Part 9: Poppy and the Wagon Girl

The night they camped halfway up Ironbone Ridge, the air smelled like woodsmoke, pine pitch, and a memory that wasn’t done speakin’. Cypress flopped beside Poppy, tail thumpin’ dust into the firelight while Ash adjusted his pack and settled across from her with that easy grin he saved for the people he loved most. Enna Mae sat cross-legged near the flames, washtub drum beside her, hair glowing copper in the dark like embers waitin’ on a wind.
Poppy watched her stir a pot of beans, mischief already creepin’ across her face. “Alright, Granny… what’s with that fresh dirt in your garden? The one with enough basil sittin’ on top to season half the county?”
Cypress huffed. Ash froze mid–shoelace. The wolf cocked its head.
Enna Mae didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, just kept stirring that pot slow and steady, like the truth itself needed time to cook. “Sugar, that basil ain’t for hidin’. It’s for sweetenin’.”
Poppy leaned in. Ash muttered, “Oh Lord, here we go…” under his breath.
Enna Mae set her spoon down and looked around the circle. “Some dirt ain’t fresh because somethin’ was planted. It’s fresh because somethin’ was put to rest.”
The fire snapped loud, like it wanted to underline her words.
“That patch,” Enna went on, “is where we laid a man whose temper ran quicker than mercy. A man who thought a woman was somethin’ to own. A man who forgot God don’t give nobody the right to bruise what He made.”
Poppy’s face softened, anger and hurt flickerin’ behind her eyes. Ash clenched his jaw; he’d seen that kind of wound before.
“But listen to me,” Enna Mae said, her voice low, “there ain’t no murderer nor saint round this fire who needs fear the truth.” She tapped her drum once, a sound like thunder trapped in metal. “That woman came here one night with her child cling-wrapped to her chest and death hangin’ behind her like a shadow she’d finally outrun. She didn’t ask for pity. She just needed rest. And rest is what she found.”
“How?” Poppy asked softly.
“We buried what needed buryin’,” Enna said. “And we planted basil to keep anything—beast or memory—from diggin’ him up again. That’s all a grave is, sugar. A boundary.”
Poppy swallowed. “And the woman? And her little girl?”
“They’re in the holler still,” Enna said. “Safe. Growin’ strong. Learnin’ their worth back.”
Enna didn’t say the girl’s name. Didn’t say the part she kept tucked behind her teeth for another night. But the firelight caught somethin’ in her eyes—something that said the child’s story wasn’t finished.
Before dawn even bothered to lift her skirts over the ridge, Poppy and Ash packed up their bedrolls, dusted pine needles out of their hair, and followed Enna Mae up the narrow mountain trail. Cypress trotted ahead, nose twitchin’ like he’d caught the scent of fate itself, while the wolf padded behind them like a shadow with a heartbeat. They were makin’ their way toward the hidden place where Poppy’s momma, Pocahontas Hale, had been livin’ quiet these many years when the woods went sudden still. Birds cut their chatter. Wind held its breath. Even the panthers on the ridge paused.
And then they saw her.
A wild-haired little girl stood barefoot in the middle of the path, lookin’ at Poppy with bright creekwater eyes. Like she hadn’t wandered there by chance, but had been waitin’ on them. A moment so strange and certain it made Poppy’s heartbeat double, the kind that whispers you ain’t walkin’ into a tale anymore—you’re walkin’ into your destiny.
Most young’uns come into a place quiet, but not her. She stood there like she belonged to the mountain itself. Didn’t speak. Didn’t run. Just studied them like she was takin’ measure of their souls.
Enna Mae stepped forward slow, pullin’ a biscuit from her pack. Before the child even reached for it, a bluejay swooped down and perched right beside her, head cocked. The little girl chirped at it—a perfect sound—and the bird puffed up like it’d just met kin.
Ash whispered, “She… speaks bird?”
Enna snorted softly. “Birds understand feelin’, not words. And that one hears her true.”
By midday, they caught a second sign. The girl drifted to a bank thick with basil and mint. Every leaf she brushed bent toward her hand like a bow. Even the basil, stubborn as it was, leaned in.
Enna Mae sucked a breath through her teeth. “Lord have mercy. The mountain knows her.”
Poppy felt something twist inside her—recognition, fear, awe, all braided together.
Then came the storm.
Clouds rolled in black and quick. Wind tore through the branches. Lightning cracked across the sky. Cypress hid behind Ash. The wolf bristled. The grown folks backed under a rocky overhang.
But the little girl walked straight into the wind and laughed.
Bright. Fearless. Loud enough to make lightning reconsider itself.
Another bolt flashed, softer this time, like the storm bowed.
Poppy grabbed Enna Mae’s arm. “What is she?”
Enna didn’t look away. “She’s a sign, sugar. She’s mountain-made.”
When the storm passed, the girl padded back to them and curled up beside the wolf, falling asleep with her fist clutching Poppy’s sleeve like she’d known her all her life.
The wolf didn’t move. Cypress didn’t bark. The trees leaned in like they were holdin’ their breath.
Because they all recognized what she was.
A child with thunder in her bones.
A child who’d change the mountain.
A child tied to Poppy’s fate in ways none of them understood yet.
And the path toward Pocahontas Hale just got a whole lot stranger,
and a whole lot more destined.