Between Earth and Sky(11)

Alma saw May’s bunched stocking and grimaced. Even though she was angry with the lot of them, Alma took no delight in what was surely to come.

“It appears you have not bothered to properly garter your stocking.” The teacher’s voice was sweet as honeycomb, a sound that made the nape of Alma’s neck tingle. “What have you to say for yourself?”

May stared wide-eyed at Miss Wells and said nothing.

“Your stocking, Miss May.”

The girl bit her lower lip and looked over her heavy black uniform. She smoothed her skirt, checked to see that the buttons on her sleeves were fastened and her boots laced, then turned back to Miss Wells and shook her head.

The teacher huffed and pointed to the slack fabric bunched around the girl’s ankle.

May bent over and fought with the stocking until it lay smooth and securely fastened above her knee. When she looked back to the teacher, her face was hopeful, her eyes pleading.

“Ten demerits,” Miss Wells said. She made a note in her ledger and moved on the next girl, ignoring the way May’s carriage wilted.

If she didn’t know the word stocking, May clearly knew what demerits meant: scrubbing the floors while the other children got to play in the yard. Alma couldn’t help but frown with her. The factory-made stockings provided by the Indian Bureau fit May like an elephant’s hat would fit a dormouse.

Miss Wells followed the same routine for each girl: leering over every inch of their bed, washstand, and uniform. By contrast, Alma’s mother drifted down her assigned row of beds with little care. She seldom touched anything, and never the girls themselves. Whenever she encountered something overwhelmingly amiss, such as the water stains on Alice’s dress, she flapped her hand in the offender’s direction and said in a flat voice, “Demerits here, I should think.”

Inspection was almost over when Alma saw a sliver of black fabric peeking from beneath Margaret’s pillow. At first, she thought it just a shadow, but then her every muscle, from toes to forehead, clenched. The doll!

She tapped her foot and cleared her throat softly. When Margaret looked over, Alma nodded toward the pillow.

Margaret’s eyes doubled in size. She started to shuffle backward, but Alma’s mother had already reached her for inspection.

“Come forward, little girl. Stand up straight.”

Alma’s clasped hands squeezed so tightly her fingers lost feeling. The seconds limped by. She followed every flicker of her mother’s crystal-blue eyes: up and down the length of Margaret’s dress, a glance at the nightstand and washbowl, to and fro from one corner of the bed to the other, then back to Margaret’s face.

“Neat enough, but do stop fidgeting.”

Alma exhaled and snuck Margaret a little smile.

Her mother sashayed onward, then paused and wheeled back. “What do we have here?”

Alma’s heart echoed each step her mother took toward Margaret’s bed.

“This is entirely unacceptable.” Her mother brushed past the Indian toward the head of the bed, the pillow, the doll . . . the nightstand?

“A mat of hairs has been left here in your comb. Disgusting. Uncouth. Miss Wells, demerits here for this one.”

This time, Alma had no chance for relief. Her mother whirled away from the nightstand and froze. Her dainty mouth fell open. Her porcelain skin flared red. She reached out and pulled the doll from beneath Margaret’s pillow. “Where did you get this?”

Margaret looked like a baby bird caught in a tomcat’s claws. Her eyes began to water and her lower lip trembled.

Alma’s mother brandished the doll above her head. “You sinister little devil! You’ll suffer more than demerits for this.”

She grabbed Margaret by the collar of her dress and dragged her to the potbellied furnace in the corner of the room. The fire had dwindled through the night, but flashes of light still showed through the grate as the embers continued to smolder. She opened the door and threw the doll inside. Sparks swirled. Yellow flames gathered, consuming the doll and its beautifully embroidered costume. Margaret and Alma whimpered at the same time.

“Hold out your hand,” her mother said, then more loudly, “your hand!”

Margaret raised a trembling hand. Her breathing had quickened and sweat glistened at her hairline. Alma’s mother gripped the girl’s wrist and thrust her hand toward the flames.

Sharp inhales sounded around the room. Even Miss Wells seemed surprised, though her lips trembled with a smile.

Margaret shook her head frantically. Her tears sparkled in the fire’s light. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Then, as her fingers neared the mouth of the furnace, she screamed.

The sound jolted Alma from her silence. “It was me, Mama.”

When her quiet voice did not draw her mother’s attention, she gulped and hollered over Margaret’s cries. “It was me! I didn’t burn the doll as you asked.”

Her mother spun round. “What?”

“I . . . I just wanted to play with it.”

Her mother dropped Margaret’s hand. She no longer seemed to blink or even breathe but stared at Alma with a gaze that could quicken the dead.

“Mama, I didn’t mean—”

“Silence.” She strode across the room to Alma’s nightstand and grabbed her silver-handled brush. “Bend over your bed and lift your skirts.”