The Sins of Our Fathers, page 28
Poppy leaned down in her seat and pulled me down by my pigtails. “I am in love with Jimmy Turner.”
“No you are not,” I whispered.
“I am. I can tell. I’ve been reading the books my mother keeps by her bed, and I feel the same way about Jimmy as Audrey Lawrence felt about Oliver Pritchett in The Last Song.”
“I don’t know who any of those people are, but I know they are fictional. I’m not sure you should take love advice from books written specifically about love.”
“That makes no sense,” Poppy said.
Hector Villafane leaned over into our seat from his across the aisle. “Do you guys want some mango slices?” he asked. Poppy peered over the seat top. “No one can see us. They’re dried.”
I had never had dried fruit before. Neither had Poppy. I’d been privy to every piece of food that ever entered the girl’s mouth. Corn on the cob was her favorite.
“Thank you, Hector,” I said and took a slice of mango. It didn’t taste like real fruit. It was drier. Less juicy.
“What are you doing? You’re not allowed to eat on the bus.”
“Relax, Clara. Don’t get all worked up. We’re tired from touring Gettysburg, and we’re enjoying a slice of dried fruit,” Poppy said. She wasn’t sweet like Bonnie, but who was. “We’re not back here smoking cigarettes and cussin’.”
“Yet,” Hector said, and Clara’s cheeks turned red.
Bonnie’s head popped up over the seat as the teacher at the front of the bus yelled, “Everyone sit down. There’s a lot of traffic and we need everyone in their seats for a safe ride home.”
Clara rolled her eyes.
Bonnie winked at me. She had just mastered the skill, and she winked at each of us at least once a day.
The bus tires screeched as they locked up against the pavement beneath us. The bus turned, traveled down the highway sideways, and rolled over again and again before coming to rest in the grassy median between the north and south lanes of Interstate 95.
My face was on my left hand on the seat Poppy and I had been sitting in. She was under my legs and against the window that was pressed into the ground. There was less life on the bus than a moment before.
Bonnie screamed out, “No!”
The other children’s voices followed in the wake of her despair. There were sobs and questions and names of our classmates. We’d come all the way from Auburn to tour the battlefields of Gettysburg and had almost made it home.
A dried piece of mango rested on the window beside Poppy’s head.
“Are you okay?” I asked, but my voice was weak. My stomach hurt, and both my shoulders throbbed.
Poppy nodded and attempted to get her legs under her. I searched for which way was up and flew just inches away. My body would always know the way to the sky.
Bonnie was crouched near the window with her hands covering her head.
“It okay. We’re okay.” I pulled her hand away from her head and kissed her forehead the way my mother would have done if she were there. “Bonnie, where’s Clara? Do you see her?”
The doors had opened in the back of the bus, and the front sliding one was bent in half on the grass between us and the highway. Several windows were broken. Glass and jagged edges covered the surfaces of the bus. I flew forward, letting my feet touch the edges of the seats, and found the driver with his seatbelt still buckled. Nothing about him seemed alive. I searched for our teacher, but Mr. Tessmer was nowhere to be found.
A man I’d never seen before pulled himself up the side of the bus and stuck his head in the doorway with the missing door.
“Hi,” he said. His voice was gentle. “Are you hurt?” I stared at him. “My name is Mr. Madden. I’m going to help you guys, okay?” I nodded. “It’s a bunch of little kids!” he yelled back over his shoulder. “Can you move back so I can climb in with you?” I did as he asked and gave him room.
I flew, still touching all the seats with my feet and searched for Clara. She had crawled over next to Bonnie and was lying with her head on her lap. “Clara.” Her head was bleeding. She held out her hand to me, and I took it. “We’re all okay. The four of us. We need to help the others.”
“Their voices,” Clara whispered. “They won’t stop crying in my head.”
I moved in closer to Clara. The pain in her eyes was hurting me. “Who?” I whispered back.
“Frank and Linda and Angel and Jeannie. I can hear them, but only in my head. The bus driver’s voice keeps coming through, but I can’t understand what he’s saying.” She clasped her hands over her ears and shook her head. “And Brian and Diana. They all keep talking to me.”
“What are they saying?”
A tear rolled down Clara’s cheek. “Goodbye.”
Mr. Madden awkwardly moved through the mangled bus until he was next to me. “Where was your teacher sitting?”
I held Clara tight against my body and faced Mr. Madden. “He was up front with the driver, but I haven’t found him.”
Mr. Madden took in the whole bus with his eyes. He looked from one corner to the next and listened to the children crying around us. When he looked at me again, his eyes widened with the details of the disaster now trapped inside his head.
“There were twenty-one of us on the bus,” Poppy said. “We are Mr. Tessmer’s fourth grade class from Oldmans Elementary School in Pedricktown, New Jersey.”
“That’s good,” he said, but he didn’t look at Poppy when he spoke. He was staring at Linda in the seat next to us. She hadn’t moved since the crash. “Twenty-one not including Mr. Tessmer and the bus driver.”
“Okay.” He was coming around, regaining his bearings. “I’m going to help you climb off the bus to the people who are waiting outside.”
“Why don’t you take the others first?” Clara said. “We’ll be fine as long as we’re together.”
“I’m going to go see which of our friends needs the most help.” I stood and climbed over Mr. Madden. He followed me as we made our way over the seat tops.
“If you can walk, move toward the back of the bus. There are adults there that are going to help you off.”
“What about my backpack? It has my snacks,” Adam asked.
“Leave it,” Mr. Madden said before I had the chance to yell at Adam.
We watched Mr. Madden lift the other kids out of the bus. Sirens descended on us. Other adults came in. They carried boxes with handles like small suitcases, but they were white with reflective stickers on them like the decals on my bike. The boxes opened like a tackle box, and inside them was every type of Band-Aid in existence. Of the children who could walk, Poppy, Clara, Bonnie, and I were the last to be taken off the bus. We helped a policeman write down each of our names on a piece of paper and identify all the kids who were still inside being helped by the paramedics. Everyone was accounted for but Mr. Tessmer and Hector Villafane.
“He was sitting right next to us,” Bonnie said.
“We’ll find him,” Mr. Madden said and was taken away by a policeman to answer questions. “Sit right there. Don’t let anyone wander away, okay?” he called back over his shoulder, but we had to find Hector.
I could go. Fly around and look for him, Poppy thought.
My leg hurts. I think it’s broken. Clara hadn’t even mentioned it on the bus, but she was gritting her teeth as she spoke. The pain must have been horrible. Clara was trying hard not to cry.
“This is the teacher!” a man yelled out from the ditch on the other side of the road.
“Any sign of the boy?”
He didn’t call back, only shook his head and kept walking the grass near the highway as the paramedics rushed to Mr. Tessmer.
Women from every car we could see were suddenly tending to us. Their attention made it impossible for any of us to fly. We needed to find Hector.
We’ll do a spell.
We’ll have to think it without speaking.
When the women had moved on to the rest of the children in our line, we held hands. One woman elbowed another, having her look at us as if we were enchanting in some way, but we just huddled closer as if we were comforting each other.
Seeking Hector to be found
Zero sightings, not a sound
May the sunbeam guide us there
Fast enough, his life to spare
Poppy said it in our heads. We kept silently repeating it until the clouds broke open and a sliver of light shined through unbelievably far down the road from us.
“Check down there.” Bonnie pointed toward the light.
No one paid attention but Mr. Madden. We’d been in this together since the beginning. He’d go look just to keep us calm. He was our ally because he found us first. Mr. Madden paused and stared at us. I listened hard in case he was trying to tell me something inside his head, but none of his words came to mind. He walked at a brisk pace toward the light, stepping over debris we couldn’t see before disappearing into the tall grass.
“Over here. Send the ambulance over here.”
Men ran toward him, circling around. The paramedics were the last to get there, but Hector was loaded into the first ambulance to leave the side of the road.
Poppy’s mom and mine took the four of us to see Hector in the hospital. He said the doctor told him he could have died if they hadn’t found him when they did. Mr. Madden was there. He’d driven up from Virginia Beach, which was where he lived, to check on Hector.
“Well, there are my little heroes,” he said when he saw us. “The four of you were so brave.” I introduced him to my mother and Poppy. “I’m afraid I never got your name,” he leaned down and said to me.
I liked Mr. Madden. He was helpful without being controlling, and he only asked the right questions, not the ones that made us quiet about our powers. Because of all this, I told him, “My name is Elizabeth, but you can call me Eliza.”
THE TREMENDOUS NUMBER of hours that have gone into these witches did not belong only to me. As with the first book, there are many people to thank.
Beth Rey, for sharing Rowan University with me and her memories of the undergraduate world. It was a pleasure to bask in that time with you.
Darian and Becca for their keen scene location scouting.
The dozens of people who tolerated random questions about their work, schools, and daily life. Thanks especially to Gabrielle Hastings for enduring more than the rest.
Jill, for your poetic gifts and unending patience.
Kate, for your creative eye and gift with words.
And Maryann. Please don’t block my contact. Although, I won’t promise to change my ways. I have interrupted your vacations, happy hours, and family time for your opinions on the witches’ lives, and as always, you were generous with your brilliance. Also, thanks for letting me hang out with the Kingsway Coven. Always a good time.
Ashley Williams. Your love of witches almost equals your gift for editing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And finally, to John, my #hotaccountant. You are so much more than that.
HAZEL BLACK GRADUATED from Rutgers University and returned to her hometown in rural South Jersey. Her mother encouraged her to take some time and find herself. After three months of searching, she began to bounce checks, her neighbors began to talk, and her mother told her to find a job.
She settled into corporate America, learning systems and practices and the bureaucracy that slows them. Hazel quickly discovered her creativity and gift for story telling as a corporate trainer and spent years perfecting her presentation skills and studying diversity. It was during this time she became an avid observer of the characters she met and the heartaches they endured. Her years of study taught her that laughter, even the completely inappropriate kind, was the key to survival.
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The Sins of Our Fathers
Copyright © 2017 by Hazel Black
Edited by:
Rhonda Helms
Copyediting by:
Ashley Williams, AW Editing
Cover Design by:
Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com
Interior Design and Formatting by:
Christine Borgford of Type A Formatting
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First Brunswick House ebook and print on demand edition: October 2017
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ISBN 978–1-943622–14–6 (ebook edition)
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Hazel Black, The Sins of Our Fathers
