The Nature of Faeries

~~ 17 ~~ THE NATURE OF FAERIES ~~~~

I didn't make it back to Gramma's for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas, or even spring break. The electives I'd chosen for my senior year were tougher than expected, plus I had to design and deliver a senior project. I lucked up and found a fantastic new part-time job as a draftsman with a robotics company near Durham, not far from school.

Any spare time was eaten up by my love life. Thanks to the tutelage from my cousin, I became quite popular with the girls. I got my pick of nearly any woman I wanted. My dates were gorgeous and sexy and loved to fuck.

Yet, now that I knew what it felt like, I realized that none of them made my heart thump with the same passion and warmth as I'd experienced with Clara.

It was the middle of May. My final exam was done, my robotics project was a huge success, I was near the top of my class and had offers from companies all over. I'd already bought airline tickets to London for next week and figured I'd saved enough to live on for at least six months, maybe even a year if I stayed at youth hostels and traveled by train. Everything was going just as I planned.

Then the call came.

I drove straight to Gramma's. The sun had already fallen behind the mountains, and the dirt road up to the farm was packed with cars parked along the ditch. Mom and Aunt Carol were surrounded by neighbors and friends dealing out condolences. I wandered through the house in a daze. I was numb inside. Cancer. Nobody had ever said anything.

Hoping to find someplace I could be alone, I went upstairs. I hadn't seen Clara and she wasn't in her bedroom. My cousin's room looked oddly pristine. Empty. Even the pictures were gone. Something wasn't right.

Searching for her, I ran down to the pond, keeping my nose in the air for the scent of rotten cukes. She wasn't there either. I looked in the barn, but still no sign of her. A huge snakeskin was tacked to the inside of the barn door. It was a good two feet taller than me.

Near the top, it looked like someone had splashed some letters and numbers on the wall with a white paintbrush—GEN 16.

Dejected, I meandered back into the house. Most of the crowd had left. The funeral was planned for the next day. Pastor Allen was speaking quietly with Mom in the parlor. Aunt Carol was in the kitchen, washing dishes. Someone had offered to do those for her, but she said she needed to keep busy.

I stepped up beside her, picked up a towel and started drying and putting the dishes away. Aunt Carol looked at me and smiled.

She was scrubbing the baked-on cheese off a casserole dish when I asked, "Where's Clara?"

"Well, after she had her baby, her and Ashley—"

The words seared through me like a lightning bolt. "Wait! What baby?"

"Didn't your mother tell you? I became a grandmother back in March. The sweetest little girl ever. Clara named her Jacqueline, but we call her Jackie for short."

I was stunned. Quickly counting up the months since the first of August, I determined the baby couldn't have been mine. That left one other possibility.

Aunt Carol kept picking at the cheese in the corners of the casserole while she turned my world on its head.

"Anyway, after little Jackie was born, Clara drove her friend Ashley down to Asheville for an abortion when that good-for-nothing Brother Dodd claimed he never touched her, just like he done with Clara."

My jaw clenched. I knew that asshole was trouble. I was thinking of ways to deal with him when Carol went on.

"I guess it serves him right, the way that rattlesnake got him right between his legs. I don't think anybody's figured out how a snake that big got in his Cadillac." She leaned close and whispered, "Nobody is saying nothing about how bad he got hurt, but I noticed he ain't singing the low part in the choir no more."

She winked, and I snorted, barely able to contain the laughter that wanted to jump out of my chest. So, Ashley finally opened that chest of silverware. I couldn't have been happier about poor Brother Dodd. He deserved everything he got.

Aunt Carol peeked over her shoulder, then said quietly, "Anyway, when Preacher Allen found out what his little girl done, he kicked her out of the house and the church, too. Ashley came to stay with us for a while. She helped Clara with Jackie and Gramma. Then Clara got this wild idea and talked Ashley into moving out to Oregon."

"What's in Oregon for her?" One of my job offers was there, but I wasn't making any decisions until I got back from Europe.

"She read about some farming commune near the ocean, not too far south of Eugene. Gramma gave her the old Ford and they left about two weeks ago. Gramma was so glad she got to see her great granddaughter before she went up to meet St. Peter. Between you and me, I think that's what she was waiting for, and when she...Jack? Where are you going?"

I was running up the stairs to turn my luggage out on the bed, searching for the little hand-Bible. The white bookmark had more stains now, but it still marked the same verse. Genesis 16—just like the writing on the barn wall.

Abraham was unable to have a baby with his wife, Sarah. She offered her servant to her husband to bear his child.

There it was, in black and white. I could be so stupid sometimes. Still, like my crazy cousin said, I was smarter than most guys. I quickly figured out what I'd been missing. It had been right in front of me the whole time.

It took about ten minutes to call the airline and change my flight from London to Oregon. It wouldn't be easy, but now I knew what I was looking for. I finally understood the nature of faeries.