Remembering Daddy, Annie looks back toward the house below with the one dimly lit window. She’s too old to be wishing her daddy would come for her and take care of her, but that’s exactly what she’s wishing. She was sure before that Daddy was out here watching over her, probably him and Abraham Pace together, but if they were somewhere nearby, they’d have come for her by now. They’d have seen her standing outside the barn, squinting to see some landmark that would direct her a few feet to the right, a few feet to the left. It must be the whiskey. Too much of it and a bomb couldn’t wake Daddy. That’s what Mama says over coffee the mornings after Daddy and Abraham Pace have a go at their whiskey.
And then Annie thinks of Ryce Fulkerson and holds her breath so she can hear. She’s listening for footsteps because maybe she heard something. Maybe that was a twig snapping or a clump of dirt getting kicked aside. Maybe Ryce is here even though she crushed that dead frog of his. It was a spiteful thing to do. Even as she did it, even as she crushed that chalky white body, she knew it was such, and as sorry as she was, she couldn’t stop herself. Mean-spirited and spiteful and now she’s alone because of it. She stretches the candle overhead, leans around the barn, and wishes she hadn’t been so nasty.
“Ryce,” she whispers, but only once because the sound of her own voice gives her a shiver. She reaches her arm out into the darkness, tips the candle, and can’t help crying out when a stream of hot wax runs down the back of her hand. She drops the candle. The flame goes out.
3
MANY TIMES OVER the years, Caroline and Annie have squatted at the base of this very fence, daring each other to sneak a look at the Baine place. When finally one of them would find the courage to reach her fingers over the top of the flat rocks, unfold her knees, and lift just high enough to see over—usually this was Annie—she would straightaway drop back down, clutch her knees to her chest, and swear, double swear, to have seen Mrs. Baine. It’s just like they say. She’s rocking back and forth, her skirt dragging on the ground, a shotgun cradled in her lap. Annie does that now. She squats behind the fence, her dark candle in hand, and rests against the rocks that have sharp edges even after all these years.
Tapping a finger to the wick and feeling that it’s cool to the touch, Annie slips the candle in her pocket, and as she did when she was seven, eight, ten, and twelve years old, she slides her hands up the fence, her fingers slipping in and out of the cracks between the cool, flat rocks as they crawl toward the top. Once there, she grips the edge and hoists herself, but only until her eyes clear the fence. She can see it . . . the Baines’ well. It’s no more than a shadow, a faint outline. Slaves dug it, that’s what Grandma says. And they built the fence too, taught by the Irish. The Irish build the best fences, and so it’s still standing all these years later.
She feels the light wrap around her as much as she sees it. Those were footsteps she heard, though they were traveling much slower than her own. Caroline would have taken her time, probably walked, and been careful not to snap any of the slender stalks.
“Thought you might need this.”
Annie turns, and the light catches her in the eyes. She blinks, holds up a hand to shield herself.
“Damn it all,” Annie says, dropping her hand as Caroline lowers the beam of light to the ground.
Hurrying back to the barn’s open doorway, Annie motions for Caroline to follow. Annie’s being tall is back to being something she wishes she could brush off. Being tall makes a person all too easy to spot.
“I told you not to come,” Annie says. “And turn that damn fool thing off.”
Caroline uses the flashlight to brighten her path and follows Annie. “Don’t tell Mama,” she whispers as she lets the light settle on a spot near her feet.
Stacked in a small perfect pile at the barn’s entrance are a half dozen twisted cigarettes. Each one has been nearly snapped in two where the filter meets the tobacco except for the one with a tip that still glows.
Annie stoops to the pile and tosses dirt over the one smoldering butt. “Don’t tell Grandma,” she says.
Mama hates it when Daddy smokes, though he normally smokes cigars and usually only when he’s drinking whiskey with Abraham Pace. But no one hates smoking like Grandma hates smoking. Annie stands, stomps on the cigarettes to be sure they’ve been snuffed, and glances around for some other sign of Daddy. They must be his, or Abraham’s. They must be. She leans into the barn, waves for Caroline to point the flashlight inside. Bunches of lavender, cut early to be distilled, hang upside down. A person would have to duck to walk into the barn because of the low-hanging bundles, and even the smallest ruffle would knock loose the tiny buds. Annie leans and squints, looks hard at the stream of yellow light shining into the barn, looks for loose petals fluttering to the ground. Nothing. No one.