Dirty Faces - Book 2

Chapter 35: Night Train

They had made good time but hadn't managed to beat the dark. Tommy and Rowdy would surely be grounded. Nonetheless, they had offered to walk Ginny home. She couldn't let them do that, though, and as soon as they parted ways, that knot took up residence in her throat. She felt her face flush and hot tears stung her eyes, but she didn't let them fall; not yet.

Lighting bugs flashed all around and katydids chirped noisily in the trees along the road to the holler, keeping her company enough. In one hand she carried Ralph's thermos, in the other, the jar of foul-smelling poultice Aunt Virgie had whipped up. She'd long since disposed of the stale biscuits she'd brought along; maybe the birds would be desperate enough to eat them.

Headlights approached and Ginny stepped to the side of the road. The vehicle passed, but Ginny stated where she was. She raised the jar of poultice to eye level and inspected it. Aunt Virgie said it would ease Mama's coughing and make her breathe better, but whatever was in the needle the Priest gave her in the evenings did that, at least for a little while. No, Mama needed more than cough medicine. Ginny dropped the jar back to her side and stepped into the woods.

She wasn't entirely sure where she was going, but she knew well enough that if she kept in the direction she was headed, she'd eventually come upon the river, and Aunt Virgie had said near water was best. She'd been all over these woods, but never in the dark like this. The almost-full moon had provided ample light on the road, but offered her little assistance beneath the summer canopy of the woods. Low-hanging branches grabbed at her bare arms and briars and vines threatened to trip her up. On more than a couple occasions she mis-stepped and nearly fell, but managed to catch herself before making contact with the ground.

She was so tired. Her body ached and her mind longed for sleep, but she was already out here, already this close, armed with Aunt Virgie's advice. Finally, though, she could smell it: the river, that unmistakable fishy, muddy, moist-earth aroma. The woods opened up and before her the moon and stars danced on the water's surface. She dragged herself to an ancient oak tree near the river's edge, leaned back against its massive trunk, and slid to the ground.

She set the jar and thermos beside her, leaned her head against the tree, and closed her eyes. Aunt Virgie's words echoed in her head: "Pray, child, like you've never prayed before." Ginny took a deep breath, squeezed her eyelids together more tightly, and prayed. She'd never been especially close to God, but she'd never doubted His word or His power, either. Surely that had to count for something.

She prayed and prayed. She begged and made promises she had every intention of keeping, prayed so hard she lost track of time. When she finally opened her eyes and looked around, it may have been a few minutes or a few hours later. She had no way of knowing and it didn't matter anyway. What now? she wondered. As if in reply, Aunt Virgie's crow-caw voice appeared in her head: "Listen."

So that's what she did. She sat there under that tree and listened, for what, she did not know. Maybe the voice of God would speak from without, maybe Mama's cure was just supposed to come to her from within. But she listened hard, strained her ears, blocked out the crickets and katydids and tree frogs and bull frogs. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut again, in case maybe her vision prevented her from hearing whatever it was she was listening for.

Time passed and again she was unaware of how much. She opened her eyes and stared at her hands, the hands that were supposed to make Mama better. They didn't look any different and nothing about them was special. She didn't feel any different, and there had been no voice of God, no angelic vision, no appearance of a magic cure-possessing box. She looked down at the poultice jar and shook her head. How foolish. How foolish to believe that some hermit out on the mountain could make Mama better, and then when she couldn't, to take her advice as to how Ginny herself could. If anything Aunt Virgie had said had any truth to it, it was that Ginny had a couple of good friends. Tommy and Rowdy may have been as deluded and misguided as she herself had been, but they meant well.