Revived Spirits (8 page)

“Can I see it?”

She takes it down and hands it to me. “It’s Mama and me when I was little. I think I was four there. We was out at Cumberland Falls State Park. We’d been camping and fishing all weekend. That was when Daddy was still with us. He took the picture.”

The photo shows a slender woman with shoulder-length blond hair and a big, friendly grin. She’s wearing a pink tank top and sitting at a picnic table with a chubby-cheeked little
Caylie
on her lap. “She’s pretty,” I say.

“Yeah.” She takes the photo and places it back on the chest of drawers. “She looks different now. But so do I.” She smiles.

“You are a little taller,” I say. “Do you think I did okay talking to your
mamaw
? You don’t think she knew I was the Witch Girl, do you?”

“You did great,”
Caylie
says. “She has this look she gets when she thinks something’s not quite right, and she didn’t get it with you.”

“Good.” I sigh with relief. “I hope I pass muster with your papaw too.”

“That’s the easy part,”
Caylie
says. “Papaw don’t see nor hear too good, so he’ll be no trouble.
Mamaw
was the test, and you passed.” She looks at me and grins. “I can’t believe how different you look. There’s just one sign that shows you
ain’t
a real Holiness girl, but I’ve got it too.”

“What’s that?”

“Our earlobes,”
Caylie
says, reaching up and giving her own earlobes a tug. “See?”

It takes me a second to figure it out, but if you look closely at
Caylie’s
ears—and mine, I guess—you can see the tiny holes. “A girl who grew up Holiness wouldn’t have pierced ears,” I say.

“That’s right,”
Caylie
says. “But don’t worry.
Mamaw
ain’t
gonna squint at your earlobes.”

Caylie’s
grandparents may not believe in flashy clothes or worldly music, but they sure believe in food. When
Mamaw
calls us in to supper, the kitchen table is loaded with chicken and dumplings, pole beans, fried corn, tomatoes and cucumbers in vinegar and cornbread.
Caylie’s
Papaw, a bald old man who looks like a turkey, is already sitting at the table.

“Papaw!”
Caylie’s
mamaw
yells at the top of her lungs. “This is
Caylie
June’s friend from school!”

Papaw grins and looks at me. “Well, you’re a pretty little thing,
ain’t
you? Set on down. I hope you can find something you like to eat.”

“Thank you,” I say, trying to talk louder without actually yelling. “It all looks delicious.”

We sit, and
Caylie’s
papaw says the blessing—a blessing so long we probably could have eaten the whole meal in the time it takes him to say it. When it seems like he’s finally wound down, we all say amen, and the food starts making the rounds.

“Now, Ruth, where do you go to church at?”
Caylie’s
mamaw
asks me, passing the bowl of beans.

“I go to the Church of God over in Morgan,” I say, figuring it’s safer not to pick a church in Wilder where they’re likely to know people.

“The big one right outside of town?”
Caylie’s
mamaw
asks, passing the corn now.

“Yes, ma’am.” I wonder if it’s an extra bad sin to lie about where you go to church.

“That is one great big church!”
Mamaw
says. “We go to that revival they have every summer. You never seen so many people.”

“I know,” I say, even though I don’t.
Caylie
was right about me not needing to worry about her papaw. Since saying the blessing, he hasn’t looked up from his plate.

“When I was little I used to like to go to that revival because they sold cotton candy and
Sno
-Cones in the church parking lot,”
Caylie
says. “But I don’t guess that was a very good reason.”

Papaw looks up from his plate. “I remember somebody from our church saying he thought they ought not to be giving away no goodies at a revival. He said a revival should be about the spirit, not the body. But I said to him, if the smell of cotton candy lures in one person who ends up giving his life to Jesus, then praise God, let there be cotton candy!”

Mamaw
says “Amen,” so I do too.

Caylie
looks at me like she thinks I may be taking my role a little too seriously, but then she smiles when
Mamaw
says, “Well,
Caylie
June, you sure are blessed to have a friend like Ruth here. Ruth, you’re welcome in our home any time.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, feeling guilty for pretending to be someone I’m not, especially when
Caylie’s
grandparents are such nice, trusting people. I try to comfort myself with the thought that all this deception is for a good cause.

Back in my room I stand in front of the dresser mirror and unbraid my hair. As soon as I pull out the rubber band and run my fingers through it a little, it springs back to its usual shape, a fiery orange halo around my face. I hear the scratching at the closet door and say “Come in.”

Abigail pushes the door open and comes to stand behind me in front of the mirror. She rests her chin on my shoulder so we look like a girl with two heads. “How was your visit?” she asks. “Was your hair tame enough? Were
you
tame enough?”

“My hair and I did fine. But I feel guilty for lying.”

Abigail shrugs. “Everybody lies now and again. At least you were lying to help someone instead of just lying to protect yourself. Like the time I accidentally broke Mother’s favorite vase and blamed the cat for it.”

I laugh. “You framed a cat for a crime she didn’t commit?”

“I did. But I made it up to her by feeding her my portion of chicken from dinner that night.”

“Well, at least you made it worth her while,” I say.

There’s a knock on my door, and I’m surprised to hear Granny say, “Can I come in?” I don’t remember the last time Granny set foot in my room.

“Sure,” I say.

Granny is wearing her long, white ruffle-collared nightgown. Nightgowns are the only thing Granny wears that’s white, and I’m sure she’d buy black ones if they came in the style she likes. Once I heard her complain to Mom that all the black nightgowns you can buy are “too slinky.” Slinky definitely isn’t Granny’s style.

Granny looks around the room. “Abigail’s here,
ain’t
she?”

“Yes,” I say. I’m still standing near the dresser. “She’s right here next to me. We were just about to sit down on the bed if you’d like to join us.”

Granny pulls out the wooden chair from the desk where I do my homework. “I reckon I’d better set here instead. If I get down in the bed, I might not be able to get back up again, and you don’t want me for a bed buddy. I snore something awful.”

“I know you do,” I say as Abigail and I settle on the bed. “I hear you from across the hall.”

Abigail giggles.

Granny smiles a second, but then her expression turns serious. “I’ve got something to talk to
you’uns
about. Abigail, honey, I can’t see you or hear you, but this is for your ears too, all right?”

Abigail nods, and I say, “She’s listening.”

I’m so curious I wish I could go into Granny’s mind and cut to the chase, but her powers are so strong her mind is nearly impossible to penetrate.

“Miranda, I know you’ve been worrying about losing Abigail, and Abigail, I figure you’ve been pretty downhearted at the thought of losing Miranda.”

We both say “yes” even though Granny can’t hear Abigail.

“Well, I’ve been studying on it quite a bit...on whether or not girls with the Sight always have to lose their ghostly companions. And I believe I found one woman who kept hers right on through adulthood, right up till the day she died.” Granny usually sits in a rocking chair, so she has the habit of rocking back and forth even when the chair doesn’t go with her. “The story goes that she’s a ghost now too, with her old companion by her side.”

My heart gives a flutter of hope, and I grab Abigail’s cold hand. “So there’s a chance we might be able to stay together?”

Granny nods. “As long
at
it’s happened before, there’s a chance. We just have to figure out how she made it
happen.”

“Ask your granny who the lady was,” Abigail says.

I ask, and Granny smiles and says, “Well, she wasn’t exactly a lady, to tell the truth. She lived out in East Tennessee in the nineteen twenties and ’thirties and was one of the biggest moonshiners in this part of the country. And when I say the biggest, I mean it in more ways than one. She had a big business, but she was also big herself. Some folks say she weighed as much as four hundred pounds. One time a deputy came to her cabin to arrest her, but he couldn’t take her to the station because he couldn’t get her through the door.”

“Well, that’s one way to stay out of jail,” Abigail says. “Just get too fat to move.”

“See, folks say her ghostly companion was the reason her business was so good,” Granny says. “He could tend the still for her all night long, and since he could move around freer than you can, Abigail, he could deliver the stuff without nobody seeing him.
People’d
take Big Minnie the money in the daytime, and that night the liquor would just show up at their house like magic.”

“How did you hear about her?” I ask.

“Well, I’d heard rumors since I was a
youngun
,” Granny says, playing with her long, gray braid. “But then this woman named Rose, who lives over in Sneedville, Tennessee, wrote to me with some questions about using herbs for women’s complaints. Her and me had been writing back and forth for a few months, and I asked her if she knew anything about Big Minnie. Rose told me she and Big Minnie both was
Melungeons
—that’s a group of dark-skinned people that lives in that part of Tennessee.”

“Like Indians?” Abigail asks, but since Granny can’t hear her, I repeat it.

“Nobody’s sure what they are,” Granny says. “They could be Indian or black or Arab or some mix of them with other things thrown in besides.
Melungeon
means mixed. Rose told me Big Minnie’s cabin’s still standing, and all the
younguns
in them parts says it’s haunted. They say there’s the ghost of a big, fat woman in a black dress with black hair and black eyes. The ghost of a little boy’s always with her. They think he might be her son, but he don’t look nothing like her. He’s light-
complected
.”

“But he’s not her son,” I say, unable to stop myself from interrupting. “He’s her ghostly companion.”

“That’s what I think, too,” Granny says. “You reckon your mama might be able to drive us out that way one Saturday? The cabin’s in a little place called
Needmore
. It just takes about an hour and a half to get there.”

“Do you think we could try to talk to Big Minnie’s ghost and find out how she managed to keep her companion?” I ask.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Granny says, rising from the chair. “But I’ve got to tell you, this might not be the wisest idea I ever had. Big Minnie was a dangerous woman when she had to be, and the police were never able to get her. The Sight
ain’t
telling me not to do this, but it is telling me to use caution.” She looks at me with her dark, intense eyes. “So I guess the question is, are you girls willing to take some risks if it means you might have a chance of staying together?”

I know that if we were in sure mortal danger, Granny’s Sight would tell her so. What do I have to lose, except possibly Abigail who I’ll lose for certain if I do nothing? “Yes,” I say.

Abigail takes my hand. “Yes.”

“All right then,” Granny says. “Miranda, you reckon we’ll be able to talk your mother into a car trip? It’ll have to be at night so Abigail can go too.”

“I guess we’ll have to try,” I say.

“And we’ll have to try soon,” Granny says. “You could come into your womanhood any day now. And then it’ll be too late.”