Wash

by Margaret Wrinkle

  And so I did. I felt that silky water coming down around me and it felt like I was God breathing. Phoebe bent and scooped and lifted and poured while I stood there with my face tilted to the sky.

  I felt the water tugging the tight patches of clay loose from my skin and when I opened my eyes and looked into the water and saw all Phoebe had drawn on me running in swooping streaks, I saw she was right. This new sight was as nice as the last and I was still here. Standing here with myself and not going nowhere.

  I lifted my head up and back and said pour some more on me Phoebe, pour me some more.

  Phoebe brought me back to this world and I let her. But she had to help me find ways to stay, or else all her work was for nothing because I could leave again just that quick. Once you get your door blown open, just because you find a way to reach out and pull it closed don’t mean it won’t get blown open again. Seems like it wants to go where it knows the way.

  I started learning how to shut my door, and better yet, how to hold it closed in the first place. The medicine helped. Like Phoebe said, it kept folks from trying to crowd me. She told me all about it, talking and talking like she was making up for everything she hadn’t told me before.

  “Long as you have some knowing in your eyes they need, they’ll stay back. This medicine, they leave you alone with it. Never hurts to let people think you can turn it on em. Keep em wondering, that’s the best way.”

  When Phoebe took me under her wing to teach me the work, I went. She kept saying she was about ready to head on out and she wanted to hand her medicine over to me. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. If I hadn’t had no babies after three years at Drummond’s place, then I’m not having none. And I’d best find some way to make myself useful or else I’d be gone to market with the next load of logs.

  I was perfect, she said. I needed the medicine and it needed me. Lord knows my mind was good, remembering everything I ought to forget.

  Phoebe told me those called to healing always got some kind of sick, right around the edge of coming into grown. Just like I did. She said death needs to draw close. Any healer worth anything tends to linger on the threshold between this world and the next, deciding whether to stay or go, just like I did. And it didn’t matter that my sickness got put on me instead of coming on its own. Sick is still sick, she said, no matter how it meets you. You’ve been gone and you’ve been back so you know what you need to know.

  I sat there listening to her. What she was telling me was so big I could only touch the edges of it. Everything that happened to me was what made me ready for this work. Soon as this knowing came over me, everything started to shift.

  Phoebe said don’t think I’m somebody special. Said healing’s heavy work, with people coming to you for every little thing and plenty of big ones too. And they stay yours, even after they leave.

  I thought about the life most folks want. A cabin and a husband giving me children when God knows what will become of any of us. That picture felt so far from me I couldn’t ever reach it, not even in my mind’s eye, and I was glad.

  I saw myself living in a cabin I had the right to lock up on account of my medicines. I saw myself traveling from place to place, gathering and tending, then coming home. And once I got home, leaving again whenever I needed to.

  I sat there smiling and Phoebe said all right then, come here to me and let me show you.

  So I walked and I looked. All through the rest of that summer and into the fall. The more I looked, the more I saw. Pale mushrooms glowing white in the shaded hollows of fallen logs. Light falling on the bright green hairs of thick moss growing on the scaly gray bark of that tree. The sound of our feet moving through the loose winter leaves, crunchy and loud higher up the hillside, but limp and tender and dark in the low places.

  When Phoebe stopped, I did too. Never knew for sure what Phoebe was looking for at first, but I found myself things to see. Trees growing into each other’s arms like sisters, trunks arching in curves, overlapping against the sky. Thick dark knots of squirrels’ nests scattered through the stitchwork of bare branches. It was winter turning to spring by the time I started to really see where I was. Branches still naked against the pale sky, just starting to hint at budding out, but still small and brown and tucked into themselves.

  Phoebe kept telling me, now’s the time to pay attention. Now’s the time when you can read the world. With the leaves still down. You see that little hill humping up over there?

  I nodded yes.

  “You see how the top of it lines up with that notch in the ridgeline behind it? That’s how you know you headed right. See how the ground sinks down between? Creek runs through the bottom. That’s where we find a lot of what we need.”

  As spring wore on, Phoebe started taking me down to the creek. Then through it and a little way up the far bank. One day, she stopped at a stand of plants growing thigh high. She stood close, fanning her hand back and forth through the leaves, saying look at this, do you see?

  I crouched with green filling my mind. All those leaves close to my face, bending for Phoebe’s hand combing through em and then springing back.

  “You know how you used to look at things so hard we’d slap you for it? Look at these plants right here just like that. Drink it up.”

  I stared into that green until I started to see how they grew together in a stand. Like a group of people. Each with one main smooth stem rising straight from the ground, then arching like somebody bowing at you. And big leaves coming off that straight stem, starting halfway up then unwrapping broad and flat, with lines like little valleys, running side by side, coming together at its tip. And right where each leaf unwraps, a creamy white flower hanging underneath.

  Phoebe called me back to her.

  “Look where you been and where you headed. Sun rising behind you means you facing west. Hear your feet squishing in the low ground? See those spindly trees thinning out and feel these bigger trees looming over you? See that second hill humping up over there where you headed?”

  I looked and I saw and I felt my map fall in place inside me.

  “See these plants all growing in a patch, just like a bunch of people standing here? In the summer, look for dark blue berries.”

  I watched Phoebe’s hands moving through the stand of plants, showing me. After a while, I nodded and she bent to take hold of a few by the base of their stems, pulling em up real careful, then tucking their tops under her waistband with dirt from the roots falling down her skirt.

  “Well, good then. Let’s take some. Folks stay wanting Solomon’s Seal. Supposed to make men manly. Don’t know what we need with more of that mess, but at least trading for it will keep food in your belly. It’s the root you want but take you one with the whole plant so you can remember how it looks.”

  That was how I remembered things. When I knelt in front of a plant, looking to see was it the one I wanted, I’d go back in my mind to when Phoebe first showed it to me. Waiting to hear her voice and see her hands moving through the cool green of those broad leaves arching out from that main stem. If I couldn’t see Phoebe’s hands moving through the leaves, I didn’t take it.

  Phoebe had two whole years of showing me before she died. Each of the seasons and then again. She told me not to cry for her and whatever I did, don’t go stand by her grave. She kept saying I’m here with you. Right here with you when you come out in these woods is where I stay.

  I loved gathering. I’d been trying to wander the world all my life and Phoebe gave me the key. A reason. My feet and my hands finally free to follow my eyes and my mind. I wasn’t tied up no more and I wasn’t afraid neither. In the woods, I could usually hear trouble in plenty of time to get out of the way, and Miller let me wear a knife. Said that was just him looking after his investment.

  I went off most days collecting and I always came back home. I knew what he’d do to the rest if I didn’t. My heading out would mean a whipping for them and that lever worked both ways. Their staying in th
e fields was what let me wander, so when they came to me for fixing, I put my whole heart into it. I used to worry I’d kill somebody by accident, but the more parts I learned, the more they grew together till I was living inside a real house of knowing. And I just got better and better at it.

  Miller watched people stepping onto my porch and then leaving healed up. Saw he could earn some real money off me. He even decided to let me learn to read and write. Didn’t want me poisoning anybody by accident, getting him in trouble.

  Said he’d found him a new Phoebe, he sure did, and without even having to look. He was so pleased, he gave me a horse.

  ∞

  I almost rode right up on top of Wash next time I saw him. It was at that same southwest facing slope, wrapped round by the river, where he’d sent me to find the goldenseal.

  And there he was. Kneeling in the middle of that patch. Doing something with his hands. Whatever it was, he quit before I could see good. Laid one palm flat down, then he laid his other palm over the first.

  I remember seeing those hands, blunt and thick. Nothing tapered about him. Veins running across the backs of his hands like roots.

  He stood up from that patch of goldenseal so smooth and tall. Looking at me, keeping his face flat. Asking what did I want without saying nothing. And I didn’t say what I wanted since I didn’t know. We stared at each other like that for a little while. I let my horse graze so I could keep on looking.

  I had been wondering about him. How was he feeling since I healed him? Had Richardson already put him back at it?

  But the answers to my questions floated right to the top where I could see em clear so there was no need to ask. I knew he was feeling good because he was looking good. His eyes shone dark and clear against their whites and the inkiness had come back to his skin. I could tell by the way he stood up so smooth, he wasn’t hurting no more.

  I knew Richardson well enough to know the rest, and besides, I’d heard about it every which way I turned. Where Wash had been, what he had done at each place, and how he felt about it. All from people who had no way of knowing anything about him.

  I had to wait for my other questions to rise up. Not that I’d ask him those either. Funny how some people stay begging for a chance to explain themselves and others, you can spend all day working up the nerve to ask about the weather. Wash was that second kind.

  Except for much later when I was lying against him afterwards, in that quiet close time that don’t last long. Inside that little slip of time, he’d answer almost anything. But then, when we were dressed again, separate and apart, crossing paths on the road or in the barnyard, that wide open place inside him felt so far away it was like something I’d dreamed.

  He couldn’t talk about it very well but he finally found the right words. Made me think of Phoebe when he said just cause it’s in there, don’t mean you got to be touching it all the time. No need to wear it out. But you know that, he’d say. You know that.

  As for what he was doing with his hands that first day when I rode up on him after I’d healed him, turns out he was visiting his mamma’s grave. Leaving offerings. Wouldn’t let me see and didn’t tell me till later, but said she’d like us crossing paths again right there. In that very spot.

  Wash

  I guess the thing Pallas knew was how to be with a body without having to grab hold of you. Having everything yanked from you can teach you. Some people, it makes em need a stranglehold but Pallas was not like that.

  Pallas let me come and go. When she needed to grab on to something, she had something besides me. It was way down inside her and sometimes she’d drop me to catch hold of herself. You couldn’t expect Pallas to carry you too far. She already did enough fetching and toting is what she would say. But that was all right with me. I wasn’t going nowhere.

  We inched up on it, Pallas and me. We kept slowing down and slowing down. Seemed like the shorter our steps, the more ground we covered.

  Took me a while to get to where I could sit there by her without thinking about getting up on her. She’d stop by to see me on her way back to Miller’s and we’d sit there, facing each other across my big hayloft window, looking over the road leading out of here winding through the fields just like a snake. Her saying mmm hmmm real soft but I’m not saying anything.

  I felt my wanting reach through that soft night air between us but I was always glad when that feeling faded. I’d learned a little bit about how she was by then. I knew exactly how my reaching for her was the best way to be sure she’d slip through my fingers.

  Long as I left her alone, she’d come closer. Took her forever to come across that empty space between us. Said she was in no hurry. Said she’d forgotten all about wanting to get next to somebody and she liked that feeling, a thread pulling up through her middle, twanging in her belly.

  And my hands want to pull her to me but she’s just smiling. Saying you best keep it to yourself because I sure won’t be sitting here when all that wanting makes its way to me. You start that grabbing and I’m gone.

  Made me mad at first but it was like she said. There was a whole other place on the far side of wanting and it was right peaceful. All quiet and still, like I’m stretched out inside myself, fields as far as my eye can see, and I’m feeling the night breeze coming through those fields, making me wonder is there a road snaking through me too, and where is the barn in me and how do I get to it?

  Once I started seeing what Pallas was showing me, she liked to come sit by me and lean her head on me, with us falling in and out of sleep. Then one time, I woke up in the flat middle of the night with us curled together in the straw. I fell asleep on my back with my arm flung out to the side and her nestled in my armpit with one long thin hand laying on my chest. But I rolled towards her while I was swimming in sleep and my leg started wrapping over and round her like it can’t help it.

  Before I was even awake, I felt her leaving. She was still laying next to me but she started feeling real heavy and thick, like wood, and I was pulling something dead towards me. All her clear water pouring grace left just that quick and I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach, like sinking.

  When I open my eyes, her face tips towards me but she’s looking over my shoulder like she’s seeing a ghost and ain’t even scared. She drags her eyes off the wall behind me, trying to pull herself back to now, but I can see she’s looking at me from down a long rope and I know that feeling myself. What I don’t like is knowing I’m the one who sent her there.

  I roll onto my back, letting my hands fall slack open, praying to turn back into a man she can sit next to. She curls into a ball facing away from me but at least she’s still pressed close against my side. We sleep like that till first light then she sneaks out of the barn in time to make it home, with some people seeing her leaving and thinking they know everything about everything, but I’m just shaking my head.

  Pallas

  Ain’t nobody using me for nothing is all I can say. I ain’t no boot scraper to get the mud off. I’m not no road and that’s what I told him. You will not get wherever you’re headed by rubbing up on me. I know that much for a fact. I’ve been down that way and back. I’m not even thinking about turning my head to look over there. Not in this tiny sliver of my life that’s mine.

  Even if I was foolish enough to think it might be different this time, my body knows better and she ain’t having it. You can’t see her stubborn like a mule but I know. She’s not going through that stream. Y’all can stand out there all day if you want, but she ain’t stepping in that water.

  I’m saying this to Wash but he knows it already. And I know he does, but still, it feels good to hear my own mouth saying my own words. Setting em out there like that, all in a row, one after the next, in the warm falling deep blue of a late summer night.

  And he nods his head, saying yes ma’am, you better tell it to me so I know where to tip and not to tip. Come on now, you best tell it all to me. And I know he’s just liking the sound of my voice pouring over him, sa
me way I like his voice on me. And he’s hearing me too, saying lemme see that mule some more. How do she look exactly?

  And him asking like that makes me laugh about it a little. He’s finally catching hold of it, thank the Lord. I guess I’ve left him enough times, he knows I mean it. It can’t feel good being left like that, after the sweet of sitting next to the only somebody you really want to be by.

  And I did want to stay most times. I did want to stay and I thought about Phoebe praying over me that night, telling me my body was my door into this world, and what a shame for me to come all this way and then leave again without ever being able to walk in and out of my own house whenever I felt like it. Have company over if I want.

  She said it would be a damn shame if I let those Drummonds take that from me too. Said we all got our Jordan to cross in this lifetime and it looked like this was mine, so I needed to find me a way.

  It was Phoebe I was hearing that one night when I turned towards Wash from where I was sitting right there by him. It was only when he managed to leave me alone for a minute that I had a chance to reach for him. Wrapped in the silvery curve of that blown down tulip poplar. Sitting side by side, leaning against the trunk. Watching the moon on the water.

  I put my hand out to him, laying it palm up in his lap. He looked down into my hand and then over at me for a long time. I dipped my chin, yes, all slow like molasses, so he carried his palm to meet mine. I felt the air thick between our hands before they touched. Then I felt the solid weight of his hand in mine. My belly turned over but I stayed.

  I lifted his palm so I could lay it on my throat where he could feel me breathing. It was heavy and warm resting there. I laid my other palm on my low belly, saying to myself, just stay. Using my own hand on my own belly to pull myself back inside myself when that runaway part kept trying to skitter away.

  I turned to face his side and wrapped my legs around his hips. I scooched my front up against him and it felt good. Like when I’m bareback. I lifted his arm, wrapped it around my shoulders. I scooched closer against him, saying pull me to you, and his hip felt good and hard against my crotch. I laid my head on his shoulder, tucked in under his chin, and felt his arm wrapped around the top of my back nice and tight, like a vine up a tree.