Daddy called the men to come on over, and then called for coffee, sounding hale and hearty, as if he wasn’t actively dying from the damage inside him. Asking . . . asking the womenfolk to serve the menfolk. Just the way it always used to be. Just the way it always would be in the church. That realization somehow settled me, and my shoulders went back to their proper position instead of up around my ears.
“Set a spell, Nell,” Mama said, replacing my cup with a fresh one and pouring a pale tea. This one smelled of chamomile, ginger, and vanilla.
I brought my gaze back from the men, who were settling around the table, being served. Served by the women.
“Don’t you dare be rude,” Mama hissed at me. “He’s a nice boy. You be nice too.”
I started to tell Mama off. I wanted to storm away. But Mama looked at me with pleading in her eyes and I could do neither one. I blew out a breath. T. Laine would call this effed-up family dynamics, the effed word in place of the regular one because they knew I didn’t care for it much. And she would be right. Worse, it wasn’t Benjamin’s fault that Mama had set this up.
Benjamin was the eldest son of Brother Aden. I liked Brother Aden and I adored his second wife, Sister Erasmus. I could be polite.
But that didn’t mean I had to just sit and take this. “It’s mighty warm in here,” I said as I pulled off my work jacket and draped it across a nearby chair back. I turned back around, my gun and its weapon harness in plain view, along with my badge clipped to my belt. The house went dead silent. I leaned across the table and held out my right hand. “Hi, Benjamin. I’m Nell. Good to meet you.” Only a beat or two too late, Benjamin took my hand and shook it. I released his hand, which was warm and strong and tough-skinned. I lifted my long legs back across the bench, one at a time, the way men did, instead of the way a woman did—sliding in or sitting and lifting knees demurely over, skirts decorously tucked. Into the silence, I took a sip and said, “Thank you, Mama. The tea is wonderful. Just what I need after a long night at a fire investigation.”
Mama’s eyes were big as saucers. Daddy looked as if he’d been hit with a big stick right up across his noggin.
Benjamin, however, looked intrigued. Maybe even fascinated. His big baby blues latched on to me and his full lips lifted into a slow smile, the corners curving up first, then his eyes crinkling. “It’s a sure pleasure to meet you, Nell Nicholson.”
“Ingram,” I said. “Special Agent Nell Ingram, of PsyLED, Unit Eighteen.”
“Ingram,” he said back, as if committing it to memory. His eyes were a peculiar shade of blue that I figured would change with the light and with his emotions. His lashes were long and darker than his hair, and I had a feeling that he smiled often. A contented man.
Benjamin said, “I’d heard that Sam’s widder-woman sister was with law enforcement. Accomplished. Competent. I didn’t know she was such a beauty too.”
And darn it if I didn’t blush like a tomato. And hide behind my tea mug like I was twelve years old.
Benjamin flashed a set of straight teeth at me in a broader smile and swiveled his body to the head of the table. “Sam tells me you’uns got a new tiller, Brother Nicholson. What brand?”
The talk and all the attention fell away from me. I listened with half an ear and sipped my tea. Fifteen minutes after Benjamin and Sam arrived, I stifled a yawn, mumbled my good-byes, and got up, gathering my jacket and coat and hurrying from the Nicholson house. Outside in the bright dawn, I yanked on my winter coat and opened the car door.
Mud was curled up on the seat wrapped in a blanket that she must have brought from inside. Her hair was reddish like mine, still long and unbunned, saying that she was too young to be considered for marriage or concubinage, and for the menfolk to give the child a wide berth. She turned bright eyes to me. “You gonna marry Benjamin and move back home?”
I climbed in, pushing her small frame across the seat and shutting the door. I turned on the truck and eased away from the front of the house so I could make a fast getaway if needed. I turned the heater on high and parked on the side of the street, leaving the engine running. I had to be careful what I said to my sister, because Mud was just like me, whatever I was. Undifferentiated paranormal of some kind. And no way in hell would I allow her to be married in the church. I turned in the bench seat, bringing up my leg and leaning against the door.
“What’s home, Mud?”
She squinched her eyes at me, thoughtful. “You mean like the address? Or ‘Home is where the heart is’? Or, maybe home like the church compound? Or home where I’ll marry and have babies?”
“None a them. My home is a lot of things. It’s Soulwood—a plot of land that I claimed with my sweat and blood. Home is Unit Eighteen, a place I can work and be of use in the world, a place where I have value. Home is family I can come visit, but not be tied to. Home is choice. A chance to grow. To learn. Home, meaning my life and where and how I’ll live it. That’s what home means to me, Mud.”
“You don’t wanna have babies?”
It was odd that Mud had picked up on that small part. “Not particularly. Or at least not now. I want the choice to determine when and where and if I’ll have babies. Myself. Not some husband telling me what and where and when. If I have babies, I want it to be something that a husband and I choose together.”
“Like birth control?” She leaned in closer and whispered, “I done heard that Imogene Watkins and her man is on birth control. And that if they take in another wife they’ll make her use it too. That’s a sin, ain’t it?”
I said, “Mud, are you smart? Book learning smart?”
“Yep. Smartest girl my age.”
“Smarter than the boys your age?”
Mud frowned as if comparing herself to men was a new and unexpected possibility. “I figger I am. What’s that got to do with home?”
I knew this conversation was going to come back and hit me like a nail-studded two-by-four, but I had to say it. In for a penny . . . “Here on church grounds, living in God’s Cloud, you will never be able to explore that intelligence. Chances are you will never go to college. You will never travel. You will never—”
It hit me, hard and fast as that two-by-four. I reached out and took her hands in mine. “You will never put your hands into any soil but that allowed by your husband.” Mud’s mouth fell open in dismay. “You will have baby after baby, sharing a home with one man and several women and lots of children. You will plant only with other women in the greenhouse. You will never be able to claim trees or land and feed it with your soul, sharing back and forth.”
Mud whispered softly, “You’un can do that too? We’uns’re really the same thing? The same kinda people?”
“Yes. And I can, maybe, help you learn how to control your gift. How to explore it. If that is what you want. But not if you stay at God’s Cloud. Not if you live here. Not if you make church land your home instead of the whole world your home. You will have to choose what home is to you. You. Not the mamas or Daddy. You. You have to decide what you want.”
“I ain’t got no money. I can’t buy no land.”
I smiled. “If you want land, we’ll get you land. But you have to decide what kind of life you want.”
“And if I want babies and a husband and land too?”
“That would be your choice.”
Mud pulled her hands free, rose to her knees, put her palms to either side of my face, and guided my head closer. She kissed me on the cheek, released me, opened the passenger door, and slipped into the day, the blanket around her shoulders flying in the cold breeze.
I wasn’t sure what I had accomplished. Teaching a child to be free wasn’t a matter of telling her once and being done. It was a long battle of opportunities offered and worldviews explored. And if this conversation came back and caused me trouble, then . . . I’d deal with it. I put the C10 in gear and headed out of the compound.
But all the way home, fighting sleep, I kept flashing back to the way Benjamin’s eyes crinkled at the corners. And then instantly I’d see a vision of Occam, his too-long, shaggy blond hair swinging against his scruffy jaw, his brown-gold eyes watching me. And as I maneuvered up the mountain to Soulwood, I realized that Occam did indeed watch me. A lot. A real lot. Like a cat with his attention on prey.
The venison stew on the stove had filled the house with enticing scents, but I was too tired to care. I gave it a good stir, added wood to the stove, took a tepid shower to wash off the fire stink, and fell into the bed.
• • •
I woke to knocking at the door and I pulled a robe over my pajamas, picked up a shotgun, and went to the front of the house. It was Occam and I didn’t like the way my heart leaped at the sight of his silhouette in the front window. I broke open the weapon and set it aside, unlatched the door, placed my body and face into the crack, and scowled at the wereleopard. “You ain’t never heard of cell phones? People use ’em to announce visits, so that other people are dressed and presentable when guests arrive.”
Occam held up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and said, “The ‘Hot Now’ light was on. I got twelve.” Pea climbed up to Occam’s shoulder and sniffed the air, her black nose fluttering, her neon green coat catching the red sunset, turning an odd shade of olive brown. The grindylow showed up at the full moon, when the werecats were the most unpredictable, and also whenever they were about to have personal interactions with non-were-creatures.
My scowl went darker. I pointed to the box. “Still hot?”
“Pretty much.”
“Bribe,” I said.
“Totally, Nell, sugar.”
“Okay. But you don’t tell my mama I let you into the house while I was in my unmentionables.” I shoved away from the door, swiped the donut box, and opened it on the way to the kitchen. The sweet dough was utterly wonderful and I stuffed a huge bite into my mouth and chewed. Without turning around, I closed my bedroom door on Occam and dressed in a hurry: navy pants, sturdy black field boots, a crisp white shirt worn tail out, with a belt around the waist. I also strapped on my weapon harness and grabbed a clean dark jacket. Presentable, I swiped another donut on the way to the bathroom, ignoring Occam, who said, “You’ll ruin your dinner.”
“You ain’t my mama or my daddy, cat-man.” I shut the bathroom door. Between bites, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, gooped up my hair, and put on some makeup. Work makeup, I told myself. Not Occam makeup. But it made my eyes look bright and kinda sparkly. I stopped at the entrance to the kitchen.
In the main room, Occam was stretched out on the couch, his cell in one hand, an empty bowl and spoon at his side. He had eaten some of my venison stew and made himself a cup of coffee. He looked all cat-graceful, and the term languid came to mind. And serenity. As if he belonged here. I felt my cheeks heat again. They were doing that a lot. To cover my reaction and the blush I said crossly, “I see you made yourself at home. I hope you liked the stew.”