Free The Secret Sense of Wildflower by Susan Gabriel Page B

place I go.” Although I’m convinced she knows exactly where I’m going and that’s the whole point of asking me. She just wants me to say it. It is the anniversary of Daddy’s accident and I’ve been thinking about it all morning. Even if everybody else acts like they’ve forgotten him, nothing can keep me from going to the graveyard today to pay my respects.
    “I’m going to the river,” I say, which is a lie. Then I’m down the path before she can stop me.
    “Be careful,” she yells after me, like she used to say to Daddy every morning he left for the sawmill.
    “I will,” I yell back, which was always Daddy’s answer, too.
    Leaves from the poplar trees dot the ground like stars. The poplars are the first to know that fall is coming and the first to drop their leaves. Winter will follow, a hard time in the mountains. Visiting the outhouse with a foot of snow on the ground isn’t something anybody looks forward to.
    At the crossroads I look out for Johnny, but he isn’t around. Daniel’s talk must have worked. I take my shortcut, complete with ritual to cross the stream, and minutes later enter the gate in the back of the graveyard. The more I come this way the faster it takes. As I close the gate, my fingers tingle with the electricity of the secret sense. For several seconds I stand without moving, wondering if this means I should turn back.
    But it’s the anniversary, I say to myself, Daddy would want me to be with him. I convince myself to keep going.
    When I approach his marker something looks different. The knot in my gut twists tighter, a tingling premonition that something isn’t right. Then I see it. A Mason jar, full of clear liquid, lies next to one of the tree roots. The grass is torn up like somebody has stomped around on the grave. I walk closer, feeling like the ground might cave in under me. Daddy’s tombstone is streaked with a brown, muddy slash from one end to the other. An empty can is tossed a few feet away on the ground.
    I kick the peach can down the hill with all my might. “I hate you, Johnny Monroe!” I yell. A faint echo bounces off a nearby hill.
    Tobacco juice spews out in wide, brown arches as the can thumps end over end down the hill toward the river. My anger comes out in tears, which makes me even madder. I yank a handful of willow leaves from the branch closest to me and scrub the stinking tobacco juice off of my father’s name. The leaves are too small to do the job so I run up the hill and get poplar and maple leaves which are bigger. After spitting on the leaves, I frantically rub at the brown juice on Daddy’s marker. My knuckles get bruised and bloodied against the stone. I can’t believe that even Johnny Monroe would do such a vile thing to the memory of a dead person.
    Tears blur my vision as I pick up the Mason jar from the ground and open it. A repulsive stink spreads, worse than any skunk. Moonshine. The same stuff some of the men from the mill passed around behind the church, after Jo and Daniel’s wedding. My face grows hot as I imagine Johnny Monroe spitting tobacco juice on Daddy’s grave. Careful not to touch where Johnny Monroe’s mouth has been, I throw the jar into the woods.
    Revenge fills my mind. Revenge I can’t act on. Daniel must have made Johnny really mad and he wants me to know it. Telling Daniel again might make Johnny do something even worse, like come after me or Meg or one of my family. If he’s willing to defile the final resting place of a good man who was kind to him, I know now that there is nothing so low that Johnny Monroe wouldn’t do.
    Since it’s the anniversary of when everything in my life changed, my tender memories feel all exposed.
    “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I say. “It’s all my fault.”
    I wrap my arms around his marker, touching my cheek to the rough stone. It smells of crushed leaves mixed with tobacco and it feels cool to my touch, even in the noonday sun. The coolness reminds me of the day he died. His