by Susan Vaught
“There wasn’t any such thing as Black Power a few years back,” I tell him. The words sound choked. “But people believed, and it’s real now.”
Clay looks a little guilty. He shrugs.
“King Agaja has a special spirit,” I tell him, working hard not to grind my teeth and make my head hurt. “He lives on to protect Dahomey’s descendants.”
“Why does Aka-jo need to protect us?” Gisele asks.
“Because his son reopened the slave ports.” I draw a line in the mud with my finger and make dots on each side. “Think about it this way. On this side of the line, there was Agaja’s tradition and the Amazons who were my foremothers, including Tata.”
Gisele nods. Clay grumbles something I can’t hear.
“On this other side, there was Agaja’s bad son and his stormwitch Zashar. They fought against my foremothers, and didn’t honor Agaja’s beliefs and traditions. So, the people on our side of the line got killed.”
I rub out all the dots on our side, except one. “This dot is Tata. She got thrown in the ocean and ended up on the island of Haiti.”
Then I rub out all the dots on the other side except one. “All of these people got killed, too, because the slave trade made Dahomey weak, and other African nations, and the whites, especially the French, tore it apart. This dot, Zashar the stormwitch, watched her king fail, and she watched her country die. She started to hate white people, and she hated my foremothers, too, for being right about what would happen if those ports got opened again.”
I rub out the last dot. “Then Zashar died, too, only her spirit isn’t at peace.”
“Ruba—” Clay begins, but Gisele cuts him off by popping his thigh with her hand.
I rub out all the lines and dots, make a new line, and put a rock on either side. “Now there’s just Zashar’s evil spirit.” I point to one rock. “And me, the last Amazon.” I point to the other rock. “Zashar uses her magic to send spirits into storms, trying to kill my family and me, and trying to kill white people. It’s her revenge for slavery, and for the ruin of Dahomey and her king.”
Real fast, I pick up both rocks and bash them together. Gisele jumps. Clay jumps, too, but he tries to act like he didn’t.
“I have to fight her magic to save my life, and to save innocent people. I have to send the spirits back to the land of the dead, so hurricanes will be just hurricanes, and not do any more damage than they have to.” I put one rock down and smash it with the other, two hard blows, until it breaks into three or four pieces. “One day, I’ll fight Zashar herself and beat her, I hope.”
“There’ll be one rock then,” Gisele says as I place the stone that’s still whole in front of her dusky folded legs. “And no evil in the storms.”
“Right. Zashar will be finished, and the Amazon spirits can rest in peace.” I smile at her. “And I can train a few new Amazons, to keep our history alive.”
“I never heard such stupidness,” Clay growls. “You’re scaring the child.”
I ignore him and focus on Gisele. “Boys have no soul for these things. Don’t mind him. After she came to this side of the world, to Haiti, Tata guarded Agaja’s spirit and beliefs to her grave, as was her sacred duty, sworn as a girl no older than you. So it’s up to you, believe or don’t, Gisele, but out on the sea—the storm is coming this way, and Zashar the stormwitch is using her magic to make it worse. If you listen, you’ll hear the evil inside the wind sooner or later.”
“It’s a tropical storm,” Clay argues. “It’s weather. Science! Not magic. It’s a hurricane, maybe, and it probably won’t hit us.”
“It will hit.” I keep my voice even despite nervous twists in my belly. “And when it does, it’s my job to turn the evil back, so the storm is just the storm nature intended. Otherwise, I might die, and lots of people who never did wrong to anyone might die with me.”
But what if I’m wrong?
What if Clay’s right and I am imagining things?
No. No! I know what I know, and his doubts can’t change what I know is real.
“The storm’s coming,” I say again, stronger, with a little less worry. “It’ll hit here and not long from now, and Zashar’s dark magic will destroy us all if you don’t trust me.”
Clay wipes his forehead with his shirt, then lies back on the ground. “I believe you’re some kind of witch, Ruba, because I saw what you can do. But I’m not believing some bad ghost is strolling across the ocean, all the way from Africa, because some dead black Amazon worked a spell and put that spirit in the wind to do evil. I’m going to sleep.”
“We gonna spend the night here beside the shipyards?” Gisele asks him.
“Yeah,” Clay says. He hugs himself and rolls over. “I’m not going home to get arrested. Maybe by tomorrow, Officer Bolin won’t be thinking about us.”
Gisele shrugs. She questions me about Haiti and Africa until it’s so dark we can’t see each other, and finally falls asleep in my lap, her head resting on the journal in my pocket. It’s a comforting feeling, the book against my crocodile tattoo, and the slight weight of Gisele as she dreams.
I sit, eyes wide, protecting what’s mine.
Her breathing is slight, like a bird. Like a little crow. Ba had great respect for crows. Said they were as smart as monkeys. Crows defend their young with a fierceness like our own, and they have big families. When a crow dies, other crows mourn. I suppose crows see those holes in the sky, where stars should be. They miss their grandmothers like I miss Ba.
I feel tired. Of fighting. Of losing. Of thinking about dead people more than live people. I’m even tired of being mad, but I keep right on feeling that way. Part of me wants to relax, fall asleep, and wake up believing in Grandmother Jones’s peace, that violence is like Dr. King said, “impractical and immoral.”
The other part of me, maybe the part that still belongs to Ba and Dahomey and the Amazons, likes what Clay quotes, from Malcolm X. A Negro is within his rights to use any method to remove these injustices for racial discrimination.
Gisele stirs in my lap, and I hug her to me, sad that her mother’s dead. If I had been there when she died in a Civil Rights march, I would have wanted to use any method to remove her killer. To right that injustice. But Gisele is alive, and so is her father. Nonviolence won at least that victory. Perhaps Crazy Sardine might have been killed—and Grandmother Jones, too—if they had shoved instead of pushed. I might have had no family left at all.
Then again, if they had used “any method,” I might be living in a Mississippi with more proud black leaders like Malcolm X. Gisele might have a black doll instead of a white one if the protesters had been more militant. If they had fought like Amazons. But, when the Amazons met the French Legionnaires in 1892, it didn’t matter who the better warriors were. The French had better weapons, and the Amazons died.
My belly twists again.
Perhaps I will do as my foremothers did. Shave my head, file my teeth to points, soak my nails in brine until they turn to spikes, and slay as many of the enemy as I can find. Show the white man Africa’s woman heart. Make men like Leroy Frye understand that we’re warriors, and we haven’t been broken. Ba would be proud, but Grandmother Jones would be crushed.
A battle bound to last my whole life … That’s what Grandmother Jones told me. I think of the bullet holes in her wall. Bile surges up my throat, and I cover my mouth.
It rains and rains. Soft, warm water, keeping the clearing damp and chasing away the bugs—but chills run through me. I feel so wet. So uncomfortable and stiff. Sometimes I sway with sleep, but I always snap back to alertness. My muscles ache.
The hours stretch and stretch until the rain ends. Only then do I dare to take my journal from its dry place in my pocket. I’m grateful I have the book to keep me company.
16 August 1969
Dearest Ba,
I’m in the marshes near a shipyard, hiding from American police. I’ll have to face them soon, and I don’t know what will happen.
The morn
ing moves unquiet around us, Clay, Gisele, and me. At sunrise, I heard whispers in the wind. For a moment, they filled the air and rattled my spirit. The storm is moving fast now, almost here—but I’ve never heard anything like it.
Loud, bellowing wind.
And the voice inside, it’s colder than any we’ve dealt with before.
Soon, I’ll have to go home no matter what. I have to get my bow, my oils… so many things to gather! I have to be ready to fight the evil in this storm. Every time I look at Gisele or Clay, or think about Grandmother Jones and Crazy Sardine—I know I have to protect them. I can’t let them be killed because the storm witch is sending a spirit after me.
I think Gisele feels the winds, but without you I don’t know if I should train her. Yet, if I don’t train anyone, and I die right away, who will guard the memory of King Agaja and speak for our history?
Listen, Ba. Listen to the moaning whirlwind in the sea. I may fall, just as you did. Your hand, it rested wet in mine, and so slippery! I couldn’t grip it. I couldn’t hold when you needed me.
Sometimes I have a flash, the tiniest glimpse of that moment your fingers left mine.
Lightning in your hair… thunder in Agontime’s footsteps far away, thunder in Agontime’s words… rain … so much rain and wind…
Why did you start smiling?
What did you say?
Zashar’s storm is coming, and I need to know.
The hurricane’s coming, Ba.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday, 16 August 1969: Morning
“Wake up, girl.” I shake Gisele’s shoulder.
She squints at me with sleepy young eyes and wipes her nose. “What do you want? I barely been sleeping, it’s so noisy out here.”
I eye Clay. He snores in the drizzle, and sometimes he coughs.
I don’t think he can hear Camille’s winds yet. I don’t think anyone with normal ears can hear her.
But Gisele said it was noisy. My gaze turns back to her.
Can she hear the hurricane coming?
Gray half-light through tree fingers tells me Grandmother Jones has left for work, and I know she will be worried. We should go—but I can’t ignore what Gisele said. “Is it still noisy to you?”
She shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Tell me what you hear.”
“Clay snoring … and rain dropping … and leaves swishing.…” She rubs her ears. “And some lady yelling about killin’ people for good and ever.”
Fear and joy blend inside me at once.
She hears the witch! Gisele is born to be an Amazon like me. I feel like frozen fire, hot and cold.
And yet, she could have had a dream, couldn’t she? “This lady who’s yelling, do you understand what she’s saying?”
“Not really.” Gisele yawns. “She sings, and she swears, and she yells crazy. Real loud, and there’s back-and-forth shoos-shoos, and sometimes a splat.”
“I think you’re hearing the waves in front of the storm,” I murmur. “And the spirit inside it, too. You’re hearing her better than me.”
Clay’s eyes fly open. “You’re crazy, Ruba.” He pulls himself to his feet, shaking his head. “How could she be hearing something so far away? Spirit inside it—I swear, you’re touched in the head.”
Fast anger overtakes me, and I want to hit him. And then I want to cry. Maybe Gisele did just have a dream. Maybe I am just scaring her.
“Come on, Gisele. I’ll take you home.” Clay grabs at her hand, and Gisele doesn’t hesitate.
Grab. Twist. Push. Hold.
She throws him to the ground, using her weight and position as leverage, just as I taught her the night before.
Clay props himself up on his elbows, groans, then regards me from his backside like I’ve grown wings behind my ears. “This is your fault, Ruba!”
Gisele scratches her forehead as if she didn’t just throw down a boy nearly three times her age. “Why? You’re the one who touched me when I didn’t ask you to.”
Clay scrambles up, gives us a final scowl, and stalks off into the bushes. Gisele and I wait for a second, then not knowing what else to do, follow as he stomps through the trees.
He doesn’t speak as we follow the path we took yesterday, beside misplaced mansions and through yards and past shacks until we near our dead-end street.
“The Man gonna get you,” Gisele warns Clay as we turn for home. “Grandma Jones told that cop she would bring us to him, remember?”
“For what?” he asks, almost shouting. “We didn’t do anything!”
My eyes trail toward the Gulf skies. Sun burns through the early morning rain, and blue shows between white fluffy clouds.
The storm is coming. Isn’t it?
“This is foolishness,” I tell Clay nervously, still studying the skies. “Why don’t we hide a little longer, so when the storm comes—”
“Don’t talk to me about that foolishness, Miss Witch,” he growls.
Gisele rolls her eyes.
When we reach our homes, no police cars wait for us. I let out a breath I’ve been holding for several long moments.
Clay doesn’t stop at my house and see me inside. He stomps right across our walkway and Gisele’s to his own, climbs the steps in a hurry, shoves open his door, and slams it behind him.
Inside Gisele’s house, something stirs at the noise. In a few seconds, Crazy Sardine swaggers out his door to meet us. He scoops Gisele into his arms. “Where you been? I looked all night.”
“We hid from the fuzz, Daddy,” she says. “And I’m gonna be a Amazon witch like Ruba, and I’m gonna help her beat up Za-Za’s ghost who’s out walking on waves.”
Crazy Sardine gives her a smile as he puts her down. “Go on inside. Be there in a minute and make you some hotcakes.” He kisses his daughter’s head, and she skips up the stone steps and into her house.
Me, he regards with no expression at all.
“Sorry to worry you,” I whisper. “When the police came—like Grandmother Jones said—we were afraid.”
“I know. Maizie told me Leroy Frye’s already making trouble, getting his friend to tell lies about some radio. She’s worried about you, Ruba. Called here a bunch of times, and over to Hattie’s, to see if y’all came in yet. I told her y’all were just hiding, but I think maybe you should use y’all’s telephone first thing when you go in.”
My toes are becoming a familiar sight to me. “I will. I didn’t mean to make her unhappy.”
As I turn away, Crazy Sardine heaves a sigh that could move leaves. “You make your grandmother happier than you know, you’re so much like James Howard. But mercy, you look a lot like your mother, girl.”
I turn back, curious. I know little of Circe, because it hurt Ba to speak of her. “Do I?”
“Yes. Like God took a picture, only turned it younger.”
I smile where he can’t see me.
“I remember her from Tougaloo, during the storms and all. I saw what she could do with weather and the wind. If you want to train Gisele like your mother and grandmother trained you, that’s fine by me.”
This time I look him straight in the eye.
Crazy Sardine shrugs. “Not everybody thinks magic is evil, especially not old magic. I think it’s part of us, from way back. After Gisele’s mother got killed in the march, I—I’m—well, I am what I am, and I’d be grateful for whatever you teach her.”
I nod.
He nods.
“If you would let me train your daughter, you must trust me, Cousin.”
“Yes, Ruba. I do. Just like I trusted Circe.”
“If ever we find trouble together, will you do as I ask?”
He rubs the back of his neck and grins. “Probably will. Especially in a storm.”
I cut my eyes to him, and he grins.
“Did you know my mother well?”
“Not very. She kept to herself at college. James Howard, he was smart like Circe. They made a good match. Both quiet, careful—but you could see the fight in t
heir eyes. Feel their heart when they spoke, and my God, but they could give you that look, Ruba. That look says you’re full of stuff and nothing, or that you just did the best thing in your whole life.”
I think of Ba’s eyes, of how I always knew her heart through her touch and words. And of Grandmother Jones and her rock face, and how when the warmth cracks through, I feel sun in my heart. I smile.
“Guess you got a piece of both of them,” Crazy Sardine says. “Maizie Jones and Miss Ruba Cleo, too, though I never knew Circe’s mother, rest them both. I see it when I look at you. When I listen. You’re deep smart, like they were.”
“Ba—um—Grandmother Ruba Cleo, she really did make me study. About Africa and history, the world, plants, the ocean—everything. And Grandmother Jones and Clay, they’ve been teaching me about the civil rights movement.”
“I expect you’re a fast learner, Ruba.” Crazy Sardine shakes his head. “Gisele’s a fast learner, too. She can keep up with you. I’m sure of it.”
I shiver in my damp clothes, but somehow, I’m warm inside. Crazy Sardine gives me a wave and heads off to make Gisele’s breakfast.
I find my own breakfast waiting on the stove. Biscuits still a bit warm in foil. Bacon and eggs. Juice already poured in a cup, just inside the refrigerator.
A note on the kitchen table instructs me to call when I get in, and I do.
“I was scared to death,” is the first thing out of Grandmother Jones’s mouth, followed by, “I never thought you’d stay gone all night. I ought to put you on restriction until next year!”
This is definitely not a time to make a stand—the pushing kind, the shoving kind, or any kind in between. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And you know we can’t be dodging Officer Bolin forever. We’ll need to go down and talk with him, proper like. Tell the truth. I already called, told him we’d come by early in the morning tomorrow, before church.”
I squeeze the hard plastic receiver, pressing it against my ear. “Clay says we don’t have a chance. Not if a white woman said we stole from her. Clay said we would go to jail.”
