real night skirt,” only “later” was now, and Lucy was a big girl, almost seven, so she figured that that was big enough to wear the night skirt. To use it, like Gramma had used it.
For hadn’t the men from the county who took away Gramma’s house gotten all tumbled and broken when their Ford went into that ditch last fall? True, Gramma’s big fancy house was sold by then, to those nasty Parks people, but hadn’t Gramma had a big smile on her weathered face while she rocked after hearing the news about the car accident from Daddy?
Even though Mother and some of the ladies from the neighborhood had come into Gramma’s room and washed her, before setting the damp cloths on her now slack face and folded hands, they hadn’t taken away the night skirt. They hadn’t thrown it on the trash heap and burned it to a cinder, like Mother kept saying she wanted to do, even though the skirt was Lucy’s now.
Maybe Mother didn’t want the other ladies to see her do a mean thing like that, Lucy said to herself as she paused at the closed door of Gramma’s room. That her Gramma was dead didn’t bother Lucy much, at least not in the way it might have bothered other little girls who loved their grandmothers. Because her Gramma had told her things—oh, lots of good stuff—when Mother wasn’t listening. And even though Gramma had been caught by surprise when the mean men from the county took away her house, and hadn’t been able to make the night skirt work for her then, she’d still gotten something called revenge on them all. And she had chuckled and hugged Lucy tight when she had said that, and all Lucy could think was, When I get the night skirt. first I’m gonna show old Vernilla some really fancy walking, and then I’ll....
But up until yesterday, when Gramma’s lower tummy got to feeling had, and Mother all but tore the night skirt off her, saying it was so she could get a nightgown on Gramma (but Lucy knew what her mother was really thinking when she pulled the skirt off the protesting old woman), Lucy had always thought of “and then” as being a long, long time away. Like next year, or longer.
Rut when Lucy had heard Gramma’s whimpers from under the closed door, while Daddy rang for the doctor, then the neighbors, Lucy had realized that the time of the night skirt flapping and flowing and dragging around her legs had come at last.
And as much as losing Gramma hurt, Lucy was all antsy inside during the rest of the evening, until the time when she beard her parents’ last faint words coming through the wall (“And first thing tomorrow, that skirt goes out the door, you hear me, Alvin?” “Uh-huh....”) and then only raspy breathing. And now, she had her small finger wrapped around the doorknob, the metal cool and just the faintest bit greasy. Slowly she turned the knob until the door swung inward, into darkness even deeper and thicker and softer than the night skirt itself.
Gramma was in there, in the almost solid blackness. Lying on her bed, a drying cloth over her face and hands, even though it wasn’t nearly warm enough to start worrying about that sort of thing yet. Lucy was glad that Mr. Byrne and Mr. Reish were both down with the grippe. Otherwise, the two undertakers might have come and taken Gramma away, and mother might have tossed the night skirt into the backyard trash bin, where any animal might have slithered or crawled into it—and Lucy didn’t want to think about what might happen then!
Her eyes were more accustomed to the dark now. She could faintly see the two pale places where the damp hankies rested on her Gramma’s face and hands. Which meant that if the bed was there, the rocker where Mother had placed the folded night skirt had to be right here.
Like a slumbering animal awakened by the gentle, loving touch of its owner, the night skirt rippled under Lucy’s small fingers. Darker than the surrounding darkness, the night skirt felt as warm to Lucy as if her Gramma had just removed it only moments before.
Feeling for the opening with her hands, Lucy opened up the waistband. After tucking her nightgown around her legs (it would make a good, if makeshift, slip), Lucy stepped into the night skirt, rolling the fabric up and up, until the skirt’s hem dusted her insteps. After patting the seat of the rocker, Lucy found Gramma’s belt and tightened the stiff strip of fabric around her waist, her arms hampered by the thick roll of excess cloth scrunched up under her armpits. But Lucy didn’t mind that at all; as Gramma told her, she was going to be taller someday.
Relishing the heavy swish of fabric around her thin legs as she walked, Lucy paused by her Gramma’s bed, whispering, “I’ll come and make you better in a little while—after I come back from their room. Then we’ll play, okay, Gramma?” After giving the still hands and face a cloth-screened pat, Lucy left the room, heading for the staircase.
The cloth of the night skirt made a faint, susurrus noise that almost masked the delicate click-click of claws and scrabbling scritch of talons as Lucy made her determined way across the carpetless floorboards. But as she mounted the first stair tread, her skirt brushed against the next step up, and even the muted swish of the fabric couldn’t cover the thump of something hard coming in contact with soft wood.
Lucy bent down and felt the hem of the night skirt, feeding the rolled material through her damp hands until something long and hard and bumpy slid through her fingers. As she probed the bunched fabric, the hard shape moved, first rippling, then curling in on itself as the little girl smiled in the moonlight-splashed darkness and whispered, “Gotcha.”
Tongue pressed between her tiny teeth, Lucy worked the heavy thing toward the sewn edge of the hem, where the stitches were...and where the threads finally broke. And as Lucy extracted the oily-warm thing from the hem of the night skirt, the belt around her waist came undone, letting the night skirt drop to a cold, musty heap on the floor. Stepping out of the skirt, the special thing trapped in her sweating palm, Lucy felt nothing but limp nubby cloth under her feet...nothing more. The skirt no longer rippled, nor did it suck in the darkness anymore.
But the coiled object in her hand was warm, writhing, as she stroked it with a tiny, short-nailed finger. She thought, I am a big girl now. I know the night skirt’s secret, and nobody had to tell me, either.
The tiny entity curled in her palm made Lucy feel fizzy-funny inside, like her insides were all jumbled up, but it was such a nice feeling, too. And then, realizing that what she was going to do to Mother and Daddy could wait awhile, she hurried back to her Gramma’s room, her vision suddenly different in the gloom, thinking, Now we both can have some fun. I want Gramma to watch me when I get them upstairs.
In her excitement, Lucy didn’t notice as her wing tips brushed Mother’s bric-a-brac shelf. Small china and glass things shivered and chattered in dumb anticipation on the polished mahogany shelf, waking Lucy’s mother in her room upstairs.
PART ONE
THE YAHOOS
By what I could discover, the Yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all animals, their capacities never reaching higher than to draw or carry burdens. Yet I am of the opinion, this defect ariseth chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition. For they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by consequence insolent, abject, and cruel.
—JONATHAN SWIFT,
Gulliver’s Travels
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
—WILLIAM BLAKE,
“The Tyger”
CHAPTER ONE
Monday,
