Beloved Mother

by Laura Hunter

  Juanita pulled up a woven-seated chair. “Listen up, girl. I’ll show you something special in the morning. I got buttercup blades shooting up through this old black dirt. Now ain’t that something in all this cold snap?” Juanita patted the bed. “Sometime soon there’ll be a blaze of glory ever’ where you look.”

  Tension held Lily’s body taut. In an attempt to lessen Lily’s opposition to life, she had to be called back. Without a thought, Juanita began a soft ballad she had often sung to Jason. “I gave my love a cherry that had no stone…” She hummed through verses until she saw Lily’s chest relax. She eased off the chair and sang, “a baby when it’s sleeping has no cryin’.”

  Juanita slipped off her shoes. She crept into the kitchen to have food ready for Jason and Seth when they returned from closing Gabe Shipley’s grave.

  Within days, Lily’s begging and anxiety for Eli wore Juanita and Seth down. “It’s been a long mourning time for the girl,” Juanita told Seth. “Her mama. That old goat she loved so hard. Now Gabe. She’s got to move on.”

  Seth agreed to leave Lily at Boone Station if Juanita stayed to see that Lily did not slip away.

  “Slip away? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just know she ain’t right yet,” Seth said. “Them Granny herbs and all.”

  Once Juanita got Lily to eat and to sleep without belladonna, they put her in the back seat of their ’54 Chevy and drove the garish pink sedan to Boone Station.

  Eli met Lily at the door with a kiss over her ear. He sang, “Oh was he stobbed in the heart, my darlin’?”

  Lily bit her lip and shook her head.

  Eli hummed, “Come, I’ll help you to my house, my love.” Lily followed him inside. Sunday wound herself around Lily’s legs, making it hard for Lily to walk a straight line.

  Juanita moved into a tiny side room Uriah Parsons had built as his family grew. She cleaned from Lily’s absence. She sat in the repaired pea-shelling chair with the girl on the porch and eyed Owl perched on a rafter while Lily swung. Eli left each morning and returned at dusk, as frogs at the cistern began their chorus.

  For Juanita, Boone Station existed in a surrealistic world, one unlike any she had ever known. After a week, she gathered her belongings to return to Breakline Camp. She told Lily and Eli that Seth would come at the end of the week to take her home. Lily nodded as if she understood.

  Three nights later, an explosion of shattering crockery startled Juanita awake. The moon was down, so dark was the room. More crockery hit the floor. From the next room, Lily shrieked. The screech sounded to Juanita as if cold fury spewed out of Lily.

  “My God,” Juanita said as she ran into the room.

  Lily stood by the shelves where the crockery was stored. She slung another bowl against the door. She lifted a pitcher and drew back to smash it on the floor.

  “Lily, you’ll cut yourself,” Juanita said. She hopped across shards of broken bowls and plates. Sunday peered from beneath Lily’s bed.

  Lily held the pitcher higher over her head.

  “Lily!” she said. “Stop it!” She grasped Lily’s hands and held them hard. “You’re scaring Eli. Tell him to stay. I can’t search the woods for him.” She nodded her head toward the ladder leading to the loft. “Look at him. He don’t know what’s ahappening.”

  At the sight of Eli peering over the loft’s edge like a terrified kitten, Lily collapsed against Juanita and wept.

  “Oh, little girl, whatever shall we do with you?” Juanita patted Lily’s back. “Whatever shall we do?”

  Eli appeared in his worn shirt. Ignoring chips of pottery under his bare feet, he came up behind Juanita and hummed a note. He sang, “I wish I was a pretty little sparrow and I had wings to fly so high.”

  Lily visibly slackened. She lifted her head and looked at Eli as if this were the first time she realized he was there. “Fly so high,” Lily repeated in tune.

  Juanita released her hold on Lily. Lily went to Eli and wrapped her arms around his waist. The two stood among the broken dishes and cried, blood seeping unnoticed from their feet.

  Saturday morning Juanita left. Lily and Eli stood under the Boone Station sign, waving her on. Once Seth’s truck disappeared, they sat in Gabe’s marrying swing and hummed the sparrow song to each other.

  Chapter 42

  Early May, and an uncommon light snow covered the ground. Lily left Boone Station well after dark. She carried her shovel before her as she climbed the familiar footpath. Nearing Flatland, she crawled on all fours, a feral cat stalking her prey. She stalled, waiting for Briar Slocomb’s wolfdog to alert sleepers. Nothing. Under the blackness of the new moon, she dragged a dead chicken, its head bumping along the leaf-covered ground. To her left she heard a movement under a thick hemlock. Lily waited. No movement. No breath.

  Briar Slocomb’s wolfdog growled low in his gut. Lily tossed the chicken in the direction from which the sound came. She listened to teeth pulling flesh and snapping bone. The dog would finish the chicken in short time.

  Back on her knees, Lily stirred, then froze. Before her, what appeared to be an oak limb slithered past. A copperhead as thick as her thumb. The sun, testing its false spring warmth, had earlier drawn him out of his den. After warming in the sun, the snake was returning to his den. He flicked his tongue and sensed her overpowering body warmth. The snake shifted his triangular head toward a rock outcropping and disappeared in the darkness.

  The copperhead’s presence reassured Lily. It could have struck, but it had not. She was meant to be in the snake’s path. It was right that she kill Briar Slocomb. A fierce fire burned within her breast. He had killed Gabe. Slocomb’s callousness had left Gabe alone on the mountain not caring that he might smother under duct tape.

  Briar Slocomb had walked by Boone Station, day after day these past years in tattered work boots. Lately, he walked without noise, his soles held to leather tops by silver duct tape.

  To her left, she heard something step on leaves behind her. Lily stiffened. She got down on her belly and lay so still she could hear her heart pumping in her ears. An animal directed bottle green eyes toward her. A cat, too low to the ground to be a cougar, too light on its feet to be a bobcat. It came closer and ambled over Lily’s back as if she were a log. Its pads, soft and soothing, contrasted the feel of jagged limbs and dampness against her belly. Sunday, meandering through the woods, disregarded Lily’s presence and wandered on.

  When Sunday vanished, Lily skulked toward the dog. Now closer, she rose to reassure herself that the feeding beast was the wolfdog. She jumped and ran, never thinking, holding her long-handled shovel in one hand like a cocked rifle. Running on her toes past Kee Granny’s beehives, she shifted from carrying the shovel by the handle to holding its neck in one hand for balance. She made no sound louder than a chipmunk’s.

  Briar Slocomb lay sleeping on his belly on the makeshift porch of the little log cabin. A pistol rested near his hand where he had dropped it. No lights glowed from the granny’s church. Lily grasped the shovel by its handle and caressed the wood with her palm. She inched quiet as a moth to where he lay. The sour odor of liquor nauseated her. Holding her breath, she sized the distance from where she could stand and still get a hefty strike. If she got too close, he might grab her ankle, pull her down. Or she might miss, awakening him, and need to run.

  Lily edged nearer, lifted the shovel as if it were a posthole digger and gouged its metal edge into the back of one knee. Hot blood squirted from his leg and hit the front of her wool jacket. For an instant, a dense crimson cord bound her to Briar Slocomb.

  Slocomb’s howl reverberated down Turtleback. He flipped over, popped up, grasped his leg and bent his head toward his knee. Lily slammed him hard against the skull with the back of the shovel. He fell back to the floor.

  A yellow glow outlined the church door. Inside, the granny had lit the lamp. She would see Lily if Lily returned the way she had come. Lily sneaked around the corner to take a back route to the road. She glanced
around to see Kee Granny moving toward Briar, pointing the 30.06, its polished walnut stock firm against her shoulder.

  “Briar?” Granny called. “That you, Son?”

  Lily flattened her back against the clapboard church wall.

  The only answer was a bark from the dog.

  “Don’t make me shoot, whoever you are. Answer me.”

  A blast resounded from ridge to ridge, leaving behind its final echo a silence louder than the explosion. The smell of gunpowder choked Lily. She grabbed her mouth to stifle her cough.

  Brother Moon hides his wan self behind a heavy grey blanket of cloud that is thinking about rain for tomorrow. His terror refuses to let him peep out. “Besides, I don’t have to show my face,” he tells himself. “Not now, in my new moon phase.”

  Neither Sister Sun nor Great Spirit are close by.

  Somewhere near the front of the church, another shot followed the first. Lily circled around the back of the church, between the giant fir stand and the room that held the birthing chair and its hoard of jars. Visualizing the mutilated rocker inside and what would have been her baby brother on the shelf enraged Lily. She veered to Kee Granny’s circle of harmony and chose the first log she saw. She hurled it through the eastern window, reached in, grabbed the kerosene lantern off Kee Granny’s mixing table and slung it across the room. Its glass base shattered, spilling oily kerosene. Fire chased oil as it streamed across the floor.

  Lily dashed around Flatland’s clearing, past the beehives, and headed for the headwaters of Broken Rock Creek. Behind her, an explosion rattled the earth beneath her. The blast was followed by pops and booms and deafening blasts. A gigantic whoosh sucked air from around Lily. Fire had reached the baby jars, cremating the little ones in their alcohol baths.

  Night’s black sky turned orange, then white hot, as flames consumed the old wooden church. Once the explosions stopped, an eerie glow lit Flatland. Fire had spread into the stand of fir. Rather than night bird calls, crackling and crumbling sounds filled the air. Lily flew, weightless, down the path, the fire’s light freeing her of the burden of truth she had carried all these years. She raced, puffing out air to avoid inhaling the stench of burning wood and flesh as it followed her toward Boone Station.

  She intended to wade Broken Rock Creek so Briar Slocomb’s wolfdog could not find her scent. The path to the creek should have been clean. It was not. Midway down, a thick muscadine vine rose up and coiled around her ankle. The creeper, so rapid in its attack, threw her forward. She hit face first, embedding her forehead in dirt.

  Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house’s on fire tumbled back and forth through Lily’s head. She rolled over and reached for her shovel to boost herself up. It was not there. She had left it at Flatland. Tomorrow. She would return when the fire died down and fetch it.

  She touched her head wound and drew away a palm filled with blood. Lying still, she listened for Briar Slocomb’s dog to sniff her out. A late night puff of air cooled her face where she lay. In the distance, Briar Slocomb’s dog yapped and yapped, each yap turning into a bay announcing the death of his master Briar Slocomb.

  High in the black pines, two golden eyes blinked down at her. They swooped, a glowing whiteness nearer and nearer, then rose. Owl, his softly fringed face skimmed just over her head, followed by the gentle breath of his wings. He lit and looked back at her lying in damp dirt. Leaves rustled in the night breeze.

  “Get up,” Ena says. “Get up and move on.”

  Lily slipped through leaves made soggy by melting snow, toward the creek. Her sense of place and balance so disoriented by the blow to her head, she found water before she expected it. She lurched headfirst into icy water. Its swift current dragged her under. She burst to the surface, gasping for air. Her wound burned from the extreme cold. She longed to stroke her forehead for comfort, but she sank again. She flailed her way back up.

  Water wrapped itself around her legs as she attempted to steady herself. She thought of Uktena, the great horned serpent Kee Granny spoke of, the creature that carries the dead to an afterlife in the east. She must get out of the creek before Uktena drowned her. She fought against having no bottom to the water. Her fight whirled her around, and she recognized the bank. Close. She was in the right place. The excess overflow was merely snowmelt. Her panic lessened. She breathed deep and dogpaddled toward land.

  Lily felt land under her feet. Snowmelt pricked her legs like needles. Icy water bound her legs from ankle to thigh. She stumbled into a sinkhole and doused herself again. She yearned for a sweater, but there would be warmer clothes at Old Man Farley’s place where she had hidden supplies.

  She walked easy. Past Boone Station where Eli was singing to himself. She had not realized how clearly his voice carried over Turtleback. Kee Granny and Briar would have listened with her. Tempted to climb the bank to home, she forced herself to finish her plan. She wouldn’t be able to explain her bloody face. It would frighten Eli, so she plodded on.

  “Listen to that, Great Spirit,” Brother Moon speaks from behind the dark that accompanies his new phase. “He’s singing the stars right out of the sky.” He considers turning his illuminated side to face the earth but decides against it. Someone in some other time would remember this night.

  In preparing for her attack, Lily had counted the Canadian hemlocks between the back of Boone Station to where Parsons Branch entered Broken Rock Creek. Though the thickly needled trees should have been easy to spot, the black of the new moon made counting difficult. What had been a shallow bottom lulled Lily into a sense of security that never should have existed. It dropped without warning and then rose again. So she watched the bank, but watching the bank caused her to slide into deeper water as it chased itself down the mountain. At one point, she had to swing herself up by grabbing a low limb as the current’s swiftness knocked her down. She worked herself out on the bank to rest and gain orientation.

  Chilly air sent shivers over her wet body. She contemplated what she had done. Rattler was dead. His skin tacked to a post these past five years, his rattles blowing in the breeze like a store-bought wind chime. Briar Slocomb was dead. Maybe his dog, too. She had done this thing. This murder of Briar Slocomb. “Vigilante justice” some would say. “Warranted righteous fury” from others. She had no doubt that Briar murdered Gabe. What kind of man needed to live? Not a man who would murder over duct tape.

  She, in her assault, had slammed evil in the face and won. She was not meant to be Beloved Mother. She suffered under no false impression; she needed no repentance. It was clear. Lily Goodman was not meant to be a mother at all.

  Back in the water, she saw the mouth of Parsons Branch. Its low banks and its scrubby undergrowth hid moccasins. Grey roots reached out to pull the unassuming under. She pushed her body to the branch’s center.

  This turn marked the final bit of her escape. She struggled more quickly, her legs fighting against the current, her teeth chattering. Within a matter of minutes, she recognized old Breakline Mine #1. It had rumbled and collapsed not long ago, leaving it no more than a slopped indentation in Turtleback’s side. A bleak scar marked where it had been worked out two decades before. At this point, she scaled the bank and crossed the road that passed Boone Station. She curved onto the dirt strip of road that led to the Falls. From there, finding Old Man Farley’s place was easy. She dragged herself in and wrestled a piece of door over the opening. Inside, she wiped her arms and face with dirt to kill the blood smell.

  Lily took off her wet clothes and threw them aside. Her head throbbed, though it no longer bled. With creek water dripping from her hair, she shook from the cold. She burrowed herself into a quilt to stave off the shivering and wound herself into a ball.

  Within a moment, she felt the weight of Sunday padding over her body. The cat settled into the niche of Lily’s belly, wrapped her tail around herself and stayed. Lily ran her fingers through Sunday’s thick fur and fell asleep.

  Throbs deep in her forehead woke Lily. When she tr
ied to sit, Sunday slid off her belly. She lay back down. Sunday climbed back up and pawed her cheek. She nestled on Lily’s shoulder and licked the wound. Lily grimaced at the touch of Sunday’s raspy tongue. It was pain she would tolerate, for her mama had said an animal’s tongue is as good as a doctor’s salve. No. That had been Kee Granny. No matter. Lily no longer knew what was true.

  The next morning, Lily could tell by its fishy odor that the wound had festered. Kee Granny, almost across the mountain, could be of no help. Lily could live with the scar. She took what Turtleback had given her, her Gabe, Sunday, Eli and her scars, and she was grateful.

  Fever tossed Lily about in her sleep. She dreamt. And re-dreamt. Someone tucked the blanket close around her neck. Someone hummed next to her ear. Someone smoothed her hair. When she awoke, no one was there.

  To gain strength for the walk back to Boone Station, she ate bread that molded over her days of resting and healing. She fed Sunday small pieces and offered her soured milk. The next day, Sunday left and returned with a fat brown vole. When Lily turned it down, Sunday took it outside for lunch.

  During her rest, Lily recalled the night on the porch when she had watched a pale half-moon. Mares’ tails painted a feathery design across its face. If she turned her head just so, the moon became the profile of an ancient warrior dressed for his wedding ceremony. Had she been in harmony with nature, she could have spoken to the moon and he would have comforted her as her mother lay dying inside. But Lily had failed. She had failed her mother and herself.

  “Lily,” Anna had called out that night. “Lily, come inside and crack the Bible with me for a spell.”

  Inside, Lily asked, “We got a Bible?”

  “There. In the secret drawer.”

  Lily pulled out the thin drawer from across the bottom of the bureau. She lifted a worn leather-bound Bible and caressed the cover’s rough texture with her hand.