“You’re used to the big city, Emma. People there likely don’t have the time to gossip all day. This is a small town and gossiping is Sweet Creek’s official pastime. Some of the rumors going around town about you say you’re the daughter of the Second Coming. And other stuff, of course.”
“The Second Coming?” I gasped.
Brad slid down and hunched at the foot of the oak tree, leaning his bare back against it. He had a light sprinkling of hair on his chest and his muscles looked pumped even in relaxation. He shook his head and chuckled. “Well . . . yeah. You know, from the Bible. I mean nobody thinks if the Second Coming really happens like next Tuesday that there’ll be a daughter involved, but back when your father was a kid, a whole legion of church people thought he was the Second Coming of Christ, being from a virgin birth and all that. ‘Course there were others who thought he was the Antichrist or a demon child. Some folks, the more sensible ones I guess, just called him a bastard.”
It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. For a moment the shock stole my tongue. “Why?” I half yelled. “Is this little backwater hamlet that crammed with ignorance and superstition that the people here predict the future with rabbit bones and lock their doors at night against werewolves? What? Will they be burning witches next?”
Now it was Brad’s turn to look shocked. A little angry, but mostly shocked. “Hey, I’m sorry, Emma. You actually know your father as a real person. To kids our age, none of it seems, you know, real. Feels more like a ghost story, a sick B movie or something kinda demented or supernatural.”
Tears swam around my eyes. One spilled over and raced down my cheek.
“Oh hell, Emma! Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry, honest.”
He looked completely helpless and panicky at first, then got to his feet and scooted onto the stump beside me, encircling me with his muscular arms, stroking my cheek with a thumb and kissing my hair. “I’m sorry, Emma,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m such a jerk. Really. Don’t take it personally. What a stupid thing for me to say. Please don’t cry.”
But I did. I couldn’t help it. I started sobbing and couldn’t stop, which normally isn’t my act. Maybe the utter train wreck my life had become was finally feeling real to me; my parents drowning, the loss of home and friends, of the only kind of life I knew. Maybe it was the feeling of Brad’s protective arms around me and the sincerity of someone who actually seemed to care, when I lived here with a woman who despised me, kin or not. I hadn’t realized how much I missed being held or feeling safe. Maybe his words were the final bullet that shattered the glass dam, and everything I’d bottled up for over a month came rushing out all at once. I don’t know. All I knew was I couldn’t stop.
Brad held me, rubbing my back and rocking me a little until the sobs died down. He had no way of knowing my parents were dead or why I’d melted down like this. He pulled a rag out of one back pocket when the storm had passed and shook it out before handing it to me.
I dried my eyes, embarrassed now by my outburst. It wasn’t enough that I looked like a goofy time traveler from the 1800s in this raggedy getup. No. I had to go and make a scene like some hysterical female on top of it. Brad must be really freaked. He’d give me a wide berth if he ever saw me again. Who could blame him?
“Feeling better?” he asked, loosening his hold on me.
I forced a smile and gazed at my lap, too embarrassed to even look at him. “I’m sorry. For the tears, I mean. It just hit me wrong. I don’t understand why people think of my father that way. He’s a good man. A great dad. Why on earth would kids your age even know about this stuff? It happened long before they were born. Before some of your parents were born.”
“Because Sweet Creekers never stop talking and passing old stories from one generation to the next. From what I understand, talking about the whole Ross scandal thing died down years ago. Kind of lurked under the surface of all the current gossip, y’know? Your coming here tore it loose again with a vengeance. Some folks I’ve heard whispering about this are actually afraid of you. Others think you’re a jinx who will bring bad luck to Sweet Creek. Others think you’ll go the same way your grandmother did.”
I glanced up at him. “What way is that?”
“You really don’t know what happened, do you?” Brad murmured. “It’s okay. I don’t have all the answers either. Nobody else does, including your great-grandmother. Doesn’t your dad ever talk about it?”
I fiddled with the ugly ruffle on my sleeve. “No. It’s the one part of his life he will never discuss. He doesn’t even remember Charlotte, his mother. He hates Sweet Creek and he hates Penelope Ross.”
“Then why did he send you up here to live with her?”
I shook my head again. “It’s too complicated.”
“What you need are some friends,” Brad suddenly announced. “I get to be your first one. What would you say to coming with me this Saturday night to a river party?”
He wanted to be my friend? Seriously? The jinxed town weirdo, the supernatural girl? Was he truly asking me out, even with the scandal and rumors I’d dredged up? Or maybe he was just feeling sorry for me or guilty for making me cry.
“Please say yes, Emma. A bunch of us are bringing food and a keg down to Heron’s Roost on Sweet Creek. It’s a wide sandy area, perfect for a cookout. You can meet a bunch of kids you’ll be going to school with next fall. What grade will that be for you?”
“I’ll be a junior.”
“Hah. A mere child. I’ll be a senior.” He turned that lopsided grin at me again.
“Won’t they think I might conjure up the Devil or that I’m going to jinx their party?” It was hard to disguise the sarcasm.
Brad stood up and puffed out his chest. “I’ll protect you, darlin’. Come on, Emma. Say yes. It’ll be fun.”
“I have to ask the Warden. I can’t even breathe the air around here without her say-so.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “Go ask her then. I’ll turn the truck around. Oh, and give her this.” He stuck an invoice for the wood into my hand.
“Back in a sec.” I jumped off the stump, snatching up my skirts to dash around to the front of the house and take the porch steps two at a time. Was this an actual date? My parents would have agreed I could go out with Brad. I was sixteen now, after all. The haze of grief and depression I’d shouldered since my parents died grew thinner in the moment. A strange excitement edged under it. It felt somehow wrong to feel any sort of happiness when my parents were dead, though I knew they would probably want me to go on with life and be happy. I decided to roll with it. I couldn’t believe Brad wanted me to go out with him.
Penelope sat at a little desk in the kitchen making a shopping list when I burst into the room.
“Lordy sakes,” she sniveled. “Act like the young lady you are, not a whirling dervish.”
“Grandmother, I just got invited to go to the river Saturday for a cookout with some of the kids I’ll be in school with in September.”
She frowned and put down her pen. “Who invited you?”
“Brad. Oh, and here’s his bill for the wood he just delivered and stacked.”
Penelope shook with outrage. Her wizened neck reddened as she turned to glare at me. “You have been outside talking to some boy?” she thundered. “Absolutely not! You won’t be going out with any boy at your age. I won’t have the whole town wagging their tongues about how loose and easy you are.” She turned her back to me and picked up her pen as if nothing had happened.
Dumbstruck, I stared at her in ragged disbelief. “I’m not loose or easy, Grandmother,” I nearly shouted. “How could I be? I’ve never been out with a boy before.”
“And you won’t be starting that foolishness now, either,” Penelope muttered without turning around.
“Mom and Dad promised I could start dating when I
turned sixteen,” I spat at her. “Guess what? I’m sixteen now.”
Grandmother turned around with a poisonous glare. “And you won’t be talking back to me like that ever again, you ill-mannered hussy. Somebody ought to teach you some manners. You go bring in the kindling and go straight up to your room for the rest of the day. Spend some time thinking about proper conduct with your elders.”
I saw Cook shaking her head sadly as she stirred a bowl of something by the sink. I turned and stalked back outside. The truck had been turned around, but Brad wasn’t in it. I found him at the stump filling the basket with dozens of sticks he’d just split for me. The basket overflowed with perfect sticks even Simon would be proud of.
“Hey,” he said, brightening as I approached. His grin faded. “Why the long face?”
“That witch,” I fumed. “She refused to let me go out with you. With anyone, for that matter. I hate her.”
Brad stuck the hatchet into the stump and touched my cheek. “Is that the way you want it?”
“No. Of course not. What I want doesn’t matter to that wrinkled old shrew. I’d rather shrivel up and die in this rotting slum if I have to put up with all her insults and stupid rules.”
Brad paled beneath his tan. Surely that wasn’t because he believed me. There was something else he knew. Something bad enough to scare him.
“Look, Emma. Ordinarily I’d just let it go. Not this time. Not with you. You need to get out and meet some people, have some fun, and I want to spend more time with you. Would you be willing to sneak out, say, about eight o’clock Saturday night?”
“You mean defy the old hag? Risk being chained to my bed or locked in a root cellar until I’m thirty?”
He smiled. “Look. You could skinny out that attic window up there, couldn’t you? I’m just figuring that’s the cell the warden put you in, because the story goes that with all the fancy bedrooms in this house, that’s where Miss Ross forced her own flesh and blood daughter to live. It added a touch of fairy tale horror to the stories told about your grandmother.”
I gazed up at the window. It was three stories up. “You’re kidding, right?” My stomach felt queasy just thinking about it.
“You can climb right into this oak tree and make your way down to the ground. You have climbed trees before, haven’t you?”
From the house I heard the screen door screech open. “Emma? Where’s that kindling? You get yourself inside the house right this minute. Hear me?”
“Yes, Grandmother. I’ll be right there.”
Brad lowered his voice to a whisper. “Once you’re down, walk about half a mile down this road to where an old Douglas fir log lies near the road in a wide spot and wait for me. Your great-grandmother won’t hear the truck from that distance and I’ll bring you back there when the party’s over. Say yes, Emma, please?”
“Yes.” I felt recklessly determined not to let that wicked dried-up prune ruin my entire life. Not now. I grabbed the basket. “Thanks,” I whispered, pointing at the kindling.
Brad grinned and hopped into his truck as I headed for the house to face a long wretchedly hot day in my depressing little cell.
~ ~ ~
I’d tried lying on my back, counting knotholes in the raw pine ceiling, as perspiration trickled down my cheeks and neck. I couldn’t sleep, not only because of the lumps in my mattress (which Simon explained had been stuffed with horsehair about a million years ago) but because the house practically groaned under the oppressive July heat. My attic room became an oven before noon, even with the miniature window shoved up as far as it would go. Being sent to my room was not just a punishment. It was a torture.
Penelope could have afforded air conditioning, Cook had told me when I had complained about the heat. Unfortunately, the Troll was living off the money previous generations of Rosses had stashed away, and from the ranch’s annual cattle sales (which accounted for the fact we could never eat beef) and the prospect of outliving her family’s money scared the wits out of her. According to Cook, that is. Cook said bankers in Sweet Creek had many times advised Great-grandmother to invest her money and live off the income it provided, but Penelope had endured a childhood during the Great Depression which had nearly put the ranch and its cattle-and-timber business on its knees. She distrusted banks almost as much as she distrusted investment brokers. That’s why the household went without extras like a furnace and air conditioner or a reliable car to replace her 1994 Dodge Intrepid. Simon grumbled that the ancient car couldn’t hold enough groceries for two weeks or negotiate muddy roads in the winter. Half the time it wouldn’t start once icy weather set in.
“She couldn’t be persuaded to waste money painting my bedroom, either,” I grumbled to myself, “or to buy a little electric fan to help me sleep at night.”
When I couldn’t lie on the knotted lumps of horsehair in my mattress any longer, I got up and made some practice runs at fitting through the window in preparation for Saturday night. The long pioneer dress made it too dangerous. I’d have to escape in my jeans. And if I got caught going out or returning in jeans, I’d probably be locked in this miserable airless hoosegow for the next three decades.
Cook climbed up the stairs at noon carrying a dish of leftover beans and a biscuit from last night’s dinner on a tray. She fanned her face as soon as she put the tray down.
“Whew, child. How can you stand it up here in this heat?”
“There’s another choice, Cook?”
She rolled her eyes and wiped her hands on her white apron. “Don’t reckon you have one, darlin’. If it’s any consolation to you, your grandma Charlotte suffered these here banishments too. Might be hot as the Devil’s pitchfork up here right now, but it gets colder ‘n’ a polar bear’s nose come winter. That’s even worse ‘n’ the heat. Always figured that accounted for why Miz Ross put Miz Charlotte up here in the first place ‘stead of in one o’ them fancier bedrooms on the second floor. Pure meanness is what it is. Nobody ever slept in those rooms back in Miz Charlotte’s day, or now neither. Up here Miz Ross could make Charlotte suffer just for the crime of bein’ born. But please,”— her black eyes rounded— “don’t go tellin’ no one what I just said. I’d get fired for sure.”
“You know I’ll never repeat a word of what you tell me, Cook. Never. If it weren’t for you and Simon, I’d go psycho living here. What about my father? Did he sleep up here too?”
“No, baby. Your great-grandmother stashed him in the basement like a dark secret. He slept on a cot set up next to the potato bin and shelves of canned goods. Never got hot down there of a summer. It was always cold year ‘round. No windows to look out of and only one light bulb. Lordy, that woman got no heart at all. Simon fixed little Ben up with a tiny makeshift desk with a mended chair so’s he could do his homework. I think Miz Ross kinda pretended he never even existed. Ever‘one in Sweet Creek knew different.”
A half-muffled voice sounded below us. “Cook? What’s taking you this long? Get back to the kitchen where you belong.”
Cook rolled her eyes at me and put a hand on my shoulder before turning for the steep stairs outside my door. She winked and blew me a kiss as she started down.
I picked at the cold beans. The townspeople spreading rumors that I was the daughter of the Second Coming or the granddaughter of the Devil or pure bad luck stole my appetite. Needing to distract myself, I turned to the bookcase and checked out the selection.
Lots of religious books about hell and heaven and demons. Also fairy tales compiled by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, The Wonderful Adventures of Nills, Little Women, The Dutch Twins, Tom Brown’s School Days, and Just So Stories. I liked current popular young adult books with characters and situations I could relate to, not books published before 1900. These books carried signatures on the flyleaf in fancy handwriting: “Solomon Ross, 1861,” “Augustus Ross, 1885,”
“Beau Ross, 1898.” There was one last book sitting cattycorner on top of the bookcase above my head. I reached for it but the instant I made a grab, the book slipped off the shelf down behind the bookcase.
Fearful of what Penelope would do should she find one of her precious old books missing, I struggled to pull the bookcase out far enough from the wall that I could reach behind it and grab the fallen book. As I felt for it, my hand caught on a jagged piece of wood jutting out from the wall. I grabbed the flashlight off the side table and knelt down to aim it behind the bookcase. There was the book. Uncle Remus; His Songs and Sayings. Not one I’d be interested in, though I grabbed it anyway. The wood that jabbed my hand was a piece of broken wainscoting.
On any other day I would have merely pushed the bookcase back into place and covered it up. Today I was bored enough to want a closer look. I tugged the bookcase out further so I could squeeze back there, and pulled out the slender board. Another came out with it, and a third jiggled free. I shone the flashlight into the hole behind the wainscoting. It was a shallow attic crawlspace making visible the wooden framing of the house’s outside wall. As I started to pull the flashlight out, the beam caught a flash of faded red. With more than a century of dust and dirt in the crawlspace, I hated to put my hand in. Rats could be nesting in there. Spiders had probably built webby high-rises. I gritted my teeth and reached in to pull out the faded red object.
It was filthy, coated in old dust and cobwebs. I backed out of the space behind the bookcase and set the thing on the floor. Before me lay an old cloth-covered book of some kind, thick, and measuring about twelve by eighteen inches. I leaned down and blew the dust off it. Other than causing me to sneeze and fan the dust away from my face, it did little good. Using the paper towel that had been brought up with my lunch for a napkin, I wiped off as much of the webs and dust as possible and tried to open the book. It didn’t budge. I hadn’t seen the clasp and lock at first, or the faded black letters on the front that spelled out, “MY DIARY.” Below the title were two inked-on letters: “C.R.” Charlotte Ross? My heart froze. Could this be my mysterious grandmother’s secret diary?
A Certain Twist in Time Page 4