Home > Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(16)

Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(16)
Author: Faith Hunter

“No one got burned. No stake. All house fires stink really bad. And in the real human world, witches don’t get burned at the stake.”

Mud made a sound of disagreement that was remarkably like Mama’s and took my hand, pulling me up the steps to the porch. “Breakfast is on. You’un comin’ to church with us this morning?”

“No. Just breakfast and then home.”

“You’un fallin’ away? The mamas say you’un’s fallin’ away and driftin’ into sin.”

“I have a job. And no, I’m not falling into sin. But I don’t worship at God’s Cloud anymore.”

“You’un going to church somewheres else? ’Cause if’n you ain’t going to church then you’un’s falling into sin. Sam said so.”

“Did he now?” Sam was my older full sib and a bit of a worrywart. He also didn’t always know when to keep his big mouth shut. “I’ll speak to Sam. Let him know I’m not falling into evil and damnation.” Except I’d killed two men . . . so maybe I was.

Mud shoved open the door to the house and dragged me inside. The roar of voices hit me in the face like a huge fluffy pillow, warm and soft and smothering. I hung my winter coat on the wall tree, smelling bacon and waffles and French toast and coffee as I followed Mud into the kitchen, where she pushed me onto a bench and brought me a cup of steaming tea. “Mama, Nell worked all night putting out a fire and she needs to sleep so don’t nobody be giving her no coffee. It’ll keep her awake.”

Instantly I was bombarded with questions from the young’uns about fires and the exciting life of a firefighter and when did they start letting some puny woman fight fires. And then I had to explain about not being a firefighter, but that women could do any job a man could except produce sperm to father children.

At that point I was called down by Mama Grace, Daddy’s third and youngest wife, who said, “Nell Nicholson Ingram, I know you’un ain’t been gone so long as to have forgotten what conversation is and is not appropriate for the breakfast table. Hush you’un’s mouth.”

Mawmaw was coming in the front door and heard the final part of the conversation. “Let the girl talk,” she said. “That’s biology, and biology is schoolin’.”

“Thanks, Mawmaw,” I said.

“Though at this age,” she added, as she fell on the bench beside me, “I’m of a mind to say something more. Coffee, please, Cora,” she said, interrupting herself. Staring around the table at the females present, she continued, “While menfolk are handy to have around to do the heavy lifting, any smart woman can figure out how to do things on her own if necessary. And Nell has a point about the role of fathering children.”

I sat still and listened as the young teenagers at the table dove into an argument about women’s rights and women’s role in the family, politics, business, and the world in general. The boys started demonstrating muscles and their sisters told them to act like adults and then suddenly Mawmaw was quoting Archimedes about using a lever to move the world. Which digressed to Archimedes running around naked in public when he discovered new mathematic principles. And then the young’uns in the main room started singing the alphabet song, followed by a song about Moses in the Nile, followed by a song about numbers that I had never heard before. I didn’t even bother asking Mawmaw about her great nephew, Hamilton the FBI jerk.

I let it all wash through me, absorbing it and remembering the good things that came from growing up in God’s Cloud. As awful as some parts had been, growing up a Nicholson had not all been bad.

Mama plunked a plate in front of me stacked with French toast and a half dozen strips of maple-cured bacon. Melted butter ran down the yeasty, egg-soaked and drenched, French-style bread, mixing with blueberry honey. My mouth watered and my throat made some sound of amazement and Mama said, “Eat. We’ll bless it when your’n daddy gets here.” Then she upended a cup of her homemade whipped cream on top of the fried toast and I dug in. Oh yeah. Being a Nicholson was some kind of wonderful when it came to eating.

I was mostly done, groaning with the pain of a too-full stomach, yet still scraping my spoon across the plate to get the final dregs of deliciousness off it, when there was the slightest hint of change in the ambient noise. In a flash, the teens scattered, some outside to chores, others up the stairs. Mama Grace, soft and rounded, as if her body had been lined with down-fill, set a pot of stinky herbal tea at the head of the table and herded all the littlest young’uns up the stairs too. My own mama, Mama Cora, dished up a plate of waffles and set them beside the herbal tea. She removed my plate and poured me more China black tea. Her lips were tight. Her face was pinched. Something was up.

And then I heard the faint thunking. Without even turning around, I knew. I knew why I had been asked to breakfast. I knew why everyone had gone running. They had set me up. I glared over the rim of my cup at Mama and she ducked her head, not meeting my eyes.

I swiveled on the bench and watched Mama Carmel, daddy’s senior wife, help Daddy from their room behind the kitchen, to the table.

Daddy looked pale enough to win a contest with a corpse, and sorta yellowed too, what the church midwives called jaundice in babies. He had lost at least another ten pounds, leaving his face saggy and his work clothes hanging on his frame. His hands carried a faint tremor. Daddy still had not been to the surgeon who put him back together after he was shot, when the group of shape-shifting devil dog gwyllgi tried to take over the church. Whatever was wrong inside him was getting worse. “Morning, Nellie,” he said, easing into his chair with a pained sigh. “God’s grace and peace to you today.”

My eyes flicked back and forth between the mamas again in accusation and then I glared at my father. “I’d say the same thing back to you’un, but you’un don’t deserve it.”

My father reared back in his chair. “What did you say, young lady?”

“I said, you’un don’t deserve God’s grace and peace, since you’un clearly been throwing it back into the face of the Almighty for weeks and weeks.” Daddy opened his mouth and I stood up from the table so I could use height for intimidation. Tactics from Interrogation 101 at Spook School. Stuff I’d never expected to have to use on my own father. “You used to tell us to make use of all God’s gifts and not ignore them. Not ever. That ignoring gifts was a sin. And yet, God sent you to a surgeon after you got shot, and gave you the gift of life so’s you could continue to love and be loved and do God’s will. That was a gift. And yet you’un throwing that gift back in his face. I’m rightly ashamed of you, Daddy.”

Daddy opened his mouth, and then closed it. Things were happening deep in his yellowed eyes, too fast to follow. His mouth opened and then closed tight, opened again. He looked like a beached carp, not that I was gonna say that. I had pushed as much as I was likely to get away with. After way too long, Daddy tilted his head to me and looked me over. Me in my work pants and dark suit jacket, bulge of my weapon in the small space between shoulder, armpit, and breast. He looked over at his wives, not a one of them looking at him. He made a disgusted sound, deep in his throat. “So that’s the way of it now? My womenfolk ganging up on me?”

I thought about telling him I was no one’s “womenfolk,” but Daddy needed to see his surgeon and maybe that was more important than me standing up for myself. At least right now.

“Coffee, Cora, if you please,” he said. He pushed away the cup of herbal tea and accepted the cup of coffee, taking his gaze back to me, his interest particularly heavy. He sipped, still staring as he set the cup down on the table with a soft tap. “Carmel, if you would be so kind, make an appointment with that doctor.”

I didn’t dare look away from him, at the faces of the mamas, but I could practically feel the elation in the air. If churchwomen danced, they’d be do-si-do-ing right about now.

“You, Nellie girl,” Daddy said, “will never speak to me in that tone again.”

I raised my chin, knowing it was challenging, but I was a churchwoman no more. Not a woman to be cowed by a man, even my father. I had gotten what I wanted. Now to nail it all down. “You’un act you got sense in your’n head and I won’t have to.”

One of the mamas choked and started coughing. Daddy glared at me, his lower face hidden by his mug, his sickly eyes glaring. “I reckon we won’t be talking about your’n future after all this.”

“What about my future?” I demanded. “I got me a good farm, good land, a good job, and good friends. I got family here and a life out in the world and that’s the way I like it.”

“But you’rn alone, Nellie girl. And the mamas got a young man they want you to meet.”

I blinked slowly and turned my gaze to my mama. I had been set up all right. I had been set up in two different ways at the same time: to harangue Daddy into seeing a doctor and try to get me back into the church.

“You’ll like him, Nell,” Mama said, taking a step back at whatever she saw on my face. She put a hand to her reddish brown bun in a gesture that looked nervous and firmed her lips. Mama was a stubborn woman and she pushed through. “His name is Benjamin Aden and he’s Sam’s age. You been gone a long time, but you’un might remember him as a little’un. He’s one a Brother Aden’s boys, college educated now, with a degree in renewable farming practices or some such. He’s a modern kinda boy and he only wants one wife. And he’s coming for coffee.”

At that moment, a knock sounded on the door. And Daddy grinned as he lifted a big forkful of waffles to his mouth. He looked a lot better than he had only moments past. Amusement at my discomfort seemed to agree with him. Getting back at me for my insolence probably made him even happier.

Mud threw open the door and cold air raced past, stealing the heat of the house. “Mama! It’s Benjamin and Sam!”

I stepped away from the table as the two entered, Sam sturdy and self-contained, peeling out of his jacket. And Benjamin, who pulled off a toboggan to reveal dark hair over deep blue eyes, a full mouth, and a strong jaw. He was pretty. Taller than me. Wearing traditional church-style clothes, but store-bought: plaid shirt over T-shirt; newish jeans that had been ironed to a sharp crease. He had smooth skin and a look about him that said he’d be capable and quiet and kind.

They came across the room and I realized I was still standing, shoulders hunched, wearing smoke-stinky work clothes. Pants. Jacket. My service weapon under my jacket. My hair in a short bob, not bunned up like a proper woman. Tired. No makeup or lipstick left on my mouth, and not sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

I was horrified at the thoughts I was having. As if any of that mattered. It didn’t. I was the woman I wanted to be. Yet my eyes darted around as if looking for a way out that wouldn’t require me to address Benjamin.

   
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