Part 22 (2/2)

Miss Sadie stared ahead. This time she lingered in the story after she told it, as if she was looking for a different ending.

Even though she had not told me to go, I stood and started out the door. Then, turning back, I took the compa.s.s from the hook on which it had hung all summer. My work here was finished. It felt like we'd all done enough.

I can't say I knew where I was heading when I stepped off her porch and walked down the Path to Perdition. I knew when I got to the end of the path that there was no place else for me to go. I wandered around a little but eventually found the tombstone I'd come across the day Lettie, Ruthanne, and I had been frog hunting. The one all by itself in the clearing, near an old craggy sycamore tree.

I studied the letters on the tombstone, letting them tell me their story. Letting them help me make sense of something that made no sense. The letters spelled out my father's name. Gideon Tucker. That was my father. The boy, Jinx. They were one and the same, as I'd wondered about and hoped for all along.

Sitting down with my back against the stone, I took the compa.s.s from my pocket and opened the latch. Inside were the words I'd mistaken for the compa.s.s maker's name. Now I knew them for what they were. ST. DIZIER. OCTOBER 8, 1918 ST. DIZIER. OCTOBER 8, 1918. This was Ned's compa.s.s, on which Gideon had engraved Ned's date of death and place of burial. Because for my father, that was the day he began his wanderings in the valley of the shadow of death.

I sat mourning the loss of Ned, a young soldier at arms. Grieving the death of a town. Wis.h.i.+ng for my father, who was still wandering.

My tears had been falling for some time when Shady came for me. He stood beside me, stroking my hair.

”He thought it was his fault, didn't he, Shady? Because he helped Ned raise the twenty-five dollars to join the army underage and then Ned was killed. Because he thought he was a jinx.”

”I suppose.”

”So what happened that night? After the telegram came about Ned?”

Shady sat down beside me. ”He left and never came back. With Ned gone, I suppose he felt he'd done the one thing the town couldn't forgive him for. We didn't blame him. No, sir. There was nothing to forgive him for. The problem was we couldn't forgive ourselves.”

”For what?”

”For not being able to live up to what we'd convinced ourselves of. That there was something special about Manifest. That we could overcome our past and start over.”

”What about the springwater, the metal ore in the ground?”

”Some of us started believing our own tale. That it might be healing water, hallowed ground. But it was just water and dirt, plain and simple.”

”But the elixir. It saved lives.”

”It helped people feel better for a while. Until the worst wave of the influenza hit just a few weeks later. The deadly one. Then it was beyond what any elixir could cure.”

I let his words sink in, then stood up. ”Show me.”

Shady took my hand and walked no more than twenty feet from where we'd been sitting. Pus.h.i.+ng aside a few branches, he made an opening in a row of bushes. And there they were. Dozens of tombstones surrounded by dense shrubs and weeds. Bodies set apart from the town cemetery because of the deadly disease that had killed them. This was no-man's-land.

I walked from stone to stone, feeling the loss of each person. Judge Carlson. Callisto Matenopoulos. Mama Santoni. Even little Eva Cybulskis. It seemed no family had been left untouched. Donal MacGregor and Greta Akkerson. And Margaret Evans, senior cla.s.s president, cla.s.s of 1918. Shady said she'd been the first to die of the influenza in Manifest. All died in November of 1918.

Then the name that was probably the hardest of all to believe: Mrs. Eudora Larkin. In my mind, she'd been so vigorous, so staunch, that surely if death was to approach her, she would give it a good tongue-las.h.i.+ng and send it on its way.

But as Miss Sadie had said, ”Things are not always what they seem.” It was clear death had come to Manifest and would not be brushed aside.

I felt Shady pull me away. ”Come along, Miss Abilene. You've seen enough. Let's go home.”

The word struck me as odd. Home Home. That was a word I didn't know the meaning of. ”I think I'd like some coffee. Strong coffee.”

Shady understood. He took me along the railroad tracks to the bend by the woods. Back to the Jungle, where there were faces familiar to me. People lost and wandering. Like Gideon. Like me.

I sat at the fire and received nods of welcome from the men camped there for the night. Shady handed me a tin cup. The hot coffee scalded me as I sipped.

No wonder Gideon had started closing in on himself. Looking back, I thought it started not when I had been cut, but when I'd turned twelve. I was growing up and he was probably already worrying about the road being a poor place for raising a young lady. Then, when the accident happened and I got so sick, the world came cras.h.i.+ng down around him. He thought he was still a jinx and, one way or another, my life could not be good with him. When I'd cut my leg that day, I'd said the same thing as was written in Ned's letter. It was just a scratch It was just a scratch. Gideon was afraid and he sent me away.

I took another strong swallow, letting the coffee sear my throat. ”He's not coming back, is he?” I asked Shady. ”He's going to wander in the valley of the shadow of death all by himself.”

Shady stared uncomfortably into his coffee cup, as if searching for a way to answer me.

”When we got the telegram from your daddy saying that you were coming, we knew he must be in a bad way. Maybe I should have told you more about when he was here, but it was so long ago. And when Miss Sadie started her story, it seemed like that might be the best way for you to hear what happened.”

I drank the last of my coffee, wincing at the bitterness of it. All the weeks of feeling like Gideon had abandoned me. Trying to catch glimpses of who my father was, to find even one footprint in this town that I could recognize as his. Now I realized that through Miss Sadie, I'd witnessed it all. And I did understand. Gideon hadn't sent me away because he didn't want me. Miss Sadie's words came back to me. ”Who would dream that one can love without being crushed under the weight of it?” Hot tears burned in my eyes. Being Being loved could be crus.h.i.+ng too. loved could be crus.h.i.+ng too.

Shady rubbed his whiskers. ”The thing is, none of us realized that we we needed to hear our stories as much as you did. All those Remember Whens in the paper kind of reminded us of who we were and what brought us together.” He filled his own cup of coffee, letting the steam warm his face. ”Having you here has given us a second chance.” needed to hear our stories as much as you did. All those Remember Whens in the paper kind of reminded us of who we were and what brought us together.” He filled his own cup of coffee, letting the steam warm his face. ”Having you here has given us a second chance.”

That made me feel warm inside. ”Kind of a do-over?”

”Kind of a do-over.”

Shady, Miss Sadie, Hattie Mae. They'd all nurtured and cared for me, hoping that I'd take root in this place.

But I couldn't help looking at the rough faces of the men sitting a respectful distance away. The Jungle. The valley of the shadow of death. Manifest. Gideon. Where did I belong? Where was home? I needed to go once again down the Path to Perdition.

The Shed

AUGUST 24, 1936.

The sun was just coming up as I made my way back to Miss Sadie's. I cut over the back fence and marched straight to the shed, knowing it would still be locked up tight. But I held the skeleton key. It hadn't ever been mentioned in Miss Sadie's stories, but in my mind, it had worked its way in on its own. I'd wondered before what skeletons this key was hiding. Well, there couldn't be any more skeletons than in Miss Sadie's shed.

The key fit into the door nice and easy, and with hardly a tug, the door swung open wide. The shed was there, waiting for me to come in. Waiting to reveal what had been hidden and festering for so long.

It was a normal garden shed with pruning shears, buckets, watering cans, and the accompanying a.s.sortment of cobwebs, dead bugs, and dust. But there were also ten or twelve jugs. This was where Jinx had stashed the extra elixir under lock and key. And he'd kept the key.

Up high on a shelf, there was a box. I took it down and lifted the lid. I pulled out pictures, grade cards, newspaper clippings, childhood drawings, and school papers. All mementos of a boy. A boy named Ned.

I took my time, absorbing the things Miss Sadie couldn't bring herself to tell me. I walked into the house, and in the kitchen I fetched a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton b.a.l.l.s. Then I found a sharp knife and heated it on the cookstove. Miss Sadie was sitting on the front porch, rocking, waiting for me.

”Are you ready?” I said.

”I am ready.”

Kneeling beside her, I held the hot blade to her wound and pierced it, letting all the pain flow out. I don't recall if Miss Sadie told the rest of the story to me as I cleaned her wound, or if I told it to her through what I'd pieced together on my own. It doesn't matter. All I know is that her story flowed in and out of mine. And you might say I divined the rest.

<script>