Wisp of a Thing: A Novel of the Tufa (Tufa Novels) Read online

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  To Lynne and Michael Thomas

  for the faith

  SPECIAL THANKS

  Jennifer Armstrong

  Jen Cass

  Charles de Lint

  Lisa Germano

  Jennifer Goree (the first honorary Tufa)

  Seanan McGuire

  Lucy Mogensen (RIP)

  Sile Shigley

  James Travis Spartz

  Paul Stevens

  Marlene Stringer

  Miriam Weinberg

  and

  Kate Campbell, now the second honorary Tufa

  and always,

  Valette, Jake, and Charlie

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Special Thanks

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Notes on Sources

  Books by Alex Bledsoe

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Peggy Goins stepped out into the cool dawn behind the Catamount Corner motel. As always, she was perfectly coiffed and dressed the way a stylish Southern woman of a certain age should be. Her black hair, streaked with dignified gray, held its own against the wind like the Confederates at the Battle of Brentwood. She drew on her cigarette, leaving lipstick stains on the filter, and luxuriously released a breath made up equally of smoke and condensation. It was still late summer elsewhere, but here in Needsville, high in Appalachia, fall was coming; for the last three mornings, she’d been able to see her breath.

  The woods, which started twenty feet from her back door like a solid wall, showed only hints of the impending autumn. A few leaves near the treetops had turned, but most remained green and full. Visible in the distance, the Widow’s Tree towered above the forest. Its leaves were the most stubborn, tenaciously hanging on sometimes until spring, if the winter was mild. It was a transitional period, when the world changed in its cycle and opened a window during which people might also change, if they had the inclination.

  Peggy smiled and hummed a song she’d known all her life. It was her way of thanking the world for its gifts.

  Something clattered in the big green Dumpster. She threw down her cigarette, ground it into the gravel, and shouted, “Hey! Y’all get out of there! I mean it!” When nothing happened, she walked over and slapped the metal side. It boomed in the silence.

  A teenage girl peeked over the Dumpster’s edge. Her eyes, wide and blank beneath a boyish mop of ragged black hair, stared at Peggy. “Don’t give me that look,” Peggy said impatiently. “Get out of there, young lady. Ain’t nothing in there for you.”

  The girl slithered over the edge and dropped to the ground. She wore a tattered old orange sundress, and nothing else. Dirt smeared her exposed skin, and candy wrappers from the garbage stuck to one thigh. Breath shot from her nostrils in rapid little puffs, but otherwise she showed no sign that the chill affected her. She growled softly, like an animal, then dashed into the trees. Peggy called after her, “One of these days somebody’s liable to run you off with a shotgun, you know that? Then where’ll you be? Dead in a ditch, that’s where!”

  When she was certain the girl had gone, Peggy went back inside, through the Catamount Corner lobby and out the front door. She walked two buildings down to the new post office. The place didn’t open for another hour and a half, but an old man with a bushy white beard already sat in one of the rocking chairs on its porch.

  She put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “So when do you plan to do something about that crazy girl in the woods?”

  The old man said nothing.

  “It can’t go on like this, you know. She’s losing her fear of people. Before long, she’ll be running down the highway, chasing cars like a dog.” Peggy paused and shook her head contemptuously. “And that beard makes you look like some demented ol’ Santa Claus. You planning to keep it?”

  By way of reply, he leaned to the side and spit into the bushes. The tobacco left a faint smear in the white whiskers.

  Peggy looked up at the sky, still laced with pink clouds from sunrise. “Something’s coming. You know it just like I do, just like everyone with the true in them knows. Careful whatever it is doesn’t trample you on its way through.”

  “I’d best be worrying about myself if I was you, Peggy.”

  “Don’t you threaten me, Rockhouse Hicks. You’re up to something, aren’t you, old man? All this time, and you still ain’t learned your lesson. You’re going to try something else, just like you did with Bronwyn Hyatt, and when it all goes to hell, you won’t care who you take with you, will you?”

  He smiled. “Peggy, darlin’, I didn’t know you cared.”

  “I’m just tired of finding that girl in my Dumpster,” she snapped. “Get it stopped, or I’ll stop it for you.”

  In a drawl so slow, it seemed to suspend time, the old man said, “When the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree this year, she’ll be done for good. No coming back. No bothering anyone no more. Nobody’ll find her bones, and before next spring, nobody’ll even remember her. She’ll just be a wisp of a thing.”

  Peggy looked toward the tree, now hidden behind a low patch of morning cloud. She breathed out hard through her nose. “That’s a terrible thing to do, Rockhouse. Even for you, even to her.”

  “Set in motion a long time ago,” he said blithely. “Just took this long to finish up.”

  “Not everybody’s afraid of you, you know. Eventually somebody’ll stand up to you. Then where will you be?”

  “Right here on this porch, Peggy,” he assured her, and patted the chair’s arm with one of his six-fingered hands.

  “Hmph,” she said, and stamped away. The old man smiled, with no amusement and more than a little contempt.

  Peggy returned to the Catamount Corner. She poured some coffee from the machine in the dining room, then went behind the desk and began sorting the day’s paperwork. The honeymooning couple in room 6 would be checking out soon. They had conceived no children—she always knew when it happened under her roof—and she’d have to strip the bedclothes, wash the disgusting little private hairs out of the shower, and make sure no condom wrappers had
fallen into places where another guest might accidentally discover them.

  She stared at the swirling pattern of cream and sweetener atop her coffee. A change was coming, all right, one that had nothing to do with the seasons. Needsville changed so slowly, most people—even those with true Tufa blood in them—barely noticed. But this would be a big change. She could sense no details of how that change would manifest or what its results would be. It felt like that moment just before a car crash, when you see the other automobile coming in slow motion, you know what’s about to happen, and yet you can’t do a thing about it.

  And then, inevitably, comes the shrieking thunderous impact.

  * * *

  In their double-wide trailer located in the shadow of the mountains just outside Needsville, Doyle Collins awoke to the sound that had become his alarm clock: his wife vomiting.

  He rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed. The thin trailer walls let him enjoy every gasp, gurgle, and splash. As he rubbed his eyes, he reflected that if this were morning sickness, he’d actually feel a manly pride in her nausea. He had nothing to do with this, though. This was caused by the other men in her life: Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker, and Jack Daniel.

  He pulled on his jeans, went to the kitchen, and started the coffee. He looked up as Berklee emerged from the bathroom, gasping, red-eyed, and pale.

  “Mornin’, Glory,” he said.

  “Don’t yell,” she mumbled. “I need coffee.”

  “It’s brewing.”

  She pushed past him and reached for the aspirin in the cabinet above the stove. She wore one of his undershirts and a pair of baggy cobalt blue panties. He recalled when they fit her snug and tight, a second satin skin on her smooth, firm behind. “Still losing weight, I see,” he said.

  He was pretty sure his tone was neutral, but she still glared at him with all the fury her weakened state allowed. “I’ve had the flu, you know. I can’t keep anything down.”

  “Except whiskey,” he said, then instantly regretted it.

  She threw the aspirin bottle at him. “Don’t mess with me this early in the morning, Doyle!”

  He flinched a little as it bounced off his chest. At least the bottle was still closed. The sadness that had grown in him for years kept any anger at bay. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m going to get dressed. I got to pick up Dad and get to work.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Berklee said quietly, standing over the sink. Her hair obscured her face.

  As Doyle pulled on his coveralls, he fought the overpowering sense of helplessness. His wife, whom he dearly loved, had been spiraling downward since he’d known her, but he always thought his steady affection could somehow forestall it. Now, though, as anything does in a whirlpool, she was moving faster as she neared the center. If something didn’t change, and change soon, she would be lost to him down that great cosmic drain that swallowed wayward souls like hers.

  In the distance, a coyote howled its final cry before sliding into its burrow for the day.

  And something howled back.

  * * *

  High in the mountains that overlooked Needsville, Bliss Overbay stood on her deck and looked down the hill at her lake. Mist rose from the surface of the water. In the shadow of her big house, the night’s chill remained, and she cinched her robe tight against it. She sipped her tea and considered again the images left over from her dreams.

  Music.

  Being held in a stranger’s arms, his lips about to touch hers.

  A hand clawing up from a grave.

  And a final confrontation between two people who, should they ever fight, would irrevocably change everything, no matter who won. One wore a white dress splattered with blood.

  She finished her tea and glanced at the leaves at the bottom of the cup. They bore out the sense of impending transformation she’d gotten from the dream. She thought about calling some of the other First Daughters of the Tufa, to see if they’d experienced anything similar. Perhaps Mandalay had a different interpretation. But her own ability had never failed her, and she had no reason to doubt it now.

  Bliss closed her eyes, weary from the knowledge she alone had been chosen to bear. For an instant, something big and dark broke the surface of the lake, disturbing the insects swarming there. Then, like Bliss’s dream, except for the ripples it was gone.

  A cool breeze touched her. From the forested slopes, a distant coyote howl broke the dawn silence. It startled the birds into life, and they burst from the treetops and sailed overhead. A moment later, another cry—closer but definitely not a coyote—sounded in answer to the first one.

  Then she went back inside, to shower and get ready for work.

  2

  Rob Quillen tried to check the map on his iPhone and still watch the road as it hugged the landscape’s rolling contours. The morning mist that surrounded him left no more than ten yards of visibility. Clingy clouds like these gave the Smoky Mountains their name, but they made it a bastard for strangers to navigate. Modern roads blasted their way straight through annoying hills, but this path was older than Rob could imagine, and protected in ways he’d never believe. Even the state DOT could only pave it, not alter it.

  Suddenly he emerged into a clear spot bathed in bright sunlight. To the right loomed a big rectangular sign halfway up the hillside. At the instant he looked away from the road to squint at the words, a gust of wind blew leaves in front of his car, obscuring something that dashed across the pavement. He slammed on the brakes and steered hard to the right.

  His car stopped with a thump as one front tire dropped into the shallow ditch. He turned off the engine and jumped out, but saw no sign of the animal. It must have been an animal, he told himself, despite the fact that what he glimpsed seemed upright and flesh colored. After all, why would a mostly naked human being, wearing what looked like a ragged orange dress, run across the road in front of him and then vanish?

  Once his heart stopped thundering, he again looked up at the sign. In big, friendly calligraphy it read, Welcome to Cloud County, Tennessee. Crudely painted mockingbirds flew in the corners. Beneath this was the line that he’s squinted at: YE CAN DO NO HARM WHILE YE BE HERE. It must, he reasoned, be some obscure Bible verse used as a civic motto. He took a quick photo with his iPhone.

  Wearily he returned to his car, slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and turned the key.

  Nothing happened.

  Closing his eyes, he tried again. Nothing, except the faintest series of clicks.

  “No, no, no,” he whispered, and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. He should’ve insisted on the Jeep he’d reserved and not accepted the four-door sedan the rental agent pressed on him, especially one that was bright red. Everyone knew red cars were bad luck.

  He opened the glove compartment, found the rental agreement paperwork, then took out his phone again. There was no signal.

  All of this should have worried him. After all, no one really knew where he was. Instead, though, he accepted it with weary resignation. Like everything else in his life, none of this seemed real. Nothing had, since Anna died.

  We’re so sorry, Rob. Everyone pitched in to sign this card. Now, we need you to sign this waiver.…

  With no warning, that awful image came to him again: the moment just before her plane hit the ground. He saw the look of terror as Anna realized what was about to happen, and the way the ground rushed up through the window beside her. He heard her helpless final scream. None of that had any basis in fact, of course; no one would ever know what truly happened during the plane’s final minutes. “Mechanical failure,” the official report said. But Rob was a songwriter, and so was blessed—or in this case, cursed—with a vivid imagination. And he knew Anna very, very well.

  And yet, here he was at the border of Cloud County, the one place he might find the solace he sought. The man in the sequined jacket had been certain: Here among the Tufa, he could find the way to heal his broken heart. Here he could find, carved in stone, the song.
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  He opened the trunk and pulled out his guitar. He knew he’d eventually have to deal with the mundane aspects of car repair, but for now, he sat on the fender and began to play, sad minor chords that sounded like thin tendrils of the agony inside him.

  After a few moments, his fingers froze in mid-chord. He definitely felt watched.

  He saw no sign of people, and mentally ran through the list of large animals in his guidebook. Neither coyote nor deer would attack an adult, even a solitary one, it promised. But a bear, now that was a scary thought. Had his car stalled near a hidden den with a cub? Was he about to be slashed open and devoured by five hundred pounds of black-furred maternal fury? Careful to make no sudden moves, he placed his guitar back in its case and slowly closed the trunk.

  Then he spotted his watcher.

  A boy about ten years old stood where the road curved at the bottom of the hill. He had straight black hair and dark skin, and wore jeans and a faded T-shirt. Even at this distance, Rob could tell the eyes were fixed on him.

  Rob laughed with relief and waved. “Hi.”

  The boy said nothing.

  Rob gestured at his car. “She broke down on me. Am I anywhere close to Needsville? I know this is Cloud County, but it’s hard to tell distance from my map. Those straight lines don’t go up and down like the real roads do around here.”

  The boy cocked his head like a puzzled animal. He had the right hair and skin tone, Rob observed. “Hey, can I ask you something? Are you … a Tufa?”

  The boy did not respond. Then abruptly he ran off into the forest.

  “Wait!” Rob cried, but the boy had vanished.

  He laughed at his own reaction. Like an idiot, he’d expected the first Tufa he encountered to be identical to the ones in that famous century-old photograph he’d found online. He anticipated something far more mysterious than a bored country kid skipping school.

  A Ford Ranger pickup emerged from the mist, passed over the very spot the boy had stood, and climbed the hill toward Rob. The vehicle had a camper shell and the name COLLINS AUTO SERVICE stenciled on the side. It slowed as it approached.

  Rob swallowed hard. Locals, he thought. Just be cool. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.