"After loathsome old Emily died, my parents went back to visit Aunt Charlotte. I went with them once. I barely remember the visit, but I do recall Aunt Charlotte and her husband, Luther. She gave me something I still have-an embroidered picture of a canary in a cage. She drew it and did all the needlework herself. Oh, it"s a perfect place for us to go, Gavin," I said, growing more excited with the idea. "No one will think to look for us there."
"Lynchburg, huh," Gavin said thoughtfully.
"The Meadows is about fifty miles away in a small hamlet called Upland Station, but I remember that no buses go there. It"s a very small place. Do you think you have enough money for the bus tickets to get us to Lynchburg?" I asked. "And then maybe a taxi can take us the rest of the way."
"I don"t know. I"ll find out what the tickets cost, but Christie, you have no clothes, nothing, and neither does Jefferson. Don"t you think . . ."
"I won"t go back to Cutler"s Cove," I repeated, my face screwed firmly into a look of anger as well as determination. "We"ll make do; we"ll find a way. I"ll get a job and earn some money. I"ll do anything I have to do not to go back," I added with a.s.surance. "I"ll wash dishes, I"ll scrub floors, anything." Impressed with my resolve and tenacity, Gavin shrugged.
"Okay, let"s go to the ticket booth and see what it would cost," he said.
"Can I get a new toy, too?" Jefferson asked quickly. He had gulped down the last of his milk and cleaned every crumb of the slice of apple pie from his plate.
"We"ll see," Gavin replied.
He did have enough money to buy us bus tickets to Lynchburg, but after that, he had only twenty-seven dollars left. Jefferson started to whine when we told him we needed every penny for food and for the taxi ride to The Meadows. Finally, Gavin satisfied him with an inexpensive deck of playing cards. He promised to teach him dozens of games on the trip.
We had to wait another hour before the bus left.
After Gavin took Jefferson to the bathroom and I went, we sat on the benches in the lobby again.
Jefferson amused himself with his cards and while he was distracted, I told Gavin what Uncle Philip had done to me, skipping over the ugliest details. He listened with his eyes widening more and more every moment. I saw his face change from astonishment to pity and then to anger when my tears burst forth again, hot blinding tears that stung my eyes.
"We should go back and tell the police; that"s what we should do," he said, his dark eyes blazing so brightly they reminded me of polished black marble.
"I don"t want to, Gavin. I don"t want to have anything more to do with him or my aunt or those horrible cousins of ours," I moaned. "Besides, they always find a way to confuse things and blame Jefferson and me for any of the bad things that happen. I just want to be far away from them. It will be all right, as long as I"m with you," I added.
His cheeks turned crimson for a moment and then he took on a mature and confident look that reminded me of Daddy, especially because of the way he pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chest.
"No one"s going to hurt you again, Christie, never again, not as long as you"re with me," he promised. I smiled and took hold of his arm. Then I pressed my cheek to his shoulder.
"I"m so happy you"ve come to help us, Gavin.
I"m not afraid anymore." I closed my eyes. I could feel his breath on my hair and then his lips. I smiled and relaxed. Miraculously, I was filled with renewed hope.
Because Gavin was with us and was able to amuse Jefferson, our trip to Lynchburg pa.s.sed far more quickly than it otherwise would have. He kept Jefferson busy counting cars or telephone poles. We all took a color and then acc.u.mulated points every time our color appeared. The rain that had followed us into New York had gone out to sea and for most of our journey, we had blue skies and soft, cotton-candy clouds. However, even though we left early in the morning, the stops and delays meant we wouldn"t arrive in Lynchburg until early in the evening. We did with as little as we could for lunch in order to save as much of our remaining money as possible. Gavin claimed he wasn"t very hungry and ate only a candy bar, but by the time we arrived in Lynchburg, we had only eighteen dollars and thirty cents left.
Outside of the bus station, we found two taxicab drivers leaning against their cars and talking.
One of them was a tall, thin man with a narrow face and sharp nose; the other was shorter, softer and friendlier.
"Upland Station?" the tall driver said. "That"s nearly fifty miles. Cost you fifty dollars," he declared.
"Fifty? We don"t have that much," I said sorrowfully.
"How much do you have?" he asked.
"Just eighteen," Gavin said.
"Eighteen! Go on, you ain"t gonna get no cab to Upland Station for that money." Disappointment almost put tears in my eyes. What would we do now?
"Hold on," the other driver said when we started away sadly. "I live twenty-five miles in that direction and it"s about time I started for home. I"ll take you the rest of the way to Upland Station for eighteen."
"Desperate Joe will do anything for a buck," the tall driver said sourly.
"Thank you, sir," I said. We all got into the back of his cab. It was an old car with torn seats and dirty windows, but it was a ride.
"Who you kids know in Upland Station? The place is practically a ghost town," the driver asked.
"Charlotte Booth. She"s my aunt. She lives in an old plantation called The Meadows."
"The Meadows? Yeah, I know what that is, but that ain"t much of a place anymore. I can"t take you up that private road either. It would kill my tires and shocks. You"ll have to walk from the highway," he said. He went on to talk about the way the small towns had been dying off; the economy in the changing South and why things weren"t what they were when he was a young man growing up around Lynchburg.
Although there wasn"t a moon, the sky was bright enough with stars for us to see some of the countryside as we rode on, but a little over a half-hour after we left the bus station, dark clouds began to roll in, moving like some curtain shutting away the heavens from us. The farmhouses and tiny villages along the way became few and far between. I felt as if we were leaving the real world and entering a world of dreams as the darkness deepened and spread itself over the road before us. The deserted houses and barns retreated into the pool of blackness and only occasionally could be seen silhouetted against a small group of trees or a lonely, overgrown field, and those houses that had people still living-in them looked lost and small. I imagined children no older or bigger than Jefferson too frightened to look out at the shadows that seemed to slide across the ground whenever the wind blew over the roof and through each nook and cranny.
Jefferson curled up closer to me. Not a car pa.s.sed us going the other way. it was as if we were riding to the edge of the world and could easily fall off. The cab driver"s radio cracked with static. He tapped it a few times and complained, but after a while he gave up and we rode in relative silence until finally a road sign announced Upland Station.
"This is it," our driver announced. "Upland Station. Don"t blink or you"ll miss it," he said and laughed. I hadn"t remembered how small it was. Now, with the general store, the post office and the small restaurant closed, it did look like a ghost town. Our driver took us a little farther and stopped at the entrance to the long driveway of The Meadows. There were two stone pillars each crowned with a ball of granite, but the brush and undergrowth had been permitted to grow up alongside the pillars, making it seem as if no one had pa.s.sed in or out for years and years.
"As far as I can go," the taxi driver said. "The old Meadows plantation is up this driveway about a half a mile. "
"Thank you," Gavin said, handing him the rest of our money.
We stepped out and he drove off. Because of an overcast sky, he left us in pitch darkness. Night closed in around us so quickly I couldn"t see Gavin"s eyes.
Jefferson squeezed my hand as if holding on for dear life.
"I wanna go home," he moaned.
"I hope someone"s still living up there," Gavin whispered and suddenly I thought, what if they weren"t? Something might have happened and they might have moved away. "It could be a long walk in the dark for nothing," Gavin warned.
"It won"t be for nothing, Gavin," I promised.
"Uh huh," he said, but not with a great deal of that confidence I had been relying on so heavily before. He took my other hand and the three of us began our journey up the dark, gravel drive that was filled with potholes and b.u.mps.
"I don"t blame the driver for not wanting to take his cab up this road," Gavin said. From the deep woods to our right, something made a weird noise. I jumped and spun around to see what it was.
"It"s only an owl," Gavin a.s.sured me, "telling us we"re in his territory. At least that"s what my daddy would say."
As my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the darkness, the tops of trees and small bushes became clearer. They looked like sentinels of the night guarding against unwanted intruders.
"I"m cold," Jefferson complained. I knew he just wanted me to draw him closer. Now that the owl had stopped complaining, the only sounds we heard were our own footsteps over the loose gravel.
"I don"t see any lights yet," Gavin said ominously. Then we made a small turn and the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the plantation house came into view, a dark silhouette against an even darker sky. It loomed ahead and above us like some giant sullen monster who had suddenly risen from the pool of darkness below.
"I don"t like it here," Jefferson protested.
"It will all look prettier in the morning," I promised. It was a promise I made to myself as well as to him.
"There"s some light," Gavin said with relief.
Through the windows on the first floor, we could see the dim, flickering illumination. "Looks like they use candles or oil lamps," he muttered.
"Maybe the electricity is off because of a storm," I suggested.
"Doesn"t look like it rained here recently,"
Gavin replied. Without realizing we were doing it, we were both whispering.
As we drew closer to the front of the house, we could more clearly make out the full-facade porch.
Over the great round columns ran thick vines that looked more like the tentacles of some terrifying creature who had the great house in its grip. We found the walkway between full hedges. It was chipped and cracked. We paused a moment and contemplated the murky front porch.
"Have you thought what you"re going to tell them?" Gavin asked. But before I could reply, a dark shadow to our right suddenly took the shape of a man and stepped out at us. He was holding a shotgun.
"Stop right there," he commanded, "or I"ll scat-ter you into the wind." Jefferson practically leaped into my arms. I gasped and Gavin drew me closer.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "You kids come up here to bother us again?"
"No sir," Gavin said quickly.
"I"m here to see my Aunt Charlotte," I added quickly.
"Aunt Charlotte?" He stepped out farther until the faint light from the windows made his skin shine and his eyes glow. I could see that he was a tall, lean man. "Who are you?"
"My name is Christie. I"m Dawn"s daughter," I explained quickly. "And this is my little brother Jefferson and my daddy"s brother Gavin."
"Dawn"s daughter?" He lowered his shotgun.
"You come here all the way from the ocean?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes sir. Are you Luther?"
"Yes I am. Well, I"ll be. I"ll be. Ain"t this something? How"d you git here? Where"s your ma and pa?"
he asked quickly.
"They"re dead," I told him. "Killed in a terrible fire at the hotel."
"What"s that? Killed?"
"Can we go inside, Luther?" I asked. "We"ve been traveling all day and night."
"Oh sure, sure. Go on. Watch yourselves on the steps," he added. "Killed," he muttered behind us.
The three of us hurried up the shattered front steps to the enormous entrance. Our shoes clacked over the loose slats of the porch floor and what looked like bats flew out from under the eaves and roof.
Luther moved up ahead of us and opened the door.
The additional light illuminated his face and I saw that he had dark brown hair streaked with gray, all the strands going this way and that over his deeply creased forehead. He had a long, drooping nose and deep-set brown eyes with a sharp web of wrinkles at each corner. His rough, gray stubble grew in patches over his dark face. When he drew closer, I caught the aroma of chewing tobacco.
"Go on," he commanded and we entered the old plantation house.
We found a long entry way that led down a corridor lit by candles and kerosene lamps to the circular stairway. The three of us gazed up at the large family portraits lining the walls and Jefferson started to laugh. All the faces of what must once have been dour-looking Southern gentlemen and unhappy women with pinched faces were changed, some would say vandalized. Funny mustaches and beards were drawn over those that had none-even the women!
Yellow, pink and red paint had been used to add color to these dark and otherwise depressing old black and whites. Some faces were given dots on the cheeks, making them look like measles victims; some had silly-shaped gla.s.ses drawn over their eyes and one woman had a green ring coming out of the nostrils of her thin nose.
"That"s Charlotte"s work," Luther explained.
"She thought they all looked too sad and angry. Emily must"ve done quite a spin in her grave," he added and smiled, revealing missing teeth.
"I was here once before, but I don"t remember this," I said.
"That"s fun," Jefferson said. "I want to do a picture too. Can I?"
"Ask Charlotte. She"s got dozens in the attic she plans to do over," Luther said and chuckled. "Where is Aunt Charlotte?" I asked.
"Oh she"s around. Either she"s doing one of her needlework pieces or rearranging something here or there in the house. Go on into the sitting room on the right. Make yourselves to home and look for Charlotte. That"s the only luggage you got?" he asked, nodding toward Gavin.
"Yes sir," Gavin said.
"Our things were stolen in the bus depot in New York City," I quickly explained.
"Is that so? New York City. I heard that"s what happens there. You get killed or robbed minutes after you get there," Luther said, nodding.
"It can happen anywhere if you don"t watch yourself and your things," I confessed sadly.
We continued down the corridor. The house looked even bigger than I had remembered. Above us hung unlit chandelier after chandelier, their crystal bulbs all looking more like pieces of ice in the dim light of the candles and kerosene lamps. We turned into the first doorway Luther indicated. Two kerosene lamps were lit, one on a round side table and the other on a dark sofa table. Luther went to the right and lit another lamp by a bookcase.
"Rest here a moment," he said and hurried out.
The three of us looked around. Over the long semi-circular sofa was draped the oddest patchwork quilt I had ever seen. It looked like dozens of rags, pieces of towel, even washcloths were sewn together regardless of color or material. The same was true for the quilt thrown over the deep easy chair across fro, it.
On some of the walls, I recognized Aunt Charlotte"s needlework. The pictures of trees and children, farm animals and forest animals were hung haphazardly. It was as if Aunt Charlotte had walked into the room and slapped them on wherever she found a s.p.a.ce. Here and there, in the midst of this handiwork, were the old portraits and pictures of country scenes, houses and again, ancestors.
"Look at that!" Jefferson cried, pointing to the immediate right corner. In it there was a grandfather"s clock, but over the numbers Aunt Charlotte had drawn and pasted pictures of different birds. Twelve o"clock was an owl and six o"clock was a chicken. There were robins and bluebirds, sparrows and cardinals, canaries and even a parrot. They were all drawn in bright colors.
"What the heck"s going on here?" Gavin wondered aloud. All I could do was shake my head.
"h.e.l.lo, everyone. h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," we heard a jolly voice cry behind us and turned around to greet Aunt Charlotte. She wore what looked like a potato sack covered with strips of multi-colored ribbons. She was as short and plump as I vaguely recalled her and she still wore her gray hair in two thick pigtails, one tied with a yellow ribbon and the other with an orange. Despite her wrinkles, she had a childlike smile with soft, big blue eyes that sparkled with a schoolgirl"s excitement. For shoes she wore men"s brown slippers, each with a streak of white along the sides and a white dot on top where her big toe was located.
"h.e.l.lo, Aunt Charlotte," I said. "Do you remember me?"
"Of course," she said. "You"re the baby who was born here. And now you"ve come to visit. I"m so happy. We haven"t had visitors for so long. Emily hated visitors. If anyone came to see us, she always said we were too busy or we had no room."
"No room?" Gavin said incredulously. Aunt Charlotte leaned toward him to whisper.
"Emily lied, but she didn"t think it was bad to lie. Well now she lies in a cold grave, right Luther?"