The Fallen Fruit, page 23
Instead of passing her by, Winston darted into her path.
“Is that so?” he said. “What makes a pretty girl like you believe that?”
Ceci stepped around him without a word. His friends stood slack-jawed as Winston trailed after her and they disappeared into the crowd. Over seven days, the two high schoolers exchanged secrets and promises. Winston revealed he wanted to be a professional baseball player so he could take care of his mama. Cecily spoke of her dream to attend college and not end up as some housewife having babies.
“You do things your own way, Ceci,” he said. “Don’t see any reason why you should change.”
Those endearments carried them to a dim corner, away from the glare of the nearby Paramount movie theater, where Winston Davis brushed his tentative lips against hers.
What she wouldn’t give to return to that corner. Instead, here she was, lying with doom at her doorstep, cornered by questions. Ceci forced herself to get off the bed. She paced from the table covered in her papers to the far wall. Three steps there, three steps back. When she returned to the table, her gaze swept over the facts she’d accumulated. The family Bible was opened to the first page and propped up against a stack of books. Beside it, she’d left the family tree she’d drawn the other night. She stared at it, past the arrows from names to notes, past the smudges from where she’d erased mistakes. Each name with the word “gone” flicked at her.
There was a pattern here. Only one child from each family unit disappeared in a generation. And the time travelers were only born of Bridge men and not Bridge women.
Daddy had been born from another Bridge, but he hadn’t fallen. His sister Teresa was the one to go--just like his uncle Jonah. According to the “gone” data, each Bridge fell before that age. Did that mean Cecily faced the same fate since she was twenty-six? She slowly shook her head at such an absurd thought, but she couldn’t drive it away. The faces of Winston, her boys, Mama Davis, her many friends, flashed before her eyes—what if she lost all of them? But she fought to hold on to logic. In the real world, the technology to support time travel didn’t exist. Yet.
To anchor herself in the present, she touched the receipt she’d left on top of the family Bible. The facts stacked up one by one. If her granddaddy’s note was real, then the receipt was found in 1938 at her uncle Ralph’s house—which meant her uncle’s home, or part of it, had survived the fires. Only Owen, if he had traveled in time from 1955 to 1938, would’ve been able to leave the receipt behind. So why did he kill those innocent people, his own family?
And if he took himself—how could such a thing be possible?
She shook her head in horror. Logical reasons swam to the surface. That man could’ve been anyone. A liar. A con man. Maybe one of the Bridges had crossed the wrong person. Back in the day, some folks settled problems with vengeance instead of words. Hadn’t Granddaddy Ross gotten into a fight every now and then?
Only a horrible human being would do such a thing. Something terrible must’ve happened, and this man, this imposter, had exacted his revenge.
* * *
All folktales had a beginning. Ceci had to find the eager storytellers, the older folks willing to share the oral histories. With ease this time, Ceci returned to the rutted dirt road and approached the half-rotted bungalow. The midday’s clear skies revealed a structure surrounded by trees and bits of rusted metal from bicycles hidden among the overgrown shrubbery.
The elderly woman she’d met on her way to the Bridge family land was sitting in the same rocking chair. As she got closer, Mrs. Gladys Hale’s hand rose in greeting.
“What you still doing in town?” Instead of the harsh welcome from last time, Mrs. Hale’s voice revealed a hint of amusement.
Ceci took another rocking chair facing the front door. The seat groaned but held her weight. Faint gospel music could be heard through the screen door into the house. Since it was late in the afternoon, Mrs. Hale’s grandson Lee Lee, who appeared to be no older than twenty, prepared his grandma’s supper.
“Catching up on things,” Ceci replied. “How are you today?”
Mrs. Hale cast a side-eye in her direction. “You here for supper? Lee Lee caught some catfish and he’s making soup.”
“No, ma’am. I know this was a long time ago, but do you remember the boy who was taken? The Owen Bridge boy?”
She squinted briefly and batted away a fly. “Course I do. I prayed for God to cover that child in the blood of Jesus.”
From within the house, Lee Lee lit a Camel. He shuffled back and forth in the tiny summer kitchen as he minded the meal. The cigarette smoke wafted outside, and Ceci’s fingers flexed. She’d quit after she got pregnant with Jason, but every now and then, when her life hit the side of a speeding train, she’d give anything for the bitter taste and relief from a deep drag.
Cecily turned again to Mrs. Hale. “Did anyone ever search for him?”
“Course we did. The ones who’d survived went up and down them woods. They still had blood on they clothes. And they eyes . . . ain’t never seen anything like it.”
Lee Lee’s slow crawl in the kitchen picked up as he ladled soup into a bowl. He emerged from the house and gave his grandma her portion. “Want some?” he asked Ceci.
She shook her head. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry.
Mrs. Hale chewed slowly, working through the soft catfish bites. Between chews, she spoke quietly. “Them Bridges been through so much. Oh, child . . . They were a strange bunch.” She slurped her soup. “My brother worked with your uncle up at the university. He said those Bridges were like roses, but like the wild kind.”
“What did he mean by that?” Ceci said, rocking back in her chair.
“He said wild roses grow without being cultivated,” Mrs. Hale said. “They can sprout up almost anywhere. And if they can grow, they’ll survive. Most of them Bridges stayed put and survived just fine, while other families ’round here died off.”
“I see.”
“When I was a young girl, Sam Ross, your granddaddy, was always roaming up and down these hills. He was a good-looking fella, but he only had eyes for one of them Bridges.” She smirked, flashing a row of gums. “A man like him wanted them tiny gals, not a tall girl like me. He was always looking for his little flower, his sweet little Amelia. Said he’d strike gold up in the mountains someday and he’d build a place for them, but that never happened.”
She paused to slurp. “You see, some Bridges disappear. And I ain’t talking about moving up north. Sam told me he’d heard about the stories from his friend Isaiah. Now that I think about it—that poor man disappeared too. I thought they was tales to frighten us children. I shouldn’t have believed him, but who wouldn’t want the attention of a good man?”
Ceci nodded, knowing all too well how the teller of a tale was just as important as the tale itself. Shadows crossed the woods in the distance, but she couldn’t make out the forms.
“Did you see them up at the farm?” Mrs. Hale paused in the middle of her meal, drawing Ceci away from the past.
“See who?”
The old woman’s thin lips formed a small smile. “One of them Bridges. Some of them come back, and I don’t mean for a visit.”
Ceci stared at Mrs. Hale to see if she was trying to trick her. She had to be. “Come back?”
“That’s what Sam told me.”
“And Owen . . .” Cecily almost swallowed the words.
“Oh, he came back too, but not like the other ones.”
Ceci planted her feet and eased forward in her seat. If the receipt was legitimate, then Owen could’ve been living in town while she’d grown up. He must’ve kept to himself. She’d never heard of him before. “Why did he come back?”
“Guess he’s drawn to this place.” Her patchy white eyebrows rose. “Just like the rest of us. I heard his mama’s cousin back in Richmond took him in, but . . .” She smacked her lips. “The devil can jump from living under one house to another. That lady got a bunch of money from whoever left Owen on her doorstep. One would think she’d see to that child, but their dogs ate better. He grew up poor as they come and showed up in town looking like a bum. When was that, Lee Lee?”
“Ten years ago,” Lee Lee called out from inside the house. It seemed he’d been listening the entire time. “That was back in ’53. I remember ’cause that’s when the textile factory had that big accident.”
She nodded. “Owen kept saying he needed to be close to his daddy’s land.”
“Why?” Ceci left her chair and planted herself at the woman’s feet. She’d told herself to keep her distance—Mrs. Hale was a stranger. But she had to know why a certain chill had settled in the middle of her back.
“Don’t know,” Mrs. Hale said, “but I say he knew he was born here, and he had to wipe away the stain. Can’t hang new clothes on the line if your house ain’t in order.”
“Did you hear anything else about him over the years?”
Her face wrinkled. “Not really. He was a quiet boy, and I bet he wanted to buy back his daddy’s land. I heard Sam somehow got everything after Dennis Bridge died. Then after your granddaddy was killed, it went to your aunt since she looked after you too.”
Ceci returned to the rocking chair, feeling her stomach clench tight enough to snatch her breath. Mrs. Hale had Aunt Hilda’s blunt tongue. She could’ve stretched the truth, but Ceci sensed the hidden threads unraveling from the fabric of the Bridge family’s story. If “Never interfere with past events” was indeed a rule of time travel, then her cousin had violated it.
Chapter 26
Cecily Bridge-Davis
June 1964
The next day, the world had moved on outside her door, but Ceci still couldn’t face it. Once she’d learned the truth about her family’s time-traveling curse, Ceci wept until her cheeks were hot and raw, then sank into a numbness and slept. That very morning a woman and her husband, their footfalls light and their voices tinkling like chimes, had lingered in front of her door. They’d gushed about extending their honeymoon another week. How they couldn’t stand the idea of being apart once they returned to Biloxi. “Let’s go here,” the man had said. “Let’s see this or that.” The promise of a happily-ever-after had floated down the hall and disappeared.
Time sloughed off after that. Each agonizing second fell away, losing relevance and meaning. It was only hunger and the need to relieve herself that finally drove her out of bed, then out of her room. She ambled down the stairs, passing the Carver Inn’s receptionist.
“Ain’t seen you in a while,” the woman said brightly. “You hungry?”
Ceci ignored her and wandered down Preston Avenue. The afternoon heat hit her hard once she left the shelter of the trees. Block after block blurred together with at first residential homes, then businesses. Two Black women leaning against a yellow VW Bug waved her way, but Ceci kept going. Past the busy parking lot outside the Safeway grocery store. Down the gentle sloping hill into downtown. She bought some cigarettes from a vending machine outside of Gleason’s Bakery off First Street before she briefly glanced into the window. Laughter and conversation from a Negro man and three children spilled out. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine somewhere in Nashville her husband and children probably spending the day at the pool. Winston would be sitting there reading some technical book while the boys swam. After wrangling the kids at the pool, he often took them to the ice cream shop for a treat.
Just like this family.
A woman carrying her dry cleaning plowed into Ceci. The woman’s pillbox hat fell off and rolled until it hit a nearby sedan.
“Hey!” The stranger’s face twisted into a snarl. “You shouldn’t loiter in front of businesses.”
“Pardon me.” Ceci’s body moved to pick up the hat. After a slew of apologies, her feet carried her a block north up First Street until she finally reached Lee Park. She’d spent over a month here, yet she’d never taken the time to cross the park from one corner to another. Instead of walking through, she briefly soaked in the cool air under the maple trees. Keep moving, she reminded herself. She strolled down the wide walkway leading up to Robert E. Lee’s monument and considered a path down the steps to the street again, but she plopped down on a bench instead.
The world continued to spin as she lit a Camel and sucked in a deep drag. The smoke was rough on the back of her throat, but a heady feeling circled her chest and her discomfort eased. Nothing like a good cig to take her mind elsewhere. The day thinned like wisps of smoke until she’d emptied half the pack.
Shame she’d started such an expensive habit again. She glanced at the pack in her hand. Might as well toss the thirty-five cents in her pocket into the nearest bin.
“Mrs. Davis, is that you?” an older man’s voice asked from behind her.
Cecily turned to see the inn’s white elderly porter shuffling in her direction. The man wore the same shirt and slacks every day, but he strode down the corridors of rooms with purpose, almost as if he never forgot his marching orders from the Second World War.
“You got a phone call earlier,” he said with a hint of concern. “You’re usually up at Hank’s eating around this time. What’re you doing sitting here all by your lonesome?”
What was she doing? She took in the nearby statue: Robert E. Lee perched on top of his horse Traveller. Two young men from UVA were stationed in front of it, handing out go with goldwater and miller in ’64! presidential campaign pins.
“Enjoying the view?” she managed to answer, however unconvincingly.
“Didn’t you grow up here?” He laughed. “Ain’t much to see.”
There was plenty to see. If she closed her eyes, she could recite the location of every bench and shady spot. She could imagine the cars buzzing past the library on Second Street. All these distractions kept her from picking up a phone to call Winston. She had to say something—and not sound like she’d lost every lick of common sense. Ceci needed time to form a plan, and time was the one damn thing she didn’t have much of anymore.
“Someone called for me?” Might as well get past the pleasantries. She got up and motioned for the porter to join her.
“A gentleman was asking about the Bridge farm. Said he was a serious buyer. Good news, yes?”
So someone wanted the land. That was quick, but then again, Charlottesville had grown since she’d lived here. Who wouldn’t want over sixty-five acres for a farm or commercial use? A brief feeling of elation swept over her—didn’t a potential buyer mean she could return home and forget about the Bridges? Before the sun set, she could toss her notes into the trash, pack her bags, and jump on the road. That sounded nice. Simple. She didn’t have to be present to complete the sale.
And yet somehow she had a feeling she wouldn’t see Tennessee any time soon.
* * *
A winery had made a high four-figure offer on the farm. Ceci couldn’t help but imagine the down payment for a newer house back home. Maybe they could set money aside for Jason’s and Lloyd’s college education too.
All she had to do was sign the purchase agreement, and yet she hesitated up at the courthouse, her hand hovering over the signature line. If she sold the property, there’d be consequences—not just for her but also for other Bridges arriving from the future.
Are those folks out there? she thought. You’re assuming time travel is real.
Even if a single time traveler didn’t show up on the property, the evidence remained. The survival packs were likely still out there, given the many X’s on that map. Owen had left a 1950s receipt in the 1930s. She couldn’t stop the curse. If she fell through time, she’d end up in an unfamiliar place without the safeguards on the property.
She put down the pen.
“Plans have changed,” she said to the buyer’s agent. “I’d like a new deal for twenty acres on the northern edge of the property instead of the original sixty-five.”
* * *
A week later, mid-June had swept in as Ceci’s Chevy pulled up to the Bridge farm’s entrance. The early morning heat coated the countryside with a suffocating humidity, but she had work to do. Thanks to her negotiations, the cabins and apple orchard remained in Bridge hands.
Instead of letting her bones petrify in that lonely hotel room, she settled on clearing the winding path from the main road to the one cabin she’d already visited. First, she attacked the overgrowth around the mailbox. Over a decade of twisted vines and stubborn bushes had enveloped the spot where her granddaddy had stood all those years ago. While she toiled, she listened for the supposed ghosts her aunt Hilda had warned her about. None of the specters ever lent a hand. Didn’t matter though. Ceci had hauled manure from their barn to Aunt Hilda’s gardens, scraped burned crud from pans, and gutted catfish for suppers. All that dirt under her fingernails meant she’d put in an honest day’s labor, and it showed. The patch of land fought back, but soon enough, she glimpsed what she’d been looking for: the remnants of a rusted metal mailbox. Both sides of the box were dented inward as if time and the weather had attempted to expose the secrets inside. However, the flap was shut, protecting the contents through the years.
Carefully, she drew the lid downward. The single screw holding the mailbox door in place gave way and disappeared into the ankle-high grass. She held the door to her chest and peered into the mailbox’s depths. A couple of abandoned spiderwebs guarded the prize, but she plucked her find with a joyous squeal. At last! She had it. Once Ceci touched the smooth surface of a rock—yes, a rock—her laughter turned to cackles. She’d done all that work for a cruddy piece of goethite small enough to fit in the middle of her palm. The speckled crystal had a tarnished pistachio-green tinge with flecks of glossy minerals interspersed with rough edges. Granddaddy Ross used to spend hours in his chair on the porch, his wrinkled hands busy polishing his finds with only sandpaper and a melancholic hum from between his lips.
“God created this rock,” he’d once said, “but He also granted me the breath and will to change His creation. This circle begins and ends with change.”
