Kathryn Magendie (22 page)

“Then we’ll go to the tent.”

“You stay with Mama while I go.”

Cold fingers fisted my stomach. Stay here with Miss Mae? With her so sick and acting crazy, with a shotgun somewhere around? Maybe it was under her pillow, or in the closet, and was it loaded, ready to blast my guts out? Or if not that, what if she did something really weird? Like running out naked again, off into the woods where I couldn’t find her? Mother’s warnings rushed up to me. I said, “Those pills help her to sleep. You could give her extra so she’d sleep while we were gone.”

She checked the tea, put the towel back over it. “Well . . . ”

“If we go together, then you won’t be alone.”

“But Mama will.”

“But you leave her by herself all the time.”

“Never this sick before. And she never went out without no clothes on.”

“Well, that tent’s way off past the ice cream shop.”

She stomped her foot. “I don’t know about no ice cream!”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. Things have changed even in the last few months. They’ve built stuff and opened new places and all kinds of stuff.”

Sweetie took the towel off the tea. “My brain is full of cotton and clouds.” She reached into a cupboard for a cup, then stopped, said, as if talking to herself, “Seems I recollect Mama telling me about a healer come through town long back when she was a girl. Cured her own mama of the bad stomach and made another woman’s skin stop itching and welling up with sores and pus, and one man had hiccups for three months straight and after the healer his hiccups was gone.” She rubbed her right eye. “I hadn’t thought of that in a long while. Grandpaw said it was all a bunch of hen’s pecking after seed that wasn’t there.” She took the cup and put it on the counter, poured the tea.

“All that sounds weird to me.”

“You thought my magic tea was weird at first, right?” Sweetie took a small sip of the tea, then said, “I been studying on it and one day I’ll be a Granny Woman. I will. But I guess I’m not ready yet. Or else Momma’d be well.”

“Mother’s friend said those tent people talk weird and fall on the floor wiggling around.”

While reaching for the honey, Sweetie knocked over a bowl of blackberries. She stared at the berries rolling onto the floor, then said, “Well, shit-fire.”

I picked up berries, thinking of what to do that would mean I didn’t have to stay with Miss Mae. I put the berries on the counter.

Sweetie was grinding up pills with a spoon. “This is the last of them pills.” She poured half the pill dust into the cup. “I been trying to make them last.” She added a little more to the cup. “I think that’ll do it.”

The tea was nasty looking.

 
“I’ll go see what’s what even if I got to eat a snake’s head off or dance and talk craziness. It’s for Mama.”

I couldn’t decide which was worse—staying here with Miss Mae, or going to some tent where people might be falling on the floor and talking crazy and eating snake’s heads off. All of a sudden, I wanted my Father. I wanted to smell his shirts when he’d been outside in the sunshine, wanted him to tell me how the world was structured and how everything had a scientific answer. I wanted to be in my room with my stuffed animals. I wanted Mother to lecture me on manners. I wanted to be plain old Melissa again. It was all too much.

She picked up the tea. “Grandpaw didn’t like how them preachers pass around the hat asking for money from poor people. He said people shouldn’t have to pay they’s way to heaven when they don’t got two nickels to slam together for meat.”

“Sounds like my grandmother.”

She put the cup on a tray and stood before me. “What you think, Lissa?”

I felt important. “I think you have to try it. If it doesn’t work, at least you tried. Didn’t you say your mother loved God and Jesus and all that?”

She nodded.

“Well, then maybe that’ll be enough to help her.”

She nodded again, headed to her mother’s door and went inside.

I heard her mother say, “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
Stop it
.
Get away from me
. You’re trying to kill me! Where’s Mathew? Mathew! Mathew!”

Sweetie’s voice was soft, gentle. “Mama, drink it down. It will help you rest. Mama? This here’s me. Your girl. Your daughter. Sweet Mama. Sweet Mama.”

I couldn’t hardly stand it.

She came out, put down the tray.

“Who’s Matthew?” I asked.

“I do not know.” She turned to me. “I made up my mind. I got something to ask Mama’s God and the Mountain Spirit together. I figured a way to help Mama.” She seemed to grow taller. “You show me where that healer tent is. You’re right; it’ll be faster.” She went to the front door, grabbed her boots, and sat to put them on. As she laced the right one, she said, “I never had trouble finding nothing ever before. But I got to stop being ornery and trust my bound sister.”

I nodded.

She laced the other boot, and then stood up. “I will see about her real quick and then we best get moving on. The extra pills will help her sleep longer, I reckon.”

While she checked on her mother, from the window I watched a cardinal fly from branch to branch.

Behind me I heard, “Mama’s sleeping so good.”

She touched the bracelet I made her, glanced back at the closed door where her mother lay, then squared her shoulders. “You are the town person just like I am the mountain person. I showed you through the mountains, now you show me through the town.”

I hesitated. “Are you sure, Sweetie?”

“I got to learn to trust my friend sometimes, right?”

We hurried out the door. But as we went through the woods, I questioned again whether I should have tried harder to tell her where the tent was and stayed with Miss Mae. She’d asked me to take care of Sweetie, to help her, and that’s what I was doing. I couldn’t help but feel full of importance that I could lead Sweetie. For once, I was in charge, I was the one who knew the way.

The worst part of it was the deeper secret part that I tried not to let scald up my throat. I didn’t like the hidden part. Didn’t like how it thick-oozed inside of me, making me queasy.

The hidden secret part inside me said,
I have to see. What will Sweetie do? What’s all this healer stuff? Will they dance with snakes
?
Or faint on the floor?
What’s going to happen?
My secret thoughts became a hard knot inside my stomach.

The hard knot made a twin. It divided itself just as cells do. The twin knot said I was scared. Scared that if I stayed with Miss Mae, I wouldn’t know what to do when she screamed and rolled around in bed and thought I was trying to poison her. What if she went crazy and shot me like T.J. said? I hated the twin hard knots, hated how they sat heavy inside me. I told myself Sweetie’s mother would be fine, but as we ran though the woods, my stomach rolled the hard knots around while my head pounded with every step I took.

When I stopped to catch my breath, Sweetie didn’t fuss at me. We splashed creek water on our necks. I said, “I don’t get why the preacher said they can heal her when she’s not coming with us.”

“He said I was the cause of her sickness.”

“Oh.”

“I got to trade Even Steven between me and Mama. I’ll take her hurt, and she’ll take what I got. Then she won’t hurt no more. I got to give up my powerful magic for Mama.”

“But then you’ll hurt. Everything will be different for you.”

She grabbed my arm, and pulled me. “No more rest. We got to go.”

My sides were splitting open and my throat hurt from breathing so hard. I thought about what she said. She’d give up her magic, feel all the pain again and all the other things she said she didn’t want to happen to her, just so her mother would be well. Would I do something like that? My answer rushed up like vomit.

When we were to the bottom of the mountain, where the grass met the road, Sweetie stopped and looked around. She looked afraid, and my important feelings rose up again. I wasn’t afraid, not in town. I said, “It’s okay, Sweetie. We’ll stay back behind the houses and buildings and keep away from everyone.”

“I am not scared.” She put her shoulders back.

We threaded through yards, past the ice cream shop, past the pancake place, past barking dogs, past the big amusement park way up in the sky, past a few curious stares. At the edge of town, right before the tent came into view, I heard singing and tambourine playing. “You hear that, Sweetie?” I pointed through the trees. “It’s right through there.”

Her marble-eyes searched mine and looked deep inside my heart. She took off while I stared after her, feeling as if my stupid selfish self should be swallowed up by the ancient mountain dirt underneath my tired feet. She knew about the twin hard knots inside of me.

Even then, I didn’t run back to Sweetie’s cabin to look after her mother. I let the twin hard knots bubble up to my throat and I burped the sour. I had to see what she’d do. I had to see what would happen. I hurried through the trees after her.

I had to see.

TWENTY

The gray-white tent was as big as Sweetie’s cabin. It stretched across the field, just out of the edge of town. The license plates on the cars were from other states, along with some from
North Carolina
, and there were also people walking down the road. Outside the tent, I listened to the people inside singing about blood of the lamb. When I felt brave enough—I kept thinking about the Cowardly Lion and how afraid he was to see the Wizard no matter how far they’d traveled the yellow brick road to do it and how he finally went inside and the wizard was nothing but a little old man—I went inside.

The Methodist churches Mother used to take me to were quiet and stuffy. When Grandmother Rosetta stopped being Catholic, she went to a church by a pond. She said it gave her a peaceful feeling every Sunday. I went with her once. It was a little building on a hill overlooking the pond where swans swam around dipping their beaks into the water. One of the swans was different from the others, black with a red beak. I liked him the best. The church there wasn’t any one kind of religion, but lots of them, or none of them at all, everyone mixed together.

The tent church was loud and smelled like sweat, perfume, hot hay, cigarette smoke, and old lady powder. Some of the people were dressed up, but many of them were in regular clothes or maybe work clothes. Some had their hats in their hands, turning it over and over with nervous fingers. People sat on metal chairs that were placed right on the ground. It was hot and stuffy inside, and some of the women fanned themselves with fans from funeral homes with a picture of Jesus knocking on a door. Some had big black Bibles, and others little white ones. Some stood with their hands raised up in the air, swaying and singing. I didn’t see any snakes, so far.

Mother’s friend Beula had said not many town people would come. Her friend Margaret said that Reverend Seth was shifty, and that he cared more about the money on the plate than he did his soul in the fire. And then the ladies’ club hens pecked about how he spent too much time and money on the races and thought no one knew. When Mother and the women had seen me standing in the doorway, they’d shut up their clucking about the preacher and pecked instead over the snacks they’d had at Pitty-Sue’s house and how her bread was always stale.

I walked down the middle aisle towards a platform at the other end of the tent, where four men and a woman stood. One of the men was the preacher. Sweetie once told me that he looked at her as if he were scared of her or wanted to hit her, and all she ever did was be a kid. I didn’t like him. Even though he did look grandfatherly and he was a preacher, his eyes looked as though he had bad thoughts squirming in there.

Someone called out, “A-
men
, Reverend Seth!”

It was the other man who grabbed my attention more than Reverend Seth. He wore a white robe, white shoes, and had a big wood cross around his neck. He was bald, and his skin was so white, it almost matched his robe. Creepy chills crept up my spine. I figured he had to be the healer Sweetie talked about. Off to the side by a curtain, two other men in dark suits stood with their arms crossed over their chests. They looked like mean guard dogs as they watched the woman on the platform.

The woman had her arms by her sides, her head thrown back. Reverend Seth stood behind her. The pale man with the cross stood in front of her. He held his palm up to the woman, and said, “Thy affliction will be taken from thee by the will of God, through me.” He lowered his hand and kissed the wood cross. Then he opened the Bible and began reading from it.

I tore my eyes from the sights and looked for Sweetie. She stood off to the side of the platform, in front of the steps that led up to it. I hurried to her, asked, “What’s happening?”

She looked as though she was off in another world where I didn’t matter.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before. Ever.”

She turned towards me, and her breath raged in and out of her, so hot I worried she had fever. Pale white blood cells marching marching,
onward Christian soldiers
 . . . someone was singing.

“What’s wrong with the woman?”

Sweetie turned her blank face back to the stage.

“The pale man gives me the creepy crawlies,” I said.

Someone behind me said, “He calls himself a
healer
.”

I turned around to see a man spit on the floor, then he said, “All these here people are listening to ever-thang he says like he’s God hisself. Hit’s disgraceful. You’uns better keep your money in your pockets and run on home.” He turned and walked away, slamming his hat on his head, then out the tent he went.

I turned back to the platform. The healer had stopped reading and had stepped up to the woman and raised his palm again.

Sweetie stared, her chest rising and falling fast, her hands clenched in fists.

The healer put his hand on the woman’s forehead, and when he pushed, she swayed back into Reverend Seth’s arms. When Reverend Seth laid her down on the floor, she jerked around, and then lay still. Other than a crying baby, it was quiet until the woman on the floor rose onto her knees, raised her arms, and cried out, “Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus! I’m healed! I’m healed!” Then she began spouting off words that made no sense, and some of the others in the tent did the same.

The tent exploded with clapping, singing, and Amen-ing.

The healer raised his wooden cross, waved it in front of the woman, and then kissed it again. The crowd grew quiet. The pale man said, “Her affliction has left her because of her strong faith, and my connection to Him.”

The people shouted and Amen-ed some more.

Reverend Seth stood at the edge of the platform with his hands held out. “Brothers and Sisters. Hush. Hush now. You have witnessed the healing of Mrs. Georgia Marie St. Cloud. Her demons have left her. A-
Men
.”

“Amen!”

“We are all one in the Lord.” Reverend Seth took a small Bible from his pocket. “The Good Book tells us to thank the Lord for all he does. So I want each and every one of you to thank the Lord by giving. You see the gentlemen passing around the hats? Empty your pockets as you fill your souls. A-
Men
.” He grinned about the tent, then said, “As I told my followers, I have a
special
healing tonight. Many of you have caught wind of it and come to witness, as evidenced by our full tent!” He shot his eyes over to Sweetie and then back to the people. “Yes, I knew this would draw a
full house
 . . . to the Lord.”

I looked back, there stood my neighbor. Mr. Tanner saw me, and shouted out, “Hey! Your parents wouldn’t want you in here. Get yourself on home, you hear?”

I smiled at him, shrugged, and turned to say something to Sweetie, but she was already on her way up the stairs to the platform. Reverend Seth looked down at her and smiled a smile sweeter than the syrup I poured on my pancakes. The healer looked over at Sweetie and smiled just as Reverend Seth had, except worse. I didn’t like those grins, they reminded me of T. J.’s when he thought up a new way to torture me or some other victim.

Sweetie went straight up to the pale healer and stood in front of him. She said something I couldn’t hear.

An old woman near me said, “Who’s that now?”

Her friend said, “That’s the child Reverend Seth talked about.”

“Oh! Glory be!”

“A-men to that.”

“He said she’s been touched by the devil.”

“Oh, poor child. Praise Jesus!”

I wanted to tell them how wrong they were, but I had to watch Sweetie.

The healer faced the audience. “Flocks of Our Lord, we have a special, special daughter here today. God has sensed a need and he has provided. Here, right in front of us.”

Reverend Seth put his hands on Sweetie’s shoulders and turned her to face the crowd.

She looked down at me, frowned, shook off the preacher’s hands, and turned back to the healer.

The healer said, “Brothers and Sisters, you will witness today the powerful hand of God through me.” The healer went to Reverend Seth and clapped him on the back. “Reverend Seth here has told me how this young woman has been branded by God with a
strange
affliction.”

The tent became very quiet. Not even the baby cried.

Sweetie swung around to Reverend Seth. “I come to heal my mama like you said. Now you talk to God and tell him what I want so Mama will not die.”

Reverend Seth said, “If you act out, God will leave us and your mama won’t get well, now will she?”

The healer raised his cross. “Lord God on High! See this child’s need! Heal this child’s affliction!”

Sweetie turned to the healer and said something, but her words were lost as the crowd prayed.

I waved my hands in the air. “Sweetie! Sweetie!”

She stood in front of the healer. Through the crowd’s prayers, I heard pieces of what she said, “ . . . didn’t . . . to tell ever-body . . . my mama . . . Even Steven . . .mountain spirit and God . . . ”

The healer took Sweetie by the arm, and shouted, “Yes, my friends of Our Lord! This child will be healed!”

“Not me! Mama!” Sweetie shouted. “She has to be healed. I
am not
sick!”

The healer crooked his finger and the two giant men slinked out of the shadows and grabbed Sweetie. Sweetie tried to jerk away.

The healer continued, “She has an affliction such as never been seen amongst us. God marked her. Let her affliction be a warning! Let her healing be witness to God’s almighty power!”

Sweetie kicked at the men, but she may as well have been kicking two stumps. Her face turned purple as she screamed, “You nasty bastards! You assholes! Let me go, you stinking shitters!”

The healer pointed his finger. “She bellows like Satan!” He kissed the cross and turned back to the crowd, pushing his palms at them to quiet the noise. “Her mother prayed for the soul of her daughter, to no availing. Prayed for a healing. Alas, her faith was not strong enough.”

Reverend Seth said, “That’s right. She told me all about the child’s
secret name
that cannot be spoken—heathen talk! From a heathen old woman who used magic from the devil and passed it to this poor innocent child!”

The crowd was quiet.

Sweetie stopped her mad kicking and screaming, and stared at Reverend Seth like a wounded and trapped animal. She shouted, “Who told you? Mama wouldn’t tell! She wouldn’t!” But when Sweetie turned to me, her eyes said she knew her mother would tell, if that meant saving the soul of her daughter.

I turned to the tent people, put out my hands. “Someone help her.” Their eyes stayed fixed on the platform. I looked for Mr. Tanner, but he was no longer there.

A man said, “They ain’t using no snakes? Well, Shee-it.”

A red-haired woman turned to me and said, “Shush, hon. It’ll be all right.”

I couldn’t be the Cowardly Lion. I had to be brave, like Sweetie was. I ran up the stairs to her. “Sweetie! Sweetie!” A third guard-dog man appeared out of the shadows and grabbed me. I whipped my head around, back and forth, at Sweetie, at the healer, at the crowd, and at the big hands holding me so I couldn’t go to my friend. I yelled again, “Sweetie!”

Sweetie had spit coming out of her mouth, and her hair was flying wild around her head as she fought. She turned her furious eyes on Reverend Seth. She arched her back. “Let me be! Where’s God? Where is he? God, if you are real, then you get down here!”

The healer said, “See how she fights. Satan has been tormenting this poor child. Look at the marks upon her pitiful little body!”

The tent people said, “Oh yes . . . Amen . . . Poor child.” Their voices melted together, louder, faster, bigger, electrifying the hot damp air inside the tent.