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Fantasy Stories

Katie Birch

Written by Sarah L. Edwards

Illustrated by Caroline O'Neal

When we found little Katie Birch blank-faced and naked out by Mackie’s pond that day, I reckoned I might be forgiven for doubting her good sense. Not that I was the first—folks often declared her soft in the head. She’d never been heard to speak, so asking her what had happened didn’t do us any good. Just not given to talking, her brother Varney would say. So Betty Sallust and I just took her aside and wrapped her up and tried to see if she was all right while Betty’s Joe went looking for Varney.

Anyway, the explanation was clear enough this time: Solomon Birch. The man had no right to a child, much less a fragile thing like Katie.

She seemed all right. We couldn’t find any marks or bruises, or even any scratches from walking through the brush without any clothes on. She didn’t pay any attention to us, just kept shivering and hiding her eyes.

Pretty soon Varney came rushing up with Joe following. Varney knelt next to Katie so they were eye to eye. She laid a tiny hand in between his big raw man-hands.

After a moment he stood and nodded to us all. “Thank you very kindly,” he said. Then they turned their backs to us and started walking down the furrowed road towards the Birch farm, he in his overalls and her in someone’s red flannel overshirt. They turned their backs and never looked back, just as though they weren’t ever going to give us another thought, nor expected us to give them one. That had always been people’s way with the Birches, but watching them go I made up my mind that it wasn’t my way any longer.

****

The next day I went to check up on Katie. I could see my man John crossing his arms and shaking his head, saying clear as day, “Ida, you know just what kind of trouble you’ll be stirring up, poking around that family.”

“There are some things a woman has to do,” I told him. “This is one them, and you know it.”

He just shrugged; he knew better than to get in my way when I had that glint in my eye.

It was a fair walk to the Birchs’ place, down roads that didn’t get used much. The last mile was just a track through Birchs' cornfield. The Birch house looked like a woman never set foot on its front step. No curtains, just sheets hanging over the windows and all faded to the same vague blue. Only a few resolute flakes of grey paint still stuck to the house. The yard lacked a woman’s touch, too, the bushes all grown wild-limbed and the beds flowing over with nothing but California poppies.

I straightened a little more, marched up that front step, and knocked three hearty raps.

I heard no footsteps, but in a moment the doorknob turned and the door swung away. I could just make out little Katie standing in the dimness.

“Hello, dear,” I said softly. “I’m Mrs. Wills, looking for Varney. Is he at home?”

She didn’t make a move nor a sound. I knelt until I was level with her—she was small for her ten years.

“And how are you today, Miss Katie?” I held out a jar glowing red in the sunlight. “I thought you might like some of my early strawberry jam. It’s a pretty fine batch this year, if I do say so myself.”

By now my sight had adjusted enough I could see her big round eyes staring at me, just staring, no recognition or curiosity or shame. Nothing you see in any adult’s eyes, or most any child’s.

I held the jam jar out nearer to her. “Here, take this and you can put it on your toast.”

Without glancing at the jar, she turned and walked into the gloom, leaving the door open behind her.

I stood looking around me for a moment, and then turned up my chin and walked in, shutting the door gently behind me. The door opened to the parlor and beyond that a dining room, and then it seemed the kitchen ought to have been right around the next corner. I turned it and found myself face-to-face with Solomon Birch himself, sitting on a bench in an alcove with a gin bottle at his feet and a shotgun in his hands.

I gave a screech of surprise. He rose to his feet and looked at me with as much expression as a dead man. Then he reached out a hand and gave my face a deliberate slap.

Before I could respond, he said, “That’s for yelling. Don’t no one yell in my house.”

“I came to check on Katie, see that—”

“Busybody.” He paused and peered at me, and his face lit just enough to look alive. “Old biddy Wills, checking to see people are minding their affairs.” He drew his shotgun and leaned the end of the barrel against the center of my chest.

I closed my mouth after a look in his red-rimmed eyes. I took a step back, turned, and walked out of the house.

Varney was just coming out of the barn. “Mrs. Wills!” He glanced at the house and back at me. “Is everything all right, ma’am?”

I swallowed my upset pride. “Varney, I come to check on Katie.”

He shrugged. “She’s as fine as she’s going to be.”

I hesitated, then said, “I worry after her, Varney. I hope you don’t think I’m poking in your business, but the girl needs some woman company.” Reckon she needed a good deal more than that, but it was a start.

“Ma’am, that’s fine of you, but I don’t know as it’d be good for her, leaving the farm.”

“But that’s just it. I think maybe a little time off this farm would do her a world of good.” I twisted my hands a little. I wasn’t altogether sure of what I was doing. “Say she stopped by now and then, and we could have a bit of manners lesson and some cooking, maybe.”

Just then, Katie drifted past me, took hold of Varney’s hand, and looked up at him. He looked back at her, and then shook his head. “Well, that’d be kind of you, but I reckon we need her around the farm. Don’t we?” He nudged Katie, whose only response was to hang her head. “And anyway, we don’t want to trouble you.”

“No trouble,” I said. “If chores are a little light, send her around Friday afternoon for the baking. My house is the first on the right as you come into town.”

He tipped his hat and shook his head ever so politely. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Wills. I don’t reckon we’ll make it, but we surely do thank you for the offer.”

The contrast between Varney’s blond mildness and dark-eyed Katie struck me. Varney resembled Solomon, only not so worn or red. Katie looked like her mother, from the little I could remember of her.

I came to myself and nodded a goodbye, unsatisfied.

****

“Something has to be done about that little girl,” I told Graham and Elizabeth when they came visiting from the city the next week.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Graham as he shoveled another forkful of my mashed potatoes.

“It isn’t right, leaving her in that house with that man.”

“Surely this brother you mentioned can see to her?” said his wife.

I shook my head. “He runs that farm near single-handed most of the year and finds time to come in and do our odd jobs when the crop’s in, all while keeping old Solomon’s belt off her.”

“Mother, I hope you’re not thinking we’ll take her in. The children are nearly overrunning the house as it is, and now...”

“Now?” I said.

Elizabeth blushed.

“Oh, I see. Congratulations, my girl.” I shook my head. “I’m not asking you to do anything about the Birch girl. I just think—”

“I think you’re alone too much, taking so much concern over someone else’s child. She’s not your problem, Mother.”

I bristled. “A neglected child is everyone’s problem.”

“I’m just saying I think you should come to town. You can get out of this drafty old house.”

I snorted. “If there’s no room for a bare slip of a girl, there surely isn’t room for me.”

Graham frowned. “We’ll make do. It’d be much better for you there. You’d have the children to give you someone to worry over—your grandchildren, not just any child you found wandering around clean out of her head.” I opened my mouth to protest. “Mother, it’s too lonely out here, and you know it. It’s morbid living in this dead house.”

“It’s not dead. There’s memories in every crack and corner.” I pointed to a polished spot on the hardwood floor. “That’s where your father would turn around, when he couldn’t see his way through a problem. He’d come in while I was cooking and walk round and round this kitchen table, and every time he got to that place he’d turn on his heel and walk the other way.”

Graham poked his finger at the table. “That’s just what I mean by morbid. It’s all gone, Mother. Father’s gone. He’s been dead a long time.”

I’d never told Graham that John was still there. I knew quite well Graham wouldn’t approve. Nor’d I tell Graham that I might as well live in a stranger’s house as his, for all the likeness kinship gave us. I just cocked my head back and raised an eyebrow. “Your father brought me to this house, young man, and he thought it a good house. So do I. I’m not going to the city.” I went to fetch the apple pie.

****

Friday came, and I saved some of the baking for Katie to help with if she came. I tidied up after lunch and started in raking the leaves from our one maple tree. Around three I cut open one of the small, round watermelons from the little patch in back, so there’d be an afternoon snack ready. When the air fell heavy and the sky darkened a little past four thirty, I closed the shutters. At five I ate some cold roast. I was just finishing up when the drops began falling on the roof, sharp as nails. I cleared away the dishes and took my stitching to the back porch to watch the squall wear itself out.

Puffs of dust exploded into the air as those first few drops hit, as though the ground had missed the rain for so long it didn’t recognize it anymore. After a few minutes the rain tired of the violence and settled into a steady downpour. It was near too dark to stitch. I was just thinking to go in and light a lamp when something moved out the corner of my eye. I turned to see little Katie Birch plunging out of my cornstalks, her hands straight in front of her, as though feeling her way. As well she might, for that rain was coming down thick enough to blur the edges a bit.

“Katie!” I jumped out of my chair, leaving the stitching hanging on the railing. As I hurried to her, she ran smack into me and began wailing and beating me with her little fists.

“Katie, it’s all right. It’s all right.” Those eyes kept staring straight past me, or through me, I don’t know which. The wail slowed to nothing, and her mouth just hung open with no words. I took her by the shoulders and shook her, just gently. “Katie.”

A whimper. She clutched at my dress with one hand.

“Katie. Look at me, dear. It’s all right. Look at me.”

I couldn’t say her eyes actually focused on me, but she quit struggling and started choking out feeble, pitiful sobs. Her arms fell to her sides and she stared at the ground.

I took her hand. “Let’s go in, dear, shall we?” She followed me to the house. I couldn’t help but think of her following after Varney.

“Let’s get you dried off,” I said as we went inside. “I bet I can still find some girl-sized clothes in one of those trunks upstairs.” I sat her on a stool in the kitchen wrapped in a blanket, and then went digging. I hadn’t opened those trunks in years. I found a girl’s nightdress, a bit too large, but warm. When I took it to the kitchen Katie was just as I’d left her, except for the blanket falling half off.

“All right, my girl, let’s get that dress hung up to dry.” She didn’t resist, just sat there as I pulled the damp cotton over her head and tugged the nightdress on.

“Now, tea, I think.” I lit the stove and put water on to heat. “You’re always welcome to come a little earlier and help with baking, like I said. Any Friday.” I shivered and realized how much rain had clung to my dress from those few moments out in it. “You just sit there and warm yourself while I go put on something dry.” I could have saved my breath, I suppose; it didn’t seem likely at that point that she’d move if I ordered her to. At any rate, she surely hadn’t when I got back.

At this point, I might have doubted Varney’s word a little and started thinking on those whispers about softness in the head. I’d yet to see the girl give one sign of smarts.

“I have to go,” she said suddenly.

She hadn’t moved. Her eyes still seemed to focus on a point beyond the wall.

“Katie, it’s raining something fierce out there. We can’t have you going out in that.”

“You got a husband?” she asked.

“He died.”

“Well, he wants me to go,” said Katie, her face drawn into a tight frown.

I won’t claim it wasn’t a strange thing to say. I was used to John being there, but I didn’t figure on anyone else noticing. I glanced at him, standing in the corner near the hall, watching it all. His eyes softened, looking at that forlorn little girl.

“Mr. Wills does not want you to go, and neither do I.” I rose and took the water off the stove and poured it into a mug with my special brew of leaves in the bottom. “Now you just drink