Tomorrow River

my neck this time. Squeezes with all she’s got. This is the same thing she did to me that afternoon in our bedroom when we were looking at the drawing the same way we are now. “Cut it out!” I say, prying her fingers off. “I’m tryin’ hard as I can to understand.”

Lou shouts, but not mean-sounding, “We got food over at the cottage. I made some of that pecan fudge from your mama’s recipe.”

I know I should do what I promised Curry I’d do, but my stomach is begging me to fill it. The Tittles won’t have anything to eat and even if they did, I wouldn’t feel right taking it off them. Woody and I could just run over to the Jacksons, eat, tell Beezy that Sam is going to be okay in the long run, eat some more, and then take the stepping stones over to E. J.’s the way I told him I would. We’ll stay over there until tomorrow morning when Curry promised to answer all my questions.

I beg Woody, “Please, please, let’s leave the drawing be and go over to the Jacksons’. Did you notice how pleasant Lou sounds? I think she’s changed back to her old Louisiana self now that Blackie’s broken off with her. Bet we could get her to tell us a tale about Rex the kid-eating alligator while we chow down-doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

When she frowns at me, I start singing a couple of bars of “I’ll Never Say No to You” from the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Making her feel guilty can work sometimes if I’m really trying to convince her of something.

“Uncle Cole says your grampappy is soused as a saxophone player on a Saturday night. And your uncle…,” Lou says, choked up. “His Honor and his brother have begun celebratin’ the Founders, too.”

It’s good they got busy so early. Maybe they’ll forget all about Woody and me.

“I made ya girls a ju-jus,” Lou says, a little shy. That’s the nicest present a hoodoo woman can give. It’s a little sack full of fingernail clippings and ashes and feathers and toad parts. Those bags are supposed to drive off evil spirits. “I gotta get back to the cottage now. I know Beezy would love to see ya. Me, too.”

I want nothing more in the world right now than to call back to Lou, “We’re comin’ in two shakes,” but Woody has collapsed in a heap on the fort floor. Her face is glowing, radiating. There’s that flu going around. The one that got Clive Minnow. “Are you feelin’ sick?” I kneel down next to her and kiss her forehead, but it’s not warmer than it should be.

“You out there, girls?”

Woody jerks to attention, the way she always does at the sound of her voice. I scramble over to the fort’s peephole. Gramma Ruth Love is standing on the back porch of the house under the bug light. She’s wearing a cream-colored nightie and her hair that she has never cut is cascading down to her waist.

“I baked a lemon meringue for you,” she calls. Next to chiffon pie, that’s our mouth-watering favorite and she knows it. She loves my sister and me and wants to feed us and spend time together.

Or Grampa sent her out to entice us.

He’ll do that. He knows how fond we are of our grandmother most of the time. Thinking about a slice of her prize-winning pie is making my mouth water. Woody is furiously licking her lips, so maybe she’s feeling the same way. Or maybe not. Because now she’s doing something odd with her mouth. Twisting it, and then opening and closing it. Maybe she really is sick to her stomach.

“Are you going to upchuck?” I ask. “Let’s get you over to the side.” But it’s not a retching sound that comes out of her mouth. It’s a word that I swear sounds like, “Cantaboo.”

I’m not sure that she’s spoken or if it’s just wishful thinking on my part.

“Twins?” Gramma calls again from the porch. “I brought all my best dolls.”

Woody opens her mouth and tries again. Yes. I’m sure she’s saying, “Cantaboo.”

If this was any other moment in time, I would be crying for joy, thanking her for coming back to me, for speaking. But this isn’t any other moment in time. It’s now or never. I heard the screen door open and slam shut again.

“Cantaboo!” My sister is telling me to Run! But there’s only one way down from the fort and Grampa is already coming.

Gramma is calling to him from the porch, “I’m sorry, Gus. I tried to get them to come down the way you told me.”

“Show yourselves!” Grampa shouts. When we don’t jump right up, he changes his tone to sound something more like one of those carnival men trying to con you into playing one of their games of chance. “There’s a nice surprise waitin’ for you two in the parlor.”

No, there isn’t. Not one thing that’s about to happen will be nice. Or a surprise.

This is all my fault. I should’ve done what Curry told me. Climbed up the fort steps and right away taken Woody over to E. J.’s.

I gotta make this right. I’m not going to let my sister suffer for my stupidity.

I hand her the flashlight, whispering, “I’m going down. Wait five minutes and then you and Ivory cantaboo over to the Tittles. Take the steppin’ stones and not the road so Grampa can’t follow you.” Nobody can scoot over those rocks faster than she does. I wish I could tell her to head over to the Jacksons, but they aren’t strong enough to fend off Grampa if he goes over to the cottage looking for her. And I can’t do that to them. They’re at the mercy of the great and invincible Guster Carmody. The Tittles are poor, but they are white. Grampa might think twice about charging over there in the dead of night. But even if he does, E. J. will hear him coming with a hunter’s ears. He’ll keep his true love safe. “Do you understand, pea?”

Woody shakes her head, but she does.

I take her hands in mine and say, “I had a visit with Curry Weaver tonight and you know what he said? He told me that you’re the only one in the whole world that can help Sam because you’re an eyewitness to what happened to Mama. That means you’re a very important person. We’ve got to keep you out of harm’s way. You don’t want to let Sam down, do you? You don’t want your new uncle to have to work on a chain gang, do you?”

“Get your twin butts down here!” Grampa can’t be more than ten paces away.

Woody lays her head on my chest. Ivory sets a paw high on my thigh.

“One more thing,” I say, petting them both. “You need to meet Curry out on the road in front of the house tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s got some news for us.” My sister’s warm breath is coming fast onto my neck. She knows what’s bound to happen to me once I leave the fort. “Oh, c’mon now. It’s not the end of the world. Shoot. I can handle the root cellar with one hand tied behind my back. There’s those delicious strawberry preserves down there. I could eat all those up and wouldn’t you be jealous.”

I manage to get a teensy smile out of her.

“Sum bitch,” Grampa says, from right below us. “You girls make me send Ruth Love up after ya, I ain’t gonna be happy.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I tell Woody. “Go straight to E. J.’s. And keep your eyes peeled.” Then I call in my most congenial voice, “I’m comin’ right down, Grampa. Golly, I’m so, so sorry. I must’ve dozed off. Didn’t hear you.”

When I lift the fort hatch, Woody whimpers, whispers, “Hushacat.”

“Amen,” I say, even though I don’t believe for one second that everything’ll be all right no matter how bad it looks at the present time. And neither does Saint Jude. Over my sister’s shoulder, I can see the plastic statue of the granter of hope for the hopeless. He’s lying facedown on the rusty coffee can altar.

Chapter Twenty-nine

My arm may be broken.

Grampa practically ripped it out of its socket when I came down out of the fort. “Smile!” he shouted, so he would know which twin I was.

The lights are down low in the kitchen. Just the one above the stove top and the brass lamp on the counter are lit. A half-empty bottle of Maker’s is standing in the middle of the round kitchen table. The Carmody men have been interrogating me. Gramma has wandered off somewhere.

Brave Beezy came pounding plaintively at the door a little while ago. “I know what you’re tryin’ to do to my boy,