Chapter 39 Return
Return
Kate Shaw
“She walked in the church door while Eli was preaching,” I blurt out in excitement now that I’ve gotten over Eli’s insult. My pants and shoes are soaking wet because I ran through the rain with my slicker over my head.
Lydia exclaims, “Simple as that, she came back?” and hands me a dish towel to wipe drips from my arms and face.
“Yes, ma’am. On the fourteenth day, she came waltzing through the door and down the aisle. People wanted to reach out and touch her to see if she was real. That’s what he said.”
“Where has she been, Kate?”
“With her granny, she said, and that confused people. They knew she hadn’t been with Buck’s mama, Jolene. Then she said it was Granny C.”
“Oh, my stars. You were right all along. Was her granny with her?”
“Eli said she brought the girl home but didn’t come to Sunday service. He thought she didn’t want to confuse people when Loretty’s homecoming was the important thing. But that afternoon, Eli crossed paths with her on the trail to Birdie’s place. She’s living in my cabin.”
“Your cabin? How do you feel about that?”
“I was upset for a quick minute, but it’s the right thing. I don’t teach there anymore. But, Lydia, don’t think I’ll overstay my visit. Your generosity is wonderful, but I’ll find a place soon.”
“That’s not what I meant, Kate. There’s no rush. You have a home here for as long as you want to stay. There’s much work to do on Birdie’s books. I only meant it sounded pushy of Eli. That the woman usurped your place and Eli acquiesced without asking permission. It was rude. That’s what I meant.”
I privately agree with Lydia, but my pride prevents me from looking pitiful. I try to sound confident. “Rachel and I were planning on leaving Baines Creek anyway. I’m thrilled at the turn of events for everyone’s sake.”
“Has Granny C spoken to Sadie?”
“Eli didn’t say.”
“So, we don’t know how that reunion went.”
“No, but it’ll come out in due time. Loretty knows everything, and Marris in her addled brain knows everything, too. I do get sick thinking of the ugly weight the child has to carry.”
“How did she find Granny C?”
“Eli thinks Birdie may have told her. Or Marris. He believes they knew the truth about Carly but were bound to her wishes, which were to ignore both the sin and sinners till they died. Carly understood that there would be no justice by the normal route as long as Walter and Gladys lived. Though Birdie offered the girl a cure, Carly took the high road.”
“Kate, I am so relieved the girl has come home. It certainly lightens your heart. Starting tomorrow, we can now focus on Birdie’s truth without this worry. I know you’ll sleep better tonight.”
I give Lydia the wet towel and am heading back into the rain when she hands me an umbrella.
I fairly dance along the path back to the stone house that holds everything I need.
Rachel is at the door curious as to why I left him.
I ruffle his head and stand in front of the window blanketed in soggy clouds.
I pray a timid prayer since I’m a novice to the practice.
I lay my right hand over my heart, as though reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but instead I say, Thank you, Eli’s God.
You were listening all along. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The following Saturday, after a second week working beside Lydia, I return to Baines Creek.
No work has begun on the bridge, but lumber is stacked on the shoulder.
I park outside the schoolhouse where I did the first day.
I walk the beaten path as I have ten thousand times.
It became a walking meditation and it transformed me.
But for all my effort, not much of me is left behind.
A renegade breeze will erase my memory. It’s already started.
Rachel and I have been evicted. The cabin now belongs to the healer.
I have two goals today: to get my remaining things and to see where Birdie hid her witchy tools.
When I enter the clearing, the woman I know is Carly Hicks stands on a stool washing windows.
From the back she looks like Sadie Blue, small and wiry.
Birdie’s yard table has been moved and is at home here.
Bundles of fresh herbs are ready to be tied and dried.
The ground is swept clean. The door is painted blue. The place has been imbued with a soul.
“Hello, Carly,” I call out, and the small woman steps down and wipes her hands on her apron.
Her stare is cold, and she looks up at me in defiance.
But then I realize that it isn’t defiance.
It’s strength. Carly is a woman to whom dastardly deeds were done.
One who watched and waited for evil to die in human form, then stepped out of the shadows to claim what was hers. A legacy Birdie was saving for her.
Though we’ve never met, she knows who I am. “Hello, Kate Shaw. My name be Granny C. Carly died a long while back.”
She doesn’t apologize for taking my home.
A home I never paid a nickel’s rent for, but still…
“You cleaned up the place. It looks nice,” I say to be polite and to inch my way toward my intended conversation.
I see a familiar eight-sided star nailed beside the blue door.
It was Birdie’s star. Now I know where it went.
I wasn’t here when Sadie and her mother were reunited, but over the years I’d witnessed the scars the abandonment had inflicted on Sadie.
When at seventeen and in this very cabin, she miscarried her first child.
She begged god to take her life instead and let her child breathe.
Even delivered dead, that infant was loved fiercely by Sadie.
After, she asked a question in a raw voice.
Knowing love so pure, how could Mama leave me?
And what could I say to that? Sadie loved with unwavering innocence. Now I know Carly did, too.
I relied on Eli’s description of the face-off, but what he gave me was puny. Both women are victims, and the words between them were cautious because Sadie doesn’t know her mama’s truth. Eli thinks Loretty will be peacemaker enough. What she can’t do, time will.
Rachel heads to his favorite resting place, but a wide yard-broom leans against the trunk.
I never thought to sweep the dirt or wash the windows.
Inside has been transformed too, with the floor scrubbed and a drying rack hung from the ceiling.
On the windowsill sit colorful quart jars of tomatoes, green beans, peaches, pickles, and apple butter.
Gifts from neighbors happy to have a healer nearby is my guess.
Or happy that one of their own has returned.
A red-and-white quilt in a log cabin pattern is spread on the back of the sofa.
It smells different from when I lived here, and that’s because the place is cared for.
Old cabins and worn-out souls need steady attention. I neglected mine.
In a small cardboard box are my remaining books, a few copies of National Geographic, three mismatched socks, and the eagle feather Birdie gave me.
“What’s all that?” I nod toward the bowls, candles, crystal pendulums, stones, bones, and tarot cards.
Eli had mentioned Granny C carrying an armload of things up the trail. This is a staggering stash.
“Birdie’s things.”
“These weren’t in her trailer or else they’d have burned. Where’d they come from?”
“Somewheres else.”
“Nearby?”
“Near enough.”
Though she is small-boned like Sadie Blue, she holds a powerful presence, and I think how fortunate Baines Creek is to have her confidence.
She knew she’d return to this place when she was free to become who she was meant to be.
She’s already filled this cabin with purposeful things.
She will do great good for those in need.
Loretty will be by her side, learning the old ways.
“You know Lydia Brown and I are studying Birdie’s books that were in her trailer, and there’s information that could help you.” I set the stage to drive a bargain for Birdie’s hidden world. “The crone had a recipe for most everything. Would you like to look at ’em?”
She sees through my ploy. “I gots what I need.”
I lay it out more clearly. “I’ll help you if you help me. Giving you copies we’ve made would make your work easier. And I think sharing information would be what Birdie would want.”
“How you figure that? Let me see your hand.”
“What?”
“Right hand. Let me see.”
And I hold it out, confused.
“You ain’t a Keeper.” Granny C pinches her lips around an imaginary corncob pipe, like Birdie smoked.
“Are you talking about the mark Birdie had on her palm?”
“That I am, and you don’t got it.”
“Of course I don’t. I’m not like you or Birdie. But she left her Books of Truth to me. The night she died, she wrote my name on a scrap of paper saying so. You and I may not understand why, but Birdie had a reason. She trusted me to find that reason and you can trust me, too.”
I’m exaggerating our friendship, but it’s for a noble cause. If we don’t have more strings, how can we tie together the universal mystery of Birdie Rocas? Thankfully, Granny C understands my logic.
“Sit,” she says, and negotiations begin.