Moonlight painted soft stripes across floors and I placed the purse on the sill to bask in its beams. Gunnar dared not come into my room. He considered it a breach of Southern manners, and had never once crossed the threshold since he brought me here. Knocking or yelling from outside the door was his calling card, but still I had to be careful; you never knew with a smart, eagle-eyed executioner.
I fell asleep only to wake hours later in a sweat of tightly tangled sheets. I sat up and rubbed my face. It was wet from tears. I’d been dreaming of Patsy and heard her crying, and in the background there had been another noise: hens cooing.
Despite it being the first night of August, I pulled on my quilt jacket and buried myself deeper under the covers.
Before the first sparrows could gather in the bushes, I slid out of bed, wishing I could slide right back in and take what my dreams had cheated me of. Shaking off the slumber, I dressed, smiling as I stuffed a tiny cheesecloth-wrapped package full of seeds into my pocket. Then I took Mama’s purse off the windowsill, pulling out the fortunes I’d made.
My finest, especially the one with the chickens. I felt hopeful. And as usual, more thoughts flowed and I took my pencil to each of the flaps, writing two names on the one I would keep and only one name onto the other I would give. I slipped them under the seeds in case Gunnar had his sneaky eyes on.
But Gunnar was gone. He must’ve left early to work in the barn, so I hurried into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread, slathered on butter, and downed it. I buttered two more pieces, then stuck them inside my old Three States tobacco tin that Gunnar’d given me to scrub and use for my lunch pail.
Dawn gathered in the hills as I sat down on a quilt next to a tobacco row and worked the latest paper fortune-teller I’d made, stretching my thumbs and pointing fingers inside the four-pocket slits. Every minute or so I would stop, cock my ears, or look around for my uncle.
Landing on number six, I opened the triangle flap and peered inside at the boys’ names. Rainey, it predicted. “Bur Hancock, three, Rainey Ford, four,” I whispered, and let my fingers gallop the folds again. I blew wisps of hair off my sticky forehead, the humidity making them clump. “Rainey, six, Bur, five,” it read.
“One more Rainey . . . c’mon seven.” I closed my prayerful eyes and mumbled, lighting into the fortune-teller again, knowing I wouldn’t be satisfied until I reached my favorite number—seven—feeling foolish and carefree, but enjoying the tiny break before another long working day.
Startled by the sound of rustling grass, I twisted around. Baby Jane Stump circled a tobacco stalk. The sun rose over the mountain behind her, sending fog-soaked rays tumbling to the fields.
I blew out my breath. “You scared me, Baby Jane.” I squinted up at her, gathered Gunnar’s old shirt tight across my chest. “Quit sneaking around like that. I thought it was Gunnar. Lordy-jones, you nearly popped the hairs off my head.” I smoothed down the apron covering my long dress and picked at the fabric with shaky hands. “What are you doing down here so early on Saturday? It’s not even eight yet.”
I stuffed my fortune-teller into my pocket, annoyed that I’d been interrupted before landing on “seven.”
“I h-have to be at the Millers’ early now. They told me to come early starting in August. And I—I wanted to be sure and see you ’fore your uncle made it out.”
“How’s Lena?” I couldn’t help asking.
She looked away nervously. “M-Ma says Sister’s got the baby weeps.”
It looked like Baby Jane had been crying, too. She dropped her empty basket beside me and sat down.
I reached inside my pocket and pulled out seeds I’d been waiting to give her. “For your mama’s fall garden,” I said, placing the tiny cheesecloth package into her hand. “Tell her there’s twelve rutabagas. And ten turnip seeds and fourteen carrots.” I had to fib to Gunnar and tell him the price for feminine protection went up at the Feed & Seed.
Baby Jane stuck them inside her pocket, and murmured, “I like the rutabagas, ’specially like you cook ’em, mashed and all.”
“Grow ’em and I’ll make you another dish.”
Baby Jane tapped my shoulder, dangled a rubber band. “Do my hair today?”
I took the rubber band. “Don’t I always do your hair? But you need to learn to do it yourself, Baby Jane, in case I’m not here . . .” I thought about the city.
“You do it best, RubyLyn.” She turned around, swept her light brown hair over her small shoulders.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, combing my fingers through her locks. “Brought you some buttered bread.”
Baby Jane coughed and shook her head.
“Heard you had the fever. Feeling better?”
“Uh-huh. Ma gave me the coal oil.”
Mrs. Stump couldn’t afford the town doc and relied mostly on concoctions of coal oil mixes and homemade brews from the bark of wild cherry trees and roots she’d have Henny dig up.
Gunnar preferred his medicine potions of bark, root, and coal oil, too, over the doc’s visits. Most hill folk did. Once when I was little and couldn’t shake a bad cold, Gunnar’d fed me heaping spoonfuls of coal oil and molasses for two weeks.
I brushed bangs away from her eyes, wishing I had a pretty ribbon. Scooping her hair up into my hands, I began braiding it for her like I did most mornings. When I was done I reached into my dress pocket and pulled out the special fortune-teller I’d made for her last night.
Baby Jane’s eyes widened and a smile rosied her cheeks. “My own kissing fortune,” she said.
“Too young for kissing fortunes, and this is way better,” I fussed. “You’re barely eleven and there’s a reason I mark them G for grown-up. See?” I pulled out my own fortune-teller, turned the paper upside down, and showed her the “G” I’d written in red.
She bobbed her head. I shoved my own fortune-teller back into a pocket.
When she was older I’d put a few more suitors in the fortune like I did for the older girls around Nameless, but for now there would only be one for her.
Baby Jane fished three pennies out of her dress pocket. “Been saving, but here, want you to have it,” she said solemnly, holding out the coins.
“That’s good you’re saving,” I said, pushing her hand back, “but I don’t sell my special fortunes.”
Her eyes rounded. “Is it bad luck?”
“Something like that.” I tugged gently on her braid.
“I love it lots, RubyLyn, thanks! And I’m gonna save enough money so I can buy me a hen just like the Millers . . . b-buy a nice dress and get myself a man so I can leave,” she said real quiet.
“Man?” I asked.
“Uh-huh, I aim to have me my marriage bed by the time I get my fourteenth birthday. Aim to get away ’fore they . . . they try and sell me . . . or lock me away up there . . . like Sis—” She dragged her words into a sob. Her face tightened and a fat teardrop fell from her wide honey eyes onto the three pennies.
“What? Oh, Baby Jane”—I pressed her head to my shoulder—“no one’s gonna lock you away or sell you.” I stroked her long braid. Though I wasn’t too sure of anything lately.
A trembling cry caught in her breath. “B-been selling some of the eggs I get for workin’ for the Millers when Pa ain’t countin’ too hard.” She wiped her watery eyes with her tiny fists. “Don’t tell no one.”
“I promise.” I reached over and pulled my lunch pail onto my lap. “Hungry?” I asked again, trying to cheer her.
Baby Jane licked her lips, swallowed hard, then looked away. “I—I ain’t hungry,” she denied. “Don’t need much to eat, neither.” She pressed a hand into her small belly, pushed.
“You love the butter and bread. Made you two today,” I coaxed.
Stubbornly she shook her head. “They see me eating, they might . . . s-sell me, too.”
The weight of my heart doubled and felt hot. At least I had food. And there was my land to bring to a marriage bed. I looked over at my own tiny patch in the five
acres that would be mine someday. “Not yours yet,” Gunnar had said when he’d showed me the deed long ago, “and doesn’t include all of mine,” he added. He’d tapped the paper. “Fully and legally on our daughter RubyLyn Royal Bishop’s marrying day, or eighteenth birthday, whichever comes first,” my parents’ Last Will instructed.
But I wouldn’t be tied to the land like Gunnar. I was going to be an artist. Rose said it could happen. And Mr. Parker even hung one of my barn drawings up at the Feed & Seed. Weren’t no time before he sold it to someone passing through for a whole five bucks. I had my tobacco to get me out of here, my art to keep me there. But Baby Jane . . .
“Long day. Here, eat.” I nudged, pulling out the slice of buttered bread and handing it to her. “And stop by this evening or in the morning. I’m running low on eggs.”
She sniffled, took a small nibble, then gave it back. “You are?”
I frowned and put it back in the lunch pail. “Yeah. And don’t be worrying none about those baby-buyers and marriage, okay? Keep this fortune close.” I curled her hand over the paper and pressed.
Baby Jane looked anxiously up at Stump Mountain, then slowly opened the folds of the tobacco paper, running her fingertip over the drawings. She pressed it to her chest with a lopsided grin. “It’s so beautiful, RubyLyn.”
“Special ones are.” I smiled.
“Special.” Her face lit as she inspected the folds of the paper fortune-teller, tracing the basket and chickens. She peered curiously at the name Frank and looked back up at me.
I nodded.
Baby Jane blushed.
I tapped the drawing of the chicken. “One day you’ll have fancy chickens.”
“Chickens,” Baby Jane marveled.
“Sure will.” I couldn’t help sending up a prayer. “The best birds in all ’tucky.”
She stared at her chicken fortune-teller, then leaned in, wrapped a sweaty arm around me and squeezed tight.
“Oh, thank you, RubyLyn!” she exclaimed. “This is the prettiest fortune ever. Even better than the pictures in the book you gave me!”
I laughed. When Baby Jane was five, I’d found an old book on Gunnar’s bookshelf, The Little Red Hen. Baby Jane had pestered me to read it to her so many times that I finally gave it to her. Ever since, Baby Jane’d taken an interest in hens.
“Even better than Alma Smithy’s fortune,” she said.
I winced.
“Lots better,” she repeated. “Boy, was her ma mad when she hooked up with that troublemaking boy.”
“Lordy-jones.” I lifted my swear, feeling relieved to put marriage behind us, but not wanting to think about silly Alma. “She should’ve known to follow the name I’d written for her. Should’ve known to kiss that redhead instead.”
Baby Jane bobbed her head. “That’s what I will do—”
“Got to follow the destiny in these folds, Baby Jane. It’s important,” I whispered, “because it’s a one-time thing.”
“I’m gonna.”
“And don’t be in a rush.” I tapped the name Frank.
“When did it come to you, RubyLyn? Was it like a smoky vision? Did ya—”
I pushed away her questions. The destiny came to me after I let it cure in Mama’s pocketbook overnight. Only then did I have a strong urge to write down the boy Frank, who always carried a book, instead of the one who’d been sly-eyeing her down at the Feed. It was like Mama was telling me. Maybe it was because that sly-eyed boy was dumber than well water and had stolen a Necco candy wafer roll from the Feed store. Maybe it was because I wanted her to have someone sweet like her. Just like what I would’ve wanted for my own baby sister . . .
Baby Jane shook my arm.
My voice thickened with sadness, thinking of Eve and Patsy. “Uh, okay, but remember everyone knows getting my famous fortunes is a lot like getting your decoration with the red roses.”
Baby Jane looked puzzled.
“Menstruation.” I pinched lightly.
She curled her lip in disgust.
“It’s special, but I don’t give guarantees whether it’ll be peachy or poor.” I stretched out on the quilt. Baby Jane sprawled out beside me, playing with her fortune-teller.
“Better than Alma’s,” she whispered again.
Gunnar’d been furious when the Smithy girl’s mama told him about me selling fortunes that hooked her daughter up with a hoodlum. But I couldn’t help it if the kids wanted to buy my art inside the fortunes.
Passing it to her in church last month had been my mistake. Gunnar’d caught me and had a dog fit over that and then ripped up my colorful fortune-tellers. He made me give my entire three dollars and twenty-nine cents to the Sunday collection plate, and had given me the bitters to hold every evening for three days straight.
Now I was starting over. I needed to come up with spending money for the State Fair and buy more seed for the Stumps to grow food. Not to mention, getting a book or two would be nice.
I looked over at Baby Jane, who was smiling down at her chicken fortune-teller. I wanted her to have something good here when I was gone. Because I was never coming back to these ugly rows again. I’d hitch my heart to a good man—someone like Rainey Ford.
Baby Jane wriggled a finger into a hole in her dress while she peered close at the fortune.
When I won the prize, I’d find the thrift store and trade these dark duds for a purple paisley hippie dress like the one in Rose’s magazine. I’d buy me all those fancy Days of the Week undies at the big Woolworth’s, too, and maybe even get a set of pink baby-doll pajamas.
The very first thing I was going to do was buy me a Honey Girl slip like Mama’s. I’d be walking the avenues with her fine snakeskin purse and—
“Why’d ya draw a barn on here? I hate ’backer barns.” Baby Jane frowned at one of the opened flaps on her fortune-teller.
“There’s lots of barns round here.”
“It’s pretty and all, and ain’t nobody can draw better than you, RubyLyn, but—”
“Lots of women take that first kiss in a tobacco barn,” I teased, and lifted another flap exposing a sleek baby-blue automobile, “or here.”
“Don’t like barns much,” she said again, and inspected the sketch of the snazzy automobile.
I wouldn’t tell her I’d drawn the barn for just that reason. I’d drawn the automobile to have birth-control bucket seats . . . something I’d snuck and read in one of Rose’s tossed excitement books. Details I knew Baby Jane would remember, and would likely cool any eagerness for boys, waiting for an automobile that would never shadow the streets of Nameless.
“Never seen an automobile like this before.” She studied the fortune. “Pretty . . . but . . . but ain’t none like that in Nameless, just a lot of rusty automobiles and pickup trucks, RubyLyn.” She opened back up the flaps and peered at the chickens, then took a whiff of the tobacco paper.
“Never know when a tall-dark-and-handsome might ride through one day.” I pulled up a daisy, absently plucked off the petals.
Baby Jane laid the fortune on her lap and reached for a daisy, too. She pinched off the blooms. “Loves me, he loves me not.” She dripped words over the falling petals. “Look, Frank loves me, RubyLyn, it’s the God-honest-truth!” she announced, holding up the fortune-teller and spent flower.
Smiling, I sprinkled petals over her. If a field daisy could hold the strongest testament, surely my prayers for Baby Jane could be penned to paper....
“Your fortunes sure do know a lot about chickens.” She admired the drawings again. “Looks like the Millers’ Bourbon Reds, even . . . I like the pretty wattle and comb you drew on ’em. And, oh, this pretty automobile is nice, too.” She beamed.
I stood up and fluffed my dress. “Better get now. Here comes Rainey.”
Baby Jane jumped up and did the same.
I watched him stride up the rows, long, muscular, and dark as the mountain’s night shadow. It was always grand when school let out for the summer and I could be out here with h
im all the time, free from those chalk-winter school walls and dark, shadowy corners of the house. But time was flying, and here it was the second day of August. School and long, cold nights would be back before I knew it. He’d be long gone . . . maybe gone forever once they put him in that jungle.
I’d missed him these last few days more than I ever had. Gunnar’d kept him busy in the barn piddling with that old tractor and then toted him over to Beauty to look at parts for it.
“Ma says it’s trouble to keep that coon around,” Baby Jane said.
“Hush it, Baby Jane. He doesn’t like those ugly names . . . And we hire him every summer. You know that. The Fords have been working for the Royals for over a hundred years. And Rainey Ford’s a good man, soon to be a soldier. He’s not a coon, he’s a black person.”
“Black.” She washed the word around her mouth, tasting it like I hadn’t told her a thousand times. “S-sorry.”
“Get those seeds to your mama and you start eating, Baby Jane, you hear?”
“Ain’t . . . ain’t gonna have them s-selling me.” She turned her eyes toward Stump Mountain. “M-ma says there’s gonna be some more changes, and it’s not gonna be me,” Baby Jane puttered.
“Changes.” I flicked the word. “Heck, nothing changes around Nameless but the days, and only ’cause they have names.” Still, I couldn’t help to rub off a shiver after everything that had happened with the baby. I could feel something more festering in this last hot breath of summer.
I turned my attention to Rainey, watching him set down his paper sack and a bucket of soap water on the wobbly gathering table a few feet away. “Hey, Rainey.”
“Hi, Roo.” He patted the catch bucket for the tobacco worms. “Morning, Baby Jane. Are you picking hornworms for Henny today?”
Rainey was always fretting about the worms, kept a written tally on them even. I knew that they were the death of a tobacco field. Some as big as a man’s finger, we were on the lookout for them, knowing they could destroy our entire crop in no time.
Baby Jane wrinkled her nose. “I got me some cleaning over at the Millers’. W-work all the time since Pa traded the Millers my services for eggs. Even gonna work tomorrow. Gotta get.” She picked up her egg basket.
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