So much it clouded the sunglasses she now wore. She removed the glasses to wipe the sweat from her eyes. Through that salty water she saw a shadow moving toward her. When it got close it turned into a small woman. Consolata, overcome with dizziness, tried to hold on to a bean pole, failed and sank to the ground. When she woke, she was sitting in the red chair, the small woman humming while mopping her forehead.
"Talk about luck," she said, and smiled around a wad of chewing gum.
"What's happening to me?" Consolata looked toward the house.
"Change, I expect. Here's your glasses. Bent, though." Her name was Lone DuPres, she said, and if she had not come for a few peppers, she said, who knew how long Consolata would have lain in the snap beans.
Consolata found herself too weak to stand, so she let her head fall back on the chair's crown and asked for water.
"Uh uh," said Lone. "You already got too much of that. How old are you?"
"Forty-nine. Fifty soon."
"Well, I'm over seventy and I know my stuff. You do as I say, your change will be easier and shorter."
"You don't know that's what this is."
"Bet on it. And it's not just the sweat. You feel something more, don't you?"
"Like what?"
"You'd know it if you had it."
"What's it feel like?"
"You tell me. Some women can't stomach it. Others say it reminds them of, well, you know."
"My throat is parched," said Consolata.
Lone dug around in her bag. "I'll brew you something to help."
"No. The sisters. I mean, they won't like. Won't let you just walk on in and start messing on the stove."
"Oh, they'll be fine."
And they were. Lone gave Consolata a hot drink that tasted of pure salt. When she described her spell and Lone's remedy to Mary Magna she laughed, saying, "Well, the teacher I am thinks 'baloney.'
The woman I am thinks anything that helps, helps. But be very careful."
Mary Magna lowered her voice. "I think she practices." Lone didn't visit often, but when she did she gave Consolata information that made her uneasy. Consolata complained that she did not believe in magic; that the church and everything holy forbade its claims to knowingness and its practice. Lone wasn't aggressive. She simply said, "Sometimes folks need more."
"Never," said Consolata. "In my faith, faith is all I need."
"You need what we all need: earth, air, water. Don't separate God from His elements. He created it all. You stuck on dividing Him from His works. Don't unbalance His world."
Consolata listened halfheartedly. Her curiosity was mild; her religious habits entrenched. Her safety did not lie in the fall of a broom or the droppings of a coyote. Her happiness was not increased or decreased by the sight of a malformed animal. She fancied no conversation with water. Nor did she believe that ordinary folk could or should interfere with natural consequences. The road from Demby, however, was straight as a saw, and a teenager driving it for the first time believed not only that he could drive it blindfolded but that he could drive it in his sleep, which is what Scout Morgan was doing, off and on, as he traveled early one evening the road that passed the Convent. He was fifteen years old, driving his best friend's father's truck (which was nothing compared to the Little Deere his uncle taught him to handle), while his brother, Easter, slept in the truck bed and the best friend slept at his side. They had sneaked off to Red Fork to see the Black Rodeo all their fathers forbade them to attend and had drunk themselves happy with Falstaff beer. During one of Scout's involuntary naps at the wheel, the truck careened off the road and probably would have done no serious damage but for the roadside poles stacked and ready to go as soon as the power crew was empowered to install them. The truck hit the poles and flipped. July Person and Easter were thrown out. Scout was stuck inside, crooked red lines highlighting the black skin of his temple.
Lone, sitting at Consolata's table, sensed rather than heard the accident: the shouts of July and Easter could not have traveled that far.
She rose and grabbed Consolata's arm.
"Come on!"
"Where to?"
"Close by, I think."
When they arrived, Easter and July had pulled Scout from the cab and were howling over his dead body. Lone turned to Consolata, saying, "I'm too old now. Can't do it anymore, but you can."
"Lift him?"
"No. Go inside him. Wake him up."
"Inside? How?"
"Step in. Just step on in. Help him, girl!"
Consolata looked at the body and without hesitation removed her glasses and focused on the trickles of red discoloring his hair. She stepped in. Saw the stretch of road he had dreamed through, felt the flip of the truck, the headache, the chest pressure, the unwillingness to breathe. As from a distance she heard Easter and July kicking the truck and moaning. Inside the boy she saw a pinpoint of light receding. Pulling up energy that felt like fear, she stared at it until it widened. Then more, more, so air could come seeping, at first, then rushing rushing in. Although it hurt like the devil to look at it, she concentrated as though the lungs in need were her own.
Scout opened his eyes, groaned and sat up. The women told the unhurt boys to carry him back to the Convent. They hesitated, exchanging looks. Lone shouted, "What the hell is the matter with you all?"
Both were profoundly relieved by Scout's recovery, but, No, m'am, Miss DuPres, they said, we got to get on home. "Let's see if it still runs," said Easter. They righted the truck and found it sound enough to drive. Lone went with them, leaving Consolata half exhilarated by and half ashamed of what she had done. Practiced. Weeks passed before Lone returned to put her mind at ease about the boy's recovery.
"You gifted. I knew it from the start."
Consolata turned her lips down and crossed herself, whispering, "Ave Maria, gratia plena." The exhilaration was gone now, and the thing seemed nasty to her. Like devilment. Like evil craft. Something it would mortify her to tell Mary Magna, Jesus or the Virgin. She hadn't known what she was doing; she was under a spell. Lone's spell. And told her so.
"Don't be a fool. God don't make mistakes. Despising His gift, now, that is a mistake. You calling Him a fool, like you?"
"I don't understand anything you're saying," Consolata told her. "Yes you do. Let your mind grow long and use what God gives you."
"I think He wants me to ignore you."
"Hardhead," said Lone. She hoisted her bag and walked down the driveway to wait in the sun for her ride.
Then Soane came, saying, "Lone DuPres told me what you did. I came to thank you with all my heart."
She looked much the same to Consolata, except that the long hair of 1954, sticky with distress, was cut now. She carried a basket and placed it on the table. "You will be in my prayers forever." Consolata lifted the napkin. Round sugar cookies were layered between waxed paper. "Mother will like these with her tea," she said. Then, looking at Soane, "Go nice with coffee too."
"I'd love a cup. More than anything."
Consolata placed the sugar cookies on a platter. "Lone thinks-"
"I don't care about that. You gave him back to me." A gander screamed in the yard, scattering the geese before him.
"I didn't know he belonged to you."
"I know you didn't."
"And it was something I couldn't help doing. I mean it was out of my hands, so to speak."
"I know that too."
"What does he think?"