The Storycatcher (5 page)

“No, ma’am. Ain’t luck or God that saved me. A scary woman with sharp teeth told me to get.” I was ten, almost eleven, and had a habit of sucking two fingers when something on my mind went to worrying me silly. I slurped and pointed at the woman still standing near the porch. The woman turned and hobbled back to the woods.

Nada took a breath like she might tell me I was fibbing. The sky turned pure green. “You seen a spirit, Shelly.” The words tingled in the air. “She be a person that passed on.”

Now, that ain’t what I wanted to hear, but it told me why the old woman was wearing clothes from a long time ago. I’d always saw me plenty of people—strange and a little off to look at. Only Will and me
could see these folks, but he told me they was nightmares and not to worry over them. So, I never thought on them too much until he wasn’t there no more.

“A soul without her body. They can look just the same as you and me.” Nada spoke softer.

My slurping got louder. “A haint.” I spit the words out around them two favorite fingers of mine.

“She saved you, Shelly. That means she’s been with you for a while. See, these spirits can be attached to you without your knowing. You been seeing ghosts?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“You best act grateful. She’s probably one of your daddy’s peoples. They lived all over this mountain at one time.” Nada rubbed my cheek like I might just be something real special. Then she pulled soft-like on my two fingers. “Don’t be fretting. Be thankful. You be way too old for this sucking mess.” She looked at my fingers. “See there”—she pointed to dark spots on my skin—“you be leaving marks. Ten is nearly grown, child.”

I hugged her tight like some kind of dern old baby and buried my face into her bosoms. The smell of talc powder mixed with spices from the supper cooking on the stove in the main house eased me. In that place, I was grateful. Time, the storm, everything, stood completely still like we didn’t have nothing to worry on.

“You got sight.” Nada sounded proud.

So if I had this so-called gift, Will did too, and since we both had different daddies, that meant we got our abilities from Nada and I liked that part.

“Sight be the best gift of all. You got to show it respect. You’ll find a place to rest in it. I promise.” I almost believed her sweet words as I played with the loose threads on her white work blouse. I guessed maybe I’d known for a while this mess was with me.

“Amanda!” That hateful Faith Dobbins ran toward the cabin. Her white dress blew in the wind.

Just that week while Faith was downstairs in the front room visiting with her mama’s company, I went upstairs to straighten her bed and collect the dirty clothes for washing. That’s when I slid that white lacy dress right over my head like some kind of dumb fool. I don’t know what got into me. It was way too big, but for the longest time, I stood hungering after the thing. What in the world could a colored girl do in such a dress? I took me a deep breath and moved in front of the long looking glass. Lordy be, what a poor sight stared back at me! Some old dark-skinned girl dressed in lace with nappy hair that couldn’t be tamed, much less combed decent. Nothing would ever change who I was. I studied the girl a minute more. The last person in the world I wanted to be was Faith Dobbins. I yanked on that dress, and a button popped off. For a minute I got scared, but then I figured I’d be the one to sew it back on, anyway. “No more of this mess,” I told myself. “You be just fine like you are. Amen.” Then I got on my hands and knees and looked under the bed. There it was. Not the button, but Nada’s sewing basket, the one that belonged to my great-grandmama. Nada had hunted for it since Will left. I stood up and brushed off. I figured I had me something to tell if Faith started whining around about the dress.

And there she was running to Nada like she be hers instead of mine. She tumbled down the grassy hill that separated her world from mine and got back up. She ran so hard I could have sworn the devil was licking her heels. Hate be a strong word, but Lord, I hated Faith Dobbins all the way down to her old lacy doll babies lined up against the pillows on her bed. All I ever had was corncob toys and blisters on my hands from scrubbing those fancy clothes on the washboard out back of our cabin. Faith had everything a girl ever dreamed of. Everything but my Nada.

The sky turned pitch-black. She scrambled up on the porch with us.

Nada pushed me from her. “Miss Faith, get over here.”

Faith buried her face in my Nada’s neck. Stupid old cow.

“What you thinking, leaving your mama and heading over here in this weather?” Nada asked.

“Who did this?” Faith looked into the burned-out place on the porch. I wanted to rip out one of her yellow curls by the root. Nada said she was one of the rare white folks who could tolerate sun without burning. Mrs. Dobbins only clicked her tongue at Nada and would yell to Faith to cover her arms and wear a hat. Ladies did not allow their skin to turn brown. My skin being a fine shade of brown let me have all the time I wanted outside.

“A bolt of lightning came out of the heavens and nearly hit my baby. Then what would I have done? All my children would be gone.”

I could have pinched Nada for calling me a baby in front of Faith.

“Your daddy would say someone on this mountain made God angry,” Nada said.

Faith clicked her tongue like some grown woman. “Daddy would say it was Shelly who did the bad thing. Mama says God gets blamed for way too much that people bring on themselves.” She looked at me with that smirky smile of hers. She thought she was grown at fifteen and tried to boss me as much as she could.

“I wish your mama could act as sensible as she sounds sometimes.” Nada shook her head. Her look landed on me. She was telling me to keep my mouth closed and to quit having such hateful thoughts about Miss Faith. And she told me not to say a word about my sight or the haint that saved me. She kept that stare on me long enough to know I got her message loud and clear, then patted Faith’s ugly, prissy head like she be a puppy. Only Nada and me could talk without speaking. It was our secret.

I was Nada’s treasure, better than Will. ’Cause I was still here. Daddy’s own flesh and blood, not that that counted for much. I was Nada’s reason to keep working for folks like Pastor and Mrs. Dobbins.

Without warning, hail poured down, bouncing off the ground.

T
HE MORNING ARLEEN DIED,
I sat on my porch looking at the mountains. A storm brewed in the air, but there was no physical proof. It was one of those rare days when I could see forever with no mist or clouds. If I were a painter, I would have painted the mountains, layered one row after another. No, the storm was more of a feeling. I was Black Mountain’s granny woman in the days when granny women were still sought out and respected. My mama was a granny woman, and so was Grandmama, who was part Cherokee. I was born right there on the mountain, but no one would have guessed. Plain and simple with a head filled with science, thanks to Mama. No spells, tales, and omens for her. After the Spanish Flu came in 1918, Mama finished my education at home. I turned into a bookworm. By the time I was twenty, I had two options: leave the mountain or follow in Mama and Grandmama’s footsteps. I chose the life of a granny woman just as the mountain picked me for
the job. I knew silly things like how Cherokee believed a rock was alive and could give a person wisdom. Up until that hot, still morning three weeks before the storm, I hadn’t lost one soul to sickness, accident, or birth complications. But all that was to change.

One of the Brown twins—I wasn’t sure if it was Robert or Andy—ran up the path. “Miss Tuggle, can you come?” This twin pulled off his cap and twisted it in his hands. “Sister’s having her baby.” He knocked at the dirt with his worn shoe. “Ma said we ain’t got a thing to give you right now.”

“You tell your mother I’ll be right over and not to worry about payment. Babies have to come into this world on their own time. This one is coming a bit early.” I tried my best to hide the worn-out feeling creeping into my voice. “I’ll be right behind you. Which one are you, anyway?”

This won a sparkling smile. “I’m Andy, ma’am.”

“You boys look too much alike.” I stood. “Go on. Tell your mother I’m on the way.”

He nodded and took off like the devil chased him.

I decided to walk, rather than drive or pull Sweet Gay, my gelding, out of his pasture. It was no telling how long I’d be with Arleen before the baby came. Babies had a way of doing what they pleased, and rushing around like a chicken with its head chopped off wouldn’t get me any closer to delivery. It’s always a humbling moment when a new soul enters the human race. This is a holy time, a still space, a wrinkle. For a few startling seconds, it’s as if the spirit lags behind, dragging her feet rather than entering a place full of struggle and strife. I saw this in the tiny faces. That need to just remain pure and at peace. But their souls always caught up with the body, always. And I’d seen my share of new babies being born.

I took Mama’s old doctor bag, black worn leather with cracks here and there. The clasp had broken years ago. Inside were herbs and powders for pain, a needle and thread, a stethoscope I ordered from Boston, and the hook tool—if a baby didn’t make it, I would have to remove the
poor little soul. I hated keeping the instrument with me. The others on the mountain would have said its very presence brought bad luck. But being a midwife or granny woman wasn’t about luck or superstition. It was about skill. Arleen was frowned upon for having a baby out of wedlock. Folks didn’t talk about the circumstances, but their disapproval, the belief she brought a grave sin on her family, floated in the air. Those on the mountain didn’t mean harm. But these beliefs cut into the very core, bringing judgment to settle on the surface.

ARLEEN WAS IN FULL LABOR
and pushing when I got there.

“That baby is way too early, Maude.” May Brown frowned.

Mama always told me not to promise something I couldn’t deliver and to give thought to every comment before I made it. So with these lessons in mind, I only nodded. Arleen was propped in her parents’ old rope bed, looking too much like a young child. Her stomach was tight enough to pop. She clinched her fists as a pain swept over her like an old-time baptism in Dragonfly River.

“This baby is in a hurry.” I smiled.

“I’m worried, Maude.” May’s hair fell loose from her always-neat knot.

“Babies will do what they are going to do, May.” I touched her shoulder. “You go gather some clean sheets.”

“Look after my girl.” Her words were calm but stern.

I nodded. That simple. I nodded as if I were the one who decided the fate of others.

Arleen let out a war whoop of a scream.

“We’re going to work together, Arleen.”

She twisted her head and looked directly in my eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

Something cold and unfamiliar settled into my bones. “You’re not going to die.” The mountain would have called this an omen.

A gold cross, with a tiny diamond in the middle, sparkled at her
throat. Where would Arleen get such an expensive piece of jewelry?

Arleen pulled me close and said in a hushed voice, “I didn’t want no baby. I didn’t cause it. Tell everyone when I’m gone that he did this to me. He tricked me. I didn’t have one bit of say.”

The terrible confession pushed my breakfast up in my throat. I closed my eyes and concentrated. The baby had to come into the world safe. It was my job to make sure it was healthy. I couldn’t listen to stories.

The sheets turned a deep red in one crystal-clear moment. Arleen cried out in such pain I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Stay with me, Arleen! We have to get this baby here.” I pulled the top sheet away, and blood smeared my palm.

“He did this to me,” she whispered.

Red was everywhere. Worse than when I treated Marvin Blank for his chain saw accident. “May!” I had to save Arleen.

“I hate him, Miss Tuggle, and that be a sin.” Her eyes were dull.

“You listen to me. You’re going to be fine. I’ve never lost a mother.”

Arleen watched something beyond me. “He did this to me.” She groped her hand in front of her like she was reaching for a person, but no one was there. I took her hand, a link, a braid. Arleen went limp.

“Dear Lord, God!” May dropped the fresh sheets on the floor and fell to her knees by the bed.

“I have to get this baby here.” I let go of Arleen’s hand.

The baby’s shoulders were out. I pulled, and he landed in my hands, lifeless and blue. I whacked his bottom. “Come to me!” I screamed for his soul. “Breathe, do you hear me? Breathe!” I looked into his tiny face. His weight was nothing in my hands. “Please.” I used two fingers to clear his mouth. Nothing.

“Give him to me, Maude. Let him go.” May took the baby from my grasp, tears running down her cheeks. “He is a beauty, just like his mama.”

My hands shook so bad I clasped them in my lap. “I’m so sorry.” That’s the only three words I could manage.

My knees went weak, and the room turned hot. “I have to step
outside.” Arleen’s life was over, and somehow I didn’t prevent this from happening. Somehow all my experience failed me.