Tommie Lyn

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Pioneer Poet

 Do dreams come true?
 Meg MacAllister hopes they don't...


 Because in Meg's dreams, she kills.
 Or fears that she does...


 Johnny Peyton, Meg's partner,
doesn't believe her fears are real.
 At first...


 Does she? Or doesn't she?
 And does she really want to know?
 

Excerpt:

 

One

 

 

Eleven-year-old Meg MacAllister stopped at the living room door and peered into the semi-darkness. She knew he was here, had heard his voice from her room upstairs when her mother answered the doorbell. But she didn't know if he still waited in the living room, as he had the last time, or if Natalie had called for him already.

She listened. Heard nothing. No rustling, no breathing. She drew a breath, glanced over her shoulder to the hall behind her, and apprehension tightened her shoulder muscles.

If only she hadn't left her math book on the table by Daddy's chair. She could see the angular outline of it, next to the pipe stand.

She needed it, had to have it now. The teacher assigned so many problems for homework this afternoon that she'd be up late completing them all as it was.

Meg took another breath and, on tiptoe, silent as a shadow, stole into the room.

A hand clamped over her mouth, and before she could react, an arm snaked around her waist and pulled her against his loathsome body.

Her muffled scream reached no farther than the archway into the hall.

“Surprise, little girl,” he breathed into her ear, and chuckled. “You thought you could sneak in here, but I heard you coming. What they’re doing to me downstairs, they don’t know it, but they’ve made me where I can hear everything now.”

Meg struggled desperately, tried to bite the clammy hand that pressed across her mouth, tried to wrest her body free from the iron bond of the arm around her waist.

“You can’t get away from me,” he whispered. “You might as well quit trying.”

The fetid emanation of his breath reached her nose, and she gagged. Her thudding heart pounded in her ears, and she could hear little else. Except his terrifying whispers.

“You know what happened to the last little girl who tried to get away from me? Same as the others. Same as what’s gonna happen to you. One of these days, when they’re not watching close enough, I’ll take you with me. And when I’m through with you, you’ll be in the ground with the others.”

He shifted her around to face him, put his mouth on hers, and Meg retched.

Suddenly, he released her, looked toward the archway, took two quick silent steps and sat on the far end of the sofa.

“We’re ready for you now, Robbie.” Natalie’s voice preceded her.

Meg turned toward her mother who had stopped in the entrance to the living room. When Professor Natalie MacAllister caught sight of her daughter, her foot tapped the hardwood floor, impatient and insistent. Disapproval stitched a frown on her face and laced her voice with gravel. “Margaret, what are you doing down here? I thought I said for you to stay in your room.”

“I needed my—”

“It doesn't matter what you needed. I told you to stay upstairs. Your father and I are working, and we don't need the distraction. Go.”

Meg glanced over her shoulder at the math book and caught sight of Robbie Daughtry from the corner of her eye. She shuddered.

“No. See, I—”

“Don't give me a problem, young lady. I will not tolerate your disobedience. Go.”

Meg glared at the floor, and her teeth gripped her lower lip to keep a torrent of words from gushing out. She knew better than to defy Natalie. She wished Daddy had come up from the basement instead. He would have let her get her book.

“I’m tired of your defiance. You go straight to bed. I’m coming up to check on you in a few minutes, and you’d better be in bed. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Meg was half-way up the stairs when Natalie’s voice echoed from the living room. “Come with me, Robbie.”

Meg pulled her gown from the drawer and undressed, wondering if she dared try again to retrieve her math book. But even if she did, she couldn't do her homework. Natalie had told her to go to bed. And so she would go to bed, outwardly obedientto her mother, but inwardly seething.

She would be in trouble with Mrs. Tolliver again, would have a note sent to her parents, and Natalie would punish her for not doing her homework. The injustice of the situation was almost more than she could contain, and resentment percolated through her body, spread like a dark red stain.

She wanted to rage at Natalie. But Natalie was her mother. And so she focused her fury on Robbie Daughtry.

“Rats!” she muttered through clenched teeth, as she pulled the long white gown over her head. She climbed into bed and was about to turn off the bedside lamp when her bedroom door creaked open.

It was Daddy.

“I hear your mother was not pleased with you a while ago,” he said.

Meg didn't answer.

“You know there's a reason we don't want you downstairs when Robbie Daughtry comes for his treatments, don't you?”

She nodded.

“He’s a troubled young man. It’s just too dangerous for you to—” He didn’t finish the thought. “Please, Meggie. Be a good girl and do as your mother asks. Ok?”

Meg nodded again.

Meg looked up at her father as he pulled the covers around her shoulders, the delicate skin around her eyes remaining smooth. No frown puckered her face to betray her interior agitation. Her churning stomach remained her own secret.

“Night, darlin’,” he said to her, reverting to his mountain

twang, as he often did when his wife was not present.

“Night, Daddy.”

Meg cuddled the rag doll Granny Mac had made for her, looking to it to bring some peace to her troubled heart. Her father smiled and turned off the lamp. He left the door open a couple of inches, and a shaft of light from the nightlight in the hall stroked a faint glow across the floor.

Meg clutched the doll tighter. Anger crept in circles on acid feet through her stomach, growing, swelling, rising into her chest. She stretched her eyes wide. She could not, would not go to sleep.

She counted the slats of the mini blinds at the window. Counted them again. She turned her attention to the shadows cast on the ceiling overhead by the undulating glimmer of the streetlamp which brushed through the tree branches outside her window and was sliced into regular slabs of light and dark as it passed through the blinds.

Her eyelids burned. They grew heavy, and she sat up to keep them from closing. She thought of leaning back against the head of the bed. Yes, that would be fine. It wouldn't be like lying down. She could stay awake. But even with every effort, Meg couldn’t ward off sleep forever.

 

*   *   *

 

Professor Worthen adjusted the knobs on the console. When the familiar black line appeared in Robbie’s vision, he sucked in a quick breath and his muscles contracted.

“Relax, Robbie,” Professor Natalie MacAllister’s voice rasped.

Robbie willed himself to relax, but a tightness remained at the base of his spine. His eyes scanned the white surroundings of the undergound research lab in the MacAllisters’ basement and came to rest on the darkened area where the three professors made adjustments to their equipment, commenting to one another in whispers.

He shifted on the chair, sought a more comfortable position, and one leg pushed against the leather straps holding it in place. His scalp prickled where the sensors were attached, and his right hand strained toward the itch for an instant.

Relax. He wasn’t sure he could relax. If Professor MacAllister knew what he’d done this afternoon, knew what he intended to do...soon....

 

*  *  *

 

The face. It was smiling. It always wore a pleasant, friendly smile. At the beginning.

She couldn't tell exactly what the face looked like, could only see the eyes and the smile. And could hear the rhythmic creaking of a rocking chair.

Creak, shub, creak, shub. Calm, soothing, rocking, rocking.

And, so imperceptibly she couldn't ever tell exactly when it happened, the rocking changed, became forceful, purposeful. And Meg knew the smile on the unseeable face transformed from friendliness to malevolence. And the eyes...the golden, amber eyes....

Meg floated in the whiteness surrounding her, encompassing the rocker and its inhabitant, as though the dream was encapsulated inside a pristine egg shell. No corners, no walls, no floor. The whiteness was all of a piece. She was, as always, an observer, not a participant in the dream. And as the creaking faded, the evil grinning smile melted away, leaving only the quietness, the whiteness, everywhere the whiteness.

And then began the scribbling. Like a giant invisible pencil in the hand of an enormous unseen child, it drew black lines across the expanse of white, slowly at first, languidly.

Circling, streaking, coiling.

Black graphite scribbles appeared on the whiteness, marking the blankness into a darkening confusion of lines and curves. The unseen hand drew the scribbles faster—adamant, forceful. Gradually, the looping, spiraling graphite strokes lengthened, grew thicker, darker.

Meg felt a tightening in her chest. Her waking anger disappeared in the dream fear, the fear which gripped her unmercifully, paralyzed her throat so she could not cry out.

Robbie Daughtry appeared in the tangle of graphite lines, pushed through them. She saw the details of his face, from his startled, panicked eyes to his open mouth, the mouth which shaped itself into a silent scream. And the invisible pencil drew lines around his throat. Around and around it. Deeper and tighter.

 

*  *  *

 

“What...what’s happening?” Natalie’s voice notched higher in pitch and louder in volume.

“Turn it off! Turn it off!”

But Natalie, mesmerized by the gruesome sight before her, stood paralyzed, unable to carry out Professor Worthen's command.

“I said, turn it off!” He dashed toward Natalie, knocked her hand from the knob and turned it himself. The pervasive ticking emitted by the machine lessened and was silenced.

“I...I don’t understand....” Natalie took a tentative step toward the chair with its inert occupant. “This can’t happen….”

Professor Worthen pushed her aside and strode to the chair, stared down at Robbie’s body, at the protruding tongue, the bulging eyes, the contorted features of his face. It bore little resemblance to the face of the young man they had strapped into the chair only an hour earlier. He laid his fingers on Robbie’s neck, searching for a pulse, finding none.

“He’s dead.”

Worthen frowned, leaned down and inspected the boy's neck. He cocked his head to one side, then the other, regarding the puzzling sight before him. He beckoned to his assistant. “Natalie, look.”

He touched Robbie’s neck again, pulled his fingers away and looked at the black residue which he’d rubbed away from the dead boy. He sniffed it, rubbed it between his fingers. He pulled a tablet from his pocket and drew his finger across it. “It looks like...maybe, graphite.”

“Graphite?”

“Yes. As though someone wrote across his neck with a pencil. Where did the graphite come from? I noticed no discoloration when he arrived.”

J. Edward joined his wife and C. Emerson Worthen beside the chair. The three professors encircled their test subject who had now become their dead guinea pig, observed the blackened lines on his neck.

“He appears to have been strangled. With a rope covered in graphite. Look at the marks on his neck. This doesn’t make any sense,” Professor Worthen said, backing away, shaking his head. “I was standing here, looking at him, and—” He raised his eyes and glared at J. Edward. “What did you do to the Device, MacAllister? It worked fine the last time. How could it have….”

Full realization seeped into Natalie’s awareness. Their student, the subject of their forbidden experiment, was dead. Wide-eyed, she trembled as her breath came fast and panting. She turned to her companions. “What are we going to do?”

Her husband stood staring, unable to speak.

“Maybe you need to take him—his body—somewhere else. If he is found here—” Worthen inched backward, away from the body.

“Yes. If he's found here, we're in deep trouble,” Natalie said. “I don't know how this happened, but it will look—”

“No, we have to call the police,” her husband said. “There's a law about tampering with things when a person dies. We have to call the authorities and—”

“Natalie is right,” Worthen said. “If you take him somewhere else, it will divert suspicion from us. After all, we didn’t do anything more than what we did with the others. There is nothing that could have—”

“No,” Professor J. Edward MacAllister said. “We'll call the police, tell them what happened.”

Worthen laughed, a short gruff bark, not a sound of amusement. “Do you realize how imbecilic you will sound if you tell what happened? What we saw? And don’t you see that you will incriminate yourself? This experiment was forbidden after the last...we could be charged if anyone finds out what we were doing. Not to mention how our Benefactors might react if it was revealed publicly.”

“I’ll not be a party to a lie. Telling the truth is the best policy,” J. Edward said. “Lies get you nowhere but—”

“Shut up!” Natalie shouted. “Stop your idiotic Pollyanna mouthings! You and your stupid code of honor! Face reality for once! We can't let this be known. We can't let anyone know of our involvement in this boy's death!”

She turned to Professor Worthen. “What can we do? Where can we take him?”

“I don’t know.” Worthen shook his head. “But no matter what, we can’t let anyone find the Device. We’d be signing our death warrant.”

“I can hide it.” Natalie started removing the sensors and connectors from Robbie’s body. “I’ll take the board from the computer and hide it.”

“I can not be a part of this.” Worthen ran a hand through his thick mane of wavy silver-gold hair, his German accent growing more pronounced. “You know what that would mean for me, at my age. To be suspected in another student death. Not to mention the...Benefactors....”

“You are a part of it,” J. Edward said. “We did this at your direction.”

“No. I only made suggestions. You are the one who created the Device. And it was Natalie who made the decision to go ahead with this,” Worthen said. He slowly backed toward the door. “I was not here tonight. I have people who will swear to it.” A calculating, shrewd expression veiled his eyes. “Yes, I will say that Natalie approached me about this experiment, and I advised against it. Yes. That is what I will say.”

Natalie looked stricken. “But Emerson,” she began. “How could you? After all we've meant to each other.”

“Natalie. What are you saying?” J. Edward turned incredulous eyes on his wife.

“Silence, you fool!” Worthen growled.

“Fool? You call me a fool?” Natalie shot back, her voice reverberating through the basement laboratory. The expression in her gold-brown eyes changed from fearful, pleading softness into a steamy topaz. “You old, old—”

 

*  *  *

 

“What's been going on between you two?” J. Edward roared, roused into a fury by what he now suspected, feared was true. He advanced toward his wife. “Tell me. I need to hear it from your own mouth!”

Natalie whirled to face her husband. “What's been going on is just what you think has been going on. I couldn't take being married to a hillbilly backwoodsman any longer. Emerson took my mind away from it, painted a bright spot of civility and enjoyment into the wasteland you’ve made of my life—”

Her words slashed into J. Edward's inner world, tore into the life he'd carefully constructed and maintained, a life that disintegrated as he watched.

“After all I’ve put up with from you over the years? And you do this?” J. Edward’s face became a study in disgust. “Mama was right about you all along. I didn’t want to believe it—”

His words were cut short by a resounding slap. “Don't you mention that stupid old hillbilly woman in my presence,” Natalie shouted.

 

*  *  *

 

While the couple was embroiled in the bitter argument, Professor Worthen slipped from the basement room and ascended to the hall. A wraith-like form floated down the main staircase from the second floor. He froze, his breath caught in his throat.

A shaft of light fell across the face, revealed the apparition’s blue gaze, and he released an explosive sigh. The diaphanous silhouette belonged to the MacAllister’s young daughter, Margaret. How ridiculous! The night’s events must have roused in him a long-buried sense of superstition which seemed to be an inescapable part of the human psyche. He shook his head, hurried past the stairs and out the front door.

Yes, he would have an alibi. Darlene, his smitten secretary. She would vouch for his having been at her apartment all evening. She would revel in the opportunity to reveal their budding romance to the world.

He took a deep breath, looked around to assure himself he was unobserved, and scurried around the porch to the side steps, descended them to the yard. He crossed to the back fence and let himself through the gate and into the alley. It was a short walk to Darlene's off-campus apartment building.

 

*  *  *

 

Meg stopped on the stair when she saw Professor Worthen. The front door closed behind him, and she sank onto the step, still trembling from the aftermath of the nightmare, gripped by horror that had followed her into wakefulness.

Daddy. She needed Daddy. But his voice echoed from the open door in the hall in a torrent of enraged shouts, countered by Natalie’s higher pitched yells. Meg huddled on the stairway next to the wall in the deep shadow near the top of the stairs, longing for Daddy to come up from the...from the….

All expression faded from her face, leaving no visible trace of the nightmare terror. Her mouth fell open, her eyes stared into nothing.

The sound of footsteps ascending the lower stairway up to the main floor echoed into Meg’s awareness, and her body jerked. She blinked and a tiny tremor passed over her. She blinked again.

And saw Natalie hurry down the hall past the staircase, a flat green object in her hand. Daddy followed close behind.

“Where do you think you’re going with that?” he demanded.

Natalie didn’t answer. She grabbed her purse from the table in the foyer and exited the front door.

“Daddy,” Meg’s voice squeaked. “Daddeeeee.”

He stopped, took a breath and turned his face up to look at her. “Meggie. What are you doing on the stairs, baby? You should be asleep.” He ascended to Meg, pulled her to her feet and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

“But I’m a-scared, Daddy, please, I need….”

“Honey, everything will be okay. Don’t—”

“But—”

“Meg, a terrible thing just happened. You have to go to your room. And stay there.”

She’d never seen Daddy so preoccupied. He always sat with her and soothed her fears away after a nightmare, and she needed that comfort now as she never had before. But she let him lead her to her room and tuck her in bed. And she was alone again.

Meg lay rigid, her body clenched hard like a fist, staring at the changing patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling. She heard a far-off siren that grew nearer, louder, then was silenced. And the bars of light overhead became a red that came and went. And blue.

The colors distracted her from the suffering that consumed her, and she pushed the covers away, swung her feet onto the floor. She padded to the window, lifted a slat of the mini-blind and stared at the scene below. Two police cars and an emergency van, lights flashing, were parked haphazardly at the curb.

Voices she didn’t recognize wove through Daddy’s intermittent comments and rose from the downstairs hall. She felt his tension and fear mingle with her own. She crept to the head of the stairs, paused and listened. She could make no sense of what she heard, so she inched closer to the railing, descended until she glimpsed the scene in the hall below.

A policeman asked Daddy a question and wrote something in a little book when Daddy answered.

He asked another. “And the dead boy’s name?”

“Robbie Daughtry.”

Dead boy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two

 

 

I won’t cry. They can’t make me cry. Meg gritted her teeth and shoved her fists together in her lap. But her resolve almost failed her when she saw two policemen lead Daddy from the front door, his hands fastened behind his back. In her distress, she couldn’t tear her eyes away, as if she’d be abandoning him. Natalie’s hands were fastened, too, and two other men in uniform led her down the front steps behind Daddy. But Meg kept her eyes on Daddy.

“Is your seat belt buckled?” A woman in a blue suit leaned in the open car door.

Meg made no reply but tilted her head forward to see past the woman, to catch one last glimpse of Daddy.

As she stared at him, a familiar gray haze fuzzed and obliterated the scene in front of the white Victorian mansion where she lived with Daddy and Natalie. No, not now. Not now.

The early morning tableau, illuminated by slanting spears of light from the rising sun, disappeared as an encroaching fog dissolved it from the outer edges inward and muffled all sounds. In the middle of the mist, she saw a dog, digging, digging. Saw the dog run, disturbed by the approach of a person. Meg sat rigid, still, and unwittingly, unwillingly watched the vision unfold.

Granny Mac carried a basket of sheets and towels and dresses from the clothesline, stepped into the hole the dog made. Meg saw Granny Mac drop the basket, saw her fall. A wrapping appeared on Granny Mac’s ankle. The gray fog dissipated and the

streaks of light and shadow of early morning which surrounded Meg reappeared. A cacaphony of sounds the vision had obliterated rushed back, pushed Meg into the here and now.

“Can’t you speak when you’re spoken to? Here, I’ll fasten your seat belt myself.” The woman in the blue suit emitted a disgusted grunt, pulled the belt across Meg’s body and clicked the buckle into place. “There. We’re ready to go.”

A policeman put his hand on Daddy’s head, pushed it down, pushed Daddy into the police car. Meg couldn’t see him now. She held her lower lip between her teeth, turned away and stared at the plastic floor mat beneath her feet. I won’t cry. They can’t make me cry.

 

*  *  *

 

“Mama, please—” J. Edward said into the phone. He was silent while he listened to his mother. “But—”

He scuffed his foot on the floor, waiting for an opportunity to break into his mother’s lecture. “Listen, Mama, there’s nothing I can do about that now. What I’m calling about is Meg. She needs you—” His mother interrupted again. “Child Protective Services. They took her when Natalie and I were arrested. But you know how—”

He listened impatiently.

“No, Natalie's family won't lift a finger for her. They've always ignored her. It's as though they're not even related. You're all she has.”

He let his mother have her say again.

“Here's the phone number….” He took a slip of paper from his pocket and read it to his mother. “Please, Mama, since you can't come yourself, can you send someone for her?”

 

*  *  *

 

Bertha MacAllister sat for long minutes after she hung up. She'd known from the beginning that allowing Jim Ed to accept the scholarship to Sparks College in California would end badly. She'd had snippets of visions, had seen him with a blonde girl. And had known his heart would be broken. But she hadn't foreseen this: her only son arrested for murder.

Young Jim Ed had laughed away his mother's warnings and left his north Georgia mountain home for California in the fall after his graduation from high school.

If his daddy had still been living, he would have stopped their only son, would have found a way to keep him at home. Herschel MacAllister trusted his wife's visions, knew that the Second Sight rested strongly in her. And he'd had ample demonstration of the power of such visions as he was growing up. Herschel's own mother had possessed the Sight.

Bertha sighed. It was too late to think “what if” or “if only.” What's done, is done. A-body has to pick up and go on. A-body has to deal with what is.

She lifted the receiver and dialed her brother's number. Maybe Bobby Joe would fly to California and bring Meg home.

 

*  *  *

 

J. Edward hung up and moved away from the phone, allowing the man in line behind him to take his turn. He followed the guard to his cell and stood aside while the door clanged open. The guard motioned him inside without a word.

He stopped just inside the door and surveyed the dirty tile floor with distaste. The thought of sleeping on the cot with its stained and lumpy mattress brought a wave of revulsion. And when his thoughts returned to his past, he viewed it with a similar aversion. Why hadn't he listened to Mama? Why had he ever left Georgia?

Jim Ed’s performance in high school brought attention and an invitation to attend prestigious Lester C. Sparks College, a private institution in California’s San Joaquin Valley. And his remarkable math skills and test scores won him a full scholarship to study in Sparks’ computer science department.

Mama was not in favor of his leaving the north Georgia mountains where he’d lived all his life, but he was determined to go. The allure, the glamour attached to the mere name of the Golden State called to him. He located a part-time job through student services and was hired before he left Georgia. The job didn’t pay much, but it would help with his expenses. He was eighteen when he arrived in Sparks, California: young, inexperienced and impressionable.

He met Natalie Sparks the first week at Lester C. Sparks College, and with one look from her golden-brown eyes, an instant attraction gripped him. Her vivacity and blonde good looks embodied his idea of a golden California girl, a golden girl who always wore pink. He fell in love and was consumed with physical longing for her. Natalie's ego was boosted by the slavish attention she received from the tall, handsome boy. His height, obvious strength and arresting good looks commanded attention wherever he went.

But Natalie despised his north Georgia accent, ridiculed him for what she called his “backwoodsy ways” and attitudes. She hated the nickname he'd grown up with—Jim Ed—and started calling him J. Edward. “A more refined name,” she said. Besides, it would stand him in good stead to become accustomed to it. He wanted a dignified career, didn't he? He needed a name to match.

Once or twice, she decided to dump him. But her undeniable attraction to the tall, black-haired boy with the startling blue eyes stopped her. If she cut him loose, some other girl would be the one he set on a pedestal, and another girl would enjoy the sexual electricity engendered by the touch of his hand. So she determined to keep him on a leash.

By their second semester at Lester C. Sparks, Natalie decided her major would be psychology. And she decided J. Edward should study philosophy. It was a respectable, intellectual pursuit, she said.

Jim Ed, blinded by his passion for the voluptuous blonde, acquiesced. If adding philosophy to his course of study as a minor would make him more attractive in Natalie’s eyes, he was happy to study philosophy. He continued his pursuit of an intimate relationship with her, but Natalie wisely withheld that consummation from him, knowing, perhaps, that there was some truth to the old saying: why buy the cow when the milk is free.

And so, Natalie sailed through their first year at Lester C. Sparks College with J. Edward in tow. She felt smug and in control of both her life and his, a situation she was perfectly

happy with.

J. Edward didn't go home at the end of the second semester. He arranged to work full time at his job and managed to save a little money over the summer. When fall came and Natalie arrived from her home in San Francisco, he was overjoyed and once again enthralled. Her outward appearance was the epitome of everything he found desirable in a woman, pink and soft and pretty. He felt privileged she allowed him to trail after her.

It was this fall semester that marked the turning point for Natalie and J. Edward. Two occurrences set them on the path to their destinies, and a third entwined their lives irrevocably. The first: Natalie took a psychology class under Professor Conrad Emerson Worthen. The second: Natalie's roommate, Melissa Ames, introduced her to the Women's Studies group.

Natalie became a rabid adherent to feminist ideals. She stopped wearing a bra (which J. Edward found exciting), stopped shaving her legs (which J. Edward found less appealing) and traded her contact lenses for wire-framed granny glasses. If she was not a product of the sixties, at least she could look and act as if she were. And J. Edward, blinded by unfulfilled sexual desire, took all of it in stride, gave in to her demands as a necessary part of being accepted and loved by Natalie Sparks. At least, he thought he was accepted and loved.

Natalie noticed that attempts by other men to break through her relationship with J. Edward had stopped. She was no longer in demand and sought after. At first, she found it alarming, but then she decided it didn't matter. She had a man, and even if he wasn't exactly what she wanted, he was, at least, a man other women wanted. But she decided she needed to attach him to her leash permanently.

J. Edward greeted Natalie's subtle suggestions of marriage with mixed feelings. On one hand, a still-coherent part of his mind insisted he didn't want to be tied to her forever. But his physical being cried out for marriage: in marriage, he could find the fulfillment of his yearnings for Natalie. And so, as he went along with everything else Natalie wanted, he agreed they should marry.

After their marriage, when his desires had been assuaged, J. Edward was able to look at Natalie with a saner eye, and he harbored a suspicion the marriage had been a mistake. He pushed the disturbing thought away, but it returned to nag at him, again and again. But he had been raised with the belief that marriage was for life, so he decided to endure the results of his decision, to make the best of it, as he did in other areas of his life that were less than satisfactory. His innate optimism smoothed his view of the road ahead and made his rocky marriage bed more endurable.

But the marriage bed brought the third circumstance, the one that bound them together forever: Natalie became pregnant.

At first, she denied to herself the knowledge of what was happening to her body. She refused to believe it could have happened to her. But when she couldn’t ignore her rounded belly any longer, she blamed J. Edward for the pregnancy and raged at him.

How could he have done this to her? To her? To an avowed feminist? To a woman who revered all the feminists who had preceded her? And most particularly, how could he have done this to a woman who reserved her deepest admiration for the person who had sought to free women from the onus of pregnancy: the acclaimed Margaret Sanger.

Natalie told J. Edward she intended to abort the unwanted intruder.

“How could you even think of killing your own child? You’d be a murderer.” J. Edward’s voice became a flowing river of disgust directed at his wife. “And I can’t think of anything I despise more than someone who would harm a defenseless child.”

She couldn’t endure his icy blue gaze, couldn’t bear the thought that someone regarded her as less-than-wonderful. And what if J. Edward told others what she’d done? Women in her feminist group would applaud her actions, but hardly anyone else would. Natalie backed away from her decision and backed down from the specter of public censure. But J. Edward’s attitude toward her had changed, and a cool, matter-of-fact expression replaced the worshipful attitude with which he had once regarded her.

When the baby girl arrived one morning in early May, Natalie looked at the red-faced infant with an abundance of black hair like her father's and curled her lip in distaste. She’d never seen a new-born baby. She had expected her coming child to look like the adorable babies in television commercials and magazine ads, when she'd thought of it at all.

But this wrinkled, pudgy-cheeked being the nurse showed her had nothing adorable about it. And when the ugly little thing began to cry, Natalie pushed it away in panic. She told the nurse she didn't want to touch it.

Since the baby was a daughter, Natalie gave her the only name that made sense under the circumstances: Margaret Sanger.

J. Edward fell in love with little Margaret at first sight. And when the nurse placed the tiny pink-wrapped bundle in his arms, a fierce devotion embedded itself in his heart. He was, and forever would be, bound up in this small person.

Natalie insisted when she left the hospital that she was unable to bring herself to care for the baby. She had a headache, a backache, felt nauseated. So J. Edward changed diapers, made bottles of formula, and did every other thing necessary to little Margaret's comfort and well being. But he couldn't work, go to school and take care of the baby, too. After struggling for two weeks, he called his mother.

“Mama, I have a problem. Natalie won't take care of the baby. And I can't go to work and school and do—”

“I know, son. I already have my airplane ticket. I just need to tell you what time I'll be getting there.”

Natalie had even less respect for J. Edward's mother than she had for her husband. And she did not bother to hide her disdain for the woman from the north Georgia mountains, with her unfashionable clothing, her backwoods accent, and her habit of breaking into lilting song as she worked around the small apartment.

Bertha MacAllister cleaned and cooked. But her joy was caring for little Margaret.

“What kind of a name is Margaret Sanger for a little bit like you,” she cooed as she changed Margaret's diaper one morning. “You look more like a Maggie, yes, you do.” Bertha frowned. “No, not Maggie. Meg. Yes.” She smiled. “That's who you are. Meg.”

Meg turned her deep blue eyes upward, met her grandmother’s brown gaze, and a connection was made between them at that moment, felt by granddaughter and grandmother alike.

 

*  *  *

 

“She's got to leave!” Natalie insisted, her voice raised to a level she knew Bertha could hear.

“Please, Natalie, keep your voice down. Let's discuss this calmly,” J. Edward pleaded.

“No. I won't have that woman in my house any longer.”

“Are you going to take care of Meg, then?”

“Meg! Her name is Margaret! You see what she's doing? Even changing my daughter's name without my permission?”

“It's just a nickname, that's all,” J. Edward said.

“Well, she has no right.”

“But you didn't answer my question. Are you going to take care of...the baby?”

“How am I supposed to do that? I've got school. I’ve got meetings, and—”

“Then what are we going to do?” J. Edward interrupted.

“You can take care of her. You were doing fine before she came.”

“No, I wasn't. I have classes, and I have to work. Never mind time for studying. I just can't do it.”

“School will be out in a couple of weeks.”

“But then I'll be working full-time again. Who's going to take care of the baby when I'm at work?”

Natalie slouched at the head of the bed, pouting. “Well, you've got to find some way to do it. I can't stand having that woman here another minute. With her stupid accent. And looking down her nose at my housekeeping.” Natalie saw the look J. Edward gave her. “Yes. It’s true. She does look down her nose at me. Thinks I'm not good enough for her son.”

“I'm sure you're just imagining that.”

“Just get her to leave. Or I'll leave.”

J. Edward contemplated that possibility for a brief minute and was appalled by his feeling of relief at the prospect. “I’ll figure something out.”

He exited the bedroom and closed the door softly. He saw his mother sitting on the broken down sofa, holding Meg, cuddling her.

“I heard,” Bertha said.

“I'm sorry, Mama,” he said. “I just don’t know what gets into her.”

“I've been thinkin’,” Bertha said, refraining from making a comment on her daughter-in-law. “What if I took Meg home with me, kept her while the two of you go ahead and finish your education?”

A sudden knot formed in J. Edward's throat at the thought of his daughter’s absence. She was such a tiny thing, but she had a big hold on him.

“I—” he said and coughed, cleared his throat and began again. “I’d miss her too much.”

“It wouldn’t be for long,” Bertha said. “Otherwise, what will you do? Drop out of school? And then what? You’d still have the problem of someone taking care of her while you work.”

J. Edward meandered to the window, hooked a finger on a slat and pulled the blind down. He stared at the flat, featureless landscape that stretched into the distance. It was one aspect of California's central valley he couldn’t adjust to, after having spent his life surrounded by mountains and trees.

“I don’t know, Mama,” he said, his voice low and soft.

“She’ll be all right with me.”

“I know. I’ll just miss her so much.”

“But maybe it’ll be good for you and Natalie. For your marriage.”

J. Edward ran a hand over his face, leaving it on his chin. “Is it that obvious?”

Bertha remained silent for a moment. “I have mine and Meg’s things already packed. Could you see about getting us tickets on an airplane to Atlanta?”

He nodded.

“I’ll call Esther Sue at the bank and get her to wire the money from my savings account.”

He nodded again.

“Will you tell Natalie? Or should I?”

“No. I’ll tell her,” he said, and sighed. He crossed to the bedroom door, squared his shoulders and walked inside.

 

*  *  *

 

The truck stopped, and the passenger door swung partly open. A little girl’s shoe set firmly onto the bare red clay of the driveway, followed by a second shoe. Meg stepped from behind the door and stood silently for a moment, regarding her grandmother who watched from the front porch. Meg ducked her head, lowered her gaze to the ground and bit her lower lip. She approached her grandmother slowly, deliberately, as if trying to delay facing her.

Bertha had used her cane to hobble to the edge of the porch when she heard Bobby Joe’s truck laboring up the grade. She stood by the steps grasping the brick column support with one hand as she waited for Meg to reach her.

“Bobby Joe,” Bertha called to her brother. “Bring in the suitcases and have a bite to eat afore you head to Dalton.”

“Thanks, I believe I will.” Bobby Joe stretched his back. “That there’s a long trip, having to be settin’ all the way from here out yonder and back. I’m so stove up it’ll take me more’n a week to work all the kinks outta my back.” He stretched again and flexed his body.

“Well, go on in and help yourself to a cup of coffee. I made it fresh just a while ago.”

Meg followed her grandmother and Uncle Bobby Joe into the house without a word.

 

 

 

 

 

Three

 

 

Meg gradually warmed to her grandmother. Her memories of the years she had lived in this house as a small girl were reawakened and came alive, day by day. But after two weeks, she still had not smiled, had not laughed, but she raised her eyes and looked into Bertha’s when she was spoken to.

“Granny Mac, what’s this?” she asked Bertha one morning. She held a long wooden tube in her hand, twirling it, turning it back and forth.

“Here, give me that.” Granny Mac took it from Meg and put it back on the shelf. “It’s a spool.”

“A spool? What’s it for?”

“In the cotton mill, they used to spin the cotton into thread and wind it on spools like this one.”

“Why do you have it? Do you wind thread on it?”

“No, child. My mama worked in the cotton mill down in Dalton. I keep that spool to remind me how hard she worked all her life, how she sacrificed for her family.”

“Oh.”

“Haven’t I told you about your Mamaw?”

“No.”

“No, ma’am.”

“No, ma’am.”

“That’s better. We wouldn’t want folks to think you weren’t raised right, now, would we?”

“No. I mean, no, ma’am.”

“You learn fast for a little girl, don’t you?”

Meg looked up at her grandmother. “I’m not so little. I’m tall for my age. Everyone says so.”

“Like your daddy. He was tall for his age, too.”

“I miss my daddy,” Meg whispered, a wistfulness tingeing the breathed words.

“I know you do. So do I. I’ve missed him ever since he first left home.” Bertha turned her face to the window and rested her gaze on the trees still visible where they were touched by the last rays of the sun. “This old place was so empty and quiet with him gone. Never been the same since.

“The Grissom boys that lived over the hill there, they used tocome over here and play. Sometimes your daddy’d go across the hill to their place.” She turned to Meg. “You miss your friends? Miss having somebody to come play?”

“No, ma’am. I never had anyone to play with.”

Bertha frowned. “No friends?”

“No, ma’am. But that’s ok. Daddy plays games with me. Cards and board games and stuff.”

“But you didn’t have anyone your own age?”

“Natalie doesn’t like having running, squealing kids tearing through her house.”

Granny Mac grunted. “A-body needs company. Maybe we can find some little girls close by and you can make some friends.”

“But I don’t need anyone else. It’s better being here with you. I love to hear the stories you tell. Like the one about the man coming home across the fields when he was already dead. Would you tell me that one again?”

The lines on Granny Mac’s forehead grew deeper. Why would the child prefer to hear ghost stories instead of spending time with a friend her own age? That seemed worrisome.

“All right. I’ll tell it again. Then we need to get ourselves to bed. Let’s go sit in front of the fire.”

Granny Mac settled herself into the rocker by the fireplace, propped her sprained ankle on the ottoman, and Meg knelt on the floor, elbows resting on the ottoman, chin on her open palms. The flickering flames dancing across the logs on the grate cast red and yellow reflections on Meg’s hair, on the outline of her cheek and on her arms. They imparted a red glow to everything in the small room, giving Granny Mac a brief moment of dread, as though the redness hinted of the fires of hell. She shifted on the chair and pushed the uncomfortable feeling away.

She told Meg the story again, this time leaving it unembellished. No scary voice, no unanswered questions, just a story she herself had been told by her mother when she was a girl.

“My grandma was about your age. Her mama sent her to stay with the Blalocks. It was harvest time and Mrs. Mamie Blalock was canning. She didn’t have any young’uns, so my great-grandma, having twelve of her own, oft times sent one of them to help Mrs. Mamie. This time, it was Grandma’s turn. Grandma was sitting on the front porch of the cabin with Mrs. Mamie, and they were shelling peas.

“‘Look yonder!’ said Mrs. Mamie. ‘There comes Ransom over the hill. He’s early. Wonder how come he’s on his way home now.’

“Grandma looked, and sure enough, there come Mr. Ransom Blalock over the crest of the hill, coming home from the field where he was harvesting corn. He walked down the hillside and disappeared into the holler at the bottom. But he never come up out of the holler to the house.

“Later that evening, some neighbor men come to the cabin and told Mrs. Mamie that Mr. Ransom had tumbled over and died of a heart attack in the field. He had died at the same time Grandma and Mrs. Mamie saw him come walking home across the hill.”

“He was dead when they saw him, wasn’t he.” Meg shivered.

“That’s what they always said.” Granny Mac frowned. “But we need to get to bed now. No more talk of Mr. Ransom tonight.”

Meg didn’t move.

“Granny Mac?”

“Yes, darlin’?”

“Do people see other people that are dead? Like that?”

Granny Mac rocked in silence for many minutes, giving Meg no answer.

“Granny Mac? Do they?”

“Well, that’s hard to say. I reckon it could be that some people do.”

“Like who?”

Again, Granny Mac hesitated.

“Like my grandma. And....” She cleared her throat. “Like me.”

“And, like me?” Meg asked.

“What have you seen, child?”

Meg swallowed. Granny Mac saw fear on her granddaughter’s face. Fear of what she was about to impart, but further, fear her grandmother would reject what she had to say.

“I...I saw the man who died. The man they say Natalie and Daddy killed.”

Granny Mac’s eyes misted, and the lines around them grew deeper. She stopped rocking and leaned toward her granddaughter. Episodes from Meg’s early years came to Granny Mac’s mind. Little incidents, half-remembered. Things which showed certain gifts within the tiny girl. And especially, a gift of seeing into the future.

“You saw him? When?”

“I saw him when he died. I saw him in my dream. The nightmare dream.”

The old woman heaved a sigh. “Tell me about it.”

“It was the nightmare dream I have sometimes. But, this time, when the scribbles came, I saw the man’s face, I saw he couldn’t breathe. And he died. And I woke up and—”

“You’re sure it was the man who died that you saw in your dream?”

“Yes. It was the man I hated.”

“You hated him? Why?”

“He...he came to our house sometimes. And...do I have to tell you?”

“Yes. Tell me all of it.”

“But, it’s so yucky.”

Granny Mac remained silent.

“One time when he came, he was waiting in the living room for Natalie. I went in to get some paper from the desk to do my homework, and he...started talking to me. He asked me to come over to him, said he had a secret to tell me. And then….” Meg’s breaths came rapid and shallow, her face distorted by remembered fear and renewed revulsion.

Her grandmother sat silent until Meg recovered her composure. “It’s all right, Meggie, you can tell me anything.”

“He told me I was pretty, and he touched my hair. And he touched me...other places. I tried to leave but he grabbed my arm.”

A molten surge of rage erupted within Granny Mac, and she shook from its force, but she managed to control herself. She didn’t speak, not trusting her voice.

“And then Daddy got home, and the man let go of me. I ran to my room.”

Granny Mac cleared her throat. “What did your daddy do when you told him?”

“I didn’t tell him. I was afraid he’d be too mad. Because the man scared me so bad, and Daddy would be real mad the man made me feel scared.”

“And then what happened?”

“The night the man died, he was in the living room waiting for Natalie and Daddy and Professor Worthen to be ready for him. I didn’t know he was still in the living room. And I needed my math book real bad because I had homework to do. Natalie would’ve been mad at me if I got another note from Mrs. Tolliver.

“When I got to the living room, I waited and listened. I didn’t hear anything, so I thought no one was in there. I thought he’d already gone down....” Meg hesitated, blinked rapidly, shook her head and continued. “So I started to get my book, and then all of a sudden, the man grabbed me from behind. And he turned me around. And he put his mouth on my mouth. And I wanted to throw up. And I hated him. Hated, hated, hated him!” Meg’s voice grew shrill, and she beat her fists on her thighs. “I wanted him to die!”

Meg ducked her head, fastened her gaze on the braided rag rug. She held her lower lip between her teeth, tried to block the sobs that threatened to break free. But she couldn’t contain them. She broke into tears, buried her face in her hands. “I wanted him to die. And he did!”

Granny Mac cried, too. Large, silent tears streaked down her wrinkled cheeks. She lifted her injured foot from the ottoman, pushed herself out of the rocker and lowered her bulk to the floor beside Meg. She laid a work-roughened hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder.

Meg threw her arms around Granny Mac’s neck and hung on tight, as though she was drowning and Granny Mac was a life preserver. Granny Mac stroked Meg’s hair, patted her back. At last, Meg’s sobs waned, and her head lay, still and quiet, on her grandmother’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, Meg. Just because you were so mad at him don’t mean nothing. You didn’t do nothing. You just saw something. And seeing something….” She pulled away slightly, took a quick swipe at her wet cheeks, worry pulling the lines of her face into an image of sadness. She was certain now about Meg.

“What’s wrong, Granny Mac?” Meg asked, sniffling.

“There’s something I have to tell you. Something I think you need to know. But let’s get up on the sofa. I can’t take no more of this hard floor.”

The old woman struggled to her feet, smoothed her skirt and hobbled to the sofa. “Whew!” she said under her breath. “These old legs don’t fold up so well anymore. And I’ll be so glad when this ankle heals.”

Granny Mac sat heavily on the sofa, took a breath and patted the cushion next to her. “Come sit here.”

Meg settled on the sofa, grew still and Granny Mac began.

“Have you ever heard tell of the Second Sight?”

Meg shook her head.

“Well, it was something the Scottish Highlanders believed in. That some folks have the Second Sight. And they can see things and know things that’s going to happen. My husband Herschel, your granddaddy, God rest his soul, was descended from Scottish Highlanders. As am I. Some in his family had the Sight. My grandma had the Sight.” Granny Mac drew in a deep breath. “And I have it.”

She paused, allowing Meg time to absorb what she’d said. “It may be, Meg, that you’ve got the Sight. And you knew the man was going to die, saw it in your dream.”

Meg stared into her grandmother’s dark brown eyes, transfixed. “You mean...it just...happened? I didn’t...make it happen because I wanted him to die?”

“Oh, no, child. Someone with the Sight don’t make things happen, just sees it before it happens.”

“I saw it...while it happened.”

“No. You must have seen it just a few minutes before. Usually, when I see things, it will be a few hours, maybe a day or two, beforehand. Except for once.... My grandma, now, she could see a month and more, at times. But she had other talents, too. Her daddy was a Cherokee man who could make medicine. Lived ’way back up in the mountains.”

Granny Mac stroked Meg’s hair. “That’s where you get your black hair. You get your blue eyes from the MacAllisters. My Herschel, God rest his soul, had eyes so blue and sweet they could melt the hardest heart.”

She smiled into the distance of a memory.

“Ah, yes. That Herschel. He was the one. Had me laughin’ all the time. He was a good man, was my Herschel.” She turned her eyes to Meg again. “They say his mama had the Sight, too. I didn’t know her well. She died before me and him was married. I’m just going on hearsay about her having the Sight. But if she did, why, you got a double dose of it, didn’t you?” Granny Mac chuckled.

“So, I’m not...weird or something?”

“Why, no, child. It might be weird if you didn’t have the Sight, being as how so many in the family have had it.”

“Then I’m all right?”

“Yes, you are. The Sight don’t mean you’re different or strange. Just that you have a gift some others don’t have.”

Meg took a deep breath and sighed, a visible loosening of her muscles traveling down her thin, bony body like a ripple moving across the surface of the water.

“What if I don’t want the gift?”

Granny Mac raised a hand, started to put it on Meg’s shoulder, but laid it in her lap instead.

“You don’t have a choice. I don’t either. It’s like, if you have blue eyes, why, you’ve got ‘em, whether you want blue or brown.”

“But I don’t like it. I don’t like the knowing...the seeing….”

“Everybody in this old world has some kind of burden, Meg. The Sight is a heavy load to bear sometimes, I understand. But it’s a burden you and I have to bear. You must pray, as I do everyday, that you can carry it and bear up under it. And that you can use your gift well.”

Meg turned away and stared into the dying flames, her shoulders slumped in resignation.

Granny Mac and Meg grew closer after that night. Meg began to blossom in the presence of Granny Mac’s unconditional love. Her father loved her, too, but living in her parents’ household, her mother’s coldness had been a stifling influence on her. Now she was out from under her mother’s shadow, in the sunlight of Granny Mac’s love, and she began to thrive.

 

*  *  *

 

The postman drove the rural route delivering mail to the far flung residents of the mountains, reaching Granny Mac’s farm in late afternoon. Meg had taken over the chore of checking the mail box when she got off the school bus every afternoon, and she was the first to see the long white envelope with the California postmark.

She rushed into the kitchen, flushed from excitement as much as from the biting March wind. The letter might be from her father.

“A letter, Granny Mac, from California!” she shouted when she burst through the kitchen door.

Granny Mac wiped her hands on a towel and turned to Meg but hesitated to take the letter Meg held out to her. She went to the table, pulled out a chair and sat with a sigh. She laid the letter on the table and rubbed her eyes. Her shoulders sagged as she took her reading glasses from her shirt pocket and put them on. She read the return address aloud. It was from Jim Ed’s lawyer.

“It’s from your daddy’s lawyer,” she said to Meg. “And it’s bad news. I’ve been expecting it all day.”

“You saw it?”

“Yes.” She glanced at her granddaughter’s worried face. “Did you see anything?”

Meg shook her head. “No, ma’am. I didn’t even see who it was from. I thought it might be from Daddy.”

Granny Mac peeled the flap open and took the sheet of stationery from the envelope. She read the letter silently.

“It says here your daddy asked him to write this, to let us know how things went.” She laid the letter on the table and clasped her hands together, bowed her head over them.

“What is it? How did they go?”

Granny Mac raised her head and looked into Meg’s eyes.

“Your daddy has been sentenced to twenty years in prison. And your mama got twenty-five.”

“Sentenced? What does that mean?” Meg’s eyes grew large and her shoulders seemed to draw into themselves.

“It means he will be in prison for twenty years. We won’t get to see him for a long time.”

“No! I want my daddy!” Meg threw open the back door and ran across the pasture toward the woods.

Granny Mac watched her go. Meg would be safe. She needed time alone, time to adjust to the idea that her daddy would not be coming to get her soon. Granny Mac needed time to adjust to that knowledge, too.

 

 

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