The moon was up, but somewhere less than half-full. Ned wouldn’t risk a lantern, so they stumbled along in the half light, with Antigua riding pick-a-back on Ned and Sophie following close behind, hugging her bundle and trying not to make a noise.
The Big House was dark and massively asleep, the gardens full of tricky shadows. As the trio crossed the field, the plantation bell tolled mournfully to wake the midnight shift. Ned had thirty minutes, at the most, to get to the sugarhouse. They covered the last few feet at a stumbling run.
Even knowing the maze as well as she did, Sophie had trouble finding her way. She was nervous, and the maze looked strange in the half dark, the white stones hard to see in the shadows of the hedges. Antigua began to mutter: “We’s lost. I knowed it. The only place you leading us be grief and woe,” until Ned told her to hush up.
Three turns later, they reached the garden.
“The opening’s in the foundation of the summerhouse,” Sophie whispered as she led them across the shell paths. “Watch out you don’t fall, Antigua—the hole’s pretty near the edge. There’s a bucket in the corner. And be careful crawling in—you don’t want to break any branches.”
Antigua’s only answer was a disgusted “Huh.” But her cheeks glistened wet in the moonlight.
Ned took off for the sugarhouse at a dead run, but Sophie plodded back to the Quarters, keeping to the shadows in case anybody might be looking. When she got to the cabin, Flanders was shoveling down a second bowl of gumbo and Africa was hanging a pair of britches, very wet from the knees down, in front of the fire to dry.
“Well?”
Sophie pulled up her skirt to warm her frozen legs. “I’m pretty sure nobody saw us. She’s safe for the time being. But we cut it mighty close.”
“Ned can move fast when he have to.” Africa sighed. “Flandy, Sophie, you best go to sleep now. Morning shift come mighty early.”
Curled on her pallet, Sophie tried to follow Africa’s advice without success. All she could think about was Antigua under the summerhouse, shivering in the dark on the rotted mattress, listening for dogs. How long would she have to stay there before she could slip away safely? Two weeks? Four? If it rained, would she get flooded out? Catch her death in the cold? And when she did leave, where would she go? Sophie couldn’t see Antigua, somehow, making her way through the swamps alone, steering north by the stars.
These thoughts slid into a dream of Antigua sitting in Miss Tucker’s eighth-grade American History class, bright as a parrot in her sprigged dress and her bright tignon. She was telling Miss Tucker that the Underground Railway had the most comfortable seats she’d ever sat in, and all the free hot chocolate you could drink. And then the bell rang for the end of class and the dream vanished as Sophie woke to the plantation bell telling the morning shift that it was dawn and time to get up and make sugar.
“You don’t know nothing about Antigua,” Africa told Sophie. “Anyone ask, she came and ate supper with us and went back to Miss Liza. She came to see how Canny was keeping, and that’s all, you hear?”
Chapter 19
The next day was endless. Filtered through the fog of her exhaustion, nothing seemed quite real to Sophie—not the long walk through the half-harvested cane brakes, not the chill, damp wind that cut through her dress, or the sudden furnace heat of the sugarhouse. Not even Mr. Akins, who grabbed her shoulder while she was doggedly skimming the blanket and shouted, “Where’s Antigua at, wench?”
Sophie jumped. “Don’t know, Mist’ Akins, sir,” she said in her best field-hand voice. “Ain’t she over to Oak Cottage?”
“No, she ain’t, as you know just fine. She’s run away.”
Sophie gaped at him. “She has? Antigua? Whoo-ee. Africa going to create when she hear that. You sure, Mist’ Akins?”
He thrust her from him with a snort of disgust and strode back toward the platform, shouting to Ned that Dr. Charles wanted to talk to him. A little while later, she saw Mr. Akins hustling Ned out of the sugarhouse and scowling like a mad bull. Despite the heat, Sophie shivered. What was going to happen to Ned? To Africa? To Flanders and Poland? What was going to happen to Antigua, waiting alone under the summerhouse with nothing to do but think about getting caught?
Betty’s wide dark face appeared beside her. “Drink this, child.” She pressed a dipper into Sophie’s hands. Sweet, cool water trickled into her mouth, and the buzzing in her ears faded a little.
“There be grief and trouble over to Africa’s,” Betty said sympathetically. “Ain’t nobody run away from Oak River since Old Massa day. Bad times is coming. I can smell it.”
When Sophie got back from her shift that afternoon, the door was shut, and the homespun curtains drawn tight over the windows. Something was wrong.
Sophie slipped through the gate and around the cabin to the cistern, turned the wooden bucket bottom side up, and stood on it to listen at the window. She heard Africa, speaking softer than usual and slower—her white-folks voice. And then Mr. Akins, harsh as a steam engine.
“Won’t do them no harm to set in the smokehouse for a day or three,” he said. “Might even do some good, if they tell me where that blamed girl of yours has got to.”
“They can’t tell what they don’t know, Mr. Akins.”
“They know. And so do you. Listen here, wench. Miz Fairchild wants that girl found. She leave it to me, I’d whip all you lying niggers till you tell me where she’s at. But Miz Fairchild, she won’t hear of it, and Dr. Charles seem to think nobody can’t run that ’vaporator well as Ned. So I’ve locked your menfolks in with the bacon to smoke it out of ’em. Now I’m telling you what I told them. It’ll be easier on your girl if she give herself up than if the dogs find her.”
Heavy boots clomped toward the door. Sophie jumped off the bucket and crouched behind the cistern until Mr. Akins was gone, then ran into the cabin where Africa was in Ned’s chair with her apron up to her face.
Sophie knelt down and put her arms around her. “Mr. Akins is hateful. I’m surprised Old Missy puts up with him.”
Africa wiped her eyes. “Mr. Akins ain’t nothing but Old Missy’s mean dog. He bite folks so she can keep her name as a kind mistress.” She shook her head. “Don’t mind what I say, sugar. I’m just thinking on my poor baby all alone in the cold and the dark. And my man and my boys in the smokehouse. I don’t know where to turn, and that’s the truth.” She sucked her lips against her teeth to still them.
“Why don’t I go see Antigua tonight?” Sophie said eagerly. “I can take her candles and some food.”
Africa put an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “You’re sure enough the best one to go when the time comes. But Mr. Akins is likely to keep a watch on us tonight.” She gave her a quick squeeze. “Don’t look so sad. Antigua knows it got to get worse before it get better. It won’t help her if we lose heart. Go and see if Canny’s awake.”
Canny was not only awake, but feverish. Africa gave her a dose of willow bark and prepared her herbal bath. As she sponged Canny’s burns, the cabin was quiet except for her soft chanting. Sophie sat on the floor by the fire with the baby asleep on her lap, watching the light dance on the stars in Yemaya’s vévé and feeling oddly peaceful.
After a while, Africa came out of the back room and took the lid off the iron pot. “Put the baby down, sugar, and go pull me some okra and a handful of peas. This gumbo’s thinner than Uncle Germany’s hair.”
Dark was closing in earlier every night, and the air was frosty. It was the near the end of November—almost Thanksgiving, Sophie thought. Though that didn’t mean they’d get a feast, or even a day of rest. Grinding season didn’t stop for anything.
As Sophie moved between the plants, searching for what Africa wanted by feel, her skirts brushed against the herbs planted everywhere, releasing their sharp or dusty or green scents into the damp air. Sophie touched the gris-gris bag around her neck. For some time, she’d been wanting to ask Africa about the vévés, the doll, the chanting, to find out more about the
old man and the queen she’d dreamed of while she was sick. But Africa had been busy or she had been too tired, and somehow the questions had never been asked.
Cradling her harvest in her apron, Sophie ran back inside. “Africa, I need to ask you something. Can you tell me about Papa Legba and Yemaya?”
Africa looked up from chopping onions, eyes wide with surprise. “Tell you what, sugar? Seeing as how they take such a particular interest in you, I thought for sure your mama must be a voodooienne, teach you the mysteries of the Orishas before you could walk.”
Sophie had to laugh. “Mama thinks voodoo is superstitious nonsense.”
“You mama’s a mighty foolish woman, then. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I thought I saw somebody when I was sick, but it I guess it could have been a dream. Who is Yemaya, Africa?”
Africa studied Sophie’s face intently. “Yes,” she said. “It’s right that you know. Yemaya is the mother of waters, whose children are as many as the fish in the sea.”
“And the old man in the hat?”
“Papa Legba stand at the crossroads. He the master of doorways and choices and time. My mawmaw told me once, ‘Papa Legba throw the rock tomorrow that kill the chicken yesterday.’”
A memory niggled at Sophie’s mind: something about time and railway stations and a strange creature that looked like a possum. Africa moved to the fire, and the memory slipped away.
“This house under Yemaya’s protection,” Africa said, nodding at the pattern on the wall. “And that vévé the sign of her blessing.”
“So why do you have her?” Sophie pointed to the colored print of the Virgin Mary that was nailed up over the mantel.
“Think about it like this,” Africa said. “White folks call my daughter Canada, you call her Canny. Yemaya whispered me a name for her when she was born. You tell me. Which one is her right name?”
This made sense to Sophie, as much sense as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost did, anyway. “What about the doll, the one you made for Canny? Is that Yemaya, too?”
“A little bit of her,” Africa said. “Enough to bring her eye on Canny, give her strength to heal.”
Sophie thought for a moment. “Back home in New Orleans, they have dolls like her. They’re supposed to bring your enemies bad luck. Is there a doll you can make for Mr. Akins so he’ll break his leg or something and can’t go hunting for Antigua?”
Africa whirled on her with a look of fury. “Shame on you,” she said sternly. “I don’t have no truck with that kind of left-handed curse working, and I ain’t studying to begin now. My hands are clean.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie said humbly. “I just thought—”
“Well, you stop thinking, you hear?” Africa shook her head and went back to her cooking. “Hoodoo don’t hardly work on white folks anyhow. The old gods are far from home, with lots of folks calling on them for help. My great-great-granny Omi Saide, she was a priestess in Yorubaland. She had the power to know the future, to kill with a thought, to heal, to bring the rains. Even so, the slavers chained her and brought her in a ship to New Orleans, where Old Massa’s granpa buy her and change her own name to Africa. My mawmaw, she say Yemaya told Omi Saide it was so she could take care of her people who went before her.”
When the peas were soft and the okra and onions dissolved, Africa and Sophie took their bowls into the back room to keep Canny company. Then Africa put Saxony to bed and tended Canny while Sophie washed up. By the time she was finished, the first bell was ringing for the night shift.
Africa came out of the back room with a bundle of stained bandages. “Time to sleep now, sugar. I’m going to set up for a spell, see if there’s something the Orishas can do to get my menfolk out of that smokehouse.”
As Sophie lay the back room, she heard Africa chanting softly. And then she slept and her dreams were laced with the smell of tobacco and herbs and rum and the rush and beat of the sea.
Next morning, it was raining hard. It drenched her on her walk to the sugarhouse and again going home, a chilly, soaking rain that washed great ruts in the dirt roads and half blinded the hands cutting cane. Between the explosion and the weather, Dr. Charles decided this was no time to lose the work of three strong hands. So Mr. Akins had to let Ned and his sons out of the smokehouse, and the dogs couldn’t pick up Antigua’s scent, even if anybody could be spared to look for her.
The news wasn’t all good. Ned, Poland, and Flanders had to sleep in the sugarhouse, under guard. Africa was disappointed, but all she said was, “Better than the smokehouse.”
After they’d eaten, Africa wrapped up a pile of hard-baked corn cakes, a slab of fat bacon, and a can of fresh water in a blanket and stuffed them, along with a shuttered lantern, a tinderbox, and three candles, into a burlap sack.
“Better take a little sleep now,” she told Sophie. “I’ll wake you at midnight.”
The rain had let up a little when Sophie crept out of the cabin. Her skirt tucked into her apron and her head and shoulders wrapped in a blanket, she slipped through the dark like a shadow. She was afraid, but no more than she’d been all day. At least now she was doing something really useful.
In the maze garden, Sophie knelt in the sticky mud by the hole in the summerhouse foundation. “Antigua? It’s me, Sophie. Are you there?”
“I ain’t up North.”
Sophie let out her breath gratefully. “Well, you will be. In the meantime, I’ve got food, and a lantern and some candles. And fresh water.”
Sophie crawled under the summerhouse, pushing the bundle in front of her. “Here’s another blanket, though I’m afraid it got wet. We can light the lantern and talk a little, if you want.”
Antigua made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t mind.”
Soon the two girls were sitting side by side on the rotted pallet with both blankets over their shoulders and the shuttered lantern making a small pool of light at their feet. Despite the rain, the floor was more or less dry, but the air was cold and clammy and smelled strongly of mold and the contents of the covered bucket in the corner. Antigua was crying while Sophie tried to think of something to say that didn’t sound stupid.
Finally, Antigua blew her nose on her apron and wiped her eyes. She smoothed her skirt into a tent over her drawn-up knees and rested her chin on them. “We better save that candle,” she said thickly. “You only brung three.”
Sophie lifted the shutter and blew out the candle. Darkness rushed in like water.
“I ’spect you leaving directly,” said Antigua.
“I’ll stay a bit,” Sophie said. “Just until I get warmer.”
“You got to stay more than a bit for that. It mighty cold down here.”
“It’s warmer with two.”
For reply, Antigua shivered; Sophie worked an arm around her shoulders under the blanket. Antigua stiffened, then put her legs across Sophie’s lap. They were about the same size (when, Sophie wondered, had that happened?), and it was a little awkward, but Sophie felt a thin warmth begin to creep up her legs and into her chest.
“How Popi going to get me away?” Antigua asked.
“Mr. Akins is keeping your pa and Poland and Flanders in the sugarhouse. We haven’t seen them since yesterday morning.”
“Did he whup them?”
“Old Missy wouldn’t let him. I heard they’re advertising for you in The Planter.”
Antigua moved irritably. “Ain’t you the fount of knowledge?”
Sophie shrugged. “Plenty of gossip in the sugarhouse.”
“Bad news travel fast.”
She sounded like she might cry again. Sophie said hurriedly, “Where are you planning to go when you get up North?”
“Jane in the kitchen always talking ’bout a place called New York.”
The name stirred something in Sophie’s mind, faint as the memory of a dream. “I’ve heard of it. Biggest city in the world, they say.”
“Well, that’s where I going,”
Antigua said. “And I going get me a job that pay good money, and find me a free man to marry, with his own house and his own mule and maybe a little shop so he don’t have to answer to anybody and can hold his head up like a white man.”
Sophie had a vague idea of New York as a big city where people lived in apartments, not houses, and all the black folk lived in a place called Harlem, where it wasn’t safe to go after dark. But she didn’t know how she knew it, or even if she’d made it up. So she said nothing.
“I know what you thinking,” Antigua said. “You thinking I ain’t going to make it up North. You thinking I’m a scarlet woman no decent free man with a shop would want for a wife.” She drew away, dragging the blanket with her. “Well, I tell you this,” she went on, her voice rising, “I every bit as good as you. You think you something special, Mr. Robert Fairchild’s daughter? Well, my daddy was Old Massa, Mr. Patrick Fairchild, who was Mr. Robert’s Daddy. And that make me you auntie.”
She stopped short, took a long breath and said more quietly, “So you have some respect, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sophie, startled. If Mr. Patrick Fairchild was Antigua’s daddy, that meant that Africa had been meddled with, as Aunt Winney put it, by Old Missy’s husband. “Did Old Missy know?”
There was a little pause while Antigua seemed to be regretting having said anything, then settled against Sophie again.
“Yes. She know. She and Mammy, they bring me into the world, and when the cord cut, Old Missy she tell Momi she ain’t angry, but it better if she go away for a spell. Soon’s she on her feet again, Old Missy send her to New Orleans to learn fancy cooking. ‘Don’t you fret ’bout you baby girl, neither,’ she say to Momi. ‘We take extra-good care of her until you come back.’ When Momi come back, she marry Popi and have Flandy.”
Sophie found Antigua’s hand and held it while they sat and listened to the rain drumming on the summerhouse roof.
Delia Sherman Page 18