Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  It is the middle of the night, and she hasn’t slept. The only light, besides the diffused light coming from the beacon, comes from two battery-operated camp lanterns.

  The beacon sends its rhythmic, sweeping light out into the darkness. If there are any ships at sea, they are in for a rough ride. Violet’s thoughts drone on like the wind. She remembers a story Old Sally told her about an entire crew on a Civil War ship that sunk in a storm off the coast and ended up somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. It was near the end of the war and they carried much-needed supplies. Some say the ship’s sinking helped seal the fate of the war for the South. She imagines a ghost ship somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic, complete with skeletons and fish swimming amongst them. A vessel never found. All those men and supplies buried at sea.

  In the distance, the surf pounds the land. Is it her imagination or is it even louder than minutes before? The life raft of safety Violet clings to disappears when she remembers what the weather forecasters said in the last report before the power went out. The storm surge is easily the most destructive part of the storm, its severity based on where the hurricane comes ashore.

  Jack comes to check on her and the girls again, who are still dozing, as are several of the others. Violet lowers her voice and asks him about the storm surge.

  “There’s no way of knowing,” he whispers back.

  “But haven’t we been getting the full force of the hurricane?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” he says.

  “Then we’ll also get the full force of the storm surge, right?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart, but let’s not panic.”

  Violet nods, repeating his words to herself, Let’s not panic.

  Getting everyone afraid will do no good, especially while they are so exhausted. However, shouldn’t everyone be warned about the possibility? Just in case there is some way they can prepare for it?

  According to Violet’s watch, it is now 2:30. Everyone is either sleeping or sitting in silence listening to the storm. The small window to the left of the door reveals a dark and colorless world. A predator lurks outside in the form of a hurricane.

  Trees snap and crash in the distance. Violet half expects them to moan with pain. If this part of the shoreline is supposed to be more protected, what is happening in the unprotected areas? She imagines the dunes being beaten down with every wave of the unrelenting surf. Without the dunes, there will be nothing to stop the ocean from crashing into the lighthouse, as well as their home down the beach.

  Ropes, raincoats, backpacks, and various supplies are piled on the floor nearby. Rose’s two dogs lie together, their backs touching. They pant and salivate like they do whenever they go to the vet, their ears following the sounds of the storm. Hurricane Iris rages outside. The only thing left to do is wait.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Queenie

  When Spud entered the lighthouse after his harrowing walk up the beach with the others, Queenie rushed to his side. Every strand of his thin, gray hair stood straight up like a geriatric rapper, unable to withstand the teasing of Iris. If she had known the walk would be so perilous, she would have tied Spud to the top of the truck.

  Even now, Queenie attempts to tame his hair. “You sure you’re all right?” she whispers to him while the others sleep.

  “I’m fine, pumpkin spice.”

  She tires of his continuous search for a sweet nickname, but he could say anything right now and she would feel nothing but gratitude.

  Earlier, while waiting for the others, Queenie and Angela clanked their way up the metal steps to the top of the lighthouse—Queenie holding onto the railing with a death grip, as she has never liked heights—to see if they could get that fool light on. Thanks to Angela’s handiness, their multiple efforts, and giant-sized luck, they were able to get the generator going with the help of the spare canister of gasoline Max always keeps in the truck. Seconds later, with the flip of a switch, the old beacon groaned to life.

  Nice to know that even an abandoned old lighthouse can still have some life to it, Queenie thinks.

  Now they don’t have to wait on this fool storm to be over in total darkness. It’s even kind of romantic as the soft, throbbing light cascades down the stairs. Queenie thinks again of her aborted honeymoon and smiles with the thought that everyone she cares about is in this massive concrete phallic symbol.

  In the meantime, a hurricane named Iris is huffing and puffing and threatening to blow the door down.

  The human Iris was a blowhard, too. Not giving a hoot what anybody else had to say about anything. A big, bad wolf in pearls.

  Queenie isn’t sure how anyone can sleep with a hurricane right outside the door. Instead of whispering, she wants to yell: What’s wrong with you people?

  But instead, she is quiet and holds Spud close. To her surprise she finds herself dozing off, too. Something about the constant wind outside is like a white noise machine. Her shoulders relax. A dream peeks around the corner of her awareness. Then Katie lets out a moan that grows into a scream. Everyone, including Queenie, startles awake. It seems Katie’s baby isn’t that fond of hurricanes, either, and wants to vacate the premises, pronto. Although, in Queenie’s opinion, it would be much smarter to stay put where it is for a while.

  Rose rushes over to Katie and takes the free hand that Angela isn’t holding. She says the things that mothers say to kids who are about to panic. Things like Everything is going to be okay, and I’m here, and breathe, sweetheart. Angela rubs Katie’s back like she is helping the words sink in.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Queenie whispers to Spud. “What if this baby comes right here in this lighthouse in the middle of a hurricane?”

  “Then he or she will have a great story to tell every year on their birthday,” Spud says. “Don’t worry, sugarplum.”

  Queenie gives him a look that now is not the time to bring up the Nutcracker Suite and sugarplum fairies. Not unless he wants his own nuts cracked. He offers a quick apology as if aware of the risk.

  Though the sounds are muffled in the metal building, Iris’s ferocity is growing. If this were the human Iris, Queenie would call this a great big hissy fit. Iris’s hissy fits were infamous all over Savannah. They happened whenever a downtown chef didn’t get her order just right. Or when someone at the Junior League or the Daughters of the American Revolution meetings didn’t pay Iris what she deemed was adequate respect.

  Katie lies on the cot with Harpo by her side, and Old Sally sits next to Katie on the only chair in the room. Angela is nearby. Both focus on what Old Sally is saying. The part Queenie overhears has to do with trusting the process. Old Sally reassures Katie that this baby knows exactly what to do even if she doesn’t. Katie nods her agreement.

  If Queenie were the one giving birth during a hurricane, she would probably already be cussing a blue streak, whatever a blue streak is. Her pain tolerance is practically nonexistent. She hates any type of pain, from small discomforts—like the pain in her knees after she stands too long at Violet’s Tea Shop—to the pinched nerve she gets in her back sometimes. Her foremost intolerance is for stupid people. But thankfully, she manages to avoid them for the most part.

  Old Sally tells Katie to be patient and breathe. Queenie must admit she barely has the patience to wait for toast to pop out of the toaster, much less breathe deeply.

  In the meantime, Rose is focused on Katie. Becoming a grandmother appears to be nothing short of a holy experience. Queenie became a grandmother twice, though she didn’t get to claim it at the time. Keeping that secret robbed her and Violet of the closeness Rose and Katie have now. The worst kind of disappointment is when she disappoints herself, and Queenie never wants to feel that again.

  Tia and Leisha are awake now and take turns braiding each other’s hair. They periodically look over to see what is happening on the cot. Violet looks tired. Queenie makes a point to catch her eye and smile at her. Violet returns the smile. No more secrets.

  Queenie looks aroun
d at those waiting out the storm. Heather sits alone near the door, looking like a young Iris who doesn’t want to get her hands dirty, first in line to leave once the storm is over.

  “What are you thinking about?” Spud whispers to Queenie.

  “About how Heather is a great big nothing burger,” Queenie whispers back.

  “A nothing burger?” Spud shakes his head, as though never knowing what his new wife will come up with next.

  “It’s like she’s not even here,” Queenie whispers again.

  “Maybe she’s afraid,” Spud says.

  Queenie nods with the knowledge that she is afraid, too. Perhaps Queenie would be more compassionate if Heather didn’t look like someone who tried to make every day of her life miserable.

  Meanwhile, Max and Jack speak in hushed tones near a large footlocker underneath the spiraling metal stairs. Whatever is in the footlocker is guarded by a rather large lock. Queenie wonders what they are talking about. Whatever it is, they look concerned. Except for Heather, it seems everyone else has been drawn closer together by this experience.

  Iris rattles the windows, reminding Queenie who is in charge.

  You are such an attention hound, Queenie tells her. I’m onto you, even if nobody else is.

  Iris was at her brightest and most content whenever the newspaper photographer from the society section showed up at one of her philanthropic forays. For years, one of Queenie’s jobs as Iris’s companion was to clip these photographs and any write-ups that appeared in the newspaper and put them in a monogrammed album with the gold Temple name on the cover. A collection Iris kept in the sunroom to remind her of her importance. Something she could flip through after reading the newspaper and having her morning tea. Queenie, of course, was not in any of the photographs in the scrapbook, except for an occasional brown arm in the corner next to a sea of white people—the rest of her cropped out because Queenie wasn’t a true Temple, only an imitation.

  Queenie shakes her head. She can’t wait until this damn storm is over and Iris is out of her life for good.

  Before the power went out at the house, the weather reports predicted where the storm might make landfall. The highest storm surge totals would happen north of wherever the storm comes ashore. That would also be the area with the most significant destruction. Queenie remembers the arrows pointing to Dolphin Island. In a way, it is like those adventures where a damsel is tied to the railroad tracks with a locomotive coming straight for her. The storm increasingly sounds like a train engine, too.

  Katie lets out another moan. A wave of tension vibrates through the lighthouse. Iris is right on top of them. The lighthouse is one of the highest spots on the island, the other being the cemetery. A ten-foot storm surge has been predicted. Are they ten feet up from the sea? Is a lighthouse waterproof? Queenie wishes now she had worn her pink flip-flops instead of her sneakers, which are already squishy wet. But her complaints are hiding a more pressing issue.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Spud takes her hand, waiting for an answer.

  “Well, the truth is . . .”

  Queenie whisks a tear away.

  “Tell me,” Spud says, looking into her eyes with so much tenderness she looks away.

  “I’m scared,” Queenie confesses. “I’ve never been in a hurricane before.”

  Standing, Spud pulls her into his arms, which isn’t as effortless as she would like. Queenie is taller by at least an inch, though Spud insists they are the same height. But she is happy to give him an inch if he needs it.

  “We’re all frightened,” he says, his words soft. “I truly believe we are in the safest place on this island we could possibly be.”

  Every inch of Queenie’s full-figured body wants to believe this. Yet, her knees are quivering and remind her that there were times in her life when she has been a weakling. She is not proud of those times. They were mainly in the past and had to do with keeping secrets for way too long. Storms are a different matter. With storms, she has absolutely no control.

  Katie lets out another moan.

  For a moment Queenie flashes back to the night she gave birth to Violet. It was also summertime, and every window of the house was open. Old Sally had been by Queenie’s side, just like she is with Katie now. That night, Old Sally was equally calm and reassuring. Old Sally knows what she is doing. She has done this before. Queenie breathes deeply for the first time since the storm began and wants to cue a Bette Midler song. Not to sound too hokey about it, but Old Sally is the wind beneath Queenie’s wings. Her light through every storm. A beacon lighting the path her entire life.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Old Sally

  Old Sally closes her eyes. She hears the faint music of a violin playing in her memories. The man with the violin would have been her husband if fate had been kinder. It was here in this lighthouse that she experienced the most profound love she has ever known—an attraction to last a lifetime, even an unusually long one.

  Because of how well he played the violin, he was nicknamed Fiddle. He played for her here in this lighthouse, the rich sound echoing against the concrete walls. Old Sally hears the haunting melody that captured her imagination so many years ago.

  Memory, like so many things in life, can be both a blessing and a curse. Memories like this one haunt Old Sally, while at the same time uplifting her. To remember him is to know who she is. To remember her ancestors is to understand why she is here.

  Old Sally opens her eyes to see Max trying to unlock the rusty metal footlocker underneath the stairway with a small pocketknife. Old Sally remembers when that old footlocker first arrived. Until the 1980s, when it was abandoned, this lighthouse was never locked.

  Old Sally gives Katie’s hand a reassuring pat and tells her she will be right back. Her back and legs are stiff with pain when she walks over to Max and Jack.

  “Please pull the footlocker away from the wall,” Old Sally tells him.

  He pauses and then does as she asks.

  Old Sally leans behind the box and pulls out the key from where it was left decades before. She hands it to Max, who grins.

  Opening the footlocker is like opening a forgotten time capsule. First-aid supplies are there from back in the days of World War II. Including three army surplus wool blankets. They pass two out to the others, and Old Sally keeps one for Katie.

  Jack pulls out two small hurricane lamps—aptly named—and gets them going with some old but dry matches in a metal box. He wasn’t sure if the oil would still be usable, but it is. The smell of lamp oil and sulfur mixes with the musty, salty air. Everyone comes over to investigate the metal trunk, even Lucy and Ethel, who both sneeze when exploring the contents. The lighthouse fills with chatter and light and feels almost homey.

  Old Sally sits in the chair again and leans back, listening to the storm. Its dull roar has become familiar now. When she closes her eyes, she hears her grandmother singing in a long-ago kitchen. A song from a faraway home before she came to this new world. A new world where their lives were not their own. At least not at first. She hums along with the melody, wishing her grandmother were here.

  In the next moment, the sounds outside change. The raging wind stops. Old Sally opens her eyes. No one moves. It is as if the world is holding its breath to see what will happen next.

  Following the steady chaotic roar of the wind, the silence is almost painful. With caution, Max opens the door of the lighthouse as if Iris might lurch out at him if given a chance.

  It is the eye of the storm.

  * * *

  To Old Sally, it feels like they have landed by spaceship onto a new planet. In a matter of seconds, their nightmare has become a paradise of stillness. Yet, evidence of the ordeal is everywhere. Trees down. Battered shoreline. Dead things spit up by the sea. The rain has stopped. Total calm surrounds them. Overhead, the clouds open and reveal a deep blue sky. The moon and stars, visible hours before, appear again. It is a glimpse of heaven. Iris has revealed a side of herself Old Sally didn’t expect
. After showing no mercy, the hurricane has presented a moment of grace.

  Old Sally stands a few feet from the door, mesmerized by this strange, dark world. Her eyes continue to adapt to the darkness, and goose flesh crawls up her arms from the fresh, damp air. In the distance is the steady sound of the surf. A promise that never stops. No matter how still the earth becomes. The strong smell of salt and sea mixes in with broken trees—the odor of Christmas trees dipped in the ocean, decorated with seaweed.

  An unexpected gift is found in the center of the storm. Old Sally puts a hand over her heart. Pledging allegiance to all that is good, real, and true. In some ways, it feels like she has been waiting her entire life for this scene to be revealed to her. A perfect chaos. Light inside darkness. Good inside evil.

  Tears pool in her eyes. If this were her last moment on earth, all would be well. It is almost time. She can feel it in her bones. She clings to this promise. But there is at least one more thing she must do.

  One more thing, Old Sally repeats.

  She turns to look at Katie sleeping on the cot, lovingly holding her belly. She knows what it is like to rest up for a big transition.

  The beacon rotates, offering periodic glimpses of the shoreline. A vast sea stretches where the dunes and beach used to be. A graveyard of debris litters the adjacent land. A door here. A bathtub there. Pink building insulation is spun into the limbs of trees like cotton candy.

  All are silent as they step into the moonlight to witness this new world. Part of the walkway is missing. Pieces of porches and docks are everywhere, making it difficult to walk even a few inches. A large chunk of twisted metal, a boat before Iris got to it, blocks the stairway.

  One by one, they venture farther out into the dark eye of the storm. Max cautions them not to wander too far. The eye won’t last for long.

  Tia and Leisha stay close to their dad, and Rose and Violet are arm in arm. Max goes out back to check on the truck, while Queenie and Spud stay close to Old Sally. Heather stands just inside the lighthouse, all alone. A trickster without a trick, and still someone not to be trusted.