The Unmaking of June Farrow(2)

The wind picked up, and goosebumps surfaced on my skin, tracing from my wrist to my elbow when the feeling of eyes crept up the back of my mind. I swallowed hard before I followed the movement at the corner of my vision back down the hill. The square of golden light on the lawn beside the church was painted with a sharp black shadow.

My gaze rose to see the silhouette of a man framed in the window, shoulders squared to the cemetery. Even from here I could feel those eyes focused on me. But the parking spot where the minister’s car had been an hour ago was now empty. So was the church.

It’s not real, I told myself, tearing my eyes away. There’s nothing there.

When I blinked, he was gone.

The notes of the fiddle slowed, drawing out against the wind as the last bit of light disappeared in the distance. The trees swayed in a balmy summer evening breeze that made my skin sticky to the touch, and a moment later, there was only the sound of the footsteps on the damp grass as the others made their way through the headstones and back to the road.

I stared at the dark, crumbled earth that filled the grave. Gran had taught me how to work the farm, to weave flower crowns, and to make her grandmother’s biscuits. She taught me how to ignore the whispered prayers women uttered beneath their breaths when they came in and out of the flower shop. How to read the coming seasons by the intuition of the trees and predict the weather by the look of the moon. I hadn’t let myself really think about the fact that it was what came next that I most needed her for. But she wouldn’t be there.

Birdie and I waited for the last of the headlights to bleed away before we finally started the walk back, following the bridge over the river to the single block that was downtown Jasper. I chanced one more look at the church and found the window still empty, like I knew it would be. But that sick feeling still swirled in my belly.

I unbuttoned the top of my black cotton dress, letting the cool night air touch my skin before I pulled off my shoes, a pair of black slingback heels Gran had probably had in her closet since 1960. The same was likely true for the pearl earrings I’d fished from her jewelry box that morning.

The crickets woke with the darkness that fell over the thin strip of town that lined the road, not a car in sight. Small communities like this one usually went to sleep with the sun, and Jasper was mostly farms, which meant its residents would be up when the roosters crowed.

The main street had some other name no one ever remembered, a combination of four or five numbers that only showed up on maps. In Jasper, it was known as just the river road, the only way to town from the remote stretches that were tucked into the surrounding mountains. South took you to Asheville. North took you to Tennessee.

A banner for the upcoming Midsummer Faire was stretched out across the only intersection, catching the wind like a sail. The redbrick-faced buildings were more than 150 years old. They snaked along the Adeline River, which, that time of night, with the moon waning, just looked like a wall of black. The only reminders that it was there were the hiss of it running over the rocks in the shallows and the distinct smell that the churn of mountain water put into the air.

The lights of the cafe, the feed store, the grocery, and the bank were dark, and the poorly marked side streets were quiet. One after the other, the tilting signs reflected the moonlight as we passed. Bard Street, Cornflower Street, Market Street . . . I let my eyes drift to the shadows that striped this last narrow alley. It was there that Clarence Taylor had heard those cries in the darkness and found me.

Then there was Rutherford Street, named after one of the Jasper’s more sinister tales, the only one I knew of that overshadowed my mother’s strange disappearance. Decades ago, the town’s minister had been brutally murdered at the river, though I wasn’t sure what truth there was to the grisly details I’d heard murmured over the years. There were people who still left flowers on his grave and his picture hung in the cafe like the patron saint of Jasper, still watching over his flock. My missing mother, on the other hand, had barely warranted a search party.

“Did Mason lock up?” Birdie asked, eyes finding the dark windows of the flower shop across the street.

I nodded, watching our reflections on the glass as we walked side by side. Birdie had taken over running the shop when Gran got so sick she couldn’t work, and now Mason had pretty much taken over things at the farm. My days for the last year and a half had been spent looking after Gran, and now that she was gone, I wasn’t sure where I fit anymore. I wasn’t sure it would matter much longer, either.

The porch light of the little house I’d grown up in was the only one lit when we turned onto Bishop Street. Even from the outside, it looked different without my grandmother in it. Older, somehow. Birdie, on the other hand, looked younger in the moonlight. She opened the gate to the once-white picket fence, holding it open for me before she followed.

She’d sold her house and moved in three years ago, taking the spare room downstairs when Gran’s decline worsened, and the two of us became the three of us. But in a way, that had always been true. Even before Birdie’s husband died, she’d been a fixture, a rare constant in my life. That was one thing that wouldn’t change now that Gran was gone.

I climbed the steps to the porch and opened the screen door. For no other reason than it was habit, I reached into the open letter box, tucking the little stack of envelopes under my arm. With a pang of guilt, I realized it was one of those mundane things that went on, even when your world stopped spinning. Edison’s Cafe still closed at 8 P.M., the morning glories still bloomed at dawn, and the mail was still delivered every day but Sunday.