Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees (3 page)

S
everal weeks after the twins passed, Mama woke Prescott, Merry Beth, and me in the middle of a bitterly cold night. “C'mon,” she whispered. “Get dressed, and be quiet about it!” Her long, thick, dark hair hung down like wild ropes about her face. Not only had it not been pinned up into a loose bun on the top of her head, which was her usual style, but it hadn't been brushed either. Her eyes looked like a horse's at branding time, which made her appear like some wild specter, invading the gentle dreams of unsuspecting children.

“Where we goin', Mama?” Prescott asked in a thick, sleepy voice.

“You'll knows when we get there. It's a surprise,” she said, though not in that liltingly light tone that announced a happy event to come.

“Can't it wait ‘til mornin'?” I asked, not convinced that it would really be any better when morning came, but by then Grandma and Papa would be awake, and if things were amiss, which I definitely felt they were, then perhaps they'd intervene.

“Hush, now!” Mama warned. And no one asked another question. We just stuffed our feet into our shoes, grabbed our coats, and climbed down the ladder from our loft, leaving both Papa and Grandma asleep, snoring and unknowing in their bedrooms.

Mama ushered us into the barn, where, apparently, she had already made the preparations for a trip; for Natty, our mare, was hitched up to the wagon, and a battered suitcase rested in the back corner of it.

“Where're we goin', Mama? I'm cold!” Merry Beth cried, pressing herself into a corner of the barn in an effort to stay out of whatever was about to take place—an event that she just knew, even at the age of six, could have no good attached to it.

“Get in,” Mama ordered. And Merry Beth did. We all did. “Now, no one say a word. Do ya hear me? Not a sound!”

We sat huddled together, shaking more out of fear than from the cold as Mama quietly led the horse out of the barn, talking in whispers to keep it quiet and calm as we walked by the chicken coop, then the withered and empty vegetable patch, and finally past our house's front door. When we reached the halfway point on our dirt driveway, she quickly climbed up onto the driver's seat, and with a soft slap of the reins, guided the wagon down to the sawmill road below our house, then took a right, off into the night.

“Where we goin'?” Merry whispered.

“I don't know. But someplace long enough to need a suitcase,” I whispered back. “Where ya think, Pres?” I inquired of our brother, who was the only one of us peering over the side of the wagon, while Merry and I stayed down and tucked up against its side, and each other's.

Prescott didn't answer. He just stood, gripping the side of the wagon and looking out, while his dark blond hair whipped in the wind like a strange banner. Finally, he gave up trying to figure it out. The cold won, and fear won, and he lined himself up by us in the bottom of the wagon.

We traveled quite a few miles, and had dozed off and on, but we were jarred fully awake when Natty finally stopped. “C'mon,” Mama said, jumping down from her seat and knocking on the side of the wagon where we were huddled. We poked our sleepy heads up over the side like baby birds surveying a new world around us. And we were amazed to find that we were in the front yard of Alice Gentry's house.

Alice Gentry had been Mama's Sunday school teacher when Mama was a young girl living in Marion, a town down the mountain to the south. She had two grown children; a daughter, Polly, and a son, Herbert, both of whom were married and lived in parts unknown to me. Mrs. Gentry had lost her husband of forty-one years to “poor blood” the summer before last and we'd come to her house for his wake. She now lived alone, except for a fat black-and-white cat named Elsa.

“What're we doin'
here
?” Prescott cried.

Mama didn't answer. She just stood at the back of the wagon and waited for us to climb out. There wasn't a sign of life in Mrs. Gentry's house, but it
was
the middle of the night, so that didn't seem out of place, although we did. Mama turned and marched up to the front door, and told us to follow her. Then she gave three sharp raps on the faded blue frame of the screened door. After a few seconds, she repeated this again, and by the time she'd begun the third sequence of knocking, a pinpoint of light could be seen in the far left window and then footsteps sounded.

“Who's there?” asked a sleep-fuzzy but frightened voice.

“It's Anna Guinn, Miz Gentry, and my young'uns.”

“Who . . . what?! Anna?! What in the world
. . .
”
Mrs. Gentry opened her wooden front door but not the screened door. “What in heaven's name are y'all doin' out this time of night? And
here
!” She held up her lamp to examine the scene more fully and I was able to see her vaguely familiar, bent, gray-haired form, as well.

“I need to leave 'em with you, Miz Gentry. I need to leave 'em for a while,” Mama said in an urgent and unusually high-pitched voice. It was a desperate voice. One none of us recognized. Prescott and I exchanged startled looks and I heard a frightened whimper sneak out of Merry Beth's throat.

“Get in here where it's warm.” Mrs. Gentry held open the screened door and looked at Mama questioningly but said nothing. Instead, she walked over to her sideboard and lit a second oil lamp, then handed it to Prescott. “Go on into the kitchen, children,” she directed. “There's part of a sweet potato pie on the table.”

We were glad for the warm, lamp lit house and our escape—if only for a few minutes—from Mama's company. But, most of all, we were very grateful for the reassuring, even solidness of Mrs. Gentry.

The pie was left untouched as the three of us pressed our ears against the heavy kitchen door. “Anna, sit down,” we heard Mrs. Gentry say. There was a thick silence as we waited for Mama to sit down.

“Anna, tell me what's happened, child?” Mrs. Gentry probed. Her voice soothed like a cool cloth on a fevered forehead.

“There's something in the house killin' 'em, Miz Gentry,” Mama whispered. “I just know that come spring there won't be a one of 'em left, if they stays there.” She half cried, and we heard her move in the room.

“Lord a-mercy, Anna,” Mrs. Gentry replied softly. We heard footsteps again, and the creaking of a cabinet door opening, then the clinking of glasses. “Sit down and drink this,” she instructed.

“I don't drink spirits!” Mama protested.

“You do tonight,” Mrs. Gentry responded.

A moment later Mama coughed. There were several minutes of absolute quiet then. It was almost like Mrs. Gentry was waiting for Mama's thinking to shift, to calm, to clear.

“Anna, you can't possibly believe that any of your children died because of something in that cabin. It's just a part of God's plan, honey—” she continued, but Mama broke her off.

“Miz Gentry, the devil's disciples do terrible deeds on this Earth. I knows,” she said, in a low, frightening sounding voice, “there's somethin' evil in that house, and in me! Can't be no other explainin' it.”

“Lord, child! Surely you can't believe that was any of your doin'. If you think you're partnerin' up with the devil on this, then so's the whole town. They's all the devil's minions. Shoot, Anna, there's been more of our young'uns—and old'uns, too, for that matter—killed by the grippe than killed in all the wars we've been in. Lord, child! I can't believe what I'm hearin'!”

Mama rose and swayed as she eased her way toward the door. “I got to leave 'em,” she whispered. “I got no other choice.”

“What about Willa and Calvin, Anna? Why in the world can't they take care of 'em while you go visitin' somewheres for a time? It'd be good for you, honey. Good for you and the young'uns, alike.”

“It ain't just me, Miz Gentry. It's the house, too. I don't know which infected the other; the house titched me, or I titched the house. Either way, it ain't good inside of there. It ain't good inside of
me
!”

With those last words, we heard the heavy front door creak open, followed by the screen. We heard Mrs. Gentry's voice fading as she followed Mama out the door, “Anna, for heaven's sake. Calvin won't . . .”

For several minutes there was absolute silence in the kitchen with the exception of our heavy breathing. It was as though we'd been holding our breath and now we were breathing hard in an attempt to make up for lost time.

Finally, we heard one set of footsteps approaching the kitchen door. We scrambled backward and quickly found seats at the table. The untouched pie was a clear sign that no eating had taken place.

“Children,” Mrs. Gentry began as she sat down in the vacant chair at the table. “I know you heard what we've been sayin'. I know it's hard to understand, but I think your Mama is plum wore out. Just crazy tired and sad. Sorrow can do funny things to the mind, and sometimes it just makes clear thinkin' an impossible thing to do. What's say y'all spend a couple of days here and let her rest a spell?”

We nodded but no one said a word. The words Mrs. Gentry spoke, however, were both comforting and reassuring, and they were all we had at this moment. We had nothing else to hang on to, for everything in our lives had just shifted. The frigid wind rattled the windows as violently as Mama had just rattled our world.

T
he snow came so hard and so fast the next day that Mrs. Gentry worried about us all being buried alive. We knew she didn't really mean it, although several years before, all the chickens in the coop at the Baxters' had, indeed, been buried alive when the roof caved in after the record snowfall of nineteen inches in a day's time. We felt like those chickens must have, though, when the old roof on Mrs. Gentry's house creaked and groaned in protest at the increasing weight. I envisioned Papa finding us in the spring as they pulled up the splintered boards of the roof only to discover all of us underneath just as flat as my paper dolls.

We knew that Mrs. Gentry wanted to get us home. She figured that Papa and Grandma Willa would be frantic if Mama didn't tell them where we were, and Mrs. Gentry had no phone to call home to let them know. But even if she did have a phone, the weight of the snow on top of the vulnerable lines would have brought them down anyway. There was nothing that could be done about getting out for the time being, and no way of telling anyone where we were. We'd look out at the trunk of a walnut tree in her front yard every now and then, and try to measure the amount of snow that had fallen by measuring its increasing climb toward the letters
H G
about four feet up on the trunk
,
which had been carved many years before by Mrs. Gentry's son Herbert. The snow continued its path upward toward the letters, and, from the looks of the low hanging gray clouds, it appeared that the storm had enough left in it to make sure the snow covered the old carving and beyond.

Merry and I helped with some household chores, while Prescott kept the back door cleared as best he could so that he could continue bringing in more firewood to save us from freezing to death. Between clearing and hauling, he began whittling a piece of hickory into a stretched-out dog. I knew he felt as I did; if we didn't stay busy doing something—
anything
—we'd go crazy with the wanderings our thoughts would take. Yet, I found that I didn't want to speak much to anyone, save Prescott every now and then. We'd find a moment by ourselves to discuss the grim possibilities awaiting us in the days, months, or years ahead. And, somehow, the fact that Prescott worried along with me was a comfort. We didn't want to let Merry hear our conversations, and, frankly, we knew she didn't want to hear what we had to say, anyway. She'd convinced herself that all was well, and acted as though everything was perfectly normal. And I wondered if it was a blessing or a curse that she could create such a safe and unrealistic cocoon around herself. She showed no concern or fear over our present situation. On the contrary, she seemed to enjoy the attention Mrs. Gentry gave her. Even with Merry's grating chatter, it
felt
so quiet in the house. I knew Mrs. Gentry's pleasant small talk was forced, which made the atmosphere even heavier and lonelier than did the quiet in its pitiful attempt at normalcy.

On the third day after the storm began, it stopped as abruptly as it had started. The sun came out and transformed our surroundings into a crystallized land. Prescott had to climb out of the front window, for the wind had blown so much snow against the doors that it was impossible to push them open. We had run out of firewood from the porch the night before, and the large heap behind the shed was buried deep in snow, so the cabin was almost colder than it was outside. Prescott grabbed the snow shovel and began the backbreaking task of bailing us out. Once the door was clear enough, we pushed while he pulled, and when the door was forced open all of us came out onto the porch, breathing deeply of the chilled fresh air and looking around in amazement at our altered white world.

Softly, Prescott said, “Miz Gentry, when you think we'uns can go on home?”

Mrs. Gentry let out a sigh and looked as though the question had been an expected—and dreaded—one. “Honey, I don't rightly know. We could try to make it on out of here in a couple of days, once the snow has melted some on the road, I guess. But it might be best if we just wait it out ‘til your Papa comes to fetch y'all.”

“We can't do that, Miz Gentry!” I spoke up. “I bet Mama didn't tell him where she took us, and I bet he and Grandma are worryin' themselves to death. We gotta get on out of here, even if it means we're doin' it by ourselves and walkin'.”

“Rachel, honey, you can't go and take to the trail on foot. Why, there's coyotes and wolves out there, and they's as hungry as . . . well . . . bears!”

I started to cry and she pulled me into her small, fragile frame. “There, there, chil',” she soothed. “We'll figure somethin' out. What's say we give it just a wee bit of time, and then see what's what?”

That seemed to satisfy all of us, for we nodded and uh-huh'ed our acceptance of the plan. The truth of the matter, though, was we wondered if we were going to have to face the possibility of Papa and Grandma not coming for us as soon as the roads would allow. Perhaps, once they'd gotten over the shock that Mama had gotten rid of us, and they'd gotten used to fewer mouths to feed and fewer lives to worry over, maybe they'd found that they preferred it that way.