How It Happened in Peach Hill (14 page)

“Yes, yes, I am,” I said. “Did you know, for instance, that during the twelve hundreds, a girl my age was likely to be married with two dead children already?”

Old Horse grunted and then chuckled at my wit.

“Thank you for that tidbit, Annie,” said Mrs. Newman. “I look forward to hearing how you make use of it in school.”

As the Newmans left the library, old habit made my feet itch to follow them. Should I be a good girl and toddle home, or make use of this prize chance? It was too good to waste. I silently cursed the librarian for her ponderous attention as she checked out my books.

I didn’t expect to welcome Mrs. Newman as a customer, but I’d started a file with her name at the top. Opportunity and plain curiosity now drove me to seek details. Outside, I could see the Newmans across the square, passing the church. I pinched myself for luck and headed after them, ducking behind trees and parked motorcars, keeping half a block back.

They were deep in conversation, making me bold enough to skip nearer and follow them onto Dash Road and into the
grid of streets closer to the station and the factories. They marched along at a fair clip, chatting all the way. On Crossing Avenue they turned suddenly, going through a small gate and up the walk of number 157.

I stopped and reversed in a hurry. Heaven forbid they should notice me while fiddling with the key. I’d seen the bamboo shade in the upstairs window and a tabby cat sitting on the step. I’d seen Mrs. Newman smile at her husband as if his teeth didn’t matter at all.

Sammy was waiting at the corner of Needle Street. He wore a new corduroy jacket, brown and soft looking, begging to be touched.

“Hey, Annie,” he said. My heart jumped.

“Hello there. You weren’t at school today.” He’d missed my hour of glory.

“Toothache,” he said. “But it’s better now. Can you come for a walk?”

“Oh, I suppose,” I said. I left the library books on the hall table and joined him back outside. Dusk was already darkening the sky, and I wished I had my gloves on.

“I hear you had a lively weekend,” he said.

“Just the usual,” I said. I am inhabited by seven-hundred-year-old glossectomized convent girls pretty much every Saturday night.

“Have you read any mystery stories by the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” he asked.

“No,” I said, wishing I could rave about “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” “I didn’t really learn to read until last week. I have some catching up to do.”

“Oh, yeah.” He paused while he probably remembered that until recently I was a chapped-lipped, wonky-eyed moron. “Well, he’s a genius,” he said. “He writes wonderful stories about a brilliant detective named Sherlock Holmes. The reason I’m telling you is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really believes in life after death, like the Egyptians believed. Only he’s got scientific proof, not just faith.”

“Proof?”

“He’s got photographs of the ghost of his son, Kingsley, who died at the end of the Great War. Spirit photos, with Sir Arthur in front and the spirit dangling over his head in midair. Apparently lots of mediums take pictures during séances. They show phantom figures and mysterious lights and even ectoplasm oozing from noses or ears.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said.

Mama and I knew about mediums who used ectoplasm—supposedly, spirits’ bodily effusions—and swore it made their acts more convincing. I’d heard that Harry Houdini had found one woman pulling out yarn coated in egg yolk from a pouch in her corset. Mama said that was unsightly and refused to consider it. She said clients wanted to encounter the Other Side with elegance and dignity.

“But the evidence is captured on film,” insisted Sammy. “That means it’s real!”

Not necessarily, I thought. But perhaps Mama should learn something about photography and how to manipulate the results. Normally, she avoided having her picture taken, thinking too much publicity would lead to exposure. But she could make it alluring, part of the drama.

We had wandered back and forth across the square, under the statue of the mounted soldier.

“I’d love to see it,” said Sammy. “You, going into a trance, I mean.”

The chill on my back was not just the evening air. “It’s my mother,” I said. “Not me. She’s the trance medium.”

“Don’t you think it’s in the blood, that kind of thing? Like having straight teeth or stomach ailments? I’m sure you can do it too.”

Of course I could do it, but blood was not involved. I’d been watching Mama all my life. It was theater, not science. I was leading Sammy on by not telling him the truth because I wanted him to look at me with his shining eyes, to think I was the most unusual and marvelous girl.

“I’m cold,” I said. “And it must be suppertime.”

“I’ll walk you home,” said Sammy.

“I’ll be all right,” I said. “I’ll cut through the alley and be home in five minutes.”

But he followed me out of the square and across Main Street. We entered the unlit pathway behind Lucky Ladies and the Blue Boy Bakery, where I’d first met Helen.

“Annie,” he said. “Can you see in the dark?”

“I’m not a cat, Sam.”

“I know, but I just wondered. Isn’t it almost the same thing? Seeing into the future and seeing in the dark? We all know the path is there, but some of us are better at avoiding obstacles.”

“I can’t see into the future, either, Sammy. That’s my mother, remember?”

“I have faith,” said Sammy. Was faith worth having, I wondered, if it was based on deception? But his voice was low and warm and his arm brushed against mine, maybe on purpose. “I keep saying, I know you have the Gift.”

“What if I don’t?” I whispered. “What if it turns out that there’s no such thing? Is that the only reason you like me?” It was dark enough for me to say it without blushing. I so wanted it not to be true. He stopped and leaned closer.

“Do you know what’s going to happen in the next minute of your life?” he murmured.

Suddenly, Sammy and I were not who we’d been just a moment before. When he reached for me, we sank into each other. Hands and fingers, arms and shoulders melted together and we were kissing in the dark, kissing as if we’d done it a hundred times. It was best there was no light. I might have been too shy with light. But there we were, kissing, melting, kissing, with no one to see, especially us. We could just kiss. Until we stopped to breathe and the night got between our mouths enough to cool them.

“I’d better go.” I was shivery and nervous, as if someone might turn a light on and spill our secret.

“Annie—”

I touched his hair in case there wasn’t ever another chance, and turned to run with the feel of silk on my palm and panic in my throat.

I dared not look at Mama during supper, sure that she would see Sammy’s imprint all over my face. But she had other things on her mind.

“Gregory is devoting himself to establishing connections.
I suspect it’s an exciting change for him, not to be penned up in the dingy office of the stocking factory all day.…”

My ears wouldn’t stick to Mama’s words. I kept hearing Sammy: “Do you know what’s going to happen in the next minute of your life?”

“He’s a very smart man, you know,” said Mama, fiddling with the pepper mill. “He has shares in a nickel mine in northern Ontario that expects outstanding results.”

Was there any chance that Sammy could know it had been my first kiss? Had it been it his? Probably not, he was too good at it! I prayed that he’d never kissed Delia. I wanted to be first. And I wished I was kissing him again, right at that moment.

“I’m considering an investment,” said Mama. “Since we’ve been so lucky in Peach Hill. We could double our money, Gregory says—”

I’d see Sammy the next day at school, but when would we have a chance to kiss again?

“Annie! You haven’t touched your supper!”

Getting dressed in the morning seemed more complicated when considered as the first step toward the next kiss. I dithered and cussed, not knowing what to wear and only having the same things to put on anyway. After the fourteenth or eighteenth time I’d fixed my hair, I felt a shiver of fear. Was I letting my brain go soft after only one kiss? I put on a white blouse and my gray wool skirt, lovingly stitched by Peg.

“I thought you understood,” said Mama when I appeared in the hall. “We have work to do today. We’re making preparations for our new performance schedule. Gregory is already arranging things. There will be no time for you to attend school.”

“But Mama! I’ll be in deep trouble for truancy!”

I have to see Sammy!

“I have to go to school!”

“Not today, nor any day in the future that I can foresee,” she said. “And foreseeing the future is my business.” She
graced me with a tight smile. “You can remove that ridiculous garment. Eat your porridge and spend an hour going over your Latin verbs. Begin with ‘to obey.’ ”

Pareo
. I obey.

Parui
. I have obeyed.

But not forever.

Fugio
. I flee.

I needn’t have wasted the morning cursing my mother; Mrs. Newman arrived just after lunch, when it was obvious that I was not merely late for school. I heard the knocker thudding and crept to the bedroom door to hear my fate.

“It is the law, Madame,” I heard. “You have no choice. Unless your daughter has a letter from a physician, she must accompany me right now, or the police department will intervene.”

I suspect that Mama made her decision entirely to avoid an interview with Officer de Groot.

“Annie!” she called. “Put that dreadful skirt back on!”

“Mrs. Newman, it wasn’t my fault!” I trotted beside her, sneaking glances at the stern face, lips folded in and eyes glaring straight ahead. “I want to go to school! But my mother thinks that school is—is—”

“Yes, Miss
Grackle
?” Mrs. Newman stopped on the spot and scowled down at me. “What does your mother think?”

I bit my lip and looked away. “She thinks—she …”

What could I possibly say? My mother believes that school corrupts my loyalty and has forbidden me to waste time there. My mother has decided to sell my soul to a
smarmy old man who will turn me into a performing monkey. My mother thinks that if I go to school, it will lead inevitably to her arrest and imprisonment.…

“I’m waiting, Miss Grackle.” Mrs. Newman’s fierce expression had not shifted.

“She is concerned for my health,” I said. “She worries that the long days will tire me.”

Mrs. Newman shook her head. “Utter nonsense. You are perfectly robust. I wish that you would tell me the facts of the matter, Annie. I am much better off with facts.” She put a gloved hand under my chin. “Are you in a troubled situation? Do you need help?”

Oh, the beckoning truth!

But I spoke quickly, before I could cry or fling myself against her, pleading.

“No, ma’am. Everything’s just fine. Shouldn’t we hurry, as I’ve missed so much today already?”

Mrs. Newman sighed and began to walk without the vigor of anger in her stride.

“It is my duty to punish you for missing the morning lessons,” she said in a flat voice. “You are assigned to detention and must report to the office after school today.”

She did not speak again.

I took my seat in room 305, with only an hour left of the afternoon. I prayed that my hair did not stand on end from the electric crackle between Sammy’s eyes and my heart. It was all I could do to keep my attention focused forward, especially as Delia’s scalloped collar was the nearest scenery.
The teacher might have been speaking through a mouthful of buttons for all I understood. The glorious bell finally clanged to release us, though I pretended to hunt for a pencil in my desk, postponing the thrill of looking at Sammy.

“Miss Grackle?”

I jumped. I hadn’t realized that Mr. Fanshawe was still in the room. Thank goodness I’d managed not to pounce on Sammy! “Sir?”

“I understand you have a detention to address your poor punctuality?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then don’t be late.”

“No, sir.”

Sammy followed me.

“When will I see you?” he whispered.

“Miss Grackle has an appointment.” Mrs. Newman was waiting for me. My cheeks were surely scarlet.

“Yes, ma’am. G’bye, Annie.”

Mrs. Newman led me down a narrow set of unpainted steps, through the boiler room and into an alcove, where she opened a gray metal door. The dungeon.

I paused, but her face remained stony, so I went in. The door was shut and locked in the same instant when I saw that the little room was not empty. Helen Wilky sat in a chair behind the desk with her feet up on the blotter. She was wearing my old shoes.

I glared at Helen with my arms crossed over my chest and
one heel kicking the door behind me. She was as stubborn as I was; we locked in eye-to-eye scowls while my heel went
thump, thump, thump
. Recalling my talent, I slowly crossed one eye. In reply, she grimaced like a chimpanzee. At last, we could only laugh.

“You ever been down here before?” she asked.

“No.”

“Cozy, ain’t it? Sorry I can’t offer you a chair.”

I slid down the wall until I was sitting. “I’m fine here, thanks,” I said, though the stone floor was gritty and cold.

“She’ll make us wait until we want to scream with boredom,” said Helen. “Until we beg to go to class.”

“But I want to go to class,” I said. “I told her that. It’s my mother who forbids it.”

“I might have guessed,” said Helen. “Newman sent a do-gooder in here to convert me.”

“Why do you hate school so much?”

“Waste of time,” said Helen.

“That’s what my mother says. You’d rather be stealing buns from the Blue Boy?”

“Why not?”

“ ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ” I said. “Aren’t you a preacher’s daughter?”

“That’s why I do it,” she said. “I steal as much as I can, whenever I can.” She glanced around the empty room, as if she might find an atlas or a pencil worth pocketing. Then she looked back at me. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I moved to Peach Hill in August. My name is Annie.”

“And your mother won’t let you—oh, wait a minute—your
mother is the palm reader, ain’t she? I saw you pulling loony that day.” She started to laugh in funny short barks. “They’re all hepped up about you calling in spirits. I heard about that and all I could think was, Nice scam! That beats my daddy hands down. And I’ll bet you make money at it too, don’tcha?”