“You have to throw a poor young white woman into the dirt and keep her out in the cold?” his mother said caustically. Price’s mother had very black hair and dark eyes, but she was a pale woman. Probably doesn’t tan because she thinks she might be taken for a Mexican, Fiji thought.
She felt ashamed as Mamie added, “Don’t make any difference if she’s a Christian or not, we are, and we got to treat her right.”
“Wait a second, Mamie,” her husband said. “Price, what are you trying to do here?”
“Her boyfriend is the one who killed Aubrey, Dad, and I took her so he’d come looking for her and I could get a shot at him.”
The older Egglestons paused.
Fiji said, “I’m sorry, but your son is mistaken. If he’s thinking my boyfriend is Bobo Winthrop, he’s not right. But Bobo is a friend of mine, and I have to speak up for him. Bobo never killed anyone. He’s a sweet man, and he loved Aubrey. Up until this moment, we believed that Price killed Aubrey.”
Bart and Mamie looked at each other. “Come on in the house,” Mamie said at last. “Let’s get out of this damp. Price, loose the poor girl’s hands.”
Price, looking very young now with his hair plastered to his head under his cowboy hat, pulled a key from his pocket. After some fumbling—during which Fiji almost shrieked with frustration—her wrists were free. She cried out with the relief of being able to put her hands in front of her. Her wrists had ugly chafe marks on them, but she was ready to disregard them since she had her hands back.
“Thank you, Miss Mamie,” she said, because she would have shot herself in the foot rather than thank Price.
“You’re welcome, sweetie,” said the older woman. Now that she could spare a second to look, Fiji could see that Mamie Eggleston was wearing an expensive peach velour tracksuit studded with gold metal stars. She’d slid her feet into plastic mules, which was practical, though her feet must be cold by now. Bart Eggleston was still in his jeans and a flannel shirt. What time was it? Now that Fiji could look at her watch, she realized it was barely six o’clock.
She had a host of thoughts that wanted to be recognized, but she snapped out of her musing when she realized there was an awkward silence among the Egglestons.
“I hope I can call my neighbor to come get me,” Fiji said brightly. “I left some soup on the stove, and my cat needs to be fed.” Better to know than to be kept wondering, she figured. Her answer came almost immediately.
“Well, young lady,” Bart said slowly, “this is right awkward. We don’t want our son to be arrested, and you seem like the direct kind of person who would want to take him to court for acting impulsively.”
“I’m not sure how impulsive his act was,” she said, still trying to keep her voice even. “He had the handcuffs for my wrists and the duct tape for my mouth. He waited outside until there was no one in the store.” She was guessing on that one, but it was a pretty good guess. “I assume he’s ready to call my friend Bobo to tell him what he has to do to get me returned. That pretty much seems like kidnapping, right?”
The Egglestons looked even more uncomfortable, and the look Mamie cast on her son was not an admiring one or a loving one.
Fiji’s heart sank. She’d said exactly the wrong thing. They’d understood that she was not going to forgive and forget. She didn’t believe she could have convinced them otherwise, though. Of course they didn’t want to see their son taken to jail, especially if they shared his political and social beliefs. Of course he hadn’t wanted them to know he was hurting a woman. But now that they knew, and they’d met the woman, they were going to give him a pass. She dared not go into the house.
For a brief second, she tried to imagine what kind of woman they would have taken into the house, given dry clothing to, called the police for. She could not come up with such a woman, not when their son’s freedom was at stake.
I have to freeze them all, she thought. That was a spell she knew she’d mastered.
Her fingers began making their small movements, clumsily because of the cold and the stiffness from being confined. Since Price was nearest to her, it affected him first, and in a matter of seconds he became very still. His dad said, “What the hell . . .” before he, too, turned to (frozen) wood. Mamie was smart enough to realize that something Fiji was doing was causing this extraordinary reaction in her menfolk, and she tried to cut and run, but her clogs slid in the mud of the yard, and Fiji seized her arm—both to stop her from going down and to get her attention. Once Mamie looked into Fiji’s face and Fiji repeated her hand gestures once more, Mamie was still as anyone could want.
This was so much better than using only her intent, as she had in the truck.
Fiji didn’t know how long she had until the spell wore off; not long, she figured. She didn’t want the Egglestons to send the police after her for theft, so she couldn’t take Price’s truck. Instead, she ran for the road. Fiji was not much of a runner, but she fairly scampered down the paved driveway.
When she’d reached the road, which seemed twice as far away as she’d remembered, Fiji turned left. That was the direction from which they’d driven in. There were enough trees and bushes planted close to the road to afford her a place to hide if the Egglestons came after her. She ran as long as she could, and when she was all stove up, as her great-aunt would have put it, she walked as fast as she could. Every time the cold, the pervading damp, and the emotional exhaustion threatened to bring her to a halt, she thought of Price Eggleston’s pu**y joke and kept on moving.
When she brushed up against any plant, water coursed from it to soak her even more. Tendrils of mist drifted across the road. The air was turning colder, and she had no coat, no money, no cell phone. She wondered when she’d reach the highway. She knew she could not walk all the way back to Midnight. Maybe someone would take pity on her and let her use a phone. Maybe she could find a convenience store, and the clerk would call the police.
She saw some headlights. It couldn’t be the Egglestons, who’d be coming up from behind her. It might be reinforcements they’d called for, though, she realized abruptly. Should she hide, just in case? But by that time she was too tired and befuddled to make herself plunge into the dripping undergrowth. She was shivering, and her teeth were chattering. She had her arms wrapped across her midriff, trying to hold in a little warmth. When the station wagon slowed down, her highest hope was that whoever was inside didn’t want to kill her.