Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  Also by Susan Gabriel

  Fiction

  * * *

  Temple Secrets

  The Secret Sense of Wildflower

  (a Best Book of 2012 – Kirkus Reviews)

  Lily’s Song (sequel to The Secret Sense of Wildflower)

  Trueluck Summer

  Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories

  Seeking Sara Summers

  Circle of the Ancestors

  Quentin & the Cave Boy

  * * *

  Nonfiction

  * * *

  Fearless Writing for Women:

  Extreme Encouragement & Writing Inspiration

  Gullah Secrets

  Sequel to Temple Secrets

  Susan Gabriel

  Wild Lily Arts

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Trueluck Summer

  The Secret Sense of Wildflower

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Susan Gabriel

  Copyright © 2018 by Susan Gabriel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9981050-1-7

  Cover design by Lizzie Gardiner, lizziegardiner.co.uk

  Wild Lily Arts

  Printed in the United States of America

  In memory of

  Peg Hall

  CHAPTER ONE

  Old Sally

  Old Sally sits overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the sunrise stretching toward her like a golden path between this world and the next. At 102 years of age, Old Sally has been teaching her granddaughter Violet the art of Gullah folk magic to ensure their traditions stay alive.

  Plenty of troubles in this world are from people forgetting their ancestors’ wisdom, she thinks.

  Swells of an ocean at high tide slap against the South Carolina shore as pelicans dive in quest of their morning meal. Dolphin Island is on the other side of the Georgia state line, close enough to Savannah that her family always worked there. Old Sally and Violet often meet on the front porch in the early mornings and sit in their favorite rocking chairs while Violet writes what she learns in a hardback notebook. At one time, Old Sally’s root doctoring was known all over the Southeast, but nowadays most people take a pill to make their symptoms go away instead of using a root cure.

  Even with a household full of people underfoot, Old Sally takes time to ponder things. According to Old Sally’s grandmother, Sadie, who taught her everything she knows about Gullah folk magic, silence is where wisdom is found. Over her long life, Old Sally has made a friend of silence. She looks over at Violet, who is mixed race and a lighter shade than Old Sally with her leathered, dark skin. Violet is still as beautiful in her forties as she was when she was young.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Violet says.

  “Those will cost you a quarter,” Old Sally says with a smile.

  She laughs when Violet pulls a coin from her pocket and places it on the porch railing in front of them. Their playfulness pleases Old Sally. Often, her memories are from when she was a girl, the end of life circling back around to the beginning.

  To the Gullah people, like their African ancestors, time is eternal and continually renews itself like an unbroken circle. Past, present, and future are one. In the Gullah concept of time, the dead still have an impact on the community of the living. While their bodies go into the ground and their souls to God, their presence is still felt as long as they are remembered.

  It always touched Old Sally that her Gullah ancestors were buried with their heads turned toward the east. A sacred ritual, her grandmother told her, that signifies the circle of life that rises and sets with the sun. East is also the direction of their beloved homeland. The place her ancestors lived before they were forced onto ships and brought here to the South Carolina and Georgia coasts to be slaves for white landowners.

  Remembering their transaction, Old Sally picks up the quarter and puts it in the pocket of her cotton dress.

  “I be thinking about my grandmother,” Old Sally begins. “She lived with my family the entire time I was growing up. It be my grandmother who always had time for me and who explained things I didn’t understand. Before I was born, she had been a slave,” Old Sally continues. “The stories she told from those days always made me cry. But she also taught me what it meant to be free, and how to think for myself.”

  Old Sally pauses, remembering how her grandmother insisted that she learn to read. Before her grandmother’s death, Sally taught her how to read and write in return.

  “Your great-grandmother was very gifted with folk magic,” Old Sally begins again. “She made me look like a beginner. Like I’ve told you before, you be gifted, too, Violet. You have the family sensitivity.”

  Violet looks out over the sea as if pondering the responsibility of this gift.

  The Gullah women of their family all have different talents. Violet sees spirits and has a shoulder that predicts when something terrible is about to happen. Old Sally’s youngest daughter, Queenie, offers laughter as a potion. Her long-gone daughter, Maya, had been an expert at reading tea leaves. Besides root doctoring and spells, Old Sally also helps people transition from this world into the next.

  Old Sally pushes the quarter toward Violet, who looks up with a smile. If the light catches her just right, Sally can see Queenie in her, Violet’s mother.

  “For some reason, I was thinking about Miss Temple and how hard she was on Queenie,” Violet says. “Ghosts don’t relocate, do they?”

  “Not that I know of,” Old Sally says, although she must admit to herself she has wondered the same thing.

  Old Sally’s family and the Temples have a shared history that goes back several generations. Old Sally’s grandmother was a slave for the elite Temple
family in Savannah before she was finally freed. Then Old Sally worked for Iris Temple in the same mansion for sixty years, even before “Old” was added to her name. When she got too old and tired to work there anymore, her granddaughter Violet took over as housekeeper and cook, and her daughter Queenie became Iris’s companion.

  Like two trees that have grown together and intermingled roots, the two families sometimes share parentage, which complicates matters even more. Sally’s grandmother Sadie gave birth to a baby boy named Adam, who was half Temple and taken from her at the age of ten, sent to a plantation in Charleston. For that evil deed, Sadie was the first of Sally’s ancestors to put a Gullah curse on the Temples. Two generations later, Old Sally had Queenie by Edward Temple, Iris’s father, making Queenie and Iris half sisters. Then Queenie had Violet by Mister Oscar, Iris’s husband. For two hundred years, black servants and lily-white rich folks in Savannah mixed and mingled in all sorts of ways that weren’t the least bit socially acceptable.

  Of course, Iris’s last will and testament changed everything when she left the Temple mansion to Violet, who was not only the housekeeper but also Mister Oscar’s daughter. All because of Iris’s fear of going against deathbed requests. And not just any deathbed request, but one from her dead husband, who still haunted the Temple mansion.

  Old Sally sighs. The spirit world feels so close it’s hard to imagine some people never give it a thought.

  After the Temple mansion burned to the ground over two years ago—a fire Edward Temple accidentally started in which he also lost his life—no one heard anything else from the ghostly Temples. Old Sally hopes they have finally been laid to rest. But maybe not.

  Those Temples are a stubborn bunch, she thinks. Wouldn’t be like them to just fade away.

  Just in case, Old Sally keeps a bowl filled with water in the front room to run the ghosts off like her grandmother taught her, and she continues the protection spells like she always has.

  “If we were having the wedding at the mansion today, Miss Temple would try to ruin it for Queenie,” Violet says.

  Old Sally agrees, thinking that maybe the Temple ghosts are haunting Violet today, too. “We are lucky to have it here at the beach,” Sally says.

  Doing battle with Iris Temple, dead or alive, is not something anyone would want to do. Especially not Old Sally. She had her fill of Iris a long time ago.

  The sky is a deep blue. The breeze, gentle and warm, with no hints of anything that might ruin the day. But before they get ready for the wedding, Old Sally must think of a Gullah story for Violet to put in her notebook. Lately, she has been sharing the Gullah legends she grew up hearing.

  “Perhaps it’s time to tell you about the mermaid storm,” Old Sally says. “It was my grandmother’s favorite story to tell my brothers and me whenever she wanted to mesmerize us, as well as scare us to death.”

  Violet opens her book, ready to take notes.

  “It was October of 1893,” Old Sally begins. “Common knowledge to the Gullah people at that time was that whenever a mermaid was captured, a storm brewed.” She pauses like her grandmother always did, to pull her listeners in. “Well, a white man on the island did indeed capture a mermaid one day, and he was hiding her in his shed behind his family’s beach cottage. He refused to release the mermaid,” she continues, “and a few days later a rare hurricane struck the island. It was a horrible storm. The ocean rose and rose until it finally got so high that the captive mermaid was washed back to sea. However, as punishment for the man’s misdeeds, his entire family was drowned in the tidal surge.”

  Violet stops writing. “Well, that story would scare me, too.”

  “My grandmother always ended the tale with ‘Let’s just hope no white folks have captured any mermaids lately.’” Old Sally chuckles, remembering her grandmother’s laughter.

  A bluebird lands on the arm of an empty rocking chair by the front door, surprising them both. A rare shade of indigo blue, the bird’s beauty is otherworldly. She watches them as though noting their plainness in comparison to her exquisiteness and chirps a tune before flying away.

  “A songbird singing on a doorstep means company’s coming,” Old Sally says.

  “Really?” Violet writes this down.

  “And if somebody accidentally drops a dishrag in the kitchen, that means they’re coming soon.”

  Violet jots this in her notebook, too.

  The scent of melancholy rides in on the breeze. Sometimes the loneliness of missing all the family and friends who have gone on before her takes Old Sally’s breath away. Most notably, her grandmother is on her mind today.

  “How did I get to be this old, Violet?”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Violet says, still writing. She doesn’t realize the significance of Old Sally’s comment. “I wish I’d seen all the change you’ve seen in your lifetime,” she adds, looking up from her notebook. “It must be fascinating.”

  “Overwhelming is the word I’d use,” Old Sally says. “To live in the twenty-first century is like holding onto the tail of a comet.”

  “Well, I’m very grateful that you’re here.” Violet closes her notebook and looks at her watch. She stands and leans over to kiss Old Sally’s cheek.

  “I’ve got to get busy. It’s a big day.”

  Old Sally agrees.

  Alone again, she smiles, happy to pass on the Gullah secrets to her granddaughter, just like her grandmother did to her. Not that they are secrets exactly, but they might as well be since so few people know their traditions. Someday soon Old Sally will return to her ancestors, a fact that doesn’t scare her in the least. However, she is not ready to go home just yet. She still has unfinished business. Memories of the past must be sorted through, and the last of the Gullah traditions must be passed on to Violet. Not to mention, there is a wedding later today that she doesn’t want to miss.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Queenie

  Queenie Temple studies her reflection in her bedroom’s full-length mirror, sucking in her ample waistline to no avail. The white plus-size wedding gown she and Rose found in Savannah a few weeks ago is not cooperating. In her sixties, Queenie is not a typical bride, although she is having a traditional June wedding.

  “How do women fit into these things?” Queenie says to her daughter, Violet, who inches the zipper upward on the back of her dress.

  “It would help if you stood still,” Violet says, coaxing the fabric to loosen. “When it comes to squirming, you’re worse than when Tia and Leisha were little girls.”

  Queenie smiles. “I do feel like a youngster these days.” The sigh that follows is unexpected. “But the truth is, I’m not a spring chicken anymore, Vi. Hell, I’m not even a fall chicken.” She cackles. “Is my intended here yet?”

  “He got here an hour ago,” Violet says. “He’s pacing and wearing a path into the kitchen floor.”

  “Oh heavens, do you think he’s having second thoughts?” Queenie’s newly tweezed eyebrows float above the glasses she has begun to need.

  Violet tugs at Queenie’s dress. “I think he’s more nervous that you’ll have second thoughts,” she says. “He’s wearing a new bow tie, by the way. Wait till you see it.”

  “That man,” Queenie clucks. “Did I tell you about the time he came to bed wearing nothing but a bow tie?”

  Violet tugs at the back of Queenie’s dress again. “That’s what the girls would call TMI,” she says. “Too Much Information.”

  Queenie laughs again. “Maybe you should sew up the back and then cut me out of it later.”

  “It’s bad luck to mend a garment someone is wearing,” Violet says. “I imagine that goes for sewing someone into a wedding dress, too.”

  “Is that another Gullah saying?”

  “Yes,” Violet admits. “I hope it doesn’t bother you, it helps me remember them.”

  “No problem.” Queenie wipes a thin layer of sweat from above her upper lip. “I can’t believe how nervous I am. You’d think I’d never been marrie
d before.”

  “You haven’t,” Violet says, playing deadpan to Queenie’s humor.

  Queenie cackles again. The more nervous she gets, the more she laughs. She has been this way her entire life. If given a choice between laughter or tears, laughter is the winner every time. Crying is usually reserved for sacred moments, the last time being when Spud proposed. Her eyes mist with the memory. They were eating at their favorite seafood restaurant in Hilton Head—The Spicy Sturgeon. Halfway through the meal, Queenie bit into the best crab cake she had ever tasted and nearly cracked a crown. Wearing a lobster bib, Spud quickly dropped to one knee. Then he spoke the words Queenie had waited forty years to hear, even though she and Spud had only dated for one of those years: I’d be greatly honored, Queenie Temple, if you would agree to become my wife.

  Leave it to Spud to hide an engagement ring inside a crab cake. In the moments that followed, Queenie cried an ocean of tears. Grateful tears. Relieved tears. Tears she had been holding in for decades. She cried for so long Spud’s knee gave out, and two waiters had to help him stand again.