On Agate Hill Read online

  Praise for On Agate Hill

  “Brings a dead world blazingly to life. . . . A book that seeks to rejuvenate the rapt early reader in us all. . . . [Lee Smith] is a subtly intrepid and challenging storyteller.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “The willful Molly is no hot-house flower, and her determination to live her own life—for better or worse—is the driving force of this powerful novel.”

  —USA Today

  “Memorable. . . . An independent and impetuous woman whose loves lead her into Dickensian tragedy.”

  —People

  “On Agate Hill, as lyrical and haunting as an Appalachian ballad, casts a powerful charm.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “One of those big, sweeping, epic American coming-of-age stories that puts you in Molly’s shoes and keeps you riveted there, through good times and bad.”

  —MSNBC.com

  “To declare this novel her best yet—well, that’s saying something. . . . Smith is such a beautiful writer, tough and full of grace, that soon you are lost in the half-light of Molly’s haunted landscape, listening to the voices of the ghosts, wishing they’d let you stay longer.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “On Agate Hill is a masterpiece and may come to be considered a more important novel than even Smith’s wonderful Fair and Tender Ladies. . . . Will serve as a model for future writers of historical fiction.”

  —The Raleigh News & Observer

  “With lyric intensity . . . inventive storytelling . . . Lee Smith imagines the life of an orphan girl growing up in the post–Civil War South.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A perfect book for the late summer—no matter where your hammock hangs. . . . With pitch-perfect tone and texture, the veteran Southern storyteller imagines the life of a young girl orphaned by the Civil War.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Captivating moments and colorful characters. Its many narrators—young Molly, her school’s headmistress, her kind teacher, an uneducated friend and a much older Molly—all speak with Smith’s voice, gently disguised.”

  —The Miami Herald

  “Smith is absolutely clear . . . on one thing: the importance of living passionately, with all one’s heart—whatever the consequences.”

  —The Christian Science Monitor

  “A joy to read. . . . Molly Petree is unforgettable, on par with Kaye Gibbons’ Ellen Foster and others, a true Southern heroine in true Southern tradition.”

  —The Grand Rapids Press

  “Arresting. . . . [Smith] gives readers a convincing portrait of the post–Civil War south and captures the desolation and loss, the eerie, wild space throbbing with possibility that comes on the heels of destruction, when old ways have been lost and before new rules have taken their place.”

  —The Memphis Commercial Appeal

  “Molly is a wonderfully evocative character who could pierce the heart of the toughest reader. . . . Lee Smith’s heroine rivals Scarlett O’Hara.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Smith offers genius; she knows and writes so well Southern voices and seems to almost channel lives past.”

  — The State (Columbia, SC)

  “The publication of On Agate Hill is more than happy—it is very special. It is one of [Smith’s] major books, perhaps her best since Fair and Tender Ladies.. . . A great love story.”

  —The Charlotte Observer

  “Lee Smith is a natural-born storyteller. No, that description doesn’t do justice. . . . Lee Smith is a whopper of a storyteller whose tales involve, enmesh, enthrall readers from the opening sentence to the final page.”

  —The Roanoke Times

  “Masterful. . . . [Smith] draws in the reader instantly. She also can create and sustain a mood like few other writers.”

  —The Virginian-Pilot

  “On Agate Hill is a great example of how a tale with traditional Appalachian tones can also work as a modern, psychological, shifting, organic novel. . . . Lee Smith’s creation is an inventive original that classes it with Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.”

  —Asheville Citizen-Times

  On Agate Hill

  ALSO BY LEE SMITH

  Novels

  The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed

  Something in the Wind

  Fancy Strut

  Black Mountain Breakdown

  Oral History

  Family Linen

  Fair and Tender Ladies

  The Devil’s Dream

  Saving Grace

  The Christmas Letters

  The Last Girls

  Story Collections

  Cakewalk

  Me and My Baby View the Eclipse

  News of the Spirit

  On Agate Hill

  A NOVEL

  LEE SMITH

  A SHANNON RAVENEL BOOK

  Published by

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  WORKMAN PUBLISHING

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2006 by Lee Smith.

  First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, August 2007.

  Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2006.

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Anne Winslow.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Smith, Lee, 1944–

  On Agate Hill: a novel / Lee Smith.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Shannon Ravenel book.”

  ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-452-3 (HC)

  1. North Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.M5376O5 2006

  813'.54—dc22 2006045859

  ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-577-3 (PB)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Paperback Edition

  For my son

  JOSHUA FIELD SEAY

  December 23, 1969–October 26, 2003

  CONTENTS

  Letter from Tuscany Miller

  AGATE HILL

  Notes from Tuscany

  PARADISE LOST

  Further Notes from Tuscany

  UP ON BOBCAT

  PLAIN VIEW

  ANOTHER COUNTRY

  Final Notes from Tuscany

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TUSCANY MILLER

  30-B Peachtree Court Apts.

  1900 Court Blvd.

  Atlanta, GA 30039

  September 19, 2006

  Dr. Thomas Ferrell, Director

  Documentary Studies Program

  Institute for the Study of the South

  Carolina State University

  266 College Ave.

  Charlotte, NC 28225

  Dear Dr. Ferrell:

  Remember me? Well, I know you have not heard from me in a long time because I dropped out and all (that was so slack), but now I do want to finish and I hope you will let me back into the program and give me another extension on my thesis considering what I have been up to.

  I am not going to do “Beauty Shop Culture in the South: Big Hair and Community” after all, despite my background in pageants.

  I want to turn in this box of old stuff instead, see what you think! I believe you will be as excited as I am.

 
Also I am truly a changed person, from reading it. More on that later.

  But first I guess I need to tell you how I got a hold of all this, and some things about my family, which is not normal, though we used to be.

  The family was me Tuscany Miller (actually I picked the name Tuscany myself, in high school), my older brother Padgett, and my little sister Louise, the brain. My mother was an elementary school principal while my father owned and ran his own furniture store The Aesthetic in our hometown of Lookout, NC. Our grandparents live across the street. So you see what I mean by normal.

  Even that name The Aesthetic did not give a clue. We were totally surprised when Daddy came home from the store one spring day bringing a young man named Michael Oliver with a spiky haircut and a black leather jacket. “I want you to meet Michael, a wonderful person,” Daddy said, standing in the front door holding hands with him. Mama put down her purse, she had just come in from school. Luckily Padgett was at baseball practice. Louise was doing her homework and I was watching Jeopardy on TV, I will never forget it.

  Daddy went on to say that Michael Oliver was a designer from Chicago and that they had first met in 1999 at the Furniture Market in Hickory, where Daddy went every year, and that their friendship had continued and ripened to the point where they must be together.

  “I can’t believe you used the word ripened,” said Louise who has always been kind of weird.

  As for me I did not say one thing but put the TV on mute.

  “I have heard so much about all of you,” Michael Oliver said.

  Later my best friend Courtney would say that he is hot.

  “Oh for God’s sake, Wayne,” Mama said walking out of the room.

  Things got even worse after that. First Daddy left and went to live with Michael in Asheville, where anything goes. Mama quit her job and started running the furniture store, which has been a big success. She buys the more traditional lines, like Bassett. I won Miss Confederacy then went off to college so was not there when Daddy came back to visit one day and announced that he was now becoming a woman so he could marry Michael.

  “Oh Wayne, why don’t you just be gay?” Mama asked him. “It would be a lot easier and not hurt.” But Daddy said he has been a woman all along deep inside of himself. A woman just waiting to happen.

  “Well I give up!” said Granddaddy who was over there bringing us some tomatoes.

  Anyway Daddy did become a tall thin woman named Ava because Michael loves Ava Gardner.

  Then Michael got a big inheritance. Louise has kept in touch with them all along but neither me or Padgett has had anything to do with them at all, even though I have to admit that Daddy has left me a long sweet message on my cell phone every week since he left. Now Daddy and Michael have bought this old completely run-down plantation out in the country between Hillsborough and Burlington, NC, and they are fixing it up into a very fancy bed and breakfast.

  So I was surprised to get a message from Michael instead of Daddy on my cell phone right after my little marriage ended in a disaster which I will not go into.

  “Tuscany,” Michael said, “I know that you took that documentary studies class at the university and I wonder if you might be interested in looking at a young girl’s diary from the 1870s which the carpenters have just found out here at Agate Hill. It was in a secret room up under the eaves. Let me know. We would love to have a visit from you too.”

  So I got in the car and drove up there, and the rest is history.

  Or I hope you will think it is history.

  There is a lot of other stuff in this box too including letters (some mailed and some not), poems, songs, and sheet music, a Bible, a catechism (I never saw one of these before, it is very depressing), old newspaper accounts, court records involving a possible murder, a hand-tooled leather case with a silver clasp, a little heart-shaped stirrup, marbles, rocks, and dolls, and a large collection of BONES, some human and some not. So I will just put some stick-it notes and stuff here and there as we go along and then tell you some more at the end.

  Hopefully,

  Tuscany Miller

  Agate Hill

  Dear Diary,

  This book belongs to me Molly Petree age thirteen today May 20 in the year of our Lord 1872, Agate Hill, North Carolina. I am an orphan girl. This is my own book of my own self given to me by the preachers wife Nora Gwyn who said, This little diary is for you my dear unfortunate child, to be your friend and confident, to share all your thoughts and deepest secrets for I know how much you need a friend and also how much you love to read and write. I do believe you have a natural gift for it. Now it is my special hope that you will set down upon these pages your own memories of your lovely mother and your brave father, and of your three brothers as well, and of all that has befallen you. For I believe this endeavor might help you, Molly Petree. So I urge you to take pen in hand commencing your diary with these words, Thy will be done O Lord on Earth as it is in Heaven, Amen.

  Well, I have not done this!

  And I will not do it either no matter how much I love pretty Nora Gwyn who looks like a lady on a fancy plate and has taught me such few lessons as I have had since Aunt Fannie died. NO for I mean to write in secrecy and stelth the truth as I see it. I know I am a spitfire and a burden. I do not care. My family is a dead family, and this is not my home, for I am a refugee girl.

  I am like the ruby-throated hummingbird that comes again and again to Fannies red rosebush but lights down never for good and all, always flying on. And it is true that often I feel so lonesome for all of them that are gone.

  I live in a house of ghosts.

  I was born before the Surrender and dragged from pillar to post as Mamma always said until we fetched up here in North Carolina after Columbia fell. Our sweet Willie was born there, into a world of war. He was real little all waxy and bloody, and Old Bess put him into a dresser drawer while the fires burned red outside the windows. Mamma used to tell it in that awful whisper which went on and on through the long hot nights when she could not sleep and it was my job to wet the cool cloths required for her forehead which I did faithfully. I loved my mamma. But I was GLAD when she died, I know this is a sin. I have not told it before. But I am writing it down anyway as Nora Gwyn said and I will write it all down every true thing in black and white upon the page, for evil or good it is my own true life and I WILL have it. I will.

  I am the legal ward of my uncle Junius Jefferson Hall who is not really my uncle at all but my mothers first cousin a wise and mournful man who has done the best he could for us all I reckon. We arrived here during the last days of the War to a house running over all ready thus giving Uncle Junius more than thirty people on this place to feed, negro and white alike. Uncle Junius used to be a kind strong man but he is sick and seems so sad and lost in thought now since Fannie died.

  This is his wife my dear aunt Fannie who is recently Deceased it has been seven months now, and the baby inside her born dead and backward.

  I will NEVER have a baby myself!

  I sat out in the passage all night long on a little stool and listened to Fannie scream then moan then watched them run in and out, the negros and old Doctor Lambeth who stayed here for three days all told. He is a skinny old man with a horse that looks just like him. He came riding in at a dead run with his long gray hair streaming out behind him under his high black hat. He has always been Uncle Junius best friend. At first I did not get to see the baby though Old Bess thrust him out the door past me wrapped in a bloody cloth then Liddy took him away and washed him and wrapped him again in a clean white sheet like a little bundle of laundry. They put him on the marble top table in the parlor.

  What is his name? I ventured to ask Uncle Junius once when he came out of the bedroom but he cursed and said, He has no name Molly, he is dead.

  But then Mister Gwyn the preacher arrived and said, Now Junius, you must give him a name, for I cannot baptize him without a name, and he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without baptism.

  So th
en they unwrapped him, and I got to see him finely, pale blue but perfect, he looked like a little baby doll.

  Mister Gwyn dipped his hand in the special water in the rose china bowl and touched the babys little blue head and blessed him saying, Lewis Polk Hall, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

  Amen, Uncle Junius said, Amen, then gave a great sob and rushed over and knelt down and kissed the babys little cheek then went straight back into the bedroom.

  Nora Gwyn held the baby for a long time while the servants and some of the neighbor people came in to see him, then they laid him out on the table again with dimes on his eyes and a little white lace dress that somebody had brought him. Uncle Junius had named him for his oldest boy Lewis that served in the Twenty-second North Carolina Regiment under Colonel Pettigrew. Now he is dead, and Uncle Junius is old, and Fannie was old too, she did not have any business with any more babys, Old Bess said. Babys are always dangerous but it is even more dangerous when you are old. But everybody except me wants them, it is hard to see why.

  The things that people really want are the most like to kill them, it seems to me, such as war and babys.

  More and more people came. They sat in the parlor and gathered outside on the piazza and all over the yard in the shade of the trees. Why do they keep coming? I asked Liddy in the kitchen but she just wiped her face and gave me some parched corn and said, Here, go on, take little Junius down to feed the chickens. Little Junius is a snivelly little boy who looks like he is about a hundred years old. I got his hand and took him out the door and down the hill to the henhouse where all the chickens came running. He threw out the corn like it was a job of work.

  Then I heard hammering from inside the barn.

  So after he finished feeding the chickens little Junius and I went into the big barn to find Virgil there making something, with Washington helping him. Washington is Liddys son and my best friend on this place, he is milk coffee color with gray eyes and a big smile. Virgil and Old Bess came all the way from South Carolina with Mamma. Old Bess is what they call a griffe negro but Virgils face is as round and shiny black as that globe our uncle Harrison brought back from the Cape of Good Hope, I believe you call it obsidian. Virgil is real old now, but he can still make anything.