The Storycatcher
Page 26
“ ‘You love to cook just like her. It breaks my heart,’ Ma Clark said with the sweetest expression on her face.
“ ‘Who?’ I honestly thought we were talking about my mama.
“ ‘Liza Lolly.’
“The name didn’t ring a bell with me. For a long minute all I could hear was the sound of my knife cutting the onions. ‘I don’t remember her,’ I said.
“Ma Clark shook her head. ‘You didn’t know her. She was buried a long time before you come into this world. She was one of my best friends from the island. We got a story together.’
“I kept quiet when I should have asked for more. Not long after that I found a box in Ma Clark’s old keepsake trunk. The thing felt warm when I picked it up like maybe there was a promise inside.
“Ma Clark walked in, looked at me kneeling at her trunk, and slapped my face so hard I dropped the box. ‘You’re headed down the wrong road, Mary Beth.’
“In the second our stares met, I knew I would outgrow Black Mountain, that somehow I didn’t belong there, never had, and I wasn’t connected to Ma Clark. I left home as soon as I turned seventeen. I didn’t even come back when Daddy died. I couldn’t. I was afraid I would be stuck there. Turn out like your daddy, Shelly.”
I looked at her funny.
“Yes, I played with him as a child. Anyway, I made my own life with fine things and money. Men are just waiting to give you money, Shelly, if you’re pretty like you are.”
“I ain’t pretty.”
“You’ll find out one day.” She took a step toward me. “Not long before I left on the trip that brought me here to Darien, I had a dream about Ma Clark. I hadn’t seen her in too many years. I kept dreaming about the box. Dreaming so much, I asked the man that brought me to Darien to stop at Black Mountain on the way down from New York. He did. Ma Clark had died, and no one knew how to find me. I talked to your mama. She didn’t like me one bit. Most women didn’t because of my looks. She told me to go up to Ella Creek Settlement because no one lived there anymore. Ma Clark’s house looked like always. All her stuff was right there like I remembered.
“The box was all I took. When I left the cabin, I heard a mournful cry. I didn’t like believing in all of Ma Clark’s stories, but the truth was as soon as I took her box from the mountain, my life turned upside down. Me dying was going to happen anyway, but I know there is a story tangled around that box. I just never found out what it was.”
“Where is the box?” I asked.
She only shook her head. “Don’t ask me that question. I will not tell.” And she was gone.
BLACK MOUNTAIN GHOSTS was much easier to deal with than the spirits I was meeting in Darien. I went down to change Mrs. Dobbins’s bed. The house was quiet. Faith was gone and so was the car. I couldn’t help but wonder where she had to go to in Darien with no friends. Wherever she went, she took that creepy quilt of hers. That suited me just fine.
“Girl!”
I nearly fell over Mrs. Dobbins’s bed. The old woman spirit stood in the door. She looked like a real person.
“You got something to do for me. You understand?”
A sigh left my chest.
“Don’t get sassy. I ain’t your regular old haint. You got to take something away from here with you.”
“What?”
“It be hidden and you got to find it.”
“What’s hidden?” I looked around the room.
The old woman smiled. “You be a good girl. You listening without arguing.”
All the fight was out of me. I just wanted to go home to Nada. Will and I hadn’t had much to say to each other since the day he took me on the beach. What was there to say when I was so mad at him for not coming home?
“You could listen to him, child, really listen to him,” the old woman said. “You ain’t done nothing but bellyache with yourself about not having him. When you find him, you fight him.”
“He left me and Nada.”
“Ain’t nothing like it seems, girl.” She pointed at the bed. “Now, look under there against the wall on the floor, near the headboard.”
I stood where I was.
“Now, girl.”
The dust tickled my nose, but I pushed under the bed on my belly.
“See them boards that are loose?”
I tapped on the boards, and two moved.
“I told her to hide it there ’cause he was coming. She listened to me.”
The two boards came up with a little tug, reminding me of my hiding place at home.
“You find it?”
“Yes.” The last thing I wanted to do was reach in the dark hole under the floor.
“Go on. Ain’t nothing going to bite you.” The old woman laughed.
Something hard and square was in the hole.
“Take it out.”
I pulled out a small wooden box.
The old woman spirit moaned. “Yes, ma’am, that be it. Time to take it back home.” In the daylight of the room, I seen two letters carved into the lid: A. L.
“Open it. You know you want to see in it. You be a brave girl, so you deserve a look.”
I sat on the floor with the box in my lap and pulled the lid off. A cry escaped.
“What you see?” The old woman moved closer.
In the box was a lock of fine dark hair tied with a thread, a faded piece of pink tissue paper, a small square of white dotted yellow cloth, a piece of white chalk, a gold wedding band, a brown button off a man’s shirt, a small Bible, and a dead dragonfly. I spread the things on the floor. The need to cry washed over me. “A life,” I whispered.
“Yes, ma’am. You be a good girl. Take the box back to her, and the story will be over.”
“Who, Mary Beth Clark?”
“Lord, no.” The old woman cackled. “You got her book. It’s all been about her story, child. Too late to fix what happened to her, but you can stop the evil in its tracks.” She nodded to the box. “It’s a map, a deserving map, to the truth.”
And she was gone. A. L., Armetta Lolly, I thought to myself. This was her box just like she talked about in her book. Maybe all this mess had been about bringing her box home. That’s why she wanted me to read her book. She wanted her box back home. I’d do my best.
Armetta Lolly
HE MADE EVERY STEP Shelly’s mama made, and the fool didn’t hear him or see his signs. Evil walked the mountain that day. God help her soul.
PART TEN
Ebb Tide
June 1939
“The wind becomes still and the water pulls back. It be so quiet you can hear the birds breathe.”
—Ada Lee Tine
Shelly Parker
THAT WIND STOPPED BLOWING and the water got still when I found the box. I left the bedroom in a run and almost knocked Mrs. Dobbins down.
“Shelly, where is Ada?” she asked.
Her face was lined like it stayed when she was on the mountain.
“The last time I seen her, she was in the backyard.”
Her frown got deep. “Go find her. There’s a man here about her boy. He’s been hurt.”
I pushed down them stairs two at a time with my hand shoved in the deep pocket on my skirt, holding the memory box safe. My plans was to hide it in my bag at Ada’s house in Darien.
“Be careful, Shelly. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
It was time for some truths. “Her boy be Will, Mrs. Dobbins.”
“What?” she yelled.
But I couldn’t stop running. Will was hurt, and I hadn’t even taken the time to tell him I did love him.
Maude Tuggle
I LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW of Zach’s truck, trying to shake the dread easing down my scalp for no good reason.
“Maude, this woman is colored, and it will be hard to get a court of law to take her testimony serious, especially against a pastor. I wish we could talk to his daughter. What is her name?”
“Faith, but she’s gone. They’re hiding. Shelly’s note said they went to the Geo
rgia coast. Amanda is trustworthy, and she went to work for him before Faith was born.”
“It doesn’t matter, Maude. Some people will not care about anything but the color of her skin.” He turned into the drive.
The big house was quiet. “His car isn’t here. I haven’t seen him since he came to my door raving like a crazy man.”
“That is odd. I expected to see him again. He was very angry.” Zach stared at the house.
“Let’s go to Amanda’s cabin first.” I had a feeling someone was watching our every move. When I knocked on the door, it swung open. Zach touched my hand and shook his head. He took a step inside.
“Amanda?” I called. “Maybe she’s up at the main house.” Then I saw all the bottles on her shelf in the kitchen scattered over the floor. The shelf hung sideways on one nail. “Something bad has happened.”
“Maybe the shelf just fell. It looks like it was loaded down.” Zach eased into the kitchen. “Let’s look around.”
This didn’t take long. “She’s in the main house.” I said this around a knot in my throat.
When I stepped into the yard, a wave of pure panic washed over me. My hands shook.
“Her be lost.” The words floated through the air.
“Did you hear that?”
Zach looked at me funny.
“I thought I heard a voice.”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” he said.
I nodded.
The back door to Charles Dobbins’s house stood wide open. Cabinet drawers were pulled out and the contents scattered all over the floor.
“Maude, come over here.” Zach pointed to the floor.
Sugar was spilled. Someone had written a message: FIND HER.
I shook my head.
“I think our good pastor has lost his mind.”
I saw Faith’s face in my thoughts. “He’s left. He’s gone after Faith and Lydia, Zach. He’s going to hurt them like the others, like Arleen.”
Zach’s face turned red. “I have a friend who is the sheriff of McIntosh County, Georgia.” He moved to the phone. “Maybe he’ll know where they’re staying. He has connections up and down the coast.”
“What about Amanda?” My stomach churned. “I shouldn’t have left her. He came after I was here.”
“He could have taken her with him.”
“Maybe.” But I knew he hadn’t. “Let’s go to my place. Maybe he’s been there too.”
WE STOOD in my garden.
“The angel was here?” Zach pointed at the flattened grass. “I thought I told you not to bother it, Maude, that it was stealing.”
“I know.”
“Who helped you?”
A butterfly caught a breeze and glided along to the next bush. “I did it with my wheelbarrow.”
He shook his head. “So Charles Dobbins could have seen you bring it out of the woods?”
“I guess, but why would he care about the marble angel with a broken wing?”
“I’m not sure, but I have a gut feeling he was watching you and this angel is important. Let’s go to the cemetery.”
I led him up the path into the woods. All was still.
“She be lost.” The voice was loud this time. Zach still didn’t seem to notice.
Arleen Brown
“HERE’S YOUR COFFEE.” I handed Will the steaming paper cup. “It’s wrong that I can go in there and buy coffee and you can’t.”
Will looked at the shrimp boats from where he stood on the side of the road. “Lots of wrong things, Arleen. You should know that. It’s the way things are right now, but maybe not forever.”
“We’re the same, Will.”
He placed a finger to his lips. “Arleen, be quiet. You have to let Faith come back into her body. You understand. I don’t know why you think you are helping her. It sounds like you’re just helping yourself.”
“That’s not true.” I wasn’t going to listen to him. “She can’t do what has to be done. I have to use the death quilt. There’s a soul sewn into it. That soul will die when I finish.”
“So you sewed the pastor into the quilt?” He frowned. “If he dies, Faith will be the one blamed. That cannot happen. Let her go.” His voice was mean.
I stood up. “No. I won’t. This is my time. Not hers. I’m owed this.”
He reached for Faith’s hand.
I pulled away. And just like some ten-year-old girl, I ran. I’d go back to Missus.
“Arleen!”
Tires screeched and a violent shove sent my world spinning. Then all I heard was the loud thud. Footsteps all around me.
“Someone call an ambulance.”
I tried to open Faith’s eyes.
“That’s Ada Lee Tine’s boy. Check on him.” Hot breath hit my face. “Ma’am, ma’am?”
I managed to open Faith’s eyes. A man with a dark beard stared into my face. “Will,” I whispered.
“She’s talking!” he yelled over his shoulder. “They got to take him to the colored hospital,” he said.
“He saved my life. He pushed me out of the way.” The siren came close. Then I could see the red lights. Two men jumped from the cab and ran to me.
“Go check on Will! He got hit by the car. Not me.” A wild-animal sob escaped my chest.
I got to my feet. “Will?” He was in the middle of the road. Two white women stood on the curb watching. No one was helping. “Help him!” I went to him and squatted down. “Will!”
He looked at me and smiled. “Damn girl, you stay in trouble.”
“Help him!” I screamed at the ambulance guys. “What hurts?” I looked Will in the eyes.
“My knee feels bad.” His eyes were bloodshot.
Around his head was a puddle of blood. A wild scream worked inside me, but I kept it down. There. There. A cut near his eye. Not his head.
The men began to work with Will.
“We’re sending word to Ada.” This came from a colored man who seemed to have just appeared from nowhere. “He’s got to go to the colored hospital, ma’am.”
“No! He needs the nearest hospital. Do you hear?” I screamed.
The knocking in my head took up all the thoughts, and I fell down the dark black hole. Faith wanted to come back, and I had to let her. It was the rules.
Armetta Lolly
THE SOUND OF BONES CRACKING shook my dead soul. It was one of those sounds I knew and wished I didn’t. When he was done, he crashed through the woods with my angel. The white granny woman never heard him take the dern thing from her garden. He even watched her through her bedroom window while she undressed. Now he was trying to put the angel back before someone found the hidden place. The man was a devil.
“You be in trouble if you hurt the granny woman.”
He laughed hard and long. “You silly ghost, I’m the one with the power, not you, or her or the other bitch. Me! It’s over. The angel goes back where it belongs. It’s over. I have the power. Now Faith has to stay with me forever.”
I MET HER SOUL when she left her body—Shelly’s mama—a bright glow. That meant she be lucky. All was at peace and out of her hands.
“Watch my children, Armetta,” she said. What made her think I was going to stay on the mountain that long? I wanted to leave just like her. It was way past my time. Then she turned into a golden crystal light and soaked into the sky. What made her soul different from mine? And then I knew. Forgiveness. She forgave herself for all she’d done. If I did that, could I leave? Could I go, even though I was still lost? Or did I have to be found?
“Where’s the cross?” he screamed as he went through her cabin.
This made me laugh. I laughed and laughed. His time was near.
Ada Lee Tine
THERE HE WAS all shining and new. His leg wrapped. A cut here and a bruise there. He was whole like no truck ever hit him. Shelly stood on one side of the bed and me on the other. That Miss Faith stood in the room like she belonged. They said she caused a ruckus, not wanting him to go to the colored hospital.
“She be back, the real Faith,” Shelly whispered to me across Will like he couldn’t hear a word.
“I need to talk to you, Shelly,” Will spoke softly.
She nodded.
“A white doctor ain’t going to see my boy.” My head was pounding with nervous pain.
“He’s not your boy,” Faith whispered. “The best doctor in Brunswick is coming. I insisted.”
“When’s he coming? Two days from now? His leg needs to be checked by a doctor today.” I know I sounded sassy to my boss’s daughter, but it didn’t matter.
“I promise he’ll be here. I just want the best care for him. He’s like family to us.” Faith said this nice and quiet. She wasn’t a bit sassy. Something had to be wrong with her.
“Will, did you ever let Amanda know where you were?” Miss Lydia spoke for the first time, studying my boy.
“This is my boy, Miss Lydia. I don’t mean no disrespect, but don’t go in our business. I’m going after our doctor.”
“Ada, I’m fine. My knee hurts but they wrapped it good.”
“I think Amanda deserves to know her son is alive.”
The whole time I’d known Will, I’d never seen him with a mean look on his face. He only had kind, soft words for folks. Now he shot Miss Lydia a hateful look, full of spite. The very spite I’d seen on Shelly’s face when she first saw him.
Miss Lydia looked like she might say something but she backed down.
I broke the silence. “I’m going to see Dr. Thomas. I’ll be back. Shelly, you stay right here with Will.”