Saving Cicadas Read online

  I was aiming to keep her that way.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  FRESH PEACH ICE CREAM

  Mama, Rainey, and Fritz stood at the kitchen counter like it was an assembly line. Rainey would rinse a peach with her good arm and then hand it to Fritz who dried it off. He would then pass it along to Mama who cut it into pieces and put the pieces in a big yellow bowl. I sat at the table with my head on my arms, trying not to fall asleep.

  But actually, I did fall asleep, and when I woke up, the line had disassembled, and Fritz and Rainey were laughing and eating ice cream cones on the back porch.

  “Well, sure enough, you missed all the fun,” said Grandma Mona.

  “But you’re the one”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“you’re the one who kept me up all night.”

  “Here, honey, why don’t you try some ice cream? They made it fresh.” Grandma Mona had a little bowl right in front of her and stuck a spoon in it. She reached across the table and held it up to my lips. Dutifully, I opened my mouth.

  “Now, is that not the best peach ice cream you’ve ever tasted?”

  “Mm-hm.” The coldness of the cream woke my senses up.

  “Are those the most delicious peaches you’ve ever had, Janie?”

  She fed me another bite, and I licked my lips and said yes they were.

  Then Grandma Mona got a strange, wide look in her eye. I swallowed hard because she’d had this same look on her face the night before in the moonlight. At the cemetery. “What’s your favorite fruit, Janie? Peaches, strawberries, or blueberries?”

  It seemed such an odd question. “Um . . . I don’t know. All of them, I guess.”

  “Not all of them,” said Grandma Mona. “Tell me one. Which one do you like the best? Hmm?”

  “Peaches, okay? Peaches are my favorite.”

  Grandma Mona frowned, and her eyes teared up. “Janie, honey. Look right here. You see this bowl of ice cream?”

  She pushed it toward me and I told her I did, but really I was getting mighty tired of her strange old-lady games.

  “What you just ate was strawberry ice cream, honey. It wasn’t peach at all, it was some strawberry left over in the fridge. Now, come on, child, it’s time for us to talk. Grab you a pencil and a piece of paper. What I have to say might take a little while.”

  I followed Grandma Mona up the staircase, my mind and body struggling to keep up with her. I stopped and looked at each and every Macy family portrait. Adolph Macy, Madeline Macy, GreatAunt Gertrude, who was supposed to be a ghost but I never actually saw, and Poppy, who was supposed to be alive but was actually a ghost. I sighed. At eight-and-a-half-years-old, I thought I knew pretty much everything. The amount of things I didn’t know was beginning to add up and make my head feel funny.

  We walked toward Mama’s room, and Grandma Mona motioned for me to be quiet and tiptoe, so I did. Her bedroom door was closed but I could hear her talking on the other side.

  “. . . to your place by three. Can you drive me over there? No, she’ll be at the grocery store. That should give me enough time to rest and come back and pick her up.”

  “She’s talking to Alisha,” whispered Grandma Mona. “She’s going to the doctor tomorrow.”

  “She’s going to the doctor for the baby?”

  “She’s going for the baby, yes.” Grandma Mona took a deep breath and said, “Come on in my room, sweetie.”

  I wasn’t used to her calling me sweetie. It made me feel all upside down. I’d read the book about Alice in Wonderland and wondered if I’d fallen down a hole somewhere, unbeknownst to me. I did what Grandma Mona said, and we went to her room and climbed up on the high four-post bed. The tree quilt was lying on top, and I couldn’t help but notice it, admire it again.

  “Did you sew this?” I asked.

  “I did. It shows our lineage. I started it after Priscilla was born. See here? There’s your great-great-great-grandfather Beecham. He was Adolph’s father. And over here, this shows my side of the family, the Briggses.”

  I looked at all the tiny names stitched into the quilt. There were no faces, but for each family member an orange fruit hung on a branch.

  “Now go ahead and pull out your paper. I want you to make up a list. You’re real good at making lists, just like your mama.”

  “A list for what?” I asked.

  “A list of clues.”

  “Clues for what?”

  “A mystery.”

  “But Grandma Mona, what’s the mystery?” I whined.

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Janie. This is not easy for me, either. Now, once you have written all the clues, you will know what the mystery is. You will also have your answer to that mystery.”

  For someone who kept a little girl up at all hours of the night only to throw riddles in her face, I thought Grandma Mona had finally gone off the deep end. But my curiosity was piqued, so I played along.

  “Okay.” I sat there, hand above blank paper. “What’s the first clue?”

  I wrote Mystery and a question mark at the top of the page and put a number 1 beneath it.

  “I told you the first clue last night. At the cemetery.”

  Hearing her admit that we were actually there sent a chill up my spine. I was beginning to imagine it was all in my head. “Um . . . the first clue was on Poppy’s tombstone?”

  “Yes, and what was that clue?”

  “That he died two years ago? That he was a ghost?” It sounded ridiculous, saying it out loud.

  Grandma Mona nodded and motioned for me to write it down. I added next to the number 1, Poppy was a ghost. Below it, I added the number 2.

  Grandma Mona was looking over at the clock on the wall above the dresser. It was an old-fashioned kind with the pendulum that swung back and forth. I listened to the tick, tick and noticed it was almost two o’clock. Grandma Mona sighed and said, “Good. Now what else do you notice in here?”

  I looked around the room and said, “I don’t know. Can’t you just tell me the next clue?”

  “What did I tell you about telling you things? You have to feel things, see things for yourself in order to understand.” She was starting to get huffy, but she cleared her throat and went on softer. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m usually not under such pressure, but right now I am. I’ve got a lot to do and a little time to do it. Now, I need you to pay your best attention. Can you do that for me?”

  I told her I could, so we went on.

  “Now. How ’bout back there at the peach picking. How did it go?” “Okay, I guess. But I didn’t get any peaches. Rainey got a bunch.” “How come you didn’t get any peaches, Janie?”

  “Mine weren’t ripe. They didn’t come off easy. I think Rainey was just pulling any old which-a-one.”

  “I think it was your second clue,” she said. “Now, write it down.” “Write what down?”

  “That you didn’t get any peaches.”

  Here, I was convinced that Grandma Mona was having a seizure or a stroke of some sort. A great dementia had settled in with the cool night air from the graveyard. I was starting to worry about her, but I wrote down, Got no peaches by number 2 anyway, to make her happy.

  “Good, good. Now grab your paper and pencil and let’s go for a little walk.”

  “Back to the cemetery? ’Cause I don’t want—”

  “No, no.” She seemed mighty distracted. “We’re going on a scavenger hunt.”

  “Is it a scavenger hunt we’re playing or a mystery?” I said it all smarty-like.

  She glared at me with clear gray eyes and said, “Mind your manners, child. I know I’m not very good at this. Now, follow me. There are lives at stake.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  UNDER PRESSURE

  {Mona}

  They should have given this job to someone else. I didn’t think we were making it very far very fast, but I was doing the best I could. Honest. And time was running out. Why, the way things were looking these days, I had no guarantee I’d even be here tomorrow
. An old woman must thank her stars for every single morning. I’d learned early on not to take time for granted, that there are forces in the universe unbeknownst to us, working, conspiring . . . I was just happy to still be there in the old house. I’d never felt such urgency.

  Janie and I walked out front and turned left onto the sidewalk. She looked up at me with wary eyes. I could tell she was considering whether I was trustworthy or not. I had to remember to keep my patience with her. I had to remember she was only a child.

  “How come we can’t let Rainey come on our scavenger hunt?” she asked.

  “Because Rainey is spending time with Fritz right now. She needs that.”

  “But I wanna play with Fritz too. I like him.”

  “I know you do, honey. I know you do.”

  I took Janie’s hand in mine and we walked. We walked past trees hanging over the sidewalk. We walked past azalea bushes that had bloomed and already withered. We walked past all the houses of the people who lived here once upon a time, the people Priscilla played with as a child, and their parents, moved, scattered all over the earth and heaven by now.

  About six houses down, I started to slow. Janie looked over the lawn of a large gray house with bright-white trim. She pointed and said, “There’s the tree Rainey fell out of.”

  “Why, look at that. It sure is,” I said. “She’s lucky she didn’t break her neck and kill herself, isn’t she? Look how high it is.”

  “She’s lucky? What about me? I don’t even remember coming down! I could’ve broken my neck too!”

  “But you didn’t,” I said.

  “But I could have.”

  “But you didn’t. Hmm. I think we might have us another clue.”

  “We do?”

  “Mm-hmm. Write down that you didn’t break your neck coming down out of that tree, and Rainey didn’t either.” Janie looked at me, eyes wide, and did just that.

  “Good girl. Now, because you’ve been such a good sport, I’m just going to give you your fourth clue flat out.”

  She kept her pencil poised and stared up at me, eyebrows raised. “Well?”

  “You thought you were eating peach ice cream earlier today when it was really what?”

  “Strawberry,” she said. Janie hesitated, then put her paper and pencil down. She closed her eyes, took half a breath, and said, “Grandma Mona, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I don’t see where you’re going with all this. It’s a mistake anybody could have made, strawberries, peaches . . . I’m just so tired today.”

  “Just write it down,” I said. “I’ve only two more clues to give to you. But for this, we’ve got to turn around and go back. And sometimes that’s the hardest part.”

  Chapter Fifty

  SAVING EARTHWORMS

  {Janie}

  I had always known Grandma Mona to be mean, meaner than a snake on white-hot asphalt. But I’d never thought of her as being crazy. Until now.

  Every list I’d ever made had been helpful in some way. A list of Rainey’s toys so she could catalogue them and put them away in an organized fashion. A list of the birds that flew in the hollow tree behind our house in Cypresswood, so we could tell if the new bird feed was working or not. And, of course, the list of options I’d made for Mama and her baby troubles. But this was the strangest list I’d ever made. There were clues to questions I didn’t even know. I had played along, but my eyes were closing even as my legs were walking.

  “Grandma Mona, can I go take a little nap, please? Maybe we can finish this list a little later.”

  Grandma Mona just kept on walking. She was wearing a slightly different dress than yesterday, green with ivy crawling all over it. All of her dresses were flowerdy and old-lady-like. Through the slits of my eyelids, she glowed green like the light in our bedroom.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for rest later, dear.”

  She hurried her steps and I struggled to keep up. I yawned and said, “All right, but where are we going now?” As I said it, we walked right past our blue gingerbread house. Napping was out of the question.

  “We’re going to see Mrs. Shoemaker. Do you know who that is?”

  “The old lady who sits on the porch of the yellow house?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “But she’s mean. And I thought you didn’t get along with her.”

  “She’s mean, yes. And once upon a time, we had our differences. But that’s pretty much past now.”

  “What happened?”

  Grandma Mona stopped in the sidewalk and assessed me. Then she kept walking and turned her head straight forward. “Her daughter was a year or two older than Priscilla,” she said, “and I didn’t want my girl around hers. Plain and simple. I thought she was loose and bad news. Said so, too, and my words wound up getting back to Clarabelle’s ears. I guess I’m the one who ended up with egg on my face.”

  “Mama’s not loose,” I said defensively, not really knowing what it meant. “She’s certainly not bad news.”

  “Oh honey, I know she’s not. I didn’t mean . . . see? My big mouth always gets me into trouble. Just keep your mouth shut, Mona, keep it shut.”

  Now she was talking to herself. Wonderful. We walked in silence for a few seconds more. I could see the yellow house getting larger as we approached it. “What happened to Mrs. Shoemaker’s daughter?” I whispered.

  “Nothing much. She married an accountant. Had a nice quiet life, I reckon, until they divorced. Far as I know she never had any kids. Lives alone in that big house. With her mother now.”

  “Oh. Does Mrs. Shoemaker know we’re coming over?”

  “Well, we’ll just have to see, now, won’t we?”

  When we got up to the yellow house, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Earthworms, curled like question marks, littered the driveway. “Look!” I said. I bent down and studied them. I’d never seen so many in my life.

  “She must be overwatering her lawn. If there’s too much water in the soil, they’ll drown. They come up to the surface so they won’t die.”

  “But it’s getting hot now and dry. They’re dying!”

  I heard Grandma Mona go stiff beside me. “Clarabelle,” she said, nodding slightly.

  “Mona,” said Mrs. Shoemaker, nodding back. It was like watching the standoff in a western movie. I wondered which old woman would pull her gun first. Mrs. Shoemaker was sitting in a new porch swing with a long hard bench that had replaced the strange-looking net one from before. She brought the swing to a halt.

  “Your daughter’s watering the lawn too much,” said Grandma Mona.

  “What she does with her grass or anything else is her business,” said Mrs. Shoemaker. I could feel the heat between these two. “What brings you by on a hot Thursday afternoon, Mona? I see you brought your grandbaby with you.”

  I was waiting, just waiting for Mrs. Shoemaker to say something about my sister again. I was preparing what I’d say to put her in her place.

  “I did, Clarabelle. I believe you’ve met Janie already?”

  “We’ve been introduced,” said Mrs. Shoemaker. “Hello again.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “We were just going for a little walk,” said Grandma Mona. “I’m . . . we’re learning some new things today, and I had something I needed to tell Janie. I needed a witness and sadly, you fit the bill.”

  “A witness. Is that right? You’ve called me some pretty colorful things over the years, Mona, but this is a new one. You’ve got my attention. Let the witnessing commence.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but do you think we could get some of these earthworms off the ground now? They’re dying.”

  “Might have to run go get your sister for a job like that,” said Mrs. Shoemaker.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I put my hands on my hips. Mrs. Shoemaker laughed at me. She plumb laughed at me, and I started fuming. “You mean ’cause my sister’s special she’s only suited for scooping up worms? Is that what you mean?”

  “My goodness, Mon
a, she is the spittin’ image of you, I tell you what.”

  Grandma Mona took my arm and pulled me to her. “Please, Clarabelle. Just give us a minute.” Grandma Mona looked in my eyes, and the sunlight formed a ring around her. I could barely see straight. I used my other hand to rub my eyes.

  She smiled. “Janie. Do you have any idea how much I love you?” I looked down at my feet, at those dying earthworms.

  “Well, do you?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess. I want you to know. I want you to know that everything I’ve ever done was to protect you and your sister and your mama. Look up at me now.”

  I did as she said. Her eyes were watering. She put her hands on either side of my face. “Oh, honey, never in a million years would I have told you any of this, but I have to now. You’re our only hope. Honey, I have another clue for you. I want you to write this down now. Go ahead.”

  I pulled my pencil and paper out of my pocket and looked at all its craziness.

  “Now write exactly what I tell you. Grandma Mona . . .”

  Grandma Mona, I wrote dutifully.

  “. . . is . . .”

  is

  Part Four

  THE CHOICE

  Chapter Fifty-one

  SPEAKING THE TRUTH

  {Mona}

  There are certain things little girls should never hear of. Childhood should be childhood through and through. There should never be any thought of troubles, of war, of fornication, of any adult thing that might taint a young mind and take the gentleness out of childhood. But for some children, too many children, there is no such luck. As a very wise man I was once married to used to say, Wishing something just doesn’t make it so.

  Standing there in that worm-filled driveway, I told Janie the truth about me. Ironically, my arch-nemesis in life was my only ally that day. Much to my regret.