Today the parlor curtains were pulled back and lamps turned on so I could see that Mary Grace’s house was worlds different, worn to a shine with years of respectful using. Each family that had owned the store just passing through, borrowing it for a spell, like one of Miss Arthington’s books. Not my house, built by my granddaddy and my daddy for real livin’, and special just for us with chairs made comfy by lots of sittin’.

I could see the walls were whitewashed but no better to my eye than Momma’s creek-mud ones, and the sofa was plumped up and covered in lacy bits—fancy dress clothes, as if to hide past scars and bruises, which’re nobody’s business even if a body can’t help but look. Two matching armchairs with curlicued arms stood stiff like they were new off the Wells Fargo wagon, but dust and spider webs told different. I had to wonder the point in having such nice furniture if no one ever sits on it.

I dragged my pointing finger in a figure eight on the arm of one of the chairs, the cool smooth of it like something too hard to have ever been a living tree. I raised my finger and sniffed it—lemony and talcum-powder sweet lingering smells of fancy city ladies. Maybe Miz Newcomb really had been shellin’ for ghosts. I walked wide around the lamps with actual paintings on their bellies. They looked to be as fragile as Miz Newcomb’s slender china cups, set out for tea, but never used.

But there were books. Books everywhere. Magazines and catalogs too but mostly stacks and stacks of books. Piled on tables, stacked on the floor, and even taking up space in a chair by the fireplace, across from the rocker where I’d found Miz Newcomb that day I delivered Tully’s rattleskin right into her lap. A lot of books had fancy letters on their covers with titles like The Ancient Roman at Home or Adventure Under the Sea. My fingers ached to touch them, and my eyes itched with wanting to read them. How could Mary Grace have all this treasure and be so blamed dumb? And these books, not like the chairs, had the look of being read and then some—the over-and-over kind of reading. It was a world of yet-to-be learning just asking.

I was puzzling the worth of furniture too fancy to serve its purpose when Mary Grace pointed to the chair catty-cornered to her at the big table of dark oak and told me to sit. She brought out paper and pencils on account that Miz Newcomb thought we were doing homework. She would flutter into the room every few minutes wearing a different hat. “Well, ladies, what do you think, is it right for tea with Eleanor?”

I had never seen so many china cups, ’specially without chinks, as were sitting on that table. She could have a dozen Eleanors show up and never run out.

Mary Grace frowned into her glass of lemonade, her lips cinched up so tight, you’d think the lemonade hadn’t a bit of sugar in it. She slowly inhaled and blew her frown out through her nose. Now she just looked tired, and when she suddenly caught me staring at her, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and back before turning to see her momma’s newest imagining.

If only Miz Newcomb wasn’t hanging all about us like mist on a bog. Finally, she exhausted herself and curled up on the parlor chaise like a calico cat and got to purring like one soon after.

“She won’t wake up even if the house catches fire,” Mary Grace said. “Don’t know how someone can get themselves so tuckered out fussing about something that’s only in her head.”

“What’s wrong with your momma?”

I tried to swallow the words, but they’d already hopped out like a bullheaded frog. I thought Mary Grace might start to cry, and I wished she’d just whack me upside the head for my stupid question. Which is what I’d a done to her if she asked about Baby and Momma.

We talked about the essay, what it should say and how we would sneak it back into school, but we talked about a mess of other things too, all civil-like, except she never did answer me about what had bent her momma.

WE SNUCK OUT OF THE HOUSE quiet as a kitten and headed back to the school.

“What we gonna do if someone’s there?” Mary Grace asked, shifting the book under her dress, which did not bring ladylike to my mind, but sure made me grin.

“If we can’t put it back today, then we better be there afore everyone tomorrow,” I said. “Last thing I want is to get caught, especially with you.”

An owl hooted. Mary Grace jumped out of her skin and right near into my arms.

“What was that?”

“A sea serpent,” I said sagely.

Mary Grace did an about turn. “Let’s take the book in the morning.”

I scooted around so I was facing her. “But in the morning is when the Indians and bears are out.”

“Oh, you,” Mary Grace gruffed, turning toward school again. “How’d you get so brave anyway?”

“How’d you get so scaredy-cat?”

Mary Grace grew quiet. Too quiet. For her anyway. I figured she was troubled by some other foolish thing she’d done and needed to get it off her chest. “Something wrong, Mary Grace?”

“No-o-o,” she said slowly. “Something’s right.”

“You got a funny way a-showin’ it.”

“I just wanted to say—”

We’d stopped walking. Her face looked like she was in pain, but her eyes were clear. She blurted, “Thank you!”

And like the levee bursted, she was her old self, blabbering like no one could stop her or should even try. “I really like it here. I got friends, ’n’ Tully, ’n’ Miss Arthington, ’n’ ”—she kicked the ground—“ ’n’, well, you.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, but she didn’t seem to need encouraging now.

“I’m getting used to everything, and I don’t wanna move again, and it was so awful last time with all the whispers and doctors and all!”

Then I was lost. “Mary Grace?” But I might as well not have been there.

“It wasn’t exactly like I said about how we come. It was dumb luck, gettin’ Mister Scott’s store and all. We really come to get away from the talk about Mother.”

We walked on a mite farther.

“I wish you coulda seen Mother before, when she was well,” Mary Grace said. “She was so lovely. I was little, ’bout the size of that June May Justice, and she treated me like a doll. Made my clothes, fixed my hair, and taught me how.” Mary Grace was nearly whispering.

I had to lean in to hear. “We always practiced on my doll babies. Now I have to do my own hair. Hers too—when she lets me.”

What could I say to that? “Mary Grace, you got real bouncy hair, that’s for true.” I was thinking as fast as I could.

“Thank you, Possum Porter!” She looked pleased, so I guessed I’d said right.

Then she sighed. “I wish we could trade places.”

“Why would you say a thing like that?” I asked, alarmed at the idea of those springs popping out of my head. How did she sleep even?

“Mother thinks I should act like a lady, that I should play in the house. I wouldn’t mind being able to go around like you do.” She took a deep breath and then let the next words rush out like a mountain spring: “I wish my ma was dead like yours.”

“Mary Grace, that’s horrible. You take that back right now ’fore I smack you.”

Mary Grace took a step back and put up her hands, palms out, like that could protect her. “Listen. We left the last place because of her. We’ll probably have to leave here because of her. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.” Her voice was cold and flinty, like the back side of a boulder.

“At least you got a momma,” I replied. “Any momma is better than no momma.”

“Having a momma like mine is worse than none at all,” she countered.

“Mary Grace, I’d give anything to have my momma back, even if she was loopier than sweet peas. I would, I swear.”

“You think,” Mary Grace said sagely. “But it’s a burden. Especially on Father.”

“Least your daddy can’t run off and marry some teacher thinks you’re a thief.”

Mary Grace looked shamed for once. “I might of made up that part about your daddy being sweet on Miss Arthington. Fact is, she has a fancy in New York. His letters come to the store, and she writes him near ev’y day.”