Chains of Time

by R B Woodstone

  “Mister Harry says we should wash off our feet in the water,” Sam tells me, “to keep the dogs from tracking us.”

  We step into the stream, but the moment my feet hit the chill water, my head goes light, and a vision comes, so vivid that I lose all sense of the present. All I can do is watch.

  Van Owen is seated on the edge of a mammoth oak desk in a long, narrow room with a glass wall on one end. He wears a black outfit—a suit unlike any from this era. A chandelier hangs overhead, illuminating the red mahogany floor. The room is almost identical to his mansion sitting room, but I know it’s not the same room. The glass wall, the clothing, the texture of the place—everything says that it’s more than a century ahead.

  A steel door opens and two dark-skinned young men enter. They wear gold chains and dark jackets. With them is a young dark-skinned girl. They lead her across the room to Van Owen, who berates them for entering without knocking. They tell him that the girl is the companion of one of their associates, Akins.

  “He’s the kid at HCS,” says one of them. “He does good business for you.” He pauses. “This girl says he’s dead.”

  “Dead?” says Van Owen. “How did he die?”

  The girl stutters as she speaks. She’s frightened. The room frightens her. Van Owen’s gaunt face and ghost skin frighten her. Even more, she’s frightened by something she’s seen. “This guy—Warren—he killed him. H-h-he burned him. He just touched him and burned him up…”

  Van Owen’s interest is piqued. He practically springs from his chair. “How did he burn him?”

  “With his hands. He touched him, and Stephon…he just burned up… with like electric shocks or something…”

  The two Black men turn toward each other with incredulous looks, but Van Owen orders them to be still. “Did it look like lightning?” he asks.

  “Yeah, like little sparks of lightning coming from his hands.” She seems comforted somehow that Van Owen is interested, that perhaps he believes her, as if it confirms for her that she has not gone mad. “How did he do it?”

  He ignores her question and tries to calm her so that she will be more helpful. “What’s your name, child?”

  “Leticia. Leticia Mark.”

  “Well, Leticia Mark, I can’t be letting people go around killing my employees. This has to stop, so why don’t you just tell me everything that happened.”

  She speaks of Terry Kelly, the Terry of my visions, the soft one—sensitive, hurt, harangued by his father, who thinks him weak. Leticia explains how she and Akins confronted Terry, taunting him, until Terry lashed out, commanded them to run, forced them to do as he said, just by speaking. So he is not weak, then. He is like Berantu, Kwame’s father, who could make others obey his spoken commands—even when he didn’t speak their language. Berantu, who was felled, like my father, by a bullet from Van Owen’s gun. But how could Terry…

  Leticia goes on explaining that she and Akins ran until they met Warren, who revealed himself to be Terry’s brother. When Akins threatened Warren’s family, Warren lashed out, electrocuting Akins.

  “Then what?”

  “I ran away,” says Leticia as she starts to cry. “I didn’t want him to do to me what he did to Stephon.”

  “Stephon Akins,” Van Owen says, his tone like that of a minister delivering a eulogy.” She nods as he says the name again before going on. “Well, I’m going to see to it that Stephon Akins is avenged, that this Warren is stopped. Now I need you to tell me more about this Kelly family. Don’t leave out anything.”

  Through tears, Leticia speaks about Jerome and Terry and Regina. She describes what Terry was wearing earlier and where she last saw him. Finally relaxing, she starts rambling on about her hatred for little Regina, who can’t even speak to defend herself.

  Van Owen laughs. “Watered-down blood will do that. Fourth generation watered-down blood. No power left for the littlest one. Apparently, only two of the four children got the family inheritance from their mother. I was surprised that there were boys born to that family at all. Amara and her offspring had birthed only girls previously.” He pauses for a moment. “And those girls certainly had voices!”

  Leticia mumbles, “Regina can talk. She just stopped doing it.”

  Van Owen’s interest is piqued. “What did you say?”

  “She used to talk. Now she just stares at you and pretends she can’t talk.”

  The slaver’s eyes widen, and I feel a chill. He remembers how I did the same thing when I arrived at the plantation. I had to hide the fact that my voice had changed so drastically—that I spoke with my older voice even as a teenager. My West African accent had vanished, supplanted by the North Carolina voice that emerged with the foresight. And then, later, I sometimes stayed silent because I didn’t know the extent of the power the had taken from me. I worried that he could hear me every time I spoke, no matter where he was—that using my power or even speaking would allow him entry into my thoughts.

  “Regina,” he says and then repeats the name twice more, stretching out the vowels like he is tasting a wine. He closes his eyes and cocks his head as if he is listening for her. “Think about Regina,” he tells Leticia. “Picture her in your mind.”

  The girl frowns, but Van Owen repeats the request more forcefully, and Leticia complies. She thinks of Regina at school, sitting in the classroom, entering the cafeteria, her braids swinging as she walks. And even I can see her. In the same instant, Van Owen and I see the resemblance: Regina looks exactly like me as a child.

  Van Owen’s eyes spring open. His mouth curls almost into a smile, and he speaks with hunger, his chest rising and falling. “Amara…”

  “What?” Leticia asks, confused.

  Van Owen’s eyes are locked on Leticia’s, but he’s not looking at her. She is beneath his notice. He is thinking only of Regina and of me. Finally, he responds, his voice more urgent, nearly breathless. “Are you sure you don’t know where Terry might have been heading?”

  Her eyes light up. She thrusts her hand into her pocket and comes out with a small, torn piece of paper and hands it to him.

  “An address? It looks like it’s from a delivery tag.”

  “Yeah, he’s a delivery boy at a supermarket.”

  Van Owen hands the scrap to his underlings. He tells them to bring his automobile to the front of the building. “Bring duct tape,” he adds. As he turns, I see through the glass window that his sanctum is in a stable. How fitting—Van Owen lives in a stable like an animal. He’s recreated his North Carolina drawing room in the rear of a stable, relegated to pretending he’s still an aristocrat even as he hides away in a barn.

  Finally, when the two men have left, Van Owen turns to the girl and walks toward her. “So, this Terry Kelly—he just spoke, and you had to obey?”

  “Yeah. It was like magic.”

  “Not magic—witchcraft. African witchcraft. It’s a subject with which I have some experience.” Suddenly Van Owen looks all around him as if he feels he is being watched, as if he senses something—someone. Me. His eyes dart back and forth, and then a slight smile crosses his face, and he settles down. “How strange. For a moment there, I felt a familiar pair of eyes on me.”

  Leticia looks confused. “I should get home…” she starts to say.

  I feel that I must be screaming aloud, telling the girl to run, to get out of that room before it’s too late. But it’s already too late. It was too late the moment she stepped in there.

  “No, Leticia,” says Van Owen, “you’re coming with us.”

  “Amara!” Sam’s voice breaks through the walls of my vision. “Amara, what’s wrong with you?” We’re standing nearly waist-deep in the stream, and Sam is shaking me. “Come on, Amara, we’ve gotta keep moving.”

  I look into his naïve, young eyes, suddenly feeling a century older than he though we are the same age, and I know what I must do. “Van Owen is going to find me,” I tell him. “So whatever direction I go, you’ve got to go the opposite way.”

&n
bsp; “But Mister Harry told me to stay with you until…”

  “It doesn’t matter what Mister Harry told you.” Without meaning to, I grab onto his upper arms, trying to shake him—to force him to pay attention. But I, too, am young and inexperienced. This magic—this African witchcraft—is not yet second nature to me. The moment that my hands touch Sam’s bare skin, I find myself swimming in his thoughts. They bubble to the surface as if they are my own memories. I feel Harry’s whip on his back all those weeks ago; I feel his boyish—and not so boyish—attraction to me; I feel his restless urge to know what freedom feels like. I release my grip on him, but I keep my mind in control of his body. I face him due north and start him running—running toward freedom. And I plant one thought in his head: Amara is fine. Amara is safe. I must run north. When I release his mind, he keeps on running.

  I may learn to use this power yet.

  As I step out of the stream and head back toward the plantation, I wonder how Van Owen felt me watching him all those years from now. Can he always sense where I am? Since he stole some of his abilities from me, perhaps he shares some innate connection with me. When I touched him back in Mkembro, I entered his mind; perhaps a bond was formed then—one that I can never break. Perhaps this is why he is forever linked to me and to my family, why he feels the need to hunt us. Perhaps he is as haunted by me as I am by him.

  My trek back toward the farm is much slower than was my escape. Without Sam goading me on, it takes almost three hours to creep back through the tobacco field on my hands and knees. At times, I’m almost certain I hear voices or see light at the edge of the field, but they always fade, so I assume it’s just my fear playing tricks on me. I wonder how far Sam has gotten and if he’ll make it to safety. I comfort myself with the belief that pushing him on without me has perhaps saved both Sam and even Harry, but as I near the edge of the field and skulk onto the dirt road that leads toward the slave housing, I know that I have guessed wrong.

  The voices of the guards and the lights of their torches await me. Seven white men stand just a few yards from me. In front of them, squatting on the ground, lighting a match against a stone, is Van Owen. He raises the flame to his pipe and looks toward me with a smile, and I understand: we do have a connection, one I can never escape. My mind is not completely linked to his—he can’t read my thoughts—but we are bound nevertheless. And when I use my power, he can feel it. When I touched Sam—when I took control of Sam’s mind—I sent up a sort of flare that Van Owen could hear. And he knew exactly where both of us were.

  “Ah,” says Van Owen says with all the calm in the world, “our final guest. I told you she’d be along soon enough.” He stands, displaying his pristine Confederate uniform. He inhales from his pipe and blows a huge smoke ring. The circular loop lingers like a white target against the cobalt sky. The tobacco scent is sweet. My heart jumps when he tells his men, “Bring the boy.”

  Two white men step from the shadows, tugging Sam forward. The boy’s eyes are bulged wide. His mouth is covered with a piece of white cloth tied in a knot at the back of his head. The men throw him to his knees in front of Van Owen. Sam stares into my eyes, pleading silently.

  “Do you see what happens when you try to leave me, Amara?” asks Van Owen. “I didn’t want to hurt this boy. Hell, when he stole my tobacco a few months back, he got only a lashing. I love my little Africans. You’re all like children to me. I want you all to be happy here. There’s just one thing and one thing only that I need you all to accept: you belong to me. You’re all mine.”

  He draws a pistol from his belt, and I know what I must do. I am the reason Sam is going to die; he deserves this gift from me. I close my eyes and—without touching him this time—I join with Sam’s mind once again. I open my eyes and I see through his: I am standing in front of him. Van Owen is raising the gun, pointing it toward Sam’s head. I don’t want Sam to see this. Even if it’s just for one moment, I want him to know what I know: what it means to be free. So I create a different scene for Sam to watch—a different reality, a different world. The world he should have known.

  It’s morning. From your hut of dried mud, roofed with branches from the sumac tree, you hear the mandrill calling to his family. In the distance, the tide rolls softly upon the shore, the ocean breeze carrying the scent of juniper and sedge. You rise and stretch and step into summer. The sun beats down, sweltering and yet inviting. Comfortable. This is home.

  Around you, children run and climb and play. Some of the adults head to the fields to tend to their crops. Others venture to the water to catch fish. The fruit of their labor belongs to them and them alone. Nobody makes them work. They do so for the good of their families and their people and their land. Their Africa. Your Africa.

  You look closely at the people. Everyone has brown skin. There are no interlopers here. No masters. You are your own master. You breathe in deeply, reeling in the pleasure of freedom and...

  Van Owen pulls the trigger, and Sam falls face forward into the dirt.

  “That was a nice little picture you gave the boy, Amara.” He winks. “Yes, I saw it. Don’t you know by now that you can’t use your power without me feeling it too? It’s too bad you couldn’t do the same for Mister Harry. I didn’t bother waiting for you for that one.”

  I walk past Van Owen without looking at him, without looking at the guards, without looking at Sam’s dead body on the ground. I walk past the rows of slave houses. Inside her cabin, Norma is wailing, the others warning her to stay quiet. As I approach my shack, I already know what I will find. I walk past the tree but don’t turn to look at it until I am in front of the closed door to my cabin. Then I can wait no more. I turn and let my back fall against the door, sliding down until I am seated on the ground, staring up at the branch, staring at Harry spinning and swinging by his neck, his scaled hands tied behind his back, his mouth contorted in pain, his sad, sad eyes empty, gazing into nothing.

  In the morning, the guards will come and cut the rope. They’ll take the body behind the barn and burn it, the stench of scorched flesh shrouding even the pervasive redolence of the tobacco. For tonight, though, I’ll remain here with Mister Harry, watching him sway in the autumn wind. I’ll stay with him all night, forcing myself to learn what has somehow eluded me until now: that no African born in America can ever truly know freedom.

  Fourteen

  Warren crouched beneath the stairwell, trying to keep his eyes on the second floor window across the street. The sound of his breathing distracted him. The feel of his sweat seeping through his shirt distracted him. The headache was coming soon—he knew it—and that distracted him, too.

  At least he was comfortable there beneath the stoop of the abandoned building. He knew it well. He’d been there many times before, staring up at the second story window across the street as he waited for Terry.

  Warren wasn’t permitted to go home—his father had decreed years ago that Warren must never come back. So he found a job. And an apartment. He even promised himself that he would go back to school. There had been so many promises made and so few kept. He never did return to school. The first job and many others after it were lost. Several landlords had evicted him for unpaid rent. He lived now in a derelict rooming house, and his moments with his brothers were brief and stolen—watching Jerome at football practice, walking Terry home (or close to home) after Terry’s last grocery delivery. But Warren tried not to take advantage of his brothers. He tried to ask for money only when he could not afford to eat—and he used it for drugs only when the craving was unbearable. His promise to his father—to stay away—had been kept fully in only one regard: Warren never went near his family’s home or near his sister. He never even allowed himself to see her. It would have hurt him too much. She had almost died because of him.

  He leaned out from beneath the stoop and stared up at Marco Fenelli’s window across the street. The light was still on. There were two shadows moving about. Terry was still in there with the old man, the recluse that Terr
y had spoken of. Initially, Warren had been suspicious of Terry’s friendship with Marco—what did this old man want with a teenage boy? But Marco had proven to be harmless: a broken down mobster, hidden away for decades. Just a lonely hermit who needed company. Perhaps, Warren reasoned, Terry had found in Marco the fatherly guidance that their father couldn’t offer.

  Warren’s head was pounding. The headache was so intense that he felt as if someone were inside his brain pushing to get out. His temples throbbed, the pain pulsating. He looked down at his hands. It had been almost twenty minutes since the confrontation, and the glow was finally fading. A passerby might think only that Warren had spilled fluorescent paint on himself, though the veins on the backs of his hands were still swollen and trembling, the blood still pumping too fast. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths in and out. He thought of his words to Jerome just that morning by the football field: It’s all gonna be better. He thought of the declaration he had made to Stephon Akins only minutes before murdering him: I’m through with that stuff. He had meant both pledges. He was going to create a better life for himself—without drugs. He could get by without them, he was certain of it. He tried not to think about the headache or of Akins’s smoldering body. He concentrated on breathing. He focused on the circular pattern of the air traveling in and out of his lungs. He listened to the breath flowing into him, draining out of him. After several minutes, his heartbeat began to slow, his respiration became more shallow and relaxed, his headache started to recede. In a moment, the headache and the glow would both be gone. He took in one last, long breath and opened his eyes.

  Immediately the headache returned, roaring through his brain. “Damn it!” he whispered, pounding his fists on the underside of the concrete stoop. “Why? Why now?” He resolved to concentrate on something else besides his own predicament. He looked up again at Marco’s window—no change—and then at the building entrance. He wondered if Terry might be up there for a while, perhaps sharing with Marco the story of Terry’s altercation with Akins. Warren wondered how he could tell Terry that Akins would never bother him again—without also revealing Warren’s involvement in Akins’s death.