A White Dog with Grass Green Eyes
No one remembered Addie Fiddle’s name until she started telling her dreams. She was thirteen then, and an ordinary girl. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a plain face with stone-gray eyes. All the Fiddles had those eyes, and that wheaty hair, and people were always saying how they looked alike.
But all the rest had something to make them stand out. Rhody and Ruth just by virtue of being twins. Kayline for being a fist-pounding mountain of a girl. And Mandy-Ray, the oldest at 18, for her perfect white skin and blond curls and red, full mouth. As for the boys, they were never overlooked: they were boys, they could make their voices heard. Not Addie, though. No one even seemed to know who she was. They called her “the little Fiddle,” “The Fiddle baby.” “Loozy’s last.” Not her name, Adeline Louise.
They didn’t know her. They didn’t know that she watched people and wondered about them, sorting out their odds and ordinaries. That she noticed things no one else did. She watched the way Susan Peal carried her baby and thought, she doesn’t love that child. She carries him like a sack of potatoes. In school, she watched her teacher, Mrs. Arlington, and she could tell by the way she held her mouth whether she’d recently gotten bad or good news about her husband, who was suffering from the cancer. She stood in the backs of rooms and read the way people stood, the way they moved their arms and their eyes, listened to them clear their throats and sigh and laugh, and she knew their secrets. And yet, they didn’t know her. Even her name, they didn’t know.
The first time Addie told a dream, it was while she was eating her oatmeal at the breakfast table, and only Rhody and Ruth were there to hear. It was a dream about talking cockroaches, and that made the twins laugh, and so Addie told it to Kayline and Mandy-Ray. When she tried telling the boys, they told her it was stupid, but a couple nights after that, Addie had dream with big, warty toads that were gobbling each other up, and the boys said that was a good one.
Two nights later, Addie had a dream about a strange man coming to the door wearing a red shirt, and even the grown-up women listened to that one. And within the week, a man from over in Winston County came to the door with news that Mama’s brother Lec had been burned bad in a fire, and then everyone said maybe Addie had the Second Sight.
After that, the women asked Addie every morning what she had dreamed the night before, and she’d sit on a stool in the kitchen and tell her dreams while the women worked grainy brown loaves of bread and pounded poor cuts of meat to make them tender enough to eat. It wasn’t just because they thought she might be seeing the future, Addie realized. It was because her dreams took their thoughts away from the scantiness of meals and paychecks and hope.
The women would all be silent, paying attention while Addie talked—Mandy Ray and Kayline and the twins, too—and they looked disappointed if she said she’d had no dreams. But those times were rare. She almost always had at least one to tell. The women would shake their heads and say they weren’t the kind of dreams you expected a little girl to have, that girls should have fluffy, sweet dreams, not dreams full of dripping caverns and screeching bats and rag dresses that burned your skin, but Addied knew it was the horror in her dreams that they liked, because it brought sharp edges to the dull curve of their lives.
One gummy August morning, Addie sat in the sweltering kitchen and told the women a dream about a white dog and a crow. She swung her legs happily as she spoke, and her words seemed to be dancing their way out of her mouth.
“The dog was walking on the path to the church,” she said. “He passed a man in black. The man was tall, and he had a pack, like he was going on a journey. The dog had grass-green eyes and each of his forepaws had a hungry mouth licking and howling. The man reached down to pet the dog, but all at once, a great big crow swooped down from the church steeple and pecked the dog in his left eye, and the dog leaped up and pulled the crow down, all of its mouths chewing and tearing.” She made the story more dramatic by circling her eyes with her fists when she was describing the dog’s eyes, and turning her voice into a growl when she came to the part about the hungry mouths. “That old crow screamed so loud, it shook every tree from here to Pendaliten Township!” Addie finished with a fine flourish. Then she waited for the praise and satisfied nods she’d grown used to. But when she looked at the women, they had turned to stare at her, their eyes wide, and she drew back in amazement.
“Oh my God in Heaven,” Aunt Lucy said. The women looked at each other: their brown loaves and half-peeled potatoes left unattended.
“You’re sure it was a white dog?” said Aunt Esther. Her face was the color of steel-cut oats; her eyes stood out like pools of black ink. Addie felt a rush inside her head. She’d clearly said something wrong, but couldn’t imagine what.
“Yes, it was white,” she said weakly. “Well, sort of. Actually, a little grayish. And the bird might not have been a crow. It could have been a blackbird, or even a sparrow.” She looked at the women hoping that this would be enough to ease whatever it was scaring them into those blank, staring faces.
But it was too late to swallow the dream back: the women had seen something deep and darkly meaningful in it.
“Dreams of a white dog mean one thing,” Granny Haja said. “Same with crows.” She looked from face to face. “This dream is foretelling a death.”
The words hit Addie like a punch to the chest, and she squirmed on her tall stool —not from horror at someone’s life in the balance, but from shame. Because she never actually had a dream about a white dog and a crow. In the past few weeks, she had taken to making dreams up when she didn’t have a real one to tell. How could she not, when the ladies were waiting for her in the morning, and when they would actually shush each other so they could listen. To her, Addie Fiddle!
“It was at a church,” Aunt Esther was saying. “It was about a man in black.”
The women stared. “The parson,” said Mama. “The dream was about Parson Landers.”
Aunt Lucy gasped and clutched at Mama’s arm. “He’s going traveling! You remember, he said last week he was going to Colorado to visit his sister who’s been ill. Just like the man in the dream, he’s going on a journey! That dream was definitely about him, that poor man.”
And so it was confirmed: the dream was foretelling Parson Landers’s death. Addie tried to make herself small on her stool. She pictured Parson Lander’s haughty smile.
Mandy Ray asked if the death might be preventable. Could anything be done to change something once it was foretold? Kayline said she was sure it couldn’t, that once something was dreamed it was dreamed, no way to take it back, but Aunt Esther shook her head and said that dreams were just warnings, like a neighbor saying next time your cow gets into her yard, she’ll shoot that thing dead, and if something is a warning that means it can be stopped. After more jabbering and head-shaking, it was finally agreed: The dream was a warning for the parson not to go on his journey.
“Then we have to tell him,” Granny Haja said, and everyone stopped and listened to the old woman. “This dream was sent to Addie for a reason, and that reason is to prevent the death of Reverend Landers. We’ve got a sacred duty to tell him.”
“We should go right now,” Mama said. “He might be preparing to leave this very minute.”
The women all agreed. Granny Haja started ordering everyone here and there, telling Kayline and Mandy Ray to watch Rhody and Ruth and the boys and to finish with the cooking. She and Mama would take Addie to the parsonage, and Aunt Lucy and Aunt Esther would go, too. Mama told Addie to get her sweater and put on her shoes, but Addie shrunk back and didn’t move. Granny Haja grasped her wrist with her strong old hand. “You’ve got a gift, Adeline Louise Fiddle,” she said. “And when a person has a gift, there’s a responsibility that goes with it.” So Addie put on her shoes and sweater and followed the women out and down the path toward the parsonage.
She watched the women as they went. They were practically marching, and Addie realized they weren’t so much scared for the parson’s safety as they were proud. She understood why: It was because they felt selected. For some reason, they were the ones chosen to save Reverend Landers’s life, and that had given them a rare sense of importance.
Addie seemed to be the only one who wasn’t pleased or proud over her task. Here the women were all agog over a made-up story, and she was on her way to the parish house to tell the parson’s wife a lie. In a few minutes, she would be standing in front of the tall, tight-faced Mrs. Landers, to announce that her husband might die. To be going to anyone else might be bearable, but not to her.
Parson Landers was no poor, humble preacher like the Parson Billiweg, who’d preached in the county for twenty-some years before he died a year ago Christmas. He was the most learned man anyone in the county had ever met. He was handsome, too, with dark eyes, a black mustache, and a fine, straight nose, and he was from a rich family. He’d made the choice, as he told his parishioners often, not to follow his father in the shipping industry but instead to follow his heart and study theology. He’d been a professor of religion at a college in the North for a time. Then he had a calling, an irresistible urge to go to Kentucky to preach the Word. The reverend believed this was a direct order from the Lord, to go help the less fortunate. He had actually said that in one of his sermons—“help the less fortunate”—casting his flock in the role of those meant to be pitied. He acted like this was a great sacrifice, but Addie wondered exactly what he was sacrificing, since he’d inherited a lot of money, and had everything he needed.
The Parson and Mrs. Landers had built a brand-new house, all neatly painted white with blue trim, and stiff flowered curtains in the window. Mrs. Landers wore dresses nicer than any Addie had ever seen before, and she kept her hair in a squirrel-brown bun so perfect you never saw a single hair straggle down the back of her neck. On Sundays, the Parson preached long sermons with large, complicated words, that he would then explain, as he’d taken upon the difficult task of educating his ignorant lambs.
But Addie watched him, and Mrs. Landers, too. Like everyone else she knew and watched, she found them more interesting from afar than face-to-face. Mrs. Landers sat in the front row of the church, with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes frozen on the figure of her handsome husband as he preached his flowery sermons. She was thin, with a birdlike face, and large eyes that bugged out like a frog’s. She looked at the Parson with a kind of longing Addie hadn’t seen before, and the moistness of her eyes spoke of some sadness or fear.
Once, at the church picnic, the Reverend had stopped to talk with Addie and Mandy Ray—really more to Mandy. He’d told some long story about a trip he’d once taken, and to Addie’s annoyance, Mandy Ray had acted the way she always acted around attractive men—like he was the most fascinating person she’d ever heard. She laughed at the right places, and twirled a blond lock around her finger and said, “My goodness!” when she was expected to, and she smiled with those full lips. And it had exactly the effect it always had on men: the Reverend was all puffed up with his own importance, and he reached out and touched Mandy Ray on the arm and said he enjoyed having her in his flock.
Addie had stifled her urge to go baaaa. She was bored and itching to run off, except she was afraid Mandy Ray would tell Mama and she’d get in trouble for being rude. It was just as the Reverend was starting in on another story about himself that she spied Mrs. Landers. She had been over by the picnic tables, where she was supposed to be ladling out cups of lemonade from a big bowl, but she had left her station and had nearly tripped over her fancy dress to join her husband. She took the reverand’s arm and held it so tight Addie thought his hand would turn white because the blood couldn’t get to it.
“I hope you girls are enjoying this fine day,” she said, but her lips barely opened when she spoke, and her bird-eyes were peering at Mandy-Ray’s full lips and fuller bosom.
“Now, would you excuse us? We haven’t spoken to the Andersons yet.” The reverend gave her a morose look and it was clear he wanted nothing more than to talk to Mandy-Ray all day, and for one moment Addie could see a deep sadness move over Mrs. Lander’s face like the shadow of a hawk. Addie thought about that day as they made their way down the path to the parsonage.
The women spoke boldly as they went repeating details of Addie’s dream. But when they approached the picket fence around the perfect white house, a change came over them. They grew quiet all at once, and they stopped at the gate and looked around at each other. Addie watched them, and realized they were nervous. They’d been proud at first, but faced with the prospect of going up and knocking at that door, they had some feeling they weren’t speaking of, like foreboding or worry. It seemed they weren’t sure they had the nerve to do what they’d set out to do. And Addie saw something else: they weren’t sure they were good enough. They felt funny, in their faded dresses and torn shoes, out of place going into that fine house.
Granny Haja was the one to take charge. “We can’t come this far and then not go in,” she said. “We have a sacred duty.” Then Granny opened the gate, and gently pushed Addie in front of her, and the other women followed.
When Mrs. Landers opened the door, she looked surprised to find this gathering of women on her step. She stared around at them with her buggy eyes and pursed her lips. “Hello,” she said, sounding as cautious and uncertain as the women had a moment before. “Mrs. . . .”
“Fiddle,” Granny Haja said. She introduced the women each in turn, and said they didn’t mean to be intruding but they were wondering could they come in for a spell—not long—they were sure she had many important things to do and they didn’t want to take up much of her time, but they had something to tell her that was very important. “It could save your husband’s life.” Granny said the words gravely.
Addie watched as Mrs. Landers smiled and said, “Why of course, please do come in,” and she knew she was only saying it because it was expected of her and, if she’d had her way, she’d never have let these poor country women into her perfect white house.
Granny Haja took Addie’s hand, and the women stepped into the Landers’s entryway. They shuffled along together in a knot as if they could make themselves smaller if they just pressed close together. They stared at the pale peach walls and the framed paintings of birds and flowers that lined the hallway. Addie hated the way they looked around, the way they pressed against each other, like they might dirty the house if they weren’t careful.
“Please come in,” Mrs. Landers said, directing them into the kitchen. Addie turned to look over her shoulder at the open door across the hall. Through the door she could see a living room with a carpet on the floor, a couch of fancy wood and shimmery pillows. She wondered who Mrs. Landers invited into that room.
The kitchen was pretty, too, though. Shiny copper kettles hung from hooks and the counter had glistening tile the color of cornflowers. Mrs. Landers invited them to sit at a round kitchen table with a flowered table cloth on it. A lady wearing a white apron was preparing food at the stove, and she asked if Mrs. Landers’s guests would like anything. Without asking did anyone want anything, Mrs. Landers told the white apron lady to pour everyone tea, and White Apron started putting out delicate porcelain tea cups with saucers that matched. None of the women had ever drunk from such delicate little cups before.
Mrs. Landers was sitting up very straight and stiff, with her hands folded in front of her on the flowered table cloth. Addie watched the way she sat, how she kept her head very high. From when Addie sat, that beaklike nose looked frightening, the nostrils huge.
“Now,” Mrs. Landers said, “what can I do for you?”
Granny Haja spoke up. “It’s the girl.” She nodded at Addie. “I’m afraid to say she’s had a dream foretelling a dire event in your family.”
Mrs. Landers stared around at the women. “A dream?”
“The girl has the Second Sight,” Granny Haja said. “We’ve known that for some time, but this is the first time she’s foretold something like this.”
Mrs. Landers frowned at Gannie as if she were trying to make sure she understood. “You don’t mean . . . surely you can’t believe that the child is clairvoyant.”
Addie did not know what “clairvoyant” was. She looked at Mama and the Aunts and Granny, and saw that none of them did, either.
“What we know is she tells dreams and afterward, they come true,” Granny Haja said. “Not all the time, but it’s happened.”
“She’s had a dream you need to hear,” Mama put in. She explained about the warning, the journey, the possibility of the Parson dying.
For a moment, Mrs. Landers looked from one of the women to the next like she couldn’t quite believe this was happening to her. “What is going on here?” she said finally. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say.”
“Just listen is all,” said Granny. “Just listen to the dream, and then you can decide what to do.”
“Yes. All right,” Mrs. Landers said, but her voice told them she thought they were halfwits, all of them, that they had no right to come to her house with their old dresses and their dirty shoes and foolish notions, that she and the Reverend had stooped to come and save their poor ignorant souls, but that didn’t mean she wanted them in her kitchen.
“Tell her, Addie,” Granny said.
Addie did not want to tell the dream she hadn’t had. She didn’t want to say a word to Mrs. Landers, or to be in her perfect house or to be anywhere near her gaping nostrils and her bugged-out eyes. But the women were looking at her, waiting. They had risked humiliation by coming here, and humiliated they would be, unless she could impress Mrs. Landers, move her in some way. It would only be by making her take notice, that she could rescue Mama and Aunt and Granny from being defeated. She was the only one who could save them.
Mama gave Addie a gentle nudge, and she cleared her throat to begin her story. She told it the best way she could: loud and clear, sweeping her arms in the air for effect, making her voice tremble and boom in the right places. In the dream, the white dog passed a man in black. Addie said it was the Reverend the white dog had passed, even though the Reverend wasn’t actually in her false dream, and the women had become so sure in was the reverend in the dream, they didn’t even notice she had changed it to fit what they already thought.
None of it had any effect, not even mentioning Parson Landers. Mrs. Landers’s expression didn’t change. She picked the tea cup up, sipped and put it down with a gentle clink. She watched with her strange eyes. But Addie knew she was just wishing Addie would finish and they’d all go and leave her to her fine house, and Addie felt dizzy with the sense of shame she felt, the same shame she could see on Mama’s face, and the Aunts’ and Granny’s.
She tried to make the story sound more important. When she told of the crow pecking out the dog’s eye, she added details: blood and bits of eyeball, the crows still-beating heart quivering on the ground. Mrs. Landers looked disgusted, but other than that, she wasn’t the least bit moved. She gave Addie the same look she might give a child she’d caught picking his nose in church.
Whem Addie finished, the women were silent. They knew Mrs. Landers thought the dream didn’t mean a thing. That they were ignorant fools to come to her this way. They felt they’d acted stupidly, that no one with any brains would really think they were saving the Reverend They had thought they were on a mission, but now they realized they had misled themselves, that they had gotten caught up in something only because it seemed exciting and important. Addie looked at them and knew that this was what they were feeling, and she felt a stab of hatred for Mrs. Landers and her frog eyes, for making the women feel as if they were stupid.
Then Addie turned to Mrs. Landers again.
“There was a lady in the dream, too.” She looked straight into Mrs. Landers face. “I forgot that part before. There was a lady with blond curls and a beautiful face, and she was standing on the other side of the river. She was like an angel, and she was calling to the Reverend, waving at him to come, and she blew him a kiss with her red lips. He wouldn’t go at first. He looked down into that river, he wouldn’t cross it, even though there was a fancy bridge there. He wanted to cross it, but he knew he shouldn’t. But the lady was calling, and he couldn’t resist, and finally he went running, running across that bridge.”
The delicate teacup faltered in Mrs. Landers’s hand, fell onto the floor with a small crash, and lay, a tiny heap of sherds in a pool of clear brown liquid.
Mrs. Landers stood up. “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh my, look what I’ve done.” She started to pick up the pieces with an anxious, jerking movement. “Susan!” she called in a nervous voice. White Apron hurried in and, seeing the spilled tea, pulled a cloth from a cupboard and busied herself cleaning it up.
Mrs. Landers turned to the women. “Perhaps you should go,” she said. The pupils of her bugged eyes were so wide, they covered almost all the brown of her iris, and her voice was reedy.
“Perhaps we should,” Granny said. The women looked at each other. They had been dismissed like unruly children, and their humiliation was raw.
“We are truly sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Landers,” Mama said. “We meant no harm, only to warn you of danger to come.”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Landers said, but she was ushering them along, hurrying them out of her house, out of her sight.
The women did not speak as they followed the path away from the pretty white house down to their own, which stood with its weathered wood and rickety porch, in a small gully.Their faces were slack with embarrassment and disappointment. Addie felt sorry for them, ashamed of themselves for acting so silly. But she felt no shame. Granny Haja muttered something about high and mighty ways, about false piety. Addie hurried ahead, faster and faster until she broke out into a run. She needed to go off by herself, to think about the day, about her dreams and her lies. She had discovered a power she did not know she had. She had learned the dominion of stories. She had seen the teacup tremble and fall from Mrs. Landers’s hand
Jill Jepson is the author of two books, including Writing as a Sacred Path (Ten Speed Press 2008) and Women’s Concerns: Twelve Women Entrepreneurs of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Peter Lang), and sixty-five articles, essays, and short stories, one of which was submitted for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, as well as two other graduate degrees, and currently teaches writing and linguistics at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
