Stormwitch

by Susan Vaught

  Hoots and shouts rise outside.

  “Y’all listen up in there,” growls a voice I’ve heard once before. On a beach. Talking to his son.

  “Listen up and listen nice. No interrupting.”

  Frye.

  Leroy Frye.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday, 10 August 1969: Night

  Pastor Bickman stands between us and the broken windows, his back to the sanctuary and his Bible in his hand, as if to shield us all. He shouts through the gaping holes in windows when he speaks. “We have no quarrel with you. Leave us in peace.”

  Through one of the broken windows, dead center in the jagged hole that once had been stained-glass doves and light from heaven, I can see someone out there on the wraparound porch. The height, the arrogant way he stands—I’m sure it’s Leroy Frye in a sheet marked by a red and white cross on the breast. He pushes his hood back, showing me what I already knew.

  Frye spits on the porch, slams his hand against the window frame, and laughs as the rest of the jagged glass tumbles ceiling to floor.

  He’s made his own door now, my mind gibbers.

  “We got a quarrel with you, boy,” Frye shouts back. “You and yours.”

  The choir, still together, rises to its feet. Eyes closed, they join hands.

  “Oh, no,” I hear Grandmother Jones whisper from behind me. “Please, God, no.” Her hands hold my ankles. Squeeze my ankles. Tighter. Tighter.

  “We went and got soft on local big-mouths like that Potts boy,” Frye shouts. “Guess we should have paid more attention. He’s been up to no good, and it’s a damn shame. Forgot all his manners.”

  I hear engines. Motors. Cars or trucks. And many of them. Torches bob into view behind Leroy Frye. Hooded heads, and hooded eyes. Empty holes in the hot evening.

  Miss Hattie shifts on the floor. She and Clay must have ducked down in the row behind ours. I can see their arms under the bench as Miss Hattie starts a wheezing chant. “Not my boy. You won’t take my boy. Kill you first, God forgive me, but I’ll kill you first. Not my boy. You won’t take my boy.…”

  “But really,” Frye continues, “we got a bigger problem. And she’s right in there. I can see her, crawling on the floor like a big fat ant. Her.”

  Leroy Frye leans through the broken window-door and points a dirty finger straight at me.

  “We come about her. The juju gal. Send her out so we can have a look at a real A-freek-an witch.”

  Terror nearly melts me, but I have to try. These people—my grandmother, my friends—they could get hurt because of me. I start to stand.

  Grandmother Jones slams me to the floor. Covers me head to toe with her own body, breathing hard. I smell fear like sour onions on her breath. On her hand as it covers my mouth.

  “Send her out or we’ll burn her out,” Frye says.

  Even from the floorboards, I can see the torch in his hand, coming closer to the hole in the glass. And closer.

  Grandmother Jones won’t let me go. Won’t let me move. I squirm and make like I can’t breathe, and at least she frees my mouth. Turns loose some of my power.

  “Do I need to start counting?” Frye asks.

  Pastor Bickman mutters to the visitors.

  “Let her up, Mrs. Jones,” Clay says. “Ruba, she can take care of herself.”

  Let me up. Yes! Please, let me up.

  “Ruba,” Gisele says. “Rain on ’em, Ruba.”

  “One,” says Leroy Frye. “Two.”

  And he throws his torch through the window.

  I fill my lungs and chant as fast as I can, closing my eyes, rocking beneath my grandmother’s weight.

  She tries to keep me still.

  I rock harder, moving her like a cork on water, chanting and chanting, once more calling on Circe, on Ba, and back, and back. Asking for guidance. Asking for help.

  A breeze begins, rising behind the choir. I can see them through the pew’s wooden floor braces still, and a few singers open their eyes. Others hum. Robes billow as the breeze swirls. The breeze shoots forward and snuffs the torch as it rolls across the floor, from dangerous fire to charred rags and a stick.

  I keep chanting. The choir keeps humming. From the back of the church I hear Gisele giggle, and I think I hear her clap.

  The breeze I called roars in a circle. Like a dust devil in the field. Like a swirl in fall leaves. It moves before me, dancing as I chant. On my command, it heads for Pastor Bickman.

  His eyes widen, and he holds up his Bible.

  The breeze knocks a wing from the broken stained-glass dove as it leaves the church through the gaping window—still obeying my will.

  Leroy Frye steps toward the churning wind, bringing him square into my line of sight. He reaches out. Tries to touch the wind.

  It bites at him like a dog. He leaps back, and that wind blows Leroy Frye right off the porch of Pass Christian Missionary Baptist Church.

  I could use the wind to hurt him more. Even kill him. But I don’t.

  “A push,” I murmur loud enough for my grandmother to hear. “Not a shove.”

  Pastor Bickman and the visiting men turn in my direction. Slow. Like in a dream.

  Grandmother Jones rolls off of me.

  “Praise God. Praise Jesus,” Miss Hattie says from the pew behind us.

  “Told you she could take care of herself,” Clay mumbles.

  I can’t read my grandmother’s face. Even the lines are gone now. Slack, and vacant—like those people on the beach. Like I’ve become a haunt to her. A sea-shine, or something too filthy to see.

  You conjured in the house of God, I imagine her thinking. I imagine her rage, building slow like the stormwitch’s spells on the ocean.

  Witch. Witch!

  Broken stained glass in the rest of the windows turns loose and shatters on the church floor.

  From outside, angry voices begin rising once more.

  I scramble to my feet and run out the front door onto the church’s porch, no longer caring at all what happens to me.

  Gisele and Crazy Sardine run out behind me, and Gisele manages to grab my hand. I stop, but keep my face away from her. I hate that I’m crying. I hate that the foul men in sheets might see my tears.

  Leroy Frye strides toward me, past a line of cars and more cars and sheet-men holding torches. He stops beside a pickup where three shorter sheets are standing in the bed.

  “Ray-boy, Poke, and Dave Allen,” I say, turning loose the anger I held for the sake of my grandmother. “Why do you play at this foolishness?”

  “Foolishness,” Gisele says, and she laughs. “Fools.”

  Leroy Frye’s face goes the color of blood and turnips. “Y’all shut your mouths. And you, Juju, my boy said you did a witch curse in the woods. He says you poured some water on his head.”

  “Your boy’s been in the sun too long,” mutters Crazy Sardine, and I almost smile.

  “She doesn’t do witch curses,” says Clay, elbowing past Crazy Sardine. Miss Hattie is right behind him, snatching at his shoulder. “No such thing as witches. Don’t they teach you that in church?”

  “You calling me a liar, boy?” Frye growls. One car door opens behind him. And another, and another. His friends in sheets are coming out to play.

  “Yeah,” says Gisele. “He’s callin’ you a liar, ’cause you are a liar. Ruba doesn’t do witch curses. She does witch dances.”

  Frye laughs. A grating sound.

  “You’re about little enough to eat,” he says to Gisele. “Damn shame pickaninny meat’s always so stringy.”

  The other sheets close in, torches hot and crackling.

  My muscles tense and my eyes narrow. I focus on the fire. I let the faces of my foremothers burn angry in my mind, and I step forward.

  “Your boy tried to lynch Clay with a belt today, over in the trees near the campground,” I say. Too loud. And it feels good.

  “You got a big mouth.” Leroy Frye spits in my direction, but before it even leaves his lips, I touch my lips with tw
o fingers and blow.

  His stream of tobacco juice turns in midair and spatters back at his feet. He stares at it.

  “Told you, Daddy,” whines Ray-boy from under his pointed hood. I would know his voice anywhere now.

  “Why did you come in sheets?” I take another step forward, toward the pickup where the three boys have started to fidget under their disguises. “What are you afraid of?”

  I raise my hand, and a burst of the lingering wind snuffs the torch closest to me. The man holding it lets out a curse and shakes the smoldering stick.

  I snap my fingers three times.

  Three more torches go dark.

  More swearing. Some shouts.

  “Daddy, make her stop!” Ray-boy insists.

  I spread my arms and blow air like I’m throwing up all over Ray-boy and his friends.

  All the torches are extinguished.

  The crowd mutters.

  People shove through the doorway behind me, but I don’t change my position. With my arms up, I’m ready to act. I’m getting tired fast, though. Only three weeks, and already I’m out of practice.

  In front of me, a sheet-man with a rifle rushes forward. Again I vomit wind on Ray-boy and let it spread as far as it’ll go. The rifle rips from the man’s hands and sails into a tree. It fires, and men in sheets scurry like raccoons in a lightning burst.

  Car doors slam. Pickup doors slam.

  Engines crank.

  Ray-boy and his friends leap from the truck bed and run.

  In moments, it’s just me and Leroy Frye, face to face in the almost-darkness.

  “Ain’t we the big shot.” He spits.

  Hands still in the air, lips puckered, I blow his spit back at him again. This time, it lands on his shirt.

  He brushes the juice away without taking his eyes from me. “Gonna have to teach you a lesson.”

  Clay steps forward and stands next to me. “Teach us both, then.”

  Frye sneers at Clay.

  Crazy Sardine comes next. “And me.”

  Miss Hattie—stern Amazon glare full in place—appears at my shoulder. “And me.”

  And the women come, in hats and dresses, carrying their white gloves in their hands.

  And the men in suits and ties, all shaved and scrubbed.

  And the little boys, with chins out, acting big.

  And the little girls in dyed cotton, tugging bright ribbons that match their socks.

  The whole church, save for Grandmother Jones and Pastor Bickman, presses Leroy Frye toward his truck.

  “You’re just one man,” I say. “One man dressed in a bedsheet. You want me afraid of you?”

  Leroy Frye’s face becomes a dark, puffed scowl. His eyes flash and stab.

  We don’t move.

  He turns his back as if he’s not afraid, but jumps into the cab of his truck in a hurry.

  We hold our ground without a twitch. Without a murmur.

  Leroy Frye cranks his engine. He sits and squeezes his steering wheel for a few seconds, then roars away, spinning dust in our faces.

  Clay lets out a nervous laugh as Frye clears the church parking lot and careers off down the road. His mother laughs, too, and Crazy Sardine taps one platform heel to the other.

  From the porch, I hear sobbing from Grandmother Jones. “God be with us,” she whispers. “There’ll be a war now, for sure.”

  13 August 1969

  Dearest Ba,

  For the smallest moment, I thought Grandmother Jones might be proud of me. Three days ago, after I spoke in the church—before the white men came—I felt like we were starting to understand each other and get along. I thought she might come to trust me, or at least respect what I’ve been taught. I would have given my life for her last Sunday night. For her and my cousin, and my new friends.

  But after those men came and I fought with them … well, Grandmother Jones and I got right back to fighting. She refused to look at me on the drive home. Once we got here, she swore if I use my magic again, she will have no more of me. She said my spells are the devil’s work, and I would have to leave her home.

  I was so upset I couldn’t even write you.

  The next day, I told her we serve the same Creator. I told her if she’d only trust me, my magic might save us when the storm witch’s spirit comes ashore.

  The walls rattled when Grandmother Jones slammed my bedroom door.

  I’ve been grounded to my room since then.

  Perhaps the evil in the hurricane will be an easier adversary than Grandmother Jones.

  Clay, Gisele, and Crazy Sardine—they come by and try to make me smile, and lots of times, they do. Gisele has midnight skin, dark as mine, and her hair feels strong like a snake rope. And there is something in her eyes. Even her laugh. I think the wind knows Gisele, Ba.

  I think Gisele is like me. That she could be an Amazon one day.

  But how will I train her? I feel like I know so little. And what if I make a mistake and lose her to the stormwitch like I lost you?

  I still don’t recall all of what happened when you died, my grandmother. Though I try in each dream. I reach with each stray thought.

  All I want is to come home, to stand with you and raise our hands to the wind, and see in your eyes how much you care. Your face always told me all I needed to know of what was in your heart.

  I can’t believe you’re gone.

  I can’t believe I let you go.

  Chapter Eight

  Friday, 15 August 1969: Morning

  “A few days ago, when we spoke of pushing instead of shoving, you mentioned local people like Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer and Mr. Guyot.” I eat country ham and biscuits before Grandmother Jones goes to work. I’m up early to please her on the first day after my grounding is over. “Where do you know them from?”

  “Everybody around here knows Fannie Lou Hamer,” Grandmother Jones says. “She’s from up around Ruleville, and she got arrested and beaten over wanting to vote. Lost her job. But she rose over it all and led us with the power of her voice. The force of her soul. Lord, but if you could hear her speak, Ruba. And sing. With all she’s been through—I would have followed Mrs. Hamer into hell and believed I could come out alive. Guess that’s what we did, now that I think on it.”

  I don’t speak because she might stop if I interrupt her.

  “And Lawrence Guyot,” she continues. “He organized most of Pass Christian’s local efforts. We worked together during Freedom Summer.”

  “But I thought you didn’t agree with the people who came down for Freedom Summer.” I cover my mouth. The thought popped out even as I tried to grab it.

  Grandmother Jones frowns around a mouthful of strawberry jam. “I didn’t, but once we all started working, I did my part.”

  Her part. I think of Clay’s photo. Grandmother Jones probably marched with marchers and gathered at the gatherings.

  Before I can ask, she says, “I helped teach colored—no, no, I promised Hattie yesterday I’d try to say black, at least amongst our own folks—anyway, I taught black history over at the Gulfport Freedom School. And I kept some CORE volunteers here at the house. CORE covered the Gulf Coast during the registration effort. Hattie kept a bunch of those kids, too.”

  “Here? Freedom Summer volunteers stayed in this house?” I load my plate again, hoping Grandmother Jones will keep talking. “But Clay said people who kept volunteers …”

  “Got beaten. Yes, they did. But I was lucky. We took a few bullets and some rocks through the window—one with a burning rag on it.” Grandmother Jones nods toward the front window, but my eyes search the wall behind her. Are there bullet holes beneath my father’s picture? Beside the bookshelf?

  Grandmother Jones might have patched them. Yes, she probably painted over the pain and hid the scars of survival.

  “Hattie got beaten twice, though,” Grandmother Jones says. “With hose pipe. Kluxers like the hose pipe because it doesn’t leave evidence. Over at the Freedom School, several of our kids got taken and whip
ped on their way home.”

  “Did—did any of them die?”

  “Not that summer, Ruba. The coast, we always had it a little easier because of the tourists and the military bases and all. It’s more liberal down here than upstate. Julian Bond—he was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s communications director—he reckons that around eighty people got beaten during Freedom Summer. Four died, and four got hurt bad. A thousand or so got arrested, and then there were bombings. More over in Amite County than here—but all together, thirty-seven churches and thirty black-owned businesses or homes got hit.”

  All of that, in three months. I make myself eat another bite of biscuit and try to pretend my belly’s not running out of room. “But why don’t you talk about it?” I ask. “Talk about it all the time, all the brave things you did?”

  “It hurts, for one thing. I think of all the good, and all the problems. But what I did wasn’t anything special, child. Nothing every person around me didn’t do, every day. Every single day. Some of them have been doing it for years—and some of them are still working just as hard. Let them talk about it all the time. They deserve the credit.”

  Grandmother Jones finishes her country ham and goes to rinse her plate at the sink. She seems more relaxed this morning. Even a little friendly.

  “Clay and I want to go to Blankenship’s today,” I say. “And to the beaches. But we won’t make trouble, any more than what comes from just being there. We only want to have a soda and walk.”

  “You have no business being anywhere risky after what you did to Leroy Frye. You have no business out of this yard, Ruba.”

  I see Grandmother Jones’s shoulders stiffen, and I know I’ve made another mistake. With nothing to lose, I plunge ahead. “Why do you try to keep me prisoner here? I’m sixteen years old, and in Haiti I took care of Ba. I took care of myself.”

  Silence answers me.

  I drop my eyes, confused. My chest aches. I’m so sick of not knowing what to say. How to act.

  Grandmother Jones comes and pats my hand. “I know I’ve been strict with you. I’ve tried to be extra careful because you’ve lost so much, and with your accent and your foreign ways—well, I figured you’d rain trouble on your own head. And you have.”