by Hite, Ann
That was the day change whistled up the mountain, ’cept I didn’t even notice ’cause I was out in the afternoon sun hanging the clothes on the line in the side yard near the cabin. My mind was on my own sweet business caught up in a good case of thinking. Chores were good for that. The air was just as hot as any summer day could be.
“You be one stupid girl if you think you’re going to catch me in some old bottle tree. It be a right fine tree to look at, though.” Stupid Armetta stood behind me, wearing the same old fancy yellow dress she had worn the last time I seen her. It was the kind of dress a white girl might pass on to her colored help. I figured Armetta must have been buried in it.
“Nada says a bottle tree is just the thing for unwanted haints.” I pulled the sheet over the line.
“A stupid ghost, maybe. Your mama didn’t tell you it can’t work on spirits that have a good reason to be here? I ain’t one bit confused. I was born right here and never left. You read what I sent you after?”
I popped a pillowcase in the wind. “No, and I ain’t going to read the silly thing.”
“You be one stupid, stupid girl. Sight might be your gift, but you sure don’t use your own eyes.”
“I use them, all right, but I ain’t helping you.”
Armetta laughed. “It ain’t me you be helping, girl. It’s you. Can’t you see how he looks at you? Don’t tell me you’re that dumb.”
“Hush up. How do I know you’re not some haint bent on hurting Pastor?”
Again she laughed, but this time it was pure mean. “I am bent on hurting him before he hurts you and that crazy daughter of his. Didn’t you listen to that little girl spirit from Darien, Georgia, up in the cemetery? She told you part of her story.”
“How do I know any of it is true?” I said.
Armetta stood there for a minute before she spoke again. “I lived in that cemetery.”
“The lost one?”
“Well, Prissy, I sure ain’t talking about Daniels Cemetery over there. My cemetery be way older than that one hooked to the church.”
A cold thought walked through my mind. “You ain’t here to look out for me. You be lying. Why you here?” I hung a pretty pink tea towel in the sun. “Faith be conjuring you?”
“She’s a sad excuse for a conjurer, but she’s smarter than you. At least she knows what I know and she has her a plan.” Armetta shook her head. “Still ain’t figured on how she came up with it, but she’s got her one. You ain’t doing nothing to stop Pastor. You be pretending he’s nice.” She studied me. “You’re scared of me. That’s why you made a bottle tree. The old girl who can see haints is scared. I be here all the time, all along. Don’t you know that by now? I’m stuck with him. I follow him. Never can get far from him.”
“Pastor?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Well, I sure ain’t talking about Abraham Lincoln.”
“Did you know him before you passed?”
“Who, President Lincoln?” She laughed again. Then her look turned hard. “That ain’t none of your business, girlie.”
“Just leave me alone,” I told her.
“Can’t. Trouble be walking right in the door, and you ain’t even paid it no mind.” Armetta looked out toward the woods. “This be nothing like your everyday haints. You best watch. Look at what is around you. And take care of those dear to you. Stay out of them woods where the lost cemetery be. They haunted with the worst kind of spirits and they ain’t always dead, girlie.”
“I ain’t listening to you.” I threw another sheet over the line. “You just trying to scare me.”
“You be one dumb girl thinking you all alone up in that cemetery. That be where they’re buried.”
“Who?” I tried to act like her answer wasn’t no skin off my back.
“Not who. What. The stories. They all be there.” And she was gone.
DEATH KNOCKED ON THE DOOR of the main house around evening time. A death that was felt deeply but had settled and slipped to the back of folks’ minds. See, the mountain took this death so personal it closed its heart. Now the door to the truth began to crack open, the air turned hotter and was hard to breathe. Nada walked around our kitchen gathering the makings for a spell. I went to sit on the porch to cool off some. There stood Arleen Brown on the back porch of the main house. Lordy, after four years, she showed up to get her answer—not from God, but Pastor. Why in the world would she hunt him out? He didn’t have no good answers. His struggles with God sure wasn’t going to hand Arleen any peace.
She never moved. When Pastor walked out the door and straight through her, he didn’t even flinch. That’s when a cold chill walked up my spine, and for some reason I heard Armetta’s warning from earlier that day. Arleen wasn’t looking for him. It was something more, something bigger, but what, I wasn’t sure. She stood with complete stillness while we both watched the sky turn orange and pink as the sun dipped into the tops of the trees. Me, standing on the front porch of our cabin, and her, right there on the back porch of the main house.
“Shelly, what you doing out there on the porch so long?” Nada stood in the door.
Wasn’t no use trying to fool her, because Nada could most of the time smell them untruths out. “I see Arleen Brown standing on Pastor’s back porch. She showed up a little while ago.”
Nada sucked the air. “Lord, why now, after all this time?”
“Don’t know.”
Nada held up her hand. “Some things are best left alone. Arleen Brown be one of them things.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I waited a minute for her to settle. “But Arleen’s here now. Maybe it’s because her mama is still mourning after her. I hear tell at the last ladies’ gathering that Mrs. Brown is worse now than when Arleen left the world.” I waited just a second. “And Nada, I remember how mad Will was when word came she died.”
Nada frowned. “I don’t want to know why that girl be waiting on Pastor. We best forget her.”
“Like how you forgot Faith taking your sewing basket?” There was some things a girl couldn’t put behind her. “And I don’t think Arleen be waiting on Pastor.”
Nada gave a little puff like maybe she’d been waiting on me to bring the stealing up one more time. “You still thinking on that basket?”
“It was my great-grandmother’s.”
“And who is that girl waiting on if she not be waiting on Pastor?”
I shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
Nada came close to me, so close I could see sweat on her upper lip. “Never trust nobody, Shelly. No matter how nice and caring they seem.”
“You mean white folks?”
“Anybody. Folks most of the time tell their own truths, but that don’t mean they be honest.” She looked out the door again.
“I can trust you, Nada.”
She looked at me a minute and then nodded.
That pause got under my skin. “The bottle tree didn’t work,” I blurted.
Nada took a sip of coffee. “Some spirits be too smart to be caught. They’ve come to finish what they started before they passed.”
“This one is stuck to Pastor. Says she has to be with him.”
Nada raised her eyebrows. “What’s her name?”
Part of me wanted to keep this to myself. “She’s mean and bossy.”
Nada watched me as her coffee steamed. “Will talked about a ghost he saw out near Ella Creek. Said she told him she lived in the lost cemetery. Told him she kept up with Pastor, knew his thoughts, his stories.” She shivered.
“Her name is Armetta.” I fiddled with a thread on the skirt of my dress.
“Don’t talk to her. She ain’t nothing but trouble.” Nada’s back went straight.
“I’ll try, Nada, but this girl’s not a spirit to be pushed aside. She be my age and colored. I don’t have to open my mouth. She keeps coming back.”
“She said something to Will. I know she did.” Lines of pain crossed Nada’s forehead. “You don’t bother with Arleen either. It can’t be g
ood she’s back. A bad thing is headed our way.”
My throat closed. Nada sounded like Armetta. “Okay.” Wasn’t nothing I could do if them haints lined up to talk to me.
Nada looked out the door. “Is she still there?”
The porch was empty. “No, ma’am.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Good. Them two ghosts are stirred up at the same time. We got to be careful. You remember what I said.”
“I don’t have a lot of say-so with this here sight, Nada.”
“Just leave them be.”
That was a lot easier said than done.
Faith Dobbins
LAVENDER PETALS FELL all over the grass, fluttering down like snow-flakes onto the back porch stairs as I stepped down into the grass. The wisteria vines grew way up in the trees, and huge clusters of blooms hung here and there. They were blooming in June, two months late. The mountain had skipped spring altogether that year. A melody played through my mind. My dance began as a two-step, and then I caught the wind and twirled. My skirt whipped out around me. I threw my arms out to each side looking like a foolish child, but the moment to dance was too strong to resist. For just a second I was happy. Had I been a young girl, I would have expected a prince to enter at that very moment if I believed in such things, but I wasn’t—and didn’t. I was nineteen and too old for such fanciful ideas. I danced. The blossoms fell around me. A sleek black car topped the driveway. I froze where I was. No one off the mountain ever came to our house.
A man emerged from the car who looked so much like Daddy, only younger, I had to do a double take.
“I’m here to see Charles Dobbins.” He stepped closer. His fingers were long like a girl’s, like Daddy’s.
“He’s at the church.” I nodded my head in the direction.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? I bet he’s preaching to the air, ranting and raving.” He smiled. “Some things never change.”
I had to smile.
He laughed. “You have to be Faith. Goodness, I haven’t seen you since you were just a baby.” He held out his hand. “Now you’re a woman.”
“Yes, I am Faith.” I didn’t touch his hand.
“I won’t bite. I promise.”
His hand was warm, almost hot, but the squeeze was gentle.
“I really need to have a word with your father. I’ve come from New Orleans just for the pleasure.”
“He doesn’t much care for interruptions.” The lavender snow fell heavier.
Even the man turned to take a look. “This is a fine place to live. Why is it he’s always writing letters about how terrible the place is?”
“Daddy doesn’t like it here. He’s more of a city preacher, or so he says. I like it just fine. Daddy says living here is God’s punishment for something bad one of us in the family did. He probably thinks it was me.”
The man grinned. “We need to be formally introduced. I’m your uncle Lenard.”
“I’d like to say I’ve heard of you, but Daddy doesn’t talk about New Orleans or anyone there.”
This brought a loud laugh from my uncle. “I just bet he doesn’t.” The man looked at the church. “I’m going to surprise him. Pray for me.” He winked. “I want to see that fine mother of yours too.” He strolled off with the blossoms catching in his blond hair, the same shade as mine.
I let him get around the corner of the church and I cut down behind Amanda’s cabin into the woods. Amanda would throw a fit if she knew I was there because she believed they were haunted. I’d heard the spirits calling at night, too, but of course I never told anyone. Mama would have thought I was crazier than she already did, and Daddy would have sworn a demon was in me. The thing was, a tiny bit of Amanda’s magic had moved into me when I stole the sewing basket. Once I sent Daddy a bad thought and a glow showed all around him for hours afterwards. Other times the knowledge of a spell would pop into my thoughts, as if my mind always contained the directions. The magic sat in my chest and ached for use. It settled in my joints and made them stiff. And when I didn’t use the suggested spells, the magic floated through my head, creating an unbearable pressure that pushed against my temples. A losing of one’s mind was not a pretty thing.
I knew if I stayed on the edge of the woods I’d be safe enough. The daylight washed the fern-covered ground. I didn’t have to walk long before I came to the back of the church. I stood under one of the open windows.
“You’re not welcome here, Lenard!” Daddy’s voice boomed.
“Come now, brother. We haven’t seen each other for too long. What, almost nineteen years now.”
“What have you come for?” Daddy barked.
“Father has a deal. He realizes he can’t keep you trapped on this mountain forever.”
“Really,” Daddy said skeptically.
“Father wants you to walk away from the idea of preaching, from this church, and he will give you the new mercantile he bought last week in New Orleans. Imagine, Charles, the city, home. It would be an honest living and there is an apartment on top. I’ve seen the whole place. It’s wonderful. It would be a healing life, Charles. You would be safe.”
Daddy’s anger seeped out the window where I hid against the wall. The thought of losing my mountain made me sick.
“Tell him I refuse!” Daddy yelled.
“Be reasonable, Charles. It’s only a matter of time before you make the wrong choice again. Your letters prove that. The last letter sounded like a madman. Of course your maid and her children will have to find another life besides living off of your income.” My uncle raised his voice on the words “maid” and “her children.”
I balled my fingers into fists. Amanda could not be sent away.
“You don’t need her anymore. The child is grown.”
So I was “the child.”
“Times are hard, Charles. A store is truly a gift.”
“A gift. A gift. To strip me of my calling, my God. A gift.”
“Was that night in Georgia part of God’s calling, Charles? Is that God giving direction?”
Glass shattered in the window three down from where I stood. I swallowed the scream in my throat and took a step back.
“Your temper hasn’t improved, has it, Charles? Father requested I speak with Lydia. It’s over. If you stay here, it will be of your own accord. Father will wash his hands of you.”
“You won’t speak with my wife!” Daddy’s voice was strained and twisted in a way I’d never heard before.
“I will.” Uncle Lenard’s voice was quiet and sure.
“Leave. Leave now! I will not leave Black Mountain. Tell Father he will have to expose me for what he thinks I am. I will not leave my church. I will not.”
Footsteps moved across the old wooden floor. “I will have my visit with Lydia and then take my leave. You can’t stop me from speaking with her. I’m not afraid of you, brother.” Uncle Lenard’s footsteps moved down the steps.
I stood still. If Daddy caught me, he would beat me. He had it in him to do anything, and that was exactly why his brother had come. He knew what my father was capable of.
I WAITED UNTIL DADDY LEFT the church, his boots crunching on the path leading through the cemetery. The cemetery wouldn’t be safe, and the last place I wanted to spend much time was the woods. So I went in the back door of the church to wait out my uncle’s visit and what it would bring.
If Daddy loved anything at all, it was the church—the actual building, not the people. The walls of the sanctuary were nothing but blackened wood. The windows didn’t provide any brightness, even though when I looked through the old, wavy glass, the daylight was still there. I chose to sit in the women’s amen corner. My body relaxed on the hard wooden bench as if I hadn’t slept for days. I hadn’t, not well. Strange dreams had plagued me since my last visit to the cemetery.
A shadow moved into the one source of light, the vestibule where the bell ringer swung from the rope each Sunday morning. A woman moved down the aisle toward me wearing an old-fashioned cotton dress wi
th lace around the throat and hem. Most of the folks on the mountain wore clothes that were old and out-of-date, so I didn’t give her much thought. The woman had red hair wrapped in a knot on top of her head.
I stood so as not to scare her since I had been sitting in the shadows. But the woman only looked through me. Around her neck was a cross just like the one Daddy kept in a velvet bag, just like the one Arleen wore when she was buried. In the center was a tiny diamond. When I was six, Daddy told me one day I would receive the necklace, but he never mentioned it again. What I would have given for some real light at that moment.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Can I help you? My father is pastor of this church.”
The woman didn’t say a word, but her soft look lingered on the walls. “Have you seen my Armetta?”
“I’ve never heard of her.” My voice echoed off the high ceiling.
She looked at the cross of Jesus hanging on the wall. Then she turned to me. “I need to find Armetta. It’s so important. I can’t leave without her.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know her.”
A horrible sadness soaked the air in the room.
“If you see her, please tell her Amelia Daniels is looking for her.”
A loud popping noise like a rifle being shot came from outside the window. A large limb fell from the big oak tree, narrowly missing the corner of the church. “My goodness.” But I was talking to thin air. The woman was gone. She must have left through the back door.
By the time I walked into my backyard, I was thinking only of the limb. I never mentioned the woman to Amanda, who stood on the back porch. Uncle Lenard’s car was gone.
“Where have you been, Faith?”
“Walking,” I lied.
She raised her eyebrows. “You best not be in the woods. Remember what I told you.”
I opened my mouth but closed it again.
