“Boy, you every woman’s dream, agreeing with whatever fall out of her mouth.”
“I try.”
“Give me a second,” she said. “I’ll give you something that’ll put a spring in your step, maybe your trousers too.” She cackled again and shuffled up into the cabin. She returned with an old tin cup, plumes of steam pouring out the top. She handed it to him. “Careful, now. It’s hot.”
He took it and looked at it. The fluid it held was thick and brown-green and smelled strongly of mint and herbs. “What is it?”
“Pine needle tea. With mint. And wormwood. All sorts of good shit. It’s my sister’s recipe. Give it a whirl, you been freezing for God knows how long, I can tell. It lets you know you’re alive, white boy.”
He blew on it and sipped. As it dripped down his throat his insides turned cold and hot all at once. He breathed out and it burned but seemed to burn away the fatigue as well.
“God,” he said. “It’s… it’s…”
“It’s awful,” she said cheerfully. “I said it was good for you, I never said it tasted good. Things that’s good for you are never fun to swallow. Ain’t that the way,” she said to herself. “Ain’t that the way.”
She shuffled back down to the creek and picked up her basket of clothes with a grunt. Connelly rose to help her.
“Oh, sit down,” she scolded. “You in worse shape than me. Them clothes are all that’s holding you up and there ain’t much of those, neither. ’Sides, I need the exercise.”
She strung a line from the window of the house to the cedar across from it and draped her clothes over it, humming tunelessly. She stepped back, brushed her hands, and nodded in satisfaction. Then she turned to Connelly and looked at him with a keen eye.
“You been causing some serious trouble, ain’t you?” she said.
Connelly did not answer. He readied himself to run if he could and attack if he had to.
“Oh, come on now,” scoffed the old woman. “I just served you some damn good tea. Secret recipe, too. I don’t waste that on just anyone.”
“How did you know?”
“Smoke told me,” she said with a grin, and she gestured toward the chimney. “Rose on up into the sky, looked over the mountain and said, ‘Say, old Nina, I see a lot of hubbub down south of here and there’s a man coming your way carrying a lot of trouble.’ ” Her grin faded. “A lot of trouble,” she repeated solemnly.
“Yeah,” said Connelly. “I know.”
“That’s just it, ain’t it? You don’t,” she said. “Here, come on up to the house, boy. We’ll let my clothes dry and we’ll get you close to a fire. You can rummage the junk heap too, if you want. Try to find shoes. Come on.”
The old woman led the way, clucking whenever Connelly tried to help her up. As she opened her front door she shouted, “Dexy, we got company!”
“Oh?” said a voice even older than Nina’s. He rounded the corner. A shrunken old woman sat in an overstuffed chair before a guttering fire. She was so bent double her chin almost touched her chest. In her lap she was doing her best to crochet but her knuckles and wrists were swollen with arthritis. She was blacker even than Nina, her skin like cracked volcanic glass at the edges of her eyes. She stared into Connelly’s waist, then grunted and looked up at him. She worked her lips, tonguing her toothless gums, and said, “Good gods, you’re a big one. I don’t know what they fed you but they fed you too much of it.”
“He’s been starved, Dexy,” said Nina.
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah. Wandered on out of the woods like a wild child. Raised by wolves, maybe.”
“No. He looks wolfish but he’s got a boy’s eyes,” said Dexy.
Nina grunted noncommittally, like she disagreed but would not argue.
“Here, sit you down, boy,” said Dexy. “There ain’t a chair here can hold you, but just sit down on the floor if that’s all right.”
“I’ve sat and slept on worse,” said Connelly.
“That I believe,” said Nina.
The cabin was large and shabby but still comfortable. The stone floor was cracking but laid well and the rafters were kept clean of cobwebs. Three chairs sat around the fire, the empty ones on either side of Dexy. Each was made for little old ladies. On the opposite wall were three doors, two open and leading to bedrooms, the third slightly closed and the inside dark.
“Your tea is good,” said Connelly. “I had some.”
“Oh, flattery,” Dexy said, but she smiled. “Flattery. That will get you anything. What do you need, young man?”
“Just, well… I came up, and…”
“Oh, you don’t have to say no more,” she fussed. “Nina, this boy needs to eat.”
“Well. I guess I’ll feed him, if that’s the way it’s going to be,” said Nina grudgingly, and went to the kitchen.
“Here,” Dexy said to him. She held out a melted lump of wax with a small bit of wick swimming in the center. “Here, take this candle and light it in the fire, if you don’t mind. My damn eyes ain’t worth a lick anymore.”
Connelly did so, using a thin branch as a match. He set it on the table beside her and she fiddled with her crochet halfheartedly.
“I used to be so damn good at this,” she said. “Only thing that’s worse than a thing that don’t work is a thing that almost works.” She dropped her needles, sighed, and raised her head up to the ceiling in despair.
“Mind if I ask you a question?” asked Connelly.
“Oh, probably. But go on ahead if you want.”
“What are you all doing out here? It must be miles from anything.”
She grunted, turning the question over. Then she said, “Knitting.”
“Knitting?”
“Yeah. Well, that’s alls I do, at least.”
“You moved out to the woods to knit?”
“Most days it seems like I’ve always been here,” she said. “But then, it may just be my age.”
Nina came out and served him cold chicken and cornmeal. She left to get him a fork and when she returned he had already eaten most of it with his hands.
“Lord, I said you was starving, but I didn’t realize you was dead on your feet,” she said. She sat on Dexy’s right and pulled a shawl about her shoulders.
He took the fork from her. He had not used one in a very long time and it took some remembering.
“Hold it like a pencil,” said Nina.
“Been even longer since I held a pencil,” said Connelly, but he tried. The two old women watched him eat.
“Boy’s been living on the edges a while now, Nina,” said Dexy in her frail little voice.
“Ain’t that so. Long time.”
“He went out there himself and now he don’t know where he’s going.”
“No idea at all. I agree.”
Connelly looked up and saw the two old women were watching him, Nina no longer cackling, Dexy’s face no longer old and confused anymore. In the firelight they could have been carved from wood.
“What?” said Connelly.
“Hmm. Lookie here,” Nina said. “The knight errant, wandering through the forest, a-questing. Olden days he’d be cantering on a white horse. Not no more.”
“Not at all,” said Dexy. “Things change.” They looked him up and down, studying him as though he was some strange anomaly. They did not seem so old now, or so fragile.
“What’s going on?” said Connelly.
“You think we don’t know your type?” said Dexy. “We seen your type before. If we lined up all the men like you we seen, why, it’d stretch all the way down the river.”
“The man on a quest,” said Nina almost condescendingly. “Venturing out to slay the beast.”
“What monster you hunting, white boy?” Dexy asked. “What demon is it you seek to slay?”
