Dig Too Deep

by Amy Allgeyer

  “No way! Aw, I’m sorry Libs. It’s just, the play starts next week, so we’ve had rehearsals every day and—Oh man! I forgot to tell you. I got my internship with the Washington Recorder!”

  Her dream come true. Iris’s been applying to the Recorder for years, trying to get her foot in the door. I should have guessed.

  “Yep. Is that perfect or what?”

  “Perfectly perfect.” I fight down a wave of jealousy.

  “The guy I’m interning with said he might even let me write a little.”

  “That’s so great. Iris, I’m really happy for you.”

  “You can celebrate with me in person,” Iris says. “I’m coming to get you tomorrow.”

  The idea of going back to DC, back to Westfield Academy, leaving behind arsonists and orange water and dying grannies, makes me feel like I’ve got a helium balloon in my chest, lifting me up above all the crap. And then it pops. “I can’t leave Granny.”

  Iris sighs. “Yeah, I know. But God, Lib. That guy setting fire to your shed? That’s insane.”

  “I know.” Glancing out the window, I realize it’s gotten dark and close the blinds. God only knows who might be out there.

  “Promise me you’ll stay out of his way,” Iris says.

  Oh, how I’d love to. “Well …”

  “Liberty, seriously. Stay the hell away from the guy!”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I have to make this right.”

  “Your granny is dying. The mountain’s trashed. The people in charge there just voted to screw themselves over even more. How can you make any of that right?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s not fair! None of it.”

  Iris groans. “Oh no. Not Liberty Briscoe’s infamous quest for fairness again.” “What?”

  “I’ve been down that road too many times already.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Seriously? How about when Chester got credit for all our work on that team project?”

  “What about it?” I say. “Chester shows up for half an hour and gets an A because we worked all night for two days?”

  “It wasn’t fair. I agree. But you went all vigilante on him.”

  “I did not.”

  “Throwing his homework away, for two weeks, when you were Mr. Murphy’s classroom aid? That’s vigilante. He nearly flunked.”

  “Well, he deserved—” My gut clenches at the word.

  “And then that time Jason Mueller told Ms. Shatner that Tabitha Warner cheated off his test, when it was actually the other way around.”

  “I remember.” I’m still trying to scrub the word “deserved” out of my mouth.

  “You stuffed a thong in his locker and his girlfriend dumped him when she saw it.” Iris laughs. “Oh, and remember when that kid tied a firecracker to that stray cat?”

  “Okay, I get it.” The pattern of behavior she’s describing sounds disturbingly similar to someone else I know. Someone I really don’t respect. Someone who’s sitting in prison right this second.

  “I’m just saying, you have an interesting way of making things fair.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out.” I feel icky inside now. I don’t like being reminded that I did those things, even if, at the time, they seemed right and fair … and maybe deserved.

  “Whatever.” Iris sighs. “Look, I’m worried about you. Are you sure I can’t come get you?”

  “I can’t leave Granny.”

  “I know you can’t. Just promise you’ll call if you need me.”

  “Promise.”

  “I’ll call you this weekend, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Love you, Lib.”

  “Ditto you.”

  I hang up the phone, missing Iris like crazy and not liking myself very much at all.

  Thirty-One

  I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the sunshine to light up the far wall. It must be before eight. The house is still in the shadow of the holler. All’s quiet—no scratching dogs, no Granny sounds in the kitchen. Just birds tweeting and the occasional rustle of a breeze. I wish I could go back to sleep, reenter the dream where I had friends, we weren’t poor, and nobody was dying. But no matter how tight I close my eyes, it doesn’t work.

  It’s Saturday—grocery day. My least favorite day of the week, partly because I won’t get a nice hot lunch of fish sticks or a country fried chicken patty, and partly because I have to do the shopping. At least this week I don’t have tampons eating into my budget, but I wish that meant I could get something special—a roast or fresh asparagus or a doughnut. God, I’d give my left suede boot for a doughnut.

  I pull on a sweater over my pajama top. It’s cold in the mornings still, and Granny keeps the fire in the wood stove as low as we can stand. Shoving my feet into slippers, I head for the kitchen to make some tea. I stop at Granny’s door to check on her.

  “Granny? You awake?”

  No answer.

  She had a rough night, lots of pain around eleven. I gave her a pill, but it didn’t seem to do much. I heard her tossing and turning until way past one.

  I put my hand on her forehead. She feels cold, so I pull an extra blanket over her. She mutters in her sleep but doesn’t wake. It’s not like her to sleep so soundly. She must have taken another pill at some point. That Vicodin really knocks her out.

  After tea and no toast (the bread’s all gone), I get dressed and make a list for the store. I look in on Granny again before heading into town, but she’s still sleeping. It worries me a little but short of shaking her awake, I’m not sure what to do about it. Instead, I tell myself it’s good for her to rest, and I climb into the car.

  On the way to town, I see mud season is officially over. All the fields and yards have thick carpets of crops and grass. The rocks are sprouting moss. Everything’s dressed in green, except the top of Tanner’s Peak, which looms above us just as raw and red as ever. It’s like the bloody stump of a mountain that never scabs over.

  The grocery store is the same as always—full of stuff I want but can’t have, full of people who stare but don’t smile. By now, I recognize the regular Saturday morning shoppers. Not that they acknowledge me. I’ve gone from being a simple outsider to a trouble-making interloper.

  So I push my cart up and down the aisles, pretending not to notice the stares and glares. Other people’s carts seem so full, stacked with groceries, shrieking with kids, some double-parked while young moms whisper, heads bent together. My cart’s just like my life. Empty. Silent. Alone.

  On the way home, I stop at the overlook to check my messages. Finally, there’s an email from MFM.

  Dear Liberty,

  Your last letter concerns me. I know Robert Peabody, just as I knew his father and many other men of their ilk through the years—big company owners who stand on the shoulders of other men with little or no regard for the other man’s well-being.

  This is classic Mom. Rambly, stilted prose, forever circling the point.

  I don’t doubt that the mine is to blame for the health issues. We’ve seen this same situation throughout Appalachia. MTR mining is deadly to communities, socially, economically, and environmentally.

  Like I haven’t already figured this out myself.

  You won’t get anywhere with the EPA and I doubt the county will challenge Peabody. Not when so much of the economy depends on him and the mine. You’ll have to take matters into your own hands. Protest the mine. Form a picket line. Make flyers explaining the risks. Let the people know. Once they realize their families are in danger, you’ll have some allies.

  Seriously? This is her big plan? All that’s gonna get me is another couple house fires and maybe a broken kneecap.

  I’m proud of you for taking this on. Peabody shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this kind of destruct
ion, carte blanche.

  Let me know how things go. I love you so much, Mom

  P.S. Give Mommy a hug for me. She’s in my thoughts constantly.

  Useless! I delete the email and restrain myself from throwing the phone over the edge. Where’s the woman who chained herself to the Chinese ambassador’s car to protest their human rights violations? I want to make Peabody pay for what he did to Granny—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth sort of thing. And she tells me to make flyers?

  Flyers?

  I climb into the car and head home. The greens seem less bright now, the sky less blue, and I feel more helpless than ever. Back at the house, I haul in the cartons of water and put the groceries away. I’m just setting the milk in the fridge when Granny steps into the hallway.

  “Hi, sleepyhead.” I realize as soon as the words are out of my mouth that something’s wrong. Granny has one hand over her eyes and she’s leaning against the wall, moving slowly forward. “Granny? What’s wrong?”

  “Just get me to the couch,” she says.

  I run over and take her arm. “What is it?”

  “I feel so dizzy,” she says as I help her to the sofa. “Ever’thing’s all catawampus.” Her skin is pale and clammy.

  “Did you take too much medicine?” I ask. “Vicodin can make you nauseous.”

  “Naw. Just that pill you give me last night.” She has both hands on her head, like she’s trying to hold it still.

  “I’m going to get you some water.” I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. I’m trying to get through the plastic wrapping on the carton when I hear … ergh … puking. I run back into the living room and hold Granny’s birdlike shoulders as she shudders through heave after dry heave. When she’s done, I get a towel and clean up the little bit of sick that came out. Small benefit of never having enough to eat: nothing to puke up.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I think maybe it’s the bacon that made me so nauseated.”

  I pause, halfway to the kitchen. We haven’t had bacon since I moved here. “What are you talking about?”

  “That bacon you’re frying. I smelled it all the way in my bedroom.”

  “I’m not frying—” And then I realize. The apple pie she smelled yesterday. The bacon today. They’re not smells. They’re hallucinations.

  The cancer has spread to her brain.

  Thirty-Two

  I spend the weekend watching Granny sleep, barely leaving her side except to call the two numbers I have for day nurses. There’s no answer at either place and, despite the numerous and increasingly desperate messages I leave, no one calls me back. I keep telling myself they’re probably out of town or just busy, that it has nothing to do with my special new relationship with Robert Peabody.

  Monday morning, I wake early and start mulling over my options. Which are (1) go to school and leave Granny alone, or (2) stay home with Granny and get further behind in school. Thanks to missed homework and bad quiz grades, I’m floating between Cs and Ds in every class except English. Flipping a coin seems like as good a solution as any, though I’m not sure I have a coin to flip. I’m just about to get out of bed and check my purse when this enormous boom shakes the entire house, rattling the windows so hard I’m afraid they may break. I hear another sound, a crash in the hallway. I leap out of bed and throw open the door.

  My heart pounds as I stare through the semidarkness until I make out a picture lying on the floor with broken glass all around it. The explosion shook it right off the wall. Thanks to my research, I’m pretty sure we have Robert Peabody to thank for the explosion. In fact, we’ll probably get to hear a lot more of these over the next few days. I know the EPA hasn’t approved his petition for expansion, so they must be blasting deeper into the hole they already have.

  Goddam Peabody.

  Nothing’s wrong. Nobody’s breaking in, but I’m left with an uneasy feeling I can’t reason away. Thankfully, nothing wakes Granny when she’s on Vicodin. I leave her sleeping and head up the road to catch the bus.

  Even after a week, I still totally suck at opening my locker with one hand. It takes three attempts before I manage to wiggle the handle with just the right amount of pressure to open the door without jamming it and losing the combination. As I pull out my math book, a slip of paper flutters out and lands at my feet. I reach down to pick it up, registering at the same time that it’s covered with words cut out of magazines, like a ransom note:

  STAY AWAY FROM THE MINE. WE’RE WATCHING YOU.

  I glance around the hallway. Goose bumps creep across my skin and I have to fight the urge to dump my books, run to the car, and go home to check on Granny. The idea that somebody’s spying on us is deeply disturbing. I wonder what they’ve seen me do—get dressed? Shower? Are they following me around? Or are they standing on the front porch at home right now? I try to tell myself they’re watching me, not Granny, but I’m still worried. Ducking into the bathroom, I dial Granny’s number. She answers on the fourth ring.

  “Hello?” Her voice is slurred and sleepy.

  “Granny, it’s me.”

  “Mm.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right.” I explain about the note. “Are you okay there alone? Maybe I should come home.”

  She sighs, a rattly sound from deep in her chest. “You can’t be worrying about me ever’ single minute.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You being here ain’t gonna change nothing,” she says.

  I guess she’s right. Me skipping school to sit by her side isn’t going to stop whoever’s watching us. Most likely, it’ll just land me detention or a possible repeat of junior year. Besides, I’d have to call a taxi to get home, and I don’t have any money. “Okay. Just … keep the phone with you all the time. If anything weird happens, you call the police.”

  “Right,” she says.

  “I’ll check in later.”

  The line clicks and I realize she hung up on me.

  I read the cut-out letters one last time, make a mental note to keep the shade in the bathroom pulled down, then toss the paper in the trash. I wish it were as easy to get rid of the fear.

  Thirty-Three

  The bus ride home seems to take twice as long as normal. I sit alone, as usual, and worry about Granny the whole way. She seemed tired when I called her at lunch, so she’s probably asleep. I hate leaving her alone. Tonight, I’m going to call-bomb those nurses every thirty minutes. They’ll have to pick up the phone eventually, right?

  When the bus finally drops me off, I race up the driveway. I’m breathing hard by the time I reach the house. Crossing the yard, I see the front door is standing open. It’s pretty warm today, but still … it’s weird. Granny’s been so cold lately, she hasn’t even wanted to open a window. On the porch, I notice her tennis shoes are gone and try to remember if I took them in for some reason.

  My stomach starts twisting when I see Granny’s not in the living room. I drop my books in the middle of the floor and run-walk through the house.

  Bedroom—empty.

  Bathroom—empty.

  My room—empty.

  Kitchen—empty.

  I go back and double check.

  I triple check.

  Out in the yard, I search the old barn, calling for her. Silkie and Beethoven are gone, so I call them too. Goldie trails along behind me.

  Nothing answers me, except my own voice echoing up the holler.

  “Gran-ny-ny-ny-ny …”

  My heart pounds as I run down the drive and through the woods to the crawdad hole. Nobody. I head back to the house, still calling, and take the trail to the ridge.

  “Beethoven!”

  She could have gone for a walk, I tell myself. She probably would have taken the dogs. It all makes sense. Perfect, logical sense.

  I purposely ignore the fact that she can’t make it down the h
allway lately without resting. I also try not to think about the fire or the note in my locker. Or about Robert Peabody’s cold, dead eyes.

  “Silkie!”

  Halfway to the ridge, I hear a bark. Sounds echo so much in the hills, it’s hard to tell, but I think it came from below.

  “Silkie?”

  Another bark. I crash off trail, through the rhododendron. “Here, dog!”

  She sounds louder each time so I must be getting closer. The branches are thick and the ground slopes hard downward. I can’t tell where I am or where I’m going. I just keep calling Silkie and slipping, crashing my way down the hill toward her barks.

  As the ground levels out, the shrubs start to thin, and I hear something scrabbling toward me. Pretty soon, a white ball of fluff flies at my ankles, barking and panting. It’s Silkie. But no Granny.

  “Good dog. Good girl,” I say. “Where’s Granny? Find Granny.”

  Silkie turns to the left and starts plowing through the brush. I follow as best I can, calling her back now and then, and yelling for Granny. After a few minutes thrashing through the thick green shrubs, I stumble into the sunshine … back at the house.

  “No, Silkie! Where’s Granny? Find Granny!”

  But the little terrier is no Lassie. She just wags her tail and runs up onto the porch, barking to go inside.

  I decide to call the police. If Granny’s lost in the woods, I won’t find her by myself. And the longer she’s out there, the more hurt she could get. Plus, if she’s not lost in the woods … I shudder at the thought.

  In the house, I find the card the police officer gave me last week and call the number. He answers on the fourth ring. I tell him who I am and what’s happened.

  He tells me that until Granny’s been missing for at least twenty-four hours, they can’t do anything.

  “She probably just went for a walk,” he says. “But if she don’t turn up by tomorrow, you call me. We’ll come right out.”

  “Great. In twenty-four hours …” I stop myself from finishing the sentence. “You do remember what happened here last week, right?”