On Agate Hill (54 page)

Washington came back too, years ago. He had become a lawyer with gray hair, in a three-piece suit. We sat in the parlor and visited, and looked at photographs of his wife and his five children, two boys and three girls, all of them dressed up. One of the boys looked exactly like Washington used to. He tried to give us money but we refused. “We don’t need a thing!” I said, while Juney nodded up and down. Juney liked Washington right off. Washington’s name was Elijah Washington Hall. He was in the Legislature in Pennsylvania then but he is dead now, a card came in the mail, edged in black. Washington had a big gold watch on a golden chain it told the time in six different places in the world but not the time out here at Agate Hill, we are on different time here.

So much has happened, and yet nothing has happened, for each day moves so slow, the way we like it on this place, Juney and Henry and me, the seasons as they come and go the days the hours each with its appointed task for we are creatures of the seasons here, like rabbits and whistle pigs, snakes and catfish. We keep chickens and bees and raise vegetables. We are a part of the earth and the sky, the living and the dead, and we make no distinction between them. One great war has come, and another is likely, Juney says. So it will happen. Now there are electric lights in town, and many cars on the road.

Tomorrow we will go to market. I must not let my little man play marbles
with the little boys. He always wants to play but their mothers jerk them away oh nevermind, that was years ago. These years have passed as in the twinkling of an eye as in the Bible, a book I have never much cared for.

Now Juney is lining up the coffee cans on the bench in front of Liddy’s kitchen and Henry is cutting the flowers to put in them, so I had better get down there. Henry does not have an eye for it, and Juney can’t see worth a damn. So I am the one who arranges the flowers I will say them aloud to Juney, “Red zinnia, orange chrysanthemum, purple aster, sunflower, sunflower, rose.”

“Say it, say it, Mammalee,” Juney says.

I am the one who arranges the flowers. Henry is the one who will drive the car.

July 23

And today is the day we will go to market if this morning ever comes! I have been awake all night long I believe I have got my days and nights turned around now but nevermind it is all the same to me I will sleep when I’m dead anyway! So why worry about it!

The moonlight is beautiful, shining bright as day in the yard, falling upon this page upon this diary and the box that contains my life. Agate Hill is a magical place again, as it was when Fannie was still alive, for they are all still alive now, all of them including Mary White, see there she is in her red coat at the edge of the trees I am going down to her now. We will climb up the hill in the moonlight together it is bright as day but look, I cast no shadow. Oh why must she run ahead? Why will she not wait for me? We are going up to our Indian Rock we will dance and yell when the storm comes closer, first the thunder then the lightning you can count in between them one thousand foot soldiers, two thousand foot soldiers, three thousand foot soldiers to see how many miles away the storm is. The lightning is striking, the thunder rolls. It comes closer and closer.

But there up the hill is the Manbone Rock, thank God, and the cave, and the shadows Jacky makes with his fingers, and the jumping fire. “Molly,” he said when I came into the store with the lantern. “For God’s sake, Molly,” he said. He lay half on the floor and half across our big sack of flour which was covered with his blood for he had been gutshot, his stomach open. “Help me,” he said. “For God’s sake.” Jacky lay outstretched reaching for BJ’s gun which lay on the floor where he had dropped it, but now he could not get to it, the blood was coming too fast.

“Help me, Molly,” Jacky said.

All around us the store was in perfect order as we had left it, BJ and me, waiting for the morrow, with the piece goods all folded and the sums all totaled and the new round of hoop cheese under its glass dome.

“What must I do?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

“Honey, for God’s sake help me. Get. The gun.”

I went over and got it and put it into his hand which fell open, he could not hold it. “Who did this?” I said, but he shook his head and smiled at me all of a sudden, that sweet old crooked smile while his heart’s blood pooled on the floor. I was walking in Jacky’s blood. “Please, honey,” he said, and I took the gun in both hands and shot him in the neck so that his head fell over to the side with his eyes wide open and the smile still on his face and then I lay down there beside him, I would have done anything for my Jacky.

I was still there when BJ came in through the door hollering, for he had heard the shot, and came over to us and jerked me up though I wanted to stay, stay stay right there with my Jacky. But BJ jerked me up and thrust me toward the door and said, “Get over there, Molly, or I will kill you too.” He tossed the gun out the door and opened the big cans of kerosene and threw it all over the back of his beloved store all over the clothes and the groceries and the piece goods and held me tight when I tried to stop him for I saw what he was going to do. Then BJ threw the lantern into the clothes and flames sprang up like an explosion lighting up BJ’s poor face as he thrust it into mine.

“Now listen to me, Molly,” he said, pinning my arms behind me. “You woke up, and you smelled smoke, and you came out here, and you found this fire, and Jacky was already shot, and you tried to save him, but you could not. You could not!” as the yellow flames licked Jacky’s face and lit up his yellow hair. I realized that it was BJ’s intention to let Jacky burn, in order to save me. But somehow I got free and grabbed Jacky’s leg and then finally BJ started helping me too and then somehow we dragged him outside just as the dance floor fell in.

Oh Mary White, don’t you remember how we danced and danced as the storm came on, what did we know then of lightning?
Jacky’s gone, one more time, Jacky’s gone.
His banjo rings yet in my mind. Oh Mary White, I am glad I gave all my heart I would do it again I will tell all these young girls. And don’t you remember how we used to sneak up and lie on our Indian Rock at night? It was still warm from the sun, its heat went all through our bodies, and sometimes we fell asleep there as my stone babies sleep now on their mountain up at Plain View. Why here is Christabel, child of my heart, why here she comes running toward me with arms wide open, her face like a flower. I am the one who arranges the flowers. Zinnia chrysanthemum New York ironweed purple aster goldenrod sunflower rose. It is time to go to market. It is time. I am the one who tells the stories, Henry is the one who drives the car, and Juney is the one who holds the basket of eggs still warm on his lap while the land flows past on each side, tree and rock and fence and flower, all the hours, all the days, Juney is waving at everybody. Oh I could not do without my little man.

T
USCANY
M
ILLER
30-B Peachtree Court Apts.
1900 Court Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30039

Dear Dr. F:

And that is THE END! The end of the diary, that is all she wrote. Her death certificate at the courthouse says July 23,1927. So I don’t guess they ever made it to the market, do you? Or maybe they went on without her, Henry and Juney, what do you think? They were all so crazy. This is all pretty crazy but it is so sad too, it really gets to me, I have to say. I start crying every time I read the end
.

I interviewed old Mr. Grady (the lawyer) who says that nobody here knew anything about Molly’s court case or the ballad associated with her. He was just amazed to hear about it. According to him, Molly was buried at Four Oaks with her family. I did not see the grave because they were having the Member / Guest Tournament on the day I went out there, and the cemetery is right in the middle of the fairway on the 7th hole. Henry either died or disappeared, nobody knows which. After that, they put Juney into Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital in Raleigh, where he died and was buried with only a little metal marker that has his patient number on it, 04139. It is up on a hill though, and it is real pretty up there
.

The house was sold at auction, then changed hands repeatedly until Daddy and Michael bought it in 2003
.

I have not been able to find out one thing about Mary White, though she is my favorite person in this whole box. This just kills me. But I have this idea that her terrible grandmother died, and her real mother came to get her, and she got up out of that contraption and got well, and went out West, and lived happily ever after. Do you think this is possible?

Well, after reading all this stuff I guess
anything
is possible!

So Dr. Ferrell, what do you think? I know all this is way too much stuff but I am hoping I can find a thesis in here someplace like Michaelangelo said he would look at a big chunk of marble and then just cut away everything that wasn’t David. But I will tell you something else. Even if you don’t let me back into the program, I don’t care. I will confess to you now that the only reason I ever got into it in the first place was because I was involved with your assistant Eric Ringle the one with the tattoos, I thought he looked so hot in those big clodhopper boots. What did I know. Then he went off to get a PHD in Austin, TX, and I got married to a jerk under a bare hanging lightbulb in Dillon, SC. So I admit I was not a big student back when you knew me but I will be now, I swear. Because it has meant everything to me to read these old papers, to know these people through and through, especially Molly Petree. Sometimes I feel like I AM Molly Petree, I know that is crazy. But what I am trying to say is that I GET it now, about history, I get it, and like Molly said about being a ghost girl, I am not going back!

The other thing you might be interested to know is that Daddy and Michael’s bed and breakfast is a huge success. They have renovated it and decorated it and named the different rooms for different people in the diary such as Victoria’s Room, Uncle Junius’s Study, Aunt Fannie’s Sewing Room, Mary White’s Room, Molly Petree’s Cubbyhole, etc. The cabins are so cute, they are condos now. The Tenant House is a duplex, and Liddy’s Kitchen is the honeymoon house. It is very romantic in there with the original brick walls, the big fireplace, a hot tub, and a gorgeous antique bed with canopies and 400-count sheets. The Carriage Barn is a fancy restaurant with a hot young cook that Michael stole from the Magnolia Grill in Durham. And now they have even brought in some fancy decorator cows (Belted Galloways) and put them to grazing out in the fields
.

You can view it all at
www.agatehillplantation.com
.

But I just want you to know, I am coming back to school regardless. I do not intend to be a hostess forever
.

Daddy and Michael are back in my life now. To be honest, Michael helped me figure out the order of these documents, and Daddy sprang for typing. They have said I can have a job at Agate Hill, maybe Event Planning, weddings and parties and such, when I finish school. I have always been good with the public, I can talk to anybody. Michael thinks I have a real flair for design too
.

In conclusion, my horizons have been expanded by the contents of this box. I realize that it is completely true what Martha Fickling says, that “sometimes there can come an attraction between two people, even people as unlikely as we was, that is going to last though all hell breaks loose and longer than death.” I have thought about this a lot, Dr. Ferrell. This was true of Molly and Simon Black, in fact it is true of a lot of people in this box. I believe it is true of Michael and Daddy too. In fact I have a much better relationship with Daddy now than I have ever had with her before
.

I forgot to say, I hope you are well, and that your family is just fine too. I look forward to hearing from you soon
.

Yours Truly,
Tuscany Miller

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
Y DEEPEST GRATITUDE TO
Mona Sinquefield for her help with research and manuscript preparation; to my editor, Shannon Ravenel, for her expertise and patience; and to Hal Crowther, my husband, for his love and support during the writing of this novel.

The title of this book was suggested to me by Alice Gerrard’s haunting song “Agate Hill.” The first section is deeply informed by Mary Alves Long’s memoir
High Time to Tell It
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1950) about her Reconstruction childhood in piedmont North Carolina, with visits to Hillsborough. Here I found details of house and countryside, daily life, children’s chores, and activities of the day such as “Baltimore work” and knitting a “man doll.” Information and inspiration came from visits to historic Stagville Plantation and Bennett Place, both in Durham, North Carolina. I am indebted to Darnell Arnoult, Marshall Chapman, Morgan Moylan, and Tom Rankin for their various suggestions; to Walt Wolfram and Connie Eble for their help with appropriate diction; to Dale Reed for her help with Southern music of this period; and above all, to historian Ernest Dollar, past head of the Orange County Historical Museum, for his expertise and wise counsel throughout the writing of this novel.