The Storycatcher (15 page)

Shelly ran her hand down the stems of rosemary and pulled gently
on the leaves just like Miss Tuggle showed her. The air filled with the musky fragrance.

We stood nearly shoulder to shoulder. Miss Tuggle stood between us, slightly taller, straighter. She looked from me to Shelly. “You two are so much alike, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Both of us huffed at the same time. No two girls could be further apart. But the garden held the magical peace I sought, so I didn’t speak. Within the aging, homemade pole fence, I was worthy, whole, important, and full of courage to bring changes my way. We worked until lunch. Miss Tuggle insisted we take a sack of her homemade biscuits and salty ham. Shelly left with three new books.

I SLIPPED AWAY FROM THE
house while Shelly hung clothes on the line and talked with that ghost Armetta. What an odd life I had. Our maid carried on conversations with the dead, and I took the gravestones as mine. My square of silk, hidden in a bottom dresser drawer since the tornado, was clean and ready for a new rubbing. This time there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I knew just where I wanted to go without hesitation. I knelt on the thick grass in front of the stone, and for a minute I traced it with my finger:
ARLEEN PATRICIA BROWN.
I draped the silk over the marker. The etching would be the perfect centerpiece for the death quilt, an essential piece. The crayon moved smoothly across each letter. The silk grew warm under my fingertips, almost hot, the kind of hot that calmed a sore muscle. A shiver ran over my head and a fuzzy feeling worked through my chest. Arleen. It had been four years since her death. Why had I waited so long to retrieve her design and create her quilt? It was her quilt.

“What are you doing?” The sun blinded me, but I knew Daddy’s angry voice.

I continued to rub, not wanting to lose the warmth, the tingle. To give up would break the spell working through me. Freedom. The heat in my fingers raced up my arms and shocked my mind.

“Stop!”

The design was perfect, the letters crisp.

“Did you hear what I said? Are you crazy?” Daddy touched my shoulder.

Something worked inside of me. I jerked away. “No.”

He raised his hand in the air and let it fall across my face with so much force a tangy, bitter taste filled my mouth. The wind kicked up and turned from hot to chilly. Several drops of my blood sprinkled over the silk and marred the design.

“Go home. I don’t want to see you doing this again. You’re of the devil.”

I pushed back into a kneeling position without a tear in my eye. Empty.

“Get out of my sight! Stay away from this grave. You’ve no business here.”

The air had a touch of coolness. He left me on the grave. The etching was complete. I bowed my head. Because I was his daughter.

W
HEN I WAS JUST
a little thing, after we moved to Black Mountain but before Shelly came along, I would take Amanda’s hand and smell it for no reason. The musky scent of hard work mixed with lemon kept me safe, showed me I was loved. A darkness with no name or shape hung in the air, something thick and fearful, always threatening in a heavy sort of way. Amanda never asked me what I was doing when I smelled her. Instead, she acted like this was the most natural thing a white girl could do to her colored nursemaid. But Amanda was so much more than a maid to me. She was my calm in the worst upheavals. I felt her unconditional love even in the smallest of things. When I was old enough to understand Amanda wasn’t really part of our family, I would pretend she was my mama.

So the first time I saw Shelly curled up in a sling that hung next to Amanda’s body, I knew that place should have been mine. I threw a fit,
the granddaddy of fits. Even then I knew that Shelly had everything I longed after. My tantrums went unnoticed by Mama, who seemed the most tolerant of mothers until one realized she was detached. It was simply not in Mama’s mind to see I was tortured. At times my fits were so intense I would bite myself and leave a ring of deep teeth marks on my chubby arm. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember throwing the tantrum. I would break my favorite toy, and in one case, I cut a beloved dress into pieces with Mama’s sewing scissors. The only person who could settle me was Will. He would walk into the room and put an arm around me, pulling me close.

Amanda always clicked her tongue and would tell him to let me be. I would bury my face, hot with tears, in his chest. There I would stay until my heart slowed and the anger seeped from me.

“Come on.” He’d pull me out to the garden or the edge of the woods. “Look at that there red bird, Faith. You be as beautiful as him. You be way too loving to act like you do about Shelly. One day you’ll be looking out for her.” In so many ways he was an extension of me.

Where was Daddy? Oh, he was ever-present, even when he was physically removed from our house. In many ways he was the problem, but I was way too young to understand that back then.

Mama loved me best of all. I was her treasure. She told me I was the child she almost lost but found—whatever that meant. But when she spoke those words, music went off in my head. So Mama taught me the lessons of loyalty and avoidance. In her example, I found a way to escape much of what Daddy thrust on us while still remaining in my flesh. It was a magic trick, really. To remove my essence in front of his very eyes, a sleight of hand, and he never noticed.

While Mama presented her valuable lessons, and Amanda taught me love, Daddy schooled me in how to lie. I was a liar not by intention but by circumstances. My favorite Bible story was Joshua and the wall of Jericho. There was proof people could win in the worst of conditions just by shouting something bad to the ground. Faith. But how could a young girl have such beliefs when the one she trusted, who should have
protected her, opened the door to the darkest of times? How? Lies. Daddy told lies just by breathing the air in and pushing it out.

THE AFTERNOON DADDY HIT ME
at Arleen’s grave something inside my chest snapped. A cracking of bones. To say I was shocked by his action wouldn’t have been true. He was a contradiction that parted my soul like the Red Sea.

As I knelt at Arleen’s grave, tasting my own blood, a power moved through me, a rush of emotions so strong I thought I might kill him right then and there. And with this thought flooded a deep dark guilt. I was the same as him.

Somehow I had to stop the whole business. I ran home and locked myself in my room. No more. No more. These words beat in my head.

“Look,”
the girl’s soft voice whispered.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My heart fluttered in my throat. “Who is there?” I called.

“Be still, girl. Listen.”

Then I heard him. Will. His sweet voice.
“You have to stay here and be clear of him as much as you can.”
Our final conversation before he left the mountain. He smelled of the woods on a rainy day, fresh and clean. His soft face was fading from my memory. I loved him. I always had.

“Do you remember his words?”
Maybe this was the mountain’s whisper that Amanda talked about.
“Take his warning. He was smart. Good. He always, always told you the truth.”

It was his truth that nearly finished me off. Down in the shadows of my soul sat the whole murky story, the reason Will had to leave, the reason I had to stay. And this truth could never be put aside no matter how hard I tried.

I unfolded the silk and gave it a pop in the air before I spread it on the bed. I smoothed the wrinkles. A shiver of expectation swept over me. I brought the quilt from the trunk and placed it on the bed alongside
the rubbing that would be stitched in the center. The quilt edges were scalloped and covered in tiny rosebuds, stitched in red, bloodred, new thread purchased at the mercantile in Asheville. In longhand I had sewn the name “Arleen.” The letters were pale green, a satisfying shade. My charm just for Arleen’s truth. A girl my age should be married or close to it. Instead of gathering items for my future wedding, I collected old buttons, lace, ribbons, and handkerchiefs, personal possessions. I was the crazy quilt girl of Black Mountain. But a needle sliding through the cloth with ease, grace, a looping delicate satin stitch, was better than any human relationship. I could trust the thread to always produce the beauty I saw in my mind.

My fingers shook and the dull pressure built in my temples. Not again. “Help me accept what is true and move through it.” I prayed these words, but still the urge to cut was strong, overwhelming. I said the chant over and over, hoping if I said it enough times without messing up, the pain would leave. Arleen’s face floated into my thoughts. The last time I saw her, I handed her a sack of my used dresses. Her stomach had been large, and her face reflected a true hatred, as if it were my fault she was pregnant and unmarried.

Daddy had forced me to bring the clothes. He said a good God-fearing girl would want to minister to this poor soul. Then he shoved me against the car door.
“You will take these dresses to Arleen and tell her they are for her to wear after the baby comes. Tell her you will help in any way you can.”
Daddy never left the car. So, I told Arleen to have a safe delivery. I wanted to be kind. I never intended to look down on her.

These memories pounded in my head. I should have taken time to speak longer to Arleen. I lifted the sewing basket from the drawer. “Help me accept what is true and move through it.”

A glint, a shimmer from the sunlight on the table next to the bed, drew my attention. The room turned ice-cold. The twinkle of something near the lamp pulled at me. The tiny gold cross hung from the bedpost.

“How did that get here?” But I knew the cross. I knew the tiny diamond had sparkled around Arleen’s neck in the fine new casket Daddy bought in Asheville. I knew it belonged to him, and thinking how Arleen might have gotten it made me sick. Arleen’s face had been frozen in pain, and in her arms, a tiny baby. A boy.

I was seeing things. Crazy. One little slice, just one, a movement really. Maybe just the coldness of the blade next to my skin would bring peace, certainty, even if it was short-lived. The thought of cutting was so sweet my teeth ached. I closed my eyes at the sight of the necklace and squeezed them so tight little stars danced bright red, the color of blood when it hit the air.

“Help me,” I breathed. The razor was buried in the top dresser drawer under my cotton panties. I felt around and rubbed the cold, hard blade with my thumb. Just one slice and relief. The cross dangled on the gold chain, a delicate, pretty thing. The necklace didn’t even belong to Arleen.

“I paid for it, girl. Your daddy put it on my neck. Said I was his, like he was really giving me a gift. The devil’s gift was more like it.”

I dropped the razor.

Arleen sat on my bed. She touched the cross with her finger. “Pretty, ain’t it?” She wore a red dress I had given her. Her long hair spilled over her shoulders in thick curls. She waved one of our church fans. Her lips were painted a deep red. She was prettier than she’d ever been alive.

“Why are you here?” My voice sounded calm, distant.

“You wished me here, girl.” Again she touched the cross. “We got to take care of you, seeing how you’re so tired and strained to keep going. I’ll protect you. Let me fight him. I’m strong now.”

I looked at the razor on the floor.

“No more, Faith. If you cut yourself this time, he wins. He’ll own you for life.” Arleen clicked her tongue like Amanda did when she wasn’t happy with one of us kids. She dangled the cross on her finger. “This here is our prize, our one and only prize.”

“I’m sorry I brought you my old clothes. Please go away and let me handle this.”

“Oh, girl, you thinking on that?” She stood. “It wasn’t you I was hating that day.” My old dress fit her perfect. She held out the hand with the cross.