Free Spirits (3 page)

This afternoon Adam and I are sprawled out on the living room floor, playing Scrabble. Having the Sight makes me a terrible person to play games with. I have to try very hard not to peek into Adam’s mind to see what letters he’s drawn and what words he’s thinking about making. I want to play fair, but the Sight gives me an unfair advantage that’s tempting to use. It’s like a professional baseball player trying to adapt his skills to play in the Little League.

Granny, who’s boiling up some nasty-smelling concoction in the kitchen, yells, “In eight minutes the doorbell’s gonna ring. It’s gonna be that woman who was driving down from Lexington to see me.”

“I’ll let her in when she comes,” I say.

Adam just grins and shakes his head.

When the TV reporter from Lexington came to do a story on Adam and me, she became fascinated by Granny and decided to do a separate story on her psychic powers and knowledge of herbs and potions and healing. Ever since the story on Granny aired, a small but steady stream of city folks have come to Wilder in hopes that she’ll give them a potion, a prediction, or some advice. For a small donation, whatever the person feels is reasonable, she’s happy to help. But after they leave she always shakes her head and laughs at city folk and their silly problems.

The city person standing before me when I open the door might be the most unusual-looking one so far. She looks like she’s my mom’s age or a little older, and she’s wearing thick, wire-rimmed glasses which are sliding down her beaky little nose. Her long hair is the color Granny calls dishwater blond, and it’s divided into two long braids held into place with buckskin thongs. The halter top she’s wearing is made of buckskin, and so are the tall, lace-up moccasins that come up to the hem of her denim skirt. A whole mine’s worth of silver and turquoise drips from her ears, neck, wrists and fingers.

“Hi. Can I help you?” I say.

“My name is Dagmar Moonfeather,” she says in a voice that reminds me of how spooky old gypsies talk in the movies I watch with Adam. “I seek the healer Irene Chandler.”

“She’s in the kitchen. Down the hall, last door on the right.”

Once she’s out of earshot, Adam whispers, “What a get-up. Do you think she’s a movie extra or something?”

“That’s probably just how she likes to dress.”

“I wonder what she wants from your granny.”

I smile. “Well…we could see.” I know it’s bad, but with Adam here, the temptation to spy is just too great.

We tiptoe up the fancy front stairs, then through the upstairs hallway and down the narrow back stairs that lead to the kitchen. I’ve learned from experience there’s a step you can sit on right before the stairs curve where you can eavesdrop without being seen. You can even peek around the corner without anybody catching a glimpse of you.

Of course, Granny’s Sight is so strong, there’s no fooling her. She’ll know we’re here. But as long as Dagmar Moonfeather doesn’t catch on, Granny won’t mind.

Right now Ms. Moonfeather is sitting at the kitchen table while Granny pours them both rosehip tea.

Granny sits at the table. Methuseleh is perched pirate-style on her shoulder. He looks at Granny’s visitor with his sharp, beady eyes, then walks down Granny’s arm and stretches a clawed foot toward Ms. Moonfeather.

“Well, look at that,” Granny says. “He wants to sit with you. You must be a real nice lady. Methuseleh won’t sit with just anybody.”

Ms. Moonfeather reaches out her turquoise and silver-covered arm, and Methuseleh steps onto her hand and perches there. “Look at how noble you are,” Ms. Moonfeather coos at him. “You have the spirit of an eagle.”

“Don’t give him the big head now,” Granny says. “He’s so contrary most days I threaten to stew him up with some dumplins.”

Adam and I grin at each other. We know that Granny loves Methuseleh and vice versa, even if they give each other a hard time. Sometimes they seem less like a pet and owner than an old married couple who love each other but also get on each other’s nerves.

Ms. Moonfeather strokes Methuseleh’s head. “I know you wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Chandler. I could see your aura, even when you were on TV. You’re a healer, not a harmer.” She keeps on stroking Methuseleh’s head. His eyes close with pleasure. “And that’s why I’ve come to you for help. I don’t know what you charge for your services, but I’m willing to pay any amount you request.”

Methuseleh’s eyes snap open, and he squawks, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Granny scowls at him. “Some parrot and dumplins is sounding pretty good about right now.” Then she looks at Ms. Moonfeather a lot more kindly. “Honey, I don’t do what I do to take folks’ money. I do it ’cause it’s a gift God gave me. If you’d like to give a little donation for my services, you can. But even if you couldn’t I’d still try to help you.”

Ms. Moonfeather reaches into her pocket and sets a few bills on the table. I can’t tell what kind of bills they are, but I can tell it’s a lot of money from the way Granny’s eyebrows go up.

“Thank you, honey,” Granny says.

Methuseleh is now making his way up Ms. Moonfeather’s arm, staring straight at her face.

“Look at him!” Ms. Moonfeather exclaims. “He’s trying to communicate with me. I’ve always used birds as my totem animals. And you,” she says to Methuseleh, “are a very spiritual bird.”

Methuseleh lets out a loud, high-pitched screech, lunges at Ms. Moonfeather, and yanks out one of her huge turquoise and silver hoop earrings. She screams.

With the hoop in his beak, Methuseleh flies to his perch, then drops the earring in his seed bowl. When Mom is missing an earring from her jewelry box, the seed bowl is always the first place she looks.

“Lord, that bird!” Granny says. “Are you all right?”

“Just startled,” she says.

“He’s crazy about shiny things,” Granny says. She gets up and takes the earring out of the bowl and says to Methuseleh, “That’s enough from you, mister.” She sits back down and smiles at Ms. Moonfeather. “Now what can I help you with, honey?”

Ms. Moonfeather stares down at her teacup. “Mrs. Chandler, my heart is breaking because the nation will not accept me.”

“This nation?” Granny says. “How come? You’re American, ain’t you?”

“I mean the Cherokee Nation, Mrs. Chandler. I am a Native American, a Cherokee. I feel it in my soul. But to be accepted as a member of the tribe, you must be able to prove your ancestry, and the tribal council says I have insufficient proof.”

“Well, I’m real sorry for your troubles, honey, but I don’t know what I could do to help you.”

Ms. Moonfeather is close to tears. “Mrs. Chandler, I know I’m a Cherokee. In a previous life I was a medicine woman and a tribal elder. I want you to see into my past lives so I can prove who I am.”

I can tell Granny is trying not to look at her like she’s crazy. “Honey, I don’t know nothing about past lives. The only life I know is the one we’re living right now. And somehow I don’t think the Cherokees would be too interested in what you have to say about your past life. I ain’t saying you’re a nut, but they might.” She pulls her chair up closer to Ms. Moonfeather. “Now what I can do sometimes is see back into somebody’s family history.”

“Yes! Do that! And if you can find my Native American ancestor…”

“All right, then,” Granny says. “I’m gonna need to hold your hands.”

Granny takes Ms. Moonfeather’s hands in hers and closes her eyes. I know her mind is far away, traveling through generations. After about a minute, she opens them and says, “I hate to break it to you, honey, but you’re white. I just traced your family plumb back to Scotland on one side and Ireland on the other. Red hair on the Scottish side, blond hair on the Irish, white skin all around.”

Ms. Moonfeather snatches her hands out of Granny’s. “You must have made a mistake.”

Granny shakes her head and takes a sip of tea. “Listen, honey, I know white folks have done a lot of bad stuff over the years—so bad that it’s easy to wish you wasn’t one of them. And there’s a lot of folks of all kinds of different colors that you can learn a lot from. My first teacher was a little Cherokee boy. But just ’cause you can learn a lot from Indians, that don’t make you an Indian. Seems to me you need to stop pretending to be somebody else and learn how to be yourself.”

Ms. Moonfeather is up on her moccasined feet. “I thought you’d be different,” she says, with a break in her voice. “I really did. But you’re just one more face of the white man.”

Ms. Moonfeather stomps across the kitchen floor and is halfway out the back door when Granny says, “You forgot your earring.”

Ms. Moonfeather either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care. Granny shrugs, picks up the earring, and drops it back in Methuseleh’s seed bowl.

Adam looks at me and grins as we get up from our hidden perch on the stairs. “Sometimes I wonder how you survive without high-tech entertainment,” he whispers. “But I’ve got to admit, that whole scene was better than anything I’ve ever seen on cable!”

Adam and I are walking out of the school. We’ve just made it to the sidewalk when Isabella runs to catch up with us. “Hey, can I talk to you guys for a minute?” she asks. Isabella is usually all smiles, but her face looks serious and her eyes are puffy. I wonder if she’s been crying.

“Sure,” I say.

“Something bad happened at the restaurant last night,” she half-whispers as she walks alongside us. “I wanted to tell you just in case you heard anything.”

“Nobody was hurt, I hope,” I say.

“No,” Isabella says, then she shrugs. “Just hurt feelings.” She takes a deep breath, the way I do sometimes when I’m trying not to cry. “Sometime after we closed last night, somebody did bad things to the restaurant. They painted words on it. Bad words.”

“Oh, Isabella, I’m so sorry,” I offer.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she says. “You didn’t do it.”

“Sometimes people say they’re sorry just to mean they’re sorry something happened,” I say.

Isabella nods.“The reason I wanted to tell you two was I heard that last year you figured out some murder case that happened a long time ago. I know this is a much smaller thing, but I thought maybe you could help figure out who did it.”

“We could try,” Adam says. “But it’s not like we’re riding around in the Mystery Machine or anything.”

“Scooby Doo,” Isabella says and smiles a little. “When I first came to this country, I watched cartoons to help me learn English. Scooby Doo was my favorite. It made me talk a weird kind of English, though. It took me a while to figure out that other kids didn’t go around saying ‘jinkies.’”

We laugh for a minute, then Isabella turns to me and says, “But I especially wanted to tell you about what happened. I know that sometimes you…know things.”

“Sometimes,” I say.“But my kind of knowing doesn’t convince anybody if there’s not any evidence to back it up.”

Isabella looks so disappointed that I suggest, “Maybe if I look at the writing on the building I can see something about the person who did it.”

“I was on my way to the restaurant,” Isabella says. “Why don’t you guys come with me?”

When Adam and I see what’s happened to El Mariachi, we both suck in our breath. It’s worse than I imagined. Every window of the building has been spray painted with a giant yellow “X.” Underneath the windows, over the building’s new red and green paint are giant yellow spray-painted letters reading “Spics Go Home.”

“That’s the same thing it said on the menu board at school,” Adam says. “Do you think maybe the same person wrote it?”

“It’s possible,” I say. “But I don’t know if it’s likely. I mean, it’s not like the wording there is highly original.”

“True,” Adam says.

“Checking out the damage?” a slightly accented man’s voice says. Mr. Ramirez, Isabella’s dad, is perfectly groomed as always. His hair is combed just so, and his mustache is trimmed neatly. The only sign that anything’s bothering him are the dark circles under his eyes.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“And I’m sorry it’s costing so much to fix,” Mr. Ramirez says. “It’s costing time, too. The window guys can’t come until day after tomorrow, and Javier had to drive all the way to Lexington to get the right colors of paint to cover up the words.”

“Papi,” Isabella says, “I thought maybe if I brought Miranda here, she could see something about who wrote those words.”

“You’re a smart girl,” Mr. Ramirez says. For whatever reason, Isabella and her family don’t fear or question the Sight. They admire it.

I get down on my knees in front of the spray-painted letters. I reach out and trace the shape of the S with my fingers. My eyes snap shut, and a surge of rage burns through me, white-hot. Rage that I’m not getting what I deserve, that I’m going to lose my job, my food, my country, myself, and it’s all their fault. They’re taking my country away from me. Images flash through my head: a Bible held up in an old man’s knotty hand; an American flag; the smiling face of a beautiful, dark-haired woman; but then the thought,No,not her! And then a whole volcano of rage is erupting until I open my eyes and find that I’m lying on the sidewalk and Adam, Isabella and Mr. Ramirez are leaning over me.

“Let’s get you inside,” Mr. Ramirez says, reaching out to help me up.