Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  Not that Nola could blame Hopey. The woman was terrified of Eric. Terrified that he would have discovered that Nola had been in the house, and that she had been the one to lead her to Petra. It was after Nola had removed her ‘ratta’ locks that the woman had been shaken from her awe. Hopey had at once realized that Nola’s disguise meant trouble, and she panicked and called Val.

  What amazed Nola, though, was how the woman had acted after the call. The supposed simpleton had come back into the room with the ointment and acted like nothing had occurred, when all along she’d just sealed Nola’s fate. But, then again, why should Nola have been surprised at the woman’s acting skills when she worked for the best teacher of all? She could have kicked herself for being so careless. She should have known that Eric McKenzie would not have kept any weak links within the chain around his life!

  He was good! That much Nola accepted now. He had built a fence around his life that could compare only to the thickest, strongest links of steel. He’d scaled off those who were disloyal, and had driven so much fear into those who remained around him that there was not one single kink in the link, not even in the half-witted ones.

  They locked Nola in the bedroom with Petra. She hadn’t made it easy for them. She’d tried to run—past the smoking woman down the stairs, through the white dining room into the kitchen, but the smoking woman’s quick wiry limbs had caught up with her, and she’d grabbed Nola around the waist and pulled her to the ground before she could get to the white phone. Nola had screamed then, trying to claw the woman’s eyes, but by then Hopey had lumbered down the stairs and helped to hold her hands above her head while the smoking woman slapped a cigarette-stink palm over her mouth.

  Hopey had not looked Nola in the eye. Every time Nola had tried to catch her gaze with a pleading look, the woman had looked away. When the tears began to fall from Nola’s eyes, and her chest heaved with sobs, Hopey had used the back of her baby lotion hands to wipe her cheeks, but she still had not looked her in the eye.

  “Please …” Nola had sobbed when they pulled her off the floor and began to lead her back up the stairs, “Please! Him goin’ to kill her! You know that! Please don’t let him do what him do to Barry! Take her away from here! Hide her, please!”

  “Shut your mouth!” the smoking woman had hissed into Nola’s ear and hauled her by the elbow up the stairs. “Stupid child! Don’t I did tell you not to come back? I never warn you? Now you get what you deserve, you damn fool! Shut up before the rest of them outside hear you, and then when them done with you, you will be beggin’ for them to kill you too!”

  And they flung her beneath the beautiful blue sky.

  Petra did not stir. Even as Nola screamed and kicked at the door, she remained in her trance. Eventually, exhausted, Nola fell to the floor. She’d messed up. Dear God, she’d messed up again and put Petra in even more danger. Even if she found a way out of the house now, she could not take Petra with her in the trance that Aggie’s potion had put her in.

  She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. So this was it? This was the purpose Aggie had spoken of—to screw up over and over again! She could have stayed and done that in Redding! She should have known not to fall for the nonsensical rabble of an old witch. If it weren’t for the memory of that stupid speech, she would not have put on this disguise! She wouldn’t have found Petra and put her life at more risk!

  So much for finding Eric’s weakness. There was none.

  The door opened and the smoking woman walked in with pieces of clothing hung over her arm. She stared at Petra’s purple-painted face in the bed.

  “Hopey say you give her someting to drink? Some sort of stinkin’ tea that make her sleep. Is what?”

  So the oaf had actually smelled the herbs and pretended ignorance! Nola looked up at the ceiling.

  The woman sighed and locked the door, dropping the key into her pocket.

  “Look, we take care of the girl. Him beat her, and we fix her. I just want know if what you give her is medicine or poison?”

  Nola gasped at the thought of giving Petra poison, and the woman nodded, satisfied with the answer on Nola’s shocked face.

  “You stupid just like her! Both of you cut off the same fool cloth! Tell me, if you know that someting goin’ hurt you, why the hell you keep doin’ it? She know him don’t want to hear ‘bout no baby! She know him don’t want hear that she want to go home, so why she keep sayin’ it?”

  “She’s sick!” Nola screeched. “You damn idiot! She’s sick and she need her medicine!”

  The woman gave Nola a curious look, then her expression cleared. “I should’a know! From all that damn bawlin’ she used to put down! Then what she come here for? Why she push herself up into tings she can’t manage, like a damn fool idiot?”

  Nola scowled, but didn’t answer. Who was this flimsy little excuse of a woman to speak so derogatively about Petra when she didn’t even know the truth?—Didn’t even know that Petra had left home to save her baby from being put into a home. Didn’t know that she’d left to prevent Eric from digging his destructive claws deeper into everyone’s life. Who the hell was she to speak when she didn’t even know that it was Nola who’d brought the curse of Eric McKenzie on to Petra, and that Petra had sacrificed herself to save them all?

  “Anyway, you can’t stay in them dirty clothes in Eric’s yard.” The woman gave a scornful nod at Nola’s rags and held up the clothing. “Put on these so him don’t blow a worse fuse when him see you.”

  “Take them clothes and stuff them where the sun don’t shine!” Nola shouted.

  The woman hhmphed and threw the clothes roughly at her.

  “Look, is you sneak into the man house and give him woman poison, so you deal with the consequences.” She put her arms on her hips. “Hold on, is how you find the house? Is follow you follow me?”

  Nola looked at the ceiling again and the woman gave a grating laugh.

  “You have guts, that much I will say. And you even get past Bunty and Sasquatch and them boys!” She laughed again. “You have guts for true. Eric goin’ fix them business when him find out –’bout them is watchman!” She looked hard at Nola. “Nuh you is the schooler who was in the supermarket talkin’ ‘bout Merlene?”

  Nola’s eyes flashed to the woman’s face.

  The woman shook her head. “Merlene,” she spoke the name quietly. “How is she, and Dahlia?” she asked.

  Nola swallowed. “You … you knew them?”

  The woman gave a dry laugh. “You askin’ me if I know Dahlia and Merlene?” She was about to laugh again, but something in Nola’s face stopped her. “Of course I know them. Nuh she send you to me? And who is this child?” She jutted her chin at Petra’s sleeping form. “Another spy she send? What she think, that she can get more?”

  Nola shook her head. “More?”

  “Aw, come now, nuh bother with the pretense. I think it too late for pretendin’ now! Why she send such a child, two children to deal with such tings?” Her chin jutted at Nola this time. “Merlene shoulda know better than that! What she thought, that she could trick Eric by usin’ little pickney?”

  “Merlene and Dahlia dead!” Nola couldn’t help herself.

  The woman blinked. “What you just say?”

  “Them dead, burn up in a fire that my papa set.”

  The woman collapsed onto the ground and stared at Nola.

  “Petra don’t know them. I come to Kingston because my family neva want me, and I end up livin’ in the same house with Petra. I come to the supermarket to look for Dahlia’s papa, and Eric see me and take me home one day, and that’s when him see Petra and …” Nola took a breath that merged into a sob. “I come to take her home because is me why she in this trouble.”

  The woman was not looking at her anymore. It didn’t seem like she was even listening. Her hands were on her knees, and when Nola looked closely she noticed that they were shaking.

  “Dahlia’s father? You was lookin’ for Dahlia’s father at the supermark
et?” she eventually whispered.

  Nola nodded, and the woman sighed.

  “Him dead too. All of them gone, now.”

  “What?” Nola gulped in shock.

  “Heart attack—three weeks or so after them leave. Doctor say him heart was weak from all the drugs and ting. But I know that him heart did just break. Him never, ever forgive himself for what him did do to them. Him go to him grave prayin’ for forgiveness.”

  “You was there?”

  “Him was my brother! Is me help them to leave that night.” She paused before continuing. “Me get the money out the safe and take them to the bus stop. I thought him would never forgive me. Him was my brother. I had to tell him that is me help them to leave! That’s why Merlene never tell me where she was going, ‘cause she know I would’a tell him where they were when him start to beg me. I thought him would never forgive me, but you know what him say to me? Him say, Val, them deserve to be happy, and I was makin’ them unhappy, so them had to go.”

  Nola wiped her wet cheeks and nodded emphatically. “They were happy! She … Merlene started a restaurant in Redding, and them did love each other so much! Took care of each other so much!” Nola shook her head. “All I wanted was to be part of them. That’s why I came to the supermarket. I was lookin’ for her papa. I just wanted to see one part of them that was still alive.”

  “And your father? Him was really the one who set the fire?”

  “Him never want me to go there to them because of all the things people were sayin’ ‘bout them. The restaurant had a bar, and the people say it was a evil place, but it wasn’t! Merlene and Dahlia treat me like I was one of them. Is the happiest I ever was in my whole life! But my papa find out I was goin’ there, and him set fire to the restaurant, and it spread to the house. I went there …” Nola looked at the woman with tears in her eyes. “I went there to get them out! They could’a come out in time! They could’a lived!” Nola touched the smile singed into her face. “Them never want to live no more. Not with everybody hatin’ them like that.”

  Val was crying. She tried to hide it, slapping her eyes roughly with the back of her hand, but the tears clumped her lashes and pinked her eyelids.

  “That was Merlene!” she said after a while. “Proud! And Dahlia grow just like her. I never forget that last night when Merlene say to me, ‘Val, I neva goin’ make any man … anybody … make me have to take my child from her home again!’”

  They were both quiet then, each weighed down with the pain of their memories. Nola stared at Val through dazed eyes. All this time she’d been searching for a piece of Dahlia, and there it had been before her all along, trapped in its little cage. Nola searched the woman’s pinched face for similarities to Dahlia’s. She could find none. She was probably lying. It was probably just another trick to get her to talk. Suddenly Nola remembered something.

  “But when I called Merlene’s name in the supermarket, you said that him would kill me, like you was talkin’ about Dahlia’s papa!”

  The woman took a shredded piece of toilet paper from her pocket and noisily blew her nose.

  “Eric!” she said. “I was talkin’ ‘bout Eric. I thought Merlene sent you for money. I thought she wanted more money, and I got frightened because I thought she was goin’ to make you lead Eric right back to her. You see, is Eric money I give her outta the safe that night.”

  Nola gasped and the woman sighed again.

  “Why you think I’m here, workin’ for Eric? Because I like the benefits?” She gave a dry laugh. “Teddy, my brother, Dahlia’s father, him get into the gamblin’ and the drugs. Years and years we talk to him, tryin’ to get him to stop, but… .” Another sigh. “Bottom line was, him get himself into big, big debts, and the more debts him get into, the more him take the drugs and lick up Merlene. Well, who you think come to the rescue, bail him out of all him debts?”

  Nola gave her a shocked look. No! Impossible! It couldn’t be that he’d wedged himself into their lives too!

  Val nodded. “Yup … that’s right—Eric! Eric did own a little liquor shop beside the supermarket, where the bettin’ shop is now, and it was doin’ very well. Anyway, Eric hear what was happenin’ to Teddy and him tell Teddy dat him will pay off all him debts, but Teddy have to pay him back interest each month. Well, what you think my brother do? Take the deal from Eric, pay off all him debts, and start rack up more!” She blew her nose again, leaving flecks of white shredded tissue on her nose. “Teddy was always the spoil one. Granny make him think that anyting him want, him must get, no matter how it affect other people. Spoil! Just like that one!” She jutted her chin at Petra, then thought for a while, her eyes distant again.

  “Well,” she shook her head as if shaking the memory out. “Eric warn Teddy. Warn him over and over again, and Teddy start to put down the money to pay him back. Well, that night when Teddy beat on Merlene and Dahlia, me take the money out of the safe and give it all to her. Well, after she gone, and Eric find out that Teddy never have no money to pay him, Eric beat him on top of the knife stab! I thought him was goin’ to kill him! Well, because I know that Merlene was gone, I tell Eric that is she take it and run away.”

  She gave Nola’s shocked face a defensive look. “I had to!” she exclaimed. “I had to save my brother’s life! Eric look all over for Merlene. For a long time him try to find her, but, thank God, she disappear clean, clean! No trace of her or Dahlia anywhere! So, Eric say that Teddy have to pay him back with the supermarket—and me.” She nodded and gave a bitter smile. “Yes, me! You see, at first I was so thrilled with the man that Eric was—strong and in charge—different from the other peaw-peaw men that was bouncin’ round the place. Yes, believe it! Someting ‘bout the way him handle tings make you feel like him would always take care of you.” She gave a bitter laugh and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well, with Eric it always get to the point where not even when you do what him say, it can’t please him. Him interest just fade away, and nothin’ you do can change that. Me? Him tell me that I have to work till I pay off all my brother’s debt, and because I knew that it was me who really take the money, I stayed.”

  So Nola had been right. The smoking woman was one of Eric’s bounties in his pirating escapades. She couldn’t believe how far his tentacles had reached—even to Merlene and Dahlia!

  “But Petra …” Nola exclaimed, jamming her finger into the bed, “She didn’t know what she was getting into! She thought Eric was nice, and when him threaten to put her baby in a home, that’s when she come here, to get him away from her baby and everybody.” Nola’s voice thinned into a pleading whine. “You have to get her back to her baby, Val. Petra is sick, and her baby … her baby not normal. She’s like Hopey, the helper, not normal. She need her mama, Val!”

  But Nola stopped when she realized that Val was laughing again. “What you just say?”

  “Petra need to go back to her baby!” Nola frowned.

  “No, no …” she choked again, “the part ‘bout the helper?”

  “Petra’s baby is like the helper, not normal …”

  “HELPER!” the woman screeched, “Hopey’s not the helper! Hopey is Eric’s mother!”

  And then it was Nola’s time to choke! Val slapped her back to help her catch her breath. When she’d caught it, Val wiped her own tears of laughter from her face.

  “That doll that she take everywhere? That’s Eric.” Val nodded reassuringly at Nola’s disbelieving stare. “Rape.” She said, and sighed, all of a sudden serious again. “Hopey lived with her granny on a little lane downtown, and one day Granny leave her to go to the tax office. Well, some boys in the lane go into the house and rape Hopey while she was there alone. Nobody know who it was, cause Hopey lock it out her mind and wouldn’t talk ‘bout it. Well, them eventually find out that she was pregnant, and she have the baby, but she couldn’t manage to take care of it. She was young, just turned 14. She used to love that baby, but she would forget to feed it, and bathe it. When the baby cry, she just hush
it. Not even Granny she would allow to take the baby from her, so them give her the doll and tell her that was the baby. Of course she knew it wasn’t the baby, but that’s how Hopey protect herself —lock tings out her mind and just move on.”

  Hopey, the giant simpleton who cowered at the mention of Eric’s name, was HIS MOTHER!

  Nola cleared her throat. “I … I … I thought his mother was a nurse, in Mobay.”

  Val shrugged and wiped her eyes. “Nurse – teacher – lawyer – Eric’s mother been all those tings.”

  She’d found Eric’s weakness! Hopey, with her feeble-mind and hanging face, was the thing he was ashamed of!

  No wonder he’d despised poor Kendra. He’d hated her so much that he’d taken her own mama away from her, then he’d beaten her mama to near death for wanting to go back! Was he punishing Petra, for having had the audacity to bring another like his mama into the world? No wonder he’d been so insistent about sending Kendra to that home.

  Nola shivered. Is that what her own papa had felt—that the more he ignored her, dismissed her with his eyes, was the more the black would fade from her skin? She remembered the glaze in those grey eyes, the frenzy of the licks on her skin.

  She had to hold her head between her legs and take deep, gulping breaths. She heard the woman shout for Hopey, but the voice sounded far away, even though she was still there beside her, just like Delroy’s voice that night in the rain.

  Delroy! Nola’s lungs closed, just as Delroy picked her up and carried her out of the freezing rain.

  CHAPTER

  47

  Dear God she’d fainted again! She looked frantically around. She was in a bed, but not in Petra’s room. This one was not as nicely decorated, but it smelled much better—no stale breath and unbathed skin. A fresh, clean smell, like baby lotion.