Page 81 of The Hermit on the Hill

"Shut up," Brittany yelled into the microphone. "All of you shut up."

The mayor banged his gavel belatedly, making it clear whose side he was on.

"Every single one of you is stuffed to the gills with bullshit," she said, her voice so low and menacing that the crowd went quiet to listen. "You claim to care about each other, to want to stand together, to be the kind of town that takes care of its own, but I bet not a single one of you in this place even knows who I am."

Silence reigned, the crowd thrown off, confused. Brittany glared at them all.

In the back, a woman stood. She was slender and tall, her skin paper-thin and pale, her hair a silver waterfall down her back. "You're Brittany Oakley," she said. "You're Sammy's sister."

Brittany turned the full force of her glare on that woman, but the woman didn't back down. "How do you know that?"

"Your grandmother was my friend," the woman said. "She and I had tea every week, and she gave me a treatment for my menopause that worked wonders."

"You were her friend?" Brittany asked, each word a bullet laced with fury and hurt. "If you were her friend, where were you when my brother and I sat by her bedside and watched her die?"

The crowd erupted again, this time into whispered murmurs, but the elderly woman's voice rose above the din. "I was at home. I knew she was sick, we'd prayed for her at church, but I didn't realize how bad it was."

"I see," Brittany said, like a prosecutor at trial. "You knew she was sick, so you must have stopped by and brought her a casserole or soup, right? You must have checked in on her grandkids to ask why we hadn't been to school for three days, right?"

Even from the front of the room, I could see the elderly woman's hands shake as she pressed them to her cheeks. "No. Your grandmother was strong. She was the healer. She never needed anything from anyone."

"Is that right?" Brittany asked. "She was the healer? Because I heard her called another word. I heard it every day at school from the other kids. They called me the same name. Anyone here want to hazard a guess?"

The room was dead silent, still as a tomb.

At last, it was the woman in the back who had the guts to speak up, "Some called her a witch."

Brittany looked at each person in that room by turn, taking her time, her audience rapt. "That bring up memories for any of you? Do you remember now that my brother Sam and I were the grandchildren of Rosie Oakley? I was nine and my brother was twelve when she got sick. My brother wanted to make the three-mile walk to town, even though there was snow on the ground and the roads were slick with ice, but I wouldn't let him go. I didn't want to be left all alone with my grandmother, because it scared me when her breathing got rattly and she coughed so hard I knew it had to hurt. I told him someone would come. Someone always stopped in for something, a tea or a spell or a birth. Our phone was out because Nana hadn't been able to pay the bill that month, but I begged Sammy to stay and I promised him someone would come."

A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped off her chin, and I pressed my hands to my own damp cheeks.

"I promised him," Brittany said. "And you all made me liars. You all stayed in your warm, safe homes while my grandmother died because she wasn't your kind. She was poor, and she was a witch and she kept to the mountain ways and y'all only ever cared about her when you needed something from her."

"I didn't know how bad she was," the woman in the back said, her voice broken by tears.

"So, help me understand," Brittany said. "Do you only take a meal to a person or check on their well-being if that person is on their deathbed?"

Brittany stood there and stared until finally someone said, "No," in a subdued voice.

"No," Brittany said. "You check on your neighbors, you look in on those you deem worthy of your goodwill, but my grandmother wasn't worthy, was she?"

No one had an answer for that. Brittany stared them all down, doing nothing to wipe away her tears or stop them from flowing down her cheeks. "My Nana would still be alive if one of you, just one, had taken the time to check in on her, a woman alone on the side of the mountain with two young kids and no working phone. My brother, Sam, he came back here because this was the only true home he'd ever known. He came back even though I told him I never wanted to see this place again. He came back with a plan to make you all pay for the way you left my Nana to die."

She leaned over the podium and slapped her palms against it. "Y'all probably didn't even miss Nana after she was gone. The witch was dead and none of you had to worry about the trash on the hill. My brother wanted to make you all remember, and you deserved it. Each and every one of you deserves to lose your businesses and your town for being the hypocrites you all are, but my brother found out he's going to be a father and he didn't want his child going through what he experienced in this town, so he called it all off. He called the investors who were bidding to be the ones to develop this town, and he told them it was no longer for sale. Those developers who got you all so riled up were here on false pretenses, trying to stir up enough trouble that they might talk my brother into choosing them for the job."

Someone shouted something unintelligible and Brittany slapped her hands on the podium again.

"You all found out about those developers and you didn't bother to ask questions or hear my brother out. You turned on him and you turned on the mother of his child and her family. They knew nothing about his plan, but all youdecent,kind,neighborlyassholes shot first and never bothered to ask questions. So I'm glad my brother is getting the hell out of this place, and I'll be glad never to see it again myself."

If she'd had a mike in her hand, she'd have dropped it. Instead, she glared at the crowd again, fierce even red-eyed and crying, and she ran from that room. Jared ran out after her, but I stayed where I was, crying for Brittany and for Sam and for myself. Crying for the damage this town had done that had driven away the only man I'd ever loved.

There was nothing I could say after Brittany's speech, so I made my way back to my seat. Carrie and Aubrey and Mom and May were crying openly and my brothers had red eyes and damp cheeks. Cody wrapped an arm around my shoulders when I sat, and I dropped my head onto his shoulder.

No one else got up to speak. The mayor called the meeting shortly after that and we all went home.

I crawled into my bed that night, wishing Sam was there to wrap his powerful arms around me. As much as I wanted to hate him for dumping me, I couldn't. I pictured him alone in that house on the hill, and hoped he was okay. Maybe getting out of town would be the best thing for him.

How could he stay in this town and ever forgive those people, ever heal?

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