Authors: Charles de Lint
The Onion Girl (11 page)
“You want to say a few words?” Jack asks.
I look down at the body, trace the curve of the horn with my gaze.
“Safe journey,” I say.
Jack bows his head and adds an “Amen,” then we fill the hole back up again. It makes a small, rounded hillock when we're done. Jack draws a pattern in the fresh dirt, a warding to keep predators away.
“You know any unicorns?” Jack asks when we're done.
I shake my head.
“Me neither. I guess I'll pass the word around when I get to Harley's
and hopefully somebody'll let his kin know how it went down. And if anyone asks, I'll be sure to share the scent of that alpha female with them. See how she likes to be hunted, the next time she crosses over.”
and hopefully somebody'll let his kin know how it went down. And if anyone asks, I'll be sure to share the scent of that alpha female with them. See how she likes to be hunted, the next time she crosses over.”
I nod. It's the right thing to do, but it doesn't make me feel any better. It's like spreading the shadows, instead of shining a light into them.
Talking about shadows makes me think of something.
“Hey, Jack,” I say. “You know much about shadow twins?”
He shrugs. “No more than the usual stories. Why? You had a run-in-with one?”
“Not so's I know. I'm just trying to remember something. The one that casts the shadowâdoes she know about her twin?”
“I don't think so,” he says. “But I'm no expert.”
“Know anybody that is?”
He has to think a moment. “Jack Daw,” he says finally. “Except he'sâ”
“Dead. Yeah, I know.”
“You find the Old Woman, you might ask her,” he says. “There's not much she doesn't know.”
“But sometimes there's not much she likes to share, either. I remember her telling me once, âDon't look to other people's stories; live your own'”
“There's that. But I don't know that I agree.” Jack looks off into the woods. “I know this much about shadow twins. When they go bad, it's because the one that casts the shadow hates something about himself.”
I nod. When someone hates you, it takes a big heart to not return that hate. I know Jilly's got things in her life she hates. And for sure she's got a big heart. But if she's got herself a shadow twin, how big is its heart going to be?
“You think that she-wolf we chased off could have been one?” Jack asks.
I hadn't even thought of that.
“I doubt it,” I tell him, but more for something to say. Right now I've got more important things on my mind than human dreamers like her.
Jack nods and tips a finger against the brim of his hat. “Well, you take care.”
“Good luck with your puma girl,” I say.
He laughs. “Hell, Joe. You don't need luck when you've got my good looks and charm.”
“Not to mention modesty.”
“That, too.”
I watch him go, then turn back to the grave we dug. I bend down and lay my hand against the dirt. Closing my eyes, I can hear that song I heard with my uncle so long ago. It comes whispering up out of my memory, and then I see the horn again. The image lies across the back of my eyelids, the gleaming white flanks, the white mane and tail, the horn rising like a spiral of white fire in the moonlight.
Sitting back on my haunches, I roll a cigarette and light it. I take a drag and offer the smoke up to the Grandfather Thunders before I place the burning butt on the dirt beside Jack's warding.
I sit there for a while, watching the smoke trail up into the sky until the cigarette goes out. Then I stand up and head off myself, deeper into the quicklands.
TYSON, AUTUMN 1971
Everything changed after that business with
Del and the knife. It was like when Mama decided they weren't going to bail my sister outta juvie no more, starting her in on her round a foster homes. Mama flat disowned her and we was none of us supposed to talk about her, or even mention her name. I was still pretty small, but come the first couple of lickins, I learned to keep my mouth shut. After a while it weren't so hard, 'cause that's 'bout the time Del started coming into my room of a night and I learned to hate my sister just like everybody else did.
Del and the knife. It was like when Mama decided they weren't going to bail my sister outta juvie no more, starting her in on her round a foster homes. Mama flat disowned her and we was none of us supposed to talk about her, or even mention her name. I was still pretty small, but come the first couple of lickins, I learned to keep my mouth shut. After a while it weren't so hard, 'cause that's 'bout the time Del started coming into my room of a night and I learned to hate my sister just like everybody else did.
For me, it was the way she just up and run off on me, and I guess for Del it was pretty much the same reason, 'cept I'm guessing he was more pissed that he'd gone and lost him his little homegrown girl-toy. I never really knowed why the rest of 'em felt the way they did. Jimmy and Robbie never much talked to me, and 'specially not after Del started paying his midnight visits. I doubt the old man even noticed she was gone for the first few months; he never did pay much mind to any of us kids. I guess he
just give up on the lot of us, what with the two oldest becoming delinquents straight off, that being Del and my sister, and then Jimmy and Robbie not showing much inclination to walk the straight and narrow neither.
just give up on the lot of us, what with the two oldest becoming delinquents straight off, that being Del and my sister, and then Jimmy and Robbie not showing much inclination to walk the straight and narrow neither.
And Mama? Hell, she was a mean drunk anyway and she just hated us girlsâon general principles, I reckon, since I sure never done her no wrong.
I remember it was different before they took my sister away. Hell, I adored her then. She was like the mama none of us hadâthe kind you see on a TV show, you know. Not the soaps, but the sitcoms and such like, where the mama cares for everybody more'n she cares for her own self. My sister was like thatâfor me, anyways. We'd hide out, the two of us, in the fields behind the house, and she'd tell me stories she made up, or she'd read me outta her books. I didn't have me a clue, what was happening between her and Del then.
I gotta laugh now. I remember being jealous of how close they seemed and all, and then feeling confused 'cause I could also tell that she just plain didn't care for him neither. She made out like it weren't so, but I could tell different.
“How come you don't like Del?” I'd ask.
“Oh, I like him well enough,” she'd say, but there'd be a mean burn in her eyes, just at the mention of his name.
“I seen the looks you gived him.”
“â
I
'
ve
seen the looks you
give
him,'” she'd correct me.
I
'
ve
seen the looks you
give
him,'” she'd correct me.
I figure that's partly why I talk the way I do, her always correcting me like she done. Once she took off and left me behind, anything she cared about, I'd do the opposite. Like once I knew she wasn't coming back to me, I took them books of hers out to the old tree where she'd read to me and I burned them and that damn tree down, started a fire that spread into the field and just kept on a-coming. It pretty near took out the house, and woulda done it, too, if the wind hadn't up and changed at the last minute. The fire department sure never bothered coming out.
I can read and write fine, but I don't bother much. When I was still taking my schooling, I'd sit there in art class with my arms folded against my chest. Because those were the things she cared aboutâbooks and drawing.
And about that time's when I started to make a point of sounding like
the white trash we was. But it wasn't just 'cause of her that I keep it up. Thing is, while I know better, I like sounding ignorant. Talk like this and people figure you're about as dumb as a fencepost, which suits me fine. Makes it all that much easier to take advantage of 'em.
the white trash we was. But it wasn't just 'cause of her that I keep it up. Thing is, while I know better, I like sounding ignorant. Talk like this and people figure you're about as dumb as a fencepost, which suits me fine. Makes it all that much easier to take advantage of 'em.
I suppose if I'm going to be fair, I got to say that maybe my sister didn't have much choice, things working out the way they did. And I guess she tried to warn me about Del. She'd say, “You be careful around him,” and I'd go ask Mama why she was saying that, and we'd both end up with a whippin'. When it come to Del, Mama had her a blind spot a mile wide. After the first few times, I finally smartened up and it never come up no more.
But my sister, she coulda come back for me. She coulda taken me outta that hellhole, but she never did. Never gived me no second thought. I heard about it when she finally run off for goodâwhere I grew up, everybody knew everybody else's businessâand she didn't bother to come fetch me afore she upped and gone.
I think maybe it'd been better if she'd just died. That way I'd still've felt abandoned, but it wouldn'ta been her fault. I still coulda loved the memory of her. But the way she done it, it was just plain meanness and there's not one damn thing I love about her. Not then and not now.
Anywise, like I was saying, once I sliced Pinky's knife across the back of Del's knee, everything changed again. Del he didn't make no more midnight visits to my room. He was hobbling around for months, playing the brave soldier, done protected his sister and the house and all. Jimmie and Robbie could see he was cautious of me, and that made them keep their own distance. There wasn't much to the pair a them, the one dumber than the next, but they had a dog's sense about the lay of the land. Knew when to back off and when they could follow the bullying ways they learned from Del.
The old man didn't seem to notice any change, but Mama sure did. 'Cept I wouldn't take crap from her anymore'n I'd take it from anyone else.
Oh, we was wild in those days, me and Pinky, but I learned from my sister's mistakes. I didn't run off so that the cops could bring me home again. I didn't skip school, though I just sat there like some old tree stump from the time I got there in the morning until the bell rang at the end of the day. I didn't get in trouble, in or outta schoolâor at least I didn't get caught, which works out to be about the same thing.
I wasn't going to end up in juvie, find myself in some girls' home with a buncha dykes and a broom handle up my hole, and I wasn't going into no foster home neither. I wanted my freedom, so I played dumb, but I lived smart.
I wasn't going to end up in juvie, find myself in some girls' home with a buncha dykes and a broom handle up my hole, and I wasn't going into no foster home neither. I wanted my freedom, so I played dumb, but I lived smart.
Like the time Pinky decides she's gonna get back at Mr. Haven, our algebra teacher. It's not that he's flunking us, which he is, like we care. It's that Pinky finds out he's been boning her cousin, Sherry. Has her come by his house for extra tutoring and puts it to her, twice a week. Lets her know that if she squeals, they're gonna come and take her away from her parents, stick her sorry ass in jail till she's old and gray, because there's laws against little girls seducing their teachers.
I know, I know. Sherry's a sweet kid, but not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box, believing that line of crap. She's got the face of a little, angel, the body of a woman, and the brains of a squirrel. Sorta runs in the Miller line some, I guess, her being kin to Pinky and all. And the real trouble is, while she developed too soon, like me, she don't got her the spine I do. Ain't her fault. Took Pinky and her knife to give me mine. And you know, there's no reason a kid should need that kinda hardness sitting inside her, 'cept there's freaks out there just a-waiting to take advantage of all them little girls that don't.
What Haven's done to her's the same difference as what Del done to me. Somebody what's supposed to be looking out for youâyour family, your teacherâthey ain't supposed to break that trust. But it happens all the same. Happens all the goddamn time and there's nothing we can do about it 'cept make the freaks pay when we can.
How this all come out is Haven don't have no use for rubbers, so Sherry finds herself fourteen and pregnant, her old man right ready to kill her, she don't tell who she's been catting 'round with. Sherry, she's too damned scared of what Haven told her to say a word. More scared of going to jail than she is of the lickins her old man gives her. Just starts in on crying anytime anybody asks her anything.
But sooner or later, every dam's gotta spring a leak, and Sherry's leak sprung one night when Pinky were visiting with her, just the two of them in that ugly old double-wide her family's living in.
“You got to promise you won't tell nobody,” Sherry says.
“I promise,” Pinky lies, 'cause she told me, didn't she?
And that's what brings us to me and Pinky sitting on a picnic table
out behind the donut shop the next day. I seen Pinky mad afore, but not like this. Usually there's a lotta hollering going on. She's gonna cut this and bust that. But she's real quiet today. All that mad she's carrying is just a-sittin' there in her eyes, burning and smoldering. I was Haven, I'd be worrying 'bout now.
out behind the donut shop the next day. I seen Pinky mad afore, but not like this. Usually there's a lotta hollering going on. She's gonna cut this and bust that. But she's real quiet today. All that mad she's carrying is just a-sittin' there in her eyes, burning and smoldering. I was Haven, I'd be worrying 'bout now.
“I'm gonna say he raped me,” Pinky says. “Sherry ain't never gonna step up and talk her own self, so I'll just say it was me he done it to.”
At least she isn't talking 'bout going by his house with a baseball bat and breaking his legs, or sticking a knife in his gut like she done with Russell Henderson, but this ain't a whole lot better.
“You can't be doing that,” I tell her.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cutting the freak down my own self, the piece of work that he is, but there's a right way and a wrong to go about things. The right way is, you get what you want, but no one even knows you was anywheres near where it went down.
“Like hell, I cain't,” Pinky says. “You just watch me.”
But I shake my head. “I ain't saying, let it go. I'm saying that showboating ain't our only option here.”
We been friends a long time, but this past year, Pinky's got herself a whole new respect for the way I can worry at a trouble, figure a way out that keeps us on top.
“So what're you saying?” she asks.
“Hold your horses,” I tell her. “Let me think on it a minute.”
The trick to any damn thing is keeping it simple, but I guess I couldn't help but want to showboat some, even if it was only me and Pinky what knowed how it went down.
âRound then there was this hillbilly Mafia up north of Tyson that pretty much run the bootlegging trade. The Morgan family, they was called, and they had them a place in Freakwater Hollow, up off of 'Shine Road. You'd see 'em in town from time to time, clannish and mean-looking and all of a kind, tall and lean with their silvery blond hair and dark eyes. Time was they had them a hundred stills up in the backwoods, but then they turned to growing fields of marijuana and nobody but nobody stepped on their toes.
That left the hard drugs to the local chapter of the Devil's Dragon. I guess they was as mean in their own way, but they were bikers and they
liked to have them some fun, too. The Morgans didn't mix, but you get the Dragons in the right mood, and they'd party with anybody. They had them a clubhouse just off the Ramble where you could get your heroin and your crack, and the drug of choice, in them days, you had the money: coke. But you didn't mess with 'em neither, and poor old Mr. Haven, well, I guess he didn't learn him that lesson in time.
liked to have them some fun, too. The Morgans didn't mix, but you get the Dragons in the right mood, and they'd party with anybody. They had them a clubhouse just off the Ramble where you could get your heroin and your crack, and the drug of choice, in them days, you had the money: coke. But you didn't mess with 'em neither, and poor old Mr. Haven, well, I guess he didn't learn him that lesson in time.
It was kinda fun, at the start. The most dangerous part was stealing that bag of dope from the Dragon. We knowed they kept the drugs locked up in the back of this old Chevy sedan when they was making their delivery rounds. So one night we took to following them. Pinky was driving one of her brothers' Ford pickups that we'd borrowed without his knowing, and we'd stayed way back, watching as a couple of the Dragon made their deliveries. They'd stop at a place, one of 'em'd get out and pop the trunk, grab something and go inside, the other'd wait in the car.
After a couple a hours of this I pretty much figured this was a bust, 'cept right about then that Chevy stopped around back of Cinders, this strip club on Division Street, and after getting their delivery, both them boys went inside. Now either this was their last stop, or the guy doing the waiting got tired of sitting in the car. Or maybe he just wanted himself an eyeful a what was going on inside. Same difference right now, I suppose, since they was both gone inside and this was my first chance to pop that trunk my own self and have a look-see what might still be there.
Pinky watched the door, ready to run interference if they come out too soon. I don't know what she woulda done. Probably just pulled down her tube topâthat's the kinda thing them boys would find impossible to ignore. Be a little chilly tonight, but while they were counting her goose bumps, I'd be gone.
The trunk weren't no big problem. I been learning my way around locks this past summer. Part hobby, I suppose, and part nosiness. I like to know what people got locked up.
“Holy shit,” I said when I get me that trunk open.
“What? What?” Pinky called back to me in a loud whisper.
I just shook my head. There was about twenty little plastic bags sitting there in rows, each as big as my hand, and they weren't full of flour. I grabbed me a half dozen, dropped that trunk lid, and we took off.
Course Pinky had to sample the stuff, just to make sure it was what it
was. Me, I don't do dope. Don't drink neither, 'cept for beer, and never enough to get me drunk. I don't like the feeling of being out of control of myself. 'Cause the plain truthâI know this for a fact, and my sister rubbed it in with her leavingâis you only got yourself to depend on. I got me Pinky, I know, and she loves me and I love her, but come down to the wire, I don't know which way she'd turn. Least, I didn't then.
was. Me, I don't do dope. Don't drink neither, 'cept for beer, and never enough to get me drunk. I don't like the feeling of being out of control of myself. 'Cause the plain truthâI know this for a fact, and my sister rubbed it in with her leavingâis you only got yourself to depend on. I got me Pinky, I know, and she loves me and I love her, but come down to the wire, I don't know which way she'd turn. Least, I didn't then.
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