“What business she have with you? And couldn’t she just pick up the phone and call you?”
“Mama, it ain’t nothing. Just something about the property, and—”
“Don’t lie to me, Pink. Are you fooling around with that woman? What’s going on?”
“Ain’t nothing going on. Hellfire, Mama. Why’s everything gotta be a dang scandal?”
Mattie eased back in her chair, freezing him in her gaze.
“You have any pie?” he asked, not enjoying the contest.
“Isabelle was very angry when she called this morning. There’s something going on, Pink. Is it about this Mrs. Stage? How are you involved with Mrs. Stage?”
Pink sucked at the threads of ham caught in his teeth, trying to floss his bicuspid with the tip of his tongue. “It ain’t nothing, just some crazy notion took up residence in that woman’s confused head.” He told his mother everything Michelle had told him, about Cliff disappearing, how she’d gone to look for him, how Loudon had searched and found nothing, about taking Michelle to the Hilltop, feeding her corn liquor. “Then she said Louden told her I killed Isabelle and disappeared, like a damn ghost or something,” Pink said. “Can you beat that?”
While relating the story, Pink had been careful not to address his mother directly, letting his eyes dance around the fan blades above them as if he’d been talking to the ceiling. When he let his eyes fall back to her, he could tell she was disturbed. But more than that, she was scared, scared as if she’d swallowed some kind of slow-acting poison and knew it.
He studied her as she looked to the side then at the table, at his empty breakfast plate, mesmerized as if some movie played in her head, one she didn’t care much for.
“Loudon said you killed Isabelle then disappeared?” she finally said.
“Loudon didn’t tell her anything like that, Mama. Don’t you get it? Mrs. Stage is delusional—schizophrenic or something. Maybe she has one of them multiplied personality disorders, like that Sybil picture with Sally Moore or whatever the hell her name was.”
Mattie stared through him.
“Let’s look at the facts, Mama,” Pink said, screeching the chair legs along the floor as he pushed away from the table. “I’m here. You’re here. And I’m pretty sure Isabelle is still at home. Ain’t nobody disappeared, and I can guarantee you there ain’t no damn dead bodies buried up at the cabin. She’s abnormal, and that’s all there is to it. Now, let’s get this circle of yours decorated up so I can get on home before Isabelle starts calling here again.”
Burrito barked as Pink stretched to his feet. Mattie didn’t move, still seated and staring. The dog ran to her chair then to its empty water bowl and whimpered. Mattie stood slowly and walked over to the sink, absently picking up the dog’s dish and filling it with water. Several pieces of dried dog food floated to the top and bobbed like flotsam. Burrito nosed the chunks for a second then jumped back and barked at them.
*****
Pink had not planned staying at his mother’s as long as he had. Isabelle called again.
“Can’t she set up her own damn circle?” Isabelle said.
“We’re almost done, Sugar Plum. Probably another hour,” Pink said, trying to paint a pleasant face on his side of the conversation in case his mama was listening.
“That’ll give you time to come up with a better story than the one you told me last night, you bastard. You keep fucking Claire and you’re gonna get your damn balls snapped off. I’m telling you. I swear, Pink, you get her pregnant, you’ll be putting a down payment on hell. You’ll regret it the rest of your miserable, fucking life.”
“Save the sweet talk for when I get home, Gumdrop. Okay?”
Pink kept talking, even though Isabelle had already slammed the phone down. “Yes, not much longer. Need anything from the store?” He glanced toward the living room to see where his mama was. She was studying the plastic box of ashes, rotating it slowly as if trying to figure out how to get into it. Pink wasn’t sure himself. It appeared to be sealed, but he wasn’t about to call Emerson.
They carried more things down to the circle and worked in silence. Pink wrapped the red and gold scarves around the trellis, alternating them the way his mother had shown him. Standing on the ladder, he wrapped the top of the trellis, then stepped down to finish the sides. His mama was busy setting up candles, adjusting the cauldron stand so the metal pot would hang over the center of the firepit. Anytime Pink saw her cauldron, which was no bigger than half a watermelon, he always pictured those enormous iron vessels requiring two hands to stir, a wall of eerily-lit jars behind, the tiny eyes of dead critters staring bleakly at the fire. But this was nothing like that, and he often wondered if his mother’s demure approach to witchcraft was a disservice to the occult. Maybe if she wore all black with a pointed hat and donned a ridiculously large wart on her nose and employed a scorching inferno beneath her caldron, maybe he could believe something supernatural could happen. As it was, her ceremonies were no more mysterious and frightening than a Tupperware party. In fact, they bordered on boring. Nobody’s eyes rolled back in their heads, no one spoke in tongues, or burst into flames. And for the few he’d attended, his biggest obstacle had been staying awake.
When Pink tied off the last scarf, he adjusted them so the red and gold seemed evenly spaced. If they weren’t, his mama might make him take them all down and start over. Even though the sun burned high in the sky, the air was still plenty cold, his fingers turning numb. “Maybe we should get us a fire going in that pit of yours,” Pink said, blowing into his palms.
Mattie looked first at him, then at the scarves. She scratched the line of her jaw with her gloved fingers. He took this as approval. Pink recalled the afternoon he’d found Lulu’s body, about the stone his mama had wiggled from the hearth.
“Remember that silver box you took from Lulu’s house, the one with Lulu’s belly button cord?” Pink asked. “What are you going to do with that?”
Mattie was bent over at the west side of the circle, fitting a blue cloth over one of the four small altars. The circle was laid out in the four directions, each with its own color, its own unique accouterments. Pink had no idea what any of it meant. Mattie straightened and stretched, arching her torso with her head laid back. Pink thought she looked weary.
“Why, Pink? You don’t care about any of this.”
“It’s kind of freaky, don’t you think? Somebody sticking their damn ripcord in a little jewelry box and stashing it in their fireplace. No wonder folks knock down your mailboxes and burn your tool sheds.” Pink remembered his mother’s friend Jesse’s little wooden outbuilding in flames, a sign stuck in his yard saying witches weren’t welcome in Ardenwood. “Sane folks don’t do things like that.”