by Rita Woods
Paid in coin to find true love for the gens de couleur—the free people of color—working roots to bring healthy babies to barren couples or return unfaithful husbands to their wives. Abigail drifted along like a ghost and was left to herself. Hating them, planning her vengeance.
But there were so many of them. Too many. She wanted to kill them all. But what she wanted even more—her man, her babies back in her arms—remained out of her reach. Even her powerful magic could not bring them back.
But the whites feared her, even as they sent for her to cure their ills, erase their gambling debts, or predict the vagaries of the sea where their ships sailed. And she extracted what vengeance she could: poisoning their animals, sabotaging their businesses. Not enough that they ever suspected her, but enough to inflict pain.
And then there was the girl. The baker’s girl. A tiny slave girl with pale skin and red hair. A child, perhaps seven or eight. She was tied at the ankle every morning to a hitching post at the side of the shop. Her face so thin, bruises up and down her bony arms. Every morning she followed Abigail with her eyes as she walked past, staring hungrily at the bread basket she carried.
One morning Abigail stopped.
“Quel est votre nom, enfant?” The girl frowned. “What is your name, child?” Abigail repeated in English.
The girl blinked at her.
“You would like a biscuit, wi?” Abigail held out a sweet roll to the girl, who snatched it from her. The little girl looked furtively over her shoulder, then took a bite.
“Dorcas,” she murmured.
The baker materialized in the shop door, swearing in a language Abigail didn’t understand. He was fat and sweaty, with greasy, gray hair. He drew back a beefy hand and struck the little girl across the face, knocking the sweet into the dirt. Dorcas sprawled on the ground, arms up to protect her face, whimpering.
The baker turned toward Abigail, ready to strike again. She raised her chin and stared into his eyes.
A mistake, blanc. The last you will make.
The man froze, arm upraised. He saw the look in her eye, seemed to sense the danger. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his thick throat.
“Get away from here, Negress,” he snarled. “Get!”
Abigail smiled and the white man flinched. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. His eyes spun wildly in their sockets. She bent and righted the girl, handed her the sweet roll. The baker made a noise in the back of his throat, and Abigail fixed him with a hard look, a warning, then bowed and walked away.
Late into that night, in her small shack at the far edge of the city, she saw in her mind the baker strike the child again and again. And her anger fermented in the stifling heat. If she could not get back to Saint-Domingue—they called it Haiti now—then she could still have her revenge.
For three mornings she walked past the baker’s shop, but the little girl was not there. On the fourth morning, the child was tied once more to the hitching post. She did not look up as Abigail approached, but it was impossible to miss the new bruises that covered her face, her neck.
Abigail ground her teeth but did not go to her. Instead, she stood at the edge of the street facing the bakery door. All through the morning, patrons drew near, then, seeing her standing there, beat a hasty retreat. At first the baker only glared at her through the shop window, his face growing redder and redder as the hours ticked by without customers. Finally, he stormed from the door.
“You go now,” he cried. “Before I call the police.”
She smiled. “The police do not answer calls from the dead, Monsieur.”
The baker blanched. “Get away now,” he screamed. He threw his baker’s hat at her. She bent to pick it up. “Get away from me.”
Abigail nodded and walked away.
That night, under a full moon, she took the cap—pleased to see that there were two gray hairs still inside—and placed it on the ground behind her shack. She pricked her finger with a sharp knife, then held her hand over the cap as she bled. Seven drops, in the shape of an eye. She covered the cap with rosemary, lavender, saltpeter, and cinnamon, then set it afire with the flame from a black candle.
She smiled as the flames beat back the darkness. The baker would never beat the child again. Seven days later the baker, his wife, and their four children were dead, found dead in their beds from no cause the doctors were able to figure. It was two more days before she heard that the same mysterious illness had taken the slave, Dorcas, as well.
Several days later, the decapitated heads of the slaves who’d revolted against the sugarcane plantation owners lined the Mississippi on spikes from the Place d’Armes to the plantations far out into the countryside.
And Abigail was finally broken.
Despair and hate filled her, souring her magic. She retreated deep into the swamplands, with their thick, dark water and impenetrable shadows, and built a shelter among the roots of a cedar tree, a rude, stick shelter, not much different than a beaver’s den. From its opening, she could look out at the brilliant white egrets high-stepping among the cattails and water lilies, could hear the growl of panthers. She huddled in her stick shelter and waited to die. It seemed all that was left for her.
And then he appeared.
Josiah.
He had come looking for her, appearing out of the mist during low tide. He’d been barely recognizable, his hair nearly pure white, his spine bent.
“I was sent,” he said.
She didn’t ask who’d sent him, what’d sent him. Simona, he said, was gone.
He forced her back to the land of the living, led her from the bayou, led her to this place. Or they’d led each other. Not for revenge, but for redemption.
“To make things right,” whispered Mother Abigail. And now it wasn’t.
“Abigail?”
She looked up and smiled bitterly. As she’d grown stronger, so had he, the years dropping from him like autumn leaves. He was always there, wasn’t he? They were bound to each other, their magic intertwined. His magic, his life, was braided into hers, just as before her it had been to Simona’s.
“Abigail?” Josiah said again. He held a hand out to her and she allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.
“Come, Abigail,” said the old man.
“I see them,” she whispered. “They out there.”
“Yes.” He wrapped a strong hand around her elbow, and they began to make their way down from the ridge, him guiding her, moving as surely in the dark as she did at high noon.
“I see them, Josiah,” she said again. “I see my girl, and Louisa with her.” And she did, as clearly as if they stood in front of her. She saw Winter and Louisa by the side of a leaning, broken barn, shivering in icy rain. And she saw the blancs. Out there in the world that Remembrance was now a part of, like pale shadows darting through the mist, the smell of blood and death drifting behind them like smoke.
Josiah stopped and held his face to the sky. There was anger in him. She could feel it. “I know, Abigail. And they not the only ones out there.”
When he turned his face to her, her blood ran cold. “No,” she whispered. “No, they not.”
Gaelle
She felt as if she were made of wood, slow and thick, the air suddenly turned to molasses.
She was proud of Rose, had been terrified, but thrilled, when her baby sister had gotten a scholarship to that fancy college in California. In the pictures, ragged, snow-capped mountains reached to a clear sky the color of a robin’s egg; perfect green grass flowed between leaning palm trees. In tiny ways, it reminded her of home, of Haiti, and she understood why Rose wouldn’t want to come back to this gray, cold, decaying place.
But she was family and fanmi se tout.
Gaelle could never have imagined how empty, how imbalanced she could feel being separated from her sister. It was if a limb had been cut off. Only the thought of seeing her at Christmas had made the past months bearable.
She held her face to the dark sky. It had stopped snowing for the m
ost part, but an occasional flake drifted onto her face, where it instantly melted.
She’d already picked out their tree, the biggest one that would fit in their tiny living room, and the aniseed was soaking in rum in the cupboard, in preparation for the traditional anisette. Eyes closed, she smiled slightly. Toya loved the anisette she made each Christmas. The year before, Kevin, her youngest, had gotten slightly tipsy off of it. Toya had teased him for weeks.
Gaelle swallowed hard, then slid heavily into the car.
* * *
As soon as she pulled into the parking lot, she saw him, standing just outside the circle of light by the entrance. And she realized that, on some level, she’d been half expecting him. As she stepped from the car, there was a crackle of electricity in the air, like the feeling of anticipation when you open the door to see what gifts Tonton Nwèl has left in your shoe on Christmas morning.
Swearing softly, she walked toward the door. He was smoking his pipe, and despite the fact that the sun had not yet risen, he still wore the dark glasses. He looked somehow different, younger. She guessed it was a trick of the light.
“Good morning,” he said as she drew near. “Gaelle, isn’t it?”
She jerked, then turned slowly to face him. She hadn’t been wearing her badge when she’d seen him that first evening in Winter’s room. And she definitely hadn’t introduced herself. She shot a glance through the glass entry door. It was the middle of shift change and the hallway was empty.
“You need to go away. I will call security.”
He cocked his head, but made no move to leave.
She eased toward the door and tugged on the handle. A mound of half-frozen slush was piled near the bottom, preventing it from opening. She felt him there, watching her, and pulled harder.
“Bondye ede mwen,” she muttered.
Behind her, the strange man chuckled. “Oh, child, there is no god.”
Gaelle whirled. “Ou pale kreyòl?”
“Only a little,” he answered in English. “A long time ago.”
“Who are you?”
She was breathing hard, her breath crystallizing in the predawn air.
They stared at each other for a long moment. “I am a friend,” he said, finally.
A friend? Whose friend?
“You do not work for Joint Commission.”
“No.”
“Then who are you?” she demanded once again. “What do you want?”
He looked away and relit his pipe before answering. “You are special,” he said.
She felt a zip of heat spiral between her shoulder blades.
“Special,” he said again, his voice hard. “How much more will you allow this world to take from you? From us? You feel it, don’t you? Your power.”
The heat had spread to her shoulders and down into her hands. Inside her coat, she was shaking. He leaned close.
“The world has been waiting. I have been waiting. You help those people in there? How many? One person? Five? This…” He waved a dismissive hand at the building behind him. “This is small. This is nothing. You are so much more.”
“Go away,” she whispered, her voice pitched high with fear. “Go away and leave me alone, or I will call security.”
Josiah bowed his head and stepped aside. She turned and fled into the brightly lit nursing home.
42
Winter
Winter could just barely make out Louisa’s shape ahead of her as they crashed through the darkness. If anyone had been following them, they would have been easy enough to find as they stumbled through the trees and thickly tangled brush, falling again and again over invisible obstacles on the ground.
“Christ and damnation!” swore Louisa for the thousandth time.
The escape seemed to have fired her, burning away the remaining effects of her injuries. Numb with exhaustion, Winter kept up as best she could. She cried out as a branch snapped back into her face, narrowly missing her eyes.
When Louisa finally stopped, hands on her knees, her breath coming in short, ragged bursts, Winter slid gratefully to the ground beside her.
“Need to stop,” panted Louisa. “Got to build us a shelter. Got to be hid by the time the sun comes up.”
Winter raised her head. Louisa was right. Dawn was not far off.
“Where…?” she asked, too tired to finish the sentence. All around them, there were only trees and trees and more trees, nothing that looked like a safe hiding place.
Louisa straightened, and despite the low light, Winter could make out the tightness around her mouth, the hollowness of her eyes. She was done in. They both were. Without rest, they were going no farther. The healer looked slowly around.
“This a good place,” she said. “Lotta trees. Lotta brush. Land uneven. Fools the eye, makes it hard for the slavers to see everything they should. It be good cover … least the best we gon’ hope to find out here.”
Winter blinked. The route they’d been following for hours was hilly and rock-strewn. Since their escape from the barn, she’d barely noticed anything, except how tired she was and how cold. It had been enough just to stay on her feet and not become separated from Louisa. But now, in the bit of light leaking through the treetops, she could make out darker shadows, there off to their left. She squinted and saw that the shadows were, in fact, shallow gullies rising and falling along the forest floor.
Louisa moved slightly uphill and dropped to her knees. As Winter watched, she began pushing aside the soggy debris at the base of a broad maple tree.
“What’re you doing?”
“You need to go find us a couple of rocks. Something big. Flat like. With sharp edges to cut with,” said Louisa without turning around. Winter waited for something more, an explanation, but Louisa ignored her as she frantically dug through the dirt, with sticks, leaves, and mud piling up quickly beside her.
“Easy as pie,” muttered Winter. “Sharp ones. In the dark. In all this mud.”
She stomped off to look for the rocks Louisa had demanded. Slogging through sodden, ankle-deep leaves and mud, it took nearly a quarter of an hour. Every shadow made her heart race, every twig snap made her bite back a scream. She was shaking with exhaustion and terror by the time she’d found what she needed, her hands bloodied and raw from scrabbling through the stone-pocked mud. Struggling up the short incline, back toward the maple, she stopped short, her head whipping back and forth. Louisa was gone!
“Louisa?” she hissed, panic clawing its way up her throat.
“Did you find them?”
Winter screamed. She tumbled backward, slipping on the muddy ground and dropping her handful of rocks as Louisa seemed to rise from the ground like a spirit.
“Shush that noise!” she hissed. “What’s the matter with you, girl? You git them rocks I tol’ you to git, or not?”
Heart thudding loudly in her chest, Winter nodded. She picked them off the forest floor and held them out toward Louisa who sucked her teeth and snatched them from her. She turned, took two steps, and vanished again, the earth seeming to suck her down into itself. Winter bit her lip hard to keep from screaming again; she thought she saw slavers hiding behind every tree and bush now. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept forward.
Her mouth dropped open in amazement as she saw the reason the healer had seemed to disappear before her very eyes. Louisa was crouched in a shallow hole, maybe two feet deep by three feet wide, dug into the hillside.
“What…?” she asked. “What is this?”
“It’s gon’ be our hidin’ place,” said Louisa. She glanced around nervously. It was much lighter now. “And we got to get a hurry on, too.”
She quickly showed Winter how to cut branches with the knife she fashioned from one of the sharp rocks; how to poke the pointy ends of the branches in the ground on either side of the hole until they had a sort of roof. Then together they covered the roof with mud, followed by a thick layering of damp leaves, until the shelter resembled just another small rise on the landscape. Even
just a very few feet away, it was completely invisible.
Winter stared in amazement, first at the shelter, then at Louisa, who flicked her hand dismissively and turned away.
“We best be gettin’ in there then,” she said. “They sure to find we gone at first light if they ain’t already, and they be comin’ for us.”
She crawled into the hiding space and Winter scrambled in after. There was barely enough room for the both of them as they lay pressed shoulder to shoulder against each other, trembling in silence. Insulated with pine needles and tree moss, and warmed by their own body heat, Louisa’s shelter was surprisingly cozy.
Winter felt almost safe, and that thought made her nearly laugh aloud. Stuffed with straw, laying in a hole in the ground, hiding from men who wanted to take her to God-only-knew-where and make her do God-only-knew-what … she felt safe. At least safer than she had in many days.
She was drifting off to sleep when Louisa poked her in the side and pushed a ragged square of something toward her.
“Drink,” she whispered.
Winter reached for it, then yanked her hand back, startled. The thing in Louisa’s hand was cold … and furry.
“What is that?” Winter squinted at it. Pale light was oozing through their mud roof. Dawn had broken.
“Moss. Drink.”
Winter stared in bewilderment. She could feel Louisa rolling her eyes.
“Gotta drink,” she whispered irritably. “Bad for your muscles, all this runnin’ and no water. Didn’t have time to pack no fancy silver or fine china, so just open up your damn mouth.”
Still, Winter hesitated, and Louisa poked her again, hard, in the soft spot just below her ribs. With a whimper, Winter opened her mouth, just barely.
“And you best not waste one drop, you hear me?” hissed Louisa as she squeezed the moss in her fist. “I ain’t Mother Abigail. I ain’t fixin’ to spoil you. You want outa here, then you best keep this down.”
Dark water ran into Winter’s mouth, dark, muddy, green-tasting water. Something crawly landed on her tongue and she gagged, earning another painful blow from Louisa.