The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine

by Jonathan Strahan

  The way the heavyset matron looked across the table at Easter, well, anybody would call that scared, and Mrs. Freeman shifted further on down the table to where other ladies lifted potlids to stir contents, and secured the bread baskets with linen napkins. It made Easter feel so bad. She felt like the last smudge of filth when everything else is just spic-and-span. Soubrette bumped her. “Take one of these, Easter, will you?” Three vases full of flowers were too many for one person to hold. “Maman said to put some water in them so the roses stay fresh.” Together they went round the side of the church to the well.

  When they’d come back, more and more men, old folks, and children were arriving. The Missionary ladies argued among themselves over who must miss service, and stay outside to watch over supper and shoo flies and what have you. Mrs. Turner said that she would, just to hush up the rest of you. Then somebody caught sight of the visiting preacher, Wandering Bishop Fitzgerald James, come down the steps of the mayor’s house with his cane.

  1863

  SO THAT RIOT started off in protest of the draft, but it soon became a murder spree, with white men killing every black man, woman, or child who crossed their path. They burned down churches, businesses, the homes of abolitionists, and anywhere else black people were known to congregate, work, or live – even the Colored Orphan Asylum, for example, which was in Midtown back then. Altogether, at least a hundred people were killed by whites. And there’s plenty more of these stories over the years, plenty more. Maybe you ought to consider Rosetree. That there’s a story like you wouldn’t believe.

  – Dad

  EYES CLOSED, SITTING in the big fancy chair, Wandering Bishop Fitzgerald James seemed to sleep while Pastor Daniels welcomed him and led the church to say amen. So skinny, so old, he looked barely there. But his suit was very fine indeed, and when the Wandering Bishop got up to preach, his voice was huge.

  He began in measured tones, though soon he was calling on the church in a musical chant, one hard breath out – huh! – punctuating each four beat line. At last the Wandering Bishop sang, his baritone rich and beautiful, and his sermon, this one, a capstone experience of Easter’s life. Men danced, women lifted up their hands and wept. Young girls cried out as loudly as their parents. When the plate came around, Pa put in a whole silver dollar, and then Ma’am nudged him, so he added another.

  After the benediction, Ma’am and Pa joined the excited crowd going up front to shake hands with the visiting preacher. They’d known Wandering Bishop Fitzgerald James back before the war, when he sometimes came to Heavenly Home and preached for the coloreds – always a highlight! A whitehaired mulatto, the Wandering Bishop moved with that insect-like stiffness peculiar to scrawny old men. Easter saw that his suit’s plush lapels were velvet, his thin silk necktie cherry-red.

  “Oh, I remember you – sure do. Such a pretty gal! Ole Marster MacDougal always used to say, Now, Fitzy, you ain’t to touch a hair on the head of that one, hear me, boy?” The Wandering Bishop wheezed and cackled. Then he peered around, as if for small children running underfoot. “But where them little yeller babies at?” he said. “Had you a whole mess of ’em, as I recall.”

  Joy wrung from her face until Ma’am had only the weight of cares, and politeness, left. “A lovely sermon,” she murmured. “Good day to you, Bishop.” Pa’s forearm came up under her trembling hand and Ma’am leaned on him. Easter followed her parents away, and they joined the spill of the congregation out onto the town green for supper. Pa had said that Easter just had a way with some onions, smoked hock and beans, and would she please fix up a big pot for him. Hearing Pa say so had felt very fine, and Easter had answered, “Yes, sir, I sure will!” Even offered a feast, half the time Pa only wanted some beans and bread, anyhow. He put nothing else on his plate this Sunday too.

  The clouds had stayed up high, behaving themselves, and in fact the creamy white overcast, cool and not too bright, was more comfortable than a raw blue sky would have been. Men had gotten the green all spruced up nice, the animals pent away, all the patties and whatnot cleaned up. They’d also finally gotten around to chopping down the old lightning-split, half-rotten crabapple tree in the middle of the green. A big axe still stuck upright from the pale and naked stump. Close by there, Soubrette, Mrs. Toussaint, and her longtime gentleman friend, Señor Tomás, had spread a couple blankets. They waved and called, Hey, Macks!, heavy plates of food in their laps. Easter followed Ma’am and Pa across the crowded green.

  Pa made nice Frenchy noises at Miss and Mrs. Toussaint, and then took off lickety-split with Señor, gabbling in Spanish. Ma’am sat down next to Mrs. Toussaint and they leaned together, speaking softly. “What did you think of the Wandering Bishop?” Easter asked Soubrette. “Did you care for the sermon?”

  “Well...” Soubrette dabbed a fingerful of biscuit in some gravy pooled on Easter’s plate. “He had a beautiful way of preaching, sure enough.” Soubrette looked right and left at the nearby grown-ups, then glanced meaningfully at Easter – who leaned in close enough for whispers.

  Señor, the Macks, and the Toussaints always sat on the same pew at church, had dinner back and forth at one another’s houses, and generally just hung together as thick as thieves. Scandal clung to them both, one family said to work roots and who knew what all kind of devilment. And the other family... well, back east Mrs. Toussaint had done some kind of work in La Nouvelle-Orléans, and Easter knew only that rumor of it made the good church ladies purse their lips, take their husbands’ elbows, and hustle the men right along – no lingering near Mrs. Toussaint. These were the times Easter felt the missing spot in the Mack family worst. There was no one to ask, “What’s a ‘hussycat’?” The question, she felt, would hurt Soubrette, earn a slap from Ma’am, and make Pa say, shocked, “Aw, Easter – what you asking that for? Let it alone!” His disappointment was always somehow worse than a slap.

  Brother, she knew, would have just told her.

  The youngest Crombie boy, William, came walking by slowly, carrying his grandmother’s plate while she clutched his shoulder. The old lady shrieked.

  “Ha’ mercy,” cried Old Mrs. Crombie. “The sweet blessèd Jesus!” She let go of her grandson’s shoulder, to flap a hand in the air. “Ain’t nothing but a witch over here! I ain’t smelt devilry this bad since slavery days, at that rootworking Bob Allow’s dirty cabin. Them old Africa demons just nasty in the air. Who is it?” Old Mrs. Crombie peered around with cloudy blue eyes as if a witch’s wickedness could be seen even by the sightless. “Somebody right here been chatting with Ole Crook Foot, and I know it like I know my own name. Who?”

  Easter about peed herself she was that scared. Rude and bossy, as she’d never spoken to the angels before, she whispered, “Y’all get,” and the four or five hovering scattered away. Ma’am heard that whisper, though, and looked sharply at Easter.

  “Who there, Willie?” Old Mrs. Crombie asked her grandson. “Is it them dadburn Macks?”

  “Yes’m,” said the boy. “But, Granny, don’t you want your supper...?”

  “Hush up!” Old Mrs. Crombie blindly pointed a finger at the Macks and Toussaints – catching Easter dead in its sights. “All Saturday long these Macks wanna dance with the Devil, and then come set up in the Lord’s house on Sunday. Well, no! Might got the rest of you around here too scared to speak up, but me, I’ma go ahead say it. ‘Be vigilant,’ says the Book! ‘For your adversary walks about like a roaring lion.’ The King of Babylon! The Father of Lies!”

  And what were they supposed to do? Knock an old lady down in front of everybody? Get up and run in their Sunday clothes, saying excuse me, excuse me, all the way to edge of the green, with the whole world sitting there watching? Better just to stay put, and hope like a sudden hard downpour this would all be over soon, no harm done. Ma’am grabbed Willie down beside her, said something to him, and sent the boy scurrying off for reinforcements.

  “And Mister Light-Bright, with the red beard and spots on his face, always smirking – oh, I know just what
that one was up to! Think folk around here don’t know about St. Louis? Everybody know! The Devil walked abroad in St. Louis. And that bushwhacked Confederate gold, we all know just how you got it. Them devil-hainted tabacky fields too – growing all outta season, like this some doggone Virginia. This ain’t no Virginia out here! Well, where he been at, all these last years? Reaped the whirlwind is what I’m guessing. Got himself strick down by the Lord, huh? Bet he did.”

  Preacherly and loud, Old Mrs. Crombie had the families within earshot anything but indifferent to her testimony. But no matter the eyes, the ears, and all the grownfolk, Easter didn’t care to hear any evil said of Brother. She had to speak up. “Ma’am, my brother was good and kind. He was the last one to do anybody wrong.”

  “And here come the daughter now,” shouted Old Mrs. Crombie. “Her brother blinded my eyes when I prayed the Holy Ghost against them. Well, let’s see what this one gon’ do! Strike me dumb? Ain’t no matter – til then, I’ma be steady testifying. I’ma keep on telling the Lord’s truth. Hallelujah!”

  At last the son showed up. “Mama?” Mr. Crombie took firm hold of his mother’s arm. “You just come along now, Mama. Will you let hungry folk eat they dinner in peace?” He shot them a look, very sorry and all-runragged. Ma’am pursed her lips in sympathy and waved a hand, it’s all right.

  “Don’t worry none about us,” Pa said. “Just see to your Ma.” He spoke in his voice for hurt animals and children.

  “Charleston?” Old Mrs. Crombie said timidly, the fire and brimstone all gone. “That you?”

  “Oh, Mama. Charlie been dead. White folk hung him back in Richmond, remember? This Nathaniel.”

  Old Mrs. Crombie grunted as if taking a punch – denied the best child in favor of this least and unwanted. “Oh,” she said, “Nathaniel.”

  “Now y’all know she old,” Mr. Crombie raised his voice for the benefit of all those thereabouts. “Don’t go setting too much store by every little thing some old lady just half in her right mind wanna say.”

  Old Mrs. Crombie, muttering, let herself be led away.

  Ma’am stood up, and smiled around at Pa, Mrs. Toussaint, Señor, Soubrette. “Everybody excuse us, please? Me and Easter need to go have us a chat up at the church. No, Wilbur, that’s all right.” She waved Pa back down. “It ain’t nothing but a little lady-business me and the baby need to see to, alone.” When one Mack spoke with head tilted just so, kind of staring at the other one, carefully saying each word, whatever else was being said it really meant old Africa magic. Pa sat down. “And don’t y’all wait, you hear? We might be a little while talking. Girl.” Ma’am held out a hand.

  Hand-in-hand, Ma’am led Easter across the crowded green, across the rutted dirt of the Drive, and up the church steps.

  “Baby child,” Ma’am said. When Easter looked up from her feet, Ma’am’s eyes weren’t angry at all but sad. “If I don’t speak, my babies die,” she said. “And If I do, they catch a fever from what they learn, take up with it, and die anyhow.” As if Jesus hid in some corner, Ma’am looked all around the empty church. The pews and sanctuary upfront, the winter stove in the middle, wood storage closet in back. “Oh, Lord, is there any right way to do this?” She sat Easter at the pew across from the wood-burning stove, and sat herself. “Well, I’m just gon’ to tell you, Easter, and tell everything I know. It’s plain to see that keeping you in the dark won’t help nothing. This here’s what my mama told me. When...”

  ... THEY GRABBED HER pa, over across in Africa land, he got bad hurt. It was smooth on top of his head right here [Ma’am lay a hand on the crown of her head, the left side] and all down the middle of the bare spot was knotted up, nasty skin where they’d cut him terrible. And there, right in the worst of the scar was a – notch? Something like a deep dent in the bone. You could take the tip of your finger, rest it on the skin there, and feel it give, feel no bone, just softness underneath...

  So, you knew him, Ma’am?

  Oh, no. My mama had me old or older than I had you, child, so the grandfolk was dead and gone quite a ways before I showed up. Never did meet him. Well... not to meet in the flesh, I never did. Not alive, like you mean it. But that’s a whole ’nother story, and don’t matter none for what I’m telling you now. The thing I want you to see is how the old knowing, from grandfolk to youngfolk, got broke up into pieces, so in these late days I got nothing left to teach my baby girl. Nothing except, Let that old Africa magic alone. Now he, your great-grandpa, used to oftentimes get down at night like a dog and run around in the dark, and then come on back from the woods before morning, a man again. Might of brought my grandmama a rabbit, some little deer, or just anything he might catch in the night. Anybody sick or lame, or haunted by spirits, you know the ones I mean – folk sunk down and sad all the time, or just always angry, or the people plain out they right mind – he could reach out his hand and brush the trouble off them, easy as I pick some lint out your hair. And a very fine-looking man he was too, tall as anything and just... sweet-natured, I guess you could say. Pleasant. So all the womenfolk loved him. But here’s the thing of it. Because of that hurt on his head, Easter – because of that – he was simple. About the only English he ever spoke was Yeah, mars. And most of the time, things coming out his mouth in the old Africa talk didn’t make no sense, either. But even hurt and simple and without his good sense, he still knew exactly what he was doing. Could get down a dog, and get right back up again being people, being a man, come morning – whenever he felt like it. We can’t, Easter. Like I told you, like I told your brother. All us coming after, it’s just the one way if we get down on four feet. Not never getting up no more. That’s the way I lost three of mine! No. Hush. Set still there and leave me be a minute... So these little bits and pieces I’m telling you right now is every single thing I got from my mama. All she got out of your great grand and the old folk who knew him from back over there. Probably you want to know where the right roots at for this, for that, for everything. Which strong words to say? What’s the best time of day, and proper season? Why the moon pull so funny, and the rain feel so sweet and mean some particular thing but you can’t say what? Teach me, Ma’am, your heart must be saying. But I can’t, Easter, cause it’s gone. Gone for good. They drove us off the path into a wild night, and when morning came we were too turned around, too far from where we started, to ever find our way again. Do you think I was my mama’s onliest? I wasn’t, Easter. Far from it. Same as you ain’t my only child. I’m just the one that lived. The one that didn’t mess around. One older sister, and one younger, I saw them both die awful, Easter. And all your sisters, and your brothers...

  EASTER STOOD LOOKING through the open doors of the church on a view of cloudy sky and the town green. The creamy brightness of early afternoon had given way to ashen gray, and the supper crowd was thinning out though many still lingered. Arm dangling, Ma’am leaned over the back of the pew and watched the sky, allowing some peace and quiet for Easter to think.

  And for her part Easter knew she’d learned plenty today from Ma’am about why and where and who, but that she herself certainly understood more about how. In fact Easter was sure of that. She didn’t like having more knowledge than her mother. The thought frightened her. And yet, Ma’am had never faced down and tricked the Devil, had she?

  “Oh, Easter...” Ma’am turned abruptly on the pew “... I clean forgot to tell you, and your Pa asked me to! A bear or mountain lion – something – was in the yard last night. The dog got scratched up pretty bad chasing it off. Durn dog wouldn’t come close, and let me have a proper look-see...”

  Sometimes Ma’am spoke so coldly of Brother that Easter couldn’t stand it. Anxiously she said, “Is he hurt bad?”

  “Well, not so bad he couldn’t run and hide as good as always. But something took a mean swipe across the side of him, and them cuts weren’t pretty to see. Must of been a bear. I can’t see what else could of gave that dog, big as he is, such a hard time. The barking and racket, last night! You woul
d of thought the Devil himself was out there in the yard! But, Easter, set down here. Your mama wants you to set down right here with me now for a minute.”

  Folks took this tone, so gently taking your hand, only when about to deliver the worst news. Easter tried to brace herself. Just now, she’d seen everybody out on the green. So who could have died?

  “I know you loved that mean old bird,” Ma’am said. “Heaven knows why. But the thing in the yard last night broke open the coop, and got in with the chickens. The funniest thing...” Ma’am shook her head in wonder. “It didn’t touch nah bird except Sadie.” Ma’am hugged Easter to her side, eyes full of concern. “But, Easter – I’m sorry – it tore old Sadie to pieces.”

  Easter broke free of Ma’am’s grasp, stood up, blind for one instant of panic. Then she sat down again, feeling nothing. She felt only tired. “You done told me this, that, and the other thing” – Easter hung her head sleepily, speaking in a dull voice – “but why didn’t you never say the one thing I really wanted to know?”

  “And what’s that, baby child?”

  Easter looked up, smiled, and said in a brand new voice, “Who slept on the pull-out cot?”

  Her mother hunched over as if socked in the belly. “What?” Ma’am whispered. “What did you just ask me?”

  Easter moved over on the pew close enough to lay a kiss on her mother’s cheek or lips. This smile tasted richer than cake, and this confidence, just as rich. “Was it Brother Freddie slept on the pull-out cot, Hazel Mae? Was it him?” Easter said, and brushed Ma’am’s cheek with gentle fingertips. “Or was it you? Or was it sometimes him, and sometimes you?”

  At that touch, Ma’am had reared back so violently she’d lost her seat – fallen to the floor into the narrow gap between pews.

  Feeling almighty, Easter leaned over her mother struggling dazed on the ground, wedged in narrow space. “... ooOOoo...” Easter whistled in nasty speculation. “Now here’s what I really want to know. Was it ever nobody on that pull-out cot, Hazel Mae? Just nobody at all?”