Jonah flinched when he saw her, and his eyes darted around as if seeking an escape.
“Good afternoon, Jonah.”
Reluctantly, it seemed, he resumed his brushing. “Af’noon, missus.”
“You’ve been avoiding me the past two days, ever since the baby was born. I demand to know why.”
He kept his eyes on his work and said nothing. His cheek muscles bunched.
“Jonah!”
He jumped and dropped the currycomb. The horse’s ears flicked to and fro. Again, he looked for some way around her and out of the stable. Alice planted herself directly between him and the door.
“What’s happened to you?” she said, fearing that she already knew. “I thought … I thought we were friends.”
After a pause, Jonah said, “We are friends, missus, but …” He stared at his feet.
“But what?”
“I’se been ordered not to speak of it.”
A chill settled over her. Christ has gotten to him. “Wh—who ordered you?”
Jonah frowned—seemed almost to be crying—and looked away. “Other night, me an’ Eliza was home, and—”
At that moment, Thorne Norwick entered the stable, carrying saddle bags. Jonah jumped again. Alice too.
Her husband—oh, the plain gall of him!—wore that damn necklace upon his chest, and in spite of herself, cold fingers touched her heart. Didn’t he ever take it off? Smiling at her with the corner of his mouth, Thorne moved to stand in the sunbeam streaming through the window. The light fell upon the crucifix and sparkled.
“Done with that so I can leave on my trip, boy?” Thorne said. “Or are you being inappropriate to my wife?”
Jonah’s eyes went wide, and he vigorously shook his head. “No, no, Massa Thorne! I …” He yanked the saddle off the rail and put it onto the horse. “I’se all done!”
Alice noted with a jolt that Jonah had reverted to the subservient “massa,” when for three years it had been “mister.” What was scaring him into his old role?
Jonah struggled with shaking hands to hook the saddle.
Thorne said, “Goddammit, don’t manhandle the strap! You’ll break it.”
“I—I’se sorry.”
Thorne made a shooing motion. “I’ll handle it. Just go on now.”
In his eagerness to leave, Jonah stumbled as he maneuvered around Alice.
“Oh, and Jonah?”
Thorne’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t forget, don’t ever forget, that I only need one cook around here.”
Jonah disappeared from the doorway.
Thorne then addressed Alice as he strapped on the saddle bags. “I have business up in Depot. Be gone a couple days.”
Saying nothing, Alice left him alone with his horse.
Instead of heading back to the house, Jonah tried to evade her by heading down the road toward town. Mud from last night’s rain quickly caked the hems of Alice’s skirts as she hurried after him.
“Jonah!”
He glanced back, then broke into a run.
“What’s wrong with you? Jonah!”
She started running, but not being used to it, soon grew winded. The wood’s blanket of leaves, left over from last autumn, surrounded her on all sides like orange and brown death. Sometimes it rasped underfoot like the laughter of He who had surely caused this misfortune. Her throat burned with exertion, and she grew more frustrated by the second. Jonah was a dim figure, far down the road. When she tried to pick up speed, her foot sank into a depression covered by leaves. Her ankle twisted. She stumbled and dove face-first into a patch of mud.
“No! Oh God,” she said, not caring that she was calling on the same god she hated. The pain encircled her foot like an animal’s jaws. She held the foot in the air, now shoeless. Jonah disappeared down the path.
Wasn’t fair, wasn’t right that Christ so easily struck her down, as if to prevent her from learning something.
“Come back!” she screamed after him. “Come back here right now!”
She reached out with her mind, not knowing what would happen but sure that something would. The angel’s wings did not disappoint her.
Her awareness astride the wings, Alice was moving—no, shooting—down the trail again, the woods an orange blur on either side. She reached him just as he stepped onto North Road. She swooped down on his bald head like an invisible falcon.
He stumbled with the silent impact, his eyes widening. Felt his scalp for blood. The pain, oh Lord! she heard in his thoughts.
Where she was seated upon the trail, Alice hugged herself, and the angel’s wings responded by encircling Jonah’s throat. Thinking of how a Western ranch hand could lasso an animal, she used that image to control the wings. She yanked back on Jonah’s neck, pulling him in.
If he had not been walking backward, he would have seen Alice sitting in the large mud patch—mud covering her hair and dress—eyes closed in concentration as she hauled an invisible rope, hand over hand. Jonah tried and failed to hold the force at his throat, to keep it from choking him.
As she pulled, Alice heard his thoughts: amazement, his struggle to keep calm, his realization that something more powerful than the Knowing was at work here, and most saddening to Alice, regret at his own stupidity. The Teferas had known for years that their mistress possessed strange but undeveloped talents, but until now, Jonah had had no idea she was so powerful.
“No, I’m your friend!” Alice said and released her hold on him.
He collapsed into the mud beside her like a man cut free from the gallows.
“I’m sorry.” She covered her face and cried. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
Rolling onto his back, Jonah gasped at the blue sky visible through the trees. Alice saw the foliage through his eyes: thick clusters of leaves so brilliant from reflected sunlight that it hurt to look. They rustled in the warm breeze, and she heard his inner self searching for Christ in the beauty he saw there, asking why he’d been forsaken.
Christ—that hated name. But she sensed no malice for her in his thoughts. Only a simple, blind faith in a demigod whom Alice knew despised everyone. How she pitied Jonah. He was like every other naive sheep of the Christian flock. And how she wanted him to see the truth.
“Missus … oh, missus.” His eyes filled with tears.
She clenched his forearm. “Just tell me what happened. Please.”
She couldn’t hear his answer over the leaves, which crashed together in the wind, but didn’t need to. The angel’s wings heard for her, pulling aside the covers on his fears and recent memories. Jonah knew this too, so he looked into her eyes.
✽ ✽ ✽
It happened two nights ago, just hours after the baby’s birth. The other women had left, the missus walking like an old woman, leaving Jonah alone with his family.
The Teferas said nothing about the incident from earlier that evening, although it worried them. When Miz Alice had picked up the mojo, she’d gone rigid. A faraway look had come over her face, and then one of the bottle trees had fallen off the table and exploded in blue light. Was she possessed by spirits? they wondered. And could it affect the baby?
But now wasn’t the time to discuss it. Eliza was happily bone-tired, and a healthy baby boy, so tiny and fragile, nursed at her breast. They had dreamt about this moment for years.
At about the time the baby fell asleep in Eliza’s arms and she in Jonah’s, scuffling footsteps approached from the Big House.
“Teach ’im … what the sam …”
The voice was too guttural for Jonah to identify. Mister Thorne? Mister Obie?
Under the quilt, he wrapped his arms around his wife and baby and prayed for the man to keep walking.
And he did—directly to their cabin door.
A hard knock. “Open up!” Mister Thorne shouted.
Eliza jerked awake, and Jonah shushed her.
The white man threw open the door and charged in sword-first. Jonah froze, unbelieving.
&n
bsp; The red-rimmed eyes took a moment to find their mark. Thorne stared at the pile of afterbirth-bloody rags and the hip tub, which until now had never been used by a negro. Having been drinking all day, he swayed like a tree. Dirt covered his pants as if he’d fallen on the way here.
Eliza turned into a rock in Jonah’s arms. “Oh, me.”
Jonah leapt up. His momentum took him right into the white man, and Thorne wheeled on him.
But they were too close for the sword. Grunting, Thorne stepped behind Jonah’s foot and pushed with his free hand. Jonah fell back and bounced off the edge of the bed.
Eliza screamed.
“I should kill you for that alone,” Thorne said, and poised the sword point a fingersbreadth from Jonah’s nose.
Thorne staggered, and the sword ventured dangerously near Jonah’s eye. He tried to scoot away, but the bed blocked him. His heart raced as if he’d just ran the entire length of the bridle trail.
The slave-survival strategies kicked in at that point. Without looking him in the face, Jonah said, “Please, Massa Thorne—whatever you want, you know it be yours, and—”
“My wife.”
Jonah’s words fell dead in his mouth. He stared at the man, bewildered.
“You know, you know what I mean,” Thorne said and nodded. The sword point bobbed in Jonah’s face.
He certainly didn’t know what Mister Thorne meant but knew better than to argue.
“Thinking you’re all respectable now, don’t ya? Thinking you’ve got an heir, some way to show me up ’cause I don’t have one, is that it?”
The baby woke, its cries a plaintive bleat.
“Pretentious. Pretentious, aren’t ya, you coal-faced scoundrel? Think this entitles you to order my wife around? Going to make her the house nigger now, is that it?”
Jonah shook his head, wondering if Mister Thorne referred to how Miz Alice had helped him with chores that afternoon. The baby’s cries grew more insistent.
The sword point stilled in the air, and then darted under Jonah’s chin. “Stand up.”
“Oh dear lordy, oh dear lord, lord,” Eliza whimpered into the quilts.
Jonah touched her hand as he pushed up on the bed to stand. The sword point stayed under his chin as if glued there.
Mister Thorne glared with bloodshot eyes as Eliza shushed the baby. The biting odor of too much alcohol and tobacco wafted toward Jonah down the length of the sword.
If he’s gon’ kill me, might as well die fighting, he thought.
He tensed, preparing to bat the sword out of the way and charge.
But Thorne lowered the blade—made Jonah inhale sharply when it lingered over his heart—and then brought it down completely. The tip dug into the dirt floor.
Holding his breath, he opted to stay put.
“This is your only warning, which I give you as a gentleman.” Thorne cleared his throat and stuck his nose in the air. “Stay in your station, or the forces of God shall return you there most unpleasantly.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The angel’s wings and Alice withdrew from Jonah’s mind. As she left, she flashed through Jonah’s memory of minutes ago, when Thorne had surprised them in the stable and asked if he were being “inappropriate” toward his wife. She now felt as if Jonah’s fear—somehow a physical thing—covered her instead of the mud.
And she understood what he planned to do.
“You and Eliza can’t leave me. No. Please!”
His jaw dropped. Alice didn’t have to read his thoughts to see his wonder continue to grow. Taking a deep breath, he looked away and swatted a clump of mud off his elbow. “I have to. My boy deserves a better life than this.” He glanced at the darkening sky. “Storm’s a comin’. We should gwine back.”
And with that, Jonah pulled her to her feet. He wrapped her arm through his like a gentleman escort and then hurried her home as though nothing had happened. When they were close enough to risk Thorne’s seeing them together, Jonah quietly released her and ran ahead.
✽ ✽ ✽
The storm wasn’t really a storm at all—only a strong wind against the glass, a few pattering rain drops. If she were the heroine of one of the novels she’d escaped into during the War, a true storm would now be whipping the house, symbolizing her state of mind. Alice had thought it a transparent device and that it was based on the faulty assumption that something besides Christ could influence events.
She lay in bed that night, her tears rolling back across her temples and onto her feather pillow. Could Christ also be controlling Jonah, making him abandon her?
No, she decided after long contemplation. She would have detected something, felt something at work in the ex-slave. But there was nothing, which meant Jonah was responsible for his own actions. And that made his planned departure—his desertion of her—hurt all the more.
She did not blame Jonah for wanting to protect his family—experiencing his memory of Thorne’s intrusion made it understandable—but what she resented was Jonah’s leaving her. Why didn’t he ask her to come along? Didn’t he remember that three years ago she had done likewise?
Doesn’t he know that I now want to leave?
She swung her feet onto the floor and sat up. She grieved in small, fluttering sobs.
The end-all confrontation she’d expected at the Redger wedding ceremony had not come to pass—or if it did, she didn’t remember it—and she had no desire to willingly step into any more such situations. Christ would never give her the fight she wanted. Not a fair one, anyway. Better to run. One day, the cat would tire of torturing the mouse, and He would end her miserable existence, but at least it wouldn’t be anywhere near Thorne or the Norwick plantation.
But she couldn’t leave without the Teferas, nor could she let them leave without her. The impasse—the frustration—made her scream.
Loud laughter answered from outside. A man.
She opened the window and looked out. Heard it again. The voice came from the Redger house. It was Obie Redger.
Only a stone’s throw separated the two houses, so she could clearly see that all the Redger home’s windows were closed against the rain except those to the master bedroom. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Obie howled again with laughter. His voice changed pitch, scaling into a scream:
“It’s black! It’s black! It’s all black!”
He finished with more laughter. The house remained devoid of candlelight, as if Mariann were ignoring her husband’s delirium. Alice had heard his ravings before—episodes that grew worse with his sickness—but it had never been this bad. Or perhaps it had just never affected her like this.
Shivering, she covered her ears and clenched her jaw hard enough to hear blood pound.
Everything’s coming apart. Unraveling.
Breaking off a wooden match, she lit a candle and sat back down on the bed. Her hands were sweaty with the need to do something, but it was too dark to sew. She settled for brushing her hair with long, hard strokes. This wasn’t the first time she’d frittered away the midnight hours with worry and hairbrushing—that is, when the pendulum of attentiveness to her hygiene swung to the extreme opposite of those times when she needed lists to remember the simplest tasks. It got so bad one time during the War that she noticeably thinned her hair—uprooting it with that endless yank yank yank of the brush.
She was curious as to how much hair would come out tonight. Gramma Wharton had always said you could judge a person’s health by the quality of his hair (no doubt because the sickly Grandpa Wharton had been bald).
And something did pull out of her head, dropping into her lap. But it wasn’t hair.
She thought they were rice kernels—she’d certainly seen enough of them while growing up on a rice plantation—until they started to move. She stared dumbly at the squirming, wet forms before screaming and leaping to her feet.
She swatted at her gown, knocking them to the floor, and then glanced at the hairbrush in her left hand. Maggots—hundreds of them—swarmed the bris
tles and over her fingers. She screamed again and dropped it.
Dizziness. Alice slapped her gown. She looked at the brush—and saw that they’d vanished. None of the vile creatures were anywhere. Shrieking, words coming out of her mouth. She didn’t know what she was saying. She covered her face and ran.
She tried to dash down the stairs but tripped on her sore ankle and caught herself on the railing. It creaked and cracked under her weight, but held firm—by the grace of God? she wondered. By the grace of a toying God?
“I won’t,” she sobbed, “I won’t let you take me.”
In the dining room, her fingers didn’t work right as she broke off another lucifer match to light a candle.
After a while, she slowed her breathing. Calmed. Told herself she couldn’t get like this, couldn’t survive if she did.
And just as she was daring to hope the rest of the night might pass in peace, she realized she wasn’t alone in the dining room.
She gasped and turned around. “Thorne?”
Nobody there.
At last her gaze fell on the source of the feeling. It was the tall mirror, the doorway-sized mirror that she hadn’t used in ages, it seemed, to meditate and maintain control of herself. In fact, it had been so long since she’d contemplated her image, reflecting the angel’s wings back into herself to plumb the depths of her own depression, that she was afraid to look. Afraid of what she might see.
It called to her.
I’ll just look, she decided. But I won’t release the angel’s wings.
Swallowing, her nails digging into her palms, Alice crossed the room. She was breathing so hard now that her throat hurt. Sweat poured down her cheeks.
Relief filled her when she saw that the woman in the reflection at least looked like her. Haggard, too haggard. Circles under her eyes. Premature wrinkles creased her brow. But nothing unexpected. The wings fluttered as they sensed the mirror’s proximity. It seemed as if it were emitting heat, like standing near a stove.
But before she could ponder this further, the wings escaped their mental cage. They flew from her—evil instruments of Christ!—ricocheted off the mirror, and explored their owner as they had so many times before. And what she saw …
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