I followed the smell out of the trees and saw a chicken house and a fenced chicken yard and a tall woman with a black braid. A clump of silver hair hung over her forehead. She was wearing a shirt that wouldn’t rip even if she had lifted things and slung them around.
“Brave Caroline,” Great-aunt Lydia said. “To farm these rocky old acres.”
The dogs bounced over to Cousin Caroline. “So Mikey really did it.” She walked up and shook my hand. “Welcome to Lavender Fields Forever.”
She ran this farm all by herself? I looked at her with pure admiration.
A woman stooped through the door of the chicken house. She was wearing a baseball cap and had a sunshiny face. I predicted she might be another great-aunt, and as soon as she came up and introduced herself as Great-aunt Ruth, I knew I was right.
“Oh, happy day.” She hugged me. “You tell your folks I’ll wait for the potluck to say hello because I’m sure they’ve had quite enough family for now. Are you coming to the potluck then?” she asked Great-aunt Lydia, but she didn’t wait for the answer. “I live in town, but I’m out to the farm every day to buy eggs. Best eggs in the world.”
“That’s because we have happy hens,” Cousin Caroline said. “They don’t need coffee to get going in the morning. They get busy catching as many bugs as they can, even though nobody gives them a medal for their personal best.”
“Bob-Silver likes them,” Great-aunt Ruth said. “Look at how he’s pointing.”
“Dogs retire, but they can’t ignore their noses.” Cousin Caroline smiled at me.
“You folks will become egg customers, too, I’ll bet.” Great-aunt Ruth tapped my head. “You ever need a ride, give me a jingle.” She climbed into a blue pickup truck that had a big dent in its side and roared off, waving out the window.
“Morgan!” Cousin Caroline called. “Come meet Anna.” She took the empty carton from Great-aunt Lydia. “Now that she’s in fifth grade, that girl likes doing her lessons and projects in the tree house. Takes a bit to dig her out.”
Homeschooled? Lucky duck. “How come you became a farmer?” I asked. “Dad said his mom used to say—” Oops. I stopped more words from flapping out.
Cousin Caroline smiled. “For a long time your grandma was my hero. She sang like an angel. One day she went to the city and bought a guitar, which was the boldest thing anyone I knew had done.” She bent to yank a skinny root out of the ground.
“Dad plays the guitar,” I said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“Was it hard to become a farmer?” I asked.
Cousin Caroline unhooked the fence to the chicken yard. “First time I ordered a box of chicks, I could hear their shrill little peeps even with the post office doors closed.” She continued into the chicken house, but her voice kept calling the story to us. “They always got quiet when Morgan and I picked them up, long as we supported their feet. Maybe it’s how they know they’re not being carried off by a cat.”
I leaned on the wheelchair and waited. Cousin Caroline came back out. “Then a cold spell hit. A single chick survived. One day it was sturdy and running around. The next day I saw Angel, the mouser, with two yellow twig feet hanging out of her mouth. She slurped the feet in, crunched, and sat back to clean her whiskers.”
Ugh. “So the chicks all died?”
“God’s eye is on the sparrow,” Great-aunt Lydia said fiercely. “Ha.”
“I don’t know if you can blame God.” Cousin Caroline reached over as if she would rub Great-aunt Lydia’s ears but patted her instead. “Blame me for not knowing how to farm. Blame Angel, the cat, the angel of chick death. Next time we knew to put the chicks in a warm space we could close off completely.”
She handed me the carton, heavy and warm. What was it like to hold a fresh egg? “Do you miss being a cop?” I asked.
“When I was in the city, my bones missed the land.” Cousin Caroline looked at me with her gray eyes. “What about your father? I remember him as a wretched kid who chased me through the cornfields and tried to scare me with a frog.”
“Did he scare you?”
She smiled. “I liked frogs. Still do.” She looked around. “Come on. Morgan can catch up.”
On the way back I heard that odd boom-boom in the distance and something beside the path rattled, making me jump.
“Seedpod.” Was Cousin Caroline trying not to laugh?
“Oh.” My face burned. “I thought maybe it was a rattlesnake.”
“A snake doesn’t want to meet you any more than you want to meet it. Just avoid tall brush and any deep, dark crevices.”
“Do you hear that buzzing?” I stopped. “And”—I pointed—“see that smoke?”
“The buzzing is cicadas. They’re early this year—noisy bugs, aren’t they? The smoke is some farmer burning weeds.”
I wanted to know if cicadas bit people, but I didn’t want to seem babyish.
“I’d rather meet a snake than have a fire,” Great-aunt Lydia said.
Uh-huh. “Me, too.”
Cousin Caroline squeezed my shoulder. “I heard about those fires in Colorado. Aunt Lydia, give this girl a box of baking soda. Always a good thing to have around in case of fire.”
Cousin Caroline was a one-person Safety Club.
She leaned over and kissed Great-aunt Lydia.
“I know I won’t see you at the potluck, Auntie,” she said, “but I’ll see you there, Anna.”
When we got back in the house, I parked the wheelchair and joined Great-aunt Dorcas at the scratched kitchen table. “Is that pie dough?” I asked. “Can I help?”
“I’ll do the rolling. Can’t serve up a Stucky pie with a crust as tough as pig hide.” She glanced at Great-aunt Lydia and muttered, “No rest for the wicked.”
We worked to the sound of apple curls dropping plink-plink into the compost bucket and the thump of the rolling pin. I helped Great-aunt Dorcas until we had a line of pies on the counter with pretty pinched crusts and apple juices bubbling. I hoped she would offer me a slice, but she didn’t.
I hoped Morgan would come running up the ramp, but she didn’t.
I hoped for a box of baking soda, and when Great-aunt Dorcas went in the other room, Great-aunt Lydia showed me one on the kitchen shelves I could have.
As Great-aunt Dorcas drove me away from Lavender Fields Forever, I thought about angel grandma who had once been Little Katherine. Somewhere right around here she had looked up to see a pencil line tornado dropping down out of the sky.
That’s when I heard the call: “Save your sister! Save the cat!”