Lingering Echoes

by Angie Smibert

  Will looked away. Bone felt lower than dirt.

  “But I got an idea.”

  His eyes snapped back to her.

  “Write down all the things you miss hearing down in the mines. Sunday after church, we’ll hunt us up some sounds to put in that jar.”

  3

  THE NEXT MORNING, Ruby walked to school with the Little Jewels. Not that Bone minded. Much. She had the boys in school and Will after supper. She hoped he wouldn’t press her again to read that dang jar, at least until they’d had a chance to experiment with it. Mamaw said Bone needed to keep trying out her Gift on ordinary objects—but that jar wasn’t ordinary by a long shot. Maybe she just had to see the jar in action for herself. Maybe she ought to talk to Mamaw about it.

  The morning dragged on with lessons on the times tables for the fifth graders. Sixth and seventh graders worked on their own math problems. Ruby finished before everyone else and sat staring at the board. Bone’s mind kept drifting to the jelly jar as she worked out angles. She finished last.

  Then, history got interesting. Miss Johnson’s lesson on World War I was interrupted not once but twice by outbursts from Ruby, of all people. She laughed a little too loudly at something Robbie said. And she answered back when Miss Johnson shushed her. Ruby shut her mouth once she had earned chalkboard duty for a week. She’d have to stay after school to clean the boards and erasers in both classrooms—and do whatever else the teachers asked her to do.

  Bone suspected Ruby had done it on purpose. She’d thrown Bone a little glance as they all headed out for lunch. She wouldn’t be in a hurry to get home to Aunt Mattie neither.

  At the picnic table, Bone slid into her seat under the big sugar maple. She pulled a fried chicken wing (her favorite), two biscuits, and a small jelly jar of apple butter out of her paper sack. The jar was cool to the touch. Bone closed her eyes and concentrated, but she couldn’t pick up nary a whiff of story. Not even a hint of Mrs. Price packing it in her lunch. This jar was perfectly ordinary, and maybe even new. Would she have picked up something more if Mama had packed it?

  “Bone!” Jake pounded the picnic table with a laugh. “Wake up!”

  Bone’s eyes shot open. She’d almost forgotten where she was. “Those math problems about put me to sleep,” she said.

  “Tell us that story about Jack and the mule and the outhouse again,” Clay demanded, his mouth already full of ham sandwich. “That’s a swell prank.” He winked at Jake.

  “Yeah but they don’t have an outhouse, genius.” Jake peeled his hard-boiled egg.

  “And we don’t have a mule neither.” Clay looked wistful. “Remember when Cliff and Carmen took the gates off the cemetery?”

  That prank was legendary. The oldest Whitaker brothers took the heavy iron gates off the church cemetery—and swapped them with the wooden gate in front of the parsonage. Aunt Mattie had been hopping mad. Uncle Henry thought it was a hoot. Nobody figured out how Cliff and Carmen did it, and it took five grown men to put the gates back where they belonged.

  “Yeah, your brothers were master pranksters,” Jake said reverently. “One year they stole about every mailbox on the river road.”

  Bone remembered that one. When everyone got to school, they found all those mailboxes stacked up inside the johnny house. Bone had been in second grade. Mama had died earlier in the year, and finding the outhouse crammed with mailboxes had made Bone (and everyone else) laugh themselves silly.

  “We should really do something,” Clay said, looking at Bone. “For them.”

  “What are you fools talking about?” Bone asked. She had a strong hunch, though, what they wanted.

  “We’re just talking, mind you.” Jake pointed the egg at her as he replied.

  “We got to do something on Halloween. A prank. Soaping some windows or throwing some eggs. Something,” Clay pleaded.

  “And we know it ain’t fair to Ruby or the preacher, but …” Jake shrugged.

  “For Cliff and Carmen,” Clay said in a hushed voice. He bowed his head.

  “And you.” Jake leaned in. “She almost baptized the life right out of you, Bone,” he whispered angrily.

  “We ain’t forgot that,” Clay said, looking up.

  Bone choked back the taste of iron-cold bathwater and burning anger rising in her throat. She pressed a finger to her lips as Ruby and the Little Jewels appeared right behind the boys.

  “The boys are right,” Ruby said—not in a whisper. “She deserves a prank, a good one, come Halloween night.”

  Jake and Clay slid apart to make room for Ruby. Pearl and Opal exchanged worried glances before they sat down beside Bone. She struggled to open the little jelly jar full of apple butter. Mrs. Price had sealed it up tight.

  “You know they’re talking about Aunt Mattie, right? Your own mother,” Bone whispered. She whacked the lid of the jar on the table. The pressure popped, and Bone unscrewed the lid. She was still torn. More than anything, she wanted to plaster Aunt Mattie with rotten eggs. But it didn’t seem right on account of Uncle Henry. And Bone couldn’t imagine, if she were Ruby, wanting to hurt her own mother like that. Bone would do anything to have her mama back. Still, Aunt Mattie was the reason Mama was gone. She broke open a biscuit.

  Ruby ignored her. “What did you have in mind?” she asked the boys. Clay was grinning ear to ear now.

  The boys and Ruby quickly settled on egging as both the easiest and most satisfying prank. They could all collect a few eggs over the next two weeks or so without arousing suspicion. Most folks kept some chickens or traded with somebody who did.

  “Mamaw has a coop,” Ruby said, looking at Bone.

  Bone crossed her arms. She still wasn’t quite convinced. Nearly. But not quite. Her insides churned like hot apple butter over a fire. Why couldn’t they just enjoy Halloween without getting all twisted up about it? Bone took a deep breath, which only cooled off her insides a smidge.

  “Come Halloween night, we’ll all sneak out about ten o’clock and meet across from the rectory. Right?” Ruby glared at Opal and Pearl until they nodded. Then she picked up her lunch and moved to the next table. The Little Jewels followed.

  “Well if that don’t beat all,” Jake said.

  “Who’d’a thunk it?” Clay let out a low whistle.

  Bone understood why Ruby was mad at Mattie. Mostly. Aunt Mattie could be awful hard on Ruby. The idea of coating that lily-white rectory in an egg wash of yellow had its appeal, right or not. It would wipe the smug look right off Aunt Mattie’s ugly face. Bone slathered a biscuit with apple butter and stuffed it in her mouth.

  “She has her reasons,” Bone finally said, after about choking on the biscuit. Uncle Henry had a kind word for everyone. “But it still don’t make it right.” She slapped the lid back on the jar and twisted it shut tight.

  Clay looked heartbroken.

  “Maybe we can think of a better prank,” Bone added. “Something big like what your brothers did.”

  Clay grinned. Jake slapped the table. “Now you’re talking! We need to think bigger!”

  “How about another scary story?” Clay asked.

  Bone told them about how a young Jack, who was just coming home from the wars, beat three little devils in a poker game and won himself a house.

  That evening, the field crickets trilled in the yard, a lingering echo of summer. Bone closed her eyes, listening to their song. She and Will sat on the back porch step, bathed in the warm breeze of an Indian summer night. All-hallown summer, Miss Johnson had called it at supper. That was from Shakespeare. It meant a second, brief summer right around Halloween. And it was almost Halloween.

  Halloween was great fun, but it was also the dividing line between the lighter and darker halves of the year. Or at least that’s what Mamaw said. Summer and fall were warm and bright. Come November, though, everything faded and shriveled up, becoming cool and gray.

  Will slid a note across the porch step to her.

  Trains, baseball, and your stories.

  Thos
e were sounds he missed. Bone sipped her plain ice tea as she read. It was hard to get down at first without the sugar, kind of like the thought of the jelly jar Will held in his lap. “Let’s start with something easy.”

  He unscrewed the lid and held the jar up to her like a microphone. Charlie McCarthy told a joke, and the audience laughed. A child quietly spoke, followed by a man’s whisper.

  Bone shook her head violently. The jar called to her, but the teensy hairs on her neck bristled and her arm went all gooseflesh and her throat seized up. This jar was nothing to fool with. She wasn’t sure they should even touch it, let alone try to catch sounds. She pushed Will’s arm away, careful not to touch the jar. Still, she saw a flash of a young Will. The older Will quickly replaced the lid.

  “I meant the train,” Bone said finally, finding her voice again. “You can’t help hearing them around here.” Trains rattled along both sides of the river several times a day, stopping to pick up loads of coal at the various mines in the area.

  Will nodded. Then he got out his pad and scribbled a question.

  Did you see something just now?

  Bone took a long drink of tea before she answered. “You were holding the jar as a kid.” That’s all she’d really seen, but she felt like there was more to it.

  Probably helping Mama pack his dinner.

  “Uh-huh,” Bone replied, not quite convinced that was it. She could swear the young Will had been wearing his Sunday best. The mines never ran on Sunday. She polished off the rest of her tea. “I’ll meet you at Flat Woods after church.”

  Will slurped down the rest of his tea, too, before he left.

  Bone remained on the porch steps, waiting to drink in the summery choir of insects again. But the only sound left was Will’s boots crunching along the dry ground toward his house.

  The crickets were silent.

  Summer was truly gone.

  Farewell, all-hallown summer.

  4

  IN SCHOOL THE next day, Bone crossed her arms and glared eyes front as a guest speaker stood before the class. Her belly burned, and she could taste iron. It was Aunt Mattie. Ruby turned her back to talk to Robbie.

  “Mrs. Albert is here to tell us about a new scrap drive,” Miss Johnson said as she stepped aside.

  Aunt Mattie was the queen of scrap drives. She was always holding them at the baseball games. Baseball season was over, though.

  Aunt Mattie didn’t look in Bone’s or Ruby’s direction. She was wearing a prim black suit that hung on her bony frame. And she had dark circles under her eyes that no makeup could hide.

  Bone uncrossed her arms.

  Aunt Mattie cleared her throat. “Eighteen tons of metal goes into one tank.” She glanced around the classroom and then checked the piece of paper she clutched in front of her. “And 252 lawn mowers can be turned into an antiaircraft gun.”

  Bone sat up straight, too. She’d heard Aunt Mattie rattle off these figures before when she collected scrap at the baseball games. But after listening to Mr. Roosevelt talk about the home front, Bone allowed that her aunt might have something important to say.

  “The other night the president said that women and kids can help win the war at home. How do we that? Collecting metal! We can turn junk into bullets, guns, tanks, and even ships. Tell your mothers that there’s ammunition in their kitchens!” She went on to explain that the Superior Anthracite Company was sponsoring a contest to see which mining community could collect the most scrap. Superior was the company that owned most of the mines in the area. She also went over all the types of metal junk they wanted, from old pots and pans to car parts and metal fences.

  Jake poked Bone in the back. “Got another idea for a prank,” he whispered.

  Bone and Clay both shushed him. Daddy was fixing to go over there, and he could sure use all the tanks or antiaircraft guns he could get. Bone seized upon the idea. She could collect enough scrap to keep Daddy safe.

  “All the scrap you gather should be taken over to Centennial Ballpark before November 1,” Aunt Mattie concluded. “Oh, and the 4-H Club will also be collecting tin cans. Ruby will be in charge of that.”

  Ruby popped up to stand beside her mother. “Our club will be going door-to-door on Halloween to collect tin cans. They should be washed and the label removed.”

  “And flattened,” Aunt Mattie added.

  Ruby bristled. “And, as I was going to say, flattened. Then we’ll take the flattened cans over to the ballpark the next day.” Ruby walked back to her desk, tightlipped, and didn’t even look in Aunt Mattie’s direction when she was leaving.

  Jake poked Bone in the back again. “Can I tell y’all my idea now?”

  Bone turned around.

  “What if we get those big iron cemetery gates and put them in the scrap drive?” Jake looked enormously pleased with himself.

  “You mean like a prank?” Clay asked. He had a gleam in his eye.

  “They would make a good part of a tank,” Bone said. She doubted they could budge the gates, let alone get them to the ballpark, but she was game to try. It was better than egging the parsonage. “Maybe we could pull up some of the fencing, at least. It ain’t as heavy.”

  Ruby whirled around in her seat. “We’re still egging the parsonage!” she hissed. She looked to Bone for support.

  “Well,” Bone said. “We might not have time to do both—and the gates are a better prank,” she added, looking at Clay.

  Ruby turned around in a huff, but Clay was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “Hot dog!” Jake said.

  Bone wasn’t sure they could pull off the prank, but the idea of the scrap drive was tugging at her. “Why don’t y’all come over Saturday, and let’s see what else we can scare up for the scrap drive. We can check out the gates, too.” She whispered the last part.

  Clay and Jake both nodded their heads vigorously.

  Miss Johnson cleared her throat.

  Bone turned right around and clamped her mouth shut. She did not want to join Ruby after school. Especially now.

  5

  IN THE BIG stuffy attic of the boardinghouse, Bone sat staring at the boxes. Downstairs, Mrs. Price was baking pumpkin pies while she listened to the Saturday morning farm report. The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg came up through the floorboards and mixed with the musty smells of the attic. The Phillips boxes only took up a corner under the eaves. Daddy had sold most of the furniture from their old house—except for a few things that were Grandma Eugenia’s. An old chest of drawers and a little table Great-granddaddy Oakley made were tucked in between the boxes and the wall. It wasn’t a lot. Dust was thick on what little they had.

  Bone blew the dust off the first box. Across the top in Daddy’s crooked-y handwriting it said, Willow’s Clothes. Daddy was saving them for Bone, she knew. The box was freshly taped shut. The tape on this box hadn’t yellowed like on the others. Mrs. Price had already made a Sunday dress or two for Bone out of Mama’s old ones. And this is probably where Daddy had kept the butter-yellow sweater Bone wore now. She was tempted to open the box and run her fingers through the fabric—and the memories. But the yellow sweater already had enough of those, and it doled them out even if she didn’t ask for them.

  It was almost like Mama was there, watching over her shoulder.

  Almost.

  Almost was not the real thing.

  The attic’s pumpkin pie–scented warmth began to press in on Bone. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she wiped it off on her sleeve.

  Bone opened the box marked Bone’s Room instead. Inside, she found mostly baby things—like booties—and clothes she’d worn when she was four or five. Bone plucked out a metal rattle. There was also an ugly-as-sin windup metal clown that had scared her as a baby. That could definitely go. She pulled out a small metal horse. In a flash, she could see herself as a tiny tot galloping that horse around the house. Pinto, she’d called it, because once upon a time it was painted that way, with a large splotch of white across its chestnut coat. She ha
d been a cowboy named Bill chasing rustlers who’d taken his cattle. Bone set Pinto aside. The other things she tossed into the empty box she’d brought with her.

  At the bottom of the box filled with baby clothes was a bucket. Bone pulled it out. It was the size of a small mop bucket, but it was white. The sides were painted with blue and purple elephants. Bone didn’t remember seeing this at all. She ran a finger over the elephants. They seemed familiar. Closing her eyes, she saw Mama painting them. A storybook was propped up on the table. Bone did remember Mama reading to her from this book. She’d loved the story. Mama was making Bone a sand bucket like the one Ruby had gotten at Virginia Beach. Only hers was small and had a seagull on it. The bucket also came with a tiny red shovel. Bone had wanted one, too, but Daddy said they couldn’t afford to go to the beach.

  “It’s still an old mop bucket,” Aunt Mattie had sniffed over Mama’s shoulder.

  Mama put down the brush. “You don’t think she’ll like it?” She pushed back a long strand of blond hair and wiped her forehead, leaving a streak of blue elephant paint behind.

  Aunt Mattie just shrugged. “Ruby wouldn’t.”

  Bone could feel the doubt creeping like cool water into Mama. She kept on painting, though, as Mattie sailed out of the room in her crisp wool suit.

  She’d never given the pail to Bone. On account of Aunt Mattie.

  Everything bad was on account of Aunt Mattie.

  Sweat rolled down Bone’s face in earnest now. The attic was getting hotter and hotter, closing in on her. Yet she felt this hollow ache inside.

  Bone tossed the bucket toward the attic door. The clatter echoed in the room. She felt a tiny bit better.

  “Whoa there, Forever Girl.” Uncle Ash poked his head up through the door as the bucket rolled by him. “I see you found some ammunition.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “Just some old toys,” Bone muttered. It wasn’t much to make a tank out of. Then she spotted her tricycle tucked under the table.

  “And this,” she added as she pulled out the trike. She got a flash of Daddy tightening the bolts and painting it cherry red before he slid it under the Christmas tree. The paint was flaking, and the tires were flat now, but at least she could keep Daddy a little safer with it.