Kathryn Magendie (26 page)

When I at last found his place, no Miss Annie trotted to greet me. I pounded on his door in the case he might be there, but he wasn’t home. I knew he’d forgive me for going inside without him being there, once he read that Sweetie’s mother died and Sweetie ran away before they could take her. Without Zemry, the inside of his shack was a bit scary. The masks stared at me. The bed was empty. The doll wasn’t there.

I took one of Zemry’s effigy masks off the wall, and stuck the note on the nail so he would see it. He’d understand that I needed to borrow the mask. I held it against my face and waited to feel the spirit of the wolf. I needed it to help me find my way, and to be brave. I wanted to be a wolf, wild and free, running through the forest, sitting on a boulder howling. If I had magic, I’d put on the mask and turn into one, and I’d run through the woods to find Sweetie and use the magic on her so she could be a wolf with me. I put the mask in my satchel and left Zemry’s place.

Sweetie wasn’t at Whale Back Rock, she wasn’t at her cabin, and she wasn’t at Zemry’s. There was another place she could be.

An owl hooted, and I said to it, to the moon, and to the night creatures singing, “She wouldn’t go where her grandfather used to go to smoke, would she? She promised her mother she wouldn’t.” And the night whispered right back at me, “But her mother is dead now.”

I put my hand in the satchel and touched the mask. I checked my watch to see how much time I had before light, and it wasn’t there on my arm. I must have left it on my dresser. My arm was naked. I couldn’t remember a time when my watch was not on my wrist. It didn’t matter, Sweetie never wore a watch. She’d tell me time was just what it was and staring at my watch all the time didn’t change a thing, it only made a person worry about time. Time was endless. Time didn’t mean anything to me anymore.

I flipped through the diary, through pages of our writing, looking for a map. There, where I almost missed it, on a page almost at the end of the diary, past empty pages filled with only promises, was a map leading up to a ridge with what looked to be barbed wire and a sign with a skull and crossbones. On top of the ridge was a figure, arms out, legs spread out, long hair blowing, and behind her, a man standing in the same way. Maybe it was a drawing of Sweetie and her grandfather.

The way to the ridge was hard, and I had to use my flashlight most of the way. The trail up was thicker and steeper. I gritted my teeth and kept going. I wished for fireflies to come gather together to light up the path for me. I should have gone to the ridge first. Sweetie would figure no one would look there. Everybody stayed away after that boy died. I couldn’t help but imagine his busted body being eaten by animals, the piece of his shirt torn on a branch and the stickers nearby with skin still stuck on them, and the bloody fingernail where he’d scratched at the ground so hard it tore off, and the tooth they’d found.

Mr. Mendel the Janitor told us kids about the landslide that happened there after a big storm roared over and down the mountain. How that boy was standing on the ridge one second and the next he wasn’t. He said the boy haunted that part of the mountain, and pushed off other kids to their deaths, if they were foolish enough to go up there. Mr. Mendel the Janitor liked to tell it bloody and scary, eyeing us all cockeyed, while we snickered on the outside, but trembled on the inside. All the kid’s parents said the mountain was steep there, and unstable from the slides. The sheriff had put barbed wire and signs to warn people, especially kids and tourists. The sheriff said everybody sure better take heed or they’d be bear food and bobcat food and no telling what all. He’d said they suspected two other missing kids, a little kid and a teenager, might had been fools and gone up there, too.

I stopped to wipe spiders’ webs off my face, put on the mask and howled at the moon, hoping Sweetie would hear me. From above me, I thought I heard a howl answer back, but it could have been just the wind through the trees, or maybe an echo off the mountain. I had to put it back into the satchel, but I kept my hand on it to feel strong as I ran as fast as I was able, up to the ridge, where the haunted boy and the angry mountain spirit, and maybe, my blood-bound sister Sweetie were.

TWENTY-FOUR

Everything was different. Everything had changed over one little summer. It was as if my brain and body were trying to keep up with each other, and my heart was somewhere in the middle of the two, ripping open and apart. The ground under my feet vibrated up through my whole body and made me feel like the rocks and the boulders and the
North Carolina
earth full of things I couldn’t see and didn’t always understand. I wondered if all the ancient women of all the ancient times were standing in the mists watching me, telling me,
Run. Find her. Be a strong warrior
.

As morning came to the mountain, the mists hovered. Where the ridge lifted up to the steepest area, where I knew everyone was supposed to stay away, I shone my flashlight, and there in front of me was the barbed wire fence. I thought about all the Indians Zemry talked about. I thought about the boy lost forever. I thought about Sweetie’s grandfather smoking kinnikinnick and denying God. I thought about Nonna. I thought how the mists could be their ghosts coming to help me find Sweetie, or to lead me to her. All the spirits surrounded me and I felt their cool hands on my cheeks so I would stay brave.

I shined the flashlight right and left. There, farther down, was a sign that read, “Danger! Keep Away!” Someone had drawn the skull and crossbones over the sign.

I called out, soft at first, then louder, “Sweetie! Sweetie!”

It was getting lighter, and the mists glowed even more, so I put away the flashlight, pushed apart the barbed wire, and squeezed through. A piece of Peter’s shirt tore off and I had a moment of worry that he’d be mad that I ruined one of his favorite shirts. I was sure going to make a lot of people mad for the things I had to do. Peter’s boots slipped in the damp grass and dirt, and my satchel hooked on brambles and branches. I pushed and pulled and climbed, sweated and grunted.

“Do not come up here, Lissa.”

I was so surprised, I slipped and fell, caught myself on a branch, and held on until I could get my footing again. I took out the mask and put it on, looked up at her, said through it, “I got the spirit of the wolf.”

“Lawd, you should see yourself.” She cackled, standing on the ridge with her hands on her hips. She wore the army jacket, and it was torn, smudged with dirt, leaves stuck here and there.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the carved wolf and held it out in the palm of my hand. “Remember, like Zemry said about me when he made this.”

“Look at you. Climbing up here like you got a fire in your belly.”

I put the carving back into my pocket, turned the mask around and looked at it. “I wish we were wolves and could be wild and run free.”

“Sure sounds like a real nice way to be.”

The ground where she stood looked mushy to me. There was dirt, rocks, and a few small tree roots sticking up all around her. A big tree lay on its side, its roots reaching for the ground that no longer hugged it safe to its home.

I put Zemry’s mask back into my satchel and used both hands to climb up closer to her.

“You will not come up here. I mean it.”

“Then you come down.”

“Nuh uh.”

“I’d rather be at Jabbering Creek with our toes in the water.”

She rose up on her toes and swung her arms in a pinwheel, a dreamy look softening her face until it turned hard again.

“I’m scared, Sweetie.”

She looked down at me. “Nope, nuh uh. You are not scared. I can see inside you. You were just used to being scared all your life before.”

“Remember what they said about that kid? You want someone to find your skin and tooth and nail scattered all over creation?”

“I feel fine up here. Nobody will come get me and make me go to no orphan house with bars on the winders where they’s no mountain or critters.”

“I told you. You can stay with us. I talked to Father.” I stood up, but had to drop down on my hands and knees and crawl like a baby.

Sweetie laughed, then said, “That sure looks funny.”

I stopped, hanging on to a tree branch, my boots digging into the ground, breathing hard enough to feel dizzy.

She stopped laughing, said, “Miss Lissa. You surely know your mama would want to make me wear fancy clothes and stay home all’a time. Nope. Besides, you know your mama don’t want me any more’n I want her.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tossed her head. “And your daddy won’t stay here. This here is my
Home
.”

It was eerie the way the mists curled up around Sweetie and hugged her, whispering it seemed to me. Whispering to her things like,
come with us, stay with us, don’t listen to her, she doesn’t know you like we do
.

“Father can stay here and write his books. That’s what he wants. And you and me can stand against the Circle Girls and all of them. You and me, Sweetie. Blood-bound sisters.” I steadied my feet, found a grounding in the dirt, my arms felt stronger than they ever had. I
was
stronger. “You and me, Sweetie.”

“That sounds like a pretty picture. But it don’t always work out in ways we wish.”

“What about Zemry? You could stay with him.”

“Zemry’s a old old man. He don’t got time to worry over no kid. He’s got to go off sometimes, like he did this time. He got a wandering soul.”

“Like your father.”

Her mouth turned down to a frown, then she said, “I saw him.”

“Who? Zemry?”

“At the tent.”

“Who?” I slipped a little, dug my boot, Peter’s boot, into the ground, held on. “Who, Sweetie?”

“We got the same eyes. It was him.” She rubbed her arm. “And when I was hiding up in the woods, when you was setting on the log with your daddy, I saw him again.”

“
Who
?”

“That green-eyed man what smells like pipe smoke. Them stories about my daddy I needed. But that green-eyed man is the truth.”

“The green-eyed man at the tent is your . . . he’s your father?”

She looked up at the sky, then over her shoulder, then back to me. “I will hide up here, and when they’s all forgot about Sweetie, I will come back down and live with the critters. You come find me when things get safe. I will wait for you forever and ever until you can come back. I will. I promise.”

“Forever and ever?”

“I will always be here. Just you wait and see.” She stepped back a bit, the ground under her shifted a little, and rocks and dirt began tumbling down toward me. She laughed, then said, “Watch out! That mountain spirit is ornery today.”

I crawled, holding onto roots and vines, finding my voice between my huffs and puffs. “If green-eyes . . . is your father . . . he’ll take you in . . . and everything will be good.”

“Nuh uh.” She bent and picked up a stick, and waved it in the air like a sword, or a magic wand.

I grabbed and pulled, but slid back for every bit of ground I made. How had she climbed up there? She had because she was Sweetie. “Everybody dies, Sweetie. You can too.” I didn’t want to think about falling to a horrible bloody death, and so I kept my eyes on Sweetie. “I’m dragging your silly butt down here whether you like it or not. I promised Miss Mae! I promised!”

“I got magic, remember? Don’t worry over me. You best stay back. I am not fooling.”

The wind blew and it, too, sounded like whispers, like those in the mists. The whispers grew louder and louder, until my head was full of voices. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears, but the voices sounded as if they were more inside my head than outside. I wanted to scream. And then I realized I was, yelling at Sweetie and beating my fists on the ground. What I yelled didn’t even make sense to me, sounding like snotty gorbles and garbles.

All the whisper voices whispered lower, lower, lower.

I looked up at her.

Everything became still. Silent. She said, “You are my friend. Don’t forget me. Come back to find me. When it’s safe. When they’s forgot about me.”

The whispers began again. As if they were chanting songs.

Sweetie rose up on her toes and held her arms in the air. Her hair blew all around her. Then from behind her, I saw a man standing the same way, ghostly, like the mists, but he was there. I saw him. Sweetie closed her eyes, two high spots of color on her cheeks. She looked as if she’d aged and aged, as if she wasn’t twelve but a hundred and twelve.

Below, in the woods there was rustling, my name called.

She looked down at me, capturing me with her eyes just as she did the first day we met and became fast friends.

The whispery voices on the wind raised and raised, wind through the trees, branches rubbing together, and whispery sounds like women cooing to babies, chanting like women before a barn on fire. And within the sounds were voices that sounded real.

I scrambled, held out one hand to her, while the other held onto a clump of vines. The mists floated in and out. My teeth chattered from the morning chill and my sweat. The sky peeped through the trees, turning all kinds of shades of red and orange and yellow that swirled together and made me dizzy. The whispering started up louder and louder until I thought I’d go insane.

Over all the whispers, the pumping of my blood, over the sudden call of the hawk, and then of men shouting, I heard Sweetie say, “Nothing ever got to hurt, if you set your teeth to it.”

I blinked away the dirt falling down from where she stood. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, she was gone.

When the sheriff found me, I was at the top of the ridge where Sweetie had stood, screaming her name and I couldn’t remember how I’d climbed up there. I was on the ground. The ground was wet and cold. The sheriff grabbed me, held on, and pulled me away from where Sweetie had been. The sheriff and another man from town carried me back over the barbed wire and down the mountain. Father was at the switchback of the trail, wringing his hands, my note to Peter sticking out of his pocket. When he hugged me, he squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe. He kept saying, “Oh Princess. Princess.”

I was limp in his arms. I didn’t care about anything. I’d never care about anyone or anything. Ever. Again. I was so sleepy. So tired.