by Eden Royce
“Jay sounds like a lawn mower that ran over a penny.” I laughed so hard at my own joke I almost woke my brother up. I could have sworn the edges of Dinah’s mouth curled up.
I tucked her in next to me, her hair tickling my chin, and fell asleep still smiling, knowing that if I studied hard, one day I’d not only be a rootworker, I’d be an artist.
10
When me and Jay got up on Saturday, we shoveled hot Cream of Rice cereal into our mouths, then huffed and puffed to cool it down as the steaming grain burned our tongues. Doc sat at the table calm as can be, sipping on his coffee. Mama, though, was bustling about the kitchen, packing and repacking her items for the market. I had a feeling she had something on her mind about our training today. But the only thing she said when we got up from the table was “Listen to your uncle. And come home when you need to.”
We both shouted that we would, as I grabbed my notebook and two new pencils, ready to write down everything.
“I see you all are eager to get started today. C’mon, both of you.” Doc stood. “Down to the cabin.”
As we walked across the dirt, tufted with dark green grass, Doc lifted his straw hat and wiped his brow with his fingertip towel. “Whew! It’s a hot one, ain’t it? But it’s perfect weather for your first real rootwork lesson. Now that you know a bit of the truth about the family magic.”
Me and Jay exchanged looks, excited and a little scared at the same time. We scurried after our uncle to the cabin so we wouldn’t miss a word.
“You two grew up around me working root—laying tricks, mixing up potions and powders, picking out plants and such. But now you know there’s more to it.” Doc opened the cabin door and we followed him inside. “Some of it will be fun, some of it will make you nervous, some of it you won’t like at all. But all of it you need to know.” Doc clapped his hands. “And we’re gonna start with some warnings about what you’re gonna learn.”
Jay’s eyes glinted at the mention of warnings. I knew he was hoping to do something dangerous, like learn to throw a ball of fire at someone. I didn’t think that was something Doc could actually do, but a few days ago I didn’t believe spirits could come back from the beyond and talk to us, so what did I really know?
“When you start working with conjure—root is a type of conjure magic—you’re opening yourself up to a part of the world most folks don’t have access to. But: it also opens up that part of the world to you. Haints and spirits and all manner of things from the stories your gran told. And many of them—most of them—ain’t friendly.”
Doc reached up on a high shelf to grab something; as he did, he nudged aside the box I saw there on our first rootwork lesson, the one that had been full of Devil’s Shoestrings. The vines that me and Jay now wore.
“And that can mean trouble,” Doc continued. “Which is why you have to learn to protect yourself first before you can help anyone else.”
Jay said, “You mean, like, fighting them? Are you going to teach us to use weapons?”
“No,” Doc said. “You can find somebody else to show you how to fight. That’s never been my thing. Besides, you can hit or stab at a haint all you want, but that won’t kill it or stop it from coming after you.”
Jay huffed at that.
Doc must have noticed, because he said, “I already told you both why we had to paint the house blue, and showed you how to lay graveyard dirt to deter spirits.” I noticed he was trying not to grin when he said, “Suppose you forget to gather the dirt, and an evil ghost or a hag has chased you inside a cabin that hasn’t been painted to keep them away. It’s threatening to knock down the door and come inside after you. What do you do then?”
I shook my head while Jay shrugged.
Doc leaned back on his worktable. “Give up?”
We nodded.
“Want me to tell you?” he teased.
“Yes!” I had my pencil ready to write it all down.
“Lay a broom inside the door. Before a hag can come after you, they’ll have to count each piece of straw in that broom. Or put down a line of salt, and it will have to count each and every grain. By then, the sun should be coming up, and the hag will have to leave or get burned up by the daylight.”
Me and Jay followed Doc around the cabin like little ducks while he told us more ways to get rid of ghosts and monsters. I was writing so much in my notebook, I wondered if Mama would have to get me another one. Jay, though, wasn’t so impressed. He didn’t write anything down because he said he trusted his brain. He tiptoed and looked out of the window of Doc’s cabin. “I didn’t think learning root was going to be so boring.”
Doc crossed his arms. “This might seem like a lot to know, but you’ll be glad you did when a haint arrives. And they will. Your gran crossed some mighty high water to come see you. So you can see the spirit world is connected with ours. Other spirits besides your gran might be able to make the trip to this side too. You have to be careful now. You both do.”
“We can’t just ignore the bad ones?” I thought about how I was going to try to deal with Lettie and her friends from now on.
Doc placed his unlit pipe between his teeth. “Being a rootworker or witch doctor means you have to make some hard choices from time to time. Like a lot of things in life, you have to take the good with the bad. You can’t only learn the fun, easy things. Tough things happen, and you need to know that they’ll happen so you’re prepared to make those hard choices.”
“What kinda choices?” Jay looked worried.
Doc fixed me with a look, then Jay. “I knew we’d get to this point, but I didn’t think it would be this early. Come on with me.”
He got up and headed out of the cabin and down to a cluster of trees whose thick branches touched and tangled together to make a dense overhang. It was much cooler here, and so much darker under the trees that it didn’t look like daytime anymore.
“I know you love animals, Jez, so you might not care for this bit of knowledge.” As Doc crouched down by a little wooden cage, I tensed up, and he noticed. “Remember: Take the good with the bad. Sometimes the best way to get rid of a threat is to kill it off. Other times, we need to kill things for ingredients to use in our protective magic.”
I threw a look at Jay, but he wasn’t bothered like I was. For the first time today, he looked really interested. I turned away, back to Doc.
“Luck potions are my most popular,” Doc said. He gently took a bat out of the little wooden cage. The creature flapped and struggled, but Doc held it fast and made a little cut on its back with a penknife.
“You’re hurting it!” I cried.
He shushed me while he worked carefully. “Most rootworkers will kill a bat outright. Cut out its heart to make a batch of luck potion.” Doc collected some of the bat’s blood in a little bottle. “I don’t do that, because it’s hard enough catching bats. No reason to reduce their numbers.”
“Blood is enough?” Jay asked.
“Yes.” Doc put a little salve on the bat’s cut and let it go. It flew up into the blue sky, then faded from sight like a shadow. He took a different bottle out of his bag and showed it to us. “This is what the potion will look like when it’s finished. Soon I’ll show you all the ingredients and techniques you’ll need to finish it.”
Jay took it and pulled open the cork. He sniffed it. “I need some luck tomorrow. I’m playing baseball with Larry and them,” he said. Then he tilted the potion up and took a drink.
“No, wait! That’s not for drinking—”
Doc tried to grab his arm, but it was too late. Jay had already downed almost half of the bottle. His eyes got huge. Then he coughed. “Ugh, that tastes stink!”
“You weren’t supposed to drink it, Jay! You sprinkle it on yourself. Like cologne.” Doc was trying not to laugh. So was I.
Jay coughed and hacked and wheezed while he wiped his tongue on the hem of his shirt. “Why you laughing? I’m probably gonna die.”
“No, you won’t. Brush your teeth when we get h
ome and you’ll be fine.” Doc took the bottle and shoved the cork back in it and put it back in his bag. “Love potions are made the same way, except you use a dove instead of a bat.”
“That’s awful,” I said. “With all the roots and flowers and herbs around, why do you still have to use animals in some of these spells?”
Doc kneeled down next to me. “Animal sacrifice is a part of root, Jez. Always has been. We are thankful for their life because it helps preserve ours.”
I stuck my lip out. “You’re thankful, but you still take it.”
Slowly, Doc nodded. “Yes.”
“Aw, come on, Jez,” Jay said. “It’s just a bat. You don’t like them anyway.”
“That’s not the point.” I crossed my arms. “I wouldn’t hurt a bat any sooner than I would a dove.”
“Or a cat?” Doc asked.
“Is there a spell that uses cats?” I was going to be sick to my stomach.
Doc nodded. “The bones from a black cat are powerful.”
“I won’t do that one. Ever, ever! Even for magic.” I felt tears welling up inside me. “Why can’t you use something from the cat, but not hurt it and let it go after? Like, the fur, instead of bones? Mama does substitutions for recipes all the time.” I couldn’t stop myself from talking. All I could think about was what happened at the marsh. How powerless I felt compared to such a strong force. I imagined that was how the animals felt.
“Is that why Mama doesn’t do root?” I asked. “Because she doesn’t like killing animals?”
Jay elbowed me. “Mama’s killed chickens and all kinds of fish and stuff to cook before. And I bet she would kill any anything if it tried to hurt her or one of us.”
He was right. I hadn’t thought about food.
“You ever done it?” Jay asked Doc. “Killed an animal for a spell?”
“Yes, I have,” Doc said, his voice serious. “I caught the animal, gave thanks for it, and I killed it as quickly as possible.”
My mouth dropped open. “Gran too?” I asked.
“Yes, your gran too. She’s the one who showed me how to do it.”
“Is this why people think root is wrong?” I asked Doc. I was starting to wonder if this was really something I wanted to learn to do.
“Maybe. But lots of those people kill also. They stomp on bugs. They destroy trees because they’re growing in an undesirable place. They kill animals because their numbers are too large. But they don’t give thanks before they do.” Doc shook his head sadly. “Some people take and never give back. Taking and not giving back isn’t good, especially not for a rootworker. We are supposed to help care for the land around us.”
Jay tapped his cheek like he was thinking. “Suppose someone gives things to you? Like when people brought bushels of crabs and dishes of cooked food to the house when Gran died?”
Doc nodded. “Exactly right. That’s not taking. That’s people caring for others—by giving freely.”
It was a tradition people had on the island, to bring cooked food to people who had lost a family member as a way to ease their burden during a difficult time. I patted Dinah where she lay in my pocket. Learning rootwork was a way of honoring Gran. I would learn it too, and I would take the good with the bad.
But I still couldn’t let go of the idea. “Isn’t there another way to work those types of spells besides using things from animals?”
“If there is, I’m betting you’ll be the one to find it, Jezebel.” Doc looked up from his bag of roots and leaves. “Well, that’s enough for today. It’s almost time for your lunch.”
“Aw, I thought we were gonna learn root all day.”
“Yeah,” I chimed in. “Mama isn’t home waiting for us.”
“You kids gotta do something else because I need to make some potions this afternoon. I gave you a lot to think about already today, I don’t want to confuse you two with a lot more ingredients and instructions.”
“Oh, we won’t be confused! I wrote everything down in my notebook, even the stuff about the animals, so I can keep it all organized,” I said. “Besides, I already have some of the potion names here.” I read out the list I’d made, of all the labels on the bottles on Doc’s shelves.
“Well, excuse me.” Doc whistled. “I am impressed. Okay then. We’ll go inside and have some lunch, then spend the afternoon learning about some more of my best-selling potions. Maybe you can even help me mix some. It’ll help me get my stock back up faster, because I tend to sell out of them real quick.”
11
The whole month of October flew by like a hawk chasing after a marsh rabbit.
So much was happening that I could hardly keep up with it. My very first root spell—the bag that I’d hidden, a wish for a friend—seemed to have finally kicked in, because Susie and I were hanging out every day at lunch and walking home from school together most days. Well, we left school together, but she and I separated at the top of the road that led to our house. She never actually came down the road with me. One time, I asked if she wanted to come over. She paused, like she wanted to say no but also didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, and I definitely didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I didn’t ask her again. Maybe the spell would take a little longer than I thought.
At the same time, Miss Watson was giving me more homework than I’d ever had before, and it took me so long to get through it. Once Mama had seen how much I had, she insisted I do it immediately after school, and so Doc moved rootwork lessons to after dinner. Since then, me and Jay almost never walked home from school together; he didn’t have nearly as much homework to do, and he had more friends than he knew what to do with.
To tell the truth, I started to miss him. We used to do everything together, talk about everything. Now it seemed he had friends and sports and games, all these things that didn’t include me. When I told Dinah about it, after Jay had started snoring, her little red stitched mouth wobbled, but she didn’t do anything except lay her tiny cloth hand on my arm.
Was this something I should have known would happen? How could we stay close when we were in different classes and he was so interested in things that had nothing to do with me? Jay loved the plane Mama and Doc gave him for his birthday and kept it in a special place in our room. He even talked about being a pilot one day. I wasn’t sure I even knew my brother that well anymore. Not long after October started, he took his bracelet apart and stuffed a few of the Devil’s Shoestrings into a small felt bag that he wore around his neck. I asked him what else was in the bag, but he wouldn’t tell me. He said Doc told him that if he revealed what was in it, it would make the root bag worthless. I just nodded, feeling more alone than ever.
And I never went out to the marsh anymore. I didn’t want to, not without Jay, even though I missed it. The rustle of cordgrass calmed me. I loved ebb tide, when the pluff mud bubbled, and flood tide, when the waters lapped gently against the shore. And now that I wore my bracelet for protection, I felt safer than I had before. I also carried a pouch of the graveyard dirt mixed with powdered brick dust from Doc. I didn’t sprinkle it on anything, but I had it in case I needed to.
Before I knew it, November had rolled around, and that first Saturday, Doc set me and Jay to work making simple oils for him to sell in his shop. He said that Boss Fix, Steady Work, and Fast Luck oils were the most popular ones this time of year—he almost couldn’t keep them stocked. When Mama got home from the market, she watched us measure, mix, and smell the oils, then make labels for each one of them. Jay was better at drawing the pictures and I was better at the handwriting, making the letters clear and even on the paper. Mama looked at the row of clear glass bottles lined up on the kitchen worktable.
“Hmph,” she said. “People shouldn’t place all their hopes on these rubs and things. Maybe if they read about King Solomon in the Bible instead of using that oil with his name, they’d be better off.”
I looked at her strangely while Jay went to grab some book. Probably to look up what King S
olomon oil was for. I wanted to remind him that King Solomon was the one who was wise enough to get the stolen-baby fight worked out. Before I could ask Mama how she knew what that oil was for, she guessed my question.
“Just because I don’t practice root doesn’t mean I don’t know a little something about what y’all are doing. Your gran was my mama too, you know.” She pressed her fingers to her back and groaned like she was holding something heavy and somebody had just told her to keep it five more minutes. “Get on with it now.”
She sashayed out of the kitchen, and a moment later, I heard her in her bedroom, humming “One Fine Day” by the Chiffons along with the radio and sweeping the floor. I moved on with my work, crushing up some cinnamon with a rolling pin, then tiptoeing to put all my weight on it so that it would turn into a powder. I scraped up most of it with my fingers into a little scoop Doc had given me and poured about a teaspoonful into each jar of oil in front of me. The leftover powder covered my fingers and part of the back of my hand. The cinnamon was the same color as me, so I pressed my fingers into it and spread some of the powder onto my face, like Mama did with her makeup when she went to church.
I looked into the side of one of her shiniest pans to see what I looked like, but I only saw a blur. Once the potions were finished, I would go to the mirror and look at myself properly.
Jay came in from washing more bottles and placed the box of empties on the table next to where I was working. “You making Follow Me Boy oil?”
I nodded.
“Smell like cinnamon in here,” he said, sniffing. He sniffed the table, then the bottles, then he came close to me. “You smell like it too. What’s that on your face?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Mama won’t let you wear no makeup. You too young.”
“It isn’t— Ugh!” Before I could deny I was wearing makeup again, Jay had sniffed my face, then licked my cheek from my chin to my ear. It was like being licked by a happy dog, but one that smelled like peanuts. I pushed him off me. “What are you doing?”