Beloved Mother

by Laura Hunter

  By the time Lily and Anna had been on Turtleback Mountain for ten years, Lily knew each trillium, each bleeding heart, each wild iris, and where they thrived. She knew the best week for hickory nut gathering, where wild grapes flourished, where black walnut grew, and where to gather blackberries and dewberries in spring. All this she had learned as a child from days in the woods with Kee Granny.

  Another year went by. Anna ignored the road and hurried up the footpath Lily and Granny used, calling to the granny each time she stopped to catch her breath. Thankfully it was not a day that Anna felt too sick to get out of bed, but she could barely even make it up to the older woman’s house without falling to the ground. The granny met Anna, pasty and frail in a weathered sort of way, at the door. “It’s Lily,” Anna gasped. “She’s in awful pain.”

  The granny grabbed her black valise and ran, her bones jiggling beneath her long skirt. She found Lily in the loft, rolled into a quilt-covered ball and clutching her gut.

  Lily’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of her Kee. “It’s knives,” Lily said. “Cutting me inside.”

  Kee Granny enticed her with a honeyed voice. “You’re gaining life-giving power.” She showed Lily two long-necked gourds. “It’s a celebration day. Come down and dance.”

  Lily hesitated. “No. I want to go to sleep so I won’t hurt. Give me Mama’s potion.”

  Kee Granny put the splotched gourds in her apron pockets, took Lily’s hand and drew her near the ladder. “It’s time.” She nodded. “It’s your time.” She smiled and the two scars vanished into wrinkles.

  Lily could not remember Kee smiling. Ever. So she followed Kee Granny. At the bottom of the ladder, she started for the rocker.

  “Here, child. Drink this.” She gave Lily a vial of extract she had made from cramp bark. Lily cringed at the taste.

  Kee Granny set two vials on the table and pulled the two small, earth-colored gourds from her apron. “Sit. Roll these under your feet. Sway and bend. Release the pain through wonder and welcome.” Soft and hymn-like, Granny’s voice created a rhythm. “Roll, sway, and bend. Welcome,” she chanted over and again.

  “You’re a woman. You have a voice among your people.” Kee Granny hummed a minor tune then said, “A man will come for you, and the two of you will rejoice in your beautiful blood.”

  Lily bent forward as she rolled the gourds, her fists grinding into that hidden throbbing deep within her belly.

  Across the room, Anna watched silently, her arms crossed over her chest, in deference to the granny’s power. “I’m her mother. I should have recognized this,” she said.

  “Shhh,” whispered Kee Granny.

  After the rolling and breathing, Lily gradually straightened up. She rose from the rocker, extended her arms like a soaring eagle’s wings, and swayed.

  Kee Granny hummed a high-pitched, irregular melody built on some ancient pentatonic scale, minor and haunting. Her feet beat out a dance, not neat and tidy, not Western, but primal, unworldly, heady. Lily’s body and Kee Granny’s life-empowering song intertwined in an inseparable, slow rhythm. The granny’s severe brown dress swept the floor and puffed out dust from the paths she had trod. Together they gave off the musky smell of new-turned earth.

  Lily’s feet and arms set her into a spin that accelerated with the song’s rhythm.

  Anna waited. She mourned the loss of compassion that her mother had failed to show her the first day of her womanhood. She coveted the palpable love Lily and Kee Granny were experiencing. At the point Anna expected Lily to whirl herself into a fall, Lily and Kee Granny stopped. Anna glanced around the room for some hidden hand that had touched the two simultaneously. If it was there, it was invisible.

  Lily stood, her feet apart, in the middle of the room. The granny placed her hands on Lily’s shoulders. Lily’s bloated womb opened, allowing cleansing blood, beautiful blood, to trickle down her thigh.

  Kee Granny stepped back. Lily laughed at the relief. She wrapped her arms around Kee and wept.

  Anna slipped outside, drawn by the pungent aroma of early spring honeysuckle.

  “Where’s she going?” asks Sister Sun.

  “Quiet. It’s her knowing time,” answers Great Spirit. “She needs to be with herself.”

  Chapter 28

  Years before, Gabe Shipley had designated the two top shelves behind the counter to the granny’s honey jars, her wadulesi, as she labeled it. Ever since she had first moved to Turtleback, she had brought the jars in the spring, the honey iridescent and golden against the light. After August, jars came filled with chunks of waxen comb, waiting to be spooned out and chewed like tobacco. She and Gabe had agreed on a price of thirty-five cents per pint. Her wadulesi, tasty and handy for ailments, would disappear as soon as Gabe set it out. He would pull another stash from the back.

  Maintaining her closeness to nature and Great Spirit helped her bees thrive. She dared not anger Great Spirit or he would destroy clover, which in turn would destroy her bees. There would be no honey for Breakline or Covington. With her fifteen hives, she managed seventy-five gallons of honey each year. A loss of $210 could put her out of business at a time when miners made twenty-five dollars a week. As a Beloved Mother, she had earned the right to be paid well. Without her honey, she would have to resort to going into Covington to sell more cures and encourage a baby dropping here or there.

  She wanted no more encounters with Covington’s Sheriff Youell. Having to get Gabe Shipley to take her to Covington to get Briar out of jail for drunkenness marred her image with Great Spirit. She should have done better with her son.

  Days when she was not healing or midwifing, she crossed the swinging bridge from Turtleback to the back side of Covington and sat on the northwestern edge of town. The boy, when younger, had carried a box of honey jars to town. She sold the last of them for twenty cents a jar so they would not have to carry the honey back up the mountain, but he was older now and more intent on doing what he wanted. Days at a time, he would vanish into the forest without a word and refuse to say where he had been or why. As the granny aged, the wooden box grew heavier with each trip alone.

  The confrontation happened during the Month of the Bony Moon. Winter had been harsh, and Kee Granny grieved each time her mothering flow failed to appear. At forty-six it came less frequently. Lose her womanhood and she might lose her mothering skills.

  “Doesn’t she know it’s not leaving? It’s merely changing,” says Sister Sun.

  “Who would have told her?” asks Brother Moon.

  “Great Spirit.”

  “He doesn’t bother with day-to-day things. He’s got his mind on bigger problems like people always fighting over their skin color. Besides, he doesn’t talk to her, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “I thought those people already fought that war,” says Sister Sun.

  “They did, but they can’t remember what really matters,” says Brother Moon. “They think I’m little more than a rock with no more power than to play with tides, but I know more than they do.”

  The February day she walked into Breakline was cold. The granny had left enough honey with Gabe to last until spring when her hives produced again. Clover would not be in bloom for another two months. She came for staples: flour, sugar, and meal.

  Gabe looked up from his novel.

  “Mornin’, Granny,” Gabe said. “The usual?”

  Granny nodded her head then glanced at her two shelves. Both were stocked with honey. Not her honey, but cloudy honey. She picked up a jar. Her fingers stuck to a gummy residue left by the beekeeper. She popped her head back toward Gabe. “What’s this here?” She threw her head in the direction of the loaded shelves. “On my shelves?”

  “A man come in from North County asking if we could sell some of his honey. I told him I reckon I could since yours was out. Selling for thirty cents a jar and I get a commission myself of a nickel for each jar I sell. Ain’t that sweet?”

  Granny did not acknowledge his joke. “And my wadulesi?”
>
  “You ain’t got no honey right now.” He reconsidered. “Have you?”

  “No, but that ain’t the point.” One of Granny’s eyes twitched with fury. “That’s my shelves. I’m the beekeeper. I sell the honey. Not some fool from north of here.” She started around the counter. “I want my shelves cleaned off right now.” She took a step closer. “And I ain’t paying you to sell my honey.”

  “Now, Granny, I got to sell this man’s honey.” Gabe backed away from her. “I done paid him.” He inched closer to the back of the counter and laid down his book. “You ain’t the only beekeeper no more.”

  “People’ll come in here thinking that trash is my honey.” Spittle spurted out her mouth. “I ain’t having it.” She slung the jar to the floor. Cold honey globbed where it fell.

  “Now, now,” Gabe said with a chuckle. “Don’t make me get out my board.”

  “I ain’t scared of no two-by-four with a few nails. Go on. Bring it on out here.” She took her forearm and, like a yeoman with his ax in hand, swept the honey jars to the floor. First the top shelf. Then the lower shelf. Sounds of exploding jars resonated through the commissary. Gabe leapt up on the counter to avoid the shattered glass flying in all directions. The smell of sweet clover and wildflowers filled the room. Granny stalked toward the door.

  “Just a minute, Granny,” Gabe said. “You just made yourself beholden to Mr. Rafe. He’s going to want you to pay for that honey.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to clean honey from his glasses.

  Granny had met the door, leaving her staples behind.

  Gabe raised his voice. “Crazier by the day. No wonder Sheriff Youell run you out of Covington.”

  Granny glared at Gabe. “You can’t hurt me, Gabe Shipley.”

  Gabe picked up the book he had been reading. “See this, you old witch? You got honey all over Mice and Men. Crazy old bat. When you die, we’ll have to bury you twice to keep you in the ground.”

  Granny opened the screen door. “Somebody’ll find you dead one day. That day, I’ll walk up and spit on your body.” The door slammed behind her.

  Sister Sun summons Brother Moon. “Poor little bees. She ruined all that work they did. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Ask Great Spirit. He’s supposed to understand everything.”

  “Poor Gabe. He’ll be all day cleaning up her mess.” Sister Sun shoots out a glow, hoping it will cheer him. “I’m telling Great Spirit what she did. She can’t disrespect the gift of the bees.”

  “Send a frost over the mountain for the next two nights,” Great Spirit tells Brother Moon that evening. “Singe all that sweet clover and send those bees to Kentucky. On your way up, scoop up that flatland honey and bring it to me. I have a mighty big hunger for something sweet.”

  “When shall I tell the bees to come back?” asks Brother Moon.

  “I’ll think on it,” says Great Spirit. “Don’t forget my honey. She’s got some hidden in that back room of the old church.” He waves down a mass of clouds, more solid than mist. His massive weight forces out a smattering of hail. West wind carries him across the horizon.

  “Guess the clover’ll be back next spring?” asks Brother Moon.

  “Probably,” says Sister Sun. “But she’ll pay. He won’t give up easy.”

  April, 1960. Three years had passed since the granny’s sheltered threat to kill Gabe and spit on his grave for selling the honey from North County. Gabe thought no more about what she had said, crazy old woman that she was.

  Lily was fifteen. Gabe brought another box of Hershey candy bars and a sack of onions when he came to visit. Lily asked that he not.

  “But Anna loves candy bars, and she eats onions with ever’ meal,” Gabe countered. “And it’s your special day. We got to celebrate. No helling around, mind you, but something more than conversating.”

  “Candy bars at a nickel apiece, Gabe?” Lily paused to add up the total. “That’s six whole dollars.” She set the sack of onions on the plank table. “We got onions I hung up from last summer.” She tilted her head. “What’s special about today?”

  “An excuse to party with my girl,” Gabe smiled.

  “He’s her half-brother,” says Brother Moon. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “What’s so wrong with that? The Egyptians married their brothers and sisters and had babies by their mothers and uncles. Just keeping it in the family.” Sister Sun laughs.

  “Humph.”

  “Don’t be such a thick head. They produced some of the best rulers in history. Look at Queen Victoria. She married her first cousin, didn’t she?” Sister Sun blinks. “At least, Victoria didn’t pound her shoe on a table like Khrushchev’s doing. That old bald-headed man’s going to keep Great Spirit over there all week.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Look at King Tut,” counters Brother Moon. “His body was so deformed from incestuous relationships that he could hardly walk. And Gabe’s so much older than Lily is.”

  “Now, be fair. That’s no real problem. A lot of men marry younger women. They have since the beginning of time. Look at Joseph and Mary. She was only a teenager, so I’ve heard. Nobody knows about Gabe and Lily’s family relationship but Winston Rafe. Can’t Great Spirit set him straight if he sees that as a problem?”

  “Be assured that if he doesn’t straighten Rafe out, he’ll eliminate the problem somehow. Think on how he handled Jackson Slocomb.”

  Brother Moon shivers. “Glad I’m not in this.”

  “I’m not your girl, Gabe.” She reached for the candy to hide it from her mama.

  “If I plan to marry you, I got to keep your mama happy.” Gabe grinned his lop-sided smile.

  “Mama eats that chocolate like she’s craving it. Onions, too. Then she gets the sick headache,” Lily argued. “It’s not good for her.”

  “You heard what I said, Lily my love.” Gabe grasped Lily’s hand. “Never mind your mama. I’m going to wed you. Just giving you another year or so.”

  “Oh, hush up.” Lily’s hot face needed a cool washrag. She looked at him and memorized his duck-egg blue eyes. Gabe’s dogged expectation that Lily would love him in a wifely manner had begun to sound more than tolerable.

  Anna sniffed out the chocolate and ate the box of Hershey bars that night. She acted different in an unexplained way afterwards. For three days, Anna complained of a deep-seated headache, covered herself with quilts and demanded that Lily shutter the windows and doors. It was not until after she vomited the morning away that she rose from the bed.

  Days were worse when Gabe brought red wine. The two sat on the porch, Anna sipping her wine from an aluminum glass she kept chilled in the creek. Gabe had brought six glasses, each a different color, and a pitcher complete with tray as a Christmas gift. Anna selected the iridescent green each visit and drank from it. “A special occasion,” she said, as she self-justified each full glass. Without Gabe’s wine, the other glasses set apart on a shelf next to the cupboard. With the drinking passed, the next morning Anna would see rats chasing each other across the bare floor. Or she might see large winged birds, glossy and black, perched on the backs of chairs. On these days, Lily climbed the hill to Flatland and fetched Granny Slocomb.

  After the granny brought a potion, Anna vomited. The granny said it was necessary to purge Anna of whatever evil animal she had within her. Lily doubted Kee Granny’s animal theory. She recalled the night in Covington with Julie Hudson at O’Mary’s Bar when she saw Eli and thought he was trying to be a bug. Silly me. To think a person would try to be a bug, she reprimanded herself. Lily accepted the animal idea as some Cherokee belief she did not understand, so she did not question.

  Anna improved with the vomiting, but it did not cure her. Instead, she accused Lily of having pink and blue lights around her body and scratched her hands until they bled.

  Chapter 29

  Lily dreamt her father ran like a stag with Lily on his back. Her hands grasped his neck to keep from falling. She bent forward to see his
face, but she couldn’t get close enough. She dreamt Anna sang to her again, as she had when they lived in Breakline. Rocking and singing. Singing and rocking. Old mountain melodies that meandered through their minor keys until the final chord modulated into a major chord. But the dream voice changed to a man’s voice, not Anna’s. A full tenor voice. Singing about the Shenandoah River and his love for the river’s daughter. “O Shenandoah, I love your daughter,” he sang. Seven years he mourned, the lover sang, since he had seen his love. And Lily thought of her father, gone himself for nearly fifteen years. The dream unnerved her. She had to wake or die.

  The melody stayed with Lily for days. She hummed the tune when she least expected it. When Anna heard Lily’s music, she begged from her bed for Lily to sing more. But Lily refused. Something bothersome in the voice of the dream was too familiar. She did not want to think on any of it, for it reminded her of something she could not quite remember.

  The creek behind and below Boone Station had been Lily’s lullaby. It was the singingest creek she had ever heard. But the tenor now out-sang the creek as it hurried itself to Covington. His high-reaching ballads drew her to him. Nights when jitters overtook her, and she lay awake on her side of the bed, the voice came as if summoned by her nervousness. When he stopped his quiet lullabies, she slept sound, filled with peace. Mornings after he had sung, Lily would question Anna. Had she heard? No. She had not.

  Lily needed to ask the granny about the voice. Hesitant at first for fear the granny would think forest spirits had overtaken her, she tapped her feet, sighed, and looked away to avoid the question. She drew doodles in the dirt from where she sat on the rock slab step outside Granny’s door. “I hear music,” she stammered. “Most every night. Beautiful music.”