Still Life in Shadows (12 page)

A voice cried out, “Where’s Moriah?” The scene shifted, and there was a large gathering in the barn.

“Where is Moriah?” asked his mother, pulling at the arm of one of the bishops.

The man closed his eyes, as though in deep prayer. “Confess your sins,” he said. “Confess.”

Rain seeped through the roof. The crowd huddled, trying to avoid getting wet. Black cloaks covered small children, protecting them from the downpour. The wind rattled the barn walls.

Gideon saw the faces of all his siblings. Except for one. “Where did he go?” he begged each person. Someone offered him a piece of rock candy, the kind he’d bought for Moriah from a shop just a mile from their home. It was gritty in the palm of his hand. He didn’t care for candy now, couldn’t they see that? He wanted to find his brother.

But no one could find Moriah.

The dream, so vivid, woke Gideon. Jumping out of bed, he made his way into the living room. Moriah was asleep, snoring softly. Gideon felt his heart slow with relief. He got a drink of water before returning to his bedroom. It was amazing how dreams could make you thirsty.

T
he story had intrigued her ever since she first read the illustrated book—a present from Mama. And now, she had someone who was interested in reading it with her. Kiki leaned her bike against the main door to the shop and removed her worn copy of
The Lost Pirate Ship
from her bicycle’s basket. Then she grabbed Yoneko from the same basket and cradled both book and puppet in her arms. The cover of the book showed a majestic ship sailing on a dark sea. Two seagulls soared in the velvet blue sky and one sat perched on the boat’s stern. It was an awesome cover, and Kiki recalled how she first felt when she saw it, her ears itching to hear Mama read the tale of the pirate ship to her.

She expected to see Ormond. You could ask Ormond anything. He knew the whereabouts of all his employees. He was a fixture in the shop, never in either of the bays with tools, but always at his desk. Kiki thought how nice it would be to own a shop and have everyone else do all the work. When she ran that thought by Mari the other night, Mari told her that Ormond probably used to do a lot of work, but now that he was in his seventies, he was able to spend more time doing what he
wanted to do. Most likely, he only came to Russell Brothers to be a daily presence there, keeping tabs on the others. Mari said that was one advantage to being an owner of a place. But today, the old man wasn’t at his usual spot reading the paper. Kiki hoped he wasn’t sick.

Gideon does all the work,
she thought as he greeted her with a quick hello before heading to the cash register to ring up a bill for a customer who’d had his Ford inspected.
Gideon keeps everyone on his toes.
She wanted to ask if any bicycles needing repair had come in while she was at school today, but she’d wait to ask. Mari was constantly telling her not to interrupt.
Be careful. Don’t be pushy.

Kiki slumped against the storage room door with both puppet and book.
Where was Moriah?
She wished he’d get to the shop. He was a new employee, yet Kiki had yet to see him do much work. Perhaps he wasn’t going to be a mechanic very long. Amos quit after Mari hired him at Another Cup. Mari said not everyone was cut out to work on cars, that not everyone had the needed skills.

Kiki jumped up when Luke returned from a late lunch. “Where’s Moriah?”

“What am I? Chopped liver?” Luke smiled as he popped open the hood of a Subaru that was parked in his bay.

Kiki had no clue why Luke was bringing up the subject of liver. Just the word made her queasy.

“There he is.” Luke gestured out the bay door to the parking lot, and sure enough, Kiki saw Moriah, his ponytail resting along his back. He was talking to a man in sunglasses outside at the edge of the parking lot. The man was in a sleeveless T-shirt, his bare arms adorned with colorful tattoos.

As Moriah entered the shop through Luke’s bay, he gave Kiki a wide smile. “Hello there, Bike Girl.”

She showed him the book. “It’s got cool pictures. Wanna see?”

“Sure,” he said. Within minutes, the two were seated side by side at Ormond’s desk, reading the story of a pirate ship that set out to find treasure. The ship, decked out with large billowing sails, got lost in a
storm because the captain ventured far beyond his usual sailing perimeters into uncharted seas. The storm caused bow damage, but the other ships came to the rescue and repaired the broken parts with the warm waters from the Caribbean Sea.

Kiki had the story memorized, so reading it aloud to Moriah was easy. She turned the pages, making sure that he had plenty of time to view each illustration.

With the story completed, she sighed. “I love that book. And it’s not a baby book, either.”

“What?” He gave her a quizzical look.

“I took it to school one day, and Angie said it was for babies.” The way Angie had teased her still stung.

“Well, Angie needs to know that pirates are sophisticated adults.”

Kiki gave a wide smile. Moriah understood! “I have a poster on my wall of a pirate ship that belonged to Blackbeard.”

“Blackbeard, huh? I saw a movie about him.”

“Have you seen the
Pirates of the Caribbean
movies?”

“Every single one. And I bet you have, too.”

“Yes,” she said, the memory of watching the first one with Ricky on her mind. Since that movie, she’d pretended to be Keira Knightly, the lead actress in it, riding with Johnny Depp on the frothy seas. “I’d like to have my own real ship.”

“Where would you store that?”

“My backyard.”

Moriah laughed then said, “Gideon was going to make me a ship. I wonder what happened to the wood I gave him?”

“Gideon can make a ship?”

“He’s a good furniture maker. He made me a keepsake box. It was beautiful.”

“He gave me one he made but not as a real present, just to use for my tools here.”

“Ask him to make you a ship.”

“Must have been a huge chunk of wood you gave him.” Kiki tried
to imagine how large a piece of wood would be needed to craft a seafaring vessel.

“No. It was tiny.” He grabbed a memo pad off Ormond’s desk. “About this size.”

“How would he have carved out a ship from wood only the size of a memo pad?”

“It had to be small. I knew that my father didn’t like pirates, so the ship was going to have to be small enough to hide it from him in my room.”

“Who couldn’t like pirates? They are part of North Carolina’s history.” Kiki had even managed to get her sister to see the power and awe in a ship like Blackbeard’s famous
Queen Anne’s Revenge.
“I like to pretend I’m looking for treasure. Do you ever do that?”

Moriah leaned back in the swivel chair where Ormond usually sat. “I used to. I called myself the famous Moriah of the High Seas.”

“Then I’ll be Kiki of the Even Higher Seas.”

He let out a laugh. “You have to be better than me, I get it.”

“I even have a cutlass. That’s a curved sword. I carried it with me when I went trick-or-treating at Halloween. It’s only plastic, but it looks real. It looks really real.”

“Did you know that Edward Teach is Blackbeard’s real name?”

“Of course, everybody knows his mama didn’t name him Blackbeard. Sheesh!”

Moriah smiled and Kiki felt as happy as she did when she heard the choir sing “Amazing Grace” or when she rode her bicycle fast over the sloping mountain roads. She was glad that Moriah was here. He made Twin Branches a happier place.

When Gideon stepped out of his office with a stack of papers, Kiki said, “Gideon, you need to make a pirate ship for us.”

Gideon was preoccupied. Kiki could tell because Mari got that way sometimes, too. It seemed that most of the adults in her life let their faces cloud with worry lines. Principal Peppers once was so unaware of the circumstances that he slipped in the hallway even though the janitor
had placed a big orange Caution cone on the floor.

As Gideon walked away from her, she said to Moriah, “I don’t know if he heard me.” She was about to call out to him and state again that she wanted him to make a pirate ship, but Moriah patted her arm.

“He’ll do it one of these days,” he said. “Sometimes with Gideon you just have to keep pestering him, and then he’ll listen to you.”

A
s the wind shot pellets of rain against Another Cup’s windows, Gideon folded his newspaper and took a look outside. There was something about a downpour that he enjoyed, something cleansing, rejuvenating. Of course, it was always nice to be dry inside when the thunder reared back and roared like a hungry mountain lion, before the heavens ripped open and let her torrents flow.

As he sipped his mug of tea, Gideon wanted to feel as clean as the rain. Here he was in this cozy tearoom drinking a beverage he found tasty and healthy, having a nice break from the auto shop’s routine.

Amos had just finished his shift waiting on tables, and he seemed happy to be employed here. Before leaving the eatery, he told Gideon that Mari had encouraged him to further his education and that he was seriously considering going to tutoring sessions in the evenings so that he could eventually get his GED. With a clap on his back, Gideon affirmed the young man’s decision.

“I owe so much to you,” Amos said, and with that, took off into the rain, an umbrella over his head.

Yet, instead of feeling contented over Amos’s happiness, Gideon’s thoughts swirled around Moriah. His brother was more interested in drinking a six-pack each night and smoking cigarette after cigarette than talking about what he planned to do with his days. Gideon had been proud to have his baby brother nearby at first, but now he wasn’t so sure. Moriah seemed aloof at times; there was an eerie presence about him, yet other days, he was affectionate and elated.

Removing himself from his thoughts, Gideon glanced around, noticing that he was now the only customer inside. The shop was still except for the music of the raindrops on the roof.

Mari appeared from the kitchen with a thermos and refilled his cup of green tea. “Feels cold in here,” she said, and poured a cup for herself. “My dad always said tea warms the spirit more quickly than kerosene.” As an afterthought, she added, “We had a kerosene heater growing up.”

Gideon wanted to lighten the mood with a joke or two, but his mind was blank. Looking at the paper, he considered bringing up an article he’d read about paving the roads in Twin Branches, but that really wasn’t much fodder for a conversation. Finally, he asked, “Do you see your parents often? Are they still around?” He’d learned that one should never assume anyone’s parents were living.

“I haven’t seen my dad in years. He left us.” She started to say more, but bit her lower lip and stopped. With her hands folded around her teacup, she gazed into the beverage. “My mother’s a hoarder.”

“Hoarder?” The word sounded strange to him, and the minute he said it, thunder cracked.

“Big-time. I’ve tried to think back to how it started. I go crazy wanting to come up with a reason.”

“What does she hoard?”

Mari looked away, as though thinking about it pained her to the point of not being able to respond.

He stirred his tea, although by this time it was lukewarm.

“Puppets.”

“Puppets?” Immediately, as though a prop for their conversation, he saw that mangy orange cloth cat Kiki carried with her. Wasn’t that a hand puppet?

“She has tons of puppets. Literally, tons. She buys them at Goodwill and secondhand shops.” She searched his eyes, as though waiting for some reaction to guide her to continue.

“Is she like those people on the reality shows?”

“Yes.” Sucking in air, she again said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

As the rain rushed over the roof of the tearoom, she moved from behind the counter to sit beside him on a wobbly stool.

He watched her take delicate swallows from her cup, and then seized the opportunity to lean in a little closer to her. She smelled of something sweet and floral. “So,” he said, trying to concentrate on the topic, “is she in bad shape?” Those on the shows certainly were.

“My dad left her years ago. He was tired of living with puppets all over the furniture in the living room and bedroom. At first, he planned to help her toss them out. But she wasn’t going to have anything to do with getting rid of them. He begged her. I remember so many times when I’d be lying awake late into the night and overhear my parents talking. ‘Please, Yukiko,’ my dad would say. ‘Let’s clean this place up. There’s no room to walk in the hallways because they’re crammed, stuffed to the ceiling, with puppets. Please, dear.’” Suddenly Mari stopped. A shocked look spread across her face, an expression that asked,
Have I told you too much?

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”