The Peckerwood Coat of Arms Read online

  The Peckerwood Coat of Arms

  A Peri Jean Mace Short Story

  Catie Rhodes

  Contents

  Series List

  The Peckerwood Coat of Arms

  Let’s Stay In Touch

  About the Author

  Series List

  The Peckerwood Coat of Arms: A Short Story

  Forever Road (Book #1)

  Justice: A Short Story

  Black Opal (Book #2)

  Rocks & Gravel (Book #3)

  Rest Stop (Book #4)

  Forbidden Highway (Book #5)

  Rear View: Prequel (Book #6)

  Crossroads (Book #7)

  Dead End (Book #8)

  The Peckerwood Coat of Arms

  by Catie Rhodes

  Many Years Before Forever Road

  Peri Jean Mace’s First Fall Semester of College

  I scrubbed at my face with a rough paper napkin, hoping to scour away the stench of burned popcorn and frying funnel cakes before it took up permanent residence in my skin. A throng of revelers crushed around me, jostling me, yelling in each other’s faces. I elbowed my way out of their midst and stomped after the assholes who insisted on stopping here.

  I didn’t want to be at a roadside carnival, especially not one mere yards from Houston’s I-45. The freeway exhaled a baking heat and enough exhaust to kill a goat. The noise from the huge strip of highway managed to overpower everything around it. At least the endless roar of traffic muffled the rattle of the shoddy rides and the shouts from the rip-off games. The teeny-weeny benefit seemed like a booby prize.

  “I didn’t drive all the way from Lufkin to Houston to go to a fly-by-night carnival.” I shouted at my roommate Marielle and her boyfriend Jesús, struggling to be heard over the din. “I came to get a tattoo.”

  I could have gotten a tattoo in the Lufkin area. But, no. Jesús insisted his cousin was the best tattoo artist in Houston. Marielle, who claimed she’d seen his work, talked up the idea. Now I suspected Jesús and Marielle just wanted a mini-vacation. One where I paid for the gas.

  “We’re going. This is just a quick detour.” Marielle rolled her eyes.

  She liked me less every day. With Jesús in residence at the run-down trailer we shared, she no longer needed my half of the rent money. She wanted my skinny country ass out of her love nest.

  Marielle might think she could freeze me out, but she didn’t know who she was dealing with: Peri Jean Mace, the ghost-seeing freak and pariah of Gaslight City, Texas. Eighteen years of being a reviled outcast prepared me for arctic social temperatures. That didn’t make it any less uncomfortable, but it was a discomfort I knew how to endure.

  I’d ended up in this part of East Texas after being exiled from Gaslight City for an incident at my senior prom that got me expelled from school and a few months’ probation. My grandmother had arranged me to live in Nacogdoches with a friend of my hers. But Memaw’s friend had many rules and charged steep rent. Both factors convinced me to seek greener pastures.

  I met Marielle through my job waiting tables at a greasy spoon diner halfway between Lufkin and Nacogdoches. Her brother, the cook, introduced us. Marielle lived in a mobile home outside Lufkin and needed someone to help her pay rent. I crammed my belongings in my Chevy Nova, thanked Memaw’s friend for her hospitality, and made the move.

  Three months into my arrangement with Marielle, I regretted my hasty decision. Marielle was a user. She’d conned me into paying the full utility bills, rather than the half we’d agreed upon, and still hadn’t paid me back. She ate the food I bought but wouldn’t buy groceries herself.

  Just that afternoon, she’d told me that she expected me to keep the trailer clean. I kept my bedroom, the bathroom I used, and the kitchen clean. Obviously, she expected more.

  I needed a new situation, but Lufkin was unfamiliar territory. I had no friends or family there. Nobody at Angelina Junior College, where I’d registered to take classes, wanted a new roommate midway through the fall semester. My oversized pride wouldn’t allow me to ask Memaw’s friend if I could come back. For the time being, I was stuck in Marielle’s shitty trailer, enduring her underhanded insults and petty attempts to cheat me. Her braying voice cut into my pity party.

  “Oooh, let’s get our fortunes told.” Marielle dragged Jesús toward a hand shaped sign with a tarot card painted on it.

  Jesús turned to me at the doorway. “Give us the keys to your Nova. That way if we get split up, we can get in.”

  Oh, please. “Hell no,” I told Jesús. “You ain’t got no business having my car keys.” We exchanged a tense glare, which ended only when Marielle yanked him into the tent.

  I sat down on a rickety bench and checked my wallet. After gas, corn dogs, and overly sweet carnival lemonade—all my treat—I had sixty of the hundred dollars my mother sent me for high school graduation. My emotions knotted at the sight of the money, and I swallowed hard.

  Mommy dearest didn’t care enough to know I’d been expelled from high school and never graduated. She had no idea how much the whole incident had hurt or how much I’d have loved someone to talk to about it. So I decided to act out. Rather than spend my mother’s monetary gift wisely, I’d throw it away on a tattoo the same way she threw me away to run off with a man she’d met in a bar.

  Hoping Marielle and Jesús would tire of this shit soon, I glanced at my wrist to check the time. That’s when I saw the watch—my grandmother’s watch—was gone. My lips went numb from panic, and I heard my pulse thundering in my ears. No, no, no. How would I face Memaw after losing the watch she wore to college? She’d never forgive me.

  * * *

  I thought back through the day, trying to remember the last time I saw the watch. Here. At this carnival. I checked the time when we stopped for corn dogs. Springing to my feet, I hurried back to the corn dog stand.

  The elderly woman working claimed she hadn’t seen the watch but never even made eye contact with me. I turned away from her, my panic turning to anger, and stalked toward a makeshift courtesy booth. Intent on my bad feelings, I didn’t look where I was going and plowed into someone.

  “You all right, girl?”

  I brushed my hair out of my face, thinking about cutting the waist length mess short for the millionth time, and craned my neck to look up at the guy. Not bad looking. Young. Black hair, coffee brown eyes, and olive skin like mine.

  “Yeah. Sorry,” I mumbled, so focused on the dread pooling in my stomach, I didn’t even want to flirt with him. I’d have to tell Memaw I lost her watch. She’d lecture me again about the immature actions that ended my high school career and got me exiled from Gaslight City. The worst part? She was right. Beating the shit out of my high school tormenter at prom had been satisfying, but it caused me a world of trouble. I slumped and began to move away from the guy. He stepped into my path.

  “This is a happy place. What’s got you so upset?” He smiled. Dimpled chin, five o’clock shadow, and crinkly eyes. I couldn’t smile back.

  “Lost something. Don’t want to be here.” I dug in my purse, pulled out my cigarettes, and lit one, scowling at the young man through the smoke.

  “I’m Finn.” He held out his hand. I took it and introduced myself. “So, Peri Jean, is there any chance this is what you lost?” He pulled my grandmother’s watch out of his jeans pocket.

  My mouth fell open, and relief flooded through me. I wouldn’t have to explain how I lost the watch. The dismal evening didn’t seem so awful all of a sudden. Then a lifetime of being the punch line kicked in. Finn probably slipped the watch off my wrist in some pickpocketing maneuver worthy of a movie. He’d probably want a small fortune for it, and I didn’t have it.

  Finn frowne
d, his eyes set intently on my face. “This is your watch, isn’t it? It belongs to your grandmother, Leticia Gregson Mace who lives in Gaslight City.”

  My stomach crunched into a hard little ball. How did he know about me? I rifled through my purse, found my wallet, and made sure I still had my driver’s license. Finn watched my activity, amusement dancing in his eyes.

  “What is this? Some kind of trick?” I whipped my head around, expecting to see Marielle and Jesús laughing at me. People bustled past, barely giving me a second glance. Marielle and Jesús were nowhere in sight.

  “No trick.” Finn handed me the watch.

  “But how do you know…”

  “I was born with a little something extra. Just like you.” He winked. “I know things. And I know you need this watch more than me.”

  He put the watch in my hand and walked away. I wanted to be angry. That arrogant turd pick pocketed Memaw’s watch. The idea made me see red, but it faded before it had time to take root.

  Curiosity took over. I’d never met anybody else who was…different. Brushing off a lifetime of warnings about talking to strangers and going places with them. I almost bumped into Finn when he stopped in front of a colorful tent.

  The sign on the tent read,“Face painting, Caricatures, and Hair Braiding” in multicolored lettering.

  Finn turned to me, smiling again. “I know you planned to get a tattoo tonight. Still want one?” He watched me read the sign again. I couldn’t keep the frown off my face. I didn’t want a silly picture painted on me. I wanted something permanent, something to show I wasn’t afraid to do my own thing. Finn leaned close and spoke directly into my ear. “We travel all over with these carnivals. Some places let us give tattoos. Houston’s not one of ‘em. But my cousin’s set up in there.”

  I stared into the tent, not sure what to say. Nobody was ever nice to me just because. There was always a catch. But it didn’t feel like Finn’s offer had a catch. Something about him felt comfortable, familiar, even though I’d never seen him before.

  “Petey’s won all kinds of awards. Even goes to Sturgis every year to do tattoos.” Finn tugged my arm. “Come on. He’ll do a good job.”

  My brain screamed at me to run from this situation. It reminded me of a B horror movie. My instincts told a different story. Something about Finn felt familiar and good. I couldn’t have explained why, but I felt safe. Plus, I still wanted to blow my mother’s guilt money on a tattoo, and this was my chance. I didn’t need a fortune teller to tell me Jesús’s cousin’s tattoo parlor was off the agenda. If there had ever been a cousin and a tattoo parlor. I made my decision.

  “All I’ve got’s sixty bucks.”

  “That’s plenty.” Finn motioned me into the tent.

  I followed, skin tingling with heady mix of excitement and fear. If Finn plans to murder me or feed me to flesh eating beetles, why wouldn’t sixty bucks be enough?

  Finn led me past two dark haired girls painting ladybugs on the faces of two giggling teenaged girls. The artists resembled Finn so strongly, I pegged them as siblings. One raised her head and widened her eyes at the sight of us. She elbowed the other face painter who glanced up and stilled. They gave us limp waves.

  A woman about Finn’s age sat a short distance away, braiding flowers into a little girl’s shiny blonde hair. The woman’s reddish brown hair and freckled skin made me doubt she was blood-related. She raised her head from her work, took me in, and smiled at Finn.

  As we went deeper into the tent, crazy thoughts and fears did loop-the-loops in my mind. Who were these people? If they weren’t supposed to be giving tattoos, why did they seem so glad to see me? Before I could formulate any answers, we reached the back of the tent. Tucked away in a corner, I saw an old dentist’s chair, the leather cracked in several places, with a tattoo gun set up next to it. Surrounding it were rows of poster carousels sporting tattoo designs.

  Moment of truth.

  * * *

  This dingy, partitioned off area of the tent awakened new worries about sanitation. A stray thought fought its way through the din of competing anxieties. This will be okay. Somehow, I believed it and let out the breath I’d been holding. I nodded at Finn.

  “Let me go get Petey.” He strolled to the other side of the area and ducked behind a curtain. I heard several voices speaking over my pounding heart. Finn popped back into the room, followed by a thirtyish guy whose olive skin had faded to a pale yellow. Uninterested in me, he went to his implements and began preparing them to tattoo.

  “Petey doesn’t talk much,” Finn said. “He’s been battling diabetes. The tattooing takes all his energy. So what’d you have in mind?”

  “A butterfly?” I didn’t really know what I wanted. I just wanted a tattoo because it was the most rebellious way I could think of to spend my mother’s money.

  “Nah. All the girls get butterflies or four-leaf clovers. You want something that’s you.” He flipped through a carousel of framed posters and stopped at one depicting all manner of birds. Opening the frame, he reached behind the poster and pulled out a hand-drawn picture. “Like this.”

  It was an image of a raven with exquisitely detailed wings. Not what I had in mind. I’d pictured something pretty and delicate. This bird was anything but. Menacing and dark, it was made of bold black lines and gray shading. But the more I studied it, the better I liked it.

  When I thought about it, my eighteen years hadn’t been pretty or delicate. They’d been full of ghosts, fistfights, and being an outsider. Mine was a dark existence. This sinister, mysterious bird represented me. I nodded at Finn. “Yes. That. But, like I said, sixty dollars is all I’ve got. That’s an elaborate tattoo.”

  “And, like I said, sixty dollars is enough. Let’s turn this night into something you’ll always remember.” He motioned to the dentist’s chair where Petey sat waiting for me.

  I expected him to ask a bunch of questions. He didn’t. We just stared at each other. After a while, his silence unnerved me, made me need to speak. I pointed to my upper left arm. “I want it right here. Big enough so you can see what it is.”

  Petey jerked a nod. Before I had time to worry about how much getting a tattoo really hurt, he slapped the stencil on my arm. The tattoo gun buzzed and bit into my skin, cold with a light sting. I waited for serious discomfort, but it never came.

  Finn talked while Petey worked, telling me about places he visited all over the United States. I barely knew it when Petey finished the outline and switched to shading.

  “This part’ll take a while,” Finn said and left the room. A few minutes later, he came back with a man and woman I pegged as his parents. The girls I’d seen painting faces joined us. I looked for the woman who braided hair, but she never came. She must have stayed to man the shop. I took a long, hard look at my audience. Except for Finn’s mother, a freckle-faced redhead, they all had the same dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Like me.

  “You’re right Finn-ster.” The older man’s face split into a wide grin. “She’s one of—I mean, she looks like she could be related.”

  He was right. The resemblance was uncanny. But they couldn’t be family. Otherwise, I’d have met them at some time or another. My grandmother would have told me about them.

  Finn beamed and showed his father the tattoo I’d chosen. The older man nodded in approval. Finn’s mother drew close, her red hair shining underneath the light, and took a close look at me.

  I tried to piece it all together, looking for the hidden fine print. Finn’s insistence on being nice to me. Introducing me to his parents. It reminded me of every wrong turn horror movie I’d ever seen. Fear prickled at the back of my neck as sweat broke out. The hum of the tattoo gun suddenly seemed too loud.

  “There’s no need to fear us,” Finn’s mother said. Could she read my mind?

  “No, no.” Finn’s father sat down on a stool and scooted toward me. “It’s just not often we meet someone…like you.”

  Somehow I knew he meant me seeing gho
sts, although I didn’t know how I knew this. Nausea and paranoia warred for control of my body. Long experience taught me my ability to see ghosts never led to anything good. At best, these people would humiliate me over it. At worst…I didn’t want to think about it.

  If they had me here to participate in some weird seánce, they were going to be disappointed. My ability to see ghosts worked about as well as a fireman’s hose hooked to a kitchen sink. If they planned to make me feel like shit, they wouldn’t be the first. And I’d bust their noses for their effort.

  I recalled years of schoolyard scuffles as adrenaline raced through my body, heart thumping. My breath came in harsh gasps. I closed my eyes as I tried to think what to do. Through all this, Petey never stopped working. His artwork stung from his needle passing over the same areas of skin multiple times.

  Finn appeared beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “Nobody here will hurt you. It’s just, after I found your watch and realized what you were, I knew Mom and Dad and my sisters would want to meet you.”

  But why? The carnivals in my imagination were full of freaks, psychics, all kinds of magical people. I glanced back the way I came in, wondering if they’d stop me if I ran.

  “Why do you care what I am?” I tried to sound tough, but I sounded like a mouse in a trap.

  Finn glanced at his parents. Something passed between them. His father spoke.

  “My mother died recently, and I miss her a great deal. You remind us of her.” He smiled and, for a second, looked so terribly familiar a wave of deja vu made me miss his next words.

  “Pardon?” I shook my head, pushing away the crazy thoughts.

  Finn’s father smiled. “I said, ‘She didn’t share your gift, but having you here makes me feel as though she’s very near.’”