I followed along behind. She swept the parlor and the dining room. She swept the downstairs bath, and the kitchen and the hallway. When we got to Ella Kate's closed bedroom door, I held my fingers to my lips, to gesture that we should be quiet. Lynda nodded knowingly, and swept vigorously around the entire door frame.
She started for the stairway. I paused, and then decided not to stop her. After all, maybe the house did have some negative ions. It wouldn't hurt to let my mother chase them away.
Lynda did a repeat of her downstairs ritual, spending extra time in Ella Kate's old bedroom. Her eyes widened when she saw the stacks of furniture and knickknacks, but she said nothing. Apparently silence was an important part of the ceremony. She swept my own room too, even going so far as to open the closet door and all the windows, giving them a vigorous going-over.
She swept back down the upstairs hallway, and then down the stairs. Finally, she swept her way into the kitchen. She stopped only to open the kitchen door wide, at which point she made one last, huge, grand sweep out the door.
Satisfied, she closed the door and smiled. "There now."
She glanced over at me. "Match please."
I found the box of wooden kitchen matches in a drawer by the back door and handed her the box.
"Light it please," she said. I did.
"Now, light the herbs," she instructed. Again, I did as she asked, holding the match to the end of the leafy sticks. It took a moment, but soon a thread of white smoke wafted off the herbs, and the room filled with an earthy, tangy scent.
"What, exactly, are we doing?" I asked, staying well away from the burning weeds.
She didn't answer. Lynda walked out into the hallway, and I followed. She waved the smoking sticks in a triangular pattern around the front door, humming tunelessly. She waved the herbs in front of the windows, and around the doorway to the parlor. She stooped down low and left a trail of white smoke along the baseboards, and she stood on her tiptoes and let the smoke rise ceilingward. She walked and hummed and waved the burning herbs in every room of the house, and I followed her, eventually managing to echo, in some fashion, the melody of her tuneless tune.
When she'd smoked the house out to her complete satisfaction, she went back into the parlor. She knelt down, and tenderly placed the smouldering broom on the grate in the fireplace.
She took another deep breath of the herbal smoke. I did the same. She gave me a blissful smile. "Much better, don't you think?"
"I guess. Anyway, what did we just do here?"
"Dempsey? You've never done a purification before? Followed by a smudge?"
"Afraid not," I said. "You know how Dad is. What were those herbs you were burning?"
"Just the usual," she said. "Sage, of course. You don't do a smudge without sage. Plus cedar, lavender, mint, rosemary, dill, parsley. Ordinarily I use fennel too, but the Whole Foods in my neighborhood was out. I gathered everything last night, at dusk, which is my serene time. And let me tell you, after that FBI agent showed up at my house, I haven't had a lot of serenity. The tree branch was from my favorite olive tree in the garden. I've been saving it for something special. I didn't have a lot of particulars about what all was going on with you and this Alex Hodder person, so my visualization wasn't quite as detailed as I would have liked, but I think I managed to work it all out."
"You visualized my situation?" I was touched. My mother and I were so very different, and we'd been apart for so long, and I'd been so independent for so long, it hadn't occurred to me that she ever worried about me.
"Of course," Lynda said, tenderly brushing my cheek with the side of her thumb. "I'm your mother, silly girl. I visualize you every night, the last thing before I close my eyes to go to sleep. Didn't you know that?"
I shook my head, too touched, for a moment, to say anything. "How did you visualize me last night?"
She thought about it. "You were laughing, like you did when you were a baby. Silvery peals of laughter. You weren't troubled or worried. You were happy. Healed. Whole. And, sweetheart?"
"Yes?"
"You weren't dressed like one of the Beverly Hillbillies."
I looked down at my overalls and paint-spattered Chuck Taylors. "Gotcha. I'll try and do better next time."
She gave me an air kiss, and linked her arm through mine. "As part of the visualization, I went shopping. Wait until you see what I bought you."
We were headed up the stairs, each of us carrying one of Lynda's suitcases, when we heard a door open behind us.
Thump. Drag. Thump. Drag. Ella Kate's walker, and then her head, emerged from her doorway.
She stood in the hallway and sniffed, suspiciously.
"Dempsey!" she called.
"Right here, Ella Kate," I said, leaning over the banister so she could see me.
"I seen that woman gettin' out of that fancy Cadillac," she announced. "And I heard some kinda heathen humming, and then I smelled smoke!"
"It's all right, Ella Kate," I said with a laugh. "My mom is here. For a little visit."
The old woman's eyes narrowed. "That one. Lynda. Spelled with a y instead of an i. She's the one who run your daddy off, ain't she?"
Lynda hung her head over the banister and gave Ella Kate a friendly wave. "Hi, Ella Kate. I hope we didn't disturb you. I was just doing a little purification smudge."
"Smudge," Ella Kate said. "I'm old, but I'm not ignorant. I know that mary-ju-wanna stuff when I smell it. You better take that weed of yours right back to California where you came from, unless you wanna get them FBI agents back here with a pair of handcuffs."
"No, no," Lynda said, laughing. "It's nothing illegal. Just herbs. Sage. Rosemary. Cedar. It's all very healing. I heard you've been a little under the weather lately."
"Under the weather," Ella Kate sniffed. "I got a broke hip and breast cancer. I guess some people might call that under the weather. I call it sick and dying." She fanned her hand in front of her face. "Herbs, my aunt Fanny." She looked up at me meaningfully.
"She ain't fixin' to stay, is she?"
Lynda looked at me expectantly.
"Afraid so, Ella Kate," I said. "She's here for the duration."
55.
I spent Friday getting Lynda settled in.
When I woke up Saturday morning, the sun was shining brightly through the windows of Norbert's old room. I sat up on the sagging mattress, and yawned and stretched. The first thing I noticed was, for the first time in a long time, I didn't have a knot of dread in my stomach. The second thing I noticed was the strong scent of fresh-brewed coffee.
I jumped up and headed for the shower. Maybe there was something to this purification and visualization thing after all. Here I was. Whole. Happy. Healthy. And I had my mother to thank for it. Didn't I?
After my shower, I padded back to my new room, where I found just how far Lynda's visualization project could go. She'd made up my bed, and laid out a new set of clothing for me, consisting of a pair of white cashmere leggings and a midriff-baring, off-the-shoulder pink cashmere sweater. Being Lynda, she'd thoughtfully accessorized the clothing with a filmy pink-and-orange silk scarf, oversize pink hoop earrings, and a pair of pink crocodile Miu Miu flats. She'd even provided me with what she thought of as proper undergarments: a pale pink lacy push-up bra, and the tiniest pink lace thong panties I'd ever seen.
The outfit would have been perfect for a well-dressed high school girl's trip to the mall. I hesitated, and then gamely struggled into the ensemble, which was clearly meant for someone a size smaller. She was my mother, and she meant well, didn't she?
When I got downstairs, Lynda was sitting at the kitchen table, a pair of needle-nose pliers in one hand, a thin circlet of gold wire in the other. She was dressed in pale yellow yoga togs, and a jeweler's magnifying headset rode low on her forehead as she painstakingly threaded a small ivory-colored fragment onto the wire.
"Mom?"
She looked up, taking in my new outfit, and beamed. "Don't you look adorable! I hope you don't mind. I saw those things at a little boutique in Malibu and they just screamed, 'Dempsey.' You like?"
"Oh, sure," I lied, trying to suck in my now-bared tummy.
She went back to work, and I wandered over to the coffeepot. I poured myself a cup of coffee, and hesitated before adding a dollop of half-and-half. I wouldn't have pegged my mother as an early riser, but she'd obviously been up and busy for some time. The plywood countertops were littered with small baskets. Each held a different color and variety of bead, jewel, or unidentifiable chunk. A black plastic tackle box was open, and tools and gold and silver jewelry findings glittered from their individual compartments. A pan of muffins sat on top of the stove and the scent of cinnamon wafted through the room.
"Help yourself," Lynda murmured. "Apple oat bran. And don't worry. They're vegan."
"Thanks anyway, but I'm not," I said. I picked up a muffin, sliced it in half and buttered it, and popped a piece in my mouth. "Yum," I said.
"Organic Yakima Valley applesauce. No sugar added," she said meaningfully. She slid a small gold hook onto the end of her necklace, made a looping knot, and snipped off the excess wire.
"There," she said, holding the necklace up for inspection. "What do you think?"
I walked over to get a closer look. The piece was threaded with a variety of off-looking dirty ivory chunks, interspersed with what looked like beads of semiprecious turquoise, coral, and jade. The beads were strung in graduated size, with a walnut-size object hanging from a pendant in the middle.
"It's different," I said, touching the beads with my fingertip. "What are these ivory-colored things?"
"Rattlesnake vertebrae," she said brightly. "Aren't they amazing?"
I jerked my hand back quickly. "What about the thing in the middle? It's not-"
"A tiny little snake skull," Lynda said, cradling the thing reverently in her hand. "Have you ever seen anything so awesome in your life?"
"Uh, no," I said, moving over to the sink, where I proceeded to wash my hands with soap and scalding water. "How do you happen to have a rattlesnake skeleton? Did they let you on the plane with that thing?"
"Oh, I didn't bring it with me," Lynda said brightly. "I found it on my walk this morning. I was actually hoping to find some headlight glass or metal fragments. I thought, this is the South, they love to crash cars down here. But I walked for at least two miles, and all I found were some mashed-up beer cans and discarded condoms."
"You didn't-"
She wrinkled her nose. "What kind of freak do you take me for? Of course not. Latex is not my medium at all. I was really pretty bummed out when I got back here. But then, just as I was coming up the driveway, I spotted something off in the shrubbery. Something white, and I thought at first it was a bird's egg. Which would have been very cool. Very organic. But this! A snake skeleton. It just blew me away."
"Yeah," I said, shuddering. "It blows me away too, thinking that there was a rattlesnake right out here on the edge of the driveway."
"You don't have a snake phobia, Dempsey, do you?" she asked sternly. "I would hope no daughter of mine would be afraid of such a fascinating creature. Have you ever really studied a snake's skin? Really stopped to appreciate its beauty and symmetry?"
"Nope," I said, taking another bite of muffin. "Actually, I've never gotten close enough to any kind of snake to appreciate anything about it. When I even hear the word 'snake' I run the other way."
"Pity," Lynda said. She rummaged around in the materials spread out on the table until she found a small silken bag. She dropped the snake necklace inside and closed its drawstring.
"When did you start making jewelry from reptiles?" I asked.
"Oh, my work has been moving in this direction for some time now," she said, getting up and going to the refrigerator. She took out a small carton and poured herself a glass of muddy-looking glop.
"Wheatgrass juice," she said, smacking her lips. "Full of antioxidants. Would you like some? I brought plenty."
"No, no. I'm good with just the coffee. Which, by the way, is great. Thanks for making it for me."
"I remembered what a coffee fiend you always were," Lynda said. She began putting her tools and findings back in the tackle box.
"Lynda?" I said. "Will somebody actually buy a necklace like that?"
She smiled serenely. "I have a client in Santa Fe, as well as jewelry shops in Palm Beach and Beverly Hills who will buy every piece I can make. Last month? I did a bracelet from tiger's eye and bits of raccoon bone. Exquisite, if I may brag a little on myself. It sold for six, and if I'd had ten of them, I could have sold nine more."
"Six...hundred?" I asked incredulously. "For real?"
"Six thousand, silly," Lynda said.
"Where, uh, do you get something like raccoon bone?" I asked warily. "I mean, you don't actually kill them yourself?"
"Demspey Jo Killebrew!" Lynda said, putting down her empty wheatgrass glass. "Of course not. I would never kill an animal. I'm a vegan. If you ever came to visit us in California, you'd appreciate where we live. It's in a canyon. There are hawks and coyotes, and lots of wildlife. I'm quite the hiker. I pick things up myself, and then I have a nice network of people who know the kinds of things I'm always looking for."
"So, you're sort of a bounty hunter?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'd forgotten what a concrete thinker you are. Like your father, I suppose. And no, I'm not a bounty hunter. I'm an artist. Did you happen to see that piece about my spring collection in the January issue of Vogue?"
"Sorry," I said. "Vogue, huh? I had no idea your jewelry was such a success." I gave her a quick hug. "I'm proud of you, Mama."
"I'm proud of you too, precious," she said, "but please don't call me that. Lynda is fine. Mother or Mom, if you must, but I really must ask you not to call me Mama."
"Sorry," I said. "I'd forgotten about your little phobia. Mother."
She gave me a weak smile. "Silly, aren't we? Now, how are we going to spend the rest of our day? I thought maybe we could take a drive up to Atlanta and do a little shopping. No offense, precious, but after you went to bed last night, I went through your closet. We're going to have to burn most of what's in there, and rethink your whole wardrobe and self-image. And my hairdresser gave me the name of a good salon in Buckhead, so I've booked you a cut and color."
"Lynda!" I said.
"My treat," Lynda said. "I insist."
Before I could issue a formal protest, my cell phone rang. I glanced at the readout screen. government agency, it read. I flipped it open.
"Dempsey?" It was Jackson Harrell.
"Good morning, Agent Harrell," I said coolly.
"What happened to Jack and Cam?" he asked. "I thought we were all cool with everything. You fixed me lunch yesterday. Gave Cam your bathrobe."
I walk-trotted out to the front porch for a little privacy. "That was before I knew you'd dragged my mother into this thing," I said fiercely. "She's here, you know. Flew all the way in from California yesterday afternoon with a suitcase full of vegan vodka and wheatgrass and God knows what else. She slept in my bed last night, and right now, she's out in my kitchen making jewelry out of snake corpses, and planning an extreme makeover for me."
"Hey, don't put that on me," Harrell protested. "I'm just a pawn of the government. I can't help it if your mama is a bona-fide wack job."
"She's not a wack job," I said. "She's different, that's all. I love her to pieces, but I love her best when there's a whole continent between us."
"Well, now," he drawled. "That's what I'm calling about. Cam and I did some fine reconnaissance work yesterday, and we got everything all laid out just like we want it. What we need now is for you to take a little ride so we can show you the setup, maybe do a little rehearsal. If you and your mama aren't too busy."
"Leave my mother out of it," I said. "When did you want to go? She wants to take me shopping in Atlanta and get my hair cut and colored."