Stormwitch

by Susan Vaught

  Ray-boy steps up and puts his face almost nose to nose with Clay. Clay stops fighting and stands still.

  “Give me a belt, Poke,” says Ray-boy. “We’ll do him here, right now.”

  Gisele shudders. I squeeze her so hard she wheezes, but she holds her noise.

  “Your daddy said to wait about this one.” The one Ray-boy called Poke stands as large as a man, but he sounds like he has the mind of a toddler.

  “Yeah,” the other boy, the one who must be Dave Allen, says. “He told us to get that juju girl.”

  “Daddy won’t care. The only good darkie’s a dead darkie, right?”

  Chills fan my neck and I struggle not to cry out.

  Ray-boy takes Poke’s belt and cinches it around Clay’s neck. I hear him choking, and I can’t stand it. Gisele offers no protest as I shift her around my hip. Shield her with my body and outstretched arms.

  In my war voice, I shout, “Let him go!”

  One heartbeat passes. Two heartbeats. Three.

  Gisele’s fast breathing is the only sound I hear.

  Ray-boy makes a gesture and his friends throw Clay on the ground. Ray-boy puts his foot on Clay’s back. “Come on out! Welcome to the party.”

  I do come out, but in my own time, at my own pace. Ray-boy and his friends stand over Clay and snigger, even as I raise my hands and start a chant. They snigger as I call on Circe and call on Ba, and as I call on my grandmother’s mother, and hers before that. My voice takes a rhythm of its own, reaching back. Picking up the rhythm of Dahomey’s drums.

  Ray-boy finally stops laughing. His lips twitch. “What are you doing?”

  The minute he speaks, Clay scrambles out from under his foot, crawling for shelter behind me. The belt Ray-boy tightened around his neck dangles like a leash.

  “Hey, Ray-boy,” mumbles Poke. “Is she really a juju girl?”

  Gisele takes up my rhythm, humming with no words. Her voice makes mine louder. We’re like two drums now.

  “Sali and Aja,” I sing. “Hwanji and Tata.”

  When I reach Tata’s name, more power rises to my call. Leaves on the trees shake from a strong, sudden wind. They blow and rustle. Rustle and blow.

  “I don’t like this, y’all.” Dave Allen steps backward and trips into the fangs of a yucca bush. “Ow!”

  I hold up my hands, stirring the wind as I feel it. My feet do the drumming now.

  “Help me, Circe. Help me, Ba. Help me, all the war women who fought for their kings. Help me, Africa’s woman heart!”

  Wind howls over me now. Whips across my skin. Slams into the white boys like a wall of rage.

  Poke stumbles backward, then breaks and runs. Dave Allen curses and fights his way out of the shivering yucca. He crawls away, trailing blood from where the yucca’s sharp tips stuck him.

  Gisele hums without breathing, without breaking the beat, as the wind comes again.

  “Be gone with you, boy,” I hiss to Ray-boy as I dance.

  “You calling me boy?” he says, half tough. Half scared.

  I thrust one hand into my pocket, find my bag, and open it with quick fingers. Inside, I feel shells, a few stones, and pieces of pine bark. They will have to do. I pull them out and fling them into the air.

  The wind sweeps up the offering, and thunder bursts over my head.

  Gisele screams, but not from fear. Her fierce sound welcomes the weather. Seems to dare it to come again—and thunder booms through the woods.

  Rain falls on Ray-boy Frye, harder and harder.

  He glares at me.

  I glare at him and laugh.

  He turns and stumbles away.

  I close up my bag and laugh and laugh until I run out of breath.

  Gisele laughs, too. A high sound. Thrilled and splendid. She whirls circles in the spot where Ray-boy stood.

  I turn to Clay, who has pulled the belt off his neck. He flings it into the bushes, then meets my gaze, quivering and rubbing his throat.

  “Trust me now?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “I trust you,” Gisele echoes, still not sounding all the way like a little girl. Sounding a little old, a little strong with voices of time gone before.

  “Come on,” Clay mutters where I can hardly hear him. “We need to get home before it’s time for morning service, or my mother and Mrs. Jones will skin us for sure.”

  Chapter Six

  Sunday, 10 August 1969: Late Afternoon

  Pass Christian Missionary Baptist Church waits among scrub pines and knotted oaks at the end of a long dirt drive. It welcomes us for the second time this late Sunday afternoon with soft lights and a milling crowd. Morning service seems like it happened a year ago, and all I can remember of it is turning around about a hundred times to make sure Clay was all right.

  He was, of course. But he rubbed his throat a lot.

  For this evening service, I’m wearing another new cotton dress, this one yellow. Black shoes pinch my feet despite black stockings. The shoes and stockings are new, too. Grandmother Jones brought them home from work Saturday evening. She tried to make me wear a hat and gloves, but I refused those.

  Politely.

  As we walk toward the main steps, she holds my arm and beams. I feel like a scrawny giant next to her. She beams at her friends, because I’ve told her I will introduce myself.

  It’s a small thing, I tell myself.

  On the lawn around the church, women in hats and dresses wear white gloves and big smiles, laughing with the men. Men in suits and ties look shaved and scrubbed, fresh like little boys. Little boys hold up chins and act big—except when they rip off their coats and chase little girls. Little girls in dyed cotton and braids dodge the boys and tug ribbons that match their socks.

  In Haiti, I worshipped with Ba at our chapel on the beach. Our temple was the ocean. The Catholics let us be, praying behind their mortar and stone, but for the bells that pealed each day to announce the time.

  In Mississippi, black folks seem to live and breathe through the Baptist church. And Methodist, and Presbyterian. I suppose the Catholics are here, too, but I’ve not seen them or heard them singing. Only the single bell from this Baptist Church, where I’ve come some ten times in three weeks—every Sunday and Wednesday, and extra, when the preacher says to come.

  “Every time the doors open,” Grandmother Jones likes to say.

  I admit there is something of comfort in these worn white boards, in the rambling wraparound porch and smooth, brown pews. And when the people sing … when the people sing, I forget my starless heart for long minutes at a time. The church breathes and sways. And I breathe and sway, and when I close my eyes, I can almost hear Dahomey’s drums. Sense the Creator on my very skin. In my skin. In the rocking of my heart and the pounding joy of voices around me.

  For the singing, and for Grandmother Jones, I come.

  For Grandmother Jones alone, I plan to speak. Only for a few minutes. And no mention of witches and conjure, as she wants. This may be my only chance before the stormwitch comes, and I don’t want to let her down by refusing, or by saying something that embarrasses her.

  And yet I don’t want to dishonor Ba, either.

  Worry buzzes in my belly, biting like mosquitoes. I remember Ba saying that Europeans visiting Africa had to take opium to sleep because of mosquitoes. Perhaps I should leave that out of my talk.

  Grandmother Jones leaves me and heads over to talk with four visitors on the porch. They have to be visitors, because they aren’t familiar, and they don’t look like men I’ve seen around Pass Christian.

  Two white men, two black men. No, I’ve not seen them before. Younger, maybe half Grandmother Jones’s age—but they seem important. Worry lines crease their brows. Drag their cheeks down, and down. These are men accustomed to frowning. Men who have known hardship. And yet, they smile with my grandmother. And laugh.

  She laughs, too, and her eyes shine like Ba’s did when she was happy. I fight an urge to go stand beside her, just because I feel alone an
d out of place.

  Would that help?

  Instead, I linger near the door as the sun sets, watching people pass by into the long pew-filled sanctuary, with its floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows lining both walls. The congregation chats and whispers as people do when they have known each other a lifetime.

  No one on earth has known me for a lifetime.

  Maybe Clay will come soon with Miss Hattie. Or Gisele with Crazy Sardine, because even Crazy Sardine attends the Baptist Church.

  Grandmother Jones leaves her companions and heads in through a side door near the front of the church, the altar, where the preacher will speak from his podium. Where the choir behind him will sing about Jesus and heaven.

  She motions for me to follow. I glance at her face and catch a lingering moment of softness before the rocky lines come back. In the picture Clay has from six years ago, Grandmother Jones’s expression looks like stone, as it does now. What does it really mean? Other than maybe I’m not her only trouble.

  I study her from the side, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ask her.

  We seat ourselves close to the front on the end of a pew, so I can stand up easily when it’s my turn. I’ll be able to turn around and talk almost like the preacher, with the choir behind me ready to sing about Jesus. Or heaven. Or something else loud and rhythmic and wonderful.

  The mosquitoes in my belly turn to hornets, poking and stinging.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I wheel around to find Clay.

  “Hey,” he says, and gives me a smile. There’s no sign of a problem with his neck, and he’s not rubbing it anymore.

  “Hey,” I say, and smile back at him. I also smile at Miss Hattie-with-the-Amazon-face. She nods, and they sit in the pew behind me. When I turn my attention back to the front of the church, I see that the four visiting men Grandmother Jones spoke to have climbed the steps beside the altar and taken visitor’s seats next to the pastor. Somehow they look even more important, up there in front of us, framed by the blue-robed choir.

  Pastor Bickman mounts the steps and walks to his podium.

  The church goes silent, except for kids fidgeting, the whish-whish of ceiling fans and hand fans, and the growing roar of crickets and frogs welcoming the darkness outside. I smell sweat and perfume. Oil and lotion.

  Grandmother Jones draws a slow breath and lets it out. Her fingers shift against her knee. Tapping.

  Is she worried about what I will say?

  I am.

  I’ve worked on my words a hundred times in my head, and a few times on paper. I even rehearsed once in front of Gisele. Clay listened only for a minute, then told me I was crazy and stalked off.

  Nothing sounds right, no matter how hard I try.

  Pastor Bickman opens our service. A prayer, and a song. He introduces our guests. Names I don’t know.

  “After the service,” Pastor Bickman says, “Miss Jones, Miss Potts, and Miss Louis will meet with the representatives from the Freedom Democratic Committee, the Mississippi Teachers Association, and the Delta Ministry to finish plans for desegregating Pass Christian High School. We’re trying hard to address the demotion of our principals to positions of no authority or mock authority at best.”

  Nervous shifting.

  Some nods.

  An “Mm-hmm” to my left.

  “About time,” from behind. “Don’t want Principal Ellis ending up supervisor of janitors, like Principal Smith over at McComb.”

  I try to listen, but my mind sticks on the first thing the pastor said. Grandmother Jones is to meet with these visitors … to help with desegregation.…

  … And this fight, it’s far from over, Ruba. I hope you realize you’ve landed in the middle of a battle bound to last your whole life.…

  Words from our earlier conversation echo like distant thunder. I squirm. A new set of mosquitoes takes flight in my belly, stinging me about the end of the month, when I must go to a Pass Christian school for the first time. A new fight. One I can’t win with arrows or knives. No club or musket will see me through the first day of class in a Mississippi school.

  The pastor goes on talking, about a committee to plan for possible riots or mobs.

  Whether it would help or not, and even though I can’t run fast, I wish I had a musket like my Amazon foremothers did back in the 1800s. Dahomey’s war women pasted shells on their stocks for each enemy they killed.

  “And now,” Pastor Bickman announces, “the newest member of our congregation is ready to tell us her name and talk a little about herself. She’ll even talk about where the struggle began, yes, Lord. Where it began. Stand up, Ruba. Give us some wisdom.”

  I feel dizzy. Sure I will fall. I use the bench in front of me to pull myself to my feet. Turn around. My throat dries and clenches as I look from face to face. Set of eager eyes to set of eager eyes.

  They aren’t as blank as I thought they’d be.

  Is that good or bad?

  I want to faint.

  Someone waves from the back pew. A flash of brown between the dozens of cream-colored hand fans.

  Gisele.

  I see her leaning against Crazy Sardine’s long arm. He’s wearing a gold tunic and blue jeans, and his Afro is combed out as wide and tall as it will go. I’ve never seen anyone wear hair like that, and I wouldn’t know what to call it if Clay hadn’t told me. I can’t help wondering if Crazy Sardine combed it out so big so people would stare at him more and me less.

  He smiles. I smile back. Focusing on Gisele’s small face, I begin.

  “My name is Ruba Jones. I was born in Haiti. My Grandmother Ba—I mean, Ruba Cleo—taught me a lot. She taught me about weather and tides, shells and fish. She taught me about herbs and plants and trees and nature. She taught me to read and to write. She taught me the history of the world as she knew it, and the history of our family. We are the Fon people from the Kingdom of Dahomey, on the West African coast.”

  Gisele’s smile seems to fill her whole face. I breathe to slow my racing heart and continue. “In the old time, that coast was rain forest. Too thick for walking. Too thick for living, except a stretch of grassland now called the Gap of Benin. Around the time the Mayflower landed in America, the Fon people left Africa’s beach and moved inland through the Gap of Benin. Ever after, Dahomey grew as this country did, almost a twin, rising to become an empire. On the backs of slaves.”

  Fans stop moving as hands freeze in place. Some people look angry. Others seem fascinated. Absorbed.

  “While cotton grew in the United States, Dahomey grew bananas, pineapple, sugarcane, peanuts, yams, coffee—and yes, cotton, and more. All with the labor of slaves.”

  The angry people glare and glare. Pastor Bickman clears his throat. I clench my fists and force myself to continue. My throat feels so dry I’m scared I’ll croak instead of talk.

  “And later, the Fon built their capital city of Abomey, and inside the city, they made the great fortress of Simboji Palace. Kings ruled from Simboji with their advisers beside them, and fierce war women—my Amazon foremothers—guarded each gate. And even those strong black women had slaves.”

  I know Grandmother Jones has become a statue beside me. Granite or marble. Cold and unmoving. I hope she will let me finish. Her hand twitches, as if to inch toward mine. Words leave my mouth faster, and faster.

  “Other African tribes built their empires. Oyo and Egba, and others. All traded in slaves. Black people, using each other for currency. Riches. Power. To gain what white men had to offer. Steel. Guns. Weapons. Better ways to kill each other. Better ways to live white men’s lives. Or die too soon to enjoy them.”

  Crazy Sardine nods, and it gives me a spurt of energy.

  “Only once in Dahomey did a king try to stop the slave trade. King Agaja was his name. He closed the slave ports. Some think he did it to gain control of the trade, but I think he disagreed with it. And I think he disagreed with letting other countries, other people, tell us what’s right and wrong for us.”

>   A few more fans stop moving. I blink fast to keep my eyes from watering.

  “Agaja couldn’t live forever, and his foolish son opened the slave ports again. And so, while this country fought its Civil War, Dahomey sold hundreds of slaves to the traders, and the foolish new king took even more for himself. This my grandmother Ruba Cleo taught me. Not so I would think less of Africa. Not so I would turn my back on my heritage. So I would remember what happened. Embrace it. And understand.”

  “Understand what, Sister?” Crazy Sardine’s voice floats over the stunned faces like a welcome breeze.

  “Understand how we almost saved ourselves, and how we tore ourselves apart. Understand that we first have to be loyal to each other, and stand together against those who would use us and kill us, and tell us what’s right and what’s wrong. Wherever we are, we have to live with the values of others, but keep our own. We need to live black lives even in a white world. With our own history. Our own traditions. Our own worth. We have to remember what came before guns and steel. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours. I’m Ruba Jones, daughter of Circe Cleo and James Howard Jones, and I remember.”

  “Amen,” someone says.

  My heart nearly stops.

  That someone … it was Grandmother Jones. The very woman who has been telling me to let go of my past.

  Her face looks tense and serious, but she is smiling. A real smile. For me.

  My hands start shaking.

  I realize Crazy Sardine is on his feet. Everyone is standing, and beginning to sing. Grandmother Jones stands, too, and she measures me with her gaze. Opens her arms—and glass explodes into the sanctuary.

  Songs turn to screams.

  Rocks thrown through the stained-glass windows gouge the wall beside me.

  People duck. Dodge. Drop to the floor. Clay, Gisele—I can’t see them. My hand smacks my waist where my knife would be, if I were in Haiti.

  Grandmother Jones pulls me down in front of her, between the first two pews. Pastor Bickman and the visiting men press against a wall and edge toward the door beside the altar. I can see them from under the pew, between the wooden braces.