Tomorrow River

“Shen? Earth to Shenny.” Bootie laughs.

“Yeah?”

Giving me what I’d consider to be a smile of invitation, he says, “I heard from my cousin in Winchester that the sideshow’s bringin’ a baby in a bottle this year.”

“No kiddin’? How’d they ever-” I’m dying to RSVP. To tell him, “I would love to go for a ride with you in the Tunnel of Love. After that, we could sit on the tent benches and watch the show. I’ll bury my head in your strong chest when the snake man charms the serpent out the basket because secretly, Bootie Young, you make me want to unbraid my hair and put on a frilly dress.” But I put on a disinterested voice and say, “Maybe we’ll run into you there,” because he’s not only distracting me, he’s distracting Woody, and the clock in Washington Square is chiming quarter past the hour.

“Please.” I yank on my sister again, but she’s not budging. Her eyes are locked down, her face a mural of yearning. She’s thinking about how good it would be to lay herself down on the bottom of the grave and have Bootie cover her missing-Mama heart in cooling dirt, I just know she is. “We’ve got to get back before…” I don’t want to, but I got to. I lean my head to Woody’s and whisper, “The root cellar,” and thank goodness, she picks up her pace.

Chapter Six

We’re standing at the edge of the creek on the Tittle side.

I’m arguing with E. J. He keeps fussing, insisting, “Let me walk back across the stones with you.”

I got my reasons for not wanting him to get involved in the Carmody family business more than he already is. “Quit bein’ more of a pain than you already are,” I say, piggybacking onto the first stepping stone behind my sister, who is still real agitated on account of me bringing up the root cellar over at the cemetery. I get a better grip on her. “I mean it, E. J. Make like a bunny and hop up that hill.”

“But I’m worried that-” He looks past me at Woody.

I warn him, “If you don’t get out of here on the count of three…” One of the other reasons E. J. is being extra- overbearing is that even though he’s never said anything to me, I’m pretty sure he’s heard my uncle and grandfather whooping and hollering through our woods in the wee hours. That’s when they like to play hide-’n’-seek. Woody and me hide-they seek. “One… two…” When E. J. doesn’t make a move to turn towards home, I pull out my heaviest artillery. “I won’t let you see you know who anymore if you don’t git,” and that settles that. Not sure that I’ve ever seen him move so fast. He doesn’t even say, “Catch ya on the flipside,” which he normally does as he scrambles off.

Woody, who appeared to be paying no mind to E. J.’s and my squabble, quick twists out of my grip and starts running across the stepping stones. Usually so sure-footed, she’s in such an all-fired hurry that she slips and falls into the creek when she’s almost onto our side. I want to holler out to E. J. to come back and help, but if I do, I’ll never hear the end of it, so I hustle across the remaining stones, jump in after her and the two of us go panting up onto the bank. We’re trying to catch our breaths. She’s flushed and frenzied. I take a piece of her hair out of her mouth and set it behind her ear. “Pea… you… you have got… to stop runnin’ off like- what?” Woody is sniffing the air. She can hear the wind change directions since she’s gone mute, and her nose-it’s keen. She’s almost locked onto something and then I hear him, too.

“Have you cleaned these stalls?” Papa. His voice is coming out of the barn, not more than fifty yards from us. I thought for sure he’d be occupied in his study already, but he’s come back from his ride much later than usual. “Did you throw down fresh shavings and clean the water buckets?”

Mr. Cole answers back soft-spoken so I can’t hear him.

I say urgently to Woody, “If he comes out, he’ll see us. Quick. Dive under the willow.”

Not a beat later, His Honor comes out of the barn. The handsomest man in all of Rockbridge County, the one who’s got midnight hair and eyes that are the same color as the whiskey and soda he drinks around that time looks even worse than he did last night. Taking unsteady steps our way, Papa shouts, “Girls? Is that you?”

The branches of the willow tree are wiggling and there’s no wind today. That’s what’s gotten his attention. I will them to be still.

“Twins?” he calls, coming closer.

“Scoot… scoot back,” I whisper frantically to Woody. We use our hands and heels to dig deeper into the branches. “And please, please, please, don’t start howling.”

“I see you,” Papa says, but I’m sure he can’t. He’s tripped down to the grass. He’s been worse the last few days because he gets extra soused whenever Grampa’s due to visit. I can’t really blame him. I have been forced to slug back a few when that old nincompoop shows up. I want to rush to his side and help him up, but I’ve fallen for that before, and Woody knows it. She holds me tight by the wrist until Papa struggles back up, first onto all fours, and then semiupright. He shakes his head like he’s forgotten what he was doing and turns back towards the barn.

Woody is fluttering. She wants to make a break for it, but I warn her, “Wait.” I inch forward until I can see Papa through the curtain of shimmering leaves. Maybe he really did see us. Sometimes he can fool us. Sometimes he can double back. I lean back to my sister and start counting slowly, “One Virginia, two Virginia,” and when I get up to “thirty Virginia,” I tell her, “All right. Get set, go!” On our dash to the house, I run backwards so I can keep an eye on the barn door. “Keep movin’,” I tell Woody when she looks at me bug-eyed.

Once we’re on the back porch of the house, I trap my twin between my arms, press her against the peeling white wood. “Don’t even swallow.” I squeeze her to make a big impression. “I mean it. Hold still.” I’m waving my hand and blowing on the bottoms of our shorts to dry them off the best I can. “We’re gonna sneak through the kitchen.”

I get Woody by the chin and raise her eyes up to mine so I’m sure she sees the seriousness daggering out of them. I’m leaving her out here until I can make sure the coast is clear. If Papa did double back and came in through the front door, we’ll run into him. He’ll do what he always does, inspect us like we’re pieces of fruit, looking to find the soft spots. I am especially gifted at fibbing so I could come up with a reason how our shorts got damp, but once His Honor goes after Woody, I’d be forced to tell him the truth and nothing but the truth about where we’ve been this morning.

I spit on the hinges so the screen door won’t squeak and stick my head into the kitchen.

There’s a pot top clattering on the stove and the transistor radio is playing a rhythm-and-blues song and the floor looks clean but tacky in places. That means Lou’s got to be close by. I’m praying that she’s not hiding in the broom closet, getting ready to pounce out at us screaming, “Gotcha!” the way she likes to do. She thinks that’s funny. I don’t think Woody could handle that right now. She’s already full-to-the-brim with scared.

“Shh.” I place my fingers to my sister’s lips until I remember how dumb that is. We begin creeping across the linoleum. “Get up on your ballerina toes,” I whisper, forgetting all about how loud that creak is in front of the stove.

“’Bout time,” Lou calls high and mighty out of the dining room.

Damnation.

“Get in here, you two.”

I lead Woody into the grandest room of our house. Red flocked wallpaper runs from the ceiling to the floor and a portrait of Woodrow Wilson in a gilt frame hangs above the sideboard. The twenty-eighth president of the United States was born in Staunton, a town up the road a piece. Papa admires him quite a bit. Enough to name his only children Jane Woodrow and Shenandoah Wilson. On the dining room walls, there’s also a couple of pictures of Carmodys that date back to the 1700s. Grampa’s got the most important of them up at his house, but we have Hiram Carmody, who rode with the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. They were a band of explorers who discovered the Shenandoah Valley from a crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our gorgeous valley must’ve seemed like a mirage to them. I’m grateful Woody and me don’t take after those Founders. I think Grampa Gus inherited his sour disposition from these old codgers. Every one of them looks like he swallowed a bottle of cod liver oil and asked for seconds.

Lou’s up on a stepladder cleaning the crystal chandelier that hangs above the polished mahogany dining table that sits twelve. “You’re late,” she says, not even bothering to look down at us.