Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  Home again, Violet sees that the house is lit up as if they are hosting another wedding party. A peculiar odor greets her on the front porch. A root mixture has been rubbed along the door and window frames of the house. Old Sally’s doing, no doubt, for further protection against the storm.

  Violet finds everyone in the kitchen except for Old Sally. An animated discussion is going on about the storm. Jack puts an arm around Violet when she steps close. Tia and Leisha have made iced tea for everyone, placing lemon slices on the rims of the glasses like Violet did for Miss Temple’s fancy dinners. She hasn’t missed serving the silver-headed patriarchs and their wives who keep old Savannah alive. Although they are welcome to visit her tea shop at any time, not one of them has passed through its doors. She offers a wry smile.

  Angela fixes Katie a snack. Green grapes and green olives have been her latest craving. When Violet was pregnant with Tia, she ate her weight in apple slices dipped in Peter Pan peanut butter. She looks forward to having a baby around. Good practice for when Tia and Leisha have babies, if they choose to. But before any new life is welcomed, they need to get through this hurricane.

  Queenie and Spud enter the kitchen. “We’re going back to Hilton Head as soon as this storm passes,” Queenie says to Violet, after noting her surprise at seeing them back.

  Spud gives Violet a wave, sporting one of the many Hawaiian shirts he has collected since he retired, his idea of leisure wear.

  For years Violet thought of herself as an orphan, her mother deceased and a father who had no name. But now she has Queenie and a stepfather in Spud. Violet smiles at this thought despite her tiredness and sits on a stool at the kitchen island. She will check on Old Sally after she rests for a moment.

  Weather reports now play on the hour. Violet sighs. She is already tired of this storm, and it hasn’t even happened yet. Katie turns up the volume on the television on the kitchen counter, and they watch yet another update. The forecaster has taken off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. The storm is skirting past Cuba with 150 mile-per-hour winds, still heading in their direction.

  The inevitability of the hurricane reminds Violet of childbirth—that moment during her labor with Leisha when she realized there was no turning back. Nature rules over everything and everyone. Like a newborn, the storm will arrive whether they are ready for it or not.

  Violet is curious why her shoulder isn’t hurting anymore. She had one sharp but brief pain at the tea shop, and now nothing. At times she has prayed that this sensitivity would go away, but she didn’t realize how much she relies on it.

  “I need to check on Old Sally,” Violet tells Jack.

  “Good idea,” he says, not taking his eyes from the weather report.

  When Violet gets to Old Sally’s room, she finds it empty. She checks the bathroom before finding the side door slightly ajar. She goes outside and calls Old Sally’s name and then follows the deck around to the front of the house. It is almost dusk, and Old Sally is standing on the beach looking out over the ocean. Violet walks through the dunes to join her, the crests of the waves tipped in the last moments of sunlight. Violet often finds Old Sally like this these days. Deep in thought. Visiting a silence that takes her full attention.

  “Are you okay?” Violet asks her.

  Old Sally nods as she studies the waves.

  “An ill wind be blowing in,” Old Sally tells her.

  “I thought so,” Violet answers. “How should we prepare for it?”

  Old Sally doesn’t answer and keeps staring at the waves. “Do you know what courage fires are?” she asks after a long pause.

  “No. What are courage fires?”

  “I’m not so sure myself,” Old Sally says. “But they sound important.”

  It is not often that Violet sees Old Sally at a loss or confused. But something has her off balance.

  Together, they look out over the waves as if the sea holds the answers they seek. The tide is coming in.

  “Are you worried about the storm?” Violet asks.

  “This one be different somehow.”

  Old Sally’s words make Violet uneasy. She shudders and wraps her arms around herself.

  “I may need you later,” Old Sally says.

  “Of course,” Violet answers. “Just tell me what you need.”

  “My grandmother came to me in a dream yesterday. She told me to build courage fires, but I don’t know what that means.”

  “Well, whatever they are, we’ll figure it out.” Weary, Violet glances back at the ocean, wishing the waves could carry her tiredness out to sea so she could be more available to Old Sally.

  “Thanks for your faith in me,” Old Sally says, touching Violet’s arm.

  It strikes Violet as an odd thing to say. She has never lost faith in Old Sally. She has counted on her to be there every moment of her life, and Violet has never been disappointed. It never occurred to her that faith might be involved.

  “Has everyone made it home?” Old Sally asks.

  Violet says they have. “I need to go in. You coming?”

  “Soon,” Old Sally says.

  Violet turns and heads back to the house. Two crows pick at a dead crab on the beach. They stagger away when Violet walks by. Life and death hold hands here on the island, where land and ocean meet. To see crows this late in the day is odd. Depending on who you talk to, they can either be a sign of good luck or death coming.

  The crows take flight, their wings flapping loudly as they pass on both sides of Violet. Close enough that she can feel the wind from their wings on her face. She walks through the dunes, remembering a story Old Sally told her about a Dr. Crow who lived on one of the barrier islands near here. He was a root doctor like Old Sally. Rumor was that he could take the form of a crow whenever he set a notion to. But these are not human crows as far as she knows. She hopes they are bringing a sign that good luck is coming. Sounds like they could use it with this storm.

  An ambitious gust of wind causes the dune grasses to twirl—a whisper, perhaps, of the shouting to come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Queenie

  Several of Queenie’s housemates gather in the kitchen to view the latest weather report. The weather map on the television shows a giant swirl of tight clouds heading toward the southeastern coast of the United States.

  “Heaven help us,” Queen says, a frequent phrase of late.

  “Looks like that hurricane is building steam,” Spud says. He puts an arm around Queenie, resting it on her hip. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, Sugar,” he adds.

  Queenie gives him a sideways glance. “Mister Grainger, since when do you call me Sugar?”

  His smile is followed by a quick kiss. “Husbands and wives are supposed to have pet names for each other, aren’t they?”

  Queenie resists slapping him. This storm has her agitated. Not only has it cut her honeymoon short, but now Iris is sucking up all the wedding excitement. A bride is meant to bask in the glory of her wedding day for weeks. But that once-in-a-lifetime memory is now replaced by weather maps and preparation lists.

  “Max and I call each other ‘honey,’” Rose says. “We haven’t called each other by our real names in years.”

  “We do ‘honey,’ too.” Katie smiles at Angela.

  “What would you like to be called?” Queenie asks Spud. Not Sugar, she hopes.

  For a moment, he looks perplexed, but then another smile crosses his face. “How about, You sexy devil, you?”

  She gives Spud a playful nudge in the ribs. “You wish, old man.”

  Everyone laughs, except for Tia and Leisha, who roll their eyes. Queenie imagines this is more than they want to know about their grandmother and new step-grandfather.

  For decades, Queenie’s love life was only a periodic fantasy that involved movie actors. But now, in her sixties, all has changed. The first time she and Spud made love she was literally weak in the knees. She had heard the phrase before but never experienced it. Now she doesn’t feel weak bu
t emboldened. At times, she even feels forty years younger. However, this storm is aging her fast.

  “Lord have mercy,” Queenie says after the weather report ends. “Are those weather people deliberately trying to scare us? Every time we watch, the news gets worse.”

  Amidst the chatter, Queenie reminds herself to ask Rose what happened to Heather, as well as what happened at the bank today. It seems a lot more is going on besides this storm, and Queenie hasn’t had a spare minute to catch up.

  “We need to get busy,” Max says to everyone gathered in the kitchen. “You know what they say: prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

  Queenie moans. This is not what she had in mind for entertainment this evening. Max and Jack hand them rolls of masking tape and instruct them to put a large X on each window that doesn’t have storm shutters. Canned goods and other foods are to be gathered. Water jugs filled and labeled. Batteries and flashlights collected. Matches and candles put in dry, waterproof containers.

  Queenie gets tired just hearing them talk about all that needs to be done. She hasn’t recovered from the last big event, and now they are getting ready for another one.

  Nor has my honeymoon adequately commenced, she thinks.

  With that thought, Queenie gives Spud a wink that appears to confuse him. Who, after all, gets amorous during hurricane preparations? It seems her sexual prime has coincided with her AARP membership and senior discounts.

  But it’s good to surprise yourself, she decides, especially as you age.

  The kinds of surprises she doesn’t like are unexpected weather events. But truth be told, this hurricane could ruin a lot more than Queenie’s honeymoon. Just a little while ago Jack showed her some photographs of the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo. Oprah even did a show there at the time, but Iris refused to let Queenie attend. Hugo left houses on Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms in shambles or swept them off their foundations. Some of the homes were washed a block or two away. It didn’t help that the drawbridge to the islands was blown off its hinges, too, and people couldn’t get home for weeks. A bridge very similar to the one on Dolphin Island.

  Hurricanes, like Iris Temple in her day, are never to be underestimated, in Queenie’s opinion. Iris was a blowhard for sure, and she was also destructive, especially if you got on her wrong side.

  Not that Iris had a right side, she thinks.

  Queenie had thought those evil days were over. But it seems her stormy stepsister is making an encore appearance with the clear intent to destroy Queenie’s happiness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Old Sally

  For all the years Old Sally has looked out over this same sea, she has never seen it with this many deep purple hues. Something is churning up from its farthest depths. A similar churning is happening in her gut. Her grandmother was the one whose intuition was the most refined in her family. She predicted the loss of her boy, Adam, who was sent away to the Charleston plantation, and ultimately put a curse on the Temple family for sending him away. She predicted the First World War and the Second. In fact, she predicted her own death right down to the hour.

  Old Sally isn’t as good at predicting world events, but her gut tells her when something dangerous is close to home. The ill-tempered wind she sensed earlier is growing in anger and heading in their direction. Old Sally’s dreams were different last night, too, churned up by the sea. Every night it seems that something new washes up on the beach of the dream world that she is to look at.

  This isn’t the first time this has happened. The night the Temple mansion burned to the ground a dream warned her. The morning Fiddle died in a car crash her dreams foretold that, too, as well as the death of their child together, and Maya’s death—from a tragic car crash, too, more than forty years ago. Now her latest dreams have her grandmother telling her to prepare for something dangerous. Something that requires courage.

  Old Sally pulls her shawl tighter and thinks again of Violet. The Gullah ways have been perfected over several centuries stretching back to Western Africa. It would be impossible for anyone to learn everything in only a few months, and harder still for modern people to embrace the old ways. What more does she need to pass on to her? Every human thinks they will have more time, but the truth is, nobody has any guarantees of living any longer than the next second.

  Only recently did Old Sally and Violet begin to experiment with tonics Violet might sell in her tea shop. Root teas. Teas that keep sickness at bay, as well as dark forces. But Old Sally wonders if Savannah is ready for such cures.

  She walks in the direction Violet went moments before and falters. For the last twenty-four hours, dizziness has visited her. At first, she thought it was the excitement of Queenie’s wedding. Now she realizes it may be the storm.

  Once inside the house, she stands in the entryway to steady herself. Then Queenie comes to greet her in the hallway like a sudden gust of wind, if the wind were happy to see someone.

  Because of her advanced age, Old Sally is often the center of attention, as if everyone is anticipating her keeling over in front of them. The older she gets, the more her final day crosses her mind. But it doesn’t frighten her like it seems to scare them. To Old Sally, it is her reward for living. Her last breath here will be followed by her first breath there—the land of her ancestors.

  However, it seems that since she is still breathing, her work in this world is not yet finished. Thank the heavens she is good at waiting. Otherwise, it would be harder than it is. Longevity has burdens, too, as well as lessons—as does everything in life. In the meantime, Old Sally directs an unspoken message to Violet to further test their ability to communicate with their thoughts.

  Violet emerges from the kitchen.

  Was that you? she asks, without speaking.

  Old Sally gives a single nod, and she and Violet exchange a smile. Their connection is getting stronger.

  Is there something more we should be doing about this storm right now? Violet asks.

  Even our best conjuring spells can’t keep this storm away, Old Sally tells her. Although she did create something earlier to try.

  The truth is this hurricane is as inevitable as Old Sally’s passing. The wind and sea are riled. Once nature sets things in motion, there is nothing humans can do.

  Old Sally joins Violet in the kitchen, feeling a sense of urgency.

  “With this storm, things be speeding up,” Old Sally says aloud. “There are a few things left for me to tell you and now seems the time. Can we talk later?”

  Violet agrees. As far as Old Sally knows, Violet’s notebook contains the first written record of the Gullah beliefs and potions, as well as the stories going back to when her people first arrived on this island.

  Until she began teaching Violet, the stories Old Sally heard when she was young were part of an oral tradition. But Violet’s book of Gullah secrets gives her hope that their traditions will live on in written form, too. Tia and Leisha also give her hope. They have Gullah blood in them, and an interest in the old ways.

  Old Sally yawns. She naps a lot these days to conserve her energy for what is coming. She tells Violet she needs to lie down, and on the way to her bedroom, she glances at the front door. Someone is about to arrive. The doorbell rings and Rose answers it. Old Sally lingers long enough in the living room to hear that it is Edward’s daughter again. She is certain Heather is part of the ill wind blowing in.

  Tiredness threatens to overcome her as she continues to her bedroom. She must sleep and gather her strength.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rose

  Seeing Heather at the door reminds Rose of that saying about how bad pennies always turn up. After they last spoke at the tea shop, she imagined she wouldn’t hear from Heather again. At least not anytime soon.

  “Did you forget something?” Rose asks.

  “Let me explain.” Heather pushes past her, reminding her of how Iris always insisted on being center stage.

  Rose would never walk into so
meone’s home uninvited. Southern manners were bred into her as habitually as brushing her teeth. She rubs her temples with the beginning of a headache.

  “This isn’t a good time,” Rose says. “We’re getting ready for a storm here.”

  Heather doesn’t move and readjusts her purse on her arm.

  Rose wants her out of the house and steps onto the front porch. Thankfully Heather follows. A bitter smell around the door reminds Rose of the roots Old Sally cooks on the stove for her different spells. Rose crosses her arms, body language for Go away. Words Heather doesn’t appear to understand.

  “First of all, I appreciate you talking to me,” Heather begins. “Second of all, I don’t think you realize how important it was for me to find you. I never had a family growing up except for my mom and now that she’s gone—”

  Rose’s arms loosen their grip. For the first time that day, Heather appears to have broken character.

  “How did my brother meet your mother?” Rose asks, taking advantage of the opportunity.

  “She worked for him in Atlanta.”

  It doesn’t surprise Rose that Edward would take advantage of someone under him.

  “Did you tell Regina that?” Rose asks.

  “I was afraid to,” Heather says, which sounds honest enough. “I wasn’t sure if they were already together by then.”

  “That was probably smart,” Rose says.

  “Well, it didn’t work, anyway.”