Always.
•26•
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
I
told the brothers to let me do the washing up from our meal, though they insisted on clearing away the dishes first. I commandeered their little sink, pumping the fresh water until it gushed freely. Though Papa’s house had taps, some of the Morton cousins only had pumps like the brothers had, so I knew what must be done.
After the sink was filled with the cold water, I pumped some more into the kettle and heated it up. Then with the hot water I scrubbed the plates and teacups till everything shone, rinsing them thoroughly in the cold.
Meanwhile, the brothers went into the music room, where I was now to sleep, and brought out their instruments. Jakob and Klaus played fiddles, Philip and Freddy took turns on the sole accordion, Karl played the harmonium, and George kept them all in time with his big bass drum.
While I worked, they made a merry sound. So for the first time since Papa stopped playing his banjo for me, I had tunes to accompany my chores. I was able to laugh out loud and sing along with them, though I actually knew only one or two of the tunes they played.
And so I stayed in the little house near the mine entrance, alongside the chasm, one happy day merging into the next. I promised myself—and them—that I would leave soon. But I stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Happiness makes even the worst dangers seem far away.
Each morning the brothers went off to the mine, where they dug not for coal like most of the miners in Webster County, but for rough jewels like garnets, amethysts, even the occasional ruby and emerald. These they polished at home and then Jakob—with one of the other brothers—would take their finds every few weeks to sell to jewelers in Charleston or Morgantown or Clarksburg.
And me? At first I filled my days with cleaning the house and sewing missing buttons back on their trousers. I hemmed up Mutti’s dresses to fit me. But that took such a small part of my day. Of course after I discovered Willy’s library tucked away in the closet of the music room—with his name neatly spelled out, both
Wilhelm
and
Willy
in a neat and careful hand—I began to read again, reading every book he had in English. The brothers read, too, though much of it was in a foreign language—German, as it turned out, not alien at all.
When I’d run through all of Willy’s books, I managed to persuade Jakob to find me some other books, from a secondhand bookstore, when he next went on a selling trip.
“Especially fairy tales,” I told him. “Do you know what I mean—fairy tales?”
He laughed. His laughter was like a big man’s—full and deep and generous. “Have you heard of the Brothers Grimm?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Vell, they vere Germans from Hessen, as are ve.”
I laughed back. “But not miners.”
“Not miners,” he agreed. “But in Hessen, little Summer, there are more miners than there are fairy-tale makers.”
“Here in West Virginia, too,” I said, “though they mostly mine coal.”
As he started out the door, I remembered the thing I’d meant to ask for and had forgotten. “And please also bring back packets of seeds.” I gave him a list I’d made. “I’m going to plant you a garden.”
Over a month had gone by, and though I kept meaning to leave, I stayed, one happy, fear-free day melting into the next.
The brothers, though, were more mindful of danger and warned me never to open the door to a stranger in case Stepmama or Hunter came by. As there had been no sign of either, I felt completely safe both in the house and outside of it as well. Inside I had locks on all the doors. Outside I had Ursula. She long ago had forgiven me for tossing the stick at her and now followed me around like a dog. A
big
dog.
Did I spare a thought for Papa and Cousin Nancy? I confess they were not at the top of my waking mind. But each night, before sleep, I worried about them and prayed for them till sleep overtook me. My dreams were all green.
Ursula was my constant companion whenever I went out into the woods to search for ramps or lamb’s-quarter or dandelions and other things in nature’s larder. She followed closely at my heels. And while I gathered any wild greens, stuffing them into my tote bag, she lay down by me and kept a watch. Also she had a nose like a pig for truffles, finding edible plants and mushrooms growing up on tree trunks as well as any honey hives within a mile of the house.
I started the brothers’ garden on the far side of their cottage, away from the chasm, planting vegetables and flowers, which I knew would be in full bloom even after I was gone. They’d never planted a garden for themselves though I’d found the remains of one.
“Mutti had a garden,” Klaus explained. “It vas her pride and joy. She never allowed us in it, not to plant nor to reap.”
Jakob had laughed at that explanation. “Voman’s vork!” he said. “We hadn’t time to care for it after she died.” He took a deep breath. “Or the heart.”
I shook my head. “So I suppose instead, you buy food in the cities and cart it back here whenever you’re on your jewel trips. So much money spent. And the food all overripe or underdone.” Papa would have said the same.
Philip held a hand up and tutted at me. “Ve hunt for the pot—grouse and duck and boar.”
“I fish,” Freddy added. “Brown trout. Yum.”
“He fishes more than he catches,” said Karl.
I laughed. Their little spats were always in fun. There was no malice in them. “Growing your own food makes for better eating,” I told them, repeating what I’d learned in home ec class. “And better for you.” I grinned. “Makes you grow big and strong.”
“Vell, strong perhaps,” said Freddy.
At that we all howled with laughter.
While I didn’t have Papa’s perfect gift with green things, I was miles better than the brothers, except for Klaus, who spent every evening after he got back from the mine by my side, learning all he could about gardening. It turned out he had green fingers like Papa’s, if not quite as practiced.
That pleased me because I knew that even long after I’d left them, my little men would have something to remember me by.
I got Freddy, Karl, and Philip to put in a fence around the garden to keep it safe from marauding animals though really, we hardly needed it. With Ursula sleeping by the garden at night, we’d no trouble with pests like rabbits, groundhogs, moles, or deer. She’d marked her territory pretty well, and none of them dared come near.
Was I happy?
Never happier.
But happiness can breed complacency, a word that means “smug satisfaction,” or “being unaware of danger.” I relaxed too much into my new life, believing myself completely safe when, in fact, there was nothing safe about it at all.
It was just days before Willy was to come home from the university for the summer. And it was a week before I’d promised myself I would definitely be off east, heading toward Virginia. I was working as usual out in the side garden. It was so hot under the brilliant sun that I’d tied my hair back under one of Mutti’s colorful scarves and had even taken off the caul bag, shoving it into the pocket of my shirt so it wouldn’t lie heavily on my chest, making me sweat puddles.
As I bent over the carefully dug rows, disguised by the high grasses outside of the fence, I was all but invisible to any passersby. Though of course no one ever did pass by.
Ursula dozed by the foot of a nearby birch, quite stuffed with honeycomb that she’d discovered somewhere down the road. She’d brought a bit home as well for the brothers and me, and I’d already stored it in a canning jar. The brothers loved a teaspoon of honey in their porridge bowls.
My hands were in the dark soil, transplanting some lamb’s-quarters I’d found back in the woods. Lamb’s-quarters—which the brothers called goosefoot—will take over a garden if you’re not careful. But there’s nothing better in salads, as Papa used to say, or steaming it to serve just like spinach. The peas and beans I’d planted were just starting up. Carrots and potatoes, too, their little green shoots pushing through the rich earth. Next I was going to plant the precious squash seeds Jakob had brought back for me. I planned ten hills of them. I’d already explained how they grew to Klaus, who wrote it all down in a little notebook because the root vegetables and the squash would be ready for harvest after I was gone.
Suddenly, breaking through my garden thoughts, I heard a knock at the front door and a crackling old voice called out, “Anybody home?”
Ursula was awake in an instant and began a low, rumbling growl. She began to stand, but I put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still.
“That doesn’t sound like anyone I know,” I whispered to her. “Not Stepmama nor Hunter. But we will be careful nonetheless.”
Standing, I tried to tidy myself, wiping a dirt-encrusted hand across my forehead because my brow was sweaty. I was in my work clothes, not one of Mutti’s nice dresses—a pair of Willy’s old outgrown trousers and one of his shirts tied up in front, which had become my regular gardening outfit. With the strings of the caul bag hanging out of the pocket of the shirt, I must have been quite a sight.
An old woman stood at the door. If I looked bad, she looked ten times worse. Her skin was like parchment stretched over brittle bones. Her hair, gray and greasy, hung down to her shoulders. Long, scraggly bangs almost obscured her eyes, which was just as well since the left had a white cast over it. Her cheeks were deeply sunken; hunger must have been a constant companion. A filthy dress and coat seemed to droop from her stooped shoulders as if from a hanger. Even if the dress and coat had been clean, they wouldn’t have had any color, for years of washing had bleached them both to a uniform gray. Her shoes were broken; the left one had toes showing through and the right heel was half off.
If I looked like a disaster barely avoided, she looked like the disaster had hit her head-on. Poor woman.
It didn’t occur to me to ask why she’d come this far up the mountain. She seemed so exhausted, with a pack on her back and a covered willow-weave basket over her left arm, that all I felt was pity, not blame.
“Grandma,” I said to her, “how long since you’ve last eaten?” Just as the brothers had asked me.
She put a hand over her breast as if her heart hurt. “I . . . I can’t rightly remember.” Her voice creaked with age.
“Well, let me bring you out some tea and küchen.” Even though she looked as if what she needed first was a good wash and a lie down, I’d promised the brothers I’d never let anyone into the house. They said it wasn’t safe. And I’m always good as my word.
I led her by the trembling arm to the bench by the door. “Sit here, ma’am, and I’ll bring you out something to eat. But don’t bolt it, mind, it’s quite rich food. Wouldn’t want to risk you getting sick on it.”
“You’re a good child,” she said, her crabbed fingers patting my hand.
Then I went inside.
I’d no sooner got to the kitchen than I heard footsteps at the door and I turned. She must have been bewildered or perhaps hard of hearing as well as half blind, for she’d tracked after me and she was standing at the door and holding on to the doorjamb as if ready to faint.
I stood there with the pan holding the freshly baked küchen in my hand, the kettle on the boil behind me, and made a decision. “Oh, you poor thing,” I said. “Sit here at the table before you fall over.”
She was in the house and already had the pack off her back, the basket held toward me, before I’d finished speaking.
“Thank you, dear child,” she quavered. “And you must take this as a gift from me for your sweet invitation.”
I didn’t have the heart to send her back outside into the hot sun now that she was already in the house. It would have been ungracious. And I feared that if I refused her offering, whatever it was, I’d surely hurt her pride. So I swallowed back an exasperated sigh and put out my hand for her gift.
•27•
COUSIN NANCY REMEMBERS
E
ach night after Summer had gone missing, I got down on my knees and prayed. And each morning before opening the post office, I went to church for confession. Father O’Hare looked annoyed to see me again, entering his side of the confessional with a heavy sigh. I knew he was tired of hearing me say the same thing.
But I never stopped praying. Or confessing.
Never.
Else how would I ever be able to explain it to Ada Mae when we met in heaven? Church doctrine aside, I just knew that’s where she and that precious baby boy were.
As for where Summer was, well, I refused to believe that she was in heaven with them. Not yet. I would have known it in my heart. I would have felt the pain of it under my breastbone. No, not dead, but surely taken, probably hurt, terrified, beaten down, confined. I couldn’t think enough bad thoughts, which the priest dismissed by giving me some Our Fathers and Hail Marys, more and more each day.
When Charlie Hatfield finally got around to asking Stepmama in the second week that Summer was gone, the witch said she’d run off with a boy she’d met at church; she didn’t rightly know his name. And that of course she’d hired a private detective to find them and bring them back though she didn’t offer up his name and number.
“But if they’ve gone and gotten married,” she said in a tight voice, “I expect Snow is no different than her mother, Ada Mae.”
In that way, she condemned both of them in a single breath, which to me meant she was condemning herself.
And silly old Charlie Hatfield fell under her spell even as she spoke, and didn’t do anything more about it except send around notices to the towns closest to us to be on the lookout for a girl in a blue dress.
No amount of my telling Charlie that Summer wasn’t the kind of girl to run off with a boy she just met made an ounce of difference. He was set on believing the witch.