‘Sheba, yu should visit Leah,’ Sylvia say. ‘Obeah wiser dan yu an me.’
‘Leah warn only of bad ting,’ whispers Lickle Phoebe. ‘Minister mek trouble fe Leah. Leah talk bad, give buckra evil eye, say she’ll catch im shadow, mek im die die.’ Lickle Phoebe’s words lodge in me heart pointed arrow sharp.
Big Robert comes to Eleanor’s verandah, he settles, leans against pigeon-pea sacks, legs stretched before him. He opens Bible across him knee, thumbing through torn grubby pages. Eleanor comes to join we, towing two full pigeon-pea sacks, making trails in dirt.
‘Hear me true,’ Sylvia protests. ‘Leah grow herb to heal many sickness.’ Sylvia’s eye go up mountain peaks where tree fern begins and river’s arms reach down to carve rock pools fe janga-fish. ‘Leah set fish-pots fe freshwater fishing. She have a cow she hide up dere. Me seen wen she say goodbye to de land at day’s end.’
Lickle Phoebe say, ‘Sheba get more sick, wot den?’
‘Hothouse cost four shilling a head,’ Eleanor say.
‘Dat wot dey charge yu wen yu last chile die of yaws?’ Sylvia ask Eleanor. Eleanor nods. Sylvia fetches she broom made from brushwood twigs fastened to branch handle fe sweeping gritty yard floor.
Lickle Phoebe’s small hand stretches out towards roundness of me belly. ‘Yu’ll grown big fast,’ and she almost laughs, stroking me. Me heart never leaves off pounding hard. Me feel hatred swell towards Lickle Phoebe. She head tips sideways and, sameway as old yard-dog, she nuzzles against me chest. Tenderly, she shares food she’s gathered when we’re fishing or picking red berries, but loathing grows thick from me to Lickle Phoebe, thicker than overgrown tangleweed grass climbing wrinkled tamarind trees.
Moving to stand, Eleanor say, ‘Sheba won’t get more sick dan she aready be.’
Very well den, me think.
Trouble’s ears must hear every word, fe suddenly he shouts, ‘If Sheba visit Leah, Sheba won’t come back! We need Sheba to work wid we. Saltwater African too many ere. Dem shirk work, swear, feign illness, steal, lie, but buckra pick on we.’
Sylvia breaks from sweeping yard floor. She eye aim at Trouble. ‘Trouble-Too-Much, is yu talk buckra talk.’ She sits down again, rubs bite-speckled skin on arms and ankles. She turns broom brush skyward fe warding away tiny maskitta dancing about cloud-like in evening air.
Trouble wears him hunting mask. He comes to Eleanor’s verandah like being drawn by a string. Me toes curl up. Me feel sick to bottom of me belly. Sylvia’s eye tells Trouble to keep him mouth shut.
Big Robert looks up from Bible pages, saying, ‘Sheba find Christianity good if it do good fe me.’
‘Don’t lissen to no minister,’ say Eleanor. ‘Wot Leah do won’t hurt yu, Sheba. God cyaan send nigger to hell. Nigger areadie dere.’
Silent now before me Trouble prowls to and fro, lips snarling, him all teeth and clashing.
Sylvia say, ‘Sunday market minister want to end, say we no trade on Sabbath day. Lard want we to starve? We areadie lost pay.’
Tongues clicking, Eleanor, Windsor and Phoebe nod to agree.
‘Buckra feed we wid spiteful venom,’ Lickle Phoebe say.
Trouble-Too-Much’s voice comes again. ‘White buckra bwoy sin in de eyes of God, make we distrust brodda, sista,’ and he laughs madly at me.
‘Why yu say all dis?’ Sylvia snaps.
Trouble-Too-Much licks a swollen thumb, staring down him nose. ‘Buckra don’t know wot freedom is,’ he say. ‘We sworn to de Lard. To mek trouble’s wrong.’ Him laugh mocks Big Robert, mocks himself, mocks me.
Me look awry, sliding me eye to earthy yard floor baked hard and dry.
Getting up, Big Robert turns on Trouble, saying, ‘It’s wrong to do as white men. Mek we bad as dem.’
Me want only to climb from Trouble’s eye, from me body, skin, out from yard, shack village, plantation. Life. Hotter and hotter me feel and shivers crawl up and down me spine like frightful chill of mountain stream. Pickney’s sucking me belly guts, sucking like red-blue flash from doctor-bird sucking out a flower’s soul.
Shelling peas, Eleanor say, tilting towards me, ‘Yu gotta git fram dis place.’
Phoebe yawns in readiness fe she sack and sleep.
‘Afta cane burning she cun go,’ Sylvia say.
Me reach a wall of doubt. Move away from Phoebe when Isaac live in she face? Me must be near Phoebe fe she a strong reminder of Isaac in flesh. But me hate forgiveness Lickle Phoebe shows when me did no wrong. Forgiveness fe wot’s left of me. And me love Lickle Phoebe’s caring soft ways. Hate turns to love turns to hate; there’s nothing in between.
When burning begins me can go where? Despair snatches at me mind, whispering, Burning soon come.
Me eyes become heavy slits. Aching tired me eat evening cassava meal Sylvia serve; curl on dry leaf-stuffed sack, wanting to run. But to where? Rain rings sharp on palm-and-grass thatched roofs. Me can dream but cyaan sleep feeling yellow buckra flesh feeding off whatever me eat. Strangled by feelings, me lie half dead. Cyaan run away from what’s in me head, what turns and grows in me belly, slides through blood. Sylvia’s shack’s too dark to see bodies me hear breathing. But Lickle Phoebe’s voice travels to me this night, crawls under skin, through flesh, bones, where a living beast sucks. Leah catch buckra shadow, mek im die die, Lickle Phoebe said.
Me have a sudden feeling to run. Stealing from sack without thinking further run through smouldering fire-smoke – a wispy milk-white web coiling into rain-drizzle, smelling of burnt sugar and green wood. Run silent path winding long through sleeping village, knowing Lickle Phoebe won’t see foot tracks fe at sunrise Harry’s broom sweeps between shacks.
Like snake spirit haunting salt marshes, thoughts of Leah curl into me mind as me run through tall grasses, toes sinking into hissing mud, leaving gardens behind, scatterings of cordia flowers, small cinnamon trees, provision grounds passed on from Mama in hills above. Leaving behind Lord Jesus, into looming darkness me head fe vast mountain slope. Lord Jesus creeps up on me trying to take root; Lord Jesus seeping in when me breathe. Me reach place fe uprooting trees fe cook-fire wood; Jesus sinking into me heart as me pass under sky’s solid sobbing black roof. Run past clearing where we held each other, kissed, Isaac, bitten with love’s storm. To run me fingers across yu face, Isaac, dat’s all me live fe now. Run by Sunday punishment place where you cyaan make market money, Isaac. You were bleary-eyed, you hands and feet cruelly tied. Eleanor helped raise field-stock yoke, weakly heaving you body up. Why we free yu fram field stocks to too soon leave this life?
Running past cane-piece track. Cotton trees. Leaving restless sea’s hum behind. Croaking lizards. Toads. Sweet frangipani. Pimento groves. Trash piles – black against a blacker sky. Running, passing trees where Loa twists and whirls, a great panic grips me. Branches strike me belly. Trunks thump me thudding heart. Spells twirl through hair, round legs, all wanting to suck soul out-a me. Lightning shoots from one tree like shock of pain. Flickering silver, lightning streaks crack clouds. Running through thick-scented jackfruit forest, on past breadfruit, pomegranate, mango trees. Shadows, charcoal black, leap from behind star-apple tree trunks. Creeping claw of fear of Lord Jesus takes root in me, sinking through me heart to skirt very edge of me soul. Bible pages fall back, fall out, fe me running to spirit gods. Hills grow into mountains. Mountain me climb disappears suddenly cloaked in rain. But goat track leads up steep, picking a path through moonlit streams parted by boulders. Past janga-fish resting in rock pools. Water smooth as silvery coconut oil swirls cold round ankles. Heaven’s completely gone when me leap waist-deep in thickets, bushes unknown to me slice cheeks reaching sharply fe bone, sameway as machete blade slashes skin. No Jesus God comes after me through thicket wood so thick me cyaan hack out a path. Water streams from wide banana leaves. Fat raindrops bounce off arms. Me bound so far, run so fast that dripping leaves grow blurred, dim. Scrambling high over mossy rocks, rain-drenched tree ferns soft soft as chicken feathers brush me legs; then sandy-floored clearin
g me reach.
Bones stick up from a cedar shingle roof, poles rest against shed walls me know must be Leah’s. Cockerel feathers clasp a cross nailed to she hardwood door. Me push. Door opens a bit, but it’s stiff. Heavily me lean like pushing a great stone.
A shape lies on floor middle. Blinkie-blinkie fluttering in glass jars light wattle walls green. Snoring, Leah turns over. Squawking feathers skim me shin – a chicken flaps through Leah’s doorway vanishing into dark forest.
Leah’s voice darts out shrilly, ‘Oo de hell’s dat?’ Me heart shrinks in on itself. Walking on feet and hands till she back arches, Leah forces she body to stand upright. Me heart shrinks further than it’s ever been, and me feel everything me think me knew of life suddenly disappear after Leah’s squawking chicken, over mountains, down hills.
Untidy. Overgrown, Leah’s hair’s sprinkled with burrs; grass heads heavy with seeds are woven into curls. Standing naked and tall in hut’s dark light, ‘Me heard yu sick,’ she say.
Heard from who? me want to ask but shock of pain from all that’s happened surges into me belly; a dull agony throbs in me head, through me heart a deep ache.
Leah’s long flat fingers fumble along shelves feeling fe candles. Half she face hidden by hair, a steady gaze she have, putting a candlestick to a rush-light flame’s dying burst.
‘Wot bring yu ere so late, Sheba?’ she ask.
I’m wanting to say, How yu do know me name? but me lips get stuck again. Looking hard at me, Leah’s African eye holds power like she sees what’s sucking soul out-a me, sees into dawn, and beyond. ‘Yu suffer sickness every morning? No, dis did yesterday end.’ Leah lights two more beeswax candles from de flickering rush-light flame. Moving about she shed, Leah coils cloth she lay beneath about bony pointed shoulders, flat belly, waist. ‘Yu have pain in yu back? Chest? Bad dream stay in yu head?’ she asks. ‘Yu do waan dis wot yu carry?’
‘No. Yes. Me not know,’ is all me find to say. It’s wot? Cyaan be chile. Chile grow fram love. Dis a bad curse? Or Isaac’s heart beats on in me belly? One seed of happiness grown fram me own Isaac soon to be lost?
‘Is only buckra do dem ting,’ Leah murmurs. ‘Yu betta off widout dis chile.’ Flat stone slab she’s pointing at sits behind open hardwood door. ‘Yu move rass rakstone?’ she asks. She shoves stone slab against door bottom to keep it shut. Leah murmurs again, ‘It no more dan wandring duppy.’ A smile crosses she face, narrow nose widening as she lips go thin, showing cracked teeth. ‘Sit, chile,’ she say.
Dirt floor me sit on feels chilly. ‘Sit,’ Leah’s snapping she fingers at me then at she sleeping mat.
Woven rush mat’s harsh, cold, till me find Leah’s warm sleeping patch. Locking arms round knees at last me ask, ‘Dis chile fram Isaac?’
Leah’s eye traps me with its heavy grasp. Rarely now do me not feel scared but this fear’s different. Terrified by strength in Leah’s face and believing me said something wrong all me can move’s me eye, awkwardly, me seek a hiding place. In a jar beside me on mat’s edge a dry shrivelled snakeskin curls, empty, hungry, wanting a body. Glass beads glint in a shell bowl. Lizards croak on woven wild-cane walls bound to corner posts with withes. Gecko, catching night flies, dart over feathery bundles, under goombay drums, across sacks overflowing pigeon peas, along a hollow reed flute, slithering into Leah’s upturned basket of limes.
Shaking a calabash, drawing closer, still Leah don’t answer. But she will summon Loa, me know, a link to we spirit world. Me feel Leah’s mind work. She drops into me lap a rattling calabash filled with seeds, wound in a pretty web of clay beads painted blue, green.
‘Sheba, Loa tek pickney fram yu belly,’ Leah say.
Hot tears sting me eye. ‘It does know it’ll die?’
‘Chile’s a gift,’ Leah say thoughtfully. ‘It don’t die.’
But sharp she words slice me insides, and me lie wen me say, ‘Me know.’ A gift? Dis thing grating in me belly, gnawing at me guts?
‘Me cyaan swear spirit’ll go now, understand? Buckra pickney spirit can be strong. But if e do come to be born mek sure yu kill im. Kill im. Keep im fram suffering in we world. Kill im. Kill im,’ Leah say coldly. She eye makes four with mine. ‘Yu be sure yu understand yu have two choices. Pickney go back to spirit world now, or day afta eighth day of him birth yu kill im fram dis earth. Me give me word so hear me, till ninth day after birth it just like a wandring duppy returning to duppy world.’
But me now feel it a monster me carry, wriggling, squirming, half made. Leah looks far into me mind. ‘Yu must mek all thoughts go,’ she say. ‘Be strong like hurricane.’ Isaac’s chile? Cyaan be. How to get up, get out, move, if me buried already? ‘Sheba, yu cyaan hear? Together we reach across, put wandring spirit back. It’s still a spirit after birth, lang as yu understand dis, yu free. But first,’ Leah say, ‘yu must know how much spirit chile worth.’
‘Priceless,’ me say.
‘A-good.’
Shaking Leah’s calabash me follow to shed’s back door. Me mind ask, Wot’s spirit chile worth?
From doorway Leah’s calling spirit priest by blowing breath between two fingers jammed into she mouth to make a piercing whistling screech. Turning to me, ‘Yu come to no harm,’ she say. ‘Wot me do cyaan hurt. Osun, spirit of healing streams, will walk ere beside yu. Osun will guide yu.’ More of she deafening whistles pitch deep into night.
Moonlight falls coolly over Leah’s sandy back yard. She yard’s no church but a place fe spirits, souls, together. Together we meet in yard middle where creepers climb wrinkled bark of sacred spirit-filled tree, that we salute together. To protect we, Leah draws a cross in blue-black air – not Jesus cross but obeah. Bending low she kisses sandy swept earth, fe from earth all things have death, all things have birth. She then shouts, ‘Hee-yu, hee-yu,’ again calling spirit priest.
Clouds, arching over moon’s path, glimmer dimly as great house white marble and stroke Leah’s smooth-skinned calabash rattle. Sprinkling cornmeal from she hand, Leah draws another cross on sand. She lips touch where two lines meet – a sacred place between life, between death. Me lips meet dark bark on spirit-filled tree, then me eye goes into cornmeal cross, fixing on its heart, where future stems from what’s past.
Leah shouts, ‘Hee-yu, hee-yu,’ once more fe calling spirit priest. From far away a goombay drum thunders. Waving she hands in night air, Leah’s inviting gods. ‘Protect we chillun,’ she sings. Feet thud, leaping round obeah cross. Seeds rattle in calabash as me shake.
Dressed beggar-like, a priest man comes running, wrinkly knees poking through osnaburg trousers, coat trimmings flapping behind. He carries two chickens, one black, one white, upside down by scrawny legs, with goombay drums clamped under an arm.
Drums sound loudly in Leah’s yard each beat tying we together. Priest bows to Leah. He pushes me onto me knees, swings screeching chickens high above me head, shoulders, bent body, legs.
Dancing, flame-like, at full speed, Leah’s twisting, twirling. Never did me see man or woman move so quick. Priest holds both chickens’ heads down to Leah’s cornmeal cross. Fiercely chickens peck grain but priest works swiftly, breaking chickens’ legs and wings.
Priest swings we offering across me belly. Feathers flying, black chicken bashes night-black air with broken wings. Screwing its neck round, black chicken’s life he gives to Loa.
Twisting white chicken’s neck, priest makes Life cross into Death, fast, so they become One. No blood spills on earth from living sacrifice. Clouds cross de moon. Hunched up, shouting, Leah dances faster than John Canoe dancer; mouth gaping, eyes bulging dangerously. Will of Loa’s spirit mounts Leah’s back. Priest beats goombay drums. Calabash seeds rattling, me heart beating faster, faster, me cyaan see spirit rider. Leah’s soul fights, shaking terribly, as Loa enters she body. Mouth twisting into a snarl, what Leah utters comes from we God. Long flat feet stamp. She falls. She have left she body, Loa makes it move now, she all shake-shivering legs, arms stretched across sandy ground.
> Moonbeams light Loa’s old wrinkled face. Leaping onto long flat feet, Loa rises, and with great steps, circles spirit-filled tree. Priest’s dancing too, swinging dead chickens, offering carcasses up, offering floppy heads up to Loa. Loa’s head slants back, she jaw drops, mouth-water dribbles a little from she chin. Leaping round obeah cross, moonlight jumping on withered skin, when wearily Loa falls back, Leah leaps in. Slowly Loa disappears like a queer dream ending.
Blue-grey fingers of light reach across Leah’s yard from a dawn-patched sky. Me want to ask Leah, What now? Will she walk with me to shack village? Will she walk down mountain sides? But feel too lonely, too foolish, too small.
Silver-grey sun streaks glance between trees, and me check back over me shoulder fe thick red blanket of flowers crawling across Leah’s shingle-roofed shed. All me belly pain gone. Fear turns its face from me.
Bad spirits shrink behind star-apple trees and sweet-scented tamarind and cinnamon trees, and mountain path me make a way down feels moss-springy to tired feet. Spirits creep over boulders vanishing into riverbeds.
‘Sheba! Sheba! Where yu bin?’ Lickle Phoebe’s voice cuts sharp round market track before shack village. She presses me to explain, carrying on she head a roll of woven banana-trash sleeping mats.
Me fumble fe words. ‘Market get put fram me mind,’ me say.
Lickle Phoebe wears an outgrown blue dress me passed on to she. Cloth clings close to she body like me own stretching belly skin. But Phoebe’s skin’s shrunk hard against bone. She arms, small pickney hands screwed up with cuts and scratches, hoists banana-trash rolls down from she cotta. ‘Me in-a hurry,’ Lickle Phoebe say. ‘Gotta mek ready fe Barrett Town Sunday market. Yu look betta. Yu bin see Leah?’
‘A-good me feel a-good,’ but me throat tightens. Cyaan talk more fe feelings come swooping suddenly as if from dawn light, or from Lickle Phoebe’s small bony startled face; what’s past returns to me, not as memories but as impossible feelings. Misery.
Legs clumsy, bruised body heavy-footed following a flow of dips and hollows in sugar-valley paths, pointing past pumpkin patches and towards shack village. ‘Sheba, come back!’ Phoebe shouts but me feet keep on down hill.
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