Chapter One

Viola sat in the truck out in front of the house, with Essie beside her. On the street, not down the driveway that curved off the street to the front walk, and back out to the street. You a’had to pulled her fingernails out by the roots to get Viola Tackett to admit how excited she was, that she felt like a little kid at Christmas, but unlike the last time she’d stood in front of this house, eaten up with the wanting of it, this time Viola was gonna take what she wanted, take what was owed her! The universe had not done right by Viola Tackett and this was just the beginning of her evening the score.

Esther Ruth was quietly singing the nonsense song she sang almost nonstop from the moment she woke up in the morning until she went to bed at night. They’d all tried, everybody in the family, to figure out where she’d heard it, or even heard something that sounded like it because it wasn’t no real song, just one she made up. A lot of the words wasn’t even real words, just sounds she could make with that big old tongue, like most people with Down syndrome had, a’sticking out her mouth — ahhh-nah, and gahma-gahma-gahma and so-so-wissy-wheeee. You couldn’t rightly say there was a melody, just a kinda sing-song rhythm. If you asked her what the song was about, she’d tuck her chin and get that shy look on her face and say, “‘bout nuthin’” and then she’d say sorry, like she done something bad and most times she’d cry. She sounded so pitiful, like a baby rabbit got run over by a tractor, made this wheezy wailing sound, and big old tears would run down her face and drip off her chin. So didn’t nobody ask her about the song ‘cause didn’t nobody want to make the pour little thing cry.

Truth was, she wasn’t no little thing, though Viola always thought of her as a little girl. She was a woman growed and didn’t bear no resemblance whatsoever to her namesake, the Esther in the Bible who got picked by the king of Persia to be his queen ‘cause she was so beautiful. Essie was so fat she waddled when she walked, had a flat, ugly face, round cheeks and almost no hair right on the top of her head, though it did grow thick on the sides and she liked it long, so Viola just let it grow. Viola braided it in big braids that hung all the way to Essie’s waist whenever she took her out, which was almost never because the child didn’t really care where she was, was happy just a’sittin’ in the sunshine grabbin’ at dust motes, or splashin’ her toes in the creek, singing her song. ‘Sides, Essie wasn’t completely potty trained and was like to have an accident at any time and didn’t nobody want to deal with that.

Viola’s brought her along to town today to show Essie her new home.

She’d sent Neb and Obie up to the door to knock while she waited in the truck with Zach and Essie, had to make sure that Mr. Sebastian McFarland Nower III was at home, ‘cause she surely did not want to go waltzing in there without being invited. That wasn’t a neighborly thing to do and she was all about being neighborly, about treating others with respect. Even if maybe they hadn’t never treated her respectful — and they would one day be sorry for that, yes sir they surely would be sorry for a fact.

Neb stepped down off the porch and made come-on motions and Zach started the truck to take his mother and sister right up to the door.

“Drive slow, son,” she told him. She was determined to squeeze every bit of the juice of delight from this moment she had been waiting for since she was a little girl.

Viola Tackett was coming home to a place she’d never lived before. Now it was hers, all hers.

There was just the minor detail of Sebastian Nower to contend with but that’d be simple as flicking a fly off’n the end of her nose.

Stepping down out of the truck on the passenger side behind Essie, Viola paused to get her breath, ‘cause sitting out there looking at the house had plum knocked the wind out of her.

She didn’t know the proper names for the elements of style that made the 150-year-old home such an impressive sight. It was made of red brick, three stories tall and all the windows was tall and thin, and had little ornamental white things over top of them. The ones on the top floor was imbedded in the roof so’s the roof tiles come down around them and the second floor was all windows — one after the other, all the way around the house. The first floor had a huge porch, and a roof supported by white pillars.

Even from here, she could see the trim needed a paint job, and a flash of anger blew through her that Sebastian Nower had let the place go like he’d done, hadn’t kept it up so’s it was a castle, a sight to bless every eye that beheld it.

She could hear Nower’s squeaky voice, addressing Neb like Neb was the butcher selling a pork chop and had tried to put his thumb on the scales.

She walked slowly, regally down the front walk and stepped up onto the porch. Nower was dressed like he’d been at the meeting the night before, a suit and tie. Maybe that’s the way he always dressed, didn’t never wander around the house in a ratty tee shirt and jeans with holes worn in the butt, or maybe he was getting ready to go to church. It was, after all, Sunday morning, and a body’d ought to have they bum warming a church pew somewhere every Sunday morning. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” That’s what the good book said.

She stopped in front of the suit-and-tie-clad gentlemen standing just inside the house, with the door partially closed.

“Mr. Nower, sounds to me like you didn’t quite understand what my oldest boy was telling you.”

“I understood every word he said, thank you very much, and I am outraged, offended and …” He was so flustered he couldn’t even hang names on all the ways he was upset. “He says you and your family will be staying here. That’s absurd. This is my house and I have not invited you to be my guests. So I will thank you to get off my porch and take your—”

“Now see, there you go. You done already misunderstood what’s happening here, Mr. Nower, sir.” Her mock graciousness and subservient manner instantly planted a smug smile on his face.

“I knew there had to be some mistake, that—”

“What he didn’t make plain was that we ain’t moving into this here house as visitors.”

Nower was glad for the clarification, but still unsure where the conversation was headed.

“Well, then, I’d appreciate it if you left—”

“We ain’t gonna be your guests ‘cause you ain’t gonna be here.”

She wanted to laugh out loud at the look of shock on his face. He was so surprised and confused he didn’t know what to say, so she strutted her stuff across his porch — her porch — and stood in front of him.

“I don’t never repeat myself, ain’t gonna say this but one time so you’d best listen up. I’ll use little bitty words so ain’t no way you can misunderstand. If’n you like, I’ll wait if you want to go get your crayons so’s you can take notes.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind and she laughed out loud again. She’d never imagined how much fun this whole thing was going to be.

“I am taking possession of this house. As the duly … appointed — as of last night’s meeting — judge executive for Nower County, I am confiscating the residence as my home.”

“You’re what? How dare—”

She moved fast for a fat old woman and she was in his face in two steps, grabbed hold of that stupid red tie of his and yanked down so the knife she’d slipped out of a sleeve scabbard was at his throat.

“Here’s how I dare, Mr. Nower. I dare because I can, and you ain’t got no say about it one way or the other because you can’t. I’m taking this here house to live in. I can’t be overseeing the county, be the one who settles disputes and the like, be the “law” from a little old house on Gizzard Ridge in Turkey Neck Hollow … now can I?”

He said nothing, likely couldn’t speak.

“I got to be in a place where folks know where I’m at when they got trouble, so they know where to find me. I got to be accessible to the folks I’m sworn I’d protect. So I am taking possession of this house, declaring it … what do the gub-mint call it when it takes your house from you because it’s to be used for the good of other folks? The right of eminent domain, that’s it. I looked it up.”

He just stared at her for a moment, clearly not tracking with what she was saying. After all, he was the upper crust and she was pond scum. Probably wasn’t never a single time in his life anybody’d talked to him like this.

“But … it’s my house.”

“Not anymore it ain’t. It’s my house now, and you got …” She looked at her watch and then back up into his eyes. “You got half an hour to pack a bag.” She turned to her second-born son. “Obie, you go with him, see to it he don’t try nothing, help him gather up his clothes and his toothbrush and whatever else he can carry out of here.”

“This is … crazy. Where … where will I go?”

That statement was a drop of water in hot grease and Viola Tackett only barely kept herself from reaching out and slitting the old man’s throat.

“Where will you go? How about somewhere that ain’t got no indoor plumbing, somewhere there’s an outhouse that stinks. Couple dozen years, though, and you’ll get used to the smell, won’t seem bad at all. Somewhere it’s cold in the wintertime because the wind blows through cracks in the walls, makes the candles flicker on the table. Somewhere there ain’t enough food to eat so your belly aches from being hungry.”

She noticed his face had gotten red and realized she’d been pulling on his tie as she spoke, drawing it tighter and tighter. She let him go and shoved him away from her and he banged against the wall and almost went down.

“Get your things and get out my house!”

She strode past him through the open door into the foyer and stopped, looking at the polished floors, the curved spindles of the staircase railing as it wound across the wall and up to the second floor, beneath the sparkling chandelier with crystals so bright the flickering light stabbed like little swords into her eyes.

It was the flickering light, that’s what done it. Made her eyes water so big tears started running down her cheeks like she was crying. Just the light was all. She could hear Sebastian Nower whining like a little kid as Obie give him the bum’s rush toward the back door.

Then she sent the boys out to look under every rock, bush, chicken house and toadstool until they located the fella who was gonna make it clear to the fine citizens of Nowhere County, Kentucky, that Viola Tackett meant business — told them to take him down to that rinky-tink jail and lock him up.

There wasn’t nothing in the world good as a public hanging to get the troops in line.