Touching Pitch

Lydia’s little sister, Calliope, was living proof that while you could march a girl to church fifty two times a year, you couldn’t make a saint out of her, not with all the leather in the world. And they had certainly tried.

“Don’t spit, Calliope.”

The girl frowned and stuck her tongue out. Lydia felt her blood heat up. A hocking noise. A wet wad of spittle landed unceremoniously on the dirt floor of the barn.

“What you gonna do, hit me?” Calliope bared two rows of little square teeth. “You ain’t nothing but a bitch, Lydia.”

Lydia hit her hard across the cheek, watching her porcelain-doll’s face wrinkle in hurt. Calliope took off, scampering up into the rafters. Serves her right, Lydia thought.

“I had to do that,” Lydia called after her. She’d hit her harder than she’d meant to. Guilt prickled, but she let it blossom into a rich anger, which was easier on the stomach. “You hear me, Calliope? I had to. He that toucheth pitch, remember?”

No response. Calliope had dug herself into one of the corners of the rafters, out of sight, burrowed like a scared vermin. There was no way out but down, though Lydia knew her sister wasn’t looking for a way out. She would stay there, pouting, until Lydia traipsed up that rickety ladder.

“I ain’t coming up this time,” Lydia said defiantly, slamming her heel.

Storm fronts were rolling in fast and she could smell the clean scent of rain wafting in and purifying the manure stink. Outside, the air was growing cool, but inside the barn it was hot and thick. That was the way of the barn. It held onto warmth, the same way it held onto cold. No matter what you gave it, it didn’t want to let go. Walking into it was like walking into yesterday.

“Calliope, come down now.” Not a sound. Her sister was quieter than the mice. “Calliope if you don’t come down, you’ll get it again, I tell you. If we come home wet, Mama’ll be mad as anything. You want that, Calliope? You wanna make Mama mad?”

The old mule, Paris, gave a shudder and tugged nervously at his hitch. Lydia heard the thunder far off, like her mother clearing her throat in the other room. It sounded like a warning. A draft came through, turning the sweat on her back into frigid little droplets. “Calliope, I swear on the almighty, you come down this instant or I’m gonna burn this barn down around you.”

The rungs of the old ladder creaked under her boots and she said a quick prayer for the wood to hold. Her sister was hunched in the corner, by the window, its glass long broken out. The cold wind was stronger in the rafters. She shivered. She could see their house lit up against the sky; a soft glow in a dirty silver pan.

The barn was dark now, but still full of shadows. “Calliope,” she said and the girl finally turned around, her pale skin showing in between the freckles like an inverted night sky. She glowered, and Lydia felt suddenly frightened up there, in the dark. But then her sister’s glare wilted and she turned away.

Lightning lit the sky in a silent fury. The rafters flooded with white light.

“Why you rotten little thief!” Lydia shrieked.

Calliope’s hands dove under the straw like a rabbit dodging a hawk.

“I saw it, Calliope,” Lydia said, shoving her sister aside. She fumbled in the dark straw until her hand closed on the metal.

“Papa was looking for his watch all day.”

“Give it back,” Calliope whined.

“It ain’t yours.”

“It ain’t yours, either.”

“It’s Papa’s watch,” Lydia said.

Calliope snatched for it, but Lydia pulled it safely out of reach.

“I’ll give it back when I’m done,” the girl insisted.

Lydia regarded her. The beating the girl would get for this would be fearsome. Serves her right though, she thought. Making me scold her and chase after her. Ungrateful little imp. But still, when she looked at her sister’s delicate face and thought of their Papa’s red-hot fury, she felt an ache in her throat.

“What do you mean ‘when you’re done’?”

Calliope looked at her with grim determination. Her red hair stood up from the water and the electricity in the air. “I’m gonna leave and come back,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” Lydia sneered. “And what you need a watch for? Catchin’ that train they never built?”

“I don’t need no train. I’ll take Paris. I’m his favorite, anyway.”

“You gonna leave on a mule with not but a watch and what, a piece of bread? Goin’ where? You gonna go find some Indians and join their tribe? You think they’ll put up with your laziness more than Mama and Papa? Them Indians’ll work you to the bone, Calliope. Mark my words.”

“You ain’t never seen no Indians.”

“I don’t need to,” Lydia said. “I heard stories and I tell you, it ain’t no dance with them.”

“Well that’s not where I’m going, anyway,” Calliope glared.

“Where you going?”

“I’m gonna go live in the woods with Paris until I get bigger, then I’m gonna go to the city and get rich and buy whatever I want. And when I’m good and ready, then I’ll come back.”

Lydia chuckled. “How you know Mama won’t be dead by then? Paris, too?”

Calliope grinned. The lightning lit up her face, all pinched with mischief. “Nobody’ll get any older but me,” she grinned.

For a moment, Lydia imagined what life would be like if she let her sister run off. She was downright useless as far as work went. Spent more time sneaking off to the creek and braiding Paris’ scraggly mane than doing anything that needed doing. Mama always said that rather than having Calliope she ought to have just dug a hole in the ground and thrown three hot meals a day into it.

“And how you plan on doing that?” Lydia teased. “Breathing twice as fast?”

It had always been on Lydia to do the work of two, and so when it came to her sister, she had half the patience she figured she might’ve had, otherwise. Fair was fair. It was a ratio, and Papa taught her ratios were Heaven’s way of keeping house. Twice the rain equaled three times the yield. And if you wronged someone, you were sinning against not only them, but Heaven and yourself, too. That’s why their punishments were so fierce, Papa said. They had a ratio to balance. Papa knew ‘em all, but Lydia knew enough to know that there wasn’t a one that allowed for what her sister was talking about.

“I’m gonna bury Papa’s watch when it stops running,” Calliope said. “Bury it right under the barn and, when I come back, I’ll wind it up and start everything a-running again.”

Lydia stared at her sister, then cocked her head back and laughed the meanest laugh she could muster.

“Shut it,” Calliope said darkly, her face an oil spill of wounded pride.

“You think that when Papa’s watch stops running we’re all just gonna freeze like statues?” Lydia asked, wiping away tears. “Let’s just say that were to happen, which it won’t, why on Earth would you and Paris not be frozen, too?”

“Because we’ll be far away from here,” Calliope spat, but Lydia could hear the flicker of doubt in her voice.

“If Mama ever heard you say something as stupid as that, she’d make you sleep out with the pigs.”

“What Mama don’t know about the world and what you don’t either is a whole lot,” Calliope fumed. “You act like you’re so old and wise, but you don’t know shit, Lydia.”

“Calliope don’t you use words like that or I’ll hit you again.”

“Then go on and hit me. Get your last one in, because I’ll be gone by morning.”

“Good luck getting Paris to walk out in a storm with you.”

“Paris will go anywhere with me. You’re just mad that he likes me better.”

“He just likes his own kind,” Lydia taunted. The rain pattered on the roof. In places, it dripped through the cracks, making a soft ticking sound as it struck the tools.

And then Calliope did something unexpected. Her shoulders fell below her neck and she began to cry, unabashedly. It made Lydia a bit uncomfortable to realize that the sight of her sister crying pleased her. Like when it rained so hard, they couldn’t walk the road to church, and she had smiled. A pleasure that she knew was actually a sin all wrapped up in soft cotton.

Lydia suddenly felt alone in the rafters. It was frightfully dark, and the storm was gathering strength, looming on the horizon like a vengeful army. She wondered why neither of their parents had come looking for them yet.

“Don’t cry, Calliope.”

“I said stop that.”

Lydia shivered again. The wind brought cold mists through the window and the water pinned her sleeves to her arms, binding her to the storm. She could barely see her own feet. She would have to wait for the flashes of lightning just to see her way out.

“Come on, Calliope, we gotta get home. Watch or no watch, that storm ain’t waiting for no one.”

Calliope sat down in the straw and wailed as loud as the thunder. Lightning flashed all around in vivid, white columns. Paris whined and stamped like mad and the rhythm of the rain drops tinking on the metal intensified. The barn creaked and moaned in the wind. Lydia realized that if Heaven brought it all down upon Calliope, the righteous and the sinner would share a grave.

“Calliope if you come now, I won’t tell them, I swear. I’ll say I found it out in the fields. You hear me? I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble.”

“No,” Calliope sobbed. “Then he’ll just wind it up and it’ll be the same as always.”

“Is always so bad?” Lydia asked, feeling guilt ripple through her again. “Don’t I always fix your breakfast? And always read to you at night? Don’t I always wash your dress for you when you get it dirty? Who’s gonna do all that for you out there? Paris?”

Calliope sniffled. “I won’t need nobody.”

Lydia looked out at the spears of lightning that were thrusting into the ground just beyond their house. The rain was picking up again, coming in sheets, and she could see her breath.

“Calliope, if I let you keep the watch here in the barn, will you wait to runaway until this storm passes?”

Calliope looked at her, searching her face for signs of truth.

Lydia offered the watch to her sister. Calliope rubbed its face with her thumb and held it to her ear. “It stopped,” she said in a shocked voice.

“Then waiting a bit ain’t gonna do no harm, right? You coming, Calliope?”

Calliope stowed the watch in the straw and offered her small hand to her big sister.

Lydia reached out and pulled her close, shepherding her down the ladder.

“Take off your dress and give it to me,” Lydia said and wrapped their boots and dresses in an old saddle blanket. She tried not to think of all the sins she must’ve gotten herself tangled up in.

“Now, run,” shrieked Lydia, and the two girls took off across the grass, their bare feet slapping the ground quicker than the rain and painting their bare legs brown with mud.