The Almost Sisters(55)

Lavender, oblivious to matriarch nuance, trit-trotted up fast, then squirted around Martina and headed inside, looking for her friends. I stayed in front, the last line of defense between Birchie and Martina. The three of us climbed slowly, in deference to Wattie’s knees. As I reached the top, Martina Mack’s scrawny neck lengthened, and she straightened her spine, looking over my shoulder at Birchie.

“I’m so happy you came,” Martina Mack said, and she wasn’t lying. She smiled a smile so chilling I almost saw Violence in it, a hunger running deep enough to qualify as cannibalistic.

“Happy to be here,” I said, even though she wasn’t talking to me.

She spoke to Birchie as if Birchie were alone. More than alone. As if Birchie were a lamb staked out on a hillside.

“Did you know I think my grandson’s going to take a little trip to . . . Charleston?” She said it like Dr. Evil, but the question itself was so innocuous I blinked, surprised. I’m sure I looked confused. Charleston? What fresh hell was this?

“How nice. It’s lovely beach weather,” Birchie said, pleasantly enough. Wattie’s wide-set eyes narrowed.

Martina pitched her voice loud to say, “Cody won’t have time to hit the beach, I wouldn’t think. He’ll be visiting all of those historic graveyards.”

My jaw tensed up at the mention of graveyards. This was something to do with the bones, then? But the Birches’ time in Charleston was ancient history. Martina Mack was ancient history in human terms, well into her eighties, but she was not Civil War old. If the bones dated back to Charleston, that ought to be good news for us.

Nothing in Martina’s sharky smile, so broad that the sun gleamed overbright off the uniform row of her dentures, said she had good news for us. Sally Gentry and the whole Boyd family came spilling back out of the church to see what was happening. Behind us I heard more people climbing the stairs. Martina was playing to a growing audience. A baby started crying, and I glanced back. It was Polly Fincher’s. He hadn’t liked the jouncing, so she’d had to stop her sprint toward this weird drama in order to soothe him. The Gentrys and the Cobbs were on their way up, too. No Frank Darian anywhere.

“Stomping all over cemeteries sounds like a misery in this heat. But we each have our own odd pleasures,” Birchie said. She was so herself this morning.

“Speaking of the heat, my grandmother shouldn’t be standing out here in it,” I said.

I stepped forward, but it only brought me closer to Martina Mack. She held her ground, smelling of thin, sour sweat and boiled egg under baby powder. We were now uncomfortably close, but she wasn’t moving. Birchie and Wattie had stepped forward when I did, crowding me into the middle of a furious-old-lady sandwich. I sidestepped, and now Birchie and Wattie were facing her directly.

There was a breathless feel of waiting in the folks crowding around us. Whatever damning gossip Martina Mack had learned or invented about the bones, she had already shared it. I could tell, because the gazes of the townspeople had changed since last week, when they brought us all those cakes and casseroles, curious and concerned. Now some looked speculative, some wore an odd, hurt brand of confused, and a few were downright bristling with hostility. I pulled my phone out and shot a quick text to Frank Darian: What does Martina Mack know that we don’t?

Martina said, “Cody’s sure to find your father’s grave. Isn’t he? He could do a gravestone rubbing for you. I always did think it was odd, burying your father over in Charleston. When you got on that train, we all thought you meant to bring his body home. You’ve never visited Charleston again, not once, not in all the years I’ve known you, so it might be nice for you to have a rubbing of his stone.” Martina Mack’s voice was rich with fake musing.

Small hairs on the back of my neck stirred as she spoke. Was she saying the bones belonged to Birchie’s father? She couldn’t know that, but if it was purely invented, it was quite a leap. Had Cody told her something?

Lisbeth and Jack Barley had come outside now, too, bypassing Gayle Beckworth, who watched with avid eyes, clutching her double stack of bulletins. More families were arriving, climbing the stairs, craning in to listen, even though Martina wasn’t really offering fresh information.

All of Birchville knew that Ellis Birch had died of a heart attack in Charleston, knew how Birchie went away to save the Birch family fortune and buried him there. When she came home, she immediately married a man who Ellis had never thought was good enough. The younger members had heard the story. The older ones had witnessed it. But oh, how Martina’s insinuating tone changed the story! In the context of the old, dry bones, these old, dry facts grew flesh and blood. And teeth.

Martina was still talking. “He’ll definitely want to pay his respects. See that legendary gravestone for himself. Where exactly in Charleston did you say it was that your father was buried?”

I could feel the eyes on us, waiting for Birchie’s answer. Most of the congregation seemed hungry more than hostile, waiting for Birchie to deny, explain, defend. The longer she stood silent, the more doubting and anxious and unfriendly that communal gaze became.

Behind Wattie, Rachel was doing her best poker face, or maybe she was actually not paying attention. If only Rachel would snap out of her lethargy for fifteen seconds. She was so excellent at Church-Lady Bitch Fights. She didn’t know Birchville history, the long-standing feuds and friendships so tightly woven that they made up the very fabric of small-town life, but she was socially adept enough to come in swinging anyway. She caught my drowning look and threw back a helpless little shrug. I wouldn’t have thought that Rachel’s shoulders knew how to do that.