I tried the door. Unlocked—something no one in Philadelphia would think of doing. For better or for worse, I stepped through, flicked the light switch on the wall, and closed the door behind me.
•••
Morning light swam through white organza curtains—curtains whose ruffles stood to bright attention as if they’d been starched and ironed only moments ago. I blinked and closed my eyes again, claiming my bearings in the large and sunny room, recapping the long and weary days before: Mama’s slow decline and death, her funeral, Gerald and Father’s conniving in the darkened church, hours of walking in the dark to the Philadelphia station and a night and a day of train travel, arriving to an apparently abandoned house—a house young Celia Percy vowed was not empty but waiting for me.
I hadn’t tried any of the other doors in the upstairs hallway the night before, except the open bathroom. I hadn’t explored the downstairs. I didn’t want to pry—didn’t think it right to traipse through Aunt Hyacinth’s great house. It was enough and more that she’d expected me, planned and had someone prepare a room for me. I couldn’t imagine how that was, or why, but I’d gratefully sunk into the freshly made bed. Just before my eyes closed, I’d wondered if I was actually the guest she was expecting or if there was someone else. I’d been too tired to entertain that thought long.
A floorboard creaked behind my head. I rolled over to see a bed pillow hovering scant inches above my face. I gasped, rolling in the opposite direction, off the bed and onto the floor. The pillow jumped and lunged toward the bed with force, its holder tumbling onto the mattress—a squat figure sprawled across pillows and bedclothes.
“Aunt Hyacinth?” I spluttered.
“Lilliana? Lilliana Grace? Is that you?” she mumbled into the pillow slip.
“Yes—yes, I’m here.” I spoke from my crouch against the wall.
“Oh, child, I thought you were an intruder!”
“You were going to smother me?” My voice rose with each syllable. Still, I pulled myself up from the floor and tried to lift Aunt Hyacinth from the bed onto which she’d fallen.
“Oh, my dear,” Aunt Hyacinth groaned as I righted her. “You simply can’t be too careful—a woman living alone.”
I don’t think you and your pillow are good protection, never mind the unlocked front door!
“I’m sorry I frightened you, my dear. This is not the welcome I intended. I’m really very glad you’ve come.”
“Thank you, Aunt Hyacinth.” Though I felt little conviction in that moment. “I don’t know how you knew I’d come, but I promise not to stay a moment longer than necessary.”
“But you must. You must stay forever!”
I didn’t know what to say to that, and Aunt Hyacinth wasn’t really looking at me, after all.
“Well, now that you’re here and we’ve settled that neither of us has ill intent—” Aunt Hyacinth spoke with a twinkle in her voice—“what do you say we get some breakfast?”
“That sounds wonderful.” I hadn’t eaten anything but the slice of Sarah’s applesauce cake since the funeral luncheon two days before. The rumbles in my stomach gave fair warning.
“Do you see my cane, my dear? By the door, perhaps? I may have left it there.”
A long white stick leaned against the doorjamb. She’s blind. She can’t see a thing.
“Is it there?”
“Yes—yes, I’ll get it.” Celia’s words came back to me—“Dark is dark.” Had Mama known Aunt Hyacinth lost her sight? Were they in touch at all over the years? I wished I could ask Mama—so many things. I placed the cane into my grandaunt’s hands.
“There, that’s better. My old friend.” Aunt Hyacinth smiled, patting the cane, and the bells came back into her voice—bells I remembered from long ago. “I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes. Perhaps we can find something together. I believe Gladys Percy brought some eggs by yesterday and a loaf of bread. Do you like to cook?”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s grand. We’ll make some French toast. I have a bit of maple syrup tucked back from before these Depression days. It’s ancient, don’t you know! We’ll make a party. There may even be some raspberries.”
“I’ll be down to help as soon as I’m washed and dressed, Aunt Hyacinth.”
“You found the washroom down the hallway?”
“I did, thank you.”
“Excellent.” Aunt Hyacinth stopped by the door. “I’m really very glad you’ve come, Lilliana. You know, I loved your dear mother with all of my heart. I want to hear everything . . . when you’re ready.”
The sudden lump in my throat swelled and I couldn’t speak, so I nodded, though I realized too late Aunt Hyacinth didn’t see.
Chapter Four
AUNT HYACINTH, I was very soon convinced, saw all things clearly with her heart and her years of memory.
“Raspberries are just outside the door. Olney Tate planted canes close to the house years ago so I could step outside in my nightdress of a morning and gather to my heart’s content. A party is not a party without berries.”
That was the second, or maybe the tenth, thing that gave me pause. I knew there would be no berries yet—not till summer—but I dutifully stepped outside the door into the May morning chill. I wished I could conjure berries for Aunt Hyacinth.
My lungs filled with the fresh morning air and scent of flowers; my ears filled with the chirping of chickadees and Carolina wrens nesting amid the bounty of blossoming fruit trees—a regular symphony—and I drank in the blue of the mountain before me. It was a slice of heaven, just as I’d remembered—not a fantasy of childhood at all. Only now the tangled raspberry canes showed few blossoms rambling beyond their path, and the orchard’s carpet was strewn with fallen and broken limbs. As for the house, it was still as big and imposing as ever. But layers of old paint peeled from the clapboarding three stories high, from the sashes around windows, and from every step.
Aunt Hyacinth’s mind is going. Her money’s evidently gone, and she’s blind but still doing her very best. I have no money to offer to help her or pay for my keep. How can I come here and add to her troubles? The weight of that knowledge was lifted only by a thought. Can I be a help to her in some way? I summoned my spirits as best I could and stepped inside. “I’m sorry, Aunt; the berries aren’t quite ripe yet.”
Aunt Hyacinth stared at me—or in the direction of my voice—as if I’d lost my mind. “Of course they’re not. It’s only May, child!”
“Then, what—?”
“The berries in the pantry outside the door.” Aunt Hyacinth clapped a hand to her forehead. “You wouldn’t know about that, would you? Land sakes, where’s my mind? Once we’re past freezing, I have Gladys bring things up from the root cellar a little at a time to leave in the pantry so I can get them. Those old cellar steps are more than I can manage anymore.”
I laughed self-consciously, more relieved that her mind had not gone than that there were berries.
But Aunt Hyacinth laughed fully, the laughter of bluebells and church bells, and shooed me out the back door once more, urging me to check the door to a narrow pantry on the far right of the porch. The jar of red raspberries was just where she’d said it would be, along with canned jewels of bright-orange carrots, green snap beans, scarlet tomatoes, and deep-purple blackberries, the lid of each jar marked with a raised letter for its contents. I’d forgotten the beauty of Aunt Hyacinth’s rows upon rows of homegrown fruits and vegetables, the glory of her garden. But who kept her summer garden now, or were these from the garden of another? Who canned these treasures? Surely she could not.