Finding Esme Page 3

  When we reached her, her witching stick was pointing up, hovering gently. We looked to where it pointed, and there was old Miss Lilah, sitting on the low-slung limb of an oak tree. It was the strangest thing I think I’d ever seen. Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance. We approached and Bee tended to her, talking to her softly. But I followed Miss Lilah’s gaze. Across the valley was Peach Hollow Farm, and looking like the steeple of an ancient church, there was Paps’s tractor up on Solace Hill. Shivers went up my arms then, and my toes started that low hum, tiny and warm.

  “Miss Lilah,” Bee said softly, “time to come down.” Miss Lilah was soaked from head to toe and shivering like a plucked chicken. She must’ve been out all night in the rain, sitting on that limb.

  “He was on that hill, shouldn’t have been, dadgummit,” Miss Lilah said. She’d never uttered any cuss words in our presence, but then again she’d hardly said a word during our short visits, only nodded sweetly as we drank iced tea with mint on her front porch.

  Bee had a funny look, her lips pursed tightly like she’d swallowed vinegar. I waited for her to ask Miss Lilah what she meant, but Bee kept her mouth firmly closed.

  “Who?” I asked. My toes were throbbing. “Who was on the hill?” But I knew. I’d seen Paps up on Solace Hill about a week before he died, standing there a good long while, puffing on his cigar, looking out at our farm. I’d watched him from my window and something down deep told me not to follow him that day, not like I usually did.

  “My Homer,” Miss Lilah said. “He’s on the hill. I see him on the hill. It’s because of her. Shouldn’t have married that hussy.”

  She meant Bee! I almost laughed. Bee was twenty years younger than Paps. I’d never heard how they met, only that Paps kept to himself on the farm and rarely came to church and everyone round here had assumed he’d never marry.

  “Come on, Miss Lilah,” said Bee. “We need to get you home before you catch your death. Miss Opal can make some hot tea.”

  But Miss Lilah wouldn’t let Bee take her arm. “You know very well, Bee, about that . . . that hill, those ghost lights going up and down, up and down, up and down. . . .”

  Bee put two fingers gently on Miss Lilah’s lips. Their eyes met and then Miss Lilah looked away. Bee was usually so brave, but at that moment she turned to me with a look so fearful it sent shivers down my spine and all the way down to my toes which, by the way, were thumping now.

  Finch and I helped Miss Lilah climb out of the tree, and just as I was handing her off to Bee, Miss Lilah gripped my hand and said, “He was looking for something on that hill, honey. Find it and he’ll be at rest.”

  We rode home in silence except for the sound of Finch chewing Bottle Caps in the backseat. After we dropped him off and Bee parked the Wagon in the drive, I asked softly, “Why was he digging, Bee? What were the lights Miss Lilah was talking about going up and down Solace Hill?”

  “Fireflies,” she said flatly. She gripped the steering wheel a moment, staring straight out the windshield at our farm, breathing deeply. I looked over at her, willing her to look at me. But she pulled the keys out of the ignition and went inside.

  I had to wait until after dinner and it got dark before going back up Solace Hill. June Rain was listening to the radio in her room and Bee was washing dishes. Bo was playing with his army soldiers on the floor. I hummed along to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” as I stood at my window, watching the sun as it slipped down behind the hills like a gold coin. My heart was racing and my toes were still tingling with the “knowing” that I’d found something big up there. Something life changing. What had Miss Lilah said about Paps? About him being on Solace Hill? Bee had said he wasn’t here anymore, that he was in heaven, but I didn’t think so. He was still there on that hill, trying to tell me something.

  I tiptoed past June Rain’s room. I ran through the living room and grabbed one of the crazy quilts Bee’s always making when something’s on her mind, and I ran out the front door with it.

  The rain had turned up huge clots of mud on Solace Hill. The ruts leading up the hill through the sweet clover to Paps’s tractor were still there, his roadway to nowhere. Why had he suddenly gone up there with the tractor? I’d asked Bee and she’d said he was turning up a new pasture for Sugar Pie to graze on. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see the hill was too steep for our old horse.

  My moccasins, already wet and dirty from tromping through Miss Lilah’s land, were now even more caked with mud. I felt as though I was walking in quicksand.

  When I made it to the top, I was too scared to search for the bone right away. A bird flew in the distance as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. I stood there taking deep breaths, looking down at our old farmhouse, which sorely needed new shutters and a good coat of paint, and beyond it at our acres of peach trees and open pasture. Several miles away were the faint twinkling lights of Hollis. I carefully crawled under the tractor and spread the crazy quilt out. I hummed a church hymn that Bee sang sometimes at the top of her lungs when she hung the washing out on the line. “Old Mountain. Old Mountain. Lead me up the Old Mountain. I see Thee a coming O’Lord, I see Thee a coming . . .”

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and I jumped, hitting my head on the tractor. But it was just Bump, perched on something emerging from the mud to the right of the tractor. Very slowly, ever so slowly, my eyes followed the length of Bump’s ridgey back. He was sitting on the bone. And he wasn’t but three feet from me. I could be lying on top of a skeleton, for goodness sake.

  I scrambled out, then Bump scurried down the hill. Breathing hard, I quickly brushed the mud off my pants.

  I took a breath and squatted down next to the bone. Gently, ever so gently, I put my fingers on top of it. After a few more deep breaths, I brushed away some of the dirt. More white, strangely opaque, feathered with fine cracks. Whatever was buried here had been here a good long time. A good long time. I leaned down and put my face right up close, my nose almost touching it, my heart racing. I realized how alone I was. With that bone. I stood up and raced down the hill.

  As I made my way back to the house, I spotted June Rain wandering through the peach trees, her eyes wetly brown in the darkness. When I tried to coax her inside, she lifted her finger up to her lips, “Shhhhh.” She clutched my arm, then cupped my cheek with her other hand. “Shhhhh.” Her fingers smelled strongly of cigarettes—Harlan’s old Salems, the ones she’d always hidden from him. I twisted from her grasp, turned, and ran to the house.

  Chapter 4

  “Look over yonder, who do you see? God’s gonna trouble the water. Who’s that yonder dressed in white? God’s gonna trouble the water.” All morning while we’d been singing hymns at the Holy Mercy Church of Abiding Faith, I’d been thinking about ghosts and whether they were real or not. About the ghost of the drowning woman in Bitter Creek, and why she’d hadn’t gone on home to heaven. I sat mesmerized by the waggling spittle on Reverend Foley Hopper’s chin as he droned on and on. Bo was next to me scribbling on the collection envelope with a big fat crayon. Every few minutes when he opened his mouth to chatter in his non-church voice, Bee would pop in a lemon drop.

  Someone once stole the collection platter from Holy Mercy. Bee found it out back with her witching stick. There were just a few pennies still inside along with a black beetle who’d made his home there. She had a notion who did it but decided not to say anything. Bee told me whoever stole it must have needed money desperately to justify the theft. She left one of her witching sticks straight across the pulpit like a cross until Reverend Hopper brought it back to Peach Hollow saying it’s best to sweep in front of your own door; some things people already know in their hearts, and they don’t need to be shown it.

  What had God been trying to show me? What had Paps been trying to show me? Or the ghost in the henhouse? Was it a ghost? What had been flitting about in the rain? And what about that bone? All morning I’d been shaking, my knee popping up and down till finally Bee reache
d over and pinched my thigh. I was so scared I tingled. Something was happening in my life and I didn’t know what it was.

  Paps was gone, Harlan was gone, my mother may as well be gone, and there was hardly anything left. I’d never felt so alone in my life. I daydreamed about hopping on a bus and just seeing where it took me, escaping from Peach Hollow Farm. But Bo looked up at me just then and grinned his big ole tooter grin and I knew I’d never be hopping on some bus and disappearing. I would stay here and put what was left back together.

  Sweetmaw sat on the other side of the church as far away from Bee as she could, or maybe it was the other way round. For three generations the Hennesseys always sat together in the front row, and their mama Louella would be sore hearted to know they were so spread apart now. Their older-than-Egypt bad blood went further back than when Bee supposedly stole the famous Hennessey bees, which Sweetmaw says were rightly hers by inheritance. June Rain told me once that secrets run deep on Peach Hollow Farm.

  The Hennesseys, at one time, had made honey at Honeycomb Farm on the south side of Hollis as way back as anyone could remember. Louella Hennessey thought naming her two daughters Bee and Sweet was fitting. But Bee swears that Sweetmaw is not as sweet as everyone has come to believe. More like a fig that tastes like a lemon as soon as you bite into it. But I’d always wished she were my grandma instead of bossy ol’ Bee. Sweetmaw Hennessey is so sweet and kind, always smiling with a nice thing to say about everyone.

  Vera Godly, the town’s official spreader of bad news, sat in front of us waving a fan back and forth. I glanced behind me and saw Dovie Cade in the back with Rose Galloway and Mady Whitshaw, the most popular girls in my class. They wore matching telephone-wire rings twisted into big flowers, supposedly all the rage with the Paradise girls. Dovie’s mama worked at the cosmetics counter at the Ben Franklin, and they were always hanging out there painting their faces with the sample lipsticks and testing out all the stinky perfumes. The Ben Franklin had been me and Dovie’s special place once.

  I caught Dovie’s eye. We’d been friends forever long ago. Now she hardly looked at me. I realized then that Dovie was not really pretty at all, she just seemed pretty ’cause she basked in Rose’s sunshine, and underneath all that makeup was the plain girl who used to follow me around on the playground. About a month after Paps died, a bunch of girls had cornered me in the bathroom to ask me how I was doing. Dovie had quietly slipped into one of the stalls. Rose had patted me on the back saying how sorry she was. Later Finch had yanked something off my back. A single square of paper covered with the names kids had called me my whole life and a few new ones. It hurt even now, thinking about it. Dovie might not have written it, but she’d done worse; she’d hid in the stall and let it happen.

  Bee was watching me funny as I wiggled around and shivered, giving me that don’t-fidget-in-church look. She’d made me wear a white cotton dress with fat little cherries on it and funny underwear with lace on the edge and shiny white Mary Janes that looked like shoes a five-year-old would wear, especially since my feet were so big. Bee got them from Lottie Broadway in exchange for Bee finding Lottie’s car. The dress showed my white knobby knees and the underwear itched my rear end to high heaven, and the shoes, well, they just looked stupid.

  I turned the pages of the hymnal and sang loudly. Us McCauleys weren’t known for our singing abilities. Bee once volunteered for the choir and was told there was no room, although there were only six of them up there including Treva Stump, whose voice sounds like a yowling cat. Bo crawled around underneath the pew to tie Vera Godly’s shoelaces together. Bee yanked him back, sat him upright, and popped another lemon drop in his mouth.

  Finch Aberdeen sat behind me with his mama and his brother Granger, who was sleeping with his head back, his mouth open so wide surely God could see his Adam’s apple from heaven. Finch’s daddy Spoon was absent as usual; he was probably sleeping off last night’s whiskey. Bee’s had to find him many a time. Once he was passed out in a chair at Sweetmaw’s and somebody had put sponge curlers in his hair and painted his nails pink. Bee says we all got it bad, but the Aberdeens got it worse with their no-good daddy and Finch’s no-good brother who can’t find the right wagon to load. Sometimes Bee puts baskets of peaches and squash and beans by their back door. Finch told me his mama brings them inside before his Daddy sees ’cause he don’t like charity.

  Finch was kicking the pew and making funny faces at me when I looked back at him. He lifted his Mr. Potato Head ears up and down, his special trick, trying to make me catch the church giggles, those giggles you can’t stop once you start. I ignored him; I had enough on my mind.

  After church I looked for Sweetmaw, but she was talking to Sheriff Truett Finney (that old fat fellow, big as Dallas, Bee says) by his patrol car. The sheriff didn’t like Bee and how she poked her nose in his business. He had even threatened to throw her in jail once.

  Bee turned on her heel and announced she needed some things in the Ben Franklin. I grabbed Bo’s hand and headed toward the Bee Wagon. No way was I going to the Ben Franklin. Dovie Cade would be there with Rose and Mady, where they’d be getting free grilled sandwiches and Frito pies and thick chocolate malts. All ’cause Dovie’s mother Dee Dee worked there. My heart turned: Dovie hadn’t even come to Paps’s funeral, and I don’t think I could ever forgive her that, whatever her reason.

  “Esme,” Bee called. “Come along.” Bo ran gleefully ahead and I begrudgingly followed, Finch behind me. There’d be no Sunday dinner at his house. He always came home with us after church.

  Bo ran immediately to the candy case and pressed his nose up against it, making one long streak as he moved down the length of it looking at the butternut chocolate crumbles, the orange slices, the licorice, the root beer barrel candy, and the Tootsie Rolls. Bee marched to the back of the store and I avoided the soda fountain where all those horrible girls with their matching flower rings sat on the stools already slurping down their malts. I walked past all the things that used to bring me such happiness—the Dawn dolls, the paper doll books, Bazooka Joe hard-as-rock bubblegum that came with a cartoon, the rhinestone rings that Dovie’s mom used to let us play with, the velvety change purses, and quarter-cent tin toys. Finch took Bo over to the toy section, which was like putting a hungry shark in a goldfish bowl. I ended up in the tool aisle looking for some tools to help me unearth the bone but knowing I didn’t have the money to buy anything. Suddenly Dovie’s face appeared on the other side of the aisle between cans of hornet spray and fishing bobbers.

  “Why does everyone hate me?” I asked. One of those tiny ten-cent balls painted like the earth came bouncing over from the toy aisle. I caught it and squeezed it.

  “No one hates you, Esme,” she said. “They don’t even know what happened. Not really. Not all of it. They just think you’re different. They think you’re weird.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Yes, us McCauleys were peculiar. A long line of us, going back to Louella Hennessey who could predict the weather better than the Farmer’s Almanac, and Louella’s mother May who could foresee the future in her coffee grinds. But why did that matter? She never used to care. There was an awkward pause and I turned to walk away.

  “Are you all right?” she asked quietly.

  “You never even came to his funeral,” I said, turning back to her.

  She lowered her head. “I was too upset, and scared,” she said.

  Scared. “Are you kidding me?”

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Bo hopped by behind her, a pirate’s hat on his head, two big teddy bears tucked under his arms like torpedoes. Finch was nowhere to be seen, but two aisles over, a cloud of bubbles floated up and over the ladies’ underthings and men’s hankies aisle. They floated over us gently, then moved on.

  “You don’t remember the play set?” Dovie asked. “Recess?”

  No, I had no idea what she was talking about, I could hardly remember anything about last spring. But a sickening feeling started rising up in me. />
  And then an image of Dovie and me swinging on those old metal swings. It had been a clear day, no bad weather in sight. The other girls were trying on lip gloss and pawing through their purses. The bell rang; the kids trickled back into school. Dovie continued to swing, high, higher.

  “You screamed at me to get off the swing,” Dovie said. “I was mad, mad at you for yelling at me like that. But I got off, and right then it happened. Lightning struck the swing set, Esme. I saw the electricity snake along the whole thing like a ribbon of fire, and you just kept on swinging. I came over and coaxed you off, and it was like nothing had happened, only your hair was standing on end, straight up above you pointing at the blue sky. I helped you inside. And then you told the teacher you had to go home. You were mumbling about a storm. No one had seen the lightning, though, only me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t remember any of this.

  “And from what I can gather,” she continued, “you made it home and saw Miss Bee running up the hill.”

  “To Paps,” I said, realizing it now. “And I didn’t get there in time.” Then vague memories of later that night, Bee scrubbing my hair in the bathtub, me sobbing, asking “What happened? What happened?”

  Rose Galloway called Dovie’s name and Dovie’s face disappeared from view. I closed my eyes, feeling sick to my stomach. A few minutes later, Bee herded us past the cosmetics counter and out the door. Dovie’s mother Dee Dee waved at us, and my toes buzzed. I had a clear vision of her grandmother’s prized wedding ring, lost for years, underneath the face cream counter, covered by a piece of petrified bubblegum. I crouched down and yanked it out. I set it down on the counter in front of Dee Dee’s astonished face and followed Bee out of the Ben Franklin.