I met her eyes, mooned with dark circles, wanting to give balm, offer a glimmer of hope of the outside world, a reminder that life was not always like this.
“Too damn old for that.” She dismissed the thought with a hand, her pale cheeks spotting from embarrassment.
“Never too old.”
“Hmph.” She crossed her bony arms across her bosom.
“The elders back home attended the Moonlight Schools. Walked those paths up to their little one-room school perched atop the mountain when the moon lit the way. Learned their arithmetic and letters just fine. Some were in their eighties. I imagine a young woman like yourself can learn quick.” I nodded the declaration. “Book Woman, at your service.”
She looked at me with guarded eyes, as if trying to decide the possibility of such. Then she pointed. “That book reminds me of my Lu Lu. I was jus’ fourteen when Mommy and Pap gave her to Casper Sipes for my dowry.” Her face lit up, and then, just as quick, a storm pressed into the deepening lines mapped across it. “My Lu Lu was the only living soul that loved me. Weren’t as lonely when she was around either. She tried her best to protect me from him. Till the very end.”
I listened quietly. Warden had told me she hadn’t had visitors in years.
Her soft brown eyes watered. “Every week, Casper would strike me down in front of his men, then take bets on how many times I would get back up before he could lay me out cold. I was in the barn with my horse one night. Casper come home late, and when he saw I hadn’t put his supper on the table, he grabbed me by the hair and started dragging me across that old dirt field. Lu Lu knocked him aside and chased him off.” Sassyann’s eyes filled again. “A fine horse she was for near a decade, until my ornery husband sold my beautiful girl the next day to a meat farm.”
I blinked away a tear at the thought of her losing Lu Lu like that. The protective creature sounded a lot like my Junia.
“Weren’t so much the weekly beatings and all my husband done to me, but when he brought home that horsemeat and demanded his supper, and I found out what he’d done, well, that bastard went down like the rabid dog he was.” Sassyann sniffed.
My color deepened, and I lowered the book to my side.
“I took that horsemeat and fed him for a week. Laced his favorite shepherd’s pies with rat poison, same as I did with the rhubarb pies I baked for ol’ Ned, my second husband. That one always skinning my nerves, pestering me morn’, noon, and night to ground the corn. Suffered a lot of beatings and…and, ya know, the otherstuffwe females ain’t supposed to mention.”
Stuff.The scars womenfolk carried from the misdeeds of cruel men. I looked down at my loud-talking hands, knowing my first husband was such a man. And I realized my part in his passing weren’t much different from her crime of poison. I’d just been lucky enough to pray him to death, escape the witch hunt the townsfolk would’ve brought down on me.
Sassyann moved over to her cot. “Them killings fed me, kept me alive. The hankerings grew stronger until I couldn’t help myself any more. Every time I kilt one, I felt stronger, like I was feeding, getting back pieces of me they stole.”
The officer poked his head out his office door.
“I needed to protect my boys from them onery men. Hell, ifNed’s meddling son hadn’t contested his Last Will and pushed the prosecutor to dig up my husbands, I’d likely be working on a third.” She cackled, a wheeze braiding her chortle. “It gets in the blood after all thatstuff.”
“Sassyann.” The guard approached. “Stop regaling her with your vile deeds; you’ve hogged enough of her reading time.”
“A gal can’t talk without you butting in, John Pridemore.” She cut him a defiant eye and turned back to me, ignoring the quiet prison guard. “Book Woman, I wouldn’t mind to learn the letters to write my sons. Ain’t seen nor heard from my three boys since they locked me up. I’d like to do that ’fore it’s too late…” Her pause was heavy.
“You’ll learn quick, Sassyann.”
“Not really interested in them books. I jus’ wanna write my boys. It gets a mite lonesome here. Warden gave me the radio one Christmas. It helps some. She’s good to me like that. Always brings me a chocolate bar on my birthday and Mother’s Day.”
I was taken aback by this news. It was a side of the warden I hadn’t seen. “Sassyann, I’ll help you learn your letters so you can write your sons,” I said, perking at the chance to ease whatever time she had left.
Hearing the declaration, she grinned, her teeth sharp-boned and browned, as she slipped back over to her skeleton mat atop the metal frame.
***
Hurrying down the corridor, I rounded the corner and bumped my bulky bag of books into Regina.
Before I could mumble an excuse, she raised an arm. Shielding my face, I felt the tip of a pencil push into tender flesh and break off in my palm, the blood oozing down my wrist, an explosion of piercing pain.
Seeming shocked by the color of my blood, Regina stumbledback and cursed, “Damn blue bitch, youarea witch.” Then she lit off.
I rushed into the cafeteria, past Waldeen, toward the kitchen washroom. Inside, I scrubbed the puncture, then wrapped a frayed tea towel around my hand after peeking at the wound. It could’ve been worse—an eye—and I was grateful for my quick reflexes.
“Kid, you okay?” Waldeen knocked on the door.
I stepped out and around her, steadying myself beside the tall freezer. “Just a little accident. I—I was clumsy.” The bloody rag dropped to the floor.
She studied me with ol’ eyes that said they know’d better. I quickly turned my head to the steel–paneled freezer door and caught the reflection of my face flushed into the lie.
