by Rita Woods
“Bad storm,” muttered Dix. “They not gonna make it back tonight, for sure.
“You got people left … back there?” Dix asked suddenly.
Winter slowly chewed her bit of potato and studied him through narrowed eyes. He had cleared a place on the floor to set his lantern down and now squatted a few feet away, watching her intently, the lamplight flickering across his face. He had taken everything else away from her and now he wanted this too? Her memories?
When she didn’t answer right away, Dix cocked his head and shuffled his feet in the straw. She noted his restlessness and her heart stumbled in her chest. He had no right to her life, but the thought of being left again, cold and in the dark with only the insensible and maybe dead Louisa, was worse.
“I never had a daddy,” she said softly. “And my momma died when I was newly born. Froze to death in the snow.”
He didn’t need to know she was running from slavers.
“Mother Abigail, that old woman that you saw … took me in, raised me like her own. Everybody had a hand in, really. The women taught me to cook and sew. Well, they tried. And the men taught me to trap and fish a little bit.”
“You don’t miss your momma?” Dix asked.
She stared at him, narrow-eyed. Since when did a slaver give two figs about a Negro’s family ties?
Winter shrugged. “Never knew her. Would’ve liked to,” she said finally. “Mother Abigail always said she was brave and strong. Gave her last piece of life saving mine, but … you can’t really miss something you never had.”
Dix was quiet for a long time. He seemed entranced by the flame of the lamp. Winter drank the coffee. It had no taste to speak of, but it was tongue-searing hot and if it didn’t quite warm her through, at least it thawed her some.
“My daddy went out West to mine for gold,” said Dix finally. He stared into the lamplight, speaking softly, as if to himself. “Was gonna send for us when he struck it rich. Didn’t never hear from him again. ’Spect he’s long dead or … maybe he got hisself a new family and just plumb forgot about us. Momma held out hope to the last that he’d come ridin’ down that hollow, flush with his gold money, and pack us off to a new, big-city life.” He chuckled bitterly. “Then last spring my momma and sister got took by the fever. Last thing on my sister’s lips was her callin’ for my daddy.”
“Sorry,” said Winter. In spite of herself, she felt a flicker of pity for this boy, this boy who had helped steal her away from her home and who planned on pocketing silver coins by selling her.
She kept her eyes on the plate of food, but she could feel him looking at her. He was struggling with something. She didn’t know what, but she felt it stirring in the air between them. She wanted to jump to her feet and scream at him to let her go, but she forced herself to keep her head down and concentrate on pushing the impossible hardtack round and round in the dark sauce.
Steady, girl, she told herself. Don’t spook him. A memory flashed through her mind: David Henry taking her fishing by the river to escape the summer heat. The first time she’d caught a fish, she’d been so excited that she’d snatched her pole back and lost her catch. “Steady, steady,” David Henry had said. “Sometimes when you tryin’ to catch a thing it’s best to let it have its head. If you don’t seem a threat, you can sometimes get the wildest beast to eat outa your hand.”
Dix sat silently, watching her as she forced down the hardtack. The catsup had made it only slightly softer.
“It ain’t true, is it?” he asked.
She looked up, frowning. In the lantern light, his gray face glowed yellow, his eyes glittered.
“About … the old woman?” he said. “Her powers? That she can work roots and such? Make folks disappear?”
Holding his gaze, she hesitated only a second. “Yes.”
Dixon McHugh lurched to his feet, his pale eyes blinking rapidly. He looked so terrified that Winter had to bite back a laugh.
“What’s that you say now?” he asked, swallowing so hard she could hear it from where she sat. “You said y’all weren’t no witches!”
She put her plate aside and stood slowly. “Like I said before. There are no such thing as witches.”
He stared at her and she stared back. Was it better or worse for him to be afraid of her? She wasn’t sure. What if she scared him so badly he ended up shooting her … or worse? She twisted a strand of hair nervously around her finger.
Steady. Steady now.
“You scared of me, Dix?” She spoke softly, her voice gentling, the way she’d been taught to speak to an injured animal. She moved toward him, reached to touch the wound around his neck, stopping when he jerked away from her hand.
“Why’re you scared of me?” She held herself as still as she could bear. “I can’t hurt you.”
But she could. She could get inside his spaces. See the pieces that made him a slaver-shaped boy. Turn him inside out.
She could.
If she wasn’t so cold. If she could just think clearly. If she could just remember.
She could hurt him. And those other ones, too.
If she could just remember those things—anything—Mother Abigail had taught her. If she could just remember. Then she could go home and there’d be nothing they could do to stop her.
He was pacing back and forth in front of the half-open door, his thin arms beating the air. “I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw that old nigger and Zeke. I saw you people appear out of nowhere. If you not witches—then what?”
“People,” she said. “We’re just people.”
This stopped him. He peered at her and shook his head, his eyes flitting between her and the door.
“We’re regular folks. Just like you,” she insisted. No, she thought, not like you. “Some of us just have a special talent for things. It’s no different than being good at trapping or … cooking.” She glanced at the plate, the brown sauce congealing in the center. “Some folks just have the knack for it.”
It was the kind of thing Mother Abigail told the new runaways, the especially skittish ones that needed to hear something they could grab hold to.
He was watching her, his forehead creased, concentrating on her words. “Magic ain’t like bakin’ taters.”
It was her turn to shake her head. Her eyes burned. She was tired, so tired. “Never called it magic. Said it was a talent. If it was true magic I wouldn’t be chained up here in this barn, would I?” she asked bitterly.
“Y’all killed Zeke!”
“What would you do if people came riding into your home with guns and whips?” she cried, her voice shrill, unable to hold her temper any longer. “What would you have done if someone had tried to steal away your momma … or your sister?”
Dix flushed and looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “I…”
“You would have done whatever you had to do, wouldn’t you?
“Why’re you scared of me?” she demanded again. “Those slavers … they’re the ones hurting you, beating on you, leaving their marks all over you. You’re no better than me! You’re just a slave yourself!”
The boy jerked and ran a shaky hand through his limp hair. “That ain’t true! You don’t know nothin’! I ain’t nothin’ like you. I’m a white man just like them.”
“Not like them,” Winter murmured.
She watched the emotions play across his face as he waged some private war. Her shoulders sagged. She was tired and sore and cold and suddenly she just wanted him to leave. As if reading her thoughts, the boy moved toward the door.
“My grammy used to tell of folks touched by the devil,” he said, still lingering.
“Oh. Well. Then it must be true.” She rubbed a finger across her bruised lips. “Just ’cause something’s different, just because folks are too thickheaded and lazy to understand something, doesn’t make it evil.”
She wanted to curl back into the straw and close her eyes, biting things or not. Wanted him to leave her alone.
“Might could be that
your people touched by God, then,” he said quietly. She could see him working this out in his head, trying to decide. “I heard a’ saints, holy people that could work miracles.”
Winter gave him a tired smile. “Well, we ain’t saints, either.”
Dix pushed the barn door open and wind sliced through the opening, bringing sheets of icy rain with it. As he stood facing her, his pale silver-blond hair whipped around his face.
“I ain’t scared of you, you know. And I ain’t scared of them, neither.” And then he slipped out into the howling darkness.
She gazed at the closed door. Oh, yes you are.
“Why you messin’ ’round with that white boy?”
Winter gasped. She whirled to find Louisa staring at her from the shadows.
“You’re awake!” She rushed to the girl’s side and fell to her knees.
“He ain’t your friend, you know,” said Louisa. She was battered and bruised; her dark face was so shiny swollen it looked as if it might burst open, but her voice was the same, irritable and full of malice. If she could have, Winter would have hugged her.
“How do you feel?”
“Ready for the ball. Stupid.” Louisa glared at her. “How I look?” Winter gave a snort of laughter, too relieved to take offense. She poured a tin of coffee and put it to Louisa’s lips. “Here, drink.”
The older girl frowned but drank it, and after some coaxing, she managed to eat one of the remaining potatoes. But the effort seemed to spend her and her head drooped back onto the soiled blanket. Winter sipped the last of the coffee and stared at her, studying the girl’s injuries. She wished she could remember anything at all about healing, but that was Louisa’s talent.
And she worried.
What if Colm and Frank did make it back? What if the storm broke and they really did have to leave in the morning? Louisa was in no shape to travel, wouldn’t be for days, as far as she could tell. Would they just leave her here? Or would they do something far worse? Winter pushed the thoughts from her mind.
“You think if you keep starin’ long enough, you gon’ make me beautiful?” snapped Louisa, her eyes still closed.
Winter’s lips twitched. “Even I know it would take more than that.”
The herbalist grunted and opened her eyes. “You got no idea,” she said. There was a long pause. “I ain’t goin’ back. I sold my soul to get my freedom that first time, and I ain’t never goin’ back.”
Winter turned the tin cup over and over in her hands and listened as the storm threw itself against the walls.
She looked up. Louisa had managed to lift herself up on one elbow. She had the same wild look in her eyes as before, but this time there was no hysterical laughter. “You don’t know, girl. You been coddled by Mother Abigail your whole life. Treated special. But you won’t be treated special out there. Girl like you…” She spat. “Girl like you … they’ll have you bedded down with the master in no time. And when he gets tired of you, they’ll mate you like a hog to some old field hand so’s they can get them a big ol’ passel of brand-new pretty yellow pickaninnies!”
Winter sat motionless, Louisa’s words washing over her like lye. This was worse than the crazy laughter of before, far worse. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Louisa’s eyes glittered.
“You think they’re comin’ for you?” snarled Louisa. “Hunh? That what you think? Ain’t nobody comin’! Not for you. Not for me.”
“You hate me so much?” asked Winter. Her voice trembled
“Hate you?” Louisa laughed. “Hell, yeah, I hate you! I hate the sight of you! I hate the smell of you! I hate the feel of your name in my mouth!”
“I have never ever done a single thing to you, Louisa!” her voice cracked. “Never!”
For a long moment, Louisa was silent, her hard, angry eyes fixed on Winter. And then she said softly, as if all her anger had been used up, “She only ever saw you. No matter what the rest of us did, Mother Abigail only had eyes for you. She treated you like you was some little glass angel. All the time makin’ no bones about who would lead Remembrance when the time came. Everybody knew you was supposed to be touched by the gift.”
She moaned and fell back onto the blanket. “But I didn’t never see no gift. All I ever saw was a high-yellow gal flittin’ from one thing to the next like a butterfly.” She moaned again. “Butterflies pretty, right enough. They got their place, but they don’t do the work of keepin’ a place alive, do they? And I just want to know one thing. If you supposed to be special enough to head up Remembrance, how come you still chained up in this nasty horse stall bein’ ate up by fleas? Where’s your powers now? I ask you that. Where they at?”
Then she closed her eyes and turned her back. Her shoulders shook. Winter thought she heard muffled sobbing. But that couldn’t be, could it? Louisa’s heart was a stone. There was no room for tears.
Winter sat paralyzed, Louisa’s ugly words bouncing around inside her head.
They’ll mate you like a hog to some field hand!
I hate the sight of you!… I hate the feel of your name in my mouth!
Ain’t nobody comin’! Ain’t nobody comin’! Ain’t nobody comin’!
Winter curled herself into a tight ball and tried to make herself as small as possible. As the darkness deepened, all she heard around her was the barn groaning against the storm’s icy assault and the rustling of unseen creatures in the shadows.
It wasn’t her fault. She’d never wanted any of it. To be special. To have the ability she had. And certainly not to lead Remembrance.
If you so special, why you still chained up? Louisa had asked her. “Where’s your powers now?”
I don’t know. I don’t know!
She lay shivering on the floor. It was so cold! It was so hard to concentrate! Winter closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. She tried to see herself back in Remembrance, tried to hear Mother Abigail’s voice yelling at her to see more than what was just propped on the tip of her nose. In the freezing barn, she smiled slightly.
The icy rain beat a steady rhythm. It worked its way into her mind, gradually interrupting the words of Louisa’s rant, and she let herself be hypnotized by the sound. There was a small metal pail a few feet away, filled with rusting nails. She could see them. See how the rust braided itself into the iron. See how slowly the individual particles moved around each other. And there was water inside the metal, waiting to change it. She could see all the spaces. The pieces that made up the pieces. Spinning. Spinning. And as she watched, they spun faster. Then faster still. The rust unbraided itself as the metal softened and glowed, warming.
Spinning.
Faster.
The nails inside the pail, losing their nail shape, their particles dancing wildly around each other. The pail itself softening, warping.
She fell asleep to the sound of the rain and the vision of all those spinning, dancing particles.
When Dix came in a short time later, bringing blankets and warmed bricks to tuck into the straw, she didn’t hear him, didn’t hear him call to her in confusion at the small fire that burned in the metal pail by the door. And she didn’t know that he stood staring at her in stunned silence, in a barn that now was toasty warm, despite the freezing rain outside.
37
Winter
The storm was getting worse. The barn shook as if giant fists were pounding its sides, and beneath the howling of the wind was the sound of hail being flung against the roof. The tiny bit of light that managed to leak through the planking was such a uniform gray that it could have been either early evening or early morning.
Winter was oblivious to the chaos outside.
She studied the chain around her ankle. It was heavy, a bit over five feet long and attached to a metal loop sunk deep into the barn’s dirt floor. She stood and tried tugging at the loop, throwing the weight of her body against it, hoping to dislodge it, but it was sunk too deep. Winded, she dropped cross-legged to the floor and wiped her dripping nose on her s
leeve.
She shot a glance at Louisa, who still lay turned away from her, curled in a ball. Whether asleep or simply ignoring her, Winter couldn’t tell. Taking a deep breath to clear her mind, she forced herself to concentrate.
More than one way to drive a mule, my girl.
She smiled a little, hearing Mother Abigail’s voice in her head, and it calmed her. She held the chain in one hand and slowly began to draw it, link by link across her palm, focusing all her attention on it. She stared at the cold metal, willing herself to ignore everything else, willing herself to see only the links in her hand. There was no storm, no pattyrollers coming to take her away. There was only this chain, holding her in this terrible place.
Nothing was what it seemed. There were spaces between things and spaces between those. One just had to see them. And she knew how to do that. How to peer into the gaps.
She stared at the chain in her hand. It seemed a solid thing but she knew it was not, and as she concentrated she saw that it was made of pieces tinier than a grain of sand. And those pieces were shaped like cubes, millions and millions of cubes. And inside those cubes was an even smaller piece suspended like trousers on a clothesline. She felt herself fall into the space, into the cubes, watched them spin slowly around each other, around her. She raised her hand and touched the outermost particle, watched it move faster, then faster still, spinning, spinning. The other millions and millions of cubes following along.
And as they spun, the chain that she still gripped in her hand grew warm, then hot, nearly unbearably so, but still she held on, falling, falling, into the spaces between the spaces. Feeling the particles that made the iron and the iron that made the chain tumble around and around each other.
“What you doin’ over there?”
Something burst in Winter’s head, making a sound so loud she was sure it could be heard over the storm. She blinked. The world swam before her eyes, and for a moment, a long moment, she wasn’t sure where she was. Then, there was the cold ground beneath her, the raging storm … and Dix.