Zeely (10 page)

“ ‘Ho, sister,’ he answered slowly, for words didn’t form quickly in his mind, ‘I have travelled years and years and I have brought a message for you.’

“The man stood up then, bowed deeply and sat down. The young woman bowed and kneeled at his feet.

“ ‘You will please read the message,’ she said, and this he read:

“
Young woman, you are of this man. You shall wed him, keep his house and bear his sons. You will trek many moons before you find people like yourselves. When you find them, you will join them and be good subjects to your king and queen.
”

15

GEEDER’S THOUGHTS HAD
gone far, far away to the land of the courier and the young woman, to the green hill on which they first met and to the tribe of people they would have to search for. When Zeely stopped talking, Geeder sat waiting. Then, the clearing with its berry bushes came back to her in a rush of green and insect sound. She waited for Zeely to go on but Zeely did not.

“Is that all?” Geeder asked. “That’s not the end of the story!”

“That’s all,” Zeely said, “and it’s the truth as my mother told it to me.”

“But I don’t understand,” Geeder said. “What’s the truth?”

“My mother said she and I were descended from the girl the courier found.”

Geeder sat quite still, with the photograph of the Watutsi woman on her lap. She had held her hand pressed against it when Zeely first began her tale. Now, she smoothed her fingers over the photograph. “Oh, Miss Zeely,” Geeder said, “I thought you were special even before I found the picture.” It was as if she spoke to herself and not to Zeely.

Zeely stared at Geeder. “I asked you to come here because I wanted to tell you the tale my mother told,” she said. “It means everything but you don’t seem to care about it.”

“Well, it really is a nice story,” said Geeder. “I mean, I like it so much, with all that snow and that man and the girl.” She clutched the photograph with both hands and then thrust it away to the ground. “But it’s only a story. I came here today because . . . because
you
wanted me to! You wanted me to come to
be
with you, Miss Zeely!”

Zeely’s eyes widened suddenly. Her long fingers covered her mouth in surprise. “Ahhh, now I see!” she said. “I did not realize that was why you came.”

“You are the most different person I’ve ever met,” Geeder said.

Zeely laughed softly. She drew her long legs up under her chin and folded her arms around them. In this way, she rocked slowly from side to side. Her eyes closed and there was a smile upon her lips.

Geeder watched her. All the time that Zeely had told her tale, she had sat stiff and tall in her long robe. Her shoulders had stood out sharply; her face had been all angles. Now, her features seemed to soften and flow into the deep shadows the trees made. Her hands and forearms were hidden in the long grass around her legs. Geeder looked at Zeely’s black, black hair, dark as night, and it became a part of the darkening leaves above her head.

Geeder said, “It’s you that comes down the road way late at night, isn’t it, Miss Zeely?” She spoke into Zeely’s ear.

Zeely nodded her head but did not open her eyes. “I come to look after my pigs,” she said.

“And you carry a feed pail,” said Geeder. “The moon going down slants onto it and it looks like it floats in the air. The moon is behind your back and so you don’t have a face. It looks just like you don’t have a head or any arms and you glide right above the ground.”

“So,” Zeely said, “you have seen me? I have seen you.”

“You go by the house just before dawn,” Geeder said. “You come early in the morning, anyhow. Why must you come so way late at night?”

“And why must you sleep there in the grass,” Zeely asked, “so way late at night?”

“I like the stars,” Geeder said, “and the moonshine.”

“I like the night,” said Zeely. She opened her eyes and stretched out her legs. Her shoulders drooped forward and her head fell back, slightly, as she studied the trees.

“Where I came from,” Zeely said, “Canada, there was a lake.

“Oh, it was not a large lake,” she said. “You could swim it, going slowly, in about fifteen minutes. I have done that. I have swum it when there was no moon or stars to light my way. Do you know what it is like to swim at night?”

“No,” Geeder said, “I don’t swim well, yet.”

Zeely smiled, her eyes still in the trees. “It is like no other where,” she said. “It is being in something that is all movement, that you cannot see, and it ceases to be wet. You must be very calm or you will not find your way out of it.”

“Is that why you like the night?” asked Geeder.

“You see,” Zeely said, looking at Geeder now, “the children wouldn’t often swim in that lake, even in the daytime. A tiny old woman lived beside it. She wore a big bow in her hair that was very dirty. On top of the bow she wore a man’s straw hat. She walked, bent forward, with a big cane for support. Often, she cackled to herself and pointed her cane at things. The children were afraid of her but I was not. Sometimes, I’d be swimming in the lake in the daytime, and she’d come upon me. ‘Zeely Tayber,’ she would call, ‘I see you!’ And I would call back to her, ‘And I see
you!
’ Then, she would call again. ‘One of these times, I’ll catch you!’ she would say, and she would cackle and point her cane at me.

“Oh, no,” Zeely said, “I was not afraid of her like the others were. I thought of her as a friend, almost. Then . . .”

“Then, what?” Geeder said.

Zeely looked away from Geeder. Her eyes turned inward upon themselves as Geeder had seen them do before.

“One night,” Zeely said, “I had finished swimming and was pulling on my clothes when I heard footsteps on the path. I heard a cackle and I knew who it was. All at once, fear took hold of me. I had not ever thought of that little woman walking around at night, you see. At that moment, I was terrified. Quickly, I gathered my clothes and stood between a bush and tree, well hidden, I thought. And there she came along the path.”

“Oh,” said Geeder, softly. Her eyes were wide.

“She did nothing for a moment,” Zeely said. “She stood there beside the lake looking at the dark water. Then, she looked around. She went up to a stone lying there beside her and touched it with her cane. It moved. It was a turtle and it scurried into the water.”

“No!” said Geeder.

“Oh, yes,” Zeely said. “And there was a fallen branch, twisted upon itself there, right next to the path. Vines grew over it. She poked one vine with her cane. It rippled. It was a snake and it slithered off into a bush near where I stood.”

“No!” said Geeder.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Zeely said, “I was so amazed by what I had seen.”

“You must have been just scared to death!” Geeder said.

She leaned against Zeely now, looking up at her, and Zeely leaned against Geeder. Neither realized how close they had become, sitting there under the great trees.

“I was scared,” Zeely said. “The woman kept cackling. Her back was turned to me. But I must have choked out loud on my fear, for suddenly she was silent. She spun around and stood there, facing the darkness where I was hidden.

“ ‘Zeely Tayber,’ she said, ‘I see you!’ And I remember, I began to cry.

“ ‘Zeely Tayber,’ she said again. She raised her cane right at me, and she was coming toward me. I could see her bow moving in the air. Suddenly, she had me by the arms. She was cackling again—I thought she would never stop.

“At last, she spoke,” Zeely said. “ ‘Zeely Tayber,’ she said, ‘you have made a poor soul happy. You are the night and I have caught you!’ ”

“Oh!” said Geeder. “What a thing to happen!”

“Yes,” said Zeely.

“What did you do?” asked Geeder.

“Do?” Zeely said. “I did nothing. Soon, the woman let me loose and went on her way, laughing and singing to herself. I was stunned by what she had said to me and I stood there in the darkness for many minutes. All at once in my mind everything was as clear as day. I liked the dark. I walked and swam in the dark and because of that, I was the
night!

“Finally,” Zeely said, “I told my mother about what had happened. My mother said that I simply had not known darkness well enough to tell the difference between a stone and a turtle and a vine and a snake. She said the snake and turtle had been there all the time. She said that since the woman was not quite right in her head, she had decided that I was the night because my skin was so dark.”

“Did you believe what your mother said?” asked Geeder.

“I came to believe it,” Zeely said. “I believe it now. But I was sorry my mother had said what she did. It meant I was only myself, that I was Zeely and no more.”

Geeder sighed and looked down at her hands. “Things . . . are what they are, I guess,” she said, quietly.

“Yes,” said Zeely. “No pretty robe was able to make me more than what I was and no little woman could make me the night.”

“But you
are
different,” Geeder said. “You are the most different person I’ve ever talked to.”

“Am I?” Zeely said, her voice kind. “And you want to be different, too?”

Geeder was suddenly shy. She took hold of her beads and ran her fingers quickly over them. “I’d like to be just like you, I guess, Miss Zeely,” she said.

Zeely smiled. “To be so tall that wherever you went, people stared and questioned? You’d like to be able to call a hog to you and have it follow you as though it were a puppy?” She laughed. The sound of it was harsh. “Hogs see me as just another animal—did you know that? Their scent is my scent, that is all there is to it. As for being so tall, I would like once in a while not to have people notice me or wonder about my height. No,” Zeely added, “I don’t think you’d enjoy being like me or being different the way I am.”

“I guess not, then,” Geeder said. “I mean, I don’t know.” She stopped in confusion. She would never have imagined that Zeely didn’t like being tall. “I want to be . . . to be . . .” She paused.

“Whoever it is you are when you’re not being Geeder,” Zeely said, finishing for her. “The person you are when you’re not making up stories. Not Geeder and not even me, but yourself—is that what you want, Elizabeth?” Zeely looked deeply at Geeder, as if the image of her were fading away. “I stopped making up tales a long time ago,” she said, “and now I am myself.”

Geeder was so startled she could not say anything. And the way Zeely called her Elizabeth, just as though they were the same age, caused a pleasant, quiet feeling to grow within her. What she had promised herself at the beginning of the summer crossed Geeder’s mind.
I won’t be silly. I won’t play silly games with silly girls
.

But I
was
silly, she thought. I made up myself as Geeder and I made up Zeely to be a queen.

She let go of her bright necklaces and smoothed her hands over her hair.

“Myself . . .” she whispered. “Yes, I guess so.”

Zeely Tayber ruffled the creases from her long robe and then stood up to leave. She was tall and beautiful there, before Geeder. Her expression was soft.

“I want to thank you, Geeder,” she said, “for helping me with the sow last Saturday. I don’t know how much you know about hogs, but they are miserable creatures. My father is tired of them and so am I. I take care of them as much as I can, to see they are treated well. It is hard work and I don’t have much time for friends.”

She touched Geeder lightly on the hair. Her long fingers fluttered there a moment, as lithe as the wings of a butterfly, before they were gone. Zeely knew before Geeder did that Geeder was close to tears.

“You have a most fine way of dreaming,” Zeely said. “Hold on to that. But remember the turtle, remember the snake. I always have.”

Geeder didn’t see Zeely leave the clearing. The colors of bush and tree swam in her eyes and Zeely melted away within them.

16

GEEDER SAT UNDER THE
catalpa trees until the sky was streaked with light of the setting sun. She got up, chilled. Her legs felt cramped and there was a dull, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she came out of the forest onto the road, she found the tunnel the catalpa trees made dark as night.

“I don’t mind the dark of it,” she whispered. “It’s being alone in it that’s the trouble.” She walked quickly through the tunnel, full of sadness.

Toeboy waited for Geeder behind Uncle Ross’ hedge. He had waited all afternoon and was beginning to worry, when he heard Geeder on the road. He jumped up when she entered the yard.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Geeder said. She did not even glance at him. “I’m going up to rest awhile before dinner.”

Toeboy was too surprised to say anything. He wanted to know right away what Zeely had said; yet, he was stopped by the new tone in Geeder’s voice. He needed no one to tell him that she was awfully upset about something. He went away quietly to tell Uncle Ross of her return.

Uncle Ross and Toeboy were eating by the time Geeder came down to supper. If a stranger had seen her go up, he wouldn’t have believed she was the same girl who now came down.

“Geeder!” Toeboy said, “Just look at you!”

For the first time this summer, Geeder had come to dinner wearing a dress. It was a nice dress. Toeboy had to admit that. It was yellow with pretty white flowers. In her hair, Geeder wore a white ribbon. Toeboy couldn’t help laughing at the ribbon and Geeder grew angry. Still, she didn’t yell at him. In fact, she nodded politely and sat down next to him.

“You look the way you do when we go to school,” Toeboy said to her. “You don’t look like Geeder at all.”

“Well, Elizabeth,” Uncle Ross said, “you’ve been gone a good part of the day.”

Toeboy stared at Uncle Ross. He had called Geeder Elizabeth. Toeboy felt like saying that there sat Geeder and not Elizabeth. But when he looked at Geeder, he couldn’t say a word. There was no doubt at all that right beside him was Elizabeth.

“Uncle Ross, I didn’t mean to stay away so long,” Geeder said, “but Miss Zeely Tayber had so much to tell me . . .”

“Geeder, was she mad?” Toeboy wanted to know.

“No, she wasn’t mad,” Geeder said. “She wasn’t what I had expected at all.”