Silent Thunder (12 page)

“We'll give your pa one of our favorites, Emerson's The Snow-Storm.'” Miss McCracken stepped past Lowell, toward Parnell's study. “Come now.” She gestured with her head. “We mustn't waste any more time.”

I twisted my dust rag around my finger and poked real good at the cobwebs. But I couldn't help but turn my eyes toward Lowell. His arms were folded tight around him, as if he were bracing himself against a cold wind. A second cough escaped from deep in Lowell's chest. “My pa's s~s~s~sickly, m~m~m~ma'am,” he said.

Miss McCracken went to Lowell and gently placed
her hand on his forearm. “I know all about that, lad,” she said. “But fine oratory is balm for the ailing.”

Lowell lowered his head. Then he shook his head twice. “My pa doesn't regard me, ma'am. I'm shame to him,” he said softly.

Miss McCracken lifted one of Lowell's hands and held it in hers.

“I know about that, too,” she said. Now, if Miss Rose McCracken were holding
my
hand, I'd feel I had been blessed with the touch of an angel. But Lowell, he started wheezing as if someone had snatched the breath right out of him. I let my dust rag drop, and went to Lowell's side. I led him to the spindle-back bench that stood in the front hall. “He needs to sit,” I told Miss McCracken.

“Indeed,” she said obligingly, helping me settle Lowell onto the bench.

Lowell groped for his breath. He took several shallow sucks of air. Miss McCracken gathered her shawl from the front had closet and draped it around Lowell's shoulders. “It ain't a chill he's got,” I explained. “It's an attack of nerves that's calling up his sickly condition.”

Still, Miss McCracken, whose eyes were filled with concern, kept fussing with the shawl. I stood up from the bench, about to call Mama, when Lowell spoke through a raspy 'bout of coughs. “I'll recite for my pa, Miss McCracken, if you come with me and stay close,” he said weakly.

Miss McCracken's eyes met mine, then we both looked at Lowell. “Of course, Lowell, I'll be right there, nearby, the entire time,” she said.

Lowell was breathing easier now, and his coughing had calmed.

I licked my lips. As soon as Lowell and Miss McCracken left the front hall, I fetched my rag and quietly followed them to the door of Parnell's study, where I stayed out of sight. Days before, I had found a new sheath of dust nestled near the lower hinges of the door to the master's study. This was as good a time as any to clean it.

It had been nearly two months since I'd seen Gideon Parnell up close. When I got to the study, the room was chillier than usual. A draft came from the large, arched window near the desk. Right away, I adjusted the drapes to ward off the chill, then went back to the dust at the master's door.

Mama had already begun to decorate Parnell's study for Christmas. She'd roped a garland and some Yule ribbon from the windows. In years past, Parnell's study didn't get no decorations. That's because every holiday, Parnell said the same thing. He believed “frills are best left to public parts of the house.” But with Parnell spending all his days in the study, and Missy Claire spending all hers in the parlor, there were few “public parts” for the Parnells to share together in their own home.

A breakfast tray with a half-eaten bowl of hominy sat to the right of Parnell's armchair. Lowell was standing to the left of the chair, in full view of his pa. Miss McCracken stood right behind Lowell, just outside the circle of window light that surrounded the master and his son.

Gideon Parnell was a sight! He'd gone from a hefty feed-bag of flesh to a measly sack of bones. He sat slumped in his chair, his shoulders folded in around him, his feet toe to toe. The master's hands lay feebly in his lap. One of them, his left one, was all gooseflesh. It was a limp curl of fingers. And the master's eyes. They'd gone blank. Not a wink of expression to them. Parnell had become a spook.

He struggled to speak. “Git—out . . . Out—now,” he stammered. The left corner of Parnell's lips tugged abruptly downward. And he slobbered when he spoke. “The boy . . . ain't got—ain't got no . . . business here,” he managed. He was putting the cold shoulder to his son, as always.

At least the master was clean. Newly shaved clean, thanks to Clem. His hair, which before his stroke was usually mussed, lay obediently oiled and combed.

Lowell stood real still in front of his pa, letting his pa's uncivil words drift on by. Parnell refused to look at Lowell. Miss McCracken smoothed her skirt. “With all due respect, Mr. Parnell,” she said, “I do believe Lowell has good reason to be here. He's come to share his lesson progress with you.”

I worked like the dickens to remove the dust at the door, all the while keeping my hearing cocked to the conversation.

Miss McCracken folded her fingers in front of her. She said, “Lowell, please begin.”

Now I was listening hard. There was a troubling silence. Then I heard Lowell take a breath. A full deep breath. He spoke slow and steady.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow . . .”

Lowell stopped suddenly. I cut my eyes in his direction. He caught the sight of me. I pushed my chin at him.
Keep going.

Lowell tugged nervously at the loose threads of Miss McCrackens shawl, which still hung from his shoulders. He started in again, finishing this time.

“. . . and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. . . .”

Another silence filled the room. Parnell sat unmoved. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn I was looking at a man made of stone. A clean-shaven, slick-haired statue, staring into nothingness.

Lowell pulled his arms back around himself.

“That was quite fine, Lowell, quite fine,” Miss McCracken said.

Shoot, if that had been my pa sitting there, giving me the dodge, I'd have left that room quick as flint But Lowell just stood, front-and-center to his pa, like he was waiting for something.

Finally, Miss McCracken put her hands on both Lowell's shoulders. It looked to me like she was trying to lead him away. At first, it seemed maybe Lowell thought his teacher wanted her shawl back, because rather than follow Miss McCracken's lead, Lowell stayed by his pa's chair.

Then he did something that made me blink. He peeled off Miss McCracken's shawl, draped it around his pa, and backed away.

As Lowell and Miss McCracken were leaving the study, I saw a tiny smile on Lowell's lips, something I ain't never seen come from that boy. It was a smile of self-satisfaction.

December 8, 1862

T
HE SIGHT OF WALNUT FLARING
up in a quick, hot spark had been haunting me fierce. My sweet little Walnut. My baby-doll friend. Gone. Gone to ash.

Outside, it was snowing, steady white. But all I saw was fire. The fire that ripped at Walnuts dress and arms. The fire in Mama's eyes.

I felt fire, too. A fire that had been burning in me from that cold, gray morning to this pale snowy day.

Thea and I were beating the small, braided rug that sat at the foot of the grand bed in the guest quarters. With the snow falling like it was, we were stuck to beating the rug in the storeroom, a cramped room at the side of the house where the Parnells stored brooms and buckets, washrags and wipplesticks.

“How come we're back to doing rugs?” I wanted to
know. “Missy's society meetings are long over. And besides, this ain't even a parlor rug.”

Thea nodded. “Tuesday last, Missy Claire got a letter from her brother, Thomas Farnsworth, down in Louisiana. He'll be here soon to see how things is getting on since the master was struck with the heart-shock. He's gonna help manage Parnell's place for a spell.”

I picked at the straw in my wipplestick.

“Come to think of it, Missy's embroidering a wedding pillow for the sister of Thomas Farnsworth's wife, who's set to marry, come June. You know how them cotton-country Southern folk is. They got a love for summer weddings. Every itty-bitty thing has got to be perfect. And they start puttin' it all together way soon ahead. Missy wants to show the pillow sham pattern to her brother when he comes, wants to get his opinion before she does any more stitching.”

Thea adjusted the rug. She didn't bother looking at me when she spoke. “It's a custom in cotton country to give the bride an embroidered piece that celebrates her marrying season.”

Those words from Missy's sampler danced in my memory.

Summer . . . flower . . . blossoming.

Just the thought of them pretty stitches making words put a hum up in me. “I seen that sampler, Thea. Sure is fine,” I said.

Thea picked up her wipplestick and started on the rug with three steady whacks. “Thomas Farnsworth will be here in time for the Hobbs Hollow Christmas cotillion.” She sucked at her teeth. “Folks is talkin 'bout that gewgaw party like it's the coming of Baby Jesus,” she said. “This year the cotillion will be held on Christmas Eve at the home of Doc Bates. Seeing as Master Parnell ain't in no condition to be gallivanting about town, Thomas Farnsworth is gonna escort Missy Claire.” Thea shook her head. “Whether Missy Claire will step out for a night of merrymakin', that remains to be seen.”

A burst of wool dander had puffed out from the rug and was settling to the floor. “They may have to bring the cotillion to Missy's parlor,” she said with a chuckle.

Now Thea was full into beating the rug. She went at it with a whole mess of muscle. Five full blows, one after the other. “I've never seen Missy Claire turn down a party, though,” Thea said. “I know that woman sure as I know how to handle this wipplestick.”

I smacked the rug once at its center. “Is there anything you
don't
know, Thea?”

Thea stepped back from the rug. “No,” she said.

“Then you know about Mama taking my book. And you know about my dolly.”

Thea leaned her wipplestick along the doorjamb. She gazed at me with kindness in her eyes. “I do,” she said gently.

That fire was still burning up in me. It lurched when I talked about Walnut.

“You got every reason to feel the heat that's rising in you, Summer. But you listen good to your Thea, now. Your dolly's in a new place, Walnut is. She's in
Serendipity.”

I set my wipplestick next to Thea's. This was the first time we beat a rug together that Thea let me slack. “Where's Serendipity?”

“That's the place all the broken-headed china dolls and the stuffing's-all-gone rag babies go when they ain't no more use to the children that owns them.”

Like always, I had to let Thea's words settle for a moment.

“What about dolls that been burned up by their young'uns' mamas?”

“Serendipity's for them too. And, oh, believe me, child, when I tell you that Serendipity is
beautiful.”
Thea's eyes got wide. She looked toward heaven when she spoke. “In Serendipity there ain't no pain. There ain't no masters. And there sure ain't no fires. And all them china-headed dolls and rag babies play real good together. Ain't no fighting or hatred in Serendipity, neither.”

I lifted my wipplestick. I slapped it to the rug a second time. “This sounds like what you sing about at services, Thea. Sounds like the promised land.”

“Call it whatever you want. All's I know is,
Walnut's there right now, eatin' tea cakes with some china-faced sweetheart who's praising her for how smart she is.”

Sometimes I think being a seer has messed with Thea's head. Lots of days, she's full of crazy seer-talk. Made-up stories and strange ways of putting things. This was one of those days, and I didn't have the wherewithal to put up with such foolishness. I couldn't tell if Serendipity was real, or just a bunch of hogwash. Walnut was cinders now. That I knew for true.

I paid no more mind to Thea's Serendipity. I had more important things prodding at me. “My mama hates me, don't she,” I blurted.

“Your mama hates what she can't have. The power you've taken in finding letters is just one piece of what she can't have. But your mama's wanting in other ways, too,” Thea said.

Thea was fraying my nerves. I couldn't help but tell her about herself. “You're always spinning double-talk—talking riddles and folly. It's enough to make a person loony!”

Thea rested a hand on her hip. “There ain't no riddle to what I'm sayin', child. I only speak in truths.”

“Truths only
you
can understand.”

“Truths you'll come to know by speaking to your mama.”

“How can I talk to Mama if Mama don't hardly talk to me, come lately?”

“In a logjam it don't matter how strong the stream's
current is. One of the logs has got to budge first, else the jam stays a jam.”

I bit the underside of my lip.
Seer-talk. Riddles and folly.