500 Days - The Letter

I had to take a few days off of editing because I am getting ready to start teaching at a new University (part-time).  It's always exciting to begin the semester, but it is also a lot of work! 

This segment of 500 Days returns to "The Letter"; the story of Amy, her imprisionment and the miraculous letter she wrote to her mother.  In this section, French Kate reflects on the impossibility of Amy's escape. Hope you enjoy it!
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French Kate Fixes the Door

The wind that whips through the busted door started to get on my nerves.  How dare that girl.  How dare that damn preacher and those damn fools he brought with him disrupt my business.  It’s taken two boys two hours to fix our door.  We’d had it shipped in all the way from Pittsburgh. What a waste.  To have a door like that kicked in.  Ruined by a ruined girl.  She’ll be good for nothing now anyways.  Once you whore you never come back.  At least not the same.  I know that bitch Widow Ricketts whored back  in Franklin.  I know she hasn’t forgotten what she left.  Now, she acts all high and mighty because she ain’t whoring no more, but I know what she’s not saying.  It don’t leave you.  She ain’t never gonna look at a man in the same way. 

At least with the door fixed there is less wind coming in.  Ben has been out at Salons all night and all day.  He’s probably on a bender and won’t come back ‘til he’s crying and begging for my forgiveness.  What a waste.  I’ll act mad though, if only for the power it’ll hold over him. 

Losing three girls has been hard on business. Good thing Ben put those ads in a few weeks ago.  We should be getting in new recruits from a few more states.  They won’t take long to break.  This last girl was a fluke.  A tough one.  The other ones we’ll break down faster. 

Funny thing is I have no idea how the girl got her momma to come and get her.  Don’t know how she got word to her.  We sealed off the attic so there isn’t any way to get out.  But, once he gets back I’ll have Ben check it again.  We don’t want this kind of mistake happening again.  It’s bad for business.

500 Days - Editing Manuscripts

All day I've been in the blur of editing manuscripts.  It's a good blur, but one that makes the practicalities of life difficult to keep in the mind. But, I didn't forget to write my passage for today about 500 Days.  In today's passage, Widow Ricketts reveals her past and we begin to understand why she relates to the horrible ordeals Diana and Jane went through as prostitutes. Hope you enjoy!
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Emmy Learns How to Survive

The memories come back to me like light as breaks through trees.  How did I learn to survive?  There was the grey river.  There was the light that would break at dawn.  But, always there was the sadness lapping at the shore.  It was so tough to live near that river after he was gone.  The wind carried messages on it.  Secret messages spelt in exhaled breaths that loosened the leaves in trees.  I don’t know how I learned to survive those days. 

My sister wrote letters.  They poured into my house. In them, she described the rocky coast.  The cliffs she'd walk, the smell of the sea.  I'd try and dream of this other place.  I'd tried to imagine a place along that rocky coast where I could smell the sea, where I could see all the way to a flat horizon.  A line that clearly divides yesterday from today.  But, whenever I'd try to board a train to leave I couldn’t do it.  I remained tethered to my sadness in this place.  Money became sparse.  I had no trade. So, I started to look around, to see what I could do.  I knew the sea would keep drifting farther and farther away.  No money for train fare.  No way to leave the memories of my husband.  So I lived in that limbo for years looking for work.  The first job I took was by chance.  We lived near the docks since my husband was a boatman.  So, I lived by the salons that line the river banks.  These are the type of salons sailors frequent.  The kind where whiskey bottles are set next to the fogged glasses that look as though they haven't seen a good washing for years.  One day I walked in and every head turned in my direction.  It wasn’t the type of place a lady just walked into.  You could see the river flowing fast and grey through the windows.  I walked right up to the bar, my face hot and sat on a stool.  When the bartender walked over, his eyes scanning me up and down, I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “I'm looking for work.” 

“What kind of work you think you gonna find here?”  He asked. 

“I don't know.  I just live across the street.  I'd be happy to clean the place if you need it.”

“We already got a girl for that,” he said curtly. 

“Well, maybe I could serve customers?”

“No need for that.” He said.  “I got that covered.” 

“Well, what is it you need?  I need work.  Tell me what I can do?” 

He just laughed and said.  “Well, you'd make a terrible whore but that's what we need.”

 I just looked back at him hard.  Normally, I would have been so disgusted I would have stood up slapped him across the face and walk out .  But, it had been a few days since I'd been able to afford a good meal.  Any work would at least buy me food.  But, I had only been with one man in my life and now he was gone.  I looked at him hard and said.  “I'm not sure.” 

“Take it or leave it.”  He said.  “We need a whore, last girl left for some Oil boom town just yesterday and the barges just rolled in from Pittsburgh.  We got six or seven men who are drunk and ready to fuck something.  I'd rather keep them drinking in my bar.  You take them back to your house and fuck them, then bring them back, then I keep the business in my bar.  You get it?  So, you want the job or not?”

And that’s how it happened.  Lightning fast.  In that moment I learned how to survive.  I learned to seal off my mind and heart like some ancient tomb.  I said yes.  I took one man after another into my bed.  The same bed I shared with my husband just a year before.  I took each man in and then took him back to the bar.  I drank whiskey and beer.  I ate a fine dinner for the first time in days.  It was three in the morning before I left the bar.  When I closed the door of my apartment behind me I slid down it's cool wooden frame to the floor before I broke into racking sobs.  Until what I'd done washed over me.  Until I ran to boil water to fill a tub to scrub their filth off of me.  Until I sank into a pile on the floor.  Until my heart and mind poured back into my body and I was drowning.

I only whored for a few weeks.  It paid the bills, but I knew it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t stomach it. It would have broken me, fast.  After a few weeks, I passed by a house that had a sign in the window that said – Wash your Clothes Here!  When I walked in, an old woman greeted me.  She was bent almost in two, her hands arthritic and clawed (likely from all of the time they’d soaked in the tubs). 

“What you want?”  She’d growled. 

“I was wondering if you could tell me about your business.”  I said.  “My name is Rickets.  Emeline Rickets.  I lost my husband just a year ago and I’m looking for a way to make ends meet.  I’ve been having to do things I can’t live with just to eat, so I’m coming to you to see if you might need someone to help you.  To see if you might need an apprentice of some sort?”

 She looked at me, then let out a laugh.  “Why the hell would anyone in their right mind want to become a washerwoman?”  I took her laugh as a good sign, so I smiled back. 

“So, what do you think?” I asked cheerfully. 

“Come by tomorrow, five o’clock.  I could use a break from all this terrible work.  You come ready to work, I show you what I know.  Deal?”

“ Deal!  I said.  And from that day on (until just a little over a week ago) I washed whatever clothes I could take in. 

So here we are now in our new day.  In our new life.  Three women who walked a tough path.  How do I survive now?  It’s so different from before.  Now, I am no longer just surviving.  Now, I have my wagon in a rut I believe in.  I don’t mind following.

I don’t know how long I was standing in the sun, day dreaming about my dark, dark days.  But when the man came running up, I was started. 

“There’s been another robbery!” He said.  “They took down another stage.”

“Is anyone hurt this time?”  I ask? 

“Yes, but no one’s dead.”  He said, matter-of-fact (because in the past few weeks two people have died in similar robberies). 

“Thanks for letting me know.” I say and he trots further down the street.

“Girls,” I holler into the house where the girls are taking a break.  “Another stage got taken down.”  They cluck from inside.  Just two days ago they’d lost a friend.  Another whore from Chase house that Diana knew real well.  “You want to go check it out?” I ask.  “I’ll stay and keep the operation going if you’d like.” 

“Yeah Emmy.  Jane and I will go down to the depot to see if anyone we know was hurt.  While we are out you need anything from the store?”

 “No, I say.  You girls get along. I’ll be fine here on my own for an hour or two.”  In a few moments they’ve grabbed their shawls and headed out the door to  the street.  I can see their small frames getting father and farther away as I stand on the porch listening to the heartbeat of oil rushing slowly from the earth.  Lord, I hope no one those girls care about was hurt.  I whisper under my breath.  I hope we can get out of this town without forgetting how to survive.

500 Days and Proofing my Forthcoming Book!

Yesterday, as I eased back into the swing of post-vacation life, I got an email from my wonderful editor at Trio House Press that contained proofs of my forthcoming book, Gold Passage.  WOW!  What a cool moment to see it finally in book form (albeit in PDFs).  It is still hard to believe that my full length book is coming out!  You can pre-order at the Trio House Press website.  The book will be released at AWP in Boston.  More details about AWP coming soon.

Today, I am back writing in my office: a little studio up away from our house on the hillside.  Vacation was wonderful, but it is so good to be back at my writing desk. The next section of 500 Days is Jane's back story - what her life was like just after she discovered her mother's body, and how and why she ended up working as a prostitute in Pithole.  Hope you enjoy!
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Jane Remembers What the Weight of Snow Feels Like

I can remember when the only thing I had left to lose was my breath.  The life I had left in me.  I remember burrowing myself in the snow outside the cabin after finding my mother, after I saw the blood blossoming from her body on the wooden floor of the cabin.  After I saw her, after I bent double and retched, I ran out into the meadow.  Then, the world moved in stopped motion -- picture by picture.  First, my mother's limp body spilling blood, then the snow glistening in the grey afternoon light, then the spindles of trees spinning around me, seemingly holding up the sky.  I remember pulling the snow around me, tucking myself into the cold of it.  Wanting the cold weight to hold me down.  Then, I remember the darkness, the weight, the way my breath grew stale and the sounds that grew out of me like an animal.  Then, the darkness.  The nothingness.  I remember coming to in a panic, I remember my body shaking uncontrollably.  My arms inadvertently digging and digging myself out.  Then, I remember the dull stars staring at me.  The clear night covering everything like a shroud.  I walked and walked to the next house.  I don't know what carried me, what drove me.  But, somehow my steps continued.  There was a candle lit at the cabin next to the Mill.  When I knocked, a young man answered.  He was disheveled as if I'd just woke him up, but he took one look at me and grabbed my arm.  I know I looked like death.  I looked as hollow as I felt.  I had no words in my heart, in my throat, but I somehow I manage to say, "My mother is dead" before everything left me and I fell to the floor.

When I came to I was bundled in a wool blanket on a pallet by the hearth.  Behind me I heard a swarm of whispers.  Someone was shaking snow off their boots.  I remember thinking, they've seen her.  They know.  I remember thinking there was nothing left.  Just then the young man walked over to me.  "Hi" he said, "You're back!"  I recognize him now that he is close and I am back in my senses.  He's the boy who brings us wood sometimes.  He's the hand at the Mill.  Not part of the family who owns it, he only works there.  We've spoken a few times, mainly about the weather, or the snares I've set all over the woods.  Whenever we've spoken he's seemed genuinely interested in what I have to say. Today though, the world has become another place.  My mother was my only kin that I know of.  Without her to take care of, I don't know what to do with myself.  I feel like a stream that has just been undammed.  I'm rushing out of my banks into an un-carved path.

"Can I get you something warm to drink."  He asks.

"Yes."  I nod, still shivering.  Not sure what my body is made of.  I feel delicate as a bird, as if my bones are hollow and light but at my center I am grounded by a deep stone weight.  This must be what sorrow feels like, I think.  And immediately I know that the only way I'll ever rid myself of this weight is to go far, far away.  Every time I close my eyes and see the blood blossoming out from my mother’s head like a crown.  I replay my last words to her.  I try to look closer at the last moments I saw her face to remember what I saw.  What could I have noticed that would have changed her fate?  It's no use though.  The memories play back in a haze.  One fuzzy picture blurs into the next.  The boy is back at my side with a steaming cup. He places the cup in my hands and squats next to me and for a moment I feel something like safety, or warmth.  Before it passes, before the stone rolls back into my throat, before the men, the blast of cold air from the outside air, swarms around me and covers me in a hollow sadness.

"Are you Jane?" the man asks roughly.  When I look up, I can't make out his face, I only see his large looming frame blotting out the doorway’s light.

"Yes" I say quietly, my voice still shaking from the cold.  "I'm Jane."

"We need to have a talk."  He says and with those words my life is changed forever. 

“We found your Ma.  I’m real sorry for your loss.  But, that cabin you been living in ain’t yours.  You been squatting on our property.”  He says and a stern look washes over his face.

It takes a moment for his words to sink in.  For a few seconds I am able to walk on top of their sense the way I could walk lightly on the crust of snow without sinking when I hunted in winter. 

“What I’m trying to say is, you can’t stay here.  It’s against the law.”

The words hit me like a slap.   My mother, not dead a day, and already I’m homeless.  What kind of man is this?  I think.  I look around me at the room I’m in, tears wetting my cheeks.  It’s a warm room.  There are wooden chairs, a table, there is evidence of someone having been here, of someone meaning to stay here.  At the hearth, the young boy looks at me and I can see how sorry he is in his eyes.

“I understand.”  I say and get to my feet.  “I won’t trouble you no more.”

“No ma’am you don’t have to leave right now.  Why don’t you stay for supper.  I just wanted you to know your situation.”

“I don’t want your food.”  I scowl, striding to the door.  “I don’t want nothing from you.” I say as I walk out the door.

Today, as I sit at the hearth with Diana and Emmy I remember that day.  It washes over me like the cool air that stained me as I walked out that door.   When I walked back to the cabin, I found they’d cleaned up my Momma’s body.  Well, at least they done that.  I think.  I sit with her cold, blue body and rock and rock until I realize how cold I’ve begun.  Just then, I hear a snap of branches and look up.  At the hearth is the boy, building a fire.  He says simply, “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I thought you might be cold.”  I look at him with whatever thanks I can muster.  I know he doesn’t expect words.  He just turns and finishes making the fire then strides out.  After he’s left I see the small bundle he’s left at the door. 

As the room warms, I let sense wash over me.  I make a list of what I must do in my mind.  I must bury my mother.  I must gather our things.  I must find a place to go.   I set my mother’s empty body gently down, rise, and walk to the hearth.  It takes a while before I can feel my hands again.  Once I do, I walk to the door and open the pack.  Inside is fresh loaf of bread, some dried meat and a jug of something to drink.  It isn’t much, but the gift of it, the risk I know he took to bring it to me, fills me with more warmth than the hearth.

It takes me a long time to walk into town to find the undertaker.  He looks me up in down when I walk in the door.  But I just look hard back at him.  I need a coffin.  I say.  “And a place to keep my Momma until the ground thaws.”

He just guffaws.  “You got any money?”

 I say, “I got some.” 

“Okay.”  He says, “how much?”

 I lay out the few dollars I’ve found in the cabin and flatten them on the counter.  He snickers.  “Girl, that ain’t enough to bury a small child.”

I say. “ I’m good for it.  I’m going to work.”

“Huh, he grunts.  “What you gonna do?”

“ I don’t know.”  I answer honestly.  “Whatever it takes.” 

“In that case, he says.  I got an idea for you.  He says looking me up in down.  There’s jobs up in that new town Pithole.  You head up there and you gonna find work.  I’ll keep your mother and bury her when the ground thaws, but it’s going to cost you.”

“Yes, sir.”  I say.  I leave, and return to the cabin.  It doesn’t take long to pack it all up.  We didn’t have much.  When I walk out, I know it is for good and I try to remember the place.  I try to remember it without the blood blooming from my mother, without the cold that has seeped into me and seems never to leave even when I stand next to a blazing hearth. 

In just a day I’ll be a prostitute in Pithole.  I’ll be beaten and raped.  I’ll be forced to sleep with man after man until I can’t remember who I am.  But, each week I’ll receive my pay and I’ll send it to the undertaker and I know my mother will be properly buried.  Just a few weeks ago, he finally wrote saying the debt had been paid and my mother had been buried.  I felt so relieved, but at the same time empty, knowing I’d never see her again.  Knowing, it would likely be a long time before I’d even get to pay my respects at her grave.

But today, all that has changed.  Today, I feel warmth again sitting around the hearth.  Thanks to Diana, thanks to Emmy, I am beginning to remember who I was, I am beginning to remember who I am, and who I could possibly be someday, again.

500 Days - The Girls Who Would Be Girls

Today, Diana reveals her plans for the future: what her life will look like once she gets out of Pithole.  Hope you enjoy!
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Diana: What is Building Around Us is Like a Fortress of Fire

It’s hard to explain what’s been growing around us but it feels much like the fire I walked out of just over a week ago.  Strange to think where I was then and compare it to where I am now.  There ain’t no woods here – only sunlight streaming in the dusty windows.  I love the way the light illuminates the windows imperfections: the tiny bubbles that freckle the glass.  It reminds me of Jane, Emmy and I, at our imperfections at our dark, rough pasts, and how now we can see through each other into the present. 

When I look at Emmy I see only a heart.  I see a kindness I have no words to describe.  When I see Jane I see someone as lost as myself.  I see a tired girl who was about to walk off the face of the earth into the dark or into the fire.  Both of us were there, and then both of us suddenly were saved.  It’s a miracle really. 

So, each night while Emmy sits back and nurses her aches and pains (she’s got arthritis real bad), Jane and I celebrate.  We sit around the hearth and sing whatever songs we cans still remember.  It’s amazing what joy can help you remember.  We all sip herbal teas Emmy has brewed up (she knows so much about the plants that are in the woods around town).  And sometimes we read from the book aloud.  It’s funny how I stumbled onto the book.  It’s the one I read the first night I was here.  It’s the book that brought me back from the darkness.  Turns out, I’m not the only one the book is special to.  Emmy says it’s the book that brought her and her husband Mr. Ricketts, or Henry as she calls him, together so many years ago. 

The book is really only a bunch of stories woven together, the way my momma might have made a quilt from all our old clothes, or the clothes and rags of our ancestors.  It’s a bunch of stories sewn together in a new way.  Jane and I like the stories about the girls who transform the most.  We love the story of Daphne, a girl who escapes the hunters who are chasing her by turning into a Laurel tree.  Or, our favorite is the one where the girls escape by turning into birds.  It’s an awful tale.  A girl is locked up and raped, but she weaves her story into a tapestry that somehow escapes and is given to her sister in the capital.  Her sister is so enraged she rescues her sister but not without terrible things happening first.  I like how the story isn’t just a happy solution.  I wouldn’t have believed it if it was.  I believe them girls had to travel a hard path before they were turned into birds.  I know what that path is like, I know how deep its rut is and how hard it is to fly out of it.  But, me and Jane and Emmy, we flyin’ now. 

Today, we already processed eight barrels and it is only 10:00 am.  Them boys are real shy now that they proposed and we declined.  Why on earth would I want to marry a boy from Pithole?  I think, laughing to myself.  Me and Jane, we gonna start a new life.  We gonna get as far away from this present as we can.  I know she ain’t got no one else, that’s why I’m gonna ask her to come back to North Carolina with me. Maybe, if I had Jane to talk to about my secrets I could handle going back. I could look my brother in the eye and we could get hired on at the family restaurant.  I’m sure Jane could learn how to serve customers.  Or, she could work back in the kitchen.  I could show her how to make biscuits nice and light.  I smile over at her as I think about the restaurant and our new life, but she just looks back at me square.  She has so little joy that when it shines (especially at night) it seems to take up the whole room.  Maybe it’s time I tell her my plan?  What if she don’t say yes?  I’m scared I can’t go back without her.  I put the thought out of my mind and get back to work.  We got a lot to do before lunch.  And lord knows we get enough interruptions when we working from all the damn suitors coming around.  Man, if I had a dollar for every dumb fool who asked me to marry me since we struck this here oil I wouldn’t even need the cut Emmy has promised me.  I’d be rich from all these false promises.  Imagine that two whores and a widow are the hottest tickets in town.  Makes me laugh every time I think about it!

500 Days - The Girls Who Would Be Birds

Here is today's installment of 500 Days. Hope you enjoy!
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Widow Ricketts Wakes Thinking “What Am I Forgetting?”

            I wake up with that indistinguishable feeling that I have forgotten something.  My first thought (because of so many years of training) is that I have somehow forgotten the wash - I've left it out on the line overnight where it has worn itself free in the wind of night or, I've left a whole load soaking for too many days. But, as soon as I sit up I brush off those worries. I am no longer a washerwoman.  I am an oil baroness.  Ha!  Seems funny even to think it.  We are eight days into our production and already we have too much oil to process.  Jane and Diana were hard at work all afternoon.  You should have seen them, their hair tied up in rags, their skirts tied up to each side to allow themselves the liberty of movement as they wove back and forth from the well to the barrels.  Eight barrels we pulled yesterday and today they will be taken down to Titusville and sold.  In a little over a week I've earned more money than I've earned in my entire life. 

You could see how the lure of this instant wealth is enough to make those boys go insane.  How after a few days of the money pouring in, they suddenly acquire a taste for lobster even though we are about a 1000 miles from the sea and they were starving just like the rest of them just a few days before.  How quickly we forget our past, and those who are living it, when we get plumped up with cash, when we step away from it.  I'm proud to say not me.  I remember what it was like to sell my body and there isn't enough oil in this world to let me ever forget it.  That's why when I found the oil my first thought wasn't of myself if was of Diana.  I knew she was still save-able.  I knew she hadn't yet forgotten her worth.  That she was still alive.  I knew if I could only get her out she could start a new life.  When Diana found Jane down by the creek, with her tiny bird-like frame and her two eyes blackened by a John, what else could I do but take her in, too.  You should see those girls now that they got their freedom back.  It's like the life's been sung back into them.  Every night we sit around the fire and the girls tell stories, or sing.  Last night I even saw Diana giggle.  It was the most wonderful thing in the world to see her eyes light up like that with hope and joy.  I won't forget.  But I hope for their own sakes, they forget the days they've lived up to now. They are both so young. I can see in Jane's eyes the tough path she has walked to get to this place.  But the way the girl's arms are always stitched together I know Diana will take care of her even when they are far gone from here.

As I pull on my clothes and walk out the back door to inspect the well, my mind fills with a song, about morning breaking and though I'm not a church going person my heart fills.  All around the well grow tiny pansies their yellow faces upturned and peering thoughtfully toward the sun.  It's a beautiful sight.  A golden ring around the stone well.  For a second it makes the impossibility of this situation: the dumb luck that has struck us happy, believable.  No, inevitable.

I know the oil will stop.  I know that after it stops we will all separate and move on.  But, I will never forget the metamorphosis that is going on around me.  I will never forget how these girls have changed me.  Have brought me back to life. 

Then, from behind me I hear, "Emmy, you up already?" 

"Yup"  I answer. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?  Let's sit down and have some coffee so that we can plan the rest of our day.  We got oil to sell girl and lots of it!  Jane already got a pot on while you out there looking at them flowers."

I just smile, shake my head, and step back inside to the warmth of the house, to the two girls who are sitting at my table and smiling back at me.

500 Days - Jane's Secret

Today, you will learn the back story for Diana's friend Jane - the girl she found down at Pit Hole Creek the day Widow Rickett's well filled up with oil.  Hope you enjoy!
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Jane’s Secret

I know Lady Luck must have gone and struck a deal with me.  Maybe it was the soul of that sweet baby I didn’t get to keep that ran right up to heaven and started demanding luck for his lost Momma, because no sooner than I let him go, then luck start pouring over my head.  And to think only a day before the world had been so different.  I ain’t far from my home.  My momma and I used to live over in Grove City.  If I were to take the stage back home it would only take me a day or two to reach her.  But, even though she is close, each day that has passed, has made her memory wash farther and farther away.  She wouldn’t even recognize me if I walked in the door of our little cabin on Wolf Creek and I showed myself to her.  I’ve only been gone less than a year, but so much inside me has changed I barely recognize me. 

When we lived on the creek, we lived to survive.  We had been there three years when I left.  Three dark winters where we burned more and more wood that I dragged from the swamps and dried.   Three winters where the cold seeped through the cracks of our cabin into our bones.  Then, three springs where the skunk grass erupted from the creeks’ banks screaming in green, waxy leaves.  It was just the two of us.  We trapped game.  We gathered wood.  In the summers I’d collect wild strawberries and roots that we’d dry for the winter seasons.  Like I said, we survived.  Then, one winter, Mama started talking to herself.  At first, I think nothing of it.  I think, she tired.  She need her rest. Or, I think she talking to the ghosts she’s left behind.  There’s her babies she lost, her own mama, and pa, and then there is him.  The man she never even got to marry.  My Pa.  He been like a wil-o-wisp in her life so long, I’m used to his memory rising up from the swamp.  But that winter he haunts her.  She begin to see him walking in the cabin.  She have whole conversations with him then she get mad when I tell her to stop talking to the air, when I tell her that there ain’t nobody there.

“You just jealous.”  She say.  “Cuz he visiting me and not you.”  Then, she’d get real mad, rocking back and forth in her wooden rocker. 

One day, I went out into the swamp.  It was deep winter so there ain’t much to find, but our stores are getting low so I set up some snares near the water.  When I go out to check them I tell her I’ll be right back and I ask her if she could please keep the fire going.  She say, yes of course she will.  Then, I walk out the door, down the snowy bank and down to the snares.  I couldn’t have been gone more than half an hour before I heard the gunshot.  It rang through the whole valley. It frightened a whole flock of birds into the air.  It echoed in my mind.  I dropped the handful of rabbits I’d snared and ran as fast as I could to the house. 

But, by the time I got there I was too late.  She was on the floor, smiling.  Her head half gone.  Her body swimming in pool of blood that bloomed and bloomed around her.  There was so much blood.  I felt as if my whole body had turned to ice in that moment.  I don’t know how long I stood there, the blood blossoming around her, the cold air pouring into the room before I understood what had happened, before I feel to my knees into that pool of my Momma’s blood and wept and wept.

After she died.  I couldn’t stay.  I couldn’t listen to the creek whispering to me about what I could of done to save her.  And then, there was the complications about where we lived, about finding money enough to bury her.  So, one day, after I packed up our things, I walked to town and found a sheet of paper stuck to the side of the salon. 

Looking for work?  It read.  We need strong young girls to work in the hotel trade.  If interested send word to Ben, Pithole PA.  Work begins right away.

Well, I couldn’t even wait to reply.  I sold off what little we had and the few rabbits I’d managed to snare and I bought a ticket on the first wagon going east.  I found myself in Franklin by nightfall.  The next day, I took a stage up the hill to Pithole and knocked on the door of the Dew Drop Inn. 

That’s the day I lost my freedom.  Or, that’s the day I lost the freedom of my body.  My minds been trapped in that cabin with mama ever since that day the gun shot echoed through the valley.

But now, I’m hoping luck will ease me out of that steel trap.  Perhaps, somewhere in that wooden place joy still exists?  I’ve got to believe it does.  Diana’s been such a dear friend.  She’s the first person I’ve trusted in a long time.  She hides it, but I can see she’s been to some dark places too.  We understand each other. 

500 Days - The Girls Who Would be Birds Continued ...

I've been on hiatus this past week because my family and I were on vacation. But, I'm back and more determined than ever to get this book finished. Today's segment returns to the stories of Widow Ricketts, Diana and Jane.  For those of you who are just joining the story and want to start reading it from the beginning, click here. Hope you enjoy today's segment!

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Widow Ricketts Learns How to Eaves Drop

By the fourth day, the girls and I we have a system.  By mid-morning we got to take a shipment of oil out.  The Irish boys who drive the teams have been kind enough to stop by to pick up our barrels of oil twice a day on their way out of town.  We are paying them all real well.  No reason to not pay out now.  We’ve got more oil already then we could ever need.  Word has gotten out about the girls, how they bought their freedom from French Kate.  Word is also out that I’ve gone nuts and given away portions of my oil to these here girls.  You’ve got to love the way gossip waddles its way down these dusty streets.  Sits it’s fat but down at the salon or over on line at the post office and divvies out stories like they are free bread. 

This morning when the boys showed up they were real clean.  I’ve never seen them without a coat of oil dulling their skin to a dark brown sheen.  Today, their cheeks were raw and ruddy as if they’d just spent an hour with a wire brush.  They were clean right down to their fingernails.  Well, wouldn’t you know they drive on up for their morning pick up, dismount and walk right over to the well where Diana and Jane are bent over working the line.  Jane is a tiny thing but she is beautiful even with those two black eyes she came with that are healing but still remain like two dark moons under each of her eyes.  Diana is tall and willowy as if she is always blowing in the wind.  When the boys walk over I see the girls look up from their work.

“Um, excuse me ma’am.”  Says the stout one.  Taking off his hat and looking at the ground. “May I have a word with you?”  He’s looking at Diana.  She barely gives him a glance and says.  “We real busy right now.  What you gotta say you say while we work.”

Then, the second one clears his throat and lets out a squeaky voice directed at Jane.  “Well ma’am,” he says.  “We here are young men and we see you ladies are in a mess of work.  We know you haven’t lived a Christian life.  But, we willing to forgive this in light of the situation at hand.”

With these words he awkwardly points at the well as it beats out a heartbeat of oil. 

“What we are saying,” finishes the stout one, “is we willing to offer you both our hands in marriage.” 

 

When he finishes, Diana doesn’t wait long before she lets out a loud belly laugh.  More like a whoop than a laugh.  “Oh boys,” she says, “it’d be a cold day in hell when I’d lie back down with another man in this god forsaken town.  Ain’t you getting’ paid to pick up our load of oil?” She says.  “Why don’t you all stop wasting our time, pick up our oil and get it delivered to town so we can sell it and get the hell out of here.”

Well, I never seen such shock wash across the faces of two young men.  They are so embarrassed they move real quick.  Picking up the barrels and almost running them to the wagon.

Jane is a real quiet one, but as the boys tear down the hill, their wagon billowing clouds of dust.  I see her shoulders begin to heave and shake and I know she’s ain’t crying.  Diana gives her a solid pat on the back and joins in laughing.  In fact, by the time I stop eaves dropping and walk over to the girls we are all laughing so hard we can hardly breathe.

500 Days - The Girls Who Would Be Birds

Today, we skip ahead a few days.  Emmy, Diana and Amy have been working hard getting the oil out of the well and shooing off suitors who want to marry them for their wealth.  Amy (whose backstory you will hear about tomorrow) and Diana have been given the money they need to buy themselves out of prostitution from Emmy sharing the wealth from the oil.  In this segment, Amy go to see Big Ben and French Kate in hopes of buying their freedom.  Hope you enjoy!
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Diana - Out of the Ashes

The story I read last night, the last one I read before I fell asleep, was about a bird.  A bird that flies so fast it turns into bright burning flames, then, crumbles to ash.  Unbelievably, from that scattering of ashes rises a new bird.  “A phoenix” the book called it.  Emmy loaned me her book, it’s the one I first started to read after the fire.  She called it Metamorphosis.  Said it was a collection of tales they used to tell long ago.  The tales are magical, like the fairy tales my Momma used to read to me each night before I fell asleep.  The book had been a gift from her father.  He’d brought it from Germany.   My favorite had always been the story of the miller’s daughter: the girl who weaves straw into gold but who’s almost tricked by that arrogant troll. She survives because she doesn’t give up and she listens.

Yesterday, after we’d sat with Emmy and made our plan, Jane and I left while Emmy did her paperwork and got her laundry accounts settled.  We took a walk back to the Chase hotel.  I hadn’t been back since the night it burned down.  Since the night I walked into my own darkness and then back out.  It still stood, black ember boards covered in grey ash.  There wasn’t much left and by the looks of it (ashy foot prints everywhere) many have already picked over anything that was left unscathed.  I thought I would feel sad looking back at this place, but instead it is a nothingness that fills me.  Not the darkness that threatened to let me walk into the flames, but a nothingness of no regret of not feeling anything for this place.

Jane and I walk on past the ruins of the hotel.  She is nervously biting her nails.  I loop my arm in hers as we walk down the tight streets. She’s worried she’ll run into Big Ben.  That he’ll see her and make her come back.  But, I assure her that whatever the cost Emmy can buy her out now, that we safe.  We gettin’ out.  But, she still bites her nails and looks at the ground as we walk.  All the joy that had been slowly washing back into her face has washed right back out.

When we walk past the hotel where Jane once worked, I can feel her arm start to shake in fear.  “It’s okay,” I say. “ I got the paper.  We gonna be okay.”  But she still shakes.

Strange thing is when we walk up we find the door kicked in.  Ben is in the parlor.  But he don’t look so tough.  He’s got a bloody lip and he’s pacing back and forth on the floor. 

“What the hell do you whores want?”  He say as we walk up.

“We are here to buy ourselves out.”  I say trying to look tall as I can. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He says. “ Kate!”  He yells.  “We got another runner.”

By the look of Ben, by the sound of these words, I know that something bad has happened.  Kate steps slowly down the wood staircase in her high heeled boots.  She is (like always) dressed to the nines.  Her body is held tight in a red velvet bodice.  Her breasts spilling out of the top.  Her hair is swept up and her face is painted like a china dolls. 

When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she says.  “Well, well, well, what we got here.  Another transformed whore?  We were wondering where you went off to Diana after the fire.  And Jane you take care of your problem?  Or, you need another visit from Big Ben’s fists?”  With these words I can feel Jane shrink to half her size. 

“No ma’am.  We here to buy back ourselves.”

“You ain’t got that kind of cash.”  Kate cuts back.

“Oh yes Ma’am we do. Just after the fire, Widow Ricketts struck oil.  She’s offered to buy us out.  I’ve got her letter here.”

“I don’t care you got a signature from President Lincoln himself.  You two is my whores and we got some men who want your services so you get your pretty little selves cleaned up so we can make some money.”

“I don’t think you understand.  We got the money.  We want out.”

“I don’t think you understand.  I got a business to run.”

Two days ago, before the fire, before I’d seen what would happen if I’d stay, I would have backed down.  I would have dropped my eyes and said a quiet, yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am.  But not now, not today.  Anger bloomed in me hot as the fire I’d escaped.

“We not here to negotiate.”  I say, handing Kate the folded paper Emmy had written out.

“Ben, Ben you believe this one?” She say

But Ben don’t look himself.  He still cursing under his breath and blood is streaming down his face. “I don’t give a fuck what them ladies want Kate.  I need a fucking drink”  And with these words he strolled right out the door.

“Well, I never!”  Kate says under her breath, her face flushing.  She opens the parchment and looks down.  I see her reaction real quick before she can fix it.  She looked surprised by the numbers Emmy has given her for us.  But she a good business woman and she correct herself real quick. 

“Well, we’ll have to see if this figure will work.  You girls get out of here now before I change my mind.  You’re lucky I have one hell of a headache this afternoon.”  And with these words she folds the paper into a tiny, tight note and stuffs it into her huge bosom.

I grab Jane’s arm too tight and spin her out of that place fast.  We walk as quickly as we can down the street back to the far edge of town where Emmy lives.  As we walk I can feel the air around me grow lighter and lighter.  As if a cool breeze had suddenly picked up and washed over us.  We walked through that wind, arms linked, feeling lighter than air, the dust swirling in the air, the ash of the burnt hotel back to the shade of them hemlocks on Emmy’s property where she sitting and shouting out to us,  “Well? How’d it go? You free yet?  Cause we got us some work cut out for us today!”