Running Through the Words, 10

Ten.

To be aware of oneself while coming into existence was unusual, but that’s exactly what happened to the house as it was “born.” One day, things suddenly began to occur. One day, it just felt important to take notice of the world.

It started with a hole, and that hole caused a stirring, and before too long, that stirring had become a full-on awareness. The house, in its own way, could see. And what it saw was mostly joy, with a smattering of heartbreak.

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Spencer Henry

I weren’t lookin’ to move north, necessarily—least ways not so far north as Pennsylvania—but it sure is where I ended up. Ye see, down in Georgia, which is where I’m from, I made me a decent livin’ pickin’ peaches for ol’ Mr. Casper. Started when I was… oh, let’s say ten years old or so. He paid me right well. Always had a sorta soft spot for me, I guess, because as I got grown, he started teachin’ me extra things. I helped him to erect a barn once, which weren’t no small feat, and round about the time I turned nineteen or twenty, Mr. Casper, he told me I was the best damn worker he’d ever had in his employ. Told me, too, that he’d met with his lawyer and put it down on paper that his farm’d go to me once he were gone. See, I didn’t know it ‘til then, but ol’ Mr. Casper were dyin’ of the cancer. Sure, I knowed he coughed a lot and smoked more’n he probably should’ve… but I ain’t never really thought much about cancer ‘til then.

Now, I don’t wanna say I were happy about the news because I weren’t, but I’d be lyin’ if I said I weren’t eager ‘bout the prospect of ownin’ my own plot a land. Ye see, my family didn’t never have much. Growin’ up, my grandpappy were a slave for a fella by the name of Mr. Waylon Sikes. I knows you don’t usually hear ‘bout slave owners bein’ called decent, but Mr. Waylon treated my kin right well considerin’ the times. After the war, in fact, my grandpappy sharecropped for him… and then my daddy did the same. I woulda been tendin’ to the fields, too, if it weren’t for the day I passed Mr. Casper on the road that run by my family’s house. I’d walked into town for a ice cream with my youngest sister; it were her birthday and mama’d given us two nickels to spend on somethin’ sweet. Cassie choosed ice cream. Strawberry, if I’s rememberin’ right. Anyway… on our walk back from town, we come across a overturned cart and three bushels o’ peaches rollin’ round the ground. Mr. Casper, who’d I recognized just from knowin’ his farm were down the road a piece, were rubbin’ his temple and swearin’ a blue streak. Said his horse done got spooked for no reason at all and took off ziggin’ and zaggin’ for a long stretch. Didn’t stop ‘til the buggy she’d been pullin’ hit a rut and turned right over. So’s I says, “I sure is sorry to hear that, Mistuh Casper, sir,” and sets to helpin’ him collect his crop… which is bruised and dirty and not lookin’ real good at that point. Cassie, she try ‘n’ help too, but she only ‘bout six years old and’s more worried ‘bout eatin’ her ice cream cone than helpin’ a white man. So’s Mr. Casper and me, we clean up the mess and righten the buggy and I loads everything back onto it for him, talkin’ real sweet to the horse because she still lookin’ a little timid. And that’s when Mr. Casper says I’s a real good boy and he could use some good help over on his farm. Says he’ll pay me a respectable wage and to ask my daddy if it’d be alright.

‘Course, my daddy was skeptical at first, but he come ‘round to it ‘ventually and I started workin’ right down the road for Mr. Casper. That man, he done teached me a lot… Ain’t never woulda thought no white man could love a dark-skinned boy like his own, but Mr. Casper weren’t no normal fella. He showed it when he left the farm to me. And I woulda been happy to tend to his crops for the rest of my days if it hadn’t been for his daughter, Bonnie Claire, and her uppity husband Sterling Dixon. When theys find out Mr. Casper’s land been left to me, they faces turned ‘bout the same shade a purple as a pickled beet. “I ain’t tryin’ to cause no family upset,” I remembers sayin’ to the lawyer. “I knows it ain’t real conventional what Mr. Casper done, and if I’s not able to inherit the land, I’s got to accept that.” But the lawyer, he were one o’ those fellas saw things as real black ‘n’ white. I don’t mean black ‘n’ white in the way of skin color neither. I mean black ‘n’ white in the eyes of the law. And that lawyer—I wish I could remember his name because he were a real nice man—that lawyer say he’d uphold the law and make sure I were given the deed to Mr. Casper’s property, but he also say he worried about my safety if I done stay in Georgia and take care of Mr. Casper’s crops. And then he say that Mr. Casper been worried about Bonnie Claire’s husband and what he gone do when he found out, so’s there were a backup plan in place.

What I ain’t told you yet about Mr. Casper were his ability to up and disappear sometimes. Didn’t make no sense, really… but it never seemed magical neither. It’d just be sometimes when he’d go in the barn and I’d be lookin’ for him, wantin’ to ask a question about what he want me to work on next or whatever, he’d just be up and gone. And then he’d turn up a while later, jolly as always, tellin’ me I just didn’t look hard enough. That he’d been in the barn the whole time.

So’s when the lawyer mentions a plan number two, I be the first to say I weren’t real thrilled to learn it involved a check and a piece of wood. Now don’t get me wrong… the check weren’t nothin’ to sneeze at. The number wrote on it were a substantial chunk of cash. It’s just that I been lookin’ forward to ownin’ some land o’ my own. And the wood… The wood ain’t made a lick o’ sense. It weren’t big—couldn’t o’ been much bigger’n a book, really—and it had some funny symbol carved into it. Looked a bit like a door, but it weren’t real clear anymore. That wood was old. Real smooth, like it’d been handled by a thousand hands, and dark. Anyways… the lawyer tells me he don’t understand the wood neither, but that Mr. Casper give ‘im a message to be delivered to me if Bonnie Claire’s husband put his foot down ‘bout me gettin’ his father-in-law’s land. And the message was “Go north, use the money I left you ‘n’ buy some land, ‘n’ when you builds your home, be sure ‘n’ incorporate this piece of wood in the structure’s bones. It gonna protect you.” Didn’t make no sense to me, but I trusted Mr. Casper and figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to ‘im. I figured it couldn’t hurt to use that wood at the base of a doorway or somethin’. So I did.

It were a few years ‘til I settled down in Lake Caywood, but I guess I bought me this property in the mid- to late-nineteen twenties. Can’t remember the exact date. I just knows I wandered into town in the springtime, saw the way the sunshine hit the water and turned the fields golden with dew in the mornin’, and knew I’d found me a home.

There were a tiny shack on the land when I first come here and that’s where I lived for a while. Thanks to Mr. Casper, I gots money enough to pay for the land and get a start on plantin’ some crops, but it were a while ‘til I had the means to build the home I been picturin’ in my head. So’s I worked on the land first. I planted me some orchards and put in a garden… Mr. Casper, he done always organized his crops in alphabetical order. Don’t know why, but that’s what he done and that’s what he teached me. It seemed fittin’ for the apples to come ‘fore the apricots, and the peaches to come ‘fore the pears. Plus, it were my way of memorializin’ Mr. Casper. So’s that’s what I done.

‘Long about the time I started diggin’ the foundation for this ol’ farmhouse, a pretty woman wandered into my life. Went by the name of Zelda Tillman, but by the end of that year, she’d changed it to Zelda Henry. We wanted us a big family, but Zelda… she struggled. Took a few years ‘fore we found out she was pregnant. By then, the farmhouse were ‘bout finished and we were livin’ on the first floor. Ain’t had no runnin’ water or nothin’ like that, but it had good bones. And I done what Mr. Casper tol’ me to do: I nailed that piece o’ wood he done give me to one of the stairs. And then I cover it up with another board. Didn’t make no logical sense at the time, but I weren’t opposed to listenin’ to ‘im.

Zelda, her belly got so big ‘n’ so round! She glowed like summertime sunshine all through that pregnancy… We was excited to meet the little one growin’ inside her. I thought it were gonna be a boy and wanted to name him Preston. Zelda, she kept insistin’ it were a girl. Said she wanted to call her Willow if she were right.

As it turn out, we were both right. Twins! Neither one of us knowed o’ twins runnin’ in our families, but when the doctor come over on the day o’ delivery, he done pulled out two little chillun. They’s both supposed to be wailin’, but only one of ‘em was. Preston, he come out blue. The doc worked fast, cuttin’ the umbilical cord from around his throat and pattin’ ‘im hard on the back. It took a while, but he come around. Ain’t never quite right in the head, though. Willow, she gots enough brains for the both of ‘em, and she always so sweet about tendin’ for her brother. They’s thick as thieves, even though she need to be real patient ‘bout almost ever’thing. It just take Preston a lot longer to figure things out. He a good boy, though. Real kind.

Zelda and me, we didn’t try for no more kids after the twins. We was happy with two. But wouldn’t ya know, the universe had other plans. This time ‘round, her pregnancy weren’t easy. She been sick a lot and didn’t much care ‘bout leavin’ her bed. Said she felt hollow inside, which were a strange thing to say ‘bout a life growin’ in a person… but it made sense later ‘cause Zelda didn’t survive that pregnancy. Neither did the baby. The doctors tried they damnedest to save her—I rushed her to the hospital soon’s she collapsed on the bathroom floor that mornin’—but there was nothin’ to be done. That was a real hard time in my life. I don’t much care to think about it if I don’t hafta.

For a time, I thoughts ‘bout movin’ south with the twins, back to where my brothers and sisters still lived with theys families, but Preston were real attached to the orchard and Willow liked the town and her friends. Uprootin’ ‘em right then seemed wrong, so I ain’t done it. And that turned out to be a smart decision ‘cause I didn’t know it at the time, but Mr. Sterling McReynolds were lookin’ for me. Turns out, that piece o’ wood meant somethin’ to his wife and she weren’t thrilled ‘bout learnin’ it were gone. Cassie were the one to alert me to the news. Sent me a long letter sayin’ folks back home were sure hopin’ Mr. Sterling weren’t so invested in a ol’ piece o’ wood that he’d be willin’ to travel north. Explained that that ol’ piece o’ wood was somethin’ Mr. Casper picked up from a derelict itinerant floatin’ along the Chattahoochee. The story goes that Mr. Casper was down by the river waterin’ his horse and eatin’ his lunch when the fella, half-starved and dirty beyond belief, paddled over and ask if he might have a bite of his sandwich. “I do you one better,” Mr. Casper done said, and I can just see ‘im smilin’ in that happy-go-lucky way o’ his when he offered to take the fella back to his house for a hot meal and a hotter bath. Short of the clothes on his back, that itinerant had next to nothin’ to offer… but he did reach into his pocket and pull out an ol’ block o’ wood. “It got magic,” he done told Mr. Casper. “Got it from a gypsy a while back. S’posed to open things up where things ain’t s’posed to be. S’posed to make rooms that ain’t really there. You keep it. I ain’t someone who likes walls to begin with. You keep it.”

Bonnie Claire knowed the story ‘bout the wood. She also knowed her daddy had planted it in the barn all those years ago whens I helped him build it. And right around that time period, she also comed to know that her daddy done give that ol’ magic piece o’ hoodoo wood to me. And she wanted it back.

It must o’ been the nineteen forties when all that happened. Willow were a grown woman and not livin’ at home no more. She done met a man, got herself married, ‘n’ moved to a home of her own. Preston, he stayed wit’ me and helped ‘round the farm. ‘Til the day Mr. Sterling show up on our land, I ain’t never seen any sorta magic from that piece o’ wood Mr. Casper done give me, but it sure come in handy that day. I been standin’ in the kitchen when I heared an unfamiliar car bumpin’ up the lane. I ‘member ‘cause Preston just brung up a big ol’ basket o’ strawberry from the garden and he washin’ ‘em real good at the pump outside. “Preston!” I holler, goin’ out on the porch. “Come on in here, boy.” Don’t know what it was that told me to be wary… there was just a feelin’ I had. Somethin’ in the air.

“I ain’t done washin’ ‘em, Pa,” Preston had grumped, but he weren’t ever one to disobey a order. He done wiped his hands on his pants and got to his feet, leavin’ the berries behind and moseyin’ over to me. I ‘member puttin’ a hand on his shoulder and guidin’ him inside, tellin’ him not to worry ‘bout trackin’ mud into the house. “But Pa,” he started in, ‘n’ I shushed him.

I locked the door, o’ course, but it ain’t made no difference. Mr. Sterling ain’t even knock. He just barge in like he own the place, hollerin’ out that he lookin’ for me and he knowed I was there. Preston, he got real scared at that point. Looked right pale and started to tremble. “We okay,” I tell him. “We gonna be just fine.” And the reason I knowed it was because I suddenly seen a door that weren’t a door I built. And I ‘membered the story my sister Cassie done shared and thought o’ the wood Mr. Casper give me and I just knowed we was s’posed to enter that room. ‘Cause that room weren’t s’posed to be there.

We eased ourselfs inside real quiet-like, and I shuts the door so soft ain’t even a bat be able to hear it. Preston look ‘round, big-eyed and nervous, takin’ in the room he knowed ain’t s’posed to be there either. “Where we at, Pa?” he whisper, but I just put a finger over my lips ‘n’ let ‘im know we need to be quiet.

I seen that room many times now, but then… I be ‘bout as bewildered as Preston. The walls, they painted this real deep shade o’ purple. Kinda like a eggplant, or a black muscat grape. It were real tiny inside, but there were a round table and three chairs. A wild-patterned rug, too, and three skinny windows. Two o’ those windows, you could look right through ‘em to the garden below, but the third window… it were stained glass and it had a big ol’ fish on it. A catfish! And boy did that please Preston. That boy… he was always takin’ his fishin’ rod down to the pond and tryin’ to catch himself a catfish. He’d seen a real big one down there once or twice, but all he ever seemed to hook were bluegills, so’s lookin’ at that window with the blue and green catfish quieted him down right quick. The fact that Mr. Sterling was marchin’ through our house, searchin’ for a ol’ piece o’ wood and tearin’ things apart didn’t bother him none at all.

I ain’t knowed how long we was in there, but the fact Mr. Sterling didn’t have no luck in findin’ us only proved to ‘im that the wood was doin’ what it were meant to. He ain’t come back again after that, though. I knows what he’d o’ liked to do is ‘timidate me with the law, but ain’t no lawyer in his right mind gonna charge someone with stealin’ a piece o’ magic wood. He done realized that well enough, so’s I ‘magine he gone back home with his tail betwixt his legs, admittin’ defeat.

I be lyin’ if I say I weren’t livin’ each day with a touch o’ fear after that one, but for the most parts, Preston and me got a good life. We worked our land ‘n’ harvested our crops ‘n’ made a fine livin’ doin’ what we loved. Now ‘n’ again, the house’d show us a room we weren’t expectin’, but most times I knowed it as the home I built. Lived right here in it ‘til the fall o’ fifty-two, which is when I took myself a walk in the apple orchard and just never come home. Ain’t sure ‘xactly what it was done me in. I weren’t never one for the drink, and Mr. Casper’s demise sure done show me the evils o’ smokin’, but I can ‘member bein’ down there among the trees, munchin’ a apple warmed by the sun, when all the sudden a real sharp pain just sorta hit me. It knocked me flat. I landed on my back, ‘n’ first I was starin’ up at a real clear autumn sky… but then the view sorta shifted ‘n’ I was lookin’ down on myself. Lookin’ down on myself ‘n’ on my son, Preston, who come runnin’ when I stopped answerin’ his calls. That’s the part that hurt most, ye know. Not the pain o’ dyin’, but the pain o’ watchin’ the people I love as they grieved for me.

But… it ain’t all bad. I gots to see how they made out. Willow, she invite her brother to live with her and help tend the chillun. Got five of ‘em. Two of ‘em be twins. And Preston, he happy enough to go along with her. They’s right old now—older than any age I’s ever reached—but I see ‘em when they visit this ol’ farmhouse. It don’t happen often, but it do happen. When Charley ‘n’ her friends opened the Brewhaha a few years back, I spied Willow and Preston at the grand openin’. And when they’s walkin’ down that hall that lead to the catfish room? Well, I asked the house to show it to ‘em. Preston, he recognize it right away. And Willow… Well, I knowed she knowed the story. It meant somethin’ just then. It meant somethin’ to know they knowed I was still around.

I guess it weren’t ‘til after my death that folks start wonderin’ ‘bout the ol’ farmhouse. It weren’t ‘til I ain’t around to ask no more that folks start formulatin’ tricky questions.

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When it came to understanding its ability to create rooms, the house had little understanding of its power. It just knew that if one of its people was in trouble, it had the ability to step in and offer assistance. And after a time, it also came to know that the rooms could be summoned for all sorts of reasons; those reasons weren’t limited to danger.