[Read chapters 1-44 here. Only four chapters remain. A new project will follow.]
I looked over to see Carmen still asleep. My body ached from passing the night on the cold ground. I found red coals that I used to bring the flames back to life. I wanted nothing more than to be warm. We thought we had a long trip ahead of us, and no matter what, we wanted to reach the hermit before nightfall. From what Carmen had heard, it would be dangerous to travel this trail after dark. We were getting very close to the wall.
I made black tea with a sachet from La Gloriosa’s stash. Oh man, the caffeine felt good. I sweetened mine with the last of our sugar, and sat on a log and watched the sky come alive with faint color and the flitting of the birds. Carmen stirred and the two of us were silent together, almost as if we didn’t want to wake Joe, but the cacophony of bird sounds reached its crescendo just as I finished my tea. I felt warm and ready for whatever was going to come.
We packed the potatoes from the night before and set off on the trail. Passing the pit I stopped and spit into it for good luck – nothing like that was ever going to happen to me again. The spit hit the wall and slid down, and off we went. Carmen led the way, keeping her eyes open for anyone approaching us on the trail. Things had changed, definitely, and it felt good not to be in charge, as I’d been before. It felt good to work as a team, even a team of two.
After an hour or so in the mountains the trail dropped down to an old farming valley, with broad fields undulating between hillocks and windbreaks of walnut and oak trees. According to Terence, this was near where we’d find the hermit who could give us final advice on getting through the wall.
“Look at this,” Carmen said, pointing out a fresh rut from some sort of wagon wheel. “There are people around here.”
Looking all around, I didn’t see anyone, but I could feel them, could feel eyes on us. It’s just a sense I had.
Turns out it wasn’t so exotic, this “feeling.” All of a sudden there was a grandmotherly looking woman sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the trail, blowing her warm breath on a bee that seemed to be having trouble in the cool air. The old woman wore blue coveralls. Her hair was white and piled high and she’d pushed a pair of dark sunglasses up on her forehead. We approached.
“Y’all looking for the wall?” she said, sending the newly warmed and energized bee happily on its way.
I said yes, and Carmen nodded. The lady looked about 80 years old, but healthy. It was weird. You hardly ever saw old people. Let alone doing this weird thing with bees. Another one landed over her outstretched palm.
“All y’all?”
I looked around. It was just the two of us.
“Yes,” I said.
“Hmm,” she said, twisting her head real quick to the right and then back.
“Hmm,” she said once more.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” I asked.
Her eyes got wide, and it looked like she was going to laugh, but she didn’t.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. Who sent you here, anyway?”
“We’re crossing over to see my mother,” I said. “I haven’t seen her since I was a child.”
“That’s a tear jerker,” she said.
This hurt my feelings, but I kept myself in check.
“You’re just gonna walk right through the wall and into the West and there you have it?” the woman said. “Mom and love and apple pie?”
“We should go,” Carmen said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
“You’ve got a lot of cover to ground.
Carmen bristled, and I thought she might say something rude to the old woman. I nodded, and we started off. The lady stepped out of the way.
“Just one thing,” she said as we passed.
I stopped and Carmen tensed up near me.
“You’re coming from the city?”
“Yup,” I said.
“And who sent you? I know a bunch of kids like you didn’t come up this way without somebody telling you what was what.”
“Terence advised me,” I said.
“You don’t say,” she said. “He refer you to anyone?
“The hermit.”
“Terence and I go way back,” she said.
“Really? What’s your name? Terence practically raised me.”
“I don’t really have a name any more. I don’t really have much of anything any more. But I do have a good memory of Terence. He was my lover long ago.”
First La Gloriosa, and now this hermit. Terence got around. My eyes must have gone wide this time, because Carmen looked at me funny, as if to say, “What?”
“Do you know where the hermit’s supposed to be?” Carmen asked.
“Yea,” I said. “That’s who we’re looking for.”
“Well yes I do,” she said.
“Can you tell us?”
“Well, you’ve found her,” the lady said. “She’s me.”
Damn, I thought. I had pictured a kindly old man smoking a pipe on the front porch of a board and batten cabin. He’d offer us fresh strawberries from his secret patch and draw a map for us on birch bark as we ate oatmeal seasoned with fresh cream and maple syrup. No way did I expect this old lady, who seemed mean as a cur, really, and for no reason at all. But kind of funny, too.
“Terence said you could give us some advice about getting through the wall. And what to expect on the other side.”
“Come along,” she ordered us, and started straight down the hillside into a grove of trees.
Carmen and I looked at each other, and shrugged. What else was there to do?
She walked purposefully and quickly through the grove of trees and out into a swampy field where we had to step across the water from clump of grass to clump of grass and of course within a few minutes Carmen and I were soaked to the socks – the hermit remained dry.
“You’ll need to do better than that,” she said, giving our feet a once over. “Easiest way in the world to get hypothermia is to have wet feet.”
Soon we were climbing a narrow trail up through a pine forest. It was hot and steep work but within an hour she veered off into a rocky hillside and we followed her around a boulder to a simple stone house. It was a nearly perfect house, with square walls and overhanging eaves, a brightly painted red door and windows.
“Home sweet home,” she said.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“I wouldn't go that far.”
“Well, I already did.”
“Come on in,” she said.
We took our shoes off on the porch and I followed Carmen into the hermit’s living room.
Light poured in through large windows. There on a bench near the fireplace was Little Calico. Holy shit, I couldn't believe it. She was grinning like crazy and so was I.
“She told me you all were coming,” said the hermit. “I’ve known this little darling for years.”
Carmen went right over and gave her a hug.
“I'm not surprised,” she said.
Little Calico grabbed her hand and held onto it.
Soon the hermit, who seemed actually to kind of like having people around, was serving us mint tea and honey from a ceramic, bear-shaped pot. It was Winnie the Poo. I recognized him from the Libray. In raised letters the pot said, “HUNNY.”
“You might not know it, but you’ve got a lot of friends,” she said. “’We all want you to succeed in finding your mother – and your father, of course.”
Little Calico nodded vigorously at this last bit, about my dad.
Something seemed fishy, like they weren’t telling the truth about something.
“Is there something I should know about my dad?”
The hermit and Calico went quiet.
“What’s going on here?” I said.
Calico looked at the hermit. The hermit looked at the floor.
“C’mon, fess up,” said Carmen.
Just the thought of my parents hit such a nerve that I felt I might burst into tears.
The hermit looked up at me, cleared her throat, and then spoke:
“Your parents were great friends to us – to Calico’s people and to my own. They always looked out for the little guy.”
Calico quickly wrote something and held it up:
“And gals,” it said.
“But they’re not around any more,” the old woman said.
“They headed west years ago. Nobody’s heard from them since.”
I started crying. I hated that. I did not want to cry and that shame turned me scarlet and I had to step out onto the porch. Carmen followed and tried to comfort me, but I wouldn’t have any of it. How was I supposed to know what to think? I wasn’t. That was the point.