The Lady with No Eyes

Southeast Alabama

1976

“Go put your tennis shoes on,” Mama said.

“I don’t want to. It’s hot.”

She looked down at my dirty toes. “Then go wash your feet. You’re not going with me with the bottoms black as tar.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Miss Myrtle’s.”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s gonna help your sister.”

“How?”

“Just go wash your feet.”

I sat on the side of the bathtub and scrubbed my feet with the bar of Zest and a wash rag until the black came off.

Daddy brought the baby out in her yellow plastic carrier and set her in the middle of the front seat of our brown Chevy. I climbed in beside her and held volume C of the encyclopedia in my lap.

“Maybe some granny magic will do the trick,” Daddy said. 

“Don’t start,” Mama said. 

“What’s granny magic?” I asked.  

“Nothing. Don’t listen to him.”

Daddy shut the door, and I pushed down the metal lock button.

“Y’all be careful,” he said.

“We will.”

Mama tossed her big purse onto the floorboard by my leg, a baby bottle and a red pack of Winstons sticking out the top. She cranked the car and backed out of the yard.

“Myrtle sounds like turtle,” I said.

“Well, don’t you call her that.”

“How’s she gonna help Jenny?”

“She cures the thrash.”

“What’s that?”

“Those white patches in her mouth. Makes it hurt when she drinks from her bottle.”

My sister was four months old and had been fussy for days. It was her second time with the thrash, and this time it wouldn’t go away.

“How does she cure it?”

“Nobody really knows. She won’t let anybody watch.”

“Then how do you know she can?”

“Because babies get better. She’s got the gift.”

I pictured a Christmas present with a big red bow.

“How’d she get it?”

“Her daddy died before she was born. That’s just what people say.”

“But what does she do?”

“Some people say she blows in their mouth,” Mama said. “Some even say she spits in there too, but I don’t know about that.”

I looked over at my sister.

“She’s gonna spit in her mouth?”

“Lord, I hope not. I heard she dips snuff.”

I stuck my tongue out and crinkled my nose.

Miss Myrtle lived on a dirt road in an old white house with a porch that wrapped around one side. A chain-link fence surrounded the whole place. I wondered if she had a dog. The sun was almost down by the time we got there. A light was on by the front door, and the crickets had already started chirping.

Mama carried my sister through the gate. I walked only on the bare dirt patches in case there were stickers and followed her up the porch steps, holding my encyclopedia firmly against my chest. 

Miss Myrtle opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. The light was behind her, and her face was just a shadow. Her gray hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her head. She was short and stout, with wide hips under a green checkered dress. Her feet were swollen, and she wore white Keds with no shoelaces. 

She looked toward the carrier. “Is the sweet baby asleep?”

Mama nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Bring her on in and set her on the kitchen table. I’ll let her sleep a few more minutes.”

“You go sit in the swing,” Mama told me. “I’ll be right back.”

Mama carried the baby inside, and the old lady went back into the dark house, letting the screen door slowly close. I stayed there staring at her as she turned and shuffled toward the kitchen.

Myrtle Turtle.

Mama came back out and sat down in the swing beside me. From inside the house came the sound of Miss Myrtle moving about. Something clinked, followed by a cabinet opening and closing.

I could see around the porch corner to the open kitchen window. Mama pushed off with her feet.

“Has anybody ever watched her do it?”

“No. You’re not supposed to. She says it’s her secret.”

“Why?”

“Because if you see it, she’ll have to follow you home and hide under your bed.”

I scooted closer. “Why?”

Mama stopped the swing with her foot. She leaned down, and her voice became a whisper as she dragged out the words.

“So she can get you…”

I held my breath. 

“while you’re…” Her hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. “Asleep!”

I jumped and jerked my foot away. Mama laughed until she saw my bottom lip starting to shake.

“Oh, sugarfoot. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me in. “I was only teasing you. Besides, the woman can hardly see. She’d probably have trouble finding our house.”

“She’s blind?” I whispered. 

“Almost. But she knows how to get around her own house.”

Mama felt around in the swing beside her. 

“Shoot. I left my purse in the car. You stay here and read.” She got up and walked down the steps. 

I opened the heavy brown book and flipped to the cat pictures, picking out the ones I wanted. When Mama got to the car, she glanced back.

The next time I looked, she was leaning against the hood, cigarette in hand, facing the road. The porch had gotten darker, but the kitchen window gave off a golden glow.

I had decided on the blue Persian when my sister started crying inside.

I looked toward the window. She cried again, then stopped.

The white sheer curtain billowed with the breeze, like a hand saying come over here.

I put my book down and slid off the swing. I looked out at Mama. She was still facing the road, a smoky halo hanging over her head.

The porch boards were warm under my bare feet. One of them creaked, and I stopped.

I waited, then took another step, slower this time. 

I walked around the side to the open window. I crouched below it and raised my head over the sill.

My sister’s carrier sat on the white metal table just a few feet away. Miss Myrtle stood over her, holding both of the baby’s bare feet and moving them back and forth like she was making her dance. 

“There she is,” she said softly.

The baby kicked both legs out and opened her mouth in a wide, gummy grin. 

The old woman bent over and quickly blew into her mouth. The baby looked surprised and blinked.  

She waited, then did it again.

The third time, I watched her mouth.

She didn’t spit.

But she turned and started walking toward me.

I dropped down against the side of the house. Her shoes scuffed across the kitchen floor, closer and closer, until they stopped.

I counted to ten before I peeked up again.

She was standing at the counter just to the right of the window, so close I thought I could reach through the curtain and touch her dress. I could smell Vicks salve and something else, like the dirt in Daddy’s tomato garden.

A big glass jar sat on the counter with a piece of white cloth draped over it.

Miss Myrtle stretched her neck out over the jar. When she turned her face, I could see her eyes.

They were almost completely white, like the milk left in my cereal bowl.

I couldn’t move. My fingers stuck to the windowsill like they’d been glued there.

She didn’t blink.

I didn’t know if she could see me.

I ducked below the window and leaned my back against the wall. I could hear myself breathing, so I covered my mouth with my hand.

I wanted to yell for Mama.

I didn’t.

When I peeked again, Miss Myrtle had taken the cloth off the jar. Wet leaves and pieces of bark covered dark dirt inside.

Then everything in the jar slowly started to move.

She reached in, almost to her elbow, and felt around in the dirt. When she pulled her hand out, she was holding something black and shiny.

Its fat body stretched across her fingers, wiggling as it tried to escape.

It slipped out of her hand and landed on the counter with a soft, wet sound. It looked like the big black tongue on one of Grandpa’s milk cows. 

She patted her hand along the counter until she found it, then picked it up and closed her fist around it.

At the table, she stood with her back to me. I couldn’t see what she was doing, only that her arms were moving. I heard her whispering something that reminded me of my bedtime prayer.

I stretched up on my tiptoes to see around her.

My sister wasn’t crying.

She should have been crying.

Miss Myrtle’s arms stopped moving. The whispering stopped too.

For a long time, she didn’t move at all.

Then she slowly started to turn around. The black thing was wriggling between her fingers.

I ducked and hurried back to the swing. I grabbed my book and flipped back to the cats. When I heard the gate open, I was staring at the blue Persian like I’d never moved.

Mama was coming back across the yard. I kept the book open as she walked up the porch steps and sat next to me.

“What’re you looking at?” she asked.

The screen door opened.

“You can come get her now,” Miss Myrtle called out.

Mama went inside while I stayed in the swing. Their voices carried through the screen door.

“I want to give you something,” Mama said.

“I can’t take your money. You keep it. Buy those girls something.”

Mama walked out with the carrier. Miss Myrtle held the screen door open.

I got off the swing and went straight to Mama. I grabbed her pants at the knee and held on.

“Careful. I’ve got Jenny.”

I let go, but stayed beside her as we went down the steps.

We were almost to the gate when I turned around.

Miss Myrtle was still standing in the doorway. She was smiling.  

She raised one hand and waved, and let the screen door close. 

On the drive home, my sister was wide awake. I held her little hand and talked to her the whole way. She smiled and cooed like she was trying to talk back. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” came on the radio. Mama turned it up and sang along, tapping her hands on the steering wheel.

I didn’t sing.

I kept watching my sister’s mouth. 

Later that night, after my bath, Mama sat behind me on the bed brushing the tangles out of my curly hair.

“How do you know what Miss Myrtle did is gonna work?”

“Because it always does.”

“How long does it take?”

“I don’t remember. A day or two, maybe.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she cured yours.”

I turned around and stared at her.

“Mine?”

“You had it when you were a baby. And it was a lot worse than your sister’s.”

“The same lady cured me? You took me to that house?”

“Sure did.”

“But you don’t know what she did to me?”

“Not a thing. I told you already, shug. No one is supposed to see what she does. But whatever she did, it worked.”

I didn’t tell her.

After Mama and Daddy tucked me in and turned out the light, I lay there listening to the attic fan running in the hall ceiling. 

Miss Myrtle.

The lady with no eyes.

I could still see the black thing stretched across her fingers.

I wasn’t supposed to look.

And Mama said she’d hide under my bed.

I slid out from under the covers and turned the light back on. Then I knelt down, lifted the dust ruffle, and looked underneath.

She wasn’t there.

I switched off the light, jumped back in as fast as I could, and tucked the covers tight around my ankles.

I pulled the sheet over my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut.

Now I lay me down to sleep…