The Steep and Thorny Way(5)
Up ahead, Mildred Marks, a girl my age—just turned sixteen—with thick red hair shoved beneath a gray fedora, pedaled toward me on a squeaky green bicycle. She rode at such a snail’s pace, I could have ducked into the trees to avoid her if I had wanted to. She and her eight younger siblings, along with their widowed mama, lived in a farmhouse less than a mile west of mine. They were known for pumping out large batches of moonshine and reaping quite a profit, while the sheriff looked the other way.
“Hanalee! I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day,” called Mildred, bicycling closer, her vehicle chirping and groaning with each labored pedal. “How serendipitous that I decided to take a ride this evening.” Mildred used words like serendipitous to show off the brain sitting inside that big old head of hers, even though she’d had to quit school after the seventh grade to help her mama.
I clutched the handle of my valise. “Hello, Mildred.”
She slowed to a stop and planted the soles of her brown boots on the road. “I saw your father in our house last night.”
My stomach dropped. I nearly bent over and threw up on the road, right in front of her.
“He walked through the front door,” she continued, her pale brown eyes expanding, “and just stared at me, as clearly as I’m looking at you.”
“You . . .” I swallowed down a foul taste that reminded me of coffee grounds. “You must be talking about my stepfather, Dr. Koning.”
“I’m talking about your real father—Hank Denney.” She leaned her freckled face forward. “He seemed confused and upset, as if he were trying to reach you but couldn’t find his way. I saw urgency in those big dark eyes of his.”
I shrank back, my skin cold.
She rolled her bicycle closer, crunching stones beneath her wheels. “I think he’s trying to find you. I’ve seen his spirit roaming the road before, but I—”
“No, you haven’t seen my father.” I inched backward. “It’s bad enough I hear little kids telling ghost tales about him, but a girl my own age . . .”
“He wouldn’t speak to me, but if he’s got something on his mind, I’m sure he’d say it to his own child, especially if she was equipped with a tonic that would allow for spirit communication.”
“I need to go.” I turned and continued up the road.
“‘Necromancer’s Nectar’ is what we call the concoction. Our patented elixir would allow you to talk to him this very night.”
“‘Screwy Ladies’ Moonshine’ is more like it.” I trekked onward, toward Fleur’s. “I’m not buying any of your whiskey water and giving Sheriff Rink another reason to ask me what I’m up to. It’s bad enough I tried your disgusting hair-straightening tonic that turned my curls carrot-orange.”
“I wouldn’t even charge you for the elixir. You can have it for free.”
I stopped and swung my face toward her.
Mildred never offered anything for free.
“If you don’t speak with him,” she said, “he’ll just keep searching for you, every single night. I wonder if . . .” She closed her mouth and squeezed her fingers around the bicycle’s black handle grips.
“Go on,” I said. “What do you wonder?”
“If his frantic state . . . has anything to do with . . .” She averted her eyes from mine. “With . . . J-J-Joe. Joe Adder.”
I stared at her and tried not to appear fazed, but gooseflesh rose across my arms. “My father isn’t a ghost, Mildred. Please don’t ever make such a claim again.” I turned and broke into a trot.
“If I see him again, Hanalee,” she called after me, “I’m coming to your house and forcing that elixir upon you. I’d normally charge three dollars for it, but I don’t want him haunting me.”
“Good-bye, Mildred.”
“Hanalee . . .”
“Good-bye!”
In the distance behind me, Mildred’s bicycle slowly squeaked away.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
POLICE OFFICER WITH WRECKED CAR AND CASES OF ILLEGAL LIQUOR, 1922.
CHAPTER 3
DESPERATE WITH IMAGINATION
MR. PAULISSEN’S FORD TRUCK SAT IN the gravel drive in front of Fleur’s house, a pretty white structure with forest-green shutters and geraniums blasting bright red fireworks of color from boxes in front of each window. Laurence Paulissen—almost eighteen years old, close to two years older than his sister and I—stood next to the hood of the truck, raking his hand through his short blond hair. He nudged the toe of his shoe against a front tire and spat as though he hadn’t noticed a female wandering into his company. Behind him, the Witten twins, Robbie and Gil, took off their coats and slung them over the slats of the truck’s wooden siding.
I walked through the shade of an apple tree that Fleur, Laurence, and I used to call “Jack’s beanstalk” when we climbed into its branches as little kids. I slowed my pace the closer I got to the boys, for I didn’t completely trust those twins, with their slick, tawny hair, their teasing green eyes, and the comfortable way they chatted with me, as though we were old chums who’d shared years of laughs, even though we hadn’t. Their faces were identical, with broad foreheads and square chins—a really rugged sort of appearance. Their father had come to Elston to fill our pharmacist vacancy in 1921, and they dressed a little nicer than the rest of us.