How It Happened in Peach Hill (7 page)

BOOK: How It Happened in Peach Hill
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“I think so.” Absolutely, certainly, just open the door.

“You’d best be off home, then,” she said, washing her hands of me. “Have a nice rest. We’ll see you in the morning.” Her smile couldn’t hide her hope that I would have a relapse and never again appear in room 102.

*   *   *

I had not expected to miss being an idiot, but even lurching aimlessly around town had been better than first grade. I felt no need to hurry home now. Mama didn’t have to know yet that she’d been right.

Sometimes I liked the leafy square and Bing’s Café and the bustle of business. And sometimes I liked the alleys that ran between the main streets in the town, paths to the back doors of the shops for deliveries and snoopers.

The bins behind the greengrocer’s stank of rotting vegetables. I paused at the Blue Boy Bakery, where warm air billowed out, smelling of fresh bread. I peeked in the back window of the Lucky Ladies Fashion Boutique, wondering if I would ever have cause to pass through its door, to bring home something nestled in pink tissue paper.

A moment later I heard a holler and a bang and then pounding footsteps. I was bumped to one side as somebody hurtled past. The baker’s boy ran toward me, shouting and waving his fists.

“It wasn’t me,” I said at once.

“Well, I know that,” he spat. “It’s the brat that comes every day. Every day, I swear, she sticks her paws through the door and swipes buns straight off the cooling rack. Every damn day.”

“I’d close the door, if I were you,” I said.

“No, you wouldn’t.” He looked scornful. “It’s hotter than hell in there. You’d curl up like a parched fish if you closed the door.” He kicked a garbage bin on his way back to work.

I crept farther down the alley, wondering where “she” had tucked herself. Aha! Behind Murray’s Hardware, she was
crouching next to crates of roofing shingle. She looked disarmed for only a flash, until I said, “I won’t tell.” She stood up with her hands on her hips, daring me somehow.

I’d guessed already, of course, though I hadn’t seen her since the day in the square when Sammy Sloane had first appeared. She wore the same shabby overalls, and her dark hair hung past her shoulders, shaggy and uncombed. She was nearly my age, I thought, but smaller than me, lean, almost bony. Her face was sharp, like a canny dog’s. There wasn’t the faintest friendly spark in her glare. She had a bun in each fist, with bites out of both.

“You do that so he can’t take them back if he finds you?” I asked. She took another bite.

“You hungry?” I said.

“None a yer business,” she said. I shrugged. She shrugged back and pushed past me. By the time I turned around, she was darting down the alley, two shops away, and then gone.

I dashed after her at once but couldn’t see where she’d left the alley. Beside the bakery or farther along? Out on Main Street, I saw a blur of denim and a hand snatching an apple from the pyramid outside Carlaw’s.

I leaned against a brick wall, catching my breath. Who was that girl? Aside from the sneakiest thief and the fastest runner I’d ever seen? I didn’t like to be outsneaked or outsmarted, and I vowed that it wouldn’t happen next time.

A kerfuffle arose outside the greengrocer’s. One of the clerks, wearing a white apron, waved his hands in the air while he spoke to a short policeman. The officer looked up and down the street, spotting me at once. The clerk jerked his finger in the opposite direction, where the thief had run,
but I didn’t wait to see whether he was listened to. I was a school-age girl hanging about for no good reason.

Without a second’s thought, I scooted into the park, across the square and up the stone steps of St. Alphonse, where the huge door stood open and welcoming. I peered behind me to see that I wasn’t being followed. But instead of venturing out just yet, I sniffed the incense and went inside.

I hadn’t spent much time in churches; I didn’t understand the secret ceremonies. But it seemed like the best place for a spirit calling I could think of, with the candlelight flickering, celestial voices humming, and pale, plump angels pictured all around. Just entering the eerie gloom, I felt as if I’d swallowed holiness and was on my way to the Other Side.

I sat on one of the gleaming pews and bent my head in case anyone was watching from some stone cranny off to the side. If I believed a prayer would be answered, what would I pray for?

A home of our own, perhaps? We should be able to get that with hard work, not by wasting a prayer.

To meet my father? Well, maybe. But there might be a good reason that Mama had never bothered to make that happen. To have my mother cup my face in her hands and tell me she loved me? That would require a full-blown miracle, the kind that people came to us for.

I wondered, on the way home, if Peg might have made a stew for supper, with rich, meaty gravy. Peg was a much better cook than either Mama or me. Mama favored suppers that didn’t involve cooking—plates of cheese and grapes, or Campbell’s Cream of Celery soup with crackers and a sliced
tomato. In Mama’s opinion, those new soups that arrived in cans, without anyone’s having to chop and boil for half a day, were the most glamorous addition to the modern kitchen. If I had been looking after myself, I would have eaten scrambled eggs every meal, with bacon or without. But Peg made real meals, with roasted meat and potatoes whipped with butter and green beans sliced sideways, which she called French. I was dreaming up the perfect dessert of peach cobbler when I opened the door and
bam!
Like characters in a terrible play, Mama and Mrs. Newman were standing in the hallway just as they’d been the day before at about the same time.

9
To prevent an unwelcome
guest from returning,
sweep out the room she
stayed in immediately
after she leaves.

“Well, there you are!” cried Mama. “Wherever did you disappear to? You’ve given us such a scare!” Danger swirled in the air like a mist. “Mrs. Newman tells me there was an incident at school. That you had a bad turn?”

Peg appeared at the kitchen door, her face showing relief as bright as lipstick.

“She played truant on her first day,” pronounced Mrs. Newman firmly.

“Annie, dear,” said Mama. “Come into the front room and sit down.” The room was spotless, ready for that evening’s calling. “I am expecting clients at any moment,” she told Mrs. Newman. “I am conducting a séance. There are several seekers coming to call on their loved ones who dwell beyond the Curtain of Death.”

“Your daughter was truant on her first day of school.”

Mama adjusted the lace at the window. “Well, naturally, I’m terribly worried about Annie.” Her smile was quite convincing. So real, in fact, that I knew she was gloating. If I’d left school after stubbornly insisting on going, then she’d won another round.

“She attacked a boy—an innocent six-year-old boy—and then fled from the school at the first opportunity.”

“I’m sure Annie didn’t intend to hurt the child, did you, darling?”

“That innocent six-year-old boy called me a smelly idiot, Mrs. Newman. And a big, ugly baboon.” I spoke with a tremble. “I’m very sensitive about my former condition and not quite used to being with other children yet. I did not mean to create a disturbance. The teacher forced me to stand in the corner—”

Mama shook her head in disgust.

“—and I felt a terrible dizziness coming on and—”

“Miss Carruthers did report that you fainted,” admitted Mrs. Newman.

“You fainted?” Mama repeated.

“All the more reason that your absence this afternoon has been noted as willful truancy,” said Mrs. Newman. “The faint was clearly a ploy to excuse—”

“I didn’t realize that I’d fainted,” I said slowly. Inspired by my moments inside St. Alphonse Church, I felt a new idea swelling within me. “I can’t even tell you where I’ve been. I haven’t noticed anything outside myself.”

Oh, such an idea!

“Where my body has been is a mystery. But my soul has
been transported!” Even Mama had never had an idea like this one. “I heard music, but it seemed I was enveloped in a dark shroud.”

“For four hours?” Mrs. Newman bit off her words as if they were a gingersnap.

“Mama!” I fell to my knees and buried my face in rose-colored chiffon. “Oh, Mama, I believe that I have been possessed by a spirit. She entered my mind and took control of my limbs. I seemed to be watching from a distant place as she took me on a remarkable journey.”

Mama shook her leg and pried me loose with her hands.

“Whatever are you babbling about?” All effort to be gentle and concerned had turned into irritation.

Mrs. Newman joined her. “This is the most ridiculous spewing of poppycock I have ever encountered! Get to your feet this instant, young lady!”

I tipped my head so that only Mama could see my face. I winked. The perfect partner, she rallied in an instant.

“Tell me again, Annie, dear,” she said. “Speak more slowly.”

“I received the spirit of a girl named Gwendalen,” I said. “I felt her slip into my body, as though I were a merino sweater. She told me she was born in 1214. Or, well, she didn’t exactly tell me, because she didn’t speak using words. She seemed to transfer her thoughts to me.…”

“Bosh!” said Mrs. Newman.

“She lives in a convent,” I continued. “She showed me scenes from her life, as though I were sitting at the moving pictures. Her father was very cruel and sent her away when
he could not find her a husband. She said that if I provide her with ink and parchment she’ll communicate through me to write down her story.”

“What utter nonsense!” snorted Mrs. Newman. “I have never encountered such drivel! Your imagination borders on insane. Missus—Madame—how can you put up with this?”

“It is not unheard of, Mrs. Newman,” said Mama quietly, “when there has been a cataclysmic occurrence such as the healing of my daughter, that other magnetic forces come into play. She could easily be a conduit! The living, breathing conduit for a spirit who is trapped between worlds.” Mama’s voice rose with excitement. “If this is the case, we can all rejoice! If Annie has been selected as a vessel of spiritual power, it is something to celebrate!

“Peg! Peg!” Mama began to shout.

Mrs. Newman’s mouth dropped open in a gape of disbelief. “Both of you,” she muttered. “Like mother, like daughter.” She stepped away from us, her hands up as if to fend off an attack.

“Yes’m?” Peg appeared from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel.

“Please find paper and a fountain pen in the drawer of my writing desk and bring them to the front room.”

“Yes’m.”

“You’re going to indulge your disobedient and truant daughter in this way?”

“Gwendalen said parchment, Mama.”

“This is absurd,” said Mrs. Newman.

“She likely didn’t have paper, darling heart,” said Mama. “In the twelve hundreds, did you say?”

There came a knock at the door.

“Oh!” cried Mama. “The callers are here already. Peg! Never mind the paper! Peg! Answer the door!”

“I’ll get it, Mama.” I stepped around Mrs. Newman and opened the door. Two young women were there, both wearing wool jackets with thick raccoon collars turned up. The sky had turned gray since I’d come in, and a blustery wind was blowing. Behind the ladies was Mr. Poole, smirking like a well-fed Persian cat. I glanced at Mama. Did she think he was handsome?

“Hello, Annie.”

“Come in,” I said. Peg bustled up to help with the coats.

“This is the miracle child,” Mr. Poole told his companions. “Observing her now, it’s hard to remember that she was no better than a drooling moron last week.”

If only I could arch my eyebrow like Mrs. Newman’s!

“I hope I have not offended you, my dear. It was none of your own doing. And now, you see? Here you are, greeting us like a perfect little hostess.”

“We’ve had the most thrilling thing happen,” gushed Mama. “Just this afternoon, it seems that my Annie has had the honor of becoming a vessel for a spirit caller.”

She was greeted with a trio of blank faces.

“There are rare occasions,” Mama said, trying to explain the unexplainable, “when a restless spirit seizes the chance to inhabit a living person and gives voice to centuries of wisdom and poetry—”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Poole. “Another marvel.”

“Please, step in,” I said.

“This is my wife’s niece, Claudia Weather,” said Mr.
Poole, putting his hand on the shoulder of the taller girl. Taller because her shoes had higher heels. She also wore too much rouge, like buttons painted on her cheeks. “Noisy,” my mother would say.

“Good evening, Miss Weather.” I bobbed a curtsey and backed up, trying to make room in the crowded hallway.

“This is Claudia’s good friend, Sylvia Torn, who lost her husband in the Great War. She’s visiting from Springfield.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.” We naturally had no file on someone from another town. Mama widened her eyes at me in a silent command; I had two minutes to extract something useful from her. “What a pretty ring,” I gushed. “Were you newlyweds?”

“We were married four months and nine days before he went overseas. In New Orleans. That’s where we were from.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“But I couldn’t bear to go back there after he died, so I’m trying out a new place. I just …” She shrugged. “I keep expecting to wake up and still be Buddy’s girl. I just can’t seem to get on with things.”

Mrs. Newman would not budge an inch the whole time Peg was taking the coats. It got to be awkward with her just standing there. I’d have to introduce her.

“This is Mrs. Newman,” I said. “Mr. Poole, Miss Weather, Mrs. Torn.”

“Will you be joining us for the calling, Mrs. Newman?” asked Mr. Poole.

“No,” I said.

“No,” said Mama.

“I don’t think—” said Mrs. Newman.

“Oh, please stay,” said Mr. Poole. “We would be delighted to extend the circle. If you haven’t seen Madame Caterina before, you must join us.” He was such a gentleman that she would have seemed downright rude to say no. “It’s sure to be a remarkable experience.”

Mrs. Newman smiled a half-smile and allowed Peg to take her coat too; her thin woolen coat without a trace of fur, not even rabbit, on the collar.

BOOK: How It Happened in Peach Hill
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