Free Dead Willow by Joe Sharp Page B

above to blow away on a warm breeze. It explored each crease and crevice of the woman, each wisp of hair, each tiny line at the corners of her eyes.
    She had stopped struggling. She was home.
    Husband, wife, family … all foreign concepts which had spread throughout the Willow like wildfire on contact with the woman. There would be more to come as the woman became part of the soil and the tree. It would reach out again to the others in the soil, now that it knew how. The puzzle was understood.
    It would only take a little time to put the pieces together.

Jessilyn, October 8th
     
    “You goddamn fucking piece of shit!”
    Patrick flinched a little. “You said that ?”
    Jess shrugged. “It made me mad.”
    They stood in the parking lot of the Rusty Gate . Jess had called Patrick because she only knew two people in this town, and he seemed the logical choice. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow like Spock.
    “Is that when you kicked it?”
    She looked idly down at her shoes , her lower lip stuck out a bit.
    “Maybe,” she muttered guiltily.
    Patrick inspected the toe-sized ding in the driver’s side door panel of her 2005 Chevy Cavalier and shook his head.
    “You do know that kicking a car because the door won’t open is counterproductive.”
    “Well, I know that now !” she exclaimed sarcastically, feeling properly chastised. “Can you fix it?”
    “People with anger issues should not drive,” he replied with a smirk.
    “And people in the business of fixing cars should not piss off customers with anger issues.”
    He held up his hands in surrender. “Point taken.”
    Patrick swung the door back and forth on its squeaky hinges and then slammed it closed. It popped back open defiantly. He stood and rubbed the back of his neck as he let out a deep breath through his pursed lips.
    He walked to his truck while Jess admired the view. When he came back he had a large rubber mallet in one hand and a tool box in the other. Jess eyed the mallet suspiciously.
    “Is that for me or the car?”
    “Too soon to tell.”
    Jess took a step back as Patrick got to work removing the inside door panels and other mechanical magic that Jess knew little about and could care even less.
    She remembered how he had been back at the cemetery, all earnest anxiety and genuine concern. Did he really want to take care of her, she wondered? Would that be such a bad thing? For some reason she always bristled at the notion of charity headed her way. But a little emotional charity, now that wouldn’t be so terrible, she thought, not when it came in such a spectacular package.
    “So, where were you headed in such a hurry?”
    “Huh?” she said as the fantasy slipped through her fingers. “Oh, um … I’m going to Jackson for the day.”
    “Jackson?” He crinkled his nose in disgust. “What’s in Jackson?”
    “A library,” she replied. “Apparently, Willow Tree doesn’t have one.”
    He stopped working and thought for a second. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
    “It also doesn’t have a city hall or an office of town records.”
    Jess was probing him, seeing how much he already had thought about this. She didn’t know how much to tell him about why she was here. She had let on to Doctor Crispin, who had provided more questions than answers.
    She was the one who had pointed her in the direction of Jackson. She didn’t seem to want to get her hands dirty dishing out the information herself. The Doctor was a hard one to get a handle on. Who knows; maybe she just wanted Jess to work for it.
    “They also don’t have a church,” he offered, pounding on the dent with his mallet and … a spoon? “Or a school.”
    Doctor Crispin had failed to mention those little tidbits. He had her attention.
    “What do you mean no school? Not even a one room, log cabin schoolhouse complete with schoolmarm?”
    He leaned back from the door, the dent already smoothed to a near perfection. “Well, think about it. How many kids have you