Julia and the Art of Practical Travel by Lesley M. M. Blume

Author:Lesley M. M. Blume [Blume, Lesley M. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-75284-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

Second of all: Madame looked nothing like the phony voodoo queens who’d rooked Aunt Constance out of all that money. Instead, she wore a housedress with little flowers on it and had bare feet and smelled like lilies of the valley. She had a big gold front tooth and once in a while it glinted in the sunshine. I told her that it was the nicest tooth I’d ever seen. Her laugh was like a booming cannon and she let me stick my pinky finger in her green drink, which tasted like licorice.

Then it was time to get down to business.

Do you have anything of Rosemary’s that I can hold for a moment? Madame asked Aunt Constance.

Aunt Constance pulled out the pearls-and-lily picture of my mother.

Will this do? she asked.

Madame held the photo with both hands, closed her eyes for a minute, and then handed it back to Aunt Constance. Then we followed her into a little room inside the house, and in that room were all sorts of jars of dried herbs and things hanging from wall shelves, including animal heads and various claws. In the middle of the room stood a cutting-board table like the one Grandmother and Aunt Constance used at Windy Ridge to truss up turkeys and chickens for dinner.

Bring me a chicken, called out Madame, and a moment later a young girl who’d been working in the kitchen scurried into the room, holding a live chicken by the legs.

Madame took the chicken and put it on the board, and before we even knew what was happening, she picked up a big, shiny butcher knife and lopped off the chicken’s head. Aunt Constance let out a scream and the headless chicken still kicked around for a minute. Mrs. Foxworth just quietly sipped her green drink and didn’t say anything, as if this was the most casual thing in the world. And I stood there wishing that Belfry was here to see this, because I knew that when I told him about it someday, he’d probably say that I was fibbing because no one back at home invited you over for refreshments and then lopped off the head of a chicken in front of you. Aunt Constance saw me pointing my camera at the headless chicken and she rushed over to me.

Don’t you dare photograph that, she exclaimed. Go and wait for me on the front porch.

I want to see what happens, I protested, but she shoveled me out of the room before I could see anything else. Of course I hovered on the other side of the door and listened. I don’t know what Madame did with that headless chicken, but this is what she said a few minutes later to Aunt Constance:

Rosemary Elizabeth Lancaster was indeed here in this town, but the spirits tell me that she left some weeks ago. Like the early adventurers determined to discover the soul of this country and discover the secrets of their own souls at the same time, Rosemary has gone out west.

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