A Feral Darkness Part 11

The phone pealed inside as Brenna headed for the house from the pole shed garage, m.u.f.fled but definite enough so she ran for it, throwing herself through both doors and across the kitchen counter to grab it just as the machine kicked in. "Hold on, hold," she said breathlessly, waiting for the machine to realize someone had picked up. Finally her recorded voice and its blas message clicked off and she was able to say, "h.e.l.lo?"

She didn't have to ask who it was. The dogs barking in the background gave Elizabeth away before she even had a chance to open her mouth. "Brenna," she said, sounding just as breathless as Brenna had been. "How's your hand?"

"I sense ulterior motives," Brenna said, infusing her voice with high suspicion and stretching to toe the kitchen door closed.

Elizabeth laughed, but there was a hysterical edge to it. "Brenna. Seriously. I'm talking tomorrow. We s.h.i.+fted half of today's dogs to tomorrow, and when I called to ask Kelly if she could work a couple of extra hours, she . . . well, shea""

Brenna had seen this one coming. Kelly had her own small shop at home, and worked at Pets! for the a.s.sured incomea"for Pets! groomers, unlike most, were paid by the hour. Not paid enough by the hour, but the lower salary was a trade-off. Brenna had secure winter hours no matter how many dogs were scheduled, when most groomers worked slow bookings and racked up credit card debt during the off season. Now that spring grooming had hit them, it was inevitable that Kelly would get sick enough of Pets! management toa"

"She quit," Brenna said flatly, interrupting Elizabeth as a mercy.

"Yes," Elizabeth said, relieved to have the news said. "Roger doesn't know yet. I figured if I at least got tomorrow covered before I told him . . ."

"It's his own d.a.m.n fault," Brenna said, las.h.i.+ng out not at Elizabeth but at Roger, and instantly backing off when she realized what she'd done. "Sorry. It's just thata""

"I know," Elizabeth said. "Between the two of us, you'd think we'd have convinced him what it takes to run a good shop. But if he hasn't learned by nowa"oh, d.a.m.n, he's coming this way. Can you cover, Brenna? Work a ten to six? I'll be here from eight to four, and we're supposed to have a bather until twoa""

Brenna flexed her hand. Ow. Dammit, this was going to hurt. "Yeah," she said, and told the clench in her stomach that this was for Elizabeth, not Roger. "Tell him I'll be there. But tell him I want the bather till three. I don't want this hand trying to hold on to soapy wet dogs."

"Oh, smooch!" Elizabeth said. "I'll bring you some peanut b.u.t.ter cookies. Gotta go!"

Brenna spent some time wondering where Elizabeth would find the energy to make cookies after a Sat.u.r.day's grooming, but she needn't have. When she arrived at work the next day, thinking dire thoughts about who they'd have as a bathera"for DeNise was off on Sundaysa"and just how many times she'd have to get her hand wet to handle situations the bather couldn't, a paper-towel-covered paper plate of bakery cookies waited for her under the front counter.

"The one with a bite out of it is mine!" Elizabeth sang out from the back. A crate clanged closed and she came out to the counter area. "Ooh, check it out," she said of Brenna's hand, which was barely swollen anymore but which Brenna had creatively wrapped in colorful Vetrapa"a flexible, coated gauze that stuck to itself and that couldn't be missed.

Brenna did an automatic scan of the sales floor and lowered her voice anyway. "It's for Roger more than anything," she said. "I plan to wave it in front of his face if he tries to book any more dogs today."

"Good plan," Elizabeth said, and reached under the counter. "Here. Start the day with a cookie and I'll bring you up to date on our customers." She reached for the 4x6 index cards and started flipping through them, dis.h.i.+ng out quick information on their statusa"two almost done, three started, a handful more on their way in. "And three to come in early this afternoona"those are all yours. Well, and this fourth, which is just a Dal in for a bath. Jos should be able to handle her."

A Dalmatian? Brenna snared the card from Elizabeth and said around a big bite of cookie, "Jos? Handle Darcy Dalmatian? That'll be the day. She'll lick him to death and then make her great escape when he's lulled to complacency."

"Probably," Elizabeth said, cheerfully enough.

And why nota"she'd be gone by the time the Dal arrived. Brenna made a face at her, and Elizabeth shoved another cookie at her. "Here," she said. "That should cheer you up for awhile."

Brenna followed her into the grooming room, slipping her arms through the sleeves of her smock. "I could have had really important plans for the day, you know," she said, unsnapping the lock to her personal equipment toolbox, the expensive shears that tended to walk away for use in the small animal section. "I could have had a hot date."

"Yeah, or you could have been was.h.i.+ng your hair. That takes about a day, doesn't it?" Elizabeth gave Brenna's doubled braid a tweak on her way by with a sullen-looking Lhasa Apso.

"Hey," Brenna said, aggrieved. "It could happen, you know. The date thing, I mean."

"Uh-huh," Elizabeth said, entirely unconvinced as she selected and set aside a cat muzzle that would fit the snub-nosed dog if he followed up on his expression. "Most guys like a bit of sweet-talking, Brenna. We'll have to practice that sometime."

Brenna grumbled something not at all sweet, and Elizabeth grinned, unaffected. "Why don't you check on that Newfie mix? We've got most the day to dry him, but if Jos didn't use the high-velocity dryer on him before crating him, even that won't be enough."

Wonder of wonders, Jos had indeed used the high-velocity, and the Newfoundland mix was drying as quickly as could ever be expected of a dog with that much hair. Brenna found several crates missing, and chalked them up to PePP; the group would be setting up for pet adoption day on the sales floor right about now, right by the inevitable ap.r.o.ned dog food rep trying to give away samples. The Schnauzer wasn't quite dry enough to clipa"that one had gone a while without visiting a groomer, that was for surea"so she opened the crate holding a half-dry Shepherd mix and invited the dog out. Might as well get the nails done, and trim up the only long-haired features the dog possesseda"several exceedingly silly wisps of hair coming from its ears. He could dry when she was done.

She returned to the grooming room and hoisted the dog onto a low table, thoroughly dampening herself in the process and spotting Sammi from PePP in the doorway to the counter area as she straightened. "Hey," she said. "I hope you're not here for another crate, because we can't spare 'em today."

"I know, I saw the appointment book," Sammi said. But she stood there, hesitating, her plump face a strange combination of paled skin with brightly flushed cheek patches.

Brenna hesitated, the big nail clippers in hand. "Are you all right? Do you feel all right? Maybe you should sit down." Sammi's breath seemed to be coming a little fast, but that wasn't unusual for her. What was unusual was that she hadn't said anything other than the one acknowledgment, and hadn't come bursting into the grooming room with a freshly soiled young dog who needed a quick bath to be presentable to the families who would flock around the PePP area as soon as church let out. No, Sammi was alone, bringing only a strange look on her face.

Sammi took Brenna's suggestion and sat on the folding chair just inside the door, ignoring the tufts of hair already residing there. Brenna, as concerned as she was for Sammi, let her questions rest while she worked through three feet before reaching the fourth. The Shepherd mix whined as soon as she picked it up. "Oooh," Brenna said. "Is this your favorite foot?" Clip, clip, big chunks of overlong nails went flying through the room, and the dog made a pathetic sound and yanked on her foot. A series of gooey-lovey noises distracted her long enough to get the other two toes and the dew claw, and then Brenna took a moment while hunting up her thinning shears really to pay attention to Sammi.

Sammi looked back at her and said quietly, "One of our members died this morning."

That got Elizabeth, too; she looked up sharply from the Lhasa, turning her clippers off.

"Who?" Brenna said.

"Janean. You probably haven't seen her. Takes in the hardest cases, but doesn't do the adoption day stuff. Too shy."

But Brenna had seen her, in to buy supplies with one of the PePP dogs at her side, an old dog that PePP was having a hard time placing. A young black woman, lots of amazing hair, quiet features, quiet manner. "Janean," she said numbly, and shook her head. "A car accident?"

Sammi shook her head. "Rabies."

"s.h.i.+t," Elizabeth said in shock. "Rabies?"

"They're sure?" Brenna said, right on top of her. She'd meant to tackle the dog's waving, wispy ear hair . . . but she couldn't bring herself to move. Rabies. And in her mind, a sudden jumble of voices, things that had come to her in the past weeks, voices she'd ignored because they'd made no sense, because they didn't belong in her head. Voices that usually presaged distress from Druid. No survivors found on the farm . . . another entire family lost to this new rabies. Shedding Rabies is the common term being used for the mutated virus . . . local groomer Brenna Lynn Fallon succ.u.mbed todaya"

She jerked herself away from the voices and back to the grooming room, clenching her jaw tight for a moment and picking up a brisk pace with the dog before her. Thinning shears applied to the ear hair, just so, just enough to take them down and yet keep them naturala"

"How?" Elizabeth asked. She, too, was trying to work again, but her heart wasn't in it and the Lhasa was sprawled on his plump bottom, neatlya"and deliberatelya"sitting on the legs Elizabeth needed to trim. "Not from one of the rescue animals!"

Sammi nodded tightly. "No one knows what else it could be. But the ones that came from families had a history of rabies shots, and the ones we took in from the street all went through quarantine at Lakeridge. If it was one of them, we have no idea which."

"Oh, G.o.d," Elizabeth said. "It could be one that was adopted out, you mean?"

"Are they ever like that?" Brenna said sharply, finding a cute place for a little bow just below the dog's ear, and for the first time running into trouble with her injured hand as she tried to apply it, wrapping a tiny rubber band around a tinier tuft of hair. She tossed the ruined bow on the floor with the morning's acc.u.mulation of hair and groped in the bow jar for a bigger one. "Like Typhoid Mary? Carrying the disease around and spreading it, but not showing it?"

"They can carry it," Sammi said, answering with such certainty that Brenna knew she'd started gathering information as soon as she'd heard the news. "But they can't pa.s.s it along until it reaches an active state in their systems, and they always become symptomatic within a few days after that. There's nevera"nevera"been a doc.u.mented case of rabies pa.s.sed on by a dog who went through quarantine. Once they start shedding the virus, they become sick within days."

Brenna turned on Sammi with vehemence. "What did you say?"

Startled, Sammi couldn't answer, clearly at a loss to know which of her words would provoke such a reaction. She sat on the chair with her mouth half-open, looking for a response.

"The shedding," Brenna said. "What did you say about the shedding?"

"Why, that's what they call it, I guess. When the dog has the virus in its saliva, and can pa.s.s it on. They say the virus is in its 'shedding' phase."

"So it does shed? The rabies we know about sheds?" Barely paying attention to the dog, Brenna eased it down from the table, having given up on the bow.

"There's only one rabies, the one we know about," Sammi said, looking completely baffled. "Brenna, are you all right?"

Brenna realized that Elizabeth, too, was staring at her, and that the Shepherd mix was squirming to get away from the tight grip she had on the noose leash. She felt her face flush, and she said, "I'm okay. Just . . . just upset, is all. Thinking about how often we get careless about checking for rabies tags when we're just clipping nails on a walk-in, you know?" Not the truth, but a truth. And pertinent enough.

Elizabeth slid her hand under the Lhasa and stood it on all four legs, pulling its hind legs out behind it slightly when it instantly tipped its rear to sit again. "You're right," she said. "We do. We'd better be more careful. Do all the right things. Even if we both are inoculated." One thing Pets! did right.

Sammi heaved herself to her feet, not a sign of her usual humor hidden anywhere on her face as she said, most pointedly, "Janean did all the right things."

The PePP news spread through the store as fast as any news, leaving the employees somber and the early customers baffled by the black bows that spreada"thanks to Elizabeth and some oddball black dog bow ribbona"on the PePP and sales floor a.s.sociates' collars and b.u.t.tons. Roger put a moratorium on all talk of rabies on store grounds, and worried to Brenna about a drop in bookings should cautious pet owners keep their animals at home. But a local death caused by rabies was newsworthy enough that by the time grooming work hit a short lull and Elizabeth and Jos grabbed the chance to eat, the customers came in looking for details.

"I don't have any real details," Brenna told the owners of Snifter the Brittany when they dropped him off for his bath and trima"not that a Brittany had a breed cut per se, but Snifter was gifted with a wild profusion of wispy hair on his back, head and ears, the sort that was best stripped off instead of clipped. "In fact," she added, "you probably know more. I haven't heard a single news report about it. Just what's. .h.i.t the grapevine."

"They can't figure out how it happened. I have a friend who thinks it started with the dog pack somehow," Snifter's mother said. "But on the radio they say that PePP has logs for all their animals, and that they keep strict track of the shots and quarantines."

"That's true," Brenna said, and gave them a pick-up time for the happy but chronically overenergized Snifter. Jos would be plenty wet by the time he washed the Brittanya"and Brenna, with her hand, wasn't even going to try. She took the dog in the tub room and put him in one of the big bottom crates, and then just stood there, staring at him without even seeing the astonis.h.i.+ngly hopeful look on his face as he shoved it into the upper corner, somehow expecting that instead of a bath they'd just have a good romp.

Of course they couldn't figure out how it had happened. Because it shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have been possible.

Just like all the other things currently in her life that shouldn't be possible. Weird black hole moods that bounded in like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, a stray with multiple ID tagsa"all of which led to nonexistent records of one kind or anothera"startling visionsa"no, not visions, for she'd only ever heard them. Someone else's memories of words about death and shedding rabies. Why shedding rabies, instead of just rabies?

And Gil Masera mixed up in it all, with his half-truths, his interest in a property newly reoccupied by men who might well be called thugs, his frighteningly complete knowledge of her. His careful hands checking Druid the night Sunny died. His quiet words on the hill as Brenna sought to deal with Druid's fear. His recognition of what she'd felt along with Druid in the lane. The demand that had so angered her, when he'd stepped over the line to grab her arm. What did you do? he'd said.

Maybe none of it was related. Maybe she was going crazy, and Masera just happened to stumble into it, to add to it. Brenna found herself at the tub, her forehead resting on her crossed wrists atop the cool porcelain. G.o.d, how am I supposed to sort it all out?

And that, she realized suddenly, was more than a frustrated inner cry. It was a prayer, as true a prayer as she'd ever said.

Except she had no idea which G.o.d she was talking to. The G.o.d she'd grown up with, the one she'd been raised to believe in as the only G.o.d? Or the ancient, forgotten G.o.d who once seemed to have answered a heartfelt child's plea, and whom she thought of as dwelling at the very spring where Druid's weird tracks appeared?

She didn't know. Brenna Lynn, good little Christian girl, and she didn't know. The wrath of G.o.d strike her down or not, she didn't know.

And if she didn't know that, how could she know anything?

Chapter 11.

SOWELU.

Guiding Forces

The busy days usually went quickly, but not this one. This one pa.s.sed in a strange timelessness, and even when things got hectica"a dog on the table, the phone tucked under her chin, a customer waiting at the counter and Elizabeth gone for the daya"Brenna operated in a strangely dissociated way, as though her soul were dazed and nothing else could touch her.

She managed time for a phone call to the church she hadn't attended for several years, the small but healthy little church in which she'd grown up. The one her mother still made a point to attend on Easter and Christmas, although she spent her other Sunday mornings in the barely denominational services provided by Sunset Village. Yes, the pastor would be there in the late afternoon, keeping office hours before the evening youth group. Yes, he'd see her.

"Brenna Fallon," he said, when she walked down the center aisle of the square sanctuary, plain but for one set of astonis.h.i.+ng stained gla.s.s windows above the pulpit. He wore street-casual clothes, a soft grey sweater over slacks, and his hair had completed the journey to silvery white since she'd last seen him. How many years ago? The year she'd graduated from high school and watched most of her friends journey away to one college or another?

"Reverend Dayne," she said, and then, because there didn't seem to be any other way to start, added the expected. "It's been a long time."

"Too long," he said, as though he were finis.h.i.+ng some secret code exchange necessary before they could discuss anything else. He rearranged the candles on the table set before the pulpit, and she realized that it must have been a communion Sunday. That somehow made her long absence worse. And then he smiled, and said, "But I can't imagine you called me after all this time just to make small talk."

"No," she said, and jammed her hands into her pockets. "Though I have to admit it makes it easier to sneak up on what I've really got on my mind."

His smile this time seemed more genuine; he gestured at the front pew. Square backed, barely padded seats . . . she'd never understood why they weren't more comfortable. "To keep people awake," Russell had told her once when they were children, and received instant admonishment. Now, with years of perspective behind her, Brenna couldn't help but wonder if he'd been right.

She didn't need any help staying awake through this conversation. But she sat anyway.

"You look tired," the pastor said, sitting next to her but far enough away that they could turn toward one another, carry on a conversation without b.u.mping knees. "I heard about the young woman who died. You knew her, I imagine. Is that why you're here?"

"No," Brenna said, but then stopped. Without Janean's death, would her thoughts have reached this point? "Maybe," she amended. "More like . . . the last straw." She took a moment to arrange her thoughts, and found she wasn't any more sure of her starting place than before. Slowly, she said, "We both know I haven't been here for years. And I know that a faith is more active when you stay joined with a community, but just because you're not going to church doesn't mean it's not there." She hesitated, waiting for some reaction on his part. Any sign of judgment at this early point, and she sure wasn't going any further.

But he gave her none of that. Instead he gave her a faint smile, and a nod. "People take their faith to them in different ways," he said. "Some people aren't as comfortable with group wors.h.i.+p. I happen to think it offers a necessary support. Now, if I were a Catholic priest, you can imagine that my response would be quite different."

"It's a good thing I was brought up Presbyterian, then, isn't it?" Brenna said, acerbically enough to raise his eyebrows. She gave a chagrined shrug and let it go. "The point is . . . the reason I'm here . . . is that lately I've been looking at some of the other major religionsa"non-Christian religions. Non-Yahweh, even. And if you go beyond the G.o.d-ness of it, the philosophies seem to have as many good things to say as Jesus in any red-line Bible."

"Ah," Reverend Dayne said, sitting to put his arm along the back of the pew, relaxing a little now that he knew the gist of the issue. "I feel obliged to say, Brenna, that this is just the kind of subject we discuss in our women's religious study group."

"There's a women's religious study group?" Brenna said, surprised and unable to remember any such thing.

Amused, he said, "Things do change. And as we've noted, it hasa""

"a"been a long time," Brenna finished. "And that's why I'm here. Now. Asking you." A women's study group might actually hold some interest for her, but it wouldn't help her now.

"What is it, exactly, that you're asking?"

"I guess . . . what I'm wondering . . . is how does the church look at these other religions? If I take on Hindu philosophies for my own, does that mean I'm, well, d.a.m.ned? What about Muslim, or Buddhist? The Tao of Pooh?" What if I dance naked in the moonlight by the spring beneath the oak with my hair loose to the wind and flower petals scattered around? "My faiths, the things I was taught here at this church, are a very deep part of me. They're important to me. But right now I'm also finding it important to look at other faiths." Pagan faiths, which she wasn't ready to say. Not when so many people equated pagan with evil. Brenna herself would have to visit the library to understand truly what fell into the definition of a pagan faith, and she wasn't even sure it mattered right now. Not with a veritable shrine to Mars Nodens in her backyard. "I guess I'm worried about crossing some sort of line. The kind you can't come back from."

"Ohh," Reverend Dayne said, a drawl easing into his voice. "There are very few of those, for someone in your position." He crossed his ankle over his knee and rested a hand on that leg, looking very much at home with himself. She hadn't shocked him, then. She hadn't said anything to worry him. She'd just been slotted into one of his past sermons. "Adult faith isn't stagnant, Brenna. An exploration and study of other faiths is an excellent way to confirm our own beliefs. The important thing is to make those explorations in a thoughtful way. Nota"to use an extreme examplea"to dive into a cult situation just because we're trying to fulfill something lacking in our lives."

There wasn't anything lacking in my life when all this came up, Brenna thought automatically, and then suddenly knew how wrong that internal commentary had been. There'd been plenty lacking in her life. Family support and interaction. Career satisfaction. Someone who liked dogs and the farm and movie nights as much as she did.

Someone with whom to share her baths.

She was just so used to dealing with those empty spots that she never saw them any more. But that wasn't the conversation she was having with him. Not this time. "So you don't think it's possible to add religions," she said. She found a dog treat in her vest pocket and worried it between her fingers. "To truly believe in more than one thing."

He regarded her for a moment, somber for the first time in the discussion. "Brenna, many of those outside Christianity believe that Jesus existed, and even that he was a great prophet. They just don't happen to believe that he's the one Son of G.o.d. Here, that's what we do. It may not be entirely expedienta"how much easier it would be if we could mix and match religions, or decide what inconvenient part of our faith we'll simply set aside to suit our needs of the moment. No. Yahweh is the one G.o.d. And in our faith, the Holy Trinity comprises that G.o.d. That's what it is to be Christian."

Of course it was. Brenna suddenly didn't even know what she was doing here. What kind of answer had she expected? An arrangement to believe in G.o.d on the odd days and Mars Nodens on the even? No, it was a choice. One or the other.

And she had a feeling that the other had set up presence in her pasture.

"I'm sorry, Brenna," Reverend Dayne said. "I can see I haven't eased your mind particularly. Is there any other question? Some specifics, perhaps, that I can address for you?"

"No, thank you," she said, standing. The dog treat had disintegrated into annoying crumbs in her pocket sometime during his final comments. "I have some things to think about. I hope . . . I hope I'm welcome to call on you again."

"Anytime, Brenna," he said, warmly enough that she really believed him. He, too, stood, and held out his hand. She removed hers from her pocket, swiped it off on her jeans, and wondered what he thought about biscuit crumbs as she shook his hand. Then, a little too tired to be anything but hazy, her most focused thought relating more to the leftover peanut b.u.t.ter cookies in her truck than spiritual matters, she headed for the exit at the back of the sanctuary.