Silent Superstitions Page 4

  She felt a blush rise in her cheeks.

  The doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. “Actually, she was a godsend,” he said. “Don’t know what I would have done without her.”

  “Granny O’Teale seems to think I’m the cause of Bob’s accident,” she said.

  The doctor laughed as he pulled up a chair near Christy. “Don’t take it to heart.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Christy muttered.

  “So how goes the first official week as teacher?” the doctor asked.

  Christy shrugged. “It’s hard for me to say. There are so many children, and we need so many supplies . . . I guess I’ll find a way to handle it all.”

  “She’s doing great,” David said. “We’re very proud of her.”

  Miss Ida cleared her throat loudly. “Well, I think I’ll be getting these dirty dishes to the kitchen.”

  “Let me help, Miss Ida,” Christy said, pushing back her chair.

  “Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” Miss Ida said. She cast a glance from the doctor to her brother. “You’ve obviously got your hands full. Ruby Mae can help.”

  Ruby Mae grabbed a dish and followed Miss Ida. “Do you think Miz Christy’s got two suitors already?” she asked loudly as they left the room.

  Christy covered her eyes. She needed to have a talk with Ruby Mae about learning to whisper. “Ruby Mae’s very, uh . . . imaginative,” she said.

  “Quite a talker, that one,” Miss Alice agreed, smiling at Christy’s discomfort.

  “Doctor MacNeill, I was wondering about something—someone, actually,” Christy said, anxious to change the subject. “Is there anything that can be done for Mountie O’Teale? She barely speaks, and when she does, it’s so garbled she sounds like a frightened animal. It breaks my heart.”

  The doctor shook his head. “Swannie tells me she’s been like that for years.”

  “Swannie?”

  “Mountie’s mother,” he explained. “My guess is it’s more emotional than physical, but I can’t even be sure of that. As far as I know, Mountie won’t communicate with anyone.”

  “She’s been that way as long as I’ve been at the mission,” Miss Alice said.

  Ruby Mae returned for more dishes. “Maybe she’s got a spell on her,” she suggested.

  “Ruby Mae!” Christy exclaimed.

  “It happens!” Ruby Mae insisted. “I heard tell of a boy over in Cataleechie. He had a spell on him so’s all he could do was mew like a kitten. Lasted two whole months. Even when that spell was took off him, he never did drink milk normal after that. Always had to lap it out of a bowl.”

  Christy smiled sadly. “I almost wish that there was such a thing as spells and that that was the cause of Mountie’s problem, Ruby Mae,” she said. “Then we could just look for a way to break the spell.”

  After the doctor, David, and Miss Alice had left for the evening, Christy went up to her room. Miss Alice had her own cabin, and David lived in a nearby bunkhouse. That left Christy, Miss Ida, and Ruby Mae in the main house, a white three-story frame building with a screened porch on each side. Compared to Christy’s home back in Asheville, North Carolina, it was very plain. It had no telephone, no electricity, and only the barest of furnishings. She often missed the polished mahogany dining room table back home, the thick Oriental rugs, the lace curtains, not to mention the indoor plumbing.

  Still, she was growing accustomed to her simple room at the mission. It was a stark contrast to the frills and pastels of her old bedroom—just a washstand with a white china pitcher and bowl, an old bed and a dresser with a cracked mirror, a couple of straight chairs, and two cotton rag rugs on the cold bare floor.

  But this room offered something her old room could not: a view so breathtaking that each time she looked out her window at the haze-covered peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains, she felt a little closer to God. Mountain ranges folded one into the other, touching the clouds, a sight so peaceful and calming that already she had begun to think of it as her view, a source of hope and strength. Even tonight, with the wind whipping fiercely and the moon and stars hidden, she could see those peaks in her imagination with perfect clarity.

  Christy reached into the top drawer of her dresser. Underneath a neatly folded white blouse lay her black leather-covered diary. She had brought it with her from Asheville, promising herself she would write down everything that happened to her at the mission—the good and the bad. This was, after all, the greatest adventure of her life, and she wanted to record every moment of it.

  She’d had to argue long and hard to convince her parents that a nineteen-year-old girl should venture off to a remote mountain cove to teach. She had first heard about the mission and its desperate need for teachers at a church retreat last summer. Somehow she had known in her heart that she was supposed to go teach in this mountain mission school. There was so much less here materially, but in many ways life in Cutter Gap was much richer than her old life in North Carolina, filled as it was with tea parties and dress fittings and picnics.

  Christy climbed onto her bed. Propping the diary on her knees, she uncapped her pen and tapped it thoughtfully against her chin. Where to begin? It had been two days since she’d written.

  Saturday, January 20, 1912

  My first week of school completed! Hooray!

  I have put up with freezing temperatures, vicious bullies, and raccoons in desks, and still I’ve survived to tell the tale. Perhaps I will make a good teacher yet.

  David and Miss Alice are encouraging but realistic. “You cannot change the world overnight,” Miss Alice keeps saying.

  I can’t admit this yet—not to them, not to anyone . . . It’s even hard for me to write this down in my own private diary. But the truth is I feel like such an outsider here. David seems to feel like an outsider too. Even Miss Alice says it took her years to be accepted by the mountain people. But the littlest things make me feel I’ll never really belong here.

  I came to school my first day in my fancy leather shoes, only to see practically all the children barefoot in the January snow. When I talk, they still giggle and whisper. (David says this is because my “city accent” is as strange to their ears as their way of talking is to me.) And when someone like Ruby Mae Morrison (my very own personal shadow, it seems) talks constantly about the strangest things, I sometimes wonder if we aren’t from different worlds.

  Ruby Mae’s nonstop chattering has me seriously considering making cotton plugs for my ears. Miss Alice has a Quaker saying she often uses: “Such-and-such a person is meant to be my bundle.” Well, like it or not, Ruby Mae is clearly going to be my bundle.

  Sometimes, I think I am beginning to make progress. Yesterday, Mary O’Teale and Ruby Mae and some others were telling each other “haunt tales” about an old witch, and when I tried to reassure them not to be frightened of the dark, I think I actually managed to reach them. Of course, that was easy for me to understand—I had the same fears as a child. (When I remember the ghost stories George and I used to tell each other, I still get the shivers!)

  But later, when Lundy Taylor (another big problem) tripped little Mary and sent her falling down the icy mountain slide the boys had made, Mary’s great-grandmother blamed me. It wasn’t just that Mary had been hurt. It was something more—some deep fear and resentment for anyone not from the Cove. Try as I might, I’m certain that in a million years Granny O’Teale will never like me.

  Time. Maybe that’s all it will take. I’ll make friends with these people. I’ll come to understand them. And maybe as I do, I’ll come to understand my purpose in the world.

  A loud knock at her door interrupted Christy. She slipped the diary under her pillow and capped her pen. “Yes?”

  “It’s me, Ruby Mae.”

  Christy sighed. “Just a second, Ruby Mae.”

  When Christy opened the door, Ruby Mae burst into the room as if it were her own. “I was thinkin’ you might like some company.”

  “Actually, I was about
to get ready for bed.”

  Ruby Mae examined her reflection in Christy’s cracked mirror. “I think the preacher and the doctor, they both got a hankerin’ for you, Miz Christy.”

  Christy laughed. “Ruby Mae Morrison,” she said, “what am I going to do with you?”

  “You never know,” Ruby Mae said with a grin. She ran a hand through her snarled, shoulder-length red hair. Halfway down, she winced.

  “How long has it been since you combed your hair, Ruby Mae?” Christy asked. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “Factually, I lost my comb. Disremember when. Onliest comb ever I had too.”

  “There are some bad tangles,” Christy said. “Come, sit here on my bed.” She retrieved her own comb from her dresser.

  Ruby Mae plopped down on the bed. “I’ll try not to holler when you hit them mouse nests,” she vowed.

  Christy started, gently pulling the comb down.

  “Ohoo-weeee!” Ruby Mae cried.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t matter. What do you aim to do when you get it all combed out?”

  “How about nice long braids? Like Miss Alice’s?”

  “Be tickled to death with braids. But you’ll have to learn me how.”

  “Braiding’s easy. I’ll teach you.”

  Braiding hair is not the only thing I’ll have to teach Ruby Mae, Christy thought as she tried to unravel the snarls. Ruby Mae’s sole idea of cleanliness was to wash her face and hands a few times a week—never a full bath. It was not pleasant to be near her. And it wasn’t just Ruby Mae; it was all the children. After the hair combing, maybe Christy would suggest a bath to Ruby Mae in the portable tin tub and then make her a gift of a can of scented talcum powder.

  “I’m going to have to yank a little, Ruby Mae,” Christy said when she reached a particularly stubborn snarl. She pulled as gently as she could, but Ruby Mae leapt back against Christy’s pillow, howling.

  “I’m really sorry, Ruby Mae,” Christy apologized.

  “What’s this?” Ruby Mae asked, pulling at the corner of the diary Christy had pushed beneath her pillow.

  “Oh, that? Nothing. It’s private,” Christy said quickly.

  Ruby Mae frowned. “I just mean,” Christy continued, “it’s a place where I write down things.”

  “What sorts o’ things?”

  “Feelings, dreams, hopes. What happened today. People I meet, places I go. Diary things.”

  “Am I in there?”

  Christy smiled. “The special thing about a diary is that it’s private.”

  “What’s ‘private’?”

  “Secret. Things you keep to yourself.”

  Even as she tried to explain, Christy recalled her visit to the Spencers’ cabin—seven people living in two tiny rooms and a sleeping loft. How could she expect these children to understand privacy? It was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

  Christy divided Ruby Mae’s hair into strands and began to braid. When she was done, Ruby Mae gazed at her reflection in amazement.

  “Lordamercy, Miz Christy, you done worked a miracle!” Ruby Mae cried. “I look as purty as a picture, if I do say so myself.”

  Christy smiled. “You do indeed.” She watched as Ruby scampered off, talcum powder in hand, on her way to take a full bath. Once the lively girl had gone, she closed the door and pulled out her diary.

  A small victory, just now with Ruby Mae. No more snarls!

  Is this why I came all this way? To braid a tangle of red hair? To pass out scented powder?

  Maybe so. Miss Alice says that if we let God, He can use even our annoyances (take Ruby Mae, for example) to bring us unexpected blessings.

  Today braids. Tomorrow the world!

  On Sunday morning the driving snow had turned to driving rain. Clouds hung low, sifting and churning like a dark sea. Thunder rattled the windowpanes.

  As Christy, Miss Ida, and Ruby Mae crossed the yard to the church, Miss Ida tried to share her umbrella. But as they made their way across the plank walk David had installed, everyone was splattered by the icy rain. The combination of snow and rain had turned the yard into a sea of mud.

  “If it’s this hard for us to get here,” Christy said as they crossed, “I wonder how everyone else will make it.”

  “Oh, they’ll make it,” Miss Ida assured her. “Don’t forget that church is the great social event here in the Cove. Remember how full the pews were last week?”

  When Christy entered the room that had served as her school all week, she was surprised to see that it was nearly as full as it had been last Sunday. She settled into the pew nearest the pulpit. As she watched children enter with their families, she waved and smiled whenever she recognized a familiar face. Oddly, only a few of them waved back, although she caught plenty of stolen glances in her direction, not to mention whispers and pointing. She was surprised when she called out hello to Creed Allen, only to be greeted by a stiff half smile and an uncomfortable nod.

  Christy was relieved when she felt a friendly tap on her shoulder. “Howdy, Miz Christy,” Fairlight Spencer said.

  Christy smiled at the woman who’d befriended her on her journey to the mission. From the beginning, Christy had sensed that she and Fairlight could someday be good friends. Seeing the woman’s warm smile today made Christy certain of it.

  “Fairlight,” Christy exclaimed. “It’s good to see a friendly face.”

  “Oh, they’ll warm up to you. Just give ’em time. My children can’t stop talkin’ about school. It’s ‘Miz Christy this’ and ‘Miz Christy that.’ John tells me you might be a-findin’ him a new arithmetic book.”

  “He’s got a real head for math,” Christy said. “John’s going to be a joy to teach.” She held up a finger. “And speaking of teaching, I promised you we’d get together for some reading lessons.”

  “Oh, but you’re just gettin’ settled in,” Fairlight protested.

  “Tell you what. Give me a couple more weeks to get settled, and then we’ll get started.”

  “I’d be mighty pleased,” Fairlight said. She nodded toward the back pew. “I gotta get myself a seat before the preacher starts.”

  Christy watched Fairlight settle behind her with her husband, Jeb. As Christy waved to Jeb, she again noticed the whispers and stares her presence seemed to be causing.

  “Am I crazy?” she whispered to Ruby Mae. “I feel like everyone is staring at me.”

  “No’m.” Ruby Mae glanced over her shoulder. “They’s starin’, all right. I reckon it’s ’cause you’re new and all.”

  “But they weren’t acting like this last week,” Christy said.

  “It is strange,” Miss Ida said. “They’re usually a more rambunctious crowd than this.” She wiped a drop of rain from her forehead. “Perhaps it’s this odd weather.”

  “Well, once the service gets going, they’ll probably relax,” Christy said uneasily.

  “The way they carry on during David’s services is undignified, if you ask me,” Miss Ida said, shaking her head. “Singing and clapping and bouncing. David does the best he can.”

  Christy smiled. It was true that the services here in Cutter Gap were nothing like what she was used to at her church back home.

  Before long, the first hymn was in full swing, and the atmosphere in the church did seem to change. The people sang joyously, tapping their toes and clapping their hands. No one seemed to be staring at Christy any longer.

  Thunder rumbled like a bass drum as they launched into a second hymn:

  It’s the old ship of Zion, as she comes,

  It’s the old ship of Zion, the old ship of Zion,

  It’s the old ship of Zion, as she comes.

  She’ll be loaded with bright angels, when she comes,

  She’ll be loaded with bright angels . . .

  Suddenly Christy felt an uneasy sensation. She turned her head slightly and instantly realized why.

  Three pews back sat Granny O’Teale. She was not singing. Her milky eyes were riveted on Christy
. She was wearing an old black shawl, and around her neck sat a crude necklace tied with a string. Mountie sat beside her.

  Christy tried to send a smile to the girl. Granny wrapped an arm around Mountie protectively.

  Christy turned around, but as the hymn continued, she imagined Granny’s gaze sizzling across the crowded room like lightning. Christy had seen something in those tired old eyes. If she didn’t know better, she would have called it fear.

  When at last it came time for David’s sermon, Christy began to relax. It was silly to worry so much. Of course these people were staring at her. She was from someplace far away, and she was bringing new ideas to their children. Their curiosity was only natural. Perhaps they’d reacted to her this way last week and she had just been too preoccupied to notice.

  David was dressed in fine style, even though his congregation wore plain work clothes. He had on striped pants, a white shirt, and a dark tie. His black hair was carefully combed. He spoke in a deep, rich voice, measured and dignified.

  “I plan to preach to you today on Mark 6, verses 30 through 46, the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Although I must say that with this weather, maybe I ought to be talking about Noah and his ark.” The room filled with laughter.

  “But before I begin, I want to introduce a welcomed addition to Cutter Gap: our new teacher at the mission school, Miss Christy Huddleston.”

  Christy felt a blush creep up her neck. David hadn’t done this last week. Perhaps he’d understood how nervous she’d been about meeting so many new people. But making a point of introducing her today, with everyone acting so strangely, did not seem like a good idea, either—at least as far as Christy was concerned.

  “Christy, why don’t you stand and let the folks get a look at you?”

  Christy sent David a pleading look, but he just grinned back mischievously. Reluctantly she stood, turning toward the suddenly hushed group.

  “Look, Mama, it’s Teacher!” Vella Holt cried out, waving.

  Christy gave a nervous smile, then quickly dropped back down to the bench.

  “I’m sure you’ll all do your best to make Miss Huddleston feel welcome. She’s a wonderful teacher and is going to be a real help to this cove—”