I didn’t tell Florentine about hope flying the coop. The thought of the bird tattoo flying across the ocean and landing on the wrist of Arly Pickett made me happy. I wanted him to have hope. I wanted him to come home to his family. But I missed having a snicker of magic on my wrist. I blinked up into the face of the September sun, wondering where the tattoo was right at that moment.
Florentine propped her hand over her eyes to shield the light and glanced up at Mama, who stood beside us with her hands on her hips, staring at the Gallery.
“You been staring at that wall for twenty minutes,” Florentine said to her. “You think it’s gonna paint itself?”
“I need to figure out how to get the graffiti off first,” Mama said. She stepped closer and gently traced her fingers across the letters somebody’d painted on the bricks. I watched each word ripple beneath her touch. “I need a blank canvas when I start.”
“Not this time you don’t,” Florentine chuckled. “Whoever painted those words? They were mad. They painted ’em in deep. Heartbreak always makes the words stick extra deep.”
Mama looked down at Florentine. “How do I get them off, then? They’ll probably bleed through the paint.”
“Probably.” Florentine nodded. “But you do what you know how to do: You paint something new.”
“Been too long since I’ve done this,” Mama sighed as she eased down on the sidewalk. She hunched her scrawny shoulders and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t even know where to start. That’s what happens when we’re in a place too long. My creativity’s just … gone. I feel stuck.”
“That’s not why you’re stuck,” I said quickly. “You just haven’t painted in a long time. Start in the center, like you tell me,” I said.
We’ve done a bunch of traveling in the Pickled Jalapeño. And on warm summer nights, after sunset, before the dark drops its curtain, I like to stare out the window and wonder. I’ve seen mountains and wildflowers and wild animals and storms. I’ve seen the ocean; I’ve felt it lick up around my ankles like it’s something frisky and playful. And I’ve seen it crash against the rocks, dangerous, a silver-tongued monster. I’ve seen sweet things like Frannie sleeping and Biscuit snuggling close to me and Cleo slipping extra cash into the pocket of Mama’s work uniform. My eyes are tiny, but they’ve taken in a world full of wonderful.
So I can’t even imagine how it must feel to see all that wonderful and then be able to touch a paintbrush to a piece of paper, or pavement, or brick, or brittle rock and leave that image right there, exactly the same way your eyes took it in. Mama doesn’t just paint mountains or moonlight or people’s faces; she paints memories. She paints the joy you feel when you see something wonderful for the very first time.
But Mama wouldn’t even look at the Gallery.
I clutched the locket so tight in my fist, I wondered if it’d crumble. Enough magic to take her sad away, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t have that.
But I did have my words.
“Miss Florentine,” I said, “I’d like to tell you a few things about my mama, Holly Harness Pickle. Do you mind?”
“Sure don’t,” Florentine drawled.
Mama didn’t look at us, but I could see her cheek dimple in an almost-grin.
“Okay, then,” I began. “The first thing I painted with Mama was rocks, river rocks we saved from the Cumberland River. We all took home a rock and we painted one thing we loved on it. I painted the dog, and Frannie painted a piece of cheese.”
“That’s fancy.” Florentine nodded.
“It truly is,” I agreed. “And then when we lived in Birmingham, Mama painted red roses on paper plates and she taped the plates to my wall. She told me I could fill my garden with any flower I wanted. If I could dream it, I could paint it. That’s what she told me. But quite honestly, I can dream up some pretty weird stuff. And it never looked so good when I painted it. When Mama did? It looked even better than it did in my dreams. By the time we moved from that place, the entire wall of my and Frannie Jo’s room was covered with paper flowers.”
Mama wasn’t looking at the wall anymore. Her body was still turned toward the Gallery. But she’d turned her face toward me, listening.
“Once, Mama painted a map on the roof of the Jalapeño. We called it the Kingdom of Spiderberg. Every night we told a story about a new place and then Mama would paint a new castle on the map. I was the Queen of Spiderberg.”
“Rightly so.” Florentine nodded.
“I told Mama maybe we should paint stars up in Spiderberg, too.” I gulped. “But instead of grabbing her paintbrushes, she pulled me and Frannie outside and we stared up at the stars and spun around underneath them until we got spindiddly dizzy. She said stars don’t mind being painted. And they don’t mind sonnets or songs or poems, neither. But they’d rather just give you light enough to dance by. That’s what she told me.”
“Okay,” Mama breathed. She wasn’t talking to me or Florentine. “Okay,” she said again, like she was answering some deep-down question she was afraid to ask out loud.
Her hands trembled as she picked up the can of white paint and poured it into her paint tray. She pushed the big paint roller down into the paint until it soaked up all the color.
SWISH. The roller swiped up and down, over the brick, over the words, over every picture that had been painted there before.
My heart felt heavy in a good way again, holding me still in that memory.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Florentine grinned at me. “I just heard you speak hundreds of words, Felicity Pickle. Every last one of them came out of your mouth fine. Mighty fine, in fact.”
“My words are different when I talk about people I” — I gulped — “love.”
“Exactly,” Florentine said softly.
The wind-chime wind tunneled down Main Street. Florentine groaned and pulled her traveling bag close to her side. I stood up and clamped my hand tight around the locket.
The wind didn’t rattle Mama, though. She kept swiping the paint roller back and forth across the brick. I watched new words appear, then fizzle, with every stroke:
Sandstorm
Avalanche
Fly
Away
Home to visit
Home to stay
You don’t have to leave to find a new beginning, Mama. You can begin again exactly where you are. That’s what I wanted to say to her, but me telling her wouldn’t matter. Mama had to see that we were home for herself. Painting the Gallery might help a little bit.
But breaking the Weatherly curse would set Mama free forever. I could feel it.
After Mama’d been working for a few hours, I jogged across the street to see how the Gallery looked from far off. As I spun around to take a seat on the red bench, I heard Florentine hollering my name from back at the wall.
“Don’t sit there!” she yelled.
I froze, half squatted, ready to plop myself down. “Why?”
Florentine slung her traveling bag around her shoulder and crossed the street. “ ’Cause that bench belongs to Abigail Honeycutt.”
I glanced back at the empty bench. “You think she’ll mind if I sit on it?”
“Probably not,” Florentine said. “But she’ll sure mind if you sit on her. She’s invisible. Maybe ask first and make sure she’s not there.”
Mama had already told me that Florentine was probably crazy, but crazy in a sweet way, not crazy-mean. I knew then that Mama’s words were most certainly true. All the same I said, “Uh … Miss Honeycutt?”
When nobody answered, Florentine said, “You’re fine, then. She ain’t here.”
“Who is she?” I whispered, sitting down easily onto the bench.
“That’s a better story for Oliver to tell. He tells it right.”
Florentine pulled her bag tight against her side. “I only know bits and pieces about people who used to live in this town. I don’t know the full story.”
“Thanks for all those kind things you said back there,” Mama said as we walk
ed back to Cleo’s. She leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
I flung my arm around her waist and said, “You’re welcome. I can’t wait to tell Jonah what Florentine said about my poem.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something about Jonah,” Mama said, turning us down Main Street.
Just when she was about to ask, we passed Dr. Zook’s Dreamery Creamery. The door swung open, and Uncle Boone walked out carrying two ice-cream cones. “Perfect timing!” he said. He gave one cone to Mama and one to me. Boone’s banjo was strapped to his back, like always. He slung it around in front of him and winked. “I figured I’d play y’all home. How does that sound?”
I wished every day could end that way, with banjo music, sweet ice cream, and street shadows painted long by the setting sun. The world was so beautiful I nearly forgot about my troubles.
“About Jonah Pickett.” Mama glanced down at me. “Do you have a crush on him?”
“Not a crush.” I shook my head. “More like an inflate. He makes me feel the opposite of crushed. He makes my heart feel like a balloon, like it’s going to blow up and fly right out of my chest.”
Boone sighed. “I might have to use that in a song, Felicity Pickle.”
“Jonah’s a sweet boy,” Mama said. “But you know you don’t have to participate in the Duel to impress him, right? You can back out if it scares you.”
“Why would it scare you?” Boone asked. “You didn’t get worked up over that stupid curse did you?”
Mama stopped walking. Her hand clamped down tight on my shoulder. “Why would she know about that?” She narrowed her eyes at my uncle.
Boone shrugged. “You know how people talk. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s a story, Liss. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Boone …” Mama warned. Then she looked down at me. “You are not cursed, Felicity.”
I nodded, even though I didn’t believe her. Even though I was pretty sure Boone didn’t, either. The curse had everything to do with me, which is exactly why I had to figure out how to break it.
“You don’t have to do the Duel.” Mama tightened her arm around my shoulders. “If you change your mind … if you get nervous …”
“I am nervous,” I admitted. “But I’m not going to run away.”
“Atta girl!” Uncle Boone cheered. Mama only sighed.
Boone strummed a sweet tune as we walked through downtown, toward Cleo’s apartment. The first evening star showed up in the sky and winked at me. The wind rolled through the streets. The trees shook their branches and beat their tambourine-leaves in a strangely perfect rhythm. Almost like the trees were clapping along to Boone’s music.
Jonah and I sat side by side on the bench seat of a Dr. Zook’s delivery truck. Oliver was behind the wheel, driving a little bit too fast down a dusty country back road.
“Slow down a little bit!” Uncle Boone yelled from the back. “Or this piano’s gonna smash me flat.”
When I woke up that morning, I had no idea part of my day would include a full-blown Beedle mission, but soon enough, Jonah was calling about a know-how, a delivery truck, a piano, and making Boone a Beedle associate. Because we needed somebody who could do the heavy lifting. One perk of having a do-gooder best friend is every day’s got an adventure tucked away in it.
“We’re delivering a piano to Toast Terry,” Jonah said to me at school. His eyes were sparkly bright, the way they always get when he’s plotting good deeds.
“A piano?” I squealed.
“Shhhhh!” Jonah chided. “It’s not like a baby grand, just a little upright. It’ll fit in the back of the Dr. Zook’s truck. But Oliver threw out his back at square dance lessons with Charlie Sue. Do you think Boone will help?”
So I asked Boone if he’d do me a favor and he said, “Anything!” And so off we went. Big Bruce helped Jonah into the front of the delivery truck, then loaded the wheelchair into the back with the piano. Boone stayed in the back, too, so he could keep the piano from scooting around whenever Oliver took turns too fast. The ice-cream delivery trucks didn’t need freezers, thanks to Oliver’s marvelous invention. But I was still a little bit worried about Boone getting piano-smashed. Big Bruce was back there with him, mumbling something about how he might as well just unload the piano by himself since Boone was about the size of a skinny pencil.
According to Jonah, Big Bruce was part of a small, secret group of Beedle associates. Jonah said he never had an accomplice before me. But he and Oliver knew every so often, in emergencies, they’d need help with logistics, deliveries, and heavy lifting. Up until now, Big Bruce and Jewell Pickett were all the help they’d ever needed. But with Oliver’s back out, and Jewell working overtime to keep her mind busy, we needed Boone, too. I figured Boone would be thrilled about joining me on Team Beedle. I guess he was, a little bit. But he didn’t much care for the heavy-lifting part.
Jonah flicked open a small door on the dashboard, which probably had a glove compartment at one time. Now it was refitted to carry small pints of ice cream. He pulled the lid off a pint that smelled like pancake batter.
“Ah!” Oliver grinned, recognizing the smell. “That’s a new flavor called Sarah’s Sunday Breakfast. What’s the verdict?”
“Pretty good,” Jonah said. But he only took a couple more bites before he passed the pint to me and reached for the Blackberry Sunrise.
Jonah cleared his throat and tried to refocus on the folded newspaper in his lap. But I could tell he was too excited about our mission to focus. “Toast is gonna love this,” he sighed. “He saved up for a piano last year, but his dad was let go from the water plant. Toast gave his savings to his parents. He never told me that. His mom told my mom that he’d done it. He deserves something spindiddly as this.”
“Are we just gonna drop a piano in his front yard?” I asked.
“Front porch,” Jonah clarified. “I figure they can wheel it inside from there.”
As Oliver drove, Jonah read tidbits of news from seven different counties. He’d circled stories and pictures and classifieds, anything that gave them a clue to what somebody might need.
“The Freely family down in Sweetwater needs an air conditioner,” said Jonah. “We can take care of that, easy.”
“There’s an obituary in there for Delora Riggins,” Oliver sighed. “I know her husband, Clifford. I’ll drop by Ponder’s and get a pie for him. Maybe run over there and give him some company.”
And on and on they went. You’d think after reading about so many needs, they’d start feeling tired, but they never did. They only got more excited about figuring out ways to help.
“Is something troubling you, Felicity?” Oliver asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“There is one thing I’m troubled over,” I said. “Florentine had me believing I was about to sit down on an invisible person. She said you could tell the story better than her.”
“Ah! Abigail Honeycutt.” Oliver nodded. “She ain’t invisible.”
“That’s what I figured,” I sighed.
“She was invisible,” Oliver said. “She’s long gone by now. You remember Charlie Sue telling you that her family used to be able to turn invisible? Same with Abigail Honeycutt. The difference is that Charlie Sue’s people knew how to pull out of it. Abigail didn’t.”
“How the hayseed does somebody go invisible?”
“It’s easier than you think,” Oliver said.
“Are we almost there?” Boone yelled from the back.
“Not even close,” Oliver hollered. Then he got back to his story.
“That bench Florentine told you not to sit on? That’s where Abigail Honeycutt sat, right up till the day she faded away.”
“She died?” I asked softly. I felt Jonah’s shoulders stiffen. He’d been extra-especially quiet during the past few days. He said it had to do with only having a few pieces of paper left in the jar. He said he knew he should be excited about his dad coming home. But he couldn’t help but worry, too.
�
�She died eventually,” Oliver said. “Everybody does, of course. But nobody knows when she passed because she faded first.”
I blew my too-long bangs out of my eyes and said, “You better start explaining.”
Oliver said, “Abigail Honeycutt was married to the only man in town wealthier than the Weatherlys. His name was Lionel and he was the kindest, most gentle soul you’d ever meet. Lionel and Abigail had a son, Burl. And shortly after Burl was born, they built Dr. Zook’s Famous Ice Cream Factory. The name came from a bedtime story Abigail made up for Burl. Dr. Zook was a superhero in disguise. A frazzled chemist by day. A crime stopper by night. That sort of thing. The Honeycutts set up the ice-cream factory, then put the parlor on Main Street. They brought thousands of jobs into Midnight Gulch. I saw an old newspaper clipping about it, and the reporter said that’s the happiest people had been since the Threadbares were here.”
Oliver slammed on the breaks, just in time for a fat white cow to meander across the road. He honked the horn, which made a sound like waaaah-uuuuuu-guh. Boone screamed an unsavory word as he tried to brace the piano.
“Most of their success had to do with hard work,” said Oliver as he stomped back down on the gas. “But folks know some of it had to do with Abigail’s magic. She was kin to the Smiths — so she knew all sorts of wild recipes — cookies that gave people laughing fits, and punch that turned shy people feisty. Her most famous recipe had to do with memory; she baked homemade biscuits with blackberries and sugar stirred into the dough. Her blackberry biscuits helped people remember things; sometimes the memory was good and sometimes it was bad. But it needed to be remembered.”
“Like the Blackberry Sunrise,” I said, staring down at that infernal carton in Jonah’s hands. The carton I refused to touch.
“Exactly,” said Oliver. “That’s where the idea for the ice cream came from.”
Oliver continued, “The Honeycutts were older than most folks are when they had their baby, so they doted extra special on little Burl. He was a real creative soul, helped them name all the ice-cream flavors. Every year on Burl’s birthday, his parents took him on a trail walk down by Snapdragon Pond. They’d sit on the banks beside the tall reeds and watch the sun creep higher and higher above these sleepy old mountains. One day, the sun turned the sky lavender and gray and then silver metallic. The morning glories fanned open their petals. The wind blew ripples across the water. And Burl told his parents he’d never been happier. He said he wished every day could be a blackberry sunrise. And so, as a gift, Abigail mixed that memory into the ice-cream recipe. Every time Burl tasted it, he remembered that morning. Blackberry Sunrise was his favorite flavor.”
A Snicker of Magic Page 16