Moon Over Manifest

Lettie, Ruthanne, and I dropped to the ground in exhaustion, as if we’d delivered that baby ourselves.

“Thunderation,” Lettie whispered.

“You said it,” Ruthanne agreed.

“I can’t believe it either. A nun delivering a baby?” I said, shaking my head.

“Oh, Sister Redempta does that all the time,” Lettie said. “When any baby is being born upside down or a mother is too small for her baby, Sister Redempta is called in.”

“That’s right,” Ruthanne said. “Why, she’s birthed lots of folks around here for years. My mama says my oldest brother wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Sister Redempta.”

“Well, if it’s so common, what are you two all ‘thunderation’ about?”

“We’ve never seen Sister Redempta without her veil on,” Lettie said. “There’ve been stories that she has hair the color of a tomato. Others said she had no hair at all.”

“Come on,” Ruthanne said, hoisting herself up. “We’d better get home and tell our mamas that we didn’t catch any frogs and that Mrs. Clayton could use some tending to.”

As we began the walk home, I kept my eyes open for the grave marker, still curious about what lonely soul might be buried alone, but we never passed it.

Miss Sadie’s Divining Parlor

JUNE 6, 1936

A warm wind blew as I headed for Miss Sadie’s house the next day. I was still wondering about the grave marker beside the craggy sycamore tree near Billy Clayton’s house. With Miss Sadie’s stories floating around in my head, I came up with any number of folks who might be buried there. Maybe it was a lonely immigrant with no family. Or it could be a drifter who had come through town and they’d buried him where he’d dropped dead. Either way, I wondered if the lanky Mr. Underhill had measured out the grave.

Maybe it was just thinking about spooky Mr. Underhill that made me feel a little uneasy. Like someone was watching me, following my footsteps. I was nearing Miss Sadie’s but wasn’t close enough to make a dash through the gate. I kept walking, looking back over my shoulder. I expected to see Mr. Underhill’s long legs and hunched shoulders right behind me.

My game of rhyming started up. “Horse is in his stable and Pig is in his pen. Dog is in his doghouse and Farmer’s in the den. Cow is in the field and Cat is on the stoop, but where is Chicken? Fox is in the coop!”

I was not comforted by my rhyme, and feeling a little too out in the open, I veered off the path and into the hedge for some cover. I took another long look behind me, through leafy branches swaying and bowing in the wind, to convince myself that my imagination had run away with me. I could swear I’d even heard a rattling sound echo in the woods. But there was no Mr. Underhill. No one was there. Finally, I let out a long breath and vowed to stop thinking about graves, and undertakers, and dead people. I tried to start up what I hoped would be a happier rhyme. “Johnny likes sunshine, I like rain. Johnny likes to ride his bike—” I bolted from the bushes and ran headlong into a tall figure dressed in black.

“Thunderation!” I yelped. My heart was pounding to beat the band when I saw that it was Sister Redempta.

“Thunderation, indeed.” She raised her chin at me.

I hoped thunderation

wasn’t on a list of forbidden words. It must not have been, as she’d said it herself.

“I, uh, I didn’t see you. Sorry for running into you.” For the life of me, I couldn’t figure where she had come from, but scary as she was, I was relieved it was her.

“That happens when one comes sprinting out of bushes.” She tucked her hands up into her sleeves, studying me. “Well, go on. Finish it. If Johnny likes to ride his bike …”

“I ride the train?” I hadn’t meant for it to come out as a question.

“I see. I think it’s best that I assigned you a story to write over the summer and not a poem. Still, I know a good rhyme can calm the soul.” She looked a ways past me. “When the sisters ran an orphanage here, some children would sing themselves to sleep, often in their native language, as many were immigrant children.”

For some reason, I felt tears creeping up in my eyes. I felt like one of those orphan children. “Did it help? Did their rhyming make them feel better?” I asked, knowing that I’d get a truthful answer from Sister Redempta.