Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1)

by Phillips, Michael

  I opened the door, and a scurrying sound startled us both. Katie jumped back and gave a little cry as we saw two or three rats running about. Katie grimaced but then slowly followed me the rest of the way inside.

  Everything was just like I remembered it. It didn’t look like a thing had been moved since that last day. Some food was still out on the table, all dried and spoiled now. It was ghostly quiet.

  ‘‘Where was your room, Mayme?’’ Katie asked in a whisper.

  ‘‘I didn’t have a room, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘All of us just slept in here.’’

  The whole cabin wasn’t much bigger than Katie’s room. Several bunks stacked on top of each other against the wall, with their thin, dirty mattresses of straw, all looked the same.

  ‘‘How . . . how many of you lived here?’’ Katie asked.

  I had to stop a minute to think.

  ‘‘Seven, I reckon,’’ I said. ‘‘That was after my pa died. It would have been eight before that when the baby was born.’’

  As I looked around, for the first time the thought came if there was anything I wanted from here. I’d left in such a hurry I hadn’t had the chance to think about it before.

  I looked at my few old clothes, folded on the end of a bunk. They seemed like rags now compared to the work dresses of Katie’s mama that I was using.

  ‘‘What’s this?’’ Katie asked, walking toward my sleeping spot.

  The sight brought new tears to my eyes.

  ‘‘That’s my crinkly rabbit,’’ I said. ‘‘My mama made him for me. I call him Mister Krinkle.’’

  She picked him up and handed him to me. He was old and dirty and nearly falling apart. The sight and feel of him filled me with pain.

  ‘‘My mama knitted him for my fifth birthday,’’ I said. ‘‘Then she filled him up with old rags and bits of straw.’’

  ‘‘I like him,’’ said Katie. ‘‘Let’s take him home with us.’’

  I sniffed and nodded.

  Seeing the bed made brought another memory. I pulled back the mattress. Underneath were the pages of my diary.

  I smiled. I’d almost forgotten them. They sure didn’t look like much now.

  I reached down and picked them up.

  ‘‘What’s that?’’ Katie wanted to know.

  ‘‘Some things I wrote,’’ I mumbled. I really didn’t want to talk about it, at least not yet.

  I laid the mattress back down, then remembered why we had come in the first place—the Bible.

  There was a chest under Mama’s bed where she’d kept her few clothes and things for the baby. I got down on my knees and dragged it out and pulled the top up. It was about half full of clothes and a couple of ragged blankets. I rummaged through down to the bottom, and sure enough, there it was. I took the Bible out, then stood up and showed it to Katie.

  ‘‘It was my mama’s,’’ I explained again. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve seen it in a while. I wasn’t sure it would still be here, but here it is.’’

  Seeing the Bible reminded me of the pretty blue pin of Mama’s with the letters on it. She said they were the memories of her teardrops, and that always made her look at me with a sad smile. It ought to have been with my mama’s other special things in the chest under the bed, but I looked carefully again, and there was no sign of it.

  I stuffed my writing pages inside the Bible. We went back outside, Katie carrying Mister Krinkle and me carrying the old black Bible. I took a deep breath and walked in the direction of the graves, and then just stood looking down at the mounds of dirt I’d made over the bodies of my family.

  ‘‘Is . . . is this—’’ Katie began.

  ‘‘It’s my mama and brothers and sisters and grandpapa,’’ I said. ‘‘I buried them before I left.’’

  A LOT OF GROWING UP TO DO

  28

  THE RIDE BACK TO ROSEWOOD AND THE rest of the day were quiet for both of us. Katie was sad for me and for what she’d seen. And maybe the finality of it was hitting me all over again.

  That evening, I don’t know what put it into my head but I felt like taking a bath. The idea of getting clean and fresh probably seemed like washing the past off me or something. I was still downcast about what I’d seen, and I reckoned maybe a bath would help.

  ‘‘Miss Katie,’’ I said after we had eaten supper, ‘‘would you mind if I took a bath in the tub upstairs?’’

  ‘‘Of course not, Mayme,’’ she said. ‘‘Would you like me to help with the water?’’

  ‘‘That’s right kind of you, but I can do it myself if—’’

  ‘‘I want to help,’’ said Katie. ‘‘You always carry the water for me.’’

  ‘‘That’s different,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m colored.’’

  ‘‘It’s not different now,’’ said Katie.

  We heated up the water in the kitchen and carried it up to the tub. We had to make a lot of trips up and down the stairs.

  ‘‘My daddy said he was going to put pipes up here,’’ Katie said, ‘‘so we could pump water up to the tub.’’

  ‘‘That’d be rip-staver!’’ I said. ‘‘Imagine it—water in the house . . . and upstairs to boot!’’

  ‘‘I’ll bring up the rest, Mayme,’’ Katie added. ‘‘You can start your bath. Then I’ll pour it over your back and head if you want to wash your hair. It’ll feel good.’’

  ‘‘Thank you, Miss Katie,’’ I said.

  I was taking a terrible liberty doing what I was doing. I usually washed in the creek or in the tub out by the barn. But I could tell it was all right with Katie, so I went ahead.

  We hadn’t ever undressed in front of each other. I suppose we were both a little embarrassed, not only about the difference in our skin, but how we’d been filling out recently like girls do. I hadn’t as much as Katie, since I was taller and skinnier. But the changes in my body still took a little getting used to.

  I got undressed and got into the tub of water while Katie was downstairs. I lay down in it and tried to forget that I was black, that I had no family left, that I really didn’t belong anywhere. I closed my eyes and said to myself that it was all right just to enjoy this bath and that it was time I forgot the past.

  Pretty soon I heard Katie coming back up the stairs lugging another pail of water. I sat up and wrapped my arms around myself.

  She came in and put down the pot. ‘‘That was heavy,’’ she said. ‘‘But I think it’s just right, Mayme. If you want to soap up your head, I’ll scoop it out in the cup and pour it over—’’

  She stopped and gave a little cry. ‘‘Mayme, what’s that?’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘What are those marks on your back?’’

  At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. I reached up with one hand and tried to feel the top of my back. Then I remembered.

  ‘‘Oh, that’s nothing, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘It’s just from whippin’s, that’s all.’’

  ‘‘Whippings—who whipped you!’’ she said, shocked at the very idea.

  ‘‘The master, or the master’s son or his men. Mostly the overseer. You should see some of the men. They got ’em all over. Mine’s nothing. You should see the men that got cathauled.’’

  ‘‘What’s . . . what’s that?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘When the overseer ties a man face down to the ground, then takes a great big tomcat by the tail and hauls it along the man’s back, while the clawing, screeching cat’s trying to get loose and digging into the skin.’’

  ‘‘Stop, Mayme! I can’t stand it!’’ she cried, clasping her hands to her ears.

  ‘‘All slaves’ve got flogging lines like this on their backs, Miss Katie, one way or another.’’

  ‘‘Not . . . not my . . . not my daddy’s slaves,’’ she said in a faltering voice.

  ‘‘Weren’t no different here, Miss Katie,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Slaves were slaves. Your daddy had whips and tomcats just like our master. I saw the whips in the barn. And I allow that he and his men knew
how to use ’em too.’’

  Katie crumpled to the floor and just sat there. She didn’t say anything for a spell. What was going on inside her I could hardly imagine. She was having to get used to a lot of new things these days.

  ‘‘Mathias had a girl,’’ she said after a bit in a real soft voice. ‘‘She was . . . she was about my age, just like you. I don’t know what happened to her. I guess she’s gone somewhere by now. I wonder if she had any . . . any whipping marks like you.’’ Her voice dropped at the end like she could hardly bring herself to say the words.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t figure there was anything more to say.

  I sat there in the bath, and Katie sat there on the floor, and neither of us said a word. Maybe it was finally dawning on Katie just how different we were, and how different were the worlds we’d come from.

  ‘‘Oh, Mayme!’’ she said in a forlorn voice after a while, starting to cry. ‘‘What are we going to do?’’

  I don’t know what put it in my head to say what I did, but this is what I answered her.

  ‘‘We both got a lot of growing up to do, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘And I don’t reckon we got a lot of time to do it.’’

  Then I remembered why I’d wanted to take a bath in the first place, to forget the past.

  If I didn’t get this bath started, the water was gonna get cold. So I started soaping.

  ‘‘I’m ready for you to start pouring, Miss Katie,’’ I said.

  I didn’t hear anything for a few seconds. But what I felt next wasn’t the warm water falling over my head, but the warmth of Katie’s fingers on my back, gently touching my scars.

  ‘‘I’m so sorry, Mayme,’’ she said. ‘‘I . . . I just didn’t know.’’

  MESSAGE IN THE BIBLE

  29

  FOR THE SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW I couldn’t sleep very well. My mind was too full of thoughts and feelings and memories from having gone back to my old home, from the bath and from what Katie and I had talked about. I didn’t know what to make of it all.

  I had Mama’s Bible snuggled in bed beside me, along with Mister Krinkle. I felt like a little girl again. Sometimes a body doesn’t want to have to grow up, and right then I didn’t.

  I was lonely. I don’t mind admitting it. Katie’s poem about being alone without her mama stuck with me. I knew I could never make up for her mama any more than she could make up for mine. I was mighty glad to have Katie around. But I was still lonely. The stuffed rabbit and the Bible reminded me of Mama and kept me awake and then helped me to sleep.

  I woke up thinking I heard a noise outside. But when I listened real close, there wasn’t anything more.

  Must have been the cows, I thought.

  After I lay there awhile, I got up and carried Mama’s Bible, which I reckon was my own now, down to the parlor. It was the only thing I could call my own in the whole world. Well, maybe except for Mister Krinkle. When I opened the book, there were the pages of my writing, which I had called my diary. It hardly looked like much now. I didn’t think I wanted to look at them yet. I wasn’t ready. I took the sheets back upstairs and put them in a drawer under some of the clothes Katie had given me to wear.

  When I sat down again with the Bible, I looked for names like in the big Bible of Katie’s. There were only a few—my grandmama’s and grandpapa’s, Elijah and Faith Jukes, then my mama’s and daddy’s, Henry and Lemuela Jukes, then all us kids, Mary Ann, Samuel, Rachel, Robert, and Thelma.

  I turned to where the book was the most worn, toward the back, and tried to read some. But I couldn’t make nothing of it. I guess I needed more practice in the reader before I could understand the sentences.

  Just holding the Bible put me in a mind to think about God, and I realized I hadn’t been thinking about Him at all. I hadn’t asked for His help even once since all this had happened.

  I’d never really prayed before that I could remember, personally I mean, with just God and me around. We’d always sung about God a lot, but I didn’t remember praying except for praying the Lord’s Prayer like I’d done when burying our dead families. My mama didn’t talk much about God or praying, not like Grandmama and Grandpapa. Maybe religion was something mostly old folks did. I didn’t know.

  But even if that was so, I figured it didn’t matter. Maybe I ought to get a start on it while I was still young. I reckon I needed all the help I could get, and I didn’t mind admitting that any more than I minded admitting I was lonely.

  So as I sat there I tried praying a little. I guess it was praying, though I’d never really heard people praying like what I was doing. The only praying I’d ever heard was at mealtime or when all the slaves from McSimmons’s colored town would get together sometimes and sing. One of the men would stand up and talk or pray real loud, or when we went to the revival camps like I had told Katie about. But just a person all by themselves like I was, I didn’t know if that’s the way you were supposed to pray or not. But I figured it couldn’t do no harm.

  So I just started talking to God. In my mind, I mean, not out loud.

  God, if you can help me and Katie outta this fix we’re in, I said, we’d sure appreciate it. I don’t know what color you are, but I reckon you must be for black folks as well as white folks ’cause I know everybody prays to you. So I’m asking you to help this one black girl and this one white girl. I don’t know what to do, and if you got any suggestions, maybe you could show us, however it is you do that.

  I looked at the Bible again, still in my lap. Just from its limp black cover, I could tell it was old. I knew my mama could read ’cause she taught me the letters. I wondered if she had written in the names.

  Holding the Bible filled me with memories of riding out in the back of a wagon to a camp meeting in the fields next to the white folks’ tent, and then all the preaching and singing. As a little girl I hadn’t understood anything of what was going on. For me it was just a chance not to work so hard for a spell and have fun. I hardly even knew what they meant when they talked and sang about God and salvation and Satan and redemption and Beulah land and all the rest. But now that I was alone in the world, I wanted to know for myself. God was about all I had left, along with Katie and my memories.

  Again I found myself thinking back, and like it often did, music came into my mind.

  Oh, de worril is roun’ en de worril is wide—

  Lord! ’member deze chillun in de mornin’—

  Hit’s a mighty long ways up de mountainside,

  En dey ain’t no place fer dem sinners fer ter hide,

  En dey ain’t no place whar sin kin abide.

  W’en de Lord shill come in de mornin’,

  Look up en look aroun’,

  Fling yo’ burden on de groun’.

  Hit’s a gittin’ mighty close on ter mornin’!

  Smoove away sin’s frown—

  Retch up en git de crown,

  W’at de Lord will fetch in de mornin’!

  I sat there with the Bible in my lap, slowly rocking back and forth. Then I started singing the rest of the camp-meeting song in my mind.

  De han’ er ridem’shun, hit’s hilt out ter you,

  Lord! ’member dem sinners in de mornin’!

  De sperrit may be puny en de flesh may be proud,

  But you better cut loose fum de scoffin’ crowd,

  En jine dese Christuns w’at’s a cryin’ loud

  Fer de Lord fer ter comin’ in de mornin’!

  Shout loud en shout long,

  Let de ekkoes ans’er strong.

  W’en de sun rises up in de mornin’!

  Oh, you allers will be wrong

  Twel you choose ter belong

  Ter de Marster w’ats a comin’ in de morning!

  I opened the Bible again. Inside the front was some real nice writing that wasn’t made by any colored hand, that much I knew for sure.

  To Lemuela Hawley, with love, Patience, whispered the words out of the past.

  That must explain how my mama had come
by this Bible, though I couldn’t altogether make sense of the words. How much of it she’d read, I didn’t know. But somebody’d read it, that much was for certain because there were markings and verses underlined.

  I couldn’t figure why my mama would have kept the Bible hidden. Maybe she was afraid the master would take it away.

  Whatever the Bible’s history, it had come to me now. So I intended to make the best use of it I could. I really didn’t know very much about what a Bible was. I just knew it was something ‘‘holy’’ and was a book about God and Jesus.

  But I decided right then and there that I would put my mind to learning to read, if for no other reason than so I could read this Bible and find out what it had to teach me. Maybe that was the kind of help God could give me, like I’d prayed for. Maybe there was something in the pages of this book to help me. I didn’t know for sure, but I thought I could figure it out. It seemed likely that God would want people to figure out about Him, so why shouldn’t I?

  Absently I turned through the first pages, before the actual book got started. On one of the blank pages, in the same nice handwriting that must have belonged to whoever had given Mama the Bible, was written: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

  It took me about a minute to read it. I couldn’t exactly tell what it meant, what the door was, and why it was so important that the lady had written it in the front of this Bible. Below it was written Revelation 3:20. I knew that’s how Bible verses looked, so I looked through the Bible and after a while, at the very end, found the word Revelation up at the top of the pages. Before too much longer I found the place marked 3:20, and there were the same words exactly like the ones written in the front of the Bible.

  It was the first time I’d ever found anything in a Bible, and I couldn’t help being a little proud of myself.

  I read the words over again. I figured it was God talking to somebody.