Brown River Queen by Frank Tuttle

came.”
    Mama nodded. “Well, to tell truth, this ain’t the first time I been here. Just ain’t knocked before on account of the hour.”
    “Do tell.”
    Mama sighed. “Buttercup. She took to sneakin’ out at night when she thinks I’m sleepin’. Ain’t that something? She ain’t even human, but acts like a strong-headed child all the same.”
    I groaned.
    “Buttercup is coming here after Curfew?”
    “Not every night, boy. Every other, maybe. Has been for ‘bout two weeks. I tried keepin’ her in, boy, you know I tried. But it don’t do no good to nail doors shut when the little devil can magic herself right through ‘em.”
    I hadn’t heard a thing. No telltale pitter-patter of little bare banshee feet on the roof. I’d not seen so much as a shadow pass my window.
    Oh, I knew she followed Darla home at lunch if Mama was napping, but her daytime jaunts were rare and getting less frequent. In daylight she could pass for just another child. But after dark on empty streets?
    “This isn’t good.”
    “I know it ain’t, boy. I ain’t so much worried about Buttercup herself. I reckon even half a dozen vampires couldn’t catch her, much less put a mark on her. But it won’t do to get stories started about her. ‘Specially not stories that leads to you, what with that high-and-mighty wand-waver friend o’ yours dead and gone.”
    “You’ve heard that too?”
    Mama scowled. “I reckon I damn well has. I took my jars down, boy, I didn’t plug my ears. I hear the whispers. I listen real hard when people whisper, boy.” She shook a finger at me. “You ought to do the same.”
    “I pay your niece to do all my listening for me, Mama. These days I just sleep late and let unpaid bills pile up on the floor.”
    “I see you ain’t lost that smart mouth to sloth yet.” Mama rose. “I thank you for the coffee and the hospitality.”
    I stood too. “You’re always welcome here, Mama. Late hour or not. You knock anytime, you hear?”
    “I hear.”
    “Darla’s going to get her feelings hurt if you don’t come back for a visit when she’s home.”
    “I reckon I’ll be passing this way around suppertime tomorrow, if’n that suits.”
    “It suits.”
    Mama turned and started for the door.
    “She ain’t playin’ when she comes here at night,” said Mama, not turning. “She floats. Shines a bit too, like a half-moon.”
    I’d seen Buttercup do that once, back when I’d first laid eyes on her deep in the woods south of Rannit. The memory of it ran icicles down my spine.
    “Maybe it don’t mean nothin’, boy. Maybe she’s just seein’ where you went.” Mama put her hand on my doorknob and turned it. “But she is what she is. So you be extra careful, you hear? Extra careful.”
    And then she stomped across my threshold and off my porch and down the three steps to the walk and was gone. I peeked through the window and watched her march away down the sidewalk, her heavy boots clomp-clomping steadily toward home.
    I scribbled Darla a note letting her know Mama paid us a visit and was planning another for the following evening. Darla would insist on providing a feast, which was fine by me. I’m not ashamed to say I’d missed the old charlatan since moving out of my office on Cambrit.
    I spent another few moments secreting various small instruments of mayhem on my well-dressed person. Then I ventured out in Mama’s wake, humming a happy tune between spates of yawning.
    I wandered on foot for a bit just to see if the inquisitive Captain Holder was wasting the Regent’s coin by hiding Watchmen in my shrubs. He wasn’t, or if he was, he was too good to spot. So after a half-dozen blocks of ambling, I hailed a cab and settled in for the short ride west to Cambrit.
    On a whim, I’d told the cabbie to drop me at the barbershop a block from my place. When I saw the tall, grim-faced man idling in the shade of old Mr. Bull’s meager stoop, I was glad I added that block. The idling man wasn’t