Catching Moondrops (28 page)

I closed my eyes at the thought of him close to me and blindly made my way down the path. The leaves on the trees were stirred into a frenzy by the wind, rustling in unison so that the air was filled with a sound like waves crashing to shore, softening as the breeze relented and then reaching a crescendo as it rose again. Every now and then, as the trees quieted, I could hear a forest creature bounding through the brush. With every few steps, I would peek out between my eyelashes to make sure I was still on the path, and then I would seal my eyes shut, letting my surroundings sink into my soul.

And then I drew to a sudden stop.

The crackling of underbrush is a curse to some and a savior to others. For a follower, it steals away anonymity and alerts their prey. For the followed, it warns of danger, but that warning is the sort that breeds terror. As I stood silently, listening, I felt that sort of terror well up inside me. I gave in to it for all of ten seconds before I chastised myself for letting Gemma get me worked up, then stepped ahead again, closing my eyes, seeking out the comfort the dim, windswept woods had lent me only moments before.

But it was useless. The sensations around me now seemed ominous, and I flicked my eyelids open and glanced around, over my shoulders, behind trees and shrubs.

Something wasn't right.

I continued to walk, but now every crackle and crunch within the darkened stand of trees filled me with foreboding, making each footfall heavy with fear. Every time the wind would wane, I listened, straining my ears to pick through the woodland noises to the ones that didn't belong. And each time the wind grew strong, blocking out the sounds around me, I knew with even more certainty that I had been right.

I was not alone.

I had come to the shallow creek that wound its way through the woods, and though I struggled against the force of the wind and the grip of fear, I scurried across without taking time to seek out a dry path. Despite the water that dampened my shoes, my steps grew more urgent, picking up speed in a desperate attempt to reach the clearing. My eyes darted about like a hummingbird, never staying in one place for long but whipping to and fro with jagged, anxious movements. About a hundred yards ahead, I could make out the opening to the meadow, a place that in no way offered rescue but would at least steal away the anonymity of my stalker.

But as my eyes darted sideways, a sudden flash of white crossed between two trees so quickly I wondered if I'd imagined it. I slowed my steps and furtively glanced around me.

And there it was again.

A flash of white and then gone, like a ghostly apparition playing a game of hide-and-seek. I had come to a full stop without noticing and was studying the trees behind me when a twig snapped in front of me with just enough warning to make my blood turn ice-cold. I whipped around to see someone standing there, bathed in the glow of the fading pink sky. His ghostly robe fluttered, but his eyes never wavered, and somewhere in the darkness within that hood, I could see his eyes watching, waiting for any move I would make.

A gust of wind blew strands of hair across my face, but I couldn't move to swat them away. I was frozen in place, in time, transfixed by the gaze of the man before me.

And overwhelmed by the deepest sense of hatred I had ever known.

I stood my ground and let my eyes lock with his, focusing all my concentration on those moments as though my revulsion could travel the space between us and burrow into his skull. In an instant I felt no fear, only rage. I was face-to-face with the very symbol of all that had haunted me for years, and I challenged him boldly, daring him with my very countenance. For some time we stood there, a wordless battle being fought between us.

And then his eyes changed.

Where once they had been intense, sparkling with hatred, suddenly they narrowed, a light cast behind them.

He was smiling.

The fear I had felt at the start struck me again with such ferocity, my legs felt as though they would give way, but before they could, I turned and ran. Despite the terror that filled my body, my feet moved deftly across the underbrush, almost as if they had a mind of their own. I could hear my stalker thrashing through the brush behind me, and even though he grunted from exertion, I knew he was gaining ground. The air that pushed in and out of my lungs did so audibly, and I focused on the rhythm of it to help keep my pace. Weeds and shrubs smacked at my legs, ripping at my pants, scraping my skin. But I kept moving, my eyes pasted to the scene in front of me, fearing with every stride that if I allowed myself a moment's distraction, I would be caught.

Tree branches whipped at my face and grabbed at my hair, working against me as violently as if they had been wearing a robe and hood themselves. A prickly bush snapped at my face, digging its claws into my temple, causing me to stumble. I regained my balance, and for that split second before I again began to run, I found myself compelled to look behind me.

And there he was, no more than ten yards away, cutting a path toward me with the determination of a man consumed by vengeance. Slipping briefly in the dirt, I took flight again, but I knew I'd never outrun him. His footfalls grew louder and louder until I could hear them over the wind, the crunch of his boots echoing in my ears. Twigs snapped and dry leaves crackled as they split apart and crumbled beneath him. The sound of his approach was deafening to me.

Suddenly I heard a scream so violent, so agonizing, I skidded to a halt in spite of my fear. I turned to see the ghostly man lying on the ground in convulsions, his white robe turning crimson so quickly, it seemed an illusion.

I walked toward him slowly, cautiously, squinting against the growing darkness. When I came within several yards of him, I stopped and stared at the bear trap that had ensnared his calf, crunching into flesh and bone so deeply, it seemed if he moved, it would split in two. Blood oozed from his leg, covering his robe and turning the summer greenery a deep scarlet.

And I felt nothing.

No compassion, no compulsion to duty. This man lay there, bleeding to death in front of my eyes, and not only was I helpless, I was happy to be so. In my mind, at that moment, he deserved nothing better than to die out here, caught in the very device I had once heard someone call a nigger trap.

It was perfect justice.

As I stared at him, his breathing became ragged, raspy, as though there were holes in his lungs. All struggling ceased, and he dropped to his side. He looked up at me through those ghostly slits in his hood and spoke two words.

“Help me.”

I knew that voice. No muffling hood or ragged breaths could disguise it. I knelt beside him so I could look deep into those desperate eyes. “Help you, Delmar Custis? You want me to help you?” I ignored the blood that turned my blue trousers brown and ripped his hood off, looked into a face so pale, it seemed the same as the white hood that hung from my fingertips. “Like you
helped
Noah Jarvis?”

“Jessilyn, please. Help me.”

I didn't always do what my daddy would say was the Christian thing to do, but in this case, I knew that getting help was at the very least the
human
thing to do. Only I didn't feel human just then. I felt outside of myself, so consumed by rage and hatred that all rational thought seemed to have spilled out onto the grass along with Delmar's blood. I dropped the filthy hood to the ground, took one more look at that pale, drawn face that seemed to foretell of death.

And then I walked away.

I didn't run for help. I didn't even intend to tell a soul what I'd seen. I pasted my vision squarely on that meadow ahead of me, and I didn't look back. For all I cared, Delmar Custis could die alone and rot away in these woods without a soul to ever know what came of him. I walked the slow, easy gait of one who hasn't a worry in the world. I wanted nothing more than to show this man I hated him so vehemently that I could saunter away from his dying body without one ounce of conviction, without a bit of shame.

The first several steps were so simple. It all seemed to make perfect sense. These men had terrorized me from the day Gemma had come to live with us. And even when they had let us be, the nightmares of burning crosses—and now of bodies hanging from trees—haunted me at every turn.

But with the next set of steps something began to scrape at my insides—some small, nagging doubt. The wind picked up again and ran crisply past my ears, calling my attention to the whispers Miss Cleta had told me of, whispers that remind us of wise words from loved ones.

But this whisper was nothing like what I'd imagined I'd heard before. This whisper didn't go from my mind to my heart. This whisper went from my heart to my mind. It was an inner voice.

It began as a murmur, but with each step it became more and more of a roar. My cheeks began to burn with a hot shame that seared from within. I slowed my steps until my whole body was so racked with despair, I could no longer move. Compelled to see the depths of my depravity, I turned to look at the human being I had left to die, and my world came crashing in.

Just like Miss Cleta had threatened, I had become like him. Like all of them.

Only I didn't have the hood.

These men were willing to kill because of their hate, and though I had not created the wound that drained this man's blood, I was willing to kill by my very inaction.

The realization of what I had become made me nauseous, and I leaned over and retched into the grass.

Delmar heard me and managed to lift his hand toward me.

“Jessilyn,” he whispered again. “
Help
me.”

From my place on the leafy ground, I peered at his limp, bloodstained body, and I knew what I had to do. I wiped one arm across my mouth, stood up slowly to steady my trembling legs, and walked back to where he lay. I passed him without a word, but our eyes met, and I saw his mouth move without producing any sounds. I went past him, past his bloody robe, past his wordless pleas for help.

And I ran.

But this time as I left him behind, I didn't plan to leave him to die there. This time I knew what had to be done, and I ran toward Gemma's house with tears streaming down my face.

All I could hope was that I would be in time, that I could get Tal to Delmar before he died. It was a stunning notion to one who only minutes earlier had wished the man dead with all her heart, but now it was my deepest desire to bring Tal to that spot in the woods and hear him say that Delmar would live.

And as I ran, my lips kept forming the same words over and over:
Please don't let him die. Please don't let him die.

My retreat through the woods seemed endless, marked by shame and guilt of a kind I'd never known before. Inner turmoil can be more devastating than outer. There are things in this world that wound the body, but when the spirit is spared, it has a way of overcoming. When the spirit is wounded, it affects the whole of a person, racking the mind and body with unceasing, unbearable pain.

And if Delmar Custis died that day with the help of my hatred, then I knew with absolute certainty that my spirit would die as well.

With a heart and conscience as heavy as mine at that moment, I struggled even to lift my feet, but the wind was at my back and fear pushed me onward. Once again, as had happened so many times in my life, I ached to be where Gemma was.

But if I had thought Gemma's home to be a refuge that night, I was desperately, terribly deceived.

There are some moments in time that sear your consciousness so deeply they never leave you. They're recalled by sensations that trigger a memory and transport you back in time so quickly, it's as though it's happening all over again. That night, as I rounded the corner to Gemma's house, the flicker of light that colored the night sky sent me reeling back to a time six years earlier. I remembered standing on my momma and daddy's porch with a rifle, Gemma at the screen door behind me, shaking in fear. I remembered the howls of wicked laughter, the haunting calls of faceless men. And I remembered the way the fire from that burning cross singed Momma's flowers and flecked the darkness with sparks.

When I came to a stop in front of Gemma's house, with darkness all around me—and in my heart—the horrors of that long-ago night were playing out again before my eyes. As I watched that cross burning in Gemma and Tal's front yard, I knew this was no mere memory.

This was now.

Gemma's screams pierced the darkness, snapping me out of my reverie, and I realized with a sudden force that my chance meeting with Delmar Custis hadn't been chance at all. There was a reason he was in those woods, and it had nothing to do with me. I was a happy accident, an opportunity to take care of two birds with one stone.

I watched in horror as two men kept Tal's arms pinned behind him while another taunted him, slapping him like he was an insolent child. Several others stood around, torches in hand, hurling insults, urging the aggressor on. Gemma continued to cry out in agony, struggling against the man who was holding her back.

The Klansman put his face right up close to Tal's so that his spit flecked Tal as he spoke. “Come on, nigger, ain't you got enough man in you to fight back? You want your woman here to think you ain't got it in you?” He gave Tal a slap to both ears twice in a row. “Look at this here boy,” he sneered. “Yellow as the day is long.” He howled with laughter, and I knew him right off to be Bobby Ray Custis.

I cried out just as he raised his fist. “You hurt him, Bobby Ray, you kill your daddy!”

Bobby Ray's fist stopped two inches from Tal's gut, and he whipped his head around. The rest of the men did the same.

I stepped forward so they could all see who I was.

Bobby Ray lifted his hand to point at me with a finger that shook violently. “You stay out of this or I'll get to you next.” His voice came out filled with a ferocity I had never heard from him before.

Hooded cowards don't like to be unmasked.