Night Bird Calling

by Cathy Gohlke

  The woman evidently heard her and glanced, worriedly, back toward the train. Celia reached the far end of the platform just as the conductor hopped aboard.

  “No, wait!” Celia panted, still running, still waving the woman onto the train and begging the train to hold. But neither happened. By the time Celia, doubled over with a stitch in her side, reached the woman, the train door had closed. The engine gave a lurch and pulled away. “This is No Creek, ma’am! You don’t mean to get off here!”

  “What’s the matter with No Creek?”

  “Nothin’s wrong with No Creek!” Celia huffed indignantly, still unable to catch her breath.

  “Then why mustn’t I come here?” The woman tilted and pulled back her head. She had skin like cream. Her hair, wound up in a loose knot, was the color of chestnuts full ripe, and her eyes the color of the Blue Ridge come dark—just the skin and eyes Celia had always dreamed of having. But her own pale skin freckled mightily in the sun and she couldn’t deny the brown eyes and silk brown hair of her family.

  Celia stopped short. She recognized that quizzical lift of one eyebrow. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? “You’re Miz Hyacinth’s guest, ain’t you?”

  “Aren’t you,” the woman responded as if correcting grammar came automatically with speech.

  “Yes, you are.” Celia was sure of it. Only a teacher or a teacher’s kin would talk like that to a total stranger.

  “How did you know?”

  Celia couldn’t believe the woman was serious. As if anyone new came to No Creek. As if anyone passing through might care about Celia’s grammar or dress like city folk—other than a woman of Miz Hyacinth’s caliber. “Mama said to keep an eye out for you. Miz Hyacinth told her she expects you any day.”

  “She did? She’s expecting me?” The woman sounded relieved, then alarmed, all in one breath—a curious thing and one Celia would have to think on later. The woman seemed to catch herself and extended her gloved hand. “I’m . . . pleased to meet you.”

  Celia remembered her manners and extended her own hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I’m Celia Percy, only daughter of Gladys and Fillmore Percy, sister to Chester.”

  The woman smiled, pressing her lips together. Celia nodded, thinking “pleased to meet you” was no kind of name, and why did the woman not say?

  Celia’s mama had told her that Miz Hyacinth’s own mama had been Miz Rose and that her sister had been Miz Camellia. Miz Camellia’s daughter, the niece Miz Hyacinth had raised and who’d run off, was Rosemary. A flower or flowerlike name, a name that rang with music, was only fitting for the Belvidere women. Celia loved words and had been guessing all afternoon what this new person’s name might be, sure and certain that if she was kin, she, too, would have a flower name. And now, not to know after meeting her—well, that was exasperating. But her mother had told her not to ask questions if she met Miz Hyacinth’s guest.

  Celia’s breath came a bit steadier. She was glad to be the welcoming committee for such an important person. The lady looked suddenly pale as a ghost but like she’d stepped out of a New York magazine, dark tweed suit with black hat and gloves and all—only tired and rumpled from traveling.

  “Well, I’m glad to meet you, too, Celia Percy. How do you know Hyacinth Belvidere?”

  “Everybody in two counties knows Miz Hyacinth.”

  “Oh. Who were you waving to just now?”

  “The owner of the railway line.”

  “He was on the train? I didn’t see him. I thought I was one of the last ones off.”

  “Most likely. Not many stops left before the train finishes up in North Wilkesboro.” The woman blinked as if she didn’t quite understand, but Celia, knowing time was of the essence, rushed on. “Dark falls fast and when it does, it’s pitch-black here. You want to get on up to Miz Hyacinth’s. Not much moon tonight.”

  “Yes, thank you. It’s been so long since I was here, I’m not sure I know my way. Could you direct me?”

  “Sure! It’s on my way home.” It wasn’t, but if they hurried, Celia hoped snooty Janice Richards might see them pass by from her front window, or Ida Mae, postmistress and proprietress of the general store, might not have locked up. She’d see and tell. Either would get the word out in a flash and raise Celia’s status in the community watch. “Don’t you have a bag? A trunk? Miz Hyacinth figured you’d stay awhile.”

  “No, I—I didn’t bring my things. Perhaps later.” The woman sounded uncertain.

  There was something curious about that but pleasing. Celia liked to travel light through life, too. Carrying stories in the head didn’t take much luggage but they were powerful company.

  “I don’t want to frighten her, coming in so late in the dark.”

  “She’ll never know.”

  “You said she was expecting me.” The woman’s anxiety pricked Celia.

  “She is.” Celia walked ahead, trusting her to follow. “But dark is dark.”

  The lady didn’t appear to understand that either, but Celia knew they’d best get on with it. “If the road gets wiggly in those high-heeled shoes, you can take them off. Nobody’ll see now.”

  Halfway up the dirt road the woman asked, “Do you know the rail line owner, that you were waving to him?”

  “Never met him.” Celia wasn’t certain she wanted to confide in a stranger. But the woman was, after all, kin or friend to Miz Hyacinth, and Miz Hyacinth was true as blue. “I was practicing, you see, building my reputation.” She could feel the woman’s stare in the gloaming. “You ever read The Railway Children?”

  “By Edith Nesbit—yes, of course!” The woman’s voice brightened.

  Celia drew a breath. Here was someone who loved books, just like Miz Hyacinth, just like Celia herself; she could hear it in the lift of the woman’s voice. A kindred spirit, surely. “Remember how the kids waved every day to the train—and the man, the rich man who owned the rail line, waved back?”

  “I do.”

  “If they hadn’t done that, they’d never have made acquaintance of such an important person, and if they hadn’t done that, he never would have gotten to know them before they saved the train. And if they hadn’t saved the train and all those people on it from sure and certain death, then he wouldn’t have been forever grateful and helped to get their daddy, innocent as a spring colt, out of prison.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand the connection.”

  “It’s plain as day.” Celia didn’t mean to be impertinent, but surely the woman understood English. “A person’s got to start somewhere.”

  “Are you saying that your father is in prison?”

  “I am,” Celia said matter-of-factly, glad that was now out in the open. She hated the truth of it, but the need to confess her family shame worried her at every turn. She figured it best to get it out and over with first thing. Being the daughter of a convict had its drawbacks.

  “So you hope that the railway owner will help to prove his innocence and have him exonerated?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I mean, I want him to spring Daddy—I do—but maybe not just yet. Maybe let him set there in the jailhouse long enough to think things through. I reckon he ain’t entirely innocent,” Celia conceded. “He was caught running ’shine into Winston-Salem.”

  “Your father makes moonshine?”

  “Not ‘makes it.’ Runs it in his horse and wagon for them that do—and was never caught, not once, until he borrowed Cletus Everett’s new car and sped like a demon with his tail on fire clear into the next county. He was half-lit and never drove a car so far or so fast before. Made himself noticed, so the sheriff stopped him. Took our horse and wagon to pay part of the fine. The rest comes out in jail time, I reckon.” Celia sighed. “It’s not so romantic to be doing time for something wicked you did do as for something you never did—like in the book. But knowing the line owner might come in handy one day, just the same.”

  “Just the same.” The woman repeated the words, though Celia wasn’t s
ure she sounded entirely sympathetic.

  Chapter Three

  BY THE TIME WE NEARED GARDEN’S GATE, Grandaunt Hyacinth’s home, the moon, slim as it was, had climbed over treetops and hillsides, a silver crescent giving little light to our path. Still, I imagined the picket-fenced garden, fragrant with lilacs even in the night air, and the large and rambling house—white with four three-story columns across the front porch. It was the grandest house in No Creek—the only grand house, or had been when I was a child.

  Someplace off to my left, a night bird called a song I remembered from long ago, stirring memories of Mama and her love of whip-poor-wills in late spring on the mountain. They reminded her of something—something I couldn’t quite remember in the moment. The night sky overhead, splattered with a million stars, stole my breath. I wondered if Mama knew I was here, if she smiled down on me for doing her bidding, or if she sympathized with my uncertainty.

  I remembered asking her once why the town was called No Creek—a funny name for any town. I could still hear her delighted laugh and lapse into her Southern drawl, the one my father had so tried to rid her of:

  “Darlin’, don’t you know—big creeks, little creeks, fast creeks, slow creeks run like a widow’s tears through the foothills of western North Carolina. Peppered along each of those creeks are white clapboard churches named for the creeks by which they reside, the perfect place for summer baptisms: Fleetwood Creek Church, Spring Creek Baptist Church, Harmony Creek Church, Watauga Creek Church, even Lost Creek Baptist Church. Shady Grove Baptist has no creek. One of our great-great-great Belvideres who founded the town settled there purely for the view of the mountain and dug a well, then built a church on down the road in that wonderful shady grove. Ever after they’ve gone over the hill to the nearest lake for baptisms.”

  “Mama,” I whispered. “I miss you so.”

  We walked slower now. I couldn’t see anything but the faintest silhouettes, could only trust that Celia Percy knew the way to the front door. A gate swung open on creaking hinges. The familiar shadowed outline of the great house loomed comfortingly ahead, but not a light shone through door or window. It couldn’t be past eight o’clock.

  “Watch the step—up one, two. . . . Here’s the porch,” Celia whispered.

  “It’s so dark. Do you think she’s home?” Where will I go if she’s not here?

  “Oh, she’s home. Mama brought her supper by early on. Miz Hyacinth don’t need the light, so she don’t waste it. Sits mostly in the dark. Likely she’s gone on to bed.”

  Why would she sit in the dark? Has she grown eccentric in her old age? She must be nearing seventy by now. My heart pounded. Dare I just walk in and make myself at home?

  As if able to read my thoughts, Celia assured, “She’d want you to go on in and take your rest. You’ll see her in the morning.”

  “I haven’t even told her I was coming. I didn’t know until—until yesterday.”

  “Must have been a presentment. Your room’s big, near big as our cabin. Flowered wallpaper, and all to yourself. You don’t have to share with nobody, if you can imagine such a thing. I hardly can.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “She’s been looking forward—had Mama come up here yesterday noon and clean her guest room special, top to bottom.”

  “She did?”

  “I said so. Second door on the left, top of the stairs. Miz Hyacinth has electric—there’s a switch inside the door—and indoor plumbing. You won’t even need the outhouse.” With that, Celia tripped down the steps. “See you tomorrow!” A moment later hinges on the gate creaked open again, and Celia was gone in the fading light—a pale and brown-eyed will-o’-the-wisp in golden-brown pixie cut.

  “Thank you, Celia Percy!” I called softly, but there was no answer.

  I stood, unnerved and undecided. Here at last—a place from which I’d carried precious childhood memories of time with Mama and the woman who’d loved us both, just as we were. But Father had found us, even then, way out here. Will he think to look for me here now? Will he send Gerald?

  I shivered in the cool air that blew down the mountain, bringing me back to the moment. There’s nothing for it but to go forward. Whoever Aunt Hyacinth is now, I’ll deal with tomorrow. It can’t be worse than what I left.

  I tried the door. Unlocked—something no one in Philadelphia would think of doing. For better or for worse, I stepped through, flicked the light switch on the wall, and closed the door behind me.

  •••

  Morning light swam through white organza curtains—curtains whose ruffles stood to bright attention as if they’d been starched and ironed only moments ago. I blinked and closed my eyes again, claiming my bearings in the large and sunny room, recapping the long and weary days before: Mama’s slow decline and death, her funeral, Gerald and Father’s conniving in the darkened church, hours of walking in the dark to the Philadelphia station and a night and a day of train travel, arriving to an apparently abandoned house—a house young Celia Percy vowed was not empty but waiting for me.

  I hadn’t tried any of the other doors in the upstairs hallway the night before, except the open bathroom. I hadn’t explored the downstairs. I didn’t want to pry—didn’t think it right to traipse through Aunt Hyacinth’s great house. It was enough and more that she’d expected me, planned and had someone prepare a room for me. I couldn’t imagine how that was, or why, but I’d gratefully sunk into the freshly made bed. Just before my eyes closed, I’d wondered if I was actually the guest she was expecting or if there was someone else. I’d been too tired to entertain that thought long.

  A floorboard creaked behind my head. I rolled over to see a bed pillow hovering scant inches above my face. I gasped, rolling in the opposite direction, off the bed and onto the floor. The pillow jumped and lunged toward the bed with force, its holder tumbling onto the mattress—a squat figure sprawled across pillows and bedclothes.

  “Aunt Hyacinth?” I spluttered.

  “Lilliana? Lilliana Grace? Is that you?” she mumbled into the pillow slip.

  “Yes—yes, I’m here.” I spoke from my crouch against the wall.

  “Oh, child, I thought you were an intruder!”

  “You were going to smother me?” My voice rose with each syllable. Still, I pulled myself up from the floor and tried to lift Aunt Hyacinth from the bed onto which she’d fallen.

  “Oh, my dear,” Aunt Hyacinth groaned as I righted her. “You simply can’t be too careful—a woman living alone.”

  I don’t think you and your pillow are good protection, never mind the unlocked front door!

  “I’m sorry I frightened you, my dear. This is not the welcome I intended. I’m really very glad you’ve come.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Hyacinth.” Though I felt little conviction in that moment. “I don’t know how you knew I’d come, but I promise not to stay a moment longer than necessary.”

  “But you must. You must stay forever!”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, and Aunt Hyacinth wasn’t really looking at me, after all.

  “Well, now that you’re here and we’ve settled that neither of us has ill intent—” Aunt Hyacinth spoke with a twinkle in her voice—“what do you say we get some breakfast?”

  “That sounds wonderful.” I hadn’t eaten anything but the slice of Sarah’s applesauce cake since the funeral luncheon two days before. The rumbles in my stomach gave fair warning.

  “Do you see my cane, my dear? By the door, perhaps? I may have left it there.”

  A long white stick leaned against the doorjamb. She’s blind. She can’t see a thing.

  “Is it there?”

  “Yes—yes, I’ll get it.” Celia’s words came back to me—“Dark is dark.” Had Mama known Aunt Hyacinth lost her sight? Were they in touch at all over the years? I wished I could ask Mama—so many things. I placed the cane into my grandaunt’s hands.

  “There, that’s better. My old friend.” Aunt Hyacinth smiled, patting the cane, and t
he bells came back into her voice—bells I remembered from long ago. “I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes. Perhaps we can find something together. I believe Gladys Percy brought some eggs by yesterday and a loaf of bread. Do you like to cook?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “That’s grand. We’ll make some French toast. I have a bit of maple syrup tucked back from before these Depression days. It’s ancient, don’t you know! We’ll make a party. There may even be some raspberries.”

  “I’ll be down to help as soon as I’m washed and dressed, Aunt Hyacinth.”

  “You found the washroom down the hallway?”

  “I did, thank you.”

  “Excellent.” Aunt Hyacinth stopped by the door. “I’m really very glad you’ve come, Lilliana. You know, I loved your dear mother with all of my heart. I want to hear everything . . . when you’re ready.”

  The sudden lump in my throat swelled and I couldn’t speak, so I nodded, though I realized too late Aunt Hyacinth didn’t see.

  Chapter Four

  AUNT HYACINTH, I was very soon convinced, saw all things clearly with her heart and her years of memory.

  “Raspberries are just outside the door. Olney Tate planted canes close to the house years ago so I could step outside in my nightdress of a morning and gather to my heart’s content. A party is not a party without berries.”

  That was the second, or maybe the tenth, thing that gave me pause. I knew there would be no berries yet—not till summer—but I dutifully stepped outside the door into the May morning chill. I wished I could conjure berries for Aunt Hyacinth.

  My lungs filled with the fresh morning air and scent of flowers; my ears filled with the chirping of chickadees and Carolina wrens nesting amid the bounty of blossoming fruit trees—a regular symphony—and I drank in the blue of the mountain before me. It was a slice of heaven, just as I’d remembered—not a fantasy of childhood at all. Only now the tangled raspberry canes showed few blossoms rambling beyond their path, and the orchard’s carpet was strewn with fallen and broken limbs. As for the house, it was still as big and imposing as ever. But layers of old paint peeled from the clapboarding three stories high, from the sashes around windows, and from every step.