Waking Up Joy Read online

  “It needs a chimney sweep,” Carey said.

  I heard a throat clear and some uncomfortable silence, in which I could only hear the grandfather clock ticking. I didn’t know why Carey even said that. She knew nobody would ever let her clear the charms from the chimney.

  After a few seconds passed, the sounds of bustling started up again.

  “I can at least sweep out the hearth,” Ruthie said.

  I listened to the muffled voices, planning to hop out of bed and help Ruthie with the housework as soon as my sisters were gone, but I fell asleep before I heard the door click.

  Ruthie’s Diary: KEEP OUT!!!!!

  Dear Diary:

  I can’t believe we broke Aunt Joy out of the hospital today! Anyway, I overheard my mom and Aunt Joy talking about this charm thingy that Aunt Joy lost a long time ago and you will never believe this, but I think I know exactly where it is. It’s not in the chimney, but in a box, hidden in a secret compartment in the hearth.

  Anyway, all you do is push real hard and the heavy iron plate that says Talley twists around and it’s filled with what I like to call Talley Treasure, even though it’s not worth anything, according to Grandma. It’s just a bunch of old charms that only Grandma believed in, some pictures, a big old Bible that says Talley on it, and this weird wooden plaque that says “Talley Luck is Well-Treasured in this Home.” I don’t know why nobody else knows about the secret compartment, or why Grandma didn’t tell Aunt Joy she found her charm and put it in there, but I never told anyone because she told me not to. What makes me think the box is Aunt Joy’s were Grandma’s words when she showed it to me: “This one’s important, Ruthie,” she said in this cute voice that made me think of Thelma from Scooby Doo. “Don’t open it. She’ll come looking for it someday and want to get rid of it, but she needs to be the one.”

  Well, I think she came looking, Grandma Bess

  Ruthie

  Chapter Ten

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  “River, where’s Ruthie?” I was bleary-eyed from my long nap and having been woken up by a sound that I first mistook for a train. “I have no idea, but I’m gonna spank her bottom when we find her.”

  The sound grew louder, whining like bent metal in a movie race car pileup. The crackling radio announcer urged us to head for cover, now.

  “I bet she’s in the attic. Ruthie!”

  River lumbered up the stairs in front of me. The kids had this playroom attached to the attic, the same one we had all played in as kids. It was full of what the kids always called secret hiding places with its shelves of old knick-knacks, built-ins, and a closet connecting to the attic. Ruthie liked to read up there, and, as I knew, write in her diary. I reached the attic just as River swung open one of the low so-called secret doors that led into a storage area. It was where we hid when we were kids, and unbeknownst to Ruthie, where we knew she hid too. She tumbled out, landing at River’s dusty boots, her diary landing on the floor beside her. She hastily grabbed it.

  “What’s that sound?”

  The house shook. River scooped her up and set her on her wobbly feet.

  “Tornado,” I explained, spinning around to run back downstairs.

  “Come, now. Basement!” It was the safest place, with its maze of rooms and more hidden spaces. River caught up and grabbed my hand. Ruthie and I followed like ragdolls, flopping around the corner and jerking to a stop at the door to the basement. River fumbled with a skeleton key that he grabbed from a nail behind a picture frame. It wasn’t safe down there, and we never let the kids explore. Most people didn’t even have full basements in Spavinaw Junction, due to flooding risks, but the Talleys who built our house didn’t care about that. They wanted the basement anyway.

  Ruthie froze. The girl wasn’t budging.

  “Quick!”

  Later, Ruthie would say I resembled a scarecrow in the wind the way I was flapping my arms around trying to get her to go through the door. Outside, the twister roared.

  “River!”

  He urged; well, honestly, shoved us into the stairwell. I tripped before finding the spiraling stairs beneath my feet. I grabbed the wall for balance, feeling the bricks of the fireplace beneath my hand. Ruthie landed in a heap on top of me. Her arms found mine and we clung. It was so dark, I didn’t even know where to go, but River grabbed my elbow, pulling us deeper into the damp-smelling basement. Eventually, we stopped.

  There was a click and dim light stretched around us from a single bulb. River let go of a little chain that dangled in the center of the room and we were in a space about the size of my sewing room. Shelves overflowed with papers and books, old couches swelled with an assortment of pillows and tattered quilts, and yellowed sheets covered furniture I identified by shape and size, all except for a few shapes that gave me more shivers. I hadn’t been in there in a while and I was filled with a sense of nostalgia that made me dizzy. I had snuck down there with Jimmy to hide from Momma, but that didn’t change the creepy factor.

  “We’ll be fine back here.” River gently pushed Ruthie toward an old straight back chair, his hands on either side of her shoulders. He ordered her to sit, and then tried helping me over to an old couch. I slapped at him.

  “Do I look like a child, River?”

  “Sort of,” he smirked. “You shrunk in that coma.”

  “Aunt Joy, he’s just teasing. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, honey.”

  But I didn’t feel fine at all. I looked at Ruthie, my young twin only with her brown hair, and knew I probably looked as bad as her. She looked like she’d seen a ghost, a possibility one shouldn’t quickly dismiss when it comes to the Talleys. I motioned her to move to the couch and squeezed her to my side, as much to calm my shaky breath as hers. I hated tornadoes.

  “Sorry.” River cast me a sympathetic look. He placed a kiss on the top of my head and one on top of Ruthie’s.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad you showed up when you did.”

  “Don’t be afraid.” River sat opposite of us, in an old rocking chair. “No tornado has ever hit the house, but we have to be safe, just in case.”

  Ruthie nodded. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Home.”

  I tried to ease the tension. “Makes me feel sort of like Dorothy!”

  River stood and paced. “Man, I hope it goes around us.”

  “Is it big?” Ruthie asked.

  He nodded, stretched his arms wide and swirled them in a circle. “It was cutting across the pasture a couple of miles off, headed this way. The lightning lit it up or I might not have seen. Course, we heard it. You didn’t hear it?”

  “No. I was too busy I guess.” She studied her lap, and for a minute she reminded me of the time she lied to me about who got into the chocolate, even though it was smeared all over her little kindergartner face. I knew she must have been writing in her diary—probably something about a boy.

  “I just thought it was a train whistle,” Ruthie said.

  River fumbled in a drawer and produced a couple of modern looking flashlights that worked. “Momma always had me keep a few supplies down here, just in case.”

  It was quieter in the basement, which was deeper than most basements. We were silent for a long time, alone with our thoughts, as they say. I stared toward a bookshelf that I knew was a door, another strange thing about our home. Since both Momma and Daddy were gone, I didn’t know if we would ever know the complete history of our house, but at least they had shared a little. Now I understood why people say they wish they’d listened to their relatives more before they passed. Momma had so many silly stories. We mostly just humored her. We seldom really listened.

  “This house is so weird,” Ruthie said. “Have you all ever thought about having someone write an article about it for a magazine?”

  “That’s not really a Talley thing to do,” River said.

  “Well, don’t you ever wonder why they built it like this?” Ruthie asked.

  River shrugged. “Us kids were always kind
of embarrassed about it—and all those charms. Didn’t want to be made fun of, I reckon.”

  “There were rumors that outlaws stayed here,” I said. This made Ruthie’s eyes light up. I was glad for the chance to distract her from the roaring above the house. “There are even rumors that some Talleys were on the wrong side of the law back in the day, but those might have just been stories.”

  The outlaw story was one that Daddy used to tell, partly to thrill us, partly because some of it was true. He said that when the Talleys built the house, they incorporated enough space downstairs that a person, or whole family, could actually hide for an indefinite period of time. There was even access to a well if one had to hide down there for a long time, and if anyone was brave enough to trust the building skills of the Talleys, who designed this place, a fireplace with its own flue that shared a chimney with the one directly above. Of course, considering the amount of missing mortar in the unlined chimney and the fact the crown on top was missing, you can see why none of us were brave enough to use the fireplaces anymore.

  “Momma didn’t agree with the outlaw story,” I said. “She said the secret rooms and passages downstairs, the spaces in the walls, were accessible due to a fear the Talleys had of being accused of witchcraft.”

  “Which part do you believe?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I like both.”

  “How come I’ve never heard those stories?”

  “Oh, maybe because, like River said. Us kids were embarrassed when people mentioned it. You know how it is. Parents can be so embarrassing.”

  She laughed. The talking to distract her seemed to be working.

  “By the way, what were you doing, Ruthie, that kept you from realizing there was a tornado out there?”

  “I . . . I was . . . just . . .”

  There was a huge crash that shook the very foundations of the house. And believe me, I would know, because we were sitting on them. The lights went out.

  River grabbed and pulled me into a corner while pulling Ruthie with his free arm. We ducked while dust fell from the ceiling and various things crashed around us in the dark shadows of the basement. The three of us crouched there for a few minutes until the vibrating was gone. Then, everything was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. River clicked his flashlight on. I did the same.

  “What was that?” Ruthie and I spoke in unison.

  “You girls stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Uncle River, no!” Poor Ruthie was scared again.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told her, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that after what I’d been through lately, I didn’t have confidence in everything being okay.

  We sat there in the corner, holding hands and unable to see anything beyond the glow of my flashlight, the only sounds were water trickling from somewhere and a scritch-scratch from the next room. According to the minute hand on Ruthie’s unicorn-faced wrist watch, it had only been four minutes. The scritch-scratching grew louder.

  “Okay, Ruthie. What would Nancy Drew do?”

  “Investigate,” she said.

  Grabbing Ruthie’s hand, I pulled her with me a few steps. My knees felt tight.

  Scritch-scratch.

  A few more.

  “River?” My voice bounced back.

  Scritch-scratch.

  A few more steps and then the scratching grew frantic.

  “What is that?” I cocked my head toward the sound. A screech penetrated the room as a ball of fur flew towards us, smacking me in the chest and sticking to my shirt.

  “Ouch!” Ignoring the pain, I laughed, digging my fingers into the ball and holding it out, my shirt still sticking to it.

  “Lucky!”

  I passed him to Ruthie, who hugged him tight, until he wriggled away and darted through another door.

  “Lucky, come back.” Ruthie followed.

  “Ruthie, wait!” I hurried after her. Heavens knew what could be waiting.

  Together we followed Lucky into a hallway. We hesitated outside the orb cast on the floor by our lone flashlight, wondering what unknown horrors lay outside the light’s boundaries.

  “Where’s Uncle River?”

  I swung the flashlight beam around, searching the corners and walls until I shined the light on a large hole in the ceiling. I angled the light down until I saw Lucky, his eyes sparkling in the flashlight beam, perched atop a pile of bricks. Ruthie moved to pick him up.

  “There you are, you silly kitty.”

  I grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” I said. “We don’t know if it’s safe to barge over there.”

  Lucky disappeared up through the hole in the ceiling. That’s when I noticed the dust hanging in the room around us, the particles glowing in the light.

  “Oh my gosh!”

  I turned to Ruthie, who was as frozen as the mannequins on display at JC Penney. Not that we had JC Penney in Spavinaw Junction, but I liked to take Ruthie there when we went over the Oklahoma state line to shop in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. My eyes traveled back to the hole in the ceiling, just as a brick fell through it. The chimney had collapsed into the basement, while the house stood still. It seemed a miracle.

  Goosebumps raised along my forearms.

  We ducked as a shower of dust that billowed into the air around us and then hung there, luminous.

  “River?” I coughed out, the dust thick in the back of my throat, but the only response was my voice echoing off the brick walls around us. I moved forward, stepping gingerly toward the pile.

  What if River was in that pile?

  “Aunt Joy, wait.” But I’d already stopped at the edge of the rubble.

  “Joy?” River’s voice carried to us from somewhere in the basement. Thank God.

  “River?”

  “Stay right there,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  I surveyed the pile in front of me, calmer now that I knew River was okay.

  “Look at all this stuff,” Ruthie said.

  “Oh. My. Holy. Word. Momma would be so upset.”

  Before us mixed in the heap of mess before us was not only a pile of bricks, but in the pockets between the bricks and strewn on the floor around us were oodles and oodles of Talley luck charms, undoubtedly placed in the chimney by our dead ancestors: knotted ropes, tiny wooden carvings, little books splayed open, their spines split, blue and green colored stones, animal bones, feathers, and all sorts of talismen attached to lengths of cracked, rotting leather. I think my heart skipped about eleven beats. I don’t know if it’s medically possible, but I swear, my heart stopped beating and then, I panicked.

  “My charm.” Jimmy and I had made the charm to protect us. Now, it was in this mixed up rubble somewhere.

  “Aunt Joy?” Ruthie lay her hand on my forearm. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” And I was; just surprised. It’s not that I thought that silly charm could really keep someone out of jail, although come to think of it, maybe it had.

  I didn’t turn away from the pile as River ran in, his feet padding heavily behind us and sliding to a stop, not unlike Fred in Scooby Doo, his flashlight beam sweeping around the room.

  “Holy cow.”

  He let out a long whistle and moved closer to the crumbled chimney.

  “Now I’ll never find it.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  “Find what?” River.

  I shook my head. “Never mind. Can we get out of here now?” I just wanted to get away.

  Chapter Eleven

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  It was unbelievable how the chimney had collapsed, almost as if it was on purpose.

  In the daylight that streamed through the main floor windows, I gazed up at the rip in the ceiling and stepped closer to the gaping hole in the floor, pressing against the arm Rory put in front of me.

  “Careful.”

  The dust had settled and the debris cleared, exposing the gaping hole where the fireplace used to be like a wound in the middle of the house. My stomach swirle
d a little. I didn’t know if I was relieved to know the charm would be hidden for good, or disappointed. Somehow, always having it hidden in the chimney within arm’s reach had been comforting. It was as if I had control over the decision. Now, nobody did.

  “It’s such a shame,” I said. “So many years of keepsakes placed in here by so many people.”

  “We’re calling Momma’s charms keepsakes now?” Rory asked. “I’m glad they’re gone. They probably weren’t even lucky.”

  “Are you sure?” River teased. “Why didn’t the tornado take out the whole house instead of spreading those charms all over the place? They’re everywhere. I even saw some of them hanging on the roof of the barn.”

  “Strange,” Rory agreed. The boys shook their heads in unison. I swear, sometimes they are just like twins.

  “I’ve seen some tornado damage in these here parts,” River said. “But never seen it shove a chimney down into the ground and leave the house still standing. Usually, it’s the other way around—a chimney without a house.” He indicated the holes in the living room floor and ceiling. “Know how much that’s all gonna cost?”

  I frowned. “More than we have, that’s for sure. Blasted luck charms. See? Not lucky at all.”

  Reaching for a board sticking out of the bit of rubble that was left, I held up an ancient looking wooden sign.

  “Where’d this come from?” I’d never seen it before, and I’d done my share of exploring the things propped on the lower shelves of the chimney.

  “Must’ve been way up in the chimney,” River said.

  “Talley Luck is Well-Treasured in this Home.” Rory raised his eyebrows as he read.

  I ran my hand over its carved surface. It looked ancient. “I wonder why Momma never hung this up.”

  “Probably didn’t know about it.”

  “Or because it was ugly.”

  “We’ll save it; put it on the mantle of the new chimney,” Rory said. “It’s like that word. Iconic?”

  “Ironic, you dingle-berry.” River punched Rory’s arm.