Read Online The Secret Sense of Wildflower by Susan Gabriel - Free Book Online Page A

the kitchen where Jo is frying okra on the stove and fanning herself with a folded up copy of the Rocky Bluff newspaper.
    “I’m going to take a walk with the girls,” Daniel says to Jo.
    “That’s fine,” she says, looking radiant even while sweating.
    Daniel put his arms around Jo, pats her stomach, and then kisses her on the cheek. Mary Jane smiles as though Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have just started dancing in the kitchen. I roll my eyes and hope Mary Jane doesn’t come down with the swoons like Meg. Then I’ll be the only one left with any sense.
    We leave the house with Daniel and when we get to the crossroads, Johnny is nowhere to be seen. For a few seconds I’m disappointed that I won’t get to witness a showdown between Daniel and Johnny. It’s not like Johnny to have the good sense to leave after saying the things he did.
    “Let’s pay a visit to his house,” Daniel says.
    I’ve never set foot near Johnny’s house but Daniel seems to know where it is. We follow the main road another hundred yards and then take a narrow path through the woods littered with trash and broken liquor bottles. Kudzu vines cover the trees making a shroud of shade. We walk deeper and deeper into the woods and I start to remember every fairy tale I’ve ever read where people get lost in the woods and thrown into ovens or eaten by wolves. When we finally reach the Monroe’s house, it isn’t even a house, but more like a shack.
    As we approach, Daniel calls out, “Is anybody home?”
    I can’t imagine living anywhere so small and dirty. This house makes ours look like a mansion. A stand of hardwoods surround the shack and make it look even smaller. An oak stands close to the house. One that’s young enough that its lower branches can still be climbed. I think of Ruby and imagine the scene I heard Amy and Mama describe in the kitchen a few weeks before. A shudder crawls up my spine.
    A crooked porch is attached to the cabin and one of the steps is missing. Wads of yellowed newspaper fill cracks between the boards of the shack. A faded, torn curtain moves from behind the window. Pieces of a face appear: an eye, a cheek. The door opens slowly and catches on a swollen floorboard. The girl peers out.
    “Hello, Miss Melody,” Daniel says.
    “Hello, Mr. Daniel,” she says, her words soft. Warily, the girl steps outside, her skin so white it appears to have never seen the sun. Her gaze briefly rests on me and Mary Jane before flitting off like a butterfly lifting from a flower. She brushes a few pieces of stringy hair with her hand, as if her unexpected company warrants a better appearance.
    “We’re looking for your brother,” Daniel says to her.
    “Oh,” she says. Her eyes shift from left to right and then back to center as if danger could be lurking anywhere.
    The look in Melody’s eyes reminds me of something I’ve seen before. The cries of the trapped fox fill my memory, a fox Daddy and I found one time up on the mountain above our house. It was caught in a metal trap. It took forever for Daddy to free it and I covered my ears to try to block out the animal’s cries. Finally he covered its head with his flannel coat so it wouldn’t bite him and he used his knife to pry the trap open. The fox limped away, its paw nearly severed, leaving a trail of blood behind. Melody’s eyes remind me of the fox’s eyes.
    Rumors around Katy’s Ridge have Melody not right in the head. But from what I can tell she’d be perfectly fine if life was gentler with her. I can’t imagine what’s it like to have a brother like Johnny and I wonder if she misses her sister, Ruby. If I lost one of my sisters, I don’t think I would ever recover. I even miss baby Beth, who died when she was two days old, and I never set eyes on her.
    Up the hill behind the house, the outhouse door opens with a loud squeak and Johnny steps out. He pulls up his pants and smells his fingers. Just when I thought Johnny Monroe couldn’t get more