There's a Dead Person Following My Sister Around (13 page)

But
Zachary
is strong enough. He picks Marella up and tucks tier right up under his arm despite all her kicking and fussing, and he says, "Are you sure about this, Jackie?" And she doesn't say anything, so after a while he says to me, "Where do you want her?"

I lead them back down them stairs—Marella and Zachary and Jaclyn and Cinnamon the dog—and into the parlor, what the boy calls the family room.

"You look here," I say to Marella, holding up one of the mirrors that are scattered across the floor.

Marella turns her face away, into Zachary's side, but I take her by the hair at the back of her head and gently but firmly force her to look.

"This is not you," I say. "This is another little girl, by the name of Victoria."

Marella commences to cry, and Zachary places her sitting down on the floor.

I sit down beside her and put my arms right around her, just like I've been hurting to do ever since I first felt this body. I set that old mirror down on the floor, faceup, to remind Marella of who she is.

But she never even looks into it a second time. "It's not fair," she says.

"I know it's not, honey. But this isn't fair, either. Can't you feel how scared that little girl is inside you? She's got her own life to live."

"Just for a little while," Marella says. "You could use their mama's body. It could be just like before, except better."

"No, honey," I say. The boy can tell how much I'm tempted, and I tell him not to fret. I tell Marella, "You've got to come out of there now. We've got a new place to go."

"Not even for a little while?" Marella pleads.

"No," I say. "That would make it even harder to let go. And I'm going to let go," I tell her. "We've stayed too long already. I'm going to let go, and if you don't, you're going to be left behind here, alone, without me. It's only me loving you so hard that's held me back this long."

"I thought you were angry at me," she says. "For standing so near the bank after you told me not to."

"Hush now," I say. "Of all the things I ever felt, I was never angry at you. That's what I stayed to tell you: that I love you." I loosen my hold on the boy. I let myself slip away. I feel like the mist over Tater-field Creek, dissolving in the morning sun.

"Don't go, Mama," Marella whispers, crawling into my lap. "Don't leave me."

I feel her arms tighten around the body which is now more boy than me. I can almost see the new place, and it looks fine.

"I love you, too," Marella says. "I want you to know in case we can't talk where we're going."

But I think we will be able to.

And then I feel her let go of Victoria and come with me.

VICKI WAS IN MY LAP
, crying. I didn't need to have Adah's impressions to know I had my own sister back again.

Zach and Jackie were watching us warily. "Is it really you?" Zach asked, which wasn't the world's brightest question.

But I figured it meant he'd been worried about me, so I only said, "Yeah. Vicki, too."

We worried and worried over what to do about the bones. It wasn't that we were afraid of Adah and Marella coming back, since the unburied bones had never had anything to do with anything. Still, it just didn't seem right to leave their bones out there in the open. I asked Zach if he thought he could dig a grave, but Jackie pointed out that graves have to be six feet deep or the bones are likely to resurface. Zach said he didn't think he was up to a six-foot-deep hole.

So I called the police. Since the only police officer
I've ever met was the one who came to our school as part of the D.A.R.E. antidrug program, I asked to talk to her.

Naturally Dad came home just as the police were pulling up in front of the house with their lights flashing and their two-way radios crackling. (He was home early because he'd gone out to repair some woman's phone and a dog had bitten him as he'd gotten out of his truck. The woman said she thought he should fix her phone before going to get a tetanus shot because it wasn't her dog. So Dad didn't plan to go back until the next day, even though it was only a small bite.)

Once everybody determined that everybody else was OK, the police told us we couldn't go down into the ditch while they were examining the bones. Like they'd already forgotten who it was that had
found
the bones in the first place. They made us wait in the house, except that Dad didn't. He stood on the edge of the ditch and shouted down questions and advice, which I guess they pretty much ignored.

Eventually—just in time for Mom to come home and get all frantic and be certain that one of her children had fallen down the ditch and died—they brought the bones up. The medical examiner said they were definitely human, obviously old, and that they would be sent to the museum or the university for further testing before burial.

Dad volunteered the information about Great-Great-Grandmother Winifred's journal that I had foolishly shown him, and the next thing I knew they were
taking that, too. We're supposed to get it back. Eventually.

Jackie, who'd flipped through to the end, said the last entry was from January 1852, and she insists that in all that time between July and January the only thing Winifred said about helping more runaways was that she'd never do it again.

At first I was real embarrassed for our family because of that, and also on account of Great-Great-Grandfather Theodore not decking that slave catcher for using the word
nigger,
and how, in fact, Theodore used the same word himself. If the police hadn't taken the journal away when they did, I probably would have inked over that section so nobody else would see it.

But now I'm glad I didn't.

It'd be rewriting the past, like those who want to take the word
nigger
out of
Huckleberry Finn
just because the world would have been a nicer place if people had never used that word. Now that I'm keeping this journal of my own, it seems to me that it is only by remembering the past that we can see where we are and how hard a road it has been to get here. If some great-great-grandkid comes along and tries to change my journal around,
I'll
haunt
him.

Still, I don't think it's rewriting the past to believe that Winifred helped more slaves escape, no matter what she said, because the night she tried to help Adah and Marella there was no secret room to leave her journal in. It must have been built afterward.
What else? Oh, yeah. The Social Studies Fair I missed from being home sick.

My Luxembourg display was set up between Italy and Norway. Tony Malovics had a working model of Vesuvius, and Katie Vanchieri had made a salt-dough relief map of Norway. Luxembourg must have looked pathetic compared to them. I'm told Norway, especially, was very impressive. Katie even added several inches of food-color-blue water to show off the fjords.

At which point, of course, the salt-dough began to dissolve.

Katie didn't notice until the judges were approaching our table, and then, when it was already too late, she picked up the map to get it out of there before it damaged anything.

Which was when Bruce Gelly and Gretchen Prior started tossing Swedish meatballs around.

The next thing anybody knew, Norway had flipped over onto Luxembourg, which fell over onto Italy, causing Vesuvius to erupt prematurely. The table collapsed under the weight of those lunging to protect the displays, and by the time the whole thing was over, Norway, Luxembourg, Italy, and two of the judges were covered with so much lava-colored foam that all three displays were tossed out without even being judged.

I wish I'd been there.

We all got Bs, which Katie is still complaining isn't fair. She says that whatever mark I got, she should have gotten one grade better. Tony's already planning to do
another volcano for next year's science fair. And Bruce and Gretchen got so many detentions, they'll probably have to come back after graduation.

In the meantime, I've been working on my mother, telling her how ugly and old the kitchen floor is and that we should rip it up and put in a new one. (I'd hate to have to wait until I inherit the house to see that room.)

 

AND BY THE WAY
, Zach, in case you're snooping through my things again, I finally looked up the word
moor.
It means "a grassy wasteland."

I always knew your definition was stupid.