The small café was the kind that took its diacritic mark seriously and served crêpes and other food with accented names. That didn’t mean it was actually good, or even French. Pinkie regretted choosing it for breakfast and should have found a greasy spoon diner instead, where there wouldn’t be anything on the menu that had du fromage in the description. She realized how much she missed a good omelette. That thought put her to mind of her mother’s cooking.
As she sat beside the window, Pinkie glanced out at the sidewalk and across the street. Courthouse Square was the center of government buildings in Dashville, and effectively a sub-neighborhood of Old Town. It wasn’t exactly bustling in the late morning. Pinkie frowned and checked her phone. Thursday, it was Thursday morning.
A few people had started to drift in for an early lunch. One of them was a tall, skinny young man who wore a fairly new everyday suit but seemed awkward in it. Unbuttoning his jacket revealed a badge on his belt, and he sat in a booth facing Pinkie. He seemed too pale to be a local but too friendly with the wait staff to be anything but a regular. No taste, either, if he came to this café a lot. Well, that wasn’t fair, it was the closest place to the police station.
The detective looked out the window, apparently noticing Pinkie’s truck. His eyes swung around and met hers before she had time to look away. Even still, she felt the recognition in his look. Surely the police weren’t involved? Pinkie dropped her head and pretended to be engrossed in her phone.
Apparently that worked. He seemed to have lost interest when she snuck a look at him a few minutes later. Pinkie looked up as the waitress arrived with her food. Just as she drew level with the table she tripped over something, perhaps her own feet, and the plate of crepes went flying - straight into Pinkie’s hands.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” the waitress burst out, horror written on her face.
“Hey, it’s no problem,” Pinkie said, putting the plate down and standing up to pat her on the shoulder. “I always did like…fast food.”
Despite the situation, that actually did get a smile out of the waitress. Whatever had her so distracted in the first place seemed to melt away.
Pinkie sat down to eat, realizing the detective had noticed her again. Just when she thought she had successfully melted into the background. He had only ordered coffee and a croissant, and was finished a few minutes later, well before her. He got up, dropped some money on the table, hesitated, and then turned towards her booth.
Pinkie still had food in her mouth when he stopped by her table and said, “Pardon me, ma’am, but are you…Ponk PK?”
Pinkie’s face automatically put on her business grin. Thank Harmony, just a fan. She swallowed. “I sure am.”
She watched his attitude immediately change from cool police detective to starstruck geek. “Oh wow, I remember seeing you in Daytona five or six years ago on spring break. What are you doing here?”
She could say she was just passing through, but what if he saw her again? “I’m actually originally from this area.” Pinkie stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh wow, I didn’t know that.” He accepted her handshake. “I’m Whet Stone.”
Pinkie didn’t recognize his name, but in trying to get another oh wow out of him, she said, “You probably know some of my family.”
“Oh wow, who?”
Nailed it. Wait, he’d asked who. Pinkie hadn’t thought this through. “Limestone Pie,” she admitted.
“What!?” He’d finished his coffee before getting up, but still looked like he was about to spit it. “Where is she right now?”
Pinkie caught his shift in tone. “Why do you want to know about my sister?”
“And she’s your sister?”
“Well, I haven’t seen her in a while,” Pinkie said, mostly truthfully.
“Well…” Whet Stone paused, and then reached into his pocket. “If you see her, give me a call, okay?”
Pinkie glanced at the card he handed her. Dashville Police Department. “If I see her.”
Whet Stone’s face brightened again. “It was really good to meet you.”
Pinkie sat in the booth and watched him leave. She picked up her phone, but paused. Not because she wasn’t sure who she wanted to call, but because she didn’t remember the number. She had to look it up.
“Pie Family Aggregates.”
“Hey mom.”
“Pinkamina?”
“I wanted to call. A police detective just asked me where Limestone was.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Good, dear.”
“I just wanted to tell somebody. It seemed like the kind of thing you should know.”
“Where are you?”
“Courthouse Square.”
“Oh, you aren’t too far from Marble’s shop.”
“Marble has a shop?”
Pinkie’s mother told her the address. “Oh, and since we’re talking, how about you come to church with us tonight?”
On a Thursday night? Pinkie frowned. She had no excuse, nowhere else to be. “Okay.”
“See you there. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Pinkie paid for her meal and left the café. Following directions, sure enough, she found a quaint little shop just a few blocks down the street with all manner of shiny rocks in the window.
There was something mildly ironic about that, a historic building from the previous century, housing a modern business, that sold minerals that were billions of years old.
Pinkie walked in. The square footage was small, but the space wasn’t wasted, walls stacked floor to ceiling with shelves of polished rocks organized by alphabetical name. The more expensive samples were inside a glass case at the back of the room, behind which sat Marble.
“Hey, fancy place,” said Pinkie. Marble smiled. Pinkie walked over to lean on the counter beside a sign that read locally sourced.
Pinkie said, “How has business been? Mostly tourists, I guess?”
Marble nodded.
It wasn’t tourist season. Pinkie looked down through the glass at the samples. Each display was precisely arranged and neat, apparently untouched.
“Well, I just wanted to say hello. I hadn’t seen your shop before.” Pinkie straightened up. She turned at the sound of a vehicle and saw an old Jeep pull up to the curb, three teenaged girls getting out. “I’ll see you later.”
Marble nodded to her and turned to receive the customers coming in. Pinkie took a step backwards to the wall and they passed by without a glance in her direction.
“We’re looking for some decorations,” said the pale girl.
“We’re trying to rush a sorority at Virginia A&M and they want us to organize some kind of event tomorrow night,” added the darker-skinned one with windswept purple hair.
“Some kind of party,” said the redhead.
“Um,” Marble said.
“Did you say party?” Pinkie stepped forward. The three of them turned, surprised, as if they hadn’t noticed her.
“Who are you?” the pale one asked.
A deck of business cards slid out of Pinkie’s sleeve into her palm. With three flicks of her thumb, she fired cards into each of the girls’ hands.
Her cards were bold white parchment stock, and in embossed pink letters, read:
Ponk PK
PARTIES
“The Ponk PK?” the middle one exclaimed.
Pinkie remembered again that she was supposed to be hiding out. On the other hand, getting back in her groove would help distract her.
“How are we supposed to pay for a professional?” the third girl pointedly asked the other two.
Some complicated math went through Pinkie’s head. Remembering what she had in the trailer’s stocks, the fact that she’d forgotten to run the generator overnight to keep it all refrigerated, and the relative ability for college students to spare some coin; balanced by the fact that she didn’t have her crew to help, something was better than nothing, and this was more a favor to herself than anything.
“Tell you what,” said Pinkie. “I’ll do music, cake, a small craft table, and grill-your-own meat for the low price of whatever you have on you.”
The three girls hunted through their pockets and purses, coming up with almost forty dollars.
“Are you really sure this is okay?” asked the first one.
“Sweetie, don’t second guess, just go with it,” said the second one out of the side of her mouth.
The third one had borrowed a pen from the counter and had been scribbling down an address on the back of Pinkie’s card. She handed it back.
“Okie dokie loki!” Pinkie winked and made finger guns. “I’ll see you there!”
Wearing expressions as if they couldn’t believe their fortune, the three girls thanked her and left the shop.
Pinkie turned back to Marble and put the money down on the counter. “I’m going to need all the pyrite you have.”
After making the transaction and visiting with Marble just a little more, Pinkie walked out of the shop again and down the block, mission in mind.
There was the wrinkle of going to Thursday night church, but Pinkie could carry herself through by mentally planning the next day’s party. It was an extra challenge to do more with less.
Speaking of challenging, back at her trailer Pinkie had to figure out what she was going to wear. Slacks and a blouse were not her usual outfit, but she did manage to find some in her wardrobe. Trying to do something with her hair was not going to happen with comb nor fropick nor anything short of industrial steam and press.
She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment. This was how people would see her. Usually, she wanted to be seen. What would the fellow parishioners think? What had her family told them?
Well, it was time to find out. Pinkie drove to the church. She was not the first one to arrive, but fortunately didn’t have to hang around by herself very long before the rest of her family showed up.
Her grandmother had always been a little different in beliefs. Pious, enthusiastic, but different. Pinkie had never experienced one of the services her grandmother sometimes talked about from the old country. She was never exactly sure where that was, either. Somewhere to the north. Whatever her großvater believed, he mostly kept it to himself.
Everyone was dressed business-formal, so Pinkie had apparently guessed right on the outfit. Limestone wore a scowl, and Pinkie didn’t tempt her by meeting gazes. Maud, meanwhile, seemed to be doing the same thing to Pinkie.
The church was a plain building of cinder blocks washed white located in an otherwise empty field along the northern country highway out of town. There were no windows, which was by design. One, it made the building cheaper. Two, it kept everyone focused inward.
The sun was already on its way down, but Pinkie’s eyes still had to adjust as she walked through the front door. There may have been electric service, but the chapel hall had always been lit by candles, which dripped wax and seemed more trouble than they were worth, but illuminated the room with a certain ambience. The yellow glow didn’t quite reach the highest rafters.
The congregation leader stood with his hands folded in front of him at the head of the room. There was no pulpit. There was no fancy dress, in fact he wore a button-down shirt, clean dark jeans, and polished cowboy boots. He didn’t even have a fancy title like minister or pastor. Pinkie didn’t know this particular man. He must have arrived after she’d left.
Pinkie sat with her family in a familiar pew. It was the one they had always used. Their name might as well have been on it. Other people filed into the room over the next few minutes until it was time for the service.
The leader lifted his hands. “We are gathered here in the service of eternal Harmony.”
“Service,” everyone murmured, even Pinkie, caught up in the moment. It was all coming back to her.
“How has our service borne fruit?” he asked the room, looking around.
Pinkie’s mother stood, pulling at Pinkie’s arm. “My daughter Pinkamina has returned to us!”
Pinkie stood awkwardly, forcing a smile. It was as if no one had noticed her until then.
“Greetings,” said the leader, stretching a hand out to her. “Please, come up here.”
Pinkie knew what came next, but she moved forward anyway. She couldn’t not. The walk up the center aisle between the pews felt like going out on a narrow pier into a foggy lake. The people to either side were no help now, and might as well be empty space.
“How long has it been?” the leader asked, conversationally, as Pinkie reached him.
“Ten years,” she replied. She hoped her voice didn’t carry, but was sure it did.
He put the tip of his finger on her forehead. “But you have returned. Our paths may not always be straight and narrow, but they always lead us where we need to go. Are you on the right path?”
He turned away before she could answer, which was just as well, because Pinkie had no idea what to say. She watched him walk to the wall, against which was a wooden box roughly one foot on each side. He crouched down and lifted the lid, as a rattling sound began.
The leader lifted out a snake nearly six feet long. The rattling got louder. Pinkie swallowed, but didn’t move.
“The faithful have power,” the leader said as he walked back to her. “In the name of Harmony, signs of faith shall follow them that believe. In the name of Harmony, they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents in their hands without fear.”
He held the snake out. Pinkie took hold, hoping her sweaty palms would not betray her. The snake curled up her arm, tongue flicking. Pinkie moved slowly, taking up its weight and allowing it to climb towards her shoulder. A drop of sweat rolled down Pinkie’s back. The rattles brushed her ear and the snake’s head went out of sight behind her neck as it slithered into coils around her shoulders, a living, snakeskin vestment.
The leader smiled and took her hands. “Welcome back.”