Chapter One

I know about Masenier because I was there. I seen him die. We didn't tell anybody the truth because it seemed so shameful, the way he died. It was too awful to describe to other people. But I was there, even though I didn't want to be, and I seen it all.

    Masenier was my little brother, my only brother, and us girls had spoiled him. If Masenier woke up in the middle of the night and wanted some hot cornbread one of us would get up and bake it. If Masenier wanted a pretty in the store in town we'd carry a chicken down to one of the big houses in Flat Rock and sell it to buy him the pretty. Masenier got an egg every morning while the rest of us just had grits. If he wanted biscuits and molasses, Mama or one of us girls would bake them for him.

    I thought Masenier was the cutest boy in the world. He had these blond curls that stood out all around his head, and his eyes was blue as the mountains in the far distance. He loved to sing and sometimes Papa would pick the banjo by the fire at night and us girls would sing ballads like "In the Shadow of the Pines" or "The Two Sisters" and Masenier would clap and sing along. We didn't have music that often and it was a special treat when Papa got down the banjo.

    Now the year I'm talking about was the year after Cold Friday, that day when the sun never did come out and it never warmed up. Cold Friday was the coldest day anybody had ever seen. It seemed like the end of the world, when the chickens never left the roost, and it put such a chill on everything we'll never forget that day. Papa took his coughing sickness then and it seemed lik