“I need to get home,” I say, looking down at her hand on my arm.
“If we go to the cemetery, I bet we’ll hear the whispers again,” she continues, her fingers digging in a little more. “Don’t you want to know what they’re saying?”
A shudder climbs my spine. My fledgling secret sense tells me to get out of there, but I’m so surprised it finally showed up, I forget to take action.
“Let’s go,” Pearl says, grabbing my other arm. Melody finally releases her grip and we rush down the porch steps and run through the forest, as though Melody is chasing us.
When we finally stop at the road, we lean over to catch our breath. As I straighten up, I get that creepy feeling again like I’ve just walked over somebody’s grave. The whispers voice their agreement.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Wildflower
It was Lily who noticed the body at the bottom of the ravine, similar to where I had seen Johnny’s body that day many years ago. She had been inconsolable at first, never having seen a dead body. Who wouldn’t be? Melody Monroe was dressed in the same clothes she’d worn when she arrived. She’d likely been drinking, the authorities said, and had somehow fallen from the footbridge trying to see the ravine below. But I wondered if she had chosen to jump.
Lily went on and on about how Melody had wanted her to come with her to the cemetery that day, and also about the whispers. About how Melody had heard them, too, and thought they were Johnny trying to talk to Lily from the grave. Perhaps the whispers called Melody home with the rest of the family. For whatever reason, Lily says she hasn’t heard them since Melody’s body was retrieved.
Three days later Lily, Aunt Sadie and Bee and I attend Melody’s service. Mama refuses to go after hearing about Melody trying to get Lily to go to Louisville. The only other person there, besides Preacher Evans, is Doc Lester. It is a small gathering for a funeral. Perhaps only Johnny’s was smaller.
I wonder how many will attend my burial rites when the time comes. Daddy’s funeral filled the church to overflowing, and I get teary just thinking about it. Sitting in the usual McAllister pew, waiting for the service to begin, I finally understand Aunt Sadie’s reasoning. Everybody should have someone to witness the end of their life. No matter how many devils or angels sat on their shoulders during their lifetime.
The ceremony begins and Preacher says his usual things about heavenly rewards and pearly gates. He does little to hide his dislike of Aunt Sadie and me, for not being regular churchgoers, or his continuing desire to get Lily to sing in order to fill his offering plate. I keep thinking about the time Bee saw him in downtown Nashville picking up a lady of the evening, and wonder if anybody is what they seem.
Doc Lester, in the pew opposite us, keeps an eye on me. His letters to Melody’s aunt are why we’re all here. The ceremony begins and Preacher asks if anyone wants to say something. I doubt he remembers much about Melody Monroe. All of us are quiet. Somehow, there is too much tragedy to make room for words.
Any other time I would expect Lily to sing. Perhaps Amazing Grace, the song Miss Mildred played at Ruby’s funeral, fifteen years before. The song Lily sang two weeks ago for the anniversary, minutes before Melody Monroe walked up the hill to our house. Had it only been two weeks ago? Somehow it seems longer. I nudge Lily and whisper the suggestion that she sing something, but her lips form a tight line and she refuses.
It is already dark when Bee puts two plates and silverware on her small white kitchen table for us, supper still cooking on the stove.
“It’s so tragic about Melody,” she says. “I wish I’d said something at the funeral.”
“We were all struck speechless,” I say. “Some things just don’t make sense.”
Melody died in the same manner Johnny had, landing only a foot or two away. So close they could have held hands if they’d been there together. I still haven’t told Bee about Melody’s threat, and hope that Melody’s knowledge of the two of us died with her. Yet something tells me it isn’t over, and that Bee needs to know.
We stand in Bee’s small kitchen, the curtains pulled closed even though there aren’t any neighbors for miles. We are used to this. We are used to hiding.
“I need to tell you something,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, not looking up.
I always fear that Bee will take off again. She can get a job teaching practically anywhere, and has made it clear that the only reason she’s still in Katy’s Ridge is me.
I hesitate, and Bee turns to look at me. “Before she died, Melody visited the house again and said some things that concern me,” I begin. I don’t tell her that it was actually several days before that, before we went to the movie. The day I rushed home from the theater and found Lily and Pearl in the bedroom talking. At first I thought I’d rushed home for nothing, until I later learned that Lily and Pearl had been with Melody the same time I got my premonition. In fact, Melody had tried to make Lily go to the cemetery with her that afternoon. The next morning Melody was found dead.
“What did Melody say?” Bee asks.
I pause. Bee touches my hand. “Just spit it out, Lou,” she says.
This nickname is only ours, though I call her Bee, as does the rest of the world, except for her parents who still call her Becky. What I’m about to tell her won’t go over well, but she needs to know. No matter how much my bravery wanes.
Bee leans against the counter. I forget how beautiful she is sometimes. At least beautiful to me. I wonder if there are other women like me and Bee. Just because I’ve never seen any, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Planets exist that I’ve never seen. Millions of them. Yet, when I look up at the sky, it’s hard not to feel alone.
“You’re driving me crazy,” she says. “Tell me what Melody said that has you all riled.” Bee folds her arms at her chest, waiting. I stare at the hands of the gold wristwatch her parents bought her last Christmas, the hands pointing straight up and down to 6 o’clock.
“Melody asked if anybody else knew about me and you,” I say.
Bee releases her arms, her eyes flashing a sudden terror, “She asked what? Tell me exactly what she said.”
A timer goes off on top of the stove, as if to add further alarm. She turns off a burner, all the while shaking her head like she can’t believe what she’s just heard. I am too far in to stop now. She turns around again to face me. I wonder briefly if I should hide her suitcase.
“Melody said she knew about us,” I begin again, “and that everybody else might find out if she had anything to do with it. Something about the rumor mill starting up.”
Worry digs a trench along Bee’s brow. “But how would Melody know these things?” She sits at the kitchen table. I sit across from her, and reach for a hand that she doesn’t offer. From the smell of supper cooking, I also have other concerns. Bee isn’t that great a cook.
“Maybe she was just guessing.” Bee looks up at me, a hopeful tone to her voice.
“That’s a pretty accurate guess,” I say.
She frowns again. “We’ve been so careful,” she says. “Well, except with Lily.”
“That was an accident,” I say. “Lily never comes to the mill that time of day. She was upset. She had been over at Melody’s.”
“I can’t believe all the trouble that woman has caused,” Bee says.
Perhaps it is a good thing that the last of the Monroe family is dead, except for the part that lives in Lily. After Melody was found and I tried to get in touch with her aunt in Kentucky, I learned that the old woman had been dead for years. Melody evidently lived over a bar she worked at until she was fired a few months before for drinking away their profits. No one I talked to was surprised about her death.
“You don’t think Lily told her, do you?” Bee’s cheeks redden.
“I honestly don’t,” I say. Not that I haven’t given it a thought myself. More than one teenager has complained about their parents to the outside world. “The timing doesn’t match up anyway,” I continue. “She h
adn’t seen us yet. Lily saw Melody the morning before she saw us.”
Bee stirs another pot on the stove, as if stirring up her concern. My stomach growls, reminding me how hungry I am. At the same time, I don’t feel like eating. I’m not sure I can take much more trouble.
“Maybe everything will go back to normal now that Melody is gone,” I say. “Let’s hope all this trouble died with her.” But Bee doesn’t look convinced.
“What if people find out?” Bee says. “Lou, I could lose my job. You could lose your customers.”
She pours me a glass of tea without ice and no lemon.
“Could be nothing,” I say. “Could be she just wanted to scare us.”
“Could be she wanted to ruin us, too,” Bee says. “Where was she getting this? That’s what I want to know.”
“I’m just so tired of hiding,” I say, taking a sip of tea that could use sugar. “Every time I visit you it’s like something out of a radio mystery,” I continue. “I stop at the end of your road to make sure nobody’s looking and then accelerate to get out of sight quickly, and then duck into your driveway. Not that anyone is even around. If Katy’s Ridge had sidewalks, they’d be rolled up by 5 o’clock at night.”
I want to laugh at the situation, but can’t even muster a smile.
“I’m tired of hiding, too,” Bee says. “I’ve forgotten what normal is like. If I ever knew. I guess if we were normal, we would have married someone years ago and never looked back. At least you had an offer.”
When Victor and I dated, it never occurred to me to keep it a secret. In fact, I wanted everyone to see me. It was my proof that I didn’t have feelings for Bee. Of course, this wasn’t at all fair to Victor.
“Maybe you should have married him,” Bee says, as if she’s read my thoughts. “Then I would have stayed in Nashville and never would have come back to Katy’s Ridge.”
“We’re not criminals,” I say.
“Aren’t we?” She motions for me to sit and goes back into the kitchen with our plates, serving us from the stove.
The meatloaf is burned and the color of tire rubber. The mashed potatoes, piled high on the side, have visible lumps. The peas, from a can, have a tiny dab of margarine on the top. While I adore Bee, I am not that fond of her cooking.
She joins me at the table and unfolds a napkin, placing it across her lap. Her family lives in Rocky Bluff and even has a housekeeper. In this way, she is much more sophisticated than me.
When I make a bold cut into the meatloaf, the burnt crust crackles and steam escapes. I move the margarine with the tip of my knife to encourage it to melt. It isn’t encouraged. I hide it underneath the peas to avoid eating it. I make sounds like I enjoy the food, even though it is the worst meatloaf I’ve ever tasted.
She chews the meatloaf and makes a face. “Oh my, this is awful,” she says, offering an apologetic look. She retrieves a bottle of ketchup from the refrigerator. We both pour on an ample amount. I chew a lump of mashed potato and wish Bee had a dog. A hungry dog, under the table. I pour on more ketchup.
“Do you think the Sectors told?” Bee asks.
“Never,” I say.
“Then who told Melody?” she asks.
“That’s the big mystery,” I say.
We sit in silence for several seconds.
“Sorry about supper,” Bee says.
“It’s delicious,” I say, convinced a lie isn’t always a sin. According to firsts and lasts, if all the cooks were lined up in heaven, Bee would be at the head of the line.
In spite of my need for levity, my secret sense stops me mid-chew.
“What is it?” Bee says.
“I think somebody’s here,” I whisper.
Bee starts to stand, but I motion for her to stay seated. Butter knife in hand, I creep toward the front door. The porch light is on, and I pull back the curtains to get a look. Another face looks back at me. I scream, and then fling the door open.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
On his knees, Doc Lester looks up and his weasel eyes accuse me. He is in a perfect position to see through the tiny opening in the front door curtain. He smells like someone who hasn’t bathed for a while, his graying hair dirty and slicked back. I can understand now why he’s always lived alone. With the two doctors in Rocky Bluff who actually have medical degrees, his kind of quack doctoring is no longer needed.
“I should be asking what you are doing here,” he says. It takes him a while to stand, as if he’s been on his knees for a long time. He is a head taller than me, yet I am not intimidated. He’s aged significantly in the last few years.
Bee enters the hallway.
“He was spying on us,” I tell her.
“You two are going to burn in the fires of hell,” Doc Lester tells us, his eyes wide.
“For eating supper together?” I say, to cool the hellfire.
“That’s not all you’re doing,” he says. His look is sour, as if he’s taken a bite of Bee’s meatloaf.
“You need to leave,” I tell him.
He takes a step back to unleash more hatefulness.
“God will smite you down for this, Wildflower McAllister. I’ve known you were no-good for years now.”
“Keep your smites to yourself,” I say, grateful that he isn’t a physical danger.
“You won’t be saying that when everybody in Katy’s Ridge knows about you two.” He raises an eyebrow, as if excited by the exchange.
Bee appears frozen in place. Up until a few minutes ago, the biggest problem of the evening was getting supper down.
“You’re trespassing,” Bee says, finding her voice. “This is my property. You’re breaking the law.”
“Didn’t see no No Trespassing signs up anywhere.” He sticks his tongue in the side of his cheek like he’s pleased to get the better of her.
“What do you want?” I say to him.
The other eyebrow raises, a drop of saliva dots the edge of his lip.
My throat tightens. I always thought Doc Lester was lazy, so it makes no sense that he would go to all this trouble to spy on us out in the middle of nowhere unless he wanted something.
“You want to know what I want?” He pauses. “Let me watch,” he says finally, lowering his voice, a crooked smile on his face.
Bee steps forward and shoves him off her steps. “You’re disgusting,” she says. “Get out of here!” I’ve never heard such fury in her voice.
Doc Lester laughs and his voice fades when I close the door and bolt it. It is only then that Bee sinks to her knees and begins to cry in deep, gulping sobs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Lily
The whispers vanished after I found Melody at the bottom of the ravine that morning. I wondered if my father was somehow satisfied to have his sister finally with him. Or if he’d simply given up on getting through to me. After it happened, Mama barely left my side for three days and took off time from work to talk whenever I needed to talk. I’m not sure how a person makes peace with where they come from. It’s not like we have any say in the matter.
While one mystery is finally solved, another has sprung in its place. I have no idea who I am anymore. It’s like all my dreams died away with the whispers. I haven’t felt like singing for days, and for the first time I’ve begun to question if leaving Katy’s Ridge is my fate. Maybe I am meant to stay right here and marry Crow and have babies and sing in the small choir at the Baptist church. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself all this time that I’m meant for bigger things.
As a result of the ice storm, school has been called off for the day. Granny has a big fire going in the old wood stove in the living room, and I’m catching up on school work I missed while I attended Melody’s funeral. Tiny ice pellets hit the tin roof with a ping that sounds like notes on Granddaddy’s banjo that sits in the living room in the same place it was sitting the day he died. Mama dusts it every now and again, and I try to tune it when I have the patience, but it’s like all the banjo’s songs have
dried up like mine.
A light knock on the door startles me. Uncle Daniel takes a wobbly step inside. Tiny ice pellets stick to his hat and coat and he takes them off and hangs them on the pegs next to the door.
“What is it?” I ask. “Is Mama okay?”
Against Granny’s better judgment, Mama went into work this morning to do a few things, since she’d spent so much time watching out for me.
“She’s okay,” he says, “but she sent me to tell you something.”
“Why didn’t she come and tell me herself?” I ask him.
“She’s fielding telephone calls at the sawmill,” he says. He looks around like he’s looking for Granny. I point to the kitchen. Granny spends most of her time in there with the oven door open to keep things toasty warm.
“Is there a place we can talk in private?” Daniel whispers, keeping an eye on the kitchen.
I lead him to the bedroom I share with Mama and then close the door. Uncle Daniel and I haven’t really talked since I ran to get him when I found Melody that morning. I was on my way up to the cemetery to try to find my father’s grave when I found an empty jar of moonshine sitting on the railing of the footbridge and cigarette butts twisted into the wood. It was Uncle Daniel who called the sheriff in Rocky Bluff to report Melody’s death.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I say, all of a sudden scared that Mama is in danger.
He sits on the bed next to me, one hand on the cane he always uses.
“Word’s got out about her and Bee,” he says. “She wanted me to warn you.”
His words jolt me to standing. “But who told?” I can only imagine how Mama might feel about this. At Melody’s funeral two days ago she looked weary and older than I’ve ever seen her.
“She thinks it was Doc Lester,” Daniel says, rubbing his bad leg like it’s acting up on him. “A bunch of people are calling and canceling their accounts. We’re losing customers like an artery has burst,” he continues. “Wildflower’s trying to talk them out of taking their business elsewhere. She’s offering discounts and all sorts of bargains, but they’re just hanging up on her. Not to mention the names they’re calling her. My God, Lily, it’s like another war.” He rubs his leg again.
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