But you can’t replace a momma. Nothing can ever fix that. It’s the kind of cut that throbs in your sleep, gets hurting with the wind and with a memory, that splits open all the time and spills blood all over the place just when you think you finally got it healed. That’s what I know about losing a momma. And I’m starting to understand that maybe I’m going to have to keep knowing it for the rest of my life.
“Whatcha thinking about, Goldeline?”
“Not a thing, Tommy. Just water and some food and some somewhere else.”
“Are we lost?”
“Sure are.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well, I’m glad I’m lost with you.”
But then me and Tommy come up on something I don’t expect at all. The forest ends suddenly, and ripped through and clear is a road, bread-colored, six feet wide and dusty. A good one, I can tell from the wheel tracks. One that’s in use a lot.
“This is it, Tommy! This is the road to Moon Haven. It has to be.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I can just feel it. I know this is the way.”
“I don’t know, Goldeline.”
“What’s not to know?”
“Well, it just don’t feel good,” says Tommy. “In my stomach I mean.”
“Probably still sick from Bobba’s food.”
“Not that kind of not feeling good,” he says. “I mean in a big way. Like something bad’s waiting on us.”
“What could be bad at Moon Haven? This is where we’ve been headed. It’s where we’ll be safe.”
“People haven’t been real friendly to us, Goldeline. Everyone we meet wants to kill us or poison us or make us sick. What makes you think this place will be any different?”
Because Gruff will be there, you idiot. But I don’t dare say that.
“I’ll tell you what Moon Haven means,” I say. “Moon Haven means food. All kinds of food, and good stuff, not poison or magic or anything. Real food. It means a bed for the night, a comfy one, with as many blankets and pillows as we want. We got money, right? What we took from Zeb. And there’s no way they’ve heard of us all the way out here. Because we’re a long way from Templeton, a long way from where the Preacher would be headed.”
But right as I say that, something flinches in my belly. Just a whisper of something, like a ghost wind saying maybe we’re not near quit of him. That maybe he’s going to follow us for always.
I can’t tell Tommy that I feel the Preacher’s eyes on me, even now. That I mean something to him, something important. I can’t say what, or why either. But I matter in all of this. It has something to do with my dream, with my memory. I matter so much he won’t stop until I name him or he kills me.
Name him? Those aren’t even my words. Those are somebody else’s. Those snuck into my brain from the wind, from the red-burned sun, from the clouds reflecting in the puddles along the road. Something is pulling him to me, dragging him along, and it won’t be finished till one or the other of us is dead.
“You all right?” says Tommy. “You look like something got you spooked.”
“We’ll follow the road to Moon Haven, like I said. We’ll be safe in Moon Haven. And there will be acrobats at the Half-Moon Inn. It’ll be like a carnival, lanterns strung up, torches, musicians on every corner.” I tell all Gruff’s stories again, say them out loud like they’re some kind of magic spell, like the harder I believe them the more they will protect me. “So much food you can’t even imagine it, a banquet hall with a table so long you got to squint to see the people on the other end of it. Everything we could ever want or need is in Moon Haven, I guarantee you.”
“Acrobats?” he says.
“Yep. Dancers too.”
“Musicians?”
“You bet. Street singers all over the place. I bet we can even find you a good piano to play on.”
“Yeah, I dunno.” But he’s smiling. He’s even got a whistle to him. “It’ll be something, won’t it?” He flicks an acorn off into the leaves.
I’m so happy I could run the whole way there. By nightfall I’ll be with Gruff and we can run away together, be bandits on the run from the preachers and the lawmen and the Townies forever and ever, never belonging anywhere, with no one and nothing to ever drag us down. Safe, me and my Gruff, together finally at Moon Haven.
FOURTEEN
We creep alongside the road, deep into the trees where no one but another bandit could see us. We keep the road just in sight, just visible, so we don’t lose it. Twice carriages pass us, twice me and Tommy duck down in the weeds, and twice they move along. A few men on horseback ride by, their collars up and hats down even in the heat, as if they know bandits are afoot. I wonder if it’s me and Gruff that’s struck the fear in them or something else. My belly’s gnawing itself like it’s got teeth. We still got Zeb’s money. Maybe I’ll buy us something sweet. Maybe I’ll buy us a pie.
We come to a road sign, a chunk of wood with some words carved into it, the only words I ever want to see again for the rest of my life. “Moon Haven ½ Mile.” I can’t believe it. Moon Haven was just past the bad woods, same as Gruff said it would be. I’m so happy my guts hurt, my heart gallops in my chest.
“That’s where we’re headed, right?” says Tommy.
“That’s it,” I say. “We’re almost home free.”
“Good,” he says. “I’m awful tired of walking.”
“Not too much farther at all.”
I start to sing a different song, a happy one, a celebration song of Momma’s. A carriage comes our way, so I duck us back down in the woods, away from the strange cockeyed stare of the driver, his guns drawn. We hide until the horses rumble past. There is an awful lot of worry out on this road, isn’t there? But I guess it’s to be expected, on the way to the bandit town and everything.
We near the edge of the forest. The gates of Moon Haven are just ahead, tall and wooden and scarred, like they’ve kept out more people than they’ve let in. But today they are opened wide, just for me, and I’m so excited it takes all of me not to start running, to sprint through Moon Haven, straight to the Half-Moon Inn, straight to where I know my Gruff will be waiting.
But I don’t. I wait till the last carriage passes, till it’s just Tommy and me and the empty road. I put my hood down low over my face even though it’s hot, just in case somebody might be able to spot me somehow. I stand out is all, with my hair and everything. Besides, you don’t see two dirty kids wandering into a town alone too often. Especially not a town like Moon Haven.
The waiting is almost torture. The walls surround the whole town, and I can’t see inside. I don’t hear any music coming out of them. I don’t smell any food either, just a weird charred smell, like a bonfire long gone out. A few men in hats stand outside the gates, smoking cigarettes, and that’s about all. Maybe the fun stuff doesn’t get started till night. If I know anything about bandits, they sleep late in the day and stay up late at night. That’s what Gruff and the boys did anyway, until it was time for another job.
“This doesn’t feel good,” says Tommy. “I mean it. Everyone looks scared.”
“They’re probably just groggy from staying up too late and having too good a time,” I say. “Now remember. Stay quiet and don’t look anybody in the eye. I’m going to go see about getting a place to stay. You go buy us some food.”
I hand him a few of Zeb’s coins.
“Where am I going to get food?” he says.
“I don’t know. There should be merchants and food carts and a market and all kinds of things. There should be food as far as you can see!”
“Think they’ll have pie?” he says.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. But you’ll have to find a bakery for that.”
“I bet we can buy us a whole pie,” he says. “To celebrate.”
“Any kind of pie you want,” I say. “You ready?”
Tommy nods. I take a deep breath and walk out of the woods, through the gates into Moon Haven.
<
br /> The streets are wide and muddy, mostly deserted. A few derelicts sleep on a street corner. Some dirty kids throw rocks at an orange cat. Most of the buildings are dark and quiet. Some have busted windows and their signs are hung crooked, the paint old and chipped. There’s no parades, no dancing, just gloom, gloom everywhere. And for the life of me, I can’t see any building big or grand enough to be the Half-Moon Inn. Not the way Gruff described it.
“There’s a bakery,” says Tommy. It’s a small place, but the windows are lit, and people come and go carrying bread. Maybe there won’t be any pies, nothing like that. But at least we’ll have something to eat.
“Go be quick,” I say. “We can meet back here in five minutes.”
All of a sudden he’s scared.
“Don’t leave me alone, Goldeline.”
“I’ll be right back,” I say. “Now go get us some grub.”
He walks off toward the bakery, and I’m glad of it. Now I got to find Gruff.
An old lady sits on her front porch in a rocker. She’s got a big wart on her nose, and one of her eyes squints. I’m scared of her but there’s nobody else around, so I guess she’ll do. I walk up to her and ask her in my sweetest little-girl voice like how I used to do on jobs, “Please, ma’am, can you tell me where the Half-Moon Inn is?”
“You come the same as all of us did, I wager. Young thing you are. Same as I was when I first come to Moon Haven.”
“Please, ma’am. I have to meet a friend there. It’s important.”
The lady laughs. “Oh, I know how it is. You come expecting the lights, didn’t you? You come expecting the artists, all the big murals, nothing but music everywhere, food and drink and laughing folks, that’s what you expected. I can see it. I can see it all over your face.” She spits on the porch boards. “I come looking for the same thing. Thirty years ago, at best. Don’t look it now, but I was a right fair catch then. Secret was the foot.”
The lady pulls up her skirts and there it is, plain as day, a foot carved right out of wood. She knocks on it.
“Hollow! Lost the real one in a poker game,” she says. “Let me tell you, honey, don’t ever bet your left foot on nothing, you hear me?”
“The Half-Moon Inn, ma’am. Can you tell me where it is?”
“That old dump? It’s right over there,” she says. “Or was, anyhow.”
Dump? No, she can’t be talking about the same place.
“It’s not a dump,” I say. “It’s an inn. The biggest, most incredible inn in the whole world. Full of trapeze artists, and acrobats, and singers and . . .”
“I know, honey, I know,” she says. “Those are the same stories they told me too, when I was your age. Doesn’t matter anyhow. It’s all gone.”
The street’s getting dark now, weird dusk time, when bats and night creatures come out, when long black cats stretch themselves in alleyways. The moon up there like a sad lady’s face. This is Gruff’s favorite time of night.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“They burned it down,” she says. “Just yesterday. Burned down the only place for people like us. Took the men out, flogged them in the street. No jail here, being a gambling town, a bandit town. So they tied them up. The gamblers, the magicians, the fortune-tellers, all of them. They . . . they . . .”
The old lady shuts her eyes, like she’s gone weary all of a sudden, like she’s about to keel over and faint.
“Who?” I say. “Who burned it down?”
“The Preacher,” she says. “Come down from Templeton.”
A cold hand grips my heart, all my songs gone quiet. As the lady talks I can see it in my mind, how the Preacher came to Moon Haven with torches all ablaze, shouting about judgment, he and his men charging in like demons. Flipping food carts, scattering the musicians all lined up in the streets, them tripping over their dresses, falling in the mud. The Preacher’s men running behind them, laughing. He set fire to the Half-Moon Inn himself. But he would have said it was God’s fire. He would have said that was God cleansing Moon Haven, like how fire’s supposed to come down from the sky in the Great Reckoning and burn everything clean. Said he was doing the town a favor.
The lady dabs her eyes with her sleeve. “He didn’t have to do that to folks just for being different, for not being perfect. Lord knows we all done things we weren’t happy about. Hard to live any other way. Say, you okay there, little thing? What’s a matter?”
I’m shaking and I can’t see. All the tears I got in my face. I take off running, running toward the burning smell, running toward the center of town, toward the old oak tree sprouting high over the rooftops.
When I get to the charred black of earth that used to be the inn I feel sick. Fine things, a chandelier, jewelry, whatever’s unburned glitters like fairy-book treasure in the dirt and rubble. The Preacher must have had an army to do this, a whole army of fanatics and followers, the Townies, his wicked congregation from Templeton.
But Gruff’s too smart to get caught by them. Because real bandits don’t get caught. Not my Gruff. Gruff would have heard them coming. He would have known it from a mile away. He would have slipped out back with a sack full of money and a jug of ale. Gruff got away, like he always does. I know it.
“Goldeline?” says a voice.
I whirl around, my heart so full of joy and hope. It’s Gruff, it’s Gruff, my Gruff made it out okay, he’s alive.
But it isn’t Gruff. It’s only old Leebo, from the camp. I can’t believe it. He’s alive, somehow he got away.
“Thank the Lord, Goldeline, I thought you were dead,” he says.
“Where’s Gruff?” I say.
“I thought we’d lost you, Goldy. I was scared I’d never see you again.”
Leebo balances on his crutch and opens his arms out wide for me to come and give him a hug, but I don’t move.
“Leebo, where is Gruff?”
He bows his head a little.
“Well, darling . . .”
“Just tell me.”
“They got him.”
“But he’s still alive, right? He’s okay?”
Leebo shakes his head. He still won’t look at me, he won’t look me in the eyes, and I hate him a little bit for that.
“The Preacher hung him on the spot,” he says. “Didn’t even build a scaffold, just did it on that old oak tree right there. I saw it all. I was hiding in the crowd. He didn’t holler, he didn’t cower, he didn’t say a word. He died good, Goldy.”
I can’t cry. I can’t even talk. I can only watch the moon crawl up the trees and hang like a halo over the rubble.
This was supposed to be my home. I was supposed to live here with Gruff forever.
I sit down cross-legged in the dirt and Leebo sits down with me. We watch it get dark together, watch the stars come out over us. There’s no mercy in this world. The stars are forever away. Gruff was wild and Gruff stole, but he stole to take care of me. He might have been wicked but he was mine, and he wasn’t evil to me. He was the only one in the world that was any good to me at all.
An old woman in a long black robe walks up. She holds a little brass watering can in one hand and a tiny bell in the other. The woman makes a cross sign over the wreckage and begins to sing in a sad scratchy voice. Slowly she shuffles around the rubble of the Half-Moon Inn, singing all the while. Every few steps she sprinkles a little water on the ground and rings her bell.
“What’s that lady doing, Leebo?” I say.
“She’s a Mercy Woman,” he says. “A holy woman.”
“A preacher?”
“Not like the one who did this,” says Leebo. “Mercy Women are different. They took care of my little brother once when he got sick, didn’t ask for any money or nothing. They’re like monks, but nicer. They show up whenever something real bad happens.”
I wait until the old woman passes by again.
“What’s that you’re singing?” I say.
“It’s a prayer,” the woman says. She looks sad, but her eyes are bri
ght and blue. “To heal this place from all the pain that has happened here.”
“Aren’t you afraid the Preacher will come back?” I ask her.
“No,” she says. “I am old. What can that man do to me? As the Book says, ‘Fear not the vain works of men. Fear not the darkness. For ye are creatures of light.’ I sing here for healing on this land. No preacher can stop me from that.”
She gets back to her slow singing work, and in my heart I’m grateful for her, that even in the worst moments there’s always someone trying to do some good.
Me and Leebo sit there together a good long while watching the Mercy Woman work, until we hear voices in the night, men’s voices in the street. I help Leebo up.
“Bye, Goldy,” he says. “Take care of yourself.” Leebo turns his head away from me and crosses over to the side of the street. “Trust me, it’s safer if you stay away from me. He’s after me, same as you. I won’t do nothing but slow you down. Don’t you come following me now.”
“Wait!” I say, but he’s turned a corner, he’s gone now, like a stray cat scared and vanished off. That’s probably how he didn’t get caught, how he’s managed to live so long as a bandit. I sit back down in the dirt to cry some more.
That’s when Tommy comes running toward me, huffing, out of breath.
“Why’d you leave me?” he says. “I been looking everywhere for you. We got to go, Goldeline. They know about us. The Preacher’s been here. You won’t believe all the kinds of stuff he said about us. They got us for assault and witchcraft and banditry and all kinds of things, stuff I never even heard of. And it isn’t just you, Goldeline. It’s me too. They know all about Zeb. The Preacher must have come back and found him. We got to hurry.” He shakes me a little. “I said come on. We got to hurry.”
I must have started crying again, because Tommy stops shaking me.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
“They killed him,” I say. “The Preacher killed Gruff.”
He blinks at me like he can’t believe it. Like he finally sees me for who I am.
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