Chapter 32

Early November rained every night and misted every day for two weeks. Air on Turtleback smelled like wet straw. Lily stayed inside. Waiting. She knew Death would come before hard winter. Kee Granny had not come back. Lily had not gone to get her to tend Anna for three months. With Kee Granny gone, the room smelled less of cedar. Lily had nurtured potted herbs on the east windowsill since summer. The herbs filled the room with battling aromas of lavender, mint and rosemary.

The night the wolf began to howl, Lily knew. Lily thought the wolf to be Briar Slocomb’s dog, and perhaps it was. The howl started long after the moon rose, and it bayed until dawn. If the dog was primarily wolf, he could bring no less than evil, for Kee Granny had taught her that evil rides on the backs of wolves.

Lily pictured the wolfdog away from the buildings that comprised Flatland. Or perhaps he sat on the cedar’s high ridge so that his voice would carry over the mountainous expanse. He rested on his haunches with his head thrown back, his mouth open to the cold air. Lily envisioned him as a statue, his chest hard as stone, yet mist would rise from his jaws as if his innards were afire.

The second night of the wolf, a flicker of light appeared on the floor before the hearth. Lily picked up what seemed to be a shiny straight pin. She held it up to the light, looking close. She gazed, slack-jawed, in rapt wonder at a wee glowing creature. A minute being, glorious in his gossamer green robes, stood on the head of the pin. He spoke to Lily in a voice that jingled with tiny bells. “The time for beginning has come,” he said. Holding the pin as far away as her arm allowed, Lily moved to the table and stuck the pin in a mound of brown-crusted bread. She stepped over to the stove and waved her hand over a black eye, feeling for warmth, to prove she was not dreaming. Heat radiated upward, forcing Lily to draw back her hand before burning her palm. She looked back at the pin. He was still there.

“Come,” he said. “Sit.”

Lily hesitated, her confusion morphing into fear.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

Lily stepped gently over the floor. She pulled out a chair, pushed it away from the table and sat on the edge of the seat. “You are a spot of mold,” she said.

He tingled a little half-laugh. “Call me Ena,” he said.

Lily gulped. “Are you a tiny Little People?”

“I’m Ena,” he said. “I come with the wind.”

“An angel?”

“I can be an angel, if you like.”

“Did Kee Granny send you?”

“Who?”

“Beloved Mother.”

“I came on my own. I sensed you need me.”

“Some other Beloved Mother?” Lily asked. Anna had told her about angels, but they had always been silver or gold with feathery wings that brushed the ground. “You’re not real.” Lily walked across the room. “I’m talking to myself.” She splashed cold water on her face. As she straightened up, a button fell off her blouse. She pulled the straight pin from the bread and closed the gap that exposed her breasts. It was time to begin.

Lily took out the clean dress she had selected for her mother. She picked up the brush for braiding her mother’s hair. The heat in the room forced Lily to sweep her bangs from her forehead. Though damp, they fell forward again as she bent to select wool socks from the bureau drawer. Anna’s feet were cold summer and winter. It would be damp and cold in the ground, so Anna must have thick socks.

Stiff with age, the bottom bureau drawer stood ajar. There near the back was the bill of sale for the two coffins. Lily placed it on top of the bureau. Taking a fresh blouse from another drawer, Lily laid the straight pin aside. She changed and, after looking again at the pin, reconsidered. Kee Granny had told her never to doubt. She wove the pin into the collar of her blouse. Little Ena rested on the head of the pin, sheltered under Lily’s right ear.

So that she forgot nothing, Lily acted out what would happen in her mind. When Anna’s shallow breathing stopped, she would lift her mama off the bed and into the sanded pine box. She would shovel out a niche of soft soil and settle Anna in. The burial would be in the side road. Time and weather had worn the road down, leaving a bank on each side. Earthen walls would protect the grave from strong winds. She would tell Gabe when the weather broke, and together they would plant trillium in mass over the grave. By spring, the grave would be blanketed in carmine, blood-red and thick.

First, Lily had to get under the back of Boone Station. She could not use the rock steps. So busy with her mother, she had failed to scrape moss off near the end of the summer. Now that they were wet from recent rains, she slid, as if on ice. She avoided the winding steps and skidded down late fall leaves as she made her way.

Out of the weather and near the worn fence that held their chickens against foxes and coons waited the two identical boxes. One coffin for Anna. One coffin for Lily, crafted when she was eight-years-old.

Gabe knew a carpenter, the best in Covington. He felt it best not to mention that he was the granny’s son. Anna ordered the coffins and sent money with Gabe month by month until she had a paper proving the boxes were her own. She paid an extra five-dollars for sanding and mitered joints to keep out the damp. Anna sent her height, thinking if she changed with age, she would do no more than shrink. The paper stayed in a hidden drawer that ran across the bottom of the bureau. Lily doubted anybody would question where Anna got the coffins, but she, like her mother, kept the paper hidden as safely as had it been a marriage certificate.

Lily knew where the boxes were and what they were for. No one lived a mountain life without meeting Death face to face more than once. Over the years, the wood had so hardened that nails could be hammered in only where the carpenter had pre-drilled holes. Anna had stored nails inside each box so Lily would not have to search.

As Lily skidded down the slope, a thought stunned her. With Anna gone, there would be no one to find her box or to tap in her nail. No one to seek out a shallow dip for her burying. For the first time, Lily questioned staying alone on Turtleback. She might want to talk this out with Gabe. Maybe Kee Granny. No. Kee Granny was not coming back. Maybe Ruth. But she had never met Ruth, and Anna had not mentioned her for years. Lily pictured Ruth, who was older than Anna, to be bent and shuffling. Gabe would be her answer.

Lily lugged the box back up the hill by a rope handle attached to the coffin’s narrow end. She shifted it back and forth to maneuver through the door. She expected the noise to awaken Anna. Lily opened the door and icy air blew over Anna’s bed, but she slept on.

With the coffin inside, Lily heated water for the cleansing. Once during the bath, Anna fluttered her eyes. She appeared to see Lily and mouthed words Lily never heard. Lily kissed her mama on the mouth and tucked the woolen quilt over her shoulders. Anna closed her eyes.

Lily looked again at the receipt of payment. The year had been 1954, when Lily turned ten. When Anna had first begun to bleed. In the lower right corner where the feet would rest were the initials S.W./B.S., perhaps the mark of the carpenter, acknowledging payment.

Anna slept three more days. She refused to awaken for food or water. The wolf wailed night after night. Lily replaced the crazy quilt that warmed Anna with a log cabin quilt, laid the woolen quilt in place in the coffin and patted it from time to time. She tried to keep the room warm by doling out logs she had gathered during the summer. She sat in the ancient rocking chair and waited. Outside, Turtleback waited in semi-darkness. The sun grew dark and the moon refused to shine.