The Spirit of Cattail County
Page 6
Sparrow was starting to nod off again when the Boy slipped into the space between her and the woman beside her. Like a mouse sliding under a door, he wedged himself between them, arms and legs pulled in close to fit into the small gap.
Sparrow scooted toward Auntie Geraldine to give him more room, but Auntie Geraldine’s lips pulled tight and her eyes got mean. She didn’t need words to tell Sparrow to stop squirming.
Sparrow watched the Boy from the corner of her eye and noticed him start to spread out slowly, like a pitcher filling with water.
The more the Boy stretched out, the more uncomfortable the woman next to him seemed to get, as if the space next to her suddenly swarmed with bees. When his ghostly arm touched hers, she slapped it as if she’d been stung.
Auntie Geraldine gave Sparrow a withering look.
Sparrow bulged her eyes back at Auntie Geraldine to show she had nothing to do with the woman’s discomfort.
The preacher got distracted by the commotion in their row and lost his place in his notes. He accidently referred to Jesus as the devil and started to sweat. He pulled out his hanky and mopped the bald part of his head where it was wettest. He flipped through his notes, but struggled to find his spot.
Auntie Geraldine pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes in an expression that clearly said knock it off.
Sparrow shrugged, trying to tell Auntie Geraldine she didn’t know why she was blaming her.
The Boy spread out a bit more, and the woman huffed. She shoved over, causing a chain reaction all the way down the pew.
The preacher dropped his notes and they floated to the floor like giant snowflakes. As he bent down to gather them, his robe hitched up, revealing black dress socks and bare legs.
A snicker went through the congregation.
Sparrow had never considered what was beneath the pastor’s robes before, but now that she’d had a glimpse, she hoped he wore something else besides socks.
Clearly flustered, the pastor stacked his notes on the pulpit and continued his sermon. Only he seemed to have completely forgotten where he left off and started at the beginning again.
Sparrow sighed, and resigned herself to an extra long homily.
Now that the Boy was settled, he sat as polite as an acolyte and listened to the bumbled sermon with an air of benevolent patience.
Sparrow chanced a glance at Auntie Geraldine and felt certain she was not granting the preacher the same understanding. Sparrow knew Auntie Geraldine expected everyone, even the preacher, to live up to his responsibilities. Blowing the eleven o’clock Sunday service was unforgivable in her eyes.
When the service ended thirty minutes later than usual, the congregation stampeded out of the building like a drove of pigs.
Before Auntie Geraldine had a chance to reprimand Sparrow about her church behavior, one of the Sunshine Ladies cornered Auntie Geraldine and asked her to help at the annual charity barbecue. With the service running long, the Sunshine Ladies were severely behind schedule and aflutter with excitement. Mr. Monroe had donated several copies of the book he wrote to help raise money. He planned to do a book signing and give a short speech. The Sunshine Ladies were loath to put on a bad showing by being unprepared.
Auntie Geraldine went off to help and Sparrow skedaddled in the opposite direction, and the Boy trailed her faithfully.
She found a shady spot under a big oak and sat. The Boy positioned himself beside her, settling in a way that reminded Sparrow of a cat. He languorously stretched out as if he ruled the grass and everything before him.
When the church bells rang the hour, Sparrow saw some of the Castos walking down Main Street. All the Casto kids slurped on Popsicles from the Superette. Sparrow saw Mason Casto rub Johnny on the head and Johnny beam up at him. It made her wonder if Mason had been the one to buy all those treats. She decided he had and that he was a good guy.
The news Maeve and Johnny had shared with Sparrow about Mason Casto came flooding back, and her mind started churning again. Walking down Main Street eating a Popsicle on a hot Sunday looked like heaven to her, and she wondered what it felt like to be part of that big family.
As if they’d been waiting for the perfect moment to harass Sparrow, Ansley and Andrew sauntered up, carrying copies of their father’s book, Orphan Trains: Small Towns, Big Hearts.
“All alone, swamp rat? What happened to your new best friends? Are you too weird even for Castaways?” Ansley pointed to Main Street. The Casto clan was almost out of sight, but not quite.
Sparrow sighed. She wished she were walking home with the Castos. Even from behind they looked happy. Mason Casto had his arm draped over Johnny’s shoulder, and next to them, Maeve skipped down the road.
“You know they go to the Methodist church,” Sparrow said, giving an explanation for why she wasn’t with them even though no one expected her to be on a Casto family outing.
“That’s right. Flounder’s Church,” Ansley quipped. Their church name was Foundry, not Flounder’s, as Ansley knew. Her nicknames were getting tiresome.
“Can’t you leave them alone?” Sparrow asked.
“No, I can’t. Look at his face.” Ansley pointed to Andrew’s eye, which, while still tinged yellow, was healing. “That’s the third one this month. I’m going to make Maeve pay for what she did. You too, since you love the Castaways so much. Unless you want to help us.”
“I’m siding with them.” Sparrow stood up, even though she felt a little shaky. She didn’t like the odds—two against one.
Andrew thrust his face toward Sparrow. “Look at my eye.” He pointed at the bruise. Up close, Sparrow noticed a tint of green, the color of algae. “And you blame me?”
The Boy rose too. He looked from Ansley and Andrew to Sparrow. He seemed to be reading the situation, trying to gauge the tension.
“You’re the one who cheated,” Sparrow said.
Andrew’s face turned Popsicle red. He looked like he wanted to throttle Sparrow.
Ansley put her arm across her brother’s chest as if to keep him from acting on his impulse. “You know you’re an orphan now.”
“Am not.”
“Of course you are,” Ansley explained sweetly, as if talking to a toddler. “Your mother’s dead and you don’t have a father. So, orphan.”
“I have a family.”
“An aunt who doesn’t want you. That makes you an orphan.”
The label felt like a jolt.
Ansley poked Sparrow. “Orphan.”
The Boy moved in front of Sparrow protectively. He seemed to expand, pulling himself vertically so that he became a barrier between her and Ansley. The new shape thinned him and he looked slightly less solid and more opaque.
Sparrow had never seen him do anything like it before.
Ansley’s condescending expression shifted to alarm. She rubbed her eyes and backed up. “She’s blurry. I can’t see!”
“What?” Andrew asked.
“She did something. I can’t see!” Ansley yelled, slightly hysterical.
Andrew gaped at Sparrow. He looked terrified.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Sparrow asked.
“Freak!” Ansley yelled. She grabbed her brother by the arm and dragged him behind her as she ran.
As Sparrow watched Andrew and Ansley race toward their father, the Boy lost volume, returning to his usual shape like a deflating balloon. He reclaimed his spot on the grass and winked at Sparrow. He seemed very pleased with himself.
She smiled back, perplexed but grateful. She didn’t know what the twins thought they saw, or what the Boy had done exactly, but whatever he’d done, it had scared them away. She might not have too many people on her side, but at least she had him.
As Sparrow settled next to the Boy, she tried to muster up happiness at the twins’ defeat, but she couldn’t help feeling like the loser. Orphan bounced around her brain like an echo. Up until Ansley uttered the word, she considered herself beloved daughter of Lilly Dalton even though Mama lingered out of r
each on the other side. But now she realized Beulah saw her differently. Worse, she saw herself differently.
Sparrow didn’t want to be an orphan and she didn’t have to be. She had a father. She just needed the proof to claim him.
Sparrow sat at the kitchen table, as prim as a princess, with the newest edition of the Herald spread before her.
Beulah only printed one paper per month, and even with that infrequency, the editor, Miss Ruby, often had trouble filling up more than three pages. No one thought it odd that Miss Ruby owned the drugstore and also owned the paper. Miss Ruby was a shrewd businesswoman. Only Wesley Monroe rivaled Miss Ruby when it came to success. Miss Ruby had started buying up businesses as a young woman. Now, aged to perfection, she claimed several grandchildren and owned numerous businesses in Beulah as well as Havisham, so it made sense that she owned the newspaper.
On the front page of this month’s edition, a gritty black-and-white photograph of Miss Ruby with her arm around the fortune-teller took up the top half of the paper. Underneath the photo, Miss Ruby recounted her experience with the child psychic. According to the article, Miss Ruby had been astounded and at one point flabbergasted by the accuracy of the girl’s knowledge of her life heretofore, making Miss Ruby convinced that the fortune-teller’s predictions for the future were as good as verified already.
Sparrow read Miss Ruby’s account for the fifth time. She needed to get back to that fortune-teller. If anyone could answer Sparrow’s questions about Mama and her father, it was Elena, the child psychic, and there was something almost magical about having the newspaper article delivered to her front door. It made it feel like a summons.
The problem was Auntie Geraldine.
She had forbidden Sparrow to go to town. Though she’d made an exception for church, Sparrow didn’t think that dispensation covered going to the flea market to consult with a psychic. That’s why Sparrow sat at the table so primly. She was biding her time and trying to look like the picture of obedience. Auntie Geraldine couldn’t keep her hawk eyes on Sparrow all day.
Auntie Geraldine paced about the kitchen while she talked on the phone to Mr. Monroe. From the depth of Auntie Geraldine’s sighs and the curtness of her one-word answers, Sparrow assumed that Mr. Monroe had nothing to say that pleased Auntie Geraldine. With a final exasperated sigh, Auntie Geraldine hung up the phone.
“He needs me to go to his office. Today. Honestly, you’d think the man had never settled an estate before. Not that anyone would call this creepy old shack an estate. But you know what I mean.” Auntie Geraldine waved her hand dismissively.
Sparrow didn’t know what Auntie Geraldine meant at all. In her opinion, Dalton House was the grandest place in Beulah. Normally, Sparrow would have told Auntie Geraldine as much, but she held her tongue. She needed Auntie Geraldine to let her guard down so she could put her plans in action.
“I’ll have to drive over there.”
“Okay,” Sparrow said as blandly as possible, which took quite a bit of effort. Auntie Geraldine wore a red dress. Sparrow had never seen her in any color other than black or navy. The contrast of the bright scarlet against her alabaster skin was alarming. Something about the color red on Auntie Geraldine reminded Sparrow of holly berries—the poisonous ones.
Auntie Geraldine inspected Sparrow. “Why are you acting so … docile? It’s not like you.”
Sparrow resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She thought this was the way Auntie Geraldine wanted her to act. She couldn’t win. “Just a little tired, I suppose.”
“Hmm …” Auntie Geraldine seemed reluctant to trust Sparrow. “I’ll know if you go to town.”
“I won’t.” Sparrow intended to visit the flea market, not town.
“I don’t like it. Leaving you here unsupervised. You’re sure to get up to something, but I don’t see that I have much choice. You mark my words, though. One foot out of place and I’ll give this house away to the first person who walks by, and we’ll be in Havisham by week’s end.”
Something about the way Auntie Geraldine said it made Sparrow feel cold. Auntie Geraldine meant it. She wanted to leave Dalton House and Beulah so badly that she’d use any excuse to dump it. She probably would have sold the house right out from under Mama, deathbed and all, if Mr. Monroe hadn’t been holding her up. Apparently, the law had a lot to say about inheritances. None of which Auntie Geraldine found to her liking. It was only a matter of time before Auntie Geraldine browbeat Mr. Monroe into letting her sell the house.
Sparrow pulled the newspaper to her like a talisman. She needed to talk to Elena again. Sparrow had been waiting for Mama’s message to be revealed or for Mama to come to her, but Mama remained stubbornly taciturn. If Mama wouldn’t come to Sparrow, Sparrow would find a way to cross the divide that separated them.
As soon as Sparrow heard Auntie Geraldine’s car tires on the gravel drive, she began to search the house. She needed a way to pay for her next visit to Elena, and the watch vendor at the flea market had given her an idea.
Sparrow remembered seeing an old pocket watch that no one wanted anymore. Over the years, it had gotten moved from drawer to drawer without much interest or care whenever Mama thought it was in the way, so Sparrow figured it was okay to sell it. There were castoffs all over Dalton House. Things had a tendency to pile up when generation after generation lived in the same house. Sparrow probably wouldn’t get much money in exchange for the watch, but it had to be worth twenty dollars at least. Last time she’d seen it, it still worked.
The Boy had been scarcer than a Florida panther all morning, but now he watched her curiously as she rummaged through every drawer in the hickory desk. She finally found the brass watch in the back of the bottom drawer.
Triumphant, she showed it to the Boy.
The Boy cocked his head inquisitively and then reached his ghostly hand toward the watch.
Unsure of his intentions, she closed her fingers around it. The Boy was a prankster, and she didn’t always trust him.
Sparrow turned the watch crown and held it to her ear. She was delighted to hear the rhythmic ticking. She tucked the watch into the back pocket of her cutoffs and started to leave.
She paused at the door to see if the Boy followed her. He seemed unaware that she was leaving. He stared at the hickory desk as if mesmerized. Spirits, Sparrow thought, and walked out the door, leaving the Boy behind.
She went down to the marsh and then walked along the water’s edge, following the path to town. It took longer to walk that way, but she was less likely to be seen.
Little bugs skittered and bounced before her, disturbed by her passing. She smiled at their jittery movement. The marsh buzzed in the morning hours. Its inhabitants liked to take full advantage of the cooler moments. By the time the noonday sun commanded the sky, the heat would be insufferable and the wetland creatures would burrow deep into the mire to stay cool.
For the moment, the marsh idled at low tide, and the mud flats and the sandbar were visible. Folks said the sandbar ran the length of the marsh. Supposedly, it connected Beulah to the sea, making it possible to walk its entire length. Sparrow longed to try it, but no kid in Beulah heard the tale of the sandbar without the warnings that went with it. The marsh continually shifted, its form ever-changing. The moon pulled at its tides, and Beulah’s frequent, sudden rains could fill its banks to bursting. A sandbar, no matter how vast, risked being quickly overrun by the water that flanked it, and anyone on it would be trapped.
A snowy egret took slow, graceful steps through the marsh, and Sparrow wondered what it would be like to traverse that watery landscape. One day, she’d attempt it, warnings be hanged.
She followed the marsh to the road and the road to Main Street. Once on Main Street, the flea market quickly came into view. She had not been fibbing to Auntie Geraldine when she said she wouldn’t go into town, since the flea market had been erected on the border of town near the 76 station. Town officially started two blocks down from the one-pump gas station.
When it got close enough, Sparrow recognized Mason Casto’s truck.
The 76 station sat directly across the street from Sparrow’s hiding place, and she watched Mason pull in, park, and hop out. He used a huge ring of keys to unlock the garage doors, and he rolled them up. He stepped into coveralls and started to work on an old car.
Sparrow observed him closely, searching for clues of their kinship. Already, it burned hotter than blue blazes, and his red hair hung heavy with sweat. The moisture made it look darker than usual, and summer had sun-baked his skin to a deep brown. Gazing at him from afar, she felt his coloring resembled her own. While she liked the romanticism of Mama conjuring her from the very swamp itself, she had to admit that a real, live Beulah-born daddy would be more useful than a mystical one. Sparrow had to have someone on her side that other people could see. Besides, without a daddy, Sparrow really was an orphan—a moniker too sad to bear.
Then there was the other feeling. The idea of a daddy to love her enticed Sparrow the way sugar lured ants. Simply thinking about it warmed the cold place that had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach since Mama got sick.
Sparrow had quite a bit to sort out, but that was the reason she had to talk to Elena again. She emerged from her hiding place and continued on to the flea market. She made her way to the periwinkle van. When it came into sight, she just about fainted.
It seemed like the entire town waited in line for the fortune-teller.
Sparrow found the crowd waiting in line for Elena astonishing considering most folks in Beulah knew their future just by glancing back a generation.
She surveyed the crowd. Folks lingered by the antiquities table or stood in line chatting. The wait looked to be an hour at least. Maybe Beulah wished for change more than she thought.