Writ on Water Read Free

Virginia—to Gran’s infernal territory.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
and the soul outwears the breast.
—Lord Byron
Chapter One
    Jarvis Perth was in his accustomed place on Old Mill Road, which was to say that he was dead center of both lanes and trundling along at a solid seven miles per hour—the greatest speed his aging tractor could manage on the slightly uphill stretch of pavement. Or on a downhill stretch, unless it was tumbling end over end, which from the collection of branches and mud in the roll cage above the driver’s seat, it would seem to have done quite recently.
    Chloe knew that it was Jarvis Perth who was slowing the parade of muddy pickups through town because a woman dressed in a loudly patterned housecoat and filthy pink mules had bellowed out a greeting to him in a voice shrill enough to frighten off every crow in the southern states. The lady was the only one who was holleringthough, so Chloe assumed that Jarvis was a beloved local character whose foibles were tolerated because of his immense charm and goodness. Anyway, the folks in Riverview, Virginia, didn’t seem to be real rigid about things like traffic lanes and speed limits. Since she had entered the county, no one in the snail parade seemed to take the 55 MPH signs posted along the tree-lined roadway as anything other than roadside decorations. Perhaps it was because they all seemed very busy eating pork rinds and rearranging their gun racks as they drove.
    Chloe mentally smacked herself for that last thought. Just because her granny was a backwoods horror show, that didn’t mean everyone around here was backwards.
    Normally, the tortoise-like pace along a smelly tar road being slowly torn up by tractor treads that punched deep grooves in the melting macadam and left the surface with an unattractive rash would cause frustration sweats and hyperventilation, but since she was in no particular hurry to arrive at the Riverview Plantation, and had missed her morning infusion of double-strength caffeine, Chloe was able to meander along with her humor unimpaired, occasionally waving and smiling at total strangers who cheerfully smiled and waved back. The superficial contact helped her resist the heat-induced somnambulism that had been threatening to overpower her for the last hour and more.
    â€œ ‘Woke up this morning,’ ” she began to croon, doing her best Stevie Ray Vaughan voice. Except, she hadn’t woken up this morning. She’d never actually gone back to sleep after that damned dream. And she probably shouldn’t be singing the blues about this. That quiz had said that sleep deprivation in middle-class white females didn’t count unless it was on account of being in jail, or being stabbed in a back alley by a woman whose man you had stolen. The blues weren’t about psychic grandmothers, job stress and not having air conditioning.
    Also, she wasn’t sure people from downtown Atlanta could have the blues. True, it was a city in the South, but it was also fairly high-tech. The blues didn’t go well with ultra-modern lighting and computers. You could get the blues in some parts of Texas, anywhere in Alabama or Mississippi, and of course in the older sections of Chicago or Detroit—and certainly anywhere in New Orleans—but not in California or Hawaii. It might be some rule about proximity to beaches, or perhaps the need to live in a flood plain or where they had deep snow in winters that lasted for six months. That wouldn’t rule out Duluth or Aspen, though, and you never heard of great blues classics coming from there. . . .
    Chloe shook her head. Maybe that quiz had been right about her after all.
    Geography aside, the blues could be about running away. And that was sort of what she was doing,though not chased by an angry lover with a shotgun or a switchblade, or the law.
    â€œ ‘O, I ran away this morning—but my troubles are chasin’ me. Yeah, I