Under the Skin (42 page)

Dunno. The binoculars turned back to survey the scene below. The tall woman was rising and the toddler shook her head violently, stamped her foot, and attached herself, limpetlike, to her uncle’s leg. The mother squatted down to look her daughter in the eye, spoke a few words, and slowly Laurel released her hold. The storm passed and the little girl grabbed the empty jug, waved a cheerful good-bye to the two men, and set off pell-mell down the road, the jug bumping the gravel with every step. Her mother hurried after
her, pausing to look up the mountainside in Rosemary’s direction
.

Instantly Maythorn lowered the binoculars and flattened herself against the rock. Rosemary lifted up and waved in her mother’s direction. I’m up here! It’s really cool! There’s a—

Below, Elizabeth, with one eye on Laurel, who was nearing the old tobacco barn—their home for the duration—waved abstractedly at her older daughter and called out, Okay, Rosie, just don’t go any farther off. I’ll ring the bell when it’s lunchtime. Be careful up there
.

She turned and hurried after the fast-moving little redhead, who was disappearing through the open doors of the barn loft
.

Mum’s got to watch Laurel all the time. There’s holes in the barn floor she could fall right through. Pa and Uncle Wade fixed a safe corner for her—kind of like a corral. There’s an old rug that covers the floor and we put her bed and all her play things on it. There’s a kind of fence around the rug and she’s not supposed to try to get out
.

Where do you sleep? Maythorn’s binoculars moved to the barn and studied the picnic table and rocking chairs under the raw new shed at the side of the barn
.

We all have mattresses on the floor and sleeping bags on top of them. Except for Uncle Wade—he has his own tent in the other barn, that little one behind those trees
. My
special place is in the corner across from Laurel. I have a rug, too, and a bookshelf with my favorite books—the rest of them are in boxes down below till the house gets done. And I have a trunk for my clothes and a box for my very most important stuff. It’s like camping out, except we don’t have to worry about rain. And when it does rain, it sounds cool hitting the
metal roof, like a million fairies tap dancing. Sometimes I wish we could live in the barn forever. We have kerosene lamps at night and we sit outside and watch the lightning bugs. And we bathe in the branch or in a big round tub if we want hot water. It’s really fun
.

Maythorn abandoned the binoculars and rolled onto her side, leaning on one elbow to study Rosemary. Do your mama and daddy yell at each other much? Mine do. I’m glad I have my own room to get away from them. I wouldn’t want to live all together like you do. That’s why my mama said you all are hippies
.

No, they don’t yell at each other! Rosemary was aghast at the idea but, after brief consideration, added, Sometimes Pa yells when things mess up—like when the truck wouldn’t start yesterday. He yelled and said bunches of bad words but he wasn’t mad at any of
us.

What were the bad words he said? Maythorn gazed with interest toward the house site, where Sam Goodweather was hoisting another window into place
.

I’m not allowed to say them. But I guess I could spell them for you. He said D-A-M and S-H-

A cowbell clanked and Rosemary jumped to her feet. I have to go now. She paused, reluctant to leave her newfound friend. You could come down and eat lunch with us. There’s plenty. I could show you my books and stuff
.

No, thanks, I’ve got my lunch right here. And I’ve got some other jobs before I go home, some other things I have to see about
.

What do you mean? You’re just a kid—and it’s summer vacation! What do you
have
to see about?

Things. It’s my job. Maybe I’ll come down another day
.

The bell sounded again, louder and longer. Laurel was standing at the edge of the shed, waving the cowbell wildly from side to side
.

Okay, maybe another day. See ya. Rosemary slid off the rock and started down the slope. A thought struck her and she whirled to address the binoculars that were following her retreat
.

Maythorn, what kind of job? What do you do?

The sun glinted on the lenses, throwing bright lances into Rosemary’s blinking eyes
.

I’m a spy, said Maythorn. I find out stuff
.

Lunch was on the table in the welcome shade of the new shed. Bread and cheese, cold cuts, crisp green lettuce, and thick slices of tomato were heaped on two old ironstone platters. Elizabeth was fixing a plate for Laurel—five carrot sticks, half a cheese sandwich with tomato, no lettuce. No mustard, mayo on the slice of bread next to the cheese
, not
the one next to the tomato. Perched on a cushion atop the picnic table’s bench, Laurel swung her legs and drummed her plastic cup on the table while singing the ABC song, loud and tuneless
.

Hey, Rosie, did you have a good adventure? I saw you up on that big rock. Her father smiled his crinkly smile at her. Better wash your hands, Punkin
.

Uh-oh, Sam, don’t you remember? Uncle Wade’s mouth turned down in a sad expression. We used up all the water in the branch. Rosie’ll have to wash her hands with something else. Maybe leaves … or rocks … or—

Uncle Waa-ade, that’s silly. You couldn’t
possibly
use it all up! Rosemary made a face at her uncle and hurried off to the little stream, where a wooden trough set over a big rock provided a steady flow of icy, clear water. A bar of soap sat on a nearby rock and a faded green towel hung from a convenient spicebush
.

When she returned, her mother had already made her
a sandwich—just right—with lettuce, tomato, sliced turkey, and mayonnaise. She slid onto her place on the bench and the family held hands as Sam said, Let’s be thankful
.

The brief blessing done, they ate. Everyone was starving—it had been hours since breakfast—but Rosemary was full of her news. She swallowed her first huge bite of sandwich and announced, I have a new friend. She’s a real Indian and her name is Maythorn
.

At last! The resolution of the cliff-hanger that ended
In a Dark Season
! When I wrote that book and ended it with a puzzling message from Aunt Dodie, I was fairly confident that no more than a year would pass before I continued with the story—indeed, I’d already written the first and last chapters of this very book.

Alas, it was not to be. Miss Birdie insisted on having her say, and
The Day of Small Things
came next—and late at that. I began to feel very, very bad about that cliff-hanger: What if something happened to me and I never finished this book? My readers would never know the truth about Phillip. So I wrote a touching blog post, to be published in the event of my untimely demise and including the already written final chapter of this book.

Thank heavens, I can delete that post now. Many thanks to all you patient readers for hanging in there with me. I’ll never write another cliff-hanger.

There are several others I need to thank for helping this book come to life. Karen and Pete Nagle gave me a tour of their beautiful Mountain Magnolia Inn and shared its history with me. Dr. Marianna Daly and Bryan Robinson gave me medical and psychological advice for one of my characters. Thanks also to Vic Copeland and to Pepper Cory for adding two wonderful new phrases to Phillip’s vocabulary: “bitch wings” and “nets a-flaring.”

Anthony Cavender’s fascinating book
Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia
was extremely useful to me, and I appreciate his allowing us to reprint a page. Byron Ballard,
a hereditary Appalachian witch, told me about the burn spell and tried to help me understand more about the Earth religions.

A big thank-you to Martin T. Hodges, my blog friend across the pond, who read the chapters with Giles of Glastonbury and made sure he sounded properly English.

Many thanks to the gang at Random House: Connie Munro, my copy editor, does a great job of ensuring that my continuity makes some sort of sense, and she catches the typos and other gremlins that creep into a manuscript. Victoria Allen is responsible for the lovely, haunting cover art. And my patient editor, Kate Miciak, is responsible for making me a better writer.