Casting the Elements
The Meeting Place. TWENTY-THREE.
The weather vane at the peak of the tin roof spun in rickety circles as Val lit the candle next to the small bottle into which some years ago she had pressed some bits of dried rose petals, lavender, a tiger’s eye pebble and an equal measure of baby oil and late-night-movie tears. The tiger’s eye was the only visible remains. A stick of incense jutted up from the lip, its sandalwood smoke snaking into the air like a belly dancer.
Mother of all, remind me of the waves and winds that landed me here. Fuel my actions with wisdom. Become my voice. Val circled her index finger, the one that wore her grandmother’s citrine ring, around the rim of the small bottle, and ended her morning ritual with the truth or dare prayer that was always the same, …and by your grace, may I see her again. For all that is given. And in practiced motion, she smudged a cross of incense ashes on her wrist just where she felt her pulse the strongest.
Phoebe bumped over the dented drainage ditch drum, erosion exposing its form. Come hell or high water, the drum needed to hold. This stretch was in peril of losing its reputation as the best route to the fire road on the yonder side of the river, which depended on the hundred-year-old, one-lane bridge that by OSHA standards should have been shut down years ago. But farmers and poachers and lumberjacks are a stubborn sort who believe a F150 can survive pert’ near anything and never pictured themselves floating down the river one pleasant summer afternoon after a rainstorm.
Luckily Phoebe didn’t have to cross the bridge. Val’s place was west of the river. All she needed was to get to the big cross made of fence posts wrapped in barbed wire. Nobody knew who put it up or why it was there, but it came in handy when giving directions to a place out in the middle of nowhere. Go left at the barbed wire cross, and you’d be at Val’s place. But Phoebe didn’t know any of that. She was going mostly on hunches.
Most folks didn’t want to know what was going on out there. The grocer never asked, nor did the postal workers. The propane delivery man came so early Val never spoke to him and the fisherpeople didn’t come within a quarter mile of her place upstream or down. She assumed there were rumors, but her only evidence was the visit from the preacher, who came and went, carrying an extra bible in his hand.
He was a nearly opaque, peach-faced youth in a perpetual blush who smiled like a belligerent teenager at a family dinner. We like to share the love of the Lord with the neighbors, he always said. And she’d say Why thank you and he’d say the Lord bless you and she’d say Same to you, and that would be that. Sometimes she’d berate herself for not being straightforward and telling him she thought religion was a bullshit plot by the politicians to keep all the power to themselves and the masses in their places — weak, sinful, and in need of a savior. But she knew that wouldn’t be the wisest approach under the circumstances and so she would sweetly wave as he passed the gate. She would watch him as he tramped away toward the barbed wire cross, where he always turned right.
As the weathervane spun and liquid candle wax extinguished the flame, Val replayed the visit from the preacher. How many times had he visited now? Eight? Ten? She asked herself if she could see anything in him that coincided with what was in her. She decided that, yes, they did have something in common. Partners in doubt. Seeing how she was connected to whatever showed up was the most practical way for her to stay alive. She knew that much.
Her mind shifted, like the weather vane. She shivered at her misdeeds and reached for a pencil and her sketchbook and began to write. . .accept the path as your fortune, its uniqueness a miracle in the awakening world where everything is path and everything is answer if you know where you are from: The Infinite Trails of Stories, where consciousness meets consciousness and fashions out of that tales that want to be told.
The sound of an engine purred from down the hill. A Tuesday? Even the preacher didn’t come on Tuesdays. Val lifted the glass door on the top barrister bookcase and reached behind the first editions for her pistol. The rifle was in disrepair, and her procrastination chided her in a “you should know better” kind of way. She always kept the pistol loaded, but with only one bullet. She didn’t want to shoot at anything more than once. Her fate might rest in that philosophy some day, but she had to draw the line somewhere. One bullet was her where.
Before Val got to the fence line, she saw a small red car with an open back window (and were those dog ears?) driving past the cutoff and on down toward the bad bridge beyond which the fire road fizzled out into a hiking path after a half-mile or so. Either Val put on her boots and took the truck out to investigate or kept her presence quiet and watched for a u-turn from here. Which seemed like the best idea at the time.
Minutes passed. A car alarm beeped from afar. The waxing crescent reflected high above. Val watched and waited, Gypsy and Lucille at attention on the porch.
VAAAAALLLLL? VAAALLLLLL? VAAALLLLL! I know you’re out here somewhere!” A shadowy form was nearing the cross on foot, dogs leashed on either side. A woman? Shouting Val’s name?
The apple trees at the fence line were giving Val cover. “Who’s there?” she yelled meekly. She didn’t talk much these days and had lost the will to raise her voice. She decided a signal would be better than a shout and lifted the oil lamp she kept in a can near the gate along with a baby food jar of matches and a torn piece of sandpaper. Light!
“Oh, thank god!” the woman hollered. “Here I come!”
Val couldn’t decipher much of anything except for the sneaking suspicion that the weather vane had been trying to tell her something.
The Meeting Place note: New characters have appeared, so I’ll be tracking them here. Check out earlier companion posts to this one. The Meeting Place is a jigsaw of fictional vignettes hosting several female characters destined to cross paths. The series began with The Meeting Place. ONE. (May 12, 2022).
