The May Queen Murders (17 page)

Chapter Ten

It’s said there weren’t no animal Terra couldn’t tame. By

the time Birch Markle got to her, he was more animal

than human, but he wasn’t one to be tamed.

Lemons and thyme scented the Meriweathers’ kitchen. The lemons

hung from a potted dwarf tree, and bundles of thyme and other herbs

dried on a hook were suspended from the ceiling. Neither fragrance

masked the antiseptic odor of iodine wafting from the room where

Milo Entwhistle lay on the coffee table.

Mamie told me living rooms were once known as death rooms,

back when funerals were a home matter. After mortuaries came into

fashion, there was no need for keeping bodies on ice at home, and

the death room was rechristened the living room.

Rook had convinced Violet and the others they were wrong.

Milo was just a roller boy from the trailer park. We shared classes at

school. Birch Markle was somewhere else, but that fear from a col-

lective childhood nightmare nearly got Milo killed. Until the others

scattered, terrified because of what they’d done, I whispered in Milo’s

ear to play dead.

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Because I wanted to know why he’d entered the Glen.

Because I thought him many things, a roller, a dealer, maybe a

killer.

Because he’d come for Heather in the woods.

I ran my finger around my empty mug’s rim, the second tea I’d

guzzled to heal my wine headache. My brain clanged against my

skull like driving nails through a horseshoe.

Rook joined me in the kitchen. He unclipped his suspenders be-

fore fidgeting with his shirt buttons, a swift glance my way before

continuing to unbutton. He tossed aside the black fabric and his un-

dershirt before grabbing a fresh undershirt from a wicker basket of

folded clothes. I retrieved the shirts, untangling the crumpled fabric

to find it wet. My fingers were red. “Were you hurt?” I asked.

He fixed his clean undershirt and replaced his suspenders. “No.”

“But there’s blood.”

He pushed his fingers back through his hair, loosening the dark

strands until a few fell across his brow. “Blood ain’t unusual ’round

here. I got into some when I stopped the others from beatin’ that

guy.”

I didn’t know what to say. Milo had left both our hands red.

Rook opened the wood stove and tossed in another log. The

nights remained on the cool side of pleasant, and it’d be a few weeks

yet before we could let the night fires turn to ash.

“You think Milo killed those dogs? Journey?” he asked.

“
They
think he did,” I replied.

“That doesn’t tell me what
you
think.”

“What I think don’t matter,” I said.

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“Matters to me.” Rook approached me, thumbing the col ar of my

dress. “Where’s your acorn necklace?”

“My pocket. August gave it to me last week, and I plan on giving it

back to him. It ain’t right to wear it if we’re together.”

“I made that necklace,” Rook said.

“You?”

He gave me a weak smile. “You were mad at me, so August told me

he’d give it to you. He was supposed to tell you.” His brow knotted.

“Why’d he let you think he made it?”

I shrugged. Anything I said risked making Rook mad. I didn’t

want any more anger.

“It wasn’t right of him to let you think it was his gift,” he muttered.

Maybe August would’ve told me the truth if I hadn’t seen dead

Heather with a smile slashed into her face.

“Here,” I said and fished the necklace from my skirt pocket. “You

put it on me.” Rook swept my hair aside, retying my necklace, and

when he finished, he seemed calmer.

Then a scream echoed from the neighboring room. I jumped and

darted for the door. I reached it first, only for Rook’s hand to cover

mine on the doorknob. Fingers warm on top, metal cold beneath.

His breath was against my neck.

“Open it a crack,” he whispered.

The doorknob hitched, the hinges hummed, but Sheriff and Papa

were too busy to notice. Milo yowled again. He was bare but for his

jeans begging to slither off his bony hips. His skin glowed under the

light, purpling bruises near his left eye. A gash crusted on his low-

er lip. Sheriff pushed him down on the table while Papa examined

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Milo’s forearm, which was swollen and bluish-red where blood had

flooded the tissue.

“You got a fractured ulna, boy.” Papa traced his finger near Milo’s

wrist. “Broke right here. You also got some radial dislocation.”

“You sure?” Milo thrashed against my father. “Ain’t like you took

any x-ray.”

“Doc might work on animals, but he knows when a bone’s off-

kilter,” Sheriff said, “so I suggest you calm your spirits and hold

tight.”

Milo’s eyes were huge, and the one was such a mess it’d gone red to

the blue of his iris.

“We got a radio and can patch in a call to your folks. There’s a

truck to drive you to the hospital,” Papa offered.

“No parents, and my brother and sister are busy. If you’re a doctor,

fix it. Pop it back in and slap on a cast. I’ll find a way to pay you back.

Swear on it.” His tongue slicked over the blood on his lip. “I’ll muck

stal s, plant crops, whatever you need. Just no more bil s.”

Papa set down Milo’s arm and pulled Sheriff by where Rook and I

were eavesdropping. “The boy needs help, Jay. The right thing would

be to haul him to the hospital.”

“It’ll bring questions here, Timothy.”

Papa sighed. “I’ll patch him all right, but he’ll get aftercare if he’s

smart. Just give me a hand with this and pray he doesn’t throw a

blood clot.”

Papa started back to the coffee table, and Sheriff lagged a step be-

hind and muttered, “Lord have mercy. This idea’s dumber than a box

of shit.”

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Milo poked his broken forearm, cocking his head with the fasci-

nation of a kid coming across roadkil .

“It’s kinda gone numb,” he said.

“That’s shock,” Papa explained. “You oughta go to the hospital.”

“No. Damn. Hospitals.”

Papa picked up Milo’s shirt from the floor. “You want a cloth to

bite? This is gonna hurt.”

Sheriff cracked his knuckles and positioned himself behind Milo,

hands on his shoulders. Milo studied Papa manipulating his fore-

arm. Papa paused over a silver ring on his little finger. He slipped it

off and placed it in his veterinary bag. “Your finger’s swelling. Should

the ring cut off the blood, you don’t care to lose your finger or that

ring. What’s your name?”

“I didn’t say,” Milo answered.

crack!

A groan twisted Milo’s face, and blood dripped down his chin

from the gash in his lip. My fingers clutched the door frame, ripples

of disgust running through me as the bones inside his body ground

together.

“Hold him tight,” Papa ordered. Sheriff adjusted his grip. Papa

settled his fingers around Milo’s wrist. “When I was eighteen, I was

a missionary in Mexico. A buildin’ col apsed, no doctors for miles.

This one fellow’s hip dislocated. It bulged, stretchin’ his skin all shiny.

Man alive, he was screamin’.

“Anyway, this girl — didn’t speak a lick of English — begged me to

help, said he was her brother. My granddaddy was what old-timers

called a bonesetter, and I remember seeing him piece back together

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a hillman trampled by horses. So I did what he did. This fellow’s hip

was fixed, and the girl was so grateful she came home with me. The

next day, her daddy said I’d married her.”

Milo gave a good-humored laugh, then came a swift jerk of Papa’s

hands on Milo’s wrist.

pop!

The only time I’d heard that noise before was a wet June when

Heather unearthed a raccoon skull from the riverbank. It was

squelched down in the muck, and once a bit of air got inside, it un-

corked and flew into the air. She’d caught it in her slippery hands.

She’d laughed when she’d done it, too.

Milo’s face reddened, but he sniffed back what had to be mind-

bending pain. He spied me playing ghost by the doorway. “I see you

back there.”

The door rocked open. My steps plodded against on the floor. I’d

forgotten about the crown adorning my head, now stuck with dry

grass and forest leaves.

“You,” Milo said, “I know you.”

“Know’s a relative term,” Rook muttered.

“How’d I guess I’d bump into the likes of you again?” Milo could’ve

been more brazen than brains, or hurt adrenaline talked to Rook for

him; yet he struck me as more likely putting on a show of false bra-

vado. The wiggle of the coffee table’s legs as he shook gave him away.

“You got a problem with my boy?” Sheriff asked.

“No, sir. We’ve just seen each other ’round.”

Rook settled back in his boots, face blank, and I wasn’t giving up

what I knew of Milo.

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“Why are you here?” Sheriff asked.

Milo’s breath wheezed. “’Cause I like to party. Didn’t know the

inbreds would stone me half to death.”

“Oh, you’re plenty used to being stoned,” Rook said. “Woods ain’t

a long walk from here. You’re welcome to go back.”

Milo attempted to straighten his spine, gritting his teeth. He

switched his attention to me. “Why’d you help me?”

“D-don’t think I did you any favors,” I said. “Murderin’ folks is

wrong. They’d have killed you.”

In the woods, with the lanterns and loomed fabric above, the

others would’ve pounded him with their stones, wine bottles, what-

ever they found. I thought it better to catch the monster alive than

destroy it.

Yet was that monster Milo?

“Who told you there’d be a party?” Sheriff asked.

Heather.

“Around school. People, talk,” Milo replied. “I had to wear that

getup to blend in. You know what’s said ’bout y’al . I had to find out

how much is true. Plenty, it seems.”

I assumed he was referring to was the raggedy brown cloak, now

splattered with blood, that hung over the back of one of the Meri-

weathers’ kitchen chairs.

“Hey, now,” Sheriff cut in. “You’ve gotten some kindness from the

good folks of the Glen. Don’t be a peckerhead.”

“Good folks of the Glen.” Milo snorted and shoved off from the

coffee table and not without limping or letting loose a pained moan.

He lifted his shirt off the chair with his good arm and slipped it over

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his head with a hiss. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your lawman’s

star. You gonna do anything about how your good folks jumped

me?”

“We deal with our own kind.”

With his shirt all cockeyed, Milo stared me down, his good arm

roaming his pockets until he found a squashed pack of cigarettes.

“You be careful out there, Ivy.”

My bel y gave a warning quiver. Inside, I writhed under the inten-

sity of his watch. Somehow, I’d find out what went on between him

and Heather.

“Let’s get you to the clinic, get your arm in a cast,” Papa inter-

vened.

“Mind if I have a smoke?” Milo asked.

Sheriff nodded. “Stay close to the house. For safety.”

Milo’s gait was creaky, the walk of battered bones. There were

bel s rigged up by the front door, and they sang out even after the

door slammed behind the boy. The lantern outside the door lit up

his blondest hair while streams of smoke traveled past the window.

“You think he’ll go to the county police?” I asked.

“Nah, bunch of hot air, that one,” Sheriff said.

Papa closed his veterinary bag. “Don’t be so sure, Jay. Folks always

know more than they let on.”

I headed back to the kitchen. My thoughts were a sticky web of

dead dogs, dead girls, skirts loomed through trees, and Milo’s bloody

eye; fists clutching rocks, Heather. I felt sick and didn’t want to empty

my stomach on the Meriweathers’ floor. I shoved open the back door

to breathe air perfumed by May Day.

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I smelled cigarette smoke. Milo sat with his back against the fence

and his bad arm tight across his chest while his other hand brought a

cigarette to his lips. Rook motioned for Milo to get up and said, “You

best get that arm fixed up. You don’t want to be caught here if folks

are thinkin’ you’re that devil in the woods.”

Milo stood and closed the space between himself and Rook.

“Shame I ain’t, huh? Then you might have a real reason to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Rook said. “Just hard to see where we have com-

mon ground.”

Milo flicked some ashes to the dirt. “I know y’all think I’m shit,

but I got reasons to be here.”

Her name spun through my mind, a tornado of upset and hurt.

“Heather?” I asked.

Milo’s mouth twitched. “No matter what you think about me, we

ain’t that different.”

The back door of the Meriweathers’ house opened, and Papa ex-

ited with his bag in hand. He must’ve noticed the tension between

Rook and Milo, how they stood with nothing remotely close to

friendship between them, and approached to ease back Rook with a

hand to his chest.

“None of that,” Papa said. “I don’t care what your history is, but

this fellow needs a cast, and I’m giving it to him. Pastor says we look