On Monday, I was famous. Everyone had heard about me. Lexie, Jean and Ruthie waved at me as I came up School Street toward them, as if my footprints filled with rubies at every step. I even glanced back, imagining I’d missed an announcement and President Coolidge was arriving on my heels.
But really, I knew it was me they were waiting for. Gwendalen was the most amazing thing that had ever happened in Peach Hill. And for doing so little! Anyone who tried could convey messages from a lonely, tongueless medieval girl. They were simply too dull to bother. Mama always said that being dull was a far greater crime than being dishonest. I was escorted through the girls door as though I were an exotic bird being carried to the king. No one spoke to me directly, of course. They chittered and buzzed as they always had.
In the hallway, I became the victim of numerous accidental collisions, as if my magic could rub off. Even teachers made excuses to speak to me. Lexie and her friends had taken care of telling the story, adding details and even chapters, until I hardly recognized my own creation: I had levitated off the bed and hovered near Lexie’s ceiling, speaking a language much like Arabic; I had become a human magnet, compelling hairpins and spoons to fly across the room and attach themselves to my limbs; I had actually vanished in the dim light and returned with a severed head held in my waxy, outstretched hands. Oh, if only!
But there were scoffers, too. Delia de Groot cornered me after lessons, while Sally Carlaw stood guard a few feet away.
“Apparently you now claim that you were possessed by some kind of bleeding demon. Well, you should be locked up. You’re as crazy as your mother. And you can tell her to keep her filthy Gypsy paws away from my father. He’d be better off arresting her than falling for whatever scheme she’s hatching.”
My hand itched to punch her pretty pink mouth. I pushed my fists deep into my jacket pockets and fiddled with the loose threads down there.
“I think you must be mistaken,” I said, unnerved by how closely she skimmed the truth. “My mother is a professional.”
Delia sneered. “And what exactly is her profession?”
I’d fallen into that one with my eyes wide open, letting her suggest that Mama was a whore.
“She helps people,” I said, my voice sounding strangled even to my own ears. “Lonely people. Or lost. She could help find your mother, maybe.”
“My mother is not lost,” Delia hissed at me. “Not that it’s any of your beeswax. She’s dead, as far as you’re concerned, and don’t I wish it were yours instead!”
I spun away from Delia, and Sally’s smirking face next to hers. I ducked out the front door with my head down, not wanting anyone to see the tears splashing. I raced away from school, needing somewhere to hide.
I found sanctuary at the Peach Hill Public Library. The library had been a constant destination in other towns, but Mama had declared it off limits in Peach Hill because of my idiot disguise. She’d brought me books as part of my home learning, but I hadn’t had a chance to roam the shelves myself. I stood between the stacks, breathing in the dusty paper smell, fingering the gilt-lettered spines of other worlds. It occurred to me that my new creation could be more authentic with just a little reading.
I looked up the accurate term for Gwendalen’s punishment, dying to have it fall casually from my lips, if the pun can be excused. I devised that she had suffered an involuntary glossectomy (from the Greek gloss, meaning “tongue,” and tome, meaning “to cut”). Looking through that book, I wished I hadn’t killed her off quite so quickly; there were such lovely, grisly tortures that might have prolonged her ordeal and made for several dramatic sessions. I could have had the convent raided by barbarians or introduced the plague with its weeping sores.
At the desk, I ran smack into Mrs. Newman, waiting on line with Old Horse.
“Good afternoon, Annie!” she said. “I’d like to introduce my husband, Mr. Newman. Walter, this is young Annie Grackle, the girl I was telling you about.”
Sammy was right; the man’s teeth were enormous, the color of rancid butter.
I saw Mrs. Newman’s eyes sliding over my stack of books: Domestic Life in the Middle Ages, Herbalists and Bone Setters: Medieval Medics, and Saints Be Praised! A Guide to Medieval Religion.
Her gaze shifted back to meet mine and rested there just long enough to make me squirm. “Nice to see you’re getting interested in your studies.”
“Yes, yes, I am,” I said. “Did you know, for instance, that during the twelve hundreds, a girl my age was likely to be married with two dead children already?”
Old Horse grunted and then chuckled at my wit.
“Thank you for that tidbit, Annie,” said Mrs. Newman. “I look forward to hearing how you make use of it in school.”
As the Newmans left the library, old habit made my feet itch to follow them. Should I be a good girl and toddle home, or make use of this prize chance? It was too good to waste. I silently cursed the librarian for her ponderous attention as she checked out my books.
I didn’t expect to welcome Mrs. Newman as a customer, but I’d started a file with her name at the top. Opportunity and plain curiosity now drove me to seek details. Outside, I could see the Newmans across the square, passing the church. I pinched myself for luck and headed after them, ducking behind trees and parked motorcars, keeping half a block back.
They were deep in conversation, making me bold enough to skip nearer and follow them onto Dash Road and into the grid of streets closer to the station and the factories. They marched along at a fair clip, chatting all the way. On Crossing Avenue they turned suddenly, going through a small gate and up the walk of number 157.
I stopped and reversed in a hurry. Heaven forbid they should notice me while fiddling with the key. I’d seen the bamboo shade in the upstairs window and a tabby cat sitting on the step. I’d seen Mrs. Newman smile at her husband as if his teeth didn’t matter at all.
Sammy was waiting at the corner of Needle Street. He wore a new corduroy jacket, brown and soft looking, begging to be touched.
“Hey, Annie,” he said. My heart jumped.
“Hello there. You weren’t at school today.” He’d missed my hour of glory.
“Toothache,” he said. “But it’s better now. Can you come for a walk?”
“Oh, I suppose,” I said. I left the library books on the hall table and joined him back outside. Dusk was already darkening the sky, and I wished I had my gloves on.
“I hear you had a lively weekend,” he said.
“Just the usual,” I said. I am inhabited by seven-hundred-year-old glossectomized convent girls pretty much every Saturday night.
“Have you read any mystery stories by the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” he asked.
“No,” I said, wishing I could rave about “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” “I didn’t really learn to read until last week. I have some catching up to do.”
“Oh, yeah.” He paused while he probably remembered that until recently I was a chapped-lipped, wonky-eyed moron. “Well, he’s a genius,” he said. “He writes wonderful stories about a brilliant detective named Sherlock Holmes. The reason I’m telling you is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really believes in life after death, like the Egyptians believed. Only he’s got scientific proof, not just faith.”
“Proof?”
“He’s got photographs of the ghost of his son, Kingsley, who died at the end of the Great War. Spirit photos, with Sir Arthur in front and the spirit dangling over his head in midair. Apparently lots of mediums take pictures during séances. They show phantom figures and mysterious lights and even ectoplasm oozing from noses or ears.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
Mama and I knew about mediums who used ectoplasm—supposedly, spirits’ bodily effusions—and swore it made their acts more convincing. I’d heard that Harry Houdini had found one woman pulling out yarn coated in egg yolk from a pouch in her corset. Mama said that was unsightly and refused to consider it. She said clients wanted to encounter the Other Side with elegance and dignity.
“But the evidence is captured on film,” insisted Sammy. “That means it’s real!”
Not necessarily, I thought. But perhaps Mama should learn something about photography and how to manipulate the results. Normally, she avoided having her picture taken, thinking too much publicity would lead to exposure. But she could make it alluring, part of the drama.
We had wandered back and forth across the square, under the statue of the mounted soldier.
“I’d love to see it,” said Sammy. “You, going into a trance, I mean.”
The chill on my back was not just the evening air. “It’s my mother,” I said. “Not me. She’s the trance medium.”
“Don’t you think it’s in the blood, that kind of thing? Like having straight teeth or stomach ailments? I’m sure you can do it too.”
Of course I could do it, but blood was not involved. I’d been watching Mama all my life. It was theater, not science. I was leading Sammy on by not telling him the truth because I wanted him to look at me with his shining eyes, to think I was the most unusual and marvelous girl.
“I’m cold,” I said. “And it must be suppertime.”
“I’ll walk you home,” said Sammy.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “I’ll cut through the alley and be home in five minutes.”
But he followed me out of the square and across Main Street. We entered the unlit pathway behind Lucky Ladies and the Blue Boy Bakery, where I’d first met Helen.
“Annie,” he said. “Can you see in the dark?”
“I’m not a cat, Sam.”
“I know, but I just wondered. Isn’t it almost the same thing? Seeing into the future and seeing in the dark? We all know the path is there, but some of us are better at avoiding obstacles.”
“I can’t see into the future, either, Sammy. That’s my mother, remember?”
“I have faith,” said Sammy. Was faith worth having, I wondered, if it was based on deception? But his voice was low and warm and his arm brushed against mine, maybe on purpose. “I keep saying, I know you have the Gift.”
“What if I don’t?” I whispered. “What if it turns out that there’s no such thing? Is that the only reason you like me?” It was dark enough for me to say it without blushing. I so wanted it not to be true. He stopped and leaned closer.
“Do you know what’s going to happen in the next minute of your life?” he murmured.
Suddenly, Sammy and I were not who we’d been just a moment before. When he reached for me, we sank into each other. Hands and fingers, arms and shoulders melted together and we were kissing in the dark, kissing as if we’d done it a hundred times. It was best there was no light. I might have been too shy with light. But there we were, kissing, melting, kissing, with no one to see, especially us. We could just kiss. Until we stopped to breathe and the night got between our mouths enough to cool them.
“I’d better go.” I was shivery and nervous, as if someone might turn a light on and spill our secret.
“Annie—”
I touched his hair in case there wasn’t ever another chance, and turned to run with the feel of silk on my palm and panic in my throat.
I dared not look at Mama during supper, sure that she would see Sammy’s imprint all over my face. But she had other things on her mind.
“Gregory is devoting himself to establishing connections. I suspect it’s an exciting change for him, not to be penned up in the dingy office of the stocking factory all day.…”
My ears wouldn’t stick to Mama’s words. I kept hearing Sammy: “Do you know what’s going to happen in the next minute of your life?”
“He’s a very smart man, you know,” said Mama, fiddling with the pepper mill. “He has shares in a nickel mine in northern Ontario that expects outstanding results.”
Was there any chance that Sammy could know it had been my first kiss? Had it been it his? Probably not, he was too good at it! I prayed that he’d never kissed Delia. I wanted to be first. And I wished I was kissing him again, right at that moment.
“I’m considering an investment,” said Mama. “Since we’ve been so lucky in Peach Hill. We could double our money, Gregory says—”
I’d see Sammy the next day at school, but when would we have a chance to kiss again?
“Annie! You haven’t touched your supper!”