From “Within You Without You,” by Kevin Kittredge:

 

 “Within You Without You” is the beginning of a very long story about a woman – a freckled, red-headed, Southern Appalachia-born woman – named Jan Campbell Harper, who makes a mess of things, as people will, given time and half a chance. Her story spans the last third of the last century in the last millennium, when Jan and her fellow baby boomers were in the prime of their lives. One day, perhaps, all the pieces of the story will be published together – it is my dream – but this is not the historical moment for publishing 1500-page story books about red-headed heroines from Appalachia, or anything else, for that matter, except maybe vampires, or boy wizards.  Readers who demand closure may rest assured, however, that “Within you Without You” follows its own narrative arc and logic to an undeniable end. On the other hand, those who want to know what happens next – and something always happens next – or who just want to spend more time with my characters may pick up the narrative in book II, “Jannie’s Song,” and in subsequent volumes until my tale is done.  It will be done when my heart stops beating or else I have answered all the questions I know how to answer about Jan Harper and her world.  Some I don’t know how to answer – but that was what made her story worth telling to begin with.  Perhaps the reader will.

Kevin Kittredge

 

 

Part 1, chapter 1

The jury chose death.  Jan Harper felt something vital leave her – her own soul, maybe, fleeing this life a little early for the next.  Once it was clear the earthly one remained, she reached for the girl’s hand.

Jamie Linkous submitted, but did not squeeze back.  Somehow, little Jamie had sat through it all detached, only now and then blinking her blue-gray eyes. She must have guessed how things were going to go. 

The judge, a woman Jan had known since grade school, with whom she had endured the nuns, was thanking the members of the jury for their efforts and their sacrifices, advising them to speak cautiously if at all to the waiting media, dismissing court… Behind the table at which sat Jan and Jan’s assistant, Jennifer – an awkward blonde, fresh out of law school – and, of course, Jamie, the courtroom was emptying with a soft, banal rustling of purses, coats, scarves and gloves, the shuffling of feet and the beginnings of a dozen low conversations.  They were the sounds of a world already moving on.  The show was over, for most… In the first bench, Jamie’s mother, Cindy Drukenmiller Linkous, a gray plank of a woman with a voice like wind through November leaves, sobbed into her big, raw-knuckled hands – Jamie’s hands, almost, with the same long fingers, but skin cracked from hot dishwater.

Two tall, meat-bellied sheriff’s deputies with guns in on their hips approached the table and stood there waiting for the grossly overmatched Jamie to come with them.  Brown bears to a fawn.  Jamie looked up at them briefly, as if startled awake, then her eyes darted to Jan’s.

“Is it all done?”

“Only for now.”

    She nodded. Jan had always thought the child unconventionally pretty, in the way that certain flowers of the shaded backwoods are unconventionally pretty; her pale, translucent skin reminded Jan of Indian pipe. She had the outsized ears of small,  listening mammals.  Lank brown hair hung down from her head without a ripple.  She looked like a school girl in her new dress, bought just for the trial – smaller and younger than she was, still waiting for curves.  Except for those changeable eyes, with their little flecks of gold, there was nothing unique about her looks.  Not here.  These mountains bred pale Jamies by the dozens, by the hundreds – underfed, undergrown, wild girls who would look like children until the day they looked old.  

“Chin up.”

Jan let go of Jamie’s hand.  The girl stood – it could hardly be said she rose, as the difference was negligible – to return to her cell.  

Immediately another hand reached for her over the railing.  

“Jamie,” her mother gasped. One of the deputies moved between them, then relented and stepped aside – proof he, too, had once emerged from a woman’s loins, suckled at a breast.  For some seconds, Cindy Linkous was allowed to stroke her daughter’s hair and murmur loving words. 

Then the deputies led the little murderess away.

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