by Suzanne Weyn
When I was done, I asked him, “Did you like it?”
He was looking at me deeply. “Very much. If you were with me, I would never let you sink.”
In my mind, I heard the end of his sentence, which he was thinking to himself. Never ever let you sink, beautiful sea sprite. I will always take care of you.
Squeezing his hand, I rested my head on his strong arm for just a moment before straightening again.
With a reluctant sigh, Aakif released my hand and rose to his feet. “I have to be back at the rice fields before dawn tomorrow, so I should go to sleep.”
“Stay a little longer,” I implored.
He sat back down beside me. “Get into the tent and sleep,” he said. “I will stay here until you are safely dreaming.”
I crawled into the tent with my head at the front opening. He sat cross-legged in front of me.
“I will be back as soon as I can tomorrow,” he promised. “There’s some bread for you still in the basket for your breakfast, and fresh water.”
“Now you sing me a song,” I requested.
“All right,” he agreed. “Here’s one from the sea islands, right here.” With a deep breath, he began to sing a song in a low, plaintive voice. It was a slow, soothing song:
Steal away
Steal away
Steal away
Steal away
We’re going home to Africa
Steal away
Steal away
We ain’t got long for stayin’….
Dropping my head, I let sleep start to carry me. “We ain’t got long for stayin’,” sung in his strong sweet voice, was still playing in my ear as I went under.
During the night, I awoke bathed in my own steaming sweat. A terrible pain crossed my head. Hot saliva rose in my mouth before my stomach lurched. Pulling myself out the front of the tent just in time, I vomited in wrenching spasms.
Aunty Honey had poisoned me, after all. I was sure of it.
I tossed sand over my vomit and groped in the sweet grass basket for the water Aakif had left me. But before I could even lift it to my mouth, my stomach heaved again and once more I was spilling my guts onto the sand.
SOMEONE’S HAND WAS ON MY FOREHEAD. “HER FEVER IS still burning.” Had I heard it in my head or in my ears? I wasn’t sure. Though I was half awake with my eyes still shut, I could tell it was Aakif.
“Mus tek cyear a de root fa heal de tree.”
That was unmistakably Aunty Honey.
I’d been about to open my eyes, but I caught myself in time and instead kept them shut. Aunty Honey’s voice had been in my ear and very close.
A tough, gnarled hand tapped my cheek, lightly at first and then a sharp slap. It was so hard that my eyes opened. Aunty Honey grinned coldly, satisfied that she’d proven I was faking.
I was inside a one-room cabin, lying on a low, wooden platform, wrapped in a blanket. Another sleeping platform lay sideways against the wall, blankets neatly folded beside it. One narrow window let a patch of sun shine into the otherwise shadowy room.
The cabin was nearly empty, except for a wide stone stove and a wooden table with a bench. Beside the stove there was one long shelf laden with cookware and dishes. There were also a number of glass jars filled with powders and dried herbs.
I realized a cool cloth had been laid across my forehead and I lifted it off. Aakif was instantly sitting at my side, offering me water. “Drink this,” he instructed gently, holding the cup to my lips.
The water was sweet and I pulled back a bit, surprised.
“Honey water,” Aakif explained, “from Aunty Honey’s bees. It will make you strong again.”
Aunty Honey stood by the bed, her expression stern and unyielding, her black, beady eyes cold, but she nodded when Aakif said the honey would strengthen me.
“What did she say about a tree?” I asked softly.
“It’s a Gullah saying: You have to cure the root to heal the tree.” After I’d sipped some more, Aakif took the cup away. “You have the —”
“— yellow fever,” I croaked.
“That’s right! I found you on the beach yesterday morning. You had passed out and I couldn’t wake you.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes, I carried you here and convinced Aunty Honey to take you in. I told her you have a good heart and mean no harm to anyone.”
Aunty Honey’s eyes bore into me, and I didn’t have the impression that she felt any kindlier to me now than she had before. Yet, looking down at myself, I saw that my dirty, ripped nightgown had been changed to a simple and rough but immaculately clean nightshirt of unbleached cotton. My hair still smelled of the ocean, but at least it had been bundled to the top of my head.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to Aunty Honey. When I got no response, I turned to Aakif for help. “Would you tell her I said —”
“She knows what you said. She can speak English but she won’t.”
“Who could blame her?” I murmured, remembering all I’d seen in Aunty Honey’s mind.
Aunty Honey’s eyes might have darted in my direction for a flicker, but I couldn’t be sure. I was suddenly very weak again.
Aunty Honey gestured toward the stove. “Fufu,” she said to Aakif.
Aakif retrieved a bowl. “See if you can keep this down,” he said, lifting a spoon of fufu to me.
It looked delicious but tasted awful. Aakif smiled when he saw my face crinkle with revulsion. “I know! I know!” He chuckled. “It’s really good until Aunty puts her powders in there. I think she uses willow bark for pain relief and a plant called feverfew especially for the aching head. Ginger root helps with the rocking stomach.”
“No poison?” I whispered.
“No poison,” Aakif confirmed with a smile. “I watched her make it.”
My attempt to smile back at him failed. I was simply too weak. Aakif was able to feed me half the bowl of fufu before I held my hand up to stop him.
“That’s enough,” he agreed. “We don’t want you to start again.”
“Start?”
“You had the black vomit.” He tapped his stomach. “The blood from inside.”
“My insides are bleeding?” I asked, alarmed.
“Do not worry. Aunty Honey will make you better.” Aakif got up. “I have to get back to the field now. You rest.”
Panic swept through me. He was leaving me alone with Aunty Honey! I gazed at him imploringly.
Aakif sighed, and his expression told me he would have stayed if he could have, but it was impossible. Turning, he spoke to Aunty Honey in Gullah. I didn’t have to understand the language to know that he was politely asking her to treat me well.
In reply, Aunty Honey upbraided Aakif, shooing him toward the door as she scolded.
“She will take good care of you,” Aakif told me, speaking over his shoulder as he went out.
When he was gone, Aunty Honey stayed by the door, her face immobile, staring at me.
Longing only to sleep, I couldn’t relax with the old woman’s eyes fixed on me. I didn’t want her back in my head, wandering through my dreams as I slept, nor did I wish to enter her mind, not ever again. The need to sleep threatened to become overpowering, though. I had to fight it if I was going to shut Aunty Honey out.
Aunty Honey was still focused on me. Her eyes burned with a frightening intensity. There was a pressure forming in my head, and somehow I knew she was trying to get in. I had to block her somehow, so I filled my head with the song Aakif had sung to me:
Steal away
Steal away
Steal away
Steal away
We’re going home to Africa
Steal away
Steal away
We ain’t got long for stayin’.
The memory of Aakif’s voice filled my mind. The crashing waves of that night made a musical background. It was the last thing I’d heard before the fever set in, and it made me happy to remember it. Shutting my eyes, I stopped worrying about A
unty Honey. The repetition of the lyrics and the soothing melody lulled me.
I dreamt I was back in a boat, about to go over a fall. I screamed until a stream of energy — like a powerful wind — lifted me and swept me to a new location.
Suddenly, I was in a jungle clearing. Aunty Honey was waiting for me there, but no longer dressed in her plain clothing. The impoverished slave woman was now regal, in an orange caftan adorned with African designs and an elegant head wrap of the same material and print. Each arm was adorned with a golden snake bracelet. She sat on a high-backed chair and gestured for me to sit on a bench beside her.
“Aunty Honey —” I began, but she stopped me.
“Here you will call me Mother Kadiatu.”
“Where are we?” I asked, but she acted as though I hadn’t spoken. I gazed at her face; she seemed younger. I realized that she’d spoken to me in English.
“I have seen your mind while you have slept in my home,” Aunty Honey said to me. “I see that I was mistaken. You are no gafa. But inside you strong magic exists, a birthright that you must learn to use wisely.”
“Can you teach me, … Mother Kadiatu?”
“I must teach. Fate has brought you across the wide sea. It has swept you to my doorstep so that you can learn to be a great sorceress. These things that have happened to you are not accidents. I throw you out but you come back. I could cast you away many, many times, and still you would return — because you must. Fate has willed it to be.”
“I want to learn from you, Mother Kadiatu,” I said with mounting excitement.
“You will know all I know,” she promised.
IN THE NEXT DAYS, I IMPROVED QUICKLY. “TODAY WE START,” Aunty Honey said to me after a week’s time. She stood by the stove in her cabin and faced me. She spoke low, fast, and, fortunately for me, in English.
She beckoned me to join her in front of a pot of boiling water. “Put these in the water,” she instructed, lifting a delicate flower from a glass jar vase that held a bunch of them. “Use the bulb part of the cone grass wildflower.”
“What do you use it for?” I asked.
“It will calm a crazed person and help with pains from bad juju in the belly. If a person has been cursed with ringing in the ear, it make the bell quiet.”
When I tossed the last bulb in the boiling water, Aunty Honey took hold of my arm at the elbow and rested her head on my shoulder. I took this to be a gesture of affection and it startled me. In a second, though, I realized she was speaking to me in a tone so low and secretive that I could barely make out what she was saying. Inclining my head toward her, I concentrated on her every whispered word.
“If a person eats this paste in large amount, it make him crazy in the head. He will see things that are not there, people who are not there. He may even hear words that no one speaks. He keeps eating, and he sickens. Or dies.” Aunty Honey gazed at me meaningfully. “In honey, it is invisible and has no taste. In porridge and gumbo also.”
Ice ran through my veins. Had I even had yellow fever?
That night, I walked on the beach with Aakif. “I am no good as a driver,” he lamented. “Vandi’s back hurts, so I tell him to rest and I thresh his rice until he feels better. Mariama is with child, so I take the pestle and work her rice in the mortar so she can put her feet up for a while. I am exhausted.”
“You’re kind,” I remarked, “but can’t you simply let them rest without working for them? You’re the foreman, after all.”
He laughed darkly. “Oh, I had better not do that. The bosses expect the work to be done while they are gone. They get very angry and punish us in terrible ways if it is not. It would be on my head if we were disciplined for a bad rice yield. I could not live with what I had done.” Aakif took hold of my hand. “How was your day with Aunty Honey?”
“Busy,” I replied. I told him how much she had taught me about several roots and some herbs. Then I told him about the cone grass. “Do you think it was in the gumbo?”
“No! Impossible! I ate the gumbo with you.”
“That’s true, you did.”
“You don’t think that I would —”
“No!” I cried, clasping his arm. “Of course not!”
Aakif threw his arms around me. “I would never hurt you, Betty-Fatu! Never ever. You must believe that!”
“I do! I know you wouldn’t.” Then I surprised even myself … and kissed Aakif.
He kissed me back.
We both pulled away.
And then we melted together and kissed again, this time more slowly.
In the next month, I learned more and more every day from Aunty Honey — or Mother Kadiatu, as I’d grown fond of calling her — during our private lessons. The people in the slave village were cordial to me because I came under the protection of Aakif and Aunty Honey, who were both highly regarded.
Day by day, a little more at a time, I became a part of the village community. I went with Aunty Honey as her assistant when she was called to the home of a sick or injured person. I got to know the people very well in that way.
In the evenings I attended the public singing at the center of the village, where a song leader would call out a verse of a song and the rest of the group would respond with an answering verse. I was welcomed at the fish fries that featured all the abundance of the island, cooked on an open fire, and shared by all.
Aakif and I continued our evening walks on the beach. With him, it was often the same story. He had taken the extra job of a man or woman who was unable to work. His compassionate kindness amazed me continuously.
For my part, I always had something new and exciting to report. Aunty Honey worked me hard but that was all right. I was learning, so I was happy.
“Soon you will leave me,” Aakif predicted unhappily when I had finished reporting of my day with Aunty Honey.
“I won’t leave!” I swore. “Do you want me to go?”
“Of course I do not!” Aakif took my hand. “It is the last thing that I want. But let me tell you a real thing, Betty-Fatu. It is the season for the white bosses to return. The happy time will be over. It will hardly seem to be the same place. You will no longer like to be here. Besides, they will see you and take you away no matter what.”
I clutched Aakif’s arm, pulling close to him. “No, they can’t take me.” The idea of leaving him filled me with panic. We had grown so close. I loved him with all my heart. I couldn’t picture my life without having him to talk to every evening.
“Don’t you want to see your family once more?” Aakif asked. “You must miss them.”
“I do, very much, but I don’t even know if I have a family any —” I couldn’t continue the sentence or bear to even think it. Father and Kate had to be alive!
Just then, I heard the sound of pounding hoofbeats on the beach and turned toward it. Three men on horseback were approaching us at great speed — three white men.
Confused and panicked, I looked to Aakif.
“Don’t move,” he told me in a voice filled with tension.
We stood where we were as the men slowed alongside us. The lead man was tall and strongly built. He pulled a club from his saddle. “John!” he bellowed at Aakif. “What are you doing down on the beach with this —” he looked me over with distaste “— this white girl?”
“She washed ashore after a shipwreck and we have been caring for her, Mr. Parris, sir,” Aakif answered evenly.
“Is that so?” Mr. Parris sneered. “And what is it that made you believe you could be going on romantic walks with this pretty little white girl?”
As he spoke, he dropped from his saddle and, with his club flailing, attacked Aakif.
“Stop that!” I screamed, flying at Parris. He pushed me back so hard that I dropped to the sand. I was scrambling to get up when each of the other men grabbed one of my arms.
Writhing violently, I squirmed to free myself from their iron grips, but with no success.
In front of me, Parris continued whaling on Aakif,
who raised his arms to defend himself from the blows but could not escape the much larger man. Desperate to help him, I sank my teeth into the hand of the man grasping my right arm.
Swearing at the top of his voice, he released me, but I was still held by the man on my left. In the next second, the man I’d bitten slapped me so hard across the face that I flew from the other man’s grasp.
The last thing I recall is my feet lifting from the ground and my body being hurled across the sand.
I awoke in a bed under a pink satin cover that matched the ruffled pink canopy overhead. It was a world of pink — walls, rug, furniture, curtains. I could only open my left eye. When I gingerly touched the right side of my face, I cried out in pain.
“Stop complaining and be thankful you’re alive, young lady.” The woman speaking walked into view. She was in her thirties, with blond hair swept up into ringlet curls at the top of her head.
Coming close, she inspected me, then took a hand mirror from the night table and held it so I could see my own badly bruised face. “I don’t know why they had to be quite so rough with you,” she allowed. “But I daresay it was for your own good. You can’t be cavorting on the beach with the slaves.” She paused and, shutting her eyes, emphasized her point with a violent shiver of horror. “Where can you be from that you don’t know that?”
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked, ignoring her question as I sat up.
She tittered with laughter. “Heavens, no! I am Mrs. Abigail Parris and you are my guest. Now that I hear you speak, I can perceive that you are from England.”
“What happened to my friend, Aakif?”
The woman stared at me blankly.
“You call him John,” I prodded.
“I don’t really know the slaves,” Mrs. Parris answered.
My body ached as I threw off the covers and swung my feet to the carpeted floor. I was still dressed in the cotton patchwork skirt and striped shirt I’d been wearing, though I could see that a ruffled nightgown had been laid out for me across a pink chaise longue.
“Where are you going? I can show you to the ladies’ bathroom,” the woman offered.