Chapter 6

LeAnn watched her ward play on the floor in front of the television. The stupid thing hadn't worked for about a month now, but it didn't seem that either one of them missed it all that much. She was happy that the little girl had been with her when her mother had been killed. LeAnn oftentimes wondered if anyone knew that Prissy had had a child, much less one as pretty and as young as little Debra was.

She was sure that, at some point, someone would have come for her had they known about her. LeAnn had started sleeping with a gun in her hand when they went to bed, the little girl in the bed next to her. But when she nearly blew a hole in the electrical man who read the meter, she decided that she might well be better off hiding them all over the house. It had broken her heart, too, that she'd had to show little Debra how to use it and how to be safe around it.

"Grannie?" She asked the child what she could do for her, smiling each time she heard her calling her such a sweet name. "There's a man at the door. Did you hear him?" She said that she'd not and told her to go and hide. "Yes, ma'am. I'll go hide. But you be extra careful, please. I don't have nobody but you in my life."

For an eight-year-old, the child was beyond smart. It took her very little time to teach the child that things weren't like other people's homes and that she had to be extra quiet when anyone came around. Looking around her sparse rooms, LeAnn thought she was about as ready as she could be for a visitor. She only hoped that they weren't there for Debra. Being as old as she was, there wasn't much fight left in her to keep her safe much longer.

"Hello, Ms. Jamestown. My name is David Westminster. I'm from the power and light company." She asked him what he wanted. "Well, if I could come in, I'd be able to show you how we're able to save you about a hundred dollars a month on your bills."

"I don't pay but about half that now. If'n you're going to be able to save me a hundred, am I gonna get to keep the other fifty?" He laughed, it was forced, but she knew it when she'd opened the door that he was out for trouble. "You go on now. Leave this old woman alone. I got me enough to worry about what with the neighbor's dog coming over all the time and eating my tomatoes in the summer months. Go on now."

"Where is she, LeAnn?" She asked him what he was speaking about. "The girl, the child of your daughter? I know you have her. Just let me have her, and I'll make sure you never have to go without again."

"Oh, for the love of Pete. If'n I had a daughter, you dumb cracker, don't you think I'd know it? I'm pretty near ninety years old now. A daughter of mine would be in her seventies. Even a kid of hers would be in their fifties if she was to have a kid herself. Where do you get off…I done already told you to go on now. I ain't got no daughter. And if'n I had one, she would never have been considered a child. I'm sure to Christ, she'd be an old and ugly one."

He shoved at the door just as she heard the back door open. She was scared beyond words now and let herself fall to the floor when he knocked her back. There was a gun just there under the footstool, and as soon as she got to it, she was going to—

"Mrs. Jamestown? It's Trevor Strong. I'm here to help you out with the paperwork. Are you here?" She knew that she should have known the name, but she was too afraid to think beyond the men in her house. LeAnn told the man who was still calling for her that she was in the living room being shoved around. The big man who came in through the mud room winked at her. Making her feel like she was just a young girl and he'd come to courtin. "My dad, you know him, Barkley? He said that you prefer when someone comes into the back door like company. I'm assuming that this fellow here isn't company nor welcome."

"No, sir, he's not. Come in here telling me that he knows about some child that I have of my daughters or some story. I'm nearly ninety, the young fool. If I had me a young person working around here, don't you think that I'd have a much nicer and certainly cleaner place? I swear to Jon, people just don't think with their minds no more. That's what it is. No body is thinking beyond what they want to hear." She looked the young man over as he helped her up from the floor. The other man, still with his gun out, told Trevor that he'd been here first. "Well, you might well have been first, but you didn't even bother helping an old woman up from the floor. You even knocking me there didn't have you helping me out."

She was babbling. She knew that. Her heart was hurting her, and she wanted to get to her nitro pills before it became a full-bloom pain. Reaching for the tiniest little bottle she thought the drugstore had, she knocked it to the floor and knew that she was going to just die right then.

"Here, you go. Let me help you out with that." Not only did he get her pill bottle picked up, but he had the little sucker open and was putting an equally tiny pill under her tongue. Almost as soon as it melted, she could feel it working. Trevor even told her that in a minute, if she wasn't better, he had her a second one, too. LeAnn nearly sobbed. Nobody had been around to help her but the child and she just didn't know what to say.

Leaning her head back on her chair after getting the second little pill, LeAnn closed her eyes and let the two men argue about the silliest things. At least to her befuddled mind, it seemed like they weren't making nary a bit of sense. It scared her a bit, feeling this way. She couldn't leave the child alone, not until she was able to talk to someone about her and why she was hiding her.

LeAnn must have dozed off for a bit there because the next time she opened her eyes, Debra was helping her with a sip or two of water and asking her if she needed another pill. Taking it, just to be sure that everything in her chest was working the way that it was supposed to, she was glad to see that the big man, she couldn't remember his name at the moment, was on the telephone. Since she knew for a fact that he'd not been on her house phone, LeAnn figured that he had one of them cellular phones that he was using. She looked at Debra when she called out to her.

"That man had the password to make me come up out of the cellar. He said that he was going to call his daddy and get us to a safer place. Are you all right?" She said that she was and that Barkley, his daddy, was her friend. "That man that was here when I went downstairs, he's fit to be tied standing on the street with the police. They arrested him on account of him having a gun when he was on parole. He sure was powerful upset that Mr. Strong came in and ruined his plans. He didn't say what they were, but the police hauled him right out of here kicking and screaming about how he was here to get a little girl."

"I don't know how he ever thought that you'd not be prepared for someone coming alone, do you, Mrs. J?" She smiled at the nickname, remembering him as a young man when he'd come here with his daddy sometimes. "Dad told me to tell you that he's sending his best men here to make sure you get out of here all in one piece. Debra here is going to be as safe as we can make her too."

"They want her on account of them thinking that she knows more than her mother did. You know she's not my granddaughter, don't you, son?" He said that he did and that he remembered being around here when she had baked him some chocolate chip cookies. "Yes, I remember that. You sure could eat your weight in them."

They both laughed, and she felt her heart tensing up a little bit again. Not taking a third pill, she told Debra to make sure that she got her mother's books from the cellar. While she was down there, she looked at the young man who seemed to know just what she was going to say to him.

"You hang on now. My dad said that you owe him a game of chess." She said she didn't know if she could remember how to play now. "An ambulance is coming to get you. Now, don't you be frightened when they zip you up in one of those body bags, Ms. J. Debra will be in there with you, holding onto you for dear life. Don't frighten her by doing something sad, all right?"

"I hurt, and I'm old." He said that he was going to make sure that she got herself some good care. "I know, Trevor, but I've only been holding on for the last few years until someone came along and helped me out while caring for little Debra. She's not a bit of trouble, but I'm ninety years old. My poor old body just can't hold on too much longer."

"My dad is going to meet the two of you at the hospital. I know you have things to tell him. Things that the two of you have been putting your heads together about for a long time. Now, you just hang on until then, and everyone will be happy. You're not going to believe it, Ms. J but my brothers are all married now with babies and children coming along. You have to hang on a bit to see them all. Please?" She cried, and she watched him as fat tears rolled down his own cheeks. Trevor had always been a good boy and she so hated to disappoint him. "Will you at least try for me, please?"

"I'll try, young man, but I expect you to be there when I'm passing on. I need a young person to hold onto my hand when I'm passing over into the next world. It'll make me ease into it better whilst I look for my husband. Now that I think on it, he's been gone longer than we were married. Probably got him a whole lot of women just hanging on his every word." They both laughed, and she felt another pain rip right through her. "It ain't gonna be long, Trevor. You make sure that your daddy knows that."

He said that he would and went to let in the medics. It had been forever since she'd had so many guests in her home, and she didn't have nary a cookie or cup of coffee to offer them. When they got her onto the gurney, feeling the nice mattress under her worn-out body, they told her that they were going to give her a bit of something that would make her feel a lot better.

Sure enough, it did. Her heart was beating at its full strength, and she felt just a little like she could take on the world. After a bit, when they told her that she seemed to be steady, they had little Debra lay over her gentle like, and then they put the biggest sheet over the two of them like she was being carted away to the funeral parlor.

They strapped the two of them down, and she might have been a little afeared of the darkness, but Debra started to sing to her, a little song that she'd picked up off the television when it had been working, and she sang along with her. People might well have been scared out of fifty years of their lives if'n they heard that big old sheet covering them singing about the colors of the world. She smiled a bit. Debra could certainly make her feel like she'd had a good long time left in her old body. She surely did.

Once they were at the hospital, they were taken to an elevator and told that they only had a little bit more. She heard Trevor's voice talking to someone, and she felt a might better about it. There was someone with him, a doctor he called him, and he was telling the other man what he'd done in the way of helping Ms. J make it here.

"I'd like for her to be around a bit longer if you think you can make that work for us." The doctor said he'd give it his all as he thought the world of Lisa and Barkley Strong. "They like you too, Jimson. I heard that you were excited about the new equipment that my brother and sister have been working on."

When the elevator stopped, she was ready to get off the mattress. It had gone from feeling just fine to something that didn't have nary a soft spot in it. As soon as she was put on a better bed, her whole self felt like she'd been given a million-dollar place to rest her head. But it wasn't doing all that much for her heart. She was never so glad to see Barkley Strong as she was in that moment.

"I fear I don't have too much longer to go, sir. I just can't seem to keep this ticker here going." Barkley told her that he had her. "Good, you always were the best of the best of the best when you'd come over and mow my lawn. Now, you listen to me better than you did in them flower lessons I gave you. Didn't I tell you that they'd come in handy?"

She told him everything. LeAnn knew that she was getting close to the end of her talking and her body being around. But it was as important to her to tell him everything that he'd need to know as it was for her to make sure that he knew all about it. Debra she came and held her hand off and on, the little mite crying a great deal, but she too knew what was going to happen to her, and she was surprised every day that she opened her eyes that she was in this life for another day or two.

"You got them books I been sending you?" He said that he also had the ones that were in her cellar. "That child, she'll know where to find everything else you might need too. You keep her safe, Barkley. That little thing is smarter than anyone I've done ever did know, including you."

"You know that I'll keep her more than safe, Ms. J." No one will ever find her, not so long as there is breath in my body." She closed her eyes but opened them off and on to make sure that they were all still there and if'n they had any questions to put to her. While she wasn't all that sure she could answer them, she knew that someone would be there to listen to her.

"Grannie?" She had to focus really hard on seeing who was talking to her and when that pretty little thing smiled at her, it hurt her bad that she couldn't remember her name. "It's Debra. I wanted to tell you that I love you with all my heart. And that I'm sure that I'm only alive because of you."

"Aren't you the sweetest little thing? I think, and we both know it, that you could have done this all on your own without me meddling in your life." Debra laid her head on her chest. It wasn't hurting now. None of her old body was. "You make sure you listen to everything that Barkley and his family tell you, child. They'll keep you out of harm's way. All right?"

"Yes, ma'am, I know that." LeeAnn closed her eyes and couldn't pry them open again when Debra, that was her name, said something to her. "You go on now, Grannie. You don't have to make sure I have beans and taters anymore. Go on now and go in peace."

"I think I will. I surely did love you, child." She thought that she told her that she loved her too but couldn't be sure. LeAnn was as sure of her love for the child as she had been her husband nearly sixty years ago now. "You be good, honey. I'll see you when you come a calling."

~*~

Trevor had no idea what made him stop at the little house that was so far off the road that few people even knew that it was back there. When he'd seen the man on the front porch, he'd made his way around to the back to make sure that Ms. J wasn't being ambushed. As it was, he had to break into the house, knocking the window out of the mudroom to gain access. He didn't know what he'd find when he got inside, but his heart was telling him that she needed him, and Trevor was never one to second guess himself when his mind or heart was talking to him.

He'd been afraid when he'd seen the elderly woman on the floor. More so to see the man standing over her yelling about the child. He did know that Ms. J had someone living with her, but he'd not known who it was—actually, he still didn't—until he remembered the password that he'd been given long ago to get the person to trust him.

When Debra came out of the cellar, cobwebs were not only all over her jeans but in her hair as well. He helped her clean up while she told him what was going on. The man, he'd not caught his name was gone now, the police having come to get him just after Trevor had broken into the house. As soon as he could, he called his dad and mom to tell them that he wasn't sure that Ms. J was going to make it after telling them what he'd come up upon when he'd pulled in behind the house. His dad told him that he was on his way and Trevor told him to drive safely but to hurry. Turned out he was right to have his dad hurry it along. The elderly woman died not ten minutes after they got her to a hospital room.

"Mr. Trevor?" He asked Debra again just to call him Trevor. "Grannie said that I wasn't to trust anyone but your dad. I don't know what it is about you, but I have the same trust for you that I have for him." He got down to her level before speaking to her again.

"My dad and I used to come here a lot before you came here. Then, one day, we came here, and Ms. J had a tiny little baby in her arms. I know you don't remember that but I got to hold you for hours while they talked business. You were then and are now a pretty little thing." She thanked him. "Did you know how you ended up with her? I mean, I know that she didn't have any living children and that most people didn't have all that much to do with her. Thinking that she was an oddball. She wasn't. Just a lovely woman that didn't take crap from anyone."

"It's in those books why I was with her. I don't know, to be honest. I wasn't to read the books that she'd had in the cellar. I could read the new ones, but not those." He had a feeling that if asked she could recite the entirety of all the books if asked. "Grannie, she wasn't my relative at all. But I had to hide out when people came around sniffing. It took me a long time to figure out what that meant. She had funny words for things that I had to come to understand."

"Yes, I had a grandda like that too. He could say things that would make you scratch your head and more than likely still not have any idea what he was talking about. Even when I got older, I still didn't know." They both laughed, and he and her moved to the living room in his parents' home. He'd never been so relaxed around a child before. "From what my dad told me about you, is that your some kind of prodigy. Is that right?"

"Yes." When she didn't say anymore he didn't ask. Whatever she was smart about, he figured that he'd find out soon or later or not. Really, it wasn't any of his business. Dad had it under control, and he was fine with that.

They talked about Halloween for a little while. Of course, she'd never been trick or treating. Nor had she had a big Thanksgiving dinner with family around. Grannie, she told him, would get food delivered to the house all the time, and they'd share it. Also, they had them a nice-sized garden that they'd eat from all summer and into the fall year. Debra told him how Grannie had taught her the basics of canning and that she could live in the forest for months so long as she had a sharp knife and a bottle. He figured out what the knife was for easily, but she explained to him what the bottle was for.

"Carrying stuff. Toting things back and forth that I'd find to eat or need. Also, it was nice to have water brought to wherever I was hiding out. Each summer since I was three, grannie would tell me to go away and not come back for a month. She wanted me to be able to care for myself in the event that something happened to her. I guess she was right. I'm going to miss her so much." Trevor told her how sorry he was and held her while she cried. "It was fun, honestly. And I did learn a great deal. I can find things in the forest to keep my belly filled up that nobody I know would think about. I would always get to have cake, something that we rarely had when I was with her."

He could see that, too. Someone like Grannie, her age, giving the child answers to questions about the outdoors that she'd not get from a book or someone younger. Her relationship with her, too, someone watching over her that would be better than any other relationship that she'd have with a parent who wasn't around or even one who didn't care if she needed help or not. Debra told him that she'd learned how to know where she was at any given time, too, so she'd be able to find her way home. He did wonder why she was taught those things, wondering at what kind of scary things did Ms. J know about the little girl.

"She's going to be staying with your mother and me until we can get things figured out with the government. If you'd not mind, I don't want either of you to say anything to anyone until we know for sure that we can trust them. Of course, your brothers and their wives will know. However, as far as anyone else is concerned, she's just a relative who is spending the holidays with us until such time as her parents return. That's all the information that anyone needs to know. If they get too pushy, well, I'll have Jade or Jenson take care of them." Both he and Debra laughed. "As soon as that came out of my mouth, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Anyway, once we get something more than we have now, we'll be able to move forward."

"The man that was at the house today, he seemed really pushy. What happened to him?" Dad just looked at him and didn't answer Debra. "Okay, so I'm assuming that it's best if I don't know. I can live with that. I'm not sure, but I think that Grannie took care of a couple of pushy people, too. I helped her put them in the well at the back of the property. I won't be getting into trouble over that, will I?"

Dad told Debra that he'd look into it, but he shivered when he said it. Trevor, too, had a feeling that there wouldn't be just a couple of bodies back there but as many as six. The way that the police were talking earlier, there had been some kind of trouble going on here for a long time.

When Jade showed up, she told Dad that she'd gone shopping and had some things for Debra. After she took off to try some of them on, she looked at the two of them like she had some serious information to hand out. He wasn't entirely positive that he wanted to hear it but sat down when she told him to. Christ, all he'd done was check on an elderly lady that he'd met long ago, and now he was knee-deep in whatever was going on with a child.

"The elderly Jamestown had some traces of poison in her body. I'm not saying that the child did it, but I'd be extra careful around her if I were you." Dad asked if he'd be all right here with her then. "I would say so. If I were you, I'd have Trevor move in here too, another set of eyes that can watch over things. It might well not be her that did it, but I'm not taking any chances with either of you." Dad looked at him.

"I can stay here, you know that, for as long as you need. However, I haven't any idea how I'm supposed to keep an eye on someone so that they don't poison you. I mean, I'm not a stupid man, but that's well beyond anything that I studied for in college." Dad said that just having him here would be a blessing. "You know that I'd give my life for you and Mom. Just tell me when you want me here, and I'll—"

"Tonight." He nodded and worked around in his head on how to move things around on his schedule so that he could work with his parents and not miss too much in the way of working.

Then he felt stupid for doing that, making work first in his life, so he decided that he'd clear his calendar until his parents no longer needed him. As Jade was leaving, she handed him a thumb drive. She didn't say a word, of course, but kissed him on the cheek and whispered to him to use his own laptop. This was getting scarier and scarier all the time.