Daughters of Jubilation

by Kara Lee Corthron

  “We can’t worry about all that. All we can do is have faith. Love each other. And believe we’ll make it work,” he declares.

  We hold each other for a long time. As long as we can.

  25 Kin

  IT’S A SATURDAY, AND I don’t have to work today. No work for the next couple a days; the Heywoods went to the shore to get some beach time before fall gets here.

  It’s a gorgeous day. A hair cooler than usual for deep August, but sunny, with big fluffy clouds. I can’t enjoy it the way I’d like, cuz I can’t stop lookin’ over my shoulder. Every time I go outside alone now, I keep waitin’ for Virgil to show up and make me pay for going back on our “deal,” or for the damage to his car and his face. Or for just not wantin’ a thing to do with him. He’s been so scarce that for a minute, I was relieved. I thought maybe my hex had worked and he’d left town, but I know better. My cursed two-headed self knows better. The hex flopped. He’s still here. He wants to punish me, so he’s waiting. He likes keeping me in a state of dull fear.

  Worryin’ about this piece a shit is nothin’ new. Today should be no different, but if I was an insect with antennae, they’d be sittin’ straight up right this second. Somethin’ feels off. I hope my grandmother will know what it is. And will be willin’ to tell me.

  I clock her shack on my way up the path like I got X-ray eyes. She ain’t busy and she ain’t got no one in there, so she can’t try some excuse. I open the door without botherin’ to knock or use my hands.

  “Imma make you start payin’ rent,” she says with her back to me. She’s got something small in one hand, and the other picks at it with a dainty carving knife. She’s giving this thing her full concentration, glasses on the end of her nose.

  “As soon as I woke up, I could feel somethin’ was wrong. Whatever you got left to teach me, you think we could try to cram it all in today? I got a strange feeling—” I stop myself and consider ending the thought there. But that ain’t the end of the thought.

  “Grammie Atti,” I say, “I got a strange feeling that I’m runnin’ outta time.”

  She nods in the direction of a plate. She still hasn’t looked at me.

  “Want a cookie? Chocolate chip,” she offers.

  “No. Thanks.” Cookies? What the hell’s goin’ on?

  “Huh. Boy in the Marines made ’em for me cuz he couldn’t pay. They taste like shit if you like cookies, but I hate cookies, so they taste fine to me.”

  I stand across from her, tryna force her to look at me.

  “You heard what I said, right?”

  “Uh-uh,” she says. “I don’t have nothin’ more to teach.”

  “Please don’t tease me, Grammie Atti. This is urgent.”

  Finally, she stops what she’s doing and looks up at me. She points to a chair, and I sit in it.

  “I ain’t teasin’ you, girl. I taught you what you needed to learn. The rest is on you.”

  I shake my head. “But—” And I grab one of her spirit cards. “What about this stuff? You didn’t teach me anything about that. You have all these tools to protect yourself, and I don’t!” I cry.

  She snatches the card back from me. “Touch ’em again and Imma crack your knuckles with my switch,” she warns, and I know she means it.

  “Why don’t you want me to know what you know?”

  “All this ‘stuff,’ as you call it, ain’t Jubilation. It has little to do with it, in fact. This is my livelihood. I made a choice to direct some a my energy toward spiritualism. I was not asked to give you that kinda apprenticeship. I was asked to help you control the gifts you’ve always had, and that is what I did.”

  I cross my arms and stare at the floor. I hear what she’s sayin’, but it just don’t feel like enough to me.

  “You have all you need, Evalene. Except patience and confidence. That’s why you’re upset, and it’s why everything feels off. You are so close to bein’ unified in who you are, but you afraid to trust it.”

  “Can you feel what I’m feelin’?” I ask helplessly.

  “Don’t matter if I can or not. Ain’t my battle.”

  “I’m scared.”

  She nods. “If you believe in your power one hundred percent and wait for it to have the effect it needs to have, you’ll be fine.”

  “How do I know when it’s had the effect I need?”

  “By not asking questions like that.” She sighs. “It’s like when you go on a trip, and the more you ask ‘Are we there yet?’ the further from your destination you seem to be. Stop questioning so much. Stop worryin’ about what ain’t workin’ or don’t feel right.” She leans closer to me, and she does something that stuns me: she touches my cheek with actual affection, and she looks at me with love and deep, deep sadness. “No matter what happens, you gotta have faith that you will survive and you will become the whole person you’re meant to be. This I know,” she finishes. Then she sits back in her seat and starts carvin’ again, her face back to its normal state somewhere between skeptical and indifferent.

  Her intensity hasn’t exactly calmed my fears. And after tellin’ me I need to be patient, I decide I’d better not ask if she knows if my hex on Virgil is working. Patience. How am I sposeta just wait for shit to happen when I can be doin’ other things to solve my problems?

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says.

  She examines the tiny object, blows on it, and nods. Meticulously, she threads a hole in its body with a long string of buckskin.

  “Come ’ere,” she orders. I walk over to her, and she stands.

  “Turn around,” she says.

  I do, and she lifts the stringed trinket over my head and ties it in the back. This is a necklace.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Don’t get excited. It’s not a magical talisman, if that’s what you’re hopin’. No. This is just a reminder.”

  A reminder? I examine the delicate charm she just carved for me. It’s a small wooden bird with its feet planted on imaginary ground. Looking backward. Sankofa. And unlike the cuckoo clock version, this one’s delicate and pretty.

  “You just now made this. You knew I was comin’ over today?” I ask.

  Without answering, my grandmother turns me around to face her. She probes me with her eyes, like she’s looking at me and in me at the same time. Just like that, we’re jubin’. And she has something to tell me.

  Go back and get what’s yours.

  * * *

  I have another dream-vision. I don’t walk through an empty field this time, but I end up on that same hill overlooking my town dressed up as a city I don’t recognize, with booming bass music blasting outta large, fast cars, and the billboard of the gorgeous jet-black Negro woman, and that Popeyes place.

  I sit in the grass, and as I expected, the weird girl appears and sits next to me. We both stare down into the busy street. She’s still wearin’ those white things in her ears, and now I hear sounds comin’ out of ’em like maybe they’re very small headphones that you stick in your ears instead of wear on your head. Yikes. I would not like that!

  “Why are we here?” I ask.

  She keeps starin’ like she can’t hear me. I gently tug on the wires connected to the things in her ears, and she turns to me now.

  “I just asked why are we here,” I say.

  She touches the little box the wires are plugged into.

  “It’s interesting that you’d ask me that,” she remarks, “because I was gonna ask you the same question.”

  This does not bode well.

  “Why would you ask me?”

  “You’re the one that keeps pullin’ me into these visions,” she informs me.

  “Me? No! There’s no way I’m doin’ it,” I tell her.

  “You are, though,” she says, her voice emotionless.

  At this point, nothing should surprise me.

  “Are you sure it’s me?”

  “Positive. You’re better at jubin’ than I am,” she says. “For now, anyway.”


  “Who are you?”

  She lies down in the grass, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Oh, I thought you knew. I’m Atti.”

  “Atti? No, no you’re not.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Your name is Atti? Like my grandmother? I don’t think so. That’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “It’s not a coincidence at all. I’m named after her,” she says evenly.

  I turn to this girl, who looks a lot like me except for her terrible taste in clothes and her hairdo. She’s got it in tiny plaits all over her head. It’s a look I’d gladly leave to Buckwheat, but somehow it looks cute on her.

  “Who named you that?” I ask, tryna sound calm and casual.

  She sits up on her elbows and gives me a confused look.

  “Wow. You really have no idea who I am. How are you calling me if you don’t know what’s going on?” she asks.

  “Can you just tell me please?”

  She sighs. “My mother. Violet. Your daughter.”

  Lord Jesus, can I ever just have a regular, boring day? Just one? And—HEY! Why the hell didn’t she name that kid after me? What a bitch!

  “I have a daughter. Named Violet. Great,” I say.

  “I’m startin’ to get why you don’t know this stuff. You look like you’re about my age right now. So this is all still far off for you,” she reasons.

  “Why didn’t I call her? My… daughter? If I’m doin’ all this callin’?” I ask.

  Atti snorts. “Yeah. You and Mom don’t get along so well, so that part makes perfect sense to me.”

  So sometime in the future I will give birth to a girl, and we won’t get along. Figures.

  “If you don’t know why you called me,” Atti begins, “why don’t you tell me what it is you want, and then I can tell you if there’s any way I can help with that?”

  I frown at her. “I just want me and the people I love to be safe. That’s all,” I say.

  She stares at me. Does she have any idea what I’m talking about?

  “What if you woke up tomorrow, and all of you were under a safe dome.”

  “A what?”

  “Safe dome. It’s like a big half globe that would protect you all from anything dangerous. Let’s say the dome covers every house in your neighborhood. You just have to get all your loved ones there. You’d have plenty of oxygen, water, and enough to eat. You’d no longer be in any danger. But you’d have to stay under it for the rest of your lives. Would you be happy with that?”

  This girl is so weird.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cuz! We need to be able to interact with all kinds a people, to go to work, and go to school. We could never have a normal life if we lived like that.”

  “But! You’d be safe. And you said that’s all you want,” she points out.

  “Are you tryna confuse me?” I ask her.

  “No! I’m trying to find out what you REALLY want.”

  “Well, I do really want us to be safe, but not the way you suggested.”

  “So what you want has qualifications?”

  This girl is exasperating! “Well, maybe—”

  “Like what, specifically?”

  “I don’t know! I—”

  “Sure you do! You know you don’t wanna live in a safe dome, so what’s the opposite of that?”

  “WILL YOU SHUT UP?” I scream. I did not intend to snap like that, but she is drivin’ me outta my mind. Goddamn, I hope I don’t have to babysit her!

  She doesn’t seem shaken or upset that I yelled at her. In fact, she smirks.

  “Wow. You’re kinda impatient, aren’t you?” she asks.

  I tighten my lips and stare down at the street again. The next person to call me impatient is gonna regret it.

  “You’ll be different later. After I’m born. The contrast is mind-blowing.”

  “I’m glad this is entertaining for you.”

  Her smirk morphs into a quizzical expression.

  “What if you’re scared of the thing you really want?”

  “That makes no sense to me.”

  “Miss Corinthia told you to save lives, and if you can’t—”

  “I know what she said.”

  “Maybe deep down, you wanna do more than protect. What if you wanna also… destroy?”

  I don’t like this. I don’t like what she’s saying to me. I don’t like what she’s making me think and feel. She’s crazy. I’m a good person, mostly. I just want my life to go back to normal. Before I knew anything about Virgil and before I was dangerous.

  “Wow. That shut you up quick.”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to respect your elders?”

  “Right now you’re the same age as me.”

  “Right now isn’t real.”

  “Who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t?” Atti squints into the distance.

  Next to us, a patch of grass ignites into flames for no reason. It burns with the steadiness of a fire in a wood stove.

  “Do I have any sons?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head. “Two girls.”

  “Two? What’s the other one’s name?”

  “Indigo.”

  After Mama. Oh no. Is Mama already—gone?

  “Did—did you ever meet your great-grandmother?”

  She spins around to face me, suddenly angry.

  “Why are you asking these questions? None of these things matter!”

  I’m so caught off guard by her reaction, I don’t know how to respond. At the same time, I don’t feel like I asked anything inappropriate, so I will not apologize.

  Then she surprises me yet again. She flashes me the sweetest smile.

  “I think I understand. Family, loved ones. Your people mean everything to you. You called me because you don’t want to go through it alone. You need someone with you,” my future granddaughter informs me.

  I’m tired. I think this Atti girl is makin’ me tired.

  “Go through what?”

  Her smile fades. “What’s coming.”

  I close my eyes, wishing I could ferry myself away from her and this strange place. Unfortunately, that’s not a skill I have.

  “What about the others I’ve seen you with?” I ask her.

  “Oh. They’re different,” she says. She sits up, glancing around, wide-eyed and nervous. “They’re not of this world anymore. They scare me,” she admits. “They want us to be like them.”

  “Like them how?” I ask.

  “Dead.”

  I turn back to the street below. So much life down there. They have no idea of the terrors livin’ in the air that they breathe daily. I’m tired of thinking, feeling, sensing, and anything else that ends with an “ing.”

  “You look sleepy.”

  I shrug.

  “Why don’t you take a nap?” she asks me.

  “Here?”

  “Yeah, why not? I promise to stay awake and keep watch over you. I promise I’ll stay with you when it gets bad, even though you might not be able to see me.”

  Without intending to, I start to lie back, the sun of this beautiful day shinin’ down on me, but it’s not too hot and it’s not too bright. The fire beside us calms me with its crackling.

  “Why is that there?” I ask her, referring to the fire.

  “Don’t worry about that now. It’s just a figment. When you’re putting the pieces together, some are gonna be out of order,” she explains.

  “I don’t think I can sleep out here,” I say, though my eyes are getting heavy.

  “You can. This might relax you,” she says, and she holds up the little box her white wires were attached to so I can see it. It has a little tiny screen! Like a baby TV set! It’s so cute! She taps the screen, and I see stars and planets. This is a show about the universe, and she has it trapped in this tiny box. A man’s soothing voice speaks to us. “A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That’s where we live. That’s home,” he says. I’m both overjoyed an
d disheartened, because I’d love to watch this show, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find it on our regular big fat TV at home.

  She’s right about it relaxing me. Though I’d like to see the whole program, after only a few minutes, my eyes close, and I fall into a deep sleep with my future granddaughter watching over me.

  26 Clear

  “EVVIE, WHERE YOU GOIN’?” CORALENE asks. She keeps hoppin’ around on one foot.

  “Movies. Like I said the other three times you asked.”

  She hops in a circle. Doralene stares at Beany and Cecil on the TV, oblivious to everything around her. Coralene hops directly in her view a few times, and Doralene just leans over until she can see again, ignorin’ her.

  “But you went to the movies last week,” Coralene protests.

  “That is true. And now I’m goin’ again.”

  “Why can’t we come?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “Because you’re too little.”

  “It’s not fair. You get to go wherever you want alla time, and I ain’t never been to no movies!”

  “Gotta wait till you’re older,” I mutter, and check the clock. I thought Mama woulda been home by now. If she ain’t here when Clay comes, I won’t be goin’ anywhere.

  Coralene crosses her arms and tries to stomp with her hoppin’ foot. She loses her balance and topples over and it’s hilarious, but I don’t laugh. Her face instantly scrunches up like she’s about to wail, but then she just sticks out her bottom lip and stays on the floor.

  “Ain’t fair,” she whines.

  I wanna tease her; she’s funny and cute right now, but something stops me. As she mumbles to herself about never getting to go anyplace fun, she grabs a headless doll from the floor. She takes one look at it and slams it back on the floor. This doll once had a head. Until Virgil pilfered it during his late-night visit.

  Doralene’s had nightmares about him. Coralene just looked at that doll with a rage in her eyes I’ve never seen. He’s crept into our lives, and that is unforgivable. I clutch my sankofa necklace. This cannot continue.

  I’m lost in thought when I hear the screen door in back swing open and slam shut.

  “Hey, y’all. Sorry it took me so long. Sister Greta,” Mama grumbles, setting her purse down and kickin’ off her shoes. From time to time, Mama volunteers at the church on Saturday evenings, preparin’ meals for the old and sick or settin’ up if there’s to be an event on Sunday, like communion or somethin’. One a the folks that she volunteers with, Sister Greta, practically lives at the church and is never short on words. Mama’s so polite, she just lets the woman talk without interrupting her, but if you never interrupt Sister Greta, you could wind up stuck with her for all of eternity.