Not Flesh Nor Feathers (Eden Moore 3)

He hoped it was an ambulance—something headed for the hospital just over the river. Not a fire engine, not yet. Let it burn. Let it get going good, and let it spread. It wouldn’t take the whole place down, but it might do enough damage to set back the opening.

It might give him time. He needed time to gather proof, or to wear Eden down. The other two wouldn’t have the nerve to come with him, and they wouldn’t know what to do with proof if it bit them on the ass. But Eden would know. If he could show her, she’d understand.

At least he hoped so.

7

Unwilling Family

Even though it was a pain in the ass, I decided to do Macon as a daytrip. The local news was predicting nasty weather over the weekend, and Malachi and Harry would be here then anyway.

Great. We’d be stormed in together.

Lu and Dave would be delighted.

If I didn’t seek out Eliza soon, it might be weeks before I could make it down again—and when the object of my road trip was a bitchy old crone over a hundred years old, it didn’t make sense to wait any longer than absolutely necessary. I didn’t warn her I was coming either, lest she spontaneously die from pure spite.

Instead, I woke up at the crack of dawn and left a note for my aunt and uncle that said, “Short road trip to Georgia. Back tonight. Call cell if overwhelmed with fretfulness. ” I hoped they’d assume I’d gone down to Atlanta or Athens for a concert or some other event. Like Mr. Spock used to say, “Never lie when you can misdirect. ”

Tatie Eliza is family—exactly the sort of family that you only approach as a last resort, and even then, she probably wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. She’s my great-great-aunt, or something like that. The family relationships are a little convoluted that far down the tree, and Eliza likes to pretend that no one on my branch ever existed.

She’s the daughter of a carpetbagger who moved to Macon after the war, and she’s half-sister to my grandfather Avery, give or take a “great” or three. Avery’s the same grandfather who tried to kill me once, tried to kill us all: me and Lu and every blood relative who came before us, after him. He’s the one who gave me this gift of his, and challenged me to live with it. At the time I thought nothing of it, but now I’m not so sure.

And now, if I correctly read between the lines of Harry’s hesitant help, it sounded like the scheming old matriarch must be dying at last. It was hard to believe. I never loved her and I won’t miss her, but she seemed eternal. Nothing that hates so damn hard can pass away easily. It takes a certain brand of tenacity to harbor and nurture such a whole-body grudge.

I once joked to her that Lu and I were the niggers in her family woodpile, and if it hadn’t been perfectly true, she might have laughed. But skin color is no laughing matter to an old white woman like her, especially one who’s the daughter of a scalawag. Fitting in must have been hard enough on her before she knew about us.

I wondered, sometimes, if that’s why Avery had stayed in touch with her all those years—if that’s why he’d kept her medicated with his elixir. He didn’t have to. He must have done it because he wanted to.

Maybe he wanted her to stop hating him.

Or maybe he was just lonely, or bored, or he liked having a feeling of power over her. Family is so complicated, even under the most mundane of circumstances. I don’t think I’ll ever sort out the intricacies of my own.

But that doesn’t stop me from trying, sometimes—like when I invite my half-brother to come up and visit, even though it means my aunt and uncle may well drop dead of simultaneous coronaries. Jesus, I hope they understand.

But I bet they won’t.

The drive to Macon took three hours, but finding Eliza’s house again took me another thirty minutes because I’d forgotten how far out in the boonies it was.

I pulled into the big, semicircular driveway in front of the Georgian brick house, then stood on the stoop for a few seconds gathering the nerve to ring the bell. The paint on the doorframe was peeling and the little windows on the door were cloudy. Eliza might have nurse aids on staff, but I doubted she’d found a replacement for Harry, whose service was terminated when he tied her up in the dining room and helped me ransack the house.

I finally jammed my thumb into the button. It stuck as if the corrosion had crusted it into place, but then slipped and sank. Deep within the house I heard a low gonging noise.

Through the clouded door pane, I saw a swiftly moving figure, coming my way in a light-colored outfit with a dark sweater.

The heavy old door swung inward, and I found myself looking down at a small woman wearing a brown bun and a glum, irritable expression. Her casual scrubs had rainbows and teddy bears on them.

“Can I help you?” she asked, in a voice that implied she didn’t have any real intention of helping me whatsoever, because she had her hands full already, thank you very much.

“I know I’m unannounced, but I’m here hoping to have a chat with Eliza Dufresne. I understand she’s in ill health—”

The nurse ducked her head away and mumbled something that might have been, “Not ill enough. ” She shrugged at me and said so I could hear her plainly, “Come inside, then. ” She stood aside and held the door open.

I followed after her and she slapped the door shut behind us. “Are you—are you one of her caretakers?”

“Yes. ”

“How’s she doing these days? We haven’t spoken in a while, but—”