by Eden Royce
A wind blew up off the marsh, bringing its dark, muddy scent. It also brought the memory of the haint in the marsh that tried to steal my power. When I floated up and out of my body that first time, I understood what Doc had been telling me this entire time: Rootwork is a connection to my ancestors, my traditions, and my heritage. It is a practice I share with people from hundreds of years ago. I felt them around me, watching and supporting, waiting for me to call on them for guidance. Now I knew I could call on my ancestors for guidance at any time, even Gran. I didn’t need Dinah. It would be okay.
I got up and found Doc’s sewing kit and took out a pair of tiny scissors. With care, I snipped away the stitching that held on the hag skin. It came away easily, and I put it in my pocket. Then I gently replaced Dinah’s headwrap. Her smile was exactly the same as before I removed Susie’s skin. I gave her a squeeze.
Through the woods I walked, shining the light on the ground so I could avoid any traps that might be hidden. It made my progress slow, but finally, I got to the tree where Susie had left her skin that night. I ran my light back and forth, then down and up, only managing to irritate an owl. It blinked at me, then gave an unhappy hoot.
“Sorry,” I said, returning the light to the ground.
“Hi, Jezebel.”
I managed not to shout in surprise, but my heart beat like ten drums. “Susie!”
“Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to.” Her eyes looked black as Mama’s patent-leather pocketbook.
I eased the square of skin out of my pocket and held it out to her. It shimmered in the moonlight, turning all shades of blue, from indigo to haint blue and back again. “Here,” I said.
“You found it!” She took it gently and lifted the hem of her blouse. When she touched the skin to that empty space, it wobbled, then sealed itself right onto her side. I couldn’t even tell where the space had been only seconds before.
Tears flowed from her eyes and I felt mine start to burn too. “Thank you. I’m whole again, because of you.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome.”
The owl hooted again, making us both jump. We giggled, exactly as we did when we ran along the marsh, ate tomatoes out of the garden, and skipped rocks. Exactly as we did when we were friends.
“You are an amazing girl, Jezebel.”
I looked down at my feet, embarrassed at all her praise. When I raised my head an inch, something had changed. Her feet were no longer in shoes. And they were floating a tiny bit above the ground.
My head snapped up. “Susie?”
She stood in front of me, looking somehow the same but different. Her face and eyes looked older, less scared.
“I’m free now.” Susie looked at the night around her. “I can leave this place.”
Part of me was sad to hear it, but pride also swelled up in me. “Where will you go?”
“Wherever I want. I’m not bound anymore. Nothing was made to live like I did. I felt— It doesn’t matter. Maybe I . . . I might fly until I’m tired and see where I am. Then I’ll try to find my family.”
My smile was wide and real. I knew what it was like to fly. “Good luck, Susie.”
“Thank you again.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
Her face changed into something I couldn’t read. When she spoke, her voice sounded far away. “I wonder if you’d say that if you knew some of the things I’ve done.”
My blood turned cold. I didn’t want to ask, but the question slipped out anyway. “What did you do? Susie?”
She looked away and I remembered Jay saying, She’s a monster. She didn’t answer, but she said, “I consider you a friend, Jezebel Turner. I won’t forget what you did for me.”
The monster walked away, her feet no longer in buckled Mary Jane shoes, floating just above the dirt. In a few breaths, I couldn’t see her anymore. She faded into the distance and into the air of the marsh.
“Goodbye,” I said, sure she could hear me.
The monster.
My friend.
20
When I got to school, Miss Watson told us that Susie wouldn’t be returning because she and her family were moving out of the area. Then she went on with the lesson. I was so busy wondering if I was ever going to see Susie again, I didn’t hear Miss Watson call on me to answer a math question. She had to call my name twice more before I answered.
“Sorry, Miss,” I said, my face going hot at the laughter from the other kids in the class. I swung my feet, letting them hit the legs of my desk.
“Where were you, Jezebel?” she asked. She sounded annoyed.
“I’m here. Now.”
Giggles came from the class, and Miss Watson frowned. “That I can see. Where were you a moment ago?”
“Worrying—or, wondering,” I corrected myself. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, sharp as lemon juice. “Tell me the answer to the question.”
I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Eighteen?”
Miss Watson’s eyes rounded into two soup spoons. “That is correct.” She smiled, then turned back to the class and went on with the lesson.
I breathed out, knowing I was lucky for the answer coming to me so quickly. For a moment, I wondered if I had more things on my side than I knew about.
After school, a few boys asked Jay to walk with them. I told him he should go on ahead. Truth was I wanted to be by myself for a while. I didn’t know what to think about Susie. I didn’t know if Susie was evil or not. She’d said there were things she’d done that she couldn’t tell me. What could those things be? The memory of that sharp-toothed smile in the water, hearing that terrible voice echoing from the pond, made my stomach twist. Quick as lightning, I remembered the taste of that murky water as it went in my nose and mouth. There was no way Susie did anything like that. She’d admitted she never wanted to hurt me.
The whole time I was worrying about these things, I walked home slowly to the sounds of Jay and his friends tossing a ball and laughing fifty yards ahead of me. A chilly crosswind came up and I shivered, pulling my little jacket closer over my dress. From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadowy movement, a swift blur of beige, blue, and brown. When I looked, it was gone. After that, I clutched my books close, keeping my eyes on the road in front of me.
Both me and Jay were surprised when Mama came out of the house with her black leather Sunday pocketbook. She locked the door and scurried down the steps.
“Where are you going?” It was strange for Mama to be home at three thirty in the afternoon, right when we were getting home from school, and even stranger to see her leaving the house again. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw tears in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice sounded like she’d been crying. “Come on, kids. We’re all going to the church.”
Jay made a face. “Church? Ugh, do we have to? It ain’t even Sunday!”
I almost stumbled trying to catch up with Mama as she headed off at a high-stepping pace. “But we’re supposed to have root lessons. I—”
“Listen to your mother,” Doc said in his no-nonsense voice. He seemed to come out of nowhere, but I knew he had his own hiding places. “Today is not a day to talk back. There will be no root lessons today, but you’ll learn something all the same.”
“Are you coming too?” Jay’s face was slack, his eyes wide. He turned to me with a look that said, What is going on?
I shrugged and mouthed to him, I don’t know.
“We’re all going together as a family. Just like we did for your gran.” Doc cleared his throat, then placed a hat on his head and strode off after Mama. His legs ate up the distance, and he was soon next to her.
Oh no, I thought to myself. If we were going to the church and it wasn’t a Sunday, it was because someone else in our community had passed away. Jay came up close to me, his shoulder touching mine. It felt good to feel him next to me then.
“Who died?” I shouted after Mama and Doc, but they didn’t answer.
T
he church hall was so crowded we could barely get inside, and once we did, it was overheated with the crush of bodies. So many of the island’s people were there, crying and mourning. Even some of the girls from school who teased me were there. I tensed up, but they were with their own families, heads down, arms wrapped around themselves. Others looked lost and afraid as they watched their parents cry. Most didn’t see me. Those who did searched my face for answers to what was happening. I didn’t have any.
Lots of folding chairs were arranged in front of a TV screen, and I found an empty one for Mama at the end of a row, near a cracked-open window. I directed her there, then sat on the floor at her feet. Jay plopped down next to me. Doc stood next to her and yanked his hat off.
Me and Jay looked at each other, his face showing the same confusion that must have been on mine. We didn’t have a TV in our house; even so, we had never gone over to the church just to watch a TV program. What was going on?
Pastor Robertson turned the set on and adjusted the antennas to bring the picture in clearer. He turned a knob to make the sound louder. We all watched the newsman’s serious face as he took off his eyeglasses and looked directly at the screen. His voice boomed across the hall.
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is dead. A nation mourns as it has been confirmed that he was shot and killed as his motorcade passed through Dallas, Texas, today.
A wail went up from the people gathered. Cries erupted throughout the church hall. Weeping filled the close room. People leaned on each other for support.
At Gran’s funeral, Pastor Robertson had said President Kennedy had helped pass laws to make life better for many people, including Negroes. We had hope that the country would start to become a better place for us because of him. He was a powerful man who wanted to help. Now he was gone.
Mama cried silently, rocking back and forth in the creaky folding chair. “Not one more thing, Lord,” she whispered. “I can’t take one more thing right now, please.”
I hugged her leg and pressed my face to her knee. “It’s gonna be okay, Mama,” I said.
Jay lay his head in her lap without saying a word. We didn’t know everything this meant to the island or for Negroes or for the whole country, but Mama breaking down in front of people was something we’d never seen before. I felt helpless, like there was nothing I could do to fix anything.
One of the women of the church came over and hugged Mama. I thought she might try to pull away and straighten herself up, but she leaned into the older woman and cried.
“Mama?” I asked.
Doc kneeled down then and took me and Jay by the hand. “Come on, you two. We’re going on a little trip.”
“Where?” Jay asked.
“I need to stay with Mama,” I told him.
“She has support right now,” he said as he led us away, nodding to the older woman rocking Mama back and forth like a baby. “Come with me. I need a few things from the graveyard.”
When we stood there staring at him as he headed off, he called back over his shoulder to us. “Come on. I’m not telling your mother I left you here.”
We walked down to the church cemetery.
“Why is everybody so sad? None of those people knew that white man,” Jay said.
Doc let out a heavy sigh as he walked. Cooler air blew off the sea, surrounding us as we marched behind him. “It isn’t because we knew him like a friend or a family member, Jay. It’s the loss of a man who had tried to help our people. It’s the loss of an idea that one day we will finally be equal in this country.”
“And safe.”
“Yes, Jez, and safe,” he said. “Now I’m going to show you another way to help keep yourself safe. And since we don’t have anyone else to help us here, we have to help ourselves.”
The graveyard faced east, all the stones and markers laid out in a fan shape bordered with saw palmetto and evergreen trees. When we got there, Doc unwound the chain from the ironwork gates and pushed them open. They didn’t squeak at all. Jay elbowed me and I jumped, but managed not to yell out. I cut my eye at him something serious and he stopped. I realized he was scared. I grabbed his hand and we followed Doc.
There was no one else paying respects to the dead in the cemetery; all of that was going on inside the church. Even so, Doc said that people mostly didn’t come here unless it was a new grave, or a holiday, like Christmas, when the graves would get fresh red poinsettias, or Easter, when they would get white lilies.
Doc leaned over close to one of the headstones and whispered to it. Then he took out a small bottle and sprinkled the liquid over the grave.
“I haven’t showed you how to pay for graveyard dirt yet,” he said.
“You don’t just dig it up and take it?” Jay said, making a face.
“I told you before, that’s stealing.” Doc ignored our frowning faces. “When getting dirt from someone’s grave, you must be respectful and do it right. First, you have to ask permission to take some of the dirt. This is a person’s final resting place. You wouldn’t walk into someone’s house and take anything, would you?”
Me and Jay shook our heads.
“Well then. Once you do that, you give the person a gift. Best if you’re familiar with the person—then you’ll know what they like.” Doc pointed at the grave he sprinkled the liquid on. “That’s one of my friends I used to play cards with. He loved root beer.”
“Is that it?” Jay was unimpressed.
“There’s other ways to pay for graveyard dirt, but until you show you got a little bit more between your ears”—he poked a finger at each of our foreheads—“I’ll keep them to myself.”
I smiled and Jay pouted.
“Go fill those pouches and we’ll head on back.”
We filled pouches with the graveyard dirt and tied them up tight, putting them in Doc’s big bag. Doc said a prayer and instructed us to walk backward out of the graveyard because we didn’t want to bring any haints home with us. As we did, we thought we heard Mama talking.
Doc heard it too and put a finger to his lips to keep us quiet. We crept slowly closer, finally coming around a tall tree, and there we saw Mama sitting in front of a headstone. Gran’s headstone. She was talking, but we couldn’t see who she was talking to. When we tried to get closer to see better, Doc told us not to bother.
“She’s not talking with anyone on this side; she’s talking to your gran.”
I had never heard of Mama doing that with anyone else, especially not in a graveyard. Sometimes, we put flowers or dolls or other little gifts on the graves of people we knew, but we never stayed to talk. But here Mama was, sitting and talking to her mother. Since Gran’s spirit had come to wish us a happy birthday, I guess there was no reason Mama couldn’t visit her and spend time.
We heard Mama give a soft cry, then blow her nose. I started off toward her, but Doc put a hand on my arm and shook his head. “Let her be. We’ll go home now. If she wants to talk to us, she will.”
In a line, the three of us wound our way through the cemetery and back to the house. Since we didn’t know when Mama would come home, we all started the jobs she usually did. Jay went to feed the chickens and get a few eggs, and Doc went to dig the vegetables out of the ground: sweet potatoes, mustard greens, onions. He even pulled up a few of our peanut plants, so we could boil them for a snack later. I knew how to make a cornbread and I got to doing that so Mama wouldn’t have to. The batter was all mixed up and in the iron skillet when Mama came in, her eyes looking red and tired.
Without a word, she washed her hands in the sink, then took the skillet from me and put it in the oven and set the little white kitchen timer next to the stove. Then she collapsed onto a chair and sat there looking at me and at Jay across the table. Doc sat next to her, and he made a point to keep his eyes elsewhere while she slid her gaze away from us kids and over to the window.
“What is it?” I asked, not able to help myself any longer.
She looked back at us and smiled. The biggest smile I’d se
en on her in a long while. “Sometimes,” Mama said, “a little talk makes things all right.”
21
By the next Thursday, Mama was still in a good mood, and she had both me and Jay working for her in the kitchen from the time we got up. There was so much to do on Thanksgiving Day that she needed as many hands as she could get. Especially since she didn’t like doing any of the work the day before.
The meal we made wasn’t only for us. We would deliver some of it to other people on the island who were too sick or elderly to cook for themselves. We would also return the dishes to the families who brought us food after Gran died. But we would never return them empty, because it was bad luck.
After a breakfast of grits with flakes of fried shark steak, Jay washed dishes while I snapped a whole colander full of pole beans. Mama kept an eye on both of us as we moved on to peeling sweet potatoes, then layering them in the pan. The stove was burning so hot, it felt like the middle of summer in the house. All the windows were open, but the cool breeze that managed to make it through got warmed up by the time it hit us.
Doc brought in a large chicken for Mama to season and put in the oven. Jay and I gathered up pecans from our tree as Mama made the crust for a pecan pie. We spread a sheet of newspaper between us on the kitchen table and started shelling them. It was one of the few jobs we never needed reminding to do. Since our tree made papershell pecans, Jay and me would take two of the oblong nuts in one hand and press them together until the shells cracked. Once there was enough of an opening in the nuts, we would pull the sweet-tasting meat from the shells, doing our best to keep each half in one piece. We would race to see who could open the most nuts the fastest, but it didn’t matter who won, because we all would have some of Mama’s pecan pie after dinner.