by Nisi Shawl
“Gransie,” she asked. “What’s more important? To keep a promise or to do what you really think is right?”
“Well, chicken, you sure do ask some tough questions. Where’d you get this one?”
“I was just thinking…”
“Thinkin, hunh?” Gransie picked up a stack of sheets and placed it over Anniette’s arms. “Well, when it comes to questions like that, time to stop thinkin and start prayin. God will let you know. He answers every prayer.”
Anniette reflected on God as she carried the piles of linen up the stairs. It took her two trips. Basically, she decided, God was one of them, only really old and related to all the people on the earth. So everybody could see him and talk to him if they tried. But you had to try hard, because he was so old. Was it something she was capable of? She didn’t know.
The boy came in while she changed Miss Margaret’s bed.
“Did you find it?”
“No, but I think I’ve got it figured out where to look.”
“Pretty keen, huh?”
Sometimes she wondered if they heard a word she said. “Is your name Fred?” she asked.
“You might say that, yes.”
“I almost got in trouble over that song myself.”
“Nifty, isn’t it? Well it’s gin, gin, gin—”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell.” She had never said anything about them to grown-ups. She didn’t know exactly why. She tried to imagine explaining to Gransie. It came out like a conversation with one of them: frustrating.
Freddy followed her to the Red Room. A note was taped to the door. It was in cursive, and she couldn’t read it. She opened the door. The Red Room was a mess. Blankets and clothes were tossed all over. It looked like somebody had had a fight. One of them got a nose bleed. A red-brown stain showed where they’d slept.
She thought maybe she should still just change the sheets. But when she pulled them off she saw how a little blood had soaked through to the mattress pad. So she went downstairs. Freddy was gone; she hadn’t seen him since opening the door.
Gransie was in her room. It was really part of the kitchen, where they used to keep some food. The bed was small and dipped down in the middle, even though Gransie wasn’t sleeping there right now.
She was sleeping in her chair. Soft zuzzing sounds came from where she sat. They mixed with the static and singing voices from the radio:
Just a closer walk with thee;
Grant it Jesus, if you please…
Gransie’s feet were out of their shoes, resting on a pillow. They were a funny shape, with bumps. Bunyumps, they were called. Anniette decided she could find another mattress pad herself. She closed the door quietly. Not to be sneaky, but so Gransie could stay asleep.
The part of the linen closet she needed to get into was right over the cellar stairs. Maybe she could reach it if she took the stool down and stood on it on the landing. She was careful dragging it across the floor. No marks on the linoleum, and no noise.
It was harder taking it down the three steps to the landing. And when she got up on it, the shelf where Gransie kept the mattress pads was still out of reach. She could see them, but.…
She could also see the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
She sat on the landing, to rest and think. Her feet were on the next step down. Then one slipped and wound up on the one right after that.
She stood up. Six more steps to go.
But it was bad. Uncle Troy had made her cross her heart not to go there. It was dangerous, with bare electrics.
But how else was she going to find what she was looking for? The iron rails pulled her down.
Five more steps. Four more.
She stopped. A bitter smell came to her now: the captive earth. Wet, but never growing anything. A grey, unpromising weight upon the air. Maybe there was nothing. Nothing to be found. She would be breaking her word. For nothing.
She was ready to take the next step anyway. But suddenly there was a light. She had to turn around and see what from.
The lady with the candle was standing on the landing. “Don’t tell me you ain’t found it yet,” she said. “Guess I better show you, then. Come on up.”
“Oh,” said Anniette. “I thought it was down here.” She climbed the shallow stairs, happy she wasn’t going to do anything wrong.
“I kep it,” the lady said. “Hid it away.” She shrugged. “Didn’ know what good it was when he give it to me, but I kep it anyway. Long as Hawkeses was livin here, it appeared to be some hope.” Outside, a car door slammed. Footsteps drummed on the porch. “Now I guess we’ll see.”
Uncle Troy opened the door and stared at her. At the lady, not at Anniette. They didn’t like that, so the lady wasn’t there anymore. Then Uncle Troy picked Anniette up in a big hug and asked if she was okay.
He didn’t even listen to her explanation about the stool. He got her a glass of Kool-Aid and made her sit down at the kitchen table to drink it. Grape.
She heard some of their talking in Gransie’s room. “Oh, no,” said Gransie’s voice. “Not the whole family.”
“They were all three on the passenger list.”
“Poor Margaret. Last to carry the family name…”
Nobody said anything for a while. Then Uncle Troy started again. “Mom. I—I saw Rachel. She was talkin to Anniette.”
“Troy, you know she’s been at rest in the arms of her savior these fifty years.”
“But maybe she wanted to tell us where she put—”
“If it is meant to be, it will come to pass, through the grace of our Lord.”
“But—”
“Anniette!” It was Gransie, calling her. She ran to the doorway. Gransie was putting on her shoes. When she looked up, Anniette saw that she was crying. “Fingers off the woodwork. Go find Miss Margaret. Tell her the Sheriff’s comin round, there’s been a bad accident.”
Anniette stood on the verandah outside the morning room. The rose arbor was empty. Roger was on the beach. She saw him from the steps, throwing pebbles at the bleach-bottle buoy and missing. He was by himself.
She found Miss Margaret at the place next door. The lady from there was talking and talking. “…and so that’s the connection. My half-sister married your great-great uncle, Chester Raines.” Miss Margaret didn’t seem to hear what she was saying.
She didn’t give much sign of hearing what Anniette said, either, except to drift away through the trees in the direction of the house.
Anniette apologized. Just because they didn’t always tell you what you wanted was no reason to be rude.
“Oh, don’t concern yourself,” the lady said. “Not everyone is as equanimous as you are. That means,” she went on before Anniette could ask, “that not everyone is able to take the situation in stride. In fact, most are not able to take it in at all.”
Like Uncle Troy, she thought. He got scared when he saw the lady with the candlestick. Which reminded her to wonder why he lied, why he told Miss Margaret that about the song.
“The truth,” said the lady, “can sometimes lead to unpleasant conclusions. As a potential philosopher, you should learn to understand this.
“I detest this spot,” she added. “I always have.” And Anniette was left alone.
Vacation had just barely begun, but already it was time to leave. Gransie was riding the train down to Chicago with Miss Margaret for the funerals. Roger had already gone; he left the same day the Sheriff came. Miss Margaret didn’t seem to miss him. The last time Anniette saw her she was standing on the verandah, staring out across the lawn. She was all dressed in black, stiff and quiet.
Mommy came and picked her up at lunch, so Gransie and Miss Margaret could leave with Uncle Troy in time to catch the 2:45. Anniette hated cars; usually she got sick in them. But she was so glad to be with Mommy again she forgot about that. Mommy let her lie with her head on her lap, on the soft beige skirt she wore. Just before she drifted off to sleep, Anniette remembered that she’d left the box behind.
Most of the rest of that summer she spent at the library, downtown. It was cool in there, like the lake, and she found plenty to explore. Between columns covered with rose and olive tiles, she entered books on butterflies, books on boogie-woogie, books on Buddha, books on books.
Later, other libraries led her further on her search to understand “what makes the flower.” The seed it comes from, or the light toward which it grows? By the time she was ready to leave the University it seemed to Anniette these were the two most likely choices. Trying to decide, she examined her past, her seed. She came to no conclusion. But she learned many things.
For instance, she found out that for her forty years of service to the Raineses, Gransie received a lump sum of $500. She lived with Uncle Troy in Paw Paw on this and her Social Security, helping out at church till she came to rest in the arms of her savior.
The deed in the hidey-hole had probably been valid—at the time it was drawn up. And the law student Anniette talked to thought that because Rachel’s descendants continued to live there, they might have had “visible, notorious, and open possession” of the place. If the deed had ever been registered at court, if it could be proved that the Raineses conspired to prevent their claim, if.…
But Miss Margaret had sold the place as soon after the funerals as was humanly possible. The buyer paid an extremely low price, since it was rumored to be haunted. The price was low, but the buyer didn’t exactly get a bargain, for the house burned down before he could set foot on the property.
The bell never rang.
Bird Day
We sat in a circle on the side of the street. Some of us had lawn chairs, or folding chairs we’d brought out from our houses. Stepstools, even. We had a bunch of different kinds of seats we were sitting in.
This was the day to commune with birds. It was a beautiful, cool, early spring morning. The pavement smelled clean and damp.
I was wearing a warm, comfortable caftan, embroidered with silver and dark colors. There were a lot of interesting-looking birds flying around low and purposefully, looking for the person they had a message for. It wouldn’t do any good to get someone else’s message, or to worry too much whether or not one was ever coming. We relaxed and watched the birds, and talked with neighbors who stopped by our circle. There were a few empty chairs. Eventually, someone might sit in them.
Suddenly, a bird approached me. It was a sort of bird I’d never seen before, a large duck with a sheeny, blue back, the blue of a clear sky just before dawn. I’d never seen a bird like this before, but I knew it was mine. It hovered awkwardly in front of me and gripped my index fingers with its webbed feet, pulling me. My heart lifted and I stood up.
The duck flew backwards, its feet still wrapped around my fingers. I went with it. It let go and turned to fly forward, and I followed it out of the city.
I wasn’t about to let it get away from me. This was definitely my bird.
I saw a Great Auk from the corner of my eye, huge, black-and-white, with a broad, brightly-colored bill. It flew down a side road, but I stayed focused on my bird.
The paved road had turned into well-graded brown dirt, dark and wet. I saw houses that people were building: open, pleasing structures. I lost sight of my bird, but went on in the direction it had taken, out of the city. I stayed focused on it, even when I couldn’t see it anymore.
I heard the soft beating of its wings and knew it flew on before me.
A stream joined me, running alongside the road. Daffodils joined the stream. Together, we left the houses behind.
I kept walking. I couldn’t see my bird anywhere. I closed my eyes. The stream murmured to itself. The only beating I heard was my heart.
How could I catch up? Without wings, how could I fly?
I opened my eyes again and looked around. Where was I? Maybe this was where my bird had been bringing me. Maybe it had left me where I was supposed to be.
Tall trees with their leaves just beginning arched over the road. It was really more a wide path than a road, now. It moved among the tall trees slowly, one way, then another, quite casually. As if it knew where it was going, but felt no rush to get there.
This didn’t seem like a place to stop at, an end.
Maybe my bird had left me because I would be able to figure out everything on my own from here.
I saw sky through the trees. I went at the path’s pace till I came to their edge.
It was quite an edge. Only clouds beyond. Very beautiful clouds, with popcorn-colored crests and sunken rifts full of shadows like grey milk.
It was evening already. I could tell by the light. I had been following my bird all day. How had that happened? I had lost track of the time.
That didn’t matter, though.
My bird did matter. And its message for me.
It had to be around here somewhere.
The clouds’ lighter parts changed and became the color of the insides of unripe peaches. Against them rose black flecks, the flocks of birds flying away from us. Away once more, until next year.
Silence stirred the hairs on the nape of my neck. Silence and a small wind fanned them so they extended upward. And outward. Up and out. Above my head, my bird flew forward, over the edge.
I went with it.
Maggies
Tata’s skin was golden. Sometimes she let me help her feed and brush it. She showed me how my first worlday on New Bahama.
I was way off schedule. After a couple of hours I couldn’t stand to stay in my room, let alone in bed, pretending to sleep. I had masturbated all I wanted. My desk was on, but empty. No matter what my father said, I had to get up, run the small circuit of the station’s corridors.
Some were smoothly familiar, plasteen walls like any ship or tube. Others, where the station’s prefab had burrowed into New Bahama’s unpolished bedrock, seemed sullen in their unreflectiveness.
I wasn’t going to think about things, about my mother, whether my father really wanted me to come here and live with him, would she ever get better, if I could have done anything to help. I just wanted to walk. One flight down, generators, locks, stores, vats. Big, smelly objects I’d already been warned to keep away from. The opposite flight of steps back up, kitchen lab, private rooms, all with curtains closed.
On my third go-round, though, Tata’s curtain hung to one side, offering a glimpse of her tiny living space. Her skin gleamed in its frame. She stood behind it, fussing with one of the securing ties. When she saw me, she signed a welcome. I hesitated, and she signed again. I was pretty sure she was the same one who’d helped me with my luggage, so I went in.
She showed me the port where the nutrient bulb fitted into the skin, and the way to squeeze it—slowly, steadily.
Her skin’s thick, retracted facemask repulsed me—maybe because I’d seen pictures of how the things flattened and brutalized their wearer’s features. And of course I knew not to touch the skin’s underside. Even though I hadn’t been taught all the history of its abuse, I understood that I could hurt Tata there. I didn’t want to do that.
But I fell in love with the alveolocks, her skin’s fur. They rippled so softly beneath my brush. Later, I learned that these rhythmic contractions aided a skin’s oxy uptake and diffusion. That night, and for a long time after, all I cared about was their beauty.
I had a heavy hand with the protective oil. When you’re young, you don’t realize how precious things are; you think there will always be plenty, at no cost. And that’s how it should be—when you’re young.
So Tata never corrected me when I oiled her skin so lavishly that clear droplets splashed down upon the metal frame where it was strung. She only guided my hand gently, so that my over-enthusiastic brushing wouldn’t pull the golden fur out by its roots. I felt proud of my handiwork.
Tata didn’t really need my help, though. Her skin had plenty of time to reoxygenate without the brush’s added stimulation; she didn’t wear it much.
She was supposed to go out into the Nassea every Day,
supervising my father’s other maggies as they planted coral buds on the submerged mountaintops of New Bahama.
But the others didn’t need her watching them, telling them what to do. Terraforming work is simple, though hard; repetitive, dangerous, but nothing that requires any initiative. They were used to it; it’s the sort of thing they had been engineered to do in the first place, before the rebellion.
My father plotted the maps, which the hull window displayed. The maggies had no trouble reading them. They filled their quotas, mostly. Dad’s team was a little ways behind all but two of the other stations. I don’t know if there would have been fewer problems if Tata had gone out there as often as her contract said she was supposed to. Dad didn’t think so.
Tata wore her skin once a worlday, swimming in it through the Nassea to Quarters. I went with her, once, fifteen Days after I arrived. That is, I followed her in Dad’s scooter. Squirming to keep from slipping down its couch’s gentle curves, I wondered what sort of passenger its designers had had in mind. Not me; I was so short I could barely keep my face in the navigation display’s headsup field. But not Dad either. I have great spatial-relational skills for a girl, and I could see he’d have a hard time fitting in here. Which was probably why he never used the thing.
Not that that would keep him from punishing me for borrowing it.
I struggled back to the headsup. Tata’s skin lost its golden color in the infrared, but it gained a luminescent trail, a filigree of warmth flowing from her skin’s alveolets as they dissipated her waste gases. Fizzing like a juice-tab in the murky silence of the Nassea, my father’s chief maggie dropped down towards Quarters.
Or so I assumed. All I saw in the headsup were a few patches of heat, hardly more than a supercolony of microbes could produce.
I settled into the sediment and switched on the visibles. The headsup compensated quickly, and I saw an opening in the silver egg-shape of Quarters, cycling shut on shadows. The scooter’s lights shone steadily into the diminishing hatch. Tata had to know I was out here, now, if she hadn’t sensed me earlier. I’d been hanging back, more shy than afraid of being shooed back home.