Wisp of a Thing: A Novel of the Tufa (Tufa Novels) (29 page)

He heard low, thick voices and the occasional loud, metal
plink
. Several figures sat on the porch, watching a pair of men in the yard. They all seemed able to see by nothing but moonlight. Some of them were enormous, round people, and others seemed thin and almost skeletal. The bigger ones were women, he realized; this must be the brood that had produced Tiffany Gwinn.

“Five points,” a man’s voice said after one loud
plink
. “That’s fifteen.”

Another
plink
. “That’s ten, you mean.”

“Dang it,” the first voice muttered.

Something beeped musically. “Will you put that dang thing away?” one of the men in the yard complained. “I can’t concentrate on tossin’ these washers.”

“I’m gonna beat this level,” a boy’s voice said, distracted.

“All you do all day is play them video games,” said a voice Rob recognized as Tiffany Gwinn.

“It helps my ADD.” He pronounced it “Aye-Dee-Dee.”

“I’ll pay attention to your deficit,” Tiffany snapped as the boy fled into the house.

Rob dug his fingers into the soil. For the first time since he’d arrived in Needsville, he felt real, bone-deep
terror.
Less than a hundred feet away was an entire clan of people who would no doubt be quite happy to make sure he never left this mountain alive, and his only ally was a girl who was either inbred, cursed, or both. Had this been Curnen’s plan all along?

But Curnen made no move to give them away, and pointed to a spot farther along the slope beside the cabin. In the moonlight, he couldn’t resolve the scene into anything that made sense. Half a dozen structures resembling low doghouses, complete with peaked and shingled roofs, were scattered irregularly among taller objects poking at odd angles from the ground. Was it debris from the house? Discarded auto parts or farming equipment? A kennel?

Then the tall objects resolved into tombstones
,
and the small, low sheds appeared to be shelters covering certain graves.

If the final verse had also been chiseled as an epitaph on one of those markers, there wasn’t nearly enough light to see it, especially if the letters had been weathered away. Also, there was no way to reach the graveyard without being seen by the people on the porch. And the flash from his phone would surely be noticed.

He slid back down next to Curnen. “So the last verse is in that graveyard?” he whispered.

She nodded.

He wished the girl’s eyes were more normal; their opaque blackness unnerved him. “They’ll see us if we try to go to the graveyard right now. We’ll have to wait until they go inside.”

She reached to his face and touched her fingertips to his cheek. In the moonlight her expression was so tender, it made something ache deep inside him. She leaned toward him, but he gently pulled her hand away. “Not now, Curnen, okay? We’ll talk about this later.”

Her expression turned eloquently sad, and he felt like a jerk. Whatever the reality, she clearly believed in the curse, and behaved accordingly. All she wanted from him was basic human kindness. And like everyone else, he was denying her.

“I’m sorry,” Rob said gently. “Look, you know I’m your friend, right? Do you have any other friends?”

She shook her head.

“See? Then I’ll be your friend, and that makes me special, okay?”

She tilted her head a little. If she tried, would she be able to make him feel as aroused as she had in the clearing? Or was her ability to manipulate him shattered now that he knew its source?

He shivered. The night was cool, and sweat soaked his clothes. Curnen silently piled leaves around them, forming a crude nest. Then she lay down beside him and scooted as close as she dared.

A guitar rang out from the Gwinn cabin. Someone yelled, “Awright, now,” and began to clap along. Feet stomped on the porch, the thud accompanied by an occasional cracking sound.

Rob smiled as he recognized the song, although he never imagined it played so harshly. He pulled Curnen close, and she nestled against him. He wondered if anyone had ever treated her like this before, or if everyone, including her own family, was either scared or desirous of her?

As loud as he dared, he sang to her:

Down in some lone valley,

In a lonesome place

Where the wild birds do whistle,

And their notes do increase

Farewell pretty Saro,

I bid you adieu,

But I’ll dream of pretty Saro

Wherever I go.…

By the time he reached the second verse, he could tell by her breathing that she was asleep.

26

Bliss stood on her patio looking out at the lake in the moonlight. She felt the soft breeze as something flew behind her, then heard the faint, delicate tap as feet lightly touched the wood.

When she turned, Mandalay Harris stood there, dressed in a
Fresh Beat Band
pajama top and a pair of cut-off shorts.

The girl made a gesture of welcome, and Bliss replied with the appropriate hand signal. “It must be important if you’re calling me over here in the middle of the night,” Mandalay said. “What’s up?”

“Something happened that I can’t explain,” Bliss said. “And it
is
important.”

Mandalay hopped up on the patio rail. “Tell me about it, then.”

Bliss related Rob’s story of being accosted by the younger Rockhouse Hicks. Mandalay listened without interrupting. When she finished, Bliss said, “And I don’t know what to do now.”

“Wow,” Mandalay said.

“I could use something a little more concrete.”

“It wasn’t a real haint, obviously. Rockhouse ain’t dead. So…” She looked up at the sky, where a lone cloud scudded across the moon. “The night winds must have sent it.”

Bliss’s heart almost stopped. “You can’t be serious, Mandalay.”

The girl shrugged, as if what she’d suggested meant nothing. “You know another explanation, you throw it on out here and we’ll see if it runs around.”

“But they don’t … They’ve never … They don’t get involved that way.”

“They never have before,” she agreed.

“But why would they do it now?” Bliss almost shouted.

As if it were the simplest thing in the world, she said, “They want your friend Rob to come here and do something none of the Tufa can or will do.”

“So the night winds brought him here by telling him some bullshit story about a magic song, and once he got here, they made Tiffany Gwinn smack him so hard that even though he has no Tufa in him, he can see things that should be visible only to us?”

“Well, duh,” Mandalay said. “Look, it’s pretty plain. None of us would have anything to do with ‘The Fate of the Tyrant Fae.’ We know what it is, and what it does, which is why Rockhouse keeps hiding it. But the night winds clearly want it found, and sung. They made sure it got put on tombstones, stuck in the back of that book in Cricket, even put it on the cover of one of Rockhouse’s albums. They’ve basically rubbed our noses in it forever. But we haven’t done anything with it, and they’re tired of waiting.”

“Why?”

“Why are they tired of waiting, or why do they want something done?”

“Both.”

She hopped down off the rail. “Rockhouse’s time is over, I’d guess.”

“And Curnen?”

“Curnen’s a lost cause, Bliss. I’m sorry to say it, but you know it’s true. Every time I see her, there’s a little more gone. My stepmom doesn’t even remember her anymore. It’s sad and it’s awful, but it’s beyond our control.”

Bliss clenched her fists. She forced herself to stay focused on the bigger picture. “Rockhouse is what holds us together. He may not lead both tribes, but he’s the reason we’re here. If he loses his power—”

Mandalay smiled. “You remember what Bronwyn Hyatt said when she got back from Iraq, don’t you? We have to change and evolve, we can’t keep hiding from the world.”

“If Rockhouse loses his power, Mandalay, we don’t know who will step in.”

She sighed. “Tell me about it. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t scare the pee out of me. But if it’s what the winds want, I’ll just have to suck it up. Put on my big-girl panties, like my stepmom says.”

“So if all that’s true … why did I play that Kate Campbell song for him? That song had the lyrics that the haint of Rockhouse told him in Atlanta. Why am
I
in the middle of this?”

She moved close to Bliss and took the older woman’s hands. “Nothing lasts forever. Not Rockhouse, not us. Bronwyn had it right: Everything living has to change, or die. You’re part of the change.”

Bliss felt the absurdity of being lectured by a ten-year-old. “And what about Rob?”

“When he got the ability to see our reality, he also got tied to it.”

“Did the winds kill his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to think not. But whatever got him here, he’s doing what the winds want now. That means we have to help him.”

“
We.
You mean
me.
”

“Okay, you. That’s why they gave you the Kate Campbell song.”

Now things fell into place, but it did not reassure her. Not at all. “I’m supposed to help him take down Rockhouse?”

Mandalay nodded.

“How?”

The girl smiled and shrugged. “Wait and see which way the winds blow.”

*   *   *

Rob lay awake, listening. The player wasn’t very good, skipping whole chords and apparently unconcerned with meter, and the singing was atrocious. Unlike what he’d experienced at the barn dance, this music was
ugly.
When it finally stopped, he disentangled himself from Curnen and peeked over the log.

Dawn began to lighten the sky. Mourning doves called from the woods. The oil lamps in the windows had either gone out or been extinguished. Only two people remained on the porch, and just when he thought they were asleep, one of them leaned over and spit into the grass. Two big, lethargic dogs under the porch raised their heads.

“Curnen,” he whispered. She awoke with a start. He placed a hand gently over her mouth. “We have to go check this now, if we’re going to. It’ll be daylight soon. But there’s still people on the porch.”

She nodded and carefully looked over the log. He heard her make a low growling sound, barely audible even to him.

The nearest dog’s ears perked up, and it crawled out to stand beside the porch. It was some mongrel beast with a head like a hyena, all teeth and jaw muscles. It looked around the yard, past their hiding spot, then turned to rejoin its compatriot.

Curnen growled again. The dog froze, looked up at the sky, and howled. Curnen continued to growl, and the beast cried out three more times. Then she fell silent, and the dog went back under the porch.

“You hear that?” one of the men from the porch said. “That sum’bitch howled four times and quit.”

“So?” the other man said with a yawn.

“Daddy always said if a dog howls four times and stops, means somebody in the house is going to die soon.”

“That’s horseshit,” the second man said.

“Yeah, well, it happened to the Potters down by Jonesborough. Their dog did that, lightning hit the house the next day, and it plumb blowed up.”

“That’s because they had a meth lab in the basement, dumb-ass.”

“So what you want us to do?” a third man demanded, annoyed. “Go kiss the dog’s ass or something?”

“I don’t know, I’ll have to go ask Momma.” He went inside, and after a moment the other two followed.

At the instant the door closed, Curnen slithered over the log and dashed to the graveyard. The tattered dress flapped behind her as she ran. Rob expected the two dogs to bark and bring the Gwinns running, but the animals did not stir.

Curnen threw herself to the ground behind one of the grave shelters. Next to it rose a seven-foot tombstone carved in the shape of a cloth-draped pylon. It tilted awkwardly on the slope, and Rob was afraid it might tumble down on top of her. But it remained solid, and she motioned for him to join her.

Rob crouched low as he ran and slid to the ground beside her. An awesomely repulsive smell swamped the whole area, originating at the three outhouses just up the hill. He gagged, blinked back tears of nausea; then he looked up at the tombstone, eager to find the missing verse in the dim morning light.

The surface read only,
KATE OVERBAY GWINN, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, 1882–1922.
So this was the grave of Great Kate, the bootlegger too fat to arrest. And her maiden name was Overbay. Bliss had called Tiffany her cousin, so he shouldn’t be surprised.

He checked the two other sides he could see from his position, but those were completely blank. Could it be on the side facing the house? That would be just his luck. He turned to Curnen and whispered, “Where is it?”

But the wild girl had vanished.

Oh, shit,
he thought. Even crouched behind the grave shelter, it was light enough that he’d be spotted by the first Gwinn who looked out the window. They’d torture him, then kill him, and his body would never be found. Tiffany would use his testicles for castanets.

He heard movement near the house, and watched one of the dogs walk out into the open, stretch, and hike its leg at a corner of the foundation. Someone moved inside, big feet thudding on old, creaking wood.

He glanced at the woods behind him. He’d have to make a break for it and hope he could lose himself in the trees. He had no idea which way led to Needsville, or even the nearest road; but with the sunrise to mark east, he could at least ensure he was running in a straight line away from the Gwinns.

Then, something wriggled under him, beneath the ground.

Startled, he moved aside. Was it a mole? Then he realized it wasn’t moving horizontally under the surface, it was burrowing its way up through the soil,
from inside the grave of Great Kate Gwinn.

He stared and almost screamed when a corpse-pale, dirt-encrusted hand clawed up into the air.

27

The hand
waved
at him. This hillbilly zombie knew he was there.

Then it curled and dug its fingertips into the dirt. Rob’s heart threatened to rip its way out through his ribs and flee on its own.