We went back to the visitor’s center and Miss Mary made me a glass of iced tea with honey stirred into it and a piece of lemon wedged on the rim of the glass. It was the best iced tea I’d ever had, nothing like the mix Grandma Oliver made or the Arizonas I got at the Shell. We sat in the main room where there were taxidermied animals: a bear, a coyote, a fox, a squirrel, two hawks, a mallard, and an otter. Glass cases filled with skins and hides and bones lined the walls. Miss Mary said, “I hope you had a good time. Next time we’ll pick blackberries.”
“I did.”
“I have to be here until four. Just wait for me, if you don’t mind. I’ll give you a ride.”
“I don’t mind.”
Outside we heard tires crunching gravel in the parking lot.
“Looks like we have a visitor,” Miss Mary said. “You can help me show them around. Maybe you want to volunteer here eventually? I can train you.” She went over to the window and looked out.
I stood next to her. A van had parked behind her car, blocking it in. The van was red with gold stripes, and I could see the shape of a lady in the driver’s seat. She was smoking a cigarette, and I thought she must be pretty old because she carried herself with a sharpness. Miss Mary’s face had gone pale.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Miss Mary scrambled around and locked the doors and shut off the lights and took me in the back bathroom where we crouched down next to the toilet.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Oh God,” Miss Mary said.
“Ma’am?”
“It’s Mother Edna.”
We heard a tapping out on the front porch, like Mother Edna was nudging the ground with a stick. I didn’t ask questions. Miss Mary was scared to her bones. Next we heard what sounded like one finger streaking down a window.
“Honey!” Mother Edna called out. Her voice was deep and smoke-grizzled. “I’ll burn you out if I have to.”
Miss Mary crumpled to her knees. “How’d she find me here? How’d she know about Mississippi?”
I stayed quiet.
“A nature sanctuary?” her mother said through the glass, drawing out the last word.
Miss Mary put her hand on mine and said, “I’m going to go out. You stay in here. Don’t be afraid. Just stay put.” She stood up and left the bathroom.
I felt alive. I pressed my ear against the door and tried to hear what Miss Mary was saying to her mother. All I heard was the low rumble of their voices. The sound of my heart racing filled the hot little bathroom. A mildewy towel was folded across a rack near the sink and the smell tickled the back of my throat. I opened the door and crawled out into the main room on my hands and knees, the binoculars still hanging from my neck. I tried to see out the window but couldn’t without standing up, so I went to the back door, unlocked it, and tiptoed onto the porch where Miss Mary had given me water that morning. The hummers were buzzing at their feeders. I opened the screen door, careful not to let it slam shut, and ducked around the side of the house. I hid behind a picnic table and lifted the binoculars to my eyes. Miss Mary and her mother weren’t that far off, and I could see way up close in the glass. The old lady had a cigarette in a cigarette holder and was exhaling smoke in big gusts. She was wearing thick heels and a red skirt that stopped at her knees. The skirt was unwrinkled. Her blouse was white and her sleeves were rolled up, as if she’d had to show somebody how to do something the proper way. She was old but not that old. Maybe fifty. And she was beautiful, with glassy eyes and the same long red hair as Miss Mary, except hers was a dye job and the red was closer to purple. Her nails were long and painted with clear polish, the half-moon cuticles dotted red. She was wearing a gold cross on a wispy chain around her neck. But it was her earrings that stopped me: little silver guns with diamond triggers.
I still couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Miss Mary’s shoulders were slumped as if she’d been scolded into submission. She was trembling.
The old lady, as if she could sense me, swung around and peered in my direction. I didn’t have much cover. I tried to stay hidden behind the table. She didn’t holler or charge. She removed the cigarette from the holder and then twisted it under her heel and walked calmly across the lot. I thought about running into the woods, but I didn’t move.
“Come on out here,” she said, sitting at the other end of the table and putting her elbows up on the splintered wood.
I let the binoculars fall to a dangle and stood.
“And who are you?” she said.
Miss Mary came running over. “He’s just a kid who was visiting today. Let him go.”
“Just a kid. I’ve heard that one before.”
“He’s got nothing to do with any of this.”
Mother Edna laughed. “My daughter here,” she said to me, “is a coward, pal. A bona fide coward.” She paused and motioned to the bench. “Sit down.”
I sat at the table.
“Never met such a subdued little shine,” she said. And then: “Take those binoculars off.”
I took the binoculars off and put them down on the table. I pressed my fingers against the lenses on the small side. I wanted to put them back on and look up at the birds in the trees and have Miss Mary whisper in my ear what they were. I looked at her and saw that she had changed in her face even more. No birds could brighten her.
“Everything will be okay, Jalen.” Miss Mary sat down across from me and touched my hands over the binoculars.
Mother Edna didn’t say anything. She just sat there and then she cracked her knuckles. They sounded like stomping on bubble wrap. Miss Mary tightened her grip on my hands as if the knuckle-cracking signaled the beginning of something terrible.
“I’m not scared,” I said.
“You should be,” Mother Edna said.
Mother Edna walked us over to the van and made us stand face-to-face. I was taller than Miss Mary by two or three inches, but she looked even smaller now. She looked like she’d lost about ten years. Mother Edna opened the back doors of the van and took out two pairs of red plastic ties and then she made us cross our arms and cuffed us left-to-left and right-to-right, cinching the ties with a tab that pinched my skin. Then she pushed us into the back of the van. The rear seats had been pulled out and we spilled across the floor like dead deer. Mother Edna slammed the doors and walked around to the driver’s side. I was so close to Miss Mary I could feel her breath on my neck and smell her sweat. I couldn’t fight off getting wood. I couldn’t look at Miss Mary’s face even though I knew my dick was the last thing she was worried about.
“She’s not going to kill us,” Miss Mary said. “She needs me.” But the words caught in her throat and she stopped talking. I knew why. Mother Edna needed Miss Mary for whatever reason, but she didn’t need me. She’d kill me if Miss Mary didn’t give her what she wanted. I still didn’t feel scared; I wanted the chance to kill Mother Edna. I wanted to kill her for Miss Mary. Maybe she’d love me for that.
Mother Edna got under the wheel. She reached across to the passenger seat, palmed something, and brought it up to her face. I twisted my head to see what it was. It was a plastic lion mask with an elastic strap that she’d pulled around the back of her head. The mask was well-worn, orange faded to rust, and the plastic was chipped and cracked around the edges. “You remember this, Audrey?”
Miss Mary shuddered against me.
“Audrey’s her real name,” Mother Edna said. “Audrey Rose O’Brien. I used to wear this around the house to spook her when she was little.”
She kept the mask on as she started the van. A hole was cut in the mouth. She put a cigarette in her holder and inserted the holder into the hole. She lit the cigarette and took a long pull and then exhaled smoke around the edges of the mask. “I’m waiting,” she said.