Sycorax's Daughters

by Kinitra Brooks, PhD

  When she awoke, she was alone on the beach, her cheek pressed to a pillow of sand. Their Toyota was still parked in the lot, but her mother and sister were nowhere to be found. She brushed the sand off her dry swimsuit and wondered how long she’d been asleep. Unsure of what else to do, she unlocked the car door and waited.

  Some hours later, when they finally returned from wherever they had gone, Cassia had changed. She became reclusive and oddly protective of Vriel, as if she felt a kind of pity for her sister because she couldn’t participate in something Cassia and her mother shared. Their secretiveness motivated Vriel to improve her swimming skills. Coached by her sister, she learned to dive and swim with efficiency, if lacking in speed and grace. But, however proficient she became, she knew that when they were together, Cassia restrained herself from plunging further into the deep.

  After a time, she abandoned the lessons altogether, against her mother’s warnings that her body craved the nutrients contained within the salt water.

  Some years later, after a long fight with a rare cancer, their mother died. Before they moved into a cheaper apartment in Venice, they ransacked the condo, finding little of note to remember her by: a watercolor of a dormant volcano crowned with pine tress signed Y. Viera, aged five; a large opal ring set in a clunky silver setting; and several indigo and white panos that Cassia now used to wrap her hair. There were a few letters from their father: each one commencing, “My Beloved Ysabel” but revealing nothing beyond the usual lovers’ pledges.

  After their mother’s death, they unceremoniously dumped their mother’s ashes in the cove. Cassia frequently pressured Vriel to return there, but Vriel refused saying, “I don’t believe in riddles and myths made up by a woman overcome with grief and loneliness.”

  “How can you say that?”

  Cassia believed that Vriel would not be different in their mother’s world. But Vriel always refused to go. If she never went, she never had to find out if her mother’s race — what could she call them that didn’t sound like something out of Hans Christian Andersen?

  — would reject her or perceive some flaw. And she despised Cassia, hated her for not having to choose, for being accepted in both worlds and choosing the harder passage.

  Then there was David, searching among the kale, who loved her before she had a chance to think about whether or not it was a good idea, and Cassia thought Vriel should give that up for her fantasy. When she was little, she felt disturbed by a Twilight Zone episode about a woman who wanders into a department store.

  Directed to an upstairs floor, she slowly realizes that she is not a real woman, but a mannequin who has overstayed her vacation in the outside world. Her reluctance to remember is understandable, but selfish, since only one mannequin can go out at a time.

  Whenever Cassia came back into her life, she couldn’t help feeling as if Rod Sterling had sent her sister to bring her back to a prison from which she had escaped.

  It was right after the conversation at the bakery that Vriel began to get sick. They had just finished their coffee when David gestured towards the glass display case, which was full of elaborate, inexplicably-named pastries like Napoleon or baba au rhum.

  “I’m always suspicious when there’s no day-old section,” said David, “Can they really sell all this in a day?”

  “Ask what they do with them,” Vriel said.

  “Miss,” he said to the cashier, “what happens to the leftovers?” “We throw them away.”

  “That’s such a waste,” Vriel said, a bit too loudly.

  David blushed. The manager, a middle-aged Vietnamese woman with a light French lilt to her English came to the rescue.

  “We donate,” she said. “A truck takes them to a homeless shelter.”

  Vriel pictured rows of men and women in dark, worn overcoats crowded around a bench, stuffing their faces with lemon bars and marzipan. They were skeptical, but they dutifully deposited their dishes in the bins beside the trash can. As David held the door, she looked back. The manager was speaking quietly

  to the cashier. Flies trapped beneath the glass roamed from dessert to dessert like bees in heat. How had she not noticed that before? The croissant heaved in her stomach.

  Later, while she remembered every trivial word that transpired, she could not recall when exactly they had broken faith with the other.

  Vriel slumped in the passenger seat of her sister’s marine Eclipse. She hadn’t realized they had stopped.

  “Do you want to get out?” Cassia said.

  Vriel shook her head, cracked the window just an inch, enough to catch a whiff of the saltine breeze. She recalled a Coleridge couplet from her last year of college — Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink — when she took an English elective entitled “Mutinies and Shipwrecks.” They read Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, The Odyssey, and watched The Bounty starring Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian. In these books, mariners died of thirst and exposure, contemplated man’s insignificance in the face of nature’s mad harmony, and futilely struggled to master that most unfaithful of mistresses, the sea. Occasionally these sailors sought solace in the ginger circles of native women’s arms, adorning themselves with flora and fauna and local ink. In her favorite short story, the narrator discovers too late, due to his own blinding prejudice, that he has been a deluded participant in an elaborate ruse, and that the peculiar ship is in the midst of a slave uprising. At that moment of clarity, the narrator tells the reader “the scales dropped from his eyes.” When she read that sentence she thought it perfectly captured how she felt the instant she saw her mother in the cove, just before she lost consciousness.

  “What was that?” Cassia said.

  “Oh,” Vriel was startled; she hadn’t realized that she had spoken the rhyme aloud. “Just something I picked up.”

  Cassia seemed to have something else on her mind.

  “You know,” she said, “on the island of Brava they worship us.

  There’s an entire festival where they cast boats filled with offerings onto the sea. And the water in the harbor is like warm scented tea. I wish you could experience that.”

  Cassia tossed the keys up on the dashboard and then reached in the backseat to grab her knapsack. The darkness of the new moon cast no shadows about the unlit abandoned parking lot.

  But Vriel, who could always see like a cat in the dark, admired the curved outline of her sister’s torso as she pulled her shirt over her head. Cassia wriggled out of her jeans, letting the seat back to give her more room to maneuver. At last, divested of her clothes, she unwound her batik headwrap, allowing her long braids to loop over her bare shoulders, white cowries scattered in her hair like dim stars.

  Cassia was not one to give second chances. She did not ask Vriel if she was certain, if she had a last minute change of heart. She did not tell her that she had prepared a second bag and stuffed it in the trunk, next to the spare tire. She simply looked at her sister for a moment, keeping her eyes free of pleading and then said quietly, firmly, “Keep the car.”

  Cassia pressed something into her hand and Vriel turned away from the whoosh of air from the door opening, the knapsack sailing past her ear. She didn’t watch Cassia fade into the dark. She imagined the pressure of bare feet denting the sand, waves breaking against ankles, the spray splashing upward, outward, then crashing over sand without a trace.

  Only then did she open her hand. Resting on the pillow of her palm was her red jack. Vriel climbed over the stick shift into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The headlights illuminated the yellow parking lines, the bits of green glass, the trash can and a no parking from 2am to 4am sign. As the car pulled slowly away, she remembered Cassia pulling her into the cold water, taunting, “What do you mean it’s cold?” falling backwards into the tide, unafraid of the undertow.

  Notes:

  The lines from the epigraph from Jorge Barbosa’s poem “Arcquipélago” translate: Islands lost/in the midst of the sea/ forgotten/in an angle of the World/where the waves
cradle/ abuse/embrace…

  The lines: Sib u odja c’ ma um dia. Di mi bout a bem squice. Midjor bou cham more. Sem sufri es ‘gonia are lyrics from Maria de Barros’ song Triste Gonia. By Joao Santos/Djedjinho. Translated: If you think that one day you may forget me better let me die without having to suffer this agony.

  Letty

  by Regina N. Bradley

  Folks say you start to see things when you laying there dying. I wasn’t ready to see because I didn’t expect to die that day. I worked in the saw mill as a dust sweeper because I refused to crawl on my hands and knees to scrub and clean for white folks. “You being uppity for a Negro girl,” my sister scoffed. She didn’t scrub floors but she cooked in white folks’ kitchens. Same damn difference to me. That job at the sawmill paid better than any white person’s dirty house. When I was hired, the manager said I had a strong back.

  I swept the bottom floor to avoid mishaps. At night I swept the dust into the holding gate. This time, I didn’t see the gate that held the sawdust swing open but I heard it snap. Even though flecks of sawdust danced ‘round my eyes and lay gently on my lashes, they lay heavy on my body and chest. How can something so nothing feel so heavy? I close my eyes. They’re burning. Shadows and sawdust. Shadows and sawdust.

  When I open my eyes one shadow gets big. Real big. My head bobs like I been drinking hooch. The good hooch. The kind made with corn left in the fields too long and is a little too ripe and in the dark jar to save its flavor. People say the good hooch let you see the devil and if you share it, it can save you from death or hand you on to him. My head snaps up and down. The big shadow turns brown.

  Then black. Brown. Then back black. I squint to focus. I see a head and shoulders. The sound of swishing comes from somewhere I can’t see. Wood flecks stay in the air and silent.

  The figure lets out a raspy voice. It sounds irritated. “Stuck, huh?”

  “Just taking a break from sweeping is all.” It laughs. “How you get in here?”

  “Key.” “Whose key?”

  “Mine.” The swishing turns to rustling that sounds like leaves scooped up dancing in the wind. The shadow thing comes close to my face. I’m queasy. It smells sweet and sour like old eggs. I squint again and see two wrinkly brown titties on the saw dust pile in front of me. Realize it’s a woman. She got old woman titties but a young looking face. The shadow woman looks comfortable and stares me straight in the face. She got eyes that burn like hot coals. She don’t blink. The three plaits in her hair twitch in place. The two by her ears look undone. I see she got wings. They look like old crow feathers. Her features run from my view because they hide behind a piece of iron that sits right down the middle of her face and across her nose and cheeks. Her face shiny like molasses. Got a shackle around her neck and three pokes sticking out. They’re connected to a patch over her mouth with little holes. She thumps one of the pokes. “Like my neck jewelry?” she asks.

  She don’t move her gaze from me. “Know why I’m here, Gris?”

  “Reckon it ain’t to keep me company?”

  The monster woman chuckles and breathes heavy. I see littlespecks scurry from behind the holes in her mask. They’re bright red fire ants.

  They run all over her mask and back underneath it. She hisses through her teeth as if they hurting her.

  “You ain’t my type. Half-dead and lame.”

  “Who dying?” I tense what I can feel of my shoulders. I ain’t ready to die.

  “Oh you dyin’, swine,” she says. She stretches her wings for effect. A bunch of black crow feathers shake to the floor and disappear.

  “So you...you death?” “Whelp.”

  “But I thought — ” sawdust finds its way into my nose and

  my throat. “But you a woman,” I hack.

  “Yep.”

  “But you a woman and got working man in the field stank.” “I’ll whoop you like a working man too.”

  “Please, Miss Death.” “Letty.”

  “Please, Miss Letty. I ain’t ready to go with you.” “This ain’t about what you want, Gris.”

  She grab my throat and lean in. Fire ants scurry from her face, down her arm towards the hand on my neck. Her hands were white and cracked.

  “P-p-please, Miss Letty.”

  “Ain’t no Miss required when you say my name.” The fire ants lift their legs and feelers and stay scurrying towards me.

  “Please, Miss Letty.”

  She loosens her grip and stands straight up. The fire ants retreat back to her face mask. She moan low as they move back under the mask and shakes her head like a dog with something in its ear.

  A lone fire ant falls on my cheek and stings me. I blink hard. It stings me again. I look at Letty. She tall. Queenly even.

  She ruffles her wing feathers and cocks her head to the side. Listening. I don’t hear nothing.

  Letty look past me out the mill window. Then she turn back to me.

  “Look like someone wanna talk to you first,” Letty say. She

  pushes her hands deep into her hips like she’s disappointed. “Praise God.”

  “Naw, God ain’t do this,” she say. Her face shines and looks slippery. It’s so slick I can’t tell if she crying or sweating.

  “Who saved me then?” “You’ll see soon enough.”

  “Why your face shine like that? Looks sticky.”

  She raises her hands from her hips to her face mask. She tries to move it but her face mask look like its stuck on her skin.

  “Cause it is sticky.” “Honey?”

  “Yes?” Letty makes a sucking noise through her mask. “No, I mean honey? Molasses?”

  “Nan one. It’s sap.”

  She frightful but even when I blink I see her plain as day. “What happen, Miss Letty?”

  A fire ant pushes itself through a hole in the top of mask like an overseer. It stays put. I hear wailing. I don’t know if it’s Letty or the mask. Her ant overseer trembles but don’t move.

  Miss Letty’s eyes burn a hole in my skull. She stares before she say anything.

  “I was a cook once,” she finally says.

  “Where bout?” “Cypress Lake.”

  Cypress Lake was a bit down the road in Albany. The Cheathams owned that plantation. Cruel place. Many a nigger tried to run from there. Many a nigger never made it back alive.

  “Damn good at it, too. Didn’t feel like a slave in the kitchen,” Letty say. “Didn’t feel trapped in there. Felt the kitchen be mine.”

  “Why you a cook?”

  “Cause I couldn’t work the fields,” Letty snaps. She shakes her head like a dog again. “Couldn’t get the cotton fast enough. Too many seeds. Couldn’t get ‘em out good enough. They burrow too deep in the cotton head. Too much picking the head falls apart.

  They ain’t want that. Sometimes I dig so deep my fingers bleed. Got bright red blood on the cotton. Worst lashin’ of my life.” Letty’s voice trail off.

  “So they move me in the kitchen.”

  I nodded best I could. My daddy worked cotton.

  “Missus Cheatham put me in the kitchen cause she thought I weren’t much to look at but could work hard. ‘You a dark little pickaninny,’ she say. Truth is she thought Mr. Cheatham would leave me be. He known to mingle in bed with his slave women. But she thought I was young enough and ugly enough to miss his eye.”

  If she was ugly before, she didn’t look much different. Letty’s eyes glared red. “Mr. Cheatham come round soon enough. Touch my plaits one day. Grab my slip and yank it the next day. Sneak his hand on my thigh and try to move it up on the inside the next. Told me to giggle. Said it made him feel nice.” Sounds like Letty sneeze and hiss. Fire ants scurry out from under the mask. She don’t wail this time. She yell. She angry. Her wings flap strong one time.

  Wind hit my face smelling like sweet old eggs. I want to throw up. “Missus Cheatham see Mr. Cheatham coming round the kitchen more often. She flat out ask me ‘Letty, you taking a shine to my husband?’ I can’t look her in the
face because I was taught to avoid eye contact to show respect. I dig my toe into the floor. Not cause I was likin’ Mr. Cheatham but cause I didn’t know how to tell her I didn’t. Missus pull my hair and yank my head back. Her green eyes catch mine and stomp down hard. ‘Mr. Cheatham is a great man! Great and much better’n the like of you, Nigger Bitch!’

  She slap me with her free hand. What she said stung worse than the slap. More poison behind it.”

  Miss Letty look me in the face to search for understanding. I ran across a few southern white women like Missus Cheatham. The ones that think they ass don’t stank and that God was their personal body guard. I ached for Miss Letty and for the other Black women who dealt with Missus Cheathams on a daily basis.

  Miss Letty kept talking.

  “Missus come and sit in the kitchen or the parlor by the kitchen every day for hours. She wanted to see. She would stare. Her eyes be like daggers. Sometimes she come in and slap me or beat me on my back for good measure. ‘How could my husband want a thing like you?’ she snarled at me. ‘I should put you back in the field with the dirt.’ Every day she sit and complain. Sit and complain.

  “But I got tired of her hittin’ me and callin’ me dirt. I might’ve been a Nigger Bitch, Gris, but I weren’t a stupid Nigger Bitch.”

  I cough up a dry sawdust coated chuckle.

  “I was tired of Mr. Cheatham and Missus. So I make a plan. My very own plan. Every Saturday I make fresh biscuits with peach jam. Missus loved them hot biscuits and jam. Jimson, another slave from nearby Pine Blossom plantation, make the jam fresh during peach season. Jimson come to the back door of the kitchen and wink every time I answer it. Somethin’ tried to grow between us. Tried hard. Shole did.”

  For a second, Letty’s eyes wash out from burning coals to a woman who felt love’s gaze. A woman that was trying to figure something out. But as soon as she let loose the thought of Jimson, the fire roared back to the coals in her eyes.