Dewey Dell's Secret in the Woods — As I Lay Dying

If the sack is full when we get to the woods, it won't be me, Dewey Dell says. She and Lafe pick on down the row toward the secret shade, my sack and Lafe's sack. She sets the test at half-full. If it don't mean for me to do it the sack will not be full and she will turn up the next row. Lafe says he is picking into her sack. By the row's end it is full, and she could not help it. She never names what happened in the shade. She never has to. The full sack says it.

Then Darl knew. He said it without the words, the way he will later say ma is going to die without the words. If he had said it with words she would not have believed he had been there. She asked without words if he would tell pa or kill him. He said why. That is why she can talk to him with knowing with hating, because he knows. Around them the family keeps breaking: Pa dassent sweat, Jewel not care-kin, Cash sawing days into planks, Darl at supper with his eyes gone further than the food.

He stands in the door, looking at her. What you want, Darl, she says. She is going to die, he says. When. Before we get back. Then why are you taking Jewel. I want him to help me load. Old turkey-buzzard Tull is coming to watch her die, but she can fool them. Vernon Tull is about to sit on the porch and call it guessing ahead. What happens when the neighbor's calm voice meets a house where two truths move without words?