Chapter 5
“Nice cock.”
Martha, the proprietor of the aptly named Rustic Rooster Inn, looked up from her logbook and followed Effie’s gaze over to the taxidermied rooster, preserved mid-cluck, perched on the corner of the rolltop desk.
“Oh, he’s a looker, isn’t he?” Martha said proudly. “A Silver Laced Wyandotte. Beautiful birds. That one’s name’s Lucifer.”
“I’m sorry,” Effie wheezed. “You named your rooster Lucifer?”
“Off-color, I know, but he was our little light bringer, that one,” Martha explained, still staring fondly at the dead bird.
“It’s a myth, ya know, that roosters only crow in the morning.
They crow whenever they darn well please.
But they do have their own internal clocks, and our Lucifer cock-a-doodle-doo’d every morning, without fail, right before dawn. ”
“Huh.” Effie smiled. “You learn something new every day.”
While Martha finished checking her in, Effie amused herself, taking a mental inventory of every piece of chicken paraphernalia in the foyer of the quaint little house-turned-inn in order of increasing absurdity. There were:
sixteen painted ceramic roosters, varying in size, scattered about the lobby
three chicken chalkboard signs
a pair of rustic wrought-iron rooster table lamps
a rooster made of pine cones, perched in the front window
two rooster-shaped planters and, inside them, Red Rooster sedge, an ornamental grass
a framed painting of a proud-looking cock, done in a style reminiscent of the old masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hung on the wall behind the desk
six rooster shelf sitters, tucked into a built-in full of mugs, all bearing photos of real-life chickens with their names—they had those—written beneath in glittery, puffy paint
a human-sized posable rooster outfitted like a butler posted by the staircase
It was the wallpaper, really, that tied the place together, roosters and hens tucked amid pink and peach pastel blooms set against a mint-green polka-dotted background, the pattern so dizzyingly busy it looked for a moment as if it were moving.
“Where was it you said you heard about us?” Martha asked, poking at a keyboard with just two fingers, hunt-and-peck style. “Yelp?”
Effie sucked her teeth. “The bartender recommended you, actually,” she said, barely keeping the derision out of her voice.
“Oh, Finley? He’s a good boy,” Martha said. “We’re all so glad he’s back.” She tutted softly, shaking her head. “Just a shame it wasn’t under better circumstances.”
“Oh?” Effie feigned concern. “Did…something happen?”
Martha looked up, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. “It’s not really my place to say, dear.”
Damned scruples. She smiled tightly. “Of course. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Martha waved her off. “It’s better to focus on the positives anyway, I think. Lemons and lemonade and whatnot. It’s just so good to have our Finley back. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it.”
“Where was he? Unless that’s overstepping.”
“Better question is where hasn’t that boy been?” Martha clicked her tongue. “This time I heard he was backpacking somewhere exotic-like.”
Exotic was a nothingburger word, meaningless without context. “Exotic like…Nepal? Albania? Peru?”
Martha hummed and tapped her finger on her chin. “Oregon, I think.”
Nothingburger. “Ah.”
“I don’t understand it.” Martha shook her head.
“We have mountains here, but no. Why climb the perfectly good mountains in your own backyard when you could go trekking halfway to Timbuktu for different mountains? A real rolling stone, that boy,” Martha confided, lowering her voice to a whisper.
“Gathers no moss, I tell you. But he’s been that way for years.
He took off practically straight after his momma’s funeral, bless his heart, and—” She laughed lightly.
“Here I am telling stories that aren’t mine to tell when I said I wouldn’t.
My husband, Earl, he calls me a gossip, but I swear I don’t mean nothin’ by it. ”
“Of course you don’t,” Effie said, mollifying her.
“You know, some anthropologists have suggested gossip is the human equivalent of social grooming practiced by primates. You should tell your husband you’re participating in an evolutionary adaptation that provides humans with a survival advantage by reinforcing shared moral values. ”
“Social grooming?” Martha frowned.
“Nit picking.”
“Oh.” Martha nodded sagely. “Earl says I do that, too.”
Effie stifled a laugh. “Right.”
“Evolutionary whatsits notwithstanding,” Martha said, handing Effie back the playing card she’d glamoured to look like a driver’s license.
Demons had to get by in the world somehow, and illusory charms were one of the least energetically taxing forms of magical manipulation.
“We’re all happy Finn’s home. And to stay this time. ”
Hmph. The town golden boy. Whatever had Finley done to deserve that mantle? “Sounds like he’s pretty popular around town.”
“Mm. Helps that a lot of us still remember him as the sweet little boy who used to pick flowers in the town square while the other boys were busy roughhousin’.
A real gentle soul, you know? ’Course, he went through a rebellious phase there for a while, as teenagers are wont to do, but he grew up to be a real solid sort.
I’ve never heard a bad word against him.
” A thoughtful frown puckered her brow. “Maybe I ought to take that back. I reckon he’s been the bane of more than a few mothers in town. ”
Now they were getting somewhere. “A real lothario, hmm?”
Martha gave a great big belly laugh and said, “Heavens no. Now, I’m not calling him a bluenose or nothin’, but Finn never did show much more than a passing interest in any of the girls here. Boys neither. And trust me when I say that several mommas would’ve been pleased as punch if he had.”
She stepped out from behind the desk and set off for the stairs, gesturing for Effie to follow. Her ivory-colored tie-waist shirtdress had roosters all over it.
“We’re almost full up for the weekend, so I had to put you in our Silkie Suite,” Martha said, climbing the stairs.
“At a discount, don’t worry. It’s our honeymoon suite, but unfortunately we don’t tend to get many honeymooners in Silver Springs.
Not with Dahlonega and Helen just a hoot and a holler away. ”
“Selkie Suite? As in shape-shifting seals?”
“No, no. Silkie.” The old wood groaned under Martha’s feet with each step. “You know, Chinese silk chickens? Sweet-tempered birds, and so dang fluffy.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “What about you, dear?”
“Me?” She frowned at the back of Martha’s head, puzzled. “I am neither sweet of temper nor fluffy. Though I have, on more than one occasion, been called foul.”
“Oh, you!” Martha slapped the banister and laughed. “No, no, I suppose that’s on me for not connecting my dots out loud. I was thinking about honeymooners, which got me wondering if you have a special someone waiting for you back—where was it you said you were from again?”
“South of here.” It was a shame Martha couldn’t understand that joke, because Effie was quite proud of it. “And I do. A fiancé. It’s recent.”
“Congratulations!” Martha stopped in front of a door painted robin’s-egg blue, the last one on the right, marked by a rustic wooden sign in the shape of yet another rooster that read Silkie Suite hanging from a twine ribbon looped over an adhesive hook. “When’s the wedding?”
“No clue. We haven’t—”
A chessboard appeared in her mind’s eye, a plan, though nebulous, forming.
Finn’s stubborn refusal to cooperate—well, capitulate more like—had been as confounding as it was infuriating.
He not only hadn’t flinched in the face of her true form but had refused to rid himself of her.
There was no sense in it—he made no sense.
Her only plan, if she could even call it that, had been to grudgingly do as he had suggested and get a room at the Rustic Rooster Inn, then regroup once she had.
But now the words shared moral values and tanked social capital flashed through her mind, looking a lot like checkmate.
“We haven’t set a date. We can’t, not until I—” Effie cast her eyes down and pressed a palm to her cheek, trying to conjure a memory of what shame felt like so she could wear it better. “Oh, it’s so embarrassing.”
Martha frowned. “Does your family not approve?”
“If only it were that simple.” She blinked fast, even though her eyes were dry, and sniffled for good measure. “It’s just such a mess, and—I could kick myself, Martha.”
Humans liked it when you said their name.
Not too often, but carefully peppered in, just often enough to make a person feel seen, cared for, like they were valued.
Because when people felt valued, the chances of them feeling invested in the conversation were greater, and invested people were easier to manipulate.
“Oh dear.” Martha’s hand flew to her chest. “But this mess does have to do with your fiancé?”
“Not really, but…Oh, it’s not my story to tell. Not just my story.” She bit her lip, pretending to weigh her words, then looked at Martha through her lashes. “Can you keep a secret?”
Martha leaned in, tongue wetting her lips, hungry for gossip. “There’s nothin’ I do better,” she promised.
“I’m already married,” Effie whispered, once more lowering her eyes as if the confession had cost her something. “But neither of us thought it was legitimate until recently.”
“Mm.” Martha snapped her fingers. “Same exact thing happened to my friend Keanu when a real Romanian priest officiated his and Winona Ryder’s characters’ wedding in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
“Your friend Keanu…Reeves?”
“He messages me on Facebook sometimes. Poor thing is constantly mismanaging his finances,” Martha said dolefully.
Oh sweet Jesus. “You don’t give him money, do you, Martha?”
“Heavens no,” she said, and Effie breathed a sigh of relief.
“I wouldn’t know a Bitcoin if it bit me on the butt.
Crypto.” Martha scoffed and batted at the air.
“Sounds like a load of bologna to me. No, I send him the names of books I think he ought to adapt for the big screen. Can’t put a price on a good idea, I always say. ”
“You know that’s not actually— Forget it.
” What skin off her nose was it if this woman believed she was pen pals with a Hollywood star?
“My situation isn’t quite like that. Neither of us thought it was legitimate, true, but it turns out my groom didn’t even remember marrying me.
” Effie cupped a hand around her mouth and in a stage whisper added, “There may or may not have been mead involved.”
Only a modest amount, mead more costly than ale and harder to come by back then, but it better fit the narrative she was working to weave if Martha thought they’d both been in their cups.
Martha harrumphed heartily and shook her head. “I’ve no experience with the stuff myself, but if it’s anything like the moonshine my idiot of a brother-in-law’s fond of, I can understand having a foggy memory after a night of indulging. Blackout brew, we all call it.”
“I only just found out it was all real after my fiancé proposed,” she explained. “And since I can hardly get married when I’ve already got a husband, I had no choice, really, but to track him down.”
Martha’s mouth dropped open and her dark eyes slowly grew round. “He lives in Silver Springs?”
Effie nodded and Martha sucked in a sharp breath.
“Oh my,” she breathed, one hand worrying the collar of her dress. “Have you found him?”
She pretended to hesitate and, after an appropriately pregnant pause, nodded once. “I guess I got lucky.” She huffed. “Lucky. I feel silly using that word given the situation, but it would’ve been a hassle, coming all this way only to find out my husband was in Oregon.”
“Oregon? Why would you think he’d be in…” Martha gasped, her eyes enormous and her jaw slack. “You—you aren’t—you aren’t saying that—no. Finley MacDonald?” Martha finally choked out. “He’s your husband?”
“Please don’t say anything,” Effie pleaded, reaching out and clutching Martha’s hand in both of hers. “I’d hate to cause a stir.” A giggle built in her throat—a stir was precisely what she wanted—but she stifled it and gave a dismayed shake of her head. “All I want is to nip this in the bud.”
A partial truth and a little reverse psychology paired with the knowledge of how gossip spread in towns like this would hopefully accomplish what she alone could not.
“An annulment, then,” Martha said, dazed.
“Well, no.” She dropped Martha’s hand and shrugged. “Finn might not remember, but the marriage was consummated. Thoroughly.”
It was delightful, the way Martha turned bright red.
“My word,” she murmured, pressing a palm against one round, ruddy cheek. “You said you came from the bar. Did he already sign the papers? I imagine you must’ve brought papers.”
“Finn is being stubborn,” she said, lips twisting in a grim scowl.
“I hope for both our sakes that he’ll do the smart thing.
My fiancé doesn’t know about any of this, and I’d like to keep it that way.
” She wrung her hands. “If he finds out, he might get it in his head to come here, and— Martha, my fiancé is not as nice as I am.”
Martha clucked, already patting her pocket as if checking to see if she had her phone.
“You poor thing. Oh, you must be so stressed. Listen,” she said, taking the liberty of opening Effie’s door and steering her inside.
“Your room’s got a nice big tub; why don’t you soak for a while?
I’ll whip you up some supper and bring it to your room. How’s that?”
Effie smiled wanly and nodded. “That sounds perfect.” She inclined her head, her voice dropping. “I really appreciate your discretion in all this.”
“Don’t you worry.” Martha patted her on the arm. “Discretion’s my middle name, dear.”
With that, Martha bustled off down the hall. As soon as her back was turned, Effie loosed a wicked grin. She wouldn’t give it two minutes before Martha activated the Silver Springs phone tree and word of their drunken-night-turned-misbegotten-marriage spread.
She could almost swear she heard a whistle, the sound of Finn’s social capital taking a sharp nosedive. Let him see how he liked the whole town knowing his business, believing, rightfully or not, that the golden boy of Silver Springs wasn’t so golden after all.