Under and overs.
This ain’t really ever been happened. I mean my head is slight, that’s not for arguin’, but sleepin’ beneaths rotten egg skins? Mold leaves and browned lettuce?
I just don’t.
My past is hazy as the fogged garden in the morn’. I seen giant shapes move about real slow out there. They was brayin’ like big donkeys. I was not knowin’ what the shapes was.
This lady pawin’ at the compost right befores me was like that—I know she’s there, but not the why. All that confusion done got me the déjà vu that brings the sick.
“I’m Jolene.” I said by way of introducing.
“My name is Annabelle.” She said. Her face and hands was filthing.
“Hi Annabelle, my belle.” I hepped her away from the fertilizer puffin’ up warm in the damp. I was blushed in bein’ sorry.
She smelled like wet dirt. Things gone bad. Earthworm perfume.
Annabelle’s ways was kind but strangely, like that three-legged kitten I leaved a bowl of cream ‘til the ‘coons or opossums done to her. I reckon Annabelle was what I hear folks calls an anomaly.
That’s a kind way a sayin’ they is slow in the noggin.
But I was such too on not being smart enough to live like people in the nicest houses, but not dumb enough to live in one of them homes for disabled folks. I works real hard for gramma.
Annabelle pinched on my cheek. She had poop fingers. I didn’t want to hurt no feelings so I smiles real big, but not so I shows all my mouth and scare her.
“You’re why I believe in God.” Annabelle said. Oh my but the Lord gone and blessed her with a voice that made my guts feels like the colorin’ of wild strawberries in spring.
“God don’t make no junk.” I didn’t know what that meant, but heard it so many times I had to speech my airs.
“Most of what God makes is junk. That’s why you’re such a joy.” That voice a hers. Like the sweet alyssum bloom in my ears.
I asked if it be gramma takin’ her in, or if she found our home by accidents, or her moms or pops dropped her hereabouts. But she was empty with conversating.
Garden be such a big place it took me and Annabelle a ways in travelin’. Area bigger than ten houses stacked together like wood-piled. Sammy telled me so I believes, and he is being truthful. He’s like a brother. I don’t know who his moms and pops is.
Takes up so much land we walks damn near an hour. From here to there and back again is the works. There’s plenty a planter boxes. So many fruit trees you get lost playin’ and seekin’. Leafy greens and bulbs of such colors and sizes I don’t even know. A veritable cornucopia, gramma says as is her way.
We follow the big fence that circled high as the trees, higher than two of me and maybe one Sammy on shoulder-top almost falling for topples. Fence was sticked with barbed wire. Bent at the top. Leaned inside the garden so as to keep deers from the jump over.
Sure would keep the talls from hopping out too.
Sammy was out in the garden somewhere. Annabelle and me never seen him. That region is so full a exalted spaces he could a been anywhere.
We got home and Annabelle washed up real nice. Swished my face watery too.
Gramma was makin’ supper. Good kind a supper of burnt skins and hot applesauce and blackened onions. Collette was kitchen helpin’. She weren’t inclined much to do in the ways of conversating.
“Look what I found in the garden!” I was shined as a peacock. Like I found my very own friend and we was goin’ to a movie or a dance. Annabelle’s beauty made me feel the ways I do when I hear gramma chanting. Or the smells from the garden in the time of blossoms.
“Ah yes. Sweet Annabelle. She has come to stay. Jolene dear. Would you be so kind as to show her around?”
Most reckon gramma’s voice would be frogged, but mine has a lady lilt. Smooth as fish eggs. I liked when she’d get to weavin’ her stories from her books. Didn’t understand half, didn’t believe the other half, but the speaked ones were telled real good.
That’s all that mattered.
Gramma is like the river when rains brim and gets to sputter with mad dog foams. Old but strong. And you’d better listen or she’ll show you things and a thing or two. Her hands is the loveliest. Put ‘em in a brass cage and they’d sing.
She done laid those hands on my face once. I had visions a the orchard. Thick fruits and strange vegetables when the garden was first growed in the dreamin’. The plot a land came to be so long ago I ain’t got words for it. Gramma says no soul been able to invent any such words.
I showed Annabelle ‘round the property.
Inside our home the shelves is dipped with canned jars. Lids wear dust crowns so the foods inside might not be wholesome.
Some is for hearty foods.
Some is for gramma’s concoctions.
Some is with blobs that look like something I found in a chicken egg. Annabelle kept up with the touchin’ a gramma’s jars and bottles and such. All curious with the wonders.
I tells Annabelle that gramma raised those with nothing to their name but the clothes on the back and a prayer. I never seen no prayers, though gramma and Sammy and Collette make their hands together when praying like they is holding wet tadpoles between their palms.
I don’t know about this. Never seen nothing in them hands no matter how prayerful I gets, or how long they be holdin’ like that.
I tell Annabelle about the two staircases in the room you walk into. Through the door at the front. One steps goes to the bedrooms. I don’t know where the other steps goes.
This is off limits.
That’s when Collette showed. Standin’ at the tops a them stairs as if she be knowin’ we was on the walk. Scolds us to not even dare think a goin’ up them off limit stairs.
She is an angel of vengeance. Hair fire bright. Dress the color a wet pomegranates. Sewed it together her own self. She done tried to teach me of the sewin’ but I ain’t got the knack. Collette’s voice got the teeth inside.
“Jolene, you know better.”
I’m afraid ‘cause she’s lit with ornery.
“Sorry Collette. I am.” I said as my ways is when all ain’t so clear as to the why’s and the what’s.
Collette gave me stab-eyes.
I held Annabelle’s hand as gentle as if I was dustin’ one a gramma’s old porcelain knickknacks. We left soft, like steppin’ between rows of cabbages.
Outside I tells Annabelle the apple green butterflies is my best. I seen no wild rabbits out there in the garden for a spell. There is birds. I like birds lots but they sing real scratchy these days, like Sammy’s rusty chainsaw when he chops up the trees knocked down in the storm. He cuts them the way gramma cuts my sausages on my plate for supper I like the best.
Annabelle said she got done with in the head when a hay truck slipped the brake. Rolled down a hill overs her. Didn’t know so good after that. But I ain’t of much when it comes to such matters. Family couldn’t look after her no more, as the money to pay the doctors up and went. So she comes here. I let her know it’s a good place and a good family and we’re happy.
We conversated about people who says you can see the stars on the day if you look up from the bottom of a chimney. I done tried this in the empty well, but it ain’t ever worked.
But it do work in the garden.
When I stand in the center next to the compost pile, and looks at the sky when the sun be out, I can see all the stars that ever was. Bright as fireflies. Don’t think it ever ends none either.
Annabelle took to hummin’ that same tune she’d been on when I first seen her at the compost. Sound like warm syrup and rose hips.
I thinked it might be nice to tell her of the truth on how my mama had the growths on the innards. So I tells Annabelle how when I was but a small girl my mama took me outside to see a lunar eclipse. That’s when the moon goes hiding from the Earth’s shadows.
I looked up. All that stuff going on with no stoppin’ at the Heavens made me dizzy.
There was so much room between each light I was filled with the spirits. Oh how I was tremblin’ to get lost in them black empty fields. Mama called them patches the Illimitable Garden.
Mama telled to me gather rocks from around the flower bed. Cuffed my jeans and put the rocks in there so I wouldn’t fall up and get lost for all a time.
Felt them stones tuggin’ at my legs. Saved me from jauntin’ to Heaven as a dandelion seed at hurricane time. Me and mama watched that lunar eclipse and I wasn’t afraid.
When mama went to dirts I felt like I did with no rocks in my jeans. I miss her. Gramma says we’ll be together at the next bumper crop. I think that means not so long a waitin’.
Annabelle seemed of a dubious mind when I be finished with my mama story.
I took Annabelle strollin’ between rows of corns, leaves shaped like tips a spears I seen in serial jungle adventures they show at the pictures for three dimes. Annabelle took up her tune again when we passed by the wasp nest. Makes me feel sick with the runs when I looks at it too long. It was a queer nest.
It winked at me once.
Sometimes it’s laughin’ and times it’s not. But that could a been the wasps flyin’ around it angry and clickin’. Clickin’ like that electric fence I dropped the dead snake on when I ain’t knowed no better. Sammy said I should a learned of the ways when I done squat-pissed on the fence up from the tree branch that one time.
But I’m not learned quite right as I mentioned before.
Annabelle stopped hummin’ her music after we’d strolled the garden a piece. Over the days she got real nervous about that region. Started to stay away. Stopped taking walks altogether.
I was still pleased to gift Annabelle flowers from the garden, but she was feelin’ right terrible for that space. I never understood why. All that grows has its place on God’s green and red Earth. Why fret over the seed and the bloom?
One time she wept tearful when I gifted hibiscus pink as baby field mice. Said they growed in obscene circumstances. But nothin’ so beautiful could ever be called obscene.
It’s likely I was not of full understandin’.
Annabelle began to poke the house and property on her own. Peekin’ and findin’. Gone “exploring” she said and did. I never done this for it ain’t proper for a lady to do. Ain’t sure why, but I remember something uncouth about such.
I know my parents must a been disappointed birthin’ a daughter so stupid she gots no reason to be. They was in the rights in leaving me with gramma. Maybe I don’t deserve a buryin’ in the compost heap. All this hatin’ myself I couldn’t even cry because I deserves nothin’.
Worthless.
I been called a dummy so much I know I outlived my welcome on this planet.
But Annabelle made me happy. I was feelin’ funny at how happy she made me. I wanted her to be full a glad too, to stop turnin’ over and stop eyeballin’ secret places and stop questionin’. I was heartached with concern.
So it all come to be the way it is when Annabelle came callin’ late one night. After I done dipped the hot bath and dressed for pillows. Tapped real light on my door. I was wearin’ pajamas. My heart was fit to lift on her visitin’ me in such a ways.
She squeezed my hand too tight, said, “I want you to leave with me. We cannot speak.”
I did as was her wants. Weren’t wearin’ no shoes.
She took me on the off limits stairs, of which I was never knowin’ where they went and was never supposed. I was not enjoyin’ our stroll this time.
We made cat-paws past chestnut bookshelves with slag glass bric-a-brac. Tin plaques of the auctions and feed stores and other places I’d only fancied ever goin’. Rows a gramma’s ruckus books. All done up in leather skins. Strange writin’ on the sides that made me taste the tingly of toothed pennies.
Went through a hall of peeled wallpapers pretty with the hoof-horse carousels. I had the same in my room when I was a little girl.
Tippy-toed past a laundry area. Piles a clothes all tored up like some poor soul been stucked by the barb wire. The only sound came from our feet on floorboards squeakin’ like rats scritchin’ wallboard.
“Ain’t allowed here Annabelle my belle.”
Annabelle placed her palm against my mouth. Shook her head so serious I was of the fear she was gettin’ to scold. Her hand skin smelled of wild lavender.
We kept the hallway a going. It rigged to the side. Ended at a mahogany door. Base all scuffed as if a wild mutt done penned here hungered fierce. Annabelle tugged my hand. Makin’ me go to shadows on the knees.
Pointed into the room.
My family sat at a dinner table. They was holdin’ hands in silent prayer. This is the best kind for worship.
Candle on the wooden table lit up lows the color a butter. Couldn’t make heads but could see the torn up cuffs a Collette’s red blouse. Big shape a Sammy. Gramma’s youthful hands.
It was a banquet. Pink ham and dark roast beef with roasted potatoes. Golden rolls. Bright green collards. Their plates was piled with somethin’ I couldn’t see. My stomach hollered. Annabelle gave me a look. My family didn’t move not a muscle.
I slid on my rump away. Low-voiced said this was a child’s game. Ain’t playin’ no more. Annabelle grabbed my hand. I stopped movin’. What did that girl want of me?
Gramma started the swayin’ as she was in a religious way and a reverend was hootin’ out the demons. Collette and Sammy did likewise after a spell.
Gramma, then Sammy, then Collette stopped the religious back and forth. Stopped then start shovelin’ food stuffs off a plates with hands a pale grubby fingers that looked like fat tree roots. Ate like they was starved.
Clumps fell on the floor. My family ignored the feast on the table, all satisfying and hot, just ate the platefuls heaped up. Fingers made an awful racket on them plates like twigs scratchin’ at glass.
Annabelle whispered that she sure hoped they wouldn’t bob their heads low enough to see faces.
This was silly. This was my family and there weren’t a thing to fear. But it sure started to stink awful. I scooted to see what’d spilled from the plates.
My family was eatin’ composts from the garden.
Annabelle looked at me kind a sad, kind a scared. Full a wonderin’ with wide animal eyes.
I remembered. Memory pot done got all stirred up.
I telled Annabelle a story. A story about that time my family and me done picked clays from the river’s banks and mucked it with composts to shape into somethin’ that reminded us of what my mama used to look like.
Annabelle got all saucer-eyed. Begged me to whisper.
But I kept up with talkin’. Told her how we all collected as many stingin’ insects as our mason jars would hold. Collette was bestest at this. Wasps, hornets, bees, mosquitoes, centipedes–you names it. Them bugs jumbled like they was tryin’ to break outta glass prison.
Put the jars mouth down over mulch-mama’s brain, her heart, where her private lady parts would a been.
The bugs stung and bit. All that venom juice oozed. Sank deep into mama’s soft soil body with all a life’s ichor. Oh how I remembers gramma singin’ such a ruckus as to make my heart ache with hope.
Annabelle’s sobbin’ and beggin’ me to shut up was so as to make me hatin’ my own self even more. But I went on with the tale.
Mama didn’t flower. Only lasted long enough to hold my hand for a moment’s time. Gramma’s works or not, it don’t do that way. When one a God’s children be returned to the lush humus they transform just like the spirit’s seed on a floatin’ to the Heavens.
Mama took to dirts once more.
Gramma must a heard me tellin’ tales, or maybe it was Annabelle’s sad wailin’ that got to her—whichever it be, her head nodded like after too much wine. Face got closer to the buttery candle light. Seen her skin grayed and papery as them wrinkly walls of a wasp nest. Opened her mouth but all that come out was a puff a wasps all flizzin’.
Annabelle screamed and screamed.
‘Fore I could blink she done ran down the hall. Clopped down them stairs ‘til I heard the front door slam, then footsteps on the gravel driveway.
Was fit to be done I was.
I’d been treated with chemicals that made it so I couldn’t feel adult things, like the sexy stuff or makin’ the babies. On account of my low cunning as it was for the best. But I was heartached for Annabelle.
I ain’t knowin’ if I was in love, ‘cause I can’t feel like that no more, but bein’ near Annabelle made me wild with pride and scared I was fillin’ up my soul so much. Took to slappin’ my face real hard like I did when I was a little girl. To make the thoughts jostle away to the empty spaces between the stars.
I’m stupid, but not so dumb I believe Annabelle had love for me.
But I could pretend.
Kinda like I do when I dream a papa drivin’ up in his truck and he says he made a mistake and he was so sorry he and mama dropped me off at gramma’s to live and maybe we could go fishin’ and I could move in with him. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I imaginate these ways that sometimes help me feel less sad. I can’t decide such for I should a been left to rot at birth.
Gramma and Sammy and Collette rose up from their dinner table all slow and patient like they was decidin’ who’d be clearin’ the table. They walked right past me, didn’t even look at me, walked down the hall to the steps. I heard the front door open and close again. I heard a commotion comin’ from the garden.
Annabelle took to screamin’ right ‘bout then.
I ran out the front door, across the lawn to the garden where the heavens was full a fog and mists a roots come down from what be up there and what is bein’ on the ground.
Gramma and Collette stood around the compost pile. Their faces was fuzzy from the compost steamin’ hot and moists like wet animals. Didn’t have a notion where Annabelle be at.
Sammy was last into the garden. Ducked real lows under the fence for having growed even taller. My family moved around the compost, hand holdin’, with their queer ways a walkin’ and singin’.
Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales Page 15