Chapter 14 A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia
The door to Mara Ocumma’s office swung open just as she turned a page of the latest Stephen King novel and took a giant bite of her roast beef sandwich with homegrown horseradish and wild greens.
“Sorry to bother you on your lunch break, Mara,” Natalie whispered. “I thought you should know. Mrs. Sykes is here.”
Mara held up a finger while she finished chewing. “She come alone?”
Natalie nervously checked over her shoulder. They were all on edge these days. “Looks like it.”
Not long ago, the head librarian of the Troy Public Library would have dropped everything to greet the mayor’s wife at the door. Now such measures no longer seemed necessary. “Then it’s fine,” Mara assured the assistant librarian. “Given everything that’s going on with the Sykes family, I doubt Melody’s here to hunt for propaganda or pornography.”
Melody Sykes was a founding member of Lula Dean’s book banning posse, but Mara doubted her heart had been in it. She’d stood by Lula at all the rallies and press conferences, staring sweetly into space and batting those big brown eyes in a way that made her appear a bit bovine. But Mara knew for a fact that Melody Sykes was a lot smarter than she chose to look. She just ran in circles that didn’t always see intelligence as a desirable feminine trait.
Before the infamous erotic cake incident, Melody had been one of the library’s very best patrons. She and her youngest son checked out books every week. Melody was partial to the works of Tana French, but would read any good true crime or procedural, while Beau preferred Captain Underpants. Mara suspected the mayor’s wife was one of the few members of Lula’s posse who’d actually read any of the titles they pulled off the shelves. During Lula’s first raid, Mara had hoped Melody might step forward to talk some sense into the crowd. When the mayor’s wife remained silent, Mara felt betrayed. Since then, she’d faced so many disappointments that Melody Sykes’s hypocrisy barely registered.
In retrospect, she was sure Mayor Sykes had insisted his wife lend her support to Lula. But now Randy was no longer mayor, and given the circumstances under which he’d resigned, Mara wondered if Melody would be doing her husband many favors for the foreseeable future.
“Mrs. Sykes isn’t here to ban anything,” Natalie said, her face grim. “She’s sitting at the plotter’s desk. She’s got one of your blue moon books.”
In the north corner of the Troy Public Library, hidden from view by three of the least visited shelves, sat a single small wooden table. It was a dreary spot, lit by a flickering fluorescent light that lent it a horror-movie ambience. Most library patrons were likely unaware of the desk’s existence. Those who stumbled across it rarely chose to sit. Over the fifteen years that Mara Ocumma had worked at the library, the sad, lonesome desk had rarely been used. More often than not, the people who chose it were teenagers with racy novels tucked into their textbooks. In those cases, Mara looked the other way. It was the adults who sat at the desk that concerned her. She called them the plotters because all of them had one—and only one—thing in common. They were definitely up to something.
Mara set down her sandwich. “Did you see what Melody is reading?” she asked.
“Looks like A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia.”
“Oh shit.” Mara wiped the horseradish off her hands and scooted her chair back. “That is serious.”
A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia was on Mara’s blue moon list, along with titles like A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie and the Pocket Guide to Field Dressing Big Game. Most people who sought out the list’s titles were genuinely interested in mushrooms, murder mysteries, or deer hunting. But once in a blue moon, a person in crisis would arrive at the library, pluck a book off the shelves, and carry it back to the plotter’s desk without checking it out. There was no way of knowing what they planned to do with the information they gathered, but there was also no doubt they were serious. Otherwise they would have stayed at home and gone online. For whatever reason, they were at the library to avoid leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs.
Mara kept a special book in her top desk drawer for such occasions. She’d only had to use it a handful of times, and she never would have predicted she’d one day have to offer it to Melody Sykes. But after fifteen years at the Troy Public Library, and five as the town’s head librarian, it was getting damn near impossible to surprise Mara Ocumma anymore.
She tucked the book under her arm and made her way through the stacks to the plotter’s desk.
“Thinking of doing some mushroom hunting?”
Melody Sykes froze with her index finger on the entry for Amanita phalloides, and her giant brown eyes rolled up to meet the librarian’s. Mara could tell she hadn’t been sleeping, nor had she put on any makeup that morning. Women like Melody wouldn’t leave the house to give birth unless their hair was blown out and their eyeshadow perfect. Her pasty skin and ponytail were a sure sign that she was on the verge of homicide.
“There’s another guide I recommend to people with a newfound interest in fungi. Thought you might want a look at it.” Mara set the book down on the table. The cover was black, with the image of a giant gold fingerprint beneath the title: FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics.
Melody’s eyes shot down to the cover then rolled back up to Mara. “Just say what you want to say, Mara. I’m done playing games.”
Mara didn’t blame her. “Fine. You feed Randy death caps and he’ll be dead in three days. As soon as your husband dies, they will perform an autopsy. There’s a good chance they will determine that he died of amatoxin poisoning, and the first thing they’ll do is come here. They’ll check that field guide for fingerprints and interview all the librarians. I’d say your secret is safe with me, but I’m afraid I’m not the only person who’s seen you reading it.”
Melody shut the book and sat back with her arms crossed. “Are you going to turn me in?”
“For what?” Mara asked. “Nobody’s dead yet, and last I checked, it wasn’t illegal to read. Besides, you think you’re the only woman who’s had a good look at that book? Come with me to my office, and let’s find what you really need.”
It was almost funny, Mara thought. Every woman with a hankering to kill someone went straight for the mushroom book, when there was more than enough poison in the flower beds outside the library to dispose of every enemy they’d made since third grade. But they assumed the flowers were harmless because they were out in the open. White people were convinced that real dangers, like death caps, dirty books, witches, and Satanists, needed to be hunted down and rooted out. Which is exactly what their forefathers had done to Mara’s people.
For thousands of years, the Cherokee were among the tribes that lived in what was now called Georgia. In the early nineteenth century, US troops rounded them up and forced them all to march on foot to Oklahoma. Countless men, women, and children perished along the way. Fewer than a thousand Cherokee managed to stay behind in their homeland. Mara’s ancestors had been among them. Most twenty-first-century citizens assumed Jackson Square, in the center of Troy, had been named for General Stonewall Jackson. But the park was older than the Confederacy, and the man it honored was Andrew Jackson, the president of the United States who’d ordered the removal of all Native Americans east of the Mississippi—without a doubt one of the greatest crimes in American history.
As a child, Mara had spent summers with her grandmother in a ramshackle house set deep in an Appalachian hollow. There, she heard stories about how their people had hidden in the forest when the government came for them. Their understanding of the land was key to their survival, and that knowledge was something her grandmother was determined to pass down.
The old woman knew everything that lived or grew on the Cherokee reservation. It was not unusual for people to show up at her door with a basket of wild mushrooms, asking for help sorting out the deadly ones. Others would arrive hoping for help with an ailment. Mara’s grandmother didn’t take patients, but if she liked you, she might make you something that would lower your blood pressure or soothe your sore throat. Mara was far more interested in trawling the creeks for crawdads and hellbenders than in studying toadstools or foul-smelling herbs, but her grandmother insisted she learn.
“This wisdom is who we are. For hundreds of years, they tried to steal it or outlaw it. But we never let it go. It has fed us and healed us. We are the only ones who possess the knowledge, and we must pass it down. If we lose it for good, a part of ourselves will disappear, too.”
And so Mara studied what her grandmother wanted to teach her. The first thing she learned was that few things in this world are wicked. The very same herbs that might poison one person could save another. The trick was knowing what was right for each individual. When Mara was twelve, her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and Mara saw that wisdom put into practice. Some folks were surprised when the old woman turned to Western medicine to treat her tumor.
“The medication I’m getting originally came from a yew tree,” Mara’s grandmother told her as they sat together in the chemotherapy center. “But that’s not what’s important. What matters is never letting people tell you what to think. Don’t let them convince you that one way is right and another way wrong. Gather as much knowledge as you can, because information is power. And choosing how to use it is freedom. The more you know, the freer you will be.”
On the morning Mara’s father told her that her grandmother had died, Mara found a mushroom growing in her yard. It wasn’t one she recognized. This specimen was native to her hot, humid home in south Georgia, not the cool, misty Smoky Mountains. She hopped on her bike and rode across town to the local library to look up a field guide to mushrooms. She’d been there a million times before and thought nothing of it. But this time, when she stepped through the doors, Mara knew her grandmother had sent her. She didn’t see books and magazines and newspapers. She saw the answers to every question that had ever been asked—and a woman with wild hair behind the counter who knew just where to find them.
Mara closed the office door and pulled out a chair for her guest.
“Since we’re being frank with each other, Melody, why don’t you tell me why you want to poison your husband.”
“Did you read Darlene Honeywell’s post?” Melody sat with her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands balled into fists in her lap.
“Yes,” Mara admitted as she made her way around the desk. “But it seems to me like there are a number of ways to deal with the situation that don’t involve murder.”
“People keep calling me, telling me Darlene is exaggerating. That it was a long time ago and it wasn’t that bad and why is she dragging this stuff out now.” Melody stopped. An index finger popped out of her fist and she wagged it at Mara. “You know what that means? It means they all knew! This whole time they knew and nobody told me.”
Mara would have murdered the bastard, too, but she wasn’t about to say that. Melody was teetering on the edge and she didn’t need anyone giving her an excuse to jump.
“If that’s true, I’m sorry,” Mara said instead. “If I were in your shoes, I suppose I’d be reading up on mushrooms, too.”
“This is not what I signed up for! I did not leave college early and move here from Texas so I could end up a pariah in a little hick town in the middle of Georgia.”
Mara felt her sympathy drain away. “Still, you have two kids here who need you. I don’t think poison’s the answer.”
Melody’s jaw clenched. “Then there is no answer,” she said through gritted teeth.
“What about a divorce? My friend Crystal Moore just—”
“A divorce? Where would I go? My parents are dead. I’ve never worked outside the home. I can’t leave my boys, and if I take them with me, we’ll be poor as church mice.”
“Get a good lawyer, and I’m sure you’ll be able to keep the house and the kids.”
That suggestion only appeared to increase the woman’s frustration. “Where am I going to find a lawyer around here? Besides, Randy has my phone password and he keeps an eye on the family computer. He says he wants to know where the boys go on the internet.” Melody took in a deep breath. “I always figured he was watching me, too. I just didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“We have computers here,” Mara told her. “You can use them all you like and your husband will never find out what you’re researching. That’s why libraries exist—to make sure people always have access to the information they need. Every day, we help people find answers to questions that they’re terrified to ask.”
“What if somebody sees me searching for divorce lawyers and tells Randy?”
“You can use my computer for the next couple of hours,” Mara offered. It meant she’d need to stay late to get her own work done, but that seemed a small sacrifice to prevent a murder. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Melody started to shake her head. Then she stopped. “Actually, yes. There is. Darlene mentioned a book in her Facebook post,” Melody said. “If you have it, I’d like to read it.” Melody didn’t seem aware of the irony of her request, but it certainly wasn’t lost on Mara.
“Speak is one of the books your committee confiscated. I believe it’s being stored in Beverly Underwood’s basement until this town comes to its senses and stops letting Lula Dean tell us what we can and can’t read.”
Melody seemed to realize she’d just stumbled across a trip wire. “If that book was on the committee’s list, a lot of other people must have found it offensive, too.”
“Speak is about a girl who’s been raped.” Mara heard her voice building and she paused for a moment to regain control. “The things the book talks about need to be said because there are people like Darlene who desperately need to hear them.”
Melody’s eyes glazed over and Mara knew the former mayor’s wife was about to repeat the party line. “We just want to shield our children until they’re ready for more mature material.”
“Children?” Mara shot back. “You mean like a high school kid who’s been raped by classmates and has nowhere to turn?”
This time, Melody offered no defense.
“When people like Lula hide all the books about rape, who do you suppose they’re really protecting?” Mara demanded. “Do you want to go back to the days when we never talked about rape? When women like Darlene kept their mouths shut and the men who assaulted them went on to be mayor?”
Melody’s face turned scarlet, but she refused to admit defeat. “See, you’re talking about older readers,” she argued. “As far as I’m concerned, they can do what they want. I’m just concerned about the little children—”
“Okay, so let’s focus on younger kids,” Mara pressed on. She hadn’t planned to get into a debate, but she wasn’t going to let Melody off easy. “What exactly do you think books will do to them?”
Melody threw up her arms. “Scare them, for starters!”
“That’s funny, ’cause I didn’t see you pulling any horror books off the shelves. Most of the books you took were about Black history, the Holocaust, and LGBTQ subjects. A few of the YA novels you banned were a bit raunchy in parts, but I noticed the romance section remains untouched.”
“There was that pornographic cake book in the baking section!”
“Which a teenager snuck onto the shelves. But I fail to see how a book of penis cakes could do anyone irreparable harm.”
“Maybe that’s ’cause you’re not one of us,” Melody said.
Mara couldn’t believe her ears. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t mean white!” Melody hastened to add. “I meant Christian!”
Six of one, half a dozen of the other, thought Mara. “For your information, I was raised Methodist, and unlike many of your fellow holier-than-thou types, I do my best to follow the teachings of Jesus.”
“I, I...” Melody fumbled for the right words.
Mara sighed. It wasn’t her first time at the racist rodeo. “You know what I think, Melody? I think you’re scared that your children are going to open a book and discover the truth. They’ll realize that the Holocaust happened and that slavery was worse than they ever imagined. They’ll find out that both men and women like sex and that gay and trans folks are just regular people. These seem to be the things you’re trying so hard to hide from them. Why is that?”
Melody straightened her spine. “They just aren’t in keeping with our way of life.”
“So you’re worried your children will be lured off the righteous path?”
Melody smiled with relief. The conversation could end now. “Exactly.”
“But isn’t the whole point that each person chooses the right path in life, instead of being tricked into taking it?” Mara asked. “Why not give your kids the freedom to make their own decisions?”
“When they’re adults, they can make any decisions they like. Until then, we’re their parents and it’s our decision what they check out at the library.”
“But you have no right whatsoever to make those decisions for other people’s children,” Mara pointed out. “And that’s what you’ve done by taking books off the shelves. You’re denying your neighbors their freedom to raise their kids as they see fit.”
“If children are in danger, someone needs to step in.”
They were going around in circles. Mara could see Melody wasn’t going to stray from her talking points. Whether she was brainwashed or stubborn, Mara couldn’t say for sure. “Before I go and leave you to your research, let me ask one more question—what should I do with the mushroom guide you were reading?”
Melody’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Well, you came in today planning to use that book to commit murder. I’m thinking maybe we need to take AField Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia off the shelves.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Melody said.
“Is it?” Mara asked. “If we hadn’t spotted you reading it, that book could have killed a man. Who knows what horrible things would happen if a kid ever got their hands on that guide.”
“Oh, I see what you’re doing.” Melody wasn’t stupid.
“Do you?” Mara wanted her to say it out loud.
“Without that field guide, people could end up eating poisonous mushrooms. It needs to stay in the library.”
“But if it could make a good Christian woman like you kill her husband—”
Melody rolled her eyes. “The book didn’t make me want to kill my husband.”
“It didn’t lure you off the righteous path?” Mara asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Mara pressed her. “The book didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“I said no,” Melody replied bluntly.
“So do you think there’s a chance that some of the books you’ve labeled dangerous might actually be able to help some people?”
Melody glared at her. “Maybe,” she finally conceded.
“Just checking,” Mara said. She got up and stood at the door of her office. “The computer password is NancyPearl. I hope you find a good attorney.”
Mara left the mayor’s soon-to-be-ex-wife sitting at her desk and returned A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia to its rightful place on the shelf.