by Lisa Wingate
I hurry across the room and strip off Fern’s dress and shoes and socks, use them to sop up the puddle. “Go on upstairs before she sees.”
I can hear Mrs. Sevier talking to someone in the front parlor.
Fern’s mouth quivers, and her eyes fill up with tears. She just stands there while I roll up the wet clothes and stuff them behind the ash bin where I can take care of them later.
All of a sudden, I know why Fern’s not moving. There’s another voice in the parlor. The closer I get, the more it sends ice slivers through me, right down to the bone.
“Go hide under your bed,” I whisper against Fern’s ear, and push her toward the stairs.
Fern runs up to the second floor and disappears. Breath comes in and out my nose in short gasps as I flatten myself against the stairway wall and creep closer to the open parlor door. In the kitchen, Zuma turns on the electric mixer. I can’t hear the voices for a minute, but then I do.
“…a very unfortunate situation, but it does happen,” Miss Tann is saying. “It’s never my wish to take the children away once we’ve found good homes for them.”
“But my husband…the papers…We were promised that the girls would be ours to keep.” Mrs. Sevier’s voice wavers and cracks.
A teacup rattles against a saucer. It seems like forever before Miss Tann answers. “As well they should be.” She sounds like she feels sorry for our troubles. “But adoptions are not final for one year. Birth families can be so difficult. The grandmother of these children has petitioned to gain custody of them.”
I gasp, then hear the soft sound of it and slap a hand over my mouth. We don’t even have a grandmother. Not that I know of, anyhow. Briny’s folks are dead, and Queenie hasn’t seen her people since she ran off with Briny.
“This can’t…” Mrs. Sevier lets out a sob that sounds like it’ll break her in two. She sniffles and coughs and finally forces out some words. “We…we can’t let this…D-Darren will be home for…for lunch. Please…please wait. He’ll know what…what to do.”
“Oh my, I’m afraid I’ve upset you more than is necessary.” Miss Tann sounds sticky sweet, but I can picture her face. She’s smiling the same mean smile she had when Mrs. Pulnik was holding me down on my knees. Miss Tann likes the way people look when they’re afraid. “I wasn’t planning to take the children with me today. You can fight this foolishness, of course. You should, in fact. The grandmother has no real means of providing for the girls. They would have a terrible life. May and little Beth are depending on you to protect them. But you must realize that…legal work can be…costly.”
“C-costly?”
“For people of your obvious means, that shouldn’t be a difficulty, now, should it? Not when the fate of two innocent children is at stake. Two children whom you’ve come to dearly love.”
“Yes, but…”
“Three thousand dollars, perhaps a bit more. That should go quite a distance toward resolving these legal issues.”
“Three…three thousand?”
“Perhaps four.”
“What are you saying?”
Another pause and then, “Nothing matters more than your family, don’t you agree?” I can hear that horrible smile in Miss Tann’s voice. I want to run in there and tell the truth. I want to point at her and yell, Liar! We don’t even have a grandma! And I had three sisters, not two. And a baby brother, and his name was Gabion, not Robby. And you took him away, just like you took my sisters.
I want to tell all of it. I can taste the words on my tongue, but I can’t say them. If I do, I know what’ll happen. Miss Tann will take us back to the children’s home. She’ll give Fern to someone else, and we won’t be together anymore.
Mrs. Sevier sniffles and coughs again. “Of…of course, I agree, but…” She breaks down in sobs again, apologizing for it all the while.
A chair creaks and groans, and heavy, uneven footsteps cross the floor. “Talk with your husband. Express your sincere feelings on the matter. Tell him how much you need the children and how much they need you. I won’t bother with seeing the girls today. I’m sure they’re doing quite well under your care. Thriving, even.”
Her footsteps move closer to the doors at the other end of the room. I push off the wall and run up the stairs. The last thing I hear is Miss Tann’s voice echoing through the house: “No need getting up. I can show myself out. I’ll expect to be hearing from you by tomorrow. Time is of the essence.”
Upstairs, I hurry to Fern’s room. I don’t even get her out from under the bed. I just slip under there with her. We lay face-to-face the way we always did on the Arcadia. “It’s all right,” I whisper. “I won’t let her take us back. I promise. No matter what.”
I hear Mrs. Sevier pass by in the hallway. Her sobbing echoes off the wood walls and the high ceiling with the gold edges. The door closes at the end of the hall, and I hear her take to her bed and cry and cry and cry, just like she used to when I first came here. Zuma comes up and knocks on the door, but it’s locked, and Mrs. Sevier won’t let anyone in. She’s still in the bed when Mr. Sevier comes home for lunch. By then, I’ve got Fern cleaned up, and I’ve read her a book, and she’s sound asleep with her thumb in her mouth and the teddy bear she calls Gabby, like it’s our baby brother.
I listen while Mr. Sevier unlocks their bedroom. After he goes inside, I tiptoe out where I can listen better. I don’t even need to be very close to hear how mad Mr. Sevier is after his missus tells him what happened. “This is blackmail!” he shouts. “It’s nothing but outright blackmail!”
“We can’t let her take the girls, Darren,” Mrs. Sevier pleads. “We can’t.”
“I will not be blackmailed by this woman. We paid the adoption fees, which, by the way, were exorbitant, particularly the second time around.”
“Darren, please.”
“Victoria, if we let this get started, there will be no stopping it.” Something metal topples over and clatters across the floor. “Where does it end then? Tell me that.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But we have to do something.”
“Oh, I’ll do something, all right. That woman doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.” The door handle rattles, and I hurry to my room.
“Darren, please. Please. Listen to me,” Mrs. Sevier begs. “We’ll go to Mama’s home in Augusta. Bellegrove has more than enough space, and the place is too much for her now that Daddy is gone. The girls will have aunts and uncles and all of my friends there. We’ll take Hoy and Zuma and Hootsie. We can stay as long as need be. Permanently, even. Mama is lonely, and Bellegrove House needs a family. It’s a wonderful place to grow up.”
“Now, Victoria, this is our home. I’ve finally gotten my little studio building under way down by the lake. The McCameys aren’t the fastest workers, but they have the piers and the flooring in place, and they’re making progress on framing up the walls. We can’t let Georgia Tann put us out of our home, my family home, for heaven’s sake.”
“Bellegrove has acres and acres along the Savannah River. You can build another studio. A bigger one. Any kind you want.” Mrs. Sevier talks so fast I can hardly make out the words. “Please, Darren, I can’t live here knowing that woman could come knocking on our door at any moment to take our children!”
Mr. Sevier doesn’t answer. I close my eyes and dig my fingernails into my fuzzy pink wallpaper, waiting, hoping.
“Let’s not do anything rash,” Mr. Sevier says finally. “I have a meeting to go to in the city tonight. I’ll pay a visit to Miss Tann and settle this matter face-to-face, once and for all. We’ll see how bold she is in her demands then.”
Mrs. Sevier doesn’t argue any more. I hear her crying softly and the bed creaking and him comforting her. “Come now, darling. No more tears. It’ll be taken care of, and if you’d like to take the girls to visit in Augusta, we can arrange that as well.”
I stand there with my mind rushing through a hundred thoughts, and then it stops and settles on one. I know what I have to do.
There’s no more time to waste. I hurry to my dresser to get what I need and then run downstairs.
In the kitchen, Zuma has lunch ready, but she’s over in the corner with her head in the laundry chute, so she can listen to what’s happening with the Seviers. Hootsie’s probably halfway up the chute telling everything she hears. On the chopping block, there’s a little picnic basket ready to go down to the McCameys’ construction camp. Normally, Zuma would make Hootsie take it down there. Hootsie hates that, and so does Zuma. Zuma says the McCameys are nothing but white trash and they’ll steal Mr. Sevier blind if he turns his back. The only good thing is Zuma and Hootsie hate us less now, because they’re busy hating the McCamey boys and their daddy.
I grab the basket and run out the door, yelling, “I’ll take this to the camp. I’ve got a movie handbill to give to the boy down there anyhow.” I’m gone before Zuma can argue that I’ll be late for lunch.
I bolt out the back, jump off the veranda, and cross the yard as fast as my legs will take me, all the while looking over my shoulder to see if Hootsie’s following me. It’s a relief that she doesn’t.
Down by the lake, Mr. McCamey is more than ready to settle under a shade tree when I show up with the basket. Near as I can figure, he’s always willing to stop working. The only reason he’s got a sweat worked up today is because his two biggest boys went to the neighbor’s place to help cut a lightning-felled tree off their barn and fix the roof. They won’t be back for a day or two, until that job’s done. The only help Mr. McCamey’s got right now is the youngest boy—Arney is his name, but Mr. McCamey just calls him boy.
I nod at Arney, and he follows me up the path to a willow tree where we’ve sat and talked before. I slip under the branches and give Arney a sandwich, an apple, and two sugar cookies I squirreled away in my pocket. Arney’s a scrawny little thing, so usually when I come down here I bring him food he doesn’t have to share with the rest of the McCameys. I figure he needs it. He’s a year older than me but not even as tall as I am yet.
“Brought you something else today.” I give him the handbill from the movie theater.
He holds the picture of a cowboy on a tall yellow horse and whistles long and low. “It sure is purdy. Tell me how the tale went. Was there lotsa shootin’?”
He sits down, and I sit down with him. I want to share all about the movie Mrs. Sevier took us to and the theater with its big red velvet seats and tall towers that looked like they should’ve been on a king’s castle. But there isn’t time to talk about those things. Not today. Not with what’s happened. I have to get Arney to say yes to what I asked him yesterday.
The moon will be full tonight, and on the water it’ll be almost bright as high noon. With Arney’s brothers gone, there won’t be a better time. I can’t let Mrs. Sevier drag us off to Augusta. I can’t let Miss Tann make us go back to the home. And besides that, Fern’s starting to think of Mrs. Sevier as her mama. Little by little, her mind’s letting loose of our real mama. At bedtime, I sneak over to Fern’s room and tell her about Queenie and Briny, but it’s not working anymore. Fern’s forgetting the river and Kingdom Arcadia. She’s forgetting who we are.
It’s time for us to go.
“So, what we talked about yesterday. You’re gonna take us, right?” I ask Arney. “Tonight. The moon’ll be up early and long.” You don’t live all your life on the river without knowing how the moon travels. The river and its critters choose their moods according to the moon.
Arney jerks away like I’ve slapped him. He pinches his brown eyes closed. A shock of thin, reddish-brown hair falls across his forehead and parts over his long, bony nose. He shakes his head in a nervous way. Maybe he never meant to help us at all. Maybe it was just big talk when he said he could run his daddy’s boat and he knows how to get through the oxbow lake and Dedmen’s Slough all the way to the big river.
But I told him the truth about Fern and me. The whole story. I even gave him our real names. I thought he understood why we needed his help.
He rests his elbows on his dirty overalls where his knees poke through. “I’d sure enough miss ya if’n you’z gone. Y’all been the only thang good ’bout this place so far.”
“You can come with us. Old Zede’s fetched up lots of boys. He’d take you on, I bet. I’m sure he would. You’d never have to see this place again. You could be free. Just like we’re gonna be.” Arney’s daddy drinks every night, and works his boys like sawmill mules, and beats on them all the time, especially Arney. Hootsie saw Arney get whopped upside the head with a hammer handle just for bringing his daddy the wrong peck of nails. “And either way, the pearls are yours, just like I promised.”
I dig in my pocket and pull them out and hold them in my hand where Arney can see. I feel bad about the pearls. Mrs. Sevier gave them to me the night after she took Fern to get fitted for the special shoes. She thought it was my birthday on account of that’s what the papers from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society said. The Seviers figured I’d forgot all about it being my special day, and they surprised me with a party at supper. I was surprised all right. My birthday was five and a half months ago, and I’m already a whole year older than they think I am. But my name isn’t May Weathers either, so a birthday in the fall didn’t matter too much to me.
The pearls are the prettiest things that have ever been mine, but I’d give them up for Queenie and Briny and the river. I’d hand them over quick as a wink.
Besides, Arney needs the price they’ll fetch more than I do. Half the time, they’ve got whiskey but no food in their camp.
Arney touches the pearls, then pulls his hand away and picks at a scab on his knuckle. “Awww…I couldn’t leave my fam’ly. My brothers ’n’ such.”
“Think on it real hard. About staying on the river with us, I mean.” Truth is that Arney’s brothers are practically grown, and they’re just about as bad as Arney’s daddy. Once they get tired of working like dogs and finally decide to light off, Arney’s likely to starve to death or get beaten till he breaks right in two. “Briny and Queenie can find you a place, I promise. They’ll be so happy you brought Fern and me back, they’ll find you a really good place. If Zede’s not there at Mud Island anymore, you can stay with us on the Arcadia till we come across Zede again.”
A little worry sliver pokes under my skin. Really, I haven’t got any way of being sure Briny and Queenie are still tied up in our same spot…except that I just know. They’d wait there forever if they had to, even though the nights are getting cooler, and the leaves are falling, and it’s time to be headed south down the river to warmer country.
What I’m afraid won’t go easy is getting Briny and Queenie to cast off once Fern and me are back on the Arcadia.
Has Silas told them that only me and Fern are left, that Camellia’s gone and Lark and Gabion are far away? Do they know?
I can’t think about it too hard, because it hurts. Don’t borrow trouble from round the bend, Briny always said. Right now, I just have to concentrate on getting down the slough to the big river. From there, we’ll stay close to the shore and watch out for the wakes off the boats and the barges…and keep an eye on the drift piles and strainer trees and such. Many’s the night here at the Seviers’ house, I’ve climbed way up in the cupola and looked out. I can’t see the river from there, but I can feel it. I’m sure I hear the foghorns and the whistles, far off distant. At the edge of the sky, I can see the Memphis lights. From what Arney’s told me, I figure the slough that drains off this lake must hit the Old Man River someplace between the Chickasaw Bluffs and the bars upwater from Mud Island. Arney’s not exactly sure, but I can’t be wrong by much.
Arney nods, and it’s a relief. “All right. I’ll take ya. But it’s gotta be tonight. No way of knowin’ when my brothers’ll git back.”
“Good. Fern and me will sneak down here soon’s the moon comes up over the treetops. We’ll meet you at the boat. You be sure your daddy gets into his whiskey early this evenin’. Let him eat real good too. That�
�ll make him sleepy. I’ll check that Hootsie brings down plenty of food for supper.” That won’t be hard. All I have to do is tell our new mommy the boy here in the camp is hungry and didn’t have enough to eat. She’ll make Zuma rustle up extra.
Mrs. Sevier has a heart that’s soft as a dandelion puff. It’s just as fragile too. I don’t want to think about how she’ll get by once we’re gone. I can’t think about it. Queenie and Briny need us too, and they’re our folks. It’s simple as that. There’s no other way to look at it.
It’s time for us to go.
Arney nods again. “All right. I’ll be there at the boat, but if’n we’re to trek downriver together, they’s somethin’ you oughta know first. Might be it’d change some thangs.”
“What’s that?” My breath hiccups a little.
Arney’s bone-thin shoulders lift and fall, and he cuts a narrow look at me before coming out with it. “I ain’t no boy.” He unbuttons his shirt neck, which isn’t much more than rags anyhow. There’s a strip of dirty old sack muslin wrapped around under there like a doctor’s bandage, and Arney ain’t a boy. “Arney’s for Arnelle, but Daddy don’t want nobody knowin’ it. People won’t cotton to me workin’ if’n they find out.”
Now I’m sure more than ever that Arney needs to stay down the river with us. On top of the fact that he’s a she, and this is no kind of life for a girl, there’re bruises all over her skinny body.
But what’ll Zede say about a girl on his boat?
Maybe Briny and Queenie will let us keep Arney on the Arcadia. Somehow, I’ll make a way. “It don’t matter if you’re a girl, Arney. We’ll find you a place. You just be ready tonight once the moon’s over the trees.”
We pinky-promise on it, and then Arney’s daddy hollers for her from the other side of the trees. Lunch is over.