Revived Spirits (7 page)

“
Caylie’s
a girl our age who’s living with her grandparents,” I tell Abigail. I look over at Adam to include him in my next statement. “Her mom’s in jail, for supposedly making meth.”

“Whoa,” Adam says, “that’s bad.”

“Is it?” Abigail looks lost. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Meth is short for methamphetamine,” Adam says. “It’s an illegal drug. It makes people really awake and active and happy-feeling. But it’s addictive and deadly. Dad sees meth-heads when he works in the clinic at the hospital. He says it’s like watching people poison themselves. Their teeth rot out, their skin is covered in sores, they’re skinny as skeletons and their hearts are damaged.”

“This methamphetamine”—Abigail pronounces the word slowly— “does it come from a flower like opium? I once heard my papa talk about the opium dens in Chinatown in Boston.”

“No,” Adam says. “It’s not natural. People make it out of all kinds of toxic chemicals and then sell it. I guess that’s what
Caylie’s
mom did.”

“It’s what
Caylie’s
mom was put in jail for,” I say. “But she says she’s innocent.
Caylie
asked me if I’d go to the jail to see her so I can use the Sight to see if she’s telling the truth.”

“Interesting,” Adam says. He’s gone from a reclining position to sitting straight up. “Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to, but I don’t know how to go about it.
Caylie’s
grandparents are strict Holiness, and they know me and my family by reputation. As witches.”

“Would they know you if they saw you?” Adam asks.

“I’m not sure. But they’d know I didn’t look like the kind of girl they want
Caylie
hanging around with.”

“Unless you disguised yourself,” Adam says. “You know, made yourself look like the kind of girl they would want
Caylie
to hang out with.”

“Oh, a disguise!” Abigail says, looking excited. “What kind of disguise would it be?”

“Well,” I say, “Holiness girls dress very modestly. Long hair and long dresses that cover their knees and elbows.”

Abigail rolls her eyes. “All that sounds terribly familiar. Really, when people can choose to be modern, why don’t they?”

“Well, in this case, it’s because of their religious beliefs,” I say. “Which they have an absolute right to.”

“Of course,” Abigail says. “But as someone who spent her summers sweltering in long-sleeved dresses, it’s hard to understand why someone who had the choice to do otherwise wouldn’t.” She takes my chin and lifts up my face and looks at me. “Hm. Well, you have clothes in your closet we could probably put together for a suitably modest ensemble. But your hair. Your hair is a problem.”

I pat my springy curls. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing’s wrong as far as I’m concerned,” Abigail says. “I find it lovely. But your friend’s grandparents wouldn’t. First of all, it’s red, which is far too flashy. They’ll be wanting a girl who looks like a sparrow, not a cardinal. Second, it’s curly. Wildly, freely curly, which is not at all modest. I don’t suppose the color can be helped, but we could iron it straight and maybe pull it back. How does your friend wear her hair?”

“In a braid.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Adam starts looking at me too, which feels a little weird. “You know what?” he says. “We might be able to fix the hair color, too. I’ve got a movie makeup kit at home that’s got some temporary hair color in it. It washes right out when you’re done.”

“Oh, that would be excellent!” Abigail says. “It should be brown. A plain, dull brown.”

“Why do I feel like I’m having the world’s strangest beauty makeover?” I say.

Abigail laughs. She loves to look at the beauty makeover photo spreads in the fashion magazines I bring her. “It’s not
so much a makeover as a make-under, is it?” she says.

When
Caylie
sits down across from Adam and me at lunch, I say, “I’ll do it. I’ll go meet your mom. I think we’ve figured out a way your grandparents will let me.”

“We’re going to dress Miranda in Holiness drag!” Adam says.

Caylie
grins. “Just like me, huh?”

“Yeah, I figure that way they won’t suspect me of being the Witch Girl.”

Caylie
nods. “This could work. I was thinking, though, it might be kind of weird if you just show up out of the blue wanting to go with us to the jail. Maybe I ought to invite you to the house first.”

I hadn’t thought about this, but
Caylie’s
right. I can’t just appear out of nowhere and expect them to take me to see a family member in jail. At the same time, I don’t love the thought of having to act my Holiness girl role, not just once, but twice. “Maybe you should,” I say.

“And you can’t call yourself Miranda,” Adam says. “Because I’m pretty sure you’re the only Miranda in town.”

This is getting more complicated by the minute. I never thought I’d need an alias. “That’s tough,” I say. “If I have a fake name, I have to remember to respond when somebody calls me by it.” I sigh. “So what’s my name?”

“Well,
Mamaw
and Papaw hate my name ’cause it’s worldly,”
Caylie
says. “So a Bible name would be good.”

Adam grins. “How about
Hepzibah
or Moab?”

Caylie
giggles while I make a face.

“Jezebel?” Adam says.

“No Holiness person is gonna name their kid Jezebel,”
Caylie
says. “It has to be the name of a good person in the Bible.”

“Esther?” Adam tries.

“Esther sounds like an old lady,” I say. “Aren’t there any names in the Bible that are pretty?”

“I think Ruth is pretty,”
Caylie
says.

“Well, that’s my granny’s middle name, so it’d be easy to remember,” I say.

“That’s perfect,”
Caylie
says. “You can just pretend you’re your granny when people talk to you.”

I know what she means, but I don’t think this part of the plan will work. For one thing, nobody who talks to Granny calls her by her first name, let alone by her middle name. She’s “Granny” to the world. For another, it’s probably best not to pretend to be Granny when talking to
Caylie’s
grandparents. I’d start talking about charms and herbal potions, and they’d throw me out of the house faster than you can say “witch.”

“
Ow
!” Looking in the mirror, I’m shocked to see that my ear isn’t on fire. I’m using an old curling iron I found in my mom’s bathroom cabinet, but really, I’m using it as a straightening iron. I’m supposed to have supper with
Caylie
and her grandparents in an hour, so my hair needs to be tamed.

Last night, Abigail and I had what she called “a dress rehearsal” for my visit with
Caylie’s
family. She went through my closet and picked out a long, loose denim skirt I hardly ever wear and a white blouse with three-quarter length sleeves to cover my elbows. Then she sat me down and attacked my hair with the curling iron, smoothing out the springy curls into soft waves. She pulled my smoothed hair into a tight braid.

We gave up on the idea of my hair being anything other than red because the only colors in Adam’s movie makeup kit were black and green, and the goal is to look like a Holiness girl, not like Dracula or the Joker.

Abigail hoped that ironing my hair last night would keep it straight for today too. But when I woke up this morning, every curl had sprung back into place. And so, since it’s daylight now and Abigail can’t come out, I’m stuck fixing my hair myself. If I keep grazing my ears with the curling iron, I’m going to look like a Holiness girl with third-degree burns.

When I go down to tell Mom I’m ready, she jumps like a strange intruder has just broken into the kitchen. “Well, you certainly look...different,” she says.

“
Caylie’s
grandparents are Holiness,” I say. “I thought maybe I should tone things down a little to be respectful.” I hope Mom doesn’t look inside my head to see the real reason for my fashion choice.

Granny looks up from the dried herbs she’s shredding on the table. “Respect’s all right, but don’t you go handling snakes or nothing.”

Mom shakes her head. “Mother, only a small minority of Holiness people handle snakes.”

“I know it,” Granny says, “but did I ever tell you about my little Holiness friend when I was in school? She invited me to go to church with her, and when we got there, there wasn’t no place for us to sit but on these boxes in the back. Turns out we was sitting on the boxes of snakes.”

Mom and I smile even though we’ve both heard this story many times before.

Caylie’s
grandparents live in a little white frame house on the outskirts of town—the kind of place I always think of as a “grandma house.” The front yard is planted with bright yellow mums, and there’s a vegetable garden in the back.

“I’ll be back at eight,” Mom says to me as I open the car door.

Caylie
meets me on the porch. “Look at you,” she whispers. “I just about didn’t recognize you.”

“That’s the idea,” I say, grinning.

Caylie
leads me into a tiny, spotless living room. A picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus hangs over the couch, and a big white family Bible sits on the coffee table. I gulp, hoping I don’t mess this up.

It’s not that my family isn’t religious at all. Granny told me Bible stories—especially the gory, exciting ones—when I was little, and Mom and I drive over to the tiny Episcopalian church in Morgan a couple of times a month. But we never set foot in any of the churches in Wilder because we wouldn’t be welcome there. Some ministers have even preached against Granny from the pulpit. I guess you could say our reputation precedes us.

An old lady walks into the living room. Like many older Holiness women, she has her gray hair piled high on top of her head. If it were down, it would probably be past her waist. She’s wearing a long-sleeved housedress and the kind of soft, lace-up shoes old ladies like. Her smile is sweet. “
Caylie
June, is this your little friend?” she says.

“Yes, ma’am,”
Caylie
says. “This is Ruth. Ruth, this is my
mamaw
, Beulah Prater.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Prater,” I say.

“Nice to meet you, too, honey. I don’t believe I got your last name.”

That’s because we didn’t think to make one up. Uh-oh. “Adams,” I say, quickly adding an -s to my friend’s first name.

“Are you kin to Chester Adams that lives over to Lick Creek?” Mrs. Prater asks.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “It’s a pretty common last name.”

She smiles again, and I’m relieved to be off the hook. “Why don’t you girls run along and play?
Supper’ll
be ready in about half an hour.”

“You want to go to my room?”
Caylie
asks.

I nod, and once we’re out of Mrs. Prater’s hearing,
Caylie
says, “She says run along and play like we’re six years old, like we still play with
Barbies
. Not that she’d want us playing
with
Barbies
. She thinks they’re vain and
immodest.”

I’m not sure I disagree with Mrs. Prater there, but all I can say is, “She seems nice, though.”

“She is,”
Caylie
says. “I love her and Papaw, too. But a grandmother
ain’t
supposed to be doing a mama’s job.”

Caylie’s
room is shoebox tiny. In one corner is a table with a Singer sewing machine. There’s a single-sized bed covered by a pastel-squared quilt and a chest of drawers with a framed photo on top of it.

“This used to be
Mamaw’s
sewing room,”
Caylie
says, sitting down on the bed and motioning for me to do the same. “It still is, really. I just sleep here. In my old room I had all kinds of posters on the wall, but they were all of singers and actors
Mamaw
and Papaw would think was sinful. So now I’ve just got this one picture of Mama.”