The Brand Ch. 12

"Did you have any of the food brought in last night?" asked Cassie.

"I did." Answered Vance, "I had a big piece of cake. It was really good cake."

Vance watched one of Cassie's eye brows rise slightly, then he turned to see Peebles glaring at him.

"Seriously." He continued; once again caught in the rip tide of his little sister's blind ambition, "Superb cake. You don't think there's anything; illegal in it, do you?"

14

The first transfer took place in the garage bays of Douglas's funeral home as the sun rise conjured fog from the high banks of snow around the parking lot. The brunette and the raven haired Irish wheeled John Doe to a rented moving van parked in the next bay. Locking the corpse inside, the two women regarded one another before finally exchanging kisses and a strong embrace. Irish stepped away from the moving van as the brunette got in to the driver's side. The passenger seat was occupied. But, as the brunette started the engine, the other slid into the van's rear.

The figure hunkered down and knelt by the massive body. Then, as the van was put in reverse and guided out of the bay, the figure tugged the sheet away from the corpse. Next, with some effort, the figure pushed the body onto its side, fished a hand along the seam down its back, and then proceeded to unzip. At first, only the white and light blue of hospital bed clothing was visible. Then the material rippled and John Doe's flesh buckled. In the next instant, a slender arm emerged, and the figure was offered a very long and slender middle finger.

"Yeah, but it worked, didn't it?" said the finger's intended as the van rumbled onto the highway.

"Pam; what the fuck were you thinking!?!" exclaimed Victria as she gently pulled Melody up from the hole in the costume.

"Well you wanted unconventional." Pam answered; taking a seat on the van's floor, "I was a hit in that costume three Halloween's ago. What's a matter? You couldn't get any air through those straws we stuck into fat man's nostrils?"

"It was fucking cold Pam! We were in a morgue freezer for like four hours."

"It wasn't a freezer." The driver interjected, "It was a refrigerator."

"Who the Hell is that?" asked Victria as she gathered the blankets more closely around Melody.

"That's one of your rescuers my dear, a major player in this little game of yours. She runs my restaurant up in Concord. Glory? Say hi to Victria."

"Hi there." Said Glory as she switched lanes.

"I still can't believe how well it worked," Pam continued, "And with having only one person on the inside."

The vegan restauranteur related how she'd dated a very unassuming little hacker, and how she'd called in a favor. That took care of breaking into the GHG system records database so that Victria's, Melody's and John Doe's discharges could be handled. Then there was Glory's friend Irene, Irish, who scene regularly with a woman, who scene not so regularly with another lady who works in the hospital's Environmental Services Center, where all the building's linens and surgical equipment were cleaned.

With little coordination, her own staff knowing absolutely nothing about the plan, Pam's people set the food on two tables, draped to the floor with linen, that went in, and then removed the food from the same tables; under which both Victria and Melody were then transported to the environmental Center, where they were sealed inside Pam's John Doe costume, and then rolled into the morgue, where he was tagged and set aside to cool.

"What the Hell did you put in the food Pam?" asked Victria as she dragged herself out of the latex costume.

"Hey, I thought you said keep it cheap and no questions asked."

Pam reached for a duffle bag behind her, and then tossed it to Victria.

"What was in the food Pam?" Victria asked again as she unzipped the bag and started to pull out fresh clothes.

"Shit Victria! We didn't drug all the food. It was just the cakes we laced with a little, oh; gamma-hydroxybutyric acid."

Victria's eyes went wide.

"Jesus Holy Christ Pam; Ecstasy?"

Pam and Glory suddenly roared with laughter.

"Chill Charpentier!" said Pam, "Hey beautiful? Tell the lady what you put in the cakes."

"Let's see," Glory intoned, "Uh; passion flower, ashwaganda, schisandra, which, if mass marketed here in the U.S., would put Pfizer out of business, uh; I left out California poppy since I didn't know if anyone was pregnant, I put in lots of lavender, my own lemon balm vodka, a little Saint John's Wort, a good dose of Valerian, some skullcap and a good amount of chamomile; of course."

"Most of that will be a part of your treatment plans," said Pam as she helped Victria get dressed, "Once you're settled up north."

"Where up north?" asked Victria as she poked her head through a heavy wool sweater.

"At Grandmother's." replied Glory.

A sea of thought churned in Victria's mind. Trust, just as control, wasn't something she gave up to anyone. If it wasn't for Pam, though asking for her help in the first place presented its own leap of faith, Victria would have likely been restrained again and they'd have never gotten out of the hospital. As she dressed, Victria glanced at Melody, her mind still churning around an image of her, with two scallop shells covering her breasts and a long mermaid's tail flowing behind her, propelling herself high above the frothing waves.

There was nothing that could stop Victria from imagining a hale and hearty Melody. She could paint her or sculpt her out of clay. But, the truth lay before her; beached, spoiled and sad. At the moment, and for possibly a good while longer, she was still silent, deeply withdrawn and inert. As Victria helped Pam attack the problem of cleaning and dressing Melody, she wondered if that was the kind of thing her love was watching inside her own head, an image of freedom, something positive and serene. Or, was it pure darkness, the same torturous film bite playing over and over; her confinement perpetually secured, the key ever dangling far out of her reach.

Pam and Victria worked in tandem to support Melody's ungiven weight, wiped the urine from her, and then put her into a fresh diaper. Pam, having turned solemn during the process, listened as Victria spoke directly to Melody while she finished dressing her; explaining that she'd been let go from the firm, but how that was okay because she was going to start her own company and that Melody would be the one overseeing its day to day operations. You just watch. You just wait and see baby.

Grandmother's was the final destination, in southern Vermont, another nineteen miles beyond the last transfer in Putney. There, at the rental place, Pam and Glory eased the most expensive part of the plan from the van: a motorized wheel chair with a radio control, and then loaded it into the back of Glory's Nissan Murano. As the tall woman carried other supplies, and then Melody into the vehicle, Pam helped Victria put on her knee braces. Once they were secured, Pam tried to help her out of the back of the van, but Victria gently pushed her away. Pam shrugged, and then reached into the van and pulled out a set of crutches.

"You know," Pam said; not looking directly at Victria as she sized each crutch for her friend's height, "It's hard to know what to say to you. I mean; I know you don't want me to say I'm sorry or that I admire you or that I really wish I knew where you are in your head right now-"

"I am here and now in my head right now Pam. Okay? I am now an ever present thinker; no past and no future."

"Yeah, but you basically told Melody that the future looked bright."

"I was having a conversation, in the present. Being in now, to me, is like being a part of the future happening live."

Victria took one of the crutches. In silence, Pam looked on as her friend adjusted it and tried it again.

"You killed three men Victria." Said Pam as she readjusted the other crutch, "That has to be doing something to you."

Victria leveled a hard look at Pam. Ghosts crowded behind her eyes; Simon, Rancourt, Duffy, her masked invaders, the unmasked man pointing his gun at Melody and Yazmina. Pam met the stare, and still hadn't looked away after she handed Victria the other crutch.

"I stick to my decisions Pam." Victria intoned, "I go with my gut. And I know you won't believe me, but it wasn't me that made sure those guns came into my home. I mean; I used to believe in free will, but I don't anymore, not really. I'm never in control, ever. I'm just the physical agent to my own construction or undoing. If I had willfully chosen not to buy those fire arms, I can't say whether Melody and I would be alive today. In that moment to moment, I had to trust the unknown, and so I had to kill those men. I'd didn't feel because I couldn't. I don't regret it because I can't."

They remained standing there, eyes locked, Victria; solemn and implacable, Pam; still searching for even the slightest crack or fracture of misgiving. Presently, both women heard the sound of someone crunching gravel and advancing toward them. It was Pam that looked first at Glory. Victria followed, having to crane her neck to look into the woman's face.

"We have to get going." Said the tall, mysterious, brunette.

Pam and Victria walked together in silence. Victria appeared to be pain free as she hobbled to the Murano's passenger side. Pam opened the door and took her friend's crutches. As Pam stowed them in the back of the vehicle, Victria sat along the side of her seat, and then leaned down to remove her knee braces. Pam then opened the back seat, crawled in to look at Melody once more, and then gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. Then, returning to Victria, she watched as she pulled one leg in, and then the other. Again, they stared in silence. Suddenly, Pam lunged to Victria, embraced her, kissed her hard on the mouth, leaned back, and then shut the passenger door.

Nineteen miles later, Victria, Melody and Glory were in a radio part of Rockingham. Like the terrain on that fateful trip with Simon, asphalt had turned to gravel and then turned again to rutted dirt. At the end of the woodland road stood a cabin, a plume of grey smoke rising from its grey stone and mortar chimney. It was flanked by rows of cord wood on the left and a great chicken coop on the right. No less than eight or so dogs of varying breed had bounded from the cabin. Their master followed silently after them. But, instead of following them to Glory's vehicle, the figure walked toward the chickens clucking and scratching inside their pen.

Grandmother glanced once at them, directly into Victria's eyes, and seemed to stare right through her. The old woman stood tall and strong, like a tree, her face cut with the grain, weathered skin and sun baked brown of bare wood. Victria thought she could have blended in with the surrounding trees if she first hadn't seen her standing before the coop. Her hair fell like long grey moss, the black bark of her dress, worn and ragged, limbs like wiry ropes of solid muscle.

She was Glory's grandmother, but for the moment, that's all she knew, and that's all she would know. Grandmother didn't talk. Glory said she was self-actualized. There was nothing left for her to say. So all she did was; do, prepare meals, fetch wood, tend the fire and be surrounded by the half dozen or so dogs that came in and out of the cabin as they pleased.

Grandmother was a witch, Victria was sure of it; toad stools and eye of newt kept somewhere in the bottom drawers of her early 1960 Frigidaire, the kind with the softly curved futuristic inspired corners. Victria remembered seeing such things in those old re-runs she'd watch with Vance: The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Bewitched. They'd used to argue over who was hotter; the chick from Bewitched or the one from I Dream of Jeanie. Oh Christ, this lady isn't going to own a TV, is she?

"You'll have everything you need." Said Glory as she carried supplies into the cabin; the steam of her words rising away into the cold Vermont air, "Everything I know about herbal medicine came from Grandmother. Learned all about cooking from her too. You're in good hands."

As Victria played with the radio remote to Melody's motorized wheel chair, making her anxiety stupored lover go in wide circles, she glanced at the old woman's hands as she flung feed among her chickens; thick, meaty claws, pocked with liver spots and cracked dry skin.

"What does Grandmother shoot?" Victria asked.

"Shoot?" Glory repeated.

"Everyone up here has got something to protect themselves with." Continued Victria, "All these coyotes and black bears roaming around,"

Glory stopped to regard Victria. Victria looked up to face her and parked Melody at the foot of the make-shift ramp the old woman had constructed for her guests.

"Grandmother has an understanding with nature and nature has an understanding with her."

I knew it, thought Victria as she stared at Glory from behind the steam fog of her own breathing, she's a witch alright. The tall brunette betrayed no expression as she returned to her duties. Probably a witch too, all casting spells and shit. Victria hobbled to Melody, gazed into her lifeless eyes, and then kissed her sweetly on the mouth. From her place beside her love, Victria surveyed their location. They were on the summit of a high hill, tall pines, winter naked maples and oaks, birch and sycamore, all surrounded in a thick blanket of snow, otherwise broken only by the frozen mud strip of the access road and the thousands of crisscrossed dog trails.

There, she knew she was to remain with Melody, Grandmother and the dogs. For how long, Victria did not know. Time was her new luxury. She knew its abundance was hers, once she'd woken back up to life in the hospital, it then becoming even more profuse after her final conversation with Cheevers. Yet, was it on her side or would it lead her and Melody into stagnation. Victria winced as the wind changed direction, sending the bitter reek of chicken shit across her face. She decided. She would take the time, hide from the world as she recovered in it. She needed to think. She needed the time to get better, time for Melody to get better, to get right. Victria felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning, she looked up into Glory's handsome, unsmiling, face.

"I'll be back in a few weeks." She said; her hand still on Victria's shoulder as she turned to look toward her right.

Victria followed her line of sight. The old woman was gathering eggs, her apron full of them. Most of the dogs were mingling beyond the pen. They didn't seem eager to Victria to get a chance to sneak inside, but rather to be closest to Grandmother when she came back out. In that instant, Glory dropped her hand from Victria's shoulder. Again, their eyes met.

"If you think she's not listening, she is." Glory continued, "Speak only out of respect. Take her direction. Help when you can. Stay out of the way when you can't. She is holy."

Then Glory jutted her chin at the cabin, and said:

"And this is her sanctuary, and yours and Melody's sanctuary."

Victria stared up into Glory's eyes. God, she was tall, she mused, six and half feet at least. Then she watched Grandmother, her apron heavy, bundling eggs, hike the steps behind Glory, her rescuer.

"Come on." The tall woman said, "Let's get your friend inside, warm her up by the fire."

Glory took a position behind Melody's chair and took the radio remote from Victria's hand. The ramp worked fine. Victria carefully followed, her arms strong from physical therapy, but her legs in pins and needles up to her thighs. Eventually, she'd made it safely into the cabin without falling. Glory had parked the chair just inside the cabin's heavy oak door, and she'd set Melody in an old easy chair opposite the old woman's hearth. Victria saw that one of the smaller dogs, a puppy, something broad headed, with short black hair on its sides and leopard print along its back, had curled up in her lap. It eyed Victria, and then barked sharply. Really, she thought. You will not be sleeping between us, you ratty little cur.

Glory told Grandmother she was leaving. They embraced for a time, until the old woman ended it with a soft kiss to Glory's forehead and a gentle shove away. The tall woman smiled, and then turned to face Melody. She hunkered down at her feet. The puppy on her lap pranced excitedly and licked Glory's face as she peered up into Melody's eyes. Victria looked on, her forehead breaking a sweat from the heat in the room, her effort getting up the ramp and from the pain in her legs. She watched Glory search Melody's eyes and brush the hair back away from her face. Sighing, the tall woman rose, and then headed toward the door. She stopped beside Victria, and lingered there for a moment. Victria gave her a severe look. Perhaps it was a bit much, her rudeness, to stare challengingly, but what did she have to lose? Would the woman kick her feet out from under her? No, not in front of Grandmother. Glory's look held its own severity, tempered with warmth and confidence. She gave Victria a very small smile then, and said:

"Every one of us has a poison they need to purge from their heart. I hope that happens for you here; for her sake as well, I hope."

Victria watched the tall woman take two steps backwards, turn around, cross the room, and then shut the great wooden door behind her. Man, she thought, everyone is so God damn smart, aren't they? Victria glanced at Grandmother, then at the fire. The heat; the heat was getting too much. Suddenly, Victria needed desperately to get off her feet, to be off her crutches, to get out of her braces, to stop the sweating. It was then the dark came, like a soft explosion, an implosion, falling, shaking, hands groping, feet kicking, like pushing against the give inside thick plastic, the feel of water behind it, sinking, drowning, darker, darkness; gone.