I run to the door and bang on it.
“Please,” I call, “please let me in.”
I bang the door harder, I hit it again and again. I beat the door with my fists and I kick and punch it and my fingers are bleeding and I scream and Momma please Momma please let me in.
The door swings open and I fall in on my face. Leaning not a foot over me is a short man, grizzled and crack-toothed, wearing a stained white shirt tucked into green trousers cut off at the knee. He’s sitting on a little wooden cart with tiny wheels on the bottom. His pants end at the knee because that’s where his legs end, and I can see the fleshy nubs like two elbows poking out at me.
“Well, look what the cat drug in.”
Cats? Momma always said cats were good, a good sign is what she said they were.
“Get in if you’re gettin’.”
I stand up and shake my hair out like a dog. I look behind me to Tommy and he nods so we go in together. The man slams the door behind us. He scoots himself around by his hands, the wheels squeaking across the dirt floor. We’re inside, and I don’t know what world we just walked into.
The room is dark, lit by candles, a few wooden chairs, a chipped table with legs about a foot high with weird cuts in it like someone dragged a knife over the top. In the center is a broken clay pot full of browning flowers. No windows, just a lantern burning on the table and some stubs of white candles. Piles and piles of beets are stacked up on the floor, everywhere. A fire in the hearth flickers weird light over everything and a big black cauldron bubbles over the flames. It’s like a happy home gone wrong, like what me and Momma had but twisted and sunk with grime. Whatever’s cooking gives off an awful smell. I’d ask what stinks but it’s not polite to ask what an awful smell is in a home if you’re a guest in it. I might be an almost-bandit, but Momma taught me that much.
So I ask him where his kitty is.
“My what?” he says.
“You said you had a cat.”
“Naw I did not.” He spits in the dirt. “Filthy critters, cats. Mess everywhere. Worst-smelling mess there is. Worse than dog mess, worse than people mess. Hate cats.”
The man wheels right up to me. Tommy’s hiding behind me and I hold his hand tight.
“Let me get a look at you.” His stubby fingers grab my jaw. He turns my cheek, brushes my hair out of my eyes. He smells real bad. “You’re a pretty little thing. What’s your name, girlie?”
“Goldeline.”
“I’m Tommy,” says Tommy.
“Did I ask you your name, little boy? Don’t care about little boys. Little boys are varmints. Run around and muck up your garden. You a varmint, little boy?”
“No sir.”
“Sir?” The man’s laugh cackles out and falls into rasps. “No sirs around here. No sir. Nobody called me sir ever. You’re a varmint, for sure, calling me a sir. Wish Momma could have heard that, a varmint calling me sir.”
“I’m not any varmint,” says Tommy. “I’m an orphan.” He looks at me. “We both are.”
“Don’t go whining about it to me,” says the man. “Everyone’s an orphan if they live long enough. Done cried a lot when my own momma died. Death makes you hungry. Y’all hungry?”
I nod at him.
“Well, sit down then and I’ll heap us up something.”
The man scoots over to the counter and gathers three wooden bowls. He balances them on the cart and pulls himself over to the fire, to the cauldron where that awful smell comes from. With a big wooden spoon he ladles us full portions of soup. Tommy’s nose is running and he’s shivering all over. Hope he’s too scared to show how bad it smells, lest he get us killed. I squeeze his hand and he squeezes back. It’s good to know you’re not the only scared one on the earth.
The man places the bowls on the table. Stink wafts up, like from a bog. We stare down at them.
“Sit down, will ya?” he says. I didn’t realize we were still standing. Me and Tommy take our seats on the floor. “I’d sit down too, except I’m already sitting down. See, I ain’t got any legs.”
“I did see, sir,” says Tommy.
The man wheels over to Tommy and sticks his grizzled beard up in Tommy’s face. “What’d you say to me, little ginger? What’d you say to ol’ Zeb?”
“Nothing,” says Tommy.
“What’s that, boy?” The man pulls a long carving knife off the table. “What you got to say to Mr. Zeb?”
“Mr. Zeb?” I say. “Is that your name?”
“How did you know that?” he says. He looks at me askance, eyes gone weird, like he’s scared. “You a witch?”
I think about it for a second, but then I remember how much trouble witching got Momma into.
“No sir,” I say. “That’s just what you called yourself.”
“I did?” he says. He points the knife at Tommy. “Did I?”
“Yes sir,” says Tommy.
The man roars out a laugh. He’s slapping the floor, cackling until he can’t hardly breathe. He calms down after a minute, holding his belly like it hurts.
“Well, I guess I did then,” he says. “Momma named me Zeb, rest her soul. Never knew my daddy. He run off when I was born. That’s why I’m living in a durn hill, ain’t it?”
He scoots over to a shelf from where he takes down a big jug. He guzzles from it till it’s running down his beard. He wipes his face off and holds the bottle out to me.
“You want a drink, little girl?”
I sniff it and gag. It’s worse than the soup.
“No thank you,” I say, smiling as big and bright and sweet as I can.
“No thank you,” says Zeb, mocking me, waving the knife in the air. “No thank you, no thank you. Well, at least miss prissy here’s got some manners, don’t she? What about you, little varmint? You want a drink?”
Tommy’s face goes pale and sweaty.
“Uh-uh,” he says. “Sir.”
“Well durn,” says Zeb. “Making ol’ Zeb drink by himself. I guess that makes it about the same as every other night since my momma passed, don’t it?”
He holds the bottle up high over his head in his right hand, like he’s toasting a banquet hall full of people.
“To Momma,” says Zeb, taking a long glug from the bottle. “May she rest in peace.”
Zeb stabs the knife in the table, where it sticks like an exclamation point.
I think maybe Zeb was just messing with us, dangling that knife around. I think maybe Zeb is just a lonely old guy whose momma died, same as me and Tommy. I think maybe the whole world is a forest full of people like us, people who were born missing something, people who will never belong, people who wander the world lost looking for someone to share their lantern light with.
So why do the people in Templeton hate us so much?
A bang on the door.
“Two knocks in one night?” says Zeb. “Must be my lucky day.” But he looks at me and sees how scared I am. “What’s the matter with you?”
More knocks, and harder.
“Just don’t tell him we’re here,” I say.
“Tell who?” he says.
“Please,” I say.
“What kind of wicked you got on your tail, girl?” he says. “What did you bring to my house? Get back there behind the curtain and shut your mouth.”
He points a crooked finger to the back of the room, where there hangs a tattered and patched red curtain. Behind it is a little washroom with a bucket and a cracked mirror. Also a hoe, a shovel, a wheelbarrow with a busted wheel, and an old rotting pile of beets.
“There’s a hatch in there,” whispers Zeb. “A hiding spot. Momma made it. When you get in, reach your arm out and pull that there sack over the hole. And don’t you dare peep a word.”
I shut the curtain while Tommy pulls the hatch open and climbs in. There’s just enough room for me too. But I don’t go down there yet. I want to watch him, the Preacher. I want to see. I peek through an eye-sized tear in the curtain.
Zeb opens the door.
There stands a tall man in a long, rain-soaked black cloak, hooded like death or worse. Lightning glows the sky like angels behind him. I’m scared down to my fingers. He pulls back the hood. The wild white hair spills out all over the place. The candle light shines the scar down his cheek. It’s the Preacher.
There’s no door behind me, no way out of this washroom. I keep both hands over my mouth so I don’t even make a whimper.
“Pardon the intrusion. Raining like the dickens out there.” He’s dripping a puddle off his wet clothes right at Zeb’s nubs. He shakes the rain from his hat and looks around the room. He stops at Zeb and makes a clicking sound with his mouth, like it’s the first time he really noticed him down there. The Preacher kneels down to Zeb’s eye level. “Hello, sir. It is a pleasure indeed to make the acquaintance of one of the Lord’s unfortunates, especially on a devil-wrought night such as this.”
Zeb hocks a big loogie. It slithers down the earth wall.
“What do you want?” he says.
The Preacher slits a grin, wide and shining.
“Little unfortunate, I will excuse your tone for ignorance. I’m acting interim deputy sheriff of Templeton. I am also a man of God and it would be good of you to address me as such.”
“You mean you’re a preacher. Never had much use for preachers,” says Zeb. “Hollering up there, waving your hands around. Terrible way to spend a Sunday. Holy day you know, day of rest. Tired on a Sunday. Eat some stew and take a nap, that’s about all I’m up to. Preachers never helped with the farm work. Preachers never did nothing for my old momma, heaven rest her bones.”
Zeb scoots over to his bottle and drinks.
“State your business, Preacher. Dinner’s getting cold.”
“I’m chasing a fugitive girl,” says the Preacher. “A tiny creature, white hair. Her mother was a dabbler in dark arts. A witch. She received her due punishment two years back, when I first began to reclaim this land for the Lord. The little girl has been working with some highwaymen. Notorious bunch, all degenerates and thieves. We got tipped off as to their location by a victim of theirs, a little boy who is also missing.”
“Awful, such folk on this earth,” says Zeb. He takes another sip of the bottle.
Tommy’s hiding in the hatch, but he could get the Preacher’s attention with just a sound. What if he gives me up? He could. It’d be his right. I kidnapped him, I did it with a knife. He could give me up right now and go home free. Tommy looks at me with his soft blue eyes and I know he knows it too. I hold up my finger to my lips, but I don’t even have the knife to make him obey me. Right now Tommy can do whatever he wants. Right now my life is up to him.
“Fancy having a preacher in the house. I ain’t seen another soul in months. Since Momma passed, it’s just me here. I do good in the garden, digging up that ground. Love my garden. Spend all day out there. Growing stuff. Beets mostly. Love beets. You like beets?”
“I take delight in all of God’s creation,” says the Preacher. He smiles grandly, and it chills me full through.
Zeb scowls and spits again. “Beets are the hearts of the earth.” He pulls one out of the pile, shines it on his shirt like an apple. He takes a big bite. “When you munch on a beet, that’s what the earth tastes like.”
“Do you live alone, little unfortunate?”
“Don’t call me that. I ain’t any unfortunate. Had my share of bad luck but I’m a man all the same. Made in God’s image, same as you. I’m a sir.”
“Indeed. Well, sir. Tell me now. Do you live in this decrepit mound of earth all by yourself?”
“I do. Ever since eighteen years back, when Momma died. Awful I tell you. Lonesome. I miss my momma. Hard to get around when you don’t got legs. That’s how I got into beets. Momma didn’t like meat. Said, ‘Every life is sacred.’ Wouldn’t hardly let us kill a cockroach. My dear old momma.”
Zeb takes another glug from the bottle.
“And I take it you have not seen the fugitive girl and her captive little boy?”
“Ain’t seen ’em. Night like this, probably fell in a gully.”
Zeb lifts the jug up for another sip.
“Then why, sir, are there three bowls filled with that disgusting swill on your table?”
Zeb stops cold.
I should hide, but I have to watch. It’s so hard to take my eye off the Preacher, like he commands it, like there’s nowhere else in the world to look. I realize that’s his magic. That’s how he gets folks to do what he wants. It starts with his voice, the rhythm and rise of his speech, like a melody that gets stuck in your brain, and before you know it you’re singing along, believing every word. But it’s more than just his voice. It’s the whole way he is, his whole being. He’s like a star falling. When the whole sky is full of burning things, the one falling is the only thing you see.
The Preacher lurches toward Zeb and grabs him by his collar. The jug goes clattering to the floor. He lifts Zeb high off his cart, until they are eye to eye.
“Have you seen the children?” he says.
“Yes,” says Zeb.
“Are they here now?”
A silence. Just the rain, the thunder, the wind howling through the chimney. I pray to Momma to save me, I sing the nothingsong in my heart, I call down every ounce of spell or favor Momma ever might have had.
“Nope,” says Zeb. “They long gone.”
“Are you telling me they left without their supper? Back into the storm?”
“Didn’t much care for beets,” says Zeb. “Like you.”
“If I pulled back that curtain, they wouldn’t be there?”
“Nothing but my old wheelbarrow.”
“Do you know that lying to me makes you an accomplice to murder? Do you know what accomplice means?”
“Means it’s the same as I did it,” says Zeb. “And ain’t nothing I’ve done you can pin on me, you preaching sack of dung.”
“Are you certain these children are not here, sir?” roars the Preacher.
“Ain’t no children here. I told you already, they left. Now leave me be and get your search on, lest they get farther away.”
The Preacher drops Zeb on the ground, where he lies and moans. Then he turns and faces the curtain. The Preacher smiles.
He knows. I know he knows I’m here. I have to hide, but I can’t move, it’s like I’m transfixed, like the Preacher casts his own spell over me when he speaks.
“Awful lot of trouble for one little girl,” says Zeb. “Don’t you think?”
The Preacher fixes his hood back in place, like maybe he hadn’t thought of that, like what Zeb said maybe bothered him a little. It’s just a bit of a frown, like a dark bird that swooped across his face in a blink. It’s enough for me to come back to my senses. I creep quiet and quick as I can to the hatch. Tommy’s motioning me to hurry and I slide the sack over the opening just in time for the Preacher to rip back the curtain.
The silence is awful, just the rain and the Preacher’s heaving breath.
After a few seconds Zeb speaks up from the floor.
“Told you there weren’t nothing in there,” he says.
“So you did,” the Preacher says. “Good evening to you, sir.” The door shuts and he’s gone.
Zeb yanks away the sack and glares meanly at us.
“Bandits, eh? My, my, girlie, you are a right piece of bad, aren’t you?”
“Thanks for saving us from the Preacher,” I say.
“Shut up. I hate the law. Hate preachers too. Went to jail before. Me, in my condition. Doesn’t matter to the law, doesn’t matter to the preachers. The law’s the law. And when the preachers are the law, well, it don’t mean nothing good for folks like ol’ Zeb.” He spits a glob that hits Tommy’s shoes. “Y’all just lay back here for the night. This ain’t no inn. Earn your keep. Could always use some help around here. I’ll put you to work in the morning.”
He shuts the curtain and scoots off. I hear him bolt and chain the door at the mouth of the house. He’s locked us in. Th
ere’s no windows in here, no way out except the front door. We’re trapped, at least until Zeb falls asleep. Maybe I can sneak the key from him then. I hear him talking to himself in the main room, clanking the jug down on his table. Me and Tommy crawl out of the hatch. The fire-glow under the curtain lights up our place: a pile of dirt, a wheelbarrow, a hoe. A pile of dead beets getting deader in the corner.
“Is the Preacher evil?” whispers Tommy.
“He’s worse than you know.”
“It’s like when he’s preaching he’s saying words from the Book but they come out all wrong, like they’ve gone bad somehow. Spoiled. But I can’t help but listen. I can’t help but hear every word he says.”
“That’s about right, Tommy.”
“I don’t think Zeb is very nice either. I think we’re in a bad spot.”
“You think?”
His eyes well up again. I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. The second he opens that door in the morning we got to run for it.”
“You think that’ll work?”
“I hope so.”
“Shut up back there,” hollers Zeb. “Can’t a grown man talk to his momma in peace?”
“Look,” I whisper, “let’s just get some sleep.”
It’s dark even with the firelight. Dark like everything else, the whole world full of mean and wicked, even me, for letting all Gruff’s men get caught. If it’s true about me, that I’m wicked, is any of what the Preacher said about Momma true too? The thought latches on to my heart like a bat on a blossom.
“Thanks for not turning me in, Tommy.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just lies down next to me, and I put my arm around him, both of us a pitiful bundle of lonely and sad clutching each other in the dark. But it’s okay, because I got a plan. I’ll tell Tommy all about it tomorrow. Well, not all. See, I know where Gruff is. I know where I got to go.
Moon Haven. That’s where he’s heading. That’s where me and Tommy got to go too. The Half-Moon Inn. Gruff’s probably already there, waiting for me, a mug of ale, some roast duck, acrobats and magicians doing tricks all around him. Gruff is famous at the Half-Moon Inn, and when I get there I’ll be famous too. They’ll know all about me from the stories Gruff has been telling them. They’ll know I’m the dreaded Ghost Girl of the Woods, me, Goldeline, that I’m the only little-girl bandit in the whole woods. They’ll give me candy and dresses and dolls, but I won’t take the dolls because I won’t be just a kid anymore. They may think I am but they’ll be wrong. When I get to Moon Haven, I’ll be a bandit through and through. And if there’s one thing Gruff taught me about bandits it’s that a real bandit never gets caught.
Goldeline Page 7