He fell silent and we walked on for a while, our shadows long on the frozen ground. I listened to the wind stirring through the trees. It sounded like an incantation. “Mr. Barnett,” I said at last. He glanced at me and kept on walking. “Do you believe it?”
He seemed to think it over, maybe deciding if he should go on. “I never did buy that talk about witches,” he said. “But sometimes I thought about it. Like one time I walked up the hill to take Byrdie and Macon a cake Margaret made and seen Myra sleeping under a tree. She was just a little bitty thing then, must have got tuckered out playing and laid down right yonder in the shade to take a nap. I walked up to make sure she was all right before I went in the house. That’s when I seen the butterflies. They was lit all over her arms and legs and in her hair. There was even two or three on her face, all sizes and colors with their wings opening and closing. I shut my eyes, thinking I might be seeing things. But when I opened them up, all of the butterflies was still there and Myra still sleeping away. She looked like a child out of a fairy story. For some reason, I was scared to death. Directly Myra opened her eyes and blinked at me. I kept still and held my breath to see what she would do. It took her a second to notice anything was unusual. Then she raised up her arms and said, ‘Look, Mr. Barnett. Look at the birds.’ I never told anybody this story except for you, Douglas. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed it.”
There was nothing else to say after that. We walked out of the woods and parted without a goodbye. Dark was already falling across the mountain as I headed home. I was late for supper but I stopped in the road for a while anyway to look up at Myra’s house. The front windows glowed and there was smoke rising out of the chimney. I tried to send her a message in case mind reading was one of her powers. I love you, I shouted without words across the rushing creek and the rocky ground and through the walls that kept me out. Then I moved on, feeling empty and lonesome and like someone cursed.
BYRDIE
I never will forget the first time Macon took me up Bloodroot Mountain. It was the spring of 1913, not long after that day we hid Easter eggs. He lived up here and took care of his pap that had a stroke and his two sisters after their mammy died. We had to take a mule and cart, because there wasn’t no roads back then. There was just a dirt track that you could ride a horse or mule on. It was getting to be afternoon and the sun glared in our eyes all the way up the mountain. Shadows fell across the road and I was nervous. Mammy hadn’t wanted to let me go but I had begged Pap. Now I was having second thoughts. It seemed like Macon was taking me off to some hainted place. I pictured all kinds of creatures hiding in them woods, but they was pretty even though they was thick. The creek was pretty, too, rushing down off the mountain alongside the track. I tried to sit back and enjoy the ride but every time I looked down my belly sunk. It was a long ways to the valley below. By the time we got up here I was about half sick. Then we rounded a curve and glimpsed the house up on a hill with a little barn off to the side, the sky bright blue over top of its red tin roof. The sun was shining down on it through the trees, the edges of the leaves tinged with gold. It looked so nice my heart fluttered.
Right when I thought we’d never make it, we started up the path to the house. Macon said, “Yonder it is.” From the minute I seen this place, I knowed I was home. Macon and his sisters had kept it up good. The paint on the house looked fresh and the tin roof had a pretty sheen to it. The barn looked new and there was hogs in the lot. There was flowers of every color and birdhouses in the trees. I didn’t know it yet, but Macon had built them hisself. When we got out of the cart, Macon’s sisters came to meet us, both of them quite a bit younger than him. They looked alike, skinny little things named Becky and Jane. I couldn’t wait to get ahold of them younguns and fatten them up.
Walking across the yard, Becky said, “I got some beans, but they ain’t soft yet.”
Macon asked me, “Why don’t we take a walk before supper?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “These ain’t walking shoes.”
“Surely a country gal like you’s had a few blisters. I believe you’ll be all right.”
Macon took ahold of my hand and led me behind the house, dragging me up through the trees until I was just about give out. He was laughing at me by the time we got there. It took forever and I was starved. I figured dinner was already on the table.
“You crazy thing,” I said to Macon. He pulled me close and kissed me hard.
“Looky here,” he said, pointing at the ground. He was panting, just about out of wind his own self. “This here’s why they call it Bloodroot Mountain.”
“What is?”
Macon knelt and pulled me down with him. “These here flowers.” He rubbed a white petal with his finger and that tenderness made my heart ache. Then he started to dig around the flower with his hands. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I didn’t want to ask. It was so quiet, except for the sounds of mountain woods. It felt like a ceremony, like we was in church down there on our knees. Macon pulled the flower out of the ground and held it in his hands where I could see the root. It was fleshy and about as thick as a finger, looked like part of a human being. I got cold chills all over. Something came whispering through the trees, sounded like voices or a long breath. Just like that day in the churchyard, I smelled Macon, the musk of his whiskers, the clean of his clothes. Then he fished out his knife and cut the root in two pieces. When I seen that blood seeping out it was like everything slowed down. Home rushed through my mind, thoughts of Mammy and Pap and my childhood days in Chickweed Holler. It seemed like my whole life was leading up to this very minute. I had a bad urge to turn around and run fast as I could back down the mountain, but then Macon looked at me and his birthmark darkened like it did when he got excited about anything. I thought of Myrtle saying I’d walk one day on foreign ground and decided this was as foreign a ground as my feet would touch. From then on the soles of them quit itching. I made my choice and that was it. Macon was my home and far as I was concerned any wedding we had was just for show. I’d done cleaved myself to him right yonder under the trees, kneeling over that bloodroot flower. Looking at its red root sap, I was overcome with something that felt like the Holy Ghost. I seen all the generations that would come out of me and Macon. I seen our blood mixed up together, shining there in the gloomy light.
DOUG
The Sunday after Daddy brought Wild Rose home, Mark whispered to Myra during preaching, “We got a horse.” Mama whipped around and shot him a look, so he hushed. Myra didn’t seem that interested, but after the service she was bored enough to come with us up the mountain to see Wild Rose. Walking to the fence, I had an uneasy feeling. I could sense Myra moving away from me. I wanted to grab hold of the floating skein of her hair as if we were in a cave and might get lost from each other. But I hung back as Mark led her on, calling for the horse with a handful of sweet corn.
We had to cross the first hill to find Wild Rose, and Mark and Myra took off chasing each other. She was giggling and out of breath, the belt of her green dress dragging the ground like a dead garter snake. When Mark was around I usually found myself tagging along behind them. I ran to keep Myra in my sight. She skidded to a stop when she saw Wild Rose grazing on the next hill. Mark tripped and went sprawling, the corn flying out of his hand. “Shoot,” he said, still laughing. He tried to look up Myra’s dress as she stood there awestruck. Wild Rose lifted her head and looked at us. I thought she would take off as she always did when people came close to her. But it was different this time. She lengthened her neck toward us and sniffed the air, then walked slowly to where we stood, muscles working under her velvet hide. Even Mark got quiet. The horse kept coming until she stood in front of Myra, close but still out of reach. I wanted to shout or clap my hands, anything to drive Wild Rose away, but I couldn’t move.