wasn’t gonna get rattled. She’d got so used to people’s scowls and grumbles she didn’t hardly see or hear ’em anymore. Besides, wasn’t it fine that the girl was actually talking? “But that don’t mean I ain’t grateful. Here. You have some o’ that on your breakfast biscuits.” She leaned over the railing and dropped the jar into the pouch draped over the mule’s neck, then took the books. “Lemme get you the ones you’re s’posed to take back.” She shuffled to the bench, grabbed the books, and returned to the railing. “Here you go.”
Bettina took them. The button on her cuff popped loose, and her sleeve slid up an inch or so. A circle of purple marks showed on the girl’s wrist.
Nanny Fay got whisked backward in time so fast dizziness struck. She closed her eyes. Pictures flashed behind her eyelids. Bettina’s wrist, then Rosie’s arms. Bettina’s wrist, Rosie’s legs. Back and forth, back and forth. Bruises. So many bruises. She grabbed the railing and prayed for her head to clear. The images faded. Her balance returned.
She opened her eyes. Bettina was gone. Nanny Fay gripped her throat and moaned, “Oh, Rosie, your little gal…”
Bettina
WHO’D SHE THINK she was, giving her presents? Bettina urged Mule up the narrow passage, away from Boone’s Holler. Away from Nanny Fay. If it’d been anything but blueberry jam in that jar, Bettina would’ve throwed it at the old witch lady. But she couldn’t throw something made from blueberries. Maw’d liked blueberries best of all the wild fruits growing on the mountain.
She slid her hand inside the pack. Her fingers found the smooth jar and followed it up to the cloth. Pink-and-white-checked cloth. Maw’d wore a pink-and-white-checked dress to Sunday service pret’ near all spring and summer long. But it disappeared before Maw died. Bettina never did figure out where it went, though she’d hunted for it more’n once. She’d thought she could maybe wear it. Maw always looked pretty as a rosebud in that dress, and Bettina’d look that pretty, too, wearing it.
Everybody in Boone’s Holler said she was the spitting image of Maw. Same build. Same long eyelashes. Same wavy dirt-brown hair and widow’s peak. Same freckles. She was proud to look like Maw. Proud to be able to see to the cooking and cleaning and washing so she’d be a good wife someday. If she put on Maw’s dress, would Emmett think she was pretty as a rosebud? Would he see her as all growed up and ready to be his wife? She’d look for the dress again after Pap went to sleep tonight.
The Cissell cabin was across the creek, maybe another three hundred yards up the mountain, and already Bettina tasted the sweet apple cider Miz Cissell kept in a jug under the porch, where it stayed cool. “C’mon, Mule, hurry up.” She tapped Mule with her heels and kept running her fingers over that soft piece of cloth tied on the jar of blueberry jam. When noontime come, she’d put some of that jam on the bread and butter she’d packed for her lunch and have herself a feast.
Blueberry jam and pink-and-white-checked cloth. How’d Nanny Fay know them were Maw’s favorites? Bettina shivered. Pap’d say it was ’cause she was a witch. Bettina wouldn’t tell Pap about her present. Nor nobody else. This would be her little secret. Well, hers and Nanny Fay’s.
Addie
ONE DONE. IT HAD TAKEN the better part of the day, but she’d filled an entire scrapbook with carefully snipped out pictures of birds. Addie corked the pot of glue, set the glue brush in a cup of water on the windowsill, and stretched her arms over her head. Her muscles went tight, then quivery, and her entire frame shuddered. A sigh eased from her chest. What a good feeling. Both the physical relief of stretching and the satisfaction of completing the first official scrapbook for the Boone’s Hollow library.
She turned sideways in the chair and caught Emmett watching her. Heat filled her face. He’d taken one of the empty scrapbooks and used it as a lap desk for his work, giving her the table for her project. He sat with his ankle on his opposite knee, balancing the scrapbook on his bent leg. Given his height and the size of the chair, he probably needed to stretch more than she had.
She stood. “Would you like to trade places for a while?”
“No, this arrangement actually works well for me. I can pull the chair close