Speculation by Nisi Shawl

Author:Nisi Shawl [Shawl, Nisi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Published: 2022-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Somehow Winna made it through the rest of the week.

She checked to be sure the spectacles didn’t work anymore. They didn’t. Cousin Benny had wondered away their magic. When she looked through their lenses the world was plain and ordinary, even worse than she remembered. Like it was coated in dust, like a chalkboard cleaned with dirty erasers. And nothing she said made it any better. She couldn’t speculate them back to the way they were. The magic was over.

Winna missed Estelle. Even though she knew the ghost might be sitting right next to her in class, she couldn’t see her. Or anything else important. Anything that would help her save her mom.

Friday was the last day of school. Winna didn’t care.

On Saturday Aunt Pic drove her back to Grampa Carl’s and Gramma’s. Not home to Kalamazoo.

Not to the hospital.

Winna asked Aunt Pic if they could go there, but only one time, in the car, after she already knew what the answer would be. Aunt Pic had the windows rolled down and the radio way up, tuned to a Paw Paw station playing Ray Charles. “No, chicken,” she shouted, shaking her head. The wind rippled her bright orange headscarf. “Not today. You wait till you get settled in again at Daddy and Mama’s before you try takin a trip into town. Besides, the doctors don’t want Rachel seein anybody this weekend.”

Static drowned out “Georgia” when Aunt Pic swerved around the curve of the fluttery-flowered apple orchard just before Grampa Carl’s and Gramma’s driveway. “Why not?” asked Winna, but too softly for Aunt Pic to probably hear. Maybe not seeing her mom was punishment for letting Benny wreck the specs’ magic.

They pulled up by the front porch. Tupelo sat on the steps, sucking her fingers. She took them out to yell. “Gramma! Grampa Carl, they’re here!” Winna hugged her little sister without wiping her hand off first. At least nobody was sending them all the way to California. Yet.

Gramma wanted Aunt Pic to stay for supper, but she had to get back by the end of Benny’s practice. She had given Winna two of her old madras shirts that got shrunk to kid-sized in the wash. Winna followed Grampa Carl as he carried the suitcase in and put it on the hide-a-bed in the sewing room. It felt crowded and empty at the same time. All that stuff. No ghost. He looked at Winna watching him from the doorway. “So, bootnose, them specs still treatin you all right?”

“Noooo!” Winna wailed. Crying hard, she ran into his hug. “No — they — no, I let —” Not enough air to sob and say words at the same time.

“There, bootnose, you’re gonna be fine, now, fine and dandy.”

Grampa Carl’s overalls were new and stiff against her cheeks, turning softer where they got wet with her tears. His flannel shirt arms smelled like the beginning of night. For a while Winna couldn’t stop crying. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. How long could she act little like this?

But after a few minutes she slowed down some.

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