Moon Over Manifest (14 page)

I
’d told and retold Miss Sadie’s last story and what I’d learned from Hattie Mae’s news auxiliary to Lettie and Ruthanne. I’d told them all about the Manchurian Fire Thrower, the untimely demise of Junior Haskell, the explosion at the water tower, and the unfortunate dousing of the victory quilt. I tried to remember every detail, even down to the Hungarian woman’s not being allowed to contribute a quilt square. But there were still things that needed pondering.

“So the Hungarian woman was Miss Sadie!” Lettie’s words broke the stillness of the dark woods. “So why does she call herself the Hungarian woman? Why doesn’t she just say ‘me’ or call herself Miss Sadie?”

“When she tells the stories, she’s sort of removed from them. She’s the storyteller.”

“Okay,” Ruthanne said, “but how does she know certain
things that happened when she wasn’t there to see for herself?”

“I wondered about that too,” I answered. “But remember the Hungarian olives? Jinx had ducked into her tent at the fairgrounds and later he was doing fence work for her. That must be how she knows some of the things she knows. He had to have told her.”

“Well, she’s got to have some kind of hoodoo. After all, the curse on Mrs. Larkin and the quilt worked!” Lettie said.

Lettie still got excited even though she and Ruthanne had made me tell them the story umpteen times in the past week. And we’d all read Ned’s letters so many times we practically knew them by heart. It was always interesting when Miss Sadie’s stories overlapped with something in Ned’s letters.

Lettie marveled at various parts of the story as Ruthanne and I walked alongside, our feet crunching through twigs and leaves in the moonlight. I was on another one of Miss Sadie’s nature errands. She’d had me do all manner of
divining
, as she called it. Things like venturing out at dusk to collect blue moss from under a fallen sycamore tree, and getting up at sunrise to gather a handful of dandelions before the morning dew burned off. The tasks were always unusual and she’d mash whatever I’d brought back into a paste or a powder. To what end, I didn’t know. But that night was a bit more mysterious, as I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for. Miss Sadie said a good diviner needed to watch, and listen, and wait.

“What do you think the curse was?” Lettie continued. “I mean, what curse causes a water tower to explode?”

Truth was I’d been afraid to ask Miss Sadie about the
curse she’d placed on Mrs. Larkin. The words seemed so ancient and full of bad omen I didn’t want her saying them in English and accidentally directing them toward me.

“And I still don’t understand why Shady was bidding against Jinx for the quilt,” Lettie said.

Ruthanne rolled her eyes. “How you ever got a better grade than me in math, I’ll never know. Now listen and I’ll explain it again.” Ruthanne always spoke about the stories as if she had witnessed the events herself. “At the auction nobody wanted the quilt, because it got wet and the president’s signature was all smudged, right?”

“Right,” Lettie said, concentrating.

“But Shady knew that Jinx had made a bundle of money selling his homemade fireworks.”

“Right. His share was twenty-five dollars and seventy-five cents.”

“Right. Since it was Jinx’s fireworks that caused the water tower to burst all over the place, Shady wanted him to make restitution and made him buy it. Jinx probably started with a lowball bid, so Shady kept bidding against him until the quilt finally sold to Jinx for twenty-five dollars—”

“And seventy-five cents!” Lettie’s eyes lit up. “The same amount he’d made off the fireworks.”

“Yes,” Ruthanne said with a sigh. “But it was probably Miss Sadie’s curse that doomed the quilt in the first place, don’t you think, Abilene?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “She must be a witch. Even Mrs. Larkin called her a sorceress. A caster of spells.”

“Then why does she call herself a diviner?” I asked. “How come her sign doesn’t say, ‘Miss Sadie: Sorceress and Caster of Spells’?”

“Because people in her line of work like to be mysterious. Just like whatever it is we’re traipsing through the woods for in the dark right now. There’s a mystery.” Ruthanne looked at me for an explanation.

“Miss Sadie gave me this bucket and told me to find a young cottonwood tree in the moonlight.”

“But what’s the bucket for?”

“She said to just keep my eyes open.”

“What kind of crazy instructions are those?” Ruthanne grumbled.

“It is kind of adventurous, though,” said Lettie. “It’s like that song ‘Riding the Rails in the Moonlit Night.’ ” Unbidden, Lettie broke into song.

“For the love of Pete, Lettie, if you don’t sing something a little more cheerful, Abilene and me are going to throw you on a train and not wave goodbye.”

“Don’t worry. It gets better,” Lettie said reassuringly.

I couldn’t help but join in.

We reached a clearing at the creek bed and studied the rocky, parched ground, and I imagined a time when this had been a lively stream that one could wade in for a swim. “There’s cottonwoods all along here,” Ruthanne said.

I touched the rough, heavy bark. “They look too old. She said a
young
cottonwood.”

“Then let’s look for some volunteers that have sprouted up more recently. Besides, the moon isn’t very bright yet. Come on. I’m getting hungry.” She steered us toward a clearing in a grove of cottonwoods and elms, some not much bigger than saplings.

Ruthanne sat down, her back against a rotted tree trunk, and opened a knapsack. “I guess if we have to wait for the eye of newt and heart of toad to present themselves, we might as well get comfortable. What’d you bring?”

We had agreed that we would each bring some food to share during our outing. Ruthanne pulled out three liverwurst sandwiches. I produced a dusty jar of pickled beets I’d found in Shady’s pantry. They wouldn’t have been out of the running next to the liverwurst sandwiches, but then Lettie produced a tin with two cookies in it. She handed one to me and one to Ruthanne.

“Gingersnap!” I said, biting into one, its sweet spiciness giving me a thrill. “Where’s yours?”

“I already had my fill. It was my sister Susie’s birthday on Tuesday, and as a surprise we all agreed to go without eggs
for breakfast this week so Mama could exchange them for sugar at the grocer’s,” Lettie explained. “She made a dozen gingersnaps.”

“Here, have half of mine,” I offered. Lettie took the half with some reluctance, I thought.

Ruthanne took one bite of her cookie, and then another. “Your mama sure makes a fine gingersnap. My mama always says she was born to manhandle a cast iron skillet but your mama was blessed with the lighter touch of a baker.” Ruthanne ate the last of the cookie. “Sing us a song, Lettie.”

Lettie beamed. “
I lit out on a dark and dreary night.…
”

We were in no hurry, since Lettie and Ruthanne had gotten permission to spend the night with me at Shady’s place. I hadn’t been sure if they’d be allowed to stay over, what with Shady being … Shady. But it seemed their mothers had known Shady their whole lives and they said it was fine as long as we could stomach his burnt biscuits in the morning.

Lettie’s song lulled us for a time. Then all grew still. We’d talked so much about Ned’s letters and who the Rattler might be. It seemed like a good time to set our minds on other things.

“How’s your story coming, Abilene?” Lettie asked. “The one Sister Redempta assigned you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really have a story to tell.”

“Telling a story ain’t hard,” Lettie said. “All you need is a beginning, middle, and end.”

“Hmm,” I answered, wondering if it was that simple.

“It’s so quiet out here,” Lettie said, changing the subject.

I listened for sounds of birds or cicadas … or rattlers.
Both the rattly spy kind and the slithery snake kind. “Do you think maybe there are snakes in these woods?” I asked.

“Snakes?” Ruthanne pondered the notion. “Uncle Louver says there’s critters of all shapes and sizes out here. He tells quite the tale about goings-on in the woods.”

I wasn’t really up for hearing it, but judging by the way she stretched back and put her hands behind her head, I knew she was waiting to be asked.

“Maybe now’s not the best time for that story, Ruthanne,” Lettie said. “It’s already kind of spooky out here.”

“Go on,” I said, pretending to stifle a yawn. “Let’s hear it.”

Ruthanne looked sideways at me, I guess gauging if my level of enthusiasm deserved her tale.

“Well,” she began, “he was setting some traps—Uncle Louver, that is—when he hears a god-awful noise. He thinks it’s a raccoon or maybe a possum, so he goes to check it out. By the time he realizes it’s no critter, it’s too late.”

“Mm-hmm. Too late,” Lettie echoed.

Ruthanne leaned forward. “He sees a man looking all afraid at something. His face all pale and eyes wide. That man was petrified.”

“Pet-ri-fied,” Lettie said.

“Of what?” I asked, my interest on the rise.

“The ghost. A big black ghost floating and rattling right towards that man. The fella’s backing up, backing up. Then Uncle Louver hears one of his traps snap.” Ruthanne clapped her hands together. “And things get quiet.”

“What’d he do?” I asked. “Uncle Louver, I mean.”

“He ran away. Fast as he could.”

“Mama says Uncle Louver always was a bit skittish,” Lettie added.

“Who was it? Who was caught in the trap?”

“That’s just it.” Ruthanne leaned back again, leaving a sufficient pause for the night sounds of the forest to fill in. “Never was a body found. He brought his brothers back to find it and there sat the trap, still snapped shut. All that was left was an old boot.”

“That’s right. An old, beat-up boot,” Lettie said.

Then both girls said together, “And the foot was still in it.”

I wasn’t sure if they were fooling, but right then, in the darkness of those same woods, that image hung before me like the ghost itself.

“So the boot, the foot, what’d they do with ’em?” I asked.

Ruthanne continued. “Uncle Louver wanted nothing to do with it, in case the ghost came looking for it, so he buried it.”

“Did anyone ever see the ghost again?”

“Oh, some would see a passing shadow now and again, but they could hear it rattling around in the woods.”

“Rattling?” I said. “What if that ghost and the Rattler were one and the same?”

“I suppose that’s a thought.” Ruthanne considered the possibility. “Uncle Louver says that sometimes, even now, he catches a shadowy glimpse of that figure going hither and yon, especially during a full moon.”

As she said it, we realized the moon was full and brilliant above us.

“Look,” I said.

“What? Did you find the eye of newt and heart of toad?” Ruthanne asked.

“Close.” I pointed. Glistening in the soft ground around the saplings were hundreds of big fleshy worms. “Miss Sadie knew we’d find worms here for her garden.”

“Or her witch’s brew.”

“Either way, let’s put them in the bucket. Then we can get out of these creepy woods.”

We worked quickly, scooping up handfuls of dirt before the worms could wiggle their way deep into the ground. Then, with two of us at a time sharing the weight of the bucket, we started back to Shady’s place, looking hither and yon for any ghostly movement.

All three of us crawled into bed, one beside the other, listening to the sound of a harmonica in the distance. It was probably just a folk tune being played, but after Ruthanne’s story, it sounded like a mournful wail.