Jesse caught up.
“Well, that still doesn’t give him the right to make you his slave.”
“It’s not like that. You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s ’cause it don’t make any sense.”
“And I ain’t no monster. I’m a woman. If you weren’t so thick you’d be able to see that.”
Jesse put up his hands. “Didn’t mean it like that.”
Isabel walked faster, leaving him behind.
“Ah, c’mon, Isabel. Slow down. I’m sorry.”
“I tried to kill myself, okay? Be bones in the ground, too, if weren’t for Krampus.”
“Kill yourself? Well, now why would you want to go and do a thing like that for?”
“That really ain’t none of your business. Is it?”
Jesse frowned, nodded. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It ain’t none of my business.”
She kept walking.
“Didn’t mean to pry,” he said. “Just trying to make sense of this whole thing. I mean it, I’m sorry.”
Isabel slowed, sucked in a deep breath of the cold night air. “I’d got myself into a bad situation. Seemed things just kept getting worse. I guess I tried to take the easy way out, okay?”
“Isabel, you don’t need to be explaining yourself to me.”
They continued on in silence. Isabel wanted to say more, ached to talk to someone other than Vernon and the Shawnee, someone young, someone with clear, sympathetic eyes. But opening up had never come easy for her, and she didn’t know this man. Just because he had a warm laugh and kind eyes didn’t mean he could be trusted. And you didn’t just start telling some stranger about how you got pregnant at sixteen, not unless you were prepared to have them look at you like you’re some kind of hill trash. But it hadn’t been some cheap hookup. Maybe if it had, the whole thing would’ve been easier. Isabel felt tears stinging her eyes and quickly blinked them away. Don’t you start. Just let it lie, girl. It always caught her off guard how bad it still hurt, even after all these years. She tried not to think about her baby growing up without a mother. How maybe if she’d been stronger, she’d be with him right now.
“I was sixteen when I ran away from home, ran away from everything. I wasn’t thinking straight, found myself up here in these hills. It was winter and cold, didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t see no way to fix the things I’d done. Walked out on a ledge and looked down at the rocks below and there was my answer . . . the answer to all the pain and heartache.” Isabel found she was crying. “Wish I’d had better presence of mind. I just felt so bad about everything . . . so bad. Just wanted all that hurting to end.” She wiped at her tears. “Dammit, didn’t mean to start all this blubbering.”
Jesse put an arm around her. Isabel had not had anyone touch her, not like that, not in over forty years. She covered her face and began to sob.
“I looked up into the stars,” she said. “Begged the Good Lord to forgive me, and walked right off that ledge.”
“Jesus, Isabel.”
“Well, I should’ve picked a taller cliff, ’cause that fall . . . it didn’t kill me.” She let out a mean laugh. “Just broke a bunch of bones. I couldn’t move. Just laid there crying and screaming. The pain was something awful.” She moved away from Jesse and wiped her sleeve across her face. “Well, it was them Shawnee that found me. They brought me to Krampus. I’m guessing I broke something in my spine, ’cause I could move but one arm, couldn’t feel a thing below my waist. Things were getting fuzzy. I believe I was dying. And that’s when Krampus bit me.”
“Bit you?”
“Uh-huh. That’s how he does it. Turns people. Something to do with mixing his blood is the way he tells it. Whatever it is he does, it saved my life. Healed me right up. About two days later I was up and walking about. Only that wasn’t all it done.” She held out her hands, looked at the jagged black nails protruding from her scaly fingers. “Didn’t always look like a monster y’know, used to have fair skin and long red hair. Owned a couple of pretty dresses, too.”
They walked on a long time without either of them speaking.
“So that’s why you stay, because he saved you?”
She looked up into the night, let the light snow hit her face. “No,” she said, knowing she’d go looking for her son if she could. She knew her boy would be in his forties by now, wouldn’t know her from Adam, and probably wouldn’t want to, either, not after she’d abandoned him. But she would sure like to see who he turned into. See if he had his father’s eyes. “I’d leave right this minute if I could.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”
“Krampus forbid us from going into town. From going near folks when we can help it. Doesn’t want anyone seeing us. Or at least he didn’t. Y’know, back when he was all chained up. He’d send one of us into town every now and again to steal a newspaper, raid the library for any books on Santa Claus, or maybe if there was some other odd thing we needed that we couldn’t make for ourselves.”
“And, let me guess, there’s some sort of reason you got to obey him? He’s put a spell on you? Hypnotized you?”
She nodded. “That’s pretty much so. Once we turned, when he gives us a direct command, we’re powerless to do anything else. It’s like becoming a puppet. You no longer think, you just do.”
“And he’s ordered you to stick around, I take it.”
“He made us take this oath. Y’know, not to run off, to protect him, to take care of him, and other stuff like that.”
“Don’t leave much of a life for a young lady.”
“I try not to think on it too much.” She could see the mini-mart sign now, glowing not more than a quarter-mile ahead.
“What is he?” Jesse asked.
“Krampus?”
He laughed. “Who else would I be talking about?”
Isabel managed a smile. “Couldn’t tell you for sure. The Shawnee think he’s a forest god. Shoot, they’re so goddamn infatuated with him there wasn’t even need for him to have changed them. I guess he must’ve done it so they’d not grow old. Makwa told me that his whole tribe used to bring Krampus offerings since way back before the first white settlers even showed up.”
“And Vernon, I’m guessing he didn’t volunteer?”
She laughed. “He was surveying for the coal company sometime back first part of last century. He found Krampus by accident. Krampus, of course, wouldn’t let him go after that. So lucky Vernon’s been stuck with them stubborn Indians for company for going on nearly a century. And if you give him half the chance he’ll be glad to chew on your ear about it, too, let me tell you.”
They approached the store, skirting a mound of dirty snow piled along one end of the parking lot, and stopped in the shadow of a Dumpster. Isabel stared through the large front window at the goods inside the little mart. They sold a small selection of groceries and home basics, as well as local crafts and souvenirs: pecan rolls, jams, jellies, sausage and jerky, quilts, coon caps, key chains, magnets, and Indian jewelry made in China. She’d not been inside a store since before she was pregnant, and found herself mesmerized by the colorful displays and flashy packaging. Wouldn’t mind, she thought, spending a bit of time in there. Wouldn’t mind at all.
Jesse dug a roll of bills from his breast pocket. Flipped through them. “Shoot, it’s all hundreds.” He snorted. “Never thought there’d be a day when I’d catch myself complaining about having too many hundred-dollar bills. Ah, here we go.” He peeled off a hundred and two twenties, put the rest away, and headed toward the store. Isabel remained in the shadow.
Jesse stopped, looked back. “Oh, yeah . . . guess you gotta stay out here?”
She nodded absently, her eyes fixed on the shelves of cheap trinkets.