My sister ended up fixing them all jelly and bread and making them eat it, though not at the end of a gun. My baby sister was quite forceful, all without the need for weapons. I liked her. And I had things I needed to do for her. If I could remember what they were.
The members of Unit Eighteen stayed for an hour, talking. Memories opened like the blooms of flowers and what might have been feelings began to unfurl inside me as they talked and shared and ate Mud’s bread. It was pleasant. Confusing but valuable. The memories were settling inside me. Enough for me to know that Occam’s not being here made me very sad. I remembered the disfigurement and the scars. Perhaps I hadn’t healed him well enough after all.
EIGHTEEN
Within forty-eight hours after the visit by Unit Eighteen, I had regained the last of my human form, though I had to trim my leaves and the vines in my hair several times a day. My hair was still growing awfully fast, needing to be trimmed every morning to keep it near my shoulders. The reddish tresses were riotously curly.
My returning memory had suggested that I had let some things go too long unresolved, undealt with, unfinished. Before I went back to work, in a week or so, I had a lot of relationship housekeeping to catch up on. With that in mind, Mud and I were heading to the church in my old Chevy C10. I was driving for the first time, taking the roads slow and cautiously.
“I think this’n’s a stupid idea.”
“I heard you the first time. And the fourth,” I said mildly.
“I done asked.” She stuck a finger in the air, shaking it with each statement. “Mama and Daddy ain’t gonna let me live with you’un.” Shake finger. “They ain’t gonna let me go to no public school to learn the lies of evolution and science.” Shake. “They ain’t gonna let me wear no pants or cut my hair. They ain’t—”
“I didn’t trim my leaves,” I said.
Mud stopped. Her raised hand shot out and she lifted my hair. Green leaves sprouted in my hairline at my nape. A few small vines tickled there. “Why?”
“Because if you don’t get taught, if you don’t learn how to use your gifts, you’ll likely make the same mistake I did and grow leaves and vines and take root. You can live with me and not make the same mistakes because I’ll teach you.”
“Mama will never, ever in a million, billion years agree.”
“We’re invited to have tea with all the mamas and Daddy.”
“All of ’em?”
“All of them.”
“His surgery’s tomorrow. The surgeon made him wait until his liver was in better shape and his blood was built up enough to cut him open. And he wanted to wait till you were back from undercover.”
Undercover. That was the lie PsyLED had told my family about my absence. “I know. That’s why this is the perfect time to hit them with the truth.”
“Why now?”
“Because when Daddy was shot, I wanted him alive. I might have . . . accidentally . . . told the land to keep him alive.”
“Did he grow roots?”
The laugh that escaped me had a gurgle, but it was the first that came close to my own, previous, human laugh. It sounded strangled, but it gave me hope. “Not that I saw,” I said, “but he needs to be aware and unsurprised if they pull a passel of leaves and roots out of his belly.”
Mud giggled.
I showed my ID and, together with my true sib, drove through the gate onto the grounds of God’s Cloud of Glory Church. We slowed as we passed the barbed and vicious-looking trees on the inside of the twelve-foot fence. It looked like something out of Snow White, a cursed world that turned on itself and its humans, spindly saplings with long thorns, pulpy deep green leaves with red petioles and leaf veins, dark, wet-looking bark that looked as if blood seeped out. On one of the spikes of thorns a squirrel squirmed, making piteous noises. A vine was wrapped around it like a snake, contracting, constricting, squeezing. The tree was killing it.
I looked away and drove on. I had done this. I had to stop it. I didn’t know how much blood it might take to take the tree back over. I didn’t know what I’d be when it was done.
We parked at the Nicholson house, a three-story cube in the saltbox tradition, with few architectural elements to add style. “You let me talk unless I need you to confirm or deny. Okay?”
“Not okay.” Mud had her stubborn face on, eyes squinted, mouth firm.
“Mud . . .”
“I want it on record that I’m against all this sharing about what you’un is. About what we’uns is. Are. About what we are,” she said, speaking proper English for the very first time.
“So noted,” I said gravely, and I pushed open my truck door.
We knocked and entered. Mama called from the kitchen, “Welcome back home. Hospitality and safety while you’rn here.”
“Peace and joy upon all who dwell here,” I said, in one of several appropriate responses.
As I spoke Mama Grace and Mama Carmel bustled in and hugged us both. Hugs were a rarity in my life and might become even more of a rarity after today. I hugged back extra hard.
Mud extended a basket filled with loaves of bread. “I been bakin’. Three loaves. Raisin cinnamon, sourdough, and herb bread. The herb bread is good to dip in olive oil.”
“Well, ain’t that sweet. Nell, you’un settle. Mindy, you go on upstairs and put away your’n things, and get on to class,” Mama Carmel said. “We’uns need to hear about our Nellie’s undercover life.”
“She needs to be here,” I said. “She’s part of why I’m here.”
All three women turned to face me and stared. They were wearing dresses in various shades of blue and pink—colors said to make women look prettier. I was wearing jeans and a navy jacket, my shirt untucked and my hair down and flowing to my shoulders in all its curly multicolored shades of brown and red. Pointedly, Mama looked Mud and me over and said, “Mindy’s bunned up, but she’s too young to . . .” Mama stopped, firmed her mouth, and said, “Too young to marry. We won’t be letting our girls marry young no more.”
Mama Carmel said softly, “You’un ain’t here to talk undercover. About coming back to the church.”
I took in the good china cups and linen napkins on the table. Gently I said, “No, ma’am. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear on the phone. I’m here to talk about what we are. Mud and me. And maybe Daddy. Or Mama.”