The Deepest Roots Read online

  Jett pops the trunk and hands me the gas can, educated at least to the point where he knows I want to do this myself. He leaves the headlights on, because it’s almost completely dark and I would have to feel along the back of the car to find the fuel cap without them. The gas tanks in these cars are beneath the trunk, which makes it easy when you’re at a gas station because you never have to worry about what side the tank is on. You can pull up to any of them, since the tank is square in the middle of the back of the car. I lean the bat against the bumper as I unscrew the gas cap.

  “The fuel tanks are back here, huh?” he observes as I fill the tank. “I think I remember reading somewhere that if you got rear-ended in one of these, they’d explode into flames.”

  “There’s kits you can buy to fix that.”

  “Have you bought one?”

  “No. It’s on my list of things to do, though. Thanks for reminding me.”

  I load the empty gas can back into my trunk, shutting the lid with enough force to make sure it latches.

  “So you didn’t tell me what your talent is,” he says.

  The highway is strangely dead, and Jett feels strangely close. He still radiates that heat in the cool evening air.

  I pick up the bat.

  “I don’t tell outsiders what my talent is.”

  He might be blushing, but in the dark it’s hard to tell, because his headlights have clicked off.

  “Here’s your bat,” I tell him, handing it to him handle first. “Thanks for the ride.”

  A car finally rumbles by, its high beams briefly illuminating us both in a shaft of light. Jett smiles. “Sure. See you around,” he says as I get in my car. He’s not going to get into his until I’ve pulled away.

  I start the engine up, and it growls, appreciative of the added fuel. I roll the window down and stick my head out, shouting, “You know that kind of pulsating feeling you get when you hit your brakes? Your rotors are warped. You need to get that looked at.”

  I let the roar of the 351 Cleveland drown out any sounds of a response as I hit the gas.

  Five

  I PULL UP IN FRONT of the trailer, and the overgrown yard is dark. I turn off the car. The only sounds are cicadas and my own scuffling around as I drag out my backpack and slam the door shut. Mom has forgotten to turn the porch light on and the curtains are drawn, so I stumble up the front stoop, moving from memory. My toe hits something on the top step, and I utter a few choice words that I picked up at Red’s shop.

  I lean down and feel around for what I kicked as my eyes adjust to the lack of light. When my palm rubs against the rough wood of the box from last night, I recoil instantly, that fight-or-flight instinct telling me to run like hell.

  Somehow the box made its way from the shed to the front steps. But no one goes in my shed. Fear seizes my muscles and makes it hard for me to move. I slowly look around the dark yard, as if someone’s going to jump out and yell, “Ha! I really got you good!” But no one is out here. It’s just this creepy-ass box and me.

  “So you think making me trip and break my leg is going to convince me to open you?” I ask the box, trying to keep my voice steady, but failing miserably. I am not afraid of a box, I tell myself.

  The box doesn’t answer, which is probably good. My hands trembling, I reach down and pick it up, holding it with the tips of my fingers, as if whatever is in it might rub off on me. It’s startlingly cold, and that tug comes back, digging deep in my gut. I’m going to get this out of the way tonight. Whatever is in this box needs to shut the hell up and leave me alone. Maybe once I open it, I’ll find out how to make it do that.

  I open the door and Steven is there to greet me, his nails clicking on the cheap linoleum. “Steven!” I coo. “Were you a good boy? Did you babysit Mommy?”

  Mom is sitting on the couch reading, her typical pose if she’s not sleeping or working. She’s only got one lamp lit next to the couch. The light reflects off yellow wallpaper that is so worn it’s got a sheen on it, like it’s covered in a layer or two of grease. The rest of the small living room/kitchen/dining room area is cast in shadows.

  My eyes find an empty cup of ramen leaning against the foot of the lamp. I sigh, so glad that I skipped the drive-through and abandoned the jerky to come back to a home-cooked meal. Not that either Mom or I ever really cook. Cooking for us is making boxed macaroni and cheese or baking something frozen in the oven. On holidays like Thanksgiving, Mercy’s mom usually invites us over. It’s like she can feel our lack of turkey or turkey-cooking skills from all the way over on the other side of town. Or maybe Mercy told her.

  Mom looks up from the worn paperback she’s been reading.

  I set my backpack and the box on the kitchen table, shaking my hands and scrubbing them against my skirt as if I can get rid of the cold that’s numbed my fingertips. Then I unzip my backpack and pull out the two books I checked out from the library.

  First I deal with Mom.

  Then the box.

  Mom’s eyes light up when she sees the reading material. “You want one?” I ask.

  Mom nods. “I’m dying for something new to read.”

  “Then let’s talk about the rent.”

  Mom sighs. “Can we put this conversation on hold for another day or two?”

  “I don’t know how you think we can avoid it, anyway. You know how Garrett is. He’s a dick. I’m surprised he isn’t here already banging on the door. Rent was due three days ago.” I set the books down on the kitchen table and move to stand in front of her. “Why do you not have your half of the rent money?”

  Mom huffs. “I got laid off.”

  It’s the answer I was beginning to suspect, but it still stings.

  Mom continues. “Almost two weeks ago. The café’s not making enough money to support a full-time waitress anymore. Jim’s keeping on the part-time girl because she’s his niece.” Mom crosses her arms.

  “Two weeks ago? And all this time you thought it’d be okay not to tell me?” My mind reels through memories of Mom getting up in the morning like she was going to work, wearing her little waitress outfit. Up until a few days ago. When she’d just given up the ruse. As if she wanted to get caught once the rent was past due and our problems were starting to get real.

  Mom pulls a folded, wrinkled newspaper from between the lumpy couch cushions. It’s the classifieds, and she’s circled several ads. She holds it out, as if it were some kind of proof. “I thought I would get something new before you found out. And then I’d just tell you that I changed jobs.”

  “So have you gotten a new job yet?” I ask, snatching the newspaper out of her hands.

  “There’s no waitressing jobs. A couple fry cooks, but the pay isn’t any more than what I made at the café with tips. And let’s face it. I wasn’t making enough before, either.” Her expression gets tighter, harder. The angles and bones of her face are sharp in the lamplight. “There’s some office-type jobs. I helped with the books at the café. My math is pretty good and I could file. But you need a résumé and cover letter and all that.”

  I have these wide swaths of time when I forget that my mom is a thirty-four-year-old with the education of a sixteen-year-old. She reads a lot and can figure out a 15 percent tip at the café or a 40 percent-off discount at the store faster than anyone I know, but some of her adult skills are totally missing. Like the ability to write a résumé, cook a well-balanced meal from scratch, or attend parent-teacher conferences. It hides beneath her skin, like a splinter that only becomes sore when you work at getting it out.

  “I can help you,” I tell her, knowing I am digging at that splinter.

  “I don’t need my seventeen-year-old kid writing my goddamned résumé,” Mom grinds out, punctuating her statement by picking up one of the pillows next to her and tossing it across the room.

  Steven gets up from where he’s been sitting and goes to fetch the pillow.

  “That was real mature, Mom. Guess what? You do need your seventeen-year-old kid writing your r
ésumé,” I retort, angry now. Angry because this is our life, and the same problems keep dragging us down, dragging us out to sea, like those riptides in the oceans that I’ve read about but have never seen myself. “Stop being so damned stubborn. I’m trying to help you.”

  Steven brings back the pillow. His jowls relax comfortably against the fabric as he places it back on the couch with Mom.

  “Good boy, Steven,” Mom and I say in unison.

  Steven wags his stumpy tail.

  “I’ll find something,” Mom says. “Just give me a little longer. If I don’t have anything by the end of the week, we’ll go to the library in Evanston and use their computers to type up a résumé.”

  “Fine,” I tell her. “But what are we going to do about the rent?”

  Mom shrugs. “I had to use the money you gave me last week to keep the lights on. They were threatening to shut them off if I didn’t pay them. Same with the water.” Steven rests his big doggy head on Mom’s knee, as if commiserating. “We don’t even have anything to pawn that’s worth a month’s rent.”

  “I get paid on Friday,” I offer. “But a week’s pay isn’t going to be enough.” I think about the forty-five dollars left in my pocket. I need gas to get to school. I guess I could ride the school bus for a while. But how would I get a ride home after work? The familiar gears are turning, the money-hungry ones thirsty for grease that creak out never enough, never enough, never enough.

  “Maybe I can talk to Garrett,” Mom suggests, toying with the yellowed pages of her paperback. “Maybe I can convince him to let us catch up next month.”

  “Good luck with that.” I laugh, but it’s an empty sound. “Garrett doesn’t do anything for free, Mom.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Mom says, and I know this is her attempt at parenting. To make me think that everything is going to be okay. When I was little, I used to believe her, never knowing that some weeks were “ramen weeks” and others were luxurious “Hamburger Helper and canned peas weeks” because of how much she’d made in tips.

  “Yeah,” I reply automatically, because there’s no point in disagreeing. Even if she had gotten a job today, it wouldn’t have put the rent money in our pockets right now. “I’m going to bed,” I tell her, backing away from the couch. I grab my backpack and the wooden box that seems to be following me around, glad I’m angry enough to make me less afraid of finding out what’s inside it.

  “Eat something,” Mom says. “There’s still some ramen in the cupboard. And I think some peanut butter.”

  “I’m not hungry.” I toss the lie over my shoulder as I slink down the dark hallway and back into my room at the end of the trailer.

  My bedroom is small. The full-size mattress and box spring that sit on the floor take up nearly half of it. The only other furniture is a dinged-up white dresser with a slightly foggy mirror hanging above it.

  I put the box down on top of the dresser, next to various pots and tubes of makeup and a jewelry box that holds mostly cheap jewelry from Lux and Mercy, things like best-friend necklaces and woven friendship bracelets.

  “What do you have that is so damn important?” I let the burning anger over the lack of rent money fill me up, push away the fear of some stupid little box.

  I wipe at the dirt and grime crusted on the lid, and I can almost make out what looks like a cursive E. Then I scour the top of the dresser until I find a bobby pin and insert it into the lock. It’s rusted, but I am a Fixer, and sooner or later, everything works for me. “Awfully damn stubborn for something that wants to be opened,” I tell the box.

  There’s a cold brush against the back of my neck, like in the winter when someone who’s been outside touches you just to be a jerk. I whirl around, but no one’s there. The anger ebbs and fades, replaced by fear that makes even my Fixer hands tremble a little.

  I have to get this done, and then maybe whatever this is will just go away. Maybe all it needs is a Fixer to open it. I jab the bobby pin back in the lock again. I’m tempted to use a screwdriver and pry the damn thing open, because I just want to get this over with, but it goes against my Fixer blood to destroy something when it could be repaired.

  Finally, there’s a click inside, and the lock has been tumbled. I push the button to release the latch and pull the box open. Rust flecks rain down from the hinges on the back, making an orangey pool on the white paint of my dresser.

  Inside is a lump of fabric that is dry and brittle to the touch. It’s a faded floral pattern that reminds me of old curtains. I start to pull on it, but it’s wrapped around something. I remove the whole bundle, and carefully, gently, I unwrap it.

  A book.

  I like books, I tell myself. Maybe this was all in my head. Books are good. The box is just a box. Everything is fine. The trembling in my fingers subsides a little.

  The book is slightly smaller than my hand. The cover is made of smooth leather the color of tea and has a cottonwood leaf tooled into it. I cautiously untangle the leather thong tied around it, wincing when it breaks apart in my fingers.

  I open the book as gingerly as I can. The pages are yellowed and brittle, and the handwriting inside is a spidery, loopy cursive that is barely visible on the page.

  August 10th

  Setting up house was so much fun. John showed me the dugout where he had first lived when he settled in Cottonwood Hollow. We spent a beautiful afternoon there. The farmhouse he built for me is spacious and sunny. I know that Father sent the money last fall while we were engaged so that John could build us a proper house before I joined him here. Father has never liked the idea of me moving out west, wishing I would marry into good Boston society like my sister Amelia, but I love the adventure of it all.

  Today I unpacked almost all the trunks that I brought with me from Boston, and the new house is much better for it. There’s nothing like a woman’s touch to make a house into a home. Little things like tablecloths on the kitchen table and curtains hanging at the windows. I put the china Mother sent with me into the hutch and the silver from Grandmother in the drawers. I don’t know when we shall have much cause to entertain, as so far Cottonwood Hollow boasts only a general store, a saloon, and a newly built schoolhouse. But John assures me that soon the community will build a church, and I will meet our neighbors there.

  I am so happy to be Mrs. Emmeline Remington.

  I drop the book onto the top of the dresser as if it had burned me. This is Emmeline Remington’s diary. The woman who put the curse on the girls of Cottonwood Hollow. Oh, shit. The E on the top of the box—of course it was for Emmeline. I’ve got to get rid of it. What have I done? I wish Mercy was here, because maybe she could ask Jesus or somebody to send a lightning bolt and burn the trailer down with the diary inside it. Shit, oh, shit.

  The cold touch whispers again at my neck, and I whirl around to face it, my chest heaving as if I’ve been running for my life. There’s no one there. My gut clenches, and it’s not the familiar tug of wanting to Fix something; it’s hard, visceral fear.

  I turn back to the diary again, recalling that Neveah said she saw a lady when she Found it. There’s no lady in my room, but I am definitely not alone. I pick up the diary, my steady Fixer hands trembling again. This diary has come to me for a reason, I tell myself. But why? So I could Fix the rusty latch so someone could open it? Was I supposed to be the one to open it, or was I only supposed to Fix the latch?

  What if there’s no plausible reason at all for me to have it? Maybe the tornado unearthed it with all those other bits of junk from the ruins and the pasture and we just happened to be the unlucky people who stumbled upon it. Maybe no one was meant to find it. I look up to see if lightning really is going to strike me from above.

  I hold the pages upside down, shaking the diary a little to see if anything falls out. But what if the diary was meant to come to me? What am I supposed to figure out? That Emmeline Remington was once a happy, normal person before she turned psycho and cursed us all?

  I set the book back down o
n the dresser and begin pulling open drawers to dig out some pajamas. I can handle this. I just have to get back in control of myself. I’m Rome Galveston. This is just a diary. Tomorrow morning, I’ll put the book back in the box and bury it out in the pasture. Let someone else deal with it. I’ve dealt with the curse all my life. I don’t have to deal with this diary, too.

  I find some comfy sweats and a T-shirt, and begin stripping off my school uniform. I hang it up, knowing if I’m careful I can wear it a couple of times before I have to wash it.

  Telling myself that everything is going to be fine, I pull on the sweats and the T-shirt and go to grab my hairbrush off the dresser only to find that the diary is open again. I reach out a trembling hand and slam it shut, as if I can shut back up whatever it is I’ve released. But the moment I remove my hand, the diary flips open, the pages turning themselves to the same place.

  I jump back so far that I stumble into the mattress and fall over, landing on my ass. I scuttle backward against the wall, feeling around on the floor for something to protect myself with, and wishing I had Jett Rodriguez’s bat again right now. But there’s nothing, so I’m just cowering on the floor, watching the diary and waiting for either the ghost of Emmeline Remington to appear and murder me or for my heart to stop beating like it’s about to shatter my rib cage.

  Long moments pass, and nothing happens. Maybe I am going to do what the diary wants. And then maybe whatever ghost or spirit or creepy thing it is will leave me alone. “Do you want me to read more?” I ask the room, my voice barely a whisper. The pages of the diary stir. But there’s no lightning, so that seems like a good sign.

  I get up from the floor and stand at the dresser to read the pages where they lie open.

  May 1st

  I lost the baby. A daughter. I know it was his fault. I know he was with her again, and it killed me inside. It killed our daughter. I had everything ready for her. I’ve knit all her little caps and booties, embroidered all her gowns. Mother and Father sent a generous dowry chest for her. Father had promised a gold bar for the birth of his first grandchild, and it was in the chest, along with a set of silver that one day she could have taken to her own house. A christening gown edged with Irish lace. The gown was from Mother, of course. Father is always thinking of money, but Mother knew it would be the gown I treasured most, embroidered by her hands. They sent a letter promising to visit soon.