by Lisa Wingate
He stifles a yawn, blinks, and forces his eyelids upward. “It’s not a problem. I’m a night owl.”
“I can tell,” I joke, and a laugh escapes him.
“Tomorrow.” He speaks the word like a promise. “It’ll have to be after work. I’ve got a full day. I’ll see if Aunt Lou can keep Jonah a couple extra hours.”
The commitment is a relief. I just hope he feels the same way after he thinks about this. “I’ll see you in the evening then. Just let me know what time. Oh, and don’t leave Jonah at his aunt’s on my account. I have triplet two-year-old nephews. I love little boys.” Gathering Grandma Judy’s papers and my flashlight, I take a step toward the door, then stop, looking for a pencil and something to write on. “I should give you my phone number.”
“I have it.” He pulls a face. “On my cellphone about…two hundred times.”
That should be embarrassing, but instead we laugh together. He turns toward the hallway. “Let me put Jonah down, and I’ll walk you out to the beach and watch you till you get home.”
My head says no, but I have to force myself to form the words. “It’s okay. I know the way.” Outside the window, the night is alive with moonglow, the water glistening through the palms around the cottage’s backyard. Confederate rose and jasmine stir in the sea breeze. It’s a perfect combination. The kind only the Lowcountry can create.
He casts a look my way. “It is the middle of the night. Let me be a gentleman about it at least.”
I wait while he puts Jonah to bed; then we cross the back porch together and descend the steps. The breeze off the water catches my hair, swirling it into the air, skimming my skin and slipping down my T-shirt. At the bottom of the stairs, I glance at the small slave cabin, study the old wood-paned windows, six of them, that run all the way across the front porch. Are answers hiding behind the salt-hazed glass?
“It dates from around 1850.” Trent seems to be fishing for conversation. Maybe we both feel the awkward pressure of a setting that begs for something more than casual chatter. “Granddad moved it here himself when he purchased the property. He originally used it as an office. This tract was his first real estate deal. He bought the acreage adjacent to the Myers cottage and divided it for this house and the two between.”
Another connection between Trent Turner, Sr., and my grandmother. Obviously, they knew each other a long time. Did she enlist him to help her look for someone because she knew he dabbled in such things? Or did his dabbling lead him to my grandmother? Did she suggest that he buy the property next to the cottage? Is the current Trent Turner really as much in the dark about these family connections as I am? Has one generation lived intricately intertwined lives that were, for whatever reason, hidden from the next?
The questions tie my brain in knots as we stop at the beach path, where sea oats glisten like strings of spun glass in the moonlight. “Nice night,” he says.
“Yes, it is.”
“Watch out. Tide’s coming up. You’ll get your feet wet.” He nods toward the sea, and I can’t help but look. A trail of glistening waves leads to the moon, and a starry carpet glows impossibly bright overhead. How long since I’ve just sat in the dark and enjoyed a night like this? Suddenly, I’m so very hungry for it. I’m hungry for water and sky and days that aren’t divided by the tiny squares in an appointment book.
Did my grandmother feel this way? Was that the reason she came here so often?
“Thanks again…for letting me interrupt your evening.” I take a backward step from grass to sand. Something scuttles past my foot, and I squeal.
“Better turn on the flashlight.”
The last thing I see before surrounding myself with a sphere of artificial illumination is Trent grinning at me.
I turn and walk away, knowing he is watching.
My phone buzzes again, and when I pull it from my pocket, it’s like a gateway to another world. I’m quick to step through. I need something familiar and safe to focus on after that strange moment on the beach with Trent.
But Abby? From the office in Baltimore? Why would she be calling me in the wee hours of the morning?
When I answer, she’s breathless. “Avery, there you are. Is everything all right? I got this crazy email from you a while ago.”
I laugh. “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry. I meant to send that to myself.”
“You have to tell yourself where you’re going now? That’s what the posh life in South Carolina has done to you?” Abby is a no-nonsense D.C. girl, an achiever who pulled herself up from public housing to a law degree. She’s also a fabulous federal prosecutor. I miss having lunch with her and putting our heads together about ongoing cases.
If there’s anyone I could trust with the information about Grandma Judy, it would be Abby, but it’s safer to catch up on things at the office, so I do that instead. “Long story. So why are you awake at this hour?”
“Working. Discovery tomorrow. Laundering and mail fraud. Major case. They’ve hired Bracken and Thompson.”
“Ohhh…big guns.” The legal chatter brings me squarely back home to Baltimore. Whatever nonsense came over me at Trent’s house is quickly eclipsed, and I’m glad because I need it to be. “Tell me what’s happening.” My senses heighten in a way that has nothing to do with the night or a glance over my shoulder that finds Trent still watching me.
Abby launches into the details of the investigation, and my mind homes in. I’m struck by one undeniable fact.
I miss my old life.
CHAPTER 16
Rill
“Rise and shine. Looks like finally some sun today!” Miss Dodd says as she unlocks the door to the basement room. Miss Dodd is new here, since two days ago. She’s younger than the others, and nicer too. If I can get her alone, I plan to ask after Camellia. Nobody will tell me where my sister is. Mrs. Pulnik said to shut my yap about it and stop bothering the workers.
Danny Boy says Camellia’s dead. He says he woke up and heard Mrs. Murphy telling Riggs that Camellia died after they put her in the closet and what to do about it. Danny Boy says Riggs carried her body out to the truck to go dump it in the swamp. He saw the whole thing with his own two eyes. He says my sister’s gone, and good riddance.
I don’t believe a word that comes out of Danny Boy. He’s hateful clean through to the bone.
Miss Dodd will tell me the truth.
Right now, she’s more worried about the stink in the room. It’s moldy and drippy down here when it rains, and on top of that, Fern’s been wetting the bed every night since they took away Camellia and Gabion. I tell Fern not to, but it doesn’t help.
“Mercy, that smell!” Miss Dodd gives us a worried look. “This ain’t a fit place for children.”
I move between her and the wet cot. I’ve piled it with covers because that’s all I can figure out to do to hide it. “I…I spilled the slop pot.”
She looks at the corner. The cement is dry under the pot. “Did somebody have an accident in the bed?”
Tears pop into my eyes, and Lark backs away toward the corner, taking Fern with her. I grab Miss Dodd’s apron and duck my head away at the same time because I’m expecting a smack. Even so, I’ve got to keep her from going upstairs to get Mrs. Pulnik. “Don’t tell.”
Miss Dodd’s brown eyelashes flutter over soft gray-green eyes. “Why in the name a’ Saint Francis not? We’ll just wipe up the mess, and it’ll be all right.”
“Fern will get in trouble.” I guess Miss Dodd doesn’t know yet what happens to kids who wet the bed around here.
“Oh, heaven’s sake. No she won’t.”
“Please…” Panic runs inside me like a flood tide. “Please don’t tell.” I can’t lose Fern and Lark. I don’t know for sure what’s happened to Camellia, and after four days, I figure those people won’t be giving Gabby back either. I’ve lost my brother. Camellia’s gone. Lark and Fern are all I’ve got left.
Miss Dodd puts her hands on either side of my face and holds me real gentle. “Ssshhh. Hush up, now. I�
�ll see it’s took care of. Don’t you fret, little pea. We’ll keep it just ’tween us.”
My tears just come harder. Nobody’s held me this way since Queenie.
“Quieten down, now.” Miss Dodd looks over her shoulder nervous-like. “We best get upstairs before they come lookin’ for us.”
I nod and choke out “Yes’m.” It’d be the worst thing if I got Miss Dodd in trouble. I heard her tell one of the kitchen women that her daddy died last year and her mama’s sick with the dropsy and she’s got four little brothers and sisters living on a farm up in north Shelby County. Miss Dodd walked and hitched rides to Memphis to find work so’s she could send the money home.
Miss Dodd needs this job.
We need Miss Dodd.
I get Fern and Lark together, and we march through the door ahead of Miss Dodd. Riggs is hanging around by the boiler, nosy as a kitchen-door dog. Like always, I keep my head down and watch him from the corner of my eye.
“Mr. Riggs,” Miss Dodd says just before we get to the stairs, “I’m wonderin’ if you could do me a favor? Ain’t no need in tellin’ nobody about it.”
“Why, yes’m.”
Before I can stop her, she asks, “You think you might could mix up some Clorox and water and rub it over the cot that’s settin’ there by the door? Just leave me the bucket when you’re done. I’ll wash up the rest afterwhile.”
“Yes’m. I’ll d-do it for ya. I sure will.” His crooked teeth poke out of his smile, long and yellow like a beaver’s. “Reckon these kids’ll b-be movin’ up-upstairs soon.” He waves at us with the handle of his shovel.
“The sooner the better.” Miss Dodd doesn’t know how wrong she is. Once we get upstairs, there won’t be a locked door between us and Riggs. “A room in the basement ain’t right for young’uns.”
“No’m.”
“And if the house caught fire, they could wind up trapped.”
“If there’s a f-fire, I’d b-b-bust down that door. I w-would.”
“You’re a good man, Mr. Riggs.”
Miss Dodd don’t know the truth about Mr. Riggs. She just don’t.
“Th-thanks, ma’am.”
“And no need in tellin’ nobody about the cleanin’,” she reminds him. “It’ll be our secret.”
Riggs just smiles and watches us, his eyes white around the edges and winter-bear crazy. You see a bear moving in the winter, you better look out. He’s hungry and he aims to find something to fill that hunger. He won’t care much what it is.
Riggs’s look stays with me through breakfast and even later in the day when the yard’s finally dry enough for us to go outside. Crossing the porch, I look down at the corner and think about Camellia and wonder, Could Danny Boy be telling it true? Could my sister be dead?
It’d be my fault. I’m the oldest. I was supposed to look after everybody. That was the last thing Briny told me before he hurried off across the river. You watch over the babies, Rill. Keep care of everybody, till we get back.
Even the name sounds strange in my mind now. People keep calling me May. Maybe Rill’s still on the river someplace with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion. Maybe they’re drifting down in the lazy low-water summer currents, watching boats pass and barges go by and Cooper’s hawks circle wide and slow, hunting for fish to dive after.
Maybe Rill is only a story I read, like Huck Finn and Jim. Maybe I’m not even Rill and never was.
I turn and run down the steps and across the yard, my dress sweeping up around my legs. I stretch out my arms and throw back my head and make my own breeze, and for a minute, I find Rill again. I’m her. I’m on the Arcadia, our little piece of heaven.
I don’t stop when I get to the gate where the big boys have their tunnel. They’re busy pestering two new kids who came in during the rain yesterday. Brothers, I think. I don’t care anyway. If Danny Boy tried to stop me, I’d make a fist and knock him flat, same as Camellia would. I’d knock him on his back right next to the fence and use him to climb up over it and get free.
I wouldn’t stop running until I got all the way to the riverbank.
I circle the old outhouse still going as hard as I can and take a running leap against the iron bars, trying to get high enough to shinny on over, but I can’t. I only make it a few feet before I slide down and hit hard. I grab the bars and pull and scream and howl like a wild thing fighting a cage.
I keep on until the bars are slick with sweat and tears and tinted with blood. The bars don’t give in to it. They don’t move at all. They just hold as I sink to the ground and let the tears take over.
Somewhere outside my own noise, I hear Danny Boy say, “Pretty girl done gone round the bend, she did.”
I hear Fern and Stevie wailing and Fern calling my name and the big boys teasing them and pushing them down every time they try to get through the gate. I need to go. I need to help them, but more than anything, I just want to disappear. I want to be alone in a place where nobody can find me. Where nobody I love can be stolen away.
Danny Boy twists Stevie’s arm around behind his back and makes him say “uncle,” then keeps on until Stevie’s scream stabs me deep down in the belly. It hits the place I want to make hard as stone. Like Arthur’s sword, Stevie’s scream pierces in.
Before I can even think what I’m doing, I’m back across the churchyard, and I’ve got Danny Boy by the hair. “You let him go!” I yank hard, and Danny Boy’s head pops back. “You let him go, and don’t you ever touch him again. I’ll snap your neck like a chicken’s. I will.” Without Camellia here to do our fighting, all of a sudden, I’m her. “I’ll snap your neck and dump you in the swamp.”
One of the other boys turns Fern loose and backs away. He stares at me, white eyed. From the looks of my shadow, I can see why. There’s hair flying all directions. I look like Medusa from the Greek stories.
“It’s a fight! It’s a fight!” kids yell, and come running to watch.
Danny Boy lets go of Stevie. He doesn’t want to get whipped in front of everybody. Stevie tumbles face-first into the dirt and comes up with a mouthful. He spits and cries, and I shove Danny Boy away and grab Stevie’s hand and Fern’s. We’ve gotten over to the hill before I even notice who’s missing.
My heart hitches. “Where’s Lark?”
Fern puts a fist in her mouth like she’s afraid she’ll be in trouble. Maybe she’s scared of me after what she just saw.
“Where’s Lark?”
“Waydee.” Stevie babbles out the first word I’ve heard him say since the day we came here. “Waydee.”
I kneel down in the wet grass, look them both square in the face. “What lady? What lady, Fern?”
“The lady got ’er on the porch,” Fern whispers through her fingers. Her eyes rim with tears. “Like this.” She grabs Stevie by the arm and lifts up, dragging him along a few steps. Stevie nods to tell me that’s what he saw too.
“A lady? Not Riggs? Riggs didn’t get her?”
Both of them shake their heads. “Waydee,” Stevie says.
My head is still cloudy with dried-up tears and leftover hate. Did Lark get in trouble? Was she sick? She couldn’t be. When we came to breakfast, she was just like always. They don’t take kids to the sickroom unless they’re burning with fever or throwing up.
I point Fern and Stevie to the playground. “You two, go. You go over there on the teeter-totter, and you don’t get off no matter what, unless I come get you or you hear the bell. You understand?”
Both of them look scared to death, but they nod and link hands. I watch them walk over to the teeter-totter, then I head for the house. On the way past the gate, I let Danny Boy know that if he bothers them, he’ll have me to reckon with.
My courage comes and goes on the way across the yard. I keep looking at the house hoping I’ll spot Miss Dodd. A hammer pounds in my ears when I tiptoe over the porch and head into the washroom. Depending who sees me here, I could get in bad trouble. Somebody might think I’m trying to steal food.
The colored women are at the washer and the ringer when I go by. Do they know what happened to Lark? Would they tell me if they did? Usually we pass like people who’re better off not seeing each other.
They don’t look up, and I don’t ask. Nobody’s in the kitchen, and I hurry through so I won’t get caught in there.
The swinging door groans low when I poke my head into Mrs. Murphy’s front hall. It’s almost too late that I hear her voice and see that her office door is open.
“I think you’ll find her delightful.” Miss Tann is in the room too. Her voice is sticky sweet, so I know she’s talking to someone besides Mrs. Murphy. “Perfect in every way. The mother had a start on a college education before the Depression. Very intelligent young woman and considered quite beautiful. Clearly, it’s an inherited trait. This little one is a regular Shirley Temple, and she won’t even need a permanent wave. She is a bit quiet but very well behaved and mild mannered. She won’t be any trouble to you in public situations, which I know is so important in your line of work. I do wish you’d allowed us to bring her to you there. It isn’t our normal procedure to have new parents come to our boarding homes.”
“I appreciate your making accommodations.” The man’s voice is deep. He sounds like an army commander. “It’s difficult for us to go anywhere without being recognized.”
“We completely understand.” I’ve never heard Mrs. Murphy sound so friendly. “What an honor to have you visiting. Right here in my own home!”
“You’ve chosen one of our best.” Miss Tann comes closer to the door. “And you will be the best, won’t you, Bonnie? You’ll do everything your new mommy and daddy ask of you. You’re a lucky little girl. And you’re very grateful for that, aren’t you?”
Bonnie is Lark’s new name.
I try to hear if Lark answers, but I can’t tell.
“Then I suppose we must let you go, though we will miss you dearly,” Miss Tann says.
A man and a woman step into the hall, bringing Lark with them. The man is handsome, like a prince in a book of fairy stories. The woman is beautiful, with fancy hair and pretty lipstick. Lark is wearing a frilly white dress. She looks like a tiny ballerina.