Excerpt of Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon
(Page 7 of 14)
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I looked up at her, afraid she was making fun of me. “Me?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I scrunched up my mind and thought hard about her question. I could barely think
of anything I liked, let alone loved. I knew I didn’t like farming or shucking
corn. I knew I didn’t like Oakley, or my giant, ravenous family, or the
vegetables that spilled from the counter and sink and onto the floor. I knew I
didn’t like the way I felt all the time, so freakish and small, so scared of
everything.
“I don’t know,” I said, finally, watching the light streaming in from the
windows and slanting through the air. “This is the only thing I’ve ever loved,
being here right now.” It came up on me just like that, the realization that
there was nowhere I’d rather be, that this was as close to happiness as I’d ever
been.
She smiled. “It’s a good place, this library. Like entering another world. You
can open up any of these books and just forget about the fields and rivers
outside, the farms and horses. The past.”
“It’s so different here,” I said. “You’re so different.”
She peered into me and shook out a cigarette from a pouch beside her. The
tobacco and paper crackled as she lit up. “Tell me about yourself, Tessa Riley,”
she said.
I stared at the crazy-quilt skirt my mother had sewn for me, fingering the hem.
I felt paralyzed, convinced I could never speak of my own life out loud, but I
still felt the stories beating at my throat and lips.
“I have a sister named Geraldine,” I began, “and two brothers, Matthew and
Connor. Geraldine and I share a room and the ceiling is as high as the stars. My
mom’s name is Roberta, and my dad’s name is Lucas. They don’t notice me much,
though. They’re always busy in the fields.”
“Really?” Mary asked.
I nodded solemnly. I’m not sure what possessed me then, but for the first time
in my life my mouth just opened and everything came rushing out. I told Mary
about the wooden house and the fields, and the rows of gem-hard corn we based
our livelihood on. I told her about my favorite log and my father’s terrifying
hands. I told her about how my mother made all my clothes out of the scraps of
my sisters’ and brothers’ jumpers and dresses and pants. And I told her about
how my mother laughed at me as she stitched my skirts and blouses, how she
called them “clothes for a baby’s doll.”
Mary leaned toward me and touched my arm. “They just have their own vision,” she
said. “For people like you and me, the world is different.”
I thought of the world outside my window, and the one I dreamt about when I was
out in the fields alone. Not knowing what to say, I just looked up at her and
smiled.
She stood and stretched. “I’m making some tea. Want a cup?”
“Yes, please,” I said, though I wasn’t quite sure. She winked at me and started
walking to the open space beyond the stacks, on the left side of the room. Her
sandals clacked dully on the floorboards. Alone, I stared at her desk, trying to
memorize everything on it before she got back—the glossy cards and scattered
notebooks, the rumpled papers for her cigarettes, a discarded silver bracelet, a
tiny clown figurine painted red and yellow. I wanted things like that someday, I
decided. Things of my very own.
Soon the whole place smelled like herbs. When Mary reemerged with two steaming
cups of tea a few minutes later, it seemed like the most exotic thing in the
world. I peered into my cup, staring at the greenish water with the herbs
floating at the top.
“It’s my special recipe,” Mary whispered. “It will make you irresistible.”
Excerpted from Rain Village
by Carolyn Turgeon. Copyright © 2006 by Carolyn Turgeon. Excerpted by
permission of Unbridled Books. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
