Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  Chapter 21

  The brewing storm moved in on Wednesday morning with gloomy clouds and constant wind. I woke up to a darkened room and checked my clock three times to make sure it really was seven in the morning since it looked like ten o’clock at night. My bedside lamp wouldn’t work, and the still dimness mirrored the uneasy spirit I’d woken with.

  Gemma was sitting on the floor in front of the window.

  “What’re you lookin’ at?” I asked.

  “Sky looks funny.”

  I rolled over and peered out the window. No doubt, she was right. The sky did look strange, dark but with color in it, making the landscape look a sort of greenish gray. “Just a stormy day,” I murmured, but I didn’t believe my own words. I had a sudden fear that trouble was coming today, and I tugged at one of Gemma’s braids. “Maybe Daddy can ride us both to school in the truck. We’d best not wander around outdoors on a day like this.” I swung my legs over the side of my bed and padded across the creaky floorboards to get dressed.

  Gemma looked at me funny. “What’s got into you? You worryin’ about somethin’?”

  “I’m just makin’ a suggestion.”

  “But you ain’t never been afraid of storms before.”

  I shrugged and tried to pin a nonchalant look on my face. “Ain’t no reason to go gettin’ wet, now is there?”

  “Jessilyn!” Gemma hopped up off the floor and met me face-to-face. “You keepin’ somethin’ from me again?”

  “No!”

  “Yes you are. I can see it in your face. Now what’s goin’ on?”

  I knew she’d badger me until I told her what I was thinking, so I just stared at my feet and murmured, “Ain’t no good comin’ today.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You know that feelin’ I get. Well, I feel it today.” I looked at her and tucked a hand against my middle. “I can feel it right here.”

  I could tell my words scared her because her forehead creased all up and she said angrily, “You best stop all your talk about bad feelin’s. They don’t do nothin’ but build up worries.” Gemma slipped her dress over her head and eyed me while she did up her buttons. “You got into fortunes and the like or somethin’? ’Cause if you have, your momma will have your hide. She says that’s devil talk.”

  “I ain’t no gypsy!”

  “Well then, you’re talkin’ nonsense. I done told you before you can’t see the future.”

  “I ain’t never said I could see the future. All’s I said is I got me a bad feelin’, and my bad feelin’s mostly come true, and you know it.”

  Gemma studied my face with a solemn expression. “Then don’t you go nowheres today. If you’re worried about troubles ahead, then you just stay on home with your momma.”

  “I got school. I can’t not go nowhere today.”

  “I don’t want you to leave here.”

  I stared at her briefly before tugging my shoes on and saying with determination, “I got to go to school today. There’s a test.” Gemma scowled at me and readied herself to argue, but I cut her off. “Gemma, I done tried not to tell you I had a bad feelin’, but you made me. Ain’t no way you can expect me to sit still and do nothin’ till nightfall.”

  She turned away from me with a jerk, and I could tell she was angry and frightened.

  I ate my cold oatmeal that morning with little interest and met Luke at the end of the walk with nervous butterflies in my stomach. But school went fine, with the exception of the blankness my mind took on once I got that history test in front of me. No one bothered me. In fact, no one paid a lick of attention to me. I was starting to think maybe my bad feeling would come to nothing. In fact, I even got a surprise when Luke showed up to walk me home instead of Daddy.

  “Got off a bit early today,” he said when he met me in the schoolyard. “Told your daddy I’d be happy to see you home.”

  Yes sir, things were looking far better than I’d expected.

  Luke and I made our way home with ease, chatting like the world was sunny and life was fine even though we had to practically yell over the roaring winds.

  When we got home, Daddy was coming out onto the porch, his bag of tools slung over one shoulder. “Goin’ to Miss Cleta’s to mend her broken fence. Jessilyn, you stay inside with your momma.”

  “I don’t wanna stay inside,” I whined. “I been stuck inside at school all day.”

  “Well, your momma’s up to her arms in scrub water upstairs, and she won’t be able to keep an eye on you out here.”

  I felt five years old again, and my face must’ve showed it.

  Luke, as usual, came to my rescue. “I’m gonna fix my old shed door today, Mr. Lassiter. She can come on home with me if she wants. I’ll bring her back in time for supper.”

  His suggestion suited me better than anything anyone could have said, and my frown turned into a smile in record time.

  Daddy gave his approval. “Y’all be sure to get back in time for supper. Your momma’s fryin’ up some catfish, and you know she hates us bein’ late on fish night.”

  Momma took pride in her cooking, and she always insisted that fish “just won’t do lukewarm!”

  Daddy looked up at the dark skies. “If it’s rainin’ hard by suppertime, stay put, and I’ll come over with the truck to pick you two up. And, Jessilyn, you tell your momma where you’ll be.”

  I ran inside to tell Momma and joined Luke for our walk to his house.

  While we were there, I sat on a nearby fence and watched as he filed away at the wood to level the edge of the door. His whole body was tense trying to keep that door still in the whipping wind, but he managed skillfully. My thoughts were full of all the ways I was sure Luke Talley would be the perfect husband and how I’d be the perfect wife. I thought of all the things I could do to help him with his work and all the food I could cook for his suppers, despite the fact that I never did any cooking besides cutting up potatoes and flouring biscuits.

  “Jessilyn Talley,” I whispered to myself with a sigh. “Sounds good.”

  Luke stopped working and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “You say something?”

  My heart pounded when I realized I’d said my thoughts aloud. “Nope,” I answered quickly.

  He tilted his head, then grinned. “You bored?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ but bored these days.”

  “Ain’t nobody makin’ you sit still all the time,” he said. “Ain’t like you can’t do nothin’ just because someone has to be with you.”

  “Feels like I’m all tied up.” I slid off the fence and plopped into a pile of hay. “Here I am growin’ up into a woman, and I can’t even go off by myself nowhere.”

  Luke let out a sarcastic little noise that sounded like he was spitting.

  “What’s that for?” I demanded.

  “What’re you talkin’ about ‘becomin’ a woman’? What kinda talk is that?”

  I sat ramrod straight, my mouth tightening into one taut line, and I didn’t say a word.

  Being only nineteen himself, Luke didn’t have the sense to quit the conversation, so he said, “Ain’t a good idea for little girls to go wishin’ to be women. You best just be happy bein’ a girl while you can.”

  I jumped up and put my hands on my hips just like Gemma. “You got nerve, Luke Talley. If I ain’t no woman, then you sure ain’t no man.”

  Luke slammed the door shut and leaned one hand against it. “What d’you mean I ain’t no man? You see any boys who can live on their own? Ain’t no boy that could take care of you the way I do.”

  “Take care of me? Who needs you to take care of me? I’m grown enough to do whatever I want, and I ain’t got need for no babysitter, neither.”

  He stared at me for a minute and then smiled, shook his head, and returned to his work, his back to me.

  I was angry that he ignored me and tired of being treated like a child, and I made a sudden decision that had I been in any proper frame of mind, I would never have made.

&
nbsp; Amid the noise of Luke pounding a nail, I grabbed the jacket I’d worn and ran away from the shed and through the woods behind Luke’s house. I didn’t know where I was going or how I was going to keep Daddy from whipping me for running off, but I didn’t care just then. I walked on through the trees that bent and swayed in the wind, dark skies above me threatening rain more every minute. It took me only about ten minutes to regret my decision and have the fear crop back up again, but I’d committed myself now, and returning to Luke with my tail between my legs was no option.

  Then it came to me that I was nearing Mr. Tinker’s place, and I could ask him to ride me home in his truck.

  So I picked my way over fallen branches and fat toadstools, keeping my eye out for landmarks that would reassure me I was heading in the right direction. My skin crawled at the whistling of the wind through the trees, and the creaking of branches and rustling of animals in the brush made my heart race.

  Just outside the Tinkers’ property sat an old, broken-down barn. When we were younger, Gemma and I would make up ghost stories about that barn. It was ragged and lopsided, its shutters hanging at odd angles, and the wooden boards creaked with any slight whisper of wind. Today was no exception, and I felt tingles crawl up and down my spine when I came upon it, those creaking boards sounding like cracks of thunder to my frightened ears.

  I set my eyes on the house off in the distance, determined to make it past the haunted barn to the safety of the Tinkers’ back door. Mr. Tinker’s truck sat outside of the house, so I knew he was home, and I walked on with quick steps. But when I started past the barn, I heard voices coming from inside, low whispering voices that could have come straight out of one of my childhood ghost stories. I stood still for a moment, every part of my body poised to run. The voices were angry and deep, men whose identities I couldn’t determine but whose words I was intrigued to hear.

  “I told you to make sure you had everythin’ we’d need before tonight,” one man said. “I gotta tell you everythin’ twice?”

  “I did get everythin’.”

  “Just you can’t remember where you put it! How stupid you got to be?”

  “Got a lot on my mind these days.”

  “Shut your mouth up,” the other man hissed. “You think a man in my position ain’t got nothin’ on his mind? I get men to do little things for me so’s I can worry about the big stuff. And you can’t even get the little things right.”

  No doubt these men were up to no good, and I knew if my daddy were here he’d tell me to hightail it to the house, but a familiar name caught my attention before I had the chance.

  “You know good and well the sheriff ain’t settled down about Cy Fuller yet. We best lay low till that gets forgotten.”

  There was that name, the one that had taken my innocent summer and laced it with blood and nightmares. If there was someone in that barn who knew what happened to Cy Fuller, I had to know what he knew. It was the only way to answer the burning questions that had seared my conscience for weeks.

  “We ain’t got time,” the other voice argued. “Someone’s turned on us, and we gotta take care of it before the law gets on us.”

  “Like you took care of Cy?”

  My heart raced at the words, and I crept nearer the barn, peering around the doorway as far as I dared. Any breathing I had managed to do stopped dead the minute I saw those men fumbling about. Their flowing white robes fluttered in the breeze, giving their murderous words an added sense of evil. One of the men was small, shorter than me, but the other was over six feet, well able to take care of me were he to discover my presence. They wore no hoods, but their backs were to me, keeping me from identifying them.

  “I don’t want to talk about Cy no more, you hear?” the bigger man ordered. “He was gonna talk, and I had to do what I did. That’s that. Don’t want no more talk about it.”

  There was a sense of sweet relief in me mixed with a palpable fear. The man’s words made it certain to me that I was no murderer, but there was little reprieve in knowing I was in the presence of one. I desperately wanted to know who it was, not just for my own curiosity, but for the sake of Cy Fuller, who I’d been mourning over those past weeks. In some strange way I’d formed a posthumous kinship with Cy through my guilt, and now that I knew I wasn’t his killer, I wanted more than anything to see the real killer pay.

  The men stood in front of the broken barn window, and I knew if I could reach it without being seen, I’d get a good look at their faces. Only I couldn’t go around the back of the barn because it backed up against the trees. If I was to reach that window, I’d have to make a run past the open barn doors. The two men were still digging through drawers, muttering under their breath, and I decided now was as good a time as ever to take a chance. I took as deep a breath as I could manage, flashed a glance at the hooded men to make sure they were still turned away, and scurried out from my hiding place.

  A run that should have taken me ten seconds felt like ten minutes. My legs were like rubber, my mind reeling. Just as I was about to scoot past the threshold, rejoicing inside that I would make it without being seen, I stumbled over a dip in the ground, sprawling on all fours. I felt like a deer caught in the crosshairs of a rifle, and I looked up at them, ready to plead for my life. Both men swung around and landed their gazes square on my face.

  I was frozen in fear, gaping at the men who’d put an end to my fears of being a murderess, but I didn’t feel triumphant. Instead, I felt as though someone had taken my whole idea of the world and ripped it down the center.

  There, robed in white, stood Otis Tinker.

  I recognized him at once as the man who had confessed to killing Cy Fuller, and I sat helplessly in the dust in front of him, unable to move. The smaller man took a step toward me, but Mr. Tinker threw an arm across his chest to stop him. Then he said mournfully, “Jessilyn . . .”

  But I couldn’t listen to anything he would say. It was as though the voice I’d known for so long was coming from a complete stranger, and I found my legs, stood up in one leap, and ran from him. I didn’t stop to look behind me, couldn’t pause to listen for footsteps. Without stopping, without thinking, I fled from Tinker land. I just wanted to be home, and I wanted to warn my daddy that his old friend was a bigot and a murderer. I was afraid for myself and for my family more than I had been all summer long.

  When I was halfway home, I heard my daddy calling my name. I saw him dart out onto the path in front of me, and I threw myself into his arms, gasping for air.

  “Jessilyn,” Daddy said sternly, “where you been? We’ve been worried sick.” But then he saw my terrified expression and bent over to look straight into my eyes. “What is it, baby girl? What’s happened?”

  Jeb came walking out of the woods to join us, and I looked at him anxiously. I’d heard my daddy’s plea to know what was wrong, but I couldn’t reply to him. I couldn’t trust Jeb enough to say anything. So I stood by silently, breathlessly, but I could tell that my attitude alone had my daddy scared to death.

  “Calm down, baby,” he said. “Now, I can see you’re upset, but you need to tell us what’s wrong. Right now!”

  I glanced at Jeb again.

  Daddy followed my gaze. “It’s just Jeb. You can trust him. Now come on. Tell me what’s got you so scared.”

  I shook my head, gulping in air.

  But Daddy wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Jessilyn Lassiter, I want truth and I want it now, you hear? You tell me what’s been goin’ on. Right now!”

  I knew my daddy meant business, and for that moment my fear of him overrode my fear of Jeb. “Mr. Otis. It’s Mr. Otis!”

  “What about him? Is he hurt?”

  I shook my head again. “He killed Cy.”

  Daddy stared at me in shock. “What’re you sayin’? Why would you say somethin’ like that?”

  “I heard him say it. And he knows I know. He saw me,” I said hysterically. “He’ll come after me now. He knows I know.”

  I couldn’t rea
d the expression on Daddy’s face, but I heard the severity of his voice when he said, “You get back to the house with Jeb. I’ll go for Luke.”

  “Daddy, no!” I cried, clinging to him desperately.

  “Jessilyn, Luke’s out there in the woods by himself lookin’ for you, not knowin’ what we know, and I gotta find him and get him home.”

  “Don’t make me go with Jeb,” I fairly screamed.

  Daddy took me by the shoulders and said firmly, “I ain’t askin’ you to go. I’m tellin’ you. Get on home with Jeb.”

  “But he’s one of them. He’s just like the rest of them. You don’t know what I do.”

  “No, it’s you that don’t know what I know. Now, I can’t stand here explainin’ things to you. I need to get Luke and get back to the house with your momma and Gemma.”

  “But, Daddy . . .”

  “You got to trust me now,” he said earnestly. “There ain’t no other way around it. You got to trust me when I tell you to trust Jeb and get on home with him.”

  I looked deep into my daddy’s eyes, eyes that I had trusted all my life, and as much as I doubted Jeb, I somehow couldn’t find it in me to doubt my daddy. I dropped my grip on him and turned to follow Jeb.

  Daddy bolted into the woods, and Jeb and I hurried through prickly brush and dead leaves. I made sure to stay a few paces behind to keep an eye on him.

  “It ain’t what you think,” Jeb said to me after several minutes. “I ain’t what you think I am. I’m workin’ against the Klan, not with ’em.”

  He looked back at me, but I wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “I don’t trust nobody no more,” I muttered.

  “Ain’t no reason for that, Miss Jessie. Reason I’m here is to be someone you can trust.”

  I didn’t reply. We had reached the outskirts of our property, and I could see my momma standing on the porch, calling out for me. I sprinted past Jeb, running as fast as my legs could carry me.

  “Jessilyn, you had us worried to death,” Momma said when I reached her. “Just plumb worried to death.”

  She and Gemma hugged me so hard I could barely get a breath, but I could see they were as angry with me as they were happy to see me alive and well.