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It brought a smile to my face to remember those days, those happier times when Noble and I were young enough to still believe in the promises of rainbows and miracles. Mama filled our ears with wondrous possibilities. It was truly like being in a special womb, cared for and protected. The spirits that whirled about our home and us were impenetrable, inviolate, and most important. loving.

Although Noble did not care or pursue the spiritual as much as I did, Mama's talk of it

encouraged him to have a faith in his own

invulnerability. He could jump from any free, run as fast as he wanted, go as deeply into the forest as he pleased, without the fears that accompanied most people. Warnings ran down his back like raindrops on a windowpane. His own death must have been a terrible surprise, a betrayal he never imagined. I could never stop thinking about that moment, that brutal, ugly moment that changed all our lives.

By the end of my musings and reveries, my vivid recollections of those precious days. I usually had a deep feeling of sadness and an even deeper sense of loneliness. Once. Noble was the only friend I had in the world. Now. I had none and the prospect of Betsy being any sort of friend was slim and even frightening.

She had little or no interest in me anyway. Between the time Betsy had come to dinner and the next time she was at our home, she had spent time in the village and mails, renewing some old friendships and making new ones. Mr. Fletcher complained that she could attach herself to a new boyfriend in hours. No sooner had she met someone who interested her than she was bringing him around and treating him like someone she had been with for months, even years. I understood Mr. Fletcher to mean she was intimate too quickly.

"I suppose it's my fault," he told Mama. He was always blaming himself.

They would sit together on the porch after dinner and talk, and I would be with Baby Celeste in the living room with the window open. I could hear their conversation.

"And why is that. Dave?"

"I never gave her the love and attention she required. She always had great needs, my Betsy, so she went elsewhere. She still goes elsewhere. We keep drifting apart. The truth is we're more like strangers these days."

"Perhaps we'll be able to change all that very soon."

"If anyone can help me do that it's you, Sarah. You must have been a wonderful teacher. I'm sure the school was sorry to see you stop."

"I was a teacher here. I never stopped," Mama said as sharply as I had heard her say anything to him.

"Oh. sure. I bet. I mean. I know, and one can easily see what a wonderful job you've done with Noble. He's a fine young man, bright, polite, and very responsible. Why couldn't I have met you first?"

I knew Mama was smiling at him. The silence led me to believe they had kissed as well.

Sometimes. when I overheard them talk like that and when I saw the way Mr. Fletcher looked at Mama, his eyes full of admiration and love. I wondered myself if she hadn't cast some sort of a spell over him. Was there an herbal concoction she had fed him, a love potion as many people believed, which she still fed him? Were there ways to do such a thing, and if you did, how could you feel the person really loved you? What would happen if you stopped feeding him, stopped the spell? Was it something he really wanted and something you merely showed him how to have, or was it simply trickery?

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Mama these questions. but I was afraid, afraid she would somehow see it as a weakness or a failure on my part. How could I even think such things? she might ask, then narrow those eyes with suspicion and once again cross-examine me about who whispered in my ear. No, it was better to wait and have her tell me things, I thought. It was almost always better to do that.

Betsy never let go of the theory about some magic spell, however. She never visited

with me without either coming right out and stating it or implying it Whenever she returned to the farm, she would come up behind me in the shed or at the garden and rant.

"My father is very different" she would tell me. "I don't even recognize him anymore. It's Sarah this and Sarah that. He tells me I should try to be more like your mother. Imagine comparing me to someone who sells fake medicine and believes in ghosts,"

"We don't believe in ghosts," I snapped back at her.

"We? Oh, is it we? You believe in it all, all this spiritual mumbo jumbo my father rants about? Energy in the air, a balance in nature?"

I said nothing. I didn't want to mention it. but I was sure I saw two of our cousins standing nearby listening and whispering to each other. They were wagging their heads, too.

"If you want to know the truth, its this," she said, stamping her foot to get my attention. "After Elliot died, my father told me never to set foot anywhere near this place. Not even look in your direction, and here we are, practically moved in already. How did that happen if she didn't do something weird to him. huh? Well?"

I wish he still believed we were bad and wanted what he had told you. I thought. "People can change their minds, and people fall in love," I muttered in' stead.

"Oh, people fall in love. Look who's telling me. Mr. Plant Man whose only experience with sex is planting seeds in the ground. You're pathetic."

When I didn't respond to any of her baiting, she would get bored and leave me, mumbling all sorts of accusations and curses under her breath.

Some days before the wedding, her father began to bring her things over to our house. She was still being bitchy about the more and wasn't helping him carry the cartons, suitcases, and other things up to her room. Instead. I helped him.

"Reality for Betsy is settling in quickly whether she likes it or not he told Mama. "The furniture the new owners didn't buy along with the house is going out the door tomorrow, and her bedroom set is part of that."

It didn't surprise me to hear it. The plan was for them to move in a few days before the wedding.