TWENTY-ONE

In the days ahead, the Bullocks established an entirely new routine. Theo slept on Callie’s trundle in the girls’ room. George and Sam carried twin beds from the attic onto the upper porch. Emmy stayed in an upstairs guest room, where she could hear Knox if he called out for her.

Callie came to dread the sight and sound of her mother’s grandfather clock in the main hall, for it seemed now to be ticking away Knox’s life and Emmy’s happiness. He grew weaker by the day—sometimes by the hour.

“His parents still haven’t come?” Callie stood in the doorway to Knox’s room, masked like Emmy.

Her sister shook her head, adjusted the bedcovers, and came out to join Callie. “You shouldn’t be up here,” Emmy said. “Let’s go outside where it’s safer.”

On the upper porch, they took off their masks as Emmy sat down in the swing, Callie pulling up a rocker several feet away.

“I just can’t believe it,” Callie said. “Even for the Montgomerys, this is low. To ignore your own son when he’s so sick . . .”

“They didn’t support him when he was healthy and making a name for himself. Why would we expect them to come when he’s sick and weak?” Emmy rubbed her forehead.

“Another headache?” Callie asked. Emmy nodded, and Callie joined her in the swing.

“Don’t sit so close to me, Callie. We don’t know if I’ll get sick, and I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you because of me.”

Callie slid down to the far end of the swing. “Hush up and rest your head in my lap.”

Emmy smiled and lay down, using Callie’s lap as her pillow. Callie rocked and stroked her sister’s hair until Emmy fell asleep. She was exhausted from sleepless nights, listening for the faintest sound of discomfort from Knox’s room. Callie knew without a doubt that if Knox were himself, he would never let Emmy near him right now, fearing for her safety. But the sickness had taken over, and he called for her day and night.

Hepsy stepped onto the porch and saw Callie holding her sister in the swing. She clasped her hands tightly together. “That’s dangerous, Miss Callie.”

“I know.” Callie looked up at her. “But how can I not?”

For Knox, the end came quickly, just as Tirzah had predicted. “Almighty done call this man,” she had told Callie’s mother. “It’s his time.”

Dr. Embry explained that the infection would not confine itself to Knox’s lungs and had gotten into his bloodstream, where it spread without mercy. He died with Emmy sitting at his bedside, holding his hand. She was inconsolable.

The sight or smell of food made Emmy violently ill. Her skin grew pallid, her eyes darkened with circles drawn by sleepless nights. But on the day of Knox’s funeral, an odd calm came over her. Callie could see it in her steady hands as she pinned a black hat onto her blond hair, which was beautifully styled for the first time since Knox had fallen ill at the Bullock table.

“Can I help you, Em? Can I do anything at all?” Callie stood behind her sister as she sat at their dressing table, the two of them reflected in the mirror.

Emmy smiled at her. “I don’t need anything.”

Until now, she had been a wreck, barely holding herself together enough to care for Knox, while Callie had remained strong, ready to lend support and comfort. But now, faced with the finality of Knox’s funeral, Callie feared she herself might no longer be in control of her emotions, while Emmy seemed the picture of serenity.

Callie rested her hands on Emmy’s shoulders. “What’s happening, Em? You seem . . . different.”

Emmy looked at her in the mirror, reached up, and laid a hand over Callie’s. “I am different. He spoke to me.”

Callie frowned and stared into the mirror. “You mean Knox?”

Emmy nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m not hearing voices from the great beyond. It’s more like . . . I felt him. I felt him being healed and at peace. He was . . . transformed. I can’t explain it. I just sensed him changed and in a beautiful place, telling me that he wasn’t here anymore and that I shouldn’t grieve for the body being laid in the ground because he wasn’t in it. Do you think I’m crazy?”

Callie kissed her sister on the cheek. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re able to feel things the rest of us miss.”

Emmy stood up and put her arms around Callie. “I love you, dearie. So very much.”

The day after Knox’s funeral, Callie came down to the kitchen early in the morning just in time to see Hepsy spring back from the sink. “You look like you just saw a snake, Hepsy.”

Callie stepped closer and peered into the sink, which held one of the garden baskets Tirzah had woven for them. Inside it was a small doll that George had given Callie for her sixth birthday. It was covered with a dishcloth.

“What’s Polly doing in the sink?” Callie frowned as she pulled back the dishcloth to reveal the doll’s familiar pink dress.

“You didn’t put it there?” Hepsy asked her.

“Why would I do that?”

“They’s some bad juju around this here.” Hepsy backed farther away from the sink, pulling Callie with her.

Hepsy’s unease only intensified once it became clear that no one in the Bullock household had any idea how the basket with the doll had gotten into the sink.

Though Hepsy had been raised in the Baptist church and lived her whole life in Alabama, her mother came from St. Helena Island in South Carolina. For most of her life now, Tirzah had devoutly followed Almighty but married her adopted Christian faith to the traditions of her Gullah community. She had taught Hepsy about the dangers of “bad juju,” which they now met not with spells or incantations, as in the old days, but with prayers for the protection of Almighty.

The doll was just the beginning. Soon after she found it in the kitchen sink, Hepsy made another discovery.

“Miss Callie! What you doin’ out here? You been under that tree all night?”

Callie opened her eyes to see Hepsy kneeling over her as she lay on the ground underneath the Lookout Tree, right where Solomon had found her before. She was wearing her nightgown.

“What happened, Hepsy?” Callie’s voice trembled with fear, and her whole body shook.

“I don’t rightly know, but we gon’ see to it. Don’t you worry. Come on and let’s get you inside.” Hepsy put Callie to bed with a cup of tea and some of Tirzah’s special elixir to help her rest.

Then came the worst night of all. Callie came to herself in her brother’s arms. George was hurrying down the stairs, carrying her and calling out to their parents. “Mama! Daddy! You need to get up!”

George told them he had been sitting up late to finish reading a book when Callie came up the stairs in her nightgown. Her eyes were wide open, but she was sound asleep. She silently opened the window by the Lookout Tree and started to climb out. George stopped her, carried her downstairs, and alerted their parents, who came running into the living room, where George laid her on the couch. They summoned Dr. Embry.

Hepsy sent word to Solomon that he might want to come and get Callie out of this “house o’ sorrow” for a little while. Maybe that would calm her nerves and quiet her mind. Maybe it would free her from the juju.

Solomon and Callie stood fishing on the bank of Yellowleaf.

“Want to tell me about it?” he asked her.

“About what?”

“Whatever made you ignore the last two fish.”

They stood side by side on the creekbank, but Callie had to admit that she had been far, far away the whole time. She sighed and pulled her line out of the water. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. Maybe we just weren’t meant to fish today.”

Solomon propped their cane poles against a tree, picked up their picnic basket, and took Callie by the hand, then led her through denser woods on the back of his farm to a spot where the creek was wide and shallow. It was sprinkled with cascades as the water made its way downstream.

Callie smiled at him. “It’s beautiful here.”

He took the quilt she had brought and spread it beneath a tall pine, where they sat down together.

“Now,” he said, “forget about the fish and tell me what’s bothering you.”

Callie looked at him and realized for the first time how tired he must be. When he wasn’t working on his farm, he was spending every minute with her. She laid her hand against his face and felt his soft beard against her skin. “I don’t want to tell you any of my troubles right now. I want to hear yours.” Leaning against the tree, she stretched out her legs. “Rest your head in my lap.”

Solomon lay down and stretched out.

She slowly ran her fingers through his hair and looked down at his handsome face. “Now, talk about anything but me.”

“Do I have to talk?”

“No.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

Callie relaxed against the tree, listening to the doves call and the creek water splashing against rocks. Such tranquil sounds. She didn’t want to think about her disturbing night rambles. She didn’t want to think at all.

Callie awoke to an afternoon breeze. Solomon was looking up at her. “Did I sleep very long?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just woke up.”

Callie smiled at him and rested her hand against his chest. “Aren’t we exciting?”

He covered her hand with his. “Anyplace you’d rather be?”

She stroked his hair. “No. It’s so peaceful here with you. Makes me forget everything else.”

“Tell me what you’d like to forget. You’ll feel better, and I will too.”

Callie took a deep breath and blurted out, “There’s a very good chance I’m losing my mind.”

“That’s a new development.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know. But I also know you aren’t insane.”

“I’ve started sleepwalking,” she said.

“When?”

“Right after Knox’s funeral. The first time, I went only as far as the kitchen, where I apparently took a garden basket from the pantry, put a doll inside, covered it with a dishcloth, and set it in the sink. I went back to bed and didn’t remember doing it. Mama and Hepsy didn’t figure out it was me until I walked in my sleep again.”

“There was a second time?”

“And a third.” She told him about the other two incidents when she had wandered from her bed unawares.

“What does your family say?”

“They think we should listen to Dr. Embry and let him send me to a healing springs resort in Talladega—for my nerves.”

“Is that what you want?”

She looked down at him and sighed. “I think whatever is wrong with me started at home. Something made me get out of bed and go outside the night Lily and her baby left with Fisher, which could’ve been the same day Ryder was shot. I just can’t remember what drove me out there. And I think the best way to bring it back is to stay where it happened.”

“But you’ll go anyway because your parents want you to?”

She lightly ran her fingertip over his brow. “I don’t know. If Mama and Daddy feel strongly about it, I guess so. They’d never force me, of course. They’re just worried. What do you think?”

“I think you should trust your own judgment. Never let anybody else tell you they know best.”

“My family must be so tiresome for you.”

“Your family’s been very good to me. I just like to keep things simple. And I like to make my own decisions.” They grew quiet for a moment before Callie raised a question that had been troubling her.

“Solomon . . . you seem different around them—different toward me, I mean.”

He sat up and leaned against the tree with her. “I would say the same about you.”

“Really? Do I treat you differently in front of my family? Because I don’t mean to.”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered it. “I always thought it was you—but maybe it’s me.”

“And I thought it was you,” she said, “but maybe it’s me.”

They said it together: “Maybe it’s them.” Then they began to laugh—really laugh—something Callie hadn’t done for weeks.

Solomon leaned over and gave her a soft kiss. “Come along, Miss Bullock. I have something to show you.” He stood and pulled her up. “But it’s in the creek, so you’ll have to take off your shoes and stockings. I think all the other underpinnings can stay.”

Callie laughed and stepped behind the tree to get ready for a wade. Solomon was already in the creek when she started down the bank. He held her hands as she made her way into the clear water and led her upstream until the channel narrowed to about eight or ten feet across, where Callie saw something that left her speechless. It was an open A-frame structure, one side anchored on each bank, with a porch swing hanging by long ropes from the top so that you could swing over the water and look down the creek.

“I knew you couldn’t come and sit with me on my front porch without a chaperone, so I decided to build us our own porch in the creek,” Solomon said. “What do you think?”

She stared at the swing, thinking about all the work he had put into it, just for her. Then she looked up at Solomon. “I love it. And I love the hands that made it.”