If You Find Me(2)

“Seven years bad luck,” Mama said after she’d seen the shard. And I ain’t even the one who busted it. Luck ain’t free. Seven years might as well be ten or twenty or forever, with luck bein’ rare as butter, for Mama, my sister, and me.

Where’s Nessa? I sink into a squat, my eyes sweepin’ the ground for a broken branch to use as a club, just in case I can’t get to the shotgun in time. After last night’s storm, there are a few choice limbs to choose from. The crunchin’ starts again, and I track the sound in the direction of the camper, prayin’ Nessa don’t come back early from her fairy hunt. Better for strangers to move on without seem either one of us.

“Carey! Jenessa!”

Huh?

My breath breaks free in marshmeller puffs, and my heart beats heart-attack fast. It’s a man, obviously, one whose voice I don’t recognize, but how does he know our names? Is he a friend of Mama’s?

“Girls? Joelle!”

Joelle is Mama, only she’s not here to answer back. In fact, we haven’t seen her in over a month, maybe two at this point. It’s been a worry, the last few days. While we have enough beans to last a week or so, this is the first time Mama has been gone so long without word. Even Jenessa has started to worry, her face an open book, even if her mouth refuses to voice the words.

More than once, I’ve caught her lips countin’ canned goods and propane tanks, and she don’t need to say what she’s thinkin’, because I lug around the same worry: that we’ll run out of necessities before Mama comes back—if she comes back—which is a dark-enough thought to tumble me into my own pit of silence.

My sister don’t talk much. When she does, it’s only to me, in moth-winged whispers, and only when we’re alone. By the time Ness turned six, Mama grew worried enough to disguise her youngest daughter as “Robin” for the day and whisk her off to the speech therapist in town, a smart-lookin’ woman who diagnosed Jenessa with a condition called “selective mutism.” Nothin’ Mama said, threatened, or did could break Ness’s resolve.

“Carey? Jenessa!”

I clap my hands over my ears and use my thinkin’ to drown out the calls.

It’s strange, hearin’ a man’s voice, when it’s always been us females. I used to wish I had a father, like the girls in my books, but wishin’ don’t make things so. I don’t remember anythin’ about my own father, except for one thing, and Mama laughed when I brought it up. As embarrassed as I was, I guess it is funny, how my one memory of my father is underarms. She said the scent of pine and oak moss I remember came from a brand of deodorant called Brut. And then she’d gotten annoyed because I didn’t know what deodorant was, said I asked far too many questions, and her jug of moonshine was empty.

“It’s okay, girls! Come on out!”

Why won’t he just go away? What the heck is Mama thinkin? I don’t care how much money he promised her—I’m not gonna do those things no more. And I’ll kill ’im, I swear, if he lays one finger on Jenessa.

All I have to do is stay hidin’, and wait for him to leave. That’s the plan, the only plan, until I catch a skip of pink dancin’ through the brown and greenery, and the butter yellow head of a little girl lost in a fairy world.

Look up! Hide!

But it’s too late—he sees her, too.

Nessa stumbles, her mouth open, and a gasp escapes. Her head whips left, then right. The man probably thinks she’s searchin’ for an escape route, but I know my little sister better than anyone, even God. Jenessa is tryin’ to find me.

[page]Makin’ my own careless leaf sounds, I rise, my eyes on Nessa, who sees me immediately and flies across the forest into my arms. Our heads crank in the direction of new movement, this time in the form of a woman thin as chicken bones, her gait uneven as her heels sink into the soft forest floor.

Jenessa clings like a leech, her legs wrapped round my waist. The scent of her hair, sunbaked and sweaty, is so personal, it aches in my belly. Like a dog, I can smell her fear, or maybe it’s mine. I shake it offfast as my face smoothes into stone and I collect myself, because I’m in charge.

Neither the man nor the woman moves. Don’t they know it’s impolite to stare? Bein’ city folk and all? She looks over at him, her face unsure, and he nods at her before goin’ back to starin’ at us, his gaze unwaverin’.

“Carey and Jenessa, right?” she says.

I nod, then curse myself as my attempt at a “Yes, ma’am” comes out in a squeak. I stop, clear my throat, and try again.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Carey, and this is my sister, Jenessa. If you’re lookin’ for Mama, she went into town for supplies. Can I help you with somethin’?”

Nessa squirms in my iron grip, and I command my arms to relax. At least I’m not shakin’, which would be a dead giveaway for Nessa, but truth be told, I’m shakin’ inside.

Maybe the church folk sent them. Maybe they met Mama in town, buskin’ for money for her next fix. Maybe they talked some Jesus into her, and came out to drop off some food.

“Are you Jehovah’s Witnesses or somethin’?” I continue. “Because we’re not interested in savin’ by some guy in the sky.”

The man’s face breaks into a smile, which he covers with a cough. The woman frowns, swats at a mosquito. She looks mighty uncomfortable standin’ in our woods, glancin’ from me to Ness and then back again, shakin’ her head. I smooth down my hair, releasin’ my own aura of dust and sunbaked head. The woman’s nutmeg brown hair, unsprung from her bun, makes me think of Nessa’s after a hard play, with tendrils like garter snakes crawlin’ down her neck and stickin’ there. It’s pretty hot for fall.