Chapter 9
Roishin
W hatever it takes. I made a vow to the Goddess on that for Beth’s sake. But staring at Bear’s altar reminded me that while I might not always like the sacrifices asked of me, they were part of a greater design.
Why else would Carl hand me over to a man like this?
If he wanted to torture me, giving me to the tow truck driver would have been a better move.
Bear might be grumpy, irritable, rough, dangerous…
okay, not ideal, but he also had a thread of honor running through him that he hid from the world. Carl missed that.
I’d missed that because Bear had acted his part so well.
Until I noticed his home. The things he surrounded himself with were far from the character he portrayed to the world.
On the altar, he’d spread sacred plants.
Angelica , chamomile, clover, and yarrow, as well as a scattering of acorns and dried rose petals.
Gifts to the Gods to bring harmony and peace into his space.
Outside his home, his backyard butted up against a forested section.
I explored that after he left in the morning.
A trail snaked through it, growing less visible the farther I followed it.
When the asphalt turned into gravel, and that turned into dirt, I found a secluded park.
I watched the small river for a while. Then I searched the area and the path.
Bear had used this trail for running almost as soon as he was awake. It must be a regular thing. The evidence of a prior run was imprinted in the dried dirt. I traced the zig-zagged tread of his shoes.
“ That’s where the mud came from.” Bear had expensive running shoes and treated them poorly.
I followed the trail of footprints. He stopped at this point in his run, crouched at that point. The heavy imprint of the front of his shoes told me that. I crouched, too, searching to see what he might have been looking at.
Gooseberries .
Why did that seem familiar? I scanned the tableau. A post stuck out of the water. It was the remnants of a pier.
“ Oh , shit.”
I picked my way through the thorny bushes blocking the water and walked along the riverbank.
In the dried mud above the high waterline was the imprint of a bare foot—my bare foot .
I walked to where I’d parked Carl’s car and turned to where I’d seen the animal.
“ He saw me.”
My knees gave out, and I plopped down on the dirt. A crow called from the meadow. Another answered it.
“ Dear Goddess , I hope you know what you’re doing.” Whether I spoke that to my deity or to myself, it didn’t matter. Bear had seen me completely naked. Vulnerable . Alone .
And done nothing but observe.
Sure , I could be reading this completely wrong and it was merely a coincidence, but the signs were everywhere. This was meant to be.
On the walk back, I threaded stalks of chicory flowers into a small wreath. I laid it at the entrance to the path before stepping into Bear’s yard. The day was warm, one of the few clear, bright, and gentle days left for the year. It would be a good day to sit in the sunlight and bathe in nature.
An hour later, I emerged from the house. My freshly washed hair was down. I held a drying towel to catch the drips, and had barely more than one of Bear’s super-sized thermal shirts on. I left a small food offering near my flower wreath for the pixies.
Then , I curled my toes into the deep carpet of grass and clover Bear hadn’t mowed in weeks.
The scent of fall was in the air. It was different from the growth and flowering of spring and summer.
There was an earthy quality to it. As if the very last molecules of life were lifted into the atmosphere, rich with flavor, but fleeting.
“ Whatcha doing?”
I startled. A teenage girl, probably late teens, with reddish-blonde hair and a quizzical cant to one eyebrow stared over the fence at me.
“ I was just drying my hair.” I tried to be polite, but hadn’t expected anyone to pay attention to me. This area of the subdivision wasn’t over-populated… yet.
Except of course, the neighbor next door. This must be Kate’s daughter. They looked similar, except for the eyes.
“ You have really long hair. That must take forever.”
I laughed. It did. Especially because I tried to let it dry naturally rather than force hot air into it. The latter only made it brittle.
“ Days like today help.”
“ I’ll bet. I’m Zoe . You must be Bear’s new girlfriend.”
Yikes . I scrambled for something convincing to say. For some reason, I didn’t want to lie. It stuck in my throat. I settled for, “ Girlfriend is a relative term.”
“ Oh right, fuck bunny, whatever. Same difference.”
I swallowed. That’s all women were to him? “ Does your mother know you swear like that, Zoe ?”
A voice from the house’s balcony piped up. “ She does. And Zoe , knock it off. Don’t bother Bear’s woman.”
“ I was just talking. Can’t I talk now?” There was an angry bite to her words.
Late teens . I remember those years… not fondly. I’m certain the people around me then didn’t remember me fondly, either. I waved to Kate who had stepped out onto a balcony attached to the second floor. “ Hi , Kate .”
“ Hello . We met last night, but I didn’t catch your name.”
“ Last night? OOoooOOoo .” Zoe made it sound nefarious.
Which , technically, it truly was. I ignored her tone and addressed her mother. “ It’s Roishin .”
Kate barely blinked. “ That’s a pretty name.”
“ It’s Irish .”
Zoe butted in, “ Who named you? My mom named me. At least that’s better than ‘ Mini - Me ,’ which is what the guys are calling me now because I take after my dad.”
“ I named myself.” I swallowed, preparing the sanitary version as to why.
“ That’s so cool! Mom , can I name myself?”
“ Not until you’re out of this house.”
“ Mom !”
“ Don’t ‘ Mom ’ me. I brought you into this world and nearly died doing it, so show some respect.’
I couldn’t help but smile. While their argument seemed harmful, it was completely normal. Someday they’d look back on this time and laugh.
“ So , Roishin ? How did you meet Bear ?” Zoe asked.
“ How ?”
“ Yeah , were you at the club?”
The motorcycle club, a building like in the shows? “ No .”
“ Cool . That’s different. I wanna hear all about it.”
“ There’s nothing to tell.” Literally nothing. Unless … A devious thought entered my head. “ He saw me dancing naked.”
“ Oh , you’re a stripper. I didn’t guess that.”
What ?
My question must have been on my face. Because Zoe rambled on. “ Your hair would kind of get in the way of the pole, if you do that, and a lot of the clubs?—”
“ Zoe Regina Nist , finish that sentence and I’ll …” Kate leaned over the balcony. “ I apologize for my daughter. I’ll be right down to set her straight.”
“ It’s okay. I’m not a stripper,” I called up.
Kate froze.
“ You mean, he really saw you dance naked and it wasn’t at a strip club?” Zoe climbed higher so her arms could rest on top of the fence. “ When was this?”
“ A few nights ago. I was casting a spell in the rain.” Her smile encouraged me.
“ One of Mom’s friends does that. She’s Wiccan . Dad says she walks around skyclad all the time.”
“ She doesn’t.” Kate’s head popped up next to Zoe’s .
“ I don’t either. I’m a witch, but not Wiccan . Hi .” I held my hand out to Kate and then Zoe .
“ That’s how Bear knows her. He’s Pagan , too.” Zoe was a font of information. I wondered if her mother ever told her not to tell strangers other’s secrets.
“ I guessed that from the altar and his hammer.”
Kate took in my lack of clothing. My feet were bare and grass-stained.
When she met my eyes, she spoke sincerely, “ I’m so glad he finally found someone like him. Those other girls…” She clammed up, trying not to speak ill, but I could tell by the guilty way she looked away that she didn’t think much of the women in Bear’s life.
With that reminder, my insecurity made me nervous. “ How many girls?”
Kate’s eyes went wide.
Zoe , on the other hand, snorted. “ You put your foot in it, Mom . I’m not helping you get it unstuck.”
“ A few,” Kate settled on a vague number.
“ This month?” I said it with a smile on my face and a joking tone. Inside , I was seething. But reminded myself that this was temporary. It was a blip on the radar. I shouldn’t read anything into Bear’s plans or the arrangement we had.
“ Good to see you’re not the jealous type.” Kate’s smile wavered nervously.
“ I’m not. How long have you lived next to Bear ?”
“ Since late June .”
That explained the straw on the sod. “ Would you like to come over? It would be more comfortable than hanging on a fence.”
“ Heck yeah!” Zoe’s head disappeared and a portion of the fence moved open. The wooden slats of the gate melded perfectly into the pattern.
“ Zoe ! Are you sure it’s not an imposition?”
“ Not at all, you can keep me company while my hair dries.”
Kate did another scan. “ That’s a lot of hair. I’d kill for that thickness.”
“ If I could, I’d let you borrow half.”
Kate almost looked like she was going to take me up on that. Zoe on the other hand, plopped down on the picnic table where I’d spread out my conditioning oils and braiding supplies.
“ What’s all this?” She picked up the castor oil and sniffed it. “ Gross .” Her gag stopped short as she looked at me. “ Sorry .”
“ It’s okay. I need to infuse it. Smell the yellow one.”
She picked that bottle up and sniffed. “ Lemon … and flowers?”
“ Lemongrass , sage, and pennyroyal.” I picked it up and sniffed, forgetting what else I might have blended with it. “ Oh , and I found a jasmine essential oil for that the unfinished one. The other bottle is a coconut oil-vanilla blend. I was trying to decide which I was going to use today.”
Zoe took her time comparing the two scented versions.
“ Bear loves food, I’d vote for the cookie smell.”
Kate joined us. “ Ditto . If you smell like a cookie, he’ll never let you go.”