Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  “Mom, the lights went out.”

  Jack wakes up as Leisha shows up behind Tia with another candle lit, her eyes wide.

  “Do you hear that wind?” Leisha says.

  Storms scare her, even relatively tame ones. As a little girl, she would hide under the dining room table after a thunderclap, covering her ears.

  “Nothing to worry about.” Jack sits up in bed and rubs his eyes. “We’re safe here.”

  Violet wonders if he truly believes they are safe this close to the sea, the house so exposed to the wind.

  “We should have evacuated,” Tia says.

  “We tried,” Leisha says. “Remember?”

  “Maybe we should try again,” Tia says.

  They are close to bickering. Everyone is stressed.

  “Well, the road is probably still closed,” Violet says. “But we’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  The girls sit on the end of the bed, looking toward the windows.

  “I wish we could see what’s happening,” Leisha says. “It’s like having a blindfold on.”

  “The wind gives me the creeps.” Tia’s hand trembles, making the candlelight dance.

  “What should we do, Mom?” Leisha asks, resorting to biting a nail.

  “Storms are temporary, honey. They move in, and they move out. That’s their job.”

  “I’d better get up and see if there’s anything I need to do,” Jack says to Violet.

  As soon as he gets up, Tia and Leisha put their candles on the nightstand and climb in with Violet. She has missed snuggling with her girls. Even though they are practically grown, they still act like children sometimes. The hurricane looming out over the Atlantic is making Violet feel shaky, too.

  “You coming?” Dressed now, Jack grabs a flashlight from their dresser.

  “In a minute,” she says, stroking Leisha’s hair.

  Violet hates to admit how much she has missed the closeness she had with her daughters before adolescence hit. They are still close, but she doubts it will ever be the same as before.

  “Mom, what if the hurricane blows our house away?” Leisha says.

  “You mean with us in it?” Tia scoots closer.

  “We’ll be fine,” Violet says again, her throat tightening. Nature is never to be underestimated. Two scared teenagers are not to be underestimated, either.

  After some coaxing, the girls go back to their rooms to get dressed. Violet dresses in candlelight and makes her way down the dark hallway and into the kitchen, where Max hands her a flashlight. Rose sits in the living room with Katie and Angela, who are also up. Tia and Leisha are now with Jack in the kitchen. Queenie, Spud, and Old Sally are the only ones not here. However, Rose tells Violet that Queenie was just here and went upstairs after the power went out to try to get some rest.

  Violet asks if anyone has seen Old Sally and no one has. She retraces her steps down the hallway and knocks on Old Sally’s bedroom door. When Violet opens the door, the bed is empty. The wind rattles the side door that leads out to the deck. Jack and Max had put sandbags against the door, but they have been pushed aside.

  Where are you? Violet asks, using their underground network.

  Old Sally doesn’t answer.

  Violet steps out onto the dark deck and instantly regrets it. Though the storm is still young, the wind is already strong. Sand burns her eyes. She steps back inside to find something to cover her face and grabs Old Sally’s summer robe on the back of the door and puts it on. It smells of her and reminds Violet of their early-morning talks, before Violet leaves to go to her tea shop.

  With the robe pulled up over her nose and mouth, Violet goes back outside. Her flashlight highlights the grasses on the dunes frantically waving like they are warning her away. If this is only the beginning of the storm, what will it be like later?

  “Old Sally?” Violet calls, her words quickly tossed aside by the wind. She holds onto the railing and follows it around to the front of the house. A bigger pile of sandbags blocks the front door, a flimsy fortress against the storm surge predicted to come. Though it does no good, Violet calls out Old Sally’s name again and then walks down the front steps toward the ocean. The wind in her ears reminds her of flapping sails.

  How would Old Sally ever be able to stand up against this wind? Violet is more than fifty years younger, and she can barely navigate it. The wind steals Violet’s breath away. Her shoulder begins to throb. But is it phantom pains like Katie’s false labor?

  Where are you? she asks Old Sally again. She imagines the channel opening between them but hears nothing in response.

  Violet shines her flashlight up the beach toward the abandoned lighthouse, the destination of many of Old Sally’s walks. She has never understood her grandmother’s fascination with the place. It’s like an altar she visits every day to visit some unseen god.

  Surely, you wouldn’t have gone there, Violet thinks, looking up the beach. Not with a storm coming.

  Turning her flashlight back toward the house, Violet sees Jack waving at the top of the stairs for Violet to come inside.

  When she joins him, he hugs her close, and they walk together around the side of the deck to Old Sally’s room. Once they are inside, he pulls the sandbags as close as he can and closes the door.

  “What were you thinking?” he asks, though she can tell his question is more out of concern than anger.

  “I can’t find Old Sally,” Violet says.

  He looks at the empty bed, as though not noticing it before.

  “Let’s go back to the kitchen and see if anyone else has seen her,” Jack says. He leads the way back to where everyone is now gathered.

  In candlelight, they listen to the wind. It is 1:30 on a Monday morning and the full force of the storm isn’t even due to hit until 3:30 or 4 a.m. Violet asks if anyone has seen Old Sally. They go from silence to everyone talking at once, but the consensus is that no one has seen her.

  “Let’s search the house just in case,” Jack says, giving instructions on who is to go where.

  They each take a candle or flashlight and head off in different directions. Rose and Max go back to search their cottage. Katie and Angela search the garage. Queenie and Spud, who until recently were napping, join them and look in every bedroom and bathroom upstairs. When they all meet back in the kitchen, their concern has reached a new level.

  “Lord in heaven,” Queenie says, “I just saw her a while ago from the balcony. Spud checked on her. Where in the world would she go? Doesn’t she know a hurricane is coming?”

  Spud puts an arm around Queenie and tells her to stay calm. It doesn’t work.

  “Maybe it’s nearing her time,” Violet says, and then questions the wisdom of saying that now.

  “Her time?” Queenie asks, picking up on Violet’s fear.

  Tia and Leisha look at Violet. “What are you saying, Mama?” Tia asks.

  “Never mind,” Violet says, refusing to alarm them any more than they already are.

  A lightning bolt of pain shoots through Violet’s shoulder. Definitely real this time. In the next second, Katie grabs her stomach and leans over with a half grunt, half scream. Holding the edge of the countertop, her knuckles are white from the strain.

  Tension crackles through the kitchen as looks are exchanged. Who will deliver this baby if they can’t get to a hospital? Only Old Sally has done this before. In fact, she delivered Violet. Now they have even more reason to find her.

  “That sure didn’t feel like false labor pains,” Katie says, no longer leaning over.

  “You are not allowed to have this baby during a hurricane. Do you hear me?” Angela’s panic feels almost contagious.

  “It could still be Braxton-Hicks, right?” Rose turns to look for Violet to agree with her. But Violet isn’t so sure.

  With Old Sally missing, Katie possibly in labor, and a hurricane approaching, nobody speaks. Violet feels almost paralyzed, not knowing which action to take.

  “It’s a first baby,” she says fina
lly to reassure everyone. “First babies take their time coming. I was in labor with Leisha for almost twelve hours.”

  Angela sends a grateful look in Violet’s direction, and Katie appears visibly relieved.

  “Just in case, we need to find Mama,” Queenie says. “She is the only one who has ever delivered a baby before.”

  “Should we look on the beach?” Spud asks.

  “Have you heard those waves?” Rose says. “Why would she risk life and limb to go to the beach?”

  “I think she may have gone to the lighthouse,” Violet says.

  “But why would she go there?” Rose asks.

  They all talk at once with different theories until Katie lets out another long moan. All the while, Angela reminds her to breathe.

  “Better start timing those,” Violet says, and Angela nods.

  “Do you know something about this lighthouse that we don’t?” Queenie asks.

  “It’s like a touchstone for her,” Violet answers. “She walked there every day until a few months ago.”

  “Actually, that makes sense,” Queenie says. “It holds special memories for her.”

  “I’ll go see if she’s there,” Jack says.

  “I’ll go, too,” Spud offers.

  “Not without me, you won’t,” says Queenie.

  “Have you forgotten a hurricane is coming?” Violet says to Queenie, concern in her voice. She is not about to lose her mother again, having only recently found her.

  “She may need us,” Queenie says, which is hard to argue with. “And we sure need her,” she adds, looking at Katie.

  Meanwhile, Violet’s shoulder appears to be waking up with a clear and steady warning of what is to come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Queenie

  “Sweet Jesus,” Queenie says to herself. “The last thing I expected was for Mama to go missing during a hurricane.”

  She doesn’t know whether walking to the lighthouse during a storm is the smartest thing to do, but she trusts Jack and Spud to keep them all safe.

  Before they go in that direction, however, Queenie and Spud circle the house with flashlights to make sure her mama isn’t somewhere outside and has fallen and can’t get up like those television commercials that advertise medical alert systems.

  The wind increases in power, making Queenie glad she has some substance to her. Otherwise, Iris might knock her over. It helps that Queenie and Spud are in an armlock, each carrying a flashlight so they can see ahead of them.

  For better or worse, her marriage vows said. But she didn’t expect the worse to come a day after the ceremony.

  The first thing they notice from circling the house is all the debris. Plastic bags cling to the trees like SOS flags. Palm fronds are everywhere. Drifts of sand have blown against the house. The patio has disappeared, covered with sand, with no possibility of finding footprints to confirm where Old Sally might have gone.

  Within seconds of being outside, an airborne milk jug causes them to duck. An excellent test of aging reflexes. Then an empty soda can nearly hits Queenie in the head. She jerks sideways just in time. She feels like she is fielding foul balls at a World Series between the Hurricanes and the Newlyweds.

  There’s no way Mama is out in this, Queenie thinks. If the wind doesn’t blow her away, a soda can might take her out for good.

  Heaviness sits in the center of Queenie’s chest. Why would her mama risk her life to go out in this storm? How could she even find the lighthouse in this darkness? It would help if the beacon still worked, but that hasn’t been turned on in decades.

  When they turn the corner of the house, the wind is so strong they struggle to move forward. Spud turns them around to go back the way they came, the wind at their backs. At least they can breathe again. The wind pushes them back to the house. Once inside, they shake the sand from their shoes, clothes, and hair. Now that they’ve gone around the house, they have a sense of what it will be like to get to the lighthouse.

  Rose sits next to Katie, waiting for the next real or fake contraction. Meanwhile, Angela looks like she could use a strong sedative. Katie—distracted as she is by potential motherhood—asks if there are any signs of Old Sally. The two have become close over the last few months.

  “Nothing?” Violet asks Queenie when they return.

  “Nothing,” Queenie repeats.

  She remembers Old Sally’s story of the love of her life. Would that be enough to get her to walk through a hurricane?

  “I think we need to check the lighthouse,” Queenie says. “If she’s not in the house, it’s the one place she might go.”

  “The other day she told me that her father helped build that old lighthouse in the 1920s,” Spud says.

  “She told me that, too,” Leisha says, and helps Queenie brush the sand out of her hair.

  “She hated that it was abandoned,” Tia says, as she helps her sister.

  “It’s supposed to be locked,” Spud says, “but when I checked it last fall, the lock had rusted off the door.”

  “So, she could go inside?” Queenie asks.

  “I think so.”

  “Max and I will check it out,” Jack says, asking Spud to stay at the house and watch out for everybody.

  Queenie could kiss Jack for giving Spud a reason to stay behind. She doesn’t want to lose her new husband in this storm along with her old mother. Was her wedding only yesterday?

  Iris is due to come ashore in two hours. Her mama is missing. Katie is in labor. Or not. Her one and only honeymoon has been rescheduled like it is only a dental appointment. Could it get any worse?

  A pounding on the back door is her answer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Old Sally

  Old Sally stands on the beach below the lighthouse. The wind rips at her raincoat, wanting to tear it from her body. Hurricane Iris is already a formidable presence, just like Old Sally’s former employer, who asserted her stubborn power up until the last moment of her life. She knows this because she helped Iris transition. Or tried to. Old Sally doesn’t begin to understand the forces that call together a storm of this magnitude. For all she knows, the spirit of Iris Temple is riling this hurricane up. If anyone could, it would be her.

  The power Old Sally possesses isn’t the harsh power of lording over, but the soft power of her Gullah ancestors. It is the power of knowing the land, as well as medicines and charms. Some might say her beliefs are based on superstition. However, it is much deeper. She also believes in the white man’s religion, and the idea that help is everywhere. Not just in the spirit world but here on earth.

  It isn’t like her to leave the house in the middle of the night. But the dream that woke her was so vivid, more real than real, she felt like she didn’t have a choice. The visions of her ancestors that have been coming for weeks now mostly have to do with going on a long journey or getting things ready. Preparations. The destination being a hard-earned peace.

  In her most recent dream, her grandmother told Old Sally to meet her at the lighthouse to build the courage fires. Her grandmother looked like she did when Old Sally was a girl, with her dark skin and solid white hair. She was a strong woman. A strong woman who taught Old Sally everything she knows.

  The wind wails that it doesn’t care about dreams and ancestors, and especially not strong women.

  But Old Sally does, and she will honor them as long as she has breath in her body.

  You coming, girl? Her grandmother’s spirit stands a hundred feet away, at the top of the lighthouse steps, unaffected by the wind. The concrete lighthouse looms behind her.

  Old Sally hasn’t been called girl for close to a century. It makes her smile, despite a hurricane bullying her.

  I’m coming, Old Sally tells her. She steps from the solid sand of high tide into the deep, soft sand of the dunes, struggling until she reaches the concrete steps that lead up to the lighthouse. She questions the wisdom of leaving the house as a storm approaches, but Old Sally has spent most of her lifetime
visiting this lighthouse.

  In a way, she feels like she is still dreaming. She has no idea how she got here through the growing winds, the waves crashing ever higher on the beach, and the salt spray reaching for her with every wave. The moon gave her very little help in finding her way. If not for the large flashlight Jack left on her nightstand earlier that evening, she might never have made it. But at the same time, she could find her way to this lighthouse with her eyes closed, her body over the years having memorized every step.

  At the bottom of the steps, a sun-bleached sign warns people that the lighthouse is closed. No trespassing allowed. The wind howls around her. Old Sally closes her eyes to rest them. The wind has dried them out, and the sand makes them burn.

  What do you want with me here? she asks, looking up at her grandmother. But when she opens her eyes, the image is gone.

  The lighthouse continues to loom up ahead. She has a history here. A past that haunts her, as well as sustains her. After she got too old to work for the Temples, her visits to the lighthouse increased. She needed rituals to fill her days that didn’t involve dusting and running a vacuum cleaner. For many years a walk to the lighthouse was what she did first thing in the morning when the sun came up. She rarely missed her daily walk unless the weather refused to cooperate, but sometimes she even walked in the rain. All this training must have helped her get here.

  The beacon was turned off sometime in the 1980s. Decommissioned, the officials said. Another no trespassing sign went up by the only door. A lock added. For twenty years it has made her sad to think of a lighthouse not shining its light. Not fulfilling its purpose for being. Too many people don’t know what their light is, either. They convince themselves they don’t have one. Or other people convince them. Or they say their light isn’t good enough, bright enough, or is too bright when all that’s required is to stand in their Truth. Thankfully, Old Sally can see her light.

  However, the lighthouse is also a monument to her biggest regret. A memorial to youth and a life she could have had if things had gone differently. After Fiddle died, she felt unmoored, like a boat on a vast sea in danger of crashing ashore. Grief does that to a person. The ground gives way, and people are set adrift. The lighthouse saved her. It gave her a way to honor the past and finally make peace with it.