Kathryn Magendie (25 page)

I padded to my room and put on my slippers, giving myself time to control my face. When I went into the living room, they were having cocktails, as if nothing at all had happened. I had an anger build up in my chest and push outward until I thought my heart would explode and spray the walls with blood and guts and bits of heart. My anger was bigger than the mountains that rose up all around us. Bigger than would fit inside of me. I burned with it, and I let it stay hot and heavy inside so I wouldn’t be afraid to sneak out and find my bound-sister if she didn’t come to me.

Mother looked at me. “Dinner will be sandwiches tonight. I wasn’t up to cooking.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Now, Melissa. Let’s put all this behind us. We’re family,” Father said.

I turned and left them to their cocktails and lies, and went to bed.

They didn’t know what was inside of me. They only knew what they thought they always saw.

TWENTY-THREE

I fell asleep waiting for Father to quit typing and go to bed. I dreamed Sweetie was calling to me as she ran through the forest. I ran through the woods, telling her to stay where she was so I could find her, but her cries became farther and farther away, until all I heard was a tiny whisper on the wind. It was dark in my dream and I ran faster and faster, until I ran right off the side of the mountain. I was in the air, still pumping my legs like in the cartoons, screaming for Sweetie to save me. My legs jerked in my sleep and I woke. Everything flashed back in that instant. I jumped from the covers and looked out into the night.

It was still and quiet as I put on my brother’s jeans and old cotton t-shirt. The jeans were looser than ever, and I cinched his belt on the last notch. Peter’s boots were a bit too big, but I’d stuffed newspaper in the toes so they’d fit me. His clothes smelled like the Old Spice he used to wear and I almost cried with missing him. Only on Thanksgiving and Christmas would I get to see him, other than when our nonna died.

He’d burst into the house, tall and loud and full of fun. He’d pick me up and swing me around the room, and even when I thought I was too heavy, he never did. He called me his favorite sister, and I called him my favorite brother. We thought it funny, even when Mother crossed her arms and told us to settle down before we broke something.

Peter’d been in school a long time and sent me pictures of his friends and him mugging for the camera. He told me that one day he would find the cure for heart disease and cancer and all the other things that made people suffer. He said no one should feel pain, and maybe he’d find a cure for that, too. I knew his back and legs hurt him from when he took that bad tackle. He’d been in the hospital for two weeks in traction. The doctor told us it was lucky he wasn’t crippled for life. To me, he looked crippled when he limped around with his eyes tightened up with pain. He’d pace the floor, and swallow aspirin, and stronger white pills if it was bad enough. Even after all that, he was sad that he couldn’t play football anymore. Then when his friends went off to the war, and he couldn’t do that either, he felt ashamed. I was secretly glad he couldn’t join the army or marines, even though our teacher said it was a privilege to serve our country and people who didn’t serve were cowards or didn’t love our country. I sat very still when she said that, knowing it wasn’t true.

If Peter was in his room instead of far away at school, I could tell him everything that happened and he’d understand. He’d sneak out with me, watch over me, and help me find Sweetie. I knew I shouldn’t, but I always begged him to come home, writing long sad letters with pressed flowers and pictures of the places we moved to. At Grandmother Rosetta’s memorial, he had said I was old enough to understand that he hated how our parents made him feel as if he wasn’t doing enough. That nothing he ever did was enough. He said Mother was overbearing and Father was weak.

I grabbed the framed photo of him in his graduation cap and gown, and put it in my satchel. Just in case I never returned, in case something bad happened, I had already written him a long letter and tucked it under my pillow. I’d told him he was the best brother any sister could wish for and that even though he was a big booger headed fool, I loved him with all my heart. I told him about Sweetie, and what I had to do to find her, and the places I’d go, just in case I didn’t make it back. If something were to happen, I’d want him to know his sister could be brave. That his baby sister disobeyed rules when it was important, when she had to, just as he had. I wanted him to know where to look for my body if it came to that.

My satchel was full of what I needed. There was the diary with all of Sweetie’s maps. I had to trust myself to follow them, just as Sweetie told me I could do. There was a note for Zemry, in case he still wasn’t there. I hoped she was there, that she’d be sleeping in his bed, holding the porcelain-faced doll and dreaming all kinds of good things. There was a notepad and pencils, a banana I’d kept for a snack and never eaten, a Snickers candy bar, Father’s heavy see-everywhere-in-the-dark-possible flashlight, a big sharpened kitchen knife wrapped in a dishcloth, the carved bird so I could give it back to Sweetie. I put the carved wolf from Zemry in my pocket.

Just like in the television shows, I put pillows under the covers to make it look as if I was there sleeping, and for good measure, I placed my old stuffed animals on the bed. The stuffed bears, dogs, and cats seemed baby-like now, but with them back on my bed, if Mother looked she would think I was her old Melissa, the fat baby girl who slept with her toys. She’d never know that her daughter had turned into Lissa, the warrior who would find her way to her blood-bound sister on a dark mountain.

The window was open, and I eased the satchel out and onto the ground. Putting my left leg over the sill, I held on to the frame and climbed over and out. Taking a deep breath, I held it there until I felt brave and steady, picked up my satchel and shouldered it, and stepped away from the house. I looked back to see what it looked like in the dark of night. It was lonely looking, and dull and plain, but also safe. I’d never thought of that before, how safe I was in my house.

I turned my back on it, and began hurrying to the mountain. The night was cool. Frogs croaked along with other insect and animal sounds. Far off, I heard a howl and I wondered if it was Sweetie. I knew how sound traveled in the mountains, how something close could be far, or something that sounded as if it came from the south or north could be coming from the east or west. At least to me.

I hurried my walk to a run, hoping that none of the neighbors were up late. A dog barked when I was three houses down from mine, but no one seemed to notice that a girl was out in the night. When a cool breeze hit my face and pushed back my short hair, when the night creatures sang their tunes, when the mountains rose up and up and up, while I took all this in as I ran, for just a minute, I forgot about finding Sweetie and instead thought of how good it felt to be out alone, running towards the mountains that rose up blue-black against the sky. I was free.

The moon was almost full, and would help me find my way. I tried to stay in the shadows while I was in the neighborhood, but knew once I was on the mountain; it would be darker than the darkest of nights. I shivered, forced myself to shake it off into the wind.

I ran almost all the way to Whale Back, except in the places that were too rough. The moon didn’t leave me until I was there, but once on the trails, I’d had to use Father’s flashlight to see. At Whale Back, I searched the ground for a message in the dirt. There was none, so I beamed the light in the bushes and brambles, hoping. There was no moccasin note under the rock. I shone the beam in the bushes, and as I walked, I yanked the yarn away. Every piece of it I could find, I tore off and stuck into my pocket.

While climbing up the little hill from where her cabin stood, I put the flashlight in my satchel and let the moon guide me. Behind a clump of thickets, I crouched down and watched as the moon spread out and over Sweetie’s place. There was no movement, and all was quiet and dark. I stood to go inside.

I was maybe twenty steps from her door when I heard someone behind me.

“Well, well. Seems someone else snuck out to look for Sweetie Pie. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

I turned around.

He shined his flashlight at me. “What’s in that bag you got there?”

I held it close to me, looked around to see if he was alone. He seemed to be.

He stepped closer and I hoped he didn’t see how hard my heart was beating. I imagined Peter’s shirt moving with every thump.

“Don’t come near me, T. J.. I mean it.”

“Awww, what’s her gonna doooo? Hummm? Her gonna butt me like a goat again.” He spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and asked, “W-w-where’s y-y-your f-f-friend?”

“I don’t have time for you. Go run and play now.” My lips were quivering, but my voice sounded almost strong. I squared my shoulders so I’d look taller and called up the fire Sweetie said was inside of me.

T. J.’s eyebrows shot together. “I asked you a question, bitch.”

I turned away from him, even though my back tingled and my heart thumped harder. My mouth dried to a crisp.

When he stomped up behind me, I remembered Peter saying that the one who had the surprise was the one who had the upper hand. I remembered the television shows we watched together and how he’d show me how the good guys got one over on the bad guys.

When T. J. was so close I imagined his hot wheezy breath would soon scorch my neck, I turned and swung the satchel as hard as I could and hit him on the side of his head.

He fell to the ground with a grunt, his flashlight flying off into the woods, the only light then coming from the moonshine. “
You bitch.
” He began to get up.

“I’m warning you to stay down.” My heart was on fire. Barns on fire. Barns on fire. Warrior of the creek.
Lissa,
s
how him your fire inside
.

“You made a big mistake, Melissa.”

It was the first time he’d used my name. I was winning. I was strong. I was the warrior. I lunged and hit him with the satchel across his head, then whirled and hit him on his chest and shoulder. He dropped down and curled up into a ball. I hit him two more times, once again on his head and once on his back. It almost scared me how I could have kept hitting and hitting. I didn’t want to be like T. J.’s father. I remembered what Sweetie said about worms under dirty feet.

I backed up. There was that show where the good guy beat up the bad guy and then he’d asked the bad guy if he had enough. He had talked quietly to him just as if he were asking him what time it was. I remembered how I thought it the perfect thing to do. I asked, “Had enough, T. J.?” I took out my flashlight and shined it full on his face.

He was breathing hard. His face was so purple-red, I thought his head may explode. There were cuts and reddened skin across his face and arms. “Don’t hit me again, you hear?” He wouldn’t look at me, and I liked that more than I should.

I spit on the ground, said, “Get up nice and slow. No sudden moves.”

T. J. sat up, and rubbed his head.

Swinging my satchel, I stared him down. “If you bother me again, I’m telling the whole town you let another girl beat you up, and when they find out it was me, well, how’s your posse going to feel about that?”

He made a growling noise.

I tossed the flashlight down, and reached in the satchel to pull out the knife wrapped in the towel. I put the satchel across my shoulders, and slowly unwrapped the knife, happy that I’d taken the mean-looking one that Mother used to cut beef. Keeping my eyes right on T. J. the whole time, I said, “Well, lookie here what I got, T. J..” I thought the knife looked scary in the moonlight.

He said, “You’re crazy as a loon, as crazy as that girl and her crazy mama.”

“Her name’s Sweetie! And she’s not crazy!” I stepped one step forward. “I could bury you in the hole we dug for her mother. I think you’d fit just right. What do you think happened to that boy they never found? He didn’t fall off the ridge. Sure didn’t. He tried some funny stuff, just like you’re doing, so Sweetie and Miss Mae killed him with witchcraft spells and threw him over the ridge to make it look like an accident. I like that idea. I like it a lot.”

I lunged forward, thrusting the knife towards T. J..

Then he was up and off, running into the woods faster than I’d ever seen a person move in my life, other than Sweetie.

All my years of sitting in front of the television eating candy finally paid off. I wrapped the knife back in the towel and slipped it into my boot, picked up the flashlight, hitched up my satchel, and went inside Sweetie’s cabin door.

I checked Miss Mae’s room, and up to Sweetie’s room. I asked into the darkness, “Where are you, Sweetie?” The house looked just as it did when I was there earlier. I looked inside my satchel and sighed. Peter’s picture frame was busted up and I picked out the glass, tried to straighten the picture. The banana was mushed, and the candy bar didn’t look much better. I cleaned out the satchel, re-wrote the banana guts note to Zemry on another sheet of paper. I unmashed the candy bar as best I could and left it on the table.

With the flashlight, I studied Sweetie’s maps again before starting out to Zemry’s place. I shined my flashlight here and there, worrying about hungry animals, about the mountain spirit being angry with me and carrying me off into some strange place. At first, the sounds of animals screeching and limbs cracking sent me scurrying to hide behind bushes, but I made myself stop. Morning would soon come and I’d be able to see better.