Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  “I was comin’ to meet you. I wasn’t sneakin’ around.”

  “I didn’t tell you to come meet me, now did I? I told you I’d come get you.” He ran a hand through his hair in a nervous way before saying, “I swear! That was the stupidest thing you could’ve ever done.”

  Luke’s angry words painted a clear picture of the danger I’d been in, and I started to shake all over with the shock of everything, like I did when I had the measles.

  Luke stopped ranting and looked at me with wide eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I couldn’t tell him what was wrong with me because I didn’t know myself. I just sat there and shook, and a tear ran down my face without me even knowing I was crying.

  Luke’s face turned pale with anxiety, and he ran to fetch a blanket. After wrapping me up tight, he stoked the fire and got me some coffee from the pot on the stove. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “It’s all right now, Jessie.” The anger had disappeared from his face, replaced by sympathy. “I ain’t mad. I really ain’t. I was only scared, just like you.”

  I tried nodding, but my neck wouldn’t move. After all, I knew why Luke was so upset. My daddy had acted angry before when he was afraid. “It’s just what men do,” Momma had told me. But I couldn’t find a way to tell Luke that I understood. I couldn’t do anything but shake.

  Luke helped me take a few sips of the coffee, and I was grateful for it, even though I hated the taste of it. Anything warm was welcome then.

  The whole time I took those slow, hard gulps, Luke was telling me how sorry he was for yelling. Finally my shaking started to calm, and I was able to tell him in an unsteady voice, “I’m sorry for causin’ trouble. I didn’t know . . .”

  “’Course you didn’t know,” he told me. “How would you know about bad stuff like that? You weren’t meanin’ to get into anythin’.”

  “But what were they doin’? Why were they out there?”

  “Ain’t no knowin’ why they do what they do. They were holdin’ a meetin’ of some sort, I guess.”

  “They were prayin’,” I said. “To God. But what my daddy said those people do ain’t God-fearin’.”

  Luke leaned back in his chair and sighed. “They ain’t prayin’ to the God they think they’re prayin’ to. They don’t even know who God is.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes before I asked, “You don’t suppose they’re figurin’ on doin’ anythin’ to my family, do you? I heard they forced Becky Luter’s daddy out of business ’cause he served colored people in his restaurant, and they had to up and leave town because of it. Those same people might try and hurt my daddy somehow too.”

  “They ain’t nothin’ to worry about,” he said adamantly, taking my hands in his. “They ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of cowards, and your daddy is a fine, respectable man. Your daddy prays to the real God. He’s watchin’ over him.”

  There was a moment of silence while I was thinking things over and then I asked, “You believe in God, Luke?”

  “Well sure I do,” he said, giving my hands a squeeze. “I was brought up on the Scriptures.”

  “But do you believe in God and Jesus . . . like my momma and daddy do?”

  Luke let go of my hands and leaned back in his chair. “Well now, Jessie. I expect maybe I ain’t never thought about it much.”

  “I have,” I told him. “I’ve thought about it a lot seein’ as how I hear about it all the time at home.” In my mind I saw those hooded men illuminated in firelight, and I shivered beneath the warmth of the blanket. “I don’t know what I think, but it makes me wonder when I see things like this. Seems to me if there’s so much evil in the world, then there needs to be an awful lot of good out there somewhere to win out over it.”

  “You can bet there’s good out there, Jessie. Don’t you ever go thinkin’ them men are what this world is made of. There’s plenty of good people out there.”

  “I know it.” I flashed him a smile that wobbled with my shivers. “You’re proof of that.”

  He ruffled my hair and made his way to his closet to get dressed again, and I settled back in the chair and relaxed, warmed by his presence.

  We did end up going fishing that morning just as we’d planned. Only we waited until well after sunup to go. Luke didn’t want us running into Walt or anyone from our morning adventure. The fishing wasn’t fun like I had been expecting, though. We were both quiet, thinking about that morning’s worries, and neither of us caught one little thing. We went home empty-handed around noon, and Luke and Daddy went off into Daddy’s shed to have a talk. I knew what they were talking about, and I sat down on the front steps to wait for them to finish.

  When they came out, Daddy had a tight look on his face, and he stooped down in front of me. “You okay, baby?”

  “Yes’r.”

  “Ain’t no one hurt you?”

  “No, Daddy. Luke took care of it.”

  “Well, ain’t no one gonna hurt you, neither. You hear?”

  “Yes’r.”

  That was all that was said. Daddy shook Luke’s hand, said good-bye, and went on inside, slamming the door behind him.

  “He’s mad,” I told Luke.

  “Not at you. At them.” Luke walked over and tousled my hair like Daddy always did. “You be good, Jessie girl. I had a fine time fishin’ with you. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

  I just smiled at him halfheartedly and nodded my goodbye.

  The day had not gone as I’d hoped.

  Chapter 8

  We were in the end of June, and the summer was giving us a good taste of its heat. Some days were so still and blistering we didn’t want to do anything. Gemma and I would usually head to the big oak tree on the hill because that was the best place to get out of the sun but still be outdoors where the air could move around us. Inside the house was like an oven. Even the doorknobs were hot.

  I’d take a book and trudge up there with Gemma, roll my pants up as far as I could, and lie down in the grass. We were getting started on Anne of Green Gables one such day, and I made it through only three pages before I stopped for air. “It’s so hot, talkin’ ain’t even fun,” I complained.

  For several minutes, we sat there hearing nothing but crickets, and I swore the air was so thick with wet heat, I could hear it moving, like wind. I pulled my braid out from under me to cool my neck. “This hair,” I moaned. “I should cut it all off.”

  “Don’t go talkin’ about it,” Gemma said. “You won’t like your hair short, nohow. Last time you did it, you said to never let you do it again.”

  “I can’t see why not.”

  “You said you couldn’t pull it back in a tail, and all it did was hang in your ears and make your ears hot.”

  “Well, that don’t help me none when I’m this hot. I should just shave it down.”

  “Don’t be stupid!”

  “I’ll start wearin’ it in a bun, like Granny Rose did.”

  “Only old ladies wear buns,” Gemma said. “You ain’t no old lady.”

  “That don’t matter to me none. I just want to cool off.”

  Gemma clucked her tongue like her momma always used to do when I talked nonsense.

  I plucked a buttercup from the ground, twirling it between two fingers. “There’s only so much a girl can take, and I can’t take much more of this heat.”

  “You ain’t got no choice. You ain’t God.”

  “I don’t know why God likes to make us so hot.”

  “Maybe it’s to remind us why we don’t want to go to hell.”

  I laughed at her as much as I could manage on that sleepy day. “You do beat all, Gemma.”

  “I ain’t kiddin’! There ain’t nothin’ wrong with remem-berin’ what’s bad about hell.”

  “You’d best not let Momma hear you talkin’ about hell. I ain’t allowed to say that word.”

  “You just did.”

  “Well, not in front of Momma.”

  Gemma shook her head.
“Don’t make no sense not talkin’ about hell. It’s a place, anyhow, and we ought to remember how much we don’t want to go there. Makes us remember how good Jesus is.”

  “I never said Jesus wasn’t good. I just wondered why He gives us so much heat, that’s all.”

  My sharp answer put an end to our discussion. Sweltering heat didn’t make for easy friendships. Somewhere after that the two of us dozed off, and when I woke, the sky was darkened with clouds. My head felt fuzzy, and I was chilly from a cool breeze, with goose bumps popping up on my arms and legs. I sat up and rolled my pant legs back down.

  “Momma’s gonna kill us,” I murmured.

  I looked at Gemma, but she was asleep with her mouth wide open. A thought ran through my head that she was lucky a bee hadn’t flown down her throat, and then I shook her, making her jump in surprise.

  “What?” she asked quietly.

  “I said Momma’s gonna kill us. We fell asleep out here. You know how Momma hates us bein’ late for supper.”

  Gemma sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “How should I know? The sky’s covered in storm clouds. We’d better get goin’.”

  Gemma glanced at the sky, her face turning fearful. She’d been scared to death of storms ever since the fire, and she grabbed my book, hurriedly hopping up from the grass.

  “I’m comin’,” I told her harshly. “You don’t need to order me around.”

  I followed Gemma on our way through the field at a fair pace. She was practically running, but I didn’t feel like hurry ing. I was still too tired. Every now and again a rumble of thunder would sound off in the distance, and Gemma would start to go even faster. I felt sorry for her because I understood her fear, but I figured she didn’t need me to hurry for her sake. She obviously wasn’t worried about leaving me behind.

  Rain started to fall in big, sporadic drops, so I picked up my pace. But just before I reached the line of pine trees that separated me from the house, I got distracted by some voices off to my right. I was suspicious because most of the land around those parts belonged to my daddy, and I wanted to find out who was hanging around on it and why.

  I edged up to a patch of brambly hedges, peering through them. On the other side was a gazebo my daddy had built for my momma a few years back, and in it were a man and a woman taking shelter from the rain. I wondered who it could be, and being as interested as I’d suddenly become in romantic things, I leaned forward, trying to get a better look.

  Gemma came up behind me and grabbed a fistful of my shirt. “What’re you doin’?” she asked, angry and scared. “I want to go home.”

  “Shh!” I scolded. “They’ll hear you.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.”

  Gemma stepped up beside me and peeked through the hedges, careful not to touch the prickly leaves that were mixed into the bunch of shrubs. She took a good look and said, “So?”

  “So . . . I want to find out who it is.”

  “Ain’t no right of ours to spy on someone’s courtin’.”

  “It is if they’re courtin’ on Lassiter property.”

  “You’re curiouser than a cat, Jessie. And I don’t want to be killed by lightnin’ just ’cause you can’t mind your own business.”

  “Fine then! Just get on home, and I’ll follow when I’m ready.”

  Gemma sighed and stayed next to me. It didn’t matter how much we drove each other crazy. We always stuck together.

  The rain started to come down harder, and my clothes were wet through within seconds, but I was bound and determined to find out the identity of the courting couple.

  It wasn’t too much longer after that when I wished I hadn’t.

  Soon enough, the lightning and thunder began to get worse, Gemma started to complain again, and the couple hadn’t budged from their shelter, so I moved to get a better look. The noise of the storm was enough to keep me from hearing their voices, but it was my safeguard too since they couldn’t hear my noisy approach through the bushes.

  That didn’t help me much, though, when a gust of wind dropped a loose branch from a tree behind me, sending Gemma to yelping that I could’ve been killed. She knew that branch wasn’t even big enough to put a good goose egg on my head, but she was all nerves, and her screech could be heard across the property. It wasn’t too much of a surprise, then, that the couple turned toward us.

  I froze, ready to be humiliated for being caught peeping, but I was more mortified to find out that the man who’d been entertaining the girl so well was Luke Talley.

  Now, it wasn’t as though I had fooled myself about his feelings for me or that I’d thought he wouldn’t be courting at his age. In fact, I knew that with him being nineteen and me being thirteen it would have been a little funny for him to want to court me. But I’d had a hidden hope that maybe he’d just stay away from girls until I was old enough to catch his fancy. And now here I was caught watching him like this, with my muddy bare feet and wet, floppy hair.

  Luke squinted like he was having a hard time making me out through the rain before he called, “Jessilyn! What are you doin’ out in this drenchin’?”

  I didn’t say anything back. I was too busy looking over his girl. She was pretty, I guessed, with her blonde hair and big blue eyes . . . if he liked that sort of thing. She was awfully short, though, I noted to myself. He’d have to bend full at the waist to give her a kiss.

  Gemma called from behind, “Jessie, I want to go . . . now!”

  Luke stepped out of the gazebo toward me. “Get on in under cover, Jessilyn.” Then he spotted Gemma and added, “You get on in here too. You’ll both catch your death.”

  But I was determined that the last thing I was going to do was wait out that storm with Luke’s girl laughing and twirling her hair. I turned tail and bolted away from him, cutting myself in three places as I hastily climbed through the hedge and dragged Gemma along with me toward home.

  I heard Luke call us once more, but we quickly put plenty of distance between him and ourselves so I couldn’t hear if he called again.

  By the time we reached home, the rain had stopped, but Gemma and I were soaked and out of breath. She still had enough air left to tell me, “Next time I say I want to go, you best make sure you go.”

  “I was just curious.”

  “Ain’t no use findin’ out what you’re curious about if you get killed findin’ out.”

  “We weren’t gonna get killed, Gemma.”

  “Ain’t no promise you won’t get killed in a storm like this.”

  “It weren’t that bad of a storm, anyhow,” I shot back.

  Gemma narrowed her eyes and said, “That’s what my daddy said that day before it all happened.”

  I swallowed hard and felt my stomach sink when she said that, and I just stood without anything to say, watching her slam through the front door and run upstairs.

  After about a minute, I went in and let the door slam too.

  Daddy looked up from his paper and said, “Were you outside in this weather, Jessilyn? I thought you two were upstairs.”

  “I best had been,” I muttered. I clambered up the steps, and when I went into my room, I passed Gemma, who had changed and was lying on the bed in a ball. I didn’t say a word while I put on dry clothes, but just before I left the room, I said quietly, “I’m sorry I had you scared. Ain’t right of me to drag you into things like that.”

  Gemma shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “And, Gemma,” I said with half of me out the bedroom door, “I’m sure sorry about your momma and daddy.”

  She looked at me with half-closed eyes. “You already done told me that a hundred times.”

  “I know,” I murmured. “But I wanted you to know I was still sorry.”

  I waited for a few seconds until she said, “Okay,” and then I closed the door behind me as quietly as I could.

  I stopped in the bathroom to do some washing and combed my wet hair. The mirror reflected my slightly freckled face
and made me sigh. I wasn’t nearly as pretty as Luke’s girl was, and I wasn’t half as grown-up looking. She’d had her hair put up with wavy curls under a big hat. Mine was long and limp and had the look of Momma’s dirty dishwater. I swept my hair up and held it there so I could look in the mirror and pretend I was sophisticated.

  It didn’t work.

  I didn’t know what I thought about my looks since I’d never really cared about them before, but I didn’t think my face was so special. I had light brown hair with sun streaks in it, a little nose, and plain old lips just like anyone else. It was only my sort of slanted green eyes set against my suntanned face that stood out as anything different. I knew how angry my eyes could look when I got my dander up. Buddy Pernell called me Jessie the Cat because he said my eyes were like cat’s eyes. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one. It didn’t matter any, I figured, since I couldn’t change anything. If Gemma saw me worrying about my face, I was sure she’d tell me, “What’s the use worryin’ about what face you got? It’s the one God gave you, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.”

  On my way downstairs, I stopped dead on the third step down because I heard Luke’s voice coming from the porch.

  “I didn’t even know they wasn’t home,” Daddy was saying when I moved closer to listen. “I sure appreciate you checkin’ on them.”

  “They had me worried is all. I came over as soon as the rain stopped.”

  “Well, they’re home and safe,” Daddy told him.

  I heard Luke clomp down the porch steps.

  “Thanks again,” Daddy called.

  That night at dinner, I sat staring into my black-eyed peas and pushed them around with my fork.

  “You’re gonna wear out them peas before you get to eat them, Jessilyn,” Daddy said. “I ain’t much used to a girl of thirteen playin’ with her supper.”

  “Ain’t you hungry?” Momma asked. “You feelin’ okay?”

  I didn’t say anything for a few moments, but I finally asked almost defiantly, “Did anyone else here know that Luke Talley is usin’ our property for chasin’ girls?”