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GRANDMA COMES FROM deep in the hills, and that’s why she has the know-how. Ever since Daddy, Mama, Caroline, and Annie came to live with Grandma, she has been single-minded about passing on the gift as she has no daughter of her own. She tried passing it on to Caroline, but she was only interested in hair brushing and fine manners. Mama refused any part of the know-how, and Grandma never bothered trying to teach Daddy. Men don’t have a knack. In the end, Grandma said Annie was the only one with any real facility for the gift, and so she would be the one to carry it on. You best know how the world works, Grandma has been telling Annie since she was nine years old, if you’re going to make your way in it.
Mostly, it’s difficult to remember it all. In the beginning, before she started feeling sparks in the air and before the yearning and the coming of the lavender, it wasn’t a matter of believing or not. Annie never gave that much thought, just like she never gave much thought to why the Lone Fork River only runs one direction and the weather always turns in late September. Having the know-how made her special. Only she knew not to brush her hair after dark and what it meant if her left foot itched and how to drink up the moon. Caroline would always be the pretty one and the smart one and the kind and considerate one. But Annie would have the know-how, and in that one thing, she would be special too.
For the better part of the morning, Annie has been sitting here on this step and wondering when and how Aunt Juna will come home. The longer she’s sat here, the more she’s found her eyes scanning the road and the fence line and Daddy’s shed and the far corner of the house, and she’s started to wonder if Aunt Juna is already here, out there, somewhere.
She knew Ryce would come back today, though she hadn’t expected him so early. When she hears that squealing again and knows Ryce Fulkerson will pop over the hill any moment, she knows why he’s come and she can only hope Lizzy Morris isn’t with him. For an entire week after Lizzy looked down into the well, the boys of Hayden County bunched around her in a pitiful fashion. She made herself up extra nice that whole week, brushing her hair over lunch and at the afternoon break. Twice, she wore dresses she would usually only wear to church and did not open a single door for herself the entire week. Pitiful. Annie kept track, even wrote herself a list of names, and swore she’d never have any part of any of those boys who might as well have pleaded on hand and knee.
Ryce was the only one who didn’t sniff around Lizzy all day every day, waiting to hear who she saw down in that well. And when finally Lizzy Morris pronounced that Ryce was the boy she saw, he had said he figured he had to marry someone and she might as well be Lizzy. He swears, even now, they haven’t had a first kiss or any other kiss. He swears it like it should matter to Annie.
“So?” Ryce says, that front wheel of his bike drawing another crooked line down the drive.
Rolling to a stop, he props himself up with one leg, holds on to the handlebars with both hands, and stares at Annie. He’s come straight from church, because he’s wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt and smells of his daddy’s cologne and his mama’s green hair gel. Annie knows it’s green because Mama uses the same when she sets her curlers. Ryce’s mama has combed it through his hair, making it shiny and slick so it would look decent for at least the length of the sermon.
“So, what?” Annie says, not bothering to stand from the porch step where she sits. She draws all her hair over her shoulder like Caroline is all the time doing and pulls it through her two hands, smoothing it because it’s likely the sort of a thing a girl should do once she’s had her day.
The smell of lavender hasn’t yet been stirred up, and instead a spicy scent fills the air. Grandma likes to whisk the cloves, ginger, and cinnamon into melted butter, says it keeps the spices from floating on top and ruining the cake.
“So, who’d you see?”
“You’re making a habit of this, Ryce Fulkerson. You smell home cooking? That what brought you?”
“Told you, ain’t looking for food.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” Annie thinks to cross her ankles because it’s the thing a girl, a young woman, should do.
“Going soon enough. Just wondering who you seen, is all.”
“How do you know I went?”
“Everyone knows you went. Everyone knows about Mrs. Baine too.”
“And just what does everyone think they know?”
“Know she’s dead,” Ryce says. “Think maybe a Holleran killed her.”
“That’s a damn fool thing to say.”
As hard as Annie is trying to do as a girl should do when she has ascended, the nastiness works its way through.
“Wasn’t me who said it,” Ryce says. “Just heard talk, is all.”
“Barely washed the breakfast dishes and you’re telling me folks are already talking?”