“Thank you,” said the flat-faced twirp, keeping it on a high plane. “Be seated.”
The fat woman had not turned her head. She sat motionless, a great bulging buzzard, giving me a view of the back of her fat neck, offering no greeting even when Mam Byers sat down at the table. I saw the lady’s face then, lean, haggard, haunted. The fat woman said: “Look in the deeps!”
Lurette closed the outer door against daylight and drew heavy curtains at the windows. She placed candles beside the crystal, and brought a burning splinter from the hearth in the next room to light them. Then she drifted off behind Mam Byers, watching for signals I think. I’ve never seen anyone who looked so much like a witless tool, as if she had given up trying to be a person and become a stick that her Ma used to poke things with.
“Look in the deeps! What do you see?”
“I see what I’ve seen before, Mam Zena, the bird trying to escape from a closed room.”
“Thy mother’s spirit.”
“Oh, I believe,” said Mam Byers. “I believe. I may have told you — when she was dying she wanted me to kiss her. The only thing she asked — have I told you?”
“Peace, Mam Byers!” She sighed, the great hag, and rested her enormous arms on the table, where I saw her fat sharp-pointed fingers curled like the legs of a spider. “What does the poor bird do today, my dear?”
“Oh, the same — beating at the windows. It was the cancer — the smell — you understand, don’t you? I couldn’t kiss her. I pretended. She knew I was pretending…” Mam Byers had set down her expensive leather purse. I knew a poor vifiage like this would have no more than one or two aristocratic families, and she would belong to one of them; it did her no good in dealing with these bloodsuckers. “Is it possible, Main Zena? Can you truly bring her, so that I could speak to her? — oh, it was so long ago!”
“All things are possible, if one has faith,” said Mam Zena, and Lurette was leaning over Mam Byers, stroking her shoulder and the back of her neck, speaking some words I couldn’t catch in her whiny whisper.
“Oh!” said Mam Byers — “I meant to give you this be — fore.” And she started taking silver coins from her purse, but her hands shook, and presently she shoved the purse into Lurette’s hands and seemed relieved to let go of it.
“Take it away, Lurette,” said Mam Zena. “I cannot touch money.” Lurette carried the purse away to a sidetable, and I saw her cringe at what must have been a burny-burn look from Ma. “Take my hands, my dear, and now we must wait, and pray a little.”
That was evidently a signal for Lurette, who slipped out of the room and was gone a few minutes. She returned silently, coming only as far as the doorway behind Mam Byers to set down a dish of smoking incense which stunk up the place in no time. Lurette on that errand was naked except for a slimpsy pair of underpants, in the middle of a costume change I guessed; as she disappeared again I noticed that she looked flatter than ever in the nude.
It’s worth remembering that Mam Zena and her whelp could easily have burned if this sort of thing was proved on them — the Church doesn’t put up with that kind of competition. But I dare say there’s no undertaking so dangerous, ridiculous, cruel or nasty but what plenty of goons are ready to have a go at it for a few dollars.
I got annoyed, and I suppose a little overcharged with teen-age hell; besides, I had to get away with my load of wash. Lurette was obviously going to perform as the spirit of Main Byers’ mother; being the opposition candidate was the only thing I could see that might have a future. I freed my knife from under that yellow smock, and put on the big white one over it. It must have cleared Mam Zena’s ankles; on me it swept the floor with considerable dignity, even after I cinched it up with one of the white loin-rags. This left me a pair of bosom-sacks out front which were line for a lot more laundry. Of course I was a little over-balanced — more a 20th Century style as I look back on it now — and my red hair poking up through and around the towel I’d tied over it probably struck a false note, and there could have been a couple-three other things inconsistent with feminine charm at its best. In spite of being dressed for the part, I didn’t feel matronly. So almost right away I gave up any idea of being the quiet type, and finding some tomato sauce on the shelves I splashed a gob of it over the front of the white smock, and more on my knife. I wouldn’t be Mam Byers’ mother after all, but just some well-nourished lady who’d died sudden and still resented it.
Back at my keyhole I saw Lurette about to float in with filmy stuff hung all around her. You could make out a mouth painted large, a pair of eyes, not much more. Hypnotized in the smoky darkness, wanting to believe, Mam Byers would see anything those frauds wanted her to see. That was proved right away, for Lurette entered before I had my nerve screwed up to act. Mam Byers — poor soul, she couldn’t stay at the table as Mam Zena told her to, but jumped up and held out her arms. It somehow gave me the push I needed. I cut loose with “Murder! Murder!” and sailed in waving my gory blade.
Mam Zena rose like a bull out of a mud wallow, knocking over the table and candles, but it was Lurette who screamed in panic, and I went for her first, snatching hold of the drifting white stuff and tripping her so she hit the floor with a fine solid thud. Then I yanked back the window curtains, and when Mam Zena came for me-she had guts — I nipped behind her and started jabbing her in the rump, just enough to keep her active. “Run!” I said, and quoted something nice I recalled from Father Clance’s teaching: “Flee from the wrath to come!”
She fled. I don’t suppose anyone could stick around for that kind of goosing. She couldn’t run for the village, not in a purple turban and black gown. She plunged away into the next room, and I had to let her go — also get out before she returned with some better weapon than mine. But meanwhile Lurette had scrambled up, and she did dart outside for the village, bare-ass, with no more sense than a spooked pullet. She was screeching “Murder! Rape! Fire!” I never did find out which one she thought it was.
I shoved the purse into Mam Byers’ wobbling hands. At least she had seen Lurette unveiled; more than that I couldn’t wait to do. I think she was cursing me as I ran out. Anyone is likely to be cursed for smashing a makebelieve.
I went down those corn rows to the woods about as fast as I’ve ever covered the ground, still brandishing my tomato-killer without knowing it. Sam said later that if he hadn’t known me real well he’d’ve been worried about my condition, but as it was he just wondered why so much feminine influence didn’t do more to bring out the softer side of my nature. Vilet said she loved me too.
On the way back to the cave, after I’d told them the whole amazing story of my girlhood, I stopped in my tracks. “Balls of the prophet!” I said — “I still got that dollar.”
“Oh snummy!” says Vilet, and Sam looked grave. We sat down on a log to reason it out. “It’d be a sin if you’d meant to keep it, but you just forgot, didn’t you, Spice?”
“Ayah. Stracted like.”
“Sure,” she said. “Still I suppose we got to ask Jed what’s the mor’l thing to do.”
Sam said: “Jackson, I’m half-way wishful we wouldn’t do that. I think it’d be mor’lly good for us to solve this ’ere by our lone. Frinstance, could young Jackson, or you, so’t of go on keeping it without meaning to? — naw, naw, sorry, I can see that wouldn’t be just right. More the kind of thing I’d do myself, being a loner by trade.”
“Of course,” Vilet said, “them people was frauds and cheats — oh ffiy gah!” She jumped up, spilling part of the loot she’d been carrying and brushing her worn old green smock as if she’d sat down on fire-ants. “What if that old bag put a witchment onto the clo’es?”