Long Black Curl (23 page)

She wanted to cry. She could always blame it on the acrid, smoky air. But this wasn't the time. The Tufa's greatest artifact was safe, at least, and would remain so. Now she had to protect the Tufa themselves.

She ascended the stairs and waved to Snowy and Carding as soon as she saw them.

“Everything okay?” Snowy asked as she approached.

“It's fine,” she said. “But we need to close the cellar off with a door or something. Something we can padlock. I don't want to take any chances.”

“Surely she ain't gonna try again,” Carding said.

“I have no idea what she might do,” Bliss said as she took off the boots. “I just know we have to be ready for anything.”

She turned around, and Mandalay stood behind her. The girl wore a heavy coat and snow boots, and carried a guitar. “If you'd excuse us, Orpheus, I need to speak with Bliss privately. Thank you for coming out in this weather to help.”

“Always a pleasure, never a chore,” Carding said with a nod.

Bliss followed Mandalay down the hill toward the frozen pond. When they were out of earshot, she said, “I just heard. The storm knocked out our power last night, and all our cell phones were dead.”

Bliss nodded slowly. “Mine, too. Someone had to come tell me at the fire station.”

“I assume it's still okay?”

Bliss nodded. “She didn't find the way down.”

“I don't have any words of consolation for you. I don't know what happened. I can't imagine why we were cut off like that, except that the night winds wanted things to proceed without anyone interfering. That's small comfort, I know.”

“I don't want comfort. I want Bo-Kate Wisby's head on a platter.”

“That's not going to solve the problem, either. We have to know what she wants, and why she came back. And how she came back.”

“Why?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“No, I mean, why do we need to know these things? She was cast out once, for just cause. Isn't that reason enough to cast her out again? Or even something more permanent?”

Mandalay saw something in Bliss's eyes she'd never seen before: hatred. It both frightened and saddened her to see this steadfast woman so badly wrenched asunder. “Bliss, it may come to that. And when it's over, you may have every reason to scream at me for not acting sooner, or with more force. But for right now, I really feel we need to know more. If we were meant to just stop her, then we would've done it yesterday.”

“If you're reading it right.”

“There's always that.”

Mandalay continued to look steadily up into Bliss's face, until the taller woman blinked and turned away. “All right. I won't ever go against you, you know that. You always have my loyalty.”

“I know, and I treasure it.”

“But I'm very angry.”

“So am I.”

They were silent for a moment; then Bliss nodded at the guitar case. “Where are you off to?”

Mandalay couldn't repress a little smile. “Would you believe … I have a date?”

*   *   *

Mandalay walked into the Pair-A-Dice roadhouse and propped her guitar case by the door. Even at midday, the place was fairly full, mostly with old men still gossiping about Rockhouse's funeral and the arson at the Overbay place. They looked up when the door opened, and a wave of surprise spread through the room, silencing all conversation. The young inheritor of the Tufa legacy did not often show up unaccompanied and unannounced.

The Pair-A-Dice was a rectangular cinder-block building, windowless and with only one visible door, set back from the highway in the center of a gravel parking lot. Two enormous cutouts of dice on the roof were the only signage. Like many things to do with the Tufa, the place could be found only by those meant to find it. Unlike other things, the roadhouse could be found by outsiders, usually musicians who, for one reason or another, were open to the magic that dwelled in music, no matter what the source.

Most of those present belonged to Rockhouse's group; the old bootlegger's cave they used for their meeting place was inhospitable during the winter, so they had to gather elsewhere. The few women still wore mourning black, but no one seemed terribly sad.

The kitchen was in full swing for lunch, and the smell of fresh burgers filled the room. Mandalay hung her coat on the last remaining empty wall hook, then went to the small stage in the corner. An old Yamaha speaker was the only thing on the wooden platform. She sat the edge of the stage, took out her guitar, and idly noodled on it.

She couldn't believe that news of the fire had not reached her until that morning. She wanted to berate people for not driving out to get her, or using one of the other ways open to the Tufa. But she'd realized after talking to Bliss that something deliberately kept the news from her, just as Bliss's own cell phone had been drained of energy. And by waiting until now to let her know, it had given her time to rest and clear her head.

Well, sort of clear her head.

Even as she gazed down at her fingers, though, she felt all her watchers. Conversation returned, but people spoke in whispers. She heard the unmistakable click of cell phone cameras, and that made her angry: What the hell was so interesting about a girl playing guitar, a girl they all knew and had known all her life?

She raised her eyes and saw a dozen heads snap around, looking anywhere but at her. That made her smile, so she did it twice more.

Arshile, the head cook, came through the crowd with a cup. He placed it on the stage beside her, then stood back and made a quick, complex gesture with his right hand. He said, “Thought you could use some hot chocolate, it being so cold and all.”

She smiled. “I sure won't turn it down. Thank you, sir. How much do I owe you?”

“On the house. I only make it for myself, nobody else drinks it.”

“Much appreciated.” She noticed a Band-Aid on his forehead. “What happened to you?”

“That? Oh, got it at Bliss's house yesterday. Beam nicked me when it fell.” He paused, uncertain, then blurted, “Is something going on here today?”

“Like what?”

“Like … something to bring you here. I mean, after the funeral and the fire, and all…”

“I'm meeting Luke Somerville.”

“Elgin Somerville's oldest boy?”

“That's the one. We're gonna play a little. Hang out.”

“Nothing … bigger going on?” he asked apprehensively.

“Nothing bigger.”

Arshile nodded thoughtfully. “I reckon that's all right.”

I reckon I don't need your permission,
Mandalay thought but didn't say.

He nodded, made another hand gesture, then went back to the kitchen. If he thought that someone so important to the Tufa should have better things to do with her time, he was smart enough to keep it to himself.

Mandalay strummed a few chords, inevitably segueing into “Paranoid.” She wondered why that particular song suddenly obsessed her. Then again, she practically felt the rumors running through the crowd, all speculations as to why she was here, now, alone. Maybe it was just the right song at the right time.

The front door opened again and Luke entered. He was thoroughly wrapped against the weather, and only his distinctive, lanky walk identified him until he started removing layers. Static made his black hair stick out in odd directions. He banged his guitar case on chairs and people's legs, and muttered, “Excuse me, sir,” as he crossed the room. He dropped his coat and gloves on the floor and sat down beside her on the edge of the stage. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I, uh … don't know any of the hand signals I'm supposed to use to show respect.”

She looked away as she felt her cheeks flush. “That's all right. I invited you, remember?”

“Yeah. That must've been quite a walk from your place. Did you get a ride?”

“No.”

It took him a moment to get the implication. “Ah. I guess … I ain't never been able to do that. Had to get my uncle to drop me off. In his truck, not … the other way.”

“You're young. It'll come. Just keep listening and playing.”

“Why didn't you do it the other night when you were lost, then?”

“I didn't need to. You came along first.” She looked back down at her guitar once more, blushing again. Suddenly she was entirely twelve years old, and sitting beside a boy she liked, the
first
boy she liked “that way.”

Luke looked away as well, but he smiled. He took out his own guitar, an old Sunburst with a cracked body. He positioned it across his lap and said, “What you want to play?”

“You pick.”

“How 'bout ‘Lost Highway'?”

“The Hank song?”

“Yeah.”

“The way he played it, or like Jason and the Scorchers?”

“I ain't never heard that, so I reckon like Hank.”

“You need to hear Jason. But you picked the song, so you start.”

He did, strumming the chords with big nervous strokes. She picked a simple lead, trying very hard not to show him up. He was a beginner; she had more musical experience to draw on than he could possibly imagine.

He sang with a plainspoken earnestness that more than made up for any problems with his still-changing voice. Somehow even at his tender age he found a way to connect to the aching sense of doom Hank put in the song.

Mandalay knew that Hank had once played that song on this very spot, when he got lost driving between gigs and had no money to pay for his drinks. The people here hadn't believed it was him until his voice echoed off these same walls; then they'd listened, rapt, aware that this was one of those times that would be passed down through generations, each teller tasked with bringing it to life for the next listener.

Luke couldn't know that, of course, except maybe by rumor. The Somervilles hadn't been present that night, and even if they had, she doubted old Seaton Somerville, Luke's grandfather, was open enough to take in what had happened. He would've only seen a drunken, prematurely old man with a twisted spine, not the angel that Hank became when he sang.

“Not bad,” Luke said when they finished.

“No, it almost sounded like a song.”

“You can sure pick a little, for a girl,” he teased.

“And you sing pretty good, for a boy. Want to try something I like?”

“Sure.”

“I need the piano. Come on.”

She led him over to the piano in the corner, beneath the big industrial heater that hung from the ceiling. Since the air blew out and away, it was actually cooler there than in the rest of the stuffy room. It was also much dimmer, since the light fixture that hung beside the heater always blew its bulbs in winter.

The piano was an old Schiller upright, the finish worn in places and the white keys stained from decades of use. The instrument's workings, though, were pristine; at the Pair-A-Dice, instruments simply didn't wear out. Mandalay sat on the bench, lifted the cover from the keys, and positioned her feet on the pedals. Her big snow boots made it awkward at first.

With no preamble, she began to play. Although she'd never played this song on the piano, she had a flawless ear, and could pretty much re-create any song she'd heard. Her hands pressed the keys firmly but gently, creating a rolling sound that propelled the melody.

When she got to the last verse, she realized at least one reason why this song haunted her. She couldn't look at Luke as she sang:

You're making me nervous

Stop standing so close

Do I deserve this

Or is this a hoax

You're like a mystery

That's hard to avoid

Either you're out to get me

Or I'm just paranoid.…

When she finished, she sat back and waited for Luke's reaction.

“What's that called?” he asked.

“‘Paranoid.'”

“You write it?”

“No. Woman named Alice Peacock, from over in Nashville.”

“Never heard of her.”

“She's probably never heard of you, either.”

He laughed, and she felt an unexpected rush at the realization that she could
tease
him. It was something she'd always wanted but never found: a friend unintimidated enough to accept teasing, and give it right back.

“Where'd you hear it?” he asked.

“On YouTube. They got a channel on there where a bunch of women songwriters have to write a new song every week for a year, based on what they call a ‘prompt.'”

“That don't sound like too much fun.”

“You ever written a song?”

“No.”

“Well, then, you don't know, do you?”

“I figure you cain't write a song until you're in the right mood. And I know a good song when I hear it.”

“I hope so, because this is a good song.”

He sighed. “Yeah, it is.”

“Does it bother you to admit that?”

“Well, we've been taught that everything from Garth Brooks on ain't real music, it's just commercials to sell you things.”

“Rockhouse's idea?”

“Yeah, but my daddy bought the program. He won't let us listen to the radio because of it, we have to play CDs or even old records he's still got.”

She looked at him seriously. “That's
not right,
Luke. There's good music everywhere, from every time. Sure, it may take a little work to find it now, since the radio don't play anything good anymore, but it's out there.” She paused, aware that her next words would irrevocably change her relationship with Luke. “Would you like me to burn some stuff off on a CD for you?”

Luke shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” But he blushed.

She felt yet another blush creep up her cheeks, too. “Okay, I will.”