by Black Inc.
A dark fusion of cloud and wave skims a vortex. Writhing sky lunges at ocean; ocean swallows sky. ‘Obsessed with each other,’ the grandmother murmurs, though not to Steven. She thinks of lovers tangled in their sheets.
‘The trees are angry,’ Steven cries, his voice high-pitched, breaking a little, snagged on a fear that tastes thrilling. He dare not waver in his vigilance. The pines, immensely tall, are reaching for the house, reaching for him, bending low, thrashing about with their arms. Any second now they will snatch the little cottage up and hurl it at God and Steven will rocket into the secret places of radiance. The thought terrifies him and excites him. He is poised for the end of all things, the spectacular event that is going to happen tonight or tomorrow night, the thing that is even more scarily desirable than a swing that goes higher and higher until it goes right over the top: which is the moment when the swinger disappears. Vanishes. Steven knows this is true because Jimmy Saunders saw it happen to a little girl in the playground after school. One day the little girl was in their class, and then never again. ‘Her swing went over the top,’ Jimmy said.
Steven watches the dangerous swirling lure of Francesca’s skirts. He thinks that perhaps he would like going over the top.
But what if his grandmother and Marsyas were swept away and he was left behind?
He negotiates with the bucking pines. He implores with his arms, waving back wildly. ‘I will ride you,’ he offers. ‘I will ride you like Marsyas’s grandmother did. Don’t smash the house and don’t drown the islands, and I will ride you – me and Marsyas and Grandma – we will ride you out into the Deep and back again.’
Once, he knows, his grandmother has told him and Marsyas has told him, once upon a time, in the beginning, in the time of the dragons, in the time before hurricanes had names, this has already happened and it will go on happening, every August, every September, this year, last year, 110 years ago when the big one without a name drowned the islands, and thirty years ago when Hurricane Gretchen roared in, and fourteen years ago when Hugo lashed about and laid waste.
‘Look! Look!’ his grandmother says. ‘Come quickly. You can see the eye.’
Steven tears himself from the window. ‘Is Francesca as big as Hugo?’
‘Bigger maybe. She’s already a Category Four.’
Steven sees the one-eyed giant of the sea: red pupil inside a swirling mustard halo within an angry eyeball of whitish green. ‘Why’s she got a red eye? Is Francesca the Cyclops?’
His grandmother tousles his hair. ‘Maybe,’ she laughs. ‘That’s a Doppler radar picture. Red is where her energy is.’
A man stands in front of the eye. ‘Storm Track is monitoring closely,’ the man says gravely. Steven watches the Francesca-Cyclops shrink into a little box in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. ‘If her present speed keeps up …’ the Storm Track man says. Steven only half-listens. ‘Already high winds along the coast,’ he hears. ‘Essential that windows be boarded up and adequate supplies of bottled drinking water, candles, batteries …’
‘Have we got enough bottles of water?’ Steven asks, shivering.
His grandmother reaches for him and pulls him onto her lap. ‘We have plenty of everything we need, but if Francesca makes landfall here, it won’t help. We’ll know by tonight or tomorrow morning if we have to evacuate.’
‘Did you have to vacuate when Hugo came?’
‘Everyone did. The storm surge was fifteen feet high and most of the city was drowned.’
Steven’s grandmother, and Marsyas too, are surrounded by mist. They smell of the time of the dragons. ‘Tell me about the other hurricane,’ he begs.
‘Which one?’
‘You know. The biggest one ever. The one without a name.’
‘Ask Marsyas,’ his grandmother says, seeing him through the window. ‘In fact, go and tell Marsyas that I want to know why in God’s name he’s still fussing with those wretched magnolias? Tell him to forget the garden and start battening down the hatches, for heaven’s sake. In fact, tell him to get on home to his wife and grandchildren. He’d better board up his own windows.’
When Steven opens the door, the wind catches it and bangs it back against the outside of the house. ‘I’ll close it, I’ll manage,’ his grandmother says, struggling with Francesca. ‘You run and tell Marsyas to get on home while he can.’
Steven hurls himself into an invisible elastic wall that keeps pushing him back. He gasps. His mouth fills with grit and a grey-green ribbon of Spanish moss.
‘Marsyas!’ he coughs, but his words go whipping skyward with the flailing streams of moss.
Marsyas is wrestling with the magnolias and the crepe myrtles, lashing sacking around them. ‘Grandma says to stop,’ Steven gasps, pummelling him. ‘She says to go home and batten … and batten your own … because maybe we are going to vacuate.’
The wind rips a sheet of hessian from the old man’s hands and it swoops up like a kite. Steven shrieks with excitement. The fabric dips, flutters, bucks upward again, catches on a branch momentarily and then is lofted into the sky like a bird with tattered wings. A piece of roofing tile comes hurtling at Steven and Marsyas throws himself on top of the boy. ‘Root-cellar,’ something screams in Steven’s ear. He does not know if it is Marsyas or the wind, but Marsyas is crawling and dragging Steven with him the way a mother cat drags her kittens and Marsyas is fighting the bucking root-cellar doors and pushing Steven down the six concrete steps into dark. The air roars. The cellar smells of sweet potatoes and apples and wet pine needles and mould.
Everywhere, cobwebs touch Steven.
Spider – the biggest ever, the one without a name – watches him. Steven can see its red eye.
The air stops roaring. The quiet is as sudden as the dark.
‘Lord be praised,’ Marsyas says, tumbling down against Steven, who puts his arms around the old man’s neck and hangs on tightly. ‘That Francesca is one wild woman.’
‘Is she wilder than the one without a name?’
‘No, not wilder than that. There won’t ever be another one like that.’
‘Grandma says to tell me about the one without a name.’
‘I told you already one hundred times.’
‘Your grandma told you one thousand times.’
‘That is the gospel truth, Steven. She did. She remembered that Big Blow all her life.’
‘She was seven.’
‘Seven years old, same as you.’
‘In 1893,’ Steven says.
‘Thirty years after the Jubilee.’
‘And your grandma was born free.’
‘Yes she was. Born free. But the old slave market in Charleston wasn’t even a museum yet, just a market not being used. Took the wrath of God and a mighty wind to wash that market clean.’
‘And all the sea islands disappeared.’
‘The sea islands sank under the waters for seven days and seven nights, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’
‘What if Francesca drowns the islands?’ Steven whispers.
‘She won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the Lord God give my grandmama His sign. That mighty wave come to the top of the pines. My grandmama hold on tight and she pray. Lord save me, she pray, but everywhere she look, she see nothing but ocean and bodies. All drowned.’
‘Two thousand people, Grandma said.’
‘More’n two thousand,’ Marsyas insists. ‘In one night. All drowned.’
‘But not your grandma.’
‘Not my grandmama. Her pine tree was torn up by the roots and she sailed it for seven days. No food and no water.’
‘Tell about the angel.’
‘You know this story better than me.’
‘No, you tell, you tell.’
‘Well, there was a blinding light all about my grandmama, like to the radiance of the Lord God of Hosts. Her skin was on fire. The crust of salt on her arms was thicker than grits.’
‘And hard as a shel
l.’
‘Harder than crabshell.’
‘And shone like diamonds,’ Steven says.
‘And shone like phosphorus on the sea.’
‘She thought she was a fish,’ Steven prompts.
‘She thought God had caught her on his line. She thought she had swum to the end of days and the pearly gates.’
‘And then, and then?’
‘She saw an angel come stepping across the waves.’
Steven claps his hands. ‘And the angel came on board her pine tree and said unto her: I will guide you home.’
‘Amen,’ Marsyas says. ‘And she came to safe harbour in the old Slave Market itself, washed clean. And the waters receded and the islands rose back out of the sea as it was in the beginning. Now and ever shall be. And we better get you back inside the house or your grandmama’s going to have a fit.’
3. Point of No Return
‘Marsyas, for God’s sake, get home while you can. Steven, your mother’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you.’
‘And who is going to board up your windows, Miz Leah, if I don’t do it?’ Marsyas wants to know.
‘It might have been more sensible’, Leah points out, ‘to have spent less time on the damned crepe myrtles. And who’s going to board your own windows?’
‘Grandsons, Miz Leah. Teenagers now. You are forgetting. Those boys already bought enough sheets of ply—’
‘It’s getting too dark now anyway. If we don’t get evacuation orders by morning, you can do it then, but for heaven’s sake, go. Just help me get this door closed first. You push from outside.’
She feels the heft of Marsyas against the wood. She slides the bolt home. Francesca hurls imprecations, flaunting herself on the screen porch. In the hush that follows the closing of the door, Leah hears Steven say: ‘But I don’t want to. I want to stay with Grandma.’
Leah watches the way her grandson concentrates, frowning, his whole body engaged in the listening. She would like to bolt plywood sheets around the delicate outer edges of his days. She would like to wrap him in silk.
‘But it won’t,’ he says. ‘Marsyas told me. And they’ll vacuate us if it gets … But Mommy …!’
There is a longish silence. Steven is pouting, biting his lip.
‘Hi, Daddy,’ he says, his voice flat. There is another silence. ‘Yes,’ Steven says, dully. ‘Yes, I am a little bit scared, but Daddy …’ How can he explain? He almost says: but I like it. He ponders this, concentrating. When I’m with Grandma and Marsyas, he thinks of saying, I’m not frightened when I’m frightened. It’s something else and I like it.
‘It’s like … it’s like …’ he says, groping for words that the wind keeps snatching, ‘it’s like going very high on the swing—
‘Yes, but—
‘Yes, Grandma’s here, but Daddy—
‘Yes.
‘Daddy wants to talk to you,’ he says, extending the receiver.
Leah watches her grandson press his face against the windowpane. She watches the way his arms lift and sway. Sign language, she thinks. He believes he can talk to the trees.
Steven shivers and hugs himself.
‘I’m sorry, what …? Oh. Yes,’ Leah says, contrite. ‘Of course, if that’s what you think is best. It just didn’t occur to me you’d be so worried.
‘Yes, but you see—
‘So many of them miss us, you know,’ she explains. ‘They swing south at the eleventh hour, or they swing north-east and never make landfall at all.
‘No, no, it’s just … there’s been no evacuation order yet, but of course I’ll … Oh, she’s already—? That settles it then. Steven, can you hand me a pen?’
His grandmother copies down a number. ‘We can make it, I think,’ she says. ‘I’ll just grab an overnight bag for him and send the rest of his stuff up later.’
She hangs up. She shows Steven the scrap of paper. ‘Your mother’s booked your flight home. This is the reservation number for your ticket,’ she tells him. ‘We’ve got to be at the airport in an hour.’
‘But I don’t want to go,’ Steven says.
‘Your parents are worried sick. They’ve been watching the weather reports. Run and get some clothes. I’ll call the air port to find out if your flight is on time.’
Steven stops at the turning of the stair. Through the small casement window on the landing – the sill is higher than the top of his head – he can see the furious sky and the tossing crowns of the pines. He wants to ride them. He can feel the rush of the branches lifting. He imagines riding the storm surge with dolphins. He imagines his thighs brushing the moon.
He believes he could fly.
‘Steven!’ his grandmother calls. ‘Listen to this! They’ve closed the airport. I’ll have to break the news to your parents.’
Steven feels his heart shoot upwards the way the hessian sacking was lifted from Marsyas’s hands. Laughter inhabits him. He swings one leg over the banister and careens down, bumping over the corner-post moulding. He lands with a thump at his grandmother’s feet.
‘I’m afraid the phone lines are down already,’ she sighs. ‘I can’t call them back. We’re cut off.’
Steven’s eyes glitter.
His grandmother smiles and puts a finger to her lips.
4. Evacuation Advisory
‘It now seems certain’, the man on Storm Track says, ‘that Francesca will make landfall within twenty-four hours. Coastal airports have been closed and evacuation will become mandatory as of seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Evacuation routes and reverse-lane changes are being posted …’
‘Will Marsyas drive us?’ Steven asks.
‘No. I’ll drive. Marsyas never leaves. Even for Hugo, he wouldn’t leave. Your parents will be watching this on the Weather Channel, though. They’ll be so relieved.’
‘The man said we have to.’
‘Yes, it’s the law. The National Guard will come knocking, door-to-door.’
‘So how come Marsyas—?’
‘Oh, he’ll hide somewhere. There are always people who won’t leave. They feel just as safe here. They feel safe wherever they are.’
‘The governor has announced that one eastbound lane will be kept open for emergency vehicles,’ the Storm Track man says. ‘All other lanes on the Interstate are for inland-bound traffic.’
‘Marsyas thinks he’s got a special arrangement with hurricanes,’ Leah says. ‘He believes he can talk to them.’
‘He can,’ Steven says. ‘Like his grandma.’
‘According to Marsyas, hurricanes speak Gullah,’ Leah raises her eyebrows and cusps a hand behind one ear, listening to the noisy patois of the wind. ‘Like the island people.’
‘I can speak some Gullah. Marsyas taught me.’
‘Did he indeed?’
‘There has been much criticism of the governor,’ the Storm Track man says. ‘Charges are flying … several state senators claim that the order to evacuate has been left too late.’
‘Grandma?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Couldn’t we stay here with Marsyas?’
His grandmother folds him in her arms. She smiles and puts a finger on his lips. ‘And just what would your parents say to that?’
‘How will they know?’ he whispers.
‘We interrupt this announcement’, the Storm Track man says, ‘to warn that the Carolinas have now been placed on Hurricane Watch, the highest state of alert. Many think this is far too late, given what happened with Dana last year. Impossible congestion on the Interstate, gridlock from Hilton Head to the Georgia border. A highway patrolman, on condition of anonymity, said angrily: “You can’t move several hundred thousand people at a moment’s—”’
A soft popping sound floats from the mouth of the Storm Track man. For a moment, he glows like phosphorus and then the television screen goes dark. Every light in the house blinks off. The air-conditioner groans and shudders and dwindles into a trembling that Steven can feel in the floorboards before it goes silent and s
till.
‘Well,’ Leah says, reaching for Steven’s hand. ‘I’ve got the candles in a drawer right here. Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’m not frightened.’
5. Hurricane Watch
Face to face, the woman and child float inside a bubble of light. Elbows on the warm oak table, chins in cupped hands, eyes gleaming, they have the air of conspirators very pleased with themselves. Shadowy gold from the candle moves like water on their skin.
‘Isn’t this exciting?’ Leah whispers.
‘Yes,’ he whispers back.
‘And what do you think I’ve got hidden under the table?’
‘The photograph box!’
‘How did you guess?’
Steven laughs, leaning across a large carton that is crammed with portraits in fading sepia tones, black-and-white snapshots with deckle edges, bright Kodacolor prints in postcard size. ‘My pick, my pick. I pick first.’
Steven squeezes his eyes shut and reaches in, his hand delving deep. He pulls out a photograph and holds it against his chest like a poker card.
‘Black and white,’ he says, pleased, sneaking a look. ‘Guess who?’
‘Must be your grandfather. Or me.’
‘Both,’ Steven says. ‘Ten points. See?’
‘Hold it closer to the candle.’
‘Is it very, very old?’
‘Ah, that one,’ she says fondly.
‘Is it older than Hugo?’
‘Much older. That was a very long time ago, before we were married. I remember that day. We’d been beachcombing for shells and starfish and I was covered in sand-fly bites. Your grandfather kept offering to scratch them. It was really very wicked of him.’
‘Did he like me?’
‘He adored you. Can’t you remember that?’
Steven shakes his head.
‘You used to ride on his shoulders through the salt marsh. Somewhere in the box, there’s a photo of you both on the boardwalk.’
‘Was I three?’
‘No, just a baby almost. But you used to clap your hands whenever you saw a white egret.’
A shadow of a memory brushes Steven, but he cannot hold on to it.