* * *
I know I’m dreaming. Because I’m wearing fighting clothes—shirt, knickers, gaiters, and Oxfords. And standing in my old house. It’s always night here. All night forever. The house is a cabin outside Memphis. Year after the Civil War, white folk in Memphis went wild, lynching any colored man in blue for a soldier, burning colored houses and schools. My great-granddaddy escaped by leaving his Union uniform behind. Built a house way out here, fleeing that terror and white folks’ madness.
It just like I left it, seven years back, looking like a whirlwind passed through. Ain’t but one room, and I step over furniture and broken pots, kneeling down to lay my ear to the floor. Breathing comes, fast and deep. I trace fingers along the floorboards to catch fine grooves, lifting the almost unseen hatch.
The girl staring up at me got my eyes, though be a while before she grows into them. She shaking so hard under her nightshirt I can hear her teeth chattering, and the fear rolling off her stank enough I can taste its bitter. I push it back, studying her rounded lips, how the edges of her nose flares, the fat round her cheeks, and the way her plaited hair blends into the black of the small space. Like looking into a mirror of yesterdays.
“Not enough you bothering me when I gotta fight, now you in my dreams too?”
She just whimpers. I grit my teeth, disgusted.
“You ain’t got to be scared. You got that sword.”
Her little knuckles tighten around the silver hilt at her side. But she don’t even try to lift it. That makes me madder still.
“Get on up outta here! You too grown for all this!”
A squeak escapes her lips and she stammers. “What if they come back?”
“They not coming back!” I’m shouting now. “You just gon’ sit here! Getting filthy! You coulda done something with that sword! You coulda tried to stop them! Damn you, why won’t you get out of here! Why don’t you leave me alone!”
Something in her face changes, chasing the fright away, and her voice goes smooth as water.
“Same reason you won’t go into the barn out back. We know what scare us. Don’t we, Maryse?”
I suck in breath, and some of her fear slides down my throat.
She looks herself over. “Why you always imagine me as a girl? We wasn’t so. You thinking this put more distance between us?”
“What do you want?” I plead.
“To tell you they watching. They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us.”
They? “Who you talking about?”
The fear reappears like a mask, and her voice drops to a whisper. “They coming!”
In a blink, the world is swallowed in blackness. I panic, thinking I’m back in the hideaway place under the floors, raw fright threatening to take hold. But no, this not my house. I turn in a circle, searching that impenetrable darkness, when something catches my ear. Is that singing?
A faint light appears ahead I know wasn’t there before. But it’s where the noise is coming from. I walk toward it and as I do, the light takes shape into something. Or someone. A man. I can see him from the back—wide and broad like a motor truck, with a melon for a head topped in red hair. He wearing a white shirt and black pants held up by suspenders, with something tied about him I think is an apron. Can’t make out what he’s doing, but he’s bent over, swinging one arm, and each time it come down there’s a wet THUNK! Then a little squeal! He the one singing—or trying to. Making the most godawful racket, all off pitch and off beat. Take me a while to recognize the words.
“And when she roll that jelly!”
He chuckles. THUNK! Squeal!
“We like that one,” he says in a deep Georgia drawl. “But don’t understand.” THUNK! Squeal! “What does she roll like jelly? Is it made of real jelly? Sticky and sweet?” THUNK! Squeal! “Here, we know another one.” He clears his throat and starts to caterwauling:
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men!
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they’re up, they’re up,
And when they’re down, they’re down.
And when they’re only halfway up,
They’re neither up nor down!
He chuckles again, and I catch a whiff of something rancid.
“That one we understand. Up, down. Up, down. But jelly?”
THUNK! THUNK! Squeal! Squeal!
I can’t say why, but I want to see what he doing. I scoot to the side, trying not to get too close, and catch a glimpse of his hands. Big burly things. He got thick thumbs wrapped around the wood hilt of a silver cleaver and he’s hacking up meat on a bloodstained table. Only every time he cut a piece, it inches away, a small hole opening up on it I realize is a mouth. And it squeals.
THUNK the cleaver go.
Squeal! the meat lets out.
I rear back in disgust, and he turns about to face me.
He as big in the front as the back, a thick and solid man. He hooks his cleaver on a loop at his waist, and I can see a matching one on the other side. His mouth opens into a too-wide grin on a shaved face and he wipes bloody smears on his white apron before extending a hand.
Realizing I ain’t shaking that thing, he lowers it.
“Well, we finally get to meet you, Maryse.”
I grimace at hearing my name. “You know me?”
He grins wider. “Oh, we been watching you a long time, Maryse. A long time.”
“Who you, then? Some wicked haint messing with my dreams?”
He winks a gray eye. “We the storm on the horizon. But you can call us Clyde—Butcher Clyde. We thought we’d introduce ourselves proper, since you gone and left this nice little space open for us to slip into.”
Storm. Nana Jean’s words play in my head. Bad wedduh gwine come.
“Well, you can slip yourself right back out,” I snap.
He laughs a deep belly laugh. And I swear his stomach moves under that apron.
“We really going to have to dance, Maryse. You just bring that sword of yours next time, you hear? Don’t worry, we’ll bring the music.” He extends his arms and starts up singing again. “Oh, the grand old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men…!”
As he do, little holes break out across his skin. On the exposed parts of his hairy arms, up on his neck, all along his round face. They’re mouths, I realize with a shudder—small mouths with tiny jagged teeth fitted into red gums. All as one they start singing too, joining him in the worst chorus you ever heard. No harmony or rhythm, just a hundred voices crashing together.
And when they’re up, they’re up,
And when they’re down, they’re down.
And when they’re only halfway up,
They’re neither up nor down!
I cover my ears. Because this, whatever it is, don’t dare call it music, hurts! In desperation I try to call up my sword, but can’t get my mind right. It’s like everything is off, the whole world spinning, and I stumble, trying to catch my balance. He just stands there laughing and singing, all those little mouths laughing and singing too. His hands grab his apron, tearing it off and ripping open his shirt. The skin on his pale belly ripples and peels back to reveal a pit of emptiness. No, not emptiness. Another mouth—big enough to eat me whole! With sharp teeth long as fingers and a flicking red tongue!
“We still want our dance, Maryse!” that mouth growls.
He jumps at me, and I swing a fist only to have my arm sink into his chest. His whole body—clothes and all—done turned pitch black, liquid and oozing. The mouths still there too, opening and closing with wet sucking hisses.
I kick out and a leg goes into him, sticking me fast.
Like how Tar Baby catch Bruh Rabbit! my brother wails.
Butcher Clyde laughs, and his tongue flies like a ribbon, wrapping round my middle. I try to peel the nasty fleshy thing off, but it’s so damn strong, dragging me closer, toward that awful mouth, open wide—waiti
ng.
* * *
I jump awake, breathing heavy and don’t mind saying scared as shit! But there’s no tongue wrapped about me. No Tar Baby man with a mouth in his belly. The echo of that terrible singing still in my ears, though. I let it fade and focus on my surroundings.
I can hear Sadie, loud as hell in a nearby room with Lester, and I don’t know who making more noise between the two. She the one cussing up a storm, but pretty certain he doing all the moaning.
Chef here too, whimpering somewhere as Bessie makes shushing whispers. She gets like this sometimes. Starts apologizing to dead men, then wakes up sobbing. Like a piece of that war come home with her. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my brother went off to that war, and what he might have brung back.
Other than them, just the sound of Georgia crickets in the night, telling me the juke joint closed up, except for those who want a room and some alone time. I turn to gaze at Michael George beside me, naked as the day he was born and finer than frog hair. I pull closer to nuzzle his neck, smelling the lingering cigar smoke, a habit he picked up in Havana. Two of us like to sit around after, sharing one and talking. Well, he do most of the talking. Not that he ain’t curious—seems like he got a hundred questions about me. None I’m ready to answer. Beyond bootlegging, not much to tell. He ain’t got the sight. And monster hunting’s hard to explain. He know by the way I go quiet not to ask about my past or my family. Some things not for saying.
Besides, I prefer his stories of far-off places with white beaches and haint-blue waters. He tell me of a place named Tulum. Says at night on the ocean, the stars so plentiful, look like they just falling into the sea. Says he wants to take me there. That the two of us could get a boat, and just sail the whole world round. Sometimes I let myself imagine what that would be like. No more Ku Kluxes or fighting, just me and him and all that water. Think it’d be like freedom.
I squint at a sudden glare, forcing me out my thoughts. I raise up to find my sword propped in a corner, glowing bright. I didn’t call it, so it being here mean I’m wanted. So much for dreaming about freedom. I disentangle from Michael George, who shifts his weight but don’t wake. Grabbing up his shirt, I slip it on and hop out the bed, walking to my sword and grabbing it by the hilt … then stumble as the room falls away. I shake off a bout of dizziness and glance around. I’m standing in a green field under a bright blue sky, only there’s no sun.
This ain’t no dream, though. And I’m not alone.
There’s three women. Two are older, sitting in fancy high-backed chairs at a white table beneath the biggest Southern red oak you ever seen. Both got the knowing looks of aunties, which is what I call them. The third, she on a swing hanging by a rope from the tree and gliding back and forth. Her face young enough to be my sister, but she’s pure auntie, no mistaking. All three got on canary-yellow dresses with lace and embroidery, set off by colorful wide-brimmed hats. One at the table looks up from where she’s stirring a glass pitcher.
“Maryse!” Her plump brown cheeks lift into a smile like I’m her favorite niece, and she stands to pull me into a hug, rubbing my back. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Come sit now!”
“Hello, Auntie Ondine.” I turn to the other one at the table, bowing my head respectful. “Auntie Margaret.”
She glances up from doing stitchwork, a frown wrinkling her narrow face and dipping her bright pink hat. “Took you long enough to get here.” She looks me up and down. “You put on weight?”
I grind my teeth behind my smile. Auntie Margaret is that kind of auntie.
“Oh, Maryse is just as she needs to be,” Auntie Ondine insists, smoothing down the gold feathers crowning her purple hat. “Don’t mind Auntie Margaret; she’s a bit cranky today. Here, have some sweet tea.”
She always a bit cranky, I think, accepting a mason jar. I stir the ice before sipping, a lemon wedge tickling my nose. Best sweet tea I ever tasted. Like somebody mixed up sugar and sunshine and goodness. Thing is, though, it ain’t real. None of this is. Not the grass under my toes, this big shady oak tree, even the blue sky above. That stuff Molly was saying, about other worlds? This someplace like that, I think. Auntie Ondine say it look like this for my sake, to give me something familiar.
These three not people either. Never you mind they looking like aunties up in church on Sunday. They ain’t got shadows, for one. Look just out the corner of your eye, their bodies start to shimmer and blur. One time I looked too long and all three changed. They was still womanlike, but slender and unsightly tall in long bloodred gowns. Their faces was masks stitched from what look like real brown skin. What was beneath … well … reminded me of foxes. With rusty fur, pointed ears, and burnt-orange eyes. I know what it sounds like, Bruh Fox and all that. But I saw what I saw!
I sip the sweet tea (that ain’t really sweet tea) and turn to the woman on the swing. “Hello, Auntie Jadine.” She don’t answer. Just keeps swinging, a far-off look in her eyes.
“Oh, she’s doing … her thing,” Auntie Ondine apologizes.
That explains it, then. Auntie Jadine the strangest of these three, and that’s saying a lot. Time funny with her. She living in the now, the yesterday, and tomorrow all at once. When she like this, mean she’s somewhere—sometime—else.
Nana Jean warns me to watch myself with these three. Say haints is tricksy. But they remind me of my mama in a way. Like they plucked memories of her from my head, and made them into three people. Maybe that’s why I’m fond of them; remind me of what I lost. Besides, was them who gave me the sword.
The broad black leaf-blade sits on the table, keeping a steady hum that draws in spirits—their singing whispering in my ears.
Auntie Ondine told me how the sword came to be. The one who made it, back in Africa he was a big to-do who sold slaves, till he got tricked and sold too. Got made a blacksmith, on account he was good with iron. He made the sword to look like one that used to mark him as a big to-do. Only bigger—not just for ceremony. He pounded it with magic, calling on the dead who got sold away. He bid them sing their songs, seek the spirits of the ones who sent them across the sea, and bind those chiefs and kings, even his own self, up in that iron—make them serve those they done wrong.
When I call the sword I get visions from them angry slaves, their songs pulling at restless chiefs and kings bound to the blade, making them cry out until sleeping gods stir in answer. That’s the sword’s power—a thing of vengeance and repentance. Don’t know how it ended up with these three. But they say it needs a champion. When it first came I wasn’t no champion, though. Just a scared girl, hiding under the floorboards. But I learned how to listen since then—how to move to its rhythm.
“We apologize for calling on you at this late hour,” Auntie Ondine says. “We tried to wait until you completed your physical intimacies with your beau.”
Auntie Margaret humphs. “Lots of carrying on and grunting, you ask me.”
My face goes warm. Not being people and all, these three sometimes say things they shouldn’t. Like about my “physical intimacies.” Or implying they was watching me! Someone laughs. I turn to find Auntie Jadine staring dead at me under her wide pale blue hat, that faraway look replaced by something devilish.
“When my man put it on me, he make my legs shake!” she bursts out.
I almost spit my sweet tea.
Did I mention Auntie Jadine only talks in song? Don’t know where—or when—this one from. But the meaning clear enough. If I didn’t have this wonderful sun-kissed skin, I’d be a perfect shade of scarlet.
Auntie Jadine grins, and I catch a hint of fox teeth. “He got dat good, good, good,” she sings. “Dat good, good, good!” She jumps off the swing and walks over, yellow dress flowing across long black limbs as her bare feet tread grass. All three barefooted. Say shoes too hard to think up. She plants the softest kiss on my forehead before easing into a chair and taking up a jar of tea.
“In any case,” Auntie Ondine continues. “We needed to talk. Ill ti
dings are afoot.”
“The enemy is gathering,” Auntie Margaret adds sharply.
The enemy what they call Ku Kluxes. Reason they gave me the sword was to fight them—their champion against that evil. Suddenly I remember my dream.
“And he say he the storm, this Butcher Clyde,” I finish.
The three was quiet as I talked. Now they looking at me hard.
“Did this Butcher Clyde harm you in any way?” Auntie Ondine asks. “Give you anything to eat? Answer me!”
Her intensity surprises me. “Nothing— Wait, that really wasn’t just a dream?”
“Not no dream!” Auntie Margaret snaps, jabbing a stitching needle at me. “You let the enemy in, girl!”
“What? I ain’t let nobody—”
Auntie Ondine puts a soothing hand to mine, her doting voice back. “You likely didn’t mean to, baby. They find ways in, through some trouble you might keep deep down inside. Like leaving a door open. There something you can think of like that?”
I remember then the other dream. Back at my old house. The girl and her warning.
They like the places where we hurt.
“No,” I answer, looking Auntie Ondine in the eye. Only way to tell a lie right.
“I know this lady who carry her troubles,” Auntie Jadine sings in a bluesy voice. “Carry her troubles, all on her back. She gon’ let them troubles weigh her down, she keep on carrying ’em round like that…”
I narrow my eyes at her, but she busy tracing a finger in her sweet tea.
“Well, we’ll just have to be careful in the future.” Auntie Ondine smiles.
“What’s happening? Nana Jean can feel something too.”
Auntie Ondine shakes her head. “We can’t see. There’s a … veil, and it’s growing.” She gestures to a patch of dark in the blue sky I hadn’t noticed before. “Now this Butcher Clyde appears. An unlikely coincidence.”
“None of it good,” Auntie Margaret frets.
“You think this Butcher Clyde a Ku Klux?” I ask.
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