The Storycatcher (14 page)

Shelly barged through the door into my bedroom without knocking and stood stark still. Her gaze settled on the paring knife in my hands, so perfect for peeling the skin of an apple. I pressed my thighs together like a child trying to hide her worst deed. Shelly moved through the space separating us and took the knife right out of my fingers while all the time staring at me like I was some crazy person. I was. For a minute Shelly and I just looked at each other. I guess I could have explained how making the cuts helped me breathe better, took the pressure away, helped me from using the magic, but shame formed a knot in my throat.

She studied me a minute more. “You got one mean spirit following you. Probably all stirred up from you stealing pictures off them stones at the cemetery. You crazy putting them on quilts. That’s just asking for a haint to smite you down. You’re one strange girl. I know what you really are. I’ve seen what the others haven’t. Something worse is going to happen if you don’t stop that mess.” Her words clipped the air like sharp shears used for cutting hair. “The spirit be a colored girl. She’s part of this here mountain, and that makes her a haint to worry after.”

I swallowed the crazy laugh building in my chest while the warm blood trickled down my thigh. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Shelly,” I
said in my most hateful voice. “And really you don’t know anything about me.”

“You go ahead and poke your old hatefulness at me. This spirit is mean. Don’t mess with mocking her. She’ll not have it. And I know all about you being a mountain witch. You can’t deny it. I been watching you.”

Oh, how I wished I was a witch.

“You ought to ask Nada to help you before you make a mess you can’t clean up alone.” She looked at the blood dripping on the small handmade rug.

The warm moistness on my thigh kept me from ripping out her hair. “You’re crazy with all your magic and talk of ghosts.”

“You ain’t the one to be calling nobody crazy, girl. You know it be a real spirit. I seen you looking at the one that saved us from the storm. You was right there and seen it all. I know you can see them. Your face tells the whole truth just like now. You know what you done to your legs is crazy. You know it.”

I looked out the window. Those woods were haunted. I’d heard the cries myself on some nights.

“You might be mean and spoiled but you ain’t never been a liar. I’ll tell Nada you’re coming tonight.”

I thought of clawing out her eyes. “Will wouldn’t like how you’re acting right now.”

She sucked in air. “Will ain’t here, and if he was, he sure wouldn’t like what you be doing one bit.” With all her mean ways, I still understood the truth floating between us. He would hate what I had become. “I be special. You remember that. I have the most special gift on this mountain as far as Nada believes. Go on and see her after supper.” And she was gone out the door.

Sometimes I wondered just what she knew of Will leaving. She spoke out about everything but him. It was as if he died.

AMANDA WAITED AT HER
little wooden table. Shelly wasn’t anywhere to be seen. This fact helped me relax. Amanda crushed pieces of what looked like brick into red dust. “Sit, child.” Her voice was sweet enough, but I heard the sternness. She wasn’t putting up with excuses.

The chair I sat in creaked with age.

Amanda swished her finger in the dust. “You be too thin.” The heat bugs hummed outside. “Pastor’s real put out with his uppity ways and ran him off. Your mama had a nice long talk with him. I don’t know about what, but it couldn’t be good. Lenard Dobbins ain’t never been nothing but pure trouble, more so than your daddy. I promise you.” She looked at me. “Mrs. Dobbins said she didn’t believe you talked to your uncle. She’s comfortable with that. But me and you know that be a lie.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The words hurt my teeth.

She nodded. “What you see in this here dust?” She fluttered her fingers at the tabletop. Amanda was pretty. Her face was soft and gentle, and her hair was relaxed in big curls. Most of the time she kept it tied in a bright-colored scarf.

“A shadow shaped like Shelly’s ghost girl, the one from my dream. Armetta.” The words popped out of my mouth like someone else was speaking for me.

Amanda nodded like I made perfect sense. She pushed some of the red dirt around so it made another design. “What now?”

I shrugged and turned away. The pressure in my head threatened to begin.

“Look hard, girl, or you be wasting my time.”

Letters formed in the dust: “W-I-L-L.”

Amanda sucked in a sharp breath. “Don’t mess with me.”

Anger bubbled up from way down deep inside, but I managed to shove it back.
“Remember, Faith, you got to keep this a secret. You can never let on you know.”
Will’s words rang in my head.

“I didn’t come here for this. You asked me to tell you what I saw. I did. I see his name.”

Amanda moved my skirt up my thigh. “Will ain’t got a thing to do with any of that.”

Some of the cuts I made earlier in the day were trying to heal. The new one looked bad, deeper. “Why did you ask me if you didn’t want to know? I’m sorry you don’t like the answer. Next time I won’t even bother coming to see you.”

“Never you mind now. Stay where you be. How Will got a thing to do with this? He’s been gone too long now.” Her voice sounded strained, like she was holding back.

The truth was that Will was behind more than Amanda knew. He left me when I needed him most. I looked out the front door into the yard. “I don’t know anything about him leaving,” I lied. It was the untruths that ate at my soul.

Amanda watched me close. “I guess. But I don’t like thinking on him. His very name hurts to the bone.” Her touch on my arm pleaded for a better answer. “I just need to know what happened that last day, Miss Faith. You don’t owe me a thing, but what happened to my boy?”

She thought he was dead. Maybe he was; at least the Will that walked off our mountain died. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, and my head began to pound. I promised. “I don’t know.” The silence in the room took me over.

“How you don’t know, Miss Faith? How? You two was closer than any souls could be. Drove Pastor crazy. I seen that. I knew. I always warned Will to stay arm’s length of you, but he wouldn’t listen.”

The words were stuck in my stomach, twisting and turning.

“You know. I know you do.”

The hum of the heat bugs grew louder. I swallowed the thick feeling down my throat. “I don’t know.” Each untruth tasted easier.

She squeezed her rough fingers into my arm. “What happened? He wouldn’t just up and leave like he did. No good-byes. He was my boy. How can you tell me you don’t know? Now look at this mess.” She nodded at my scars. “Something happened that day. You’ve been like my own girl. Why won’t you tell me?” The pleas pulled at me. I loved
Amanda. It would serve both her and Will right if I told her everything that happened that afternoon. Just screamed it at the top of my lungs. He wasn’t ever coming back to the mountain.

The familiar knock began inside of my head. I had to concentrate and wait for the feeling to pass.

Amanda released my arm. “You wasn’t nothing but fifteen. You can’t be blamed for anything that happened when he left. What drove him from me, Miss Faith?” She looked back at my scars. “Them things have a story to tell me. Each and every cut.” She covered the marks on my thighs with my skirt. “Something is driving you to this. Something you know.”

She was right about that.

Amanda picked up a bottle and sprinkled white powder over the dust on the table. With her eyes closed tightly, she moved her lips in what looked to be a silent prayer. She scooped the dust into a small sack with a drawstring. “Sprinkle this in front of your door and cover it with the small rug near your bed so it won’t be noticed.”

I nodded.

“As long as the dust is there, you be protected from your father. He can’t come through that door. You should have come to me earlier. I should have known you was in trouble. Your mama came here worrying over you. I should have known. He can’t hurt you if you do what I say.”

My hand tingled and burned when I touched the pouch. I wanted to believe in its protection. I had to believe that Amanda’s magic was real.

“You do what I say, and the bad can’t come. I’ve been good as that mama of yours to you. Rocked you in my lap alongside of Will. You crawled in my bed when you was sick. You tagged after me all day long. You remember all that? You know how much I love you.” She pointed to the drawstring sack. “This be my best conjure. It’s a strong spell. But what follows you might be bigger than any of my magic. Time will tell. The one condition on this spell working is you got to believe, girl. You can’t doubt.” She reached behind her and took a small brown jar off a
low shelf. “Here, keep this salve on those places. They’ll heal without scars. No more of that mess. You hear?”

A jagged line cut through my heart. I loved Amanda that much. I knew my cuts marked her. “Yes, ma’am.” I hung my head.

“Now, it’s not shame I want to see on that face of yours. You be the best girl I know besides my Shelly. You got to stop walking that graveyard. It’s not a safe place. All matters of haints looking at you. This whole mountain not be safe for you. Something is chasing your soul. Winter be here soon. Nobody has to run in the winter. If we can make it until then, my time with Mrs. Dobbins will be over. We got to manage until winter. Then we’ll see.”

“Mama will always need you, Amanda.” But the truth was I needed to know Amanda would be right where I could find her.

Amanda gave me a dark look. “Lord, your mama be the thorn in my side since the day I chose her.”

“I heard Mama chose
you
.”

Amanda laughed. “Don’t believe no stories that woman has told. I picked her, sent her a dream.”

Those two had something. It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t hatred either. Something strange, still, and turbulent all in the same movement sat between them.

Amanda touched my hand. “If Will comes to you, leave him be. He don’t need to be in this mess. Leave him. Understand?”

“If he came to me, you’d know ’cause I’m not going anywhere. I wish I could.” I was stuck on the mountain. Shoot, I couldn’t even go to Asheville without a scene. “Will was smart enough to never come back.”

“You’ll be right here for a while. Just a while, though.” She looked out the door like she could see something I couldn’t. “Go on, now. Get on to your house before it gets too dark.” Amanda sat at the table as if all the energy had drained out of her. She stared where the dust had been. “It’s going to be a hot, hot summer, I suspect.”

WHEN I GOT BACK
to my room, I found a note:

Faith:

That bottle tree in the yard is for the colored spirit that don’t like us. But it didn’t work. It ain’t going to work ’cause she’s way too smart. This colored girl is going to cause a bunch of trouble. Be careful.

Shelly

Part of me knew this was Shelly’s way of saying she halfway cared, but I wouldn’t have admitted that out loud.

Mama and Daddy came to say good night just like always, like I was some little girl instead of a grown woman. Daddy stopped at the door like he had run into a wall. I held my breath. He made no move to come across the threshold. Mama didn’t even notice. She was blind just like Nana Tyson said in the dream. Behind Daddy stood Armetta.

My newest quilt was spread over the armchair near my desk, waiting for me to gather the most important pieces. It was going to be my charm quilt. A death quilt. This quilt would be for protection. It was sewn to make those included in the stitches safe and give death to the one who threatened them.

Mama hugged me. “I worry about you, Faith. What will I do when you find a husband and leave home? I can’t let you leave me,” she whispered. But what she refused to see was I had already left.

THE NEXT MORNING
I set off for Miss Tuggle’s garden, with Shelly following at a distance. If only Will could see what kind of girl he left me to protect. The only reason she tagged along was her true love for the books Miss Tuggle loaned her. I understood. As mean as Shelly was, she still deserved to go to school. To read. It wasn’t fair. Mama said life was never fair and you couldn’t help everyone. But wasn’t it our job to try?

Many of the plants we were gathering were for healings Miss Tuggle
performed. While she refused to believe in mountain magic, I wholeheartedly believed in Miss Tuggle’s powers. She called it science. Amanda called hers conjuring. I saw their abilities as freedom from those who would, given the chance, control them.

The sun was pulling slightly away from the east when Miss Tuggle met us on the porch. “Hot today, ladies. Hope we don’t die of heatstroke.” She wore a big, floppy straw hat to block the sun off her face.

I loved how she referred to us as ladies. Shelly even softened around the edges and loosened the ridge that was her shoulders.

“Have you finished
Tom Sawyer,
Shelly?”

The girl grew quiet and humble whenever she was in Miss Tuggle’s company. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. What did you think?”

Shelly kind of smiled. “That Tom was a rascal but brave. I’d want him on my side if I was in trouble.”

Miss Tuggle laughed. “I have some more books, but first we will gather the rosemary today.”

A stubborn look went across Shelly’s face. “No, ma’am. Today is a fiery day. Rosemary that is picked today will hurt instead of help.”

Miss Tuggle clicked her tongue but smiled. “You know what I think of that nonsense.”

Shelly hung her head. “Yes, ma’am, but it still be barren.”

A barren day was perfect to gather the rosemary I needed. Just a little, along with some hair from Miss Tuggle’s brush. Of course she couldn’t know. I had taken her hair a few times for practicing some spells with no results, but this new spell, the death quilt, was powerful. This one would work. There were many things Miss Tuggle didn’t believe in that I thought of as real. I’m not sure she’d ever change her way of thinking even if proof waltzed right in front of her. Miss Tuggle had to be part of the death quilt, the map to the destination where I would find freedom.