Cry Before Supper, a novel by Julia Rose Grey
Historical mainstream fiction; general
audience
Chapter One - A Bad Day
The body fell out with a thud. It wasn’t a hard sound, like the time we were
playing hide-and-seek in the library and I turned too quickly, sending the
unabridged Oxford English Dictionary and the table it was sitting on crashing
to the floor. No. This sound was soft. I’d say it was more like the sound that my
grandmother, MooMoo, taught me about ripe cantaloupes. “The sound has a spongy, dull thump,” she’d
said, rapping her knuckles on the outside of the rough skin. “There…that’s it…this melon is juicy and ready
to eat.”
All
I could do was stand solid as stone and stare at the dried-out skull and hollow
eye sockets. Swirls of dust floated in
the sunbeams and tickled at my nose. How
inappropriate of the dust particles, I thought, to be playing at such a time. But I couldn’t prevent the effects of the
dust that hovered in my nostrils.
Without even covering my mouth -- because I couldn’t, I was frozen in
place -- I sneezed. I watched helplessly
as the spittle flowed through the air and sank to the floor.
Watching
in dumbfounded silence, articles of clothing spilled out: a lace collar, yellowed with age; a
whale-bone corset, once cream but now with brownish stains along the stays; a
remnant of sage green taffeta, part of a gown I suppose, crumpled and worn thin
along the edges.
The
poor dear, I thought, to be so alone for such a long time, only to pop out of
the vintage steamer trunk in such an awkward way. To expose herself in such a disheveled state
to people she’d never met before. We
didn’t intend to disturb her. We were
only playing. We often came to the attic
to acquire costumes for the plays my older sister, Betsy, had written. She had a flair for writing and always gave
me and my younger sister and brother, Crosey and Michael, roles in her
plays. After rehearsing, we’d select
costumes from the collection of elegant garments meticulously hung in the attic
closets. For the male roles, there was
an assortment of thickly woven apparel:
tweed suits, vests with pockets, cotton shirts with stiff collars,
cravats, bow ties, and shoes with their spats still attached. The women’s selection was far broader. The full-length gowns were many and
varied. All floor-length but in thick
moiré, fine silk, taffeta, some trailing a two-foot length of train. The colors seemed endless: grass, dew, and
emerald green; poppy, garnet and crimson red; teal, sapphire and cerulean blue;
not to mention the pinks, mauves, daisy-yellows, and linen whites. Included in this collection was everyday
clothing: woolen tweed suits, cream and
white cotton shirtwaist blouses and sturdy skirts, leather button-up
shoes. And, oh, the hats! There were wide brimmed hats in black, white,
blue, red, with large flowers, ribbons, and feathers, and even one with a
cardinal tacked on the side. In addition
to the fancy hats, there were smaller felt cloches that fit close to the
face. There was even a woman’s horseback
riding outfit: jodhpurs, white pleated
fitted blouse, black velvet jacket and hard-hat, leather crop, and gleaming
brown boots.
On
this particular day, we were trying to find clothing for our special-spooky
Halloween skit. We had tried before to
pry open this particular steamer trunk, but we could never get the lock to
budge. It was shut as tight as the lips
on the Sphinx. Today, however, it popped
open, as if it had a mind of its own.
Little did we know we’d find a lady inside in such disarray.
I
wrinkled my nose at the stench. She must
have been in there a rather long time, maybe years, or even decades.
A
sudden crackling sound split the silence like lightning. I jerked with a startle and gasped before I
realized the sound was the lady’s jaw.
It had dropped open, as if to say “Hello, dearies.” I guess she was as surprised to see us as we
were to see her.
A
strange twinge of grief wrenched my chest.
Wanting to touch her, to hold her and comfort her, I started to reach
out my hand. But at that moment, I
spotted the large, round stains that marred the bodice of what I first imagined
as the tranquilly elegant sage green of her taffeta gown. The stains were deep brown. My first thought was of Sergeant Joe Friday
of the television show Dragnet. If it were him instead of me coming upon this
body (as I wished it were), he would probably say, “It looks like blood. Human most likely, with that pearl knife
handle protruding out of her ribs like that.
Won’t know for sure until we test it.
But that’s my assessment of this situation.” I was inclined to concur with Sergeant
Friday. “I agree,” I whispered to
myself, “this lady’s demise was most likely not due to natural causes.”
Again
my heart squeezed with acrid sorrow. I
tried to imagine some skin around those bones.
Was she tall or short? Brunette
or blonde? Did she have high cheek bones
or a moon-shaped face like me? Did she
pluck her eyebrows into thin slivers like my older sister Betsy? Or did she brush them into natural dormers
over her eyes like my Mom did?
I
knew at least a little something about her death. But what was her life like? Did she tend her large garden or make flower
arrangements, as Mom did every so often?
Or did she cook using herbs from the kitchen garden? Maybe because she lived in this large house,
she had a cook and a gardener. I
wondered if she had children. Or was she
gone before she’d known the joy of having even one? Was she happy? Or was her unhappiness the reason that she
ended up in the trunk?
A
shriek shattered my reverie. My younger
brother, Michael, was screaming and running in circles beside me. This reaction from Michael was not
extraordinary. His conventional response
to anything unusual was a frenzied stomp in a tight circle, accompanied by a
high-pitched screech. He’d continue in
this dreadful display until someone stood in his path, forcing him to stop with
a full-body block. Because he wasn’t
smart enough to run around the obstacle, Michael would smack into the human
barrier and finally come to a halt. The
rescuer would then have to quickly quell Michael’s emotion by hugging him and
whispering, “It’s all right. You’re safe
now.”
I thought about helping Michael, by abruptly impeding his
circles and comforting him. Usually,
because Michael seemed to like me the most, I was assigned the task of keeping
him in tow. I would hold his hand to
make sure he didn’t wander off, as he had a penchant for doing. But the task of calming Michael’s tirades was
typically my older brother Bud’s job.
I’d never been in this exact situation, so I was caught off-guard and
couldn’t imagine what I should do. Bud
was the one who could give Michael the required full-body grip, quiet his
moans, and make him feel safe again. But
Bud wasn’t there. I hesitated. I bit down on my lip. Hard.
I let out a sigh and tried to think through this awkward
state of affairs.
Help might be here soon, I thought. Crosey -- Caroline Rose, my younger sister --
had taken off as soon as the mysterious lady did her jack-in-the-box
routine. Apparently she’d run down the
hallway and was now leaning over the balustrade. I heard her shouting, “Mom, call the police! No, make that the coroner. She’s beyond help, now!”
Crosey was always that way.
She instinctively assessed the situation and was able to act
appropriately. I asked her once if she
ever felt surprised at her own intelligence.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You always seem to understand everything. And you make perfect sense.”
She tapped her finger against her cheek, assessing the
question carefully. Finally she said,
“Yes, I’m surprised right now, because I don’t know why you would ever ask such
a thing.”
“Well, you always seem to know what to do,” I’d said.
She replied quickly.
“Oh, I suppose that comes from reading the Emergency Manual the Red
Cross sent us in the mail,” she said.
You see what I mean about Crosey? She knew what to do. And she didn’t freeze up like me.
Feeling that my abilities to do anything of value were
limited, I decided to let Michael continue his circling and moaning. Help would probably be here soon.
Besides, the smell was starting to envelop me. I hoped my skin wasn’t absorbing the
odor. I tried to lift my arm to sniff
it, but it wouldn’t budge. And my whole
torso felt stiff. My legs and feet felt
as if they were encased in concrete. I
couldn’t even wiggle my toes. A steely
fear clasped my core.
I rolled my eyes right and glanced sideways at Michael. His face was red. And he seemed to be getting redder with each
rotation. That was normal for him. But I knew he needed help -- soon. And I needed help, too. My eyes were burning. I could hardly breathe, the stink of the
mysterious death was so foul. Every time
I tried to gulp some air, my lungs burned.
So I stood there feeling trapped in a scrim of ghostly webs.
“Annie! Annie!”
Oh, thank goodness, I thought, my mother was finally
here. I felt her warm hands drape around
my shoulders. Even though my real name
was Barbara Anne, my mother always called me Annie, so everyone else did, too.
“Yes, Mom,” I muttered.
“We have to go,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I replied, not fully understanding why I wanted
to stay with the corpse.
I heard another familiar voice now. “Wow, look at the dead body!” That was Bud -- not very tactful but always
ready for excitement.
I could feel Mom’s fingers press into my shoulders, a sign
of her disgust with Bud’s reaction.
“Bud, please stop gawking at that body and do your job with Michael.”
“Got it, Mom,” Bud replied.
Still frozen in place, I watched as Bud stood in front of
Michael and waited for him to come around his circle once more. Boom.
Michael bounced right into Bud’s abdomen. Then Bud quickly extended his long arms,
wrapped them around him, and squeezed.
He held on for dear life. “That’s
OK, Michael,” Bud said. “Everything’s
all right.”
A large man in a blue uniform came in. He had a round, pudgy face that turned bright
red when he spotted the body. He wore a
policeman’s cap, except it had gold bands around it and a gold star on the
brim. Strands of gray hair stuck out
from under the cap. He had a badge that
said “Sheriff Blake” on his left shoulder, and several gold chevrons on his
jacket sleeves. He came into the room
and stood right over the body. He put
his hands on his hips and stared at the pitiful sight. He then coughed and covered his mouth and
nose. I guess the stench really was as
bad as I thought it was.
“We’ll take it from here, Mrs. Campbell,” he said. His voice was as large as he was. “You’d better get the children out of here.”
“We have to go now, Annie dear. The police -- they’ll handle everything now,”
my mother said. Oh, how I loved my
mother’s mellow voice, her buttery touch, her fresh cotton scent. She caressed my shoulders and guided me
gently towards the doorway. My numbness
started to ooze from me like warm honey.
“But I want to stay,” I said. Despite her desolate end, this woman had
intrigued me. Who was she? How did she live? We knew how she died -- pending Sergeant
Friday’s confirmation, of course. But
how did she get into such a predicament?
And, most importantly, who killed her?
I wanted to know.
“Come, Annie,” my mother repeated, tugging me towards the
attic threshold.
My quest would have to wait until later.
~*~
Oh dear. I think I’ve
done it again. I’m always doing
that. Rushing things, that is. Crosey’s always telling me I start a story in
the middle and forget to give the reader a chance to understand what’s going
on. She also says that I tend to tell
readers the most exciting but the least important and most irrelevant parts of
the story. Like the lady popping out of
the trunk that day. That incident was only
a sliver of what happened to us in our new home.
In fact, the lady’s demise isn’t even pivotal to the
story. It’s what Crosey said is a
“sidelight,” something related because the house seemed strange, but not at the
heart of what happened.
I guess I did it again.
In all my eagerness to tell you about what happened, about our adventure
in the new house, I suppose I’ve gotten much too far ahead of myself.
I need to slow down. I need to start at the very beginning. I need to tell you the whole story.
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