He took a deep breath before he disappeared below the surface. Sound became muffled, bubbles bursting and water rushing into his every space. His eyes were squeezed shut. He opened them and it made no difference. Everything was black and maybe that was a good thing.
He kicked his legs and shot forward. Forward and forward, legs and arms and breath. All of the things that the river seemed to be taking from him, pushing against him as he swam through its flow, but not letting it carry him. Samuel had told him that they would be safe on other shores. Isaiah didn’t know for sure. There was what he was told and what he felt in his core, but he wasn’t sure which could be trusted. He had no way to measure, no sign to read, no mother and no father to correct him because they had already erred and could assure him that all the traps had already been tripped so it was safe to gallivant in that other direction. There was, however, a thing in the center of him that said, Better than where you are. So he swam underneath, almost like he was beneath the world itself, and he wondered if he would ever make it back on top.
He saw something flash in waters too dark to see in. Quick, fleeting things that looked like watchful eyes. He told himself that those were products of his exhaustion. His limbs had weakened, and it didn’t at all matter how many piles of hay and shit he had shoveled that allowed his biceps to swell and caused toubab to think that there wasn’t any load he couldn’t carry. Confused sometimes, he had taken such regard as a measure of his strength: the more he could take, the stronger it made him feel. Then he realized that he, the cow, the horse, and the hogs—even the chickens—served the same purpose.
His head came up and there was the night sky in all of its stardom and finally, before nearly giving up, there was suddenly ground beneath his feet.
He dragged himself on hands and knees across the muddy bank of driftwood and moss. Then he turned over and lay flat on his back, panting into the murky place he was now in. Some of the rocks he lay upon cut into him. He knew that he didn’t have much time. Instinct told him to run, but his legs disobeyed the summoning. He sat up. He tried to avoid looking across the river, back toward what he had escaped. He knew that he wouldn’t hear his dream: Samuel in the river, taking massive strokes, head beneath and then above the water, getting closer and closer until finally reaching dry land and collapsing into his embrace, free.
But he looked anyway and he could see the flames burning in the night and the figures at war. And from so far away, he couldn’t master his eyes enough to search for the shape of the nightness he knew better than his own.
There was no sign of Samuel in the water, but across the river, nearer to the Big House, rocking from the hated tree, head cocked to the side as though curious, lit up like a lantern, there was somebody. He would have been surer of the form before the fire began to ravage it. But who else could it be?
He vomited, and the river wasted no time in lapping up his offering and dragging it off to sea. Isaiah tried to stand, but fell to his knees. He stared at the fire. He imagined he had a part in it, too. Living in the world as designed by toubab had given that gift to him: regret and, with his left hand, pointing a finger at his own chest when there were plenty remaining to point elsewhere. Circling his head was his present: he could have left Timothy’s calls unanswered, recoiled from his touch, refused to remove his britches, and refrained from stroking himself to life. What if he had failed to lean into him, push a laugh loose, gaze too long into his eyes like he might have, by chance, found something there? Worse, he had almost let out a sigh, and there was no doubt that he enjoyed the softness of the bed. Was survival worth this? Was Samuel right to think it treason?
During the betrayal times Isaiah had pushed the thoughts away from him, into the corners of Timothy’s room, behind triple-stacked canvases, where they remained like things you never wanted people to see. He didn’t look into any of the mirrors, which helped. For he knew now that these were cowardly acts as good as any noose. Samuel had told him before that he would have to risk something and stop trading body for comfort. Wounded, Isaiah wanted to tell him to think of cotton to see how some comforts can draw blood.
He had to go. They would be coming for him soon. They would cross the river on a raft or perhaps a small boat. They would bring the hounds and weapons of death whose noises would echo into forever. They would come and try to extract from him all he had to give even though everything he had wasn’t enough to fill a palm. His knowledge no bigger than a stone.
He looked at the stars. Maybe those flashing eyes at the bottom of the river were just a reflection of the sky brought low. That would explain why people drowned, being unable to determine up from down because they looked the same. But there was still the sense that they weren’t just eyes, but they were watching. Stars don’t do that.
Isaiah exhaled. He wondered what he and Samuel could have been, would have been, if they hadn’t come of age in chains. There was no need for tears. Not when the feelings were still fresh and tucked inside his folds, moist and safe beneath the foreskin, accessible by memory and caress. This could only be destroyed if he, too, was destroyed. And even then, the destruction would only serve to bring them closer, hand in hand in that next place, wherever it was, where his parents and theirs found permanent escape from the people whose bodies were covered with nothing. Not Heaven, certainly not that dreadful place. But somewhere else, where the first songs could be sung without interruption.
Swam the whole way underwater, only coming up for gulps of air when his lungs threatened to burst. He saw not stars, he figured, but people down there: faces in the mud, smiling or maybe screaming, hands joined in a circle, feet tapping to the rhythm of the river’s ebb. He recognized them, but didn’t know them.
“Women in the water. They defend you,” Maggie had once told them at the river’s edge, looking at the unmoving forest on the other side.
“Don’t know what you mean, ma’am,” Isaiah said.
She smiled. “They black.” She laughed and slapped her knee. “Well, of course they black.”
Samuel wasn’t paying much attention. He seemed lost in his own mind, fist tightening, mouth pressing. Isaiah, on the other hand, was listening intently, but he was still confused. Maggie thought she had cleared up his confusion by saying, “No, not women in the water. Women is the water.”
Had she somehow seen? Did she somehow know? Wordlessly and in the mind, and thought to offer up the only protection she could give for their journey? An invocation ancient as the water itself? Was that what Sarah was teaching him by the river that afternoon?
He knelt there in the muddiness, the river’s rush drowning out most other sounds. He prepared to get up and make his way into the forest behind him. But a hand grabbed his ankle.
How did they creep up on him so soundless? Had he been so distracted that he’d become willing prey? Bless his contemplating heart.
He didn’t have the strength to fight none of them now—not James, Jonathan, Zeke, Malachi, none of them. He let his breath come as it might and didn’t even try to kick them off. He remained there on his knees hoping that they would kill him before they dragged him back across the river. He closed his eyes and awaited the bullet to his face.
Then a familiar voice panted his name.
“’Zay!”
He opened his eyes and was sure that he was dreaming.
“Samuel?” Isaiah’s eyes opened wide as he saw Samuel standing before him, dripping wet.
Samuel smiled. “Here,” he said.
Isaiah jumped up and squeezed him as though he were trying to be one part of him. He shook his head. He looked at him and touched him all over his face with both hands, searching for the truth of things, using his fingers to confirm belief.
“Man, what you doing? You gon’ poke my eye out!”
“I beg your pardon.” Isaiah gasped between sobs. “You here.”
“I told you I be right behind.”
&n
bsp; Isaiah grabbed him again and held on to him.
“You hate me?”
Samuel pulled his head back and looked Isaiah square in the eyes. “Hate you? Man, after all this you ask me such a fool question?”
They held on. Samuel kissed Isaiah’s ear. “I gotta go,” he whispered.
“What you say?” Isaiah looked at Samuel, not sure he had heard what he did over the water’s rush.
“We gotta go.”
Isaiah nodded, squeezed both of Samuel’s hands in both of his. They released each other and headed into the forest.
There was no trail to follow. The bush was overgrown and took up all space, uninterrupted as it was by human hands. There was no break in the canopy, not a single bit of starlight could penetrate the dense woods. Isaiah and Samuel broke their way in, moving as swiftly as they could as tired as they were, tearing at branches and vines, stepping on rocks and worms. The hissing of snakes caused them to pick up their pace. They listened for the owls; that would give them some inkling of direction until they could once again see sky.
After what seemed like hours of breaking, falling, pushing, and stepping, they came to a clearing. The ground was soft and wet beneath them and the air was heavy with the scent of cedar. Animals were howling and mosquitoes whizzed about. Leaves rustled in the breeze and an owl hooted. With the night sky once again exposed, Isaiah and Samuel could see the outlines of each other, which was enough. They stood there facing each other, ebony and midnight blue in the faint light of the moon and stars. Their breath came hard and their chests heaved in unison. They were too tired, scared, and hungry to smile, but their lips curled in that direction anyway.
“You think we far enough in?” Isaiah exhaled.
“I don’t know, but I gotta rest. Just a minute.”
Samuel lay against a sycamore tree whose trunk was covered with moss.
“They say moss grows on the north side of trees,” he said softly.
“So then we should head that-a-way,” Isaiah said, pointing to the other side of the clearing.
Samuel didn’t reply. He just breathed in deeply and exhaled for a long time. Almost too long. His breath became labored. Isaiah came over to the tree, stood in front of Samuel, and leaned in.
“You all right?”
Samuel smiled between heavy breaths. “Think so. Just tired. Thirsty. Hungry, too.”
Isaiah sniffed around for anything edible. He couldn’t find chicory, cattail, or clovers, but he did find some fireweed, its bright color making it a little easier to spot. He walked quickly back over to the sycamore tree.
“This was all I could find for now, but when day breaks I can find something else . . .”
Samuel was curled up on the ground.
“Sam!”
Isaiah knelt over him. Samuel’s face was tight. He squeezed his eyes and a little light grazed his cheek.
“I feel funny,” Samuel said as he tried, with Isaiah’s help, to stand, sliding across the surface of the tree, landing at its roots again, halting his fall with an outstretched arm. “Something ain’t right,” he said as he began to rub his hands across his chest and on his forearms. “I don’t feel right.”
“You sick?” Isaiah asked, grabbing at the same areas. Samuel felt hot.
“No!” Samuel shouted suddenly. He pulled himself up and leaned his back against the tree. “Don’t touch there. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“You scaring me. Tell me what’s wrong!”
Samuel’s eyes opened wide. They began to glow like lamplight. At the edges of his body, a halo orange as a sunset and red at the rim appeared. His breathing changed from quick panicked spurts to a labored rattling. His glowing lit up the night. Isaiah stumbled backward. He hit the ground as though he were pushed by something. In the night around them, Isaiah could see what looked like faces, so many faces. Some of them his.
The light grew brighter and brighter and Samuel screamed.
“KAYODE!”
The name spun and echoed, sped by Isaiah, and left a burn streak across his chest, marking him. He put his hand there. He looked down at the scar, then back to see Samuel reaching his hand out to him. Isaiah crawled forward, pressing against the invisible thing pushing him in the other direction. Closer, closer, humming, from everywhere, humming, like voices, five? Six? No! More! A proper circle. He heard it. Pushing, pressing, away, away. And Samuel right there. Isaiah getting closer. Almost. Their fingers trembled and nearly touched. Then it was too late.
The last sound was fluttering. Samuel burst into fireflies. Or was it embers? On his knees, shaking his head, mouth open and quivering, with his eyes still dazed from the light, it was hard for Isaiah to tell.
The tiny bits of light that were once Samuel, maybe still Samuel, swirled upward, into the night, with no regard for who or what they were leaving behind, blinking, twinkling.
“No!” Isaiah yelled and tried to catch them, but they floated in the air, too high to reach. And soon, they disappeared into the darkness. Isaiah stopped. He fell face forward to the ground. Slowly, he turned on his back. He closed his eyes and it was, he thought, as if a light rain had fallen on him, dew trembling at his tips. He opened his eyes. I witless, he thought, allowing himself, finally, to be calmed by his own slowing breath.
But he had touched Samuel’s face, so it couldn’t have been a dream. He had felt his breath, his wet skin, stared into his eyes and seen the virgin soil of them. It was real. Had to be. He looked at his own chest. Mark right there. But people don’t turn into fireflies, do they? He had seen eyes at the bottom of the river, his own face in a light. Dead, then. Maybe he, too, was dead.
His heart cracked. As each piece fell, it made it increasingly difficult for him to move. He couldn’t get up and he didn’t want to. He would wait right there for Paul and them. Whatever they decided to do with his hide was all right. However they decided to skin, stretch, and wear him was now destiny. So he sat there, trembling, weeping into the palms of his hands.
Then someone whispered a name.
He looked up and saw, in the north direction, a tiny orange light.
“You here?”
He got up and ran in the direction of the light, not looking back, not stopping. It could have been a piece of Samuel, lingering, drawn, sent to fetch him. Isaiah followed it, panting and reaching out for it. It led him deeper into the forest, where he stumbled over bumpy roots and felled branches, got up, and leaned on pecan trees whose fruit hadn’t yet husked. And still the light, like a tiny, dimming star, hovered, danced, and whispered a name. When it did, Isaiah lunged forward, allowed himself to be pulled along and led to the source of everything.
He leaped and bounded into patches of dirt, pieces of earth that seemed scorched and not yet reborn. It was hard to tell in the dark. He fell over and over again, scratching his legs on jagged rocks. But he kept going, running until his chest burned right where he was marked, and begged for all motion to cease. He collapsed onto his hands and knees at a place of great darkness. He looked behind him and it was as if the world had sealed itself off, a barrier never to be breached. All that was there was the speck of light he knew had to be Samuel, bouncing gently in the air, holding within itself the dawn.
He heard a sound coming from that place, too—a hissing, maybe a growling?—and thought that meeting his end by way of copperhead or cougar was unfair given the lashes he took from other animals; his back was proof. Besides, something else had already begun to eat him: desolation. No more Samuel. No Maggie. No Essie. No Sarah. No Puah. No Be Auntie. This was the purest damning. Even Amos’s company would do now, as long as he wore the name somewhere on him for Isaiah to see.
Deadly thing this kind of solitude. When unwanted, it was a tingling, then a burn. At least that was what it felt like to Isaiah, starting right at the gash on his chest. It was growing, spreading like fingers that might at any moment become a
fist or curl in an attempt to choke. He knew that the pain would become harder and harder to bear. And he knew that it would always be with him, whether he was alive or dead. This was the burden of the soft ones: to suffer in all but silence because the whimpering that slipped through the lips was inevitable. Samuel must have been right. Surely, he cussed the heart that knew not how to protect itself from the rift. For shame.
There was nothing else to do, then, but wait. In those last moments, the least Isaiah could do was honor Samuel by giving stone a try. It wouldn’t be long. Just time enough to receive his blessing though no one was there to see it. He looked ahead to face it, whatever it was, in the same manner he was sure Samuel faced it: eyes open. The darkness before him wasn’t still. It convulsed like a living thing with seven tentacles, attached to figures maybe, twin darknesses. Holding sticks. Voices that sounded more like pebbles than humans. He had no choice. He reached out to them, fingers unsteady in the moist air, and felt something touch him. He jerked away and then, in the following quiet, reached his hand out again. Whatever it was, it was smooth, silky, familiar. He crawled toward it, plunging his hand in farther and farther.
“That you, Samuel?”
Finally, something caressed him. Not just caressed him, but coiled itself around his arm and pulled. He screamed, finally, the one word he could never utter.
Then, to his surprise, in ululation, the darkness screamed it back.
New Covenant
You know who we are now.
So now you know who you are.
We are seven and we do not absolve ourselves of blame.
So you must not absolve yourself of it either, blameless though you think you are.
The Prophets Page 36