The Memory Thief (14 page)

Sometimes I saw you. With your own starry hair streaming behind. Moonbeam eyes staring down on me. You were a stranger. Yet
lying flat in the bacca, sometimes your stars seemed to move close. Almost seemed to reach for me.

“Well,” he said, as the truck came to a stop. “You’re high enough here. No need to climb on any more counters.”

As I stepped out of the truck, I wondered what you would say when you first saw me. Or when you saw the things I’d saved for
you in my pockets. What does a Holy Roller think of a half-naked daughter that danced on a biscuit counter? Without any excuse
other than
I’m pretty
? Or because I can? What does a Holy Roller think of a daughter who robbed a dead man?

My name is Angel. But there’s a joke that Daddy loved to tell: Even the Devil was an angel once.

The mountain had one main street, lined with shops and restaurants. I walked down the sidewalk, peered in windows, and guessed
I was standing in a tourist town. Most of the shops featured the mountain’s best hobbies. Skiing, fly-fishing, and hiking.
There were shelves of hiking boots and racks of thermal-lined clothes. Walls of fishing rods and canoes hanging from the ceiling
on thick wires. There was mountain “gear,” too. Compasses and pocket knives and canteens. All of it promised the thrill of
“rugged survival.” And of course, every tourist town needs souvenirs. Shot glasses painted with foggy mountaintops. T-shirts
with pictures of rainbow trout ironed on them. Snow globes with little plastic skiers inside.

At the end of the sidewalk was a path that led away from the main street and into the woods. A sign next to it said
Scenic
. I followed it to an overlook and discovered that though land was still above me, there was much more below. I was high above
the bacca. Above the foothills that I could see far in the distance, like ripples on a baby blanket. I was high above all
the ashes I’d left behind. For a girl once too small to crawl inside her trailer without help, it felt good to look down on
something.

I spent my first few days shaking snow globes as I explored each shop slowly. I even ate at a restaurant once, instead of
sticking to my plan of cheap foods like chips and coke. And at night I walked the path marked
Scenic
and settled under the trees close to the overlook. There I could see dozens of lights, tiny sparks of homes and businesses
on the earth below. I named them all. Grouped them together and searched for pictures.

But the mountains were cooler than I had planned. I was closer to the sun by miles, but the night winds were something even
whiskey could not defeat. Soon I grew tired of washing up in store bathrooms. The store workers were tired of it, too. I saw
how they glanced at each other when I walked in
again
to shake a snow globe, use the bathroom, count the money in my pockets, and consider buying a big fleece blanket. But I always
bought snack cakes and beef jerky instead. No amount of cold, no shiver of my skin, could be worse than an empty belly.

Besides losing Janie, the pain of a hungry belly is what I remember most about her running away. The night before she left,
I found her cussing about how her jeans didn’t fit right anymore. I looked at her, saw the strain of her belly against the
waistband. Saw the black bra she ripped off, cussed again that it was so tight it hurt.

“What you lookin’ at?” she said, rolling her eyes. “You a Holy Roller too? You wait. Give or take a few years, you’ll be standin’
same as me.”

There was a boy. There was
always
a boy around Janie. But one had a plan for her. Recognized her special talents. He’d park outside all the big farmhouses
in East Tennessee while Janie snuck inside. She filled his trunk with engraved things. Silver carved up with family names.
The treasure of tobacco kings.

She put a good-bye letter under my pillow, then left with him forever.

Momma and Daddy had no plans to follow her. Till Momma discovered Daddy’s paycheck was missing. They cussed her, the baby
in her belly, the farmhand she was running away with. And then they taught me the words
family emergency
and left me alone for days.

With them gone, I liked Black Snake trailer even less. That night I dragged my baby blanket out to the bacca for the company
it offered, rather than the safety. And I returned the next night. And the next.

Groceries were our luxury. Only after gas money, car repairs, cigarettes, and whiskey did we buy food. The cheapest, since
there was little money left. Cornflakes, macaroni, cans of ground-up potted meat that Momma liked to pretend was ham salad.

If it had been winter, I would’ve been fine. With my government breakfast and lunch pass, I kept a stock of smuggled snacks
stashed in odd places around the farm. But that stash always ran dry by mid-June.

I thought of breaking every Swarm rule and knocking on the farmhouse door. Maybe even stepping inside as I cried about how
we were out of food. But I couldn’t risk somebody finding out I was alone, giving me over to the State to be raised by
Lord Knows Who
.

One night when the whiskey was gone, I couldn’t sleep for hunger pains. I reached for a bacca leaf. Smelled it. It was a scent
that changed with time. Started with the dirt smell of new fields. Moved to the fruit of ripe bacca. Ended with cans of spit,
smelling like apple cider with the punch of whiskey.

I took a bite, spit on the ground like I’d seen Daddy do thousands of times. Took some more to chew. Ignored the fire in my
mouth and tucked it in my bottom lip, like a seasoned farmhand. Spat and took more to chew. The fields started to blur. My
head felt heavy, and I liked it. The easy drunk. Like fields of whiskey were growing all around me. I reached for more and
sometimes forgot to spit. My hands shook so that I couldn’t find the leaves anymore. My head was so heavy I couldn’t lift
it from the dirt. I was beyond drunk. Vomiting in the dirt. Over and over till my fists punched the ground, sick from the
fight of it all.

I woke up to the sound of Daddy’s car the next morning. Laid in the bacca while they sat on the hood and smoked. They giggled
about the look on Janie’s face when the cops showed up. They joked about the way Janie tried to run when the cops opened the
trunk. Saw it full of family guns and silver from all the big local farms. Momma and Daddy sat in that green car, not twenty
feet over from Janie, and waved as she was handcuffed. They called out
Hello
like any good parent would. They called out that she’d deliver her baby in jail.

I watched them from the bacca as they slapped each other high five. “You see the look on her face?” Daddy asked, while Momma
giggled. My fists found the ground again. Punched silently over and over. Sick from the fight of it all.

After that summer, though, I knew the rules of hunger. About spacing out food, never eating until I was completely full. Always
hiding a bit more than I thought I might need. It carried me through many weeks of empty cabinets. And gave me the courage
to get through cold nights on your mountain. In a way, that cold, that fear of hunger, was a good thing. It reminded me of
the whole reason I was there. During the day I’d get caught up looking down on a small earth below. Imagined I could burn
it down, too. But at night the chill that covered the mountain reminded me I was small. Warned me that winter was coming.
I laid awake and made survival plans. Drawn with lines that went up and up and up. Like a map of the mountain.

Our last name was Ray. I knew that much. I went to a store and swapped a five-dollar bill out for quarters. Then I found a
pay phone with the phone book still attached. I snuck back at night, when the streets were quiet and peaceful, and started
making my calls.

Ray is a common name. And there were many ways to spell it.
Ray, Rae, Reigh
… I counted a possibility of thirty-six phone calls. Put a mark by the first one, dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed
the numbers with my trembling hand.

“Hello?” a sleepy voice answered.

I stayed silent.

“It’s too late for pranks—”

“Wait.”

“Who’s this?”

“Angel Ray.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

“I’m lookin’ for my family. I found your name, Eva Ray, and I thought—”

“This isn’t a family home, honey. It’s an upholstery business. Eva was my great-grandmother. Ray is my dog. Sorry. Hope you
find them.”

I made six calls each night. A few times, the people that answered were friendly. They’d chat about how good it was that I
wanted to find my family. How sad it was I lost them. Most of the time, though, people just hung up on me. I kept calling.
Down the list I moved, night after night. And I cursed the tears that filled my eyes after each hang-up.

There were six numbers left to call the night the lovers came to the overlook. It had happened before once, during the day.
I had been dozing under a tree and woke up to the sound of them laughing. I opened my eyes to see a young couple, not much
older than me. They were rich. With their clean jeans and tucked-in shirts. Tennis shoes that looked brand new and so comfortable.
And the jackets they wore, not heavy enough for winter, but perfect for a windy mountain day.

I looked down at myself. My dirty cutoffs and sweatshirt. Beef jerky wrappers scattered around me. A whiskey bottle in my
hand.

“You livin’ here?” the girl asked, shaking her head. “Cops could show you where a shelter is. His daddy’s one, maybe he could
take you…”

I ran away. And avoided the overlook during the day. But one night the lovers returned. I heard them kissing and giggling.
I grabbed my things and edged deeper into the woods. Until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Until I saw the moon shining down
on a big old sycamore and felt home all around me.

Sometime during the night the rain came. I scrambled to my feet and started to walk back toward the scenic path. I wanted
to return to town and sit beneath an awning for the night. Soon it was pouring, and I had to hold my hand over my eyes to
see clearly. I kept walking straight, the same way I had come. But I was numb with cold. Numb to how long I had really been
walking. And to how far away the path suddenly seemed.

The rain stopped before dawn. But there were no lovers’ giggles. And no passing cars. All I heard was the
drip drip
of leftover water falling from the trees. I laid on a pile of wet leaves and waited for the sun to rise and show me the way.

When morning came, I retraced my steps until I returned to the big sycamore.

Only this tree, with its matching wide leaves and shaggy bark, had lichen growing down the side. A grayish green mat. And
I didn’t remember lichen from before.

I felt panic as the wind suddenly blew stronger, like before rain. I learned something important that day, as the last bit
of leaves fell from the trees and the animals scurried for food. Winter comes early in the mountains. It never measures itself
by months or weeks. It comes whenever it wants.

I also learned that Mr. Swarm was right about something else. The mountains are full of giant sycamores. I went from tree
to tree, my eyes always searching for wide sharp-tipped leaves and shaggy bark. Whenever I found one, I rested beneath it.
Marked it with a broken branch so that I would know if I returned. I never did; each tree I came to was new. And though panic
grew inside me, so did awe. I ran my hands across the hurting bark, and wondered if I was the first in years, maybe decades
or even a century, to lay eyes on those great trees. We were so far from the scenic path. So lost on the mountain.

I should have been more prepared. I’d spent years of my life searching out hundreds of bacca acres. Learning how paths doubled
back without warning, or eventually emptied out by old barns or broke-down tractors turned over in ditches. I’d spent years
not being lost in a place where any other child would be. Anytime I needed a map, a way to track myself in the bacca, I’d
jump to see which mountains fenced me in. If my eyes saw a flash of the close green ones, then I knew I was in the west fields.
If the mountains were a faraway blue, I knew I was close to Black Snake trailer.

But standing on the mountain was a whole different thing. I had risen above fences. So I drew crooked lines and circles, one
after the other, between the sycamores. I looked to the sky for help. But stars were replaced by clouds. Old ones moved away
with the wind. And new shapes formed above me each morning.

Days passed, and I tried to circle back again, always feeling that I had just missed the path. As food ran low, I watched
the squirrels eat acorns and felt jealous. It rained again. Too tired to walk, I sat and shivered through it. Let the rain
soak me as I dreamed of the overlook. Not so I could find my way to the stores, shake a snow globe, and get warm. And not
so I could trace pictures of lights in the dark. I dreamed of the overlook and what it would feel like to step over the stone
wall. I dreamed of clouds, and how good, how soft, they would feel as I sailed through them.

Maybe I was only half awake, or maybe I was dying, but soon my thoughts no longer came as ideas. I didn’t make plans. I didn’t
whisper wishes. I only saw visions.

Like Momma’s gun, the handle the color of red maple, laying in a stack of wet leaves. I reached for it, pretended to turn
it over and over in my hands. It was sexy. Like Momma leaned against that car. Like me on top of a biscuit counter.

I saw Janie, too, after she ran away. I saw the look on her face, the look that made Momma giggle, when the cops showed up.
I turned into the bark of the sycamore and sobbed. Yelled
I’m sorry
to Janie. She always hated it so much when I cried. “You’ve gotta be tougher,” she used to say with her strong gritty voice.
“Can’t run very fast if you’re always cryin’.”

I reached into my back pocket, where I kept my strength—a little red ring of plastic. I closed my fist round it, until I almost
felt warm again. Until I felt my tears dry up and knew that Janie would be proud.