Under the Skin

by Vicki Lane

Eight-year-old Rosemary, climbing laboriously up the slopes of the mountain pasture, a stout hickory stick clutched in one hand, was deep in her pretend of an explorer in unknown lands. At the unexpected sound of a voice, she glanced up in surprise. Two dark eyes in a brown face, half-hidden by a thick shock of black bangs, regarded her steadily from the top of the big rock that she had marked as the goal of her exploration.

  We are not either hippies. My grandmother says that, too, but we’re not! We’re the Goodweathers. And this is Full Circle Farm. My mum named it. And we’re just living in the barn till Pa and Uncle Wade can get our house built.

  Rosemary pointed down the mountainside to a flat, bulldozed area where two shirtless, tanned men in work boots, straw hats, and cutoff jeans were busy installing a window in the unfinished shell of a modest house. A tall, slender woman in a blue work shirt and faded jeans toiled up the steep road that led to the building site from the barn below. A thick braid of dark hair hung nearly to her waist. In one hand she carried a thermos jug while with the other she held tightly to the unwilling fist of an energetic redheaded toddler. The child broke loose and tried to outpace her mother but soon took a tumble and sat down hard on her overalled bottom. Resisting any attempts to help her up, the child staggered to her feet, and ran. Once again her tiny boots slipped on the gravel and the scene was repeated.

  That’s my mum and my little sister. Rosemary jerked her head negligently in their direction. Her name’s Laurel. She’s only three and a half and she can be a pest.

  I have a little sister named Krystalle and she’s a pest too. The dark child patted the rock beneath her in a proprietary manner. You want to come up on Froghead?

  Is that its name? Rosemary scrambled up the steep slope and climbed onto the tilted surface of the big rock protruding like a granite thumb from the mountain pasture. She moved cautiously up the incline and lowered herself to lie on her belly beside the other child. Who named it?

  Me. The dark girl patted the rock again as if it were a living creature beneath her. It’s one of my special places. I know all about this mountain. My mama stays so busy with Krystalle that she doesn’t care what I do. Long as I get home for supper. A lean brown arm indicated a knapsack that lay beside a pair of binoculars. I pack my lunch and sometimes I stay out all day.

  I’m Rosemary. What’s your name? Rosemary cast an admiring glance at the other child’s long straight black hair and bronze skin. You look like an Indian.

  I am an Indian. Granny Thorn’s a full-blood Cherokee and my real daddy was mostly Cherokee. My true name is Mary Thorn Blackfox but mostly everyone calls me Maythorn. My mama told them at the school that my last name is Mullins now, ’cause my real daddy’s dead and she’s married to Moon.

  Moon? Is he an Indian too? Rosemary propped herself up to look at this interesting stranger more closely.

  No, he’s just ordinary. Maythorn pulled the binoculars to her and trained them on the big pear tree near the house site. The two men, the woman, and the redheaded child were sitting on a stack of lumber in the shade of the tree while the men drank from tall glasses.

  Is one of those men your daddy? Slim brown fingers adjusted the binoculars for a closer view.

  He’s the one wiping his face with the red bandana. Now he’s tickling Laurie. His name’s Sam but I call him Pa. The other one’s Uncle Wade. He’s Pa’s brother and he’s staying here this summer to help build our house.

  Hmmph. The binoculars stayed in place. I figured they were brothers—both with red hair and all. The lenses turned toward Rosemary. Do you like your uncle?

  Rosemary wrinkled her brow at the glittering lenses. What do you mean? He’s my uncle! He’s really funny and nice and he tells dumb jokes all the time. The impassive lenses continued to hold her gaze. And he’s teaching me how to play the harmonica. Why wouldn’t I like him?

  Dunno. The binoculars turned back to survey the scene below. The tall woman was rising and the toddler shook her head violently, stamped her foot, and attached herself, limpetlike, to her uncle’s leg. The mother squatted down to look her daughter in the eye, spoke a few words, and slowly Laurel released her hold. The storm passed and the little girl grabbed the empty jug, waved a cheerful good-bye to the two men, and set off pell-mell down the road, the jug bumping the gravel with every step. Her mother hurried after her, pausing to look up the mountainside in Rosemary’s direction.

  Instantly Maythorn lowered the binoculars and flattened herself against the rock. Rosemary lifted up and waved in her mother’s direction. I’m up here! It’s really cool! There’s a—

  Below, Elizabeth, with one eye on Laurel, who was nearing the old tobacco barn—their home for the duration—waved abstractedly at her older daughter and called out, Okay, Rosie, just don’t go any farther off. I’ll ring the bell when it’s lunchtime. Be careful up there.

  She turned and hurried after the fast-moving little redhead, who was disappearing through the open doors of the barn loft.

  Mum’s got to watch Laurel all the time. There’s holes in the barn floor she could fall right through. Pa and Uncle Wade fixed a safe corner for her—kind of like a corral. There’s an old rug that covers the floor and we put her bed and all her play things on it. There’s a kind of fence around the rug and she’s not supposed to try to get out.

  Where do you sleep? Maythorn’s binoculars moved to the barn and studied the picnic table and rocking chairs under the raw new shed at the side of the barn.

  We all have mattresses on the floor and sleeping bags on top of them. Except for Uncle Wade—he has his own tent in the other barn, that little one behind those trees. My special place is in the corner across from Laurel. I have a rug, too, and a bookshelf with my favorite books—the rest of them are in boxes down below till the house gets done. And I have a trunk for my clothes and a box for my very most important stuff. It’s like camping out, except we don’t have to worry about rain. And when it does rain, it sounds cool hitting the metal roof, like a million fairies tap dancing. Sometimes I wish we could live in the barn forever. We have kerosene lamps at night and we sit outside and watch the lightning bugs. And we bathe in the branch or in a big round tub if we want hot water. It’s really fun.

  Maythorn abandoned the binoculars and rolled onto her side, leaning on one elbow to study Rosemary. Do your mama and daddy yell at each other much? Mine do. I’m glad I have my own room to get away from them. I wouldn’t want to live all together like you do. That’s why my mama said you all are hippies.

  No, they don’t yell at each other! Rosemary was aghast at the idea but, after brief consideration, added, Sometimes Pa yells when things mess up—like when the truck wouldn’t start yesterday. He yelled and said bunches of bad words but he wasn’t mad at any of us.

  What were the bad words he said? Maythorn gazed with interest toward the house site, where Sam Goodweather was hoisting another window into place.

  I’m not allowed to say them. But I guess I could spell them for you. He said D-A-M and S-H-

  A cowbell clanked and Rosemary jumped to her feet. I have to go now. She paused, reluctant to leave her newfound friend. You could come down and eat lunch with us. There’s plenty. I could show you my books and stuff.

  No, thanks, I’ve got my lunch right here. And I’ve got some other jobs before I go home, some other things I have to see about.

  What do you mean? You’re just a kid—and it’s summer vacation! What do you have to see about?

  Things. It’s my job. Maybe I’ll come down another day.

  The bell sounded again, louder and longer. Laurel was standing at the edge of the shed, waving the cowbell wildly from side to side.

  Okay, maybe another day. See ya. Rosemary slid off the rock and started down the slope. A thought struck her and she whirled to address the binoculars that were following her retreat.

  Maythorn, what kind of job? What do you do?

  The sun glinted on the lenses, throwing bright lances into Rosemary’s blinking eyes.

  I�
��m a spy, said Maythorn. I find out stuff.

  Lunch was on the table in the welcome shade of the new shed. Bread and cheese, cold cuts, crisp green lettuce, and thick slices of tomato were heaped on two old ironstone platters. Elizabeth was fixing a plate for Laurel—five carrot sticks, half a cheese sandwich with tomato, no lettuce. No mustard, mayo on the slice of bread next to the cheese, not the one next to the tomato. Perched on a cushion atop the picnic table’s bench, Laurel swung her legs and drummed her plastic cup on the table while singing the ABC song, loud and tuneless.

  Hey, Rosie, did you have a good adventure? I saw you up on that big rock. Her father smiled his crinkly smile at her. Better wash your hands, Punkin.

  Uh-oh, Sam, don’t you remember? Uncle Wade’s mouth turned down in a sad expression. We used up all the water in the branch. Rosie’ll have to wash her hands with something else. Maybe leaves … or rocks … or—

  Uncle Waa-ade, that’s silly. You couldn’t possibly use it all up! Rosemary made a face at her uncle and hurried off to the little stream, where a wooden trough set over a big rock provided a steady flow of icy, clear water. A bar of soap sat on a nearby rock and a faded green towel hung from a convenient spicebush.

  When she returned, her mother had already made her a sandwich—just right—with lettuce, tomato, sliced turkey, and mayonnaise. She slid onto her place on the bench and the family held hands as Sam said, Let’s be thankful.

  The brief blessing done, they ate. Everyone was starving—it had been hours since breakfast—but Rosemary was full of her news. She swallowed her first huge bite of sandwich and announced, I have a new friend. She’s a real Indian and her name is Maythorn.

  For Ann Collette, who believed …

  For all the readers who waited …

  And, of course, for John

  Acknowledgments

  At last! The resolution of the cliff-hanger that ended In a Dark Season! When I wrote that book and ended it with a puzzling message from Aunt Dodie, I was fairly confident that no more than a year would pass before I continued with the story—indeed, I’d already written the first and last chapters of this very book.

  Alas, it was not to be. Miss Birdie insisted on having her say, and The Day of Small Things came next—and late at that. I began to feel very, very bad about that cliff-hanger: What if something happened to me and I never finished this book? My readers would never know the truth about Phillip. So I wrote a touching blog post, to be published in the event of my untimely demise and including the already written final chapter of this book.

  Thank heavens, I can delete that post now. Many thanks to all you patient readers for hanging in there with me. I’ll never write another cliff-hanger.

  There are several others I need to thank for helping this book come to life. Karen and Pete Nagle gave me a tour of their beautiful Mountain Magnolia Inn and shared its history with me. Dr. Marianna Daly and Bryan Robinson gave me medical and psychological advice for one of my characters. Thanks also to Vic Copeland and to Pepper Cory for adding two wonderful new phrases to Phillip’s vocabulary: “bitch wings” and “nets a-flaring.”

  Anthony Cavender’s fascinating book Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia was extremely useful to me, and I appreciate his allowing us to reprint a page. Byron Ballard, a hereditary Appalachian witch, told me about the burn spell and tried to help me understand more about the Earth religions.

  A big thank-you to Martin T. Hodges, my blog friend across the pond, who read the chapters with Giles of Glastonbury and made sure he sounded properly English.

  Many thanks to the gang at Random House: Connie Munro, my copy editor, does a great job of ensuring that my continuity makes some sort of sense, and she catches the typos and other gremlins that creep into a manuscript. Victoria Allen is responsible for the lovely, haunting cover art. And my patient editor, Kate Miciak, is responsible for making me a better writer.

  VICKI LANE is the author of The Day of Small Things, Signs in the Blood, Art’s Blood, Old Wounds, and the Anthony Award finalist In a Dark Season. She lives with her family on a mountain farm in North Carolina, where she is at work on her next novel.