The Homecoming

by Carsten Stroud

  Teague was a big, thick man, well over six feet and two hundred pounds, and most of it was still muscle. But he was feeling his years tonight. Their weight lay heavy on him, the necessary things that had been done, and the troubles that had come of them.

  And there was something about the gallery tonight that troubled him. He felt a presence in it, felt that he was being watched, appraised, and not by a loving eye. He was being judged.

  His conscience, perhaps? Not likely. It never had before, and he had given it a great deal of cause. He shrugged this feeling off, dismissed it.

  At the corner of the gallery he put his shoulder against the pillar and looked out into the night, feeling the life of Hy Brasail Plantation in the dark all around, the steamy heat lying over it like a woolen blanket.

  It was too hot for sleep, so most of the people were gathered under the cottonwood trees by the horse paddock, the red glow of their cheroots flaring up in the dark. There were girls down by the Mississippi singing “Shall We Gather at the River” as they washed themselves. Somewhere belowstairs a brat was grizzling. The whining turned into sobbing and then rose up into a grating howl that was abruptly cut off by a meaty smack.

  Under the live oak branches fireflies flickered through the hanging shreds of moss. A faint breeze was rolling in off the river, bringing the fertile aroma of saw grass and river mud. The shack windows glimmered with lantern light. Wood smoke drifted in the dark and he could hear the faint tinkling of a mandolin coming from the overseer’s house on the far side of the peach orchard. Out by the stables came a deep, trumpeting whinny, followed by a booming crack as Tecumseh kicked out at the timbers of his box stall.

  He heard the gallery boards creaking behind him and turned to see a black shape standing in the shadows, a sliver of yellow light lying on her cheek, her eyes hidden in the dark.

  Talitha.

  He stepped away from the gallery railing, moving into the shadows with her.

  “What the hell are you doing up here?”

  Talitha spoke, a throaty whisper.

  “She still lives?”

  “She does,” said Teague, in a hoarse, angry whisper, keeping his distance from the girl. “How can this be?”

  Talitha moved closer to Teague, stepping into the shaft of light from the window. Teague looked into her almond-shaped eyes, her half-open lips, the way the simple cotton shift lay on her rounded body, her high breasts, her taut nipples under the thin fabric. He could smell her and his blood began to rise up. Talitha was like a sickness to him. Even in a slave cot she was the devil to pay.

  “I don’t know. No one ever lasted this long.”

  “Where have you been?”

  A silence, and then a flash of white as she smiled up at him.

  “Why? Did Mister London miss me?”

  More bloody insolence.

  “Answer the question.”

  “I been over by Thibodaux,” she said, with a sly tone. “In our secret place. I been waiting. I thought you’d come looking.”

  “While Anora’s dying and the house is in a shambles?”

  “You come before, Mister London. You come lots of times.”

  “You have drawn attention, girl. And now you come sneaking up the staircase at night. What if you had been seen?”

  “I know how to not get seen, Mister London. All good slave childs know how to do that.”

  “It was stupid to come here. It was stupid to run off that same night. It looks poorly to the people. Already there is talk. You drew attention. Do you still have the animal?”

  She lifted her hands into the light. She was holding a wicker sewing basket, the lid held down with scarlet ribbons.

  “Yes. But now your lady is surrounded by the house women. There is no way to bring it close to her again. In this heat, in the dark, it’s dangerous to handle. It will strike at anything on a night like this.”

  Teague was silent for a time, listening to the voices from the sickroom, someone singing “Annie Laurie” in a childish voice. They sang it to her when she was asleep. He came back to Talitha.

  “She is dying. There is no need to take the risk. You should not be up here. Go down through the summer kitchen. Wait in the box maze by the jupiter willow. I’ll come down to you.”

  “Soon? I’ll make you forget the lady again.”

  “Don’t chide me,” said Teague, his temper rising up. Talitha held out the wicker basket, shook it teasingly. Teague stepped back. The animal inside the basket made a sound like a kettle and the wicker sides bulged as it coiled.

  Talitha showed her teeth.

  “You better come soon,” she said with fire, “or maybe I’ll take me another. Mister Telesphore, he been looking at me that way.”

  Teague raised a hand, but she slipped away from the blow, making no sound at all. Teague watched the darker shadows where she had disappeared for a long minute, thinking about her. Kate stood nearby, listening to him wheeze, smelling his scent, tobacco and leather and sweat, thinking about him.

  Teague felt a chilly hand on the back of his neck and shook his head like a heavy horse. Then he turned and walked back up to the open French doors, passing close by Kate and, it seemed to her, avoiding the space in which she stood.

  He stopped at the threshold, took a deep breath, and stepped into the sickroom.

  It was lit by candles set on chairs all around Anora’s bed, and one of the houseboys—Cutnose, or one of his brothers—was sitting in a corner, tugging on a cord connected to a fan of embroidered cloth suspended from the beams. The fan moved ponderously back and forth, making the candle flames flicker and sending crazy shadows dancing around the walls.

  In the bed Anora was a small doll-like figure, shrunken and emaciated. Her eyes were closed and her rich black hair—all that was left of her beauty—lay fanned out in a shining arc on the satin pillow. Her yellow hands were folded on top of the coverlet and a rosary made of peridot lay tangled through her fingers.

  The house women—Flora, Jezrael, and Constant—looked up from their rosaries as Teague came into the room. Mr. Aukinlek had his back to the windows and did not hear Teague step in. He was reading a Psalm—“Oh Lord let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul—”

  “Enough,” said Teague, cutting through the prayers. “Leave us. All of you.”

  The women rose without a word, Cutnose too, and all seemed to shimmer out of the room. Aukinlek turned to say something portentous, but a look at Teague’s face reduced him to a stammer and he too was gone. Teague came over and looked down at Anora—who had not opened her eyes or stirred in any way—and then he glanced around the room.

  The Jasmine Room was named so because Anora had commissioned an artist from Baton Rouge to come and hand-paint a bower of jasmine onto the ceiling and halfway down the walls. It was a light and airy room, with tall sash windows that opened onto the gallery. The carpet and most of the furniture had been cleared away to make room for the daybed and the salt bath and a long trestle table littered with washbasins and fresh cloths.

  All that was left of the original furnishings was an ancient mirror in a gilt baroque frame—not a large mirror, no more than thirty inches on a side, but it was precious to Anora because it had come down to her through the Mercer line and had once been in her grandmother’s bedroom in their town house in Dublin.

  It was said to have come originally from Paris, where the Mercers had once been the Du Mêrcièrs. This was before the Terror, and few of that branch had escaped the guillotine. The mirror was all that was left of those times, and so it was a treasure to Anora, a fragment of all that had been lost by the Mercers and the Gwinnetts over the centuries.

  In keeping with the custom, the mirror was draped tonight, a stark black rectangle floating in the middle of a field of painted jasmine.

  Teague pulled up a rickety wooden chair and sat down on it. The frame creaked under his weight as he leaned back and crossed his legs. Anora’s breathing quickened and in a moment she opened her eyes, gl
ancing around the room with a frightened expression until she settled on his face.

  The frightened look changed into a calm, direct regard, although the light in her hazel eyes was dimmed and her face was nearly unrecognizable.

  She moved her lips but no sound came out, only a series of dry clicks. Teague poured water into a silver cup and held it to her lips, using his left hand to lift her up so that she could sip at the rim. Her body was as hot as a cookstove and her linen tunic was soaked.

  She managed to swallow the water and Teague laid her back down. She closed her eyes for a time and then looked at him again.

  “I’ve been asking for you, Lon … Where have you been?”

  “I had to go up to see Telesphore. Business.”

  “I saw … I saw you ride away. You never looked back … but then you never do.”

  A pause.

  “Why were you asking for me, Anora?”

  Another long wait while Anora seemed to go deep inside herself and then struggle back to the surface.

  “The … girls, Lon. Will you see to them? Especially Cora. She won’t … understand.”

  Teague sighed and held his temper.

  “If you mean will I see to their interests, your godfather has taken great care to do that himself. Their money is as safe as yours has been. Little good it has done for us, for our affairs, but that was John Gwinnett Mercer’s wish.”

  Anora closed her eyes and was silent for a time. Teague watched her chest rising and falling under the sheet. It looked like a bird was caught in the fabric, a febrile flutter only.

  “You … will have the tontine, Lon, when I am gone. That will see your … affairs set aright. What I wish … what I … require … of you … is that you care for them, Lon, as you care for Jubal and Tyree. Cora is only six, and Eleanor not yet eight. They will need you. You have a great capacity to love, Lon … as you once loved me … let them see your love for them. You are their father. They are your blood as well as mine.”

  Teague had already decided to send Cora and Eleanor to Niceville, to live with the Mercers or the Gwinnetts. He had no use and no patience for wet-nursing a pair of useless infants, especially since their resources were so well sequestered. As that was also John Gwinnett Mercer’s work, let him bear the burden of raising them up.

  As for Jubal and Tyree, at thirteen and fifteen they were finally at a useful age and after they had gone to Trinity in Dublin and then away for their Grand Tour of Europe, they could come back as ripened men and see to the affairs of Hy Brasail. But there was no need to speak of this to Anora.

  “I will do right by the girls, Anora.”

  “Our girls, Lon. Yours and mine. I have your word?”

  “My word, Anora. They will not want for care or good company. That I pledge.”

  This appeared to satisfy her.

  She was quiet for a time, and the sound of nightjars and cicadas seemed to fill the room. Her skeletal fingers twitched at the peridot rosary in a fretful way, but her face was still. The chair creaked as he got to his feet. She opened her eyes as he stood by the bed, looking down at her.

  “Will you kiss me, Lon?”

  He hesitated, and then leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. Her skin was hot and damp. She lifted a bony hand and clutched at his cravat, pulling him close. She lifted her head, kissed him on the lips, and fell back, her eyes fixed on his.

  She did not release him.

  Her lips moved. She was saying something. He leaned closer. She swallowed and tried again.

  “You have killed me, Lon.”

  He pulled back but she held him.

  “No. Do not lie to my face. This is my last hour and there is no time for any more lies. When it bit me, I saw it, slipping away across the comforter. It was a harlequin coral. I know who put it there. I know why she put it there. So do you.”

  She released him and reached for the rosary again, her eyes closing.

  Teague’s face was hot but his chest was icy cold. He looked at the pillow under her head. She was on the threshold. It would only take a moment of pressure to help her cross it. Kate saw his huge hands twitch, his long fingers spreading, and knew his mind. Teague forced himself to be calm.

  “If this is true, about the snake, and I do not give it any countenance, why have you not spoken?”

  “I was … weary … weary of … you. Weary of your ways. I loved you once. Now I am ready to go.”

  “Who … who have you told?”

  “No one. I won’t have the children know.”

  “Anora … this is simply not—”

  Her hand came off the sheet, fingers spread.

  “No, Lon. I won’t have your lies be the last words I hear. Send for Constant. I must sleep.”

  “Anora …”

  “No, Lon. Go. For heaven’s sake … just go.”

  Teague stood and stared down at her for a time, but it was as if he was the dead thing in the room. She was still alive, barely, but she was as gone from him now as if she were already in her family’s crypt in the Niceville churchyard. His head was reeling with the urgency of only one thought …

  Who else knows?

  And the answer came back.

  Talitha knows.

  Anora slept, a sleep so peaceful after such pain and struggle that at first Constant and Flora and Jezrael thought she might have passed. Constant laid a fearful hand on her breast, lightly, and they all smiled when she felt the flutter of Anora’s heart. It was shortly before three in the morning and the life of Hy Brasail was at its lowest ebb. A wind was sighing in the branches of the live oaks and a lantern set on the river landing burned in the dark, a single yellow glimmer in a moonless night. Constant rose, leaned over to kiss Anora’s forehead, and then they all slipped silently from the room.

  A candle by Anora’s bed burned low.

  Kate stood by her bed, looking down at the dying woman. She heard a dry rustle, the sound of wings. A swarm, a cloud of dragonflies came to the windows and ticked against the glass, a vibrating green shimmer in the candle’s light.

  The mosquito netting that tented Anora’s bed rippled gently in the night wind. Anora fell into a deeper sleep, and now her life began to flicker and fail. Kate could feel her going.

  She drew away into the shadows.

  Anora awoke abruptly from a sensation of falling and saw within the candle’s glow a figure sitting on the rickety wooden chair beside her bed.

  It was a young girl. Talitha.

  She was sitting up straight, her knees tight together and her ankles primly crossed. Her strong brown hands were folded on top of a wicker sewing basket. She was looking into the middle distance with a somber expression and a faraway air, but when Anora stirred, Talitha looked down and smiled at her.

  “What are you doing here?” Anora asked, a tremor in her voice.

  “I am here to make amends, Missus, if I can.”

  Anora looked for the cord that rang the night bell, but it had slipped to the floor. Talitha bent over and lifted it up and laid it down on Anora’s breast. She held her hand there, gently, and then patted Anora’s fingers.

  “You don’t need to be afraid now, Missus. I can’t hurt you no more.”

  “No. You’ve already killed me, have you not?”

  “I have, Missus. And now I have come to …”

  “Atone?”

  Talitha looked puzzled.

  “Missus Teague, I do not know what that word means.”

  “It means to make up for the wrong you have done. Is that the creature, in that basket?”

  Talitha looked down at the wicker basket on her lap. She lifted the cover and reached inside. Anora’s throat tightened and it was in her mind to pull on the cord, but something held her.

  Talitha lifted her hand out. Coiled around it was a snake, not small, perhaps thirty inches or so. It had a small tapered head with a yellow band around it, and its body was banded in bright red and dark green, the bands separated by a smaller ring of vivid yellow. It twisted and wr
ithed in Talitha’s grip, its tongue flicking like the antennae of a moth.

  Talitha lifted it up and turned it in the candle glow. Two tiny shards of yellow light glittered in its jewellike eyes.

  “The harlequin coral,” said Talitha, seeming to be transfixed by the snake as it lifted its head and stared back at her.

  “Be careful,” said Anora, in a whisper.

  But Talitha only smiled and draped the snake around her shoulders, where it coiled and tightened and settled, a brightly colored enameled necklace.

  “It can’t hurt either of us now,” said Talitha.

  “Then why have you brought it here?”

  “I will be buried with it, I believe.”

  They were each silent for a time. Anora was looking at Talitha, trying to see her clearly, but her image kept fading and then coming back again. Talitha seemed to feel her flickering attention.

  “Missus, will you do what I ask you to do?”

  “What do you want?”

  Talitha turned and lifted a hand, pointing at the ancient gilt mirror hanging on the wall. The black cover was gone and the glass reflected the room, the pale white woman in her bed and the young black woman in the chair. The candle flickering low.

  “Will you get up and look in the mirror?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I believe you can, Missus. You must try.”

  Anora tried but was unable to rise. Talitha bent over her and lifted her in her strong young arms, carried her across the floor, and set her down carefully on her bare feet, the two of them framed in the mirror, two silhouettes with a corona of candle glow around them. Anora was trembling. Talitha stepped in and held her in both her arms, kissed her gently on the cheek.

  “Don’t be afraid, Missus. There’s family on the other side of the glass. Daddy says this mirror was opened by your own people, when they was living in Paris, France, a long time back. He says a lot of your family got put to death in what they called the Terror. Many of them was put under a machine. When the thing was done, the executioner took their heads from the basket and held them up to this mirror, the very one that been took from their own home where they all once lived, so they could see themselves in it one last time. They meant it to be cruel, because life was still in them, and they could see what been done to them, but it was the last thing they looked at, and they sent their spirits into it, and that is how this mirror got opened. That is the story my daddy told me.”