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And Isaiah had no reason not to believe her.
The rains lasted two full days and put everyone in a fine mood.
“That’ll help the crops for sure,” Mrs. Olson said. She opened the kitchen window so that they could listen to the patter of it collecting in tin pails and, farther on, to the roar of the river coming to life with new water. To celebrate the little miracle, she’d baked a lemon cake with a sweet icing that was so good Isaiah ate two pieces.
Isaiah liked being on the farm. It was so different from his life in Harlem, but he enjoyed both. Feeding the piglets was one of his favorite chores, and he would let the squealing runts sniff at his fingers, laughing at the tickle of their noses and tongues against his skin. His absolute favorite thing, though, was caring for the kittens. He would pick them up one by one and hold them to his chest. Sarah Beth didn’t seem to care about them one way or the other. Mostly, she liked playing with her dolls or sharing moon glow. But every chance Isaiah got, he’d scrabble under the porch and care for the babies, watching as their fur came in, noticing the personalities that were emerging.
“The orange one? I call her Mopsy. She’s gonna be the troublemaker. I can tell already by the way she scoots the others out of the way to get to the mama,” Isaiah said to the others as they set about their work on the farm, painting and planting, milking and baling hay. He loved talking about the kittens. His kittens, as he’d come to think of them.
“That a fact?” Bill said, half listening.
It bothered Isaiah some that nobody really paid attention to him. Nobody except Sarah Beth.
Mr. Olson walked through then, a real serious look on his face.
“Something troubling you, Mr. Olson?” Bill asked.
“Anybody leave the door to the henhouse open?”
“Isaiah?” Bill asked.
Why did everybody always want to blame him? “No, sir. I latched it up good, just like you showed me.”
Mr. Olson shook his head. “Well, a fox must’ve got in there somehow. There’s four dead chickens, by my count. A real mess. They’ve been eaten right down to the bones.”
Over lunch, Evie and Sam finally shared their good news with the others.
“Well, this calls for a celebration!” Mrs. Olson said. “I’ve got some homemade grape juice.”
“Oh, glory be!” Evie said.
“Uh, Lamb Chop? I think it really is grape juice,” Sam whispered.
Evie caught Jericho’s gaze once, across the table. It was impossible to read what he was thinking. She wished she’d had a chance to tell him privately first, but Sam had been so excited he’d blurted it out immediately. And anyway, Jericho had a sweetheart. She decided not to let it worry her.
“I’ve had lots of suitors over the years,” Sarah Beth announced suddenly as her mother poured everyone small glasses of deep purple juice. “Very important men. They bring me all manner of fancy things from their travels. Lace handkerchiefs and ruby ear bobs. Every last one of ’em wants to marry me when I’m old enough.”
Not one soul had set foot on the farm since they’d been there, and Mr. Olson had said Sarah Beth had no friends. It was as if she lived in her own fantasy world, and Memphis wondered how on earth they’d be able to use her gifts with their own in order to fight the King of Crows when the girl seemed to have a hard time facing reality.
“Our Sarah Beth is very popular,” Mrs. Olson said, playing right along.
“I’m sure she is,” Sam said, flicking a glance Evie’s way. “Which one you gonna marry, then, Sarah Beth?”
Sarah Beth pushed a fuzzy ringlet over her shoulder. “The one who promises to make me his queen.”
“Well, that’ll be one lucky fella,” Sam said and winked, to Sarah Beth’s delight.
“Eat your carrots, dear,” Mrs. Olson said.
“How old is your daughter?” Henry asked Mrs. Olson after their lunch. He and Theta washed dishes while Evie and Ling sat at the kitchen table drying.
“Fifteen. But her mind is like that of a child of ten or eleven. The doctors don’t think she’ll ever mature much beyond that.” Mrs. Olson inhaled as if she hadn’t breathed so deeply in years and needed to remind herself that she could. “She’s a little girl in so many ways, and always will be.”
“I tell you, you’ve brought good luck to this farm,” Mr. Olson said, barging into the kitchen and dropping the day’s newspaper on the table for Ling, who liked to pore over its pages every day. He grabbed one of the clean glasses and filled it with milk, which he guzzled down, leaving the glass on the counter for his wife, who dutifully dunked it into the tub of water for a washing. “Got the planting done and brought the rain. And I never seen Sarah Beth so happy. She almost seems normal.”
Evie was shocked by the casual insensitivity of Mr. Olson’s remark. She saw Ling stiffen, too. No wonder Sarah Beth seemed odd and lonely and a bit sour. Evie felt sorry for Sarah Beth, and she resolved to treat her with kindness.
“Oh no,” Ling said. She had opened up the Bountiful Daily Bee. “Listen to this: ‘Jake Marlowe to Test New Machine,’” she read. “‘Promises the Eye of Providence will supply the nation with energy for generations to come. Already, the United States military is securing a portion of Death Valley, making it a restricted zone for the inventor’s latest experiment.’”
