"Y ou've got each other.""Y ou've got each other."
"Y ou shudna talk about death so much, Miz Elda. I t upsets Cadi, and she just lost her granny not a month ago."
"See what I mean?" she said with a faint smile, looking between us. Then she grew serious. "Fine and dandy. We won't talk about me dying anymore. We'll just sit and listen to Fagan tell us what that man's been saying while he's been hiding in the tall grass and bushes."
Fagan blushed. "I don't always hear everything he says 'cause of the river."
"Just tell us what ye have heard."
He let out his breath and scratched his head. "First time I heard him, he said the sins of the father are visited on the sons to the fourth generation."
"Reckon that's why we have ourselves a sin eater,"
Miz Elda said, watching Fagan's face. "So trouble don't rise up to haunt us."
"And then he said, `I will proclaim thy name to mybrethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing thy praise.'
"Well, if that don't beat all."
"Y esterday he was talking about a rock and swallows."
"A rock and swallows," she said, thinking.
175"Maybe he meant the cliffs where the swallows build their nests, the ones near the Narrows."
"And he was talking about building houses on sand."
"That's pure foolishness," Miz Elda scoffed. "Anyone knows better than that. What would he say a thing like that for?"
Fagan shrugged. "I heard him say, `the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner, and this is the Lord's doing."'
"A rock and swallows, houses built on sand, and a rejected cornerstone," Miz Elda said and shook her head. "Maybe your pa's right and ye ought to leave him alone. He sounds crazy." She started rocking again, slowly, gazing off toward the valley as she sometimesslowly, gazing off toward the valley as she sometimes did. "Y ou two go on now. I need to rest awhile."
I t wasn't rest she wanted. I t was time to think on the things Fagan had told her. I wished she would tell me what was in her mind, but reckoned she was probably harkening back to a time past and trying to remember what it was she had forgotten.
"Did the sin eater ever come for the preserves?"
Fagan said as we was walking down Miz Elda's path to the meadow.
176"Never did. The jar's probably still sitting there." A sudden idea came to me, and I started running.
"Where ye going?"
"T o the graveyard!" I called back over my shoulder.
The jar of preserves was still there. I took it up and dusted the jar off with the edge of my dress.
"What've ye got in your head to do with 'em now, Cadi Forbes?" Fagan asked, panting from the run.
"I 'm going to give 'em to the bee charmer."
"What bee charmer?""The woman who lives in the cabin at the bottom of Dead Man's Mountain."
"The crazy woman?"
I glanced at him. "Who said she was crazy?"
"My ma. I told her I 'd seen the cabin, and she said to stay far away from it. The woman living there is crazy."
"I don't believe it."
"Ma said she murdered her own mother and father."
"Miz Elda said Rose O'Sharon killed herself, and no one knows how Macleod died." Fagan blinked in surprise and then his jaw set, his eyes darkening. "Just stay clear of that 177woman, ye hear. My ma wouldn't lie to me." "I never said she lied."
"Y es, ye did."
"Miz Elda's older than anyone else on these mountains, and I reckon she knows more than anyone.
Even your ma.""Maybe ye oughta stay well away from Dead Man's Mountain, too! Chasing after the sin eater'll get ye nothing but trouble."
"Y e sound just like your pa," I said, angry now. His face reddened. As I came out the graveyard gate, he blocked my way.
"Y e're not going, Cadi." When I tried to pass, he snatched the jar of preserves and hurled it against a pine, shattering the glass and splattering Mama's blackberry preserves in all directions. "Now, what're ye going to do?" Fagan spread his feet.
When I threw a punch at him, he caught my arm and swung me around, pinning me back against him. I twisted and jerked, trying to kick at his shins with my heels, to no avail. "Listen to me, you stupid girl! I did it for your own good!"
"People gotta think for themselves!"
"Y e gonna repeat everything that old woman says?"
"Are ye gonna choke me just like your father did?"His hands tightened briefly in shock, and 178then he shoved me away from him. "What'd you say?"
I spun around, glaring at him. "I hate you, Fagan Kai!
I hate you, and I hate your father! Did ye hear that?"
His expression fell slightly, and I knew every word struck hard and deep. "I heard you."
The look on his face dissolved my anger and made me cringe. Feeling guilty, I tried to defend myself. "Y e shouldn't have broken the jar. I t wasn't yours to break!"
"I t was Pa?" he said in a small voice.
He looked so hurt, I wanted to take the blame away.
"He caught me coming back from the river. Said I was going against him." My conscience smote me something fierce and I felt sick. My tongue had been like a fire, and I feared it had burned up our friendship.
Seems like when you destroy something, you realize too late how much it meant to you in the first place.
"Nobody knows, Fagan. I swear. I dinna tell my pa or anyone. And I won't. Cross my heart and hope to die. I wouldn't've told you if ye hadn't broken the jar!""What're you crying for? I t's me who'll burn in hell."
"Burn for what?" I said, sniffling and rubbing my nose.
179"For every mean thing my pa's ever done. Just like that man says. The sins of the father'll be laid on the sons."
"That ain't fair! Y e must've heard wrong."
"I heard him right."
"Y e said the river -"
"I heard him plain, I 'm telling ye!" His eyes teared up, and I remembered the day he'd come back from the river crying.
I came closer. "Then I reckon we could both use the sin eater."
"And what good would it do to find him? We ain't dead yet."
"Maybe we could ask him to take our sins now."
"Why would he want to do that?""I don't know! But it's worth asking him, ain't it?"
He chewed on his lip, thinking. "All right," he said, looking grim. "T omorrow. I 'll meet you where Kai Creek joins the river. We're going hunting."
180T en Hiding behind a curtain of mountain laurel, Fagan and I watched the crazy woman's cabin, waiting for some sign of her. Neither of us was brave enough to hello the house and bring her out, nor willing to admit our fear. I t was early yet, and we used that ready excuse as we waited for the sunlight to spill over the valley floor and chase the shadows away. Both of us sat, getting wet with the heavy dew that dripped down from the leaves.
"I went down to listen to the man last night," Fagan whispered.
"What'd he say this time?"
"He kept calling out for us to come to him and hear the word of the Lord, and we'd have rest for our souls."
"We'd be resting, all right. In our graves after beingstruck dead."
"I t dinna sound that way to me, but I wasn't going to walk across that river. Pa or one of my brothers would've seen me. They've kept watch off and on."
"I 'm afeared of the mon, too, Fagan."
"I ain't afeared of him. I 'm afeared what 181he'd do." He raked his hair back, frowning. "I don't reckon even Pa would do nothing to a man come from God."
I didn't say anything to that, for I was troubled in my mind remembering my nightmare. Besides that, Brogan Kai had looked able to do anything the day he had me by the throat. I reckoned Brogan Kai thought he was God. In this highland valley, at least.
A deer with her two fawns came into the open, grazing in the shadows not far from where we were hidden. Fagan sat up straighter, his attention fixed not on them but further on toward the forest. "Will ye look at that?" At the awe on his face, I looked to see a huge buck standingamong the trees out of the edge of light, his antlers a majestic crown for a proud head. "Never seen one so big. Wish I had a gun."
"How con ye say that? He's so beautiful!"
"He'd feed a family through winter."
I glared at him, thankful all he had was a slingshot.
When the cabin door opened, the doe's head came up sharply, and she bounded ay, the fawns on her heels. The buck melted into the forest. Fagan and I both leaned forward, peering through the dangling vines and waiting for Bletsung 182Macleod, the crazy woman, to appear.
She came outside in her long white nightgown, blonde hair curling down over her like a golden cascade clear past her waist. Stretching, she put the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned. She walked along the porch and stood there at the end, gazing up at the mountain. She whistled like a bird and waited for a long moment. Then she whistled again, waiting once more."There it is," Fagan said. "Did ye hear it?"
"Y es," I whispered, for a whistle had come from the forest above.
"I t's not like any bird I 've ever heard before."
After that, Bletsung Macleod went back inside her house.
"Why don't you make her something, Katrina Anice?"
Lilybet said, sitting not far away. "Such as what?"
"I dinna say nothing," Fagan said, glancingback at me.
"I t was Lilybet."
"Don't start acting crazy on me!"
"I 'm not acting crazy!" Hurt, I got up.
"Where ye going?"
"Down to the creek to find some flowers."
"Flowers? Now?""T o make a garland for her, Fagan. She might take more kindly to us coming to her 183place if we have summat for her. And since ye took it into your head to break the jar of preserves . . ."
"Go on then and get the flowers. I 'll keep watch."
I picked my way through vines and briars and reached the water. "Why can't he see you?" I said to Lilybet. I was tired of her mysterious answers.
"Y ou know why."
"Because ye don't exist. Because you're in my head."
Lilybet merely smiled as she sat on a moss-covered boulder, her blue eyes clear and filled with knowledge of me.
"Gervase Odara thinks you're a taint," I said stubbornly.
"She thinks I 'm worse than that."
"But it's not fair.""Life isn't fair. I t's difficult. From the moment you draw your first breath to the last."
"Why does it have to be that way?"
"Because men are stubborn. They wanted their own way, and God allowed them to have it."
"And so Fagan and I must suffer."