Chapter 50 Hattie-May
Hattie-May
Then
Hattie-May couldn’t believe this was happening again.
Her leaves had warned her a long time ago that while her life would be a happy one, it would also be plagued with loss.
Once upon a time, she’d thought Ben dying in the war and her sister in childbirth would be the end of it.
What more would life dare take from her?
What loss could compare to the loss of true love or a sister?
But that was the thing about the leaves. They weren’t a prophecy a person could fulfill and move past. They were a hint at things to come.
Still. When she’d lost Lilibet—not once but twice—it had nearly undone her. Probably would have if she’d had any other choice but to pull herself together for the girls.
Falling apart was a luxury she didn’t have. What oldest daughter did? Her job was to hold her family together, be steadfast as an ancient hemlock in a thunderstorm.
So she was. For everyone.
But now?
How could she possibly do it again?
This wasn’t fair. It was too much.
Her sweet girls.
Milly was already gone like a thief in the night over a week ago. Ruthie was taking Frances to her new school on Monday. Already, the house had grown too quiet.
Sadness overwhelmed Hattie’s tired bones, but she forced herself up and out of bed and gathered her sketch pad and pencils, as well as her little garden trowel, and tucked it all into her favorite wicker basket, then headed for the forest, whistling an old hymn her mother had loved.
I come to the garden alone—while the dew is still on the roses…
She wasn’t religious—the women in her family seldom were—but something about this verse in particular had always spoken to her. Being alone in a garden was as close to God as she could imagine.
Walking the woods and spending time with trees whose roots curled deep into the earth, with wildflowers who seemed to whisper her name, and among the hills that were older than the continent as it now stood, always granted Hattie…not serenity exactly, but perspective.
A way to recalibrate.
Hattie would find a nice spot, slide off her shoes so that she could feel the dirt and damp leaves and pine needles beneath her feet, then take a seat on the ground.
Yes, she could get up and down on her own, thank you very much.
Her knees and hips weren’t what they used to be, but she was quick to tell anyone who’d listen how she could still place her hands flat on the floor in front of her without bending her knees, no problem.
Neither Ruthie nor the girls could say the same.
Of course, at barely five foot, the ground wasn’t that far away. Not for Hattie-May.
There was a break in the trees, and enough sunlight dappled through the canopy to give a patch of wildflowers a fighting chance.
Her old friend snakeroot was blooming white and frothy, as was frostweed.
Hattie-May named each flower out loud as she passed.
Golden aster. Swamp thistle. She smiled at the small crop of ghost pipes.
When they were children, her late sister (Ruthie and Lilibet’s mama) had sworn the long pink-and-white flower resembled a penis.
Even though Hattie’d known better for quite a long time, she still giggled like a schoolgirl whenever they made their seasonal appearance.
The forest always rewarded her, usually with a good memory and a laugh.
Without meaning to and with no forethought, she walked toward the sound of the creek. So many happy memories near here! The girls splashing ankle deep, catching tadpoles in old Cool Whip containers. Pretending to be mountain mermaids.
Hattie was so lost in her own thoughts, she almost missed it.
Would’ve missed it, if she hadn’t walked directly upon it. Perhaps if the whisper hadn’t been so urgent. Look look look. The words coming from her head. Her heart. From her bones.
When she saw the feckless thing struggling in the sandy dirt, she gasped.
It couldn’t be—not here—not so close. Not when she’d spent a good part of her younger years foraging through miles of forest trails in search of one.
She’d wanted it to be real so badly that she’d refused to give up, to believe that it was an old wives’ tale.
A fable.
She’d thought she saw one as a little girl, but there were times she doubted the memory.
It was during these moments when the internal door seemed to shake on its hinges and the whisper ordered her into the forest. Keep searching searching searching…
For a long moment she stood still as a garden statue, like a fearful worshipper who’d stumbled across their god.
She inched closer, as if she’d scare the tiny plant.
It was too small to call a sapling. Her heart pounded as she approached.
The mourning willow was sickly, curling forward, but she’d recognize it anywhere.
Hattie used her trowel to scoop it from the earth.
She held it inches from her face, unable to suppress a giddy smile.
Yes, the forest rewarded her.
She placed the baby tree in her basket, and turned to leave, before remembering the most important thing a mourning willow needed to survive.
How could it slip her mind? Many thoughts had been slipping lately, like water through a sieve, but perhaps this particular moment could be chalked up to excitement. A mourning willow! Here! On her hill!
Where there was a mourning willow, there was death.
The little sapling would need sustenance.
Hattie sank her trowel back into the earth, expecting to make contact with the remains of a forest creature.
Perhaps one unlucky enough to cross paths with Frances.
Hattie had known for a long time that Frances wasn’t like the other kids, but she hoped her quiet niece’s curiosity would lead her to the medical field.
She was such a sweet girl, after all. So bright.
She’d be a good surgeon, and it would be nice to have a doctor in the family.
There was no forest creature.
What Hattie-May found was a hand.
Pale. Bony. Its skin peeling away. The nailbeds black with rot. A silver ring on one of its fingers.
Without hesitating, she used her trowel to uncover the body. That was what she was doing: uncovering. Whoever the unlucky person was, they weren’t deep enough beneath the soil to call them buried nor could you call what Hattie-May was doing digging.
She scraped away the layers of dirt, revealing what had fed the sapling.
An arm. A torso.
All eaten through with worms and worse. For maybe the first time, she was thankful her sense of smell wasn’t what it once was. When she uncovered the face, she stumbled back, landing hard on her butt. Oh no. Poor sweet boy.
Then, once her thoughts arranged themselves into something making sense…
Oh, Milly. What happened? Because whatever happened to Casey, Hattie-May was certain Milly knew about it.
Whatever had transpired here, Hattie-May understood with conviction, Milly wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose. Especially not Casey. She loved him, though Hattie-May wasn’t sure Milly even realized it yet.
Whatever this was, it had been awful enough to scare her niece away.
Well. Hattie-May steeled her backbone. She knew then that finding Casey would be her secret. She wouldn’t tell Ruth. Wouldn’t reach out to Milly for answers. No sense in making her relive it.
She sighed and considered her options. Out in the open like this was no place for a body.
How long before coyotes or a bear or buzzards found it?
If scavengers dragged the body away, if remnants were discovered in another part of the forest by a hiker or backpacker, there’d be questions, and that wouldn’t do. Not with the secrets her family kept.
In her old age, moving a body (even one as scrawny as this) wouldn’t be easy, but any big job could be broken down into manageable parts. When Ruthie and Frances left for Frances’s fancy new school, Hattie would get to work.
Piece by piece, she’d take Casey apart and move him to somewhere she could keep an eye on him.
He’d not go to waste. The mourning willow had claimed him.
Who was she to take him away? Ashes to ashes and all that.
Besides. There were worse fates after death than offering nourishment to a living thing. Give and take. Ebb and flow.
Hattie-May pushed to her feet, then bent over the body and gently re-covered it with dirt.
She dusted herself off, said a silent thank you to whatever gave the forest its heartbeat, and was almost back to the path when she realized her earlier thought had slipped.
The mourning willow would still need to be fed.
Ruthie may have something in her processing shed…
But the sapling was pitiful. It might shock it to remove it from the only source of nourishment it had ever known.
And if it died, what were the odds of her ever finding another mourning willow?
It had taken her seventy years to set her eyes on this one…
Leaving it to chance wouldn’t do.
She sat her basket aside and took her garden trowel—she was getting her money’s worth from the handy little tool—and once again uncovered Casey’s hand.
The silver of his ring glinted in the morning light.
Gently, Hattie-May tugged it free and dropped it into the pocket of her housedress.
One day, Milly would return, and she might want the keepsake.
Humming, she lifted the sharp end of the garden tool then brought it down against the knuckle of Casey’s index finger. It crunched. She yanked. The pale digit came loose in her hand.
There. That should work. The hungry little tree didn’t need much, only enough to last a few days. Hattie would be back for the entire body.
Hattie-May scooped dirt over the hand, then dropped the finger into her basket. There was a perfect spot for the little tree, near the woodline by her greenhouse. She couldn’t wait to get to work.
She whistled as she walked up the path. I come to the garden alone—while the dew is still on the roses…
Bad times were inevitable. They couldn’t be avoided.
But the forest would always reward her.
The End