The Scent of Lilacs (27 page)

J
ocie jumped back. She wanted to run up the bank and through the woods to the road where her bike was hidden. But she stood stock-still, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer. “Help me, Lord. I don’t know what I should do.” She kept her eyes closed an extra minute in case the Lord wanted to plant an answer in her head, but nothing happened. She still didn’t know what to do.

Of course, she did know some things. She knew she shouldn’t let Zeb have the skull, and really, he didn’t appear to want it now that he had presented it to her. He was sitting back, his head cocked to the side, waiting for her to do something. A chill tickled her spine as she imagined a baby’s tiny ghost beside Zeb also watching and waiting.

She couldn’t just leave the skull there on the ground, and she didn’t think she should carry it home with her. She looked over at Zeb. “I don’t guess you’d like to put this back where you found it.” Zeb just kept panting.

“That’s what I thought. Then I guess I’ll have to do it, snakes or no snakes.” Jocie picked up the skull. It was so small it fit in her palm. “Poor little baby. Wonder what happened to you. Why are you buried down here all alone in this cave? At least, I guess you’re alone.” Suddenly more ghosts popped up around her.

Jocie carried the skull very carefully toward the hole into the cave. She placed it inside the cave as far as she could reach and then crawled in after it. Zeb sniffed her feet as she pulled them
into the cave and would have followed her in, but she made him stay out. He’d done more than enough digging for one day.

Something rustled in the cave behind her. Jocie froze on all fours, imagining snakes slithering toward her. She slowly turned her head and studied every inch of ground around her, but nothing was there. At least nothing she could see. She picked up the tiny skull and got a whole new crop of shivers up and down her spine as she crept toward the mound of rocks at the back of the cave.

“I’m sorry Zeb dug up your grave.” Jocie’s voice echoed in the cave. “He’s just a dog, or at least I think he is. Anyway, we didn’t mean any harm.” Jocie laid the skull down and began gingerly replacing the rocks Zeb had disturbed as she recited the Lord’s Prayer. She talked fast, but she didn’t skip any words before she said amen and scrambled back out of the cave.

Zeb licked her face when she stuck it out into the sunshine. She pulled herself out of the cave and gave Zeb a hug. “Now what do we do?” she asked the dog as he licked her face again. “Tell somebody, I guess. You wouldn’t happen to know the way home, would you?”

Zeb barked, made a circle around her, then stopped and waited. “I take it that means you’re as lost as I am. You could at least look worried.” Jocie looked up at the sun. It had to be noon already. She licked her lips and looked longingly at the creek, but her father said drinking out of a creek could give you the pukes. She remembered the glint of water in the old cistern, but snakes came to mind again. Zeb waded into the creek and lay down in the water while he lapped up a drink.

“Guess there’s no need in both of us being thirsty,” Jocie said. “Or are you trying to tell me we should follow the creek? Up or down creek?”

Zeb climbed out of the creek and shook, showering Jocie, before he trotted off downstream.

“As good a direction as any.” Jocie followed him. They’d hardly gone fifteen steps before the trees swallowed them up again as they left the clearing behind. It was easy walking on the flat rocks in the shallow creek. Zeb jumped out of the creek to chase a grasshopper but came back when Jocie whistled.

When the creek ran under an old wire fence, Jocie deserted the creek to follow the fence line. The trees began to thin out, and they came out in a pasture full of cows who stopped eating long enough to give them the eye. Jocie climbed the fence and headed across the field. Nobody could be lost in a pasture field. They topped a rise on the other side of the cows and saw the road. A half hour later she was back where she’d left her bike. She looked back at the woods and wondered if she could find the cave again.

The midday sun was hot, and Jocie’s sweat burned the scratches she’d gotten chasing after Zeb as she pedaled toward home. She thought about just going straight to the newspaper office to tell her father about the skull, but she was too thirsty. And Aunt Love might have remembered that she should have been home hours ago.

Aunt Love looked up from the pan of lima beans in her lap when Jocie burst through the kitchen door. “For mercy’s sake, child, you look like you’ve been crawling through a briar patch.”

Jocie wiped the sweat off her face with her shirt tail and went straight for the water pitcher in the refrigerator. She gulped down a glassful before she said, “I have to call Dad at the paper.”

“He’s not there,” Aunt Love said. “He’s taken Tabitha to Grundy. No telling when they’ll be back.”

“Grundy?” Jocie sank down in one of the kitchen chairs. Jezebel sniffed Jocie’s feet and hissed.

“He got her in to see a doctor over there.” Aunt Love split open one of the lima bean hulls with a paring knife and pushed the beans out into the pan. “What’s so important anyway? Have
you hurt yourself somehow?” Aunt Love looked half worried, half irritated. “For heaven’s sake, you need to learn to be careful. Your arm’s bleeding.”

“I’m not hurt, Aunt Love.” Jocie rubbed at the dried blood on her arm. “But I found something.”

“Ticks and chiggers, from the looks of you.” Aunt Love picked up another lima bean and slit the hull. “You need to check through your head for the ticks. Better to find them before they dig in.”

Jocie ran her fingers through her hair absentmindedly. She wasn’t worried about ticks. She poured herself another glass of water. She couldn’t wait till her father got back from Grundy. She had to tell somebody. Aunt Love might know what she should do.

“I was over in Grandfather’s woods where I walk sometimes, and Zeb took off. I got worried he’d get lost or something.”

“He’d have found his way home before supper time.”

“Well, yeah, maybe, but that’s where I found him, or he found me. Anyway, I didn’t want to lose him, you know, so I went after him.”

“You can hull while you talk.” Aunt Love pushed a handful of lima beans toward Jocie on the table. “So your mongrel took off and you followed him. Then you got lost, I suppose.”

“I don’t know that I was actually lost lost, but I didn’t know exactly where I was.” Jocie broke open a lima bean hull. “Anyway, I came across this clearing with an old log barn and a stone chimney where a house used to be.” Jocie pulled the rock out of her pocket and laid it on the table by Aunt Love. “There was even a rock garden like yours.”

Aunt Love rested her hands in the pan of shelled lima beans in her lap and looked at the rock. “So you found a rock garden. Were there rosebushes? There used to be rosebushes. Red and pink and yellow and white.”

“You know the place?”

“I do.”

“Then maybe you can tell me about the baby.”

“Baby?” Aunt Love’s voice sounded funny. “You found a baby?”

“Sort of. Zeb did. A baby’s grave.”

Aunt Love’s face went white, and she grabbed her chest. Jezebel yowled and jumped up on Aunt Love’s lap. The lima bean pan crashed to the floor, and beans bounced all over the kitchen.

“Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins,” Aunt Love whispered.

A
unt Love was always clutching her chest and quoting Scripture, but Jocie had never seen her turn so white. Jocie grabbed the wet dishrag out of the sink and dabbed Aunt Love’s forehead with it. “Are you okay, Aunt Love?” Jezebel snarled and took a swipe at Jocie’s arm, but Jocie ignored the cat. “Should I call the ambulance?”

“No. No ambulance.” Aunt Love took hold of Jocie’s wrist with more strength than Jocie thought possible. “Take me there.”

“Where? To the hospital? But Dad has the car.”

“No.” Aunt Love’s hand tightened on Jocie’s wrist. “To the place where you found the ba—where your dog found the grave.”

Jocie stared at Aunt Love. “It’s way off in the woods, Aunt Love. You could never walk that far even if I could find it again, which I’m not sure I could.”

“I can find it. Come on.” Aunt Love pushed Jocie’s hand aside and stood up, dumping Jezebel on the floor with the lima beans. Aunt Love went straight toward the door, not even noticing the beans she was smashing underfoot.

Jocie scooted along beside her. “It’s miles, Aunt Love. You’d never make it.”

Aunt Love stared out the back door as if trying to see across the distance to the place Jocie had told her about. Finally she leaned her forehead against the doorjamb. “You’re right. It is too far.”

Jocie breathed a sigh of relief. She watched Aunt Love warily,
but color was back in her face and she didn’t seem about to faint or anything. After a moment Jocie fished the bean pan out from under the table and began picking up the lima beans. Jezebel peeked out at Aunt Love from under a chair with wide, round eyes.

Aunt Love turned from the door and said, “Forget about those beans and go call Wesley.”

Jocie stood up. “What do you want me to tell him? To bring Dr. Markum out?”

“I’m not in need of a doctor, child. Just do as I say and call Wesley at the paper. Tell him to come straightaway on that machine of his.”

By the time Wes roared up to the house a half hour later, Jocie had finished picking up the lima beans, Jezebel was sulking under Aunt Love’s bed, and Aunt Love had changed into her gardening shoes and was waiting in the rocking chair on the front porch. Before Wes got there, Jocie had ventured a couple of questions, but Aunt Love had shook her head. “Later, child. I can’t talk right now.”

So they had waited in silence. And Jocie had wished Aunt Love would quote Bible verses at her or something. Anything would have been better than the silence that was louder than the birds singing or the sound of Mr. Crutcher baling hay two fields over.

Wes drove the motorcycle right up to the porch. Aunt Love was down the steps before he stopped. “What’s going on, girls?” he asked, balancing the bike with one foot on the ground.

Aunt Love didn’t give Jocie time to say anything. “Can you get down a tractor road in the field on that contraption?”

Wes frowned a little. “I expect so, if it’s not too rough. Why?”

“Then I’m taking you up on that offer of a ride. Help me climb on and let’s go. The child can follow on her bicycle.” Aunt Love lifted her skirts and eyed the motorcycle.

Wes looked too surprised to speak, so Jocie said, “Aunt Love, you can’t ride on a motorcycle.”

“I can and I will. Now are the two of you going to help me or do I have to climb on the thing by myself?”

Wes kicked down the motorcycle’s stand, got off, and took Aunt Love’s arm. “Is somebody going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Jocelyn found a baby’s grave. I want to go there.” Aunt Love stared straight at Wes. “There’s more to the story, but that’s for later. Are you going to help me on this monster or not?”

Wes stared back at Aunt Love. “I’ve never seen you like this, Lovella.”

“No, you haven’t. But I’m in need of your help, Wesley. It’s a long walk, and I think Jocelyn is right that I might not make it, but if you refuse to help me, I will walk.”

Wes looked at Jocie, who shrugged and threw her hands up. “Don’t ask me. I told her I found the grave. She went bonkers and here we are.”

Wes eyed Aunt Love’s dress. “You’ll have to bundle up your skirt.”

Aunt Love hiked her skirt up higher. Wes steadied the motorcycle, and Aunt Love used Jocie’s shoulder for balance while she eased her leg over the passenger’s seat. She tucked her skirt under her thighs and didn’t seem a bit concerned about her white knees shining in the sun.

“You’ll have to hang on to my waist,” Wes said as he got on in front of her. Aunt Love grabbed hold of him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She said, “I’ll poke you when it’s time to turn.”

Jocie pedaled hard to keep up, but they kept disappearing around curves. Zeb stayed in front of her too, running ahead of her bike as if to keep them in sight and then running back to make sure Jocie was still following. They waited for her at the turnoff into the field. The sagging wooden gate had a couple of broken planks and clung to the post by the top hinge. Jocie pushed the gate open just enough for Wes to get through and
then let the gate fall back against the post. The tractor ruts were so rough that she ditched her bike and walked. Ahead of her Wes carefully nosed out the smoothest path, but it was still bumpy. Aunt Love’s dark purple skirt jerked loose from under her leg and snagged on a branch.