Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  (“WHY shucks, everybody knows black is the color of death. If you see something black coming at you in your dreams, you may just as well give up, ’cause you ain’t long for this world.”)

  Rosalynn twisted in her chair and picked at a bit of lint on her wool skirt as she looked at the speaker.

  (“You should have seen the dress Nellie bought over in Joplin; the cutest thing.”)

  Rosalynn extended her legs and looked down at them.

  (“They say it cost fifty dollars. My!”)

  Rosalynn hooked her toe under the rocker of the chair before her and set it in motion.

  “Oh! Don’t do that, dear,” Marsha said. “A chair that’s empty rocked, its owner will with ills be stocked.”

  Rosalynn looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  (“Of course it may be a little too low for her, you know. She doesn’t have the figure.”)

  Jean Towers came over and sat down by Rosalynn. “Don’t mind Marsha. She’s just superstitious.”

  “I didn’t mind,” Rosalynn said.

  “I guess you think we’re unfriendly?”

  “No,” said Rosalynn.

  (“And they say they’re gonna get married next month. And about time, too, if you ask me.”)

  “I don’t think you’re unfriendly. I’ll just need a little time to get to know you, and then I’ll be all right.”

  (“Well, I certainly wish Jude would hurry up and ask me.”)

  “Amy told me your family just moved in last week.”

  “Yes,” Rosalynn said. “From California. Fresno.”

  “What do you think of Carthage?”

  “Oh,” Rosalynn said, “it’s—I mean, I think I’ll like it. I mean, I’m sure I’ll like it.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “It’s just that now—at first, I mean—everybody is talking about people I don’t know and places I—”

  (“And me too!” someone said, and it sent some of the girls off into peals of laughter.)

  Jean Towers smiled sympathetically. “You’ll get caught up in the swing of things.”

  “Uh-huh. Ah—could you tell me—” But Jean Towers had left her side. (“And I said to him, ‘If you think for a minute that—’ ”)

  Rosalynn picked at the lint again. This was a new town and this was her first party and she wanted—oh, so very bad—to make a good impression: or they maybe wouldn’t ask her again. And it was really her place, she knew, to be friendly.

  (“You girls better have a dumb supper.”)

  “What would you think of a dumb supper, Rosalynn?” Jean Towers asked.

  Rosalynn said, “A dumb supper? Why—I guess, I mean—sure: if you girls want to. I think I’d like something like that.”

  “Do you have dumb suppers, ever, where you come from?” Amy asked. Rosalynn said, “It’s a game, isn’t it?”

  “Not exactly—well, I guess you might say it was a game, too: sort of.”

  “Then I guess we have something like it back in Fresno,” Rosalynn said and laughed. For the first time she was included in the general conversation and she was happy. “Why don’t you tell me just what it is and then I’ll tell you if we had anything like it.”

  “Well,” Jean Towers said, “it’s a kind of a legend. Nobody believes in it any more. Except some of the peckerwood people back in the hills. And maybe one or two of the old timers, like Uncle Alvin down on the river bottom.” She made a deprecating little gesture. “’Course there are stories . . .”

  “Maybe you ought to tell her the one Grandma Wilson’s always telling.”

  “I don’t know—well—Would you like to listen to it, Rosalynn?” Rosalynn said, “Yes.”

  “It all happened in the Rush family. (They’re—the Rushes, that is—they’re all over this section now; there’s a lot of them around Pierce City, and the Roberts of Webb City are first cousins—but this was a long time ago, maybe a hundred years, when they’d just moved in from Kentucky.) There was a girl in the family, young, name of Sarah. A pretty little thing, friendly, the way Grandma Wilson tells it.”

  Rosalynn stared down at her shoe tops, wishing she were pretty, trying to believe what her mother told her, ‘It’s not what you look like, honey, that’s important; it’s the kind of a person you are,’ and remembering, too, how she looked to herself in the mirror, wondering where she could find a husband for a face like that.

  Jean Towers said: “One night at a party—a party like this, I imagine, when the old people were gone—somebody suggested that they have a dumb supper; just like you do suggest things, half joking, half serious: that way. Sarah thought it was a good idea (they used to do things like that back in Kentucky), and she wasn’t afraid at all.”

  Sarah had been a friendly girl; Rosalynn wondered how people got to be that way; how they learned to say the right things and do the right things and make people like them.

  “Of course, you understand, a dumb supper isn’t really a supper. It’s just a halfway supper. Nobody eats anything—and there isn’t anything to eat, except two little pieces of corn bread.”

  Rosalynn wondered why she always was half frightened by people; why she had to screw her courage down tight even to come to a party like this.

  She really wanted to like people and have them like her. And after all, everyone here was friendly—and they’d wanted her to come: or Amy wouldn’t have asked her. They were nice enough, too, a little different from the girls back home, but nice in their way, and she’d stop feeling like an outsider in a little while.

  “Well, Sarah began to fix for the dumb supper. Now, fixing for a dumb supper has to be done in a special way.”

  At first Rosalynn thought they had resented her—maybe because her clothes were nicer than theirs, or maybe because her father had a better job than their fathers, or maybe because she lived in the big house out on South Main, or maybe because she didn’t have an accent like they had and talked faster. But now, with them gathered around her, listening, she saw that they really didn’t hate her and it had only been in her imagination all along.

  “Everything has to be done backwards. Everything, like mixing the batter, striking the match, even walking. Everything opposite from usual.”

  Maybe she was afraid of people because she thought they all wanted to hurt her. (In her second year of high school: She could still remember burningly what she had heard her best friend say.) Her father had explained it all: ‘You see, people aren’t really as bad as you think; they may be thoughtless, but they’re very seldom cruel—Most people aren’t like your friend Betty. They’d rather be friendly than unfriendly, if you’ll only give them the chance.’

  “Sarah cooked her corn bread, doing everything backwards, the way it’s supposed to be done. And then she set out the plates. Two of them. One for herself and one for her husband.”

  Rosalynn was going to be a different girl. She was going to make all kinds of new friends (like Jean and Amy and Marsha—the superstitious one). And she would have the best times talking to them, and parties at her big house—and maybe dates (for she wasn’t that ugly i only she always seemed to scare the few boys off because she was so timid: but it would be different this time). Then maybe—

  “You see, if you do everything just right, according to the story, at least, when you set down at your plate with the backward corn bread on it, your husband will come in (not really, I mean, but like a ghost) and set down at his plate so you can see his face and that way you get to find out who your husband is going to be.”

  “Oh,” said Rosalynn, resolving to listen more carefully, for if she wanted to make friends, she must remember not to feel sorry for herself, but to be very polite and listen very closely whether or not she was interested.

  “At each plate Sarah put down a knife. (They had funny knives in those days with bone handles: and the one she put at her husband’s plate had a big, star-shaped chip knocked off of it.)

  “By this time the wind was coming up in the North (as it always
does at a dumb supper), and you could hear it moan in the trees. It was very quiet in the house, for you mustn’t talk—not anyone—at a dumb supper.

  “Sarah put a piece of corn bread on each plate and then she sat down, as calm as anything, to wait.

  “Everybody was holding their breath, and you could hear the wind blowing louder and louder.”

  Rosalynn shivered; she really didn’t want to hear the rest of the story.

  “And then—bang!—the front door flew open and slammed back against the wall, hard, making the house shake. And the wind blew in and made the candles flicker. (This was long ago, before electricity.)

  “And just as the candles went out, a figure all in white came rushing in to set down beside Sarah.”

  Jean Towers paused, and Rosalynn could hear her own heart beating in the stillness.

  “When the candle was lit again, the figure was gone. And the knife that had lain by its plate was gone too.”

  “Is—is that all?” Rosalynn asked.

  “No. No, that’s just the first part. You see, she really got to see its face. (Or so she said.)

  “Well, sometime after that, maybe a year or two, a stranger came to town; name was Hall. Young man, handsome, good worker, although a quiet sort, not given to talking too much. When Sarah saw him, she knew that was the man who was going to be her husband, for his face was the face of the figure in white.

  “She married him and they went to live in a little cabin on her father’s property.

  “Things went along fine for a year, for he was a good farmer and a sober, loving husband. But one day—

  “Well, her father went down to see them, and when he got up to the top of the ridge (the cabin was down in a valley, like), he could see that there wasn’t any sign of smoke in the chimney; which wasn’t right, for it was a chilly autumn day. The cabin was still, as if there wasn’t anyone around. (You know, sometimes you can tell when you see a house that there isn’t anybody at home.) Well, he knew immediately that there was something wrong. So he hurried down.

  “And what do you think he found in the cabin? . . . Sarah. Lying on the floor. She was lying there with her eyes closed and a knife sticking out between her breasts.

  “She wasn’t dead, though (but it was just a lucky thing that her father came along when he did or she would have been). And she didn’t die, either. But it was quite a while before she could get up and around (the doctors didn’t know as much in those days).

  “Finally, she told everybody what had happened.

  “That morning, when her father found her lying there in the cabin almost dead, she had told her husband (for the first time) about how she had seen his face there at the dumb supper.

  “At first he didn’t say anything at all—just sort of stared at her. Then he got up and went to a little box he always kept—he wore the key around his neck and wouldn’t let anyone see what was in it—and opened it. He took out the knife that was there on a velvet cushion.

  “And he turned back to Sarah.

  “ ‘So you’re the witch that sent me through that night of hell!’ he screamed, and then he plunged the knife into her.

  “It was the knife with the star-shaped chip out of the bone handle.

  “And she never saw her husband again.”

  Rosalynn swallowed. “That—that was—awful,” she said.

  Marsha laughed thinly.

  “You mean that you actually still have dumb suppers?” Rosalynn asked.

  “Well,” Jean Towers said, “not very often. Oh, maybe once in a while. I mean there’s nothing in it. Though some of the peckerwoods would say it was witchcraft. Just for a laugh, you know. We don’t believe it. But it does give you a funny, creepy feeling.”

  “I think we ought to have one,” Amy said. “Then Rosalynn can see—the kind of games we play.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  “Let’s even let Rosalynn cook it.”

  “How about it, Rosalynn?”

  Rosalynn said: “All right, I mean, if you want to. But let somebody else cook it, why not? I—I’m afraid I never learned how to cook—not even corn bread.”

  “If that’s all. We can show you how that’s done.”

  “Well,” Rosalynn said slowly, “I’ll do it if somebody will too.” She turned to Marsha. “You?”

  “I wouldn’t do it for the world,” Marsha said.

  “Be still!” Jean told her. And then to Rosalynn: “She doesn’t believe anything would happen of course. She—she just doesn’t believe in taking chances. All of us here have cooked dumb suppers before.”

  “Yes,” said Marsha. “We have.”

  “Well, how about you, Amy?”

  “Me? It’s—more fun if only one person cooks the supper.”

  “Oh . . . I mean, I guess, if you really want me to, of course . . .” Rosalynn realized vaguely that it was probably just an ordinary prank they were in on: trying to scare her. Maybe like an initiation stunt. And if she wanted them to be her friends she’d have to go through with it. And not show that she was scared.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll do it.”

  Before, it seemed a million times, Rosalynn had wished she wasn’t so easy to frighten: even when she was little the parents had to stay in the room until she was asleep; and now and then, still, she would turn on the light at night (which took all her courage) just to be sure nothing was there.

  She told herself something that usually worked; she told herself: ‘They will all be laughing about it next week, and then I can tell them how scared I was and they won’t mind at all.’

  She looked at the wall clock.

  There was no help there. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, Amy’s parents, wouldn’t get back from Carthage until midnight.

  The house was a farm house; four miles out of town. And Rosalynn had no way to leave, even if she wanted to, for she was depending on the Pierces to take her home when they came back.

  “Come on,” Jean said.

  They went into the kitchen where Amy got the proper ingredients: there were three little cups of them, already set out; Rosalynn knew, then, that they had prepared for this.

  “Flour,” Amy said, pointing. “Com meal. Baking powder.” She drew a glass of water from the tap. “Mix the stuff all together and add the water until it’s doughy.”

  “Salt?” Rosalynn asked.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know how to make corn bread.”

  “I—I don’t: I just thought it ought to have salt in it—I mean, most things ought to have salt in them.”

  “Not this corn bread, Rosalynn. There isn’t supposed to be any salt in it.”

  “Oh! I—see.”

  “Now. How would you mix these things together?”

  “I’d—I’d put the baking powder and the corn meal in the flour and—shake them up, I guess. And then I’d add the water.”

  “Good. Now listen: Put the flour, the corn meal and the baking powder in the water. Then stir them up. Backwards, you see. And if you usually stir clockwise, be sure to stir counter clockwise this time. And walk backwards. And strike the match for the oven away from you if you usually strike it towards you. Everything backwards.”

  “All right, I will, Amy. Don’t worry.”

  Amy went on explaining all the details and Rosalynn listened, trying to remember, trying to play the game, so they would ask her to parties all the time.

  It was only a silly superstition, and, contemplating the whole thing in the brightly lit kitchen of a farm house, she began to decide it was really nothing to be afraid of . . . Just a silly, childish prank, that’s all.

  “You’re ready, then?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “All right, now. Remember this: no matter what happens: don’t talk. None of us can talk. That’s the most important thing of all. None of us can talk until it’s all over.”

  “I won’t say a word,” Rosalynn said.

  “Okay. Then you’re ready?”

  “Yes . . . Only
first—I mean, I know it sounds silly, but look—You don’t really believe anything’s going to happen—I mean, my husband come, or anything like that?”

  Amy looked levelly at her; she paused a moment before answering.

  “No,” she said.

  “No more talking,” Jean Towers said.

  And there was silence.

  Rosalynn did everything the way she had been told; everything, that is, but about striking the match. She always struck the match toward herself; and this time, in the spirit of a little girl crossing her fingers before telling one of the little fibs little girls tell, she struck the match in the usual way.

  After the corn bread was in the oven, she walked backwards into the living room and sat down to wait for the ten minutes before it came time to set the table.

  The other girls, silently as ghosts, had arranged themselves around the room; their eyes were upon her and she felt uncomfortable—like the first time she—well, she had felt everybody watching her then, too. It was something like that. As if they were waiting for something to give.

  She thought Jean Towers’ face was tense, and Marsha’s eyes were—but she was letting her imagination run away with her.

  Absolute silence. But for the clock.

  She began to feel the vague, uneasy fingers of fear again.

  The strangest thing was: None of the girls giggled. They were very still, waiting. They were—serious.

  She heard the monotonous tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock.