Free A Misty Mourning by Rett MacPherson

closer look. The heels of her shoes sank into the sodden grass as she did so.
    â€œThat’s Norville Gross,” I said to Sheriff Justice, hoping he’d forgotten about what my grandmother had just blurted out. My head was a tad swimmy and I thought I’d lose my dinner as the realization sunk in that here was another dead body. And he wasn’t as peaceful-looking as Clarissa.
    â€œWhat do you think happened to him?” Gert asked.
    â€œLooks like a panther got a hold of him, or something,” Sheriff Justice answered.
    The only phrase spoken after that was a definite expression of disgust from our resident hormone-infested teenager. “Oh, gross.”

Ten
    I awoke the next morning to find my grandmother sitting on the foot of my bed completely dressed, including wearing a hat and holding her purse. At first I thought I was dreaming so I really didn’t react. Then I realized that she was sitting on my foot and I couldn’t move it, and alas, I knew I was not dreaming.
    Groggily, I leaned up on one elbow and rubbed my eyes. I looked over at the travel alarm clock I had packed that was now next to the lamp on the nightstand. It said 7:15 A.M.
    â€œIt’s about time you woke up,” she said.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œI’m sitting here waiting for you to wake up.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause it’s Sunday and you’re taking me out for breakfast and then I want you to take me to church. The one that I went to as a kid,” she said.
    â€œThere is water covering the road,” I said.
    â€œIt’s gone. Sometime in the middle of the night it receded enough that you can drive on the road now. By noon the river will probably be back within its normal banks,” she said. “We’d get this two or three times a year when I lived here.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked.
    â€œBecause the river takes a sharp turn south of here and narrows like a bottleneck. And because just one or two miles north of here the water comes down off the mountain, just gushing,” she explained. “It gets all backed up in that bottleneck. Services should start about nine.”
    There was no segue most of the time when she spoke. She just said one thing about one subject and then something else about another subject. It was a good thing that I was used to it.
    â€œWell, I guess I should get dressed,” I said. “As soon as you get off my foot.”
    Gert rushed me around like I was late for school or something so I was completely ready in twenty-five minutes flat. Shower, seven minutes. Makeup, five minutes. Brushing teeth, two minutes. When it came to getting dressed, though, she allowed me a whole ten minutes.
    I was a little perturbed, however, because I’d worn my good dress yesterday, not knowing we would be attending church today. My grandmother squirted perfume on it and shook it outside in the breeze and told me it would be fine to wear again, as long as I wore different panty hose. I didn’t argue with her.
    A little while later we drove over the mountain Gert had referred to when telling me about the flash flooding. We then descended the other side and drove around the base of another mountain. Then the road seemed to part the mountains, and there below us, sprinkled along the valley and the next hill, was the town of Panther Run.
    There was one main street with a hanging stoplight and three fairly major cross streets. It was quaint, like a movie set, as if only the fronts of the buildings were painted and perfect and hiding behind them were dirt-poor residents with leaky roofs and yards with no grass.
    â€œThat’s it. That’s the church,” she said and pointed to the left on top of the hill. A white church with a pointy steeple sat proudlysurrounded by lush green trees, keeping watch over the town below it.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Where do you want to eat?”
    â€œLet’s eat at Bucky’s. Up here