Chapter Eight

Violent Delights

A thundering fist pounds my head. An angry sun rages against my eyelids.

Then the pounding comes again, only this time I realize the fist is on Aunt Violet's front door and not just in my head. There's a murmur of voices as she curses whoever is racking on the door at the damn crack of dawn. I glance at the alarm clock that reads after nine. Oh, shit, I've gotta go.

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I peer out the window and spy a police car about the same time I hear Deputy Rankin announce himself. My first thought: What in the hell has Aunt Violet done now? Car in the ditch again? As the fuzz starts to clear from my head, though, I remember Ellis is dead, and I am a satanic whore. Damn it. The last thing I want is to talk with the sheriff. So I tumble out the window and into woods behind their house that lead to mine.

On the front porch, Bone Layer slathers on a layer of blue paint around the doorway; same bright aqua color as our ceiling inside the house. Extra precautions since I couldn't save Ellis.

I head inside, straight to our herbal cabinet and take a piece of willow bark to chew on, though I doubt it will be enough to get rid of this hangover. A cup of black coffee is what I need. With the bark between my teeth, I set about making some.

From my pocket, I pull out the trinket I found on my windowsill. In the light of day, I can tell it's not a clip-on earring but some kind of toggle button. A cuff link, I realize. Looks like brass; surely it isn't real gold. I set my coffee cup down and start to scratch at the speck of black on its flat surface—

"Where have you been?" The cragged sound of Grandmama's voice jabs at my back. I startle at the sound, then shove the cuff link into my pocket. Her eyes drop to my muddy feet. She walks over to her recipe box that had been left open and slaps the lid shut, locks the box, and returns it to the square niche above the kitchen window. When she turns back around, I cast my gaze to my coffee cup, attempting to tamp down any curiosity she might detect.

"Out" is all I offer, yet I know it won't be enough. The roadside market opens at ten, and I need to shower, so I head to my room.

"Here, now!" The words, sharp claws that hook into my back and command I stop. "Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you. Answer me."

My teeth grind together. I am not a child and have not been one for some time now, but sometimes it's easier to lie. One slithers from my tongue like a slippery snake. "Wyatt and I were—"

"Devil's eyes, don't tell no lies." Grandmama sings each word slow and clear. The hairs on my neck stand. "He sees the secrets you try to hide."

It's the same rhyme she sang to Adaire and me as kids before she'd switch us for hiding the truth. She always knew when we were lying or when we'd done wrong. She said the chickens told her. Whispered it on the wind.

I believed her.

Chickens are the Devil's birds. He chains them to the ground to keep them close. That's why they can't fly.

Grandmama always gave us a choice. Truth or the switch. I always told the truth.

Adaire, even if the truth would set her free, always took the switch. Never made any sense to me. Not until I realized there was power in not giving in. Where I was last night and what I was doing is none of her damn business. I exhale my last ounce of patience and turn around.

Grandmama stands there, hands locked in front of her with the poise and patience of a nun. Frail, slender arms covered in a sheer black long-sleeve blouse. A mini ruffle trims the collar and down the button flap, hinting to a sweetness or softness—but there isn't anything about my grandmother that is sweet or soft. Her long khaki skirt stiff from the durable cotton material. Saggy thick stockings cover her broomstick legs that hide inside heavy orthopedic shoes.

Those eyes—unseeing, yet all-knowing. They zero in on me like a snake that senses the heat of its prey. "Where were you last night?" she asks again.

Why do I stay in a world that's growing harder and harder to live within? When I was little, I thought church and Grandmama were everything. I've come to realize for some time now I was raised up on the wrong side of right.

"Out," I say crisp and clear in case she didn't hear me the first time and head to my room.

Clementine's, the local family-owned restaurant, sits off the main highway, and up behind the diner is what all the bus tours come here for. The Sugar Hill Plantation. Named after the sugar cane once grown there. At some point, sugar was no longer needed and cotton took its place. A dark history that brings tour buses through Black Fern for an education. An important reminder of the scars we set upon this land, its people.

The roadside market with homemade goods from locals helps occupy the tourists on their way to and from.

It's past five when I get a break between tour buses. Adaire used to help us at the market until she started waitressing at Clementine's to save up for school. I'd sometimes find her leaning against the brick wall behind the diner, taking smoke breaks by the trash bins.

I'm half looking over my shoulder as I toss the garbage in the dumpster; my gaze snags on the plantation at the top of the hill.

It's a perfect dollhouse from this distance. You'd think the fresh white paint and the towering columns of a gorgeous mansion wouldn't jostle your nerves. But Sugar Hill comes with too much weight for me to ignore.

Clementine's rear kitchen door shrieks open. The manager, Mr. Pruitt, steps out. His short-sleeve white business shirt and thin black tie a decade behind. He glares at me through chunky black-framed glasses. His eyes dip to my Led Zeppelin T-shirt disapprovingly. Bastard wouldn't give me a job when I asked.

My fingertips pinch the cherry off the joint I've been smoking, and I tuck the leftover roach in the tiny pocket of Adaire's high-waisted brown shorts I borrowed this morning. They look like they're made from a vinyl snake. I'm pretty sure I've seen the same fabric on a bar stool before.

I spit a fleck of the bud off the tip of my tongue and meander back to the front.

At our booth, a small crowd of tourists have gathered around Bone Layer. He brings his taxidermy birds to sell at the market—he finds them out by the Dillard's abandoned barn, the ones who didn't have enough sense to stay away from the cats who have run of the place. It's how he makes the eyes that fascinates people. Incredibly realistic, tiny bead-like things, perfected by dipping and re-dipping liquid acrylic and painting layers in between. The artistic act so beautiful, you could almost believe Bone Layer was a good man. Kind, even.

The caw of a crow yanks my attention upward. On a telephone wire, a black bird perches, surveying the land.

Folks at church say crows are foretellers of death, that they portend bad things to come. Deemed "unclean" because they're scavengers.

I think it's a crock of shit.

I watch the bird, wondering if I would know it was Rook or not.

Black birds are everywhere. Especially when you're looking for a particular one.

"Are these angels?" a Christian lady with a Bellevue Baptist T-shirt asks me. She points to the simple folk dolls I sewed from vintage fabric, adding feathers for wings.

"Forgetting Dolls are what we call them." I take one down to show her. "They're for forgetting things you don't want to remember anymore. Grieving, your worries, heartache, or whatever weighs you down. There's a little pouch inside the chest." I open its arms to show her the ribbon that closes off the pocket. "You write down your worries or a person's name and stuff it inside. Then you bury the doll and say a little prayer. Let your grief, your worries, your...whatever fly into the heavens." I flitter my fingers upward, my standard sales maneuver. Then I catch sight of Rook in my periphery and freeze.

It's him. I'd know those dark eyes anywhere. My heartbeat punches in my throat and hammers in my ears. I'm terrified to move, for fear he'll disappear.

Quickly, my eyes dart around for Grandmama.

"That sounds like voodoo," the woman says, yanking back my attention. She assesses the doll with judging eyes. "Only Jesus can heal our grief and broken hearts."

I fumble some apology, trying to explain it's just a silly notion and Jesus does all the heart healing in our house, too. But she's no longer interested and wanders over to Myrtle's stand, who's selling crosses made out of grapevines and pussy willow.

Rook has stepped away. I eye his shadowy figure through the chicken wire of our display wall and make my way around.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling like a fool. His eyes meet mine. They trail over my face, my mouth, and back to my eyes again.

I've changed equally as much as him these last few years.

A black T-shirt hugs him tight, something he's grown too large for. He points to one of the dolls. "Crow feathers?" The depth of his voice is sin to my ears.

I swallow hard, suddenly feeling awful that I have to say yes. Grandmama sets out pokeweed berries soaked with my Sin Eater Oil for the crows that try to nest in our barn. She claims they're a nuisance (though it's said it's a bad omen to kill them). I always wondered if there was another reason—I dump them out when I find them, in case Rook were to wander inside.

Then Bone Layer showed me how to make Forgetting Dolls.

But I don't tell Rook any of this.

"They are." I quietly follow him to the backside of our booth, farther away from my grandmother's ears. "I stitch them with little crystal beads," I say, as if this makes up for the fact that they died.

Quietly, he observes each doll. I cringe with an unspoken apology. His silence makes my skin itch. He trails his fingers over each set of wings, the slight bend from his fingertips causing the blue iridescence to flex—the same color captured in his dark hair.

"They're beautiful." There's a Mona Lisa quality to him. Like he's hiding something. I quirk my head ever so slightly, as if just by doing so I could tune into his thoughts. That hidden smile of his grows a fraction. It quickens my pulse.

His hand moves near mine. His eyes land on the gold initial ring on my pinky, pleased to see it there. Of course, I still wear it.

Now I'm looking at him more freely. He's taller, and no longer the lanky boy I once knew. I'm surprised when I see the tattooed crow on his forearm. The ink is a rich black color, and it's amazingly detailed: inside the torso of the crow's body the face of a woman. Her eyes—my eyes—stare hauntingly back at me. How could a tattoo artist capture them so well? Unless they were described by someone who knew, really knew them, could convey their depth and color so accurately as if they'd been studying that one pair of eyes their whole life. That's what I tell myself. That I might mean as much to him as he does to me.

"When did you get this?" I trace a finger across the tattoo.

He shakes his head. "I don't remember."

I draw back, confused. He can't remember?

"Excuse me, honey," says a new customer holding three dolls, disrupting the electricity of the moment. "Can I pay with a check or are y'all cash only?"

"Cash only," I say, giving Rook a quick apology. The lady calls her husband over for some money. I have to return to the front, where Bone Layer guards the cash box, to fetch her change.

As soon as I'm done with the transaction, I work my way back to Rook when Grandmama grabs me by the elbow, bone-crushing tight.

Fear spikes up my spine. I glance past her shoulder, but Rook is nowhere in sight.

"Sheriff Johns would like to speak to you." Her head nods toward the parking lot where the sheriff's vehicle waits.

A sinking feeling bottoms out my stomach.

My eyes skim to the hill behind her until they find the plantation. I can see it now: a frenzy of cars, not to mention reporters, and more sheriff vehicles.

Something is definitely wrong.