A Parchment of Leaves

A NOVEL BY
SILAS HOUSE

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

For
Betty Louise Walker House,
Thelma Jean Hoskins Smallwood,
Eleshia Ann Smallwood Sloan,
Teresa Ann Gambrel House

—the women who made me

Prologue

PART ONE: CONFLUENCE
One
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Two
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Three
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Four
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Five
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Six

PART TWO: ON THE MOUNTAIN
Seven
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Eight
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Nine
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Ten
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Eleven
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Twelve
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Thirteen
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Fourteen
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Fifteen
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Sixteen
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Seventeen
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Eighteen
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Nineteen
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Twenty
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Twenty-one
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Twenty-two

PART THREE: THE PROMISE OF JOY
Twenty-three
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Twenty-four
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Twenty-five
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Twenty-six
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Twenty-seven
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Twenty-eight
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Twenty-nine
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Thirty
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Thirty-one

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Also by Silas House

T
HERE WAS MUCH TALK
that spring of a Cherokee girl who was able to invoke curses on anyone passing her threshold. Several men had ventured up into the place called Redbud Camp and had come back either dead or badly mauled. One man was killed when he walked off a high cliff and was shattered on the rocks in the gorge below; it was widely reported that every bone in his body was broken. Another, hired to burn out the heavy brush near the summit, was struck by an unlucky wind that caught his clothes afire and burned most of his body, including his face. A young man claimed that his ax was overtaken by a spirit in midswing and came down to chop off the toes of his left foot.

The men who died on the mountain went to their graves knowing what had really happened, and since all of the men who survived were either married or betrothed, they too were unable to tell the true reason for their misfortune. They
had
been possessed by the Cherokee girl standing at her gate, but she had not done it intentionally. The truth was this: her beauty had so transfixed their thoughts that they could not keep their minds on the work at hand. They could think of nothing but her eyes—round and black as berries—and her brown arms, propped up on the slats of the paling fence. They saw her strong jawbone curving toward her chin, her blue-black hair flapping behind her like clothes hung out to dry. They were mesmerized by the image they had caught of her, and they carried it up the mountain in such a way that they neglected to watch
where they were walking or the angle of their axes or the intensity of the fires they built.

But most people around those parts had not been to Redbud Camp and knew nothing of the girl's paralyzing looks. They reckoned she was simply able to conjure curses and hexes. All of the men had spoken of her in their wild pain when they were being doctored, and the rumors of the girl-witch began to fly.

She had a perfectly good motive, anyway. Tate Masters was the richest man in the nearby town of Black Banks, and he owned all of the land in the head of Redbud Camp. He had decided to build himself a mansion on the mountain's crest. Masters had made it well known that his plan was to run the Cherokees off.

The Cherokees demanded that Masters prove he owned the mountain by producing a deed. Their families had settled on Redbud Camp nearly eighty years before, and no one had questioned their claim to the land until now. He made no proof of his ownership, but he didn't have to. None of the clerks or magistrates would hear the Cherokees' complaints. He was left free to build. Masters hired team after team of men to go and clear the land, but to no avail. After so many men were killed or hurt on the mountain and word began to spread that it was at the hands of the Cherokee girl, no one would go back.

Masters thought he might never see his land prepared until a young man by the name of Sullivan answered the notice and told him that he was not afraid of anything and certainly didn't believe in such foolishness as maledictions. He had been looking a long time for the chance to make some money of his own and escape the ever-watchful eyes of his mother.

Saul Sullivan's mother would not hear of his going up on Redbud Mountain. She believed that such things as spells and witches were as real as Scripture. Esme Sullivan was the kind of woman who kept an acorn on every windowsill to ward off bad spirits, and boiled old shoes in a Dutch oven to guard against snakes coming into the yard.
When her cat sat with its back to the fire, she prepared for a snowstorm. Besides, Esme had always been ill at ease around the Cherokees. When she saw them in town, she eyed them suspiciously, as if they might snatch her purse or cut her throat for no reason at all. Some of her people had been killed at the hands of Shawnee warriors, ages ago, and she reckoned the Cherokees would have done the same thing if they had happened upon her family back then.

“You'll not be taking any such job,” Esme said, slopping beans onto Saul's plate. “You can ride back into town tomorrow and tell that man to find some other fool.”

“I want to take it,” Saul said. “Masters is paying top dollar, on account of this nonsense about the mountain being witched.”

Esme's voice was firm. “Ain't nonsense. Look at all the men that's got killed or hurt up there.” She hovered over his shoulder as he ate, just as she always did. She never sat down until her boys had been fed. She was a short, slender woman, but she could work from daylight to dark without breaking a sweat. Today, her presence seemed bigger as she stood behind him. “I'll not have you risk it. You heard me.”

Saul knew better than to argue with her. He didn't relish being slapped, which was what happened when one of her children talked back, so he said, “All right, then.”

In the morning, Saul got up before daylight and dressed silently. He didn't make a sound as he pulled on his clothes and laced his shoes, but there was no sneaking past his brother Aaron, who followed Saul everywhere he went. Saul slipped out into the blue light of early morning, and Aaron threw back his covers. Saul was standing near the creek, stretching and listening to the bones in his back pop, when he heard Aaron coming out of the house.

“Get back yonder,” Saul said, without looking at Aaron. The moon hung low and ghost-faced above the mountain. “You've got no business up this early.”

“Where you gone to? I want to come with you.”

“I've got a hard day's work ahead,” Saul said, fishing down behind the woodpile to get the bundle of supplies he had hidden there the evening before. “Go back to bed.”

Aaron was only a year younger than Saul, but he was a cane pole of a boy. He took after their mother and was so fragile that Saul always ended up obliging him even when he set out to be firm. Aaron had been spoiled long ago, because Esme gave in to his every whim. When she didn't, Aaron would sit silently, strumming their father's old banjo in such a careless way that she gave in out of frustration, if not pity. He was bony but determined, and when he pleaded to go, Saul could not deny him. Saul told Aaron to grab the ax out of the chopping stump and climb on the back of his horse.

Saul steered the horse down the creek while Aaron held tightly about his waist. It was high spring and the morning air smelled as if it were made out of the dogwood and redbud that crowded the mountainside. The flowery scent crept into their mouths and forced the sleep from their eyes. The moon went down and the stars dimmed to the color of sky. By the time they reached Redbud Camp, the sky was messy with peach and lavender light. It seemed that as soon as sunlight touched the ground, the world came awake. Saul could hear hens clucking and pecking, children running out into the yards, women splashing into the creek, their dress tails pinned high on their thighs, to scrub out their clothes on a washboard. The lime-colored leaves seemed transparent in the brightness of new daylight.

Redbud Camp was just seven houses, all crowded in at the mouth of the holler, where the flattest land spread out, bordered on one side by the creek rushing down from the mountain and on the other by the smooth river. The mountain looming behind the houses looked like one peaked clump of lavender, dotted with a few pines and hickories. It was an imposing silhouette against the citrus sky, so wide and big shouldered that Saul expected it to growl at his approach.

“Is it true, about the Cherokee gal?” Aaron asked. He scooted as
close to his brother as he could, until his chest rested on Saul's back. He capped his hands over Saul's belt buckle.

“Why, no. But if you scared, hop off and walk back to the house.” Saul slowed the horse to a lazy trot, as he didn't want to stir any dust to settle on the houses. He had always liked Cherokees; he figured they had much in common with his own Irish ancestors, long mistreated in their own homeland. He didn't know any Cherokees to speak to, but he liked the way they carried themselves in town. They kept their shoulders square and their chins high.

Saul could see the girl standing by the gate from a long way off. The closer he got, the clearer her image became, like a reflection coming together in rippled water. When he could finally see her perfectly, he couldn't make himself swallow correctly. He felt his mouth fill with water. She was sticking her fingers to the vines of small flowers that were tangled about the fence. When she touched them, they exploded in a burst of color and soft petals. Touch-me-nots. She put one long finger out and grazed a flower nervously, as if she were putting her hand out to be pecked by a hen. A thin smile showed itself across her fine, curved face. Her hair was divided by a perfectly straight, pale brown line down the middle of her head. She did not wear plaits, but let her hair swing behind her. It was so long that the ends of it were white from the dust in the sandy yard. She felt his eyes on her and looked up. The whites of her eyes were as clear as washed eggshells.

She watched them pass. When Saul managed to get his arms to move and tipped his hat to her, she made no motion and did not change her expression. She looked at him the way someone might examine a tree they have not seen before without having anyone there to tell them its name. She leaned against the fence, her lips tightly clenched. He expected her to spit.

The road was quickly swallowed up in redbud trees.

“Hellfire,” he breathed.

“What'd you say that for?” Aaron asked.

Saul did not answer. He ground his heels into the horse's sides, and they made their way on up the old mountain, the petals of the redbuds brushing against their faces. Many years later, Saul would catch the scent of this tree in springtime and be transported back to this day.

V
INE WAS IN THE
garden when she heard the man screaming. She paused, then figured it was her imagination. The yells came from high atop Redbud Mountain. Usually it was a woman wailing up there. Everybody said it was the way the sharp wind sometimes caught in the cliffs far up on the mountain's side, but the sound always made Vine's ears perk up. Vine liked to think that the crying was the ghost of her great-grandmother Lucinda, of whom there were many good tales. This seemed much more pleasing than the idea of air whistling against rock.

She tried to ignore the screams and pushed her long fingers into the black dirt. The beans were so white they seemed to glow against the soil. Vine loved the feel of earth beneath her fingernails, so rich and soft. She had been planting the beans ever since she was a small child, because her mother said her name was good luck. It seemed true—her vines outgrew everyone else's, and her beans came about long and firm, never giving way to rot.

She had not been able to sleep all night for thinking of the planting. Seeing her bean vines snaked high around the cornstalks in the summer made her feel like a proud mother watching her children caught up in laughter. It had pained her to wait until midday to begin, but her father would not let her start earlier. The beans not only had to be planted on a day when the signs of the moon were in the arms, according to the almanac, but also couldn't be put in until midday, when the ground had had plenty of time to awake properly.

Vine raised her head. It was not the wind that always blew on the mountain, nor the mourning of old Lucinda. The man was screaming
in such a way that it reminded Vine of the way people went on at funerals. She let her handful of beans fall onto the ground as she stood and capped a straight hand against her forehead to survey the scene. Through the trees, she could see a man trotting down the mountain with a boy across his arms. She had never seen anyone run so fast. Dust kicked up behind him.

Vine ran out to the gate and unlatched it. It was the man who had passed so straight-backed on his horse. He was as pale as the beans she had held in her hand, and his face was long with fear. As soon as he saw her, he sank down in the road with the boy stretched out like an accordion across his legs. “Help me,” he said, as if his mouth were full of dirt.