“Wait, wait,” I said, looking all around me. “Aunt Brat, did you see Guffer? We were playing. . . .”
“Yes. However, I became otherwise distracted,” she said. (Little eye roll, but she was sounding precise again. A good sign.) “He was on an approximate course for home. Come on. We’ll watch for him on our way.”
“Sorry,” I said as we got into the car.
“All is well,” she said. She sounded tired.
“I got the mail,” I offered. I reached into my jacket to tug it out.
“Glory be,” said Aunt Brat. She pressed the boxy car up the hill for home. We found our big yellow dog. He’d curled himself into a nest atop the snow pile beside the steps. A thin blanket of flakes had already accumulated on his back.
“Well, there is a portrait of contentment,” Aunt Brat said. She sighed.
“He’s so beautiful,” I said.
I could feel my aunt watching me while I watched the dog.
35
A Secret to Keep
Movement was keeping me warm, so when Raya Delatorre halted us in the road, I continued to march, in place. “Who’s up for a hike to the Gerbers?” she asked in her raspy voice.
This was the long, long driveway, I remembered, and it was the home of Florry Gerber and her Belgian Hares. I waited for Sari to reply. We’d been out for over an hour observing Chelmsford in the aftermath of a big snow. If she’d had enough, I’d go along with that.
“Oh, let’s!” Sari said. “There could be babies! And Florry would be so proud to show us. Lydia? What do you say?”
“Footslogging we shall go,” I said, and I swept my arm forward. (I owed these girls some enthusiasm.)
“Footslogging,” said Sari. “I like that.”
“How about floots-logging,” said Raya.
“Or loots-fogging,” said Sari.
We ruined that one word at least a dozen ways—some hilarious, some unsavory. When we laughed, we spread out so that we took up most of the snowy road. Then we regrouped into our usual triangle: them in front, me bringing up the rear and always looking off to the sides of me at the cloak of snow on the fields.
If Pinnacle Hill felt isolated because it was so high, the Gerber farm felt that way because it was low and down the long driveway. By road, the two were a pretty good trudge apart. But my geographic sense told me they were closer as the crow flies.
“Hi, Gwen!” Suddenly Raya and Sari were waving, arms stretched high. I leaned around them and saw the woman, elbow propped on the handle of her shovel, taking a break from snow clearing. She shaded her eyes with her other hand. I had not met Gwen.
“Raya? Is that you? And Sari?”
“Yes!” Sari called. We trotted the rest of the way in. “We’ve brought Lydia Bratches-Kemp as well!” Sari presented me with a sweep of her white mitten.
She’s the new girl with the dead mother.
“Lydia.” The woman smiled. “I know your aunt Bratches, and Eileen, too. I heard we had a new resident here in little Chelmsford. Welcome!” Gwen Gerber was a young woman, younger than my mother had been. “Sorry we haven’t met before this. I’m basically married to my place. Tell her I’m right,” she said to Raya and Sari. “I don’t get off the property a lot.” She laughed.
“Especially in snow!” Sari added.
“True. It can take me days to plow out. But, as they say, snow is the poor woman’s fertilizer. Good for the fields.”
“Here, here. Let me,” said Raya, taking the shovel from Gwen. She began scooping huge shovel loads onto a pile.
“Wow. Thanks. You’re better at that than I am,” Gwen said, “and I am not just pulling a Tom Sawyer on you. Really! I’m not!” We laughed. Raya went on clearing snow.
“Where’s Florry?” Sari asked. She explained that we’d seen the beautiful Belgian Hares some weeks ago.
“She’s in the barn,” Gwen said with a sweet smile. “That’s where she loves to be. She’s got a gruesome little cold, though, poor kid.”
“But can we go visit?”
Gwen seemed to hesitate but finally nodded yes. “Just don’t let Florry sneeze on you. I sent her in there with a box of tissues. I hope she’s not glazed in boogs,” she said with a laugh. “It’s one thing I can’t make her understand. Working on it. Maybe someday!” Her good humor made me think of Mom. I liked Gwen Gerber.
She reached to take the shovel back from Raya, who threw a few more scoops of snow onto the pile. “You’re a good egg, Raya,” Gwen told her. She offered her a knuckle bump and Raya took it.
Inside the barn we met Florry almost exactly as we’d met her before. But this time she was holding an armload of hay instead of a rabbit. I could hear her steadily mouth breathing. Her nose was red—and glazed. She seemed not at all surprised to see us. She spoke first.
“You wan’ know what? I got a cold,” she said. She dropped the hay and pointed to her nose. The Belgian Hares gathered at her feet, nosing the hay as if looking for the good parts.
“We heard. How do you feel?” Sari asked.
“I’m okay.” She pulled a new leaf of hay from the bale beside her and shook it into the raised hutch.
“Want some help?”
“You ’on’t have to. I could do it.” She picked up a small hoe and dragged damp hay and droppings out from under the hutches. “This for compost,” she said, more to herself than to us.
The Belgian Hares took elegant slow hops around us. They reached toward us with their noses. I wished I had come with pockets full of carrots. Instead we knelt and offered clean hay. I loved the feel—that bossy tug—as they took it from my hands. I was mesmerized watching long pieces of hay disappear into lips that looked like pairs of velvety brown pussy willows. Then the soft, comforting grinding sound as they chewed.
“Meh-eh-eh-eh-eh!!! Meh-meh-eh-eh!!”
Raya stood straight up. The rabbits scattered. Sari and I stayed low, waiting and listening.
“Meh! Meh-eh-eh-eh!”
“Was that bleating?” Raya said.
All of us looked at Florry. “Shhh,” she said, and she ducked her chin in her bashful, almost flirty way.
“Did you get a . . . goat?” Sari asked.
“No.” Florry shook her head. “Two! Bwoken ones,” she said, eyes wide.
“Broken?” Raya asked.
“Yee-ah. Two of the feet. And the ee-yors. That’s the onliest bad parts. You wan’ see?”
My brain bell rang. My stomach rose. Florry Gerber led us out of the rabbit enclosure and down the middle of the barn. She stopped in front of a solid stall door. What was it with all these barns? Every one had stalls with walls just high enough that we couldn’t quite see over them, and the boards were spaced so you couldn’t quite see in.
Florry set a foot into the lowest board and climbed up. She put her hands and chin on the top rail. We followed, me squeezing up between Raya and Sari.
By then, I knew what I would see. I peered into the stall.
“Oh my God, it is them,” I said.
“Them? Who?”
“The goats from the Feed,” I said. But as I stared down, I could see the changes. The goats seemed calm—maybe drowsy, but their heads were up. What a difference. The bloody bandages were gone. The feet were covered in clean sturdy casts, wound in bright pink tape. The edges of those ears looked healed under a slick of ointment.
Raya and Sari were silent at first. This was a lot to take in, I knew that.
“Oh, wow,” Raya breathed. “So these are the ones?”
“Look how awful.” Sari’s lip quivered. “Those pink clubs instead of hooves? It’s just wrong,” she whispered. “And the ears. That edge . . .” She pressed her forehead on her mittens, unable to look.
I ached to tell them that this was better. But that would mean admitting to Raya and Sari that I’d seen them before. I’d held that back when our classmates first learned about the goats; I hadn’t wanted to be asked to describe what I’d seen. I remembered how stricken Eileen had been—how Au
nt Brat had been so protective.
“They goin’ get new feet,” Florry said. “Those has to get made furst.”
“They’re going to get prostheses. . . .” I realized this out loud.
“Holy . . . ,” Raya said. “So . . . it was Gwen who took them in.” She turned to Florry. All of us were hanging on to the top of the stall practically by our chins now.
“Florry, when? When did you get them?”
“We ’idn’t get um,” Florry said with a tiny shake of her head. She was so earnest, I thought. But she was also wrong. Of course they’d gotten them. We were looking right at them.
“But Florry, they’re here,” said Sari. She spoke gently.
“Yee-ah. But they idn’t ours.” Florry stretched her chin toward us.
“Oh. Are you taking care of them?” Sari asked.
Florry broke into a wide grin. She nodded. She wiped her nose on her coat sleeve, leaving a shiny trail. I slipped down from the wall. I had to; my fingers were cramping. I sank down against the outside of the stall. A few seconds later, the others joined me, including Florry, who crouched on the barn floor in front of us.
Though it’d made me woozy to see them again, I thought that it was good that the goats had landed at the Gerber farm. It was quiet here and out of the way. They had this gentle girl to care for them, and they had Gwen, who already seemed super capable to me.
“You wan’ know whose?” Florry said. “They hurs.” She was looking directly at me. “Those goats are from your mutha.”
“My mother?” I touched my fingers to my collarbone.
Raya shifted beside me. Sari let out a little breath.
Dead mothers make people uncomfortable.
I squinted at the Rabbit Goddess girl, who was nodding now with confidence.
“Hmm, Florry, I think . . . well . . . I’m not sure that’s right,” Raya said.
“But that’s okay,” said Sari.
“Oh yeah. Way okay,” Raya said. She gave Florry’s shoulder a loving stroke. Florry scuttled forward. She leaned into Raya the way a cat might.
“Not wrong,” said Florry, another new grin breaking across her face. “Hur mutha got ’em brung here.”
What?
She raised a finger between us. “We’re the onliest few what knows. So ’on’t you tell.” She shook her head quickly. She wiped her nose again and gave us a shiny grin.
I was not going to try to explain to Florry Gerber why my mother could not have had anything to do with the goats. What if I upset this tender girl? But, oh, what a story she’d built!
“Uhh . . . Florry, my sweet.” Gwen came striding down the center of the barn. “Did you forget?”
“We’re the onliest few what knows,” Florry said. She sounded defensive. I was surprised.
“If you mean the goats, it’s not her fault,” Raya told Gwen. “We heard them bleating.”
“I see,” said Gwen. “The better they feel, the louder they get.” She looked at us, her eyes imploring us to cooperate. “Well, girls. You’ve just been made a part of a special contingent. My fault. I could have kept you out of the barn. . . .” She let that trail off. “You’ve probably heard about these poor little ones.”
“Oh yeah, we did,” Raya said. “But hey, Gwen, we won’t tell anyone they’re here if that’s what you need.”
“That’s what I need,” Gwen confirmed with a nod. “They’ve been entrusted to me—I’m a helper—until an owner is found, or it’s otherwise sorted out.”
“Oh. Gwen. You are so good,” said Sari. “It can’t have been easy.”
I remembered now how Axel had said that taking in badly injured animals was costly. By all appearances Gwen was on her own, with a special daughter to take care of.
“Well, I’m providing shelter and some of the care,” said Gwen. “But I couldn’t do it if the goats didn’t have a benefactor. We have a long way to go. They’re still mildly sedated, and on antibiotics—”
“The mennissin,” Florry said.
“The medicine. That’s right,” said Gwen. “If we can get them healed rehab will be next. They have to learn to walk again.” She tilted her head and let out a worried sigh.
Florry slid herself along the side of her mother and into the space under her arm. Gwen kissed her daughter’s hat-covered head.
On our way out, Raya took charge. “So, you guys, seriously, we don’t tell. Okay? Not one person.”
“What about my mom and dad?” Sari asked.
“Well, I’m not going to tell you what to do about parent stuff,” Raya said. “But for me, unless mine actually say, ‘Hey, Raya, do you know where those abused goats are living?’ I’m not mentioning this. Because you know what happens?”
“A person tells one person who tells just one more . . . ,” Sari said.
“Exactly. And the thing is, whoever did that to those goats is a total criminal. And there’s no way to know what’s up with them.” She pointed to her head. “And I don’t know if it’s even a worry, but I sure wouldn’t want them to find a path to Gwen because of something I let slip.”
“I won’t say anything,” I said.
My aunt doesn’t like secrets . . . but I keep some anyway. . . .
“Wow. Is Gwen Gerber a good person, or what?” Raya said.
“One of the best,” Sari added.
A goddess.
36
Sick in Bed
By Tuesday it was clear that I had caught Florry Gerber’s cold. Only it seemed like more than that. I had a fever and aches, with a sore throat radiating out to my ears. My nose needed blowing, constantly. I finally crept downstairs in search of hot tea—no coffee.
In the kitchen I announced that I was sick. Aunt Brat immediately put the kettle on, then insisted that I come over to the window for her to have a look “down my hatch,” and, of course, Eileen came too.
“Ahhhhhhh . . .” They said it with me. They took turns peering into my throat.
“Oh, yes,” said Brat. “Looks angry in there.”
“Red rager, red rager, get the doc on the pager!” said Eileen.
I shut my mouth so my breath wouldn’t poison them.
“I wonder where you picked it up,” Aunt Brat mused. “Well, I guess any school is basically an oversized petri dish.”
“No, I think I got this from Florry Gerber,” I said, and instantly wished I had not. “We hiked over there this weekend.”
Okay, Lydia . . . stop talking now. . . .
There beside the light of the window I thought I caught an uneasy look on Aunt Brat’s face. Before I could slide away, she grabbed my head, pressing one hand firmly across my forehead, the other at my crown. “You’re definitely warm.” She no sooner let me go than Eileen, too, palmed my head.
Aunt Brat poured my tea. I sat at the table, listlessly dunking the teabag.
“Sorry for you, youth and beauty,” Elloroy said. “Have an extra hit of honey.” He pushed the jar toward me with the back of his hand. Eileen intercepted it and drizzled a big dose into my cup.
“I’ll call you in absent,” said Aunt Brat.
“Already on it,” Eileen said. She produced her phone. “Got the number programmed in. Huh-haw. This is a first. Call the girlie in. . . .” She wedged up to the kitchen window and poked at her phone.
“Let’s try to get that fever down.” Aunt Brat reached into the narrow cupboard where they kept medications and pulled down a white bottle. Every motion—the twisting of the cap, her splayed fingers, and the way she held out the pair of pills to me—bore sister-likeness to Mom. I double-checked that, yes, I was looking into my aunt’s face. I gingerly picked the pills out of her hand. This was the first time I’d been sick since Mom had died. You want your mom. You just do.
I thought about how she’d always managed to rally to take care of me when I needed her. Those were the times she fretted most about her lousy heart. I longed to hear her say it: We’re going to need a goddess for this.
Sick days, I realized, ha
d always smelled like paste and paint. Then again, maybe most days had. Could I do it? Could I use this sick day to make art? Did I have a goddess in me? Maybe once my chills were gone. But, right now, I didn’t have enough strength to work a pair of scissors.
“All set,” Eileen said, triumphantly coming away from the window and pocketing her phone. “They know.”
“Perfect,” said Brat. “Now then . . . I’m going to message my students and cancel my classes. Eileen, do you have time to take the dogs out for a little exercise before you leave for work? They’re going to miss their trip to the bus stop today.”
“On it,” said Eileen. She headed to the front door, dogs at her heels.
“Elloroy, are you all set for the rest of the morning?”
“If the rest of the morning comes,” he answered. I smiled, even as the hot tea rode down my aching throat.
“This will work,” Aunt Brat said. “I’m going to grade papers for a couple of hours. I’ll check with Lydia afterward. If she feels okay, I’ll go out for my ski. Now Lydia . . .” She put her hands on her hips and her head on a sympathetic sort of tilt. “What else can we do to make you comfortable?”
I pointed up the stairs. With teeth chattering, I said, “I’m going back to bed. With this.” I raised my mug.
As I climbed the stairs the mug felt heavy. So did my feet. But I made it to my bed. It wasn’t long before I heard the dogs come back in. Eileen’s truck cranked up a minute later. I floated in and out of sleep.
Goddesses circled. I was amazed. I was dreaming them. “This is a first,” I was saying. I saw faces—all shades of flesh—with cheeks painted in “the colors of fevers”—that’s what the dream told me. There were rose-petal lips and shiny noses. Rings and wreaths floated around my field of vision: leaves and berries and sticks of hay. Everything changed in pops of color. I saw goat faces, then dog faces—laughing ones—with spotted tongues lolling between the canine teeth. I stood in a field of white flowers and insisted to some unseen person that they were snow. The flowers changed to red bee balm. I asked my mother, “Can you see the goddesses and dogs? I’m keeping them . . . for you.” My eyes flew open. All of it was gone.
A Home for Goddesses and Dogs Page 13
