Death is not how I expected it to be. There’s no ancestor waiting to list off all of my deeds, the people I’ve Warded Off, the debts I’ve paid to the town. No angel to greet me. No heavenly gates. It’s just me, a courtroom, and the boom, boom, boom vibrating in my head. I’m dead and still the booming’s getting louder. It’s no longer just in my head, it’s coming from all around me.
“Order, order, order! Court is in session,” the bailiff says. “Ms. Turner, please approach the bench so we can proceed.”
I’ve been widowed three years and still when I hear “Ms. Turner” I think of Mother. I’m not ready to have my deeds weighed, my actions questioned. It’s too soon. I had so much life to give. I want to say no, I will not proceed. But I’m being pulled to the bench just the same.
There are dead roses everywhere. Laced over the archway, scattered down the aisles, flowing over the judge’s bench. The petals are crisp to flaking. With each tap of the gavel, the judge sends another puff of dried flowers into the air in a halo of perfume. It smells like dust and twice-used breath. The air is warm, heavy with the closeness of bodies and decay. It tickles my nose, threatening to make me sneeze. I’m not doing it on purpose but if I sneeze again I’ll be held in contempt. She glares at me, lips twisted in a permanent frown, leaning over like I’m too small and doing that on purpose too.
Her wig is powdered, the tips adorned with dried leaves and petals. Her Honor’s cheeks and forehead are caked with foundation, dotted with rouge that’s also dry. It takes a lot of effort to hide the fact that she’s dead and just about everyone else in the courtroom is too.
“Conspiracy to commit murder, murder, actual bodily harm, destruction of property. How do you plead?” she asks after reading a long list of charges.
“I didn’t murder anyone, Your Honor.”
“I see. How would you describe the…” She flips through a file in front of her. “The Moving On?”
“It’s not murder. It’s population control. It’s the law.”
“I’m quite familiar with laws, Ms. Turner, and I think you’ll find murder is not one of them.”
“It’s not murder, it’s … The town nominates someone to be Moved On and whoever gets the most votes, or whose name gets called, gets Moved On. It’s not murder, though. It’s tradition.”
She taps the gavel into her palm. “And you partake in this—tradition? Do you swear to tell the truth, Defendant Creek?”
“No, ma’am—” Before I can finish, the courtroom erupts into Lord have mercies and lands alives.
Her Honor springs to her feet, clacking the gavel against the bench hard enough to shatter it. Flowers scatter, raining down on my head, shoulders, hair. “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” she yells. Again she bangs the gavel against the oak bench.
Hands spring up from out of nowhere. I’m surrounded by bailiffs, witnesses, clerks, onlookers and reporters. The stenographer click, clicks, taking note of every grunt, gasp and pop. I can’t stop myself from cracking my knuckles. The judge stares at me as if I’m cursing in court. “I’m a Turner, not a Creek!” I yell above the crowd.
The judge bangs again. “Order!”
Everyone is silent. Heads down, they march back to seats and posts. The women cool themselves with paper fans advertising sales of torches. The men lean forward, hats clutched between hands, mopping their faces and necks. Children, caught mid-whoop, scatter back to their families, wiggling like this is the best thing to happen since Christmas. Bailiffs tap batons against palms. Reporters scribble away.
“Your last name isn’t Creek?” The judge adjusts her robes, straightens her wig, then flips through reams and reams of pages.
“No, it’s Turner, I’m—”
She raises a finger, shushes me, points to a line. Without holding it up to let me see it, she asks, “Are you or are you not from Curdle Creek?”
“Yes, Your Honor—”
“Do you represent, in thoughts and deeds, Curdle Creek?”
“Yes, ma’am, but I have to. I don’t have a choice.”
“Are you a believer?” She taps the paper as if everything she needs to know about me is right there, the sentence already dried.
I’m not one of the revered and sometimes ridiculed true believers. No one calls on me to interpret an ordinance, remember a rule. Am I a believer, or a do-as-I’m-told-er? I’ve always been true to Curdle Creek. Even though Mother would call me a fair-weather believer, I’ve been truer to Curdle Creek than the Creek’s been to me.
The judge slams the file closed. “You are, indeed, the appointed one. Hereby known as the accused.” She settles back in the chair, points the gavel at me. “Court is back in session. In the case of the People versus Creek, how do you plead?”
I was six for my first Moving On. Quick and mean, I got to the bridge the same time as the Moved On did. He was gasping and panting, clutching his chest. Begging. At the time, aiming straight for the spot between his eyes seemed the most merciful thing I could do. But I was six. There was nothing else I could do.
“Not guilty, Your Honor. I didn’t do anything I wasn’t told to do.”
“Then how do you plead?”
“Your Honor, can I represent myself?” I step in front of the table to approach the bench.
“That won’t be necessary,” she says. “I have all the evidence I need.”
A bell gongs, filling the courtroom with vibrations and echoes. “Guilty!” Gong. “Guilty!” Gong.
The benches clear. As if on cue, the crowd lines up in rows down the aisles. They march in place, torches, already lit, in one hand; in the other they hold pitchforks. Even the children march, with child-sized pitchforks raised. The band strikes up a tune in time to the audience’s chants of “Her time is up! Her time is up!” Reporters take notes, snap pictures with bright flashes that make me close my eyes with each click.
I’m surrounded by bailiffs. There’s no way to make it past them all. Her Honor bangs the gavel. “Order in the court! There will be order in my courtroom!”
The band is the first to quiet. Then the children, men, women. The judge is still banging. The crowd has stopped chanting. They’re still marching in place, the sound of their feet slapping against the marble floor as loud as drums. We must be right beneath the bell tower because the room’s still shaking with the echoing. The judge rises. Except for me, doubled over, everyone silences mid-sound. Unfinished sentences cloud my head.
“How do you plead on the charge of chasing the dead?” Her Honor asks.
I would have Warded Romulus Off, the way I did Remus. Just fifteen, he had heard rumors that their names were going to be called. Schoolyard gossip, nothing to worry about, I told him. Kids don’t get Moved On. Everyone warned him. I wouldn’t listen. So when he snuck into my bedroom that night, asked me if I would be the one to Move him On, then promise to do the Warding Off myself, I said yes. It was after midnight. I was tired from a long day of setting up for the Moving On. When he needed me to say no, I said yes.
“Not guilty,” I say.
“Let’s begin. I’d like to draw the jury’s attention to the screen.”
Spread across the ceiling, a black-and-white film plays reel after reel of Mariah and Rumor playing house with stunned squirrels. A little arm, held stiff, slides into a suit clasped in the back, a paw or two out of reach. Another rodent is posed a bit too seductively, cheeks blushed, bodice half-on, half-off. My mouth goes dry. I’m watching the girls dress and pose the squirrels with rodent-sized props made just for the occasion. They shoot photos, change outfits, freshen makeup, and then lose interest. They’re bored. I know what comes next. One pulls a stray cat from a box. They call it that even though it’s more of a trap with a spring and a latch. Mariah invites the hostage cat for dinner. Both girls double over with laughter. The guests are already dressed to be eaten. The squirrels try to run with their eight little paws stuck in mismatched shoes—two of one kind on one set, two of another kind on the other—while two what could only be described as monsters laugh and whoop while playing makeshift drums made out of pots, pans and hollowed-out gourds. There’s me in the corner, looking on, not even shocked. The cat corners the bodiced squirrel. It’s caught one of the laces in its claw. It’s time for dinner! I’m yelling, on the screen. I’m trying to distract the cat, to call the girls into the house, but right here, right now, the audience gasps and I see that it sounds as if I’m inviting the cat to do what it’s about to do.
Before I can say that’s not what I meant, the film goes black. Behind me, the reel spins and flaps in the projector.
“Now for Sister Pearl’s testimony.”
I look up and Sister Pearl is settling into the witness stand. We’ve never met, I’m sure of it. As soon as the questions start, another film starts to play. There’s Sister Pearl running through the woods, a parade of torches and rifles not far behind. She’s tired and scared, exhausted when she slides down a slope and lands in the Creek. By rights, we have to help her. It’s in the Charter. Anyone who reaches the Creek is granted sanctuary until we figure out what to do with them. She’s in the Creek splashing her way to our side of it. There’s someone waving her over. Thank the ancestors! That’s exactly right. Last-chancers don’t lead angry mobs to Curdle Creek on purpose. Most of them don’t even know the town exists. We’re so deep in the woods that even candlelight doesn’t make it through. What leads outsiders to Curdle Creek is fear.
She’s making her way to the Good Samaritan. Don’t step there! I shout it out but, just like in the cinema back home, she can’t hear me, so she steps right into the deepest part of the Creek. By the time the swarm of white faces reaches the other side, she’s drowning, skirts billowing. If they could see across the Creek, past the thick trees that guard it, they’d see a group of townsfolk, rifles aimed straight at their heads. They don’t bother to look. They’ve seen what they came for. One of them unlatches a long, thick line of rope he seems to be carrying just for situations like this. He unwinds it. It’s yards and yards long. The white men put down their own rifles, lay down their torches. They make a chain, each taking a slip of rope between rough hands until they reach the woman not-yet-drowned. She’s struggling but it does her no good, she’s rescued anyway. They pass her down the line, pawing her body, pinching and groping her back to safety. Once on dry land, they pump the Creek out of her. Sister Pearl can’t be much older than me. Her eyes are swollen half-shut like she’s already seen too much of this life.
The men gather around her, checking her pulse and heartbeat though there’s not a doctor among them. Once they are satisfied that she’s good and alive, they drag her back through the woods, a reverse march. A crowd of folks gather to watch as if making sure she’s really gone. Sister Pearl’s mouth is closed but I still hear her screaming.
I wasn’t even born then. Each of those folks has long been Moved On. Not for that, though. Although I’m mouthing That shouldn’t have happened, that shouldn’t have happened, I know there is an ordinance that justifies exactly that thing. Helping Sister Pearl would have put the town in danger. It would have meant killing the white mob, burying them, risking sheriffs and National Guards poking around trying to find them. With the Salt Harbor reckoning etched in the town’s memory, it was too great a risk. If they hadn’t killed them all, had instead scared them so that they knew not to bother her this night, the mob would come back. Maybe not sober, but they’d come back with more of them. Hate’s like that. It grows and grows, just like what happened to the other all-Black town down the hill. There’d be no stopping them, until they’d done to us what they do to her.
On the screen, we watch the mob drag Sister Pearl back to a neighboring town. Their women and children have fed the fire with broken wooden furniture, doors, beams, books, photos, clothes, anything that can burn and some things that can’t. Some have unrolled picnic blankets, checkered red, white and blue Fourth of July remnants. Bunting and ribbons stream from trees. There are baskets full of fat sausages, barbecue chicken, homemade potato salad and thick-slabbed sandwiches, as well as teacups and dainty napkins to keep fingers clean. A band plays a celebration song full of shrill notes and bass drum. Meanwhile, children tease and taunt Sister Pearl, who drifts in and out of consciousness, her body and mind wanting to be as far away from this scene as we do. There’s a prayer, followed by hooting and hollering. Someone reads the charges: Uppity, needs to learn her place. Someone offers to teach her. They cheer. She’s falling over so they lean her up, snatch pictures with her. Someone else slips the noose over her neck. The children are gathered around for photos with their old teacher. They are dry-eyed.
Sister Pearl is hauled up to the tree. Although she weighs almost nothing, six men have offered to do the job so six men get to do it. They string her up. Mercifully, she is dead before they let go of the rope. The screen goes black. The flap, flap, flap of the film fills the room.
“Any questions?” Her Honor asks.
If it happened today, right now, would I turn someone away, or would I put the town at risk to save them? “No questions, Your Honor.”
I don’t know who to apologize to. The court cannot forgive me for what I might have done to someone who won’t grant me an audience. Even back home, she wouldn’t be obliged to listen. Of course, back home, Sister Pearl wouldn’t be around to decide to listen or not. If she had died in Curdle Creek, we’d have Warded Off her soul like she was one of our own. It’d be the least we could do.
THE trial lasts for weeks. Days stretch into nights. Once a trial starts, they say, there’s no stopping it until the case is decided, the defendant sentenced. There are no breaks, no end to the witnesses willing to take the stand, and no chance I’ll be found not guilty. We’ve spent so much time protecting Curdle Creek that we’ve become just as bad as anywhere else, according to them. And to hear them say it, which they do, it isn’t just one of us to blame. It’s all of us Creekers. The young ones are just as bad as the old ones. There’s no one forcing us to stay. Never mind that there isn’t anyplace else to go. No one place in the world where we’re guaranteed to just live in brown skin, see with brown eyes. The evidence is overwhelming. Even poor Father Seamus and Mother Creek testify against me. Turns out the boys were right after all.
When it’s quiet the crowd whispers Guilty, guilty, guilty. Which is even worse than their earlier, louder, bolder Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! chant that Her Honor said was out of order. If I sit still, it’s a sign that I’m remorseful, made immobile by the weight of sin. If I lean forward, I’m morbidly fascinated, enraptured by the promise of doing it again. If I close my eyes, I’m bored, and can’t be bothered to even grant the witness/victim the proper respect. The reporter from the Curdle Creek Gazette and the now defunct Creek News narrate their headlines so the court can hear them and the stenographer can record them.
There’s a charge for unlawful imprisonment of Mother Creek and Father Seamus. They have the distinction of being in the Curdle Creek history books twice: once for founding the town and the next for inspiring the ordinance against jealousy and coveting. Anyone with good sense knows to appreciate what you’re given. Not that they deserved the town turning on them, running them down like that. Throwing them in the well.
The stenographer tap, tap, taps.
The jury stands. Of course there would be a jury somewhere but I’m surprised to see them up in a box as though they’re in the good seats at the theater, or the bad seats at the church. They are high above us all, close enough to step into the evidence films if they wanted to. The jury is made up of all the witnesses and victims. It doesn’t seem fair that they get to decide if I’m guilty or innocent and I can see, since they’re mouthing Guiltyyyyyy, that they’ve already made up their minds anyway.
Her Honor bangs the gavel. The flowers have all withered so that even the dead ones are mostly dust now. I bury my nose in my sleeve and breathe in the scent of Cheyenne. My girls didn’t deserve whatever happened to them. Neither did Little Moses.
“Your first witness?” Her Honor asks.
I don’t know who I can call. I’d give anything to see my girls again. To hold my baby boy. But the thing is, if I’m guilty for what Curdle Creek did to them, I already know the verdict. I’m guilty. I should have protected them somehow. I can’t take seeing them here. Admitting that they’re gone. There is no one I can call. They’d all say I was overzealous about the Warding Off, dutiful about the Moving On. An ordinance-loving, rule-fearing Curdle Creeker. A model citizen. I even have an award for that. For all the good it will do me.
“I don’t have a witness, Your Honor.”
“You really should be more prepared. I’ll give you a moment to think about it.”
The judge stares at me, waiting. Her makeup is cracking, her wig wilting, pushed back a bit too far. Her forehead is suddenly luminous. It’s large and shiny while the rest of her seems to be aging in front of me. There’s a whiff of decay. It’s the sweet smell before the rotting. The trial must be coming to an end.
“I call to the stand … Mother Opal,” I say. I don’t know how things work here, but if they can call up spirits, so can I. I don’t really expect her to come. If there’s a Heaven like she preached about all Charter Mothers going to, Mother Opal is too far away to hear me. The waiting will do us all good. Well, all except for Her Honor. She doesn’t look like she has much longer to be around.
There’s a soft cough, a dry clearing of thick mucus.
Mother Opal’s at my table waiting for me. The bailiff leads her to the stand. By the time she’s settled in, her film’s already playing. I can’t watch it yet, though. It’s so good to see her, even dead. She’s wearing one of her favorite dress suits. It’s You’re Welcome red, a color she always said was made to complement beautiful brown skin. She’s right. With the little bit of light streaming through the windows, Mother Opal looks like a beaming ray of thanks. Her skin is nearly glowing. Her favorite hat is pinned in her hair. There’s nowhere else in the whole wide world that I would rather be than right here.
Mother Opal peers down, smiles at me. It’s the first smile I’ve seen, the first real one, in ages, and it warms me through and through. If I’ve been hungry, her smile fills me up. Mother Opal will fix everything. She’ll set this backward town full of dead people straight. But everyone here isn’t dead. Outside the Town Hall, the town—or most of it—is alive. Mother’s still there and so is Mother Opal, even if neither of them are mothers or Mothers yet. In here is before then but she’s after. It seems like we’re all stuck in time. Once what’s settled is settled, we can catch up in private. I can ask her if I’m dead without being overheard by ghosts. I can hear them now, laughing at me. Imagine not knowing what side of the grave you’re on. I’ll offer condolences if she is too. Bake her a pie.
Before I can stop myself, I’m at the witness stand reaching over to touch her. If I’m honest, I mean to hug her. Traditions be damned, I’m going to wrap my arms around that old woman and not let go this time. I reach over, but the gavel’s banging, the bell’s ringing and ringing, and I look up and see my own face. In the film, I’m making my way to Mother Opal’s to ask her to do one more thing for me. I’m running, carrying my burdens to her door. There’s an ordinance against that but it doesn’t seem to weigh me down. I’m breaking ordinances as if it’s my birthright. Reckless in my haste, running up the steps, about to kick in the door, entering the back yard without appropriate blessings, entering the house without invitation. The reporters can hardly keep up. I’m slipping into the cellar. There are boxes askew, some with lids barely on. I don’t notice. I just close the door behind me. I move through the darkness, so sure of my footing that I slide around bodies that I think are nothing more than wardrobes and chests. I’m slipping through the museum of boxes that I thankfully do not peek into as I’ve done hundreds of times before but I’m being watched and don’t know it then. I’m surrounded by Mothers.
If I had turned on the light I would have caught them hunting through Mother Opal’s things. Rifling through Father Opal’s treasures, claiming to be searching for the box and taking anything that tickled their fancy while doing it. It’s as if they’re robbing the same grave twice. I don’t turn on the lights because I don’t want to scare Mother Opal but here it looks suspicious, that I could walk through them and not feel them waiting, wanting me to accept that what’s done is done and agreeing without a word shared between them to teach it to me later.
As I’m sneaking up the stairs, the Mothers search every space within Reason. They’ve got mattresses ripped open, innards where the outards should be. Drawers hang open, closets are empty; papers, clothes, books, and most of Mother Opal’s things are all packed up waiting to be Moved On. They haven’t found the box, don’t know what it looks like though it’s brought out every Moving On day. They just want the old fool to tell them where the rites are so they can put an end to this foolishness. Only, even watching them from here I know the ending won’t be a good one and that “foolishness” means Mother Opal. She seems to know it too because she doesn’t talk. She doesn’t plead for mercy or launch into apology, won’t point out the box, wooden and plain, barely even hidden now, tucked away with the cutlery like everything else they labeled useless. She’s Opal, dear now and Mother’s mouth is telling her that she wishes it could be another way though her hands aren’t saying the same thing because they’re tapping on the stones brought out for this purpose. The Mothers have carefully spelled out her name so that each stone finds its way home. It’s blasphemous, their talk of made-up games and traditions, and, even though the sky is telling them to stop, they’re misreading the signs as proof that putting an end to the Moving On, to the Warding Off and to Mother Opal are the same thing.
There’s me pressed into the little closet fretting about scaring her, realizing she isn’t alone and wondering if I should walk away or enter. Watching me now, I see she would have heard any of the steps squeaking, me tiptoeing up the stairwell, and instead of worrying about an intruder she’d have been smart enough to be scared of the Sister she thought was on the other side of the door. There’s the crack of Mother’s hand on Mother Opal’s cheek and Mother Opal’s head spinning. There’s me moments later, slipping down the stairs, past the Mothers, out of the door. Even if she’d heard the door closing, Mother Opal would have known nothing good would come of it. Just as if it was proper, the Sisters are bundling her up, tied and bound, tucking her into the carriage. They parade her through back streets where there’s no band, no cheering and no witnesses.
They are gentle then, fingers swiftly untying her arms and legs, massaging her wrists, undoing bruises they may have caused in haste. Knots unknotted, rope rolled up, they dump her, fully dressed, in the Creek. I know she can swim but she won’t do it. She treads water, feet not touching the soft sand below, arms opening and closing, motioning welcome, surrender, welcome, surrender as if they don’t know which tradition the situation calls for. The Mothers line up on the Curdle Creek side of the bank, coaxing her to make her way to the other side. They proclaim her banished, destined to never set foot in Curdle Creek again. She knows them better than that. She stays in the middle of the Creek, reddish water flowing around her like she’s a pebble hardly worth mentioning. She watches the Mothers stationed along the edge. They work quickly, ripping pages—sometimes chapters at a time—out of bound books that haven’t been opened in decades. Between them, they crack book spines wide open, use slender nails to undo stiches that up until now had been thick enough to keep the town together. They tear out ordinances, rules, oaths and amendments. They wrap the pages, threads still dangling, glue still sticking some together, around stones they’ve piled up in front of each of them. They rub their gift-wrapped rocks between their hands as if warming them. When they finish, they wait in silence.
Mother is the first to run out of patience. As their leader, she pulls a silver dinner bell from her pocket. It catches the moonlight, glimmers. The tinkle is soft, almost pleasant, as if it’s calling friends to supper.
Even the left-handed ones raise their right arms. They aim. The Mothers wind up, right arms moving around and around and around, picking up speed with each whir. Mother tinkles the dollhouse-sized bell again. It shimmers, winks. The Mothers release at the same time. Some rocks land close to Mother Opal, some far away, some meet with skin, hitting the top of her head, her shoulders or chest. They’ve planned it so that none of them will know the rock that does it. I know and so does Mother Opal. Mother’s rock sails through the air, hits Mother Opal in the temple. It’s not the one that kills her, though. Each time they release, there’s a bell, another series of throws. Mother manages to hit her every time. There I am standing in the middle of the street praying for divine intervention and there’s Mother delivering it.
“Any questions?” Her Honor asks.
I’m on my feet in front of the stand. Mother Opal is wet, soaked through from the memory. She’s shaking as if the sight of me in this nineteenth-century dress, high collared, high waisted, stiff as a boiled sweet, is just what she thought the devil would look like. I wouldn’t have expected to live to see the day where Mother Opal would be afraid of me. I want to ask if she regrets the whole thing. If the Moving On, the Warding Off, and everything was really worth it. But the reel spins, the film wavers and falters, threatening to start up again, and I say no.
THE sentence is lighter than it should be. I should be dead. The court takes mercy on me though I do not deserve it. The judge clears out the courtroom after the sentencing. The victims, jury, stream of witnesses and reporters seem relieved to go wherever the dead go from here. The bailiffs, band and judge remain. Still, I feel like the Moving On. Alone, scared, upset. Not at all the sense of pride I thought I’d feel when I was a kid.
A well is constructed right there in the middle of the courtroom. Builders measure, dig and stick together slabs of stone with concrete mixed fresh for the purpose. Someone hauls the bell from a back chamber that I imagine exists—overflowing with bells of all sizes—for just this purpose. It’s not much bigger than the hauler but it must be heavy. They drag it down the aisle slow. It scrapes across bare floor, screeching like a secondhand groom. It’s bronze, dull and worn. The bell is about my height, about as wide as me and is eaten through by rust in so many places that you can see the clapper clear through the sides. What’s left of it is etched in intricate symbols laid one on top of the other, running together like an argument.
Her Honor gestures to the well. I edge toward it expecting to see someone down there staring up at me. But there’s no one there. And here I am just me, Osira. Not a mother, a Mother, barely even a daughter anymore. Nobody’s wife, friend, neighbor. The judge said I’ll be banished. I don’t mean to but I’m crying. I can’t seem to stop. Can’t catch my breath. Can’t stop thinking she’s right, I don’t have a home to go back to.
“Let me talk to her,” Daddy says.
I spin around and there he is walking toward me. He’s wearing his favorite outfit, shirt still tucked into plaid trousers, checkered suspenders bright against warm brown skin. My breath catches and I double over, unable to get it back. Mother would have never let him wear that outfit. That’s how I know he’s dead. I close my eyes and bury my head in his chest. He’s warm all over. He holds me close, wraps his arms around me. All I can hear is Daddy telling me how much he loves me and how he wishes he’d told me all the time even if he had to break the rules to do it. I’m crying and moaning “I love you too, Daddy, I love you too.”
He shushes me, hands rubbing my back. I don’t want to see his film playing so I keep my eyes closed even when he pulls me back to see if I’ve grown since he’s been away. Away. He doesn’t call it dead or Moved On. “You haven’t been away long,” I say. I don’t know how time works here and he doesn’t either.
He tilts my head up. “Open your eyes,” he says.
“Please, I don’t want to see it.” I’m begging. I’d drop to my knees to implore him properly if his grip wasn’t so tight on my shoulders.
“I’m not testifying against you, it’s not that,” he says.
I look up and there’s Daddy and me fishing in the Creek. We aren’t catching anything even though he’s got the bait and I’m in the water trying to coax fish out from beneath rocks. In the film, he’s telling me there’s something wrong with Curdle Creek, telling me to get away as soon as I can, to follow my brother and don’t even write when I’m safe. Curdle Creek has a way of leading people back to it, he’s saying. I’m not listening then because I’ve caught something and it’s wiggling in my hands and I’m giggling at the slimy body trying to slip through my fingers. I’m about to toss it into the bucket when a larger fish starts circling my ankles, diving below the surface to nip my toes, gentle at first, bobbing up to look at me each time. The nips get harder the longer I hold the little fish in my hands, and it is getting slower too, not as flippy or flappy. Finally, I get the hint. I put the baby fish back in the water. The pair dash off out of grasp.
“I can’t go back, can I?” I ask.
“Do you want to?”
I’m scared. Curdle Creek is all I know. “What will happen to the girls if I don’t?”
“Same thing that’ll happen to them if you do,” he says. He sits on the edge of the well, swings his legs back and forth.
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
He laughs. “I have other things to worry about here.”
“What happens to you when I’m gone?”
“Don’t be like your mother,” he says, “the world is much bigger than you and me.”
I sit beside him, letting my legs swing in time with his. “Are my children here with you?”
“No, they ain’t here.”
For a moment, I’m happy. Maybe that means they’re in Heaven, surrounded by love and angels.
“The living don’t end up in Heaven.”
“They’re alive?”
“They made it out of Curdle Creek alive. If they could do it, you can too.”
“Can you help me find them?”
“I wish I could. Take this.” He presses a stone in my hand. Now I have three. “I love you, don’t ever forget that,” Daddy says. His voice is so low that I have to lean forward to hear him, so gentle that I hardly feel his hand on my back pushing me in. There’s the rush of the air as I fall, the cheers of the courtroom, the boom, boom, boom of the band and, of course, the ringing of the bell.