Page 26 of You Can Leave Your Hat On

“We’ve been ’specting you. Mammy, she’s here.” With that, the woman turned and shuffled into the depths of the house. Maisey pondered it for a few seconds, then marched right on in.

What greeted her was a scene reminiscent of the early twentieth century or possibly even the late nineteenth century. Sparse, stark furnishings sat about, and many pieces looked to be hand-hewn. The curtains at the windows were obviously made of flour sacks, and a large, black potbelly stove sat in the middle of the room. One glance told her there was nowhere for a visitor to sit, and she couldn’t imagine that they even had anyvisitors anyway. She’d been standing there for a few seconds, scoping out her surroundings, when she heard a sound.

In the doorway to the next room hung a curtain of sorts, not of beads, but of bones strung together with twine. Maisey wasn’t sure what kind of bones they were, but they were from smallish animals, most certainly raccoons, possums, chickens, squirrels, and other things like that. The strands parted and a chair was pushed out into the room where she stood, a regular chair without wheels but containing a woman, and if she’d thought the one who’d answered the door looked old, well, she was a teenager compared to the woman in the chair. Her skin was so thin that Maisey was sure she could see the relic’s blood thrumming in her veins, and her hair was in tufts here and there. Once the chair was situated a few feet from Maisey, the first woman, younger than the second but still not young, said again, “We been ’specting you. This is ’bout Hazel, ain’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She dead, ain’t she?” the woman asked.

There was no easy way to say it, so Maisey just replied, “Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid she is.”

“I knowed it.” The woman started to pace, and it made Maisey very nervous. “I tole Mammy here, I said, ‘Hazel done got herself killt.’ I knowed this was gonna happen.”

Here we go, Maisey told herself. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Was she in some kind of trouble?”

“Naw, not that I knowed of. But she were hangin’ ’round with some bad folk. I coulda tole her that if’n she come ’round from time to time, but naw. She was too good for the likes a-us.”

“So she didn’t come around, but you knew about the people she was hanging out with?”

“A-course we knowed. We knowed it all.”

“So the sheriff’s department contacted you about her death?”

The woman stared at her, a piercing glare that was almost painful. “No. Ain’t nobody tole us nothin’. They don’t give a damn ’bout us. We’s just trash to them city folk.”

“Then how did you know she’d died?”

The woman looked to the crypt keeper in the chair and back at Maisey. “We know all of it.” With a huff, she asked, “Throwed off a bridge, weren’t she?”

The floor seemed to tilt, and Maisey felt nauseous. How had the woman known that if no one told her? “Uh, yes, ma’am. From what we can tell.”

She watched as the old woman turned to the older one, almost as though she was listening intently, then turned back to Maisey. “She says Hazel didn’t drown. It was the fall what killt her.”

What the hell is happening here?Maisey’s brain shrieked. “That’s right.”

Again, the woman turned to the older one, stared, and then asked, “It were the man, weren’t it? The mean one, the important one, who lost all his money.”

“Um, we’re not sure, but we think it had something to do with money.”

“Had somethin’ to do with that fancy man she was havin’ im-pure re-la-tions with, ain’t that right?” the old woman asked, emphasizing every syllable.

“If you mean the man she was dating, then?”

“Datin’? She was lettin’ him roll around on her like a bull on a heifer. They was fornicatin’ like a pair o’ horny rabbits.” She turned back to the older woman, then looked back to Maisey. “Why was she all dressed up for?”

What the hell?Maisey almost yelled, but she managed to stay calm. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

A sound like two sticks being rubbed together came from the oldest woman, and in a second Maisey, identified the noise. Shewas laughing. It wasn’t a hearty laugh?there was nothing hearty left in that old woman?but it was indeed a laugh. The woman doing the talking watched her for a few seconds, then looked at Maisey again. “You know what she’s askin’ ’bout. You seen her.”

Maisey hadn’t been truly afraid until that moment. “What? What are you?”

“You! You the same, you and her!” the old woman said, pointing at the frail old skeleton of a human with one hand and Maisey with the other. “You both seers! Don’t try to deny it, girl. The three-a us here, we know it’s true. You seen her. You seen her bein’ murdered!”

“How do you know that?” Maisey shouted, ashamed that she couldn’t keep control of her voice, that her fear was seeping out and everyone in the room could hear it.

“We can feel it, silly girl! You got the gift!”

“It feels like a curse!” Maisey wanted to cry. And while it was terrifying, it was also… curious.

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