Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  Old Sally says she will. Though I imagine even if I couldn’t, you would know.

  Violet pauses, hearing her thoughts and wondering if this is true.

  Moments later, Old Sally sits up. “What’s the weather doing?” she asks.

  “I guess you could call it the calm before the storm,” Violet says. “It’s absolutely beautiful out there. A clear and glorious night.”

  “That will all change soon,” Old Sally says.

  Violet’s left shoulder twitches for the first time in hours, as if waking from a long nap. It has given her mixed signals or no signals all day. Either way, Violet must prepare for what is coming.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Queenie

  Queenie’s bedroom is in total disarray from the ceremony the day before. Her wedding gown is thrown over a chair near the far window, along with her red hat, yellow scarf, and purple pumps. Several fans sit in silence. Queenie has been known to thrive on excitement, but this weekend has been too much even for her.

  A hurricane is churning out in the Atlantic and according to the weather forecasters has just turned inland. Spud’s place up the beach was to have summer renters living there starting this week since he would be living with Queenie after their wedding. But an hour ago, they called to cancel their stay because of the hurricane.

  Last week, Queenie cleared half of her walk-in closet for Spud and gave him two drawers in her large dresser. One for his socks and underwear and another for his bow ties. Spud has a bow tie for almost every day of the year and in every color. Queenie has yet to see the fascination, but Spud doesn’t understand her loyalty to Oprah, either. She supposes living with each other’s weirdness is what marriage is all about.

  “Honeypot?” Spud steps out of the bathroom, naked, every gray hair on his head sticking straight up.

  “Who are you calling Honeypot?” If he weren’t so cute Queenie might throw something at him. “Why are you so obsessed with finding me a nickname?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I should just call you Queenie.”

  “Now there’s a novel idea,” she quips. “It is my name after all.” But in truth, she is not the least bit irritated. She likes how hard he tries to please her. So far in this marriage, she has no complaints. Well, except for the fact that a hurricane named after his ex is threatening to spoil everything.

  A knock on the door has Spud ducking back into the bathroom.

  Violet enters.

  “I need to talk to you,” she says.

  “You mind if I stay here in my chair?” Queenie asks. “This weekend has tuckered me out.”

  Violet says she doesn’t mind at all and sits on the end of her bed.

  “What is it?” Queenie asks. “You look worried.”

  “It’s Old Sally,” Violet says. “She’s talking about things she doesn’t usually talk about.”

  “Like what?” Queenie sits straighter.

  “Like dying.”

  Queenie bolts from the chair. “Does she think she’s dying now? I just saw her a couple of hours ago, and she seemed as good as ever.”

  “She’s fine,” Violet insists, “but she’s having a lot of dreams about when she was a girl, and her grandmother keeps visiting her in her dreams, too. She seems to think it’s a sign.”

  Queenie calls to Spud in the bathroom. “Can you get out here, please?”

  When Spud comes out his hair is combed, and he has a bathrobe tied tightly around his skinny waist. It smells like he got a little overzealous with the aftershave.

  Is all that primping in the bathroom for my benefit? She smiles at the thought.

  Spud’s legs are white and thin and remind her of a chicken’s legs, which then reminds Queenie of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Iris, and the stupid storm heading in their direction.

  “What is it, sweet cakes?” Spud says. “You look upset.”

  “Oh, good heavens,” Queenie answers with a reluctant smile. “I am nobody’s sweet cake.”

  Spud greets Violet like they are old friends, which they are. Queenie sometimes forgets how close they were before Spud and Queenie started dating.

  “Violet says Mama is talking about dying.”

  Queenie tells Spud about how hard it will be when her mama passes. She has been her only parent, after all, for her entire life. Her father for sure never claimed her. He only barely claimed Iris, who was his legitimate daughter.

  When Spud hears all this, he gives her such a loving and compassionate look that tears spring to her eyes.

  “What should we do?” Queenie asks him, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

  He pauses for what feels like a solid minute. “I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say.”

  “Tell me.” Queenie trusts him to tell her the truth, even if she won’t like it.

  “I think we should let her go,” Spud says.

  “Let her go?” Queenie glances at Violet, who to her surprise doesn’t appear as shocked as Queenie is. This is the last thing she expected to come out of the mouth of Spud Grainger, who has a hard time letting go of anything. He still has bow ties he wears from back in the sixties.

  “What else can we do?” Spud asks.

  Queenie puts her hands on her hips. It is all she can do not to scream or cry. She is a big woman after all, with big thoughts and big feelings. Spud knows how much Queenie hates feeling helpless. It is her least favorite feeling in her feeling collection. And with this storm coming she was already heading in that direction. She is tired. And when she gets tired, she is not good at handling anything.

  She had hoped to hide all her oversized emotions from Spud for at least the first year of their marriage, but here it is on the second day.

  “I just thought you should know,” Violet says to them.

  “You did the right thing by telling me,” Queenie says. “Did she say anything else to you?”

  “Only that she is ready to go,” Violet says.

  Tears rush to Queenie’s eyes again. Spud arrives at her side, a look of genuine concern on his freshly shaven face.

  “I can’t believe I’m crying like this,” she says to him, hoping it isn’t the “ugly cry.”

  To her surprise, it feels good to release the stress and worry she has stored up for way too long. The last time she blubbered like this was when those twin towers came down. It was such a sad day, being aware of all those people who would never get to go home again. Life is more difficult than Queenie likes to admit. The truth is, sometimes crying is the sanest thing a person can do when the world gets crazy. Crying or laughing. But Queenie isn’t feeling that funny right now.

  While Queenie’s tears are rare, Spud will openly weep during Hallmark and dog food commercials. Not to mention the Olympics—a Championship Cry Fest that happens without fail every two years. Queenie witnessed tears in his eyes more than once at their wedding, and she had some of her own.

  Queenie blows her nose on the handkerchief Spud provides. It has been an emotional two days, and she can’t believe she is falling apart now. It doesn’t help that a hurricane is bearing down on them. A hurricane bearing the name of her dead nemesis.

  In the next moment, a gust of wind rattles Queenie’s windows, and the three of them jump as if Hurricane Iris has just offered to give Queenie something new to cry about.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Old Sally

  Once the dreams start, it won’t be long, Old Sally says to herself.

  Dreams change when people get to the end of their life. Or so her grandmother told her. During Sadie’s final days, Sally sat by her bedside and listened to her grandmother tell her dreams to her in great detail. Long-gone friends and relatives walked through every scene, as well as many people she had unfinished business with. Sometimes the dreams finished things up for her.

  Old Sally’s latest dreams have Fiddle playing at a wedding on the beach, his music as beautiful as ever. In the dream, the wedding is the one that she and Fiddle didn’t get to have. Her daughter Ann
abelle is alive and well, in her arms and part of the ceremony. Their silver wedding bands were made from a silver spoon taken from the Temple kitchen by her grandmother. Stolen from the Temples because they stole her son Adam and sent him away so long ago.

  Sometimes dreams deliver the only justice to be found during this transition from life to death, and the dreams come regardless of whether they are welcome or not. Those who believe in a spirit world have an easier time with these visitations, her grandmother told her. And Old Sally believes in the spirit world. A world where mysteries live. Not just the ancestors, either, but the Creator who set everything in motion and watches over all of them. The Gullah way is to see everything in creation as sacred. The plants, the trees, the animals. Everything on land and sea.

  Love is the most sacred thing of all, she tells herself, thinking of the people she loves.

  Up from her nap, she looks at herself in the round mirror over the sink in the bathroom. Sometimes she can’t believe how many wrinkles she has. Like the rings of a tree revealing her age. But it is her eyes that say the most. The soul’s windows, they’ve been called. If that’s true, her soul looks hopeful and sincere, though tired.

  The wind is finally picking up outside. Not much. But enough to hint at what’s to come. Though the weathermen haven’t committed to the exact path the storm will take, Old Sally already knows the outcome. It will come here to the island, and perhaps then Iris will help Old Sally with her transition, just like Old Sally helped her two years before. Except this time, Iris will be in the form of a hurricane.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Rose

  Is it Rose’s imagination or has the wind started blowing harder? Max and Jack have stored all the outdoor furniture in the garage and closed the storm shutters on the main house and cottage. Now they stack sandbags on the porch to put in front of the door. Water can do more damage than hundred-mile-an-hour winds, reports say, so whether they stay or leave they need to prepare for a possible storm surge.

  Weather fascinates Rose. When they lived out West, she learned to pay attention to it or suffer the consequences. The Rocky Mountains served as a magnet for extreme weather. Tornados. Blizzards. Thundersnow. Twisters that took aim at entire neighborhoods, scattering houses like dice on a board game. And thunderstorms so fierce lightning shot sideways with nothing to ground it.

  However, a hurricane appears to be a different beast. Hurricanes don’t miss one house and then grab the next in a flash of fate. Hurricanes churn for days out over warm ocean waters to gather strength. High winds team together with a tidal surge to destroy whatever is in its path. Thankfully, they are also slow enough to allow the time for people to get away.

  After filling several water jugs in case they lose power and water, Rose goes back to the cottage to rest for a moment. She lifts the faded ledger from her purse and sits on her bed. It smells like the bank vault and paper molecules breaking down and deteriorating. She turns more pages, being careful with the bindings, which look like they could easily break apart. Near the back, she finds notations written in a kind of code. Is it a manifest? She wonders how anything so old could be of any importance today. Yet, something about the book feels valuable.

  Max comes into the bedroom and turns on the television. “Look,” he says.

  The mayor of Savannah is standing in front of town hall suggesting people evacuate Savannah and the surrounding islands.

  Max’s face has a look that Rose wishes she hadn’t seen. Is that fear?

  “Are we going to evacuate?” Rose asks.

  Max shrugs. The old Max. The one who wears cowboy boots and doesn’t share what he thinks unless she pries it out of him.

  “But where will we go?” Rose asks. “If we get on 95 going north, we’ll probably get stuck in a standstill. Queenie said it was already backed up yesterday when she and Spud were coming back from Hilton Head.”

  The news of the evacuation spreads fast given the sounds of the voices in the kitchen.

  “I guess we’d better go see what the others are thinking,” Max says finally.

  Rose agrees.

  In the kitchen of the main house, everyone talks at once, offering different solutions. It is the first time they’ve had to make any group decisions other than chore lists. Do they go separately or together? Which cars do they take? How much do they have room for? And—mainly—where do they go?

  “Maybe we should vote,” Rose says, raising her voice above the others.

  “Well, we don’t all have to do the same thing, either,” Violet reminds them.

  “I think we should stick together,” Queenie says, looking at Violet.

  “No matter what, we’ve got to keep Katie and the baby safe,” Angela says.

  Max agrees.

  “I was in Charleston in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo hit,” Jack begins. “The bridge going to Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms was destroyed, and people couldn’t return to their homes for weeks,” he continues. “I don’t want to get stuck on the mainland and not be able to get back.”

  “I agree with Jack,” Max says. “We need to be here to fix any damage right away, as well as keep everybody safe. We’ve collected supplies for two days,” he continues, “including a stack of tarps in the garage in case the roof is damaged.”

  “I appreciate how prepared we are,” Rose says to Max. “But we don’t want to do anything unwise.” Sometimes the cowboy in Max does things regular people consider risky.

  At that moment Rose realizes how easy it is to let the men make all the crucial decisions. The thought goes contrary to her Smith College days. Yet, it fits right in with the culture she was raised in.

  “What do you think we should do?” Rose asks Old Sally.

  Everyone turns. Old Sally is the only person who appears calm in the middle of the chaos. They wait in silence for her to speak, and when she does, her voice is softer than Rose expects, though it is still strong.

  “This old house has withstood plenty of storms over the hundred years I’ve been here,” she says. “But we can’t afford to put anyone in danger.”

  Violet’s girls interrupt with the latest news.

  “They’re saying the evacuation is now mandatory,” Leisha says. “All barrier islands on the Georgia and South Carolina coastline.”

  “And anyone who refuses has to leave the name of their next of kin with authorities.” Tia’s eyes widen, and Violet crosses the kitchen to calm her.

  It is agreed. The next hour will be spent getting ready to evacuate. Before the group disperses, Max tells everyone to limit their things to a single suitcase. A suggestion that has everyone talking again.

  Back at the cottage, Rose fills one suitcase with a few clothes, an extra pair of shoes, and loose photos she pulled from the family scrapbook, along with a couple of pieces of jewelry her mother gave her when she graduated college. Rose lovingly called these pieces her nest egg. It is a troubling exercise to discern, after a lifetime of collecting things, what to put into a single suitcase.

  In a separate, smaller bag she packs dog food for Lucy and Ethel, as well as bowls and two leashes. She returns the Temple ledger to her purse—she doesn’t want to risk losing it until she figures out its importance. If indeed it is important at all.

  An hour later, they stand at the door ready to leave. Twelve people with twelve suitcases. Three dogs, two cats in a carrier, and a pet turtle in a small dry aquarium. They get outside, and as soon as they lock the front door, Max and Jack pull sandbags in front of it. As they stand in the dunes, Rose looks at the house that has become her home over the last few months. She takes a mental photograph in case it isn’t here when they get back.

  The night is dark with thick cloud cover. No stars or moon to light the way. The ocean tide can be heard in the distance as they take the walkway through the dunes to the cars. Something about the storm coming at night has Rose unnerved. It is one thing to see a storm coming and wind whipping at trees. It is quite another to only hear it.

&nbs
p; In his truck, Max leads the caravan of four cars. They plan to drive inland for an hour and stay at a motel they have booked for the evening. Rose is in the pickup, their two dogs in the back seat already drooling their excitement. In the back are water jugs and the food, along with a chainsaw, a canister of gasoline, and different tools Max might need. She trusts his instincts. He helped them survive many blizzards in Wyoming and a flash flood threatening their home.

  The first few blocks the traffic isn’t bad, but then everything comes to a stop at the two-lane road that will take them off the island. The road runs along the waterway, with steep shoulders down to the marsh. A steady line of red brake lights leads the way for them to exit the island. At most, six hundred people live on this barrier island. But when they are all in their cars, it seems like more.

  Spud and Queenie and Old Sally are in Spud’s ten-year-old Toyota directly behind them. Old Sally can be seen holding onto the Jesus bar despite their snail-like speed. Even though Spud could afford something much more expensive, he has not invested in a new car. Queenie is in the middle of the back seat, already talking. It is hard to imagine Queenie taking a back seat to anyone, except for Old Sally.

  In the caravan behind Spud are Angela and Katie, followed by Jack and Violet and the girls, with Jake the turtle in the back window.

  “Why are we stopped?” Rose asks Max.

  “Not sure.”

  Rose remembers her last trip home to Wyoming after her mother’s funeral. Max picked her up at the airport. She would never have guessed when she presented the option of moving back to Savannah that he would have taken her up on it so readily.

  As many cars are behind them as ahead of them.

  “Should we be worried?” Rose asks Max.

  Max shrugs, his eyes staring straight ahead. He doesn’t show his fear often, but the look that passed between him and Rose in the bedroom earlier still haunts her.