by Alyssa Cole
“I’m sorry, but I must say that this is one instance where being a Lynch isn’t a privilege,” Marlie said. “Melody hates me all the more for it.”
Lace sucked her teeth and turned to stir the soup. “At least I just work here. I wouldn’t tolerate a sour wench like that coming up in my house calling me whatever she thought fit. Ha!”
Lace shook her head as if conjuring a lethal fantasy; her thoughts likely didn’t stray too far from the dark paths Marlie’s imagination had taken to traveling of late.
Marlie took a deep breath. The two weeks since Melody’s arrival had been awful. Marlie was intelligent, she was capable, and she’d thought herself above reproach. She’d experienced some of the injustices of racism, and read much about how they affected her race all across the country, whether they were free or enslaved, but in her small town she was so well known that few people were ever crude outright. Everyone used her decoctions and balms—her usefulness served as a shield to the everyday insults of racial hatred as much as her place in the Lynch household did. People tended to treat you better, to your face at least, when they needed something from you and couldn’t compel you to work with a lash without consequence.
The shield of grace she’d built up over the years had shattered since Melody had taken it upon herself to reeducate Marlie in that regard; the instant Marlie ventured outside of her rooms, Melody would appear, berating the texture of her hair, the way her dresses hugged her curves “lasciviously,” the color of her skin. She’d stopped calling her nigger after an argument with Stephen, one that had shocked Marlie because he’d actually stood fast against his wife, but she still referred to the rest of the staff that way.
And Stephen made Marlie almost as uncomfortable as his wife with the way he stayed ten paces from her but stared like she was a mythical creature stomping about the parlor. She didn’t think he was being lewd—he was her brother, even if no one ever spoke of it—but he was still another landmine to avoid in what used to be safe ground.
Lace stopped stirring the soup and glanced at Marlie from the corner of her eye. “Back on the plantation where I grew up, there was ways to get rid of someone like that. You just went to the root woman, and she worked her tricks. Could get rid of anyone giving you a problem.”
Marlie froze with a skewer halfway through the roll of soft pink meat. Suddenly she was a child again, traveling with Vivienne. They’d gone to visit another conjure woman. Marlie had stood on tiptoe to peer through the window and saw a grown woman, face tear-stained and snotty like a child, holding an anxiously chirping bird in her hand. “This will get rid of his wife?” she’d asked, and then nodded and squeezed her hand into a fist. The chirping had stopped.
Marlie dropped the skewer, the feel of the meat suddenly disgusting. “You know that type of thing is just foolishness, meant to make people feel better but achieving nothing.”
“Now that you got all them books, you too good for throwin’ and all that, huh?” Lace asked. There was no venom in her voice, but the words stung all the same. Vivienne had never thrown hexes, but that was because she had believed in the power of such magic, not because she refuted it. Marlie felt a tightness at her throat, like the first time Vivienne had looked at her in utter disappointment.
Lace stared at Marlie, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I remember when Sarah brought you home with her. That first day, I found you with a clump of clay from your mama’s yard in your hand, trying to conjure a way back to her.”
“It didn’t work,” Marlie said, surprised at how clearly she remembered the pain of that failed attempt. It was when she had truly understood that no matter how hard she believed in it, no matter her strange eyes and vivid dreams, she was powerless. The only power she had now came from the knowledge she had gained through her imported books on plants and herbs. “Besides, anyone who believes in that kind of thing knows that what you do to others comes back to you tenfold.”
Lace grunted in assent, but grinned and looked away when Marlie took up a handful of salt, poured it into a cloth, and tucked it into the pocket of her apron. There was major throwing, and there was minor, and even if she didn’t believe in it, it was better than doing nothing.
“Toss salt after her every time she passes through the gate. After nine times, she’ll leave.”
A little salt never hurt anyone.
“I have to go up to my rooms before dinner to fix up some general tonic,” Marlie said. She also wanted to do a bit of translating of her mother’s journal, one of the few things that made her happy since Melody’s arrival. The total concentration required of the work would help calm her before the night’s events.
The dinner Melody had planned for some Confederate big bug was sure to be a strain, even though Marlie wasn’t invited. She was no stranger to being informed she couldn’t attend dinner when certain guests came, but it galled more coming from Melody, in part because the stream of information Marlie had been passing on to the Loyal League had run dry. Being stuck in her rooms meant the only news she got was from Sarah, who spent her days accommodating Melody or comforting Stephen, and Tobias, who was sent to work at the farm more and more. She felt trapped; maybe she had always been trapped, but this was the first time she’d been aware of it, and it was a distinctly disagreeable feeling.
She moved quietly up the stairs toward the attic, but she wasn’t the only one scuttling about. Melody was hunched before the door of Marlie’s rooms, twisting a key in the lock. Every part of Marlie expected the door to swing open, and her mind preemptively recoiled at the violation happening before her.
Lynchwood had been her haven, but there was one place in the world that was sacred to Marlie, and it wasn’t the chapel. Her laboratory, her still room, her conjuring room—whatever one chose to call it—it was the only place where Marlie truly felt at peace. Where she could descend into the deep focus of grinding, separating, and mixing nature’s bounty at the exact proportion to help save a life.
In the rage that consumed her as she watched Melody shake her head in annoyance and move to the next key on her key ring, Marlie remembered that she knew how to take a life, too.
Then the rage pulled back a bit as she imagined her mother’s disappointment.
“Nous qui ont reçu cette cadeau dois choisir comment nous utilisons. Et comment elle nous utilise.”
“We who’ve been given this gift must choose how we use it. And how it uses us.”
She’d translated that passage the day after Melody arrived, serendipity she was sure. She couldn’t harm this hateful woman, no matter how she was tempted, and she was feeling like Eve before the serpent at that very second.
“Is there something you need from my laboratory?” she asked sharply.
Melody jumped and the keys clattered to the floor. She bent over gracefully, as if executing a curtsy, and retrieved them. “Oh, you people are always sneaking up on a body! I suppose that’s why they call you spooks.” She tittered behind her hand, but the gleam in her eye was hard.
Marlie gritted her teeth against the slur.
“I just wanted to see what you were up to in here,” Melody said sweetly. “I’ve heard all kinds of talk about what your kind can get up to with those roots and herbs.”
“I ‘get up to’ making medicine to heal people. If you need something of that sort, you can ask. Something for jaundice, perhaps?” She creased her brow in concern and studied Melody’s face critically. There was a more pleasant way to warn the woman off, but she’d been pleasant in the face of despicable behavior since Melody’s arrival and her reserve of pleasantries had just run out.
“I didn’t know I had to ask to enter a room in my home,” Melody said. She crossed her hands in front of her skirts, displaying the key ring and all that it symbolized.
“I guess I should expect you to burst into the water closet while I’m indisposed, too, then?” Marlie asked. She didn’t know where the crude question came from, it was so unlike her, but Melody was like a poultice that drew
Marlie’s toxins to the surface.
Melody’s lips pursed. “I told Stephen that no good would come of treating a darkie like she’s one of us. At least the uppity ones downstairs still know their place. But you don’t even serve a purpose in this household. You don’t cook. You don’t clean. Things would run just fine without you here.” She let those words hang in the air as she stared at Marlie.
Fury sent heat rushing up Marlie’s neck, made her fingers itch to reach out and slap the smile off Melody’s face. Instead, she drew her back up straight and channeled Vivienne’s inscrutable smile. “Oh, I have a purpose. Perhaps one day you’ll come to understand it. Intimately.”
She walked past Melody with her head high, close enough to brush against her in a manner just as symbolic as displaying a key ring. I am here. I am a physical being and I will push back against any actions taken against me in my home.
“You look like you need to prepare yourself before your guest arrives, so if you’ll excuse me,” Marlie said, knowing full well Melody was already decked out in her best for dinner. She pulled the key that dangled from the long chain around her neck and unlocked the door, slipping into the darkness and closing it before Melody could glimpse inside.
* * *
Later that evening, Marlie sat in a rickety chair next to the kitchen door with a pencil in one hand and a fried artichoke in the other. She took a delicate bite of the greasy deliciousness, then jotted into the back of the book beside her.
I’ve been mulling over what you said the last time we spoke, Socrates, about engaging with viewpoints different from ours. I must admit that I wish I could find whatever philosopher you learned that from and kick him in the shinbone. I could have asked you just who it was by now, but my trips out to the prison have been put on hold thanks to an unwanted guest in our home. It’s a terrible thing, feeling like a stranger where you should feel most at peace. You know, I’d always imagined that were I placed in a situation that called for bravery, some inner strength would come to the fore, but all I’ve learned in the past weeks is that I am able to tolerate more than I am driven to change. Perhaps I’m becoming a philosopher, too.
Marlie paused, brushed aside a dollop of oil that had dripped onto the page. Why was she sharing this with him? Usually she kept her letters restricted to thoughts on whatever book it was she was writing in; this was personal. She considered that maybe it was boredom, but the truth was that somewhere along the line she’d grown accustomed to her weekly conversations with Socrates, brief as they were. She’d grown used to sharing her thoughts freely with him; it only made sense that she’d continue to do so, even if he never received her correspondence.
The thought disquieted her. He was a friend, or the kind of man who could be, and it was hard to imagine a future in which she never saw that shock of red hair or received one of his too rare smiles.
Pearl, one of the serving staff, strode into the kitchen with a pained expression on her face.
“Any news?” Marlie asked. Pearl had agreed to be her eyes and ears during the dinner. Marlie wouldn’t let Melody’s presence stop her from relaying whatever intelligence she could to the Loyal League.
“Cahill chews with his mouth open and is over fond of his own voice, though he don’t got nothing important to say. Melody, though. Melody!” Pearl shook her head. “That wench almost knocked a plate out of my hand and then had the nerve to say I was clearing from the wrong side. The nerve! She wouldn’t know French service if a frog kicked her in the eye.”
“She delights in nothing more than trying to upset people,” Marlie said. “You know you’re excellent at your job.”
“Thank you. She the devil’s handmaid, I’m sure of it,” Pearl said as she placed the skewers of veal olives warming on the stove carefully onto a serving platter. “Mr. Stephen look like he ain’t slept a wink in ten years. Probably because she ridin’ him all over the countryside every night.”
Pearl finished the platter and began chopping parsley to place around the edges of the plate for decoration. Marlie hated the waste. That would go perfectly well in her Stomach Settling Solution.
“And you should hear what she out there saying! That anyone who’s for the Union should be tarred and feathered, that she’s heard there are Unionists in some of the most affluent households in Randolph—all the while smiling at Miss Sarah and asking her questions about what she’s been doing to support the Cause! A viper in the nest never hissed so sweetly.”
Marlie felt that horrible weight settle over her again, the one that squeezed her with the certainty that something malevolent lay ahead.
“Ouch!” Pearl grabbed at her hand and pulled it in close against her. Marlie jumped up and saw the blood surging from a slash across three of Pearl’s fingers.
“Oh dear. It’s all right,” she said, her voice soothing as she grabbed a cloth and reached for the hand. “Lace, can you bring me some of the Healing Tonic?” It was still strange to call it by the name she sold it under in the pharmacy instead of what she’d learned from her mother, but it was habit now. She stanched the bleeding and then applied the stinging solution before binding Pearl’s fingers.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway and then Sarah stumbled into the kitchen. Her expression was drawn. “She is in there raising hell about the wait. Is everything all right?”
Pearl tried to flex her bandaged hand and winced. “I’m sorry. I cut myself putting these greens on here.”
“Oh, Pearl! Are you all right? Why does it seem like everything has fallen apart since she arrived?” Sarah thrived when she could put everything to order, but Melody’s appearance had thrown everything upside down. “And she’s out there taunting me, holding the fact that she can have Cahill haul me off to prison, or worse, over my head.” Sarah placed a hand on her chest, which was rising and falling too quickly.
Marlie placed her hands on Sarah’s shoulders and leaned forward until their foreheads were almost touching.
“She cannot prove anything,” Marlie said in a low voice. “We’ve worked very hard to ensure that. Take a deep breath and head back out there. Think about all we’ve accomplished over the years. She’s a temporary problem, and we’ll eventually be free of her. I’ll take over the serving while Pearl rests.”
“Yes. Right as ever, Marlie.” Sarah nodded, then let her forehead rest against Marlie’s for a moment. “I’m so lucky to have you. I would have gone mad already if you weren’t here.”
A confusing mixture of emotions flowed through Marlie: happiness and gratitude, but also resentment that she was the one providing comfort. Sarah still had things that could keep her safe, even if Melody accused her outright: She was rich and white. That got a person far whether they were for the North or for the South.
Marlie had no such protection.
It grew clearer by the day that she was entirely dependent on someone who wasn’t even completely free herself. The thought sobered her as Sarah pulled away, and she turned and approached the platter, trying to figure out the best way to carry the heavy thing.
Lace laughed. “Since when you know how to serve, Miss Marlie?”
“Would you prefer to do it?” Marlie snapped. “I’m sure Melody would love to compliment the chef again.” Melody had sent back the duck soup from the first course, saying it was too salty.
Lace huffed and handed Marlie the platter. “Go on,” she said. Her lips were pulled into a tight line.
“Sorry,” Marlie said. Lace was even less protected than she, and didn’t deserve Marlie’s ire for a situation she had no control over, either.
Lace nodded in understanding, and then Marlie gripped the platter with two hands and started out of the kitchen. She marched down the hall, the warm porcelain in her hands feeling like a mortar that could go off at any moment.
From outside the door, she heard a rough male voice that wasn’t familiar to her. “These cowardly Tory deserters, they’re no better than the Yanks. Worse in fact, because they’re turning their backs on nei
ghbors, friends, and country. They’ve grown bold and rebellious, pillaging those loyal to the Cause. I thought I’d be fighting boys in blue, but rooting out these skulkers is an even greater service, way I see it.”
When Marlie walked into the dining room, she realized she had no idea what to do. The table was crowded with food, and there was no space for the increasingly heavy platter. Sarah had her back to Marlie. Stephen faced her though, and his tired gaze met hers for the briefest of seconds before he looked away. Marlie was tempted to walk over and dump the veal olives on his head, but then she saw him gingerly pushing one plate to the left, another to the right, until there was an empty space just large enough for her platter.
She didn’t question his motives, just walked over and placed the heavy food down, then turned to leave.
“Ah! I see someone has learned their place,” Melody drawled. “Refill my champagne, and Commander Cahill’s.” She turned back to her guest. “I tell you, darkies don’t come more uppity than this one. That’s what happens when you’re lax with ’em. Back at my daddy’s, it would be the lash for the way she walks about here.”
Marlie kept her eyes down as she poured the bubbly alcohol. She waited for Sarah to point out that she wasn’t a slave to be whipped, but that defense never came.
“There’s a place for mongrels who get above themselves,” Cahill said casually, as she filled his glass. “The women, especially. Fancy maids bring in quite a penny on the auction block, and soon learn their place in this world: on their backs.”
Marlie jerked her gaze up at the brazen insult and came face-to-face with the man she’d seen at the prison last time she’d visited. He’d been pushing prisoners from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, kicking them down to the ground with their hands and legs tied so that there was no way for them to protect themselves as they hit the hard-packed earth.