Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  “Yes, it’s true. I only planned to stay for two weeks and it’s been nearly three.”

  “Why can’t you stay longer? You got a boyfriend back home waiting for you?”

  “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” I was surprised to discover that it no longer hurt to admit it. “Would you like to check out another book?”

  “What I’d like is for you to stay.” He had been holding one hand behind his back all this time, and he caught me by surprise when he whipped his hand around to reveal what he’d been hiding—a bouquet of flowers. “These are for you, Alice.”

  “Oh! They’re beautiful!”

  “Just like you.” His magnificent smile returned. Ike was doing his best to be sweet and charming—and he was succeeding. Gordon had never brought me flowers. Or called me beautiful. I held the blossoms to my nose to inhale their scent.

  “Thank you! I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say that you’ll stay. I’m going to be fiddling over in Pottstown next Saturday and I’d love for you to come with me.”

  “I’m sorry, Ike, but I can’t. My aunt and uncle will be coming to take me home any day.” He looked so dejected that I quickly added, “But if it weren’t for that, I’d love to come and hear you play.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say next—and neither did I—so I walked around from behind the desk to search for a vase for the flowers. The library didn’t have one, so I went out to the kitchen to look for an empty Mason jar.

  Ike followed me, sighing in disappointment. “They say our Arnett clan is jinxed, and I’m starting to believe it. Just when I find the prettiest girl in Kentucky, she up and leaves me.”

  Ike’s last name, Arnett, registered with me for the first time. The Arnetts were feuding with the Larkins. That meant June Ann must be related to the Arnetts. I turned around to face Ike so quickly that I ended up walking right into his arms. I blushed as he held me for a moment, then I scrambled backward out of his embrace.

  “Sorry, Ike. I didn’t mean to bump into you—”

  “I ain’t sorry in the least!” he said, laughing.

  “But I wanted to ask, do you know June Ann Larkin?”

  “Sure. She’s my cousin. Why?”

  “I met her when I was delivering books up along Wonderland Creek. She just had a beautiful baby girl, but she’s so lonely up there. Isn’t there anyone from your family who would be willing to forget this stupid feud and pay her a visit?”

  His smile wavered for just a moment, and he frowned slightly. “I’d like to help, but you know how it is . . .”

  “Actually, I have no idea how it is. I can’t understand what this feud is really all about.”

  “You’ll get a different answer depending on which side you ask. But the truth is, them Larkins are a bunch of liars and thieves. As far as the Arnetts are concerned, our great-granddaddy died without telling us where the treasure was buried. His no-good Larkin partner died a few days later, so you can guess who ended up with the map and all the money.”

  I wondered if he was joking. Buried treasure? A map? But the look on Ike’s face told me that he believed this crazy tale. I decided to drop it. I filled a Mason jar with water for the flowers and thanked him again.

  Sunday was a magnificent day. The weather was warm and the trees were sprouting leaves. Spring had arrived in Acorn, but my aunt and uncle had not. If only there was some way to get in touch with them. Were they lost? Had Aunt Lydia’s condition deteriorated? After all, she had been seeing monkeys and castles on the trip here. I had feared I would need a water cure myself after the trauma I had endured, but instead, the ordeal had made me stronger in a lot of ways. I remembered worrying that I was more like my flimsy aunt than my strong, self-assured mother. At least my visit to Acorn had settled that issue in my mind. I was stronger than I thought I was, capable of coping with some very trying experiences. But now it was time to go home.

  I decided to get up early on Monday morning and ride my route so I could stop and see Mack on the way back. He must know where I could find a telephone. I had to call home and find out what was taking so long. I made Lillie swear again that she would watch for my family and ask them to wait for me. “I’ll tie them to a chair if I have to,” she promised. “You go on, honey. And don’t worry.”

  June Ann looked happy to see me in spite of her tears. “I been praying all morning that you would come,” she said, “and here you are. Can you set down and talk awhile?” I tied up Belle and followed June Ann into the dreary cabin. “The baby and I are all alone up here,” she said as we sat by the hearth.

  “Alone? Where’s Wayne?” I hoped the stupid oaf hadn’t left her because she’d failed to give him a son.

  “He got all the crops in and decided to go look for work. They say the government will pay a couple dollars a day for that conversation corpse.”

  I had to smile. “You mean the Civilian Conservation Corps?”

  “I guess. Feather and I get really lonely up here now that he’s gone.” She pushed the baby’s cradle with her bare foot to rock it. The baby didn’t stir. She looked like a little angel with her sweet, round face and halo of fuzzy red hair.

  “Why don’t you come down to Acorn with me and stay in town?” I asked on impulse. “That way, you won’t be all alone up here.” Maybe June Ann could take care of Lillie after I went home.

  “I can’t. I have to look after the animals. I can’t leave them. But I been waiting and waiting for you to come back. I’m so glad we’re friends.”

  By the time I left, guilt weighed me down like a heavy, wet overcoat. I was surprised Belle’s back didn’t bow in the middle from the load. Instead, she behaved so well for me that Lillie might have traded her in for a different horse.

  I rode up to the Sawyer place and read the children a story. Then I stopped to see Gladys and Clint and their pipe-smoking granny. I knew better than to meddle, but since I was leaving soon, I threw caution to the wind. Who cared what anyone thought of me? I sat Gladys down for a little talk.

  “Listen, you said you were related to June Ann Larkin? Well, I was just at her place and she’s so lonesome she’s in tears. Her husband, Wayne, went out to find work, and she’s all alone with a beautiful new baby. Couldn’t you find it in your heart to visit her once in a while? She could use some company.”

  Gladys glared at me as if I had asked her for the deed to her cabin and all of her livestock. At gunpoint. “You should be asking that Larkin clan, not me. June Ann’s made her bed with them, and now she’ll have to lie in it. She’s a Larkin now.”

  “I would ask one of them if I knew who to ask.”

  “We don’t mention any of them Larkins by name. There’s bad blood between us.”

  “Yes, I know but—”

  “When you see Cora, tell her we said howdy.” Gladys stood and opened the door for me.

  I fumed all the way down the mountain to Mack’s cabin. Belle took me right up to the porch. “Mack!” I hissed, afraid to raise my voice. “Mack, where are you?” I waited, reluctant to climb off Belle. But when several minutes passed and there was no sign of him, I had to dismount. I tied her to the porch railing and went inside.

  The cabin’s interior was even creepier than I had imagined, dark and shadowy and stinking of mildew and rotting wood. Cobwebs festooned the rafters, dead leaves littered the floor. I expected to see the empty feed sacks I had used to deliver Mack’s food or at least the empty Mason jars, but there wasn’t a single clue that Mack or anyone else had ever lived here. When a mouse skittered across the floor, I yelped and hurried outside again.

  “Stay here,” I told Belle. “I’m going to look for Mack.” She was tied to the railing and couldn’t have gone anywhere, but I needed to talk to someone in the eerie silence. I followed the narrow path through the trees to the glade where Mack’s campfire had been. The pile of firewood was gone and the ashes spread out as if Mack had never cooked mushrooms there a few days ago. He was nowhere in sight. I called his name as loud
as I dared. Waited. Called again. Mack had vanished.

  Belle was waiting patiently for me when I returned. I had to perform a circus act to get on her back, balancing on the rickety porch railing like a tightrope walker, but I made it into the saddle without falling or breaking any bones.

  I muttered beneath my breath as we ambled down the hill toward the library.

  “Stupid man! Stupid, stupid man!”

  My family still hasn’t come?” I asked Lillie when I reached the library. I found her sitting at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes.

  “No sign of them today, honey.”

  I paced in front of the sink, feeling desperate. “I need to get to a telephone. Do you know where I can find one?”

  “Now, what do you need a telephone for?”

  “I need to call home and find out if my parents have heard from my aunt and uncle. They were supposed to return for me a week ago. I’m worried sick about them.”

  “Worrying don’t do no good. You just get yourself all worked up for nothing.”

  I continued to pace and to worry, watching Lillie remove a potato peel in one long, thin spiral. “What about the post office?” I asked. “Do they have a telephone up at the post office?”

  “Why would they be needing a telephone to deliver the mail?”

  “I just thought . . . since it was a government office . . .”

  “You could always send your folks a letter.”

  “Letters take too long. I’m very worried, Lillie. My parents must be worried, too.”

  “Now, why would they be worried? They know where you are, don’t they?” She laid down the knife and pushed the little pile of potatoes across the table toward me. “Chop these up for me, would you, honey? We’re gonna make us some soup for dinner.”

  “In a minute. I’m trying to think . . .” I paced some more. “How do I get to the sheriff’s office? He must have a telephone.”

  “Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. I ain’t never had a reason to go there and find out.”

  “Is it far? Could I ride there on Belle?”

  “Sit down, honey. You’re gonna wear out my floorboards.”

  “I can’t sit. I need to find a telephone!”

  “No, you need to sit down.”

  There was something about the way she said it that made the hair on my arms stand up. I’d had the same sensation once before when I accidentally touched a live wire on a frayed plug. “Why do I need to sit?”

  “Something I got to tell you, honey.” I pulled out a chair and sat, afraid to breathe. “Those relations of yours that you been waiting for? They come by when you was out delivering books last week.”

  “Last week? But you promised you would make them wait! You swore to me!”

  “No, by the time I swore to you, they’d already come and gone. Seems they arrived a day earlier than you was expecting. The day June Ann had her baby, in fact. No, by the time I made all them promises to you, honey, they’d already been here and gone again.”

  “But . . . but . . . where did they go?”

  “Home. They decided to go on home when they heard you was busy helping out here.”

  I leaped to my feet.“What?”

  “I told them all about the tragic accident that our librarian had, and how you was kind enough to step forward and take his place. I told them the library needs you—which is the gospel truth, honey. The gospel truth.”

  “But . . . I know my uncle. He would have waited until I came back. He would have talked to me and made certain—”

  “I explained to him that I’m one hundred years old, and that I’m all alone here with no one to help me and no one to take care of all these books except you. I told him that you’ve been making new friends, and that these friends are counting on you, too. It’s the truth, honey, ain’t it? So, once your kinfolk saw how much we needed you, they agreed that it was very sweet and kind of you to stay a little longer.”

  I sank onto the chair again and lowered my face in my hands. “No . . . no . . .” My moans sounded like June Ann’s when she’d been in labor. Lillie got up and came around the table to pat my shoulder.

  “Your aunt asked if you’d met any nice young men, so I told her that a fiddle-player named Ike Arnett was sweet on you. She’s the one who decided they should go on home without you. She told your uncle, ‘Let poor Alice have an adventure for once. She doesn’t have a job or a beau back home.’ I promised that city uncle of yours that we would make sure you got home safe and sound, just as soon as we got somebody else to help out.”

  I couldn’t stop my tears. “You kidnapped me! You’re forcing me to stay here when you knew I wanted to go home!”

  Lillie stopped patting and put her arm around my shoulders. “We won’t make you stay if you don’t want to. But the truth is, we do need your help, honey. Mack and me, we need your help real bad. I can’t cook and clean and take care of this library all by myself. And who’s gonna keep feeding Mack?”

  “How long are you going to hold me captive?”

  “Just till things get straightened out.”

  Did I want to know what things needed straightening? Or how long that might take? I wiped my tears, angry for losing control, and looked Lillie in the eye. “I know I’m not supposed to ask nosy questions, but since I’ve ended up in the middle of these ‘things,’ I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “Mack’s got himself in a lot of trouble, honey. He came back here to try and fix things and ended up making them a whole lot worse. He meant well, but some folks don’t see it that way.”

  “Has he broken any laws? Because if he’s in trouble with the law, he needs to know that I have no intention of going to jail with him. I refuse to become another Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Who are they, honey?”

  “Never mind. But tell me the truth. Is Mack breaking the law?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  I huffed in frustration. “Why should I believe a word you say? You lied to this entire town when you told them Mack was dead.”

  “That had to be done, honey. Otherwise, he really would be dead by now. Listen, I can see that you’re peeved with me again, and I’m real sorry about it.”

  “Oh, I’m more than peeved. I’m furious! Did you ever think to ask me if I wanted to stay and help you?”

  “Of course not. I knew you was itching to go home. You woulda told me no.”

  She was right, of course. But that was beside the point. I knew I’d never get a straight answer out of Lillie. I needed to talk to Mack. But where was he?

  “Where did Mack go?” I asked. “I stopped by his cabin today and he wasn’t there. There was no sign of him.”

  “I’m sure he’s there. Dead men don’t leave any signs—and Mack is supposed to be a dead man, remember?”

  “So he was hiding somewhere? He deliberately avoided me?”

  “If you was as riled up as you are right now, I don’t blame him for hiding. Do you?”

  I slammed out of the back door and walked down to the creek to think. What options did I have? I could write a letter to my parents, begging them to come and rescue me or send me train fare, but that would take time—and the postmaster was Lillie’s friend. Who knew if he would even send my letter to them? I could walk to the sheriff’s office—if someone would tell me where it was and how to get there. But could I trust the sheriff? Lillie had called him a snake and I hadn’t liked him, either. I would have confided in Maggie Coots, a flatlander like myself, except that Lillie had warned me to be careful of Maggie. Then again, Lillie certainly couldn’t be trusted. I didn’t know whom to trust or what to do.

  Eventually, when my temper had a chance to cool, I went inside and helped Lillie finish making supper. I was hungry, and if I didn’t watch her carefully, I might be eating squirrels again.

  “How much longer might you and Mack need my help?” I asked as we finished making the soup together.

  “You have to ask Mack that question, not me.” />
  I rode Belle up to the cabin after supper to do just that. Mack wasn’t there, so I tied the horse to the railing, sat down on the porch, and waited. I had a lot of time to think of all the questions I wanted to ask Mack before he finally slithered out of the woods wearing a sheepish grin. “Are you looking for me?”

  “Good guess. You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?”

  “So I’ve been told.” He gave Belle a good petting, murmuring affectionate nonsense to her, then sat down on the step beside me, looking as innocent as June Ann’s baby.

  “Did you know about this plan of Lillie’s to keep me trapped here? Did you know she was going to convince my aunt and uncle to go home?”

  “To be perfectly honest . . . she might have mentioned it in that letter she wrote to me. She said she had a feeling they would come early, and she asked me to keep you here as long as possible.”

  “I hate you!” And I did. But then he smiled, and I couldn’t help noticing the boyish dimple in his cheek again.

  “Hey now. I’m sorry to hear that you hate me,” he said. “But you came down to Kentucky because you wanted to help out, right? And you’re doing that. You’re helping in more ways than you can ever imagine. Besides, who else could I get to run the library while I’m up here playing dead? You’re a very good librarian, you know.”

  “But you didn’t give me a choice! You never asked me if I would like to ride a book route or if I wanted to stay here and work. You and Lillie have schemed and connived to keep me here like . . . like a captive.”

  “I suppose you could look at it that way . . . but remember those pirates in Treasure Island? They took that young boy on an adventure against his will and look how good that story turned out.”

  “That’s a novel. This is real life—” I stopped, shocked by my own confession. It was what Gordon had said to me. Countless times.

  Mack picked up a stick and idly drew patterns in the dirt in front of us. “Would you have stayed to help or taken on a library route if we had asked you nicely?”