And the Word Was

Kevin and Chrissie were so happy to be going to Aunt Illona’s.  They couldn’t wait to start climbing apple trees and teasing animals at the farm next door.  The country was more fun than the shopping mall.  If only the drive out didn’t take so long.  Two hours in the backseat of a car was an eternity to a six-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy.

    “Mommy, Kevin’s pulling my pigtails.

    “Now Kevin, you stop that,” Mrs. Henderson said.

    “Aw mom, she poked me first.”

    “Did not.”

    “Did so.”

    “Shut up, the both of you,” Mr. Henderson thundered.

Kevin and Chrissie silently made faces at each other.  Mrs. Henderson sat and wondered why she ever wanted children.  Mr. Henderson drove and watched the road.

They were making good time.  The big old V-8 engine knocked some at this speed.  To either side of the two-lane blacktop, orchards and fields of pasture stretched off to forested hills along the horizon.  Soothing to the parents, the view made the children restless.  All that playroom, and here they were stuck inside the family sedan.

     “Stop fidgeting back there.  Now I want you children to behave when we get to Aunt Illona’s.  You know she hasn’t been feeling well,” Mrs. Henderson said.

    “What’s wrong with her?”  Chrissie asked.

A coloring book was open on her knees, but so far, the only use she’d made of her crayons was stabbing Kevin’s jeans.  His left knee was streaked with purple slashes.

    “She’s never been the same since your Uncle Henry died.  It’s hard for her to manage out here all alone.”  Mrs. Henderson said.

Kevin leaned conspiratorially closer to his sister.

    “She’s going to die soon,” he whispered.

    “Kevin!”  Mrs. Henderson scolded.

     “Well you said she had embolina.”

    “Emphysema,” Mr. Henderson corrected.  “And people live a good long time with that.”

He shot a stern look at his son through the rearview mirror.

    “Yeah, you’re a big dummy,” Chrissie said.

    “Oh yeah, well you’re so ugly you make me want to barf.”

    “You look like barf.”

    “You smell like barf.”

    “Barf-face, barf-face, Kevin’s a barf-face.”

    “Silence,” Mrs. Henderson said.

She hadn’t said the word loudly, yet even the engine stopped knocking.  No one said a word until they arrived near an hour later, and no one noticed that was strange.  Mrs. Henderson had Matlaw blood in her.

Aunt Illona looked much worse.  Although still in her fifties, she looked much older with her gray hair pulled back in a bun that seemed to tighten her wrinkled face.  She dressed older too, almost from a different era.  Her faded blue gingham dress nearly reached the fine oak floors that could stand polishing as Mrs. Henderson noted.  It was sad to watch Aunt Illona’s arthritic hands half hidden in the folds of a crocheted shawl grip the rubber ends of a walker.  On the last visit, she’d gotten around with a cane.

While the kids played outside in the orchard, the parents stayed inside to see what chores they could help with.  Mr. and Mrs. Henderson had to coax Aunt Illona into telling them what needed to be done.  Although it was a struggle to simply dress and feed herself, she hated being a burden.  After Mrs. Henderson had set to work doing laundry, and Mr. Henderson had headed out to the barn for some tools, Aunt Illona hobbled out onto the rear porch.

She watched the children play a while and then called them to come down out of the apple trees for a snack.  While they dawdled, she painstakingly hauled a wheeled tray of milk and cookies outside.  It had taken her all morning to bake a dozen chocolate chip cookies.  The children gobbled them up in seconds.  Then the three of them sat on the swinging sofa, Kevin to Aunt Illona’s left and Chrissie to her right.  It was a crisp fall day, pleasant outside so long as the sun stayed out of the clouds.

    “Children, I’m not long for this world, and there’s something I got to tell you before I go and leave it.”  Aunt Illona said,

She lit up a cigarette despite the doctor’s orders forbidding such.

    “Are you gonna die?”  Chrissie asked.

    “Yes girl, and right soon,” Aunt Illona said.

She brushed the little girl’s cheeks until the frown went away.

    “I told you so,” Kevin said.

He seemed rather pleased about it.  Chrissie leaned forward and stuck her tongue out at him.

    “Now stop that and listen up.  This is important.  You two got Matlaw blood in you, and all us Matlaws got the power of a word in us.  You got to find out what your word is and learn how to use it, or maybe you’re gonna have to learn never to use it at all.”  Aunt Illona said.

The effort of speaking so sharply had congested her throat.  She hacked some and spit daintily into her handkerchief.

    “What’s power afterword?  Do mommy and daddy have it?”  Chrissie asked.

Beneath her bangs, her brow was knitted.

    “Power of a word, you dummy.”  Kevin said.

Aunt Illona wagged her finger at Kevin.

    “You be nice to your sister, hear?  There no telling what word she got or what it will do.”  She said then turned towards Chrissie before continuing.  “Remember, honey, I said you got the power cuz you got Matlaw blood in you.  Only your momma’s a Matlaw.”

    “Can’t dad get it too?”  Kevin asked.

His mouth remained open in wonder and worry.  Chrissie knew she should be concerned, but didn’t know why so she reverted to sucking her thumb.

    “I wouldn’t know how, child.  I don’t even know how it come to us.  Oh, my grandpa used to say some old Indian medicine man gave it to his great grandpa as a reward for saving his little boy, but then my Uncle Hestus always told me it was a curse straight from Satan.  Course Hestus, he had the power over manure, or another word for that, a word he was in the habit of using when he got excited.  All the power did for him was earn him the nickname of ‘Stinky’.”  Aunt Illona said.

She smiled and looked years younger.

    “She means shit,” Kevin said.

Both kids giggled.  A cloud had crossed over the sun.  With it came a sudden chill.

    “Yes Kevin, I do mean that word, and don’t let me hear you using it again.”  Aunt Illona said.

    “Okay, if mom’s got this power, what’s her word?”  Kevin asked.

He spoke defiantly with his jaw jutting out.  Aunt Illona stubbed her cigarette out on the porch planking.

    “You know what happens when your mother says ‘silence’,” she said slowly.

She wrapped the shawl more tightly about her to ward off the chill.  Kevin rubbed his chin thoughtfully before speaking.

    “Mom says we’re mindful of her,” he said at last.

    “Anything else you always mind your momma on?”  Aunt Illona asked.

Chrissie had her head cocked struggling hard to remember.

    “I know, I know,” she chirped.

    “What’s that child?”

    “I always eat my ice cream,” Chrissie said and broke into peals of laughter.

Aunt Illona laughed too.

    “Oh you’re so stupid,” Kevin said.

Aunt Illona pinched his shoulder firmly but not painfully.

    “Kevin, you mind your tongue.  I don’t believe you can come up with any better answer,” she said.

Kevin hung his head in shame until Aunt Illona gave him a hug.

    “Listen,” she said.  “I know you’re good children and mind your mom most times, but you know things are different when she says the word ‘silence’.”

Chrissie had snuggled up to her aunt because it was now quite cold.  Kevin though hung back gripping instead the swing chain.

    “Mom never said anything about this.  She would have told us something,” he said.

Aunt Illona wrung her gnarled hands trying to get the circulation going, thinking.

    “Well the fact is, children, your momma don’t believe in the power.  Leastwise she don’t want to.  See, she was the baby of the family.”

    “Baby,” Chrissie giggled.

    “Hush child, don’t interrupt.  The whole family was protective of your mother growing up because she was the youngest, and it scared her how she could shut us all up just by saying ‘silence’.  She didn’t practice the power much, and anyway she didn’t seem to have it strong like some Matlaw’s do.  I remember her once trying to stop a theater full of people laughing so she could hear what the actors up on the screen were saying.  She couldn’t quiet more than a couple of rows.  After brother Willie died, I can’t recall her ever using her power again.”

Kevin turned to watch his father bang a fence post into the ground in the distance.

    “I want to ask dad about this,” he said standing up.

Aunt Illona pulled him back down on the swinging sofa.

    “Child, I don’t want to come between you and your family.  I just want to warn you cuz for some Matlaws the power can be mighty strong,” she said.

Kevin looked at her dubiously.

    “Don’t believe me, do you?  But I can see by the way you’re sitting all scrunched up that you’re feeling chilly.  Want I should make it warm again?”  Aunt Illona asked.

Kevin nodded.

Aunt Illona pointed at the bright spot in the clouds and said, “shine.”

The cloudbank covering the sun instantly scudded east flooding the porch with warmth and light.  The effect was so startling even Mr. Henderson looked up from his labor.

    “Wow,” both kids said in unison.

    “Yes, and it’s a good thing right now, but it can be a bad thing too, and I got to fight against using it too often.  See, I got arthritis, and my joints ache something awful when it gets damp, but if I go chasing off all the clouds, this county would dry up in no time at all.”  Aunt Illona said.

She tilted her head up to enjoy the sunshine.

  “Now make it rain,” Chrissie said.

Both children looked up eagerly at their aunt.

   “I only got the one word, child.  That’s the way it is with us Matlaws.”  Aunt Illona said.

She loosened her shawl to keep from overheating.

    “Well what words do we got?”  Kevin asked.

    “I want ice cream,” Chrissie shrieked.

Clouds had piled up all around the sun, but sunlight continued to funnel through the opening.

    “Oh you wish,” Kevin said to his sister.

    “Yeah, well yours is probably barf,” she replied.

    “Oh you’re so stupid.  I say that all the time,” Kevin said.

    “That’s enough,” Aunt Illona said and slapped his knee.  “I don’t know what your words are, but they got to be something you’ve never said before, or something you never noticed the effects to when you said it.  That’s why you got to be so careful.  My brother Lester, that’d be your Uncles Les, learned the hard way his word was ‘suicide’.  He told me about it at Brother Willie’s funeral swearing me to secrecy, showing me the word written on a scrap of paper, not daring to say it out loud.  He and Willie had been climbing in the hills yonder when Les mentioned someone had committed suicide.  Soon as he heard the word, Willie dashed for the cliff they were walking by and threw himself clear off.”

Aunt Illona’s eyes teared up.  She held a hand over them.

    “Uncle Les is dead,” Chrissie said solemnly.

    “Yeah, we went to his funeral last year.  You were there,” Kevin added.

Aunt Illona pulled her hand away from her face and looked at Kevin.

    “Yes, I was.  After his wife killed herself, he did too.  I don’t know if he said the word ‘suicide’ to his wife accidentally or not, but I’m pretty sure after it happened to her, he looked into a mirror and said it to himself slow and deliberate like,” she said.

Chrissie was hugging her aunt, but not because it was cold.  The sun was still shining.

    “I’m scared,” the little girl whined.

Aunt Illona hugged Chrissie back murmuring, “it’s all right, it’s all right.”

    “Oh you’re so chicken,” Kevin said.

    “Now Kevin, your sister has every right to be scared.  If you had any sense, you would be to till you find out what your word is.”

    “Well how’m I supposed to do that?”

Aunt Illona shook her head.

    “I don’t know.  Oh, I suppose you could get yourself a dictionary and start saying all the words out loud, but there’d be risks in that as well.  I expect you’ll just have to wait till you see something real peculiar happen and then just remember what it was you said.  That’s the way all us Matlaws have learned.  I just wanted to warn you that maybe you got a bad word that you must never use and that even if you got a word that seems harmless, like mine, you got to be very careful how you use it.”

Mr. Henderson had finished mending the fence and was walking towards the house.  Aunt Illona made both children swear not to tell about their conversation as he approached.

    “Come on, kids.  Let’s go inside and wash up.  Your mother should have lunch ready by now.”  Mr. Henderson said stepping onto the porch.

He was the only one who need washing up and the only one hungry, but his children dutifully followed him inside.  Mrs. Henderson had laid an impressive spread out on the dining room table, which the children eyed while everyone bowed their heads in grace.  Kevin and Chrissie were abnormally silent throughout the meal, and momma hadn’t said her magic word.

    “Pass them,” Chrissie said at one point.

    “What?”  Her mother asked.

    “Them,” Chrissie said pointing to the mashed potatoes.

Chrissie couldn’t remember if she’d ever said “mashed”.  She thought she had, but couldn’t be sure.  She feared her whole family would end up mush if she said the word.  For similar reason, Kevin didn’t ask for a candied apple for dessert.  What if he’d only said “candy” and his word was candied?  He could just picture his parents ending up as sugared figurines.

Mr. and Mrs. Henderson became so concerned by their children’s strange behavior that they made an excuse and left Aunt Illona’s earlier than they’d planned.  After a few minutes strained silence in the car, Mr. Henderson attempted to engage his son in conversation.

    “So, you going to beat those Suncats next Friday?”

His son was nuts about Peewee football.

     “Yes,” Kevin said.

It was all he dared reply.

Mr. and Mrs. Henderson exchanged anxious glances.

    “Did Aunt Illona say anything to you?”  Mrs. Henderson asked.

Chrissie started to speak, but Kevin silenced her with a grimace.

    “She said she was real sick,” he said.

    “I know.  It’s very sad.  She’s such a good woman,” Mrs. Henderson said.

Mr. and Mrs. Henderson silently reflected on Aunt Illona’s fate while the children wondered what their words were.  Whenever Mr. Henderson got thoughtful while driving, he unconsciously began speeding.  The engine was really knocking now.

    “Damn cheap gas,” he muttered.  “The engine’s really pinging.”

    “What he say?”  Chrissie whispered to her brother.

    “He said the engine’s pinging.”  Kevin said.

The car swerved madly all over the road as Mr. Henderson pulled his hands off the steering wheel to cover his ears.  Everyone in the car covered their ears and screamed.

    “What the hell was that?” Mr. Henderson shouted.

His hands were back on the wheel.  He’d barely manage to muscle the car back on the road before they flew off into a ditch.

    “It sounded like a machine gun,” Mrs. Henderson gasped.

    “Bells, bells,” Chrissie cried.

    “Hell’s bells,” Kevin said pleased with himself when he reflected on it.

    “Maybe it was just rocks banging up under the floorboards,” Mr. Henderson said.

He anxiously looked in the rearview to check the children and to see if there was any traffic coming up from behind.  The highway was deserted except for a truck far off in the distance.

    “Honey, maybe you better pull over and check the engine,” Mrs. Henderson said.

    “Dad, what causes engine pinging?”  Kevin asked.

The car swerved all over the road as everyone covered their ears again and shrieked to drown out the deafening noise.  As the ringing stopped, a tire caught a broken bottle along the shoulder of the highway.  It blew out with a terrific bang.  Mr. Henderson had to fight to regain control.  Luckily, he’d been driving cautiously slow and was able to ease the car to a stop in a turnout.

    “I think someone’s shooting at us,” Mr. Henderson said.

She was looking out the window at the countryside where hedges and trees offered a marksman a thousand places to hide.  Chrissie was crying, and Kevin had his mouth open in shock.

    “No, no,” Mr. Henderson said.  “It must have been a bearing seizing up.  They can make a terrific whine.”

"Would that make the tire blow?”  Mrs. Henderson asked.

    “No, we just hit something going off the road, a nail or a bottle.  Relax,” Mr. Henderson and patted his wife’s hands.  Then he turned around and said jauntily to the kids, “Okay, everybody out of the car.  Daddy’s got to change the tire, and you can’t be inside when I jack the car up.”

Mrs. Henderson herded the children over to the far edge of the turnout.

    “Kevin, you make sure to keep your sister way far from the road here.  You see that propane truck heading down our way, don’t you?”  She asked.

    “Yessum,” Kevin mechanically replied.

He waited until his mom had joined their father by the trunk of the car before saying excitedly, “Chrissie, I found my word.”

    “What is it?”  She asked.

Kevin hurriedly pulled a stick out of the ditch and traced the word “pinging” in the dirt.

Chrissie stared a moment then said, “I can’t read a word that big, you dummy.”

Kevin contemplated a moment staring vacantly at the tanker truck bearing down on them.

    “It’s like singing or ringing, but with a p.”  He said.

    “Pinging?  You’ve never said ‘pinging’ before?”  Chrissie asked.

    “I guess not,” Kevin said.

There was an awkward silence between them.

    “Boy, that was sure some kaboom when that tire blew,” Kevin said at last.

He had to speak loudly because the propane truck was passing.

    “Yeah,” Chrissie said and grinned.  “Kaboom.”

Aunt Illona was sitting on the back porch and so she couldn’t see, but though the Hendersons were now miles away, she still heard the power of Chrissie’s word.