The Storycatcher (39 page)

I followed her barefooted through the woods. That’s how I figured I was dreaming. She took me down a path to the old cemetery. Then we walked in the big gates. “Here.” She pointed to a bunch of trees near Dragonfly River. There was vines and brush all over, and I couldn’t see the water but I could hear it. “There.” She pointed at the mess of limbs and brush. “In there. That’s where you need to be.”

I looked in between the limbs and saw something white. Now I was dreaming ’cause it was night. When I reached out to pull the limbs away, a bright-green snake hung in front of me. I woke up and it was sunny as sunny could be.

I WALKED OVER
to Miss Tuggle’s house. She smiled when she caught sight of me. “Have you seen any sign of Amanda, Shelly?”

“No, ma’am, but I need to take this box somewhere and I don’t want to go alone.”

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“To that old cemetery up on the mountain, near Ella Creek.”

Miss Tuggle blinked. “I’ve spent too much time up there, Shelly.”

“It’s where I got to go. Will you come?”

“Yes, but let’s take my truck to the church. That will make the walk shorter for you. Is Will coming soon?”

“In a week.”

The church looked the same. Nobody was around, but talk was a new pastor was on his way. From where wasn’t real clear. Pastor’s body was picked up by his brother and taken back to New Orleans without Mrs. Dobbins, who refused to make the trip. It seemed Pastor had stabbed himself in the throat. But I knew that was a lie. I figured that was more proof Mary Beth Clark did it, since that same thing happened to her. Either way. I was alive even though he hurt me bad.

“Shelly, what happened when Pastor Dobbins died?”

Now, up until that point I hadn’t had to lie. “Don’t know.”

We walked on through the woods that was moaning and creaking. I held tight to the box.

“What’s in that box?”

“Just some simple stuff. I have to put it where it belongs, Miss Tuggle. Don’t ask me questions unless you be prepared to believe.”

She hushed.

When we walked in the cemetery, Miss Tuggle looked over at some of the graves. I took out across the plots just the way I’d dreamed. The pile of brush and trees around it was there all the same, but the limbs and some of the vines had been torn away. I looked inside. There was
the angel and a building. The brush and vines covered a old shed. The angel was staring right at me.

“Open the door, Shelly. Put the box in there. Be careful. You won’t want to look too hard,” Armetta whispered close to me.

“Shelly, where are you?” Miss Tuggle sounded worried.

The door to the shed gave way a lot easier than I expected.

“Shelly.” Miss Tuggle—right behind me—sucked in air. “She’s here. Get out, Shelly. Get out now.”

But it was too late. I seen something, a body wrapped in a blanket.

Miss Tuggle pulled my arm. “Come on. I’m going to call Zach, the sheriff in Asheville.”

I let her pull at me, but I sat the box on the rotted floor. Bones were scattered to the side of the body. Bones that had been there for a long time.

“He killed her.” I looked at Miss Tuggle. “I seen her arm. He killed her.” That’s the last I remembered until I woke up near the gates.

Miss Tuggle was holding me in her lap. “We got to get out of here. Can you walk?”

I nodded.

WHEN THE SHERIFF
came down the mountain from the cemetery, Miss Tuggle was sitting with me on the front porch of our cabin. He was a man about the age of Miss Tuggle, and they seemed to know each other pretty good. He liked Miss Tuggle a lot.

“It’s what we thought.” He looked at me.

“Nada?”

His face went soft and sad. “Yes.”

I nodded, trying hard not to cry. I was a orphan with nobody, nobody but Will. Mrs. Dobbins and Faith came out of the house and walked to us. Somehow keeping quiet made all that had happened not true. Something inside of my chest cracked so loud I was sure the sheriff and Miss Tuggle heard, but they didn’t.

“I don’t know how he got the angel in there without leaving a trail for us to follow. We looked up there. Remember?” He looked at Miss Tuggle.

“I don’t know, Zach.”

He waited until Mrs. Dobbins and Faith came walking up. “We found Amanda Parker. He killed her and hid the body in Ella Creek Cemetery.”

Faith burst into tears, and for the first time, I truly didn’t hate her for loving Nada so much. Mrs. Dobbins put her arm around her, and they walked away back toward the house, a house they probably couldn’t stay in much longer because Pastor was dead. And me, I was alone like some sorrowful tune floating through the trees.

“We found the remains of another body.”

There was silence.

“It was old and had been there a long time. The body had been shoved into a wood box in that shed. The side was knocked out from a tree limb.”

“The Negro girl who was lost.” Faith was standing there again. Her eyes red.

“Armetta, she be the ghost that belonged to the box I took up there.”

“She wanted to save us, and it was Amanda all along,” Faith whispered.

“No, it was all of us,” I said. “Nada stayed behind.”

WE BURIED NADA
next to my daddy. That was the saddest day in my life. I was still staying in Nada’s cabin. Faith was going to live alone in the main house. It turned out Pastor had built the house with his daddy’s money, and it now belonged to Faith. Mrs. Dobbins begged us to come to Darien with her, but neither of us wanted to. Miss Tuggle promised to keep a eye on us. So I was in Nada’s garden when I heard Miss Tuggle’s truck come up the drive. When I looked up, there stood
Will, my Will. There was a time in my life that I didn’t believe I’d ever see my brother again, that he was lost from me, and I accepted this. There he stood bigger than life, older, new, with a small limp from his accident. And as much as I loved him, I knew he was different, grown into a man that I didn’t know. My brother—the one who looked out for me when I was little—was lost for good. I wondered if he felt the same way when he looked at me. We would have to get to know each other all over again.

“Shelly, no matter where you are or I am, we’ll always be together.” He squeezed me close to his chest. I knew he meant every word.

I smelled the marsh salt on his shirt. He was a Geechee from Sapelo Island.

“We’ve lost time, but we have each other now. I’m your brother, and I love you with my whole heart, always have.” And I knew I loved him too.

M
Y BABY BOY WAS BORN
the next March, in the sap moon. There was this cold snap that made us all think spring was backing up and leaving. Miss Tuggle caught him early in the morning. He was so beautiful I fell in love that very minute. Faith stood right there with me through the whole thing. She’d learned a lot about taking care of the sick from Miss Tuggle. The folks on the mountain said this was best, seeing how Miss Tuggle didn’t have no children to pass her doctoring off to. Faith hadn’t touched a needle and thread since the pastor died. She just didn’t need it anymore. She was going to be a granny woman.

“What is this little boy’s name?” Faith cradled him in her arms. For a second, I saw she would never marry. She would be just like Miss Tuggle, and happy for it.

“William Clyde Parker. I’ll call him William.”

Faith smiled with tears in her eyes. “Will is going to be so proud. I’ve called his college and left word. I’m sure he’ll be here in a day or two.” This new Faith, neither the mean girl who tortured me nor Arleen who replaced her, was kind, quiet, and hardworking.

Will showed up at the end of the week with a big bunch of flowers. “Ada said you would have a boy and for you to never ever think about how he came to be. He’s the good from all the bad.” He held his nephew close to him.

“Ada is right. How is she?”

“Same as ever. I’m going home this summer for good.”

“You’re finished with school?” Will was trying to be a lawyer.

“I just want to be a shrimper, Shelly. That’s what I want to be.” His face was so beautiful and at peace. We talked about the day he left, how Pastor threatened to kill me and Nada if he didn’t. How Faith was there and was told to protect me. There was peace between us even though I felt like there was parts of the story he had left out. I didn’t care anymore. I had him, and that was enough.

THE DAY MY BABY WILLIAM
turned a month old, Faith came to my cabin. “Shelly, I have something to tell you.” She was so serious I thought maybe Mrs. Dobbins had died. “I want to tell you what happened the day Will left. I want to tell our secret.”

A cold chill walked over my whole body. “Will told me.”

“There is more. He left this part to me. Some secrets are so bad they can kill you. I know. The day Will ran away, I lost myself.”

“You mean when Arleen came.”

“But you see—you don’t understand—Arleen wasn’t the whole story. Her spirit was stuck in the woods, waiting. Daddy raped her. The baby that died was his. Will knew about it because Arleen told him before she died. Will went to Daddy when Arleen died and told him what he knew. Daddy threatened to kill you and Amanda if he didn’t leave
the mountain. Will had no choice but to run. He loved you two that much.” She took a big breath and waited.

“Will told me all that.”

She held up her hand. “That’s when Will told me the truth.”

I waited.

“My father was Pastor Charles Dobbins, and he was Will’s father too. My real mother was Amanda. Will and I are full brother and sister.”

My head roared. How? How could I not know such a thing? “You don’t look—”

“No, I look like my father, just like him except for my brown eyes. Amanda gave me to Mama when she lost her baby boy during birth. Mama didn’t even know. Mama almost died from the birth. But then she pulled through, and Amanda decided to give me a better life. I was so white no one knew. She’d hid me for a couple of weeks. But my father knew, even liked the idea. But not poor Mama. She didn’t know until later, way later, when Uncle Lenard came to visit before we took off to Darien. She heard him and Daddy arguing, and she put the whole mess together.” She looked at me. “Mama thought if she held the secret over his head, we would all be safe. That turned out to be the very thing that made Daddy finally lose his mind. When Will ran, he made me promise not to tell what I knew. He also made me promise to look after you. I stole the sewing kit because Amanda’s grandmother, our great-grandmother, came to me in a dream and told me to take it and make a quilt. Amanda figured out that I knew, but not once did we sit down and talk. She did the best she could, Shelly. I don’t blame her. Mama will always be my mother. And you can’t be mad at Will.”

“Nada lied.”

Faith nodded. “Yes, she did. But we all do, and you don’t know what you would do for that baby boy.”

I looked at him. She was right. I would kill for him.

“One more thing.” Her cheeks flushed and her voice sounded tired. “I want you and baby William to live in the main house with me. But
you have to know this: I, not Arleen or Mary Beth Clark, killed Daddy that day. I left Mama at the café so I could get to the house. I could feel him coming. I just knew. I was too late. Ada was on the floor knocked out cold. I grabbed one of her carving knives. I found him on the floor with the quilt wrapped around his head. I saw that he did to you the same thing he did to poor Arleen and no telling who else. I killed him. He never moved, and I would do it again.” Her hands shook.

“You didn’t put the death quilt on him?” I asked.

She looked at me oddly. “No. But it made killing him easy. He never fought me. It was like he was already dead or asleep.”

“That quilt had a powerful spell.”

“I know.” She ran her hand through her blond hair. “All I know is, Shelly, if you can live with a murderer, I want you in the house with me. You are my sister. We have each other.”