River, cross my heart (13 page)

As Pearl got closer, Johnnie Mae could hear that she was sniffling and that there was another sound — a mewling — that was coming from her vicinity.

"What you got there?" Johnnie Mae asked, trying to peer at the thing Pearl was hugging to her chest.

Pearl started at the sight of Johnnie Mae and drew her bundle under the thin coat she wore. "A kitty," she said in a voice that had little more gumption to it than the pitiful noises the thing she held next to her was making. The only

River, Cross My Heart - i lg

voting person out on Halloween night without a costume, Pearl had a thumb-suck demeanor, seemed to have shrunk trom her usual size, and was making small squealing noises like a piglet. As soon as Johnnie Mae saw the crying kitten under Pearl's coat, she also caught a whiff of it. The smell was burned fur and burned flesh.

u What happened to it?"

Pearl Miller had never become entirely certain that Johnnie Mae Bynum meant her no harm. Sure, she had come to her rescue in the school yard. But she seemed motivated more by curiosity than a desire to be friendly. Pearl had a feeling that Johnnie Mae was studying her, trying to gain some knowledge ot her. She wasn't sure that Johnnie Mae didn't have some cruel prank up her sleeve and was only waiting for a chance to spring it.

"Some children set it afire in the alley. It's burnt all up," Pearl wailed out loud. Johnnie Mae thought how different this wailing was from the usual sniffling that Pearl did in school.

"Why they do that?"

"They was just being mean." Though she didn't holler out loud, Pearl Miller was mad as a wet hen. Johnnie Mae could tell by the way her face was torn up that anger and indignation were liable to erupt from her like lava.

"Is it gonna die?" Johnnie Mae asked Pearl outright. The wailing intensified and Pearl backed away from Johnnie Mae as if she thought the girl intended to finish the kitten off. "You ought to take it to Miss Ella Bromsen on Volta Place, next door to my aunt Ina. She knows about fixing up burns. She fixed my mama's arm when it got burned. ,,

Pearl weighed Johnnie Mae's advice for a moment, then followed behind her to Miss Ella's. Johnnie Mae led Pearl and

i2o - Breena Clarke

the kitten, who continued mewing loudly and desperately, through all of her shortcuts, toward Volta Place. She shaved off some of the distance by cutting through backyards and skirting behind trees. Both girls scratched their ankles on bushes that grew along the footpath behind the Piggly-Wiggly store.

As usual Ina Carson was seated at the front window of her parlor looking out at passersby. Halloween night was particularly interesting and she had been handing out candy treats to every group of children that stopped by. She saw Johnnie Mae and Pearl coming down the block and thought to get up and get them the last of the cookies and two apples. But as they approached, Ina could tell that something was wrong and that they were not heading to her door. The girls walked straight past her door and went up on Miss Ella Bromsen's front porch.

Since Miss Ella Bromsen was generally thought to be a witch or a root woman or at the very least unusual, the front windows of her house had earlier been smeared with soap by roving tricksters. Johnnie Mae shook a bit and thought to call out for Aunt Ina at exactly the moment that both Aunt Ina's and Miss Ella Bromsen's front doors opened.

"What all is the matter, girl?" Aunt Ina asked, looking like an owl peeping out of her door, the size of her eyes magnified by her spectacles. In contrast, Miss Ella seemed calm. And her eyes, shaped more oval than round, had a dreamy quality.

"Pearl found this little cat that somebody set afire," Johnnie Mae answered. "Can you fix him, Miss Ella?"

"Lord have mercy! The things that people will do!" Aunt Ina exclaimed.

"Come to the back," Miss Ella said. She opened her front door wide, turned, and walked away. The house's interior black dark. Johnnie Mae thought that Miss Ella must have been upstairs in bed because there seemed to be no lamp lit on the first floor. She couldn't remember it she'd seen any lamplight coming through the upstairs windows. Had Miss Ella been in the cellar stirring potions? Miss Ella lit a candle, and as she walked through the house she lit several other candles from the one she carried. Johnnie Mae followed her from candle to candle, pausing as Miss Ella did. As each candle illuminated the foyer, a corner oi the parlor, another corner, then the hallway, then the kitchen, an ambiguous series ot rooms was revealed. Pearl followed Johnnie Mae with the bundled-up, mewling cat. And Aunt Ina, drawing her wrapper close around her body, came over from next door.

Johnnie Mae wondered if the head cloth that Miss Ella had tied on her head was her Halloween costume, the usual thing she wore to bed, or some necessarv uniform for her broom making and root doctoring. The shelves and window-sills in the kitchen were stocked with jars and tin cans, and Miss Ella moved quickly about the kitchen assembling her paraphernalia. She reached her hand in several tins and pulled out a portion of leaves or powder and shook these ingredients together in a bowl. Miss Ella's lips moved as she worked, though neither Pearl, Aunt Ina, nor Johnnie Mae could hear what she was saving. She quickly got a tire stirred up in the stove and put a pot oi water on to boil.

In truth, the pitiful animal Pearl held under her wrapper appeared not to have much chance ot survival. Miss Ella directed Pearl to uncover the animal and place him in

the center of her kitchen table. Large patches of fur were completely burned away from the creature's back and head. The kitten trembled in the center of the table and didn't cease crying. Miss Ella daubed the burned places with wads of cotton dipped in tinctures from several bottles on her shelves. She took a box — one of many of various sizes that were stacked near her back door—filled it with cloths, and placed the animal in it. He continued making noises until she covered his small nose with cotton saturated with some substance from a small blue bottle. Miss Ella then made a poultice from her herbs and swaddled the poor thing in bandages soaked in the mixture.

The two girls and Ina watched Miss Ella work. Johnnie Mae stood at her right elbow and Pearl stood at her left. Aunt Ina, too, drew in close and peered over the woman's shoulder. Miss Ella didn't seem to have any oil lamps in her house so the only light in the room was from the still bright moonlight coming through the windows and the eight or ten candles she had lit and put about in corners. These candles threw up shadows against the walls, and the movement o( Miss Ella's arms and the silhouette o{ her head cloth made her shadow look like a large bird's.

After she wrapped up the cat, Miss Ella put away her medicines. "It goes against common sense to prolong the suffering of a pitiful injured creature," she said. "God's creatures have their job to do and then they pass on. It's against God's plan for us to try to wring more out of them so they can be of service to us." Miss Ella looked sternly at Pearl's tear-streaked face and Johnnie Mae's dry-eyed, inquiring visage. "How-somever, a cat is a peculiar creature. A cat's got nine lives, and

River, Cross M\ Hear: - U3

a root doctor has got a special charge to try to save a cat. Because a cat will take up youi bond if it should ever come to that. And the old people say that a person would do well to save a cat's life when they're young 'cause a cat won't forget and it'll remember your good deed. Because it's always good for your soul and for your people if a cat walks across your final resting place, and double good luck if that cat stops to paw at the dirt covering you, and triple good luck if the animal makes water over your head." Miss Ella smiled at the two girls.

Pearl smiled wanly back at Miss Ella. And despite its ten-tativeness, this smile was more than she gave Johnnie Mae. Pearl still looked nervously at her classmate out of the corner of her eye.

Observing the furtive expression on Pearl's face, Johnnie Mae got to thinking that maybe Miss Ella would know whether Pearl was a haint. That was it! Miss Ella would certainly know about a thing like that, being that she was a witch. She'd know if Pearl was a ghost or a haint or a spirit walker or some such.

Miss Ella turned her funny-colored eyes on the kitten and smiled. Johnnie Mae thought that since Pearl had been the one to rescue the cat, she would no doubt be lucky enough to have this cat or some of his descendants peeing on her final resting place. Perhaps Johnnie Mae would be able to join in this good luck. After all, she'd had a part in helping the animal. Perhaps some cat or other would walk across her grave or paw the ground covering her. Maybe when Miss Ella's potions and poultices had worked on him, she and Pearl should take this cat up to Mount Zion and coax him across Clara's grave.

Papa stood in the doorway when she got back home.

"Where you been, girl? Don't you know your mama is worrying? What make you walk off from the other children? What make you wear them doll-baby clothes? What happening to us, I want to know." He stood in the middle of the parlor floor with his hands on his hips. Questioning was his way of conversing since Clara'd been gone; all his words seemed to be asking. Johnnie Mae chafed under his nagging questions. She never had an answer, but he never seemed to actually want one. He just kept asking.

Johnnie Mae stood before Papa with her eyes down at her shoes, yet she flickered her lids upward to glimpse him. She wanted to laugh at the way he was flapping like a rooster, but she kept herself still.

Her mama had always been the disciplinarian, and it was her method to use her voice to cudgel obedience from Clara and Johnnie Mae. Her papa now tried to fill the void in this difficult time, but he was unused to demanding obedience.

Johnnie Mae cornered Pearl in the recess yard during the mid-morning break on a razor-cold day in November.

"Clara," she called to the sadly composed face of Pearl. "Clara, when nobody's around you can speak up. Clara, answer me back, girl," she said, looking directly into Pearl's eyes.

Drawing her brows together and spoiling the blank expanse of her forehead, Pearl asked softly, "Why you callin' me Clara? My name's not Clara."

"Clara."

"Who's Clara?"

"You're Clara. You're just like her except for looks. You're Clara really, you know. Except you won't speak up. Clara's my

sister that drowned, but I know you're her come again. Why don't you speak up?"

Pearl's facial expressions changed so quickly from incredulity to shock to something approaching horror that Johnnie Mae stepped back and took the measure of her own words.

"Don't be scared of me. I know who you are. I mean to tell you that I want you to come back. It's all right. I won't tell anybody about you."

Pearl slapped her hands up to her face to cover her eyes and stood there like a stump. She said nothing. Why was this girl torturing her so? After a moment Pearl started to sniffle and rub away tears with her fists. Johnnie Mae's train of talk ran out of steam. There was nothing to say—she could only mumble comforting words begging Pearl to stop crying. When the recess bell rang, Johnnie Mae reached down to the shorter girl's shoulders and led her, with her face still covered, into the girls' line.

Miss Boston noticed Pearl's state as they filed past her into the classroom. "Pearl Miller, what is the matter with you now?" There was a tiresome quality to Pearl Miller's demeanor. The solemn, often tearful eyes and the well-behaved, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth manner were truly exasperating after a while. Even Miss Boston, who thought all children should be quiet and deferential to adults, was puzzled by Pearl.

Mildred Gloe chimed in with Lula Lavery to say in unison, "She's a crybaby, Miss Boston."

Nervous about maintaining order, Elizabeth Boston was ever prepared to rein in her students. "Young ladies, I want no name-calling and I did not direct my question to you, Mildred, or you, Lula. Pearl, why are you crying now?"

Fearing that Miss Boston's tone would further frighten

Pearl and possibly push the timid spirit of Clara deeper down inside, Johnnie Mae spoke up. "She hit her head outside, Miss Boston. She hurt herself."

"Johnnie Mae, are you speaking for Pearl again? You better go to your desk and attend to your own business."

Johnnie Mae reluctantly released Pearl's shoulders, afraid the girl would collapse to the floor or dissolve into a wisp of smoke. But Pearl was secure on her feet; in fact, she seemed to have turned to stone beside Miss Boston's desk.

"Are you hurt? Are you bleeding?" The girl did not answer. "Well, then, go back to your seat and try to compose yourself."

Finally removing her hands from her face, Pearl walked down the aisle. Miss Boston's eyelids fluttered toward the ceiling as she looked at Pearl Miller's back. The students knew this expression well. It was a softly pitying look that expressed Miss Boston's inability, despite fervent desire, to tackle the overwhelming problems of their economic, intellectual, or behavioral shortcomings.

Elizabeth Boston decided that afternoon that she would pay a call. Come Sunday after church, she would seek out Mrs. Miller and ask to discuss Pearl's troublesome behavior. It wasn't healthy for the girl to be so reticent—so fearful of her teacher and classmates that she hardly spoke. Perhaps the mother could help her draw the girl out and perhaps she'd learn whether Pearl knew anything at all of her schoolwork.

Pearl slid into her seat, folded her arms on the desktop, and lay her head down. She turned her face to the left and stuck out her tongue at Johnnie Mae with the angry expression oi a terrier.

Johnnie Mae was startled that her attempt to draw Pearl

River, Cross M\ Heart - \2j

out had tailed so miserably. What to do next! All she wanted was to he friendly — to put the girl at ease. Then maybe the haint would come out.

A person like Clara certainly ought to be allowed back. Her lite had been so short and uneventful. It was as if all the events oi her life were reduced to the one or two moments it took for her head to go under the water and not bob up again. Clara's whole life fit so neatly inside the boundaries of Johnnie Mae's memory now. And except for the first few moments, she had witnessed the whole of it. Now the whole of it seemed so small it fit in the palm of her hand, which she closed tight until tiny drops oi sweat leached out oi the skin and her palm smelled like Clara.