“Child, you already know everything I know about him.” With a flat voice and a bored expression, Willa recited the words she had been taught to memorize and pass down. “Berantu was the leader of the Merlante. He was Kwame’s father. If the marriage of the two bloodlines—the Merlante and the Mkembro—had gone forward, if Kwame and Amara had married, then their offspring might have had even more remarkable power, passed down not just to the girls but the boys in the bloodline as well…” Then she broke from the legend and offered her own commentary. “But the Merlante are all gone now, and Berantu’s bloodline died out when Kwame was killed trying to escape Van Owen’s ship. And you and I are all that’s left of the Mkembro now.”
“But what did Marco tell you?”
Grandma Willa told her what she had just learned—that Terry had made Akins and Leticia run away, that he’d forced Marco to pour a drink and then empty an entire bottle. Throughout, Regina’s lips were slightly parted, her eyes slightly scrunched, the way a child might look when she refuses to believe what she’s hearing. “How? How could Terry have this ability without my knowing? And I doubted him today in the lunchroom. I feel terrible…”
“When Terry gets home tonight, we’ll talk to him together. And we can both apologize for keeping everything from him. He should be back from work soon. You’ll need to get him upstairs before your father gets home. I don’t want Carl finding out about Terry fighting. The last thing we need is for Terry to start telling his father about controlling people with his voice. The less your father knows, the better. He wouldn’t understand any of this.”
Regina took the phone and returned it to the bedside table. Then she walked to the window, trying to catch sight of Terry, but the streets were empty. She closed the curtains and turned back to Willa. The old woman looked fine, but Regina went to sit down beside her.
In a casual tone, Willa said, “Regina, I’m okay up here by myself. Why don’t you go downstairs and wait for Terry?” Regina nodded, and she was halfway to the door when her grandmother added, “Would you mind closing the curtains, though?”
“I just did,” Regina said. She turned to the window—to the curtains that she had just closed—and saw that they were spread open again. She spun back toward her grandmother, greeting Willa’s mischievous grin with one of her own.
“Go on downstairs,” Willa told her with a smile. “You know I can close them myself if I need to.” As Regina exited the room, the curtains slid closed again. Then the piano started playing a blues ballad. Regina scurried back to watch the show. The piano keys were moving up and down. The pedals were rising and falling. The ragtime dance number soared through the apartment. From her bed, Willa winked. “Go on downstairs, dear. Let Grandma practice.”
Regina finished her homework on the living room couch, watching the clock and springing up every time she heard even the slightest sound from outside. Her father and Jerome were due soon from the stable, so she hoped Terry would make it home before them. She had begun to worry when a knock came at the front door. Knowing that Terry never forgot his keys, Regina walked toward the door with an unsure gait. She stood on her tiptoes and peered through the peephole. The face she saw was familiar somehow. The man was tall, dark-skinned, perhaps thirty years old. Rain dripped from the baseball cap he wore.
The knock came again, a bit louder. “Pop?” the man called in a raspy voice. “Open up. It’s important.”
Regina wanted to ask him who he was, but she felt sure she already knew. And Grandma Willa’s voice from upstairs confirmed it.
“Oh my goodness,” she called, “I know that voice.”
Regina turned back, her lips trembling as she opened them to speak, but her grandmother shouted, “No, child. Don’t speak.”
Regina stepped back from the door, quivering. “But Grandma…” she said.
“I know, dear. But you can’t,” said Willa, her voice nearby. Regina spun around and saw her at the top of the staircase. Regina had known that her grandmother could stand and walk—she was able to care for herself upstairs after all—but Willa rarely allowed anyone to see her struggle. She didn’t want the children to know her as a weak, hobbled, old woman. But Willa could never look weak. There was too much fire in her. “Don’t speak, Regina,” Willa repeated. Clutching the banister with one hand, she waved her other hand toward the door, and the deadbolt unlocked. “Open the door. Let your brother in.” The words sounded odd to Regina, but she didn’t know why.
Her fingers shaking, Regina turned the handle and pulled the door open. Windblown rain misted in, so Regina was squinting as she looked for the first time into her oldest brother’s eyes.
Warren stepped into the doorway, frozen at the sight of her. “Regina…?”
She nodded slowly.
He was soaking wet and trembling. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. “I’m sorry,” he whispered; it was all that he could think to say. “I’m so sorry.” At first, she thought he was apologizing for old mistakes, but then he looked up toward his grandmother and went on. “It’s Terry. He got him. He got Terry.”
Seventeen
The war comes, as I knew it would. Upon Lincoln’s inauguration, the South secedes and takes Fort Sumter, but little changes for us here. Van Owen—now Captain Van Owen again—goes off to fight with his Confederate Army. The white guards who don’t join the war yet have a new responsibility: keeping Union soldiers out of the farm as well as keeping slaves in.
Van Owen rarely comes home. Sometimes, when I’m certain he is away, I practice using my powers. I don’t want to violate the other slaves—I’ve done enough harm to them already just by being here—so I enter the minds of the guards. I remain quiet; I don’t take over their minds. I just listen. I need to practice for the day when I have to defend myself against him. That day is coming soon.
The other slaves still keep their distance from me, so I keep my distance from them, an outcast among those who should be my family. I pick tobacco. I stay in my cabin.
Occasionally, when I wake in the mornings, I still find the chair out of place in my room. I wonder, How does he do it? How does he come in so quietly that I don’t hear him? How long does he remain? What goes through his mind as he watches me sleep? Is he able to see my dreams? Would I know it if he tried?
Then, for the next few nights, I lie awake almost all night, waiting for him to return and spy on me. It is on an evening in April 1863, after the fields have thawed from a harsh winter, that I finally see him again. He opens the door to find me sitting up in my bed, waiting. His uniform is spotless, the tails of his coat flared from the tight gold belt, his polished sword hanging from it. He remains still for a moment, stunned that I have been expecting him, and then he approaches me, pulls up the chair, and sits down facing me.
“The war goes well for us, Amara. I suppose you’ve heard.”
I keep all emotion from my voice. “You lie, or you are blind. It goes poorly. You will lose.”
“Did you see that in one of your visions then?” I jolt a bit, and he nods. I’ve been inside that head of yours, Amara. I confess: I don’t know how to unlock everything in there yet, but I will. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“If you knew everything, you’d know that your war is folly.”
“Sometimes a man has to fight for his country no matter the cost.”
“Oh, is that what you’re fighting for?”
“The state of North Carolina and its people have earned the right to live the life we have built for ourselves, free of Union rules and Union philosophies.”
“Even if your Confederate philosophies run against the laws of gods and humanity?”
He glares at me, his nostrils quivering at the plural, gods. He breathes in sharply, exhales, and smiles. “No, Amara, you won’t bait me. I came here to sit peacefully with my favorite possession.” He almost spits that last word, laboring over it. “And that’s what I’ll do.”
I raise my rhetoric. “I suppose it must be hard for you to accept it, Capt
ain, that you’re going to lose the war bitterly, that the North will be victorious, that slavery will be abolished and written into history as a blight.”
“You’re delusional, girl,” he snaps, rising to his feet, the chair toppling backward to the dirt. “There will always be slaves. Once you’ve been in chains, you’re never free. You know that.” He strides toward the door. “And no matter what happens, I’ll be back for you. You’ll always be mine.”
He is right about that. He will be back for me. I’ve seen it:
It’s almost two years from now. March 1865. General Sherman’s army is spread throughout the Carolinas, and Confederate General Johnston stages his final offensive against Sherman at Bentonville. Van Owen fights at Johnston’s side, trying in vain to turn back the Union army. Nearly one thousand Confederate soldiers are killed, and almost double that number are wounded. As Johnston surrenders to the Union Army, signifying the fall of the Carolinas, Van Owen steals away on a horse to make his way home to the plantation. He’s already received word that his guards have run off—and so have his slaves. He knows that his plantation will be forfeited to the Union. Still, he rides on, hiding in muddy forests, sleeping in trestles, fleeing from the occupying forces. It takes him three days to make it here, but he will not be denied. As I feel his approach, I rise from my bed and enter the main house. I stare up at the chandelier crystals glittering in the light of a kerosene lamp. The lamp fits easily in my hand. I enjoy the warmth of the polished glass against my skin. I savor each step as I exit his house and approach his church. I exhale as I toss the lamp through the window and set the church ablaze. Then I return to my cabin to watch the flames cleanse the ground where Father Jamison spoke of heaven while condoning hell on Earth.
When Van Owen arrives at my door, he is filthy, ravaged by battle and fatigue, and his stench enters the room before he does.
“The church?” he asks. “Your doing?”
I smile in response but say nothing.
He pretends he isn’t angry, but I can feel it emanating from him. “I’m surprised to find you’re still here, Amara. After all, I told you I’d be coming back for you.”
I stand to face him, showing no fear. “Just as I told you that you’d lose the war.”
He turns and checks behind him before shutting the door. He peers out the window, looking for Union soldiers. Then he pulls the curtains shut. “Why did you stay when all the other slaves left?”
No hesitation whatsoever. “To kill you.”
With that, he seems to relax. “Now, Amara, we both know I don’t die today. You’ve seen me in your visions—decades from now, more than a century even. Why, I was stabbed and shot and musketed in battle, and I didn’t die. Since we first touched back in Mkembro, I don’t believe I’ve been sick even a day. I feel stronger than I’ve been since I was a teenager. I may well be immortal.” He unbuttons his shirt and opens the collar to reveal several scarlet wounds across his chest. They appear more like burn marks from fire or branding than gashes from bullets or blades. His hand brushes over them and he winces for a moment. “Electrical fire, Amara,” he says in response. “It cauterizes wounds.” He smiles. “As the poet Percy Shelley wrote, ‘I change, but I cannot die.’”
He’s right. He will survive for generations, never aging. I don’t kill him here, today, and we both know it. He sees through my bluff. I haven’t remained on the plantation to kill him. I’ve remained here for the same reason that he hunted slaves long after he needed the money or trappings that the quests brought him—to prove that I can. I must face him for the same reason that he went off to fight a war he knew he would lose: because sometimes one must fight for one’s country, even when one has no country left to fight for. Though I am loath to admit it, I have remained here because of the lessons he taught me. Van Owen has taught me to face my fears.
“So what is it,” he asks, “that you think you can do to me?”
“This,” I speak softly, closing my eyes. With only a thought, I show him what I have learned. I project my consciousness into his. To my dismay, he stands there and allows it. He throws up no defenses. He opens himself to me. I can still feel my own body. I can still see with my own eyes. At the same time, though, I am also swimming in his thoughts, in his memories, as if they are my own.
“Go ahead, witch,” he taunts me. “Do your worst.” I test my control of his appendages, forcing him to reach for his sword. As soon as his hand touches the hilt, he surrenders even more, opens his thoughts to me even more fully, bares his soul to me. Slowly, I force him to draw the sword.
In an instant, I know what he knows: that as much as he claims hatred for my “African witchcraft,” he glories in these moments when our minds are one—for he has never opened his heart or mind to another human being—except me. He reels with pleasure while I am sickened by my discovery. And in that moment, he takes his advantage.
Effortlessly, he defies my control over him and returns the sword to its sheath. “Now I’ve got something to show you, Amara.”
Suddenly I find myself lost in a vision of his making, ensnared in a net of his memories: I am walking along a beach in the summer. The sun is bright and hot. The water is clear and blue; I look down to find I am ankle deep in the ocean, but my feet—what are these strange boots? They are men’s boots. And in my gloved hand—a revolver? For some reason, I am laughing. My heart is beating wildly. Around me, slaves are running, screaming. No, not slaves—I’ve been in North Carolina too long—they’re not slaves; they’re Africans. In the distance, Van Owen’s ship looms, huge, dark, waiting. I am home on the shores of Mkembro. But I am not Amara. I am he—I am Van Owen. I am living his memory.
“Move, heathens,” I shout, raising my pistol, pointing it at a woman who has not kept up with the others. “You are too slow, old woman,” I bark at her. As she turns to face me, I pull the trigger, and I see my mother’s face. The bullet explodes into her chest, and she sails backward into the water. I move on, already forgetting her. She is nothing to me. An animal. A thing.
For a moment, the world is dim and silent, and then I’m back in the cabin with Van Owen, out of his thoughts, back with my own, watching him approach me. He shoves me backward onto the bed, but my mind is locked on the vision of my mother.
He killed her.
I feel his hands tearing at my clothes, peeling them away. How strange, I think, that I feel shame because my body is exposed. Not so long ago, I wore almost nothing and yet walked freely among men.
He murdered my mother.
I feel his face on mine, his beard scraping against my neck, his fingers grabbing at me, his mouth against mine.
“No,” I plead. “No… please…” I kick and scratch, but I can’t push him away. I am weak, too weak to fight with my mind. The vision of my mother has weakened me, drained me. I keep seeing it. He killed her. He killed my mother. He killed my father and my mother.
“You should be proud, little witch. You faced up to me. You tried. Sometimes, that’s all we can do.” He is on top of me, reaching, prying, pressing against me.
For a moment, I remember my vision of the boy, Terry. Generations from now, Terry has pale eyes like Van Owen’s. Is this, then, where the blood is tainted? Is Van Owen the father of my progeny?
We stay like this for a time, struggling. I hear him breathing harder in odd grunts and gasps. Then, finally, he bounds to his feet and begins fastening his garments. He’s still panting.
Was that it, then, I wonder? Did he take me? I felt no pain below, where I should have. I sit up and pull my frock closed to cover my body. And then I see his face. It’s flushed and wrinkled into a scowl. He’s incensed. He has failed.
“You can’t…” I say. “You can’t take me. You’re not capable of it, are you?”
“Filthy, black witch.” I see his hand swinging long before it connects with my face. The slap sends me careening backward onto the bed. My head slams hard into the wall, but I barely feel it. “This is your fault,” he roars. “This i
s the legacy of this power you gave me.” He struggles for what to do next.
“You’re impotent,” I say, enjoying the sound of the word, elongating each vowel, enunciating each consonant. “You stole your power from a woman, and now you can’t perform as a man.”
He reaches for his sword but doesn’t know what to do with it. Then we hear the horses. He runs to the window. They’ve arrived; the Union army has found him. He throws the door open but turns back to issue his farewell. “You’ll never be free of me, Amara. Never.” He is calm, assured even, for we both know the threat isn’t idle. “You are mine and you always will be mine.”
He races outside. I stand in the doorway, watching as he springs onto his horse and rides south toward the mountains, seven soldiers in blue uniforms close at his heels.
And I laugh full-throated and loud until tears stream from my eyes. Yes, he has wounded me again and again, and our war is far from over. This time, though, I won the battle. He runs from this cabin a hunted vagabond stripped of his virility. I leave here a free woman.
Eighteen
“What do you mean he got Terry?” Willa cried, still leaning on the banister. “Who got Terry?”
Warren ran his sleeve over his face to wipe away the rain and the tears. He glanced up at his grandmother for just a moment and then looked down again. She was so much older than when he’d seen her last—on the day Regina was born. He knew that she rarely left her room these days, and he blamed himself for that. He could still hear his father’s voice: “Look at what’s happened because of you. Your mother’s dead because of you!” He could still feel the sting. “Don’t ever come near this family again!” Warren wouldn’t have come back now, but he had no choice. This was bigger than old wrongs and old warnings; his father could understand that, couldn’t he?
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