Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition)

by Gail Roughton

  “And you?”

  “I gots, almost all my sisters, gots de sight a little. Sometimes, we knows things we shouldn’t know. I tol’ you once, I was a mama and mamas jest knows?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Well, dat’s true and all mamas gots de sight a little do it come to dere young’uns, but whut we gots goes a little beyond dat. But I knows my limits, an’ what I got, it jest enough to be dangerous. ‘Cause I can’t control it real good. Doan know ‘xactly why I can see some things and not others, and I never know ‘xactly when it’ll happen. So I don’t fool around with it.”

  “At all?”

  “No. Some folks whut remember my mama, dey think I do, and dey come to me sometimes and ask my help with something. An’ if I feel comfortable wid it, like a young girl want a man to notice her, den I give ‘em a potion I tell ‘em’ll get his attenion. But whut I really gives ‘em is spring water. See, if dey think de man’s goan notice ‘em, den dey pretty demselves up, they flutter dere eyelashes, and de man, he come over and starts to talking. An’ dey think the potion’s working, so dey talk back, and ‘fore you know it, dey done got dere man.”

  Paul laughed. “Sadie, that’s brilliant!”

  “No, it ain’t. Ain’t a’tall. Jest human nature. An’ whut with yo’ daddy and Josh, I din’ want nobody speculatin’ nor payin’ too much ‘ttention to me. So I act sort of mysterious and doan never get too involved wid church folks and all, and dey think it’s cause I’s too busy wid my potions and such, an’ so dey doan get close ‘nuff to be no trouble.”

  “But Sadie, if you don’t fool around with any of that, then how do you know what the stuff in that bag is?”

  “Like I say, almost all my sisters got de sight. But my twin sister, she be truly blessed. Or cursed. I reckon it all depends on how you look at it. You goan laugh at me?”

  Paul shook his head.

  “She de sebbenth daughter of a sebbenth daughter. An’ her power be wondrous to behold. She couldn’t no mo’ run away from it den a newborn baby can walk.”

  “Your twin sister?”

  Sadie nodded. ‘She born first. She the sebbenth daughter. I the eighth. An’ I tell you truly, Paul, I done spent my life thanking God for dat, so’s I doan have to worry ‘bout controlling dat power.”

  “Sadie, let me ask you something. You’re tellin’ me about other worlds, darkness and light, strange powers. But you thank God. If you believe in the other, then do you believe—”

  “In God?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Why, sho’ly I do. Dere’s only one God, Mist’ Paul. But see, whut I knows is, dere’s good, and dere’s evil. An’ dere’s spirits dat be good and evil. An’ de good things, all de good things, dey part of God. God’s jest a tad more complicated den all de preachers make out. He got his nose in lots more business den dey think. An’ dere’s a lot more evil out dere, a lot mo’, den dey want to think ‘bout. Dat’s all.”

  “Fascinating,” Paul muttered under this breath. “Absolutely fascinating!”

  “Whut?”

  “Nothing. And your sister?”

  “Her name be Tamara. She spent her life learnin’ how to use dat power. She ain’t got time for dis world, for a man or chill’uns of her own. She serve de light, de goodness, and in dat service, she know, has to know, how to recognize de evil.”

  “Why haven’t I ever met her? Josh hasn’t either, unless you’re playin’ favorites there, takin’ him to visit and not me. He’s never mentioned her.”

  “Josh doan know her, same reason you doan. She tell me not to bring you out wid me when you wus little, she say it ain’t time, and when Josh born, she say it ain’t time for her to see him neither. Never understood dat, but I don’t argue. I doan sees her all dat much, but I go out sometimes. We not jest sisters, we twins. When I needs her, I goes. If she need me, I knows it, and I go. She doan live in town. She live way out in the country, down in de woods. Almos’ in de swamps. Dat’s so she can find the things she need—”

  “Like these?” Paul raised the bag he was still holding.

  “Lik’ dat. Dey doan necessarily have to be put to a bad use, she can use ‘em in other things, good things. Lik’ I say, all depends on de person using ‘em. An’ she live out by Stone Creek, where de woods start to slide into de swamps.”

  Stone Creek. Five or so miles outside the city, then. A two-hour trip out, two hours back, give or take a bit.

  “How does she live?”

  “Folks take care of her. She take care of dem, dey take care of her. Problem too big for me, I send ‘em to her. Iff’n I think dey deserve dat kind of help, dat is.”

  “But if these things,” Paul shook the bag again. “If these things can be good—”

  “Wherever Josh got these, dey ain’t good, Paul. ‘Way he’s been actin’, I knew soon as I seen ‘em whut he been doing. He been goin’ out at night wid boys he ain’t had nuttin’ to do wid since he twelve years old.”

  “How do you know that? I mean, I told him to go out with his friends, have some fun.”

  “Ain’t got no real friends, Mist’ Paul. Ain’t had in a long time. He doan think I knows dat, but I do. De other boys, dey think he put on airs since he been spendin’ all his time wid you.”

  “You mean, I set him apart. Made him different. Just like you said I would. I didn’t know. Sadie, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “’Cause I wus wrong ‘bout dat. An’ you wus right. An’ Josh, he a Devlin, jest like his Daddy and his brother, an’ ain’t nobody ought to try and keep a Devlin out of books. Jest took me a while to see it, dat’s all.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, Mist’ Paul, Josh and dose boys he hanging out wid, dey done got in deep. Too deep. Somebody new in town, somebody knows whut dese can do.” Sadie reached over and took the bag. “An’ doan care. Dese not be ground up, nor mixed with anything else, dey be full strength. Person whut passin’ dis stuff out, dey doan care ‘bout nuttin’ but spreading dere own power.”

  “How do you know it’s somebody new?”

  “Gots to be. ‘Cause dere ain’t nobody in dis town goan cross Tamara’s path. Dis her town. An’ whoever passin’ dis out, dey doan know nobody like Tamara’s aroun’ or dey wouldn’t be doin’ it. Nobody dare. An’ he mighty lucky, too. Dat she ain’t stumbled ‘cross him yet.”

  “You think it’s a man?”

  “Doan really know. Could be either one. I gots to talk to my sister.”

  Paul glanced at the clock. It was just past ten in the morning.

  “I’ll hitch up the buggy. Go tell Janie to tell any afternoon patients I might not be back till 4:00 or 5:00, maybe later.”

  “You doan got to go wid me.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Everett needs to know.”

  “No. Please don’t, Sadie.”

  Sadie sighed. “Thought so.”

  “Thought what?”

  “Everett ain’t well. Is he?”

  Paul hesitated. “I wouldn’t say he’s not well. I’d say I don’t like the way his face gets red when he gets the least bit upset. Or the way he breathes when he walks fast. Don’t let’s tell Papa yet.”

  “Well. Up to you, son. Best be getting’ started.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Paul turned at Sadie’s direction and headed down the path winding into the woods edging Stone Creek. He halfway expected a ramshackle hut, dark and overshadowed by huge trees, its owner draped in flowing, ragged tatters of black, bent and stooped.

  The path ended in a sunny clearing. In its center stood a neat white cottage with a stone chimney. Flowerbeds glowed with color and neatly-trimmed shrubs hugged the walls. A covered well, the walls constructed from the same stone sported by the chimney, stood off to the side.

  Paul laughed.

  “Whut?”

  “Not what I expected.”

  “What’d you ‘spect?”

  “Tell you the truth, Sadie, I ain’t real sure.”

  “
Pull de buggy over dere. Hit her flowerbeds, she goan yell. Hope she didn’t go to too much trouble for dinner.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Getting’ on toward noon. She goan ‘spect us to eat ‘wid her.”

  “She don’t know we’re coming!”

  “Yeah, you keep right on thinkin’ dat, son. She know.” The door of the cottage opened as Paul handed Sadie down from the buggy. Tamara strode toward them with the same regal bearing, the same copper-colored skin, the same type of turban on her head. Sadie’s double. Identical twins.

  “So you be Everett’s oldest boy!” she exclaimed, and held out her hand. Paul took it and felt a flood of warmth run from her hand to his. The warmth seemed curiously alive, as though Tamara, by her touch, sent part of herself out into him, exploring his thoughts, his soul.

  “Got biscuits rising in de oven,” she said, “an’ new honey. Joe Turner robbed a hive yesterday down in de swamp and brought me a quart jar. Hope ham alright wid you. Thought ‘bout a chicken, but didn’t figger I had ‘nuff time. You sendin’ out streaks of worry like lightnin’, woman. Whut’s bad ‘nuff to worry you so you got to bring Paul out here?”

  She took Sadie’s arm and began to walk towards the cottage door.

  Paul hurried to catch up with the sisters. “I hope you’re not upset with Sadie for bringin’ me, I don’t mean to intrude.”

  Tamara laughed. A good laugh, a joyous laugh.

  “Shoot, boy! Jest ‘cause you ain’t never met me doan mean I ain’t never met you! You nor Joshua neither. Knows you both. Watched you grow up. Sadie think it time to bring you here, it be time. You mo’ den welcome.”

  Tamara settled them at a wooden table. Its surface gleamed with years of use and polish.

  “First thing first,” Tamara said, bustling around her stove. “Let’s us eat some dinner. Folks got to take care of dere bodies do dey ‘spect dere bodies to take care of dem. Ain’t dat right, Paul?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “An’ whut you gots to tell me be real worrisome. Worse than worrisome, I feel darkness. Evil. Can’t eat right wid evil flowing through de room in our words. So for right now, let’s us jest take care of dese biscuits.”

  They passed a pleasant half-hour at Tamara’s table as they worked their way through the fried ham and new potatoes, the mounds of biscuits. Tamara produced a big blackberry cobbler when the last biscuit sopped the last of the meat juice off the plates. Sadie visibly began to relax. Paul felt the waves of comfort flowing out from one sister to the other.

  And when Tamara judged the time right, she gathered the dishes off the table and transferred them over to the stone sink that stood by the cast iron stove. She sat back down.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  Paul pulled the cloth bag out of his pocket and handed it back to Sadie. This was part of her world. It wasn’t his. Not yet.

  She took it from him but didn’t give it to Tamara.

  “Josh, he seem to start changin’ ‘bout two months back. I’d place it ‘round mid-May, wouldn’t you say, Paul?”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was that far back.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was. Little things at first, things you wouldn’t have paid no never mind to. ‘Sides, you jest now lately been paying mind to things other than sick folks yourself.”

  Paul smiled slightly. Hadn’t ever fooled Sadie in his life.

  “An’ it bother me, but at first, I think, well, he done growed up on me. Might be he done found a girl takes his fancy. But de changes, dey doan seem to be dat kind. He absentminded alright, and he doan pay much ‘ttention to things less’n you jest ‘bout knock him up side de head, but it weren’t happy woolgatherin’ de way it is when a body in love. An de look in his eye when you interrupt him at somethin’, my Lord! I shoulda knowed sooner. If’n I’d talked to him den, or followed him, or—”

  “An’ if a bullfrog had wings,” said Tamara solemnly, “he wouldna bumped his hiney when he jumped off’n de lily pad. Can’t help shoulda done now.”

  “No,” agreed Sadie, finally handing her sister the bag. “An’ dis morning, Josh’s room be a pure-de-wreck. An’ he doan never leave no room like dat. So when I go in to pick up, madder den a wet hen, I find dis.”

  Tamara opened the bag and looked in. When she raised her head, her eyes flashed.

  “Somebody in my town? Be passin’ dis stuff out an’ I doan know ‘bout it? I doan believe it! Doan believe I been sittin’ back here all happy and sassy, I shoulda been checkin’, I ain’t been tendin’ to my business!”

  “If a bullfrog had wings—” said Paul.

  “Doan’ be turnin’ my own words ‘gainst me, boy.”

  “Boy seems to be a dangerous word today,” said Paul. “I called Josh boy this morning and he blew sky-high and stormed out of the house. And if Sadie hadn’t just found that bag and stopped me, I’d have hauled him back and blistered his hind-end.”

  “He been takin’ dis stuff, he doan know whut he sayin’, Paul. Doan hardly know whut he doin’.”

  “So Sadie tells me.”

  “Tamara, can you feel him? Whoever give dis to Josh? An’ if Josh has it, he been hangin’ out wid a crowd of boys at night, Josh ain’t goan be de only one whut has dis stuff.”

  Sadie broke off as Tamara stood up, holding the bag in her hand.

  “Let’s us see.” She walked to the canisters that sat on the kitchen counters and scooped up a handful of flour and a handful of cornmeal. She knealt in front of the fireplace, her moving hands pouring out designs on the floor.

  “Sadie, what the hell is she—”

  “Quiet. She got to concentrate. Dey be veves.”

  “They be what?”

  “Veves. Dey concentrate de power, call the sweet spirits. Now hush up.”

  Tamara finished her designs. She closed her eyes and started a low, melodious chant. Mingled French and English. Older words, lilting words. The vision of a large grassy plain filled Paul’s brain, a vision of an African pampas. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. The room filled with scent. Heliotrope, lemon verbena, cloves, sandalwood.

  “Sadie?” Paul murmured.

  “Hush up,” she responded in a bare whisper. “Dey talkin’ to her.”

  “Who?”

  “Hush up!”

  Tamara ceased her chant. A frown furrowed her brow. She sat for a space of time that might have been a minute, or five, or ten. Paul felt as though he were in the trance with her. Without warning the scent changed. The stench of ordure, the sulfuric smell of rotten eggs. Tamara dropped the bag as though its touch burned her skin.

  Sadie rushed to her sister.

  “What the hell?” Paul wished he didn’t think he’d be asking that a lot over the next days.

  Tamara pushed off Sadie’s hand and rose to her feet. She pulled a canister of homemade potpourri from a cabinet and walked around the room, scattering handfuls in small, strategically placed dishes. The smell of apples and spice fought to repel the awful stench. She sat back down at the table.

  If a black person could be said to look pale, she did. Her skin looked lifeless.

  “Ain’t been tendin’ my business,” she said. “Sittin’ back here, restin’ on my haunches, forgettin’ dat de light got to be guarded. I done let evil get a foothold here.”

  “A bokor?” asked Sadie.

  “A what?” asked Paul, certain he’d be told to ‘hush up’ again, but no.

  “You ‘member what I said ‘bout de worlds dat surround this one?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, dose worlds and dis one, dey have dere own spirits. Dey be de Loa.”

  “Sadie, you told me you believed in one god.”

  “An’ I do. All de goodness, the total of it, and all de sweet spirits, de sweet Loa, dey be God’s. But He’s got different parts, all the goodness put together. An’ de devil, de way most folks see him, is all de badness put together. But de dark and de light, dey both got dere own spirits. An’ de spirits of goodness be the sp
irits of the Rada. An’ de badness be de powers of de Dark, the Congo or the Petro, de bitter Loas. Now, I tol’ you, folks what have de power can use ‘em either bad or good?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Folks whut use dere powers for the de dark, they be bokors. An’ folk whut use dere powers for de light, dey be houngans if dey men, mambos if dey women.”

  “Like Tamara.”

  “Yes.”

  “So whoever’s in town—”

  “Is a bokor,” said Tamara. “But not ‘xactly.”

  ”Whut you mean, ‘not ‘xactly’?” asked Sadie.

  “I saw a man, a dark man. He black as coal, but dat ain’t why he dark. He big, one of de biggest I ever seen, an’ dats a gift from de dark side, but he both more and less den a bokor.”

  “I doan understand.”

  “I doan neither, yet, not ‘xactly. But he ain’t a bokor ‘cause he choose to be. Not one whut takes his power and sharpens it on purpose, devotin’ his life to studyin’ de bitter Loa. He do know some of de rituals of power, and he use ‘em, but he doan understan’ ‘em. He use ‘em lik’ a little chile doan know how to read yet still can say his ‘a-b-c’s.”

  “But if he doan know, den where de power come from?”

  “Doan know. He doan neither. It jest be dere. Might be de stars set in jest de right place when he born. Or somethin’ else real powerful. Might be a sebbenth son of a sebbenth son hisself. Or both. Or neither one or somethin’ else. But whut matters is, he de most dangerous man I believe I ever knowed about. ‘Cause he thinks he using de powers of darkness. But really, dey usin’ him. An’ he ain’t really doin’ all de things he think he is. Dey lettin’ him do ‘em ‘cause dey knows he doan know whut he doin’. Ain’t goan hold back, and dey might can get control. An’ he doan know ‘nuff to send ‘em back.”