Free Tattler's Branch by Jan Watson Page A

Just for a minute she’d close her eyes.
    Something baleful snuck into her carousel of memory   —the dark horse she would never choose to ride. Aunt Orie was dead. Oh, oh. Did she have to grieve that all over again?
    She’d met Doc Lilly because of Aunt Orie. They’d tried everything to save her aunt   —all that modern medicine had to offer. But in the end, she’d died anyway. You couldn’t deny death, that cold reaper, his due for any length of time. She lifted her hand to cover her eyes. That was done. Dead and buried, she didn’t have to go there again. So . . . if that was past, and the carousel was past, where was she now?
    “You’re awake,” a woman said. “Do you want to try a bite of supper? I’ve made milk toast.”
    The woman set a bowl and spoon on the bedside table. Before Armina could think how to answer, the woman hauled her up and stuffed pillows behind her back. Did she have no say-so in the matter?
    “Who’re you?” Armina asked.
    “I’m Hannah, your nurse,” she said like she had a right to be hauling Armina around, like she did this all the time.
    Nurse? So she was in the old folks’ home. Or purgatory   —they were both the same. How old was she anyway? She held her hand up again, this time checking for liver spots. The nurse slipped a spoon into it.
    Armina flung the spoon across the room. She wasn’t eating milk toast. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She had teeth, so she wasn’t that old. She wanted corn bread and maybe some fried chicken and then blackberry cobbler.
    Her mind snatched her backward to a dark place   —dark and green and whirling, like the sky before a bad storm. Blackberry fronds snagged her legs and trapped her arms in a thorny vise. Rabbits, as big as hound dogs, hopped among the briars. “Run,” one said, its mouth twitching fearfully. “Run, rabbit, run.”
    Her struggle was to no avail as the vines tightened around her ankles and wrists. She was trapped.
    “Armina, dear,” the biggest rabbit crooned in a familiar voice. “Lie still.”
    A clink of metal against her teeth and the rabbit said, “Here, this will make you feel better.”
    Bitter-tasting medicine flowed from a spoon. Armina turned her head. The rabbit pinched her nose. She had to swallow.
    Tension flowed from her body like bathwater down a drain. The rabbits munched blossoms of white clover. The blackberry vines offered up their fruit. Her sycamore walking stick felt good and sturdy in her hand. Down by the bridge, two women talked quietly.
    “Loose the bonds in fifteen minutes,” one said. “She’ll be placid for a while.”
    “I will. I’m sorry, Doctor. There’s milk toast everywhere. I thought she was better.”
    “I’ll help you clean up.”
    “No, please. I’ll get it. You have better things to do.”
    Better things to do   —better things to do. Armina had better things to do. With fitful blasts of tinny calliope music, the carousel jerked to life behind her. In a rush she mounted the white horse with the yellow mane. Her steed rose and fell gracefully. Pink cotton candy melted on her tongue. This was a good place. She’d stay here for a while.

    Supper was on the kitchen table when Lilly crossed the road from Armina’s house. Sandwiches, thick with cheddar cheese and ham on Tillie Tippen’s sourdough bread, graced white ironstone plates.
    “There are bread-and-butter pickles to go with,” Mazy said, popping one of the treats into her mouth. “Crunchy and sweet. Yum.”
    Kip sat expectantly in Lilly’s chair. He hadn’t dared to breach her plate, though a thin bit of drool trickled down his chin.
    Lilly snapped her fingers, then pointed to the floor. “Kipper!”
    The little terrier turned mournful eyes on her before hejumped down. Lilly took a saucer from a stack reserved for Kip, cut a corner from her sandwich, and put it on the floor.
    “We should get Kip a high chair,” Mazy said when they had finished saying grace.
    “And