The Storycatcher (21 page)

Mama was not part of my death quilt. I thought I’d get something of hers and add it, but after the visit I knew she believed me to be good. If she did one thing wrong, it sure wasn’t her fault. Every good Christian woman believed in her pastor. They was supposed to. Mama was no different. So she couldn’t be faulted. But I had me a real list of folks that had gone into this work. Faith left the finishing touches to me. One more thing had to go into the quilt—a soul. And that soul was wicked. A death quilt had a sleep charm woven into the materials. When placed on that soul, it gave sleepy calm. It was then and only then a girl could go after her revenge.

In a small cup was buttons Faith stole from the wash that hung on the lines out behind the main house. She snipped them off without anyone but me seeing her: a sunny yellow one from Mrs. Dobbins’s robe, three red triangle buttons stolen from a satin blouse hidden away in a cupboard in Amanda’s cabin—a blouse she had forgotten, wanted to put out of her mind—and last a bright blue button belonging to Miss Tuggle’s fancy dress along with some hair from her brush. Everybody that needed to be included in the making of the charm was right there.

The buttons made little clicking sounds in my hand. I would stitch each one on the quilt, a part of each person. I hummed one of them lullabies Mama sung to me as a little girl. A fluttering moved up my chest as I hummed louder. Faith wasn’t going to put up with me taking over her body for a long time. Her thoughts was tangled up with mine so tight I started to wonder which was hers and which belonged to me.

The house was silent and empty. The women was plotting how to save us all from Pastor so we’d be leaving soon. Of course, if Pastor fell through the hole in his mind and started killing everyone, that would be a sight. The quilt held a secret pocket that Faith had sewn into the
hem. She was one smart girl, and I guessed that was one of the reasons I picked her. Folded into the pocket was a sheet of soft blue tissue paper with a lock of black hair. Hair always looked the same no matter how long it’d been around. All them bodies in Daniels Cemetery probably still had hair. I bet my baby boy was still curled in my arms out there in the ground.

A shadow moved across the glass in the window. A cloud hid the moon, and I couldn’t see Pastor. A strawberry moon looked like any other full moon, but it came in June just as the strawberries began to get ripe. It was a forgiving moon. Not one part of me was up for that, for forgiving.

That silly colored-girl haint, Armetta, stood in the corner of the room. “You working?”

“I guess so.” I touched the blue velvet hem of the quilt.

“A charm quilt.” She moved closer to the bed. “I could sew real good when I was alive, but I didn’t like it none.”

“I don’t like sewing either, but this be my way of fighting without no one knowing,” I whispered. “That girl, she did most the work. She likes to sew.”

“No forgiveness in this room.” She ran her fingers over the part of the quilt with the stolen words from my marker.

“Don’t have no room for such.” I shrugged.

“Maybe not.” She moved close to me. “You be one powerful spell, girl. We could help each other. I want what you want.” She looked at the hair in my hand. “Who that belong to?”

“Me.”

She turned quiet and looked at it. “No good going to come from you working alone.”

“Don’t intend no good. This here is a death quilt. I’m sewing a death and a truth at the same time.”

She stared at the quilt a minute longer and then threw her head back and laughed. A thick scar circled her throat. “Teach me how to have a body so I can finish my story.”

“This ain’t some trick I can give. She called me, the pastor’s daughter, Faith. She needed me to save her from herself.”

The cloud moved away from the moon.

“You got powerful mojo,” Armetta whispered. “You got a backbone too.”

“Why you stay with Pastor?”

Again she let go with that ugly laugh. “Our stories are all twined together like a fine horsehair rope. Me, you, and that girl inside of you, we all tangled.” And she was gone.

There was a time in my life when seeing that girl would have scared me into a early death, but now what scared me most was Pastor. He was real, solid, and pure mean. Those were the most fearful things. If he decided to pay Faith a visit, there was that razor in my pocket. That was the best kind of spell I knew. Faith needed a lesson in how to use a blade in the proper way.

I
WOKE WITH MY HEART
beating so hard in my chest I couldn’t think, and for a minute my breath was squeezed right out of me. My mouth tasted like sand, and my hands shook. I remembered how we’d be leaving anytime. The cabin was quiet, and the sun stretched over my bed. Maybe all of it was just a bad dream.

“Shelly,” Nada called from the front porch.

Mrs. Dobbins, her face bruised and beaten, was asleep in Nada’s bed. A chill walked through my body, a warning that something bad was sitting, waiting on all of us. “Yes, ma’am.”

Nada drank her coffee and looked at the yard.

“You ain’t really going to make me go, are you?”

Nada didn’t look at me. “He’s gone for now. Mrs. Dobbins will be wanting to leave when she gets up. She’s going to take the car without him knowing. Get your stuff ready. Take it all, Shelly, especially your
money. You might need it before this is over. I told you it be your running money.”

“I’ll go if you go.”

“This ain’t no bargaining table, girl. Go take yourself in there and get your things ready. When I call you, it’ll be time.”

I wore my meanest look.

“No fussing. Go.”

“Why you want to get rid of me?”

Nada gave me her most sorrowful face. “Girl, you know better. Be watchful. That’s something you’ve never been. Use the smarts God gave you and don’t listen to your heart all the time. It’ll fool you in a minute. I’m taking care of you by sending you off. That’s what a mama does.” She huffed and turned her attention on the cup of coffee. “Go on, now.”

It took me about five minutes to put my extra dress, my books, and my money in my feed sack. There was that stupid old book of Armetta’s under the floorboard. I grabbed it up just so I could say I had it. Part of me didn’t want to admit just maybe she could help me.

I scooted out the door ’cause I had two places to go before I left the mountain.

WHATEVER I THOUGHT
I was going to find by hoofing it over to Miss Tuggle’s I sure didn’t get. Her house was shut up tight like she’d done left the mountain for a while. A note hung on the door.

Gone for a walk in the woods. Be back soon.

Maude

She was gone. I dug in my bag and pulled out my little pencil. It was mighty unfortunate she chose the day I was leaving to go take some dumb old walk. So I decided to tell her what happened and where I’d be.

Miss Tuggle:

By the time you get back, I’ll be gone from this here mountain on a trip that will probably last a month of Sundays. See Mrs. Dobbins is taking me and Miss Faith away from the mountain. We’re all going to hide at her brother’s on the Georgia coast. We got to sneak off with the car, so Pastor is going to be hot and he’ll come looking for you. Nada won’t go and I’m horrible afraid for her. He’s done lost his mind this time, ma’am. If you need to hide from him, there’s a cemetery up the mountain that is lost. Nobody goes there no more. It’s called Ella Creek and Pastor won’t never think to look there for you. See, he’s going to think you helped us get away. He don’t like you one little bit. Be careful going through them woods ’cause they be filled with lost souls. I know you be rolling your eyes, but for once just listen.

Shelly

I folded it real neat and slid it under the door. Instead of heading back to the main house, I took the trail leading further up the mountain. Maybe Nada would send Mrs. Dobbins and Faith on their way if she couldn’t find me. The woods always looked different. In the summer the trees was so thick it could come a hard rain and the water hardly touched the ground. The mountain laurel was in bloom and I wouldn’t get to enjoy it. That wasn’t fair. I loved the clusters of flowers. They didn’t have no smell to speak of, but the soft pink and white petals was real nice to look at. The deeper I went into the woods, the more heaviness settled on me. The dark spirits lived in those parts. Sometimes I’d stand on the back porch of the cabin and hear them whispering and moaning. Haints a girl didn’t want to meet up with, especially on a lonely trail going up the mountain. Haints like them watched from hidden places, waiting. No telling who they were and why they stayed out of sight. But they had to be better company than Mrs. Dobbins and Faith on the run.

Sunshine sprinkled across the path ahead. I knew where I was going. It was my quiet place. Ella Creek Cemetery was safe for now. I
wanted to see Daddy’s grave one more time before I left. The last time I was there, a fine patch of wild daisies had sprung up on his grave just like someone had planted them.

A FINE-LOOKING RED BIRD
landed on one of the old headstones. He cocked his head to the side. Nada said red birds meant a person would see someone unexpected. One of them haints from the woods was watching me. I felt them. I squatted in front of the stone, and that dern bird stayed right there.
LOST
was carved in the granite.
ARMETTA LOLLY
was carved underneath.

A statue of some kind was on its side covered with kudzu vine. Then I saw wings. One was perfect and one was broken. They looked about as real as anything could look. I touched the feathers. Angel. A marble angel. The kudzu held her tight.

“That be the grave meant for me.”

I jumped a foot. “You scared me to death.”

“Ain’t that what haints do?” Armetta smiled. Up until then, Armetta’s yellow dress always looked dirty and stained. But it was like brand-new, and her face had turned all soft like a light was under her skin. “This cemetery be a busy place these days.”

“What you mean?”

She smiled. “Never can tell who might come up that path and visit.”

“My daddy is buried over there close to you.”

“This is the place Miss Amelia put up for me. She didn’t know about him and what he did.” Armetta turned a mean look on me. “No one ever knew what happened to me or where my body ended up. No one knew my story.”

“Who hurt you?” Fear crawled up my arms.

“I ain’t telling you. You got to read my book, girl.”

“I got it here with me,” I admitted. “Can’t you just tell me so I won’t have to leave? Can’t we just get this all over with?”

“You want to rush my story? Nope. You got to read it. And you got to go. It’s part of your story. But I got to tell you some things before you go.” Armetta came closer.

“I ain’t leaving.”

“Yes you are. Your mama be determined, and there ain’t nothing like a determined mama.”

“I can’t leave her.” I stood up straight.

“She needs to go with you, but she won’t. She’s got things to take care of here.” She studied me a minute. “You know your trouble, Shelly? You be pretty to look at but not a bit useful, like that bottle tree you made. Read the book.”

“Okay, I’ll read it, but help me stay here.”

She laughed. “There was only one person that knew most of my story, Shelly. That be Ma Clark over at Ella Creek.”

“Who was Ma Clark?”

“Oh, girlie, you got to find that out on your own. And you will when you read the book. Her real name was Celestia and she was a slave with my mama, Liza Lolly. Liza, Celestia, and Emmaline, they was best friends.”

“Slaves. Lord, that was a long time ago.”

“I was born a slave but saw freedom just like Mama, Daddy, and Ma Clark.” Armetta moved right next to me. “Here’s what I have to tell you. My story be one big mess, girlie. That’s why I’m stuck here. You got to untangle it. Someone’s going to die and I want to stop it. I’m not sure I can.” Her words hung in the air like a sheet on a windless day. “You best get back. They need to leave soon to miss Pastor.” A hard gust of wind hit me in the face and Armetta was gone.

NADA HAD STOOD
on the cabin porch, stiff, straight, soft as the color blue. The smell of rain hung in the air. The last I seen of her she was twisting the corner of her apron in her hands.

The road went on and on. The car rocked, and I settled in that
comfortable place of dreams
. A boat rocked back and forth on what must have been the ocean, but seeing how I’d never seen it, I couldn’t be sure. A man stood on the deck, wearing a worn-out gray cap. He just stared at me like he was waiting for me to start talking first.

“It’s hotter than hell in here,” Faith complained from the front seat. The wind rushed in the open windows, but the air was sticky.

I opened my eyes, and my face was stuck to the back car seat. Drool ran from the side of my mouth. Faith sat with her leg hiked up and her thigh showing, watching out the window.

“That’s not decent talk. And cover your leg, sweetie.” Mrs. Dobbins wore dark glasses, but her face still showed a puffy mess.

“God,” Faith fussed.