Beth’s novel part 01

Jessie – around 2017, just before moving to England

I ease my car up the winding gravel driveway, creeping along in first gear to avoid the deep, water-filled potholes. I don’t remember the road being in such bad shape last time I was home, or it taking this long to get to the house. I feel like I’ve been crawling for half an hour with the high grass and bushes reaching towards me and scraping the sides of the car. Finally I round the last corner.

The old house stands in front of me, tall and thin, tucked into the wooded cove at the base of Snake Mountain. A wide COMMA? slate-blue porch curves around the front. Long narrow windows with black shutters stare out blankly. The bright white paint has chipped and gone dull. Raggedy brown grass sways in the yard. Scrawny weeds in the flower beds nearly hide the red and yellow and pink blooms from Grandma’s old perennials that have gone wild. Something sharp stabs at my chest, and for a moment it’s hard to get my breath.

I tell myself to stop comparing what I am looking at with the long-dead past, and pull my little green HONDA? Civic to the far end of the driveway. It used to continue around to the back of the house where we parked the vehicles, but now there are stacks of wood blocking the way. They look like old two-by-fours that were pulled off one of the outbuildings and left in piles to rot. I can see around the stacks to the back of the house, where even more lanky weeds are growing up out of what used to be gravel. And there’s the ancient gold Buick, with flat tires and rusty hubcaps, vines curling festively around the side mirrors.

“Wow,” I say to Frank. “What the hell has happened to this place?”

Frank gazes back at me, his yellow-blue eyes impassive. Frank would like to get out of the car and go romp in the weeds, but he is a patient guy and sits quietly in the passenger seat waiting for me to open the door for him. I don’t open the door. I sit beside him and stare at the house.

“Is nobody else here?” I ask Frank. Frank looks at the house too, cocks his head like he’s giving this question some thought. His tags jingle cheerfully.

“Eddy said he’d meet us. I don’t want to go in by myself,” I tell Frank. “I thought they’d be here already. They’re only coming from Asheville, it’s just half an hour.”

Frank yawns. He’s starting to look a little bored. He bumps his nose on the passenger window and looks over at me again.

“All right, all right,” I tell him. I reach across and open his door. He jumps out, and stands for a second sniffing the strange air. His dark ears are pricked up, and he’s staring at the house. I’m suddenly glad that he’s so big.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I tell him. I open my own door. I don’t jump out. I sit there watching the house too. It is still and silent, and its lightless windows look like empty eyes. Like a dead house. I shiver. Then I remind myself that I’m not a silly 12 year old and pull out my phone to see if Eddy has texted me. Of course he hasn’t, and I don’t have any other messages either. I also only have one flickering bar on my phone, so maybe nothing’s getting through. That doesn’t make me feel any better, not with the dead-eyed house staring at me.

Frank is poking around in the pile of planks, looking mildly excited about what he’s smelling beneath the debris. Since Frank is the most laid-back dog I’ve ever known, I’m pretty sure his interest means something really horrific is under there. A body or two. Maybe a great big nest of snakes.

“Frank, come back here,” I tell him, and he looks over at me for a second, then, surprisingly, trots back to the car and puts his nose on my hand.

“Good boy!” I tell him. “What’s up with this obedient behavior?”

When Tom Waits suddenly starts yowling out “Jockey Full of Bourbon” from my phone, I’m so startled that it slips out of my hand and bounces around on the remains of the gravel with Frank trying to catch it. I grab it first. My boyfriend Nick’s smiling COMMA? cheerful face is on the screen. I think about not answering. When I left early this morning to drive down here from DC I just kissed him a quick goodbye and told him one more time that I didn’t need him to come with me (I didn’t want him to come with me, but couldn’t say that). It’s just a quick visit, I said. I need to see my grandmother before I do the Big Trip. The Big Trip that he thinks will be a few months across the ocean, working on a little London paper that has close ties with my little DC paper. A visiting assignment is how I’d presented it. A Young American Woman’s Perspective. A fun side job writing articles and taking photos that will give me experience and boost my resume for when I come back home. A chance to travel overseas and then return full of knowledge and added value for my employer.

What I didn’t tell him was that it isn’t a temporary diversion. The job offer is for good. Or for as long as I don’t screw it up. Like I seem to screw up so many things. Especially every relationship I’ve ever had because I always run away as soon as it starts getting the slightest bit serious. Which is exactly what I’m doing now to Nick. Although to give myself a little credit, ordinarily I don’t run all the way across the ocean. And this job isn’t the same thing as a relationship. Surely it will be fine.

I stare at the phone, but I can’t just ignore his call on top of everything else I’m getting ready to do to him. I swipe the screen and sit down sideways in the driver’s seat.

“Hey!” Nick’s tiny disembodied voice says into my ear. “I didn’t think you were going to answer. Where are you?”

“Sitting in front of my grandma’s house,” I tell him. “Frank and I are checking out the situation. Trying to see if it’s safe to venture inside.”

“Safe? Is it in a dangerous condition? Don’t go inside if it’s not structurally sound!” He’s very literal, but to be fair, I’ve always been extremely vague about the family I left behind when I moved to DC. He’s never met any of them, despite wanting to make a visit to North Carolina with me. I’d always made excuses in the couple of years we’ve been together. I dodged last Christmas with a sudden case of “stomach flu”, but I can’t get by with that for the rest of our lives.

“No, it’s fine. I mean safe from the ghosts,” I tell him. “Falling in is the last thing I’m expecting this house to do, but the ghosts are another story.”

“Ghosts?” He’s clearly baffled. “What are you talking about?”

“Ummmm,” I say, “We’ve got a kind of bad connection. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you fine,” he says. “You’re really clear.”

“You’re breaking all up,” I tell him. I think about making those crackly noises like I would definitely be doing if this was a sitcom, and then I have to try not to laugh.

“That’s weird,” he says. “Maybe there’s something going on with the…”

“I’ve got to go, I’ll call you later when I’m in a better place,” I say, and hang up on him mid-sentence because I’ve spotted Eddy and Quentin in the side mirror, walking down the overgrown driveway towards me.

I get out of the car and give them a little half wave, suddenly feeling bizarrely shy and completely out of place. Frank has his ears perked up at them, and he barks once, deep and curious. He’s already figured out that they aren’t a threat, just interesting.

“Hey!” I call. Eddy is smiling at me, and Quentin is doing that quirked-mouth thing he does that is his version of a smile. I’d never realize he was smiling if we hadn’t been friends for my entire life. It makes me feel lighter just seeing them. Frank leans up against my leg, gives them one more questioning woof.

“Hi, sweetie!” Eddy says, as soon as they come close enough that he doesn’t have to yell. “Look at you, all grown up!” He takes me by my shoulders, smiles into my eyes, gives me a quick hug which is touching since Eddy is a staunch non-hugger. He still smells like woodsmoke and tamari sauce even though he’s lived in a normal apartment in Asheville for years now. He keeps one hand on my arm, the height of physical demonstrativeness. Frank sniffs at him, eyes him approvingly and gives a bushy tail wag.

I try to calculate how long it’s been since I’ve seen them, and am coming up with a VERY long time. Two years? Is that possible? Long enough for Eddy to have some streaks of gray in his black hair, and Quentin to have more lines criss-crossing the light-coffee skin around his sharp eyes. They both look a little thinner, but they also both look a lot happier. Definitely long enough for the house to have turned into an empty, dark shell.

“Hey Jessie,” Quentin says, hanging back a bit and watching Frank. “Good to see you, and…your wolf?”

“This is Frank,” I say. “He’s friendly.” I scratch Frank’s ears. Eddy reaches down and lets Frank sniff his hand, then flashes a quick grin at Quentin. “You better come say hi to him if we’re going to be his new dads.” Quentin does that little snorty laugh I remember, and puts a hand out for Frank to sniff. Frank licks him.

“He’s pretty,” Quentin says, staring into Frank’s eyes. “What kind is he?”

“Some Husky,” I tell him. “Probably some German Shepherd. A whole lot of mutt. He’s a great dog.” All of a sudden my eyes are stinging. Frank IS a great dog, and he’s the only dog I’ve ever had. As a lifelong cat person I never meant to end up with a dog, but I found Frank on the side of the road when he was just a puppy and that was that. It hits me that I’m going to miss Frank infinitely more than I’m going to miss Nick.

“Thanks for keeping him for me while I’m gone,” I tell Eddy, who is scratching Frank between the ears now. Frank is sitting on Eddy’s feet and looks as ecstatic as I’ve ever seen him. “He’s a good boy. He’s never been any trouble. And he likes cats.” I don’t currently have a cat, but I know Eddy and Quentin have several. Nick has two black cats, one longhaired and one shorthaired, and Frank loves them. I love them too and again I’m feeling prickles behind my eyes that aren’t for poor Nick.

Suddenly I realize someone’s missing. “Where’s Albert? Did he not come with you?”

They both look around too. “He was right behind us,” says Quentin. “Where did he get to?”

Albert is my uncle. My mother’s younger brother. He’s considerably older than Eddy although you’d never know it. Something’s wrong with Albert, but my grandparents’ church didn’t approve of doctors so they never got him diagnosed. Grandma always said Albert’s brain just doesn’t operate the same as other people’s, which seems like quite an understatement. For one thing, Albert is convinced that he remembers his life during the Civil War. Not just stories about that era, or things he’s seen on TV. He believes he actually has memories of being alive then. Living in this very house with his original family. He’s been going on about it and upsetting Grandma and Grandpa, his actual parents, for as long as I can remember. It is a good story, though.

I felt like Albert and I were about the same age until I was maybe 10, and then I started feeling like he was my increasingly younger brother. Now he lives with Eddie and Quentin so I guess he’s turned into their kid.

“Albert!” Eddy calls. “Come see Jessie!”

“And Frank!” I shout.

We all look back down the driveway. The sun is just starting to sink over Snake Mountain and it’s blazing right into our faces. Birds are singing in the trees, and the hypnotic sound of insects buzzing all around us is making me feel like I’m drifting off as I stand there, settling over me like some strange trance. It was a long drive, and I haven’t slept well lately, but it’s more than that. It’s as if the house is pressing down on me, quietly but firmly, sinking me into the dirt under my feet.

“There he is,” says Quentin, jerking me out of my reverie. Albert has appeared right beside us, so abruptly that I flinch. It’s like he’s materialized from the barely veiled past. He looks exactly the same as he always has, slight and vague, messy sparrow-brown hair standing on end, big serious hazel eyes. He stares at me, says, “Hey, Jessie,” like it’s only been a few hours since we last crossed paths. Then he spots Frank, who is standing beside me wagging his tail, and before I can say anything back they are wrapped up together in the dusty road, Albert hugging Frank and Frank licking Albert’s face with delight.

*******

I’m not sure how I feel about going inside the house, but Eddy is just assuming that’s what we’re going to do. He tells me he comes by as often as he can to make sure everything looks okay. It’s still full of all Grandma’s stuff, he says, because he just can’t make himself get rid of anything while she’s still here, even if “here” is the nursing home in town.

“And you might want some of it at some point,” he says. “You and Joel and Ben, eventually you’ll all settle down and need some furniture.” He lopes up the stone steps to the porch, leaving me and Quentin lagging behind and glancing sideways at each other. Albert and Frank are racing around the front yard now, tall grass slapping their legs. Eddy digs a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocks the front door.

“Oh, wait,” I say. “I forgot something.” I run back to my car, reach behind the passenger seat, and get my tattered black camera bag out of the floor. I pull out the camera, a Canon Rebel, and make sure the battery is full and the lens is clean. I stick an extra battery in my pocket, just in case. Then I loop it over my neck and hurry back to the house as Quentin vanishes through the door behind Eddy.

The first thing I notice when I step inside is how silent the house is. Silent and dim. The hallway is so dark I can’t see anything at all, and I have to stand there a minute until my eyes adjust from the bright evening light outside. Then the massive, ornate old side table that once belonged to our great grandparents slowly comes into view beside me. It used to be full of keys and sunglasses and books and mail, stuff everyone dropped off as they came in and picked up as they went out. Now the dark wood surface is empty except for an old globe hurricane lamp painted with swirly pink flowers, and a layer of dust. I try the switch on the lamp, but of course nothing happens. Eddy had the electricity and the water cut off back when Grandma went into the nursing home to save some money. There’s a strange faint smell in the air. A trace of locked-up house, the tiniest bit musty. Underneath it is the smell it’s always had, as far back as I can remember. The slightly sweet scent of old wood furniture, a touch of lavender. It smells like home.

When my eyes adjust I can see further down the narrow hall towards the living room and the kitchen. Eddy and Quentin have both vanished. I hear footsteps and floorboards creaking overhead. The little front room where Grandpa used to read his paper every evening is on my right, but the door is closed. I ease it open and look inside. The pale blue damask drapes are pulled shut, but a little light is coming in at the edges from the low sun and the room has an eerie underwater feel to it. Grandpa’s old recliner is still by the far window, with his floor lamp beside it. The lamp is old too, like everything else, and has a big gold-toned glass shade and a long tasseled pull to turn it on and off. Grandpa was always telling us to stay away from it, afraid we’d knock it over and break the shade. I step into the room, look through my viewfinder, make some adjustments for the dim light, and take a few pictures of the recliner and lamp. Then I take a few more of the glass-front bookshelves on the opposite wall. It looks like most of the books are still there, along with an array of framed family pictures scattered around in front of the books. My grandfather’s parents, his siblings, strangers that were his aunts and uncles are lined up in various formations with this same house behind them. Even in old sepia photographs the house looks younger, brighter.

I lean in to get some closeups of the books and the photos. Some of the books have leather binding and gold gilt script, others are just standard hardbacks with scuffs and dents. Dickens, Melville, Shakespeare, mixed in with Faulkner, Hemingway, Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor, a bunch of Readers Digest Condensed Books volumes. Grandma had been a librarian before she had kids and she’d always picked up old books wherever she found them, usually at flea markets and junk stores. They look lost, out of place, sad about not being handled and read like they were years and years ago.

On the far left of the middle shelf I see some trinkets behind the glass. A little plastic cow, a tiny red caboose, a couple of rusty Matchbox cars: an orange station wagon with the tiny doors standing open, a dented ambulance that’s missing a wheel. I don’t remember any of them. Then I spot the little green figure peering around from behind the last book on the shelf. Teeny spindly arms, giant black eyes that take up his entire great big head.

He used to sit on Samuel’s nightstand, his little wiry green arms wrapped around a pencil. Sometimes he’d hang one-handed off the lamp. One night at dinner he showed up in Albert’s mashed potatoes. Samuel had Albert convinced the little green man was alive and moved around when nobody was watching him. It ended with Albert having a panicky meltdown and Samuel getting grounded.

I really don’t want to think about Samuel. Not right now. I slide the glass open, grab the little green man, and shove him in my pocket. I’ll think about them both later.

I take a couple more pictures then slip out into the hall again, feeling like I am intruding on something distant and vague, barely there but at the same time filling the room. I take one look back and for a second I see Grandpa sitting in his recliner, looking at the paper, lost in thought. I close the door fast before he looks up at me.

“Eddy?” I call, once I’m back in the hallway. “Quentin? Where are you guys?”

“Up here,” Eddy’s voice floats down from the second floor. “We’re looking at the bedrooms.”

Suddenly I feel dizzy, the dark corners of the house pressing in on me again, and I’m so lightheaded I’m afraid I will actually faint. Alarmed, I turn and yank the heavy door open, calling over my shoulder, “I’m going back outside!”

I stand on the porch a minute and work on getting my breath back under control. The old chairs are looking faded and have rips in their green plastic cushions. There’s an abandoned hornet’s nest under the left-hand eave at the end of the porch. I take a few pictures of the furniture and the nest to distract myself and then take a picture of Albert and Frank, who have collapsed on the lawn. The tall weeds nearly obliterate them from view. It’s just Albert’s arms stretched out, and Frank on his back with his four white feet in the air.

“What are you two doing?” I ask, going back down the stone steps and out into the yard.

Albert sits up on his elbows. “We’re resting. Are you staying?”

“Just tonight,” I say. “I’m spending the night with you guys. Tomorrow I have to go back to Washington.”

“But Frank is staying?” Albert asks, looking a little worried. He pats one of Frank’s feet.

“Yeah, Frank gets to stay with you,” I say. I sit down beside him in the weeds, feeling strangely exhausted. “You’re going to dog sit while I’m away.”

Albert smiles. “I like Frank,” he says. Frank clearly returns the sentiment. He sits up too, licks Albert’s face.

“I know he’ll be happy with you,” I tell Albert. My eyes are stinging again. “He needs somebody to run around with and wrestle.” Albert nods seriously.

Frank scratches behind one ear, then looks up at the house. Eddy and Quentin are coming out the front door. They both sit down on the stone steps, looking off at Snake Mountain. The warm low sun feels reassuring and the buzzing and clicking of the insects has gotten even louder.

“I thought we’d have pizza for dinner,” Eddy says. “You do still like pizza, right?”

“Absolutely,” I tell him. What I really want to do is lie down in the wild grass and go to sleep, stay here in the yard all night and not move for about fifteen hours, but I think it’s best not to tell him that. Quentin is looking at me sideways again, like he wants to say something but has decided not to. Albert collapses back into the grass, one arm around Frank.

“Tomorrow we’ll let you go visit Grandma by yourself,” Eddy says. “It seems harder on her to have more than one person at a time there. She can’t always figure out who people are, and she gets a little frustrated.”

“She thinks I’m somebody different every time she sees me,” says Quentin. “Last time it was that guy who used to run the junk shop over by the river. Don something.”

Eddy laughs. “At least she liked him,” he says. “The other day she thought I was some mean boy she went to school with and she yelled at me till I had to leave. She always thinks you were someone she liked.”

“She knows me,” Albert says. “She never thinks I’m somebody she doesn’t like.”

“Of course she knows you,” Eddy says, smiling at him. “Who would forget you?”

“Nobody,” Albert says decisively. “Nobody ever would.”

We all laugh then, and Eddy gets up to lock the house. I drag myself to my feet and back to my car. Frank jumps right in, and Albert follows him. “I’m riding with Frank,” he tells me.

“Frank will like that,” I say, and call to Eddy and Quentin as they walk back down the driveway to their car to tell them Albert is coming with us and we’ll be right behind them.

**********

I go to see Grandma first thing the next morning. She does a lot better early in the day, Eddy says. He tells me sometimes she almost seems like herself if you catch her right after breakfast. I take a little pot of bright red geraniums, and a box of the Russell Stover chocolates she always loved, the ones with caramel inside. She used to share them with me when she got a box for Mother’s Day or her birthday and I’ve never been able to see Russell Stover’s without thinking of her.

The nursing home is on the edge of town, up a narrow side road that looks like it isn’t going anywhere until you find yourself in their parking lot. The building has one central area with five wings branching off and a big sign out front that says “Golden Pines Village” in a huge flowery font. I park the car a good distance from the main entrance hoping a little walk will calm my nerves. I call Grandma every week or so, but I haven’t made a visit in person since my last trip home and I’m afraid of the changes I’ll see. She went into Golden Pines after she fell trying to put washing on the line and broke her hip. It shouldn’t have been an accident she’d never get over. Her doctor expected her to be back home in a couple of months as long as she had some help around the house, but she caught pneumonia and then came down with a serious UTI, and she never got her strength or her mind completely back. In our early phone calls she was her usual brisk and no-nonsense self, telling me how she was working on getting strong enough to go back home and about what she’d mapped out for the garden that summer. With every month that passed she got vaguer and less determined. On my last visit she was shockingly tiny and frail, just sitting in a wheelchair, resigned.

I’d phoned her as I was driving down the interstate to tell her I was coming to visit. She wasn’t sure who I was. First she thought I was my cousin Mary, then she called me Sarah, which was unnerving. Sarah was my mother, who died when I was an infant. After that she seemed to think I was someone from church, and then she told me lunch was coming and hung up on me. So I’m not sure what to expect today.

I sign in at the front desk and make myself a name tag with a sticky-backed orange label and a bright purple marker. The receptionist points me towards the hall Grandma’s room is on. The hallway is a brave attempt at cheery. The light yellow walls are lined with happy bulletin boards announcing activities and upcoming holidays at frequent intervals. The overpowering smell of heavy duty cleaners and soiled linens is a sobering contrast. There are ancient people in wheelchairs all down the hallway. Some are rolling slowly, some are sitting still and staring into space. A couple are wheeling along briskly, and one old man with his white hair standing on end and a glint in his eyes nearly knocks into me as I try to flatten myself against the wall to let him by.

“Look out, girl,” he says, “I’ve got to go see Erma.”

“Sorry,” I tell him. “Excuse me!” He keeps going, doesn’t look back. A woman wearing a bright red sweatshirt watches me walking towards her, and says, “Are you here for me?”

I pause, clutching my plant and chocolates. “No,” I say, bending down a bit towards her. “No, sorry, I’m here to see my grandmother. Opal. Do you know Opal?”

She sighs, looks past me down the hallway. “There’s no Opal,” she says.

I back up a bit, not sure what to say in return, but she is watching someone else now. One of the nurses is heading towards us at a rapid clip, looking down at a notebook. As she reaches us, the red sweatshirt woman says, “Are you here for me? This one just wants Opal.”

The nurse slows down, says, “Good morning, Sally! I’m not here for you right now but I’ll be coming to see you later.” Then she peers over her bright blue glasses at me and says, “Are you looking for Mrs. Jordan, honey? Opal Jordan? She’s in her room. Two doors down on the right.”

“Thanks,” I say, but the nurse has already zipped off down the hall. I tell the red sweatshirt woman goodbye. She doesn’t give me another glance. The door to my grandmother’s room is open. I take a deep breath and look inside.

At first I don’t even see her. There are two little beds, one near the door and the other by the window, both made up. Each of them has a small bedside table with a telephone and a big insulated water pitcher. A rolling tray stand beside the bed nearest the door holds what looks like the remains of breakfast. A small dish with a few bites of grits, a plate with scattered scrambled eggs and toast edges, a little glass with a bit of orange juice in the bottom and a tiny carton of milk like we used to get for lunch in elementary school. There’s a plastic cover upside down beside the plate and some smushed up butter packets. I look around for somewhere to put the geranium and the box of chocolates, and see my grandmother sitting in a wheelchair on the other side of the bed by the window, staring at me.

“OH,” I say, startled. “Hey Grandma!”

She keeps looking at me. She is tiny, so tiny that for a second I think I must have the wrong room because this teeny little old lady can’t possibly be my tall formidable grandmother. She’s hunched over in her chair and has a wild halo of wispy white hair that’s lit up by the sun coming in the window. She’s scowling a bit, like she isn’t sure what I’m doing there and definitely doesn’t approve. She’s wearing gray sweatpants and a pink fleecy sweater with a cheerful rainbow unicorn prancing in the center. It’s pretty much the last thing on earth I’d expect my proper grandmother to be dressed in. She peers at me like she thinks I have the wrong room too, and then suddenly her eyes go wide and she’s smiling.

“Why Jessie!” SPACE she says, “How lovely to see you!”

I’m hugging her before I realize I’m across the room, feeling her frail bones under my hands, slight and insubstantial as a bird’s. We’re both laughing and relief washes over me as I hand her the chocolates and set the little red geranium on the windowsill. “Is this your bed, the window one?” I ask her. “Is it okay to put the plant here?”

She looks around, brow furrowed again, and says, “I guess it is, honey – I think it’s my bed.” My relief fades a bit at that, but at least she’s smiling at me. I hand her the box of chocolates and she laughs. “Oh, it’s my favorite!” she says, trying to get a fingernail under the plastic wrapping. I help her with it, and of course she offers me one first when we finally get the box free of the wrap.

The nurse who passed me in the hall sticks her head into the room, and says, “Good morning Opal! I see you have a visitor!”

“It’s my daughter Jessie!” Grandma says, beaming at us both. The nurse and I exchange a glance, and I decide it’s too complicated to correct her. I’m sure the nurse has heard more unlikely introductions. Besides that, she really was the only mother I ever knew.

“Would you like to go sit outside?” the nurse asks, and says to me, “You can take her out to the gazebo if you want. It’s nice this morning, not too chilly.”

“Oh, I would love to go outside!” Grandma says, so we put a little red and black plaid lap blanket over her and I roll her out to the hallway, the box of chocolates tucked safely under the blanket. The nurse points me towards the double doors that lead out to the gazebo. “You should have a nice visit,” she says, leaning close to my ear. “Opal seems quite lucid today.”

The doors open onto a small grassy area with a narrow sidewalk curving around its edge. I wheel her along past a number of residents’ windows and a little flower garden with purple butterfly bushes and deep blue hydrangeas. Grandma barely glances at them. She’s got her eye on the white gazebo in the center of the courtyard. It’s big enough for several tables and there are benches around the interior, but to my surprise we’ve got it to ourselves. I wheel her up to one of the benches and sit down beside her. I have to help her dig the chocolates back out from under her lap blanket and then open the box for her so she can remember what she wanted them for to begin with. She offers me another one before digging in herself. Her blue eyes seem faded as she gazes around us, unfocused and distant.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her. “You look great!” That’s a bit of an exaggeration but it’s not going to hurt her to hear it. She keeps chewing on her chocolate, looking off towards the hill behind the nursing home. “Your house looks good too,” I tell her. “Eddy and Quentin and I checked on it last night. Everything’s just like you left it.” Another bit of not-quite-truth, but sadly she’s not going to know the difference. I realize that even now it makes me nervous to hide things from her after all those years of being punished for the smallest of tiny white lies. I can’t imagine what she’d say if she knew what I was telling Nick.

“My house?” she says, looking sharply at me. “Why did they do that to my house?”

I’m not sure what she means. “Nobody did anything to it, Grandma” I tell her. “Everything’s just like it’s always been.”

“They took my house away, and they put another house exactly like it where mine used to be. They took every single stick of furniture and all my things out of my old house, and put it all in the new house. I don’t know why they did that, and they won’t tell me!” I can’t think of a thing to say to that, and she continues to glare at me. “You need to find out why, Jessie. You make them tell you, and then you come and tell me.”

“Ummmm,” I say, “okay, I’ll see what I can find out.” She nods briskly. “You do that. I’ve had just about enough of their shenanigans.” Then she turns back to the chocolate.

“Listen, Grandma,” I say, “I need to tell you something.” She glances over at me, then turns her gaze to the hillside. “I’m going away for awhile,” I tell her. “I’m going to England for work in a couple of weeks.”

She looks back at me, sharp eyed again. “England?” she says. “Why, isn’t that…” she pauses, thinking. “Where is that?”

“Across the ocean,” I tell her. “Across the channel from France and Germany?” She looks at me blankly. It’s surprisingly hard and completely heartbreaking to try describing England’s physical location to her. She was our living encyclopedia/dictionary combination when we were kids. There was nothing she didn’t know. My eyes sting and I bend over the chocolate box so she won’t see me getting teary. I get a heavy ache in my chest when I realize how much I want to tell her that I’m terrified about this move, and have her tell me back that I should never pass up opportunities and everything will be absolutely fine.

“Oh, remember Upstairs Downstairs? That show you loved, that we used to watch on Saturday nights when I was a kid? That was set in England. They lived in London.”

“Oh yes,” she says, smiling again. “We did love that, didn’t we!”

“We did,” I said. “That’s where I’ll be.”

“You aren’t going to be a servant, are you?” she says. “You’re a smart girl with a good education, you can do better than that.”

“What? Oh, no, I’m not going to live in the Upstairs Downstairs house – I’ll be working for my newspaper. Like I do now, just in London.” She nods, pleased. “You can find you a nice rich young man there. There was that one handsome boy that came to visit for the holidays, remember him? It was right before the first war, and all the girls at the house were chasing after him. I don’t think any of them actually caught him. I bet they’ll have some balls you can go to and he’ll be there waiting on you. What was his name, Tom or Rob….”

She’s thinking hard about it and I’m trying not to laugh, or cry.

“I wish I could make you a dress for those balls,” she says. “I just can’t see to sew anything like I used to. I always enjoyed making dresses for you, even though you didn’t like to wear them. You always preferred blue jeans like your brothers, didn’t want a thing to do with dresses. But you can’t wear blue jeans to a ball, so we’ll have to figure something out. You know Samuel will go with you if you ask him.”

For a second I think I misheard her. She’s staring into space again, getting another chocolate out of the box. I can’t think of the last time I heard her say Samuel’s name. She glances back over at me, chews the caramel slowly.

“Do you… think Samuel enjoys dances?” I ask, slowly. She raises her eyebrows. NEW PARAGRAPH? “He wouldn’t have to enjoy it, honey. That’s what brothers do. They escort their sisters to the balls. That’s part of their job.”

“Did Uncle Bud escort you to balls?” I really don’t know where I’m going with this, but I want to keep her talking.

“He did take me to the barn dances when we were young, of course. That wasn’t the same thing, though, not at all like the balls. We didn’t have balls here. They had them down south, the wealthy people did. And where you’re going, they are always having parties and balls in that big house. So you get your brother to take you.”

“I’ll ask Eddy,” I say. “I can see him trying to be gallant.”

“Eddy isn’t going with you, is he? I hope he’s not, I need him to help me out here.”

“No, it’s just me, but …”

“Well, you ask Samuel.”

I’m not sure how far I want to get into this. “Remember how Samuel…went away? All those years ago? We don’t know where he is.”

“He’s a clever boy, he’s fine. But since they switched my house he won’t know which is the right one when he comes home!” She’s distressed, her thin voice is rising and she’s looking at me again, her eyes darting over my face. “We need to let him know, Jessie. You call him and tell him you’re there, and you tell him which house is the right house so he can come home.”

Suddenly all the fire goes out of her, and she’s blank again.

“Sarah, I want to go back inside now,” she says, looking past me towards the nursing home doors. “I’m so tired. I want to go to sleep. Jacob will be needing dinner soon.” She’s grabbed the wheels on her chair, like she plans to push herself back, but of course it doesn’t budge.

“It’s Jessie, Grandma,” I say, bending down near her face. “Remember? Can you tell me where Samuel went? Can you tell me how to…let him know about the house?”

“You take me inside right now,” she snaps, “before I have to call that big man. He’ll set you straight!”

“Okay, okay,” I say, trying not to laugh again. Or cry again. I settle the blanket back over her legs, stick her box of chocolates underneath it, and give her a kiss on the cheek. She makes a “hurrmfftttt!” noise but reaches up and pats my hand as I push her back down the path to the big double doors.

Albert- 2010

The barn is dark. Scary quiet dark. I followed him to the barn. I am good at following. He doesn’t know I’m there. Something is going to happen. I don’t know what.

At breakfast his eyes went around the coffee steam. They went out the window, over the yard, towards the mountain. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at us. He just sat there a long long time. That was when my head knew something was going to happen.

Jessie was eating her Frosted Mini Wheats MAY HAVE TO CHANGE NAME too fast. Ma says she always eats everything too fast. But Ma was in the garden and Pa’s eyes had gone out the window and didn’t come back.

“Pa,” I said, “Jessie is eating too fast.” He didn’t hear me. Jessie looked over at me. She looked over at him. She put her spoon down in her bowl. A little milk splashed out onto the table. She frowned.

“What are you going to do today, Grandpa?” she asked him. He didn’t answer. We both looked at him. He didn’t look back at us. His eyes were still out the window.

“Why can’t he hear you?” I asked her. He looked at me. He looked at her. He nodded at her. I guess that meant he could hear her.

“I have some things to attend to,” he said. “Jessie, you are going to be late to work.”Then he looked back out the window.

Jessie frowned some more. She opened her mouth to say something else. Then she shut it. She got up. She took her cereal bowl to the sink. She took my cereal bowl to the sink. Neither of us was done eating our Frosted Mini Wheats. I had a lot left because I don’t eat too fast. I didn’t say anything though.

She leaned down and kissed his cheek.

“Okay, she said. “Bye, Grandpa. See you tonight.”

She patted my head. She is always patting my head.

“Bye, Albert”, she said, and she was gone out the kitchen door before I had time to tell her bye back.

Now I go after him. He walks slow down the hill and into the barn. He’s way on the other side by the stack of hay when I sneak through the door behind him. I am very quiet.

I slide into the stall where Esmeralda lives. She doesn’t give me away. She moves close to me. She nuzzles my hair. We both watch him. Ezzie watches over the stall door. I leave it open a teeny bit. I watch through the gap. He is hard to see in the dark. He is like a shadow. A little piece of sun comes through a crack way up the wall. It makes his glasses bright. A buckle on his overalls looks like a tiny fire. He pulls that box out from behind the pile of Ezzie’s hay. He looks down at that box. I remember that box.

I can’t breathe. Ezzie and I watch. I hear the slithers. Ezzie’s ears go back. She circles around the stall. He doesn’t turn. He opens the lid. I hear the rattle. Dust motes dance over him in the light from the cracks. Ezzie snorts. She stomps one foot. She nickers. I pull the stall door nearly shut, but he doesn’t look at us.

His voice booms. “Hush, Ezzie.”

The rattle is louder. He bends over the box. Ezzie stomps again, nearly steps on me, turns around and around and around. I reach for her. “Be still,” I whisper, but I don’t think she hears me. I grab a piece of her silky silver mane and I hold on. She snorts in my ear and quits turning around.

His hand goes into the box. His voice booms again. It booms up to the rafters. It goes past the dust motes, past the loft. I’ve heard those words-not-words before. He said them those other times. I can’t breathe. He pulls out the snake. A big, big snake. Its face looks into his face. Its head sways. I try to yell, but nothing comes out. Ezzie jerks away from me. She stomps. She whirls again. Her tail slaps across my eyes. She snorts, snorts, neighs. He holds the snake away from him. He drapes it between his arms.

“Ah ala hafa sonaaaa” he says to the snake. “taaffapa hokla fopaa”

He stands still. The snake is still. They stare into each other’s eyes. He holds up his arms. Up, up to God. He talks again at the snake’s face. He looks up at the rafters, at the cobwebs, at the dust motes. He raises the serpent up, up, up. Up to the ceiling, up to the sky. The words-not-words go on and on. I remember what is going to happen next. I remember it from before.

“No, no,” I think. Then I say it. He looks over at me, booms, “Albert?”

The snake snaps at his face. It’s in the air. Then it’s not in the air. It’s draped across his neck. Ezzie is stomping, pawing, whirling. Her eyes are wild and white. She’s making scary screams. I am afraid she will kick me, step on me, bite me. I don’t think she knows who I am. I shrink against the door, small as I can be. I keep watching him.

The snake bites his neck. It’s so fast I barely see it. He falls on his knees. He lets the snake go. He’s kneeling in the hay that’s kicked all over the floor. The snake buries itself in the hay. Then it’s gone. CHG?: AND IS GONE He is still talking to God. His voice still booms. “Ahca loricatna prinato ahhh ahhh ahhh”

Ezzie whirls, whirls, whinnies, nicks me on the shoulder with her hoof. It should hurt but I can’t feel it. I am frozen. Then I am not. I jerk the stall door open. I almost fall through it. Ezzie flies over my head, runs for the open barn door, runs and runs and runs away.

He is lying on his side in the hay. There is blood on his neck. His glasses are in the hay. His bare eyes are black and burning and they are staring at me.

I kneel down beside him.

“Go get your mother,” he says.

His eyes shut. Then his face is old, wrinkled like used up paper. Blood drips bright red down his neck, runs into the hay.

I stand up but my legs won’t work. I think I am going to fall. I don’t fall. I stumble out the barn door into the sunlight. Bright bright sunlight. Ma is coming down the hill from the house, shading her eyes.

“Albert, did you let that horse out? She’s just run right through my tomatoes!”

Ma stops. She stares at me. I am trying to shout, trying to tell her. No words come out. She wraps her hands in her red apron.

“Albert, what’s wrong?”

I stumble towards her. I finally say, “Pa, Pa, Pa.” I say it over and over. I can’t quit. I can’t say more. She rushes to me, grabs my shoulders, stares into my eyes. Hers are as black as his.

“Where? What happened?”

“Pa Pa Pa”

She shakes me hard, looks at the barn door. Looks back at me.

“Is he in the barn?”

I nod. No more words will come out.

“Go call 911. Give them our address. Tell them he’s in the barn. Do you understand?”SPACE NEEDED HERE She shakes my shoulders again. I nod. My face is wet.

“Say it, quick, so I know you can.”

“233 Grassy Creek Road,” I say. Then I can say more. “He’s in the barn,” I say. “There was a snake.”

She nods. “Tell them that too. Go.”

She pushes me towards the house, runs for the open barn door.

I run, run to the house, run to the kitchen phone. I dial 911, like they do on It’s An Emergency. QUOTATION MARKS OR ITALICS NEEDED When the voice answers, I say he’s in the barn, it was a snake. I tell the voice our address, then I hang up the phone. The voice is saying something but that’s all I know to tell. I go to the door, look down at the still barn. Esmeralda is eating little green plants in the garden, calm again.

Jessie – 2010

I’m not a bit surprised when Albert suddenly appears in the doorway of the diner, his face red and tear-streaked, his messy hair standing on end and flecked with bits of hay. I knew when I saw Grandpa in the kitchen at breakfast. He was silent and distant. Not eating his eggs, not listening to us talking, just staring out the window. It was only when I asked him directly what he was up to today that he finally looked at me. His eyes were sharp through the smeared lenses of his glasses. For a second I felt that electric jolt of power he used to have. He nodded, and I knew.

I should have told Grandma. I should have made sure he stayed out of the barn. But I didn’t really think he would do it, not after all these years. I didn’t think he was able. He’d been drifting away from us for a while, getting vaguer and more forgetful, his once razor-edged mind slowly wearing down. So I just kissed his stubbly cheek, grabbed my overstuffed messenger bag, and flew out the door.

Now I’m standing in the middle of the diner holding Table Two’s lunch special in my hands and staring at Albert with my heart pounding through my chest. Waiting for him to tell me what is not going to be a surprise.

Albert is trying to say something, but he can’t get it out. Even ordinarily he is prone to problems like this. He gets upset easily and doesn’t mind everyone knowing it. He can’t always tell you what’s wrong, not without a lot of calming talk and maybe a cookie. I don’t have a cookie, and the middle of the diner during the lunch rush is not the place for calming talk.

All of the customers are staring at Albert. All of the construction guys at the counter, the tourists in the booths, everyone who works in town and has come in for lunch. We are all staring at Albert, and the usual diner clatter is dying down fast.

“Jessie, Jessie, Jessie,” he gasps, out of breath.

I want this to be something stupid, one of his imaginary problems. Union soldiers headed for the farm to do some looting. A big battle lost up north. I know it isn’t.

My boss, Nadine, strides towards us carrying a coffeepot. She looks at Albert, then sticks her head into the kitchen.

“Eddy, come out here,” she calls. She pats Albert with her free hand and says, “What’s the matter, honey?” He doesn’t look at her. He’s staring at me.

“What happened?” I ask him. I’m glued to my spot, trying to breathe. Nadine puts the coffeepot back on the warmer, takes the two plates from my hands, slaps them down in front of the couple at Table Two. She doesn’t look at them, and they don’t look at her. We all keep staring at Albert, who has tears running down his cheeks. There’s some indistinct murmuring going on now from the audience. I don’t want to hear what they’re saying about us. I don’t want to hear what Albert’s about to tell me either. I wonder briefly if I can just dash out the back door and away from all the mesmerized faces.

Eddy comes through the saloon-style half doors, drying his hands on a dishtowel. He takes one look at Albert, puts an arm around him, and guides him back through the still swinging doors into the kitchen. I follow them, leaving all the customers hanging. Eddy sits Albert down on a stool beside the grill where burgers are sizzling away. Albert is crying harder, but quietly. He isn’t wailing, which really scares me. Tears are streaming down his face and he’s rubbing them away with his sleeve.

“Tell us what’s wrong, buddy,” Eddy says to him. I feel weak, and lean against the dishwasher. We’ll have to call the twins. Joel and Ben, who escaped. They’ll need to come home. Suddenly Samuel’s pointy face floats up in my mind, his shaggy black hair, his sharp green eyes, his mischievous grin. Our lost brother we can’t call home.

“Something happened to Pa,” Albert whispers. “Something happened, Eddy.”

“Albert, what happened to Grandpa?” I ask him. The breath has gone out of me. I can barely get enough air to speak.

“We were in the barn,” he says, a little louder. “Ma told me to call 911. It bit him.”

“Come on,” Eddy says to me. “Get your things.”

He sticks his head through the swinging doors again, tells Nadine, “We’ve got to go home. Something’s happened to our grandfather.”

“Go, hurry,” she says. Before I can even get my apron untied, Nadine has yanked her 14-year-old niece out of the window booth where she’s sitting with her friends and stuck an order pad and a pen in her hands. The niece heaves a sigh, grabs my apron and ties it around her waist, marches off popping her gum. Everyone in the diner is watching us like we’re a fascinating drama.

“Hope your Granddaddy is all right,” calls Mr. Gwinn from his usual stool at the end of the counter.

There’s a general murmur of agreement from the rest of the customers as Eddy, Albert and I rush out the front door. We pile into Eddy’s little red Volkswagen and head for home fast as we can, Eddy running every stoplight.

Jessie- 2010

The first thing I do is get my hair cut off. The first thing after we get home, I mean. The drive only takes a few minutes, especially at the speed Eddy is going. Neither of us says a word. Albert just sniffles and stares out the window at the trees and fields flying by.

We find Grandma and her church friends, Mrs. Ross and Miss Evans, sitting stunned at the kitchen table. Mrs. Ross gets up and hugs me.

“He’s gone, honey,” she says, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, her voice wavery. “He was gone before the ambulance got here.” She lets go of me and envelops Albert, who tries for a second to squirm away before he gives up and goes limp.

“I don’t know what on earth he was thinking,” Grandma says. She stares past me and doesn’t move when I bend down to put my arms around her. Her hair has come out of its usual tight bun and is framing her shocked white face with gray waves. “I thought he was done with that years ago. He’s not said a word about it since…” she trails off. Eddy and I exchange a look.

While Eddy pulls a chair up beside Grandma I glance out the window and see Esmeralda THOUGHT THIS WAS A COW AT FIRST; PROBABLY OTHER CLUES I’M MISSING INDICATE IT IS INSTEAD A HORSE (CHECK) grazing in the garden, peacefully nibbling on the beans. Her dappled gray coat is glowing in the sun. I slip out the kitchen door, intending to just put her into the pasture before she ruins any more of the vegetables. I can’t bring myself to take her back into the barn.

“Hi Ezzie,” I say to her. After what she’s seen I half expect her to go galloping off, but she bumps me with her nose and lets me stroke her neck and take her halter. We walk to the pasture gate and I escort her through. Then I latch the gate and keep walking. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I head down the driveway. Just before you reach the main road there’s a narrow trail that cuts across our field and leads into town. I follow the trail as it runs beside the river. I watch the quiet water burbling along, listen to my sneakers crunching the gravel. Birds are swooping around the trees and singing like it’s a perfectly normal afternoon. I pass by the little strip of woods at the edge of our field and keep going past the Miller’s pasture. Tall grass waves in the breeze and three black cows pause their grazing to watch me. Before I’ve figured out where exactly I’m going the trail has met the main road into town, and I’m standing outside Darlene’s Hair Hut. I open the door and go in.

Darlene sticks her head out of the back room and smiles at me when she hears the bells on the door jingle. She doesn’t have any customers and says sure, she can give me a cut.

“Hot date tonight, honey?” She laughs, and sits me in the revolving chair so I face the mirror. I tell her what I want. She stops snapping her gum, and stares down at me. Then she turns the chair back around so she’s looking me directly in the face.

“Sweetie,” she says, “I believe you better think about this.”

“I did think about it,” I tell her.

It had not crossed my mind until that very second.

She takes a piece of my long blond hair and examines it, her forehead furrowed. Then she looks at me again.

“Now Jessie,” she says, “I know good and well you’ve never had more than a trim since you were just a tiny thing. What’s made you decide to do something like this?”

“I just want to,” I tell her. “I want a change.”

“This’ll be more than a change,” she says, letting my hair drop down my back again. An escaped tendril tickles my cheek and I swipe it away. “This ain’t something you’ll be able to undo once it’s done. How about we start out with just a few inches? Take off a little weight, give you some layers?”

“If you don’t want to do it, Darlene, I can go over to the Mayflower and get it done there,” I tell her.

“Oh, God no,” she says quickly. “I’ll do it, if that’s really what you want. I ain’t letting you go over there, Donna’ll have you looking like a streetwalker when she’s done, and she’ll fry your hair right off your head to boot. If you’re bound and determined to do this, we’ll do it right.”

“I’m bound and determined,” I tell her. I take one last look in the mirror at my long shiny blond hair, and say goodbye.

She won’t let me watch, which is fine with me. It seems to take hours for the washing and cutting and dying and drying. Darlene chatters on and on about her shop and her customers and her kids, but I can’t process what she’s saying. Her reedy COMMA? broken-glass voice blends in with the running water and the snipping scissors and the razor buzzing my neck. It’s all one fuzzy blur. She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m not listening, and when she clamps the hair dryer hood down over my head the sudden mindless roar in my ears is a relief. Now I can think about what happened yesterday.

I was stretched out on the couch in the living room reading Catcher In The Rye when Grandpa appeared in the doorway. I bent the cover back quickly so he couldn’t see what I was reading but he didn’t pay any attention to my book.

“Jessie,” he said, “come down to the barn with me. I need your help with something.”

“Yes sir,” I said, which was always the only correct answer for Grandpa. I didn’t ask what he needed help with in the barn. Grandpa had changed considerably in the past few years. He was smaller and more stooped and a lot more forgetful and absent than he’d been when I was a kid, but we’d been raised to never question our elders and that was a hard habit to break. I just put down my book and followed him. Evening was falling and even in mid June there was a chill in the air. Snake Mountain loomed darkly behind the barn, blocking the last rays of the sun.

Esmeralda nickered at us and I reached over the stall door to scratch her ears. IS THE STALL DOOR OUTSIDE? THE LADDER OUTSIDE? IF INSIDE, PROBABLY NEED MORE DETAIL ABOUT THEM GOING INSIDE FIRST

Grandpa looked at me.

“Now, Jessie,” he said, “You are not to tell anyone about this. Do you understand?”

That made me stare at him. I couldn’t think of a secret mission he could possibly need me for. His blue eyes bored holes in me from behind his glasses.

“Yes sir,” I said. “What is it?”

“I need something from the loft and I want you to get it. With this arthritis I can’t go up the ladder like I used to.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved it was so simple. I started climbing the wooden slats that led to the loft. “What do you need?”

“I want my box, that big pine box with the lid and latch. It’s towards the back, behind those old milk bottles.”

I stopped climbing, stared down at him. “The snake box? What do you want that for?”

He gave me the narrow-eyed look he’d always used to make us shut our mouths and do what he said.

“Don’t worry about what I want it for. Just get it.”

I reached the top of the little ladder and stepped into the loft. It was dark and creepy up there, cobwebby with strange shapes looming along the wall. There was a little window on the far side but it was so grimy only a tiny bit of murky light could filter through.

“Do you see it?” called Grandpa.

“Not yet. I can’t see anything,” I called back, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. “Be careful,” he said. “Do you want me to get you a flashlight?”

“That’s okay,” I said, finally able to make out boxes and crates from the shapes against the wall. “Here it is.”

It was right where he said it would be, behind the old milk jars. A rectangular wooden box, gray with age and dust, covered in spider webs. I grimaced and tried to knock them off, then pulled it out and half drug it towards the ladder. It was heaver than it looked.

I leaned over the edge of the loft, saw Grandpa looking up at me. “I don’t know how to get it down,” I said. “This thing’s really heavy.”

“Drop it onto the hay,” he said, so I drug it along until I was above the bales of hay and pushed it off.

It landed on the hay and rolled off into the floor with a thud and an explosion of dust that made Ezzie snort and thump against her stall. I came back down the ladder and joined Grandpa as he examined the box.

“Did the fall hurt it?” I asked.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s in good shape.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask.

“You’re not going to put snakes in it, are you?”

He looked at me. “I am going to do the Lord’s will, Jessie, and that’s all you need to know.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and started cleaning cobwebs off the box.

“Grandpa, why would He want you ADD:TO find snakes for that box now? Hasn’t it been…years since you used it?”

“We do not question the Lord’s will, young lady,” he said, with that no-more-questions look. “And do not say a word to anyone about this. Not one.”

I opened my mouth to say I didn’t think it was a good idea, it sounded dangerous, maybe we should talk to Grandma or Eddy. Then I thought better of it and just nodded.

“Get on back to your schoolwork,” he said, and I turned and ran out the barn door, leaving him with the box in the murky shadows.

“Are you ready?” asks Darlene, making me jump. “Hold onto your hat!”

She spins my chair around to face the mirror.

I don’t even recognize the woman staring back at me. Darlene is watching, breathless, probably afraid I’ll burst into tears. I study this mirror stranger, no round-faced little girl looking 12 instead of 16, but a grown woman with big blue eyes and a triangular face, short jet black hair spiked all over her head. She appears to be at least 20.

I’ve turned into someone else. It’s exactly what I want.

“I love it,” Darlene says, giving me a hand mirror and whirling me around in the chair again so I can see the back. “Don’t you look older!” She snaps her gum, eying her own poof of frizzy dishwater-blond hair in the mirror. “I’d have give anything for that hair you had, honey, but this is… perfect!”

I can’t say anything. All I can do is smile at the strange exotic woman in the mirror who is smiling right back at me. Darlene takes my cape off and shakes it so the blond strands float down to the floor and join the impossible mountains of hair heaped around my chair.

“I don’t know what your Granddaddy’s gonna say, though. Just please don’t tell him I did it.”

The bell on the door jingles and Darlene says, “Well, hey, Mrs. Pearlman. You’re right on time, I just finished up with Jessie here. Don’t she look like a new woman?”

Mrs. Pearlman says, “Oh, Jessie, honey, I am so sorry about your poor grandfather…” then stops dead in the middle of her sentence when she sees my hair.

“Your grandfather?” says Darlene, looking at me. “Jessie, what’s happened to your grandfather?”

They are both staring at me now. Mrs. Pearlman clutching her prim black handbag to her ample chest with her mouth hanging open would be funny under different circumstances. I start digging in my pocket for money and Mrs. Pearlman regains her voice.

“Jessie Jordan, what on earth have you done to your hair!”

I feel exactly like I’m in sixth grade again and she’s caught me reading a novel inside my math text. I shove some money at Darlene, mutter to her to keep the change, and run out the door. They are both watching me out of the big front window as I dash down the sidewalk and I have to keep running, towards the river and the trail leading back out of town because I’m finally starting to cry.

(Albert – 2004)

Pa says “Get in the truck, Albert.”

I get in and slide across the seat. I catch my jeans on the ripped plastic. I pull bits of dirty cotton out where the shiny grey tape is loose.

“Don’t do that,” Pa says. “You kids are ruining this seat doing that.”

Pa looks across me, out the open window. “Where is Samuel?”

I look out the window too. I look back at the house. It’s a big white house. There are bright red geraniums in great big pots. Nobody’s on the porch. The sun is off to one side. It’s going behind the edge of Snake Mountain.

“We are going to be late,” Pa says. His eyes are frowning but he’s not mad. “That boy. He’ll be the death of me.”

I don’t know why Samuel would make Pa die. Pa doesn’t look worried. I decided I won’t be worried either.

He honks the horn.

He honks again.

The screen door opens. Ma comes out on the porch She looks at us in the truck. She wipes her hands on her apron.

“What are you honking the horn for?”

Pa leans across me. “Where is Samuel?” his voice booms. “He’s making us late.”

Ma’s eyes are frowning too. She is mad. She comes down the stone steps. She walks to the truck and looks through the window, across me at Pa.

“I don’t like this, Jacob,” she says. “You know I don’t approve of this.”

Pa looks back at her. I pick the stuffing out of the seat.

“Stop that,” Ma says to me.

“The boy is chosen,” Pa says. His voice doesn’t boom now. Ma looks at him. Her forehead is wrinkled.

The screen door slams. We all look at the porch. Jessie stands at the top of the steps, looking back at us.

“Where are you going?” she calls.

“Go finish your homework,” says Ma. Jessie doesn’t go inside. She twirls her yellow hair on her finger.

“I’m finished,” she says. “Can I come too?”

Ma turns, starts towards the porch. Her shoes slap hard on the ground.

“You can help with dinner,” she says. Jessie opens her mouth. Then she shuts it.

The screen door slams again. Samuel runs out. He runs right into Jessie. He catches her and says “Sorry!” He comes down the stone steps without touching even one. He flies past Ma. He jerks the truck door open. He shoves me over.

“Ok, I’m ready,” he says. He smiles at us. He waves out the window at Ma and Jessie. Ma is on the porch again. Her hand is on Jessie’s shoulder. They don’t wave back. They watch.

Pa starts the truck. It sputters, then coughs, then dies. He turns the key again. He makes the engine roar. The truck shakes. Samuel holds onto the door. The truck jerks forward. It coughs some more. It finally starts down the driveway. I look out the little back window. Ma and Jessie are still on the porch watching.

Pa turns right at the end of the driveway. We never turn right. We always turn left and go into town. We are all quiet. Samuel is never quiet. He looks out the window at Snake Mountain going by, darker and darker. Pa switches the lights on.

I pick at the stuffing.

“I’m not going to tell you again,” says Pa. I stop.

“How far is it?” says Samuel.

“Not too far. Maybe ten miles. Over to Wolf Cove.”

Samuel’s fingers pick at his own torn place on the seat.

“Don’t do that,” I tell him.

He looks at me. He looks out the window. His fingers drum his knee.

“There’s nothing to be nervous of,” Pa says. He looks sideways across me, at Samuel.

“Ok,” says Samuel. His fingers play with the dashboard knobs. He makes a picture in the dust. ADD MORE DESCRIPTION ABOUT WHERE DUST IS A little stick man with a great big head. He uses his thumb to make two big blank eyes.

“That’s your alien man,” I tell him. “That green one.”

“Is it?” Samuel says. He looks at the picture. “Maybe it is.”

Pa looks over at Samuel. His eyes are blue and soft. “This is God’s will, son, “he says. “He has picked you, Samuel.”

Samuel nods, keeps looking out the window. His fingers pull at bits of his hair.

Black trees are flying past the windows and grey road is flying underneath us. The lights from the dashboard make Pa’s face glow.

“Grandpa,” says Samuel.

“Yes, son,” says Pa.

“Grandma really doesn’t like us doing this. She’s pretty mad about it.”

They both stare out the windshield.

“She doesn’t understand,” says Pa.

“I don’t think I do either,” says Samuel.

“That’s all right,” Pa says. “You don’t need to understand. You just need to follow God’s instructions.”

“Maybe God is wrong,” Samuel says.

Pa slams on the brakes. Me and Samuel bang into the dashboard and into each other.

“Ow,” I say, rubbing my arm.

Pa is glaring across me at Samuel. His eyes are really really mad.

“God is NEVER wrong,” he tells Samuel. His voice isn’t loud but it still hurts my ears. “God does NOT make mistakes, and He knows exactly what he is doing. He knows what He wants from you. He’s told me what he wants and I am responsible for carrying out His plan. Do not EVER say anything like that again. Do you understand?”

I smash myself as far back into the seat as I can. He’s not paying any attention to me though. Samuel is looking back at him. Samuel’s face is white. Pa reaches across me and grabs Samuel’s arm.

“Answer me,” he says. “Do you understand?”

Samuel keeps looking at him. Then he looks down at the little alien man he drew. “Yes sir,” he says. “I understand.”

Pa lets go of his arm.

“Good,” he says. He watches Samuel. Samuel is very still. Pa puts the truck back into gear. “This is the most important thing you will ever do, son,” he says. “You may not understand that now, but you will.”

Samuel nods.

The truck coughs and shakes, then we are moving again. Nobody says anything else. We all stare out at the black road unraveling in front of us.

Quentin – 2010

I’d told myself I wasn’t going to go see any of them while I was back home again for the first time in a whole lot of years. Didn’t want to see them. Didn’t want to think about them, or about Samuel. It was all in the past, finished and gone. I was just planning to visit my mama and my sister and leave again as quick as I could. There was nothing else for me there. Not anymore.

So naturally I find out about their granddaddy DEL THIS SLASH \the minute I get into town.

I’d walked down to have a look at the river and found myself going past the diner before I noticed where I was. That’s when I saw Eddy coming out the kitchen door in the ally, wiping his hands on his cook’s apron and staring transfixed at something high up on the brick wall in front of him. That was just exactly the sort of thing I’d expect to find Eddy doing, even after all these years, and it made me laugh. I walked over to say hello, despite my intentions. After he got over being shocked to see me materialize in front of him, he told me about his granddaddy.

It had just happened the day before. He had a heart attack, but Eddy was quick to let me know what it was that caused the heart attack. He’d gotten ahold of a snake, although they were leaving that part out of what they were telling people. I was touched to realize how quick Eddy accepted me right back as one of them, how he didn’t hesitate to tell me the real story.

I knew what he was doing with that snake without Eddy spelling it out. It didn’t just come sliding out from under some rock and bite him. They were a weird bunch, no matter how I felt about them, but that’s one reason me and Samuel always got on so good. We were both outsiders, me with a black mama and a white daddy I never met, and him with dead parents he mostly didn’t remember plus a snake handler granddaddy. None of it did much to help our social standing in that town. We felt more at home with each other than with anyone else, and I felt like that about his brothers and sister too.

When we were kids they used to go to a creepy old church way up on top of Snake Mountain, the big dark mountain that looms over the town. I always heard the mountain was named for that church. Their granddaddy’s daddy started it. He was the first snake handling preacher way back then. By the time we were old enough to go to the services, they weren’t pulling out snakes any more because of what happened with Samuel and them’s mama when Jessie was just a baby. That caused a big rift, Eddy told us, and a lot of the members left. The ones who didn’t intend to give up their serpents. The ones that stayed were still a scary bunch, though. Most of them were old men and women from up in the hills, looking like they got to town about twice a year. The services we went to sometimes were usually pretty tame stuff, but once in awhile they would get all full of the spirit and dance like they were having fits, and speak in tongues. Nothing like the buttoned-up Baptists who make up most of this town and believe those backwoods Pentecostals are offshoots of Satan himself. I’d had no other experiences with church at all myself, since my mama never went, but most of the kids at our school were Baptists and liked to poke fun at the Pentecostals.

Eddy was getting ready for what passed as a dinner rush at the diner so didn’t have time to catch up, but he invited me out to the house later on. His little brothers were back in town and I wanted to tell his grandma I was sorry to hear what had happened. She’d always treated me like one of her own grandkids. So had their granddaddy really, for better or worse.

Seeing Eddy made me think about Samuel, of course. And all that stuff I’d tried hard to forget. Walking back home I passed the rusty hunk of what had once been a Ford Taurus in the old Harris field, and my mind immediately flashed back to Samuel’s time machine. I hadn’t thought about it in years, like I don’t think about any of my previous life now, but coming home just got everything stirred all up again.

Samuel was certain he could build a time machine. At least I guess that’s what he really thought. Sometimes you’d swear he was just kidding about it, other times he seemed serious as death, positive that one day he’d get it right. Then he could take off for the past, or maybe the future. We spent years fiddling around with that thing, pieced it together with scrap metal and junked car parts in his granddaddy’s old barn. Even after all that time we used up, I don’t know if Samuel really believed it would work. He probably didn’t know if he believed it himself. We sure spent a lot of our hours on it, though. LOTS OF ITS (WORD) IN THIS PARAGRAPH — JUST NOTING

His little brothers were fascinated with it. Especially Joel. Joel flat out worshiped Samuel and never doubted for a minute that Samuel could make a time machine. Ben was more realistic. Once in awhile he’d kind of believe, but mostly he’d make fun of Joel’s faith in it. They were funny kids. Twins, but didn’t look a thing alike. Ben was taller and skinnier, gray eyed, with floppy black hair like his other two brothers. Joel was a little pudgy, had lighter hair, big blue eyes, and the occasional asthma attack. They didn’t act much alike either. Ben had a sarcastic streak and a wicked sense of humor. Joel was a lot like Samuel, sweet natured, cheerful and friendly. Smiled all the time. Totally different, but you hardly ever saw one without the other.

Me and Samuel were in their barn one afternoon after school. It was late spring, not too long before we’d be getting out for summer break. Samuel was tinkering around with that time machine and I was keeping him company, laying on the hay they kept stacked up for the horse. I loved stretching out in the hay in that barn. Loved just being quiet and daydreaming. I’m glad I didn’t know that was the last time I’d get to.

The twins came stomping in as I was just about asleep. They were both talking a mile a minute, shattering the peace all to hell. They were around 13. Still impressionable.

“Samuel, Samuel!” one of them was hollering as they came through the door. “Guess what? Where are you?”

“Gone to Constantinople,” said Samuel, from somewhere under the machine. “I think it’s maybe 1496 here, best as I can tell. AD, I believe.”

Joel’s eyes got big as dinner plates.

“You got it to work,” he breathed. Ben looked at Joel like he’d lost his mind.

“He’s underneath it, Joel,” he said. “Jesus. If he was in Constantinople, could he be talking to us?”

“Well, maybe,” said Joel, sounding disappointed. “Who knows what will happen?”

“It ain’t working,” I said, sitting up in the hay. “So don’t argue about it.”

“Hey Quentin,” said Joel. “Guess what?”

“The sky’s done fell on ya’ll’s heads,” I suggested. Joel stared at me. Ben laughed.

“Nope, better than that,” Joel said, his eyes all shiny. “Grandpa said he’d take us to the snake church with him tonight. He says you’re coming too, Samuel, and Quentin if he wants. Jessie can’t, though. She’s too little.”

“What snake church?” I said. “Ain’t no snake church anymore.”

Samuel came sliding out from under the time machine, hay and dirt all over him. He looked at me, looked back at them. “Yeah, there’s a snake church,” he said to me. “It’s not the old one. Grandpa’s gotten hooked up again with some of his pals from way back then.”

“Well that sounds like fun,” I said. “How come I’m just now hearing about this?” I can’t decide if I’m more mad that he hadn’t told me or curious about this sudden development.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just…didn’t want to talk about it. I only went once, a couple of months ago.”

That in itself was worrisome. Samuel not wanting to talk about something was not normal.

“How come Grandpa’s wanting to do that? And why did he tell you two?” he asked the twins, running his hand through his hair like he’d always do when he was disturbed by something and trying not to say so.

“Samuel,” Joel said, with that rapt and enchanted look on his face that would make you want to laugh at him but also made you wish he wouldn’t have to get any older. “He says you’re one of them. You can handle the snakes, just like they do. He says God chose you.”

“He says we’re old enough now,” Ben chimed in. “He says it’s time for us to understand!”

Samuel dropped his wrench into the floor and it sent a puff of dust rising up. He sat down on an edge of the time machine that used to be a rusty bumper off a junked pickup, and just said, “Dammit.”

Ben was watching him close. As usual, not as taken with the whole thing as Joel. As usual, more cautious.

“Is he right?” he asked. “Can you do it?”

“I did it once,” Samuel said.

Samuel looked over at me again, for once straight-faced and grim. Right then, a shadow fell across us, just like it would have in a movie. We all jumped. Samuel’s granddaddy was suddenly standing in the doorway. He was a black silhouette blocking the late afternoon sun that had been streaming in, with Snake Mountain rising up at the end of the field behind him.

“Hey, Grandpa,” Joel said. “We were just telling Samuel about tonight!”

He came towards us, emerging out of the sunlight, his eyes fixed on Samuel.

“Listen, Grandpa,” Samuel began. His granddaddy reached out, put a hand on his shoulder.

“You are called,” he said, in that booming voice of his. Just like a preacher. You’d find you had to listen to what he said, like it or not. He could have made a fortune as one of those TV evangelists. “It’s your duty, son. And I want your brothers to observe what God has planned for you.”

He kept his hand on Samuel’s shoulder, looked down at him. Samuel, who wouldn’t never listen to nobody tell him what to do, who always did just exactly like he pleased and laughed about it, looked up at his granddaddy, twisted his mouth a little, and nodded. Rubbed his hand through his hair. His granddaddy nodded too, patted his shoulder.

“Good boy,” he said. “We’ll leave about six thirty.”

He looked over at me then, those blazing eyes going right into mine. “You come too, son,” he said.

“Yessir,” I said, despite not having the first intention of saying that. What I meant to tell him was, I’ll come see that demented bunch of snake handling lunatics when hell freezes over, you crazy old man, but that’s what he always did, to all of us. No matter what he said to do, we all of us shut our mouths and did it. Even me, no kin to him, nothing at all to him but a friend of his grandkids. He nodded at me, turned and walked back out of the barn, disappeared into the low sunlight.

Samuel came over and sat beside me on the hay. The twins watched their granddaddy go, then looked over at us.

“Can you do it again?” Ben asked. “Will you really do it tonight?”

Samuel looked over sideways at me. “You think I might be able to get the time machine to work in the next hour or so?”

“I sure hope so, because if you don’t I ain’t got a chance up there with all them backwoods snake handlers.”

“How come?” asked Joel, genuinely puzzled. I had to laugh at him.

“Have they not taught you about lynch mobs in your history class yet?”

“They won’t bother you,” said Samuel. “They’re not bad people. Besides, you think anybody would have the nerve to even glance at you funny with Grandpa there?”

“You’re right. It’ll sure be something I ain’t never seen before. Guess we could look on it as an adventure.”

“Yeah, some adventure,” said Samuel. “This is not good.”

“Don’t you like being able to handle snakes?” asked Joel, all worried-looking. “It means you’re special, Samuel.”

“Yeah, I know what it means. Listen, you two,” he said, giving the twins a sharp look. “This isn’t what you think. This is going to be scary, all right? Don’t expect it to be fun.”

“Scary how?” asked Joel.

“Just scary. Don’t go up there ready to be entertained. It’s not like a movie, okay?”

The twins stared at him.

“Well, it shouldn’t be like a movie,” Joel said. “It’s God.”

Samuel sighed. “I don’t know what it is, buddy. You guys better go on now, get ready for dinner.”

They nodded, serious. Turned and walked on out. Joel patted the time machine as he went by it. They vanished like their granddaddy into the sunlight at the door.

Samuel was taking long strands of hay, winding them around his fingers, tight as chains.

“Maybe Eddy could go with us,” I said. There’s something calm about Eddy, something makes you feel like things can’t go too far wrong when he’s there.

“He’s working,” Samuel said. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, I do,” I told him. “I’m kind of looking forward to seeing this.” Weirdly, that’s true. Like you kind of want to see a ghost, or a car wreck. Something to jerk you out of normal life.

He sighed. “I’d rather do about anything than go up there but it’s like I don’t have a choice.”

“Well you always got a choice,” I told him. “I know he’s your granddaddy and all, and you feel like you got to do what he tells you, but maybe it’s time to draw a line.”

“It’s more than that,” he said, winding the bands of hay around his wrists now. “It’s something else. I have to do it for more than him.” He looked over at me, puzzled. It was getting darker in the barn. His eyes glowed like a cat’s.

“It’s like something bigger than Grandpa is making me do it against my will. Making me go up there. Like there’s some bigger reason for it. Some cosmic reason.”

I didn’t know what to tell him and didn’t have to tell him anything as it turns out because just then we heard his grandma’s voice floating down the hill from the house, calling us to dinner.

Jessie – 2004 (10 years old)

“Hurry up, Jessie,” Grandma said. She was digging in her church purse, distracted. “Your grandfather is waiting on us, and it’s wasteful to keep the car running. Where are your brothers?”

“Which ones?” I said. Grandma looked up from her purse at me, her eyebrows raised.

“Joel and Ben are still upstairs. Eddy went out to the car and Samuel is…who knows where he is.”

Grandma sighed, then said, “Why don’t you have your shoes on? We’re going to be late!”

“I can’t find them!” I said, flopping face down onto the floor to look under the big dresser by the front door. I’d checked all the normal places already. They weren’t in my room, they weren’t in the closet where we usually stowed our shoes, and now I could rule out underneath the hall dresser.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Grandma exhaled, just as Ben and Joel came thundering down the stairs.

“Joel wouldn’t let me borrow his other good shirt,” Ben said, “so I had to try to get the ink stains out of mine and it didn’t work at all, see??” He skidded to a stop in front of us and displayed a big blue spreading mess on the front of his dress shirt that scrubbing had just made worse.

“That is exactly why you can’t borrow mine,” Joel said, shoving past him towards the door.

“Put your jacket on and button it up,” Grandma said. “I don’t think it will show.”

“I’ll be too hot,” Ben complained, and Grandma said, “That’s a shame. Next time be more careful with your clothes.”

“Hey, Jessie, you left these on my desk,” Ben told me, and slung my shiny black dress shoes at me. One hit me in the arm and the other went skittering halfway down the hall towards the kitchen.

“Benjamin Jordan,” Grandma warned, but it was too late – he’d dashed out the door. She turned back to me.

“Get those shoes on your feet right this minute and let’s go,” she said. I yanked them on and we both headed for the old blue wood-paneled station wagon that was idling outside the door. Grandpa was frowning at us through the driver’s side window.

I slid in beside Eddy. The twins had already grabbed the back-facing seat at the rear. It was my turn to sit there but Grandpa was glaring at me in the rear view mirror and I was afraid to complain. Albert was in the front seat between him and Grandma, and turned around to look at me.

“You’re making us late,” he said.

“Samuel’s still not here so I don’t think you can blame me,” I told him.

“Where is he?” said Grandpa. “I am just about to leave him here. That boy will be late for his own funeral.”

He didn’t sound as mad as he would have been if any of the rest of us was keeping him waiting. He always let Samuel get away with everything.

“He came downstairs before I did,” Eddy said.

“He doesn’t want to go,” Joel said from the back seat, but so softly that only we heard him. Eddy turned around and hissed “Shhhhhh!”

I started to ask why he didn’t want to go, but Eddy narrowed his eyes at me too so I kept my mouth shut.

Grandpa looked at his watch, and said, “That’s it. He’s staying here. We have to go.”

Grandma said, “Well, he is nearly an adult, Jacob. Sixteen is old enough to decide if he wants to come with us or not.”

Grandpa looked at her. She looked back. He put the car into gear and we headed down the driveway.

Grandpa drove faster than usual, and we pulled into the church parking lot at three minutes till 10. Grandma hurried us all out of the car. The church doesn’t look like a church from the outside. There aren’t enough people for a normal one like the Baptists have, so we rent the community center for weekly services. A cheerful banner waved to us from the front door, inviting the town to Tuesday Movie Nights at the community center. Dirty Dancing QUOTES OR ITALICS NEEDED was this week’s feature. My friends Ella and Claire were planning to go. Both of their older sisters saw it at the theater. I wanted to go too, but Grandma disapproved of the title, and Grandpa disapproved of dancing. And the title. And movies in general although Grandma could usually talk him into letting us see the G rated ones.

We all climbed out of the car and headed for the door.

“Pull your dress down, Jessie,” Grandma said, swatting at my turned-up hem.

“Stupid dress,” I muttered, and yanked it as far down as it would go. She put a hand on my shoulder and steered me inside.

Everyone was taking their seats. Grandpa found a row with enough room for all of us. That was easy – none of them were full. I sat down on my metal chair and tried to get comfortable. Ben was on one side of me, Albert was on the other, and they were both too close. I squirmed and scooted my chair around until Grandpa leaned over from his seat on the end and looked at me. I sat still then, even when Ben elbowed me on the side Grandpa couldn’t see.

The inside of the church was cheerful, with green and blue paint swirling across the walls and bright light coming through the big windows. The sermon wasn’t so cheerful. It was about hellfire and damnation and being sure you lived set apart from the rest of the evil world so God would approve of you instead of sending you to the bad place. The preacher glared down at all of us as he paced around on his stage at the front of the room. There was a row of yellow cartoon dinosaurs dancing along the wall behind him. I lost interest fast and started drawing pictures of horses in the spiral notebook where I was supposed to be taking notes like Grandma did. Eddy was listening but Ben was drawing cars and Joel was drawing spaceships. Albert was staring at nothing as usual. The deacons took turns preaching and this wasn’t Grandpa’s week to tell us about damnation, so it was easy to daydream and draw.

I drew Ezzie first, standing in the pasture looking at a big sunflower. That took a long time because I couldn’t get her face just right. Then I turned the page and drew Manhattan, my favorite toy horse, rearing up on his back legs with his mane and tail flying in the wind. He was bigger than Ezzie, the real horse, and about to crush the little stick figure with a big screaming circle face who was right under his deadly hooves. I wrote “RICKY THE JERK” below the stick figure in big block letters. I was considering what would happen to Ricky next when another piece of paper covered my drawing.

Why is Ricky a jerk? asked the piece of paper in scribbly writing that I could barely read. I looked sideways at Ben, who was looking back at me with his head cocked. He had a serious expression but you never could tell with Ben. He might just be picking on me. But maybe he was really interested.

He just is a jerk, I wrote. He says mean things.

What kind of mean things? Ben’s piece of paper asked. CHG: THEN ASKED IN TURN (ETC.) Mean things about you?

I looked past Ben at the clouds I could see through the window at the end of our row. I did not want to tell anyone about it. Especially Ben.

He leaned over and bumped me with his shoulder, scribbled some more.

Come on, you can tell me. I’ll beat him up for you!

That made me have to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t giggle. None of my brothers would ever beat anybody up, not in a million years. Even Samuel wouldn’t do that.

Ben scribbled some more and passed me a picture of a stick figure hitting another stick figure that had Ricky’s screaming circle face with what might have been a baseball bat. I rolled my eyes at him.

WHAT DID HE SAY?? I WANT VENGEANCE!!! He’d crossed out “vengeance” three times and I still wasn’t sure it was spelled right. I sighed.

He called Grandpa a creepy old snake man and he said we’re backwoods hillbillies.

Ben took a long time staring at my piece of paper, and I hadn’t even told him the worst thing. Ricky also said I was fat but Ben said that too when he was mad at me. I didn’t want him to know it was worse than being a backwoods hillbilly.

He finally looked at me, then put his arm around my shoulder which startled me so much I nearly dropped my notebook. Then he bent over a new piece of paper and scribbled for a long time on it.

Ricky is just jealous because his dad is a drunk and they live in that crappy old trailer and he wishes he had an interesting family like YOU do, and that he lived in a nice big house like you.

Also, obviously Ricky thinks you are cute and he is too dumb to know how to tell you that.

Then he shut his notebook so hard that Grandma looked over at us and frowned, so we both sat up straight and put our eyes back on the preacher.

By the time the service was over we were all sore from the hard seats. People started milling around then breaking off into little groups to chat. Ben didn’t say a word to me about our paper talk. He and Joel ran outside with the West brothers fast as they could, and Albert followed them. So did Eddy, but I knew he was just wanting to escape somewhere by himself. Grandma and her old lady friends had their heads together up towards the front of the room. We’d be there forever, I thought. Grandma could talk to her friends all day long. I looked around for Lettie, who was the only kid my age. Lettie was kind of weird, so shy she would hardly say hello, but she liked horses too so at least we had one thing to talk about. I couldn’t find her or her parents, though.

I was about to go outside and see what my brothers were doing, hoping it didn’t involve Ben telling the rest of them about Ricky, when I heard Grandpa’s booming voice say Samuel’s name. Grandpa was standing on the end of our row, talking to a couple of men. I knew Mr. Raymond, one of the taking-turns-preaching deacons. I didn’t know the second man. He was short and skinny and his eyes kept darting around the room. I sat back down a few chairs away from them and pretended I was reading my notebook.

“He isn’t here,” Grandpa was saying. “I told him it was important to come to the service today so he could meet you. I am very disappointed in that boy.”

“That is a shame,” said the skinny man. His eyes kept darting around. They passed right over me.

“He needs to learn,” Mr. Raymond said. “I don’t think he’s taking it as seriously as he ought to.”

“He is not,” Grandpa said. “But he will start taking it seriously.”

“He’s vital,” said the skinny man. “There ain’t many of us left. That young fellow has a gift.”

“I thought his mother had a gift,” Grandpa said. “I still think she did.” He stopped. He didn’t say anything else for so long I snuck a peek out of the corner of my eye to be sure they hadn’t moved off. Then he said, “But she was stubborn and she wouldn’t use it like I taught her. Samuel is not going to do that. We are not going to let him be wasted.” His voice sounded weird and too quiet.

When I heard Samuel’s name again I looked over at them without thinking. Grandpa was staring at me. He took a few steps towards my seat and bent down over me.

“Jessie, that was a private conversation,” he said, low, his eyes locked on mine. “I don’t know what you overheard, but I want you to forget every word. Do you understand?” A LITTLE CONFUSED HERE ABOUT SPACIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JESSIE AND HER GRANDPA — IS JESSIE ALONE ON THE PEW — MAYBE MORE DETAILS HERE ABOUT THIS

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Do not tell your grandmother that we were discussing Samuel. Is that clear?”

I wanted to know why but didn’t dare ask. And I really wanted to know what he meant about Samuel’s mother. That would be my mother too. Nobody ever talked about her. My chest felt too tight, and my ears were burning like they’d caught fire. Grandpa had that mad face that meant absolutely no questions, and he stared right into my eyes until I said “Yes sir” again. Mr. Raymond and the skinny man were watching us.

“Now go outside and find your brothers,” Grandpa said. “We’ll be heading home in a few minutes.”

“Yes sir,” I said one more time, I and scooted towards the other end of our row so I could escape without getting too close to the skinny man and his darting eyes that watched me until I disappeared out the door.

Ben -the day they arrive – 2010

The house doesn’t feel like itself without Grandpa. I keep thinking he’s out in the garden, or maybe down at the barn. I want to go find him, let him know we’re home. I want him to tell me I need a haircut and ask if I’ve gotten a real job yet. He’ll remind me for the billionth time that he can get me and Joel both on at the textile plant if we’ll move back home. His old friend Mr. Martin is the hiring manager and they are always trying to find good help, he’ll say. Then he’ll give me that look. The one that says he’s not entirely sure I fit the description of “good help”. Not like Joel, who’s been dependable and trustworthy and on time for everything since we were kids. I’m going to miss making Grandpa despair of me. I’m also pretty sure he secretly enjoyed having someone to try and fix, especially after Samuel was gone.

Grandma has nearly vanished too. She appears and disappears. She isn’t saying much about Grandpa. She just ignores the big empty hole that’s in the middle of us. Lunch is ready when Joel and I arrive after our long drive up from Atlanta: fried chicken, green beans, potato salad, banana pudding and sweet ice tea. It makes the house smell like a normal day when we walk in the front door. Not like it’s the first day without Grandpa. She hugs us, kisses us both on the cheek and maneuvers the conversation away from Grandpa as quick as she can. Then she says she has to decide on what to wear to the funeral, and heads to her room.

Jessie comes galumphing down the stairs as we watch Grandma’s door shut. Her short spiky black hair stops us both in our tracks. Eddy warned us about what she’d done but it’s a shock to see. Joel is the first to recover. He grabs her and swings her around while he marvels at it.

“Look at you!” he says. “You’re a grown up! You’re gorgeous!”

“Jesus Christ, what did Grandma say?” I ask. Jessie’s smile transforms into a glare.

“She liked it. She said it suits me and it’s high time I did what I wanted with it, church or no church.”

“Good thing Grandpa had already keeled over – this would definitely have done him in,” I say, and immediately regret it when Jessie’s eyes fill up with tears.

“I’m kidding,” I tell her, and rough her sharp hair up a bit. “I’m joking! It was just a …surprise. I almost didn’t recognize you. I like it too, it suits you! You look like an artsy big city girl.” Oddly enough the edgy new look does suit her. She smiles as Joel narrows his eyes at me over her shoulder.

“Where is everybody?” I ask her, changing the subject. “I’m hurt we didn’t get a welcoming party.”

“Eddy took Albert to a movie to get his mind off Grandpa. Some alien invasion thing that’s on in Asheville. They’ll be back for dinner.”

“Here, sit down and have lunch with us. Tell us about what happened,” Joel says. Jessie’s eyes get teary again, but she plops down at the kitchen table and spoons a heap of potato salad onto her plate.

“Be nice to her,” Joel says into my ear as I’m getting ice out of the freezer and throwing it into the tall tea glasses. “She’s had an awful couple of days.”

“I know, I know,” I whisper back. I frown at him, but when I set Jessie’s tea down by her plate I give her a kiss on top of her new hair.

After we finish lunch Joel wants to walk down to the barn. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to see where Grandpa met his end. Jessie takes a breath, but nods.

“I’ll go with you,” she says. “I haven’t been inside yet.”

“Where did Grandma disappear off to?” I ask. “She’s taking a long time to pick out church clothes. The funeral isn’t till day after tomorrow.”

“Could you at least make an effort to not be an asshole, Ben?” Joel says, so sharply that I stare at him for a second. Testiness is not at all like Joel. I’m the testy one.

“She’s spent a lot of time back in her room since it happened,” Jessie says. “I don’t know what she’s doing but she must want to be alone.”

“I’m sure she does,” says Joel. “It’s a big shock.”

“You guys go on,” I tell them. “I’ll check in on her.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea,” Joel says, but he’s smiling a little at me. “Please try to cheer her up, not make her sorry we’re here.”

They head down to the barn, and I hesitate in the hallway. There’s something weird about the house, even beyond Grandpa not being here. It’s almost like I’m a stranger, like the house is watching me and making a determination that I don’t belong here anymore. Even worse, I agree with it. Everything is off kilter and strange. I feel a tiny shiver go down my spine, then roll my eyes at myself. It’s the situation. It’s awful and sad and everything seems wrong. This is normal, I tell myself.

Grandma’s door is shut, and I tap at it. I feel like an intruder but she answers right away, says “Come in” with the same strong firm voice she’s always had. I stick my head around the door. I was expecting her to be lying on the bed, lost in grief, but she’s sitting at her small desk in the corner of the room smiling at me. She’s looking tidy as ever with her neat blue cardigan and her gray hair wrapped up in its usual bun. There’s a black dress hanging on the wardrobe like an alibi.

“Hey Grandma,” I say. “Thanks for making us lunch. Are you okay?”

“Oh, Benny,” she says. “I was just looking at some old pictures.”

I shut the door gently behind me. “I didn’t know you kept photos in here,” I say. “I thought they were all out in the front room, in the bookcase.”

“Most of them are,” she says. She’s got several spread across the top of the desk, fanned out like a deck of cards. I bend over to get a better look. There’s one of Grandma and Grandpa right on top. They both look shockingly young, and must have been on the way to church. Grandma’s wearing a long dark skirt and jacket, and she’s staring seriously at the camera. Grandpa’s decked out in a snazzy striped suit, and he’s smiling almost shyly. He’s got an arm around her shoulders. That’s something I’ve never seen before.

“This was not long after we got married,” Grandma says. “He was an awfully good-looking young man.”

“He was,” I say. I pick it up to get a better view. “Wow – he actually looks like Eddy there. Or…Eddy looks like him.” It’s his height, I think, and his dark hair. The way he’s standing beside her, a little uncertain. I’d never have thought of Grandpa as being uncertain. He was uncertain’s polar opposite.

“They do favor,” Grandma says. “And not just in looks. I know it’s hard to believe they were anything alike, but when Jacob was young he wasn’t nearly as sure of himself. He learned that from the Church.”

She stares at the photo with a strange expression. Her eyebrows are scrunched up, her lips suddenly pressed tight. Then she practically smacks the photo down, and picks up one of us as kids. Very small kids, all dressed up in our Sunday best. We were lined up by height, little serious Eddy on one end ADD OR CHG, INDICATING THIS IS THE *HIGH* END OF THE HEIGHT SPECTRUM, GIVING US MORE CLUES ABOUT THEIR RELATIVE AGES OVERALL — HOW OLD IS JESSIE WHEN SHE HAS HER HAIR CUT, ETC. and teeny toddler Jessie on the other. I’m scowling at the camera. Jessie is clutching a raggedy stuffed toy sheep. I laugh. “Oh, look, it’s Sally,” I say. “I’d forgotten all about Sally. Remember how Jessie used to pitch massive fits if we were going somewhere and she couldn’t find Sally? We’d all have to stage a hunt for her.”

Grandma laughs too. “I had to sneak that sheep into the washing machine. Jessie didn’t want to part with her for a second and Sally would get so filthy she could nearly stand up by herself from the dirt.”

I pick up the picture for a better look, and almost miss seeing Grandma slide something back into the drawer. She’s quick as a poker shark, and I couldn’t tell who was in the photo. I caught the barest glimpse of someone standing alone. Black hair, a lot of green behind them. She innocently hands me another one. Albert when he was just a little boy, sitting on the porch with a white cat stretched out across his lap.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one,” I say. “Look how little he was. I don’t remember the cat either.”

“That’s Snowball. I brought him with me when Jacob and I got married. He was just a kitten then and Jacob wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t care for cats and didn’t want one in the house. We had quite a few…discussions about me having a cat. He believed wives are meant to obey their husbands, and thought I was going against his wishes because I wouldn’t give up Snowball. Or at least make him be a barn cat.” She chuckles. NEW PARAGRAPH NOT NEEDED?

“Of course I believed that too, believed he should be in charge since he was my husband. That’s what the church taught us. But I was away from my own family for the first time ever, and it was lonely and a little frightening. Snowball kept me company and was a friend to me. Jacob didn’t understand how I felt since he had God and his church people. He didn’t know what being lonely was.”

She sighed and then looked up at me with a smile. “I liked to think I changed his mind about the cat, but Snowball managed that by himself. He was quite a personable fellow. Jacob ended up taking to him, and I’d even catch him talking to Snowball now and then. He was a pretty old boy in this picture.”

I am struck by how she’s looking at the cat and not Albert with that fond smile. And I realize these pictures she’s got squirreled away must be her special ones.

“I find it hard to believe Grandpa ever changed his mind about anything,” I say, and she gives a little laugh.

“He did always firmly believe he was right. Whether he was or wasn’t.”

I spot the top half of another picture I’ve never seen. It’s partly hidden by a couple more of Young Grandpa and looks like a school picture, someone’s blonde hair and a corner of a pale cheek. Jessie is the only blonde girl in our family, and from the little bit that’s visible this girl looks too old to be Jessie. I pull it out before Grandma can spirit it away too. Then I realize I’m looking at half the blonde girl’s face. For a horrified second I think I’ve ripped it in two, until Grandma hands me the other half.

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen this,” Grandma says. “I shouldn’t have been hiding it back here.”

She slides the two halves together, and we both lean over to look. It’s a pretty, smiling girl, maybe 18, blue cheerful eyes and an open heart-shaped face. She does look a lot like Jessie, but it’s not Jessie. I draw in a breath.

“Is this Mom?” I ask. I’m nearly whispering. We only have one picture of her that I’ve ever seen, a tiny one where she’s sitting in the swing, so small it’s hard to make out her face.

“It is,” Grandma says. “That’s Sarah. She was in high school. It’s her senior picture.” She brushes the left half of the photo with one finger, touches Sarah’s paper cheek.

“Wow,” I say. I can’t quit staring at it. “Why have you kept it back here all this time?”

“Because your grandfather can’t bear to think about her,” Grandma says, then corrects herself. “Couldn’t. He didn’t want to talk about her, didn’t want to see pictures of her. Once she was…gone…he wanted to act like she’d never been here at all.” She takes a deep breath, keeps staring at Sarah. My mother.

“Like Samuel,” I say. “He wouldn’t ever talk about Samuel.” Grandma glances up at me, frowning.

“Yes, like Samuel. He couldn’t bear that either.”

“Well it was his own fault,” I say, not having any idea that’s about to come out of my mouth. Grandma keeps looking at the photo. I sit down on the edge of the bed, harder than I mean to. “Samuel was his fault. Was Mom his fault too? I guess it was him that tore her in half.” It’s strange to say Mom.

Grandma doesn’t answer for a minute. I’m starting to regret my chronic inability to keep my mouth shut. Then she says, “Sarah made her own choices, Benny. That’s one thing she never faltered in. She didn’t let anyone tell her what to do. I admired that about her, at least sometimes. But she also wouldn’t listen to anyone once she’d made her mind up.”

“That sounds just like Samuel,” I say. “And he’s gone too.”

Grandma looks up at me sharply, looks right into my eyes. Then she suddenly gets up from the desk, back straight and eyes clear, and says, “Let’s go make sure your room is ready.”

• Needs to be before Samuel and Albert in the church, and before Jacob taking them all to a service

Jessie 2004 – ten years old

I heard Samuel before I saw him. I’d made Albert come out to the barn to help me put Ezzie’s saddle on because I couldn’t do it by myself. I wasn’t tall enough to get it on her back, and I could never cinch it tight enough either. Eddy always saddled her for me and he’d let me try the cinch myself. Every single time I’d think I had it right, and every single time he’d test me by pulling on the straps. The whole saddle would slide around and end up sideways.

“You’re not quite strong enough just yet,” he’d tell me, pulling the wide strap though the metal rings again and tightening it up. “You’ll get there.”

I couldn’t ask Eddy this time, though. And I definitely couldn’t ask Grandpa. I wanted to ride up to the old church and neither one of them would let me do that alone. It was a long way up the mountain, and I wasn’t allowed to go further than the end of the pasture by myself.

I got the saddle off the sawhorse and carried it over to Ezzie’s stall. It was a lot heavier than it looked. The stirrups drug on the ground and banged against my legs. Albert was scratching Ezzie’s ears, paying no attention as usual.

“Albert, help me,” I said, letting the saddle slide into the floor. Dust and hay bits poofed up into the air. “I can’t do this myself, remember?”

He looked over at me. “Do what?” he said.

“Put her saddle on!”

“Oh,” he said, and picked it up off the floor. “Hold still,” he told Ezzie, and slung it easily onto her back. Albert was as tall as Eddy, and way older. He just didn’t act like it. She flattened her ears, annoyed at him, but didn’t move.

“I don’t know how to tie it on,” he said.

“You don’t tie it, you cinch it. I can do that, but I don’t think I can get it tight enough,” I told him. “Move.”

He stepped back, and I ran the leather cinch through the rings, careful to do them in the right order, and then tied the knot. I pulled the strap as hard as I could, but I could tell it was still too loose. Ezzie looked over her shoulder at me and shook her head.

“Just pull on these places so it’s really tight,” I said, showing him where. He pulled on each spot, and I checked by hanging off the saddle horn. The saddle stayed put and I smiled at Albert.

“That’s good!” I told him. “That’s as tight as Eddy gets it.”

He beamed at me. I didn’t mention that he really ought to know how to do this by now. Grandma always told us that Albert was special and we had to treat him differently than we did other grown ups. He needed a lot of praise and we shouldn’t upset him. If you upset Albert he’d pitch an absolute fit. He cried way more than I did. Ordinarily he was sweet natured, though, and easy to get along with. Even if it did usually seem like he was from another planet.

I got the bridle on without any trouble. Ezzie never minded that, and would put her head down so I could do it by myself

“We’ll take her outside and I’ll get on her there,” I told him. “I think you’ll need to give me a boost up, though.” I couldn’t wait to get taller.

“Okay,” said Albert, and pulled on the reins gently. “Let’s go, Ezzie!”

We were going out the door when I heard tapping coming from underneath Samuel’s big pile of junk over in the far corner of the barn. Tapping and humming. I knew it was Samuel. I also knew he was supposed to be up in his room doing the extra homework he got for skipping three algebra classes in a row. He wouldn’t tell us where he went instead of class. I expected Grandpa to be a lot madder at him about it. So did Ben.

“I’d be locked upstairs the rest of my life if he caught me doing that,” Ben said the night the principal called Grandpa. We were in the living room arguing about whose turn it was to pick a TV show. “I’d never be allowed to leave the house again. But when the Golden Child skips class he just gets patted on the shoulder and told to do his homework.”

“Well, you better not get caught doing that then, ” Samuel said. DELETE SPACE BEFORE QUOTATION MARKS; ALSO ADD MAYBE SAMUEL SAID *TO HIM* TO EMPHASIZE HE’S TALKING TO BEN HERE He said it like he was joking but he wasn’t smiling. “And I’m not the golden child. Trust me, you’re better off being you.”

Then he went up to his room even though he’d won the what-to-watch argument and Eddy had switched over to that UFO special on the Discovery channel.

Albert and Ezzie and I changed direction and went over to the pretend Time Machine instead of going out the door. I could see Samuel’s dirty white Keds sticking out from underneath it. I didn’t understand the time machine. Ben said there was nothing to understand, it was just Samuel being weird, as usual. Eddy said it wasn’t real but it didn’t hurt anybody and kept Samuel out of trouble. Joel said Samuel could do anything and one day he’d get it to work. It was a big pile of smashed together pieces from machinery parts and old junk. He’d been messing with it for so long that I could hardly remember it not being in the barn.

“What are you doing under there?” I asked. The tapping didn’t stop and I could still hear him humming. I reached down and jiggled his ankle. He jerked his foot away and something out of sight crashed. CRASHED TOO LOUD A NOISE HERE?

“Dammit,” I heard him say, and then he came sliding out from underneath the big pile of metal rubbing his head. He was wearing his Walkman and pulled the little headphones off as he sat up and looked at us. Ezzie sniffed his hair, and he rubbed her nose.

“Hey Samuel,” said Albert cheerfully. “You aren’t supposed to say dammit.”

“Are you supposed to say dammit?” Samuel asked him. Albert shook his head. “No.”

“Well then. We’ll just forget any of us said it,” Samuel told him. “You scared me. I had my headphones on and didn’t hear you guys.”

“Jessie shook your leg,” Albert told him.

“Sorry,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Just mildly concussed,” he said, smiling at me. He looked at Ezzie and her saddle, then looked back at me. “Are you going somewhere?”

“No,” I said.

“You seem to have saddled up Ezzie and it does look like you were headed out the door before you decided to give me a heart attack.”

“I’m just going for a ride around the pasture,” I said. “Albert helped me with the saddle. I couldn’t find Eddy.”

“You know Eddy’s upstairs doing his homework,” Samuel said. “And you always twirl your hair around your finger like that when you’re not telling the truth.”

I quit twirling my hair around my finger. “Well you’re supposed to be upstairs too doing all that extra math stuff,” I said.

“Right,” he said. He looked at me. I glared back at him. Albert scratched Ezzie’s ears and stared at the air over our heads.

“Have a good ride,” Samuel said finally, and tickled Ezzie under the chin. She snorted and started for the door, pulling Albert along with her. I ran after them before he could say anything else.

Albert gave me a boost into the saddle, and I headed Ezzie up the hill beside the barn. That part of the pasture ended at the woods way above the house, where I wasn’t supposed to go alone. I was diverting attention. You could still see us from the house and I wanted to be sure it looked like I was just riding the big loop around the far edges of the pasture. I nudged Ezzie with my heels and she broke into a reluctant bouncy trot, jerking at the reins in annoyance.

“Sorry Ez,” I said to her. “We need to get this over with so we can get to the good part.”

She glanced back at me and rolled her eyes.

“It is not a bad idea,” I said. “Nobody will suspect a thing and it will be fun!”

She gave me one of her annoyed snorts.

“Well, you’re not the one that will get into trouble if they catch us,” I said. “You get to have the fun without the consequences. No worries for you!”

Ezzie’s jarring trot got us to the old wire fence at top of the field pretty fast. That’s where the dark thick woods started. And it was almost where we were going. But first we had to go down through the pasture again as a decoy. I turned Ezzie around and we headed back along the edge of the woods, close to the fence. Riding beside the fence moved us farther away from the barn and the house as we went down the hill. Finally we came to the nearly hidden narrow stretch of grass where the pasture took a curve back towards the mountain, and then we were out of sight of anyone who might be watching.

I knew where the trail started because I’d walked it with my brothers the year before. I’d always wanted to ride Ezzie up there but knew better than to ask. The pasture was my limit. We stopped at the old overgrown gate that closed with a rusty chain looped over a hook. I was afraid if I got off Ezzie I wouldn’t be able to get back on again, but when she stopped and stood quietly beside the gate I realized I could use it to remount. I slid off, pulled the gate back far enough for Ezzie to get through, then drug it shut and hooked it again.

Once we were past the gate and I had climbed back onto Ezzie we headed up the trail. It was overgrown 2 MENTIONS OF OVERGROWN (WORD) IN SUCCESIVE PARAGRAPHS HERE and full of rocks and limbs so we went slow. The trees crowded in on both sides of us, reaching out with their gnarly arms. I kept having to duck so they wouldn’t hit me in the face. It didn’t take long to reach the old road. That was rocky too, full of potholes and weeds growing up in the middle. We had to stop a few times and pick our way around big fallen trees that were blocking the road. Being alone in the woods made me nervous. I could hear skittering creatures in the leaves and my own heart beating above the sound of Ezzie’s hooves crunching on the rocks and hard dirt. I tried not to think about how the skittering might be bears, or mountain lions, or wolves. I kept telling myself it was just squirrels. Ezzie would surely realize if there were bears or mountain lions or wolves that close. Realize, then run away, and I’d probably fall off and get eaten by some wild COMMA? bloodthirsty creature.

My favorite teacher at school, Miss Peake, told us if we were thinking about things that made us nervous or worried or sad, that we should redirect our thoughts. Think about something else so the thing that bothered you would fade away. Worrying about falling off Ezzie and getting eaten by a bear seemed like a good time to redirect my thoughts.

I had a purpose for this ride. I wanted to see the old church on top of Snake Mountain because that time I’d walked up there with my brothers I didn’t know anything about it. At least not the important things. Eddy said I’d been there a bunch of times when I was a baby. That was where we went to church a long long time ago. Of course I didn’t remember. It was what Grandma said yesterday that made me want to go see it again. To see what was there and how it felt.

I’d been sitting on the porch swing reading “The Road to Oz” ITALICS HERE INSTEAD? when Grandpa came up the front steps. He’d been down at the barn.

“What’s that you’re reading?” he asked. He paused to look at the cover, a big orange pumpkin house with windows and Jack Pumpkinhead peering out of the door. He frowned a little.

“It’s one of the Wizard of LEAVE OUT?: WIZARD OF Oz books,” I told him. The church said we weren’t supposed to read books about fantasy or magic or witches and wizards, but he made an exception for The Wizard of Oz. EMPHASIS He’d seen it at the movies way back when he was a kid, and he let us watch it every year when it came on television.

“One of them?” he asked. “I thought there was just the one. Dorothy and the tornado.”

“There are a bunch of them!” I said. “Dorothy goes back to Oz for Ozma’s birthday in this one, with the Shaggy Man and Button Bright.”

He looked at me blankly. “I did not know there were more of those stories,” he said.

“I remember them,” Albert said. He was standing right inside the screen door, watching us. “They came from the library.”

“Who was reading them?” I asked. “Did Eddy read them? He never told me that.”

“She used to read them,” he said. “She would read them to me sometimes. I remember that rainbow woman. That was her favorite.” Then he stopped, and looked at Grandpa.

“Grandma read them to you?” I asked. “Why didn’t she read them to us?”

“No, not her,” Albert said.

Suddenly Grandma pushed the door open from behind Albert and came out onto the porch.

“Albert, have you fed the horse yet?” She was looking at Grandpa, not at Albert.

“No ma’am,” he said.

“Well go do it right now,” Grandma said.

“Who was reading the Oz books?” I asked. “Who’s he talking about?”

Grandma and Grandpa were looking at each other. Albert jumped down the stairs and ran towards the barn like he was escaping.

“They need to know,” Grandma said to Grandpa. Her voice was calm but her eyes weren’t.

“They do not,” Grandpa said. “It’s not time.”

“Not time? ADD?: SHE SAID (TO INDICATE GRANDMA IS TALKING BACK STILL) When IS the time? Will it be time after the same thing happens to Samuel because you are a stubborn old fool who believes he has all the answers? How on earth do you think this is going to end differently?”

“I know what we are meant to do,” Grandpa said. “She paid the price for doubting it. Samuel will not. This is how we make it right.”

They were glaring at each other, neither one of them moving. I suddenly thought of our cats fighting, facing off with their ears flat, ready to attack. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so scary.

“You are not taking him to that church,” Grandma said. “You promised that you wouldn’t. I won’t stand for it.” Her face was white. She had her hands clenched. I tried to make myself even smaller in the swing.

“Opal, we have to let the Lord take control,” Grandpa said. His voice was oddly gentle. “That’s more important than what I promised. He only wants the best for all of us. This is what He means for Samuel to do. It will set everything right again.”

Grandma drew a breath just as The Road to Oz QUOTES OR ITALICS HERE fell off my lap and landed with a thud onto the porch. They both turned towards me. ADD? IT’S AS IF They’d forgotten I was there.

“Jessie, go inside,” Grandpa said. “Right now. This is not your concern.”

“What church?” ADD? I SAID I scrabbled for my book.

“It is her concern,” said Grandma. “It concerns them all, and you can’t keep hiding what happened up there.”

I knew she meant the church on the mountain. I clutched the book tight against my chest, wanting to run away like Albert but wanting to know what they meant even more.

“The old church,” Grandma said. “The one we used to go to. The one where your…”

“THAT’S ENOUGH”, Grandpa boomed, making us both jump. “We are not having this conversation and if you do not get inside of that house immediately, Jessie, I will get the belt.”

The belt was all the threat I needed. I ran for the door and let it slam behind me, leaving them still facing each other down.

Redirecting my thoughts had taken my mind of CHG: OFF getting eaten by wild animals, but I was getting tired, and so was Ezzie. She walked slower and slower, and I wished I’d remembered to pack something to eat. And something to drink. I knew better than to drink out of a stream because our Health teacher had given us a lesson about all the icky invisible things in mountain streams that would make you sick if you drank the water, but I was getting thirsty enough to not care. I didn’t remember it being so far. The sun was suddenly a lot lower in the sky and I was going to be in really big trouble if anyone realized I was still gone at supper time. I was starting to wonder if we should just give up and turn around when Ezzie pricked her ears up and turned sideways in the old road, looking behind us to where it disappeared around a curve.

“What are you doing?” I said to her, pulling on the reins. “What is it?” She looked happy about whatever was back there, at least. She wouldn’t look happy about a bear.

When Samuel came around the corner I was too relieved to be mad at first. He waved at us, and then I got mad.

“You followed us!”

“I did,” he said, catching up and patting Ezzie’s neck. “Somebody told me you were just going to ride around the pasture, yet here you are out in the middle of the woods.” He smiled at me, but his eyebrows were scrunched up. “What are you doing up here?”

“None of your business,” I told him. I nudged Ezzie with my heels but she just stood there letting Samuel pet her.

“It’s kind of my business,” he said. “You’re ten years old. You can’t just go wandering off up the mountain by yourself.”

HOW OLD IS SAMUEL?

Samuel was looking at me with that expression he’d always get when he was trying not to laugh, but there was something else too. Something serious.

“I want to know what happened,” I told him. “Everyone is always keeping secrets.”

“That’s true,” he said. “So you’re going up to the old church?”

“Yep,” I said. “You need to get out of our way.”

“What do you think you’ll find?” he asked. That was a good question. I thought about it.

“I don’t know,” I finally told him. “But I do know it’s got something to do with what happened to her. Our mom.”

It was weird to say that. Our mom. I was a baby when she died. She’d always just been a big empty space, and that tiny photo on the bookshelf. A space everyone pretended wasn’t there.

Samuel stood looking up at me for a minute, scratching Ezzie’s ears.

“Can I go with you?” he asked. “It’s kind of a long way to go by yourself.”

I considered it. I’d wanted to go on my own but having somebody who could maybe keep me from getting eaten by a bear seemed like a good idea. And Samuel would also keep me from getting in too much trouble if Grandma and Grandpa found out. Samuel could get away with anything. He’d make sure I got away with it too.

“Okay,” I said. “I guess so.”

“Good answer!” he said, and tugged at Ezzie’s bridle. She snorted and tossed her head, but followed him.

“You can ride with me,” I said. “There’s room for both of us.”

“Ezzie might dispute that,” he said. “It’s okay, I like to walk.”

We didn’t say anything else for awhile. I was thinking about the secrets. Our dad was dead too – he died in a car wreck before I was even born – but we knew what had happened to him. His name was Robert. Grandpa said he’d been drinking, and drinking was a very bad thing. Eddie had an old watch that belonged to him. It didn’t run and he kept it in a cigar box with his other special things. A few arrowheads, an old matchbox race car, a cracked compass. He wasn’t a mystery like our mom was. Nobody ever talked about her. Nobody ever said what happened.

Samuel pulled a canteen of water and some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of his backpack. He passed one up to me as we walked.

“I had to sneak those out of the kitchen,” he said. “I was afraid you’d get hungry, though. It’s a long trip.”

“I am hungry,” I said. “I didn’t think to bring anything. Thanks.”

It seemed to take forever to get there. It was warm and all the bugs in the woods were buzzing. Once I’d eaten my sandwich Ezzie’s rocking gait started making me sleepy. I was thinking I better get down and walk before I fell off when Samuel reached up and took hold of her bridle.

“There it is,” he said.

I could see it through the trees. It looked like I remembered. Not very big for a church, but definitely more like a real church than the community center where we went now. It had a tall steeple that was tilting sideways a little, and dark pointy windows, and rock steps up to the door. The steps were missing big hunks. Samuel led us into the weedy COMMA?overgrown yard.

“Can we go inside?” I asked. We’d just looked at the outside of it last summer. Eddy said it was too dangerous to go inside.

Samuel stared up at it for a minute with his head cocked a little sideways. “Sure,” he finally said.

He helped me slide off Ezzie and tied her reins to one of the metal rails that were cemented into the steps, close to the bottom so she could reach the tall grass. I started up and he put a hand on my arm. I was a couple of steps above him so AGE? we were eye to eye.

“First, you have to promise me you’ll be careful. No dashing off by yourself in there. It’s a big mess, and the floors are probably rotting out. Plus no telling what kind of creatures have turned it into their home.” His green eyes were staring right into mine. I felt a little shiver. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.

“Ok,” I said. OKAY? “I promise.”

“Good,” he said. “Although Ben would be much more of a worry than you are, honestly. BEN’S AGE HERE? Still, if anything happens to you Grandpa will kill me. I won’t ever be able to go home again.”

He gave me a kind of funny look, then said, “Let’s go!” And headed up the steps so fast I had to take two at a time to keep up with him.

He paused at the big wooden door like he was listening for something, then turned the handle. I was afraid it would be locked, but the door creaked open when he pulled on it. I tried to see LOOK? around him, but it was so dark inside I couldn’t see MAKE OUT? anything.

“Hang on,” he said. He rummaged around in his pack, then pulled out a flashlight. NO NEW PARAGRAPH?

“Always be prepared!” he said, and turned it on. There was a little entryway in front of us, separate from the rest of the church. The flashlight beam lit it up and I could see leaves and dirt and cobwebs all over the place.

“Ewww,” I said. The cobwebs were enormous, hanging down nearly to Samuel’s head, and I didn’t want to think about how big the spiders must be.

“We don’t have to go inside,” Samuel said, looking down at me. “We can just give it a look from here.”

“No, I want to go in. I’m not scared,” I said. I was a little scared.

“Of course you’re not,” he said. “I don’t think you’re scared of anything.”

I knew that wasn’t true – I was scared of everything – but it made me happy that Samuel thought I was brave.

“Come on, let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, and let LED the way through the leaves and dirt and cobwebs, picking his way along carefully. I followed as close behind him as I could get. I wanted to grab onto his shirt but that wouldn’t be brave.

When we got through the entranceway and to the row of pews closest to the door we could see a lot better. There was so much light coming through the big broken windows on both sides of the church that Samuel turned the flashlight off. It was a mess, pews on their sides and turned over backwards, beer cans and bottles and all sorts of trash in the floor.

“Wow,” I said. “What happened?”

Samuel was looking around slowly. He took so long to answer that I’d opened my mouth to ask him again when he finally said, “Everybody left.”

“How come?” I asked. He looked at me.

“You were just a baby, way too little to remember this place. I barely remember it. I think I was about six when they stopped having services here. GOOD TO HAVE YEARS OF AGE HERE Well, not only stopped – they deserted it. Obviously.”

“But why?”

He didn’t answer, just picked his way up the middle aisle, past the crazy pews and through the leaves and papers and stuff. I pushed a book that was open facedown on the floor with my sneaker. Its pages were torn and damp. It was a hymnal, but not the one our church used now. I bent down for a closer look and Samuel said, “Be careful – no telling what’s hiding under all this stuff.”

I stepped around the book and followed him up to what used to be the stage. STAGE? (BUT I THINK A KID LIKE JESSIE MIGHT CALL IT THAT, NO MATTER WHAT THE OFFICIAL NAME (CHANCEL)) The pulpit was knocked over, like everything else. I saw a few pieces of loose paper off to one side and picked up one that didn’t look like anything would be waiting underneath it to jump out at me.

“September 18, 1994,” I read. “Was that the last time they had church here?”

“It must have been,” Samuel said. He looked over my shoulder. “That sounds about right. They just left everything here that last day. This looks like somebody’s notes.”

“Why did they do that? Leave it all?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, reading the notes. “They’ve got Grandpa listed as the preacher. I can’t make out their scribbles about the sermon, though. This handwriting is worse than Ben’s, and the ink’s nearly faded away.”

He sat down on the edge of the stage, and after trying to knock some of the dust off I sat down beside him. He folded up the notes and stuck them in his pack.

“Do you think Grandpa would tell us what happened?” I asked. “He must have been here that day.”

“Don’t ask him,” he said, so sharply I flinched. “For one thing we aren’t supposed to be here. And you know he doesn’t talk about the snake church. He doesn’t want you…us…to know about it. About what went on. You don’t need to know. It isn’t good. Wasn’t good.”

DEAL WITH “…” PROBLEMS LATER

“Do you know what went on?” I could tell he knew what went on. He wouldn’t look at me, just stared off at one of the broken windows. He sighed, and said, “I know enough. And I hate to play the ‘you’re too young’ card kiddo, but you are too young. It’s way too much, and things are going to have to settle down before we can talk about them.”

“What do you mean, settle down? What things? Is something happening? Is it about you?”

He finally looked over at me and gave a little laugh. “Jesus, Jessie, you are too smart for your own good. Nobody is pulling anything over on you, are they?” He rumpled my hair up, which normally would make me mad, but the look on his face worried me. He seemed far away and tired and it scared me.

“It is about you, isn’t it? That’s what I heard Grandma and Grandpa arguing about. About Grandpa taking you to the church, and Grandma was mad about it and said the same thing would happen to you…what thing? What’s going to happen to you?” My eyes were stinging and I swiped at them. Samuel stared at me, then hopped down off the stage. He stood in front of me so we were face to face, and took hold of my hands.

“Listen to me,” he said, staring right into my eyes again. “I can’t tell you what’s going on, Jessie, not right now. But I can tell you that everything will be fine. Nothing is going to happen to me, I’m making sure of that.”

“What would happen? How are you making sure?”

“I can’t tell you that either, but I’ve got a plan. An escape route. And some help.” He grinned at me, looking more like our normal COMMA cheerful Samuel. “Grandpa does want me to do something with the church, and I don’t want to do it. It’s really important to him. You know how he is. Everything’s supposed to be like he wants it to be. He thinks he’s always right and that God’s telling him what to do, so he has no choice but to do it.”

“You don’t think God’s telling him what to do?” I was afraid to even ask that for fear God would strike me down, or Grandpa would read my mind and get the belt.

“No. I don’t. I know Grandpa believes it, but I don’t think it’s true. I can’t let him force me to be this person he thinks I am. I’m not that person.”

I couldn’t do anything but stare at him. The idea that Grandpa might be wrong was crazy. We all knew Grandpa was never ever wrong. GOOD KID THOUGHT

He was still holding my hands and squeezed them, almost too hard.

“One day I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “I promise. But not yet. I just want you to know that it will be okay, and you don’t have to worry. No matter how things turn out. Even if someday I’m not around to remind you.”

“Why wouldn’t you be around?” My eyes were stinging again. He let go of my hands and said, “No reason! None at all! I just mean one day you’ll be grown up and off on adventures of your own and you’ll leave all us behind. Jessie the Magnificent!”

He grabbed me and swung me down from the stage so fast it made me laugh.

“Come on,” he said, “we better get back home or I’m going to be in big trouble yet again! Me, not you, of course. You’re just an innocent little girl and would never run off alone to a haunted church on the mountain!”

QUESTION: IS CHURCH RIGHT ON TOP OF MTN.?

I laughed as we hurried out the door and into the sunshine, glad to be getting out of there and leaving the ghosts behind. Ezzie looked up at us and nickered, stomping a foot like she was agreeing. As Samuel gave me a boost onto the saddle I looked back at the church one more time, then we were headed off back down the old road a lot quicker than we’d come up it.

Albert – 2004

Samuel is in the barn. I don’t see him at first. I’m taking Esmeralda inside for her dinner. Ezzie has grain for dinner every night. I always put the grain into her big blue bucket. It’s my job. I like this job. Ezzie likes me to scratch her ears when she eats.

It makes me jump when I hear Samuel say “Hey, Albert.”

He’s sitting on the floor beside his pile of metal. Ezzie walks over to him and sticks her white nose in his hair. He rubs her under the chin and she snorts at him.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Working,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“Giving Ezzie her dinner,” I tell him. Ezzie bobs her head up and down. Ezzie is very smart.

“Yum,” he says. “You’re a lucky girl, Ezzie!”

I get her big blue bucket. I open a sack of feed and dip in the shiny silver scoop. I pour the feed into her bucket. It rattles and rattles and dust poofs up. She smells Samuel’s hair one more time then she follows me to her stall. She pokes her nose into the bucket.

I look at Samuel over the stall door while Ezzie eats and I scratch her ears.

“Pa says that is a waste of time,” I tell him. “Pa says you should be doing your homework.”

“Does he?” Samuel says. He picks up a pair of pliers and bends something on the edge of the metal thing.

“He says you have more important things you need to be doing.”

Samuel nods. FROM BEHIND? PROSTRATE POSITION NOW?

“Do you have more important things?” I ask him.

“Nope, he tells me. “This is the most important thing.”

“It’s not more important than homework,” I tell him. I scratch Ezzie’s ears some more.

He smiles at me. IN FRONT THEN? “Lots of things are more important than homework,” he says. “You’re lucky you don’t have homework anymore.”

I think about that. I did not like homework. I did not like school. I am too old to go to school now. I am lucky.

Samuel fiddles with the metal thing. It’s tall. Nearly as tall as I am. It has four sides. It’s rusty. Maybe it used to be red. It has a little door. COMMENT: DESCRIP OF TIME MACHINE! HAS A *DOOR* (PORTAL)

“What goes inside it?” I ask him. I scratch Ezzie’s ears. She snorts. She keeps eating.

“I’ll go inside it,” Samuel says. He grins at me.

I stare at it.

“Why?” I ask him. I don’t think he’ll fit inside. It’s not that tall.

“I want to see where it will take me,” he says. He gets up, dusts off his jeans. He has holes in his knees. COMMENT: BEEN ON THE GROUND A LOT WORKING ON IT.

I remember.

“Oh! Is it a Tardis?” I ask.

He’ll fit inside if it’s a Tardis.

He laughs.

“I really don’t know what it is, buddy,” he tells me. “I’m just experimenting.”

Ezzie is finished eating her dinner. She bumps me with her head. She wants to go back outside.

Samuel walks over to us, leans on the stall rail, stares me in the eyes.

“Albert, can you keep a secret?” he asks. “It’s important. And you’ll like it. But if I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else.”

Ezzie has stopped bumping me with her head. She’s looking at Samuel too. She never tells secrets.

“Okay,” I say. “I won’t tell anybody.”

He smiles at me. “Good,” he says. “I want to tell you because I know you’ll believe me.”

I always believe Samuel.

“You’ve had strange things happen too,” he says. He scratches Ezzie’s ears. “Like how you remember that other time. Your other family.”

I’m not supposed to talk about them.

“Pa says they are off limits,” I tell him. “Pa says Satan puts them in my head.”

Samuel pats my arm. “I know he does, buddy. But he isn’t always right about everything.”

Pa is supposed to always be right about everything.

“I think you’re remembering something that really happened,” Samuel says. “I think you’ve tapped into …something I’m trying to tap into. I think maybe you can help me.” COMMENT: COOL DEV!

I know it really happened.

I want to help Samuel. I want to keep his secret.

Joel – the night before Jacob’s funeral – 2010

Joel can’t sleep. He and Ben are back in their childhood bedroom, a small upstairs room with two windows looking out across the back field and beyond the barn to the edge of the dark woods that climb up Snake Mountain. It’s nearly midnight and they have to get up early in the morning for the funeral but no amount of slow breathing or counting backwards is going to calm down his brain. The more he tries to shut it off the wider awake he is.

The windows are open and a breeze drifts in carrying the strong sweet smell of the lilac bushes that grow in front of the porch. Insects are chirping and trilling as if they are trying to tell him something. Some secret he can’t decode.

Ben is a dark motionless blob in the twin bed across the room, his head buried under the covers. Their matching comforters are the same ones they used when this was still home: a beige desert background, multiple identical cowboys galloping along on brown horses, twirling lariats looping through streaks of red sunsets, over and over. Joel briefly wonders how the material has held up so well all these years, and why even as teenagers they never moved beyond cowboys with lariats for their bedroom decor, but he doesn’t want to go down another endless rabbit hole of thoughts. He tries pulling the comforter over his head too, hoping this will indicate to his brain that it’s time to shut down.

It doesn’t. In a minute he’s flung it off again, and sits up. He keeps hearing creaking noises that sound like they’re coming from down the hall. The old house has always been full of noises. Creaking noises, snapping noises, thumping noises. Usually faint and indistinct, normal old-house sounds, but sometimes they would morph into sighs, murmurings, and distant footsteps that seemed to simultaneously come from both the hallway and the third floor that’s above his head. They were the sounds that Samuel used to weave into his terrifying ghost stories back when they were all here together.

He listens closely. Makes out something like a very light tread. Down the hallway, beyond their closed door but getting almost imperceptibly closer. Suddenly the whispery footsteps pause right outside the door. Joel clutches the cowboy comforter, twists the galloping horses tightly in both fists. When the door moves silently inward he holds his breath. His ten-year-old self is frozen, OKAY, IN SAME SECTION I BELIEVE, SAYS HE IS 13???? unable to scream as a dark fluid form peers around the edge of the door just like the countless nightmares he’s had about the things that have always crept around this house.

“Oh, hey, you are awake,” whispers Eddy.

“Jesus!” Joel just barely manages not to shriek. “What are you doing? You scared the fuck out of me!”

“Oh, sorry,” Familiar Eddy materializes out of the darkness and the shapeless terrifying form vanishes. “I should have knocked but I didn’t want to wake you guys up if you were asleep.”

“Giving me a heart attack is so much better,” Joel says, then glances over at Ben, whose head has appeared from underneath his covers. “What’s going on?” Ben asks.

“Eddy can’t sleep so he scared the shit out of me,” Joel tells him.

“Just like old times!” Ben says, sitting up and detangling himself from the cowboys. “Except it was always Samuel scaring the shit out of us.”

“You’re awfully perky for someone who just got woken up,” Joel says.

“I can’t sleep either,” says Ben. “I was trying to count sheep. I don’t know why people think that works. I never can figure out what they are supposed to be doing as you count them.”

“They aren’t supposed to be doing anything,” says Joel. “That’s the point. You get so bored you finally fall asleep.”

“It was very boring,” Ben agrees. “They were just standing around. And it definitely did not put me to sleep. It only made me want to shout at them to do something. Entertain me!”

Eddy is staring at both of them, perplexed.

“Oh, come on,” Ben says to him, scooting over on his bed and patting the mattress. “Sit down. You can entertain us instead.” QUESTION: HOW OLD IS EDDY TO THEM?

“That doesn’t sound very restful,” Eddy says, but he sits down.

“It’s like we never left,” Ben says. “Remember all those nights nobody could sleep and we’d all wander around into each other’s rooms? Get a card game going, listen to the radio? I used to think everybody’s family did that. It was a shock to realize we were kind of weird.”

“It wasn’t that often,” Eddy says. “Just once in a great while. Usually right before I had a big exam so I’d be good and exhausted the next day.” COMMENT: DESCRIP OF EXAM CONTRAST TO TWINS? LIKE ‘I WAS 4 YEARS OLDER THAN YOU AT THE TIME. HAD HARDER EXAMS! mADE A — BY THE WAY, THANKS.

“I remember it happening a lot,” Joel says. COMMENT: INTERESTING CONTRAST OF MEMORIES “We probably all needed mass treatment for insomnia. I was always falling asleep at my desk at school. Mr. Stone would smack me on my shoulders with a ruler if I did it in his class.”

“Oh, I remember that,” Ben says. “He couldn’t get away with hitting kids now.”

“He shouldn’t have been getting away with it then,” Eddy says. DID HE ALSO HAVE STONE FOR TEACHER?

“He was a mean old bastard,” says Ben. “We expected it from him.”

“At least he never told Grandpa,” says Joel. “I’d have gotten worse than a smack with a ruler. Grandpa wouldn’t have spared the actual rod.”

“He told Grandma,” Eddy says. “She didn’t tell Grandpa.”

“What?” says Joel. “How did you know that? When did he tell her?”

“I was there. She’d come to pick me up for a dentist appointment and he STONE (WOULD EDDY JUST CALL HIM STONE AND NOT MR. STONE?) stopped her in the hallway. He told her you’d been falling asleep in class and said she needed to make sure you were getting to bed on time. She told him she’d take care of it, thanked him for letting her know, and marched out with me right behind her.”

“But she didn’t say a thing to me about it,” says Joel, then pauses. “Oh, wait – she did start making us turn off the TV earlier, remember that?”

“I do,” Ben says. “It meant we didn’t get to watch that police show that came on at 10. What was it called? Oh, LA Streets. ITALICISE That was your fault? I loved that show!”

“I thought she’d decided it was too violent,” Joel says. “Isn’t that what she told us?”

“Did she?” Ben gives it some thought.

“Whether she did or didn’t, the point is she didn’t tell Grandpa,” Eddy says. “She kept it to herself.”

“Lucky for you,” Ben says.

“But we kept staying up half the night anyway,” Joel says. “And Samuel kept telling us awful stories and scaring us till we didn’t think we’d ever be able to sleep again.”

“Remember the Confederate soldiers?” says Ben. “Walking on the roof? Because they were killed in a battle nearby and couldn’t find their way back home, so they had to go back and forth across our roof for eternity? And we could hear their feet scraping along up there!”

“That didn’t even make sense,” Eddy says. “The closest Civil War battles were around Asheville. Definitely too far for lost ghosts to end up on our roof.”

“If we’d not been too tired to stay awake in History class, we would have known that,” says Ben, and they all start to laugh.

“Shhhh,” Eddy says. “Don’t wake anybody else up.”

“Remember that time we were in your room, Eddy, and he climbed up the front porch pillar? And his face suddenly came floating up at your window, out of nowhere? We all screamed like 13 year old girls at a Hannah Montana concert!” Joel feels the chills running down his spine even as he’s saying it, but it’s also hilarious, and they all start laughing again. JOEL IS 10?

“And Grandpa came stomping up the stairs and flung the door open, and said if we didn’t shut up and go to bed right that instant, we were all sleeping in the barn,” says Ben. “Which actually sounded great but I wasn’t about to tell him that.”

“I don’t think I’ve recovered yet,” says Eddy. “I couldn’t get my breath – I thought I was having a heart attack.”

The door creaks and begins to swing open, and they all jump, which makes them laugh even more. Jessie’s pale face peers around the edge. Her spiky hair is sticking up in clumps and her eyes are puffy and red.

“What are you guys doing?” she says. “I just got to sleep and you woke me back up!” HOW OLD IS JESSIE HERE?

“Oh, sorry,” Joel says. “We were just…reminiscing.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jessie says, sitting down with force on Joel’s bed. “That’s the kind of reminiscing that used to get us all in trouble. I’m surprised Grandma didn’t hear you down in her room.”

“Or Albert,” says Eddy. “He must be completely knocked out.”

“It was a long day,” Joel says. “And tomorrow’s going to be even longer.”

“It will be so strange seeing everyone again,” Jessie says. She’s wrapped herself up with the bottom half of Joel’s cowboy comforter, and leans up against the wall. “I can’t even think of the last time I went to the church.”

“Before Samuel left,” says Ben. “At least that was the last time I went.”

“I wish we could tell him,” Jessie says. She looks out the dark window. “He needs to know about Grandpa.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you don’t leave a forwarding address,” Ben says. “You don’t get to hear about out DELETE: OUT all the things that went on after you left.”

“He still needs to know,” Joel says. “We should figure out how to find him.”

“I google him once in awhile,” Eddy says. “Nothing ever comes up.” AGAIN I WONDER HOW OLD EVERYONE IS

“So do I,” says Ben. “He’s not using his real name, obviously. But he could contact us. We’re all right here. Right where he left us.”

They fall silent. Then Eddy says, “That damn time machine,” and they all laugh.

“I believed it,” Joel says. He doesn’t say that some tiny little part of him still believes it, or at least believes the mysterious magical time machine had something to do with Samuel vanishing without a trace all those years ago. CONFUSING SENTENCE? MAYBE CHG TO SOMETHING LIKE: HE DOESN’T ADD THAT SOME PART OF HIM ALSO BELIEVES THE MYSTERIOUS MAGICAL TIME MACHINE HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH SAMUEL VANISHING WITHOUT A TRACE ALL THOSE YEARS AGO

“Yeah, you were always a gullible little idiot,” Ben says. “You always stuck up for him. Remember that Monopoly game? That one when I hit you because of the time machine?”

“Yeah, I’m not forgetting that,” Joel tells him. “That was traumatic.”

“How could you have believed Samuel made a time machine? What were we, like 12? Definitely old enough to know better.” Ben looks torn between laughter and something more complicated and dark. ARE THEY 12 NOW? I THOUGHT THE TWINS WERE 10 PER JOEL’S FORMER COMMENT

“Joel just wanted to change things,” Eddy says. “Like Samuel wanted to change things. Make everything right again.”

Of course Joel remembers the Monopoly game. Of all the countless Monopoly games they used to play, that one would always stand out. It was a rainy, dreary Saturday a few weeks after he and Ben had turned 13. Joel was in the living room reading a book about volcanos while Albert and Ben watched an old western that was full of galloping horses but no discernible plot. Eddy was working on his math homework at the desk in the corner. Jessie was in the kitchen trying to make cookies, and their grandmother was in her sewing room.

The peaceful whirring of the sewing machine had nearly put Joel to sleep when Samuel came barging through the front door dripping wet and flung himself down on the couch between the twins.

“Get away from me,” Ben said. “You’re getting water all over the place!”

“It’s pouring out there,” Samuel said. “I just wanted to share!”

“You idiot,” said Joel, scooting as far from Samuel as he could. “Now my book is wet!”

“Sorry,” Samuel said, laughing at them. “I had to get out of the barn fast. The roof is leaking again and it’s pouring right down on the time machine. I was afraid I’d get electrocuted and end up somewhere I don’t want to go. Like Spain during the Inquisition.”

Joel was trying to mop the rain off his book, but stopped and stared at Samuel. “Could that really happen? Do you think it’s going to be working soon?”

“Hopefully getting electrocuted won’t happen,” said Samuel. “But I’m sure it’s not going to take much longer to get it working. It just needs a tiny bit of fine-tuning. When it’s not getting drenched from that leak.”

“You are insane,” Ben said, glaring at Samuel from the corner of the couch.

Samuel swatted his leg. “If you don’t quit calling me names I’m going to send you somewhere terrible when I finally get it working.”

“Well, I’m worried,” Ben said. WITH A SMIRK? “I bet I don’t sleep a wink tonight.”

“Let’s see, where should you end up…maybe Stonehenge. Way back when they sacrificed people to the bloodthirsty gods.”

“I don’t think anybody got sacrificed at Stonehenge,” Eddy said.

“How do you know? Nobody knows what happened back when it was a shiny new ritualistic spot. Ben would be a perfect sacrificial victim!”

“Shut up,” Ben said, shoving Samuel. BEN SITS BESIDE SAMEUL ON COUCH?

“You don’t think it’s going to work?” Joel asked Ben.

“For God’s sake, Joel, Samuel can’t make a time machine. Nobody has ever been able to make a time machine – not even Einstein could make a time machine. And I hate to tell you this, but Samuel is no Einstein.”

“Oh, yes, I am,” Samuel said. “Just you wait.”

“If it does work maybe you’ll pass Science,” Eddy told him. “The way things are going that might be your only hope.”

“I think he can do it,” Joel said to Ben. “Even if you don’t believe him, I do.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ben said. “I’m surrounded by lunatics.”

“You watch your mouth, young man,” said Samuel. “What if Grandma heard you say that? Or Grandpa, even worse. Good thing he’s helping Mr. Raymond with the church stuff for tomorrow.” He reached over and patted Joel’s head. “And you get to go anywhere you want, buddy. ADD?: HE SAYS ABOUT HIS MACHINE. Wherever your heart desires.”

Albert turned away from the TV and said, “Can you send me back to my parents? Before the War? I really miss them sometimes.”

“Oh my God, Albert, you are with your parents,” Ben said. “You know that. You’ve never been anywhere else but here.”

“I have too, Ben. I have been somewhere else.” Albert was getting that teary look on his face.

“Here we go,” Samuel whispered to Ben. “Now you’ve gotten him going. Boy, are you going to be in trouble when he starts crying.”

“It was not me, and you know it,” Ben hissed back.

“Of course you have been somewhere else,” Eddy said to Albert. “We know you miss them.”

“Nobody believes me,” Albert said, his eyes filling.

“We all believe you,” said Samuel. “Ben just likes to tease you. He knows you’ll fall for it. Why don’t we play Monopoly? And somebody tell Jessie it smells like her cookies are burning.”

Everybody had their favorite piece, and they never switched around. Eddy was the top hat, Samuel was the race car, Joel was the Scottie dog, Ben was the flat iron, Albert was the wheelbarrow, and Jessie was the horse. COOL DETAIL! Samuel was always the banker, and Eddy was always in charge of the property cards and helping Albert navigate the board. The games generally ended up with everyone but Samuel and Ben bankrupt, and the two of them battling it out to the finish.

Jessie came in from the kitchen with a plate of partially burnt oatmeal cookies, and they all took their usual spots in the floor. Ben won the preliminary roll and got to go first.

“I don’t understand what you’re going to do with the time machine,” Jessie said to Samuel. Ben rolled the dice so hard one bounced off the board and across the floor.

“Invalid roll,” said Samuel. “It’s a mystery. ADD?: HE ANSWERS JESSIE Other than getting revenge on Ben.”

“But how does it work?” she asked.

“It doesn’t work,” Ben yelled. They all jumped.

“Jesus, Ben, calm down,” said Samuel. “Roll again.”

“You are such an ass,” said Ben. “You get everybody all excited and it’s for nothing. You just want everyone to think you’re special!”

“He IS special,” Joel said, “and it WILL work, and you’re the one who is an ass, Ben! Samuel can take us wherever we want and I’m going to get him to take me back to the day Mom died! I can tell her I’m sick and she’ll stay home from church and that will fix everything!” JOEL KNOWS THAT HIS MOM DIED FROM SNAKEBITE AT THE CHURCH, THEN

They all stared at Joel, speechless. Ben was the first one to unfreeze, and he punched Joel in the arm, hard.

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard in my entire life,” Ben said, his voice shaking and getting louder. “What’s the matter with you?”

Joel stared at his twin, shocked. They rarely got into actual fist fights. He clutched his arm.

“It is not a stupid idea!” he yelled. “It’s a good idea, and you’re not going with me, either!”

“Nobody is going, you idiot!” Ben shouted back, and slung the dice so hard against the wall that they flew halfway back across the room and nearly hit Albert.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Eddy said. “What is up with you, Ben?”

“Nothing,” said Ben. “I’m just tired of hearing about it! Samuel made all this up and everybody goes on and on like it’s an actual real thing. It’s ridiculous, and I’m sick of it.”

His eyes were red. Joel started to ask if he was going to cry but thought better of it even though his arm hurt and he wanted to hurt Ben back. Ben grabbed his money and slammed it down on the table. “I quit,” he said. “Have fun.”

“Oh, come on,” Samuel said. “Don’t quit, I’m sorry!”

“You’re always sorry,” Ben said. “What good does that do?” He stalked out and they heard his feet slamming on the stairs.

The sewing machine wasn’t whirring anymore. Grandma appeared in the doorway.

“What on earth is all that noise?” she asked. “And Jessie, the kitchen is a complete mess. Get in there and clean it up right now.”

“I’ll help you,” said Eddy. “Those cookies were definitely worth it.”

The cookies were sooty and hard as rocks. Nobody had taken more than a bite. Even Grandma laughed at that.

• Awfully short, could probably add more

Albert – Sarah as Teenager – 1990s

Ma says Sarah better wipe that makeup off her face right this minute. And she better get herself out of that miniskirt and into a dress that goes down past her knees. Ma says Sarah looks like a floozy. I don’t know what a floozy is. It must be a bad thing because Ma is mad. Ma saids SAIDS? she smells cigarette smoke in Sarah’s hair. Sarah is mad too. She tells Ma one of her friends was smoking, not her, and Ma says she better stay away from that friend. She says Sarah’s friends are a bad crowd and they are going to lead her astray. Sarah flips her hair and scrunches up her face and says Ma has no right to tell her what friends she can have and can’t have.

“Oh yes I do young lady,” Ma says. “You are fifteen years old GOOD – HOW OLD IS ALBERT? and you are still living in this house. There are rules and you will follow them.”

“And what if I don’t?” Sarah says. “What then?”

“You know what then,” Ma says. “You can take it up with your father.”

Sarah turns around and stomps upstairs to her room. Ma looks at me.

“What’s a floozy?” I ask her. She doesn’t answer for a second but her mouth twitches.

“Never you mind,” she tells me. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

“I like Sarah’s friends,” I tell her. “They don’t tell me to go away.”

Ma sighs.

“Sarah’s friends do things your father and I don’t want her to do,” she tells me. “Things God doesn’t want her to do.”

“Like what?” I ask her.

“Like smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol and…” she looks at me and stops. “You’re too young to understand, honey. You don’t need to worry about it.”

I wish everyone would quit saying I’m too young to understand. AGE HERE?

I can hear Sarah and Pa all the way from the kitchen. I am in the living room trying to watch that cowboy show. The one with that family out in the desert. I like that family. They remind me of that other one I used to have. COULD BE ALBERT BASES HIS IMAGINARY FAMILY ON THIS TV FAMILY?

“You are not going out,” I hear Pa say. “You are going to church with us this evening. And you are not wearing that outfit to church. Go upstairs and change.”

“I’m going to the movies with Jennifer and Kay,” Sarah says. “I already told them I’d go. I’m not going to church, we go to church every time the doors open,” she says, her voice getting louder. “I’m sick of church, it’s boring and stupid!”

She shouldn’t say that to Pa. Pa doesn’t allow back talk. We have to go to church. The doors are always open at church so I don’t know what she means, HA but I can hear Pa’s voice getting louder too.

“You are not too old for a whipping,” Pa says, “and if you don’t mind yourself I will get the belt.”

“I am way too old for a whipping,” Sarah yells, “and you know what I’ll do? I’ll go to Jennifer’s and stay with her! Her parents are normal and they let her do normal stuff! They don’t make her go to church every ten minutes and wear clothes from the 1800s! I’ll go right now, and I won’t come back!”

I sit very still waiting to hear what Pa says to her, but suddenly she’s stomped into the living room and sits down hard on the couch beside me. Pa doesn’t come in after her. I hear the front door shut.

“I HATE him,” Sarah says. She’s crying but I think it’s mad crying, not sad crying. She told me once what the difference is. She does both.

“Aren’t you going to church?” I ask her. It would be a big sin to skip church.

She rubs at her eyes and sniffles. I think about patting her shoulder but I’m afraid she’ll hit me. She hits hard.

“I shouldn’t,” she says. “I should just go right over to Jennifer’s. Pack my suitcase and go. He is so mean, he never ever lets me do anything fun. It’s always church, church, church, and God, God, God.”

“Church is fun,” I say. I like church.

“Well sure, it’s fun for you,” she says. “Everybody makes a fuss over you there. Nobody makes a fuss over me – all my friends quit going ages ago. I’m only still going because Daddy forces me. I’m bored to death and I don’t have anybody to talk to there anymore, and I hate it!”

She looks at the TV and wipes her face with her sleeve.

“I’ll talk to you,” I tell her. I’m still afraid to pat her. She looks back at me. Then she laughs, and leans over to bump me with her shoulder.

“Okay,” she says. “We’ll talk. That would be nice.” Then she sighs, and gets up. “I better go get dressed,” she says. “You better too. Can’t make him late, can we?”

“No,” I say. “He hates being late.”

Jessie – 2010 – the day of Jacob’s funeral

Eddy eases the old gold Buick into a parking space right in front of the funeral home. He gets out, walks around the car, and opens the door for Grandma. She’s hardly said a word all morning. She doesn’t seem all that upset, though. Just strangely distant. She looks back over the seat at me before getting out.

“You look very nice, Jessie,” she says. “That outfit suits you. And I really do love your hair, dear.” ESTABLISHED TIME, GOOD

“Thanks,” I say. I’m wearing a long black skirt and a black sweater with little pearl buttons. Grandma always told me black makes me look too washed out with my fair skin and light hair. My new hair must be a better match.

“Come on,” I say to Albert, who is still sitting beside me on the back seat, staring into space.

Grandma gets out of the car. She’s moving slower than usual and holds onto Eddy’s arm. Eddy looks back at us, gestures at me to catch up. I open my door. HOW OLD IS GRANDMA?

“Albert, let’s go,” I say again. You can tell Albert the same thing twenty times and he still won’t listen to you. He looks over like he’s surprised to see me sitting there.

“Where’s Pa?” he asks me. I stare at him for a second. I’m not sure what to say.

“You do know what happened, right?” I ask him. He just looks at me.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Jesus God,” I say, then remember where we are. Albert’s still gazing vaguely at me, and Eddy has paused at the front door as two black-suited funeral home workers hold it open for him and Grandma. He looks back at us again. I stick my head out of the car.

“We’ll be right behind you,” I tell him. He nods, and they go on inside, the big heavy wooden doors shutting silently behind them.

“Albert,” I say, “you know he’s…” I try to think of what to say, how to tell Albert his daddy is dead, even though I thought surely he already realized that, being the only witness. Other than Ezzie.

“He’s dead,” Albert says. “I know that.”

“Well, what are you asking me?”

“Where is he?”

I sigh.

“He’s inside. That’s where we’re going, to say goodbye to him, okay?”

Albert just looks at me for another second, then nods and gets out of the car. I have to hurry to catch up with him. The two men in suits smile sadly and murmur to us as they hold the funeral parlor door open.

It’s more crowded than I expected. Even though as family we came very early there are already people seated on the benches and bunched up in quiet little groups around the softly lit room. I recognise RECOGNIZE most of them, but there are a few unfamiliar faces. Off in one corner there’s a little group of older people with strangely outdated clothes and hairstyles who don’t seem to be mingling with anyone but themselves. I can’t place any of them, although one of the men gives me a twinge, some faint memory that doesn’t quite surface.

Joel and Ben were supposed to be right behind us, but I don’t see them yet. Albert and I start to follow Grandma and Eddy, who are still making their way up the aisle. They keep pausing to speak to people. Suddenly I find myself sitting down on the very last bench, just inside the door. Albert looks at me, then looks at Grandma’s straight back moving away from us. He sits down beside me on the end of the bench. He’s pressed right up against me and I scoot over. He scoots over too so we’re still sitting smashed up together.

“Shouldn’t we go with Ma?” he whispers to me.

“Go on if you want to,” I say. I can see that the lid of the casket is open, and even from the back of the room it makes my mouth go dry.

Albert stays put. He leans against me, looking anxious. I hope he won’t cry. Now everyone who comes in after us bends down over Albert, whispers to us that they are sorry about Grandpa. I am sorry too, but I am also shivery and suddenly my stomach hurts and I really want to go home.

Quite a few of the people bending down towards me have known me all my life and do poorly concealed double-takes when they see my short COMMA? spiky black hair. I’m not positive that everyone who speaks to me knows who I am. This would be funny if I didn’t feel so strange.

My cousin Mary comes in, carrying little Austin. She sees me and Albert and stops to bend over us too. She’s been to the house multiple times in the last few days so isn’t startled by my new style.

“You’re white as a sheet, Jessie,” she whispers. “Are you all right?” I nod, and Albert looks over at me.

“You look sick,” he whispers sincerely. Even Austin is studying me solemnly, like he’s making a diagnosis of his own and things are not looking good. Mary shifts him to her other hip. He peers down at me over her shoulder now.

“I’m okay,” I say. “Do you want to sit down?”

“I’ll go see him first,” she says. She straightens up and looks down the aisle, squinting a little as if the coffin is a great distance away. NO NEW PARAGRAPH?

She shifts Austin again, looks back at me. They are partially blocking the aisle and the people coming in have to put their hands on her shoulders and squeeze by her. They pat Austin, smile at me and Albert.

“Are you going to stay back here?” she asks.

“I think I better,” I say, picturing myself having to run all the way up the aisle from the front row, drawing stares as I escape. “Go on with Mary if you want, Albert,” I say.

“Come on, honey,” she says to him. “Jessie’s just staying back here because she doesn’t feel well. You should go be with your mom.”

“Okay,” Albert says, and gets up. Mary pats my hand and they start slowly down the aisle. She pauses to speak to people along the way. Austin squirms around so he’s looking back over her shoulder and continues to hold me fixed in his level blue stare for the entire trip to the front of the church. I smile half-heartedly at him and get no response, so ADD?: I Just stare back until Mary shifts him yet again and he can’t see me anymore. They file past the coffin slowly. I watch them sit down in the first row.

Eddy scoots in beside me.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “I thought I better come back and check on you. Albert says you look sick.”

“Yeah, he made sure to tell me that,” I say. “I do feel really weird.”

Eddy scrutinizes me. He hasn’t done a very good job of combing his shaggy black hair, and he has dark COMMA? tired smudges under his silvery eyes. He smells like woodsmoke, and he’s wearing an ancient suit of Grandpa’s that he’s both too tall and too thin for.

“So do I,” he says. “It’s kind of like we’re dreaming this, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know why I’m not crying,” I say. “I haven’t cried yet.”

Suddenly the twins are standing in the aisle beside Eddy. They’re looking from us to the front of the parlor and back to us.

“What are you doing back here?” asks Ben. “We have to go up front with everybody else.”

“We just need a few minutes,” Eddy says.

“Scoot over,” says Ben, and Eddy and I slide down the bench. The twins cram in with us. I am surprised at how presentable they look dressed in dark suits with their hair completely under control.

“You know everyone’s staring at us,” Ben says. “Out of the corners of their eyes. Of course mostly they’re wondering who Jessie is.” He reaches around Eddy and pats me on the shoulder before I can snip back at him.

“Come on, guys,” Joel says. “We can’t stay back here.”

“You and Ben go,” Eddy says. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“We’ll go in a minute,” says Ben. We all sit there.

“Shove over,” another voice says. I look up and find Quentin bending towards us now, looking like a movie star from the 40s in his sharp gray pinstriped suit.

We all scoot down and smile at him. I LIKE THE WAY EVERYONE KEEPS SHOWING UP AND SITTING BESIDE JESSIE — FUNNY

“What are ya’ll way back here for?” he asks. “Ain’t you supposed to be up front?”

“Jessie isn’t feeling well,” says Eddy. “We’re going up in a minute.”

Quentin nods, and we all look up towards the coffin. There are huge flower arrangements on either side of it, and smaller ones lined up in front. Even as far back as we are I can smell their overpowering sweetness.

“Look at that arrangement on the far end,” says Joel. “On the right, the pink and white flowers. The one with a banner. What’s that big yellow thing in the middle of it?”

We all squint at the flowers, and Ben starts to snicker. “It’s a telephone,” he says. “A plastic telephone.”

He’s right. I can see the receiver hanging from the cord. It’s nearly touching the floor.

“They had one of them at my aunt’s funeral,” Quentin says. “The banner says ‘Jesus is Calling.’”

“Well, he’s not getting through unless somebody hangs up that receiver,” Ben says, and then we all have to fight off hysterics. IS THIS A REAL THING?

“SSSHHHH!” Joel hisses, but he’s trying as hard as the rest of us not to laugh.

“Oh, come on,” Ben says. “Grandpa would think it was funny too.”

“Well, he wouldn’t admit it,” says Joel. “He’d tell you to cut it out. He’d give you that look, and tell you he didn’t want to hear another word.”

“Yeah, but then you’d catch him smiling about it,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Joel said. “You would.”

“We should go on up,” Ben says. “Look how crowded it’s getting.” Eddy looks at me.

“You guys go ahead,” I say. “DELETE THIS QUOTATION MARK

“I’ll sit with Jessie,” says Eddy. “We’ll be along.”

Joel reaches over and pats my hand. He and Ben and Quentin all get up and start down the aisle.

Eddy and I watch them go, then look at the people who are still coming in. We nod at everyone who bends towards us and follow their progress up the aisle. Now Eddy looks as bloodless and faint as I feel. He leans over and whispers in my ear.

“We really should go see Grandpa.”

“Okay,” I say, but neither of us moves. What’s wrong with us, QUESTION MARK INSTEAD OF COMMA HERE? I wonder. I’ve been to viewings and funerals. People from the church, older neighbors who were friends of my grandparents. Just nobody this close to me. We sit there another minute, and then Eddy takes my hand and says “Come on.”

We walk down the aisle, nodding at the people on either side of us like I’d been watching everyone else do. It seems to take hours. I hold onto Eddy’s cold bony hand.

When we finally get to the coffin, we both stop beside it. Grandpa doesn’t look like he’s just asleep, but he doesn’t look dead either. He looks like a less-than-perfect wax replica of himself. His hair isn’t parted exactly right, and it’s strange to see him wearing his glasses but lying with his eyes closed. His skin is a little too clear and unwrinkled, like he’s been to see Darlene at the Hair Hut for one of her bonus makeup sessions. He even seems to have a little touch of blush on his cheeks. Instead of being horrified, I am fascinated, and keep staring at him until Eddy tugs on my hand and pulls me away. Then I have to glance back quickly because I realize my last clear view ever of Grandpa could be while I’m considering whether or not he has makeup on. So I give him one more look and then I follow Eddy, still hanging onto his cold hand, to stand in the receiving line with the rest of my family.

Grandma looks at me with a small frown, and takes my arm to maneuver me into place beside her. Albert is on her other side, staring out at the crowd with a little frown of his own. The twins have scooted down a bit to let Eddy slip in between me and them. I wonder for a second where Quentin went, then spot him seated a few rows back. I wish I was sitting with him instead of being up here on display. We’ve got our backs to the casket DO YOU? I ENVISIONED FACING IT HOW IS THE CHRUCH CONFIGURED? MAYBE: WE CAN’T SEE THE OPEN CASKET WHICH IS A RELIEF which is a relief. Mourners are filing past us, murmuring condolences.

“Are you sick?” Grandma whispers to me. “You’re looking peaky.”

“I’m okay,” I whisper back. “Sorry, I needed a minute.”

I feel guilty as soon as I say it. Grandma didn’t need a minute. She marched right up here with her ramrod straight spine and is working the line like she does it every day. Gracious and untouchable. I realize I haven’t seen the first tear from her either.

Our neighbors from across the pasture file past, patting my shoulder and taking Grandma’s hand, sad eyes and soft voices telling us how sorry they are about Grandpa. I nod without really processing it because I’ve just realized the next mourners in line are those weird old people who look like they transported in from the past, and Grandma has frozen beside me. She takes in one deep breath.

“We was so sorry to hear about Jacob, Opal,” says one of the woman, the first to reach us. There’s another woman and three men with her. They bunch up towards Grandma, crowding her. The women are wearing floor length dark skirts straight from the 1800s, and have long, lank grey hair. No makeup, COMMA? lined faces. The men are in old fashioned suits, with slicked back hair and hard sharp eyes.

“Arabella,” Grandma says. “It’s good of you to come.” She is leaning back a bit and when the man directly behind Arabella reaches for her hand I think for a second she’s going to jerk it away.

“He was a faithful servant,” the man says. “He will be rewarded.”

“Yes he will,” says Arabella. “God will see to that.”

The other three murmur in agreement, like a Greek chorus.

“God smiles down on all he did,” says the sharp eyed man. “God called him home. It weren’t an accident, what that snake did.”

Grandma does yank her hand back out of his grip now.

“He had a heart attack, Clive,” she says. Her voice is so hard that I blink at her in astonishment. Eddy takes a step closer to us. IS EDDY STANDING BESIDE THEM? Albert is staring at Clive, then at Grandma.

“Don’t you remember, Ma? In the barn? It was that…” he begins, and Grandma hisses at him to hush so loudly that we all jump. Eddy reaches out for Clive’s hand, shakes it and pulls him past Grandma, saying “Thank you for coming, we really appreciate it,” as Clive tries to tell Grandma something else. The others are moving him forward too now, reaching for Grandma themselves and saying something to her that I can’t quite hear.

Clive has paused in front of the twins, and says to Ben, “You sure do look a whole lot like your brother, son. I hope you are carrying on your granddaddy’s work like he should have done.”

Ben is staring transfixed at Clive like he has no idea how to respond. Then Clive looks at me. “You’ve growed up, young lady,” he says. “You was a tiny thing last time I saw you, back when your granddaddy was training up your brother. And you look just like that beautiful mama of yourn. YOUR’N She was special. All of them was special.”

Suddenly I remember. That skinny man at the church years ago. WHAT AGE WAS SHE THEN? The one with the darting eyes, talking to Grandpa about Samuel. Me overhearing what Grandpa didn’t intend me to hear.

“That is enough!” Grandma’s voice rings out over the whole gathering. Everything has gone silent. Grandma is coming towards Clive, her face white, her eyes blazing. Arabella and the other three are watching her, open mouthed.

“Whoa,” says Ben, and we both try to back out of the way, but Grandma practically shoves us aside and stops in front of Clive. Eddy grabs at her arm but she shakes him loose. Clive just watches her, a tiny strange smile on his face.

“Clive Jenkins, I want you to leave. Right this minute. All of you.” She sweeps an arm at Arabella and the other three, who are hovering just behind her. “You aren’t welcome here. I cut ties with you people and that…place a long time ago and I don’t want anything to do with you or it. Jacob was foolish and misguided and I will never forgive you for your part in what happened to those children. Or him. He could have let it go and thanks to you he never did. And look where it got him.”

She’s suddenly run out of steam, and is visibly deflating. I am astonished to see her eyes going red around the rims, tears forming in the corners. I move closer to her as two of the funeral home ushers appear, and she puts an arm around my shoulders without seeming to realize it. The twins and Eddy are trying to herd Clive and his bunch away from us. The ushers take over, guiding them all out so quickly and quietly that I wonder if this is something they often have to deal with. I am overwhelmed by a sudden urge to laugh, but fight it back. Here we are again, the whole town watching us, holding their collective breaths and waiting to see what happens next.

What happens next is that the quiet little unobtrusive funeral director materializes by Grandma’s side, telling her in a low soothing voice that it’s time for the service to start if we want to take our seats on the front row.

“Not a moment too soon,” whispers Ben. I look back LOOK BACK –AGAIN CONFUSED ABOUT DIRECTION at the coffin quickly like I think Grandpa is going to have something to say about this, as the gentle piano music starts and we hurry after Grandma to our seats.

* Should this be earlier??

Albert – 2004, remembering 1994

That last time I was with them, we were all down in the basement. It was dark. It was quiet. One of those kids kept whimpering. Then not whimpering. Muddy moldy basement smell. Woodsmoke WOODSMOKE IS ONE WORD? from outside. No candles. Pa said no candles, no lanterns. He said the ones outside would see. I can’t see the inside without candles. But after a little while I can. There are outlines, there’s dark and then there’s less dark. I am closest to the four little dirty windows above our heads. Boots go by. More boots go by. None of us breathes. None of us moves. Pa had locked the outside door. It rattled once but the boots kept going.

Now I am in the basement again. That was a long long time ago, that time before. That was so long ago I only barely remember. They are all gone now but it was this same basement. Those four little dirty windows are still above my head. No boots go by. Our calico cat goes by. I see her white feet. The wooden shelves are still back against the far wall. Before they were full of corn and apples and dried beans and dried meat. Now there’s rows and rows of glass jars. Green beans and corn and tomatoes and pickles. Back then there was a pile of coal way back in the corner. Now there’s that big tan metal furnace. It thumps and pings and roars in the winter. This is not winter. The furnace is quiet. And now there’s the freezer that you open up from the top. I am not allowed to open the freezer. Back then there were onions and potatoes and dried beans where the freezer is. Now there’s a light bulb dangling from the ceiling and a string to pull. No more candles. No more kerosene lamps. That’s okay though. I’m not allowed to use the candles and the lamps.

Sometimes I try to tell Ben and them about it. I don’t want to stop being able to remember. Ben says I made it up. He says I dreamed it. But I didn’t make it up and I didn’t dream it. Joel says I didn’t make it up and Eddy says I didn’t make it up. They don’t say I didn’t dream it, though. Quentin said he thinks I came from somewhere else. He said that a long time ago. Samuel laughed and said, I’ll take you back there sometime, Albert. Jessie says where we are now is what’s important. GOOD!

I used to try to tell Ma and Pa. I wanted to tell them they weren’t the first Ma and Pa.

Pa said, do not talk about that ever again, Albert. Pa said, that is not true and that did not happen. That is Satan making his way into your mind, Pa said. You will not let Satan into your mind, Albert.

Ma said, don’t talk about that, Albert. That makes your father angry. You are very special, Ma said. You are a good boy and you don’t have Satan in your mind. But don’t talk about that ever again. HA

I had a sister once. Her name was Sarah. She was a long time ago too. But not as long as that other time, that first time. I know it wasn’t as long ago because they all remember Sarah in this time. Except Jessie. Jessie doesn’t remember because she was just a little baby. Everybody else remembers but nobody ever talks about Sarah. There’s a tiny picture of her in the bookcase. It’s mixed in with all the other pictures. She’s sitting on the front porch in the swing, smiling. When I look at it she’s looking back at me. That was before she was their mother.

Sarah was nice. She had long gold hair and she was pretty. She smelled good, like the woods. I was little when she got married to Robert. They moved into a teeny white house in town. It was beside the river. There was a big oak tree in the front yard. After that it was just me and Ma and Pa in this house and Sarah and Robert and one baby after another baby in her house. I used to walk into town to see them and play with the babies. Sarah always told me I was a big help and I could visit any time I wanted to. Robert told me I was a retard and if any of the babies ended up like me he would throw them in the river. He never said that where Sarah could hear, though.

Sarah and Ma were in the basement that last day. That day that was Sarah’s last day. I was in the basement too but they didn’t see me. I was laying on that old couch that Pa wanted to throw out but Ma wanted to keep. I liked to lay there in the dark and try to remember the long ago time. Sometimes my other family’s faces would come back. Especially that baby in a long pale dress that used to cry so much. This time they didn’t come back. This time feet came stomping down the stairs from the kitchen. Voices came down the stairs with the stomping feet.

“I am going to do it. You might as well stop talking about it,” says Sarah’s voice. She is mad. She’s near the bottom of the steps.

“You are not thinking this through,” says Ma. She is mad. She’s stomping the steps right behind Sarah.

“I don’t want to have this conversation, Mama,” says Sarah. “I just want to get some beans and that peach pie out of the freezer.”

She skips the last step and her feet smash on the floor.

“It is foolish and it is dangerous,” says Ma.

Ma doesn’t skip the last step. Her feet are quieter on the floor. “You have those children to think of. It is not just all about you.”

“They are what I AM thinking of. EMPHASIS ON *ARE* INSTEAD? I am not worthy of being their mother if I’m not worthy of God,” Sarah says. “If God doesn’t accept me, then what is the point?”

Neither one of them is stomping now. They are still. I don’t move. They can’t see me on the couch. It’s turned backwards to them and I’m hidden.

“Your father has put these ideas into your head,” says Ma. “God accepts you as you are, Sarah. There is nothing to prove.”

“I thought you were a believer,” says Sarah. “You used to be a believer.”

“I am a believer,” says Ma. “I just do not believe that God requires you to risk your life to please him.”

“If you can’t risk your life, you have no faith at all,” Sarah says. “That is the entire point.”

She is stomping again. She stomps around to the front of the couch towards the shelves and the freezer. She screams.

“Albert! What are you doing down here? You scared me!”

Ma comes around the couch. She stares down at me.

“I was waiting to see them,” I tell her.

“Albert, do not start that,” Ma says. “I don’t have the energy for that right now.”

“What is Sara not supposed to do?? ADD QUOTE MARK I ask.

“It’s none of your concern, young man,” Ma says. “Get upstairs and wash up for dinner.”

“Mama doesn’t want me going to the church tonight,” Sarah tells me. “We were just having a discussion about it.”

“It sounded like a fight,” I tell her.

“It’s not a fight,” Sarah says. “Mama has her opinion and I have mine.”

“This is not about opinions,“ Ma says to her in the Quiet Voice. “This is about using what common sense the good Lord gave you. This is about taking care of those children and not just thinking about yourself.”

Sarah ought to know better than to talk back when Ma uses the Quiet Voice. She must not know better. She says “What this is about is doing what He’s told me to do, and it’s about having the courage to listen and to follow Him instead of being a coward and making up excuses to avoid what scares you!”

She yanks the freezer lid up as hard as she can and starts shoving things around inside.

“Did He tell you to go off with that blue eyed man?” Ma says. Her hands are on her hips. She’s still using the Quiet Voice. “Did He tell you to break your vows to your husband? Was that what He wanted or what you wanted?”

Sarah stops shoving things around and making them go thump thump thump in the freezer. She is staring at Ma now. Her eyes have gone all red.

What blue eyed man, I wonder. I know I better not ask.

Ma stops looking at Sarah and looks at me. Her face is mad.

“I’m not telling you again,” Ma says to me. “Upstairs. Now.”

Upstairs is bright and that other time fades away. The kitchen is warm from the oven and smells like roast beef and baking potatoes. Ma and Sarah stayed in the basement. I can’t hear them. I hear the television going in the den, where the little kids are. I am supposed to go wash up, but I go into the living room instead. Pa is in the living room, sitting in his big brown chair, reading the paper. His hair is slicked back. He’s already washed up. He looks at me when I come in, over his black glasses.

“Were you down in the basement, Albert?”

I am not supposed to be down in the basement.

“Ma and Sarah were down there too,” I say. “They’re still down there. They are fighting.”

Pa lowers his paper.

“Ma says you put ideas in Sarah’s head,” I tell him. He frowns at me. His eyebrows are bushy and nearly meet over his nose.

“Sarah has been chosen, Albert,” he tells me. “You are … too young to understand it. She is going to the church with us tonight. God will choose her tonight.”

“Choose her for what?” I ask.

“For His plan,” he says

“When will I be chosen?” I ask. He looks at me.

“You have already been chosen,” he tells me. “God has already selected you. He selects different people in different ways.”

Pa smiles at me then. Pa never smiles at me.

I hear the television in the other room get louder. I want to be in there with Sarah’s kids. I don’t want to be selected.

“I have to go wash up,” I tell Pa. I turn around, head for the other room where the kids are, where it’s safe.

Figure out how this works in with scene of Quentin and Samuel driving around. That will be after this one since it’s about his decision to leave – it would be after he goes to the snake church. Make that scene different enough from what Q is telling them that it isn’t repetitive

Ben – 2010. The evening of Jacob’s funeral

Ben is sitting at the top of the stone steps that lead up to the front porch, half-listening to the low murmur of voices all around him. It’s hard to distinguish individual words from the indistinct hum and it’s making him sleepy. Ben has had a very long and grueling day and he is thinking about going upstairs to his old room to hide out for awhile. Joel is on the other end of the step, and they both have to keep squeezing over against the railings every time anyone wants to come up or go down. Joel looks like he’s asleep. He’s leaning against his railing with his eyes shut. Ben considers tossing something at him, but there’s nothing within reach and he’s too tired to make an effort.

All of the family plus neighbors and church people are still at the house after the funeral, scattered around the big porch in whatever seating they could find. Colorful old metal chairs that have been on the porch as long as he can remember, a scuffed black wrought iron couch with worn green plastic cushions, kitchen and dining room chairs that have been appropriated to accommodate the crowd, a collection of folding webbed lawn chairs provided by helpful neighbors. Still there’s overflow on the steps and the blue-grey porch floorboards.

Jessie is sitting on the edge of the porch, propped against the huge ornate planter full of bright red geraniums with her shoes kicked off and her bare feet dangling down. She’s tossing tiny bits of dirt from the planter into the yard, watching as they make almost invisible arcs through the still air. Eddy and Quentin are at the far end of the porch. They’ve snagged a couple of the old colorful metal chairs, a blue one and a red one, and they are leaning towards each other as they talk. Ben eyes them, wondering what’s so engrossing, but can’t work up the energy to go over and find out.

Albert and Opal are sitting together on the wooden porch swing. Opal’s spine is so straight it doesn’t touch the back of the swing. Her black crepe funeral dress still looks like it’s just been pressed and her low heeled shiny black pumps are planted firmly on the floor. She is speaking quietly to Aunt Annie, who keeps shifting around uncomfortably on her uncushioned dining room chair. Albert stares off across the yard where long shadows are starting to creep towards the house as the sun moves closer to Snake Mountain. He pushes his foot just the tiniest bit to set the swing in motion. Opal stops it with her shiny pumps, puts a hand on Albert’s arm. Then they do it again. And again. And again. Ben watches them, wondering at his grandmother’s endless patience and feeling in serious need of a nap.

There is a sudden lull in the conversation on the porch.

“I read once that whenever you’re in a group of people there will be a conversation lull every 20 minutes,” says Joel, suddenly perking up.

Aunt Annie looks over at him, her brow furrowing.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Joel,” she says. “Where did you read a thing like that?”

“I don’t remember now,” Joel says. “It was a long time ago.”

“OH”, Ben says. A little chill has just dashed down his spine. “I remember that! Samuel told us. He read it somewhere. It works, too. We used to try it out when we were in a group of people. It works every time. Although we’ve been out here a lot longer than twenty minutes, and I hadn’t noticed it before now, so maybe…”

Ben realizes he has just said Samuel’s name without even thinking about it first. Everyone on the porch is looking at him. He keeps his face blank. His grandmother is watching him with an expression he can’t quite read. Albert looks puzzled.

“Samuel is gone,” he tells Ben.

Opal pats Albert’s arm again. “Samuel is gone, honey. Ben knows that.” She’s still watching him, like she’s about to say something else but has thought better of it. Ben looks over at Joel, who is staring at Opal. Ben can practically see the gears in Joel’s brain whirling around.

“You know your grandmother doesn’t like to talk about that,” Aunt Annie says to Ben.

“I think I’m going to take a walk,” says Eddy, saving him from a reply. REPLY? Eddy stands up and stretches a bit. “Anybody want to come?”

“I will,” says Jessie. Ben can’t think of the last time she’s said anything.

“We’ll go,” says Joel. Ben wants to tell Joel not to speak for him, but wants to get away from everyone on the porch even more.

“Me too!” says Albert, leaping up so fast from the porch swing that it spins Opal around before she can stop it with her pumps. She holds onto the chain and watches them all head down the steps into the darkening yard.

“You children be careful,” she warns. Joel elbows Ben before he can say anything sarcastic, and Ben gives him a little shove back for suggesting he’d be sarcastic to their grandmother at a time like this. ALMOST TELEPATHIC He waves as they start down the driveway towards the road. It’s gotten darker and the driveway is just a faint gray ribbon ahead.

The house quickly vanishes behind them.

“Let’s go up to the church,” Ben says when they reach the main road, just to see what the reaction will be. “We can go up the old abandoned road- it’s just around the corner.”

“Let’s not,” says Jessie.

“I don’t think we ought to go up there at night,” says Eddy. “I would like to, though. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I kind of want to see that place again,” says Quentin. HOW HIGH IS SNAKE MTN. IS CHURCH RIGHT AT THE TOP?

That surprises Ben. He didn’t think anyone would take him seriously about it. Joel stares at him.

“What?” Ben says, kicking at the gravel.

“You’re being weird,” Joel says. “Why did you mention Samuel?” They keep their voices low, using the special twin frequency that they have utilized all their lives for private conversations. They have dropped back a little behind everyone else.

“You brought up the lulls,” Ben reminds him. “You knew it was Samuel who told us that.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Joel says quietly. “I wanted him to be here. He should be here. He should know about Grandpa. But I wasn’t going to say his name.”

“Maybe we should say his name. Maybe since Grandpa isn’t around to hear us, it’s time to say his name again.” Ben’s voice has risen, and he knows he sounds angry. Which is fine, he thinks. He is angry. Maybe they should all be angry.

“We are all angry, Ben,” Joel says, in that creepy COMMA?mind-reading way he has. “Why else would we never talk about him?”

Ben feels the darkness is starting to close in on him. He doesn’t like the way it envelopes them, smothering and hiding everything on all sides. Eddie, Quentin, Jessie and Albert have gotten farther ahead, and he watches their backs. Albert is saying something, and Eddy is bent over towards him to hear. Jessie is walking apart from them, kicking at rocks.

The road makes a sharp curve and meets the river before they get as far as town. There’s a little dirt pulloff for vehicles and several rickety picnic tables scattered along the riverbank. The tables have been there as long as Ben can remember but he’s never seen anyone having a picnic. It is a pretty spot though, at least in daylight. Now darkness is falling it seems more sinister. Ben can just barely see the opposite bank, and the river vanishes in both directions. He and Joel follow the rest over to the picnic tables. They all stare at what they can see of the dark water whispering by.

Quentin sits down on one of the benches. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it. Ben and Joel sit on opposite sides of the next table. Albert is throwing rocks into the river, and Eddy watches him.

“I knew about the snakes,” Jessie says suddenly. “About Grandpa and the snakes. I knew what he was doing.”

Her lip is quivering like it always has when she’s about to cry. She sits down beside Quentin, hard.

“What do you mean, you knew?” Eddy asks her.

“Grandpa made me get his old snake box out of the barn for him. He couldn’t climb into the loft himself. He told me not to tell.”

Everyone is staring at her.

“I didn’t think he’d do anything,” says Jessie, her eyes full of tears.

“You couldn’t have known,” Eddy tells her.

“You couldn’t,” Quentin says. “You can’t stop what’s bound to happen, Jessie.”

“I should have told you, Eddy! Or Grandma. Or…anybody. But Grandpa said not to tell and I just did what he said. Even though I knew what he said wasn’t what I should do.” She rubs her eyes with an angry swipe of the back of her sleeve.

“Well we’ve all been there,” Ben says darkly. “At least you didn’t disappear forever after doing what he said. This time he paid for it himself.”

Everyone is staring at him in astonishment. He wants to backtrack, but can’t figure out how, so he plows ahead.

“You know Samuel would still be here if he hadn’t done what Grandpa told him to. If he’d stood up to him. Instead of running away and never coming back.”

“Well, that is definitely a way of not doing what Grandpa told him to,” says Joel. Always the diplomat. EXPLAIN SENTENCE “He didn’t do what he was told, he just left.”

“But that’s the point,” says Ben. He is alarmed at how close he feels to just giving up and wailing. Then maybe running into the river. They are all looking at him, but with surprisingly sympathetic faces.

“I know,” Eddy tells him, and puts an arm around his shoulder. “We all want him back.”

“Both of them,” says Jessie, with the tears finally running unchecked down her face. Quentin pats her shoulder.

“We’ll find him,” Joel says. “Someday. I mean, it’s not impossible. It would be better if he comes back to us instead but if he doesn’t we’ll find him.”

“Have you got a plan?” Ben asks.

Joel says, “No, of course not. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Quentin takes a deep drag on his cigarette, pats Jessie again, looks at them all. Blows out smoke. “You know, I was with Samuel that night,” he says.

“What??” They are almost in unison. Ben is stunned. Eddy is the first one to recover. “In the car?” he says. “The night he disappeared?”

Quentin nods. Stares off at the dark river.

“Well, what happened?” Ben asks. “How come you didn’t say you were with him before now?”

“Didn’t think I needed to.“ Quentin blows more smoke, watches it drift away. “Nothing happened. We’d drove all the way up to the Virginia line. Listening to the radio and drinking beer.”

“Did he say anything?” asks Eddy.

Ben realizes he’s holding his breath before Quentin finally answers.

“Well, something did kind of happen. We saw something,” he says. “Something really…weird.”

“Weird how?” Ben asks. There are so many types of weird that could be associated with Samuel, but he can’t think of any that would result in him vanishing. Other than maybe the time machine.

“Wait,” he says suddenly. “Did he get picked up by a UFO?”

Quentin doesn’t laugh.

“Not picked up, exactly,” he says. “We did see one, though.”

“Oh my God,” breathes Joel. “You saw a UFO? Where? What happened??”

“And why are we just hearing about this now?” Ben says.

Quentin takes his time answering. He smokes and looks off at the river. They all wait. Ben feels like the damp murky air is buzzing around his head.

“We thought we hit a deer,” he says. “Something just appeared in LEAVE OUT: IN right in front of us, out of nowhere, in the dark. All we saw was its eyes, staring in through the windshield. Samuel slammed on the brakes and we spun all around. Finally stopped in the middle of the road. It rattled us and we just sat a minute before Samuel started to back the car so we could get out of there. Then we both looked up. And we could see it. Right above our heads. Right where the roof should have been.”

He pauses, grinds out the end of his cigarette on the picnic table, puts the butt in his pocket. Ben is transfixed. They are all transfixed. Quentin’s hands are shaking just enough to be noticeable as he lights another cigarette.

“It was just like a movie,” he finally continues. “Huge and all lit up. No sound. And then it shot a light down, a great big beam, and we saw the thing we must have nearly hit get lit up and vanish. A kind of…figure. Tall and thin. And then the UFO vanished too.”

Nobody speaks for a second, then Eddy says, “…and that was it?”

Quentin laughs his snorty laugh. “Not exciting enough? Were you hoping for an abduction story? We didn’t get abducted. They left us behind.”

“Well, as far as you know you didn’t get abducted,” Joel says.

“I think they would know,” Ben tells him. “They would probably notice winding up inside a spaceship and getting probed by little green men. Or tall gray men, or whatever they are.”

“Pretty sure that didn’t happen,” Quentin says. “But Samuel did say it was the sign he had asked for. And he wouldn’t tell me what he meant. Then he was gone for good.”

Out of nowhere, Albert says, “Joel got picked up by aliens.” He’s stacking some little rocks into a small makeshift tower on the picnic table.

“Albert, that isn’t true,” Jessie says. “You dreamed that.”

“Nope,” says Albert. He doesn’t look at any of them, just concentrates on his rock stack. “I remember. Pa was mad. Pa said it was the devil’s work.”

“Wait,” says Eddy. “Are you talking about when Joel was little? Three or four maybe? When he talked about meeting those people up in the pasture behind the house? He said they were tall as trees and glowed, and they told him stories.”

“Yep”, says Albert.

“The angels,” Joel says slowly. “I thought they were angels.”

“That had to be a dream,” Ben says. He has no memory at all of this. They’ve always remembered the same things. “How could you have been up in the pasture by yourself at that age? And that could not have happened.”

“Samuel saw them,” Albert says. He finally looks up from his rock stack. “Samuel said they were aliens. He talked to them.”

“Samuel made that up,” says Eddy. “He made a lot of stuff up. I do remember Grandpa saying it was demons. He got the preacher to do a laying on of hands to drive the demons out.”

“I bet that was fun,” says Ben. “Why do I remember exactly nothing about this?”

“I think Joel dreamed about angels after Samuel told him alien stories,” Jessie says. “That’s the only explanation. He probably got it from Doctor Who.” ITALICISE/QUOTE?

Joel doesn’t look convinced. He looks like his brain is whirling around again. Ben watches him, trying to see what he’s figuring out.

“So what happened then?” Eddy asks Quentin. “I mean, after the… incident. What did you do?”

“We drove on back home. A lot slower. Samuel dropped me off at my house. Said he was going to work on the time machine.” Quentin pauses. “He hadn’t messed around with that thing in years. But he said he wanted to check something out. Last thing he said to me was, ‘I’ll send you a postcard from the Dark Ages.’ Laughed, and drove off. That was it.”

“I remember the time machine,” says Jessie.

Joel starts to laugh. “Maybe it worked after all,” he says.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ben tells him.

“Maybe it did work,” Quentin says to Joel.

“We better head back home before Grandma calls the police,” Eddy says.

It’s nearly full dark now. Ben sees the flashing in the pasture across the road from the river first, but it takes a second to process what he’s seeing. An immense cloud of flashing fireflies.

“Whoa,” he says, stopping dead in his tracks. They all stand still, watching. Ben doesn’t remember ever seeing so many fireflies at once. The flashing is mesmerizing. It looks like they are trying to send some mysterious coded message.

“Cool,” says Jessie, standing at his shoulder.

“Must be firefly weather,” he says. “Whatever that is.”

Everyone else has moved on slowly down the road towards home, but they stand there side by side and watch the fireflies.

“Ben,” she says. “Tell me something. And tell me the truth, okay?”

“Why would I not tell you the truth?” he asks her, then says, “Okay, I’ll tell you the truth.”

“Do you think it’s my fault?”

“Do I think what’s your fault?” he asks, then realizes what she means. “Grandpa? Of course that’s not your fault, Jessie. How could you have known?”

“I knew, Ben,” she says. “And you would have known. I wish you’d been here, or that I’d called you. You would have stopped him.”

“I would have? What do you mean?”

“You always know what to do, Ben,” she says. “And you always do it.”

Ben tries to figure out where she gets the idea that he has everything under such firm control. He can’t come up with a single reason, but he likes finding she has this illusion about him.

“I think you’re confusing me with Eddie. CHG: EDDY And I don’t think anybody could have stopped him,” he tells her. “His mind was going. Nobody would have thought he was serious about the snakes, or realized that he would be capable of doing what he did. I wouldn’t have dreamed he’d ever do that again. Neither would Eddy, or Grandma. You thought you were doing a good thing for him, reminding him of…better days.” Ben laughs a little, thinking that only his grandfather would have yearned for the better days of handling snakes.

“Really?” she asks, her small triangular face turned up to him, hopeful. Ben has no idea what anyone else would have done, least of all himself, but he nods vigorously.

“Absolutely,” he tells her. She smiles, finally.

“Thank you, Ben,” she says, putting her arm around his waist. He is so touched that he puts his arm around her shoulders, and they walk along quietly behind their family, watching the fireflies.

Should come after Samuel going to church with Jessie. Be sure this works & it’s not repetitive. Is the same timeframe.

This should be first time we know what actually happened to Sarah although there have been hints

—–

Albert – 2004, just before Samuel Leaves PUT SOMETHING HERE ABOUT HIM ALSO REMEMBERING 1994 WHEN SARAH DIED IN THAT CHURCH THEY VISIT

I follow Samuel. He doesn’t know. I see him go across the field after supper. He told Pa he was going to the diner to help Eddie. The diner is not across the field. The diner is in town. I wanted to go help Eddy too. I like the diner. I like washing the dishes. Samuel said no. He said I’m too young but I’m older than he is. I remember when he was little even though he’s nearly grown now.

He knows that.

Samuel walks fast across the field. He walks so fast I can’t catch up. He walks faster and faster to the edge of the woods, and then he’s gone. I know where he went. He went where that trail up the mountain starts.

I look back at the house. Pa goes to the living room to read the paper after supper. Ma goes to the kitchen and washes the dishes. You can’t see the field from the living room. You can’t see the field from the kitchen.

I run through the field towards the woods. I run to where Samuel disappeared.

I know where the trail is, and I know where it goes. I pretend I’m tracking Samuel. I look for broken twigs and smashed leaves. I look for footprints. I don’t see any broken twigs or smashed leaves or footprints, so I just follow the trail. I know where he’s going.

The woods are nice. Birds sing. Wind swooshes leaves. That’s all I hear. I hop over the three little streams. I get my shoe wet in the last one. Ma will be mad if my shoe is wet when I get home but I can’t take it off. She’ll be madder if my feet are muddy.

I walk and walk. I like to walk. I can walk a long way and not get tired. I know this is a long way. I remember this walk from before.

The trail comes to an old road. We used to drive up this road. There aren’t any cars here now. I stop for a minute to be sure. The road is full of holes with water in them. Plants grow way up high in the middle. I have to climb over a great big tree that fell across the road. It’s so big I have to pull myself up on top before I can get to the other side. I sit on the tree for a minute.

“Albert?”

The voice scares me. I nearly fall off the tree.

Quentin is staring at me. He’s sitting on a big rock that’s half in the road. He’s all shadowy. He gets up and comes over to me.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me. He holds out his hand and helps me jump down off the tree.

“I’m following Samuel,” I tell him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m following Samuel too,” he says. “Want to follow him together?”

“Okay,” I say. I like Quentin.

We walk down the road. We have to walk around more holes with water in them and around more big plants and we go over more trees. These trees aren’t as big, though. We can just step over these trees.

“Does your Pa know where you are?” Quentin asks.

“No,” I say. “He doesn’t know where Samuel is either. Samuel said he was going to the diner, but he went here instead. I couldn’t catch up with him.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty fast,” says Quentin.

We walk and walk. The road is twisty and sometimes we can see it below us, twisting around like a snake. But it’s not moving like a snake does.

Quentin has a bottle with water in it. He gives me some. I see a building through the trees. We keep walking and then we’re standing in front of it. We’re standing in the yard and there’s tall tall pine trees beside it. I remember running around with other kids there. We played tag and ran through the pine trees. Now there’s weeds up to my waist. The building is skinny, and it goes way above us, into the trees. It looks crooked. It used to be white but it’s not now. Now it’s grey like our old barn. A cross is laying in the weeds. It used to be over the door. It looks crooked too. The windows are broken. The rock steps have big hunks out of them. Rock hunks have rolled down to where we’re standing. I kick at one. I look at the door.

Quentin is squinting up at the door too. It’s not shut all the way. He starts up the rock steps. I follow him.

We look around the edge of the door. We look inside. It’s dark inside. I can’t see anything at first. Then I can see way up to the front, where Pa used to stand on that stage way above everybody else. I see Samuel standing there now. He’s looking at something on the ground. He picks up a piece of paper.

Quentin says COMMA? “Hey Samuel.”

Samuel turns around and sees us at the door.

“Oh, hey guys,” he says. “What are you doing here, Albert?”

He’s smiling at me. I know he’s not mad. Ben would be mad if I followed him. Samuel never gets mad at me.

“I saw you go across the field,” I say. “You didn’t go to the diner.”

“No, I didn’t,” he says. He hops down from the platform, walks towards us.

“You’re supposed to tell the truth, Samuel,” I say to him. “You aren’t supposed to lie.”

“I know,” he says. “I just changed my mind. It’s okay to change your mind.”

He grins at me.

“I met Albert on the trail,” says Quentin. “That’s a longer walk than I remember.”

Quentin sits down on one of the pews. There are only a few right-side-up pews to sit on. Most of them are tipped over. They look funny. They look a little scary. They aren’t supposed to be like that.

“It was a long drive back then,” says Samuel. “Well, it seems like it was. I can barely remember us coming here in a car.”

He sits down beside Quentin in the right side up pew. I sit on a tipped-over pew. It’s funny to sit on it like that. They used to all be right side up. They used to all be full of people.

“I remember us coming here,” I tell Samuel and Quentin. “Pa stood up there.”

They both look at me.

“Yeah, I guess you would remember,” Samuel says. “You would have been old enough.”

Quentin starts to say something, then he doesn’t. He looks at Samuel.

“Do you remember the snakes?” Samuel asks me. He’s not smiling. He pushes his hand through his black hair till it’s standing straight up on top.

I look at the front of the church again. I look way up there where Pa stood on his stage. I remember the Sundays. Every Sunday he would stand up there and talk. His voice would boom and he would talk and talk, boom and boom. That man with the big red face would play a guitar. That woman with gold hair would sing. The words were high and sharp and hard. It was loud. It hurt my ears.

Pa would talk about Hell and God and he would tell us that if we truly believed we would be saved. He said it wasn’t easy to truly believe. He said we had to be tested. We had to prove it to God. He said the snakes were a test. If we didn’t truly believe but said we did, we would die and go to Hell. And Hell would be fire and it would hurt. One time I burned my hand on the wood stove and it hurt a lot. Pa said Hell would hurt way worse than that. I didn’t want to go to Hell. And I didn’t want the snakes to test me.

BREAK HERE — INDICATING THAT ALBERT IS TALKING ABOUT THE PAST FOR A WHILE (1994) IN THIS SAME LOCATION

I remember sitting on the front row that Sunday. I remember looking up at Pa. He was wearing his white white shirt. Ma washed it for him special the night before. His black glasses pointed at all of us, one by one. I sat between Samuel and Eddy. They were little. Their shiny brown shoes didn’t touch the floor. Samuel wouldn’t be still and Sarah kept shushing him. Samuel said “Mom, Mom, Eddy is being mean! Eddy won’t share!” to Sarah. She made me sit between them so they wouldn’t poke each other. Samuel kept poking me because he couldn’t reach Eddy. Eddy had a book about tigers and Samuel wanted it. Ma leaned over Eddy and told Samuel that if he didn’t straighten up she was taking him back to the room with the babies. That’s where the twins and Jessie were. Jessie really was a baby. I carried her back to the baby room for Sarah when we got there that morning because Sarah had to have both hands to hold onto the twins. I was careful with the baby. Sarah always let me carry her because I was careful.

Samuel didn’t want to go to the baby room so he quit trying to poke Eddy. Eddy stuck out his tongue at Samuel and looked at his tiger book again. Ma didn’t see Eddy stick out his tongue. Sarah saw him but she just took a big breath and looked back up at Pa. I wanted to make a face at both of them so they would be still but I didn’t. I didn’t want to go to Hell.

Sarah was sitting on the end of our row. She watched Pa. She twirled her long hair around her fingers. She had gold hair too. Her Bible was in her lap but she didn’t look at it.

Pa looked down at Sarah. His voice boomed. He was saying the words that didn’t make sense. It sounded like waaa aaahhhh waaaaa naaaaaa. Over and over. The words made my head buzz. Sarah stared back at him. She twirled her hair tighter around her fingers. Samuel looked at Pa too. Sarah put her hand on Samuel’s head. Eddy kept looking at his tiger book.

The man with the big red face started playing his guitar again. He played faster and faster. People started getting up and moving around like they were trying to dance. Pa didn’t dance. Pa stood up there and looked at the dancers. He kept saying the words that didn’t make any sense. I put my hands over my ears but I could still hear them. Pa looked at Sarah. Everything was louder and louder. People were standing in front of us, doing the dance that wasn’t dancing. Sarah was moving back and forth in her seat. She looked funny. She didn’t look like Sarah. She looked like that doll with the yellow hair and the white face and the big black eyes Ma keeps in the china cabinet. That one that stares and stares and stares at me if I look at it. I don’t like to look at it.

Pa stopped saying the words. He turned around. The boxes were behind him. They were stacked against the wall. His friend Mr. Watson was standing back there beside the boxes. Mr. Watson was singing something. I couldn’t hear the words. Mr Watson opened the top of one of the boxes. Pa bent over it and pulled a long gray thing out. The music got louder. The singing got louder. Sarah kissed Samuel on top of his head. She stood up. Ma leaned across me like she was going to grab Sarah. She couldn’t reach Sarah. Sarah’s Bible fell in the floor. One of the not-dancing people stepped on it and it flew back under our pew. Sarah didn’t look at it. She started swaying too. She started doing the not-dancing. She waved her arms around. Her gold hair went in circles. Her long skirt flew out and hit my face. Ma stood up, then sat back down. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She put her hand over her mouth. Eddy dropped his tiger book. Samuel grabbed my hand.

Pa was holding a great big snake. It was so big it was laying across both his arms. It moved back and forth too, like the not-dancing people in front of us. Sarah whirled around and whirled around and then she was beside Pa like her skirt and her hair whirled her up there. People were moving back and forth in front of me. They were waving their arms. They were singing. I couldn’t hear what they sang.

“Albert Albert Albert” PERIOD HERE?

Ma was shaking my arm.

“You take the boys,” she was yelling at my ear. “Take them outside right now.”

She pushed Eddy into me, pushed me into Samuel, pushed us all into the aisle. We bounced against the shaky people in the aisle like the little silver balls in that game I play at the arcade. Ping ping ping. Eddy was crying. He was trying to shove through the people. Samuel stood in the aisle while people pinged against him. He was watching Pa and Sarah. Pa was handing the great big snake to Sarah. Its face was waving back and forth right in her face. Its yellow eyes were looking into her eyes. She was reaching out for it. She let Pa drape it over her arms. Pa was saying things to Sarah. I could see his mouth moving. Sarah glowed.

Ma yelled in my ear, “Go go go.”

I grabbed Samuel’s arm with one hand and I grabbed Eddy’s arm with the other hand. I pulled us all through the crowd, though the not-dancing, through the noise. I pretended I was a superhero. But I couldn’t fly us over the people blocking our way. Then Ma’s friend Mrs. Ross was there, right in front of me. She picked up Samuel so fast his feet flew into the air, and she got Eddy by the arm.

She leaned over at me and said “Albert we’re going out that door now and don’t you look back.”

Somebody behind us started screaming, way up high, above the singing and above the chanting and above the music.

BREAK HERE? BACK TO PRESENT AND OUT OF ALBERT”S REMEMBRANCE OF 1994, 10 YEARS BACK

I stop talking. I didn’t know I was talking. Samuel and Quentin are staring at me. They are frozen. Samuel is white. He’s holding the piece of paper he picked up from the floor. An orange tiger’s face with big gold eyes is smiling at us. It’s so quiet.

—–

Ben – 2004, just before Samuel leaves

Grandma was taking a meatloaf out of the oven when I came running through the kitchen door. The screen slammed behind me. She looked around, sat the hot dish onto a trivet, and said, “Ben, how many times do I have to tell you not to slam the door like that? You’re going to bend the frame. Go wash up, dinner is ready. Where are your brothers?” She wiped her hands on her old red apron with sunflowers.

“I thought they were right behind me,” I said, grabbing a buttery little potato out of the dish on the table when she turned her back on me again to open the refrigerator. “Guess what? Grandpa’s going to take us to the snake church after dinner!”

She spun around towards me so fast that I had to step back out of her way. I was trying to swallow the little potato without her seeing it, but she clearly didn’t care about that.

“He is taking you where?”

She sat a bowl of green jello BRAND NAME: JELL-o onto the table with considerable force. I couldn’t answer for a second while I tried to swallow the potato.

“Benjamin Jordan, what did you just say?”

I swallowed, managed not to choke, and said, “Grandpa’s taking us to the snake church. I didn’t even know there was another snake church! It’s going to be really exciting – do you want to go with us?”

It always made me nervous when Grandma fixed me with a stare like that. As usual, I was babbling on, saying things that would only make it worse.

She didn’t answer, just shifted her stare to the doorway where we could see Samuel, Quentin, Joel and Grandpa all coming up the back steps to the kitchen. They filed in, oddly quiet. Grandpa came in last, and Grandma said, “You boys go wash your hands right now. Joel, tell Jessie and Albert dinner is ready.”

“Yes ma’am,” we all said, more or less in unison. Joel made a dash for the stairs, and the three of us headed along the hallway towards the downstairs bathroom. I lingered just out of sight of the kitchen for a minute, wanting to hear what Grandma was going to say to Grandpa, but Samuel grabbed my arm and yanked me away as Quentin gave me a light shove from behind. We heard Joel and Jessie clattering back down the stairs. Joel shouted “Dinner’s ready!” towards the living room at Albert. When Joel and Jessie appeared around the corner, Samuel waved at them to follow us.

“Is she mad?” I asked, as soon as we were out of hearing. “She’s acting REALLY mad! I told her about going to the snake church, is that why?”

“Get in here,” Samuel said, and pulled me into the bathroom. Quentin herded Joel and Jessie in behind us and shut the door. It was a very small bathroom that had been added to the old house way before we were born. There was barely enough room for one person. Quentin sat on the toilet lid. Samuel shoved the pink flowered shower curtain back and stepped into the big clawfoot tub. Jessie, Joel and I smushed ourselves together between the old pedestal sink and the door. There was an ancient COMMA? gold-tinted globe light over the sink. Combined with the mint green tiles all along the walls it gave an eerie underwater feel to the little room.

“What are we doing?” Jessie said. “Why did you make us come in here?”

“You should have taken your shoes off,” Quentin said to Samuel. “Now you’ve got mud in the tub on top of everything else.”

“Oh, oops,” said Samuel, distractedly. “I’ll rinse it out. Ben, do you not realize why she’s mad?”

“Who’s mad?” Jessie asked.

“Grandma looked pretty mad,” said Joel. “Is it because of the snake church?”

“What snake church?” asked Jessie.

“The one we’re going to after dinner,” I said, and her eyes widened.

“Not you,” Samuel said. “I wish it was not anybody, but definitely not you, Jessie. You’re way too young.”

“I’m ten,” Jessie said, loudly. “That is not too young!”

“Shhhhh!!” Samuel hissed. “It’s not negotiable, and I just want all of you to understand that Grandma has a reason for being angry and…” he trailed off.

“But why?” I asked.

“She doesn’t want anything to happen to Samuel,” Quentin said.

“What could happen?” Joel asked. “Grandpa says God chose him, so He won’t let anything happen.”

I started thinking about the things that could happen. But Grandpa wouldn’t have Samuel do anything dangerous, I told myself. He knew it would be fine.

Just then Grandpa’s voice came booming down the hall. “Children, it is dinnertime. Come to the table.”

“I can’t do it,” Samuel said. He was looking at Quentin. “I just can’t.”

“I know,” Quentin said. “So don’t.”

We all watched Samuel, who was rubbing his hands through his black hair, making it stand on end. I’d never seen him look so upset, and it suddenly scared me.

“They told me I have to,” he said so low that I could barely hear him. “They said it’s very important.”

“Who did?” I asked. “Somebody besides Grandpa?”

“That sounds crazy, Samuel,” Quentin said. “You know it does.”

“Boys,” Grandpa’s voice boomed again, this time a little fainter like he was going up the stairs. “Jessie! Get down here now!”

“Out,” Samuel said. His eyes looked red. “Hurry.”

Joel opened the door and we all spilled out into the hallway.

“We’re coming!” Samuel called, pushing us toward the kitchen. “We were just washing up!”

Grandpa’s boots clomped down the stairs, and he came around the corner as we got to the kitchen doorway. He looked a little puzzled to see all of us, but gave Samuel a small smile.

“Come on, son,” he said, “you need to eat so you’ll have energy for tonight.”

We sat down at the table, Grandpa at the head as usual, Grandma setting down plates and silverware a lot harder than she normally did. She finally sat down herself at the other end of the table. All of us were unusually quiet as we passed around the meatloaf, little buttery potatoes, and green beans. Samuel and Quentin didn’t either one say a word, which was normal for Quentin, but not for Samuel. Even Albert didn’t say anything, just looked from Grandpa to Grandma with worry lines on his forehead.

I never have been able to just sit still and keep my mouth shut when there is too much silence and tension in the air.

“It’s really going to be cool seeing the snake handlers,” I said. “Sorry you’re too little to go, Jessie. Maybe Albert ought to stay home too – he probably won’t appreciate it. It’s really too bad Eddy’s at work! Grandpa, are you going to handle a snake?”

Samuel kicked me underneath the table, hard.

“OW”, I said. “What was that for? I know Grandpa used to handle snakes, a long time ago. I bet he can still do it.”

“That is enough, Ben,” Grandma said. Her eyes were blazing, but she was looking at Grandpa.

“No, Ben,” said Grandpa. “ I’m not going to take them up myself. Not tonight.” He was watching Samuel, who was staring at his plate and shoving his meatloaf around. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Maybe this was not going to be the exciting outing that I’d anticipated. At least not exciting in the way I’d expected.

”That is no place for children, Jacob,” Grandma said, NO COMMA? in an oddly low voice.

“They are not children any more, Opel,” he said. “Jessie is the only child here, and she’s not going. The boys are old enough.”

Jessie looked mad enough to spit. I smirked at her, but made sure Grandma didn’t see me. Quentin did, and kicked me under the table too, not quite as hard as Samuel had.

“They need to witness this,” Grandpa said. “They need to understand. HE needs to understand.”

“And did she understand? You led her to believe she had to prove herself, that God would not just accept her for the kind and caring person that she was, and she listened to you.”

Grandpa’s face was like stone. “That was God’s will. Her belief was lacking, but she is where she was meant to be now.”

I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from asking who they were talking about. I knew from their faces that it would be a very very bad idea. Grandma took a sip of her tea, then said, in a low dangerous voice I’d never heard her use, “It is on your shoulders, Jacob. And this will be too. I can’t stop you, but I know you will answer for it.” SO BEN WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT HIS MOTHER? DOES HE KNOW SHE GOT BITTEN BY A SNAKE AND THAT’S HOW SHE DIED?

He looked at all of us, one by one, and then said in his booming preacher voice, “ ‘And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons, they will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.’ ” DID HE COME UP WITH THAT ON HIS OWN OR IS HE QUOTING SOMEONE?

We were all motionless. Then Samuel said, “It’s okay, Grandma. I’m okay with it.”

“You are sixteen years old,” she said to him.

“He is a man in the eyes of God,” said Grandpa. “He knows his own mind.” He paused, then added, “I am the head of this house and you will submit. This is what has to be done.”

“Samuel, come with me,” Grandma said. “I need a word.” She got up and left the kitchen without looking back. Samuel glanced at Grandpa, then followed her. Grandpa took in a breath like he was about to say something, but didn’t. We all just sat there pushing the meatloaf around on our plates and staring down at the red and white checked plastic tablecloth. Nobody said a word until Samuel came back into the kitchen alone.

“It’s time to go,” Grandpa said. He stood up. Samuel nodded, then walked out the kitchen door and to the truck with us trailing behind him. Jessie stood at the door by herself and watched us leave.

****************************SO THIS IS SAME SECTION — TIME CONTINUATION? STILL FROM BEN’S POINT OF VIEW

Me and Joel and Albert rode in the back of the old pickup. It lurched and sputtered us out to the main road, then Grandpa turned away from town and headed north. It was getting dark, and the air whipping around us was chilly. I looked through the little back window at Grandpa and Samuel and Quentin. I could tell they weren’t talking. We didn’t talk either. The roar from the wind was too loud, and for once I didn’t have much to say. We just huddled close to the cab and watched the road behind us disappear into the darkness. Going to the snake church didn’t seem nearly as thrilling as it had back at the house.

After about 20 minutes Grandpa turned off the main highway beside a Kountry Korner convenience store with a flickering yellow sign and bluish lights over the gas pumps. We bounced along a narrow bumpy dirt road for another half mile or so, passing a few old ramshackle houses that didn’t look lived in, then he pulled into a gravel parking lot in front of a small concrete block building. It used to be a little store, and still had wooden platforms on either side of the saggy old door for stacking produce. The small windows in front had been painted over so you couldn’t see inside. There was just a hint of light coming out at the edges. There weren’t any signs to let you know what was going on.

Joel and I looked at each other as Grandpa parked beside an old rusty station wagon that was tilting to one side. Our Twin Spidey Sense was kicking in, and I could tell he was having doubts about this after Grandma’s reaction. Albert was looking at the little building with a tiny smile on his face.

There were quite a few cars in the lot, mostly old and beat up, spotted with rust and dirt. Nobody was outside. Grandpa got out of the cab and Samuel and Quentin climbed out the passenger door. Samuel looked at the three of us still sitting there.

“Well, come on, guys,” he said, stretching out a hand to Joel, who was closest to him. “Can’t be late for the festivities.” He didn’t say it very loudly, though. We climbed down and followed Grandpa towards the door. Grandpa didn’t even look back at us until he was nearly there, then he just waved an arm to hurry us up.

“What did Grandma say to you?” I asked Samuel, trying to keep my voice low so Grandpa wouldn’t hear me. He didn’t answer for a second.

“She said to be careful,” he finally replied.

“Why couldn’t she say that in front of us?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said, watching Grandpa.

As we reached the door, Quentin leaned over to Samuel and said, barely loud enough for us to hear, “I hope you preset wherever we’re going on the time machine. I think we’ll be in a hurry.”

Samuel snickered a little, then got quiet again as Grandpa held the door open for us to go inside. We filed past him, and he swatted lightly at me and Joel and Albert’s hair to smooth it down from the ride in the back of the truck.

MOVE # OF PEOPLE SENTENCE HERE? The room was small and dim, with dark panel on the walls and a low uneven ceiling covered in dingy tiles. Yellowing rectangular fluorescent light fixtures speckled with dead bugs on the inside ran across the ceiling, some of them burnt out so the light seemed grim and unpredictable. There were rows of folding metal chairs along a center aisle, and Jesus stared intensely at us with his big sad blue eyes from random spots all around the room. A home-made sign with uneven letters and way too many curlicues was tacked to the wall behind the wobbly podium at the front, proclaiming this to be The Holy Church of The Illuminated Lord Jesus Christ.

Samuel and Quentin headed for the last row of chairs, and after watching them for a second Grandpa followed with me and Joel and Albert at his heels. There were about forty people there, men and women milling around and talking quietly. QUESTION: SHOULD U PUT THE # OF PEOPLE IN THERE 1ST; I WAS ALMOST WONDERING IF THE CHURCH WAS EMPTY WITH THE DESCRIPTION ABOVE I didn’t see anyone near our age. They looked a little odd, and it took me a few minutes to figure out why. Most of them were dressed like people from Grandma’s old picture album. The women had long hair, long dresses and no makeup. The men had greasy looking slicked-back hair and were wearing outdated polyester suits or blue jeans with shirts made from shiny unfashionable fabric.

Grandpa kept standing in the aisle after we all sat down on the shaky metal chairs. People were coming up and talking to him, taking his hand, leaning over to tell us hello as he introduced us. Every one of them let their gaze linger on Quentin’s dark skin. Quentin’s face was expressionless, frozen. And every one of them looked with a small, knowing smile at Samuel. One extremely skinny man with shifty eyes who seemed weirdly familiar to me stared at Samuel the longest.

“I’m glad you’re finally here, son,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

He touched Samuel’s shoulder and then headed towards the front of the church.

I was sitting between Joel and Quentin, and leaned over to whisper to Samuel. “So what’s going to happen? When does it start?”

“Just hang on,” he whispered back. “Soon enough.”

“It was fast that other time,” Albert said. Joel and Quentin and I all stared at him. Samuel took a deep breath and looked at the painted-over window.

“What other time?” I said. “Have you been here before? And I mean in this timeline, Albert, not during your Civil War years.”

He looked at me seriously. “I was here that other time. Samuel held the snake. It was scary.” NEED MEMORY JOLT!

“Hush, Albert,” Samuel said. He kept rubbing his hand through his hair so it was standing straight up.

“I can’t believe you kept this so quiet,” Quentin said.

“Neither can I,” said Samuel. “That may have not been such a great idea.”

“You’ve been here before?” Joel said, his eyes huge.

“Just once,” Samuel said. He was looking up at the front of the church now, watching the people from the past milling around. “It’ll be okay, don’t worry.”

“You were okay,” Albert said. “Sarah wasn’t okay, though. I remember that.”

All of our eyes pivoted to Albert. He was looking up at the podium.

“What?” said Joel. “Who’s Sarah?”

I felt a chill go racing right up my spine. “Jesus God, Albert,” I said. “Do you mean your sister? Our mother??” I GUESS BIG QUESTION IS DOES ANY OF THEM REMEMBER SARAH BEING BITTEN — ALBERT SEEMS TO/ SAMUEL. ANYONE ELSE?

“Albert, stop it now,” Samuel said. He had turned pale, wouldn’t look at any of us.

“Hang on,” I said. I grabbed for Samuel’s arm, reaching across Quentin and accidentally ramming my elbow into his side. “What does he mean, Samuel? What’s this got to do with Mom? Is that what they were talking about at dinner?”

Joel was leaning across me, trying to get a look at Samuel’s face. Quentin was attempting to disentangle himself from my elbow, and Albert was just staring absently towards the front of the church. Grandpa was still chatting with the people from the past and hadn’t noticed our private commotion.

Samuel took hold of the hand I was trying to grab him with, and held it down as he leaned over Quentin and looked me in the eye. “I’ll tell you after this is over,” he said. “I swear, buddy. It’s complicated.”

I jerked my hand back, feeling a huge black pit forming in my stomach. Joel froze, looking as bloodless as I felt.

“You’ve got a lot to tell us,” I said. He nodded.

“Shhhhh,” Quentin whispered at us. “It’s starting.”

I turned to the homemade stage up front, my brain feeling fuzzy and weirdly detached. I couldn’t unravel what I’d just heard. Samuel had his eyes fixed on the podium and wouldn’t look at us. Quentin glanced at me and whispered, “Breathe, before you fall over.”

The congregation was taking their seats. A young guy with a scrubbed-looking face picked up a guitar beside the podium. He strummed a few notes and everyone got quiet. Grandpa sat down on the end of the row beside Albert.

“Welcome, brothers and sisters,” the guitar guy said, NO COMMA? in a surprisingly booming voice. “Welcome to The Holy Church of The Illuminated Lord Jesus Christ.” That would have made Joel and I both start giggling a few minutes ago, but it fell flat now. A murmur rose in reply, and he started playing a fast, weirdly hypnotic song on the guitar. It didn’t take long before most of the women and a lot of the men too were standing up and swaying in time.

Another man stepped up to the podium, a tall bald guy whose tight suit shirt barely buttoned over his bulging stomach. He said something, but the music and a general murmuring from the congregation kept me from hearing him. I kept catching the words Jesus and Lord, but the rest was garbled. It was getting very stuffy inside the small room, and the swaying bodies were making me feel a little dizzy. Samuel and Grandpa were staring at the speaker. Albert was gazing around the room like he was enjoying the show, and Quentin was scrutinizing his own scuffed up blue sneakers.

Several women started dancing up near the front where there was some space between the chairs and the stage, and another one appeared beside the guitarist and jangled a tambourine in time with his music, which was growing more and more frantic. The dancers were flinging their arms around and whirling in circles, so fast that their long skirts were flying out and nearly hitting the people in the front row. U WROTE ABOUT THIS BEFORE WITH SARAH I BELIEVE An old man joined them, stamping his feet like he was trying to kill something on the floor. I’d always considered dancing to be a graceful thing but these people looked like they were having convulsions. I kept sneaking glances at Joel, wishing we could have a laughing fit like we ordinarily did when faced with something this bizarre, but he was looking as pale and jittery as I felt. U’VE ALREADY COMPARED THE 2 THIS WAY ABOVE (“JOEL FROZE, LOOKING AS BLOODLESS AS I FELT”) The heat and the whirling dancers, the racket from the musicians, combined with that sudden blast of almost-knowledge that we’d gotten from Albert were all churning around in my stomach until I was starting to seriously fear I would lose my meatloaf and little buttery potatoes. I was looking around behind us trying to spot the restrooms when the voices started.

They were low at first, blending in with the rest of the noise, but gradually rose above it, louder and louder. Joel stared at me, eyes huge, mouthing, “What is that??”

I shook my head, tried to see around the people in the rows ahead of us who were nearly all standing up by now. They were blocking my view of the dancers and musicians at the front of the room, but the eerie voices were becoming more distinct, sending another shivery chill down my spine. They were chanting something, but I couldn’t make out any actual words. It was rhythmic and almost musical itself, rising and falling again; some otherworldly language I’d never heard before. It sounded like five or six people speaking at once, both garbled and transfixing.

“They’re speaking in tongues,” said Quentin, leaning over to us and nearly yelling so we could hear him.

“That has got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Joel. He was leaning up against me again and I could feel him shivering. I finally found a spot where I could see between the swaying bodies all the way to the front. It was only three people chanting, spaced across the area where the musicians were playing – two very old women and a much younger man, all swaying violently back and forth with their eyes closed and their faces raised to the ceiling. Three rows ahead of us a woman with puffy blond hair suddenly collapsed into the floor and writhed around like she was having a fit.

“Something’s happened to that lady!” Joel yelled, pointing at her. “She needs help!”

I looked over for Grandpa and realized that he and Samuel had both gotten up without us noticing and were at the front of the room now, way beyond the convulsing woman. They were standing still against the far wall, and Grandpa had his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. Even from that distance it looked like he was holding Samuel down.

“This is kind of scary,” said Albert, scooting closer to Joel.

“Are they just going to let her die?” said Joel, as the woman continued to jerk and twist in the floor.

“She’s not dying,” said Quentin, raising his voice again so we could hear him above all the noise. “It’s just one of the crazy things they do.”

“How do you know? Why would she do that?” said Joel, just as an old woman and a man in a fancy cowboy shirt collapsed into the aisle too and began to flail.

“It’s the Spirit of the Lord,” said Quentin. “Apparently.” He was looking at Grandpa and Samuel too then, his face becoming even more still. “Do you guys want to go outside?”

“Yes”, said Joel, as I said “Maybe…”

Albert said, “I want to see what happens!”

There was a change in the air, and the voices got a little softer. We all looked towards the stage. The skinny man was bent over a group of wooden boxes that were so far back at the end of the room I hadn’t noticed them before. He picked up one and carried it to the podium. He unclasped the lid. Then he reached into the box. I craned around, trying to see what was going on as more people in the rows between us started swaying back and forth. I finally just stood up on my wobbly metal chair for a better view.

He was lifting a huge grey snake with dark diamonds down its back out of the box, raising it up carefully as he would a baby. He held it high in the air, letting its tail slap against his arm. WOULD THIS BE A RATTLER? DIAMOND BACK RATTLER? IF NOT WHAT OTHER SNAKE? DID IT MAKE RATTLING NOISES? (WATER MOCCASIN? BUT THEY AREN’T AS BIG I DON’T THINK) I could see its head waving around slowly, like it was trying to figure out where exactly it was. The bald guy with the barely concealed stomach appeared beside him, and the muffled voices all around us seemed to grow louder and louder again. They both shouted at the snake in that unearthly language, and it swayed like there was a wind blowing it around. My metal chair started tipping and I grabbed at Quentin’s shoulder to steady myself. I caught sight of Samuel and Grandpa moving close to the podium, bent toward each other and both talking at the same time, their voices lost in the crowd.

I didn’t know whether to watch them or the skinny man who was holding the snake over his head now, swaying slightly, his mouth moving, his eyes shut. He was saying something I couldn’t make out, then he opened his eyes and said Samuel’s name, loud and clear. Joel grabbed my leg, THIGH? KNEE? and I nearly fell off the chair. The crowd seemed to take one breath, and became completely silent.

Samuel stepped towards the skinny man and the snake. They were both motionless, watching him. The skinny man was smiling. Samuel had no expression at all. The skinny man slowly held out the snake, and Samuel reached for it.

“Fuck,” whispered Quentin. “Fuck fuck fuck…” Then he clamped his hand over Joel’s mouth before he could yell at Samuel. Joel fought back for a second then hid his face against Quentin’s shoulder.

Samuel had one hand just under the snake’s big head and the other holding up its body. He was looking it right in the eyes. The snake was staring back into his.

“I’m sorry,” we all heard him say to the snake. “This is wrong. I’ll take you back home.” He took a step away from the podium with the snake in his arms.

The crowd began murmuring again, the skinny man grabbed at him, and the snake started to thrash around. The skinny man blocked my view of Samuel for a second and before I could see what was happening my chair finally tipped completely over and I landed in the floor. A woman shrieked. The voices around us rose.

“Let’s go,” Quentin said, jerking me up with one hand and yanking Joel out of his seat with the other. He pushed us into Albert so we all ended up in the aisle. I kept trying to see what was going on, but the congregation had swept forward and I’d lost sight of Samuel and the snake and the skinny man.

“I want to see what happened!” I yelled, trying to squirm back around him. “Where’s Samuel??”

Then the crowd moved just enough that I could see Samuel standing alone, staring at the snake handler lying in the floor by the podium with blood running down his cheek. His eyes were shut. He had his hand pressed to his face, and he was smiling. The snake was gone.

“Get on out that door right now,” Quentin said, and yanked my arm hard enough to spin me around and nearly knock me over. He pushed us all three out the side door with such force that we came spilling into the gravel parking lot, banging against each other like pinballs. Quentin slammed the door behind us, and the noise of the congregation dimmed.

“What happened?” I asked. “I saw blood – is that guy dead?”

Joel shoved at me then. “Just shut up,” he hissed. “Get in the truck.”

“Where’s Pa?” Albert said. “Where’s Samuel?”

Albert’s lip was trembling. Him pitching a crying fit was all we needed.

“Get your ass in the truck right now, Ben,” Quentin said. “I’ll go find them.” QUENTIN IS THE OLDEST? WHERE’S EDDY? 

Albert stared at him in delight, forgetting he was about to cry, and said, “Quentin, you are not supposed to say ass!”

Just then, the door opened and Samuel came out, followed by Grandpa. The noise of the congregation swelled for a moment, then died again as the door shut behind them.

“Let’s go,” said Grandpa. “That’s enough for tonight.”

“Is that guy okay?” I asked.

“He was spared,” Grandpa said. I decided it was best to not press him for details.

He opened the passenger door and held it as Samuel climbed in without looking at any of us.

“Get in,” Quentin said to us. “It’s over now.”

He gave me that level, narrow eyed look of his, and I surrendered and got in the back of the truck, scooting in between Joel and Albert who both sat with their arms wrapped around their knees.

As soon as Quentin was inside, Grandpa backed the truck out faster than usual, making gravel ping against the car beside him. I watched the concrete building fold in on itself, vanish in the darkness. We rode home without saying a word, the air getting colder and colder around us.

Quentin – 2004, the night before Samuel leaves.

Samuel didn’t say a thing when Albert stopped talking. Just stuck that torn tiger picture into his pocket, looked around one more time, and went out the door. Albert and I followed him, and we started back down the mountain. The sun was getting low, throwing long shadows over the ripped-up dirt road, making it hard to see the potholes and rocks and tree limbs strewn across it. We all kept tripping, but Samuel just walked faster.

When we finally got back to the house, Samuel turned to Albert and said, “You go on inside now, buddy. Grandma’s going to wonder where you are.”

“Aren’t you coming in?” Albert said. “We can watch Law and Order EMPHASIZE in a little bit!”

Samuel smiled at him. “Not just yet,” he said. “We’ll catch it later.” Then he turned to me and said, “I really need a drink.”

“Right,” I said. “You do. Let’s go.”

The old black Taurus that Samuel and Eddy shared was parked around the back of the barn with the keys in the ignition, so we didn’t need to go inside the house and try to make up something for Samuel’s granddaddy about where we were going. Where we were going was where we generally went when one or both of us needed to think or to stop thinking. We’d go riding around the back roads, in the middle of nowhere. Drinking Schlitz and throwing the empty cans into the backseat. Samuel would usually drive. He was a good driver even when he’d been drinking. He didn’t just think that he was, like most people do. He didn’t speed, didn’t waver in the lanes, used his turn signals. I knew I couldn’t drive when I was drunk, so it worked out fine. It was our favorite thing to do: buy beer at the Blue Light, where they sold it without needing an ID, and go out driving around the country.

Samuel had made up all kinds of stories for his brothers about how we’d go down to the Roadhouse, that boozy concrete block dive down by the river with a reputation for violence, but we hardly ever did that. I didn’t fit in down there, and neither one of us was the dangerous type. There was another place we went to more, if we felt like being social. Another little nondescript building on the opposite side of town, which was more of a Black hangout. Neither one of us really fit in there either, but they’d have a jazz band on the weekends and we both liked to hear it. One of my cousins tended bar so it didn’t matter that we were underage.

Usually we’d just buy some beer and drive around. We’d take all the back roads, windy and dark and going anywhere. Houses flitting by, lights on in the livingroom, TWO WORDS so you’d just catch a glimpse of someone sitting by the window, or passing through their front room. TVs flickering, lamps burning. I liked trying to see into other people’s lives while we flashed by.

So that was what we did. We drove all the way up to Tennessee. There’s miles and miles of tangled little back roads up there with hardly any traffic. We had the windows down and the radio up loud. Every time one station faded out I’d tune in another one. I tried to avoid country and pop since we both preferred the alternative stations, but none of them lasted long before fading away. GOOD DETAIL — I REMEMBER WEAK ALT ROCK STATIONS

We must have gone thirty miles before either of us said anything about what had happened. I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. It was full dark by then. I watched how the center lines flashed underneath us, steady and hypnotic.

“I always knew there was a lot more to what happened with Mom,” Samuel suddenly said. “It never did make sense that nobody talked about her. It didn’t make sense that nobody ever even said her name. I asked Grandma about it a few times but she wouldn’t tell me anything. It upset her to be asked so I stopped. Kids at school would say stuff sometimes but it was behind our backs. They wouldn’t say it to our faces.” SO NO ONE KNEW SARAH WAS BIT BY SNAKE FOR THE KIDS EXCEPT ALBERT — HE WAS OLDEST AND HAD SOME MEMORIES

“You don’t remember what Albert told us?” I asked him. “You don’t remember being there when it happened?”

He stared out at the black road, at the flashing lines. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I can’t decide. I need to ask Eddy if he remembers but I’m sure he would have said something.” INTERESTING — NEED TO CHECK THIS CAREFULLY

I didn’t want to bring up the obvious, but finally did.

“Seems like you’re getting set up for that same thing to happen to you,” I said. I stared out at the black trees whirling by my window instead of looking at him.

“It does, doesn’t it,” he said. “We just crossed the state line. Let’s keep going. Where do you want to go?”

I tried to think where I’d go if I could go anywhere. It sure wouldn’t be back to Skye. HOW MUCH HAS SKYE BEEN MENTIONED BEFORE… CHECKING… THIS IS ACTUALLY FIRST MENTION IN THE BOOK SO MAYBE NAME DROP THIS BEFORE. NAME OF COMMUNITY IS SKYE NOT SNAKE MOUNTAIN. Nothing would come to me, though. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than where we were, flying along on that peaceful empty dark road, listening to the radio, watching other people’s lives flit by.

“Where do you EMPH? want to go?” I asked him. He drained his beer, tossed the can over his shoulder into the back seat. Squinted his eyes.

“You know,” he said, slow and thoughtful, “I have no idea. Not one.”

“Me neither,” I said. There’s definitely something wrong with this, I thought. Two sixteen year olds with a car and no idea of where they’d go, even if they could go anywhere. Something wrong with not being able to come up with any one spot, anywhere at all. Even when the alternative was staying where we were and facing what Samuel was facing.

Finally I brought up the thing that wouldn’t leave me alone.

“So why did you not tell me about what was going on? About this whole new snake church development?” I asked. I tried to sound like I was just curious. Like I didn’t really care that my best friend BEST FRIEND — HAS THIS BEEN EMPH BEFORE?  had left me out of something so major. He glanced over at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I could just get by with one trip to the church and it would be a big failure. Then Grandpa would see I wasn’t who he wanted me to be. And maybe he’d just drop it.” NO NEW PARAGRAPH?

He paused, took a deep breath. “I couldn’t tell anybody, Quentin. He said not to tell anybody, but that’s not why I couldn’t. They told me to keep it quiet too, because I needed to be…ready. Unencumbered. So there wouldn’t be ties or questions or anything. So I could just…do what I have to do.”

All that had poured out of him and he was rubbing his hand through his hair till it stood on end again.

“‘They’?” I said. “They who?” Like I didn’t know.

“You know who,” he said. “And I know you think it’s crazy. Maybe it is crazy, but they’ve been contacting me since I was a kid, Quentin. WHAAAA?  They looked out for me, they helped me. I used to see them! Grandpa thought I was possessed by demons and I had to stop talking about them, but they’ve always been with me!” His voice had gotten louder and he was clutching the steering wheel, knuckles turning white.

“But what are they telling you? What do you mean unencumbered? Are they telling you to do something?” SHOULD HE BE MORE SHOCKED? My voice was getting louder too and suddenly I was afraid of what he would say. I started to ask him if this had anything to do with the Time Machine, which we both knew wasn’t real, but before I could open my mouth something was in front of us.

It just loomed up out of nowhere, a dark shape that filled the windshield. SO THIS IS THE 2ND TIME THEY’VE SEEN THE UFO, OR THE 1ST RESTATED? The brakes screamed, the car twisted sharp to one side. I saw huge glassy eyes staring in at us, lit up by the headlights, just as the car started to spin. Everything seemed like slow motion, the pines circling around in the headlights, a fence sliding by, us going in loops with the tires screeching. Slow motion, but no time to do anything about it. I braced myself against the dashboard, tried to cover up my face with an arm. Then as suddenly as we’d started sliding, we stopped. In the middle of the road, facing back the way we’d come, just sitting there still and quiet. I could smell the smoking brakes and the sharp burn of rubber from the tires. We looked at each other. Samuel’s face was like a ghost in the dim light. I couldn’t get my breath. THEY LOOKED BACK? Nothing was lying in the road, no deer or anything else. Nothing on the sides either as far as I could tell. ALTERNATELY MAYBE THEY DIDN’T GO INTO A SPIN, JUST STOPPED WITH SCREECHING BRAKES SO THAT THEY’D STILL BE FACING FORWARDS – BUT I GUESS THEY HAD TO SWIRVE SOME

“Was that a deer?” he said. “Did that look like a deer to you? All I could see was eyes – I don’t know how we didn’t hit it!”

“I don’t know how we didn’t hit a tree,” I said, finally able to speak. My heart pounded so hard it almost hurt. “Get out of the middle of the road before somebody comes along and finishes us off!”

He started to put the car in reverse, then stopped, staring up above us, his mouth open.

“What? What is it?” I said, then looked up myself. Something was filling the sky right above our heads. Something dark and enormous, blocking out what should have been the stars and the half moon that had been following us on the ride. At first it seemed so flat and close that I couldn’t make out any details at all. Then I could see lights scattered around the edges in a big oval – odd translucent greens and blues. They looked close enough to reach up and touch. That’s when I realized I shouldn’t have been able to see anything but the inside of the car right up above our heads. I’d have to be looking right through the roof to see what I was seeing. Before I could process that COMMA there was movement on the road in front of us. Something tall and thin flashed there, facing us. A bright blue beam shot over and lit it up for a split second. Then it was gone. Whatever was in the road and whatever was above us, they were both gone. Vanished in an instant. Samuel and I stared at each other, then looked back up at the peeling nubby stuff lining the inside of the car’s roof. Not at the sky. We jumped out of the car and stared upwards. The stars and the moon twinkled back down at us.

“That’s it,” said Samuel. He grabbed my arm, smiling up at the sky. “That’s it!”

“What are you talking about? What just happened?” My legs were shaking. I leaned up against the car for support.

He looked over at me, his green eyes glowing. “It’s what I asked for! When I said let’s just keep going, I was asking them for a sign to show me what I was supposed to do. And I got it, just like that.” He was beaming at me. “Just like magic! Quentin, they’re helping me, I know what to do now!”

“I don’t understand,” I told him. “What did we just see?”

He gripped my arm tighter, staring at the sky. “It was them, and now you’ve seen them too! You know I haven’t just lost my mind!” He grinned at me, happier than I’d seen him in a very long time.

“I guess if you’ve lost yours, so have I,” I said slowly. “But what does it mean, what are you supposed to do?’

“Escape,” he said. “I have to escape and I’m ready.”

He turned towards me again, suddenly serious. “We’ve got to get back home. It’s time.”

And that’s all he would say. We drove back in silence, not even listening to the radio. His face was glowing in the dashboard lights and he never stopped smiling. When he stopped the car in front of my house he got out too.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you, Quentin,” he said. “And I can’t tell you what’s next either, but I’ll be in touch quick as I can. I need to do some work on the Time Machine.” He suddenly hugged me, then pulled back a bit, grinning at me. “I love you,” he said, “and you know I don’t tell just anybody that!”

Then he hopped back into the car and was gone.

Samuel – The Aliens Have Told Him What To Do – 2004 THIS WILL BE POLISHED UP LATER

Need date

This is it! All this time I’ve been waiting and finally it’s here IT’S HERE and I know it’s real – but I always knew it was real, of course I knew it was real it’s just that nobody else knew and nobody ever believed it if I said anything – they thought I was just making things up or that maybe I’m insane. I thought maybe they were right, that could be a possibility. But I didn’t think that, not really, it’s been going on too long – since I was a kid, I’d see them sometimes and they would talk to me but I don’t know how they did it. They talked to Joel too when he was very very small but they kept talking to me, they still talk to me. I don’t remember them speaking words it was all inside my head which made it even more confusing. MORE DESCRIP OF “ALIENS”? SMALL LIKE GREYS? TALLER?

They told me to build the Time Machine COOL! and even I knew that was nuts, time machines don’t exist they aren’t going to work. I guess they don’t, although something happened with Albert ADD: SO (ETC) at least he thinks it did. He thinks it worked.

I did what they told me because they said I would need it one day. Like now, I guess, ha! but as it turns out I don’t because Grandma caught on and has another way. That’s nearly as weird as the Time Machine working would be, i didn’t expect that, not for her to figure it out and have a plan for me. I’m glad she did but I’m also scared but it’s not as scary as staying would be.

I need to slow down I can barely read this

but I have to write it now so I won’t ever forget

and I have to hurry because tomorrow is the day

Grandpa was wrong NEW SENTENCE he was wrong about me and he was wrong about our mom. I knew that, I knew what he wanted was wrong, how could it not be? I didn’t know how wrong though till Albert told us what he saw happen to mom CAPITAL M at the church. I didn’t know till then that it would be me next

It all made sense then, I knew what they were telling me that I have to get out and I have important work to do – work that won’t get me killed. Poor mom. She thought she was doing important work I know that now

She wasn’t. She was a sacrifice.

Tonight I found out so many things! That what Grandpa wants from me is all fucked up  – that i can actually do it, handle the snakes but it’s not what I’m meant to do and it wasn’t what mom CAPITAL M was meant to do either, it’s all kinds of fucked and wrong

that grandma knows and will help me

that they are still looking out for me and now even Quentin has proof. He never understood it, probably still doesn’t but he’s always been right there with me. I’ll miss him, I’m miss them all but it won’t be forever. Grandpa will realize he was wrong and I’ll be back before long.

I can’t describe what happened tonight, what we saw – I’ll do it later, when I have time to think about it – now it’s time to get a little sleep, I feel like there are bees in my head but i have to be ready tomorrow. Can’t do anything else tonight, don’t want to wake up eddy. I won’t be taking much, can throw it all in my bag in the morning

Need date (next day)

I’m on the bus can’t believe this is actually happening this is crazy

Eddy was awake when I got up, he was staring at me like he knew something was going on but maybe it was because of the snake church – he didn’t go, was working REASON WHY EDDY WASN’T THERE — WAS THIS STATED BEFORE?, felt like he should have been there, the twins would have told him what happened

He asked if I was ok as soon as I opened my eyes, I said of course I am, when am I not ok? Do you want to talk about it he asked and I said later – no time, he had to get to the diner for his early shift, I said.

We’ll talk when I get home he said. We will, I said. I threw my pillow at him, said go on! I need more sleep!

I didn’t sleep – as soon as he left I was up cramming stuff into my knapsack. A few clothes, books, toothbrush, everything I could think of fast. I wanted to look in on the twins and Jessie but they can’t know what’s going on and i was afraid I’d give it away. They were still asleep anyway, it was very early, barely starting to get light.

Grandma was at the foot of the stairs. TIME MACHINE WAS A RED HERRING. IT WAS GRANDMA WHO WAS HIS SALVATION ALL ALONG — GRANDMA KNOWS ABOUT ALIENS? DOES SHE BELIEVE IN HIS TIME MACHINE EVEN? MORE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN GRANDMA AND TIME MACHINE? ALIENS AND TIME MACHINE?

Shhhhh, she said, pulled me into the sewing room

He’s down at the barn she said, we need to hurry

She handed me the money and the name and phone number and directions

You’ll have to walk to the bus station she said, he’ll hear the car. He won’t realize you’ve gone till it’s too late to stop you

He’ll be mad at you COMMA I said. I was having doubts. It was too much.

He won’t know, she said. He’ll think you just went on your own. And he won’t know where.

Grandma’s eyes were red. Mine stung too.

Hurry on now, she said, giving me a little push. You don’t want to miss the bus. She hugged me quick, then i was out the door and gone, nearly running through the pasture till i was far enough from the barn that he wouldn’t see me if he came out

The bus pulled up right after i got my ticket, nobody else waiting, nobody got off. Old Mrs Wilson sold me the ticket, I said i was going to see my friend in Charlotte for a few days and she just nodded and said have a good time dear

And now it’s really happening, the bus is flying along down the interstate and it’s the beginning!