Page 8 of Junie

Chapter Eight

“What in the Sam Hill has gotten into you?”

Junie ignores Bess’s question, her mind filled with Minnie’s uncanny whisper.

Find me. Her damp fingers are still trembling.

“I’m talking to you, Junie!” Bess hisses, grabbing Junie’s face. “Do you want to get killed?”

“They ain’t gonna do nothing,” Junie whispers.

“Oh, they ain’t?” Bess scoffs. “Well, lucky to be you, then, Miss Violet’s pet. You’ll learn soon enough.” Bess flares her nostrils and shakes her head.

“If you weren’t my blood, I swear on the Lord. First, you show up late yesterday morning. Next, you ain’t come to dinner last night, and I gotta sit there lying for you so my auntie and uncle don’t have a heart attack worrying about you, and now this. I’m damn sick and tired of worryin’ more about your behind than you worry about yourself. This is the last time I’m seein’ after you, you hear?”

Junie hardly hears Bess, her focus still on the edge of the forest. How far has Minnie gone?

“Junie! Do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, I hear you.”

“Now, go back to your cabin and hang up that uniform. I’ll tell ’em Momma needed you in the cookhouse to fix the dinner. That should get you enough time to dry your clothes and get back here.”

“Can you do the serving alone?”

“Oh, now you’re worried about me? Don’t. I’ll get your Granddaddy from the stables. Just go on. I don’t even want to look at you no more.”

Junie marches off the porch, hoping to communicate her irritation through her footsteps. Bess isn’t her mother or even her sister, just a know-it-all cousin who shoves her nose where it doesn’t belong.

She stomps around the back of the house and into the tall grass, the fresh mud squishing under her leather shoes. As swiftly as it had descended, the storm parts, bringing the sun back to Bellereine.

She arrives at the cabin, damp from both the rain and exercise. She strips off her wet uniform before reaching for her extra on its hook, only to find it empty.

This was her extra uniform. The other is still in the bush from last night.

Junie crawls along the cabin floor until she finds the loose board. She pulls it up to reveal the last of Minnie’s possessions: her old church dress, her nightgowns, and her maid uniforms. Junie takes one and shakes off the spiderwebs and dust before putting it on.

She is tired of Minnie’s things.

Going back into the sun, she ties her damp apron on, checking the pockets for her notebook, which is a little wet but miraculously intact. She wrings out her bonnet and braid, leaving a puddle of water at her feet.

With company in the house and Bess making excuses for her, her absence could go unnoticed. She imagines them all inside the parlor, sipping Auntie’s special peach tea, the men discussing shooting while the ladies show one another their embroidery circles. Violet must be bored to death.

The sun hangs low over the fields between the cabin and the main house, but not quite low enough to signal the start of dinner preparations. Her scars gleam in the sunlight.

She left the river, Junie thinks. She left but didn’t go past the edge of the woods.

Minnie was there only minutes before, beckoning Junie toward her with the same impatience she had when she was alive. Where was the pleading spirit from the night before, its desperation marred on her translucent face?

The ghost needed her. In life, Minnie had never once needed something from Junie, other than to get out of her way.

Now she’s trapped here, bound to this place until she can pass onward. Junie’s throat knots with tears. She couldn’t save her sister in life. Maybe she can save her in death. What made Keats tough enough to look death in the eye? What gave Thoreau the mettle to wander into the woods with nothing but a pen and paper? What did they have that she did not?

She runs for the tree line, slipping between two pines. If she doesn’t find Minnie, she’ll give up and go back to the house to be the dutiful maid she is expected to be. She walks until she reaches the edge of the river, where water washes over rock, casting mist on her face.

Golden light filters around her. She turns around to see Minnie, long kinks of glowing hair wrapping down to her waist, with onyx eyes and bare legs. Junie stumbles away from the haunt. Her heart races.

“Why…why did you come earlier?” Junie stutters. The haunt’s eyes narrow; with malevolence or curiosity, Junie can’t tell. Minnie pulls the locket from what seems like thin air before passing it to Junie.

“Must…have,” the ghost says. “Must…keep.”

“You…you wanted me to do something with it?” Junie asks, her hands firmly at her sides.

“Three…tasks,” the ghost rasps, her voice hoarse and her fingers reaching for Junie’s wrist.

Junie raises her arm and gazes at the scars as she asks, “Is that what these are? Marks for the things you need me to do?”

The ghost nods. “The moon…it takes,” she mouths. “Every moon…weaker…and…farther from…light.”

The ghost’s glow has already dimmed until she is nearly transparent. Junie takes the dangling necklace from the ghost’s hand, the surface of the metal cold as ice. There is no denying the locket’s worth; how much exactly, Junie has no way of knowing. She’d stolen it last night to stave off Violet’s marriage and her own removal from Bellereine. Is what Minnie wants worth giving up her fight?

“You get weaker every full moon? What happens if you get too weak?” Junie asks.

The ghost shakes her head. “Gone.”

Junie stiffens.

“And if I complete the tasks?”

Minnie gestures toward the sky.

“If I finish them, you get to move on?”

Minnie nods. Junie thumbs the frigid surface of the necklace, the weight of the silver and ivory heavy in her hands. She closes her eyes and clutches the pendant until its point stings her palm. She needs this necklace. She needs a way to mend together the threads of a life that’s threatening to unravel further than it already has. Giving up on her plan to follow Minnie’s is resigning herself to Violet and Mr. Taylor’s whims.

But it was Minnie who told her not to climb on the weak branch, who jumped into the freezing river after her, whose only thanks for saving her sister was a feverish, agonizing death.

What choice does Junie have but to save her sister’s soul when she is the one who killed her? What choice does she have but to pursue redemption?

“What do I do?” Junie asks, opening her eyes. In the time her eyes were closed, Minnie’s faded to nothing more than a drifting collection of sparks. “How do I do the tasks?”

“Box…green…open…” Minnie trails off.

“A box? Where is it?”

Minnie points to the house, then touches the center of Junie’s chest, icy fingers chilling her body.

“It’s inside the house? Minnie, this ain’t enough to go on. You got to—”

Minnie bends to kiss her sister’s forehead, then disappears in the air around her before Junie can call for her to stay.

Junie reaches toward the spot where Minnie’s apparition stood, hoping to collect one final spark on her fingers. She’s returned, only to slip away again. Junie sniffles, wiping the tears trickling from her eyes.

Crying is a waste. The only path she has now is to solve the first task.

—

A green box. That’s all she has to go on.

As Junie slinks toward the end of the woods, she weighs the options. The main house is full of trinkets, drawers, loose floorboards, attic hatches, closets, and compartments. It could be anywhere.

Minnie never made anything easy.

She makes it to the forest edge, finding the bush where she’d hidden her uniform the night before. She rustles the leaves and branches to dig the muddy dress from underneath.

“Hello?” a deep voice calls from beyond the trees.

Junie runs for a tree trunk, sticking her back against it.

“I’m…I’m with Mr. Taylor,” the voice wavers. “He’s staying right there in that big house, on this property.”

She prays he’ll mistake her rustling for an animal.

“I know you’re out there. I can see feet poking from behind that tree. Whoever you are, come out, I swear I don’t want no trouble.”

Junie slowly steps out from behind the tree. A scrawny boy in a coachman’s outfit paces toward her. He tilts his head and, taking in her looks and uniform, lowers his shoulders.

“I thought you were one of the good ol’ boys,” he says. “Scared me half to death.”

“Hardly any patrollers around this way in the daytime.”

“Well, you can never be too careful in Alabama, can you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve lived here all my life,” Junie says.

“Well, you hear things,” he says. He leans against a pine trunk, lifting a half-rolled cigarette to his mouth to seal it shut. Getting spotted in the woods is the last thing she needs, especially by a stranger working for the new white folks.

“So you work in the house, then?” he asks.

“What’s it to you?” she answers.

The boy holds up his hands in surrender. “Just trying to make polite conversation,” he says. “Thought it might be smart to make nice with the locals, being new around here and all.”

“I’m Miss Violet’s maid,” Junie says.

“I’m Mr. Taylor’s valet. And coachman. Really whatever he feels like havin’ me be that day. Say, what’s a housemaid doing out here in the woods?”

“What’s a man doing in the woods smoking cigarettes alone when he’s afraid of patrollers?” she retorts.

“Are country folk always so prickly?”

“Are city folk always this nosy?”

“Who says I’m city folk?”

“You’re from New Orleans, ain’t you?”

“That ain’t no real city.”

“Any place with a store’s a city to me.” Junie bites her lip. “Look, if you don’t tell nobody you saw me, I won’t tell nobody I saw you, all right?”

The coachman laughs.

“I have permission to be out here. Stables are just over that way, so I’m well within my boundaries. Hate to say it, housemaid, but a smart man like myself don’t stick his neck out for people, especially girls sneaking around the woods. You take care of your own lying.”

Junie shakes her head. She examines the patchy stubble on his chin and the chubbiness in his caramel-toned cheeks.

“You’re no man; you can’t even grow a beard! How old are you anyway, ten and six?”

“Ten and seven, I think,” the coachman says, rubbing his chin. He steps back, leaning his weight against a cracked branch. “How old are you, housemaid?”

“Ten and six, and don’t call me housemaid,” Junie says, right as she spots the beehive balancing on the branch behind him.

“Well, this is no way to speak to your elders, housemaid.”

Before Junie can yell for him to stop, he rests his elbow on the bough of the tree. The wood cracks, sending the hive careening to the ground. Bees scatter and swarm, angry and confused. The coachman jumps and screams, sprinting away and calling for Junie to follow him.

Instead, she walks into the swarm.

She crouches slowly, maneuvering her hand into the broken hive. She cups the queen, surrounded by her larvae. The bees follow Junie as she walks backward, facing the swarm to hum to the mother bee. She places the queen inside a hollowed-out trunk and moves out of the way to let the hive pour in to protect her. She yanks a stinger from her arm before walking away.

“You a witch or something?” the coachman asks, rushing to catch up to her.

“What do you mean?”

“You just charmed a whole beehive! And now you’re walking away like nothing happened?”

“How do you think we get honey around here?” Junie says. “Besides, bees follow the queen. If she’s safe and you keep calm, they ain’t going to hurt you.”

“We just nearly died and you’re acting like it’s a regular afternoon! Ow!” He clutches his left arm. Junie huffs.

“Let me see it,” she says.

“Don’t do no bee witch magic on it.”

“Stop running your mouth and let me see.” He extends his arm. It is covered in stings, each red and risen.

“It ain’t so bad, but you’re gonna have to see my grandmother,” Junie says, annoyed. “She’s the healer here. She’s probably in the cookhouse with my auntie.”

“Not too bad? These stings hurt like the devil. Take me to the cookhouse, will you?”

“Fine, but you got to promise me you won’t say we were in the woods. My muh, I mean grandmother, will have a fit if she knows I was out there.”

“Fine, but you’ll owe me one,” he says.

“I owe you ?” Junie stops, turning to face him with her eyes narrowed. “I just saved your life.”

“I don’t make deals with no strangers, housemaid, even ones who charm bees.”

“Stop calling me housemaid.”

“What else am I supposed to call you?”

“Delilah June,” she says. “But everybody calls me Junie.”

He shifts his weight between his long feet. His body is like bread dough that’s been pulled and stretched. He lowers his head until his copper-brown eyes meet hers, and extends his hand. Junie takes it.

“Caleb. Everybody calls me Caleb.”

Rather than the calloused palms her Granddaddy has from years of work, his hands are soft. Delicate.

“Now it’s a deal. You don’t tell, and I’ll take you to my grandmother.”

“Fine, you’ve got a deal. You’re a real piece of work, Delilah June.”

“Teach you to look before you lean next time,” Junie says.