Moon Over Manifest

The key fit into the door nice and easy, and with hardly a tug, the door swung open wide. The shed was there, waiting for me to come in. Waiting to reveal what had been hidden and festering for so long.

It was a normal garden shed with pruning shears, buckets, watering cans, and the accompanying assortment of cobwebs, dead bugs, and dust. But there were also ten or twelve jugs. This was where Jinx had stashed the extra elixir under lock and key. And he’d kept the key.

Up high on a shelf, there was a box. I took it down and lifted the lid. I pulled out pictures, grade cards, newspaper clippings, childhood drawings, and school papers. All mementos of a boy. A boy named Ned.

I took my time, absorbing the things Miss Sadie couldn’t bring herself to tell me. I walked into the house, and in the kitchen I fetched a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton balls. Then I found a sharp knife and heated it on the cookstove. Miss Sadie was sitting on the front porch, rocking, waiting for me.

“Are you ready?” I said.

“I am ready.”

Kneeling beside her, I held the hot blade to her wound and pierced it, letting all the pain flow out. I don’t recall if Miss Sadie told the rest of the story to me as I cleaned her wound, or if I told it to her through what I’d pieced together on my own. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that her story flowed in and out of mine. And you might say I divined the rest.

The Diviner

It is a story of a young Hungarian woman who comes from a family of diviners. And she has a son.

In her young life she has seen much of pain and suffering. She wants a better life for her son. She will go to America.

Her story is like thousands of others and yet her story is just that: her story. The woman and her son set off on a great journey. They cross the Atlantic Ocean on a big steamer and land at Ellis Island. There, with the huddled masses, she and her son are herded through cattle pens to be examined by doctors for sickness or disease.

In the din of different languages echoing in the room, she hears a voice behind her speaking words she understands. It is Gizi Vajda, a girl from her own village. They have not seen each other in years and here they end up together, in America. Or almost in America.

A doctor looks at their papers, then at the boy. Your name is Benedek, the doctor says.

The boy smiles at hearing his name. He holds out four fingers to tell the doctor how old he is. The doctor pats him on the head. A healthy one, he says, even though the boy does not understand. Then the doctor examines the mother. He checks her eyes. One is red and milky. He writes a T on her arm for trachoma, an eye infection. It is very contagious, so she will not be permitted to stay. She must return to the boat and sail back.

This cannot be. To have come all this way … It is just a cold in her eye. Nothing serious.

But her words are not understood. And her son, she cannot take him back on the boat. He is allowed to stay, so he does not get a return ticket, and she does not have enough money to buy one. Gizi says, I will keep him with me. I have a place to stay in New York. I will give you the address. When your eye is better, you will come back.

The young woman hugs her son, kisses him again and again, and, through her tears, says to be a good boy and she will come back. But how will you find me? he asks. She takes a locket from her neck. Inside is a compass. See? she says to him. This needle always points north. But in here, she says, pointing to her heart, I have a compass that always points to you. No matter where you are, I will find you.

She puts the locket around his neck and Gizi holds his hand while they wave goodbye.

The woman takes the long trip back to Europe. Her eye gets better and she works very hard to make enough money to take the boat ride again. This time she is allowed into America and goes to the place where Gizi is a seamstress for a rich family. But the maid who answers the door shakes her head. Gizi got very sick. She was in a hospital for three weeks and died.

But little Benedek. The boy who was with her? The maid shrugs. She doesn’t know where they took him.

For a whole year, the young woman walks the streets of New York. She knocks on doors of churches, orphanages, hospitals. No one can help her. No one has seen her son. Until, one day, she knocks on the door of the Orphanage of the Good Shepherd. Yes, they had a boy there. His name was Benedek. But he was put on an orphan train and sent west.

For many more months the woman’s search continues. As she goes farther west into America, she draws attention. People frown at her thick accent. They raise their eyebrows at her dark skin. She tells them she is from a family of diviners, a people who read the signs of land and water. But they do not understand. She is shunned and called a Gypsy and a fortune-teller. She asks about a boy and they hold their children behind them. Then she finds a little town in southeast Kansas called Manifest. And she finds her son.