The Storycatcher (10 page)

Black-eyed Susans, scarlet beebalm, and yellow cornflowers dotted
the grassy patches along the dusty road. They swayed like dancers in a hot wind. It hadn’t rained in weeks. Dust hung on the trees and coated them in a dull tan color. Nada fussed over her garden, hauling water from the well. There wasn’t nothing so sorrowful as looking in a creek bed and seeing nothing but rocks. Even the birds saved themselves for better times. Only the heat bugs hummed in the evening. This was the sound of the mountain thinking big thoughts. Black Mountain was alive and collected souls for sport. When it got riled, no telling what might happen: Fresh milk turned sour, a calf came out with two heads, and mules went wild for no good reason. People were known to turn half-crazy. If the mountain was stirring, it was a lot more to worry over than a few ghosts, even if one was a colored girl with a mean look on her face.

I was so deep into my thinking that I got to Miss Tuggle’s in no time. Because she was the granny woman, she brought just about all the kids on the mountain into the world, including me. But if the truth be told, I was scared to death of her. She wasn’t like all the other folks. She was smart, book smart. I could tell by her talking. This was a woman who did some reading. No man ever wanted her, and that was purely a shame, seeing how she was so pretty.

“Can I help you with something, Shelly?” Miss Tuggle stood waist-high in lemon beebalm. All around her stood purple and lavender butterfly bushes with orange butterflies the size of my hand flitting in and out. They moved like little fairies from one flower to the next. Miss Tuggle’s hair hung loose. Most of the women on the mountain kept their hair tight in a ball on the top of their heads, even dumb old Faith.

“Sorry to bother you, Miss Tuggle.”

“No bother at all. What can I do for you today?” She stepped out of the balm. “You look in a turmoil.” No one on the mountain ever used words like Miss Tuggle.

“Well, we got us plenty of turmoil over at the main house. Mrs. Dobbins be wringing her hands and pacing around. Pastor wants you to come see him today about taking Miss Faith off the mountain without
his say-so. He ordered Miss Faith to her room until he finds out what happened, ’cause she ain’t talking no more than she has to. But she ain’t listening ’cause I seen her at the cemetery again. He’ll give her the worst kind of punishment.”

Miss Tuggle huffed real loud. “That man. She’s a grown woman and needed some thread from town. He doesn’t own her.”

I shrugged. “Pastor pretty much does whatever he pleases. He says if you don’t have a good enough reason for taking Miss Faith, she won’t be allowed to work in your garden no more. He don’t much care for her gardening.”

Miss Tuggle gave me a long, slow look. “He did, did he?”

“Nada asked if she might get some chamomile and catnip. This dry spell has been hard on her garden.” Lord, that woman was wearing men’s work boots.

She kind of smiled. “I’ve been watering mine every morning and evening. We’ve got to get some rain. Does she need mint too?”

“She’s got plenty, ma’am.”

Miss Tuggle walked to the homemade pole fence, gray with years of standing, mended here and there. “Come on in the garden. I’ll show you Faith’s part.”

Was that woman crazy? The thought of Faith lifting her hand to do any kind of work knocked my shoes off my feet. “No disrespect intended, ma’am, but are we talking about the same Miss Faith? I figured she wasn’t really working in the garden. I don’t think that girl ever got her hands dirty.”

Miss Tuggle had a little smile on her face. “I guess we let different people see different sides of us.”

That didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Faith is a hard worker.”

I didn’t have one bit of belief in Miss Tuggle’s story. “If you say so, ma’am. I ain’t fond of those quilts of hers either, but everyone else, Nada too, says she works hard on them and those folks see pretty where I don’t.”

Miss Tuggle scrunched up her nose. “She works hard at a lot of things. I love her quilts because they are unusual. They’re like paintings.”

I held my tongue on that one.

“Faith has taken a lot of cuttings to Amanda for her garden.”

Well, there it was. That girl knew I hated working in the garden. She was always trying to get on Nada’s good side.

Inside the fence was some red clover for the croup, two long rows of chamomile, a row of boneset and pokeroot, and large rosemary plants lining the fence. Each corner held the biggest bushes of lavender I’d ever seen. Butterflies fluttered and glided from one flower to another as bees joined in their dance. In the middle of the garden sat a wooden bench.

“I like to sit here and think. Don’t you like to think, Shelly?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Thinking was real important.

Miss Tuggle squatted and clipped the chamomile. “Most of these plants were started by my grandmother. She was a granny woman too and part Cherokee.” She touched the boneset. “This was planted by her. She called it Agu-weed.” The white flowers moved in the breeze. She touched another plant. “This is yellow dock.” The red blooms were something else to look at.

“What’s it used for?”

“Cleansing. It takes the waste out of the body. Grandmama used it to purify the blood.” She smiled and moved to the catnip. “I guess your mama plans a nice calming tea. She’s good at what she does.”

My heart nearly flipped over with pride.

“I remember the first day I met Amanda. It was cold. And your brother was angry because he had to stay at home alone on Christmas Eve. You were born before it turned Christmas, and your mama walked home early that morning with you tucked close to her in a sling. I never even knew she was carrying a baby until she showed up at my door. I can’t tell you how many times I’d seen her here and there on the mountain. She gathered plants like me. A woman not showing she’s with child happens sometimes. It was three weeks before Mrs. Dobbins figured
out Amanda had you, even though she wore you in the sling she made. Said she made it when your brother was born. It was quilted from scraps of clothes. Beautiful work.” Miss Tuggle was quiet for a minute, like she was thinking. “Faith isn’t so bad, Shelly. She is an intelligent young woman and pleasant to be around. Troubled. You strike me as a self-sufficient young woman, yourself.” When I didn’t say a thing, she went on. “Come with me. I have some homemade chocolate cake. Do you like cake?”

Did winter always come to the mountain? “Yes, ma’am.”

The front room of her cabin wasn’t a bit fancy, but it was beautiful all the same. Every inch of the walls was covered with books, all sizes and colors. All I could do was stare.

“Do you like to read, Shelly?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I waited a minute, taking in the sight. “I love books the best.”

She walked right up to one of them shelves and pulled a skinny book off. “I read a lot. I can live the rest of my life out alone if I have my books and garden. Both feed me, Shelly. The garden teaches me I am part of this mountain, the dirt, the air, the trees, even the insects. It humbles me into something so much smaller and insignificant. My books nourish my soul. When I open a cover and begin to read, I go to new places, to worlds I never knew existed. I time-travel into the past and up into the distant future. I’m never Maude Tuggle, the spinster and granny woman. I’m a woman with her own life.” She looked at me. “And all of that from a bit of dirt and a few words.” She placed the book in my hand.

When I was three, I touched the warm eye on the stove of the main house. The heat moved through me so fast my hand was burnt before I understood what was happening, before the pain set in. That’s how this book felt in my fingers.

“
The Weary Blues
.” She smiled.

The name floated on the air like music falling from the old pump organ in our front room.

“It’s a poetry book.” Miss Tuggle’s words were a whisper. “Here.” She took the book back and opened it. “This poem is called ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers.’ ” She read the poem as we stood in the middle of the room with all her books around. The words rocked me like a baby in its mama’s lap. The poem sang to me deep in my bones and talked of rivers like they was some kind of living, breathing thing. Dragonfly River was just like that, singing and moving down the mountain. Ever since I was a little girl, I’d go sit on the mossy banks and close my eyes. Will always called it being with God. I liked that. Being with God. Just being. Nobody wanting nothing but stillness. That poem was all about muddy water and sunlight, about coloreds throughout time being part of the rivers, as if rivers and coloreds was one and the same.

When she finished, she shut the book and gave it back to me. “Langston Hughes wrote this book. He’s a Negro.”

Those words caused time to stand still. A Negro. What a fine word. Much better than “colored.” I closed my eyes tight and hugged the book to my chest. “Yes.” That was all I could get to come out of my silly mouth. Nada would say Miss Tuggle didn’t have no understanding of coloreds. That it wasn’t her place to put a Negro’s book in my hand. And she was probably right, but I was still proud to hold them words close to me.

“You should help Faith and me in the garden for book loans.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will.” I didn’t even pause, knowing full well it would be like having my teeth pulled to be around Faith and in a garden.

“Good.”

We moved out on the porch. Me hugging that book tight in one hand and holding a plate of cake in the other. It was like a birthday party. I looked out over her yard happier than I’d been in a long time—wondering why I had been so afraid of Miss Tuggle—and seen them two gravestones under a great oak. There stood that mean colored-girl spirit I’d seen in the pastor’s yard earlier. She’d done followed me to Miss Tuggle’s.

Miss Tuggle looked in the same direction. “Those are family graves.”

That colored girl sure wasn’t no family of Miss Tuggle’s. “Most folks be buried next to the church, in Daniels Cemetery.” Nada would have called my words sassy.

“I’ve never fit in with the church, never will.” Miss Tuggle kept her look on them graves. “Mama is buried in the cemetery. I don’t know where I’ll be buried.”

“My daddy be buried in the colored part of the old cemetery up the mountain a piece. He grew up on that side of the mountain.”

“My family always did things their own way, not like the rest of the mountain, much less the church. One of these graves belongs to my father. He hung himself from that very limb.” She nodded at the tree. “I was your age. The mountain never forgave him. When he was alive, he roamed the dark each night, searching for something to settle his mind. Now, that’s a story for another time. The folks on this mountain could tell it better than me, anyway. I don’t believe in magic or ghosts.” She said this with a firm voice.

I looked away from that colored girl. “I learned two things from Nada: catch a story and throw a spell. Those be the two most important things in a person’s life. I have to believe. If I told you what I was seeing right now, you might believe. It’s no secret how straight and tall you are, Miss Tuggle. But that don’t make the haints just fairy stories.”

“Straight and tall, am I? I like that. I’m sensible. Go ahead and tell me what you see.” I heard the mocking in her voice.

“I have what Nada calls sight. That’s what folks here on the mountain call conjuring spirits. ’Cept I don’t have to conjure the dern things. They show up all on their own without a invite.”

“I know what sight is supposed to be, but Shelly, it is just a silly superstition. You’re way too smart for that kind of thinking.”

“I sure wish it was a bunch of fairy tales, Miss Tuggle. But it ain’t. My life would be a lot happier if it were.”

“You don’t have any special power, Shelly. I know your mother believes
that because you were born with a membrane, you’re bound to be touched. I helped bring you into the world, remember? You’re just plain Shelly. A beautiful, smart young woman.”

And wouldn’t it have been real nice if that were so? “Yes, ma’am.” I pointed to the graves. “Who belongs to the other grave?”

“A friend who couldn’t be saved from illness, even by Mama. That was a long, long time ago.” Her face turned sad.

“No coloreds are buried on this land?” I blurted.

Miss Tuggle gave me a sharp look. “Why would there be?”

I shrugged. “ ’Cause I see a colored girl right there by the headstones.” Stupid ghost was going to cause me all kinds of trouble.

Miss Tuggle walked down the steps into the yard. “I don’t believe in such stories, Shelly.” She was real put out. “When you come back, we will work on gathering some of the herbs.”

“Make sure you choose a fruitful day, not a barren one.” See, I did learn something from Nada about planting signs.

Miss Tuggle frowned.

I guessed she didn’t believe in signs either. “Might not get to come back if Pastor doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Hide that book from him. Now, run on and tell Faith I’ll be over later this afternoon to explain things to her father. I’m glad you’re coming along with Faith to work the garden.” Her smile was real. “Now, go on before they come hunting you.”

My visit with Miss Tuggle was finished. I looked over my shoulder. A warm light glowed close to her, around her. That was the light of someone who was part of the mountain now. Someone she was tied to. Then I heard that sound of the mountain whispering in my ear.
“You’ll always belong here, Shelly Parker. This is your home.”

THE SPIRIT OF THE COLORED
girl stood waiting in the backyard of the main house. She was madder than a wet hen.

“Who are you?” I asked before she could say a word.

She glared me down. “What you asking me questions for? I’m here to talk to you.”

“ ’Cause you be in my yard bothering me.”

The girl threw her head back and laughed. Around her neck was a thick scar. “It not be your house, girlie.”

“I work here.”

“Well, la-di-da.”

“Get on out of here! I ain’t got time for you!” I yelled.

“I ain’t listening to some old uppity girl with sight. Lord, I’ve been stuck to Pastor for too long now. But if you seeing me, then you be useful, part of the story. Better watch out. Something going to happen.” She nodded at the main house. “He’s bad and he be watching you, but you too dumb to see.” She was quiet a minute. “I got you something. It be important. I left it in the lost graveyard. You’ll know where to look. Watch yourself. Live folks aren’t always welcome there.”