"No, Maw! Don't leave—wait for me!" I screamed, plunging from bed and racing wildly after her receding back.
I regained consciousness to find Aunt Ellen bathing my forehead with hot vinegar. Annette was sobbing. My face was badly cut—I still wear the scar—and the mirror was shattered in its frame.
"Maw!" I struggled to get up. "She...."
"I know," said Aunt Ellen in just the thread of a voice unused for years as her plump white hands continued to apply the compress. "I understand."
When Uncle Bill arrived next morning there was a great to-do and the neighbors organized a search of the surrounding woods and the creek bottom. Of course they found nothing. I knew they wouldn't. Annette and Aunt Ellen knew they wouldn't. And I think Uncle Bill knew it too after he heard my story, although of course he wouldn't let on.
The rest of them patted my head and said, "Too bad, poor boy. He's under an awful strain," when I tried to tell them.
Several months later a woman's body was found in White River, full fifteen miles away. People said it must be grandmother, that she must have wandered that far before she died of exposure. Our aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews had a big funeral at the New Harmony Church over the hill.
But Annette and I wouldn't go.