.
“Who’s in the Jellyfish Room?”
“Some girls that aren’t from around here. I got just one peep at them when they came through the back hall before Miz Cleo grabbed me by my ear. It hurt.” He raised a flap to show me the red mark.
“Can you guess how many there were?”
“I never guess, Miss Lucy. That would be unscientific.”
“How about giving me your best estimate? Just a hypothetical count.”
“More than ten. Fewer than thirteen.”
“And you haven’t seen them outside that room, since?”
“No. Only Miz Cleo gets to go in the Jellyfish Room.”
We reached the back of the café—its kitchen entrance, storage sheds, ice machine, and outdoor freezer. Icicles hung from the whitewashed eaves and the railings around the kitchen porch. Larry bolted ahead. “I better get back to work. I only have one good ear left.”
As he disappeared through a double door wide enough for deliveries, I climbed down from Brim and removed her hackamore. I fed her a granola bar. Wait here.
She crunched the treat and air-kicked an invisible annoyance.
I followed a shoveled trail to the front veranda. People were camping there. There was music and bonfires and laughter, and the snow had been shoveled from the graveled parking lot. Tents sprouted throughout.