VIII

Widow Booke lived in the same house, on the outskirts of town, that she had once shared with her husband. It was a squat, old building about ten minutes walk from the Jail. The roof was a peak of cracked, dry wooden shingles over walls of thick, unpainted timber. A thin trail of gray smoke seeped constantly from the chimney. Two grimy windows, beyond which nothing could be seen, flanked the front door that Caff was now approaching. The sun was setting in a splash of bright reds, pinks, and oranges across the darkening sky. Evening chill was setting in again, making Caff glad that this time he'd had the sense to bring his coat.

He'd left Jennie back at the Jail to keep an eye on Elijah. She hadn't been eager to be in his presence after receiving Caff's warning but had done a damn sight better at keeping to herself than he had. He was grateful for her. It'd be a lot harder to do his job alone. She'd also brought him something to eat, cornbread and brisket, which he was grateful for as well. He had forgotten how hungry he was. After wolfing it down and extracting a promise from her to shoot Elijah – in the leg or some such place – if he tried to break for freedom, he'd headed out. Which brought him to here and now.

Tell the truth, he had always been a little in awe of Widow Booke. First and foremost, she was old. Somehow she had managed to accomplish the task of growing old out here; where more folk managed to die young than didn't. Far back as he could remember, she had been this gnarled, stooped figure shuffling along through her days. Always hearty, always healthy, always old. Then there was the matter of the house he stood before. It was alone, all by itself out here on Calavera's edge. Town wasn't built all bunched together for the fun of it. It kept the curious and the hungry from coming down out of the chaparral hills or in out of the desert to see what was what or find some easy pickings. This house, her house, had stood alone and away for all the years he could recall. Shouldn't have done, but it did. She lived alone, did the Widow. Remarkable enough by itself, but add her blindness to that and it became something incredible. Worthy of awe and respect.

Except, and here was a source of much confusion on his part, she wasn't actually blind. That is, she could see. It was just that – as he heard tell – what she had wasn't sight so much as it was seeing. Apparently, there was a difference. That, he understood, though its particulars escaped him. It was largely beyond him, and he was fine with that. He'd come here for her knowledge, after all, not her eyes. She had a knack for it, knowing. Good evidence for that knack was given when her door opened just as he was about to knock on it. He let his hand fall back to his side as he looked down at her. She leaned on a wooden cane as gnarled as she, her sightless eyes rising to meet his own. They saw him. She saw him. He didn't know how. It must be in the difference between sight and seeing. She reached out to take his elbow and began to pull him into her house. “About time you got here,” she complained. “you move slower'n I do!”

Caff was caught off guard and as such didn't fight her leading him. She ushered him down a hallway absent any sort of decoration. It was just straight, smooth walls stretching away. Ahead, he heard the growing whistle of a kettle on the boil. The front door closed behind him, plunging the hall into near darkness. Up ahead, he saw a steady glow of bright orange. A gas lamp, maybe. The grime on the windows behind him must've been too thick for the setting sun, as no light broke through.

It was strange. Darkness pressed in on him, not unlike the mausoleum, and he was not afraid. This darkness didn't cling like it did there, ebbing and flowing away from the light. He was also not alone here, the surprisingly firm grip Widow Booke had on the crook of his arm serving to remind him of this. He had also recently encountered the resident of that mausoleum and found that to be far more frightening. He was not afraid, and he thought it to be the result of not one of these things but all of them. He had overcome, and found himself smiling for it. He carried that small smile and his foolish pride in himself into Widow Booke's kitchen, where he was released from his bond.

“You sit,” she ordered, pointing a crooked, swollen-knuckled finger at her table. It was a small, square thing with an oil lamp burning bright in the center. He did as bidden and sat in a chair that had decent odds of being older than himself. The lamplight played across the marred surface of the tabletop; dipping into gouges and old cracks, shining off old, flaking polish, and fading out scorch marks. He watched as the Widow shuffled over to her whistling kettle and pressed the back of her hand to its side. “Perfect,” she muttered. She lifted it by its wooden handle, worn smooth by decades of use, and turned it just so. “Steeped too long,” she declared after breathing in the steam. “Ah, it'll do.”

Caff made to say that he was fine. That, though her offer of tea was gracious, he didn't have a yearning for it. Two things stopped him. First, that he had not actually been offered tea, so he had gotten ahead of things somewhat. As for the second...Widow Booke pointed at him and said, “You're looking to fall asleep any moment now, Addison. A strong cup'll do you well.” She wasn't wrong to say it. Though the walk had been bracing, it could only do so much to hold back what felt ever more like a sea of tiredness awaiting him. Dog-tired, he was. Bone-tired, and no time for sleep. Tea would do him well.

Widow Booke hooked the thin, worn handles of two china teacups on a gnarled finger and carried the kettle over. He half-rose from his seat to help only to be waved away. She set a cup down in front of him and lifted the kettle to pour. He felt a sudden worry. She was blind, after all. His worry turned out to be over nothing as she filled his cup with a steady, constant hand. The rich, bitter smell of dark tea filled his senses. Not a drop was spilled. She saw to her own cup after, once again not spilling a single drop. The kettle she set down direct on the table. It went a long way towards explaining the scorch marks. “So!” she said suddenly. “What's on your mind?”

Quite the question, that. Caff took up his tea, feeling clumsy and oafish with the fine china in his hand. He blew gently across the surface, sending ripples through the softly steaming tea. For a morbid, distant moment he was reminded of gravegrass in the wind. He took a cautious sip. The flavor sank in: rich, strong, bitter, and something earthy. Settling, in a way. “I need...advice,” he admitted. “I fear I might be in over my head, somewhat.”

- - -

Widow Booke nodded sagely. “And you come to me for help.”

“I do,” He agreed. “I know a little about it all, but there's no one better'n you when it comes to weird stuff.”

She smiled toothily at him. She seemed pleased about that. Maybe she just liked the compliment. “Go on.”

He didn't, not right away. It took him a moment to find the words he wanted. His own weariness helped not at all. He drank from his cup once more and said, “How does–is it–can a person come back from death? That is...if a body starts moving again after a person dies, is it them? Are they–did they come back?”

Widow Booke's smile had turned gentle as he stumbled over his words, fading as he reached the end. She set her own cup down and asked, “What's happened?” He told her about Ruby. Her missing liver, her burned face, that orange flame replacing her eyes. All of it. The Widow was quiet after he finished. Though he wanted to hurry her, to prompt her, he kept his peace. She eventually said, “Folk who go on don't usually come back. Ain't that they can't so much as they just...” she shrugged. “don't. Don't feel a need to. Bein' dead changes how they see things, I suppose.”

“So...” Caff wasn't about to try and wrap his head around this right now. He'd let it sit, then take it apart after. It was better that way. “not her?”

“No,” she shook her head. “not her.” She sounded so sure. He wanted so badly to believe her. He did. He didn't know if it was for his sake or Ruby's.

“What about...” He gestured to his face with his free hand. “taking her liver and all?”

She drank from her cup and frowned down at the scarred surface of her table. She answered him, each word coming slow and deliberate. “There are...things...that think the liver is the...” She hummed thoughtfully, “the seed of life, could call it.”

“So...” He frowned hard at his half-empty teacup. “why eat it, then? To – to take that life in? Make it their own?”

She gave him a wry smile, not much more than a quirk of her mouth. “Pretty much. It's kind of like us eatin' things. Keeps us going. For a lot of them things, it's like that, too. Not just livers, neither. Heart, blood, brains. Anything...lively.”

“Like vampires? They one of them things?” he asked. She hummed agreement, nodding. He grunted and sat back in his chair. It looked like he and Jennie, those hours ago, had been right to think Elijah was Ruby's killer. Problem with that was, if he was remembering right, only Ruby's liver had been taken. They'd left the rest. “I got Elijah in a cell,” he confessed. “He says he can't remember, but... I think–” he shook his head. “she still had her heart, her blood. Was only her liver taken. You said she didn't come back, so...what did?”

She didn't answer him right away. He waited, growing impatient as the tea went cold and the sun finished setting outside the house's grimy windows. A wind took up, strong enough to be heard hissing around the square corners of the place. He turned the teacup in his hands, watching the dregs slosh around. Her clouded eyes had lost their pierce, turned inward, searching for something. The gas lamp burned bright and steady on the tabletop, no flickering flame to make the shadows dance on her kitchen's walls. As the time of silence stretched out his thoughts began to wander. Back to Ruby.

It hadn't been her. The thing that had rose up, clawed at and ate Barney Crabtree's flesh, and tried to do the same to himself and another – hadn't been her. It was strange how strong the relief he felt was. It hadn't been her seeking vengeance, driven by the bloody torment of her death. She was still dead, and it was still his fault. It would always be his fault. But it hadn't been her.

It had been the thing. The thing with orange-fire eyes and a hunger for life. It had stepped right on in, walked through the door her passing left open, and made itself at home. Violated her body. Not in the traditional sense, the physical sense, but it was violation nonetheless. It had used what once housed a life to try to seek out and slake its hunger for the same. Whatever name it went by, this hungry thing with orange-fire eyes, he found himself hating it. Found himself wishing it was here so he could make it pay for what it had done. But he couldn't. Not on any moral grounds, he'd proven that to be shaky enough terrain back in town with Arnie Leeds. It was more that, as far as he knew, there was no body of its to be harmed. He could swing and shoot all hours of the day and get nowhere with it. Wasted effort, wasted time.

On the subject of wasted time, the Widow was still quiet. It had been only a minute, maybe two, but every second that passed he felt himself growing more willing to poke at her to answer him. He had things he needed to get back to. There was a decision he needed to make; Elijah's guilt. He wasn't convinced a starving vampire – like one that had been sleeping for decades – would be able to control himself enough to take only one life-filled piece. Maybe it was that the liver was the only thing he could take. Blood had started rotting, brains had been cooked. He didn't know. He couldn't be sure. For this, he had to be.

The sense of eyes upon him drew him from his thoughts. He had apparently grown sensitive to such a thing after his time with Elijah. He looked up to see that Widow Booke's sightless eyes were seeing him once more. The lamp's steady flame stuttered, just once, casting shadows across her weathered face. She said, “I don't know what took over that girl's body. Weren't no vampire. Whatever it was or whatever it wanted, it needed her body to do it. And Elijah's mind being messed with...sure, can be done. Ain't even hard, if you know how.”

He grunted. “Not much is hard, if you know how.” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the scarred tabletop. The edges of the gouges and cracks pressed against him. “I need to know what he's missing. I need to know what he did or did not do. He can't tell me. Can you?”

“Not...” she sighed. “not directly, no. But there's a way. It ain't fun or pleasant, it'll probably hurt like hell and you won't never forget it, but...there's a way.”

The cold disappointment he'd felt sinking into his gut when she'd refused him vanished into a mix of emotion. Satisfaction, that he'd made the right call. Eagerness to be finally making headway. Apprehension, anxiety, and no small amount of fear about what she had promised awaited him, should he take up her offer. She didn't say anything else, just waited for his answer. He needed to know. More than that, he wanted to. “What is it?” he asked. “What do I need to do?”

“It's a ritual,” she said, scooping up their cups and carrying them over to her counter. She left the kettle where it sat and gestured him to follow as she went back out into the hall. He did, scraping back from his place at her table and picking up the lamp by its handle before following. The sway of his steps sent shadows dancing as he followed her into another room. It was small and mostly bare. A wall-mounted shelf full holding glass jars of what looked like dried herbs stretched from one corner to the other. A round, thickly woven rug of dark brown fabric sat in the middle of the floor. Widow Booke shuffled over to the shelf and began to choose jars, tucking them under her arm. “You sit on that rug there,” she said over her shoulder. “breathe in the smoke I'm gonna make by burnin' these herbs.”

“Is this safe?” he asked, settling down onto the floor. He wasn't about to back out, but he wanted to know.

She snorted. “Safe. No. Easy to get lost, where you're goin'. Keep your mind on what you're lookin' for, you should be okay.” She carried the jars over to the edge of the rug and set them down. Then she set herself down and began to open them. It was a dry, earthy smell that filled the room. She hummed something vaguely musical as she gathered up little pinches and piled them up. Made a little hill of dried herbs. The smell of it started to fill him up, following the hummed song into his head. It wasn't tired that he felt, but something like it. He blinked, real slow, and smoke was rising from the little hill.

The humming was louder, and he swore he heard words now. It was a gentle, slow song he swore he'd heard before. Somewhere. He blinked again and the Widow was gone. It was him and the small room and the song. He breathed in the smoke, pulling it deep. He didn't push it out. Everything tilted, turned. The edges of his world softened. His eyes closed, and opened, and he was somewhere else.