Read Other Voices, Other Rooms for Free Online Page B

show him your hand, sister.”
    “You let me alone or I’ll show it to you o.k.: in a place you’re not expecting.”
    Florabel sniffed, and glanced peevishly at Joel because he laughed. “It don’t pay to treat Idabel like she was a human being,” she said ominously. “Ask anybody. The tough way she acts you’d never suppose she came from a well-to-do family like mine, would you?”
    Joel held his peace, knowing no matter what he said it would be the wrong thing.
    “That’s just what I mean,” said Florabel, turning the silence to her own advantage, “you’d never suppose. Naturally she is as we’re twins: born the same day, me ten minutes first, so I’m elder; both of us twelve, going on thirteen. Florabel and Idabel. Isn’t it tacky the way those names kinda rhyme? Only Mama thinks it’s real cute, but . . .”
    Joel didn’t hear the rest, for he suddenly noticed Idabel had stopped trailing the wagon. She was far back and running, running like a pale animal through the lake of weeds lining the wayside towards a flowering island of dogwood that bloomed lividly some distance off like seashore foam on a black beach. But before he could point this out to Florabel, her twin was gone and lost between the shining trees. “Isn’t she afraid to be out there all alone in the dark?” he interrupted, and with a gesture indicated where Idabel had disappeared.
    “That child is afraid of nothing,” stated Florabel flatly. “Don’t you fret none over her; she’ll catch up when she gets to feeling like it.”
    “But out in those woods . . .”
    “Oh, sister takes her notions and there’s no sense in asking why. We were born twins, like I told you, but Mama says the Lord always sends something bad with the good.” Florabel yawned and leaned back, the long hair sprawling about her shoulders. “Idabel will take any kind of a dare; even when we were real little she’d go up and poke around the Skullys’ and peek in all the windows. One time she even got a good look at Cousin Randolph.” Lazily she reached up and seized a firefly that was pulsing goldenly in the air above her head, then: “Do you like living at that place?”
    “What place?”
    “The Landing, silly.”
    Joel said: “I may, but I haven’t seen it yet.” Her face was close to his, and he could tell she was disappointed with the answer. “And you, where’s your house?”
    She waved an airy hand. “Just a little ways up yonder. It’s not far from the Landing, so maybe you could come visit sometime.” She tossed the firefly into the air where it hung suspended like a small moon. “Naturally I didn’t know whether to think you lived at the Landing or not. Nobody ever sees any of them Skullys. Why, the Lord himself could be living there with none the wiser. Are you kin to . . .” but this was cut short by a terrible, paralyzing wail, and wild crashing in the all-around darkness.
    Idabel bounded into the road from the underbrush. She was flailing her arms and howling loud and fierce.
    “You darn fool!” her sister screamed, but Joel did nothing, for his heart was lodged somewhere in his throat. Then he turned to check Jesus Fever’s reaction, but the old man still snoozed; and strangely the mule had not bolted with fright.
    “That was pretty good, eh?” said Idabel. “I’ll bet you thought the devil was hot on your trail.”
    Florabel said: “Not the devil, sister . . . he’s inside you.” And to Joel: “She’ll catch it when I tell Papa, cause she couldn’t have got up here without us seeing unless she cut through the hollow, and Papa’s told her and told her about that. She’s all the time snooping around in there hunting sweetgum: some day a big old moccasin is going to chew off her leg right at the hip, mark my word.”
    Idabel had returned carrying a spray of dogwood, and now she smelled the blooms exultantly. “I’ve already been snakebit,” she said.
    “Yes, that’s the truth,” her sister admitted. “You