Free Art's Blood by Vicki Lane Page B

road.
    “Ouch!” Elizabeth winced as the low-slung car hit the water break, a deep trench across the road used to carry rain off into the ditch. There was the scrape of metal on rock but the Volvo kept coming. Elizabeth quickly stepped out into plain sight and signaled the driver to stop. “You’re going to tear up your muffler if you try to make it any farther!” she shouted, hurrying toward the car.
    But the driver had pulled over to the side and stopped the engine. She put her head out of the window and called out in a slightly accented, flutelike voice. “Namaste. Is this the place where Kyra has found refuge?”
    Without waiting for an answer, she got out. She was a small, fair woman whose pale hazel eyes were ringed with kohl. Her trailing skirt of rainbow-hued gauze did not quite hide her rather dirty bare feet, and her sagging breasts swung loosely inside a long sleeveless tunic of thin lavender material. A length of white cheesecloth was draped lightly around the tangle of faded blonde hair carelessly pulled back and twisted into a knot secured by an orange lacquer chopstick. Apart from the kohl, she wore no makeup. Her face, framed by dangling beaded earrings and smiling up at Elizabeth, was pretty in an old-fashioned way.
    “Namaste.” She pressed her palms together just under her chin and bowed slightly. “I am Willow. Aidan is my son.” Her expression saddened and a single tear tracked its way through the kohl.
    Elizabeth hesitated. She started to put out her hand, stained and sticky from the tomato vines, reconsidered, and wondered if she should instead bow in return. Settling on a friendly nod, she said, “I’m Elizabeth; yes, Kyra’s staying with me for now.” She studied the smaller woman briefly. As Laurel said— aging-hippie type. Probably forty-something. And what’s with that accent? Oh, yes, she and Aidan lived in India for a few years.
    “Thank Spirit that Kyra is safe.” Willow flicked her eyes heavenward, then fixed Elizabeth with her pale gaze. She continued in her soft, singsong lilt. “I felt guided to speak with Kyra about…about recent events. I rose before dawn so that I could arrive early when our energies were strongest. But when I saw the house…all blackened, smoking ruins…I did not know….”
    Her eyes closed and, flattening her palms against her midriff, she inhaled and exhaled slowly and deliberately three times before continuing. “Many official cars and trucks were there and I saw uniformed men poking about in the rubble. I felt trapped in some terrible nightmare— Boz dead, my beautiful son in jail— and fear for Kyra overtook me. I parked by the studio and stayed in my car, taking deep, healing breaths. At last a man came to me and shared what had happened. He said that he was the sheriff and he assured me that Kyra was unharmed. He shared that you had taken her into your home and he pointed to your driveway.”
    Willow smiled and held out her hands, palms up. “And here I am. Spirit is working in all things. Kyra is safe and the fire has harmed no one.” Her expression hardened and the lilting accent disappeared. “And they can’t fucking blame my beautiful Aidan for it— since they have him locked up. Maybe this will start them looking for the real murderer. I mean, how could anyone think that a gentle soul like my boy could have done something so—?”
    She shook her head vigorously and made a gesture with her hands as if shaking them free of some noxious substance. “No, I will give no more energy to that thought.” The accent returned. “It is in the care of Spirit. I have been guided here to support Kyra, to help her to embrace this transition in her life.”
    Willow opened her arms wide and turned in a slow circle, her multicolored skirt flaring out around her. “How beautiful it is here— the loins of Mother Earth,” she trilled, motioning to the wooded slopes above them, “and her bounty.” She encompassed the garden tiers and the