by Rita Woods
“How long we been here, Abigail? How long Remembrance been?”
The priestess glanced over her shoulder. Winter was standing near the hollow tree, her thin arms wrapped around herself, watching them.
“Near to a lifetime,” she answered. The world spun and she closed her eyes, trying to concentrate, the uneasiness in her gut stronger.
“We got led to this place, Abigail. We got led here ’cause you was special. You was touched by the gods, chose ’cause you got a gift. You made this place. Saved lives needed savin’. Kept us safe … but…”
“But what?” She could barely get the words past her throat.
He sighed. “But maybe Remembrance done reached its natural life. Maybe you not meant to fix it. Maybe this ain’t no longer the way.”
“No!” cried Mother Abigail. She glared at him. “No,” she said, chopping at the air with her hand.
“Abigail, you…” He stopped, then tried again. “They’s signs everywhere. Listen to the spirits. They talkin’ to you through that. What they tryin’ to say?”
“The spirits got nothin’ to say to me. Nothin’. I need nothin’ from them,” she snapped. “I did this.”
The old man was silent.
“You sayin’ you don’t believe Remembrance still our purpose?” she asked. “What to do then, old man? Let Remembrance die? Walk away? We got near two hundred souls that give everything to find their freedom here. Everything! And what we tell them then? Where they got to go? Where we go? Out in the world? Out there?”
Josiah shook his head. “I am sayin’ we might have to think on somethin’ else … some other way. Be ready if … if you not strong enough to make the Edge right again. Everybody … everything serves a purpose. But it not always the same one forever. And we need to be ready.”
The world lurched—hard. And her mouth filled with hot saliva. She swallowed, then swallowed again.
“Nothin’ else to think on, Josiah!” Her voice was raw. “Anyen! Nothing on the other side for us but blood and sorrow! Won’t never live in that world again! Never! I’ll fix the Edge. I made it! I fix it!”
“That is pride speakin’, old woman, not good sense! Back away! Just for a bit! Talk to the spirits. Maybe you meant to do somethin’ else. Think on some what-ifs. Pray.…”
“The Edge is my concern,” snapped Mother Abigail, interrupting him. “Those two hundred souls back there? They belong to me.”
Josiah stiffened.
“Your concern?” His tone was incredulous. “Belong? You they master now, Abigail?”
She stood silently raging, breathing hard until finally he stepped aside, giving an exaggerated bow. “Then go. Go and fix your Edge. We be quiet as can be, boss.”
Mother Abigail gave him a fierce look. She felt Winter’s worried gaze on her back. Her palm itched to slap Josiah’s face, to replace her growing panic with action, any action.
“It is mine to fix, old man,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
“Pride can rot a body’s insides,” he said tightly. “Pride can get a body killed.”
She turned her back and stomped into the clearing.
Ase! Moun sot! Fool!
She was trembling. Josiah’s words had spooked her. But it was impossible! Remembrance would never end. It was all she had. All she was.
The Edge was everywhere, surrounding them like the skin of a soap bubble. It had been here, on this very spot, that she had driven herself to the limits of her mind, forcing herself to near collapse as she bent space to her purpose. This place had spoken to her. Spoken to them both. Soft and green, the hills rolling out as far as the eye could see. So different from New Orleans, so quiet. And then they met the Quakers. Watched them hide people who looked like her and Josiah from other blancs, and she knew that if there was any place on earth for her, that it was here. With Josiah at her side.
Even all these years later, she remembered how it felt to be so strong, so full of energy, as if she were a star fallen to earth, and her hands, her eyes, her mind were nothing but pure white light and power.
Remembrance was her revenge. Each soul she helped escape was one more she stole from the blancs.
Josiah’s words echoed in her ears: “Pride can get a body killed.”
Mother Abigail moaned.
I am Remembrance! Remembrance is me! Not pride! Truth!
She moved slowly along the tree line, straining to hear. The discomfort in her belly had not changed, and she allowed herself to hope, just for a moment, that everything would be alright. The brittle grass crunched under her feet as she peered into the shadows. She shot a quick look behind her. Winter and the old man were watching her—being quiet. She clenched her jaw.
Horses!
Her head snapped up. She heard horses!
Something contracted inside her, a spasm so severe that her bladder gave way, hot urine pouring down her legs.
It was gone!
The Edge had collapsed.
She spun about wildly. There were only the three of them in the clearing, but the sound of hoofbeats was nearly deafening—more than one rider, moving fast. Pain shot through the back of her head and she faltered. From the corner of one eye she saw Winter step away from the hollow tree, into the clearing.
The priestess staggered.
Go! Go back, now! But the warning was only in her mind. Her voice no longer obeyed her!
The trees shifted before her eyes and she saw blue sky, a mountain covered in green flowing down to an even bluer ocean. She tasted blood, felt something give way inside her head.
Then they were there!
The horsemen!
Five white men on horseback roared from the trees, crashing through the giant mulberry, shouting, churning up the muddy ground. The lead rider saw her, pulled up hard, nearly toppling his horse. She heard cursing, the screaming of the horses, but the pain in her head—such pain—made every thought lunacy. She smelled colors, tasted sounds!
I am Babalawa! You cannot enter here.
Suddenly Winter was at her side, pulling at her, saying something to her. The priestess tried to answer, but her words were nonsense, even to her own ears. She was on her knees. So hard to think. So hard to see. There were men on horses everywhere, and colored men with guns.
David Henry? Josiah? No, that couldn’t be right. No one needed guns in Remembrance. She was all the protection they needed.
“Mother Abigail, get up! Get up now!”
The pretty little girl pulling at her looked familiar. And so afraid! She smiled and reached for the girl’s face. Alright. It was going to be alright, petit.
“Mother Abigail!”
That’s not my name, the priestess wanted to tell her. I have another name from long ago, from when I was younger even than you.
Kianga! That my name. It means “sunshine.”
“Winter?” said Mother Abigail. “What…?”
“They’re here!” screamed the girl. “They’re inside Remembrance. You have to fix it! You have to fix the Edge! You have to close it!”
The Edge was gone! And Remembrance was open to the world. She remembered now. She had to close it again, had to hide Remembrance from the Outside. She struggled to get to her feet, but even with Winter’s help, couldn’t manage.
She heard gunfire and screams and she realized hazily that David Henry was not the only black man in the clearing with a gun.
Josiah! Where was Josiah?
She closed her mind against the noise, tried to focus, tried to see the spaces between worlds. Beneath her, the earth quivered and she felt the familiar slide.
Relief.
And then … it was gone, replaced again by that fierce agony in her head. She bit back a scream.
“Winter,” she gasped. She could feel the girl gripping her hand, but the world had gone black. “Help me, child.”
The girl moved behind her, wrapping her skinny arms around the priestess’s waist, and with the last of her strength, Mother Abigail focused once more. Her head,
her eyes, were on fire. She gasped as her power met Winter’s. The Edge bowed out, rippling around them, through them, then sealed itself off.
Remembrance was safe.
The old woman collapsed in blackness onto the cold ground. She never heard Josiah’s curses or Winter’s screams. Never felt the thin arms ripped away.
27
Winter
When Josiah appeared at the door to her cottage, hours before sunrise, Winter had asked no questions, simply followed him into the dark woods. She’d have gone mad anyway if she’d stayed in that cabin alone with her thoughts a second longer. She didn’t know where they were going or why, but anything was better than staring up into the darkness, waiting for something to happen, someone to do something.
With only a tiny lantern for light, they made their way to the edge of the small clearing marked on one side by the hollowed-out oak tree and on the other by the massive mulberry bush, the same clearing where, days before, dogs had come racing out of the moonlight to tear her and Margot to pieces.
At the hollow tree, Josiah dropped to the ground and pulled a pipe from his jacket pocket. He tapped out the ash, refilled, then lit it. He gave a grunt of pleasure as he inhaled. Winter waited for him to speak, waited for him to explain why they’d slipped away from the settlement before dawn and come here, but he silently smoked his pipe and gazed sightlessly across the clearing, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. She looked around. Everything—the drying grass, the tree limbs—was covered in a glaze of frost and twinkled in the half-light. A translucent fog hovered just above the ground, throwing odd shadows everywhere. She’d come to this place countless times in her eighteen years—it was here that Mother Abigail had found her as an infant, just past the mulberry—but on this early morning, the place felt foreign, frightening.
Something rustled in the brush and she inhaled sharply, but it was only a possum and its mate. She swallowed, forcing down her nerves.
“Josiah?” she whispered. “What are we doing out here?”
“Waiting,” came the reply.
“What,” she asked as calmly as she could manage, “… are we waiting for?”
“For Abigail.”
Winter frowned. They were alone. “Well … where is she?”
“She’ll be ’round directly.”
“Why didn’t we all just come out here together?”
“Cause we ain’t together.”
The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She shook her head, confused. What did that mean? Why couldn’t he just speak plainly for once?
“What about the pattyrollers, Josiah?” she said through clenched teeth. “You think they’ll come this way? Is that why we’re here?”
He puffed on his pipe, not answering. With a grunt of irritation, she made to stand. His hand shot out and locked around her wrist, and she cried out as he pulled her back down, hard, beside him. She could smell the cherry tobacco from his pipe.
“Just sit a while, child. Quiet your mind.”
Winter lurched forward so that her face was only inches from the old man’s. His flat, gray-white eyes seemed to absorb the little light there was.
“What are we doing here, Josiah?” she hissed again. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here? Because something’s wrong? Where is Mother Abigail?”
The old man stared at her, unblinking, and her breath caught in her throat. She felt his anger coming at her and she flinched, trying to back away. She couldn’t move.
“She lost her faith,” he said. “But me and Simona, we showed her. What she was. What she could do. That she was strong.”
He closed his eyes. “They took our women and Abigail got strong. They took our children and she got stronger. They took our manhood.…”
He opened his eyes and Winter saw an expression she’d never seen before. A chill snaked down her spine.
“And when she got strong enough,” he went on, “not even as strong as she would get, but strong enough, we took our revenge.” He laughed and the sound made her stomach clench. She tasted bile.
“They came to us to cure their sickness, but we made it so they couldn’t make no more babies,” he went on. “Made their businesses fail, their houses catch afire. The whites? They never knew. Called ’em Acts of God.”
He laughed again. “But only if Abigail was a god.”
Winter tried once again to pull away, but he tightened his grip and she felt her bones grind against each other.
“But then the others, those out on the plantations, fought back, too. And the whites chopped them into little pieces, burned ’em up like they was hogs in the street. It broke her. She lost her faith. She didn’t want nothin’ else in this world. Except a place. This place. Remembrance. And then you. And you weren’t never worthy.”
Winter gasped. The old man leaned into her, his hatred unmistakable.
It suddenly felt as if he were reaching inside her, gripping her heart in his fist. She could see it, feel it, though Josiah had barely moved a muscle. It didn’t hurt, not quite, but there was a feeling in her chest, heavy, unpleasant, and the sound of her heart was loud in her ears. He squeezed and it beat slower and slower still. She reared back as far as she could.
“You don’t have a smidge of her power. She wanted this for you. And I…” He grunted and waved his arm, indicating all of Remembrance.
“But you lazy. Got no understanding a’ nothin’. Of what this is. What you got. She gave you love but love ain’t shit!”
He smiled. And then he released her.
Winter scuttled away, gasping for breath, shivering as she gulped in the icy air.
* * *
Across the clearing, the priestess was barely visible. The fog had lifted a bit but a brittle haze still shrouded everything. “Stay here,” Josiah had commanded, and then he and Mother Abigail had walked away across the grass together.
They had argued. Winter couldn’t hear their words but she saw Josiah stiffen, felt the world quiver with his anger, even from a distance. She saw him bow, a gesture she didn’t understand, then saw Mother Abigail stalk off into the shadows past the massive mulberry. She was there still, stomping along the boundary to the forest on the other side of the clearing. Josiah stood in the clearing, halfway between Winter and the priestess. Tears rolled unheeded down Winter’s face. In one terrible night, her world had turned inside out.
Unworthy!
Josiah had spit the word in her face. Had looked at her with such hatred. And the Edge? Mother Abigail said something was wrong with the Edge. Winter thought she might vomit.
She watched as Mother Abigail strode back and forth, hands out, as if feeling currents in the air. She was talking to herself … or to the spirits. Winter could see her lips moving but she was too far away to make out any words.
How could the priestess have ever thought she, Winter, could control the Edge? That she could protect Remembrance?
She yanked nervously at a lock of hair, vainly trying to untangle it. Finally, giving up, she wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. She was cold and she was scared.
Suddenly, the priestess stopped. Standing rigid, her head whipped wildly about as if tracking something only she could see.
Mother Abigail suddenly whirled toward her. Their eyes met and Winter leaped to her feet, stepping into the clearing toward her.
What was it? What was happening?
As if in slow motion, she saw Josiah’s pipe fall from his hand, saw Mother Abigail crumple soundlessly to the ground.
A loud FOOMP filled the clearing, the sound of gas igniting, and Winter froze as the clearing filled with men on horseback. White men on horseback.
The screams, from men and horses, were deafening. A horseman with pale skin and dark hair wheeled sharply in front of her. Icy mud from the horse’s hooves peppered her face, breaking the spell that locked her in place, and she dashed toward the center of the clearing.
For a moment, she lost sight of both Mother Abigail and Josiah but r
an in the direction of the old mulberry, ducking away from grasping hands, dodging flying hooves. Something struck her hard in the back, nearly throwing her off-balance, but she kept going, not even turning to see.
There, at the base of the mulberry, was the old priestess. She was half kneeling, as if she’d tried but failed to get to her feet. Winter slid into her, nearly toppling her.
“Mother Abigail! Get up! Get up now!”
The old woman looked at her and smiled vaguely. She was speaking, but the words were garbled, gibberish. Then the priestess turned her face up to the sky and laughed.
“Mother Abigail,” screamed Winter. “You have to get up. They’re here! They’re inside Remembrance! Get up! The Edge! You have to fix the Edge!”
“Winter?”
The girl wrapped her arms around Mother Abigail and tried to pull her up, but the priestess was dead weight.
Oh, Jesus! Oh, sweet Jesus!
A gun blast exploded near her ear and she screamed, tightening her grip on Mother Abigail. Through her tears, she thought she saw David Henry and Thomas, the blacksmith, charging from the trees, followed by a handful of settlers, all heading straight for the horsemen.
“Winter?”
Winter looked down. Mother Abigail’s eyes had cleared.
“You have to help me, ti m.”
“What?” she cried. “What do you want me to do?”
And then she knew. All the days of standing in the woods, Mother Abigail exhorting her to “focus.” It had been training, preparation, for this, for Remembrance.
She locked her arms tightly around the priestess and closed her eyes. She tried to block out everything, everything except getting back inside Remembrance and closing the Edge behind them. She felt heat flow from Mother Abigail’s hands into hers. Sounds—the shrieking animals, the cursing men—faded away and the ground heaved slightly beneath them.
The chaos faded and she was falling, not into silence, but into the spaces between sounds. The Edge. It was back. For a brief moment, she felt it all around them, like a low hum against her skin. Then Mother Abigail went limp in her arms and it was gone again.