“He loved you.” Occam said the words softly.
“Yeah. He did.”
“Did you love him?” he asked, even softer.
“Much as I was able. I respected him. I was and am eternally grateful to him and to Leah for marrying me. For saving me from the Colonel.” The Colonel, Ernest Jackson, the leader of the church, had wanted me for a junior wife or concubine. Even though I’d led his enemies to him and I was pretty dang sure Yummy the vampire had killed him, the thought of him still had power. I shivered in the heat. “I’m grateful to John for leaving me the land and enough money to survive. And sometimes, a man’s kindness, a woman’s loneliness, and that kind of gratitude are enough to make it seem like love.” Occam didn’t respond, and we were both staring at the small pile of wood as if it was the most important thing in the world.
Occam said, still softly, “The churchmen who came courting you. They wanted your land.”
“Yep. In their eyes, I was useful, and as a woman, I would surely be stupid enough to fall into their arms and give away all John left me. But if I’d not had the land, none a them woulda come calling. It wasn’t me they wanted, it was my land, except the Colonel, and he was a filthy pedophile and a sexual predator both.”
“I like hunting on your land. But I’ll never try to take it.”
My face softened from a stiffness I hadn’t noticed. “That’s good to know, Occam. That buck. He made you work to catch him.”
Occam nodded, a smile lighting his eyes. I could see it from the corner of my eye, along with the fused fingers of his left hand. They looked a bit more fleshed out. Shifting on Soulwood was good for Occam’s healing, and he hadn’t done that much while I was a tree, and not enough since I’d been mostly human again. “He gave me a chase. He was big and a little mean. It was a good fight. He was tasty too.”
“Come fall, when I have the wood-burning stove going again, and you kill a big one, bring me what’s left after you eat the innards. I’ll make some venison jerky.” I tilted my head to Occam and whispered, “I got my own recipe of herbs. You’ll like it.”
“I am quite certain that I’ll like anything you cook, Nell, sugar. Anything at all.”
But the cat in him was thinking only of meat. My smile went wider. “Turnips? Collard greens? Pickled and fermented cabbage?”
“Now you’re jist being mean.”
I laughed.
“Let’s say I’ll be willing to try anything you cook. Always.”
“Deal. Now you got to git. I need to put my hands in the earth.”
“Okay, Nell, sugar.” But he didn’t move. His head swiveled to me. “Nell, sugar, would you consider it okay if I kissed you?”
My heart did a somersault and my lips seemed to grow tender at the thought. “A properly improper kiss?”
“That’s the only kind I can think of at the moment. My mouth on yours. My arms around you and yours around me.”
“I’d like that,” I managed. But I didn’t turn to him. I was frozen, staring at the stupid blue tarp. He eased my hand from my bib. Turned me around and stepped close to me, holding me, as if he knew I’d fall if I tried to move my own feet. He placed my arm around his waist, on his sweat-damp shirt where it was tucked into his jeans. My other went around on his other side all by itself. His arms came around me. And his lips met mine.
• • •
I thought about the kiss—all of those kisses, because they had gone on a long time before Occam pulled away, and brushed my face with his hands, and walked to his car—as I worked in the garden. Late heirloom tomatoes were ripe; herbs were ready to be picked. Fall seeds needed to be planted, the garden needed to be weeded, and I needed to sweat. I had discovered that working the land was good for the land and for me. The farm had seemingly figured out that if I was a tree, there would be no one to work the soil and it liked me around. Now, as I worked, the leaves on my neck and hands broke off and the vines fell free, a calming sacrifice to the land, not bloody and violent as other kinds. Getting my hands into Soulwood was beneficial to all of us.
I ripped weeds out like a machine—grab upper roots and stem, grip, angle hand down, yank out the roots, toss away. Over and over again. But. As I tore out weeds I found a root that didn’t belong in the garden. “Dagnabbit,” I cursed. I fell onto the worked soil, backside first, work boot soles flat, knees high. Resting my forearms on my knees I dropped my head and caught up on my breathing. When I was satisfied that I was calm and breathing normally, I put my fingers into the aerated earth and dug until I touched the tree root again. “You can’t be here,” I told it. “This is my garden. I get nourishment from this garden. You take too much and don’t give back enough. Now you’un get back to your’n spot and stay there.” Nothing happened. I pushed with my magics. The rootlet jerked away, back in the general direction of the vampire tree grove that had taken up residence—with my permission—on the church side of our properties. The tree was both many trees and one tree, all sharing one root system, but with many trunks. It—they?—seemed to have the ability to grow roots faster and farther than kudzu did. The vampire tree—I settled on singular—was getting restless and it liked the energies of my land, maybe a little too much.
I dragged my hands from the soil and yelled, “You stay outta my garden, offa my house, and away from my critters. You hear me?” I had no idea how much English the vampire tree understood, but it understood enough, and it was learning more. The fact that the tree was probably sentient was a secret I hadn’t shared with Unit Eighteen. “Pot, meet kettle,” I muttered to myself.
The roots didn’t reappear; new shoots didn’t surface.
I’d accidently forced the original oak tree to evolve and mutate when I used the tree’s life to heal myself after I’d been gut shot. Afterward, not knowing I had caused a mutation, I’d abandoned the tree to its own devices. It had developed a sort of sentience and a taste for blood, trapping and killing small animals and birds in the vines it grew, eating their bodies. Hence the name vampire tree. And it had learned how to grow thorns and send out rootlings over pretty far distances.
I went back to work extracting the last of the weeds and mulching the freshly worked soil, my sweat dripping onto the earth.
• • •
Soulwood perked up and nudged the ground beneath my feet. I had more company coming. The road up the mountain was getting a lot of wheel time today.
I hung my hoe, three spades, one weeding fork, and two shovels on nails on the back porch and toed off my work boots. I dropped off the basket of tomatoes, cukes, squash, peppers, and onions at the sink and put the three flavors of mint, rosemary, and sage in a bucket with water. I was stinky and sweaty and had just enough time to shower, dress, and grab my weapons before this next batch got here, whoever it was. I ducked under the cool shower and dressed fast, in jeans, T-shirt, and weapon harness, then twisted an elastic around my hair, as the curls had massed around my head and shoulders in a red halo from the heat and humidity. I was still unaccustomed to the change in my formerly straight brown hair.
I seated my PsyLED service weapon in its Kydex holster and picked up one of John’s old shotguns as the large van turned into my drive. There was a logo on the side of the van, but the sun was glaring off the van windows and into the house, so I couldn’t make it out. However, the vehicle wasn’t a church truck, so I unwound a bit, watching as the van eased down the drive and parked next to my Chevy C10. I walked out onto the front porch, ready to do battle if necessary. It wouldn’t be the first time nor the last time the churchmen of God’s Cloud of Glory Church tried to take me back for punishment. Women didn’t leave the church without repercussions.
A familiar frame climbed out of the truck and I broke open the shotgun as Brother Thaddeus Rankin of Rankin Replacements and Repairs emerged into the heat. “Hello, the house,” he shouted into the glare. It was a country greeting, a visitor calling out to the house during the day, when a farmer and family would be out in the fields, working, informing them they had visitors.
“Welcome and hospitality,” I called back. “It’s cool on the porch. You want some tea?”
“That would be mighty welcome, Sister Nell,” he said, climbing the steps into the shade of the porch. He stopped dead at the sight of the shotgun. “You been having more trouble from that church of yours, Sister Nell?”
“Not my church,” I said, repeating the denial as I always did. “Cult. And no. Not recently. But I didn’t recognize the van.”
“Ah. New. The old truck died and Deus suggested that we go for advertising on the sides.” He looked proud. “My boy’s gonna be great when he takes over the business.”
“Set a spell. I’ll get that tea.”
Thad took a seat and I reentered the too-hot house. I put the shotgun and my weapon harness on the kitchen table. Not something I’d have done if Mud was here, but it was expedient. I poured sun tea from the fridge, added ice cubes to the glasses, and dropped sprigs of fresh lemon mint into a small bowl. I put everything on a tray and added a small jar of simple syrup, spoons, and cloth napkins. Back on the porch, I put the tray on a small table and said, “The tea isn’t sweet. But there’s sugar syrup.”
“Sister Nell, in this heat, the cold is what I’m after.” He took a glass and held it to his dark-skinned face. “Ahhh. That’s nice.” He sipped the tea. “And delicious, just like it is, though I have family who would skin me if they heard me say unsweetened tea was good.”
“Me too.” Ignoring the swing, I took another chair, sat, and sipped my tea. I twisted two mint leaves and dropped them in. Tasted. Better, I decided. The cold was refreshing.
After the socially appropriate time to enjoy the tea, Thad opened our conversation with, “This heat is a killer.”
I nodded. “It is a hot one.” In the South, weather was an acceptable topic of discussion in every social situation, appropriate for business, politics, friendship, finances, therapy, courting, and religion. I didn’t know which direction he was going, but opening with the weather meant that I was ready with an appropriate social rejoinder.
“I got your message about improvements for the house. I’ll have you an estimate by the end of the week,” he said. “I’ve got the measurements on file and can pull permits at any time.”
I nodded. I planned to petition the courts to have my sister come live with me, and for that, my house needed things most people took for granted, like updated electricity, a bathroom upstairs, all sorts of things. I had thought Brother Thad might be here to bring me an estimate, but it seemed I was wrong.
He continued. “It’s going to be even hotter by the end of the week. How you holding up with just the window unit and the fans?”