Splintered Bones

Chapter 1 There is something about warm soil that connects the past and future into the present. The earth is female in the truest sense of the word. Life springs from it. It is the power of the feminine, the base of creation. For a Delaney, land is the source of family and heritage. For me, Sarah Booth Delaney, the last of this old Southern family, the rich soil of the Mississippi Delta holds the promise of seed and growth--the fecundity that my own womb has been denied. Or at least denied for the moment. The black soil was rich and damp beneath my fingers as I turned the earth with the trowel. Gardening isn't one of my passions. In fact, this was my first attempt. But I had been inspired by a master gardener's words, and the pull of a hot March sun on this Monday morning had been irresistible. Beneath my gentle hands, the ten containers of various herbs would sprout into lush health. I might not be Mother Nature, but I was apprenticing as one of her daughters. In this new venture, I was aided by my heritage. Dahlia House has some of the best topsoil in the world. Anything can grow here. And I had the books of the late Lawrence Ambrose to guide me. I picked up a plastic container, checking to see that it was lemon basil. I held it aloft, asking the sun to power it to a huge shrub, a Godzilla lemon basil! Holding the basil and my trowel aloft, I felt the power of a gardening goddess. I would yield a crop! And I would never go hungry again! "Girl, you holdin' that hand spade like Xena about to be struck by lightning. What's got you out here in the hot sun grubbin' around in the dirt like Mr. Green Jeans?" I lowered the sacred vessel of basil and my trowel and looked into the dark-chocolate eyes of my nemesis and companion, Jitty. Lucky for the rest of the world, Jitty afflicts only me. She's a ghost. An old ghost with a streak of bossiness a mile wide. "I'm planting an herb garden, if you must know." I knelt back in the earth, searching again for the sense of power and strength that had evaporated. "Get you a sun hat. You thirty-three. Almost thirty-four. If you let that sun beat down on you, your neck's gone go all crepey an' look just like puckered chicken skin. You ain't got but a few good years left. You better preserve what you can." Jitty took a seat on an overturned bucket. Rocking back on my heels I looked at her. Her skin was a smooth milk-chocolate, and it covered a body that curved and swelled in all the right places. Death might not be a pleasant experience, but ghosthood had some definite advantages. She would never age, while I would plump and wither, depending on which stage of decline I happened to be in. "Gardening is good for you," I said, knowing that logic would never work on Jitty. She was obsessed with one thing and one thing only--getting an heir for Dahlia House so she could continue to reside in the old plantation once I "passed." Prospects for continuing the line weren't looking encouraging. "What would be good for you would be a little horizontal exercise." Jitty nodded knowingly. "Lawrence said gardening relieves stress and gives a sense of satisfaction. We'll also have wonderful spices and seasonings to cook with." Jitty raised one delicate eyebrow. "Cook? You good at fruitcakes--the kind you make and the kind you attract. Listen to me, Sarah Booth, time is runnin' out. Better you figure out how to sprout you a baby and leave the plants to someone else." She stood up and I was shocked to see that she was wearing baggy sweatpants and a sleeveless T-shirt. My pants and shirt. "I got us a plan." "No!" Whatever it was, it was going to be humiliating for me. "It's a good one." "No!" She was scaring me. "Just listen to it. I've got it all figured out. Right hHaines, Carolyn is the author of 'Splintered Bones' with ISBN 9780440237211 and ISBN 0440237211.