How It Happened in Peach Hill

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “My mother has struggled to bring out the best in me,” I said, “like most mothers, I guess.”

  If I destroyed Mama … I would rip apart the trust of all these other neighbors and customers.

  But I wouldn’t tell another lie.

  “Mama knew … that hiding somewhere was the child she longed for me to be. She did her best to reveal my true nature. Her powers have been put to.… a remarkable test.” Almost over. “In our case, the obstacle was … was greater than most. Now that she has released me, my mother will need to recover for an extended time. She will not be accepting clients for … for the foreseeable future.”

  “What about you?” Mrs. Peers called out. “You do a bang-up job yourself.”

  “I don’t think … well, that I’ve inherited the right traits from my mother, whatever it is that inspires her to do this work,” I said. “For now, I plan to be an ordinary girl. Thank you.” I waved. “My head hurts! I have to sit down. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  There. Every word I’d said was true, without quite telling the true story.

  Most of the kids had hightailed it off even before I’d finished talking; the drama was over, as far as they were concerned. I was just odd Annie Grackle; they were late for school, and Mrs. Newman was circling the crowd.

  “Annie.” She cupped my face in her gloved hands and inspected me. “That’s a nasty bump you’ve got! You look like a hoodlum! Though not as roughed up as Helen. Annie, your friend Helen has disappeared. You must tell me where she is. She shouldn’t be running about by herself. She was terribly hurt.”

  “She’s gone, ma’am. There’s nothing we can do anymore.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “Just gone,” I said. “She went on the train, but I don’t know which way.” It hurt to say it out loud.

  Mrs. Newman sighed, as if she’d lost something too. “And what about you? That was a brave act just now, Annie Grey. It takes a great deal of courage to choose your own road.”

  “Mmmm,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll get to school today, Mrs. Newman.”

  Her eyebrow rose.

  “But I’ll be there from now on.”

  “Good girl.”

  Peg decided it was the right time to interrupt. “Let’s get you home, missy, put some ice on that head.”

  Did Peg realize what I’d been saying up there on the steps? If so, she didn’t let on. But I knew that if I arrived on Needle Street with Peg, Mama would be in a poisonous temper. “Peg, Mr. Poole must have hired that photographer without realizing that Mama hates to have her picture taken. She’s likely to be hopping mad. I don’t think you should come right now.”

  “She’s not going to make your head feel right the way I will,” said Peg.

  “I know, but also?” I pulled her close, to speak into her ear, and her curls tickled my nose. “This boy, Sammy, said he’d walk me home. I’d kind of like …” I left it dangling.

  “Off you go, honey,” said Peg, with a sly grin. “But you promise me you’ll put an ice pack on your head? And I’m coming over there first thing in the morning, come hell or high water.”

  Probably both, I thought.

  “That,” said Sammy, “was the most astounding phenomenon I’ll probably witness until I die, of course, and see the gates of Heaven.”

  “Sammy.” I turned to face him. “I wish I—”

  “You got healed, didn’t you? Before our very eyes.”

  “Sammy. It wasn’t Mama praying or calling on spirits. It wasn’t falling down the stairs and giving myself a royal goose egg.” I looked into his eyes. “Sammy, here’s the truth. My mother and I—”

  “Don’t say it,” said Sammy, shaking his head, closing his dear eyes. “You’re going to tell me something I don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I am.” I wished it were dark so we could kiss again. I was sure we were about to say good-bye. How awkward it would be to kiss in daylight! Maybe that was why people closed their eyes to kiss—to create their own night.

  Sammy was waiting.

  28

  A light shining out of the dark

  in a dream shows that you will

  finally find the truth in a

  situation, or the answer you

  have been seeking.

  “Sammy, I’m not who you wish I was. I’m not a psychic and neither is my mother. She doesn’t tell fortunes—she tells people what they yearn to hear, what they want their future to hold. And sometimes, because they believe in what she says, they can make it happen for themselves.”

  “But what about the spirits?” he asked. “She can talk to them, can’t she? That part is real, isn’t it?”

  “No, Sam. That’s not true either. No spirits, no trances, no visions, no magic.”

  “And the healing?” He was nearly whispering. “ ‘See the Idiot Restored to Reason’?”

  “Sammy …” This was the hardest part. I would almost rather be an idiot than say it. “I never was an idiot. It was all an act. All of it.”

  He blinked, the hope chased out of his face. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours ticked by while Sammy tried to absorb the punches I’d thrown.

  “Well, then,” he finally said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re still the girl I kissed.”

  My heart jumped.

  “But that’s … that’s all.”

  I didn’t deserve to care so much. I made myself keep looking straight at him.

  “Are you leaving Peach Hill?”

  “No,” I said. “My mother is leaving, but I’m staying on. For now, anyway.”

  He pushed the dark hair off his forehead. “I suppose I’ll see you, then,” he said. “I kinda want to think about things.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Let’s both think really hard.”

  “I’d better go to school.” He touched my hand, just a tap, really, with his fingertips. “Bye, then.”

  “Bye.”

  The walk up Picker’s Lane to Needle Street seemed as far and lonely a journey as out to the Way. I stopped at the corner and ducked into a shadowed doorway. Mr. Poole’s motorcar was parked outside number sixty-two, with all four doors wide open. Our front door stood ajar as well. I crept closer. I could hear Mama’s voice but not her words. She must be somewhere in the back of the apartment. I poked my head into the hall, tempted to slide into the front room, to nestle at my listening post behind the red armchair.

  “… still don’t understand why it’s so urgent that you leave at once,” Mr. Poole was saying.

  “A stay in jail is a great educator,” said Mama. “And inspires one to move more quickly next time the chance arises.”

  She’d told him about jail? They were becoming intimate. I’d clearly missed the part where she’d thrown a fit about the photographer, though she still sounded pretty snappy. I retreated to the corner of Picker’s Lane. My head ached terribly. I wanted to lie down. I didn’t want to talk to Mama with Mr. Poole standing by.

  The door banged open. Mr. Poole staggered out, carrying Mama’s trunk to the car. Perhaps I wouldn’t have a choice. Mama followed with the hatboxes, one of them full of money. Did he know that yet? He brought out the carpetbags and my own suitcase. Where was the sugar sack from the kitchen? Probably stuffed into one of the carpetbags. She couldn’t have found the two rolls of money I’d taken after Helen’s visit. They were too well hidden in my room.

  Mr. Poole came outside and cranked up the car. He got into the driver’s seat, and Mama climbed up next to him. I stepped toward the car. Would she really leave without saying good-bye?

  “Mama?” I leaned through the window next to her.

  Her grin of triumph nearly knocked me over. “I knew you must be watching!” she cried. “I used your suitcase as bait. You see, Gregory? Just as I predicted. She saw us ready to go and here she is!”

  My heart cracked in two as I realized that she’d used a trick even now at the end of things. Though I supposed she didn’t
believe yet that it was the end.

  “Gregory says he’ll take us as far as Nobel. We can stay the night there and have a better choice of trains in the morning.”

  “I’m not going with you, Mama. I’m staying in Peach Hill. I only came to say good-bye. And to wish you well.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mama.

  “Not nonsense,” I said.

  She got down from the car. I reached in behind her and took out my case. She grasped it while I held the handle and we tussled for a moment. I let go and she staggered backward.

  “Take it, then,” I said. “You can take all of it but me.”

  Mama dropped the suitcase as if it burned her fingers. I heard Mr. Poole behind me, but she waved at him to shush.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said. We went into the front room. She sat in her own chair, and I sat in the red armchair.

  “We’ve been planning to leave anyway,” she said.

  “Not me,” I said. “I don’t see why you’d want to trust Mr. Poole. He’s not rich, Mama. He’s been conning us all along.”

  She smiled. “I’ll admit that he had me for a day or two,” she said, “but I had him first. It was quite a treat to find that there was more to him than I expected. You haven’t had a chance to learn this yet, Annie, but you will someday. There’s a certain appeal, a relief, even, in finding a companion who cares about who you really are.”

  I lifted her hand from her lap and turned it over, placing my palm flat against hers before looking carefully at the map of lines.

  “I see a long life,” I said. “Much of the conflict has been resolved. Adventure and romance await you.”

  “What will I do without you, Annie?”

  I stared at her palm.

  “What I want to find out,” I said, “is what I’ll do without you.”

  Every sound and every breath of air seemed to leave the rooms with Mama.

  The worries I didn’t want to face were pounding for attention in that quiet. Where would I live now? The rent was paid until the end of the month. Then what? How long would my stolen money last? Would I like school as much without Mama here to object? How was Helen doing out there in the world alone, if I was afraid right here in Peach Hill?

  Oh, my aching head.

  Tomorrow, I’d think. I’d find the answers tomorrow.

  Peg came early in the morning. She was holding the newspaper, folded back to show Mama’s face, uplifted as if in prayer. The headline read: HEALER OR FRAUD?

  “You’ve got some explaining to do, missy,” said Peg. “I’ve been putting two and two and two more together and coming up with half a dozen. Why would you hide all this from me? I’m not happy about looking the fool, not one bit.”

  “You were never a fool, Peg,” I said. “Mama …” My voice trailed off.

  “Honey?” She patted a salve onto the bump on my forehead. “You know what? You had to get away from that woman. She’s got the devil inside her, right into the bones.”

  “She’s my mama, Peg.”

  “And maybe she even loves you. But she loves herself first, and she’s been using you something awful. That’s not healthy for a child.”

  “I wanted to tell you, really I did, but—”

  “But nothing. I know,” she said. “Get your things. We’re going to my house.”

  My things weren’t much: a small pile of clothes, a few books, Mama’s silky nightdress, the silver bell that hooked under my séance skirt, and forty twenty-dollar bills.

  My little notebook and my gold pen.

  One never knows.

  Peg’s house smelled of vinegar and lemons, as though she’d been scrubbing just for me. She gave me a tour, which took four minutes. A plate of gingersnaps and raspberry jumbles waited on the kitchen table, and Peg soon made a pot of tea. She had knit the tea cozy herself, in the shape of a rabbit.

  “Too chilly now to sit outside,” she said, “but spring and summer, my little porch is like another room, overlooking the street with the whole world going by. I plant vegetables in April. I hope you like to weed, missy.”

  “It’s nice here,” I said. “And I’ll get a job after school, Peg. I’ll help pay, I promise.” If I’d told her I had eight hundred dollars tucked in the lining of my bag, she’d have fainted dead away.

  “I start next Monday for Mrs. Tibbet,” said Peg. “Laundry and ironing. We’ll do all right.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  “And I’ve been seeing a fellow. Just like you said I would. That other policeman? The little one, with the manly voice? Well, it turns out he’s quite the dancer and more fun than a circus.” She blushed scarlet. “I’m not sure yet, you know, that he’s the true love you mentioned, but still. He’s a fellow.”

  “A lucky fellow,” I said. “And I like your house, Peg. It feels like a home. But …” How to say it? Straight out, I decided. “I don’t think I can sleep in the bed where your father died. What if he came to visit?”

  “It would serve you right,” grumbled Peg. “But I suppose we’d best give away that bed. I can hardly bring myself to fluff the pillows. I know you claim now it’s bunkum, but I swear he watches my every move.”

  “Anything’s possible,” I said. And I meant it.

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  About the Author

  Marthe Jocelyn is the author of several award-winning novels and has written and illustrated picture books. She divides her time between New York City and Stratford, Ontario.