There had been moonshiner Devil John, a fire tower lookout, young Timmy and his mama, the Moffits, and many others.
The ones I’d won over.
Quietly, I moved over to the shelves and sat on the floor, poring over the titles, flipping through pages.
Hours later, I gathered a stack of books and index cards.
There weren’t no other way.
I know’d what to do.
But I know’d it would be risky and downright dangerous if I failed.
Six
I waited by the crash gate with a laundry bag of books and a pass from the warden while the officer unlocked the door to the Geriatric Ward.
“Thirty minutes and not a second longer,” the guard warned.
“Sir, Warden said I could take an hour with the women—”
He shoved three fingers in my face. “And not a second more,” he growled, then grabbed my book bag and searched inside.
My eyes watered from the stench of soil and looming death. Coughing, I took a folding chair from the wall and dragged it over to a group of seven women in wheelchairs.
One woman’s eyes fluttered open and then quickly shut, a small moan escaping her thin lips. Another looked empty-eyed at the big clock hanging on the wall, lost in trapped memories of yesteryear, clicking her teeth to the loud ticking of the second hand. A few more stared blankly ahead while others drooped their heads toward their laps and worried shaky, knotted hands. I set down my bag and righted my chair.
“Ladies,” I said, doing my best to ignore the smell of urine and decay hovering above the circle. I blinked and wiped my watering eyes against a sleeve. “I’m the new prison librarian—your Book Woman, at your service. My name is Cussy Lovett, and I’m here to read to you today and loan out books from the prison library. Would you like that?”
Silence.
Then: “They sent her to infect us so we’d kill off quicker.” An inmate pointed an accusing finger at me.
“I’m perfectly healthy, ladies. Promise, my color isn’t catchin’ or killin’.” I rummaged through my bag and pulled out the new copy ofCharlotte’s Web, hoping some of the elderly women had come from farms and would enjoy the tale of the young girl, Fern, and her barnyard characters. Softly, I cleared my throat and began, “Where’s Papa going with that axe—”
“We know where ol’ Lila went with hers.” A woman mimicked striking an axe and darted eyes to a frail inmate who glared back at her.
I noticed in the back row a younger woman slumped in her chair, murmuring with spittle collecting in the corners of her mouth. I moved toward her, but the guard blocked me and shook his head. “She won’t understand any book that you could read her.”
A half hour later the guard tapped my shoulder, pulling me from the story. “Time’s almost up.” I looked up from the page, surprised to see seven sets of attentive eyes on me.
One woman quietly said, “Grandma once saw a spider write her brother’s name in its web. He died within three days.”
I winced, remembering the scattered feathers of the pillow and the angel crown left behind on the porch the day the lawman took me into custody.
“My pappy said for every spider you kill, you kill an enemy,” one recalled.
Another chimed in, “I ’member my granny always swore that if you have a headache, swallow a spider’s web and it’ll go away.”
“Time to leave,” the officer said. “Dinner trays will be here soon.”
One woman frowned. “Not now, Officer McGee. I want her to read one more chapter.”
Another had tears in her eyes.
“And just what are you blubbering about, Geraldine Clark?” one of the women asked her.
“Quiet, Bess,” the guard warned.
