by Joanna Rose
The dirt road was soft stepping, and quiet and dark in early day shade. The sun came down through the trees in broken shots, and swarms of tiny flying things hung in the air in crazy little clouds. A crow screeched, setting off echoes of cheeping and chirping and my heart inside me.
The cemetery was at the end of the road, at the end of the woods, at the edge of a low field. The field was full of still water and tall weeds, and there were dead standing trees broken and bare.
A log fence made a crooked square, and inside the square were the uneven rows of gravestones, standing, leaning, flat, stones of white gray and darker gray. The road led into the cemetery and faded to ruts of tire tracks in weedy grass. I dropped my bag off my shoulder, into the grass by the fence. The sun was full on the cemetery, hard flat light pressing down.
“Just some place on Earth they all go back to.”
The sore spot on my ankle bone was a red watery blister. I took my shoes off and sat up on the log fence, and then I had to pick a splinter out of my hand. I pressed on my ankle blister and it squished under the skin.
There were square pieces of stone covered with bright green moss right along the log fence. And then a big carved cross, with a jar of pink plastic flowers set in front of it, said Mack on the cross, and little square markers spread out on each side of it, with a name on each, Sister Lucille, Brother Michael, Brother John. I got down off the fence and walked along all the little markers, all the Macks, Richard, Jeanette, Frances. The tall grass was soft and my feet ached, and the blister on my ankle bone burned, and grasshoppers hopped up out of my way.
A stone angel, sleeping, had “Susan” written under it, and the same date for born and died. There was a row of flat white pieces with the writing on them faded gone. A tall gray column was broken, the top part lying across the piece of grass it marked. The broken piece had “James Smithy” carved on there, and the part still standing said “Beloved Father.”
A shiny silvery stone said “Blaine,” with new green grass short and neat all around it.
There was another Smithy that said “Our Father,” and old dates so that it must be the grandfather of the other Smithy. All the names were like “Dear Son,” and “Wife of Samuel,” and all those Mack brothers and Mack sisters, names and people connected to other names and other people, here, or not here, in Rookery Bend Cemetery, in Indianola.
Some other place on Earth.
The tire tracks curved around at the back of the cemetery. The log fence along the back was covered in white morning glory flowers with leafy vines and heart shaped leaves that reached along the ground to the uneven row of gravestones by the fence.
Jimmy Henry’s people.
All the Henrys.
A curved stone, a flat stone, an Elizabeth with a cross. All Henrys.
A square stone of smooth gray and rounded corners said “Marie Anthony Henry,” and the date. When Jimmy Henry was thirteen. The writing was carved deep, and I traced my finger in the words, in the cool jagged letters, touching something far away.
I sat in the grass there for a while, sat against the stone, and I looked out to the watery field. The light of the sun changed its weight, pressing down on the field, sinking into it.
A tall-legged bird stood there, so still I didn’t see it for a long time, and when I moved, it lifted its wide wings and glided up into the low air over the field, around in a circle and then down again, to the same spot, to rest there again on its own long legs, perfectly still.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 1997 by Joanna Rose.
All rights reserved.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited. Design by Bonnie Campbell.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No references to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
“Little Miss Strange” words and music by Noel Redding. © 1968 by Joint Music Co. All rights administered by Chappell & Co. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for a previous edition of this work.
eISBN 9781616202293
