The October Country

Emily tapped up the front steps. Aunt Tildy, rustling around, could hear the slow, deliberate steps. What ailed the girl? Didn't sound like she had no more spunk than a flue-lizard. The front door swung wide. Emily stood in the hall, holding to the brass doorknob.

'Emily?' called Aunt Tildy.

Emily shuffled into the parlor, head down.

'Emily! I been waitin' for you! There was the darndest fool men here with a wicker. Tryin' to sell me something I didn't want. Glad you're home. Makes it right cozy-'

Aunt Tildy realized that for a full minute Emily had been staring.

'Emily, what's wrong? Stop starin'. Here, I'll bring you a cup of coffee. There! - 'Emily, why you backin' away from me?

'Emily, stop screamin', child. Don't scream, Emily! Don't! You keep screamin' that way, you go crazy. Emily, get up off the floor, get away from that wall! Emily! Stop cringin', child. I won't hurt you!

'Land, if it ain't one thing it's another.

'Emily, what's wrong, child…'

Emily groaned through her hands over her face.

'Child, child,' whispered Aunt Tildy. 'Here, sip this water. Sip it, Emily, that's it.'

Emily widened her eyes, saw something, then shut them, quivering, pulling into herself. 'Aunt Tildy, Aunt Tildy, Aunt-'

'Stop that!' Tildy slapped her. 'What ails you?'

Emily forced herself to look up again.

She thrust her fingers out. They vanished inside Aunt Tildy.

'What fool notion!' cried Tildy. 'Take your hand away! Take it, I say!'

Emily dropped aside, jerked her head, the golden hair shaking into shiny temblors. 'You're not here, Aunt Tildy. I'm dreaming. You're dead!'

'Hush, baby.'

'You can't be here.'

'Land of Goshen, Emily-'

She took Emily's hand. It passed clean through her. Instantly, Aunt Tildy raised straight up, stomping her foot.

'Why, why!' she cried angrily. 'That-fibber! That sneakthief!' Her thin hands knotted to wiry, hard, pale fists. 'That dark, dark fiend; He stole it! He toted it away, he did, oh he did, he did! Why, I-' Wrath steamed in her. Her pale blue eyes were fire. She sputtered into an indignant silence. Then she turned to Emily. 'Child, get up! I need you!'

Emily lay, quivering.

'Part of me's here!' declared Aunt Tildy. 'By the Lord Harry, what's left will have to do, for a bit. Fetch my bonnet!'

Emily confessed. 'I'm scared.'

'Certainly, oh, certainly not of me?'

'Yes.'

'Why, I'm no spook! You known me most of your life! Now's no time to snivel-sop. Fetch up on your heels or I'll slap you crack across your nose!'

Emily rose, in sobs, stood like something cornered, trying to decide which direction to bolt in.

'Where's your car, Emily?'

'Down at the garage-ma'am.'

'Good!' Aunt Tildy hustled her through the front door. 'Now-' Her sharp eyes poked up and down the streets. 'Which way's the mortuary?'

Emily held to the step rail, fumbling down. 'What're you going to do, Aunt Tildy?'

'Do?' cried Aunt Tildy, tottering after her, jowls shaking in a thin, pale fury. 'Why, get my body back, of course! Get my body back! Go on!'

The car roared, Emily clenched to the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at the curved, rain-wet streets. Aunt Tildy shook her parasol.

'Hurry, child, hurry, before they squirt juices in my body and dice and cube it the way them persnickety morticians have a habit of doin'. They cut and sew it so it ain't no good to no one!'

'Oh, Auntie, Auntie, let me go, don't make me drive! It won't do any good, no good at all,' sighed the girl.

'Here we are.' Emily pulled to the curb, and collapsed over the wheel, but Aunt Tildy had already popped from the car and trotted with mincing skirt up the mortuary drive, around behind to where the shiny black hearse was unloading a wicker basket.

'You!' she directed her attack at one of the four men with the wicker. 'Put that down!'

The four men looked up.

One said, 'Step aside, lady. We're doing our job.'

'That's my body tucked in there!' She brandished the parasol.

'That I wouldn't know anything about,' said a second man. 'Please don't block traffic, madam. This thing is heavy.'

'Sir!' she cried, wounded. 'I'll have you know I weigh only one hundred and ten pounds.'

He looked at her casually. 'I'm not interested in your heft, lady. I'm due home for supper. My wife'll kill me if I'm late.'

The four of them moved on, Aunt Tildy in pursuit, down a hall, into a preparations room.

A white-smocked man awaited the wicker's arrival with a rather pleased smile on his long, eager-looking face. Aunt Tildy didn't care for the avidity of that face, or the entire personality of the man. The basket was deposited, the four men wandered off.

The man in the white smock glanced at Auntie and said: 'Madam, this is no fit place for a gentlewoman.'

'Well,' she said, gratified, 'glad you feel that way. It's exactly what I tried to tell that dark-clothed young man!'

The mortician puzzled. 'What dark-clothed young man is that?'

'The one that came puddlin' around my house, that's who.'

'No one of that description works for us.'

'No matter. As you just so intelligently stated, this is no place for a lady. I don't want me here. I want me home cookin' ham for Sunday visitors, it's near Easter. I got Emily to feed, sweaters to knit, clocks to wind-'

'You are quite philosophical, and philanthropical, no doubt of it, madam, but I have work. A body has arrived.' This last, he said with apparent relish, and a winnowing of his knives, tubes, jars, and instruments.

Tildy bristled. 'You put so much as a fingerprint on that body, and I'll-'

He laid her aside like a little old moth. 'George,' he called with a suave gentleness, 'escort this lady out, please.'

Aunt Tildy glared at the approaching George.

'Show me your backside, goin' the other way!'

George took her wrists. 'This way, please.'

Tildy extricated herself. Easily. Her flesh sort of-slipped. It even amazed Tildy. Such an unexpected talent to develop at this late day.

'See?' she said, pleased with her ability. 'You can't budge me. I want my body back!'

The mortician opened the wicker lid casually. Then, in a recurrent series of scrutinies he realized the body inside was… it seemed… could it be?… maybe… yes… no… no… it just couldn't be, but… 'Ah,' he exhaled, abruptly. He turned. His eyes were wide, then they narrowed.

'Madam,' he said, cautiously. 'This lady here is-a-relative-of yours?'

'A very dear relation. Be careful of her.'

'A sister, perhaps?' He grasped at a straw of dwindling logic, hopefully.

'No, you fool. Me, do you hear? Me!'

The mortician considered the idea. 'No,' he said. 'Things like this don't happen.' He fumbled with his tools.