I make crosses out of slugs, leaves, rocks, and whatever else I can find. With my words back, I say a prayer, leave an offering, honor the dead. I can’t give thanks fully, ring bells for them the way I would back home. It wouldn’t be proper. Even if it were, I don’t have my bells with me. For the first time in my life, I’m not prepared. Instead, I sing “O What a Privilege to Give,” the song of thanks. The words feel out of place down here.
I feel my way around the well. There must be a way out of it. I can’t die here. Mother and the girls will be all alone. They’ll be called one after another. An unprecedented domino of Movings On. I never even got to say goodbye. There’s so much I haven’t done. If I make it back, I’ll be a more faithful believer. There will be no doubt. I’ll show my allegiance to Curdle Creek, to Mother, to the girls. I’ll atone for Daddy. I’ll pay what the town demands. I’ll nominate myself for the Moving On.
I have to get home. I search for a rope to shimmy up. I look and I look and I look. My back aches, my legs burn. My eyes sting. I can’t seem to catch my breath. What would Mother do? I picture Mother pulling out a chisel, scaling the slick walls. Mother is always prepared, so she’ll have a tool in that bag and when she reaches the top, she’ll pull out whatever is required. She’ll crack through the lid like it’s a walnut. If Mae, Jeremiah and them are still up there when she comes out, they’ll wish they weren’t. I can picture her chasing them around the well, down to the Creek, into the water. She wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t give up. I won’t either.
I crack my knuckles to loosen my fingers. I crack my toes. The pops are satisfying. My fingers are limber, ready. I stretch the rest of my body. Thank the ancestors I’m not as busted up as I would have thought I’d be. I climb. The walls are made of brittle rocks, wet clay and stones. My hands and feet slip in slime and moss. Where the walls are rough, my hands find purchase. I make my way hand, hand, foot, foot toward the mouth of the well. I hope.
I’ve been climbing and climbing and I don’t feel any closer to the top than I was forever ago. It’s dark all the way through. This is it. I will die here clinging to the walls of a well. Even now, I feel heavy. My arms are sore. My fingers are raw. The timers were wrong. There is no world beyond Curdle Creek. How could there be, without the Moving On to keep folks safe? I slip down to the ground, back against the slimy wall.
I’m crying when I hear it. Mourning the second husband I never got to have, wishing I had done right by my children. It’s muffled but I would recognize the sound anywhere. Voices. Not inside the well but from outside of it. Wherever out there is. My heart stops. I’m not alone. Above me, there’s a sliver of light. It’s just a sliver but, as Mother always says, Like mold, hope can make its way through the tiniest of places. Of course, she meant that it’s best to scrub it out before it can grow.
I take a sharp rock from the pile. Tuck it into a pocket. I press up against a wall and wait. If they come in here, I’ll be ready for them. I’m waiting on them but the voices aren’t coming any closer.
I’m sure they are young voices. Female. There’s a sharp voice, a shout. Jasmine? Is that you? I move as quickly as the dark will allow. I could have lived my whole life imagining my children suffering somewhere far away from Curdle Creek. Even if it meant never seeing them again, at least they’d be alive. But that could be them. The well could have brought me to my babies. Maybe they’re in trouble. I have to save them. I can feel the stone tucked away in my pocket. I wouldn’t have thought Well Walkers were true or that Daddy would have been one of them but now that I’m in the bottom of a well, I’m a believer. “I’m coming,” I say. I take a deep breath. There’s no time to think of my aching back, arms, legs, heart. I’m on my feet and before I know it, I’m climbing my way up to my children.
Being inside the well is like being inside the barrel, only bigger. And darker. Thankful for the slime, I use my body to inch up. The voices are getting louder. I’m not far now. There’s more light. I can see the sky. The lid’s been removed. All this time worrying about the well leading me somewhere else and I’ve been in Curdle Creek all along. Of course I was. Well Walkers don’t exist. Mae and them didn’t abandon me. Truth be told, I’m not even upset anymore. Rules are rules. Of course they had to teach me a lesson. I’ve learned it. I’m just thankful to be home. When they take turns to offer their apologies, Bygones, I’ll say. I won’t even nominate them for the Moving On.
The voices of young girls drifts down into the well. Folks shouldn’t be playing here. Wouldn’t want them slipping in, getting hurt. Their shrill laughter echoes off the walls. I’m coming, I think. I’ll save you.
I pull myself over the top of the well and fall to the ground in a heap of leaves and rubble. For a second, I can’t see. There’s so much sun that it hurts my eyes. Even squinting, I can tell I’m not home. This isn’t Curdle Creek. The girls are still laughing. There’s no joy in it. I wouldn’t have expected anyplace without the Moving On would have anything to laugh about but they’re laughing loud and long just the same. Above, the sun is bright, cheerful and warm against my skin. It’s not the burning ball of flame and damnation Book XXIII warns about. There’s still time. For now, the sky is clear and blue. Hopeful. I shield my eyes against it. The girls, arms flailing, fists pumping, old-fashioned dresses swinging, see me before I see them. They are running toward me, arms raised in a welcome position. Before I have time to adjust to the light, the squealing, the fresh air, the sun, they are on me. Pummeling me with bony fists. Violent. Just like the ancestors said they’d be.
“She’s mine!” one yells.
“She’s mine! I saw her first!”
“Get your wretched hands off of me or I’ll—”
Bop. I didn’t see the stick in her hand but the smaller one hit me. Just as the headlines said, danger is everywhere out here. These two are proof. Rule breaking, plague carrying, deadly proof.
“Constance! You’ll kill her. She ain’t yours to kill!”
“Opal, I’ll do what I damn well please.”
Before Opal can complain or I can move out of the way, Constance hits me again. A place like this will kill you.
THE girls argue in high-pitched voices, low grunts and whispers for what feels like hours, but truth be told probably feels that way because I’m standing in a big black pot full of water and one of them is holding a match. Opal, the match holder, has lit at least one match and, according to the other girl, if she wastes one more she’ll find herself in the pot right next to me. Like there’s room.
It’s not really her fault the first one blew out. When it lit, she got so excited about her “experiment” that she did a little jig. Of course, that blew out the candle. They both blamed it on me. The second match blew out because the other girl was whispering about trials and shouldn’t they call a witness or a preacher to make it official. She pronounced it with a shhhh which obviously blew the match right out. They blame that on me too.
The girls are evil, I’m sure of it. It’s not their fault. Everyone out here is. Their skin is the same color as mine but they ain’t kin like the folks back home. At least in Curdle Creek we have each other. There’s no way this place has a Moving On. It’s like something from one of Mother Opal’s ghost stories out here. Reckless, just like she warned us. Opal and Constance sort of remind me of Mother Opal and my own mother. These two bicker like sisters just like they do—did.
“I’m not a witch,” I tell them for the umpteenth time. I try to keep my voice steady. Like dogs, they will be able to hear fear.
Opal shakes her head. “That’s just what a witch would say.”
“Just tell us how you got here, then,” says Constance. “Did you take a train?”
“No.”
“There’s no bus stop for miles and miles outside of Curdle Creek. And you don’t have no car. Did you walk? You all scuffed up. You look like you must have walked.”
Curdle Creek? There ain’t but one Curdle Creek and this ain’t it.
“I was just about to say that.” Opal twists her mouth in a pout.
“Sure you were, Opal. Sure you were.”
“What did you say this place is called?” I ask.
“Didn’t you see the welcome sign before you crossed over?”
“What did it say?”
“Welcome,” Opal says.
“It don’t mean it though,” Constance says.
“You’d have seen it on the sign if you’d stopped long enough to read it before you started trespassing. Entering places you ought not to have.”
“It doesn’t matter where you came from or how you got here. You here now. Nothing in the Books says it matters how you got here. Just how you leave.”
I’m shaking. Water seeps through my clothes. Fabric sticks to skin in places it shouldn’t be sticking. But it’s not just the water making my skin pimple. It’s these girls and their hush, hush voices like whispering in a church. Girls like these can’t be trusted. They might be Well Walkers for all I know. Could be a whole town of them.
“Where’d you come from?” Opal asks.
I look behind the girls. I wouldn’t know what to say and I’m not about to explain myself to these children.
“Up yonder, just like I thought,” Constance says, like she’s translating my not-answers into answers.
“Look just like one of them girls. Wild. Y’all at least got the Moving On there?” Opal sounds hopeful.
Oh! Thank the ancestors! This place can’t be that bad if they have their own Moving On.
“Of course they don’t, silly. That’s why she’s here, trying to get away from some wicked, chaos-filled place. What you running from? Klan? Slavery? The law? You can tell us.”
“You ain’t sick, are you? Cuz Curdle Creek don’t take in the sick. Sick folks ain’t quick folks, I always say.”
Mother Opal used to say that too. Just thinking about her now makes me smile. I miss her.
“Opal here says a lot of things,” Constance says. “Got a saying for everything. You get used to it after a while.”
Only superstitious people believe in superstitious things, Mother Opal would say. If there were enough room I’d make the sign of the bell to protect myself against old wives’ tales and evil girls. Wherever I am, I’m in the middle of nowhere with these two wannabe witch-hunters and everything I say is wrong. I roll my eyes.
“Did you see that?” Constance asks. “Her eyes went clear up into her head.”
“They did not!” I stomp my foot. The water sloshes and swirls. Above us there’s thunder.
“Then what do you call that?” Opal asks.
“It’s thunder. What do you call it?”
“Same thing, only it doesn’t come when I call it.” Opal smirks.
“How does boiling me alive prove I’m not a witch?”
“If you’re a witch, you won’t die and you’ll owe us three wishes for saving your life,” Constance says.
I laugh. It feels like the sky’s laughing too, only it’s thunder again. I see why the girls jump. It’s getting closer. “Why would I want to give you two murderers anything?”
“How’d you know we were murderers?” Constance asks.
My mouth dries out. There’s something about the way she looks at me. It’s almost playful. Not like a kid playing with another kid but like a hunter toying with a deer. Or, even worse, like Rumor and Mariah would do if they were here.
“I don’t know anything about you. You know I’m new here.”
“Right, sprouted up a full-grown weed out of the well.”
“I didn’t sprout out of it. I jumped into it.”
They stare at each other while I talk. It doesn’t seem to matter what I say, only what they think I mean. Maybe they aren’t Well Walkers after all.
“Where you’re from, people jump in and out of wells all the time?”
“I jumped in because people were going to push me in.”
“That sounds just like something witches would do. Wouldn’t happen here, I can tell you that. The town’s covering over all but one of the wells. Paving over them first thing in the morning. Seems some folks have acquired a fascination with them.”
“Yeah, some folks.”
“Don’t you say one word about him, Opal. Not one more word.” Constance’s fists are balled up.
Opal takes a step back. “There you go thinking about that boy. I wasn’t going to say his name. I’m just saying, be careful where you walk. And careful who you walk with.”
“What about you two? Murder has to be right up there with being a witch.” If they’re busy fighting, they can’t untie me. I’ll be stuck here forever.
“Only a witch would know we did anything. Who would believe a witch over two little schoolgirls?” Constance sways from side to side, one hand toying with the hem of her skirt swishing left to right, the other propped beneath her chin, pinky finger tucked between pouted lips. I look harder at her. She’s twenty if she’s a day.
They might not have Charter Mothers but their little town has to have a sheriff or some form of law. Of course, from what I’ve heard, that might not be any better than these hellions are. But I’ll take my chances. I open my mouth to yell for the law.
“Besides, who would trust a dead witch anyhow?”
I close my mouth, roll the words around in my head. Of course they killed someone. But why? They have the Moving On, and the Moving On’s supposed to keep us safe from people like them. They would kill me, sure as I’m standing in a pot of water they would do it. It’s what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot and I was the one holding the match. Only, in Curdle Creek, there wouldn’t be a pot, a match or water. It would be the well, the Warding Off or some other civilized calamity. One way or the other, these two would be Moving On. At least back home it would be in service of the town.
“What were y’all doing with a pot in the first place? Were you cooking? Maybe I can help.”
They walk a few steps away and talk it over. They don’t bother whispering or even lowering their voices.
“You said the ceremony would bring back the Moved On,” Constance says.
“I said we had to say the words right. We must have gotten them wrong. It’s supposed to cleanse the town, make a way back for a loved one.”
“Well, it didn’t work, did it?”
I’ve read about returning the Moved Ons. Can’t believe they’d allow that here. Nothing good could come from it. Back home, there’s an ordinance against it and everything. The water’s getting even colder. My teeth are chattering.
“Want me to warm that up?” Constance offers. Her hand is raised, ready to strike the match.
I think I hate her. I grab the lip of the pot and lean forward. She jumps back as if I’ve hit her. “Opal, toss the match! Toss the match! The whole pot’s floating!”
One girl pushes my head down; the other clamps the lid on top. It’s dark. No darker than the well was, but dark is dark. “It’s not floating, it’s tipping.” My words echo back.
It takes a few minutes for the water to heat up, but when it does, it goes from hot to hotter real quick. I try to squirm away from it but if it’s not the water, it’s the sides of the pot. If it’s not that, it’s the lid. I’m stewing in my own sweat.
“Stop moving!” one of them yells. My dying is such an inconvenience. I couldn’t stop moving if I wanted to. I’m shaking and rocking and the whole pot starts shaking too.
There’s a tap on the lid like I’m supposed to ask who it is. I don’t ask and there’s more tapping. It’s louder now. It’s not just on the lid, but the sides of the pot and under it too. It’s not much cooler but the boiling’s stopped. Maybe they’ve changed their minds, come to their senses, decided to stop this foolishness. Someone takes off the lid. It’s pouring big plump streaks of rain. It’s wetter out there than it is in here. Rain beats the trees, the ground, the girls. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was after them. Just in case it is, I stay in the pot.
“You coming out?” Opal asks.
“No, thank you. Please put the lid back on.” I don’t want no part of these girls or their rituals. I settle back down, tuck my knees beneath my chin. My back hurts right away.
“Please make it stop. We weren’t really going to boil you,” she says. She puts her hands out, palms up. “Promise.” She makes the sign of something close to a cross around where her heart should be.
I would trust her if she wasn’t still holding the match. If my back wasn’t about to snap in half and my legs weren’t cramped up, I would make her wait longer. “Help me out, then.”
“Constance, grab a hold too,” she says.
Constance sucks her teeth just like Mother does. It takes the two of them to get me out. I’m not really helping. For a while, I lean forward when they do and backward when they do. They slip and fall. When they are caked with mud and soggy, I stand, lean forward, and spill out, water and all. Serves them right. I want to show them the rain had nothing to do with me. If she’s watching, Mother Nature is not helping any. The rain stops and, for spite, there’s a rainbow.
“Aren’t you just a well-dressed blessing,” says Constance.
THEY argue while I wring out my clothes.
“We can’t let anyone see her. We’ll hide her at my house till after the Moving On. We can take the long way. Loop around the mill,” Constance says.
“You just want Osiris to ask you who she is and what she’s doing here. You’ll do anything for attention.”
I can’t help it: hearing my Daddy’s name out of that evil mouth makes me want to hit her. My daddy’s the only Osiris I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t have thought his name was common. But then again, I wouldn’t have expected to meet another Opal or Constance either.
“It’s not my fault that boy likes me. You just jealous,” Constance says.
“Of that woebegone? He ain’t good for nothing but stories and even them ain’t his. He talks for hours and hours and hours about his father this, his uncle that. My, but that boy sure can talk.” Opal shoves a book, plants and glass figurines into a satchel. Slings it across her shoulders. “Why you always around him anyway? You got Snow fawning over you, buying you presents, making up reasons to have a word with you.”
“I’m a planner, Opal. Like to keep one man for a rainy day. I’m going to walk our guest through town so everyone knows she’s ours. Won’t nobody get to claim her before we do.”
“No one is keeping me. I’m going home.” The last thing I want to do is meet anyone else. With my luck, they’ll be just as bad as these two. Even worse. I turn toward the well.
“I can see why you’d want to rush to get back,” Constance says. “Who wouldn’t miss a place so good that you jump into a well to escape it? Look, it’s dangerous at night. Whether you’re in Curdle Creek or wherever you’re from. Wait until morning to go.”
Of course she’s right. It’ll be dark soon and even if this place has the same name, it isn’t home. I don’t know my way around. I don’t know how I’d get back. If there was a way home through the well, I’d have found it. Even if there is some way to get there, I don’t know what’s waiting for me. Mr. Jacobs could already be settling in with Mother and the girls by now. There’s no way Mother would want me there. My own home will be gone. Someone will have stripped my bed, packed up my belongings, de-Osira’d the house to make room for the next librarian to move in before one day being Moved On. Even if I could make my way back, there’s no home for me to return to. Right now, I have nowhere to go and no way to get there.
I’ll find the children. I may not be able to make it back to Curdle Creek but maybe I can make my way to them somehow.
Rather than tell Constance she’s right, I walk past the well as if I’d never thought about slipping over the side, jumping right back in. My shoe squishes as I walk. No matter how hard I squeeze my toes, I can’t get all of the water out. I give up. I may as well be walking on lily pads. My toes slip against the sole, daring me not to fall. The squish, squish, squash sounds sort of funny; they giggle, and the sound helps to clear my head. No one was really going to kill me. They’re my friends. They needed to teach me a lesson, that’s all. And these girls aren’t much older than my own children. Misunderstandings. My own children would have welcomed a stranger into Curdle Creek by calling the Council. The Council would have taken care of everything, even the Moving On.
There’s no room for doubts or doubters in Curdle Creek. If I hadn’t hidden away Daddy’s stone, I would still have been in the well in the morning. They would have hauled me up, accepted my whimpering as apology, helped me out of the well. I would have missed everything. The Warding Off, morning and noon bells, the Creek running red with thanks. They would have told me about it. The way Mildred, Isiah and maybe even Daddy—the town and band not more than two left, right, lefts behind—ran straight into their traps of muddied leaves and shallow holes. How one of them might have lost themselves and smiled, nearly glad to see them. They’d have told me how true their aim was, how many hits had been given to whom and where. Some would have lied, claimed more knocks than was true, but it’s all in good fun. The merciful aim for less than ten blows. They’d all brag about needing less, breaking records as well as bones.
I don’t know where we’re going but the girls seem to trust me to get us there. We walk down a mud road. It looks like any other road. Lots of trees, a few houses. Only empty. Thankfully, there’s not one face, smiling or otherwise. We could be anywhere. The houses are scattered apart. They dot fields of corn and wheat, groves of berries and grapes. It seems like anything that can grow does grow. What would be winter harvest back home grows here right alongside summer grains and winter nuts. This place has a plentiful harvest. They must have luck and skilled farmers galore. We move slowly, the mud sucking the soles of our shoes, making puckering sounds with each step. Between that and the rustle of fabric sticking and unsticking to drying skin, we sound like some sort of macabre band parading through town.
We reach the end of the road. I don’t know why but I thump the stop sign like I would back home before turning right, onto a wider, even muddier road. I can’t help but jump when I hear the sound that makes. This place reminds me so much of home that it scares me. Thinking of home don’t seem to calm me like it used to.
“You walk like you know where you’re going,” Constance says.
I picture Opal nodding her head along. “It’s a stop sign just like any stop sign. Anywhere I’ve been,” and it doesn’t seem necessary to tell them I’ve only ever been in Curdle Creek, “a stop sign means you have choices. Turn one way, the other, or go back the way you came.” I turn to look at the girls. “I would rather not go back to the pot, thank you.”
“I don’t believe this is your first time in Curdle Creek,” Opal says.
“If I had been here before, would I bother coming back?” I put my hands on my hips, purse my lips. For a minute or two it blocks out the smell of fresh, baking manure. This whole place smells like one big pile of—
“You remind me of someone when you do that,” Constance says. She looks me up and down. “I’m sure I know you.”
There’s something familiar about her too. I don’t know what it is but I know not to trust her. “Fine, you two lead the way.”
Constance smiles and shakes her head. If I could read her mind, I know she’d be calling me a fool. “We should get out of these wet clothes,” she says. She walks ahead. “If anyone sees her,” she says to Opal, “she’ll be your cousin from out of town.”
“My cousin who?”
They stop to look at me. How much do I want them to know? What do I really know about them? “Cheyenne,” I whisper.
Constance shivers. It’s not quite a lie. Mother used to say if I had been a little cuter when I was born, I would have been a Cheyenne. It was nothing personal, she said, just the name reminded her of someone and if I wasn’t going to look like that, I shouldn’t be named something I wouldn’t grow into. Instead, she let Daddy name me.
“Fine, your cousin Cheyenne, which is really no sort of name for a woman like her. Who would believe that?”
“A woman like what? My name suits me just fine.” My cheeks are burning.
Constance rolls her eyes.
“No one ever comes here,” Opal says. “Unless they’re running from their obligations back home.”
“She look like she running to you?”
I pretend not to hear them bickering over where I’ll sleep, how they can use whatever powers I have, what to do with me when my powers run dry. If they think I’m going to stay here long enough for them to figure out I don’t have any powers to begin with, they can think again. They promise one another to keep me as a lie “for my own good” until after the Moving On. That suits me just fine. Who would believe I was delivered out of a well and didn’t bring death with me? They wrap their pinky fingers, both dripping with spit, around the other’s, stage-whisper “Two by two until it’s through” and shake on it. I’m dragging my feet behind me to leave a trail in the mud even though I’m pretty sure I could make my way back to the well with my eyes closed. Maybe it’s some sort of door, able to get me back to Curdle Creek. No, I don’t want to go back to the well. I just need to get away from this place and find a bus stop or a train station or something. I’ll have to find a way to get on. Can’t afford to pay and can’t afford to hope for kindness. Timers always said, Ain’t no kindness beyond Curdle Creek. They sure were right.
Back home, I picture Mae delivering the news to Mother personally. She wouldn’t send a Messenger with something like this. She wouldn’t tell Mother they had set upon me, made to push me in the well, given me no choice but to jump in. She would say I had hidden in the bucket, lowered myself down, waited so I could miss the Warding Off. She would claim I had wanted Daddy’s spirit tied to Curdle Creek and refused to Ward it Off when it was time. That I had left him to linger, to wander and haunt the town. If Mother called for the bucket to be pulled up, though, Mae would have to say I ran off. That I somehow pulled myself up when no one was looking and made my way out of town. If I made it back and got to Mother first, the only thing worse than telling Mother that I had left would be my beating them to it. The looks on their faces when Mother opened the door, nodded along to their stories, then invited them into the dining room, where I would be sitting, my back to the mirror, watching them come in. They would think I was a ghost at first. I would give almost anything to see their smug expressions slip, their flushed cheeks turn to ash, their fear.
Of course I didn’t want Daddy to Move On, but I wouldn’t have kept him there trapped in a box like some sort of pet to pull out and play with then tuck in at night. After all he’s done for us, not letting him be free would be selfish and downright evil. Even before I was born, Daddy protected Curdle Creek when the people of Salt Harbor turned on us, decided if we wouldn’t do business with them, we wouldn’t do business at all. They stormed the town with torches and shotguns. Armed with bows and arrows, bullets and hatchets, Daddy and his posse of elders, bankers, lawyers and shopkeepers caught up with them before they crossed the Creek. Buried them right there in the water just like the ancestors before them would have done.
The small box houses give way to larger houses and now shops. There’s the Sweet Shoppe and a picture house, a guest-house. We stop in front of Fleming’s Keys and Keys Music Shoppe. There’s ragtime music filtering through the door. It’s lively, and before I know it I’m jiggling the doorknob and in the shop. The girls, mouths open, follow me inside. A boy of around sixteen springs up from the piano bench.
“Ma’am! I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone. We’re closed. I was just tuning the piano.”
It’s him. Fleming from back home. I’d recognize him anywhere. He’s younger, handsome, closer to happiness than I can remember. “That’s all right, you play wonderfully.”
“I don’t play, ma’am, sorry. I just tune instruments. My brother’s the drum major. He plays.”
“Fleming, you’re so modest,” Constance says. She giggles for no reason at all. Strums her fingers on the skins of drums, fingers violin and guitar strings, taps the bells.
“Constance, please don’t touch anything. You know you don’t have a musical ear. You’re liable to—”
Constance is out the door before he even finishes his sentence.
“You really ought to do something with your talent. Find yourself a big city, join a band. You know, before—”
“I’m too old?” Fleming closes the piano case, pushes in the bench.
“Before this place kills you,” I say.
“Come on, Shyyy-Annnn!” Opal yells.
They are half a block away before I catch up to them. Curdle Creek looks just the way it does in 1960 only smaller, less crowded. It’s after the Founding. I just hope it’s before the first year of plenty. That year, a dozen names were called. After that, pecans the size of biscuits fell from the trees. They were everywhere, in everything. Pecans, walnuts, cabbages, everything grew. The only thing that didn’t flourish were the fish. Turns out all that red isn’t good for laying eggs.
Now, there are fewer shops and more crops. I don’t know when this is but it’s before the population booms, that’s for sure. And they have the Moving On, of course they do. The records will be in the Town Hall. All the names of the Moved On, the directory of who lives where and does what. The old newspapers. The date.
Up ahead, the girls’ voices turn to murmurs and then stop all together. Their silence feels good in my ears. Here, with the crickets and night birds singing, the swish and suck, the last thing I need is their spiteful words. I should run for help. If I turn off Main and onto one of the small streets, I’m sure to run into a neighbor, a farmer, a Deacon. Someone who can get me away from them or distract them long enough so I can slip away. Word is that anyplace other than Curdle Creek is dangerous, but surely Curdle Creek of the past is as safe a place to be as my own Curdle Creek. Or safer. Maybe being here won’t be so bad. I can be a whole new me. Have another chance. It can start right now. If only I can slip away. I’ll find myself a strong, loyal somebody. Someone who would make Mae jealous if she was here. Someone bold enough to say I love you, make promises, keep them. Everything on his face will be in just the right spot. He’ll be handsome enough to make me smile but not so handsome he can’t think of anything else. He’ll be a strong ringer with steady hands, thick arms, muscled legs. His voice will be deep and kind, and when he tells people to leave me be, they’ll do it not because they worry he’ll put in a word and have them Moved On but because who wants to make someone so good feel so bad? His name will be Onzelow or Lucius, I don’t care which since I’ll call him Dear and he’ll call me Lovely. I’ll take him home with me and the whole town will be jealous, mad that we flaunt our love—Book XII be damned. They’ll be too scared to do anything about it since Mother will have granted him protection and everyone knows the Head Charter Mother’s protection is a promise as good as her word. But if he’s got any sense, Dear will want to stay here in his own Curdle Creek with its old rules, ceremonies and traditions, raising babies who live long enough to die in peace and run around saying I love you. It’ll be our first argument.
Opal’s cold fingers wrap around my wrist. I jump. Her hands are thin like bones. She puts a finger to her mouth, nods her head at Constance curled around an iron gate, legs through the bottom, arms wrapped around the top. She’s in a trance. Watching the shadows pass across her face, I know what she’s staring at before I turn to look too. The glassblower. Before he Moved On, kids watched for hours as blobs turned into lions, strands turned into women, and bubbles turned into wishes. The glassblower’s hut was special. Constance can’t be all that bad if she likes magical things. Opal and I take places along the fence outside the shop. Shadows fill the air. The blower and glass contort into magnificent shapes. They fight and dance, glide as one then the other takes the form of a bunny, a farmer, a steeple. It’s magic. The blowing is my favorite part. It starts with a glob of dripping glass. Even from here, I can almost see the blower’s breath leaving his body, bringing the glob to life. Minutes or hours later, deft hands shifting and stretching, and the body of a bullfrog springs from his hands puff-first. I can almost hear it croaking.
“Let’s go closer,” Constance whispers.
The way she says it, I’m sure it’s not a good idea. We shouldn’t be disturbing something so special. But, just like her, I’m peering through the window. It’s open a bit so the smell of baking glass hits us first. The window is slick with heat. Inside, there are shelves and tables lined with half-formed figurines. Baby doll bodies without heads, flowers without petals, chests without hearts. It’s a glass graveyard. I can’t turn away. In one corner, a band leader, one arm raised, leads a band of bodiless marchers. In another, a mother pushes a little swing, a baby rattle where the baby would be. The glassblower works, his back to the window, his body aglow, across the room. If he knows we’re there, he doesn’t show it. Sparks dance from the fireplace and if I didn’t know better I would think he was standing in the middle of it.
Constance leans forward. I don’t know what we’ll do if she falls. Before I know it, she’s half in, half outside the house. Still the glassblower ignores us. Opal shakes her head no but has a hand on Constance’s back either to push her in or pull her out. Trespassing. She leans even farther until her feet waggle in the air. I’m holding my breath. Opal isn’t. I hear her wide-mouthed breathing from over here. I clamp my hand over her mouth. I don’t care if Constance gets caught but if I’m caught with her, no one will help me. It will be her word against mine and I’m pretty sure she’d say I put her up to it. Whatever it is. Opal’s hot breath burns against my palm. I give her my best stop breathing so hard look and her tongue darts along my skin. I jump, almost knocking Constance right in. Opal winks. Of course she’s a hellion just like Constance. I’ll have to keep my eye on her. I bite my lip, close my palm even tighter on her mouth and grab onto Constance with my other hand. Constance snares something from the table and starts wiggling backward. There’s no way she can get out if we don’t help her. Opal doesn’t move. She’s staring at me as if whatever happens next is on me. If Constance gets caught stealing, will Opal say she had nothing to do with it? She might stand up against the glassblower, maybe against the town if it came to that, but there’s no way she’d stand up for me against Constance. If Constance said the word, Opal would kill me.
If Opal really is so wishy-washy as to go with the strongest tide, I sure don’t want her on my side. I pull Constance up. Opal shrugs. Someone’s watching.
His hands haven’t stopped guiding the glass into curves and angles. He hasn’t even turned to face us. Still, I know the glassblower knows we’re there. It’s in his tense body, his straight back and legs, straightened arms, tilted head. In the measured breaths plumping the blob a puff at a time. The whole moment feels like waiting for your name to be called even when you know it’s not your turn and nothing but spite or bad luck could make the Caller see your name but you worry tense as a string just the same. I hold my breath. He seems to hold his. His hands still, hover. In front of him, the glass ball is a head, bigger than the blower’s or anyone’s I’ve ever seen. Then it’s a face—my face. It’s not just a reflection. He makes my lips, my nose, my cheeks, my forehead. It’s me, smooth and glassy all over. It’s fully formed in his hands, a see-through head with no body. I feel them then, his hands pinching my nose, prodding my lips, pulling my ears. The clear glass bruises beneath his fingers. There are patches of black and blue on the cheeks, red on the forehead. I can’t stop watching.
Fingernails scratch my scalp. I have to leave.
As if right from the air, the glassblower pulls out a mallet. It’s small, rubber tipped. Nothing special, not the way I thought I’d die. He’s going to kill me. Maybe not me, but the me in his hands. The me he made perfectly without once looking at me. Now, the glass me’s mouth gapes, her eyes widen. She’s staring at me. She blinks.
I let go of Constance. She can dangle there waiting for that head to join a body but I won’t be there to see it. I run. I hear the glass shatter and my own screams ringing in my ears.
The girls are right behind me. Constance doesn’t stop giggling until we reach the Creek. She’s giddy. “Did you see that?”
“Of course I saw it! What is he, some sort of wizard?”
“He’s a glassblower,” Opal says. She waves her hand in the air as if brushing away my words. “He blows glass. That’s not magic. That’s a job.”
“Then how did he make it look like me?” My mouth is dry. I’m going to be sick.
Opal and Constance look at each other. Their giggles turn to outright laughter.
“Don’t they have mirrors where you’re from?” Constance asks.
“Of course they do. You can’t tell me that girl didn’t look like me.”
“You think quite highly of yourself, don’t you?” Opal shakes her head.
“It didn’t look like you, silly. It looked like her,” Constance says. “His daughter, Mercy.”
“I guess you really aren’t a witch.” Opal manages to sound disappointed. “I can’t imagine anyone being here for more than a minute and not seeing that girl’s ghost.”