The Letter, Part 3 Continued 3

Today, Amy's mother and father find Pithole and the Dew-Drop Inn where Amy is being held captive.
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Amy’s Mother: Through the Dust we Find Hope

The dust that rises from the slope is blinding.  It's so thick I don't see how the horses see the track in front of them.  We had to take the wagon up from the town down below because the stage would have taken more time we didn’t have to lose.  I'm worn down and so is William by the looks of him, but neither one of us has said a word about it.  Every second counts, I think as we head up the hill and my mind whirs with the idea of what will await us.  What kind of place would trick a young girl to come to their door thinking she has a legitimate job and then imprison her?  My guess is the people behind this aren’t god fearing.  I can see the resolve that's settled into William's eyes.  He's a peaceful man at his core.  A man of God but what I see awakening in his face is a rage I didn’t even know he was capable of possessing. 

When we arrive in town I'm shocked by the place.  Every surface: the ground, the houses, the wooden sidewalks is covered in mud and oil.  Men aren't shaven and by the smell of it bathing isn't a common practice in Pithole.  As soon as our feet touch the ground William and I walk briskly to the post office to inquire where we might find the establishment Amy had told us she was joining.  Who knows if those crooks were stupid enough to use the real name of their establishment, but it's the one lead we've got so we've got to follow it. 

The post office is just a half block away and as we approach we see hundreds of people lined up around it waiting. The line curls around the building like an animal.  What do you think all the fuss is about?  I ask William and he just shrugs.  When we get close, he asks a man who is waiting online.

“Why you just found yourself one of the busiest post offices in the nation!” he announces in a loud, proud voice.  We see quickly that we aren’t going to make much headway here, so we walk to the first intersection. 

“If we split up,” I say, “I’ll bet we can find the establishment in half a day.” I say.  But William frowns and says he won’t allow it.  It isn’t safe. 

“There are drunken men everywhere,” he says, “and what would you do if you found the place?”  I realize he is right but hesitate before I agree.  And so our search of Pithole begins with the two of us walking the dusty planks side by side, looking into the dusty plate glass windows, searching aimlessly for our lost child.

It takes us about two hours to find the Dewdrop Inn, the address that Amy had placed on the letter she somehow sent.  Funny thing is, it doesn’t even try to look like an inn.  It’s a three-story house, with a wooden porch.  We walk up to the fogged glass door and knock.  Quickly, a man answers the door.  He is commanding in his height, with raven black hair. 

“What can I do for you folks,” he says, looking us over suspiciously.

“We are looking for our daughter, Amy.”  My husband says, looking intensely at the man in the doorway. 

Instantly, a wave of knowledge passes through the man’s face, as if he has realized who we are and why we’ve come to his establishment.  “Ain’t no new girls around here,” he says, looking my husband up and down.  “Looks like you got the wrong house.  Why don’t you two head on down the road.”

Almost immediately, William’s face become lit with the fire of his anger as he opens his mouth and states his plain reply.  “We received a letter from our daughter Amy.  She says, she’s locked here in the attic of your establishment. We don’t mean you any harm.  We only want to gather our daughter who wishes to leave your establishment.  So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d step aside and let us pass.”

With these words, I see a flash of recognition or surprise flash over the man’s face.  It doesn’t last long, and he’s quick to correct it, but for one second I can see that what we’ve spoken is truth.  With that hope, I lose control of myself and throw my whole weight against the door. 

I scream, “Amy, Amy?  Are you in there?  We’re here darling!  Come down and come away with us.” 

The man sees me lunge and quickly places his arm in my way. “You ain’t coming in,” he says with the whole mass of his body.  But I fight him hard.  “Let me in!”  I scream.  “I know she’s in there.  What kind of animal are you to keep a young girl trapped in your attic?!”

He just grins a crooked grin.  That’s when I see the red marks climbing his arms.  They are fresh.  I think, oh Lord, at least she’s fighting back that means she’s alive.

William says loud and firm, “If this is how you receive us, we will return with the law!” 

“Ain’t no law in this town,” the man laughs back.  “You even know where you are you dumb fucks?  You in Pithole.  Only law here is oil.  Other than that, you on your own.”

And with that he slams the door in our faces.

“No,” I scream, banging my arms on the closed wood door, “No, Noooooooo!”.  William puts his arms around my sobbing shoulders and says softly in my ear, “we should go.  Don’t worry.  We will find another way to get her out of there.  This isn’t over.  I promise.” 

But I can’t move.  It’s as if my legs have gone wooden and grown into the very spot where I am standing.  I’m not going.  I’m not leaving until we get our daughter out of here.  Who knows what that beast of a man will do once we leave this spot.  I sob, “he’s going to go up the stairs and beat her, or worse!” 

“You’re right,”  he says and I see the truth of my words register in his face. “We’ve got to go in.”  Our eyes lock in agreement.  I grab the handle and feel immediately that it is locked.  Before I can react, in one swift move William kicks in the glass door, leans his arm in and undoes the lock.  When he pushes his whole weight against the wooden door, we rush in. 

The man, who we realize has just been waiting for us to enter, is on us almost immediately.  He swings and punches William hard in the face.  Blood spurts from his nose. 

“I said I didn’t want the likes of you around here,” he says taking another punch this time at William’s kidneys.  But he’s half turned and engrossed in beating William and I see my chance.  I run for the wooden stair case I see directly in front of me, my heart pounding in my throat.  My feet fly across the room, then up the flight of stairs before the man notices me.  I look back relieved to see I’d slipped by, but just as I turn back around I see her:  a woman standing at the top of the stairs in tall heeled boots, a bodice and a long velvet skirt.  She is smiling a wide, sick grin and patting a shot gun that is lying gently across her arms. 

“I don’t think you are going anywhere Ma’am.  This is my house and I don’t take well to uninvited guests.”  With these words she grabs me hard by the arm and with one swift kick sends me tumbling down the stairs.

When I gather my senses at the bottom of the stairs I see the large man looking down at me.  “I see you’ve met the lady of the house,”  he says kicking me swiftly in the ribs.  “NOW GET THE FUCK OUT!”

I am trembling with fear and then I see William, covered in blood.   “Oh what monsters have our child?”  I think.  There is nothing left to do but to try and stand, to gather William up and shuffle out the door.  We are beaten.  We cannot get Amy out alone.  “We must find help.  We must find help.”  I whisper again and again to myself as we are pushed out the door by our laughing assailants.

 “And don’t come back!” They shout at our swooped forms as we shuffle away from the house bloody and defeated.

The Letter, Part 3, Continued 2

I couldn't post all weekend because we were without power.  Ah, the country life!  But I am back now with your next segment. The next section of 500 Days is about a new character, French Kate.  She's the madame at the brothel where Amy has ended up.  This section introduces her and gives her background information.  Hope you enjoy!
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Catherine’s Fortune

I don’t know how I got the name French Kate.  But folks who know me call my Kate.  My real name is Catherine LeConte, but no one here in Pithole knows this except for Ben.  I go by Kate Granger or French Kate for short.  This here is my house and we do real good business.  Ben keeps the girls in order and the men from getting too rowdy.  Ben doesn't always play it straight.  He's known for getting mixed up in a brawl, for coming home with a bloody lip, or for gambling with the wrong sorts.  I can’t tell you how many times someone has come knocking on our door with a shotgun in the middle of the night.  No law can keep him from doing wrong.  Ben’s no fool though; he doesn’t try and get himself killed.   And the second he walks through the door and sees me, his eyes light up.  I've always had that giant under my thumb. 

Just under a fortnight ago we were getting low on staff.  Girls here get tired of the business after a few months and they run off.  There are a few tough ones, who stay, and there are few more who are scared to leave for fear of Ben or me, but our numbers are always going down.  And in a town like this where there are fifty men to one woman, staff is hard to come by.  So, Ben came up with this idea.  He's real good with ideas.  He put the ad in the Buffalo paper advertising a “hotel” we are running where we needed fine young girls who could work as part of our staff.  I got a real belly laugh when I read it.  Told him he ought to get himself a job at the Pihole Register as a reporter!  Told him he could give old Crocus a run for his money. I didn’t expect much from it, but since he sent it out we’ve gotten half a dozen girls rolling in from all over New York.  Most are young and inexperienced and real surprised when they walk through the door.  But, it don’t take long to turn them around.  A day or two locked up.  A good fuck or two by Ben and a few threats that we are gonna find their families and kill them and they open up their legs to the public. 

When this last girl got off the train though I could see she was green as a sapling, probably never even kissed a man.  I knew right away she'd be hard to break.  But, I got my ways.  So do Ben.  It's been 10 days and she's still holding out.  Tomorrow, I'll tell Ben to break her in harder, maybe bring in a gun or a knife.  Scare the fuck into her. I'm tired of hearing her moaning and crying above my bed in the attic and we let her go much longer she’s gonna be too weak to fuck anyone for a week.

I wasn't always a Madame.  I used to live in an elegant house away from dust and mud.  I wore the finest gowns and was waited on by a full staff.  My husband, Confederate General LeConte, was well respected in New Orleans.  And he adored me each and every day he was alive.  Damn that war.  What was I supposed to do, stay in that house alone after he died?  Live off that measly pension they sent me?  Graciously accept the note: Thank you ma'am.  Your husband was a fine citizen of the United States of America.  I don't give a damn about this country.  I had myself a fine life until this country took it all away from me.  So, what was I to do?  Sit and wait?  Learn a trade?  I've always been good with men.  Since I was a little girl, I could charm all of my father's friends.  The boys at school would follow me around like a pack of starving dogs.  Prostitution came naturally to me.  I liked the power I held over those men.  Touch them the right way and they look at you like you were a god. 

I started pulling tricks in New Orleans, but soon realized my old reputation would get in the way of who I wanted to become so I headed East.  I first met Ben in New York.  He was working as part of a traveling gymnastics show as the strong man and he came to the house I was working looking for a good fuck.  I'll never forget the first time he saw me.  He jaw just about dropped looking at me naked before him.  Right then, I knew I had him under my thumb for as long as I needed him.  Within a few months we had both settled in Pithole and set up shop.  He had passed through this town as part of his gymnastic act a few months before and he talked about the ratios of men to women.  “It’ll be a racket!” He said grinning his big, stupid smile.  “Ain’t enough women to fuck in that town.” He became my business partner.  I'm tough and have no problem keeping those girls in line but when it comes to the angry johns, and the local business partners who want to swing deals, it helps to have Ben's six and a half foot frame looming next to me.  This town is like a fountain of money.  Those boys hit oil, get cash, and give it right to me.  They drink it away at my bar, they fuck it away with my girls and I just smile and take their money.

Once, a few years ago, I got a letter from someone in my old life.  Ms. LeMurre, was an old neighbor and a dear friend in New Orleans.  Her husband was also a confederate general, so we spent countless hours together during the war.  But, when the war ended and her husband came home, and mine did not, I couldn't stand her.  I hated that her husband had lived when mine had died.  What’s worse is she never even knocked on my door to offer condolences.  She'd just peek through her window curtains every once in a while to see first, the furniture being taken away, then the servants being let go.  Or, finally, the men I begin to let in as I learned my new trade.  I’ll give her this, she never did call the cops on me.  She just kept those curtains closed tight once she knew what was going on.

That’s why when the letter arrived, I didn't bother opening it.  But even the existence of that letter filled me with rage.  Those first few months before I knew what to do came rushing back to me in a terrible wave.  For the first time in years I felt the loss and loneliness washing over me and I hated her even more for that.  I remembered my old life.  It was in that rage that I threw the letter down in the muddy street.  It was undoubtedly just a letter of regret.  One where she finally pours out her heart about how she'd wished she been there to help me in my time of need.  How, if only she had, my life wouldn't have taken this terrible turn.  How she hopes now she can become my friend again and save me.

Well, Ms. LeMurre, my fortune ain’t as bad as you make it out.  I got more power in Pithole then you'd ever wish for.  My girls are the best in town because I train them that way.  They know how to make men beg for more.  Power men come to our town just to fuck my girls.  I don't need your god damned pity.  How do you like being face down in the mud without a hope? 

“Ben” I shout, still feeling the rage in my cheeks.  “Go visit the girl.  It’s time to break her in the hard way. Bring in a shotgun, knife, whatever you think will work.  Threaten her like you did that last one – threaten to find her family and kill them.”

The Letter, Part 3

Today, the story turns back to Amy and her plight: locked up in the attic of a brothel.  When we last left her, she had found a scrap of paper, written a letter to her mother and slipped it through a crack between the boards of the building.  What follows, is what Amy's mother did when she received the letter.  Hope you enjoy!
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Amy's Mother: I Would Rather Have Wings

I would rather have wings then sit in this cold, slow train. The landscape slides by as if it is on ice.  Outside, trees jut like questions out of iced swamps and  fog breathes near the surface.  The rolling hills are covered in bare trees.  The whole landscape seems to foretell this terrible tragedy.  William and I sit still side-by-side in the train, silent, as if we are afraid to speak.  William, who as a pastor, turns first to the lord’s word as guidance.  His finger is stuck in his worn bible, as if by touching the verse he'll be able to connect it's meaning, to our terrible cause.  It has only been 18 long hours since we received Amy's letter.  A small part of me feels relief to hear she is alive.  But the rest of me is so worried I can’t think straight.  Time seems to be nothing but an enemy now. Who knows how and when she posted the letter.  But her circumstances are dire and we need to get to her as quickly as possible. 
We had little to go on, a post mark from a city we've never heard of: Pithole, Pennsylvania. My memory of that moment is blurred - riding Amy's roan horse furiously into town to find William and to tell him the news.  Then, running up the wooden steps to the little lean-to office at the back of the Methodist Church where William sat engrossed in his studies in the low lamp light. When he saw my face, which must have been white as a ghost, he looked alarmed. 

"What is it?"  He said.  I couldn't speak, and instead handed him the crumpled letter I didn't know I had been clutching until then.  When he read the words, he sat down hard in his wooden chair, muttering low, "no, no."  He was paled as I was but stood up almost directly as if suddenly possessed to lead a charge.  “We have no choice but to leave immediately.  We have to find her.” 

Within half an hour we were at the train depot ticket counter. William was breathless when he spoke as if he had been galloping, not the horse.  "We need tickets to this place," he said pointing to the post mark.  "You know how to get to place called Pithole, Pennsylvania, fast?"

The ticket master just looked at us strangely.  We must have looked a sorry pair! My hair was had fallen down in wisps and moons of sweat grew beneath my arms.  William was red-faced and equally drenched in sweat. The man at the ticket counter just shook his head from side to side and then slowly looked down into his books. After what seemed like a hour, he muttered back up to us without looking up, "hmm…looks like that city is near Oil City, Pennsylvania, but there are no trains to that town.  Closest I can get you is Oil City.  Quickest way I can route you there is this: take the 5:00 pm train to New York City if there are still seats left.  Let me check. Yes, looks like there are a couple of seats.  Then, you’ll need to transfer to the Pittsburgh line from Grand Central Station.  From Pittsburgh there’s a train to Oil City leaving the following morning."  He said in one long continuous breath.

"We'll take it.”  William said reaching into his billfold,  “two tickets please." After he passed the money through the iron grates he looked down nervously at his pocket watch.  It was 4:45 pm.  It was at that moment that I realized I hadn't muttered a word.  I'd only shown him the letter, and then followed his lead.  The train whistle screamed behind me startling me and tearing me awake from the dazed shock I’d settled into.  "Amy" I said, under my breath. "We are coming to save you."

Now we are here, my head against cool glass, William's free hand grasping mine, staring at the mute trees rising from the swamps somewhere in Pennsylvania.  According to our tickets we should arrive in Oil City in less than an hour.  From there, we have no idea how to get where we are going.  According to the ticket master in Pittsburgh, there are no trains to Pithole from Oil City, there are only coaches and wagons to hire. 

The farther north we travel the more the passengers on the train change.  There are less and less women.  Before, most of the seats were filled with ladies wearing proper attire, carrying themselves in fine dresses, their male companions or chaperons and occasionally, a few children. There had also been men but they were properly dressed in suits and usually reading newspapers.  Now, the train is filled more and more with hollow cheeked men with dirty coats and dead eyes.  There are still a few women, but less and less are accompanied more and more look as hollow and lost as the men.  The closer we get to this town, the more I began to realize where we must be going.  I'd read about these places in the papers: a boom town, a place where men go to get rich, a place were morals and food and lodging were scarce.  I can only imagine what a terrible place our Amy is in. 

With that thought spinning though my mind, I turn violently to William grasp his shoulder and look him pleadingly in the face.  "Oh William!  What will we do?  What kind of place is this that we are going to?  What has befallen our daughter?”  William, instead of being startled, just smiles, clutches his hand in mine. I can see the cool calm in his eyes that’s settled so many people at their time of need.  I think of all of his parishioners who have come knocking on our door late at night, begging for strength in their times of need.  In his deep water voice he says, “Let’s pray dear.”  So, we both look down towards the ever moving floor of the train, toward the orange peels and dirt and discarded shells.  "Dear Lord," he says as we close our eyes, “please guide us with your everlasting strength.  Please grant us our greatest joy, our daughter, and let us find her in whatever circumstances that have become her.  Grant us the courage and strength to rescue her from whatever has befallen her in this place."

With these words we sit in silence.  I will my mind to think only of love and strength and memories of home.  I close my eyes again and try desperately to will that love and strength to Amy, to reach her wherever she is now.  And just the thought of this action makes me feel as if the train is traveling a little faster, makes me feel hope pushing us along.

 

The Girls Who Would Be Birds, Part 1, Continued 6

Today, is the last segment about Widow Ricketts and Diana before the story switches back to Amy and her mother and it is a day when they make an incredible discovery.  This story is actually one of the "real" stories I gathered from Pit hole about the legendary Widow Ricketts.  I'm not certain she actually exsisted, but it's such an incredible story, I couldn't help writing about it! Hope you enoy!--------------------------------

Widow Ricketts: Impossible Oil

After realizing there ain’t a drop of water we can use to make coffee in this house and feeling a tremendous thirst, I walk back out to the well to see if any water has risen back into it.  When I drop the bucket this time it ain’t dry anymore.  The bucket I pull up is full alright, but not with water, it's full with OIL!  Well, when that happened I just about split my side I let out such a large guffaw. We struck oil?  Well, how do you like that?  I smile right up to heaven first.  As if those grey clouds are George himself.  Then, I run into the house to tell Diana.  She’s still sitting there in her chair, but I tell her to get dressed and come out to see the well.  It’s just impossible to tell, so I tell her she’s got to see it herself.  She puts the clothes I’ve lent her on quickly and meets me outside.  When I show her the bucket full of oil she touches the surface with her finger and places it in her mouth.

That’s oil alright Widow Ricketts.  She smiles.  You is one rich woman now. 

I just look back at her and laugh.  You kidding me? We are business partners now.  I’m gonna need somebody to help me haul this crude up and ship it off for proper payment.  You want the job?

She just looks back at me blank.  Likely, she’s too shocked to reply.

I’ll take that as yes!  I say.  Now that we are business partners, I continue, I’m gonna need you to call me by my first name, Emeline.  People call me Emmy for short.  You think we can start off this partnership with a run for water?  Now that we got oil running in our well, we are plum out of water.  You think you could make a run down to Pithole creek for a few buckets of water? Then, once you get back we can boil up some coffee and have a proper talk about what we plan on doing with all this luck.

With that she just smiled and nodded.  Good glory, I certainly never thought a day like this would come!

The Girls Who Would Be Birds, Part 1, Continued 5

This morning the world feels underwater there is so much rain!  Today's segment of 500 Days features Diana remembering part of her backstory - her life growing up in North Carolina. 
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Diana: How to Live Like a Ghost in your Mind

When I woke up I was confused where I was.  This ain't my room?  I think?  What time is it?  Where am I?  Then, I look up and see Widow Ricketts standing right there looking right at me. At first, I was startled, and then, soothed.  There's just something about her face and the way she looks at me that tells me she ain't judging me.  That she knows where I'm coming from.  When she leaves to make coffee though, the dreams come back.  They come back and wash over me.  Girls who try to run away and whose legs instead turn into trees.  The flames all around me and my wish to walk into them.  Something inside me feels lost.  Like a part of me was never found in them woods when I lost Mama.  It was so long ago, I hadn’t thought about it for years, but this morning, sitting real still in the chair, feeling the electricity in the air from an oncoming storm, I remember the day like it was yesterday.  Momma and my brother setting the wool horse blanket down on the ground and setting down the fried chicken and biscuits Mamma had brought from our restaurant in town.  We’d ridden about a half hour out of town.  Papa had only been gone a few weeks, but Momma was so sad she’d stopped getting out of bed.  We’d have to wake her up and push her out the door or she’d not forget to open the restaurant.   Mama thought of the picnic as a vacation from our lives.  So as we sat around her, my brother John and I smiled at her.  Hoping our smiles would reflect light and joy back into her like sunlight.  But, after she set down and was still, we saw the sadness sink back into her.  First, her eyes dulled, and then her body.  We ate the chicken and biscuits and talked between ourselves.  Sometimes, Momma would flicker back and smile before she’d drift back out to wherever she had to go in order to keep sane.  I know that place now, but when I was a child I was mad not to be able to just climb into her lap and feel safe.  Not to be able to feel her arms melt around me as they always had.  After a little while she said she was going to take a nap.  John (who is a few years older than me) ordered me to stay put as he gathered wood.  But, after he left, something grew in me.  And I got it in my mind that I should make my Momma pay for all of the hurt she’d caused me.  So, I got up and started walking into the darkness of the woods.  As soon as I walked from the clearing, the darkness of the woods wrapped around me. I walked and walked until I felt I’d gone far enough to make her scared and I sat down and waited, thinking I’d be found soon.  But, hours passed and to my surprise, no one came for me.  The woods got even darker and I felt the noises around me press in.  When I cried out, Mamma, I’m sorry.  Come get me.  John, I’ve over here.  Come and rescue me out of the woods. All I heard in return was the hollow sound of a screech owl.  That feeling, of the dark world swirling in on me, and being utterly alone is what is creeping up inside me now.  Sure, I was found in those woods.  After hours of searching my big brother had had the sense to ride the horse into town and find the Sheriff.  He’d gathered a posse and combed those woods all night long until they found me near dawn, huddled in a hollow tree.  My Momma, she never came back from that, from the idea of losing me.  After that, when I returned, it was as if she couldn’t stand loving me, for fear she’d lose me again.  Imagine that, being seven years old and not having a mother to hold you?  But here I am again in a dark wood with no Momma. 

Just then Widow Ricketts walks in.  She’s laughing like her sides are gonna split.  I look at her, perhaps revealing the darkness that’s been pouring over me, but it doesn’t make her skip a beat.  “Diana,” she says.  “You’re gonna want to put on your clothes and come see this!”

The Girls Who Would Be Birds, Part 1, Continued 4

This morning, I woke up in a fogspell.  The whole world was lost behind a veil.  It's an eerie place to revise stories dug up from the past.  But finally editing this manuscript is giving me so much joy.   Perhaps, after I finish, I can finally put Pit hole to rest.  The story continues after the night of the fire when Widow Ricketts wakes up to a surprise.  Hope you enjoy!
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Widow Ricketts: Rain on Sunday

I can feel in my bones when I wake up that there is going to be rain on Sunday.  My joints ache as I rise and sit on the edge of my bed. It must be near noon by the way the light in glowing in bright through the windows.  I can’t remember the last time I slept this late.  Have I ever slept this late?  Certainly, never since I've moved to Pithole and taken up this unrelenting task of washing.  I don't dare look at the state of the shirts I'd set out late afternoon to dry and hadn't yet taken in before the fire.  They'll likely need wash again.  At least Diana is safe.  I wonder if Ben even noticed she was gone?  He is probably too busy picking up the pieces of his business to make sense of the fact that she is even gone yet.  The way that hotel blazed in the night!  My throat feels raw from inhaling all of the smoke. 

I take a bucket down from the wall and head out the front door to the well.  Light is streaming through the trees and I feel its pattern etched in warmth on my face.  When I approach the well, clip the bucket on the rope and throw the bucket into the inky dark, instead of hearing a splash as I normally would hear, I hear a dull muddy thud.  A waterless thud. 

Oh dear I think.  We’ve gone dry.

Must have been all of those buckets we took to try and put out the fire last night.  One of the fire lines went straight to this well and we were up half the night pulling water from it.  No wonder it's gone dry.  But what will that mean?  What will that do? How will I take in wash without water?  I suppose I could carry up water from Pithole creek, but that trek is at least a half mile.  I'm strong, but am I strong enough to carry all the water I would need to run a wash business? My mind is still tied up in the logic of how to survive and how to save my business when I walk back into the house and see Diana, peacefully asleep sitting up in my reading chair.  Face down on her lap is the very text I had been reading last night before the fire, the very text I'd been reading right for the last week as I tried to figure out a way to help get a few girls like Diana out. The book that had for so long given  George and I comfort as we read the interwoven tales.  It took years for me to be able to read the text without weeping.  At first, it was unbearable even to look at.  But now, when I open the book and hear not my own voice but his deep voice reading the words, I treasure it.  I consider it at gift that I can still remember the exact pitch after all of these years.

As I'm lost in thought, I hear a shuffle and look up to see Diana opening her eyes.  She's confused at first, I can see that clearly in the storm that crosses briefly across her face.  But, then, seeing me, she calms and I smile. 

"What a night?!"  I say and she smiles weakly back.  "I'm just about to boil up some coffee.  How would you like a cup?"  At this she gives an enthusiastic nod.  Still smiling, I turn on my heels and head to the kitchen to get the fire going.  I'm all the way in the kitchen before I remember the dry well.  How the heck am I going to make coffee without water?

The Girls Who Would Be Birds - Part 1, Continued 3

Diana: Kiss me on the Back of the Black Night

When I wake I am still wrapped in my dream of George.  His lips were still lightly brushing the back of my neck until I realize it is just a piece of straw stuck through my mat.  I'm still thinking of George and how safe I felt in the weight of his arms when I remember he is dead.  I remember the letter from his captain telling us of his gallant death.  I know I will no longer sleep so I sit up.  That's when I smell the smoke.  When I stand, I see it's thick in the room.  So, I crouch back down and crawl to the door.  When I open it, I see the whole first floor is covered in flames.  Part of me is still so deep in my dream I want to walk into it: into the other life where George might be waiting.  Who would know?  Who would care?  George, Kiss me on the back of this black night.

That's when I hear the glass shattering behind me.  A man grabs me like a rag doll and carries me out.

Outside, there are people standing everywhere.  Fire pours out windows and doors. I stand, dumb, shivering, even next to this inferno.  Who should come up the slope, but Widow Ricketts flanked by several young men. "Let's form a fire line" she says.  "I've got a well and some buckets.”

And with that, I snapped back.  It's as if the fire had been a dream until she arrived.  They handed out buckets and asked people to line up, arms stretched out to form a brigade.  And so we did.  For six hours we stood, passing buckets of cold water from hand to hand until the water was poured on the blaze.  At first, the water didn't do much.  It fizzled and steamed on the wood.  Then, after a few hours, the fire started to back down.  By the time we were done the hotel was a few dark embers sticking up against the dawn sky.  People started to shuffle about not knowing what to do.  In that commotion, Widow Ricketts came up to me.  We were both black with soot, wearing only our night clothes.  She grabbed my shoulder with her warm hand and said, "Diana, come with me."  I just followed her lead.  We walked down to her house.  She passed me a handful of wool blankets and made a bed for me in her front room.  "Let's get some rest," she said, motioning to the bed as she walked back to her bedroom and closed the door.  As I closed my eyes, all I could see were those flames and the dark part of my heart that wanted to walk into them.  It seemed impossible to fall asleep after what we had seen.  So I lay back, opened my eyes and looked around me.  On every wall, between mounds of dirty and clean laundry were piles and piles of books.  I could smell the must from their covers.  Next to me, was a wooden chair, a little oak table with an unlit kerosene lamp and on the seat of the chair, sat a book, pages down.  

The Girls Who Would Be Birds, Part 1 Continued 2

Today, Diana remembers her past, and Widow Rickets stop by to chat. Hope you enjoy!

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Diana: The Restaurant

Its noon by the time I wake up.  There was a lot of customers last night.  One of the wells must have hit payload because the men had money to burn in their pockets.  Most of them were pretty drunk by the time I lay with them. 

Not many are lining up over at Wiggins restaurant for their lunches.  They must still be sleeping it off.  I wrapped myself in a blanket and am sitting on the dusty porch watching the street and  drinking a tin cup of coffee.  Some days I feel so far away from where I started. 

“Good Morning Diana” says a quiet, but firm voice and I look over to see the sturdy build of Widow Ricketts rising the wooden steps to the porch. 

“Good Morning Ma’am” I say smiling.  “Why don’t you pull out a chair and have a cup of coffee with me?”  She just smiles and nods, drags out a chair and sits down. 

Sometimes I think Widow Ricketts has the sixth sense.  Her house ain’t far away.  Just over the ridge under a couple of hemlocks.  I hear she’s one of the few around here that actually owns her place.  Most just lease from the landlords that live far away in Philadelphia or New York.  Widow Rickets always seems to show up when I’ve had a hard night.  She don’t say much.  Just sits and keeps me company.  I get her a steaming cup and we sit like that talking about how cold it’s getting and how winter’s likely to arrive soon for half an hour.  She talks about her work and how her well is still good.  Then, she tells me the most incredible story I’ve ever heard.  She’s been reading in a book about two women who turn into birds.  I love it when she tells stories about the books she’s reading.  She knows not to ask me too many questions.  And let’s me just smile and nod, keeping our conversation hovering on the surface of our lives.

Then, just as quickly as she showed up, she rises to leave.  Before she does though she turns to me and says real sincere: “Diana, I know you’ve got a hard life here.  You ever want to leave, take up washing, I could use an extra hand.” 

It’s a real sweet thing to say and by her troubled face I can see she’s been working herself up to saying it this whole time.  “That’s real kind Widow Ricketts,” I say.  “I appreciate the offer, but I got no choice here to leave.”  When I say those last words a cold lump rises to my throat. I don’t often think about how I can’t go and it surprised me the words even flew out of my mouth.    Every night, I trick myself with the idea of escape.  It’s how I’ve learned how to sleep in this place. 

Widow Ricketts just looks at me real long and sad and says, “I see.  I’m real sorry to hear that Diana.  I didn’t know.”

The cold lump stays in my throat all afternoon like a cold stone I've swallowed and can't get down, even after I’ve gone back to work.  After a few hours I sneak back to my trunk and pull out the two photographs I brought with me when I left North Carolina.  One is George in his army uniform looking so serious into the camera.  (How he kept that straight face for so long I don’t know).  And the other a still shot of my family’s restaurant.  I can almost smell the biscuits.  Taste their light fluff in my mouth.  I feel George’s warm, strong arms around me.  Then, I lie back down on my straw bed and cry.

The Girls Who Would be Birds: Part 1, Continued

Today, you get to meet Emeline Ricketts, a.k.a. Widow Rickets.  She is based off of a real life character who lived in Pithole in the 1860s.  Hope you enjoy this section.
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Emeline Ricketts     

Death looms over the streets of Pithole – day and night.  It rises like a pale moon on the clear, cold horizon.  When I sit on my porch at twilight hanging out the wash from a long day’s work, I hear it in the thick voices of the boys as they holler “Hello Widow Ricketts” or “Goodnight Ms. Ricketts” as they trod past.  End of the day they are raw-skinned and soaked in oil.  Even the horses they lead back to the Livery stable don’t look clean.  They are soaked in oil and hairless as if they've just crawled out of hell itself. 

When I first came here, I wasn't much younger.  Lord knows this town hasn't been around for long.  Lord knows how long it will stay.  Why, it wasn't much more than a couple of oil wells pitched on the Hampton Homestead ‘til word got out.  When I crested that hill in my wagon, I felt like I was diving into a frenzy of bees.  I’d been taking in washing down in Franklin when Mr. Ricketts drowned in that gray river.  After a while I couldn't stand looking at that seam of water anymore—so I packed up and settled here.

Now, it’s a different kind of death that haunts me.  Not the sudden, accidental kind that swept my Charles away.  No, this town feels tied up in a different kind of death and we are just passing through it like shades.  Maybe that’s why its death I think of as the boys parade back into town toward whiskey or dinner or whatever else their appetites might desire. It’s as if to them these girls, this life, is just a mirage they are passing through to another, better life.  Me, I just keep my head down and my mouth shut.  I've got a good well (those are rare around here--water is scarcer than oil) and a solid frame house.  And lord knows there is no shortage of wash to take it.  It’s the dreams that haunt me.  Dreams of that same swift river rising up to find this town and washing all of it clean and we’re all swimming for our lives.  A tangle of lost bodies grabbing at each other for help and none of us knowing how to hold on.

The Girls Who Would be Birds - Part 1

Happy belated Thanksgiving!  I hope you all had a good holiday.  My book is made of two interwoven narratives: the letter and the girls who would be birds.  Amy story is told in the letter and Diana and Emeline's story is told in the girls who would be birds.  This is the opening passage from the girls who would be birds where you are introduced to Diana, who is a prostitute working in  Pithole.  Emeline Ricketts (Widow Ricketts), who is a middle-aged woman who runs a successful laundry business out of her home, is also introduced.  Hope you enjoy this section.
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Diana: The Dark Voice of Crickets

I can see the whole dusty street from my seat in front of the Syracuse hotel. The young men walk by still blackened by oil and dust.  I can’t imagine what it’s like to sleep in the eaves of the Derricks.  Over the constant rhythms of oils’ give and take.  Bet they dream of lobster and champagne, velvet curtains and hard wood floors.  After they pass me, they line up for a good meal over at Wiggins Restaurant.  I feel real lucky for the straw bed I’ve got in this joint.  Not to mention the solid walls (though there are some big gaps between the boards).  I’ve seen eyes starting through those cracks on many of night when I’ve laid down with a customer.  And it would have embarrassed me months ago.  Now, when I’m with a John the world goes cold and slack as a winter sky.  He don’t look me in the eye.  I’m nothing to him and I know it.  Why open up my mind? Them is my constellations.  A few more weeks of this and maybe I’ll have saved enough to get out.  At night, when I’m finally alone on my straw bed, I close my eyes and listen to the crickets.  Pretend their dark voices are weaving my song of escape.  If I could just catch a ride back down the hill to Oil City, I could catch a train back home.  Don’t know if I could ever go home though.  What would I say?  Who would believe me?  And then there’s the problem that I keep missing my time.  I know how some of the girls have taken care of it.  Widow Ricketts got some strong herbs she’ll give you so as to keep you from keeping your baby.  I’ve seen girls, pale as sheets, heading down to Pithole Creek to dispose of what they lost.  It ain’t right.  I know it.  But, can you blame them?  Who could raise a child in this muddy mess.  And where would you keep your child while you work?  I’m so torn, I try to just not think about what’s growing inside of me. 

The Letter Part 1 - Continued 3

Here is another segment in the book where the heart of Amy's story is revealed: Amy's Letter.
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Amy: The Letter

Today, I’m so weak when I wake I decide I have to find a way out or die.  I don’t know how many days it has been.  Its dawn and the attic glows in a pink stained light.  From my pallet, I can see dusty crates. I decide that my days work will be to scour every one. Find some way out.

At first, my search is fruitless.  All I find are old hats, and some deeds and records. Then, I find a journal with a few empty pages I quickly rip out.  Then, I unearth an old quill pen and a half-empty bottle of ink and the idea hits me. The one thing I know how to do better than anything is to put down words on a page.  I can’t tell you how many times my Momma scolded me for sneaking off under the stairs with my journal.  I know how to put down words on the page and now I have a page.  As quick as the thoughts come to my mind I write them down.  I write the letter to my Momma as if she were in the room. I tell her about getting off the train, the two figures rising from the steam on the platform with smiles that were filled with ill-will.  The Madame in her thin, heeled boots and her strong man, tall and looming.  I tell her about how they spoke of the hotel the entire buggy ride up the hill: the velvet curtains, the fine china, the men and women from all over the world.  Then, how quickly things had changed once we’d arrived.  How we walked in the door and the truth slapped me across the face.  Where we stood was not the fine hotel they’d been describing: it was a brothel and I was told I was now a prostitute whether I like it or not.  I told Momma I couldn't do it. I told her how I stood up to them, told them there business was evil, and that I'd never agree to do it.  (She'll likely understand, she knows how my mouth is, how sometimes I can't keep the words from flying out).  And that's when they hit me so hard the room went dark.  I woke up locked up in what I’ve realized over time is the attic.  I told her where I am (as best as I could piece it together) and how much I love her and how I wished she’d find a way to get me out.  Then, quickly, before I could think or revise, I folded the note into thirds and wrote our address neatly on the outside of the envelope.  I crawled over to the far wall and I stuck that sad little note through the cracks.  Once I let it go, once I saw it fluttering helplessly toward the muddy, deserted street, I realized how ridiculous my plan was, and I collapsed in a heap on the floor. 

Amy: Voices at Night Made me Realize Where I Am

The world has blurred into a stream of seamed days that fly around me in whir.  Oh why did I ever get on that train?  This town is a town where no good sounds.  It’s a patchwork of voices I hear woven through the night through the window.  Desire rises like a songbird.  Or, swoops down piercing and hawk-like. Rough voices (muffled through walls) and sometimes the higher peals of female voices.  There are voices that rise like nets of fear, then there are shots or screams. Sometimes, there are sounds of tortured horses.  Or, the yelp of a kicked dog.  There are never any sounds of real birds.

Some nights I stop listening to the world outside my window and listen instead to the sounds I remember hearing from my window at night at home.  The repetition of owls, the scrape of my mother’s chair below my room as she settled into her work in front of the stove to mend clothes, the velvet silence that wrapped around the house like a salve.  I don’t think I knew I heard these sounds while I was there. Now, I sink into them for comfort.

The letter I wrote so passionately, then dropped between the slats just three days ago, in hopes that it would make it to the ground, in hopes that some kind citizen would pick it up and take it to the post, in hopes that the letter would somehow reach my mother so far away in New York, seems now to be a ridiculous farce.  Seems impossible.  The hope that bloomed around the idea like a far off kite, that billowed in the wind of escape, has now gone slack and flat.  What kind of chance is there that someone saw the letter falling down to the street.  Or, saw it as they passed by on the wooden sidewalk.  What would make them think, this is something I should mail?  And worse, what if it isn’t some stranger who finds the letter,  what if it is the Madame (who I now know is French Kate) who sees it lying there.  What kind of beating would her strong man give me if she found it?  Oh, if I could only hear the sound of my mother’s voice through the slats. That difficult woman I’ve screamed at until I was red in the face. Who smoothed my coat and pushed me in directions my entire life until now.  I’ve never really heard her words until now.  Never heard the dull, steady undertone that pulsed through each and every one: love, love, love.

Amy’s Mom: The Letter Arrives

When the letter arrived today I sat down on the floor I was so shocked.  Amy has been gone for nearly three weeks.  And now, here in front of me are words written in her hand.  A tight, thin scrawl that pitches too far to the right.  When I unfold the letter and read what is there I am surprised by the howl of an animal. A deep, guttural groan that rises out of the earth, until I realize it has come from me.  My daughter, locked up in an attic?  My daughter, forced into prostitution?  As soon as I can stop my hands from shaking I read the letter again.  Then, I put on my shoes, run to the stable, place a bit on Amy's horse Willow (she's the fastest) and tear off into town towards the Methodist church where I know I'll find Amy's Pa.  We are coming Amy.  I scream into the air as loud as I can.  We are coming to save you.