The Memory Thief

by Rachel Keener

  He laid his coat over me, and the shock of sudden warmth pulled me into a deep sleep. When I woke up I was being lifted onto the back of an ATV. A policeman drove and the bear-man rode behind him and held me like a baby. We raced through the forest. My eyes blinked as dead gray limbs flashed overhead. I slept again, and woke up as they wheeled me into the hospital.

  The policeman started asking me questions.

  “I need to report a missin’ person,” I mumbled.

  “Someone else up there? You wasn’t alone?”

  “Me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m the missin’ person.”

  I spent the first two days asleep in the hospital. And when I woke up they asked more questions. What is your name? Then they asked where I was from. I remembered hell burning behind Black Snake trailer. Acres and acres, glowing red with fire. Police cars, their blue lights flashing against flat bacca leaves.

  “Can’t remember a thing,” I whispered.

  Some of them heard it for the lie it was. Looked at me with narrowed eyes and tight lips when I said it. One nurse even warned me, “They’ll bill you as Jane Doe if they have to.” Others treated me with pity. Like I’d lost my mind on the mountain. These nurses did more than bring me vitamins, bags of sugar water for my IV, and hospital meals. They bought me dessert from a vending machine with change from their own pockets. They marched happy people, wearing pastel name tags that read Volunteer, by my bed, “in case I needed a friend.” They’d whisper sweetly, sad smiles on their faces, “Honey, you ’member who you are yet?”

  I’d shake my head no and nibble the candy they brought. They ran a story about me in the paper:

  BOONE, NC: Authorities are seeking information concerning the identity of a young woman discovered in the mountains last week. She was found alone and disoriented in the forest, several miles outside of Boone. She appears to be in her late teens, five feet four inches, with long white blond hair and brown eyes. If you have any information regarding her identity, please contact local authorities.

  I imagined sliding that little piece of newspaper across our family dinner table. Nearly died tryin’ to get to you.

  There was a knock at my door.

  “Know your name yet?” a policeman asked, as he walked in. “Ever been over the mountain, to Tennessee? They’re looking for a blond girl, about your age, set fire to a farm. Burned half of it down. That wouldn’t be why you can’t remember your name, would it?”

  “Never been to Tennessee,” I said.

  “I’m gonna go make some calls about you. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll chat some more. You rest up now.”

  As the door closed behind him, I pulled the IV out of my arm. Put my cutoffs back on and prepared to leave. But just as I put my hand on the knob, someone was coming in.

  It was the volunteer again. My “friend” in case I needed one.

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “Your IV fall out? That happens sometimes. You lie down and I’ll get a nurse to tend to it.”

  I cursed under my breath but returned to my bed. The volunteer reached for my hand when the nurse had to prick my arm to find a new vein. But I jerked away from her. “It don’t hurt,” I mumbled.

  When the nurse left, the volunteer sat at the edge of my bed. “I can only imagine how scared you must be. And if you’re in some sort of trouble, if that’s why you can’t remember who you are, then I want to let you know that I can help you. There’s lots of reasons for why people make the choices they do. I don’t know why you were out there alone, or what you were running from. But I’d like to help make you safe again. I’ve got lots of resources at my disposal.”

  “I just want out of here. Can you do that for me?”

  “Will you go home? Back to wherever you were, before you got lost on the mountain?”

  I shook my head. It was the reason I struck the match. Not to burn the memories until they looked as worthless as they were. The candy that Daddy collected. The dishes that Momma threw. The bucket where the gun used to sit. That was all sweet extra.

  The real reason I burned that trailer was so that no matter what else happened I could never go back. I might get lost on a mountain and almost die. And there might be a moment when I’d think about Black Snake trailer, how warm it could be come winter with just a tiny kerosene heater set in the center. And that moment, that imagined warmth, was the reason I burned it. It was one thing, maybe the only thing, that I could promise my future. No matter what, I would never have to run from Black Snake trailer again.

  “Winter’s coming, honey. I can tell you’re scared. I can see you don’t wanna run back into that cold forest. Just say the word and I’ll help make you safe.”

  I hated her, even though I knew it made me more redneck than Black Snake trailer ever did. I winced at the thought of that word, redneck, a curse I’d heard many times over the years, just like trailer trash. Those words meant many things, but they all started with land. How we didn’t own any. We plowed it, planted it, picked it, and helped sell off its goods. But we did not own it and neither would our children’s children. Land was a right reserved for the farm kings. A right reserved for those born of DAR blood. For those that could hang signs on the corners of farms: Established 1893.

  I never doubted I was trailer trash. Knew it from my cutoffs and my black bras peeking out from my knotted-up T-shirts. My clothes were given to me from a closet at school, or left behind from Janie. But I’m the one who chose how to wear them. I’m the one who tied knots, whenever it served my purpose, to show off my belly.

  Redneck. The word I really feared, the one hissed at Momma. Once, a new super grocery opened up forty minutes away, just off the highway. The gas station was close and stocked almost everything our kitchen needed. But Momma heard Mrs. Swarm, and then another farmhand’s wife, mention the super grocery. So one day she drove us up to see.

  Everything was shiny, especially the bright new buggies waiting for shoppers to fill with their food. Old women with green aprons stood behind carts and passed out samples. We took their crackers and spreads and nibbled like real ladies would.

  Something came over Momma. A wanting, or maybe a hope. She lifted me high and stuffed me down into a buggy, so she could push me the way other mothers pushed their babies. But I was eight, and my long legs dangled halfway to the floor.

  We went up every aisle slowly. Momma stumbling over the words of all the new foods.

  “Angel,” she whispered. “They even got the Chinese food here.” We stared at bottles of soy sauce and cans of water chestnuts. “Ain’t nothin’ you can’t eat now. If it’s a food in this world, then it’s here in this store.”

  She put soy sauce in the buggy. And a taco kit. And something so wonderful I never dreamed it could exist. Star fruit. I held it in my grubby hands, knowing at last what it was I had hungered for my whole life. I closed my eyes and imagined stars sitting on my tongue.

  At the cashier line I noticed Momma’s bones more than usual. She stood differently. With her shoulders pulled tight and her arms folded over her body. Then she raised her hand over her eyes to look out the window and sighed loudly.

  “Oh dear. Looks like the weather man was right. I do believe a rain cloud is coming and I’ve forgotten my umbrella.”

  “But Momma,” I said, and laughed. “We ain’t got no umbrella.”

  Someone giggled behind us. Momma looked down at the ground and I knew from the burn in her face that I’d messed up. Maybe even hurt her. I just wasn’t sure how.

  “Five twenty-two,” the cashier said.

  Momma never carried a purse. She pulled a five out of her front pocket. Then reached into another. And then another. And then her last one. She shook her head.

  “Damn it,” she whispered to the ground.

  “I got it,” a woman behind us said, as she held out a quarter.

  She was everything we were trying to be. With smooth blond hair cut short to make it swing cheerfully with every move. Soft pink l
ipstick and matching nail polish. Leather purse on her shoulder, probably filled with good money. And sitting in the front of her buggy was a well-scrubbed baby, wearing a clean new sundress and matching bonnet.

  “I forget my purse all the time, too,” the woman said sweetly.

  Sticky goodness surrounded us. Flowed from the sugary sound of her voice that made it clear she’d never hurt anyone. Never tossed a dish at her husband. Never passed out drunk. Never slapped her baby’s mouth or demanded an early prize. And her boldness, her assumption that help was wanted, made it clear that she’d never been hurt, either. That she’d lived a life so safe she could afford to let her strength flow down to people like me and Momma.

  I hated her because she was so perfect. Because she’d never been hurt before. And I loved her, too. Because I knew she was good. I wanted her to lift me up and put me in her buggy. Put a brand-new pink sundress on me and make a fuss over tying my hat just right.

  Momma just hated her.

  “To hell with your free food.” She jerked me from the buggy. My long legs got stuck getting out. My shoe popped off. Showed my mismatched socks with holes all over the toes.

  “Git your damn shoes on. And git you a pair of decent socks next time.”

  “Star fruit?” I whined. “How ’bout we just git that?”

  She walked away and I ran behind her. But before we left, someone whispered the truth. “Redneck.”

  It wasn’t my socks. Or that Momma didn’t have a purse or an umbrella or enough money. They called her redneck because she didn’t know how to accept kindness. It made her angry. Made her cuss at her baby and run with shame.

  Later that night, she cried over her whiskey.

  “She didn’t look at me, Angel. She looked at the cashier, at her own baby, at the quarter in her hand. Her words lied, said, ‘We’re the same, me and you.’ But not her eyes. Her eyes called me everything her mouth wouldn’t.”

  That day in the hospital I looked up at that kind volunteer, at her black eyes and warm brown skin, at the pretty patchwork scarf tied around her shoulders, and I hated her for trying to help me. For acting like she wanted to fix all that was broken inside me.

  “Sorry,” I hissed. “Daddy taught me long ago not to trust a gook. What you wanna do, feed me dog or somethin’? You best just git out and leave me be.”

  She did, and then I whispered “Redneck” to myself. She was dressed too nice. With her starched blouse and patent flats. With her smooth black hair, cut into a silky bob. And she saw me too honest. My fear, my danger, before my angry eyes. She offered the thing I needed most, and I cursed her for it. I wasn’t raised to expect kindness. You didn’t keep me long enough to teach me any different.

  II

  When the volunteer returned just an hour later, I sat up in bed, ready with new insults for her. But I didn’t say them. Because behind the volunteer was someone new. Someone that I couldn’t take my eyes off. Someone that silenced me, made me forget all the Black Snake curses I had planned to yell.

  She was old, with long gray hair covered by a black veil. And a skirt that dragged across hospital dust. The words, the map, I had memorized deep in the bacca fields started flashing before my eyes.

  “Are you a Holy Roller?” I whispered lowly.

  She answered me with a cold stare, her mouth set tight and not moving. Her eyes swept over me, searched my face, my body. She came back to my face and reached her hand toward me. Let it hang in the space between us.

  I jerked back. Her hand dropped quickly and she cleared her throat. “I’m a businesswoman,” she said with quick syllables that could never be learned in Carolina. “I have a resort at the top of the mountain. There is always work to be done. As long as you work, room and board are provided.”

  “Don’t like charity.”

  “You and I agree. You’ll work for everything you’re given. And you can leave anytime you’re ready.” She handed me a piece of paper. “This is my business card. If you agree, let me know and I’ll settle your hospital bill this afternoon.”

  I let her card fall from my open hand onto the sheets. But the door was closing behind her and she missed my insult. The volunteer picked the card off the bed, handed it back to me.

  “You need someplace to work and live. She runs a bed-and-breakfast on the top of this mountain. You can see the whole world from her view.”

  “She’s a Yankee.”

  “Turns out they’re not so bad,” she laughed. “She doesn’t pay money, but you’ll have a room and all your meals. You’ll have a safe place to stay as long as you need. I know her well.”

  I imagined all the mean words I could yell to say no. But then I remembered cold mountain winds. I remembered watching the squirrels eat acorns and feeling jealous of their full bellies. I remembered the glow of dozens and dozens of acres, burning up the night. And most important, that the policeman was coming back soon.

  “Just say yes. Nobody needs you to say thank you.”

  I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to look at her. She picked up the phone, made the call.

  “The police will be back tomorrow morning,” the volunteer said. “You should leave today. There’s a staff exit on the basement level. My car is there. I’ll take you.”

  One hour later, I was sitting in the backseat of a black Oldsmobile. It was unlike any car I’d ever been inside. It was so quiet, without the roar of muscle that Daddy loved to hear. And there was so much room. I looked at the floor of that backseat, and wondered how many five-year-olds could fit in it. At least two or three. Especially if they were like me and small for their age.

  We drove through town, past the scenic path that had nearly doomed me. Then the car turned onto a side road, narrow and winding. We twisted our way up and up and up. Until we were at the very top and I slid down in my seat.

  The volunteer opened my car door and helped me out. I stepped onto that firm mountain ground and looked around. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, or if it was safe to stay. I only knew one thing: I wished that you could see my view.

  Before I burned Black Snake trailer, I chose things for you. Each with a story. And each offering an excuse. Something I could hold up, maybe with anger or maybe just sadness, and say This is why…

  But that first day on the mountaintop, I reached for a brochure from a stack on the front porch. I looked at the snapshot, how it captured the view before me. The sky that rolled forever. Not just a ceiling of blue, but walls, too. And a floor like a blue rug pushing out from the land. In the middle of clouds rose a red castle built of perfect polished cedar. With odd, unpredictable angles that left me guessing what the rooms hid inside.

  I thought of books then. Growing up, I didn’t just hide the snacks bought with my free government lunch pass. I didn’t just hide whiskey in an old coke bottle. I hid books, too. Sometimes they were borrowed from my school library. Sometimes they were stolen from unzipped backpacks on the bus. And underneath those bacca leaves in summer, and hidden in cold barn corners come winter, a new life waited. I read anything I could find. Vacation guides, fairy tales, inspector novels, and biographies. I learned my right words from them, far more than from my teachers at school.

  Momma smacked me whenever I talked like my books. Whenever I said “I absolutely refuse” instead of saying “I ain’t gonna.”

  “Don’t you get prissy with me, Miss Smarty-pants. Think you get a few As in school and suddenly know more than your own momma?”

  So I hid the books. I made certain I talked like trailer trash. And I whispered my right words only to the bacca, only for you.

  Besides the good words, I studied pictures. Sometimes of castles in the clouds and royal feasts. “Nothin’ but lies,” Daddy said, if he happened to see me with a book. When he said that, he seemed fatherly. Like he believed he broke my heart. But what was lies to Daddy was mercy to me.

  I folded the brochure and tucked it in my pocket, not for excuse or explanation, but for the surprise it might bring you. Maybe y
ou thought you knew the paths and limits of this world. The ditches from the fields. The kingdoms from the trailers. I did, too, until I saw the mountaintop and realized there was a richness I’d never imagined. Or maybe you were like me, and thought mercy and lies were the same thing. Look, I dreamed of saying as I held the brochure up. A castle in the clouds just like in my books. Sometimes lies surprise you. Sometimes they turn true.

  I rang the bell. The old woman answered. She looked down at my backpack.

  “Is this all of your things?”

  “Yeah.”

  I tried to look her in the eyes as I spoke.

  Mr. Swarm told me once that I could spot a biting dog by whether it looked me in the eyes. He said a dumb friendly one, the kind that would hop in any farmhand’s truck, would lick my hand while staring at nothing in the distance. But a biting dog would look me in the eyes. Give a warning that he might be little, or even starving, but he could still hurt me.

  I was a baby when he said it. Watching him chase a stray dog out of the bacca. But I learned it. Practiced it like the survival lesson it was. From that day on, I looked people square in the eyes. Maybe I was a little girl. Or maybe I was a pretty young thing dancing in red high heels. I could still hurt you.

  But I could not hold the old woman’s gaze. The effort of trying embarrassed me. I brought my eyes up, and then down. Up, and then back down. Her eyes were too busy, in contrast to the stiff poise of her body. They weren’t hard, or cold, or even heavy with feeling. They were searching.

  “We require a uniform. One has already been delivered to your room. Other basic items, like a toothbrush and comb, I will send as well.”

  I nodded.

  “You will earn them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come, I will give you a tour of the house. And explain our rules.”