“Hi, Sadie. Come on in. I’m having tea. Want some?”
She steps inside, sets the beloved magazine on the table, and says right off, “That ain’t good.” She points to the pile of sticks I’ve collected to burn in the woodstove. “Burn quicker than a powder fuse. Need logs for your stove. Gotta be seasoned.”
“Where do I get seasoned logs?”
“Jerome Biddle be glad to make a dollar or two chopping wood.”
“Lovely. You solve my wood problem, and I’ll get a new friend.”
I pour tea and open a tin of cookies while Sadie walks over to my gifts on the window ledge and studies them.
“It’s good you respect em like this,” she says, picking up the biscuit rock, then putting it back down.
“What do you mean? Do you know who leaves these things?”
“Birdie. She lives in that trailer you pass coming and going.”
“I saw her the day I arrived, but not since.”
“She show herself when it’s time.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“Anything ails you, she got the cure. Older than dirt. Used to live with a Injun. Got a crow for a friend.”
“Why do you think she left the bones of a child’s hand? It’s so tiny and fragile.”
“It’s likely tied to a pure spirit, a wise spirit Birdie knows who walks these woods, seeing things, helping. This spirit likely watches over you.”
I don’t tell the girl I don’t believe in the bunk of the supernatural, but it’s disturbing to think of a child’s grave being robbed or the child never being buried in the first place. I’ve never held bones like these, intact, delicate, tragic.
Sadie picks up a feather from the window ledge. “Birdie say you brave to stay.”
“What tells you that?”
“This here eagle feather.”
“She left that yesterday.”
Sadie gently puts the feather down and walks back to the table. “Don’t never hide it. Don’t never let it touch the ground.”
? ? ?
Sadie made good her promise, and Jerome Biddle, a lopsided gnome of a man with a wispy beard, has come to cut woodstove-size logs for my woodstove. The day’s labor produces a stack four feet high between poplar trees ten feet apart. In my naivety, I think it’s enough wood to last a lifetime.
I give Jerome extra money to chop wood for the schoolhouse. Our desks have already been pulled close to the stove, and some mornings there’s frost on the insides of the windows, but the mood inside stays warm. I love my time with the children. They’re inquisitive and hardworking. They want to please me, and they do. When one of them misses a day of school, I make inquiries and let Preacher Perkins know, but I don’t insinuate myself. I’ll always be a jasper.
I find a milk supply with Eli’s help and add it to the apple and potato diet. Attendance increases to between fifteen and eighteen students. We don’t mind sharing desks, and Eli found extra chairs. We graduate from picture books to storybooks. No one knows how to read except simple words, so everyone starts at the beginning. I whistle walking to and from school.
? ? ?
The next Saturday, I pass Birdie’s trailer and see her.
She waits outside the door, a squat woman with wide hips. As she was the first day I arrived, she wears layers of dull, long dresses that drag the ground, to which she’s added a striped sweater, a paisley shawl, and a necklace of beads and bones. She reminds me of a homeless woman I once saw in New York City who wore a dozen layers of clothing—even a bicycle tire around her neck—to keep her possessions safe.
Everything about Birdie is knotted. Arthritic fingers grip a gnarled staff. Lips clamp a twisted pipe. A braided belt hangs from her waist. Cotton-fuzz hair piled helter-skelter on her head has a live crow nesting in it, for heaven’s sake! Hygiene is highly questionable.
“Need to talk” is what I think she says before she turns and ambles up the two steps, lumbering side to side. When she crosses the threshold, the crow lifts off and flies to a branch and perches.
Birdie’s door stays open so I must enter or risk rudeness. I worry I’ll embarrass myself, or hurt the old woman’s feelings when I can’t understand her or find her smell too rank. I sense Birdie has been my protector these weeks on the mountain and the giver of gifts, but I’m scared of what I’ll find inside.
Still…
I take a breath, stoop low, and step inside.
Every surface—ceiling, walls, table, ledges—is covered with drying herbs, moss, leaves, snake skins, bones, turtle shells, seeds, nuts, and stones. Burlap covers windows and cuts light to a hint. Birdie’s trailer smells like the deep throat of a secret cave: rich, earthy, cool, mysterious. It’s potent but not unpleasant.
The crone sits regally behind a table made from a tree stump. Old books bound in cracked leather are stacked high. One lies open, and I see writing on parchment paper. A jar of ink and homemade quills from feathers are beside it. Oil lamps and candles light this cave of a place, and I think magical, not frightening.
Opposite Birdie is a low stool, and I fold myself down, down low to the ground, until our eyes are level. Then I wait, acutely aware of my breathing.
There’s a dry rustling in the walls, and I wonder if the room breathes with me. All the while Birdie sucks on her pipe, squints through blue smoke, and studies me. I vaguely wonder if she has slowed time to a crawl.
Not that I care.
Cocoon.
That’s what this place is. A soft cell of heady comfort and wisdom culled from a great student of life. Birdie’s home isn’t an eerie place. It makes me curious. Feel safe.
“Them things I give. You like?”
I’m pleasantly surprised I understand Birdie’s speech perfectly.
“Sadie said they’re from you. Thank you.” My voice is mellow and easy.
“You even know what you got?”
“Sadie says the eagle feather means you think I’m brave. And the bones of the child’s hand represent a spirit who watches over me.”
“That girl smart.”
“Do you know about the blue bird who lost his head?”
“That indigo bunting give his life for you.”
“And blood and guts smeared on my door?”
“They done. Over with.”
“How do you know?” My words leave my mouth, thick, and float in the air in front of my eyes.
“I been watching you these weeks. Make sure you was safe.”
“You have? How kind.” I feel drunk and loose, but I haven’t had anything to eat or drink. It’s just this lovely, marvelous, blue smoke.
“Did you tell the troublemaker to stop doing those awful things?” I use my little-girl voice I thought I’d lost.
“Kate Shaw, you done passed.” Birdie’s voice sounds far away. “This here mountain is pleased.”
The last thing I hear is the mountain is pleased, and the next moment, I wake in my loft, under my blanket, wearing pajamas. I blink against sunshine and wonder if I dreamed the whole thing.
Miraculously, my headache is gone.
? ? ?
September 24