Scarecrow (3 page)

“Please don’t bother,” I mumbled. “I don’t mean to be any trouble.”

“Why, mercy, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. You just sit down right here, and I won’t be a minute.”

As I felt myself being settled into a chair, my eyes finally adjusted to their surroundings, and I chanced a timid look about the room.

He was here somewhere—Seth. I could feel him, hidden, watching me, and I pressed my hands together, trying not to shake. I seemed to be in some sort of parlor, not very large, but crowded with odds and ends of furniture. An old pump organ stood against one wall. A fireplace took up most of another, and a blazing fire added cozily to the smudged glow of oil lamps set about on low tables and windowsills. Besides my chair and several other wooden benches and stools, there was an old-fashioned loveseat near the hearth. I didn’t see anyone else in the room who might possibly be Micah, but I did recognize Franny, sitting at a round table that was covered with a lace cloth. She leaned forward and shoved away a wad of knitting, looking delighted to see me.

“This here’s Girlie,” Franny said, snatching the child up against her. “But I reckon you figured that out for yourself.”

“We…met upstairs,” was all I could think of to say.

“She doesn’t talk much,” Franny went on. “I mean, she
can
talk, but she just never took to words very good. Except with her having the Gift and all, that’s a whole different story.”

“Franny,” snapped a voice from the corner.

The girl glanced over her shoulder into the shadows and shrugged. “Well, shoot, Seth, she knows all about it anyhow. I mean, Girlie did save her.”

A lean shadow disentangled itself from the gloom. “I’m sure she’s not interested in Girlie or any other family matters. I’m sure she’s tired. So don’t tire her out any more.”

Seth moved out from the wall; his face seemed to hover, disembodied, above the lamplight. Franny grinned and turned back to me.

“Don’t mind him. He hates everybody.”

“It’s all right,” I said meekly. “You’re not tiring me out.”

“I didn’t think so. I figure you’ve had plenty time to sleep—I mean, three days is a
long
time!”

“Yes,” I nodded, my eyes flicking to the door and back again. “Yes…yes, it is.”

Seth cast me a look I couldn’t read and leaned back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest.

“Well, anyhow, it’s cause of him we live so far away from everything and everybody,” Franny grumbled. “I’m real sorry you got hurt, but I like having you here. It’s nice having company.”

I forced out the words, trying hard to sound grateful. “Thank you. I mean…thank you, for saving my life.”
But why didn’t you just let me die
…I glanced up to see Girlie’s eyes, full and solemn upon me, and my heart caught.
My God, that child knows exactly what I’m thinking
…I dropped my eyes in confusion, nearly missing what Franny was saying.

“—from California. What’s it like out there, anyhow? Oh, I reckon it’s just wonderful!”

“It’s…umm…” My fingers plucked nervously at the frayed hem of the quilt. “It’s…busy, I suppose. You know…busy…”

“But I
don’t
know,” Franny protested. “I’ve never even been to a city. What are the people like there? Different from us, most likely.”

“Well…” I avoided Seth’s stare. “I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. I don’t get out very much,” I finished lamely and Franny wriggled in her chair and laughed out loud.

“Are they rich? Oh, but I bet I know why you never get out—you probably have servants to do things for you, right? I bet you have everything you could ever want!”

“I don’t,” I said, more sharply than I intended, but before I could go on, Rachel called and Franny hurried from the room. Girlie stayed beside the vacated chair, studying me, and I glanced at Seth, mumbling more to myself than to him. “I don’t, you know. It’s nothing like that—you shouldn’t think that it is.”

He fixed me with a dark stare that made me even more uncomfortable.

My eyes fell to the wedding ring on my finger. “I don’t have anything,” I said quietly. “Nothing.”

Silence stretched between us. When I finally looked up again, Seth was still staring at my left hand.

“You don’t believe Girlie saved you,” he said at last. “Or that she has the Knowing. You don’t believe any of that.”

I pressed one palm to my forehead where a fine sheen of sweat was beginning to break out. “I know I’m alive…other than that,” my voice sank, “I don’t know what to believe.” Had he nodded? Pulled back as he was again into the shadows, it was so hard to tell. “I guess I owe you a personal debt of gratitude,” I murmured, “since you’re the one who—”

“You don’t owe me anything.” His tone was cold as he straightened and moved across the room. “You shouldn’t be here, and I shouldn’t have brought you.” As he reached the hall, he collided with Rachel and stalked out the front door. Rachel looked from the door back to me, her face softly troubled, and then she set a plate of food down on the table.

“Eat this,” she coaxed. “He’ll be all right. He’s just not used to people.”

“I’m so sorry.” My eyes burned from unshed tears, and I stared down miserably at the food. “I know I wasn’t making much sense earlier upstairs. I…I haven’t been well and…now I’ve upset everyone and—”

“You haven’t done anything to upset anyone. That’s just Seth’s way. Don’t pay him any mind.”

“If my car’s not too bad, I’m sure I could leave in the morning.”

Rachel paused, giving me a sympathetic look. “It caught fire, Seth said. It was a miracle you got out—”

“Got out?” I stared at her. “But I don’t remember getting out. I remember…the tree coming down across the hood of the car…but then…”

“Eat,” Rachel urged me again, and she pushed my hand gently toward a fork. “What matters is that you’re all right. That’s all that matters now.”

“Is there an airport very near here?” I nibbled reluctantly on some boiled chicken.

Rachel’s glance was surprised. “Airport? Why, no.” She poured some tea, nodding at me to drink it. “See, Seth, he doesn’t take much to people. He wouldn’t be happy living close to anything, I expect.” She thought a moment, the teapot poised over the cup. “I reckon the closest neighbor is twenty…twenty-five miles from here. That’d be Dewey.”

“Twenty miles?”

Rachel nodded. “Dewey’s a cousin on my mama’s side. He gets over about once a month to bring supplies and buy eggs and maybe a chicken now and then. I wish I saw him more, but it’s so hard to get way out here to the farm—we’re that far back. I expect the next closest thing after Dewey would be Cranston. That’s a town. But not much of one—more like a spot in the road.”

I could scarcely swallow over the lump in my throat. “And where’s that?”

“Well, it’s a day’s trip there and back, that’s why we hardly ever go. I reckon it’s hard for folks like you to realize, but we’re so far from everything back in these hills. We don’t get visitors much—folks just can’t find us way up here.”

“Then…how
did
you find me?”

“I told you,” Rachel smiled. “Girlie. Girlie knew. She just knows things.” She crossed to the mantel and brushed softly at some dust. “I’m real sorry about your car.”

But you never want to get stranded there, Brad had said. How many times had I heard him say that, how many times…

“May I use your telephone?” I whispered.

Rachel glanced back over her shoulder, her concern deepening. “Oh, dear, I’m afraid we don’t have one.”

My hands clenched together in my lap, squeezing back growing panic. “But what…what do you do in emergencies? How do you get help?”

“We have Girlie.” Rachel’s kind eyes rested wearily on mine. “We don’t need to call anybody else.”

“Yes…well…but surely you have a car?”

Rachel shook her head slowly. “No, just the wagon.”

“Then there’s no problem, is there?” I said hopefully. “You can take me into town, can’t you? And I can use a telephone there?”

As I anxiously watched Rachel’s face, the scar twisted along the length of her cheek, her mouth tightening into a half smile. She’s so pretty when she smiles, I realized again with a start, but it hurts her…
it’s painful for her to show happiness…like it’s painful for me to feel it.

“Oh, now, don’t you even worry. We’ll work all that out when you’re better. But right now till you’re well enough to do anything, there’s no safer place you can be. I’ll take good care of you.” She glanced down as Girlie pulled out of the firelight and laid a tiny hand on her knee.

“Rachel, please?” I whispered.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she smiled. “There’ll be lots of time for talk tomorrow.”

“But…I can’t stay here…”

“You probably have a real bathroom at home, don’t you?” She cast me a sidelong glance, patting Girlie’s fingers absently with her own. “With a fancy tub and hot water that runs out when you turn a handle…” Her voice sounded almost wistful as she stood and began collecting the dirty dishes. Girlie reached up and hung silently onto one long tie of her apron. “All we’ve got’s the privy, and that’ll be a real change for you, I reckon. Too bad it’s so late in the fall, the nights get frosty and dark as all get out. But I’ll send Franny with you so you won’t lose your way.”

I bit back another plea, knowing it was useless. Franny reappeared a second later, wiping her wet hands on her skirt, and I followed her out through the kitchen and onto a porch, down some sagging steps, and across a dark, ragged stretch of ground.

“Don’t we need a light?” I asked timidly, stumbling along as I trailed my blanket underfoot. I still felt unsteady, but my head wasn’t aching nearly as much as when I’d first woken up.

Franny put an arm around me and forged confidently ahead. “Course not. Been this way a million times. No—a
hundred
million’s more likely. Just watch yourself. Never know where those pigs have been.”

Just as she said it, soft mud oozed up between my toes, and I bit back a groan. We went past several squat buildings, then up a short incline and along a well-worn path to a wooden outhouse.

“You’ll get used to it,” Franny promised, as I inched my way fearfully into the drafty old structure and stared in disbelief at the catalog I was obviously expected to use. “Why, after a while you’ll be able to find it in your sleep.”

“Well,” I said, hurrying to rejoin her after I’d finished, “I’ll be going tomorrow, you know. You’ll be taking me into town.” I shoved on the door and nearly fell out onto the path as Franny caught me.

“Whoa! Take it easy now!”

“I’m afraid I still feel a little lopsided.” Trying to wipe my feet on the cold ground, I added, “Is there somewhere I could wash off? Maybe take a bath? If I’m leaving tomorrow, I’d feel a lot better if—”

“A bath?” She looked slightly incredulous, then quickly remembered her manners. “Oh, sure—right back there off the kitchen.”

“You mean that porch? Outside in the cold? But…but there’s no privacy!”

Franny’s bubbly laugh echoed back through the darkness. “Silly, who’s there around to see? That’s one thing about being so far from everybody—we don’t need curtains or locks on the doors.”

“But aren’t you ever frightened?”

Her look was clearly baffled. “Of what?”

And it was then that I remembered the movement I’d seen earlier from my window…that single stealthy shadow pulling back into the trees. In the dark Franny saw me shivering.

“Why, you’re plumb frozen,” she fussed, hurrying me along. “We’d best get you back to bed.”

We were almost to my room again before I finally voiced my fears.

“Franny, it’s not possible, is it—I mean, that you could have prowlers around here?”

“What? Around here?” She shook her head, nudging me into bed. “Not likely. Why?”

“It’s just that…I thought I saw someone earlier, from my window, and—”

“Oh,” she chuckled, “that’s most likely the scarecrows.”

“Scarecrows! But this was
moving,
don’t you see—”

She pushed me back against the pillows and spread out the quilt, unconcerned. “Tomorrow I’ll take you out, if you like, and you can see them up close. Oh, we do make a fuss about our scarecrows!”

“But I’m leaving tomorrow,” I tried to tell her, clinging to the thought like a life raft. “You’re taking me into town and I’ll be leaving—”

“Course, Seth thinks it’s all foolishness, but what does he know anyhow? Yes,” Franny nodded emphatically, “that’s just what I’ll do, take you first thing in the morning.
If
you feel like going, that is—why, Rachel would skin me alive if you weren’t up to it, and I hauled you outside.”

I opened my mouth again, but Franny was halfway out into the hall.

“You get a good night’s sleep, you hear, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

I waited to make sure she’d gone before I crept to the window and looked out. The hills were moon-washed gray against a black-death sky, and I covered my mouth with my hands to keep from crying.
No, I won’t cry, because if I ever started, maybe I’d never, ever be able to stop…

Like Franny hadn’t stopped talking, just rambling on and on, not really hearing me, almost as if she hadn’t
wanted
to really hear me.

Scarecrows.

But scarecrows weren’t real. They couldn’t move.

And something
had moved
down there below my window.

As if suddenly realizing I had spotted it there in the dark.

A
PILE OF UNFAMILIAR
clothes lay on my chair the next morning—sensible underwear but no bra, a plain brown jumper and a faded cotton shirt with long sleeves. I pulled them on slowly, wondering what had happened to my own things, gritting my teeth against the room’s chill and my own light-headedness. The shoes I’d been given were identical to the ones I’d seen Franny wearing—clumsy old clodhoppers that looked like men’s boots—but after stuffing my feet into a pair of thick knitted socks, the shoes didn’t slip around so much, and I guessed I could get used to them. Lacing them as best I could, I scuffed over to the window, raised it, and looked out into the new day.

Everywhere, as far as I could see, there were hills—hills bristling with forests, glinting amidst bald, gray boulders and crags, hills blazing with scarlet and gold beneath the early fall sun. Their steep sides formed a deep hollow, and here, in a wide clearing ringed by dense clumps of trees, sat the house and a barn and various other smaller buildings I couldn’t identify. Just beyond the circle of woods, stubbled brown fields and lush green pastures stretched themselves unevenly away before finally meeting the scraggly slopes in the distance and angling upward. As I leaned there on the sill, a burst of wind shook the trees, sending whirls of leaves into the crisp air. I heard the, muffled lowing of cows, glimpsed the silver thread of a stream glistening along the curve of a low rise, smelled the pungent tang of wood smoke.