Residue (28 page)

Her reply was so unexpected that despite the pain in my gut I actually felt a smile surface. It was weak but it was there.

“
May I see Jameson, ma’am?” I asked before she could make me start to rethink why I’d come.

She nodded, her eyes closing regally, as she replied, “Surely.” Before she turned away, her hand reached out and took hold of mine, the one still clutching the Caldwell family stone. “Things…” she said. “They ain’t always what they seem.”

I couldn’t be certain but it appeared as if she knew why I was there.

With that, she hobbled up the stairs and disappeared for a few minutes. She must have delivered the news that I was waiting downstairs quietly because I didn’t hear doors slamming, raised voices, or pounding footsteps headed for the gun cabinet. Instead, Jameson appeared at the top of the stairs without a sound and silently descended. He maneuvered them as if he were avoiding the ones that creaked, I noticed.

The sight of him caused a stabbing pain in my abdomen, my muscles clenching, fighting against what I was planning to do. He was thrilled to see me, his eager eyes and lips curved into a smile confirmed it. I, however, was torn in seeing him. The reality that after the next few minutes passed I would no longer be able to laugh with him, learn from him, or touch him gripped my insides and made them churn.

When Jameson reached me, he didn’t say a word but pulled me along with him to the swing on the front porch, his eyes wide and incredulous. Without releasing my hand, he channeled, “Do you know how risky it is for you to be here?”

Without answering him, I opened my other palm where the Caldwell family stone was cradled. I almost hesitated, not wanting this to end, this love affair I’d willingly entered. How could someone so generous, so altruistic be part of a family who had killed my father, so many of my relatives? He’d grown up around and been raised by these people and yet there was no sign of their crimes in him. And, here I was, about to punish him for something he didn’t do and had no hand in creating. In the next few minutes I would bring our blissful relationship to a crushing halt because of the simple, pure bottom line: I couldn’t bring myself to betray my father’s dying wish…to keep me safe.

“
What’s that?” he asked, innocently, peering closer in the dim light. Then he blinked and his head jerked slightly as he identified it.

“
I thought you should have it back,” I said, sending the message without speaking.

“
What…How did you get that?”

“
My aunt,” I replied stiffly.

He lifted his head, confused. “How did she get it?” His tone was not only suspicious but apprehensive, as if he wasn’t certain he wanted to know. He determined as quickly as I had that a Weatherford owning a Caldwell family stone was not encouraging.

“
They found it in my father’s hand.”

His forehead creased, still perplexed.

“
On the night he died.”

Then his eyes were on me, intense, alarmed.

“
You think…your family thinks that one…” He stopped and swallowed, hard. “One of my relatives tried to kidnap you?”

As always, his first reaction was for my well being, I noticed, and again the stabbing pain of guilt and disappointment shook my insides.

Then he named the other disturbing insinuation, the one that held far more importance. “You think my family killed your father,” he stated, finally understanding the depth of the situation.

My answer wasn’t in words but it was just as clear. I pulled my fingers away from the grip that he was using to channel our thoughts and gave him back his family stone.

“
Jocelyn…” he said, his voice hitting my ears loudly in the silence of the night. Then he stopped, knowing there was nothing more to say. His prevailing trait – logic - was helping him grasp what I’d already concluded. There was no evidence he could offer to refute the claim. This wasn’t something you could simply apologize for and move on from. This news was life-altering.

I stood and ended the discussion by speaking my thought aloud. “When I ignore you in class, it’s only to make it easier on us.”

Then I was walking down the steps, feeling his eyes on my back, fighting the urge to turn and run back to his arms. It was more challenging than anything I’d ever done, testing me to the core of my being.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I kept my face in my pillow, hiding my sobs from those who might hear me through the thin walls of the old house. I could actually feel my heart breaking, ripping through the muscle as it pulsed on, the pain being so deep I didn’t think I could recover. Then I found the sun filtering into my room and I vaguely understood that it was daylight. Later, voices came underneath my door and a knock rattled it, I think. Day moved into night and the sobs stopped. I’d run out of hydration but I still didn’t move. The next day, the door shook more frequently and with harder intensity, the voices outside it were more feverish.

“
I’m going in,” someone declared. I thought it was Estelle but couldn’t have cared less who said it.

“
No, she might not be ready.” That one was Vinnia. I was certain of it.

“
She’s wasting away in there.” That was Nolan. His deep voice couldn’t be mistaken.

“
Let’s knock again.” Oscar - Always the peacekeeper.

“
Forget that.” Estelle. She followed it with a scoff.

As the argument continued, I lifted my body until my feet hit the floor. It wasn’t as chilly against the hardwood as I’d expected and only then did I find I still had my shoes on. They scuffed the floor as I made my way across the room.

“
I’m getting Miss Mab-” Spencer was saying as I pulled the door open. He stopped in midsentence to stare at me, along with the rest of my cousins.

From their faces, it was clear I was a mess.

“
See?” demanded Estelle, her bright purple shirt being the only element standing out to me in this surreal state. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper even though I was less than a foot away. “We should have gone in sooner.”

I shuffled by them and headed down the stairs. From the sounds behind me, I figured they were following. As I entered the kitchen, Estelle called out supportively, “Good idea! Food!” Then to her brothers and sister she pronounced, “She needs that.”

When I passed through the kitchen, barely aware of Miss Mabelle sleeping on her stool in the corner, and out to the backyard without stopping for bite I heard Estelle grunt and knew someone had nudged her, insisting that she realize she was wrong.

Outside, I collapsed on the first step, barely bracing myself against the fall. Gasps came from behind me but they were too far away to have helped balance me anyways.

“
Get Miss Mabelle,” said Vinnia. “Hurry.”

It wouldn’t matter. Not much did.

I found what I’d come for, a plant set in a beautiful blue pot. It was well fed, watered, giving the proper sunlight and it showed. Still, I reached out and placed my hand on it.

Fighting the tears that still threatened to spill over, I centered in on that energy inside me. I pushed it, pulled it, did everything I could to coax it to life, to tell me that I was still alive, that separating from Jameson wouldn’t end me.

Then I saw the first blossom open…and then the second, unraveling their tiny petals to the light, showing themselves to the world.

There it was…that energy in me, surging through my torso and down my arm and through my fingers, passing the vacancy left in my chest as if it didn’t even notice it was there.

The wooden step vibrated then and I found Miss Mabelle had plunked down beside me, her cane stretched out down the rest of the stairs.

“
Told ya not ta touch my plants, didn’t I?” she said, her lips turned down in a frown.

“
Yes,” I whispered. While normally I wouldn’t have cared if she were mad about it, I didn’t have the life in me to fight the guilt.

Miss Mabelle wasn’t angry. That was just her way.

“
So ya lost a little bitta life in ya n’ decided to give some of it back? That it?”

I shrugged, having no interested in explaining.

“
Then what ya doin’ hea, chil’?”

Finally, I lifted my head to her.

My lip trembled as I said, “I can still heal others. Why can’t I heal the pain in my heart?”

Then the tears won, swelling over and coursing down my cheeks. Her arms came around me and pulled me close, enveloping me. I leaned against her for an immeasurable amount of time, shuttering into her fleshy embrace, appreciating the comfort it gave.

She didn’t offer any consoling words other than one sentence and it made me pause because I’d heard it before, recently.

“
Just rememba…Things ain’t always what they seem,” she whispered into my ear.

I pulled away then and wiped the tears off, stunned. Miss Celia had said the very same thing.

She didn’t give me the chance to respond because her legs were already heaving her body to a standing position. Then, as I watched her go, she hobbled into the house, where my cousins waited in an awkward cluster just inside the door.

No one said a word to me at dinner, allowing me to mend myself on my own. I tried some of the fried catfish but could only bring myself to chew a few biscuit crumbs.

I was thankful for a few families who stopped by to request a healing session. It kept my mind off Jameson, as much as was possible anyway, and it gave me the chance help those in my world. With my almost daily trips to the hospitals and clinics, they’d been neglected and I felt a little guilty about it.

Because of them, when the next morning came, I had the energy to dress for school. Still, I received concerned glances from my cousins as I struggled to take in a few bites of food as I headed out the door.

It was drizzling rain, which was fine because it matched my mood. When I reached school my cousins were back to walking me down the hall so when someone dared to say, “What? No Caldwell today?” Oscar had to stop Nolan from trouncing the guy.

The sting of that question hurt worse than I thought it would. The fact was people were curious. The entire week before, Jameson and I had been side-by-side, unabashedly displaying affection. His absence and the return of my cousins surrounding me made it good enough for another round of gossip.

None of that mattered much to me. I was mainly concentrating on what would happen in second period when Jameson and I would see each other again. As it turned out, it was worse than I’d expected.

He was already there, his head bowed, his arms crossed over the front of his desk.

When I saw him, my heart stopped and then started again at a quicker pace. He looked miserable. His hair was tousled, his clothes were wrinkled and unkempt, his skin was pale, and he slouched, something I’d never seen him do. Then he looked up and I saw the red in his eyes and knew he’d slept about the same number of hours as I had.

As our eyes met, there was no denying the despair and hopelessness we both felt. It was a message that didn’t need to be channeled because it was already obvious.

His gaze followed me until I was a few desks away, and then they fell aside, unable to retain that connection at such a close range. When I sat down, it was unusually loud and clunky because the room was absolutely silent now. Awkwardly, I fumbled with my laptop while pulling it from the bag, nearly dropping it twice because my attention wasn’t on it.

I was following, without looking, every action, or inaction, Jameson was making. His hands had tightened around the edge of the desk when I’d sat down, just before he slid them across the surface and dropped them to his lap. His head remained motionless, dipped slightly, as if he didn’t trust himself to move it because he knew which direction it would go. His legs, which were normally stretched out in a relaxed state, were bent at the knee with both feet placed firmly in the floor.

When Ms. Wizner entered the room, she didn’t bother to acknowledge us because she no longer feared a spat between Jameson and me. But the rest of the class did. They paid curious attention to us but were smart, or prudent, enough not to mention it.

Jameson and I didn’t take a single note during Ms. Wizner’s lecture; our laptops remained open and untouched. Instead, our attention remained on each other. I knew this when my foot scuffed back toward my chair and that slight motion caused Jameson to inhale. It was quiet but I’d heard it.

When class ended, he stayed in place as he usually did while I slipped my laptop into my bag and headed for the door. I didn’t think it was possible but my heart broke even more when I left the room, knowing his eyes were following me out.

The next day was no better. And the day after was the same as the two before. Evening class arrived and we behaved the same there as we did in normal school, doing our best to ignore each other and failing horribly at it. His family kept him close with a wary eye on me, although they had no reason to. The separation caused more harm to Jameson and me than any hex ever could.

Neither of us cared or had the energy to make ourselves presentable for the rest of society any longer so we showed up disheveled, exhausted, and depressed. The toll was even greater on our bodies, drawing in our eyes, withering away our limbs and torsos from lack of food. I felt like a ghost and I knew Jameson did, too.