Moon Over Manifest Chapters 20-21 Summary

Chapter 20

Abilene's friends are out of town for a funeral, so she's got nothing better to do than hunt for plants and bugs for Miss Sadie.
She stops in to Hattie Mae's office to take a look at some more old newspapers, but ends up asking her why no one in Manifest seems to know very much about her daddy.
They talk about how much Abilene misses him, and then Billy shows up.
He tells her that Sister Redempta brought them over some ginger tea from Miss Sadie for the baby. So let us get this straight: the nun and the fortune-teller hang out?
Billy leaves to go deliver papers, and Abilene goes to the train tracks to find the flowers Miss Sadie needs.
As she walks on the tracks, she imagines a train coming, bringing her daddy to her.
She's sure got a vivid imagination. She can almost hear the train, feel the vibrations—and then she realizes there's a real train right behind her. Argh.
She jumps off the tracks just in time, and then watches the train pass, aching to jump on. It almost kills her, and she still wants a ride?
But then Shady's there with her.
Looks like he was out all night drinking, and Abilene almost tells him she has an old whiskey cork of his on her windowsill.
He asks if she'll be home for supper, but she's got more plants to find first. Back to work.

When Abilene finally gets all the flowers on her list, she heads back to Miss Sadie's.
She doesn't see her anywhere, so she looks around for a pot or vase to put the flowers in until she gets back.
There's a shed in the back, so Abilene tries to peek through the window to see if there's a pot in there…
…when Miss Sadie suddenly appears and yells at her to get away. Oops.
She examines the flowers and then takes them apart, piece by piece.
She tells Abilene to get back to hoeing the garden (poor Abilene), but then starts telling more of the story.
The Widow Cane's death has opened up a weird new situation for the town.
She owned some property near the woods, and now Mr. Devlin wants to buy it—the geologists say there's ore underground.