Dream Of Echoes

by Karen C. Webb

  ‘We take care of our own,’ mama told me when I asked her about going to school. But I heard mama talking to daddy one time, when I was small, she said if the county people ever found out we’d never been in school, we’d all be in a heap a trouble. Well, she’s home-schooled us up pretty good, me and my two brothers and my little sister Megan.

  Well, it was two brothers, ‘til some cantankerous ole mule daddy traded for went and kicked my little brother, Tommy. Kicked him right in his chest; stopped his heart, old Doc Roberts, down in Jericho Falls, told daddy. I can still see daddy, carrying Tommy’s lifeless body in his arms, with tears running down his face. Only time I ever seen my daddy cry, at least, up until this crazy summer got over. Daddy had Tommy buried on the farm here, in our family plot, right alongside Grandma and Grandpa Martin.

  Oh, you shoulda seen Tommy, that boy had somethin’ special. ‘A true gift from God,’ mama always said. By the time he was seven years old, he was doing high school math, algebra and stuff that I struggle with now. And he was reading history books, boring books about the Civil War and the Roman Empire and he could quote you any passage from any book he read and even what page number it was on.

  Daddy traded somebody for an old guitar and Tommy sat down with it, and within a few weeks, he’d taught hisself to play that guitar and, after a few more weeks, he was writing songs to go with his tunes. Mama has all them songs stored away now in her cedar chest. But I’ve seen her take ‘em out occasionally, folded sheets of notebook paper held together with a rubber band. She cries as she reads them, but if she sees me watching, she pretends she’s not. She always did need to be the strong one, strongest one of this whole family. Oh, maybe not physically, although I might lay odds on her there too, but mentally, she was the strong one. She was the glue that held us all together. Without her, we might of all been torn apart like the fluff of a dandelion and drifted away on the summer breeze.

  My older brother, now—Will, his name is—he’s the complete opposite of Tommy. ‘Steadfast,’ mama calls him. He loves nothing more than helping daddy on this two-bit farm and working with them half-broke horses and mules.

  Not me, though, I got plans, plans and dreams. I dream of traveling the world, exploring all the places I’m always reading about. All of us Martin’s reads a lot, on account of we ain’t never had no TV, out here in the hills. After supper every day, each of us is likely to wander off to our bedrooms, picking up on whatever exciting adventure we was in the middle of. You could usually find me on a summer’s afternoon, once the chores were done, laying back in the sweet green grass of daddy’s pasture, sometimes surrounded by the sweet scent of wildflowers, reading books of faraway places and adventures. Usually don’t take long though, if I’m still enough, ‘til one of daddy’s trade horses will be sniffing around me, blowing air on my head while it tries to figure out what I’m doing laying down in the middle of its lunch table. Sometimes they’ll graze all around me; I listen to the sounds of the grass ripping in their teeth while I read.

  But not today. Today, my little sister Meg is down with a fever and since daddy and Will are both working down at the sawmill—filling in while a couple guys are gone—then I guess it’s on me to go for help.

  “Go fetch Mrs. Parker,” mama yelled out the door at me.

  I come running from the garden where I’d been pulling weeds. Must be serious if she wants me to fetch that old witch, I thought. She’s not a witch, really, even though she kinda looks like one. People like her, I’ve heard ‘em called Mountain Sorcerers, but that ain’t true neither. They’re healers, is what they are. Mrs. Parker is a healer. Supposedly she says a passage from the bible while she holds the hand of the afflicted, but I read the Bible, cover to cover, on account a how we ain’t got no TV, and I never did find no passage that said, ‘read me and thou shalt be healed.’

  But I seen it, though. I seen it with my own two eyes. We was in church one Sunday and Mrs. Parker was there, sitting in the pew just behind us. Jane Crockett brought her boy, Petey, over to Mrs. Parker and showed her his hands. That boy had warts all over both hands, big, nasty, ugly warts, that made me want to throw up, they was so ugly. Well, Mrs. Parker took those warty hands in hers, closed her eyes and commenced to whispering. I could see her lips moving, but for the life of me I couldn’t make out a word she said. Then mama elbowed me in the ribs and I had to turn around and sit down.

  Well, I didn’t see Petey again for about a month, on account a how we ain’t the most regular churchgoers and all. But, when I saw him again, his hands was as clean and wart free as yours or mine. Mrs. Parker talked them warts off, that’s what mama said.

  These mountains have lots of secrets—secrets they been holding for a thousand years. Secrets people outside of these hills don’t usually get to know, and some that us in the hills don’t know either, as I was about to find out.

  So today, I gotta go and fetch Mrs. Parker back for Meg. Ordinarily, I could jump bareback on one of daddy’s trade horses, but he’d sold the last one a few days ago. So I gotta hotfoot it near two miles, mostly uphill. I think they call it hotfooting around these parts cause in the summertime, most of us go barefoot. Most of us kids, anyhow. And that dirt road is doggone hot on the feet, unless their tough as a ten-penny nail, like mine are.

  But Megan, we gotta take care of her. She’s my baby sister, the baby of the family. With her blond curls and big, blue eyes, I always thought she looked like a baby doll. I used to dress her up when she was smaller, pretending that she was one of my dolls. If mama was heartbroken over losing Tommy, losing Meg would just kill her, I’m sure of it.

  My mind began to wander, as I strolled along the dirt road. I didn’t notice the bright Mountain Laurel bushes as I walked, nor the bees that flitted from one bright pink blossom of it to the next. I didn’t see the rich green of the Kudzu vines, snaking up the trees like it planned to choke the very life from them. I didn’t hear the sound of Jericho Creek neither, as it trickled across stones and splashed its way down this mountain. No, I missed the world around me, cause I was busy with one of my daydreams. I pondered on what it would be like to live in one a them big, two-story houses in a subdivision, like I’d read about. To come home every day from my nice office, driving a shiny new car, and pulling it into a driveway made of concrete, instead of sand and mud. I saw myself clearly, in this fantasy of mine, opening the door to that big house, setting my briefcase down on a white tile floor, and kissing my handsome husband. Then making dinner for the two of us, in a kitchen that was all warm wood and granite countertops, with a big island in the middle, where my Prince Charming would sit down on a stool and talk to me while I chopped vegetables. Then I would pop a roast into an oven that was built into the wall, with a second oven just above it. I never did figure out what that second oven was there for. But I had read about it and even seen pictures in magazines, so it was there in my dream, just the same. I also had all kinda gizmos and gadgets in this fantasy of mine, computers and laptops, cellular phones and epads or ipads, whatever they’re called. It would take me years just to figure out how to work all this stuff, if my dreams ever did come true, that is.

  I daydreamed my way right on up to Mrs. Parker’s door, scattering chickens as I crossed the yard. Their house—Mrs. Parker and her husband, Bill—looked much the same as ours. Weathered, unpainted wood siding with a rusty tin roof and a porch across the front. I could hear the old boards creak as I crossed it and knocked on her door.

  Mrs. Parker herself opened the door and smiled when she saw me. “Well, Lordy me, if it ain’t young Lauren Martin. What brings you out here, child?”

  “Mama sent me to fetch you back for my little sister Meg. She’s powerful ill, down with a fever.”

  “Sure, sure. Well come on in, child. I was just making some lunch, have a bite with me before we make that long, sweaty walk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I was pretty hungry, after all. Nothing like a long walk and some serious fantasizing to work up an appetite. I sat down at
her kitchen table while Mrs. Parker dished up country ham and red eye gravy, and fresh, homemade biscuits, all hot from the oven.

  While we ate, Mrs. Parker asked me about Megan. “How longs she been sick?”

  “More ‘n a week, now. We thought she was getting some better, but this morning, she was just all burning up with the fever.”

  “How come you didn’t go for Doc Roberts? Woulda been ‘bout the same walking distance for ya.”

  “Doc Roberts is off on his summer fishing trip. Won’t be back for two weeks.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Parker stood up, cleaning up our few dishes. “Don’t get up child,” she said when I stood up to help. “I’ll just clean up here and pen my chickens up, case I don’t make it back afore dark.”

  She left me sitting there at her table, while she went to chasing chickens. I watched her out the window. Them chickens didn’t want to go into their pen this early, but once the sun starts to set, try to keep ‘em out. Chickens knows that there’s some dangers lurking around these mountains in the dark. I was starting to giggle, as I watched that old woman, chasing them chickens around and trying to shoo ‘em toward their pen, when, of a sudden, I heard a noise, coming from upstairs, which is strange, cause this house, just like ours, ain’t got no upstairs.

  There, I heard it again. I stared at the ceiling for a minute, listening to a tap, tap, tapping, an almost musical drumbeat of tapping, then looked back out the window at Mrs. Parker, wrangling them chickens. If she was outside, and Mr. Parker was at work, down at the mill, then where was that sound coming from? I stood up, still staring at the ceiling, and walked toward the living room. I found nothing in the living room and the sound seemed to be coming more from the back of the house, so I peeked in the door of a bedroom, which opened just off the living room, the way these old houses do. It was obviously Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s bedroom, although it was neat as could be. A huge, four-poster bed set smack in the middle, made up all neat with a patchwork quilt. There was nothing else of interest, so I closed that door and stepped back into the living room. There was one more door, aside from a front door that led outside, but it was on a different wall. I opened this other door and found another bedroom, I assumed a spare bedroom; it was bare, just a bed in the middle, also made up neat as a pin, and an old bureau on one wall. I heard the tapping again—I looked up at the ceiling, there was a trapdoor, with a set of stairs leading up. Not stairs, exactly, but one of them folding ladders that pulls down from the ceiling. It was open now and there was that sound again, tap, tap, tapping, just above me. I looked behind me—still no sign of Mrs. Parker—then I started to climb. I know I shouldn’t have—you just don’t go into somebody’s house and climb into their attic, uninvited. But like mama always said, curiosity killed the cat—so I climbed, the tapping growing louder with each step I took up that rickety ladder.