Stormwitch by Susan Vaught

Author:Susan Vaught
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2005-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Friday, 15 August 1969: Night

We ease away from our hiding place in the bushes behind Gisele’s house as the officer climbs into his car. Rain mists as we run deeper into thickets of vines and trees. We’re heading away from the main road and the beaches, leaving behind the sounds of waves and engines.

Clay leads the way down dirt paths and occasional side streets, half a mile, then maybe a mile. We slip around board homes and through hedges. We even pass a few white-columned mansions. They seem misplaced so far away from the sand and brilliant ocean views.

Gisele takes three steps to my two, but she keeps pace. Clay leads the way without looking back.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I don’t know!” Clay’s head turns from side to side, as if searching for a good hiding place. “Over toward the shipyards? We can wait in the trees until after dark.”

A warm smatter of rain hits my nose. “Good as any, I suppose.”

We dodge cars and trees until we reach the woods near the shipping docks. This far back from the beach, two miles at least, the coast is more marshland than forest. Waterlogged banks and soggy trenches stretch as far as I can see, and cypress knees—the roots—lift like reddish-brown warts above the brackish surface.

Clay and I settle on the solid ground between two trenches while Gisele tries to collect two green horse-apples from a Bodark tree’s low-slung branches. Osage orange is what they call that thorny, thorny tree in reference books, but I know it now by its Mississippi name. Gisele isn’t afraid of the thorns at all. She hops and grabs until she gets what she wants, then bounces back to us, drops on her knees, and starts rolling the horse-apples back and forth to me.

I stretch forward to catch one, and she gasps.

“Why you got a alligator on your leg?” Gisele points, and I startle as I realize my cotton dress has scooted up to show part of my thigh. My Amazon tattoo shines like a blue light on my dark skin.

“It’s a crocodile,” I tell her, snapping my hands near her face. “Jaws stronger than rock, and white daggers for teeth. All Dahomey Amazons wore this mark.”

Clay turns to look at me, leans forward staring at the tattoo, and for the first time ever, he makes as if to touch me. I barely see the movement of his finger as it stretches toward my thigh.

I react with no thought. Grab. Twist. Push. Hold.

In seconds, Clay lies on his back, a victim of my long years of training.

He coughs. Catches his breath. “Dang, Ruba! Get off me!”

I jerk my hand from his throat and sit back. “I—I—am sorry. Please, don’t touch me.”

“Don’t worry about that, ever again!” Clay jumps to his feet and sulks away to sit by a marshy puddle.

Gisele watches him splash the water, and she giggles. “How did you throw him over so easily?”

I gaze into her bright young eyes, and something stirs in my belly.

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