What the Moon Said (7 page)

“B-but that's not fair!” Esther cried.

“I don't know about fair,” Ma said. “I only know how dangerous it is to ignore fairies. And I know that the child is cursed. To be near her is dangerous.”

Esther shivered. “B-but Bethany is my f-friend.”

Ma shook her head so hard, a hairpin flew from her bun and pinged onto the floor. She stooped to pick it up, and when she stood and looked at Esther, her face had closed like a curtain. “Not anymore,” she said firmly. Then she turned and walked away. The conversation was over.

Stunned, hardly knowing what she was doing, Esther climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Her head was whirling. Bethany dangerous? How could that be? She was good and kind. But Ma was so sure. And Ma knew things other people didn't. She knew all about signs.

Esther paced around the tiny room. Couldn't Ma be mistaken, like she was about the Tatiana dream she'd had the night before they moved? Esther picked up the letter to Julia she had started that morning. She wrote furiously with her pencil:

We just came back from a picnic at the lake. It was so much fun. But Ma made us come home early. She saw the mole on Bethany's face. She says it is the mark of angry fairies. She says it's a warning that Bethany is dangerous, and she won't let me play with her anymore. Do you think Ma could be wrong just this once? Bethany is so nice. Can she really be dangerous like Ma says? I am so sad.

I wish you were here.

Love,

Esther

JUST AS THEY WERE CLIMBING INTO THE
buggy on Sunday morning, Walter clutched his stomach and moaned, “I feel sick, Ma.”

Ma felt Walter's forehead. “You are cool. Probably you had too much bacon,” she said with a meaningful look.

Esther could not help grinning as Walter blinked at Ma in surprise. He had taken extra bacon from the platter when Ma had not been looking. Still she had known.

“Esther, you will stay home with your brother,” Ma decided.

“Can't Violet stay instead?” Esther begged. She had to see Bethany and tell her she couldn't come to her house on Wednesday.

“No,” Ma said. “Violet missed school when I hurt my ankle. Now it is your turn.”

Esther sighed and went back inside. She put Walter to bed and changed out of her good dress. Then she told Walter a story—a made-up story—all about a brave prince who lost his kingdom. He had to fight lots of battles to win it back. He fought an evil knight. He outwitted a wicked witch. And he battled a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon. By the end of the story, Walter's eyes were closing. Esther tiptoed out of his room.

Downstairs, Esther sat at the table with her chin in her palm. What should she do? Bethany would be expecting her on Wednesday. She'd wait and wait. Too late, Esther realized she should have asked Violet to tell Bethany. But things had happened so quickly! If only Walter hadn't gotten sick. Then, during their Sunday school class, when they were away from the grown-ups, Esther could have told Bethany she couldn't come. Of course, then she would've also had to tell her why.

Esther groaned. How could she tell Bethany Ma said she was marked by evil fairies and dangerous? Bethany would be so hurt!

But Esther had to tell her something. Maybe she should go on Wednesday after all. Then she and Bethany could have one last special day together. And when it was time to leave, she could explain everything to her. But going would mean disobeying Ma.

All day Esther wrestled with the problem, but she came no closer to finding an answer. First she'd decide she would go see her friend. Then she'd remind herself that would mean disobeying Ma, and she'd resolve to stay home. Then she'd think of how Bethany would be expecting her, and she'd decide to go all over again. Back and forth. Back and forth. She wished she had someone to ask for advice. But Julia was too far away. And Esther already knew that Violet would tell her to stay home.

Violet had been very sympathetic when Esther told her Ma wouldn't let her play with Bethany anymore. “You mean
that's
why we had to come home early from the lake?” She had rolled her eyes. “You've been around Bethany for weeks and nothing awful has happened.” But Violet's sympathy was one thing. Expecting her to approve of Esther sneaking off to see her friend was another thing entirely.

• • •

Late in the afternoon, Esther was playing on the porch with Mickey. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her foot. “Ouch!” she yelped. She hobbled into the house. “Ma, I've got a sliver.”

Ma was at the stove stirring a pot of stew. She looked at Esther and raised her eyebrows. “I told you not to go barefoot.”

Esther ducked her head. “I'm sorry. But it's so hot, and I was just on the porch.”

Ma set down her spoon and took the first aid basket from the cupboard. She slid a chair over to Esther. “Sit,” she said. Then Ma knelt on the floor in front of the chair. She lifted Esther's foot to the light from the window. “Ah,” she murmured.

“Is it bad?” Esther asked anxiously.

Ma shook her head. “Not so bad. I can get it. Just be still.”

Esther gripped the sides of the chair tightly. She held her breath as Ma squeezed on either side of the splinter to push it out as far as it would go.
o-ooh!
Esther bit her lip to keep from crying out. Then Ma said, “There!” and the pain was gone.

“It's out?” Esther asked.

Ma held up her tweezers so Esther could see the tiny shaft of wood.

Esther sagged in relief. She knew she had been lucky. If the splinter had been buried deep, Ma would have had to pick it out with a needle. That would have hurt a lot more. But either way, getting the splinter out hurt less than leaving it in. “Thanks, Ma,” she said.

But Ma wasn't finished yet. First she swabbed the wound thoroughly with peroxide. That stung a bit, but Esther liked watching the bubbles it made. When the peroxide stopped making bubbles, Ma patted Esther's foot dry, put a small bandage on it, and stood up. “Next time, do as you are told,” Ma said. “Then you will not get hurt.”

“Did you always obey when you were a girl, Ma?” Esther asked, pushing the chair back to the table.

“Yes,” Ma said firmly. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say more but wasn't sure if she should. In a few moments she added, “But my little sister Tatiana did not. She was always laughing and imagining things—like you. She did not always take rules seriously.” Ma's voice was suddenly so soft, Esther could barely hear her. Tatiana again! Esther wondered why Ma had never spoken of this sister before.

“Is Aunt Tatiana still in Russia?” she asked. Esther knew she had aunts and uncles in Canada. They sent letters and cards sometimes. There was Aunt Marta and Aunt Sophia, and Uncle Walter. But no Aunt Tatiana. If she still lived in Russia, that might be why she was mentioned so seldom.

“She is in Russia, yes,” Ma said, but her voice sounded funny.

“Maybe she can come to visit us sometime,” Esther said.

One corner of Ma's mouth quirked into a sad smile. “No, Esther. She cannot come to visit.”

Esther frowned. “But why not? Uncle Josef came once.”

Ma sighed. She rested one hand gently on Esther's shoulder. “Tatiana was willful. She had been told many times to stay away from the stream that went through our land. The current could be very strong, especially in the spring. But one day when she was five years old, Tatiana went in wading anyway, and she drowned.”

“Oh! That's terrible!” Esther cried.

“Yes,” Ma agreed. “And it wouldn't have happened if she had not disobeyed.”

Esther gulped. Right then she made up her mind to stay home on Wednesday. Ma knew best. And it would be wrong to disobey her.

• • •

When Wednesday morning came, though, Esther began to have second thoughts. She imagined Bethany getting ready for her visit. She imagined her watching and waiting when it got near lunchtime. And she imagined how disappointed she would be when Esther never came. Then she remembered how Bethany had copied problems from the blackboard for her. She remembered how Bethany had waited for her on the day of the picnic. She hadn't even wet her toes in the water until Esther arrived.

Truly, Bethany was a good friend. Her best friend. And Esther felt in her heart that this one time Ma was wrong. It was just an ordinary mole on Bethany's cheek, not a mark of warning. Esther hated to disobey Ma. But she decided she had no choice.

• • •

“Ma, I finished all the lamps. Is it all right if I go pick some raspberries?” It was midmorning. Esther had spent the past hour polishing the kerosene lamps. It was a chore she hated because the smoky smudges on the glass were so stubborn. She had to rub and rub until her shoulders ached. But the last lamp was gleaming on the kitchen table. Now was the time to try her plan. She crossed two sets of fingers behind her back.

Ma was washing clothes in the yard. She used two washtubs for the job. One had soapy water in it for the washing. The other tub had clear water for the rinsing. Somewhere in the middle of the wash, Ma would empty both tubs into the grass. Then she would carry buckets of hot water from the kitchen and cold water from the well until both tubs were filled with clean water again. The buckets were too heavy for Esther to carry, but Ma was strong. And even though washing clothes was much harder here than it had been in the city, she never complained.

Ma was on her knees scrubbing one of Pa's shirts on the gray rippled washboard. Sweat streamed down her face. Hearing Esther's question, she stopped and wiped her forehead on her arm. “Raspberries and cream would be a good treat,” she admitted. “You know where these berries grow?”

“Yes, and I'll bring home lots,” Esther promised. She held her breath.

Ma smiled. “Go, then. There are buckets in the barn. Too bad I need Violet to help me or she could pick, too.” She looked across the yard to where Violet was hanging wet clothes on the line. It was a chore Esther couldn't help with yet because she was too short.

“Thanks, Ma.” Esther ran for the buckets.

A few minutes later Esther was on her way. Ma had wrapped a sandwich in waxed paper and set it inside one of the buckets. “You will get hungry,” she told Esther. Then she nested that bucket inside the other one. “There,” she said when she was finished. “Now they both have something in them,” she explained. “To carry an empty bucket is bad luck.”

Esther didn't know how Ma kept track of so many ways to avoid bad luck, but she took the buckets and said, “Thanks, Ma. I'll bring home lots of berries.”

On her way to the road, feeling guiltier than ever, she fed the sandwich to Mickey so it would not go to waste. Then she put the crumpled sheet of waxed paper back in the bucket so it wouldn't be empty. She spotted Pa walking through the wheat field. Still no rain had come. Pa's walk was slow.

Walter skipped behind him, raising little clouds of dust. Esther looked up at the sky. There were a few clouds off in the distance. Please, please, rain here, she begged them silently.

It was a long walk to Bethany's house. It was even farther away than the school. To make the walk more interesting, Esther pretended she was a brave explorer alone in the jungle. The cows in the fields were elephants. The horses were giraffes. And the dogs and cats in the farmyards were lions and tigers. She skulked past mailboxes on silent feet—the lions and tigers mustn't hear! She trotted along the fence line with one spirited giraffe. And she made monkey noises at the elephants. They twitched their ears and one or two turned to stare.

Esther laughed and chattered and loped along, swinging her buckets. In a surprisingly short time she was turning off the road at Bethany's farm. And Bethany must have been watching, because she came running to meet her.

Suddenly Esther remembered what Ma had said: “She is marked to warn people that she is dangerous.” An icy shiver trickled down her spine.

“You came!” Bethany cried.

Her grin was enormous. Its warmth melted Esther's fear in an instant. “Of course I came,” she said.

Esther grabbed Bethany's outstretched hand. They ran the rest of the way to the house. The closer they got, the more astonished Esther became. She had never seen Bethany's house close up before. She'd only seen it from the road, and trees had partly blocked it. Now she could see it was white with green shutters. It had pots of geraniums on the porch, and even a rocking chair. It was just like her dream house, only bigger and better. She didn't realize she had stopped to stare until Bethany tugged on her hand.

“Come on,” Bethany urged. “Mama's waiting.”

Dazed, Esther tripped up the porch steps after her friend. Inside the house, she tried not to gawk. She had expected Bethany's home to be much like her own. But it was far more like Shirley's pretty home in Chicago than the Vogel farmhouse. There were carpets on the floors and pretty wallpapers on the walls. There were vases of flowers on the tables and snowy-white lace curtains at the window. And nowhere was there even one nasty old kerosene lamp. They had electricity.

“Hello, Esther,” Mrs. Klause greeted her from the kitchen—a kitchen with a real sink, a coal stove, and an icebox. “I hope you like pancakes, fried apples, and sausages.”

Esther's mouth watered. “I love them!” she said.

Lunch was delicious, but more than that, it was fun. Lunch for the Klause family was not just a time to eat. It was a time to talk and share and laugh together. Mr. Klause especially never seemed to run out of interesting stories to tell.

“Old Brownie got a real close look at a rabbit today,” he said with a grin. “He nearly put his hoof right on the fool thing before it woke up!”

Little Rose's eyes widened. “Did the bunny hop away, Papa? Did he?”

“You just bet he did, Rosy-Posy. You just bet he did,” Mr. Klause assured her. “But that silly old Brownie gave the biggest hop of all. That's how scared he was of that little bitty bunny.”

Esther laughed along with everyone else, picturing the big workhorse leaping into the air like an enormous rabbit.

Later, when the meal was nearly finished, Mr. Klause turned a suddenly serious face on Bethany and Esther. “Just be sure to put more raspberries in your pails than in your stomachs,” he warned.

Esther sat up straighter and nodded. She didn't realize Mr. Klause was teasing until she heard Bethany's unladylike snort. Bethany pointed a finger at her father. “You're the one who eats as fast as he picks!”