Page 99 of We Already Dug the Grave

“Your childhood.”

“Of course not.” I slid my hand into hers. “Hattie-May, there was plenty of good.”

It was true. Weekends spent running wild in the forest with my sister. Frances standing still as moths and butterflies circled her while I tried to scoop them up. Searching for locust shells. Reading for customers, the Sight making me feel connected to something bigger. If there hadn’t been good parts, leaving wouldn’t have hurt so bad.

“You know I regret it, every day.” Hattie-May’s voice was pinched. “Not coming and getting you after you called home that time. We thought…” She wiped at her eyes. “We thought it was best to let you disappear. But, Milly, don’t think we didn’t suffer for it. It hurt me every day.”

“I know. It wasn’t all you and Ruth. I’m an adult. I could’ve come back any time.”

Hattie-May shook her head. “After things cooled down and it was safe, I should’ve driven to the coast myself and dragged you home. I…well…I guess I thought maybe you were doing better. You never seemed very happy here. Always looking forward to leaving.”

“Oh, Aunt Hattie, don’t feel bad.” I squeezed her plump hand and lied. “You’re right. I did just fine.”

Somewhere, a crow called out, and suddenly, standing in the edge of the forest with trees towering over us, one hand tucked inside the hand of the woman who’d raised me, the other curled around the bone in my pocket, I felt very small. “Aunt Hattie? Did you check the news?”

“I did,” she said.

“Was there anything about, you know?”

She sighed. “Afraid not, dearie.”

“Oh.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “What if we don’t pull this off?” The possibility chewed at my stomach. “What if he wins? I can’t lose Frances. I just got her back.”

Instead of answering, she squeezed my hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

Hattie-May led me around one side of the greenhouse, past the lean-to, to the other end of the structure, tucked near the opposite edge of the forest. She stumbled, but caught herself and held on to me a little tighter.

“Is it a good idea for you to come out here alone?” I asked. “What about your oxygen tank?”

“Oh hush. You sound like Ruthie,” she said. “I always take a morning walk without it. This is my greenhouse. These are my woods. I could probably walk through them with my eyes closed, though I don’t reckon I’ll try.”

She gestured to the forest’s edge. Her lips pressed into an expectant smile, lines erupting around her eyes.

“Um,” I said, not sure what she was showing me.

“You don’t recognize it, honey?”

“Recognize what?”

She leaned forward slightly, and I was hit with a wave of concern. Ruth said Aunt Hattie mentally slipped away sometimes. Was she here with me, in the moment, or was my great-aunt’s mind in another time or place all together? Was she showing me something that no longer existed?

I peered into her small, dark eyes behind her glasses. “Are you okay Aunt Hattie?”

Instead of answering, Hattie-May puckered her lips and whistled. The tune was an earworm from my childhood.

Rotting Willow

Roots so deep

Searching for some rotting meat.

“No,” I said. “No, that’s impossible.” I looked closer. There was a willow nestled among the other trees in front of me, but it didn’t look so different from the weeping willow that had once grown our front yard, the one whose branches I’d grown up playing under. No way this was the tree from the drawings.

In sixth grade, I’d used a school computer and searched online for information about Aunt Hattie’s willow. There’d not been much there beyond a listing on the US Forest Service’s website naming it as an endangered and protected species. After scrolling through pages and pages of useless search results, I’d landed on an outdated blog discussing rare Tennessee flora. It told the same stories I’d heard from Aunt Hattie and posted a few blurry black-and-white photos. It had been impossible to know what the tree actually looked like.

Aunt Hattie’s sketches were frenetic and unsettling. Even as she’d insisted the tree was good, her drawings, with their deep shading and slashing strokes, had depicted a willow with branches that seemed to want to strangle the world. Roots that were hungry. Pictures that inspired little girls to create deep-reaching lore and scare each other once the lights were out.

The tree in front of me did not have the green-black leaves or crimson seed pods Aunt Hattie reported seeing as a child. This could not be the tree she’d dedicated her life to finding. It was too plain. Not worth the years she’d given it.