Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy
1
1952—ANNIE
ANNIE HOLLERAN HEARS him before she sees him. Even over the drone of the cicadas, she knows it’s Ryce Fulkerson, and he’s pedaling this way. That’s his bike, all right, creaking and whining. He’ll have turned off the main road and will be standing straight up as he uses all his weight, bobbing side to side, to pump those pedals and force that bike up and over the hill. In a few moments, he’ll reach the top where the ground levels out, and that front tire of his will be wobbling and groaning and drawing a crooked line in the soft, dry dirt.
They’re singing in the trees again today, those cicadas. A week ago, they clawed their way out of the ground, seventeen years’ worth of them, and now their skins hang from the oaks, hardened husks with tiny claws and tiny, round heads. One critter called out to another and then another until their pulsing songs made Annie press both hands over her ears, tuck her head between her knees, and cry out for them to stop. Stop it now. All these many days, there’s been something in the air, a spark, a crackle, something that’s felt a terrible lot like trouble coming, and it’s been much like the weight of those cicadas, thousands upon thousands of them crying out to one another.
Annie has known all morning Ryce would be coming. It’s why she’s been sitting on this step and waiting on him for near an hour. She oftentimes knows a thing is coming before it has come. It’s part of the curse—or blessing, if Grandma is to be believed—of having the know-how.
They both have the know-how, Annie and Aunt Juna. That’s what Grandma calls it. The know-how. It floats just above the lavender bushes, trickles from the moss hanging in the oaks, drifts like a fallen leaf down the Lone Fork River, just waiting for someone like Annie or Aunt Juna to scoop it or snatch it or pluck it from the air. The two of them share the know-how because Aunt Juna is Annie’s real mother. Grandma has it too. She says there’s no evil in the know-how, though some are frightened of a thing they know little about. It’s my gift to you, Grandma is all the time saying, but that’s not true. The know-how passes from mother to daughter. Everyone knows that. Annie also has Aunt Juna’s black eyes. Not dark brown or almost black. But black, through and through. Folks believe that’s where the evil lives. In the eyes. It’s Annie’s fear, has been all her life, that evil passes from mother to daughter too.
Most days the know-how is like a whisper or a sigh, but with the approach of Annie’s half birthday—her day of ascension, they call it—the know-how has swelled, and this something in the air has made Annie startle for no reason, hold her breath when she thought she’d heard something she ought not have heard. All her years, fifteen and a half of them when she celebrates her day of ascension tomorrow, Annie Holleran has lived with the fear of turning out like her Aunt Juna. All her years, Annie has lived with the fear that Aunt Juna will one day come home.
Pushing herself off the bottom step and not bothering to smooth her skirt or straighten her blouse, Annie walks into the middle of the drive, kicking up dust with her bare feet. With every step, her middle caves and her shoulders slouch, Annie’s favored posture since she sprouted last summer. That’s what Mama called it . . . sprouting. And ever since, Mama has been telling Annie to stand straight and show some pride, as if being taller than most every other girl should be a prideful thing.
In addition to nagging about improper posture, Mama will be after Annie with soap and a rag by lunchtime, and she’ll remind Annie no more going barefoot once a girl has ascended.
“Thought you’d be working today,” Annie says as Ryce’s bike slows to a stop. She crosses her arms and hugs herself, another way to shrink an inch or two.
Ryce kicks out his right leg and lets his bike tip until he’s carrying his weight on that one foot. He’s wearing dark trousers, one leg rolled up to his shin so it doesn’t catch in his chain, double-knotted leather boots, and a white undershirt covered in the same dark smudges that mar his forearms, hands, and face.
“Lunch break,” Ryce says. He’s holding on to his handlebar with one hand. In the other, he holds a crumpled white kerchief. “All the fellows get one.”