In the Land of Tea and Ravens Page 6

  ~The Tea Girl~

  Mildred Kramer was waiting on Grayson when he walked out of the woods, her short frame silhouetted in the door, a towel clenched in her hand.

  Grayson accepted the cloth, his blue eyes lowering. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say …” He glanced at her. “The sheriff, Mamaw?”

  She watched him, her eyes crinkling when she scowled. “Those women,” she spat, “I’ve lost too much to them!”

  She shuffled into the house and Grayson followed, the door slamming behind them. His grandfather was mysteriously absent, but it had always been that way. When his grandmother was angry, people made themselves scarce.

  “What did they do to you?” he asked. “What was so bad that you’d call the sheriff to pull me out of that house?”

  Mildred blinked, her wrinkled hands gripping a kitchen chair. Yahtzee was set up on the table. Wheel of Fortune played on the small TV on the counter, the volume turned down.

  “They killed my brother!” she hissed.

  Startled, Grayson froze. “Killed? Which brother?” He searched his memory—the stories he’d been told over the years—for anything about murder. Only one memory, one uncle stood out. “Polie?” he asked. “Uncle Polie?” Grayson sighed, his hand finding his grandmother’s shoulder. “He killed himself, Mamaw.”

  Mildred shook his hand loose. “Because of them!” She turned to look at him. “He killed himself because of them!”

  The anger in her eyes was too much, the hatred a poison that had eaten away all of her compassion. For a woman who often loved too much and forgave too easily, it took Grayson aback.

  “You don’t know what they did …” Mildred released the chair, her hands shaking. Slowly, she made her way to the refrigerator, pulling it open just long enough to grab a carton of milk and a Saran-wrapped sandwich. “You missed supper,” she murmured.

  Grayson waved off the food. “Tell me,” he insisted.

  Mildred left the milk and sandwich resting on the counter, her frame bent wearily as she found the table again, her old body sinking slowly into the chair she always sat in. She clasped her hands, her eyes sliding to his. “There was nothing wrong with my brother. Nothing! He was strong, hardworking, and smart … until he met Violet Miller.” She wrung her hands. “She bewitched him …” She reached for the Yahtzee game, picking up the dice as if she needed something to do with her hands. “She made him fall in love with her.”

  Grayson sat across from her, his gaze on her hands, on the dice she shook and then released. A six and a two.

  “People aren’t forced to fall in love,” Grayson said carefully.

  Mildred snorted. “Maybe not, but those women are masters at using love to drive people mad.” She scooped up the dice. “Polie was a decent man. He wasn’t always an honest one, but he was a good one.” She threw the dice. A four and a three. “Like our father before him, Polie made and sold moonshine. It wasn’t always decent work—”

  Grayson stood, his chair scraping back, his gaze on the table, on his grandmother’s wrinkled hands and the dice. “What did the Miller woman do?” he interrupted.

  Mildred released the dice again. Snake eyes. “A year after they married, he started drinking his own moonshine and spending hours out walking in the fields. No one knew why. He wasn’t a drinker despite what he did for a livin’. Never had been. Until her.” Her gaze slid up to Grayson’s. “He started murmuring to himself and took to sleeping in the fields. He even sat at the end of the road—a rifle across his lap—and held up drivers. He wouldn’t let anyone use the road unless they drove him around or paid him a toll, his gun pointed at the back of their heads.”

  Grayson moved behind his grandmother, his eyes on the top of her bent head. “He was drunk—”

  Mildred’s fist came down hard on the table, and the dice fell to the floor, rolling until they rested against the kitchen’s whitewashed cabinets. Double sixes. “He was possessed!” She stood, her chair slamming into Grayson’s shins as she rose. “He wouldn’t have done it otherwise! He wouldn’t have gone into the field that day, he wouldn’t have shot Violet Miller, he wouldn’t have stuck a pistol in his mouth, and he wouldn’t have taken his own life! You understand me! My brother was not a murderer, and he wasn’t a mad man!”

  “He killed his wife?” Grayson gasped.

  “He was not a murderer!” Mildred’s fingers found Grayson’s chest, her blue eyes flashing. “She ain’t worth it. None of ’em are worth it, you understand? You want to end up worse off than you already are?” Over and over, she poked him. “She’ll destroy you!”

  Grayson’s hand closed over hers. He hadn’t realized until now how old his grandmother had become, how frail. “That’s a harsh accusation against a woman I barely know and one you’ve never met.”

  “Oh, I’ve met her,” Mildred insisted. “I met Lyric Mason the summer her mother died. She was seven years old and a murderer!”

  Grayson inhaled. “She was a child!”

  “She was a murderer!” Mildred tugged her hand free. “She was a remorseless child who stood next to her mother’s grave and never shed a tear. There was no doubt she did it. None. She was the only one with her mother that day.”

  Grayson’s jaw tensed. “And they proved it was her?”

  Mildred flinched. “They never could. There was no blood. No body. Sarah Mason simply disappeared. When the police found Lyric, she kept telling them her mother was dead. I think she would have confessed if Gretchen hadn’t gotten to her first.”

  Grayson froze. “Gretchen? Old Ma’am?”

  Mildred didn’t answer. Her eyes lifted, the corners crinkling. Tears filled them, the moisture turning her blue irises into something greyer. “She’ll destroy you, Grayson. Mark my words.” The tears fell. Two single tears. Nothing more.

  The tears should have broken Grayson’s heart. Truth be told, they did. His chest ached for his grandmother, for the young woman she’d once been, the one who’d lost her brother because he knew what that felt like. It ached for the fear he saw in her gaze now. Yet it also ached for a lonely, scared, seven-year-old child. It ached for a little girl he’d never known.

  It ached because he knew something his grandmother didn’t.

  It ached, because as unbelievable as it seemed, Lyric’s mother wasn’t dead. She was a raven. He didn’t know how that worked yet. He didn’t know what had happened to the women in Lyric’s family, but he knew as fiercely as the hatred he saw in Mildred’s eyes, that Lyric wasn’t guilty.

  His heart ached because he’d seen the innocent shame in Lyric’s eyes when she’d shared her tea with him. It ached because she’d never felt anything but hatred in her life.

  A new resolve settled over Grayson’s shoulders.

  “Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what truly made Polie kill himself, Mamaw?” he asked. “Have you ever asked if he was as much to blame as the woman he married?”

  With that, Grayson turned and walked away, his feet carrying his damp body to the stairs. Each step upward was heavier than the last. Each step was weighed down with knowledge he almost wished he didn’t have. He didn’t know what was worse: knowing something he didn’t quite understand or caring enough to find out the truth.

  Damn Lyric and her ever changing eyes. They’d been brown when he’d met her, like warm melting chocolate in the Mississippi heat. Each time he saw her, they seemed to change. Hazel eyes that transformed with her emotions. Mood ring eyes.

  Damn her eyes.

  Damn her ravens.

  Damn her cinnamon-infused tea.

  Damn her loneliness.

  Worst of all, damn his own guilt. Damn his own loneliness. Damn his curiosity. Damn the taste of her tea. Because if he was being honest, it was damn intoxicating.

  Damn her no man’s land.

  All of his damns brought him to the room at the top of the stairs. All of his damns brought him to the window facing the old Miller house.

  It was too cloudy outside for a moon. Rain s
till pounded the earth like a cascade of tears, the water landing in an overgrown field that had seen too much death. The rain was a volley of weeping sobs watering a warzone.

  Across the field of high grass, a light burned inside of the old Miller house. It was too misty out for Grayson to make out her shape, but he knew the light belonged to Lyric. He knew it was her because he felt the same pull she did; the same pull that often made him stand at windows staring out into the world wondering if everyone else on the planet hurt as much as he did.

  He gripped the windowsill until his knuckles lost color. The scar on his chest throbbed.

  Damn it all.

  ~11~

  For a week, the tea girl came to the palace, offering tea to an ailing king who didn’t recognize her. For a week, she whispered comforting words and hummed as she helped him sip from her porcelain cup. The tea was not magical. There was nothing special about the liquid, other than the taste and its properties. The girl meticulously gathered herbs and other plants to make her teas; the leaves part of a healing earth. These herbal concoctions bolstered the king, made him stronger and more animated. After the first week, he began to recognize the girl. The second week, he began to speak with her. “Why are you here?” he asked as he sipped his tea. Stunned, the girl replied, “Because you were sick, Your Majesty, and needed comfort.” Her words brightened his heart, and he smiled gently. “I have a name for you,” he said. “From this day forward, you shall be known as Mercy.”

  ~The Tea Girl~

  The ravens woke Lyric before the sun, their fluttering wings loud against the windshield of her car as they roosted along the Ford Tempo’s hood, their claws leaving scratches in the paint. It had always been this way. She lived a life under the scrutiny of birds.

  Sitting up in the backseat of her car, she glanced at the house beyond, her eyes raking its eerie shape in the dull landscape. The house was unlivable, the bugs and debris too much to contend with, so she’d parked her car along the wood line behind the rotting home and slept.

  Her gaze skipped to the forest. “Promises,” she muttered.

  Reaching into her red backpack, she pulled a water bottle free. The clear plastic container was filled with brown liquid, tea she’d steeped and then poured into it once it had cooled. The faint odor of willow bark tickled her nose.

  You need to push him away, a voice scolded in her head.

  The willow bark always acted fast, opening the lines of communication between herself and the spirits of her family. Only one bird always remained silent, the beady eyes watching. It was the one bird she wished would speak with her.

  “And if I don’t want to push him away?” Lyric asked stubbornly.

  Climbing to the front of the car, she repositioned the driver’s seat and rolled down the window. A raven landed on the door. You’d prefer he go mad? the bird asked.

  Lyric shuddered. “Not all of them do,” she murmured.

  Claws clicked against glass as another bird landed on the windshield in front of her. This isn’t about you, the bird said.

  Lyric’s forehead creased, her gaze taking in the dawn. There was always that moment right before the day swallowed the night—before the sun added a touch of color to the world—where it was just light enough for everything to look black and white. It was Lyric’s favorite part of the day. In that moment, everything resembled a vintage photograph inside of a large scrapbook. The world lost its quality of realism and became a book of memory. Some memories hurt, others were beautiful, but none of them were in real time. None of them could damage her as much as reality.

  “No,” she mumbled. “This isn’t about me. I’ll find Old Ma’am’s tea book, and then I’ll leave.”

  That’s a good girl, a raven cawed.

  There were days she hated ravens, days where as much as she loved her family, she couldn’t help wondering what the birds would taste like in stew. She’d never do it since it was her anger talking, not common sense. She despised her quick temper. Her ease with anger had ruined her life as a child. Anger stole from her. Anger destroyed her.

  Lyric inhaled, leaving her window down as she turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life. Letting the car idle, she sat until the sun swept the fields with its first golden rays, the color destroying the pristine vintage morning. It was then she finally drove away, the car bumping toward the light as if seeking redemption.

  Wind cooled by the rain the night before drifted through the open window, slapping at Lyric’s irredeemable hair as she drove over dirt roads and sparse grass toward the main blacktop.

  She hummed, the familiar tune keeping her focused while her car ate the distance between her grandmother’s old home and town.

  There was a truck stop on the edge of Hiccup, and she parked there just long enough to use the showers, brush her teeth, and change her clothes before scurrying from the building, her head down. No one bothered her, but she heard the whispers, felt the hatred building. She wasn’t safe in this town.

  Only one place welcomed her. She sought it out, her green and yellow tiered skirt snaking her ankles as she swept into the wooden building on the corner. A hanging sign outside read Delilah’s. People often liked to name things after themselves, maybe to immortalize who they thought their name made them. Maybe it was for recognition, despite the fact that no one person truly owned a name. Delilah’s, however, wasn’t named after the owner. She’d named it after the woman who’d seduced Sampson in the Bible. Juliet, the proprietress, often said, ‘Folks spend all week sinnin’ so they can go to church on Sunday and leave the sin behind before startin’ the sinnin’ all over again. I just give them the place to do the sinnin’. Seein’ as I give them more a reason to go to church, it ain’t all bad.’

  Cigarette smoke and the scent of stale beer blasted Lyric in the face as she pushed open the bar’s door. Balls cracked against each other at the pool tables, and low murmured conversations drifted through the cool, dark room. A 1967 Rockola jukebox sat in the corner, the front lit up. Juliet Johnson leaned against it, a wry smile on her face, her hand poised over the machine.

  Nodding at a dirt crusted window, she murmured, “I saw you comin’.” Her finger pressed the buttons.

  The Beatle’s song, Eleanor Rigby, blared, the customers at the pool table groaning.

  “That’s fuckin’ sad as shit!” one of them shouted.

  Juliet grinned, her wizened face crinkling. Approaching Lyric, she mumbled, “Amazing what some folks find sad and what others find profound.” She marched behind the bar and patted the counter. “What’d you come in here for, girl? Couldn’t find that old tattered piece of crap Old Ma’am called a book?”

  Frowning, Lyric sat, her gaze locking with Juliet’s. “I can’t leave without it.”

  “Why?” Juliet asked. She slid an empty decanter across the counter and filled it with Coke. “Why can’t you just leave it all behind?”

  Lyric’s brows rose, a sad smile spreading across her face. “You know why.”

  Juliet shrugged. “So take the damned cup, but leave the rest. The book ain’t got no ties to you.”

  “It’s full of history, our history,” Lyric argued.

  “Then re-write it.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but silence and music. All the lonely people, the Rockola screamed, where do they all come from?

  Lyric gestured at the juke box. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  The woman grinned, her crooked, tobacco-stained teeth flashing. “Don’t even pretend you ain’t lonely. I watched you grow up, gel.”

  Lyric scowled. “I’m not lonely!”

  Juliet shook her head. “I think it’s right time you fooled around with someone. I’m impressed it’s the Kramer boy considering your family’s history, but—”

  “I’m not fooling around with anyone!”

  “She doth protest too much,” Juliet laughed. “You can’t keep shit quiet in this town. Richard Newton pulled Grayson off your property last night.”

>   “It’s not my property. It’s the county’s.”

  “And that’s beside the point.” Juliet’s expression sobered. “You need people, Lyric. You need man people. It’s crazy as hell that you don’t date. And I say good for you if you’re foolin’—”

  “We had tea,” Lyric interrupted, her cheeks turning red.

  Juliet froze. “What? Lyric—”

  Lyric swallowed, her gaze falling to the counter. She shoved the glass away, the soda untested. “It was supposed to scare him off.”

  Juliet’s hands came down over Lyric’s, her flesh warm and rough. “The boy’s got gumption if it didn’t. What the devil were you thinkin’?”

  “I wasn’t.” Lyric laughed. “I wasn’t thinking …” Her eyes fell closed. “You’re right,” her gaze opened to find Juliet’s sad eyes, “I’m lonely. Damn it all to hell!”

  Juliet’s hand squeezed hers. “There ain’t nothing evil about your family. There ain’t nothin’ evil about you. Remember the song. Keep singing the song. Keep remembering where you came from and how it all started.”

  Lyric swallowed. “My mother—”

  “She should have taught you better!” Juliet hissed. Several heads lifted, and she lowered her voice. “Look, you know what the Grayson boy did, right?”

  Lyric shook her head.

  Juliet sighed. “He was a young, stupid bastard is what he was. Raised with money, he struggled with school. Managed to graduate, but college was too much.” She paused, releasing Lyric before taking a large swallow from the glass Lyric had abandoned. “He quit and went to work. It was honest work at first, but then like all young men without much sense, he started lookin’ for adventure in all of the wrong places. Got tangled up in some gambling scams on the Gulf Coast. You just don’t get involved with the kind of people he got involved with and live to tell about it.”