Midsummer's Eve (33 page)
Authors: Kitty Margo
was totally addicted to it and found it hard to drink a cup of coffee without it anymore. We sat beside the river sipping the last of the coffee.
An hour later, with great trepidation, we s
tood before the glorious array
of buttercups. I was terrified beyond words that if I stepped a foot into them some horrible ac
t of nature would befall
us. Ye
t
,
Teri plowed right through them without a care for how many she trampled, and on into the house. I had to admire the girl’s warped determination.
The house had been magnificent in its day. To the right was, or had once been, a mahogany staircase judging from the decaying remains. I was picturing the plantation house, as it must have looked in all its glory in the early 1800's, when Teri quickly jerked me out of my reverie.
“Quit woolgathering and get in here and help me look, would you!”
Mallory
was right about one thin
g. The girl could be a certifiable
bitch at times.
We searched the house from room to room upstairs and downstairs. We searched inside every cupboard and every cabinet. Nothing. Teri even lifted loose boards from the floor hoping to find a secret hiding place. Then she went room to room again
,
staring at the ceiling and searching for anything out the ordinary. Nothing.
We had searched for two hours and had gotten filthy in the pr
ocess. Amazingly, the diva didn’
t even seem to notice, even though she had long strands of cobwebs trailing from her hair and was covered with soot from the fireplaces. We were still searching when I heard a truck pull up outside. It was Dad. Finally!
“Did y’all find anything?” he asked, tromping through the flowers. He put his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes from the blazing sun as he gazed out across the sea of yellow. “I
’ve lived him 80
year and I ain’
t never seen nothing like this in all my born days! Buttercups bloom in the s
pring of the year, not in late July
.”
“Me either and
no, we didn’
t find anything. What do you make of all this, Dad?”
“I would say the child
loves
his
buttercups. I’m sure
they
’s a message here that you girls will have to figure out. Good luck. I would stay and help, but I’m headed to the garden
to pick cucumbers so Evelyn
can put up some dill pickles.”
“Did
Mallory
and
Tammy
tell you what happened?”
“Yep. Them girls looked about
as beat up as the two of you
. They both swear they heard something running along beside them and giggling in the cornfield.” He motioned toward the butterc
ups and asked, “I wonder if it’
s the same little boy I seen years ago
?”
“I’
m sure it is,” Teri said. “But we can’t find a single clue
as to why he’s still roaming these woods
.”
“You gals gonna snoop around some more or do you want to ride home with me?”
“I’
m ready to go home and take a bath,” I said. “What about you, Teri?”
For the first time
,
Teri glanced down at her filthy clothes and body and cringed.
“I guess I do need a bath, don’
t I? And I promised the husband I would be home tonight.”
We rode with him to the cabin and, amazingly, when Dad turned the switch on his old truck it roared to life. He helped us load our supplies and I, for one, was eternally grateful to finally be heading home.
Sixteen
A week
later
, just as I had turned off the lamp and was about to get comfortable,
Teri called.
“How are you holding up
, Eve
?”
“Tired. The new contract is whipping my butt.”
Don’t mention the little boy! Don’t mention the little boy!
I desperately tried to channel these words into her brain. But, evidently, the girl has no psychic ability whatsoever.
“That. And the little boy,” she said.
I had been afraid she wouldn’
t allow the subject to drop. “What do you have in mind?” I asked around the painful knot that had formed in the
back of my throat. “You wouldn’
t have both
ered to bring it up if you didn’
t have something spin
ning around in that salad spinner you call a brain
.”
“I told the husband I was coming to spend this weekend with
you. I didn’
t mention the child last weeke
nd if you will recall. I thought you needed a break from all the madness
.”
For Teri, that had been a
thoughtful gesture. “Great, we’
ll go shopping and out to eat and to the movies,” I tried, unsuccessfully, to change the topic.
“And to the Buttercup House.”
“I’
ll go if you can convince
Tammy
and
Mallory
to go.”
It was a joke and
we both knew it. Just imagining
their reaction if we even suggested they go near the house, caused Teri to laugh until she almost lost her breath. “I should call just to piss
Mallory
off. But I
simply cannot tolerate the girl’s perpetual whining. It’
s just going to be you and me, kid. We need to finish this,
Eve
. That child is all I think about.”
“I know. Me too.”
A
gainst my better judgment, Teri arrived at my house Friday night for another trip to the cabin. We went to Sagebrush for a great steak supper and then came home and popped popcorn and watched
Signs
on TV. That’s a great movie and still never fails to scare the bejesus out of me! And I still do some serious boo hooing with Mel Gibson at the end, especially when
little
Morgan gasps
air into his asthmatic lungs
and says, “Did somebody save me?”
After a huge breakfast at Mom’
s the following morning, we hopped into Dad's old beat up river truck.
“That woman can c
ook!” Teri smiled and rubbed a stomac
h
filled with milk gravy, biscuits, grits, country ham, scrambled eggs, sliced cantaloupe and coffee.
“
That’s pretty much an understatement, but come on
. L
et’s just get this over with.”
Hopping in the truck I drove until we
parked the truck in front of what I now referred to as the Buttercup House.
We waded through the buttercups and took another tour of the house.
Again we came up empty handed.
I was sure the child could speak. He could very easily control the weather and that couldn’t be an easy task. So, speaking shouldn’t be all that difficult an accomplishme
nt for him to achieve. Why didn’
t he just tell us what he wanted?
“Okay, so we didn’
t find anything in the house, although, I was sure he wanted us to,” Teri begrudgingly admitted. “Maybe we missed something at the graveyard.”
Once more we struck out through the dazzling field of buttercups, but had only taken a few steps when we were stopped dead in our tracks as childish laughter floated from the uppermost part of a 30-feet tall pine tree.
“He’s here, Teri,” I whispered. “Did you hear him laugh?”
“Yes.”
“Lord, please watch over us and keep us safe through whatever happens,” I prayed fervently. “And forgive Teri, for she knows not what she does.”
“Amen!” she said and glared sideways at me.
We turned and nervously gl
anced toward the tree, but didn’
t see anything out of the ordinary. I shifted my gaze upward to take an apprehensive glance at the sky. Whew! Only clear blue sky filled with white, fluffy clouds floated above us. However, I knew how rapidly that could change and, unfortunately, the child was present and accounted for.
“Teri, do not say or do an
ything to piss him off
,” I warned. “You know how temperamental he is.”
“Okay, okay calm down.”
We were carefully placing our feet between bunches
of flowers when the little shit threw something and hit me on
my head.
I gasped and cried, “Ouch!
Why does it always have to be me t
hat gets abused? I wish
he would terrorize you for a change!”
Again the child giggled, seemingly from the top of the tallest tree.
“He seems to be in a cheerful mood,
Eve
!
Don’t ruin it!”
“Yeah, for now. We’ll see how long that lasts. I just
wish he would direct his attention to
somebody besides me for once,” I whispered, rubbing my head and peering anxiously into the pine tree. “Maybe he was aiming for you and hit me by mistake.” Lord knows, I was eager to humor the child and not bring his wrath down upon us again. I remembered all too well his penchant for wind, lightening, hail and bugs.
“Maybe, but I think he drew our attention to keep us from leaving. I knew whatever he wanted us to find was here, at the house. I wonder if he’ll come down and let us see him? There’s only one way to find out,” she said as
she moved toward
his
tree.
“Seth, can you come down her for a second, hon?” He chose to ignore her. “What did he throw at you anyway? A pinecone?”
“I’m not sure what it was. Come help me look through the flowers and find it.”
On our hands and knees
we rooted around the ground under the magnificent buttercups. “I found it, Teri!”
“What is it
?”
It was a
very old and raggedy
hand
made book, the pages held togethe
r with yarn
. “It looks like a journal of some sort.” Then, she glanced up into the tree and asked, “Is this what you wanted us to find?” We heard leaves shaking
in the top of the tree
.
“Evidently, he got tired of waiting and finally decided to give us a little assistance.”
I opened the book as gently as possible, but the cover still fell off and landed at my feet. “These pages are so old and fragile they’re going to crumble if we try to turn them.” Glancing at the first page I could tell there was writing on it, bu
t without my glasses I couldn’
t read a word. Neither could Teri. “Damn, I wish we could read it. Why does a person have to start going blind the instant they turn 40?”
“I know, girl. Not being able to see what is in front of you is a royal pain in the ass.
Let’
s go home and get your glasses.”
“We’
ll be back,” she shouted to the top of the tree as we climbed in the truck.
A
t home, side by side on the couch with my ugly reading glasses situated on my nose, I took a deep breath and read the first page:
Property of Mary
Beth
Almond, May 12, 1854.
“It’
s Mary
Beth
Almond’s diary. Wasn’t she Delbert Almond’s wife? What does it say?” Teri asked. She was so excited she had pulled an emergency cigarette out of her purse, one she had stashed there two years ago
when she’
d quit smoking,
for just such an emergenc
y
.
Taking a deep breath, I began to read from the journal.
As I sit here writing this I feel obliged to question whether I ever knew my dear husband at all. The man for whom I left my devoted family in Charleston and came to live in these Godforsaken back woods of North Carolina with. The man I labored and bore four daughters for. He should thank the Good Lord above for his daughters and be eternally grateful that I chose to spend the remainder of my days here, even after I found out about
her
!”
“I wonder who she’s talking about,” Te
ri asked in between severe fits
of coughing. “Keep reading.”
“For crying out loud put that nasty thing out before you cough up a lung.”
“W
ould you
please just read the journal Miss Surgeon General
?” she said puffing away.
May 17, 1854
Today I met her for the first time, the darkie who bore my husbands illegitimate offspring. As much as it pains me to admit, my dear husband has confessed feelings of love for the whore of a slave woman and her bastard child.
