Nobody Can Say It's You

39

Tragedies, glad tidings, bad luck, and deaths, Aurora knew them all before they happened. And she kept them all locked inside her beautiful head. She had to.

She never let her elders know that she could talk to the dead, either. If they beat her for trying to tell them the truth about the living, what would they do to her for conversing with the spirits?

Aurora didn't want to think about it.

She had been surprised at her first encounter. She'd talked to the spirit out of childlike curiosity. More surprisingly, the ghost had talked back to her.

Ocey Sodder was the first to come to Aurora.

Ocey came to Aurora the very night she had been savagely beaten.

It was late in the night. The day was at its most ragged end. The moon light shined through the naked window of Aurora's bedroom, casting an eerie wave of soft light against the far wall. Her little bed was near the window for she liked to look out at the infinite splendor before she fell asleep.

She remembered being in a deep sleep, yet feeling like someone was in the room. It was a strange sensation. She awoke from her slumber and noticed a faint glow in a corner of the dark room. The glow was only a tiny speck at first, but as she watched, it seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

Light flashed before her. Aurora sat up on the side of the bed. Suddenly, the blinding flash dimmed and the form of a little girl, about the same age as she was, began to emerge from the gloom. Her blond hair was platted around her head like a halo. Her white flour-sack dress glimmered in the shadows like a thousand veils lit by angels' light.

Aurora heard the little girl's voice, but her mouth did not move. The voice was as clear as a tinkling bell.

"Hello," the shimmering apparition said. "My name is Ocey. Don't fear me none. Ain't no need. I ain't gonna hurt you."

"I know," whispered Aurora.

***

It was a perfect day for picking blackberries. The sun was bright, and the juicy fruit hung heavy on the vines, fat and ripe. Ocey hummed a tune as she picked, careful to avoid the thorns. She watched for snakes, too.

Mama had promised to make blackberry dumplings, and Ocey could almost smell them as she picked the berries one by one. There were so many. It was easy to fill her basket. And how she loved blackberries. Those big dark balls of juicy sweetness were about the best part of summer. Ocey was busy filling her basket. All of her attention was focused on her task. She failed to hear the clop-clop of the ghostly white mule as it trod her way down the beaten dirt road. She was unaware that a tall stranger was slithering her way.

She jumped when the man spoke.

"Havin any luck today, little girl?" he asked,

Ocey looked up as his liver-colored tongue swept across dry lips. She was reminded of an adder. A smile broke the man's face. His lips were thin and large. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a bright red paisley handkerchief.

"Looks like you struck the mother lode, little girl," the man said. "I never seen such a basket full a berries. They all look as pretty as a picture. Cain't see a rotten one in the bunch from up here."

He got down from the mule, a towering figure in black.

"Yes, sir. I got me a right smart pretty berries, today," Ocey replied. "Would you like some?"

Ocey extended her thin arm holding the basket full of ripe succulent fruit for the man to take a few. A shadow crossed over the man's face. Ocey saw the vein in his temple pulse with blood. His eyes darkened. His eyebrows creased down in an evil scowl. He suddenly looked like a black thundercloud ready to rain down on her.

As quickly as lightning strikes, he reached out and grabbed the little girl's arm. She screamed and struggled, but he was too strong. The basket dropped to the ground, and blackberries cascaded all around them. They were crushed under the man's boot, bleeding their purple juice along the dirt like blood from an opened wound.

His large, rough hand covered her mouth and stifled the little girl's scream. Ocey struggled for another few seconds, her lungs bursting for air. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Everything went black. Her body went limp. She was gone.

Ocey felt her spirit float away from her body, and she watched the man from high above the trees.

"He worked quick," Ocey said. "He didn't waste a minute. He didn't look sorry. He didn't look anything. He took me 'n' rolled me up in his bedroll. Just like that. And he was up in his saddle 'n' gone like a jackrabbit."

The bedroll was thick canvas. The little girl was like a small, limp rag doll. Her neck had snapped like a chicken's. The act had been easy. Nothing to it. But now, he had a body to dispose of.

He stood in the path, contemplating his next move. Blackberry brambles and vines lined both sides of the road. There was no convenient place to hide the body.

His mind was clearing. After the fugue of his maddening fit had passed, it was easier to think. Easier to plan. These things had happened before, he told himself. Remain calm. You will think of something. You always do. And it will be fine. Just fine.

But his head hurt fiercely, and he knew from past experience that the headache would last a couple of days. It always did. Then, he would be free for a while. Free from the urges, the fits, he called them. It always worked that way.

He looked at the limp roll of canvas. He did not feel sorry for the little girl.

There was only one thought on his mind, one task that beat inside of his brain like a woodpecker. He had to get rid of her body. He knew that much.

No murder without a body.

Easy in this wilderness to claim she'd been carried off by a wild animal, wandered off and fell down a ravine. Kids did unpredictable things. They got themselves into all kinds of awful fixes quicker than Jack could jump over the candle's flame.

He fought to clear the fog in his brain, shaking his head briskly from left to right. He looked down at the canvas role that lay against the saddle's pommel. Ocey's little feet hung limply out from the hem of the canvas. Tiny little things. No bigger than smooth creek stones.

Ocey looked down on the man. She still watched from high above the trees. She was sad to be folded over the ghost-colored mule's back. She was sad because she was going to be forced to go with the preacher and leave her berries. What would Mama say? Would she cry?

The white mule's hoof beat the dirt. His skin twitched. His tail batted the flies that bit without mercy.

Her prized berries were spilled all over the dirt, stepped on, squished, and ruined.

That little basket and those ruined berries were the only traces the men who were looking for the lost girl in the white flour sack dress ever found. Aurora had not known the full story when she told her father about the preacher man.

***

At the time of her beating, Aurora had only had a feeling of dread and a picture of the ghostly white mule with the tall, dark stranger straddling on its back. The wide-brimmed, black hat hid his face in dark shadow. To Aurora, his soul was the same color as his hat – black.

But there was only one man who rode a mule like that in the whole valley.

Only one man.

He claimed to be a preacher, but he was like no man of God Aurora had ever known.