All afternoon, I wonder if Arney will be at the boat tonight when Fern and me get there. But I figure she will, because when she thinks about it, she’ll see there’s not much to hold her here. She needs to get away down the river as much as we do.
The Seviers talk in their bedroom again before Mr. Sevier heads into Memphis for his meeting. When they come down, he’s carrying a little overnight bag.
“If the meeting runs late, I may stay in the city,” he says, and then he kisses Fern on the head and me too, which he’s never done before. I grit my teeth and try really hard to be still while he leans over me. All I can think about is Mr. Riggs. “You three take care of each other.” He looks at Mrs. Sevier. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Zuma hands him his hat as he walks out the door, and then it’s just us womenfolk. Mrs. Sevier tells Zuma and Hootsie they can go on out to the carriage house and kick their feet up. There’s no need to fuss over a meal. We girls will just have ourselves a tray of finger sandwiches.
Zuma fixes the tray real cute before she leaves.
“A little pajama party just for us. Captain Midnight is on the radio tonight,” Mrs. Sevier says. “And hot cocoa too. Maybe it’ll settle my stomach.” She licks her lips and presses a hand over her tummy.
“I don’t think my stomach feels too good either.” I’m itching to get upstairs and gather some things together. I won’t take any more than I have to of what the Seviers bought for us. It’s not right. Anyhow, we have things on the Arcadia. Not fancy things like these, but we’ve got what we need. What would a river gypsy want with ruffled dresses and shiny leather shoes? The clackety soles would scare all the fish away.
“You girls go on and wash up, and put your gowns on. May, you’ll feel better once we’re all settled in with some cocoa and treats.” Mrs. Sevier wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, then pushes her lips into a smile. “Come on, now. We’ll make a lovely evening of it. Just us girls.”
I take Fern’s hand and head upstairs.
Fern’s so excited about our party with Mrs. Sevier, she washes herself and gets her pajamas on lickety-split, even if her nighty is backward.
I fix it and put her robe on over the top and get mine on too, but I keep my clothes underneath. If Mrs. Sevier notices, I’ll just tell her I was chilly. Lately, it’s been cool in the house at night. One more reminder that it’s time to get back to the river before winter sets in.
I try to act like I’m happy about our radio party, but I’m nervous as a cat while we’re eating our finger sandwiches. I drop one on my robe and stain it, and Mrs. Sevier wipes the mess up for me.
She checks my forehead for a temperature. “How are you feeling now that you’ve had a little something to eat?”
All I can think is that I wish she was Queenie. I wish Queenie and Briny owned this big house, and I wish Mrs. Sevier could have babies one right after the other like Queenie does so she wouldn’t be lonesome after we’re gone.
I shake my head and whisper, “I might oughta just go on up to bed. I can take Fern with me and get her settled.”
“No need for you to bother.” She runs a hand along my hair, gathering it in her fingers and lifting it off my neck the way Queenie used to. “I’ll bring her up when she’s ready. I’m her mommy, after all.”
Everything in me goes cold and hard again. I barely even feel it when she kisses me on the cheek and asks if I need her to come tuck me in.
“No…Mommy.” I hurry out of the room quick as I can, and I don’t look back even once.
Upstairs, it seems like forever before Mrs. Sevier brings Fern to bed. Through the wall, I hear her sing a lullaby. I push my hands tight over my ears.
Queenie and me sang that song to the babies a lot.
Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry,
Go to sleep, little baby.
When you wake,
You shall have
All the pretty little horses.
All of it tangles in my head: The Arcadia and this place. My real parents and Mrs. Sevier and Mr. Sevier. Queenie and Mommy and Briny and Papa. The big river. The oxbow lake. The slough. Long white porches and little ones that drift, and drift, and drift over the water, not painted at all.
I play like I’m asleep when Mrs. Sevier comes into my room and feels my forehead again. I’m afraid she’ll try to wake me up and ask how I am, but then she leaves. The door closes at the end of the hall, and I can finally breathe easy.
The moon’s just coming up when I put on my coat and shoes, strap a little poke onto my back, and slip into Fern’s room and lift her out of bed. “Sssshhh…be real quiet. We’re gonna walk to the river and see if we can spot some fireflies. If anybody hears us, they won’t let us go.”
I wrap my little sister in a blanket, and she’s asleep on my shoulder before we’re down the stairs and out the door to the porch. It’s dark and shadowy there, and I hear something scratching in the gardens near the house, a coon or a skunk maybe. Mr. Sevier’s hunting dogs bark when I step off into the grass, but they quiet after they see it’s just me. Nobody lights a lamp in the carriage house. Dew flicks up and sprinkles my legs as I hold Fern tight and hurry toward the trees. Over branches, the moon shines high and full, as bright as the lantern Briny always hangs on the Arcadia at night. There’s plenty of light to see by, and that’s all we need. We’re down to the lakeshore quick. Arney is waiting, just like she promised.
We whisper, even though she tells me her daddy’s dead-dog out cold from whiskey, like usual. “If he wakes some and wants me, he ain’t gonna git hisself upright to come lookin’.” But Arney hurries us into the boat anyhow. Her eyes are wide white circles in her thin face when she checks over her shoulder toward the camp.
At the last, she stands there with one hand on the little jon boat and two feet on the shore. It seems like forever that she’s turned toward the camp, just watching.
“Get in,” I whisper. Fern’s waking up a little in the bottom of the boat, yawning and stretching and blinking around. If she figures out what’s going on, I’m afraid she might raise a fuss.
Arney’s fingers drift off the boat until only the tips are touching.
“Arney.” Is she thinking of sending us on alone? I’ve got no idea how to run the motorboat by myself, and I don’t know the way through the slough. We’ll get lost in there and never come out. “Arney, we gotta go.”
Past the treetops, the shadows shift on the lawn, and I think I see streams of light moving over the grass. They’re gone by the time I stand up for a better view. Maybe they were only in my mind…or maybe Mr. Sevier decided to come home tonight instead of staying in the city. Could be he’s parking his car and walking into the house right now. He’ll look in our bedrooms and know we’re gone.
I wobble across the hull and grab Arney’s arm, and she jumps like she’s forgot all about me. Her eyes grab on to mine through the moonlight. “I don’t know if I oughta,” she says. “I won’t never see my people again.”
“They treat you bad, Arney. You have to leave. You have to come with us. We’ll be your people now. Me and Fern and Briny and Queenie and Old Zede.”
We stare at each other for a long time. Finally, she nods and casts off the boat so fast I fall over the top of Fern. We take the paddles and row out a ways, letting wind and the current pull us along toward the slough until we’re well out from shore.
“Where’s…a fi…fireflies?” Fern mumbles when I crawl over her.
“Sssshhh. We gotta get all the way to the river first. You might oughta sleep awhile yet.” I pull her blanket up tight and put her shoes on her bare feet to keep them warm and let her use the poke for a pillow. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to look.” There won’t be any fireflies, but when Fern finally sees the Arcadia, she won’t care a bit.