“Never met him.” Celia wasn’t certain she wanted to confide in a stranger. But the woman was, after all, kin or friend to Miz Hyacinth, and Miz Hyacinth was true as blue. “I was practicing, you see, building my reputation.” She could feel the woman’s stare in the gloaming. “You ever read The Railway Children?”
“By Edith Nesbit—yes, of course!” The woman’s voice brightened.
Celia drew a breath. Here was someone who loved books, just like Miz Hyacinth, just like Celia herself; she could hear it in the lift of the woman’s voice. A kindred spirit, surely. “Remember how the kids waved every day to the train—and the man, the rich man who owned the rail line, waved back?”
“I do.”
“If they hadn’t done that, they’d never have made acquaintance of such an important person, and if they hadn’t done that, he never would have gotten to know them before they saved the train. And if they hadn’t saved the train and all those people on it from sure and certain death, then he wouldn’t have been forever grateful and helped to get their daddy, innocent as a spring colt, out of prison.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand the connection.”
“It’s plain as day.” Celia didn’t mean to be impertinent, but surely the woman understood English. “A person’s got to start somewhere.”
“Are you saying that your father is in prison?”
“I am,” Celia said matter-of-factly, glad that was now out in the open. She hated the truth of it, but the need to confess her family shame worried her at every turn. She figured it best to get it out and over with first thing. Being the daughter of a convict had its drawbacks.
“So you hope that the railway owner will help to prove his innocence and have him exonerated?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I mean, I want him to spring Daddy—I do—but maybe not just yet. Maybe let him set there in the jailhouse long enough to think things through. I reckon he ain’t entirely innocent,” Celia conceded. “He was caught running ’shine into Winston-Salem.”
“Your father makes moonshine?”
“Not ‘makes it.’ Runs it in his horse and wagon for them that do—and was never caught, not once, until he borrowed Cletus Everett’s new car and sped like a demon with his tail on fire clear into the next county. He was half-lit and never drove a car so far or so fast before. Made himself noticed, so the sheriff stopped him. Took our horse and wagon to pay part of the fine. The rest comes out in jail time, I reckon.” Celia sighed. “It’s not so romantic to be doing time for something wicked you did do as for something you never did—like in the book. But knowing the line owner might come in handy one day, just the same.”
“Just the same.” The woman repeated the words, though Celia wasn’t sure she sounded entirely sympathetic.
Chapter Three
BY THE TIME WE NEARED GARDEN’S GATE, Grandaunt Hyacinth’s home, the moon, slim as it was, had climbed over treetops and hillsides, a silver crescent giving little light to our path. Still, I imagined the picket-fenced garden, fragrant with lilacs even in the night air, and the large and rambling house—white with four three-story columns across the front porch. It was the grandest house in No Creek—the only grand house, or had been when I was a child.
Someplace off to my left, a night bird called a song I remembered from long ago, stirring memories of Mama and her love of whip-poor-wills in late spring on the mountain. They reminded her of something—something I couldn’t quite remember in the moment. The night sky overhead, splattered with a million stars, stole my breath. I wondered if Mama knew I was here, if she smiled down on me for doing her bidding, or if she sympathized with my uncertainty.
I remembered asking her once why the town was called No Creek—a funny name for any town. I could still hear her delighted laugh and lapse into her Southern drawl, the one my father had so tried to rid her of:
“Darlin’, don’t you know—big creeks, little creeks, fast creeks, slow creeks run like a widow’s tears through the foothills of western North Carolina. Peppered along each of those creeks are white clapboard churches named for the creeks by which they reside, the perfect place for summer baptisms: Fleetwood Creek Church, Spring Creek Baptist Church, Harmony Creek Church, Watauga Creek Church, even Lost Creek Baptist Church. Shady Grove Baptist has no creek. One of our great-great-great Belvideres who founded the town settled there purely for the view of the mountain and dug a well, then built a church on down the road in that wonderful shady grove. Ever after they’ve gone over the hill to the nearest lake for baptisms.”
“Mama,” I whispered. “I miss you so.”
We walked slower now. I couldn’t see anything but the faintest silhouettes, could only trust that Celia Percy knew the way to the front door. A gate swung open on creaking hinges. The familiar shadowed outline of the great house loomed comfortingly ahead, but not a light shone through door or window. It couldn’t be past eight o’clock.
“Watch the step—up one, two. . . . Here’s the porch,” Celia whispered.
“It’s so dark. Do you think she’s home?” Where will I go if she’s not here?
“Oh, she’s home. Mama brought her supper by early on. Miz Hyacinth don’t need the light, so she don’t waste it. Sits mostly in the dark. Likely she’s gone on to bed.”
Why would she sit in the dark? Has she grown eccentric in her old age? She must be nearing seventy by now. My heart pounded. Dare I just walk in and make myself at home?
As if able to read my thoughts, Celia assured, “She’d want you to go on in and take your rest. You’ll see her in the morning.”
“I haven’t even told her I was coming. I didn’t know until—until yesterday.”
“Must have been a presentment. Your room’s big, near big as our cabin. Flowered wallpaper, and all to yourself. You don’t have to share with nobody, if you can imagine such a thing. I hardly can.”
“I don’t understand—”
“She’s been looking forward—had Mama come up here yesterday noon and clean her guest room special, top to bottom.”
“She did?”
“I said so. Second door on the left, top of the stairs. Miz Hyacinth has electric—there’s a switch inside the door—and indoor plumbing. You won’t even need the outhouse.” With that, Celia tripped down the steps. “See you tomorrow!” A moment later hinges on the gate creaked open again, and Celia was gone in the fading light—a pale and brown-eyed will-o’-the-wisp in golden-brown pixie cut.
“Thank you, Celia Percy!” I called softly, but there was no answer.
I stood, unnerved and undecided. Here at last—a place from which I’d carried precious childhood memories of time with Mama and the woman who’d loved us both, just as we were. But Father had found us, even then, way out here. Will he think to look for me here now? Will he send Gerald?
I shivered in the cool air that blew down the mountain, bringing me back to the moment. There’s nothing for it but to go forward. Whoever Aunt Hyacinth is now, I’ll deal with tomorrow. It can’t be worse than what I left.