The Storycatcher (16 page)

The knocking in my head began to blind me. I just needed the razor. Just one cut.

“No more.” Arleen could read my thoughts. She was so close. “Use me, Faith. I’m better than some old razor any day. You got to take my hand. I can’t help if you don’t.”

“You’re a spell from Amanda,” I whispered. The pounding in my head began to slow. The sun had disappeared behind the trees, and outside the window was the lifeless gray of in-between.

“No, ma’am. I’m a memory you long to throw away, to be safe from. Ain’t no safe in this situation, and you know it.”

I looked into her deep brown eyes and reached for her hand. Electricity ran through my arm.

“That’s me. I’m with you now,” Arleen whispered. “I promise to do all the things you’ve wanted to do. I promise. You and me, we’re the same. You took my words from the stone and wished me here. We’re going to finish us a quilt with a death spell. God help the soul that is sewn inside of a death quilt because if that soul touches the quilt, it will be damned forever.”

I
STOOD IN FRONT
of Faith’s looking glass. She would be just fine now. I picked up that mean old razor and dropped it out the window into the rosebushes below. I had a job to do. My soul was tangled up in the making. I pushed the cross into my skirt pocket. Wouldn’t do a bit of good for one of those fine women downstairs to notice it. Then me and Faith’s secret would be out. I had just a little time to sew a soul into that death quilt before the nightmares began.

W
HEN A GIRL’S MAMA TELLS
her not to do something, most of the time she busts a gut to do it. That was me. Arleen Brown standing on that porch for a whole afternoon stayed on my mind. Something told me she hadn’t disappeared at all. I was about to bust from wanting to find out why she came in the first place. The heat had turned off so bad in the afternoon I finished off them clothes, helped Nada with the melons for supper, and went to dust the fancy dishes in the pantry. One square window allowed me a look at the bottle tree as the sun sprinkled the colors over the yard. Nada polished the already shiny silver. We worked side by side quiet as could be.

Then Mrs. Dobbins came into the kitchen with her face dragging on the ground. “Faith is locked in her room and refuses to come out for supper. I think her and Charles had a fight. Did you see him with her, Amanda?”

“No, ma’am. I ain’t seen him all day. But she ain’t been right since that brother of Pastor’s came.”

“Amanda, see if you can get her to come out for supper. She listens to you.”

I twisted around, and my elbow caught a stack of dishes just as Pastor came walking in the back door. The gravy bowl fell to the floor, shattering into a bunch of pieces.

All was silent for a second.

“You’ve broken the best piece. Those dishes belonged to my grandmother.” Pastor fixed his dark stare on me. “See me in my study.” He never raised his voice.

Mrs. Dobbins looked at Nada like the world was coming to an end.

Nada showed me her “be careful” look.

I picked up the pieces, swallowing silly tears.

PASTOR LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW
in his study. “Where I come from this isn’t even hot.” He said this without looking at me. “Do you like summer, Shelly?” His voice was soft but held a sharp edge.

“It be okay. It ain’t my favorite.”

He chuckled. “All young ladies love snow. I bet you love snow.” He stared at me. “When the worst snow comes in the winter, I feel smothered. Trapped.”

This was a strange talk about a broken gravy bowl.

Armetta stood in the far corner where the thick shadows hung. I hadn’t never been so happy to see a haint.

She frowned at me. “You ain’t read a word of that book I left you. How we going to help anybody?”

“So you’ve become clumsy, Shelly?” Pastor’s words curled around the room like some big old black snake. On his face was a soft smile that might fool some but not me ’cause I knew that man. He wasn’t nice to nobody.

“If you don’t read it, things are going to get worse than you ever
dreamed, girlie.” Armetta moved close to me. “Don’t let no show of his softness fool you. He be tagging you right now, and if you don’t read that book, you going to end up like that haint who stood out on the porch the other night. You listening?”

“Clumsy and deaf too, Shelly? Or are you afraid of me? I hope not. I wouldn’t dream of hurting you. That’s not who I am.”

“I’m not scared, sir. I broke the gravy bowl twisting around in the pantry. It be awful crowded in there.”

“So you’re blaming it on me, Shelly? That’s not respectful.”

I looked at my old shoes with run-down heels that rocks poked through when I hiked to the cemetery or over to Miss Tuggle’s.

“Do you need anything, Shelly? I can get you whatever you might need.”

“I could use me some shoes,” I said.

“He be trying to trick you. Careful. You don’t want nothing from him,” Armetta whispered.

“How old are you now?” He looked me up and down.

“Fifteen.”

“A woman.” He nodded. “And do you like boys?” He drummed his fingers on the desk.

“He’s crafty as a dern fox.” Armetta was so close I should have felt her breath.

“None around here to like. And I don’t want to end up like Arleen Brown.”

Armetta cackled. “See, that’s why I picked you, Shelly. You be brave.”

He cleared his throat and looked away. “You’re not like your brother. That’s the only reason I’ve let you stay on. I won’t have disease and abomination in my house.”

“Don’t pop off. Don’t say a word. It be a trap. He wants to hurt you. He wants you to give him a good reason.” She looked over at Pastor. “Killing him would be a pure pleasure. Don’t you think, girl?”

“Did you ever hear Faith talking to your brother?”

“He’s a snake.” Armetta glared at him.

“No. I seen their heads together but they always hushed up when I came near.” The thought of Will and Faith whispering still sent anger through my body.

“He contaminated my daughter.”

A scream went off in my head. I balled my fingers into fists.

“Go on. I don’t want to think about your brother. Leave me. Maybe we’ll take a walk soon, Shelly. I would like that.”

“Get on, now. Be careful.” Armetta moved to me, and the breeze sent a icy-cold chill through my bones.

FAITH STOOD
on the edge of the woods just looking.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She didn’t move.

“Mrs. Dobbins is all stirred up about you. Don’t you care?”

Faith turned and looked at me. That’s when I understood Mrs. Dobbins’s worries. Something wasn’t right with that girl.

“I want to go to Miss Tuggle’s tomorrow.” Her voice sounded different, lower.

“I guess we could, but we gathered pretty much everything yesterday. I ain’t even started my books she gave me.”

She tilted her head to the side. “You can read, girl?”

Faith had done gone around the mountain with craziness. “Well, I guess I can, since you be the one who taught me how. What’s wrong with you? You been messing with cutting again? I thought Nada fixed that.”

Her face turned quiet. “No, that mess got stopped before it started.” She wasn’t talking like Faith at all.

“Mrs. Dobbins said you and your daddy had words?”

A shadow moved over her face. “He ain’t my daddy. You got it?” Her fingers were balled into fists.

“What’s wrong with you? Of course he be your daddy. I don’t blame
you none. He’s crazy. I got to go find something to do. Pastor done told me to get on out of the house.” I walked off toward the cabin. Wasn’t one reason why I couldn’t go home.

Faith stayed by the woods, looking like something was coming for her.

Armetta scooted along beside me. “That girl be hurt deeper than you’ll ever know. She’s gone. Won’t be back anytime soon, but she’s close by. She wants her truth to be known. Ain’t that what we all want?”

A flash of Nada went by the kitchen window. She knew Pastor’s words were all over my body. “Why you always around me?” I asked. “How long you been here? Did you know my brother?”

“You be full of questions, seeing how you won’t read my book. What you think I showed it to you for? It be important. You just going to let folks die?”

A cold chill ran along my arms like she had touched me. “I ain’t reading it.”

“You got to ’cause you be important to what will happen. And bad is going to happen whether you read my book or not. It’s going to happen to you, but you be so dumb you won’t see. The girl that can see haints won’t open her eyes. Ask your mama why she be afraid of Pastor. Ask her what she knows about all his doings.”

My stomach flipped over. “I don’t want you around, haint.”

“Well now, girlie, you be stuck just like me. It’s the way life gathers to you. But you need to read that book if you care about that granny woman friend of yours. ’Cause she could be the one that dies. Somebody always has to die, but your granny woman might just die a early death.” And she was gone.

“So we’ll go to Miss Tuggle’s tomorrow?” Faith stood right beside me.

I turned to look into those deep brown eyes. Something just wasn’t right about that girl.

NADA DISHED UP OUR FOOD
that evening flinging bits here and there, sloshing part of mine on the table. “Have you noticed a change in Miss Faith?”

It near drove me crazy to hear Nada call that girl Miss when she up and raised the mean old thing. “Naw,” I lied.

Nada glanced at me with that squinted-eye look. “You mean to tell me you didn’t see how she acted this evening? Like she be a stranger now?”

I scooped up the pinto beans on my plate. “She talked different this afternoon.”

“Something ain’t right about that girl,” Nada fussed. “Something has happened. You sure you don’t know nothing, Shelly?”

I shrugged. “No, ma’am.”

“Eat, Shelly,” Nada snapped.

This all had to do with Arleen Brown’s ghost standing on the porch. Now, that was something to think on. The spirit had left and Faith changed. “Faith is grown. You don’t have to look after her no more. She ought to be marrying this summer. She’s the right age.” Now, I knew that was plain silliness, ’cause Faith didn’t have one boy even interested in her. Her beauty was there for everyone to notice—and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t like her none—but she was part of a package. No boy wanted to come calling on the pastor’s daughter, especially if it was Pastor Dobbins.

Nada’s steady stare washed over me.

“She’s old enough to do what she wants. Miss Tuggle even said that.”

“You been spending too much time at that woman’s house.” Nada stomped to the door and stared at the main house. “Them storms be big on the horizon.” She was quiet a minute. “You’re jealous of a white girl.”

I laughed. “That’d be like taking a stroll through a blackberry thicket. I’d be bound to get more than one thorn.”

Nada turned to look me dead in the eyes. “I know you be jealous. I
been watching that girl since she was born. I look after her. What you thinking, gal? You want me to have a hard heart? That’s what you want from your own mama?”

The pinto beans were pushed to the side of my plate, hidden under the potatoes, like I was still some little girl. “I just want you, Nada.”

“Lord, Shelly, you’ve always had me. I’m right here, but you almost grown now. You got to stand up and be that woman you going to be. You can’t cling to me. If you do, I’ve failed as a mama.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I knew I’d never really had her. A soul can stand right next to you and still not be with you.

“You think them books you got hid in your bedroom is going to teach you something you don’t already know? You looking to be something more, and I can’t stop that. Maybe I should get me a jealous bone.”

I stared at my plate.

“And don’t go thinking you got some kind of big old secret. I know all about that money under the floorboard, been knowing you had it since Nellie Pritchard ran off this mountain. I ain’t one of those dumb enough to think she died. The girl had too much smarts. That knowing didn’t come from magic. No, that is one mama talking to another. Mrs. Connor told me that part of the story. You hold on to that money. It’ll be running money one day.”