by Shana Burg
I’ve got no time to tell Cool Breeze where I’m going. I just flex my toes to keep my sneakers on my feet and race through the woods. Flapjack dashes beside me. I shove the low branches out of the way. Sticks scrape my shins as I tear past elm, oak, pine, and hickory.
Then a strange light stops me cold.
It’s silver. Sun gleaming on silver. The silver moves. I see it’s a shovel. From way back here, through the leaves and branches, I make out a man in an overcoat. It scares me to see anyone at all, though, because Elias and me have crossed through this forest loads of times, and we’ve never run into a soul.
The man’s back’s to me. He’s digging a ditch. He throws something in it.
And I see Flapjack. He’s right next to the man! He claws the trunk of an old oak. There’s an enormous bird’s nest up on the branch. This is no time for lunch, Flapjack! I want to yell. But I don’t have to.
“Scram!” the man screams at my cat. He’s madder than a wet hen!
I take off running through the forest. My hungry cat races up beside me. Together we tear across the pumpkin patch, through rows of sunflowers, and across the tracks. By the time we turn onto Kuckachoo Lane, my breath scrapes inside my lungs.
I ram open the door to Uncle Bump’s shed, but the shed’s empty, so I race across the yard into my house. And I can’t believe it. There he sits at the kitchen table, dealing a game of solitaire like it’s just an ordinary day.
I gather up his cards.
“Hey, put my game back!” he says.
“Something ’bout butter beans,” I tell him. I’m not thinking about my words, choosing the ones that sound best. “Hide!” I yell. I yank his arm with both my hands, try to pull him up.
“What’s got into you? Where’s them vegetables?”
“Honey Worth…They had a meeting…Come on!” Tears collect in the corner of my mouth. “They’re coming to get you. Honey said!”
Uncle Bump stares at me like I’m speaking Latin.
“They say you ruined the garden.”
His eyes narrow. “That don’t make sense.”
“It don’t got to make sense.” I pace across the kitchen. “You’ve gotta go somewhere.”
Uncle Bump shakes his head “no.”
Just then Mama bursts through the door. Thank goodness! Mama won’t let Uncle Bump stay home sitting on a pile of danger.
“What’re you doing here, Bump?” she screams. She throws her pocketbook on the table and hits Uncle Bump on the back with both hands. “Ain’t you heard what they saying ’bout you? ’Bout us? Let’s go!”
He stands and nods like he’s working out a problem. “I’m not running on account of some words from a little white girl,” he says. Then his backside hits the seat again and sticks there, batter on the griddle. “I ain’t a coward,” he says.
“Course you ain’t a coward, Bump. But last I checked, you wasn’t no idiot neither,” Mama shrieks. “Don’t you remember what happened to…” Mama looks at me, changes her mind about something. Then she glares at Uncle Bump. “If my husband could see you sitting at this table, waiting to get yourself killed, he’d kill you himself.” Her eyes widen. “You promised Brayburn you’d watch over us.”
Uncle Bump yanks his harmonica out of his pocket and starts to blow.
Next thing I know, Mama storms out the side door.
So here I sit at the table, trying to reason. But Uncle Bump won’t have any part of my logic. He’s lost in his harmonica tune. While he plays, his eyes half close, but in the open parts, I see a glint I’ve never seen before. The glint in his eyes is like glass that glitters on the side of the road. You expect it to be clear, from a bottle of soda. But you bend down to pick it up and it’s not. It’s blue. Or it’s green. You wonder where it came from. A white lady’s shattered jewelry box? A broken bottle from a fight down the juke joint? Each shard of glass is small as a thumbnail, but in the burst of color, you know there’s a whole story waiting to get told.
Now I can’t go saying what the story inside my uncle is, but I can say this: it’s new and it’s ugly and it’s strange. And I wish I never saw that glint in his eyes at all.
Uncle Bump never does budge from his seat before Mama returns with Reverend Walker at her side. “Addie Ann, you come with me,” she says. She grabs my hand and pulls me through the kitchen, out the side door.
Mama and me hunker down on the steps only seconds before she starts to bawl. “They have it in for us Picketts,” she cries.
By the time Reverend Walker creaks open the side door, I reckon Mama’s run right out of tears. “I know it’s not easy,” the reverend tells us, “but I know you’ll both agree. There comes a time for a man when his dignity’s worth more than his life.” He rubs his thumb across his beard. “This is Bump’s time.”
CHAPTER 22
October 15, 1963, Late Afternoon
When the reverend goes back inside our house, I try to make Mama feel better. “After a couple days the sheriff will forget all about the garden,” I say.
Mama just sits there on the side steps and looks at me like I’m too innocent for this world. Then she reaches over and sets a strand of my hair behind my ear. “That man won’t forget. But maybe the reverend will talk some sense into your uncle. Bump’s gotta leave the house before—”
The bark of a dog cuts off her words. Mama and me stare at each other, too terrified to move.
The reverend appears at the side door again. “You’d best get out of here,” he says.
Mama grabs on to the rail, pulls herself upright. Her knees tremble, and I can see she’s holding that rail so she won’t collapse. “We’re not leaving Bump,” she cries. Then she shouts through the side door into the house, “Come on, Bump! Time to go!”
But I don’t hear Uncle Bump push back his chair. I don’t hear his angry steps as he walks outside to Mama and me.
Now Mama bends down beside me so we’re eyeball to eyeball. Then she squeezes my arm like she’s trying to break it. “Don’t you move,” she tells me. Next she lets go my arm and flies past the reverend into the house. The reverend follows.
Sitting out here on the side steps alone, I don’t know what else to do but try to listen for my brother. I shut my eyes tight and wait for the yellow and orange glitter. But behind my eyes it’s nothing but black. I try to feel the rush of water in my belly crashing over the rocks on the riverbed. But all I feel is sick. Come on! I say to myself. Come on! I need to hear from Elias more than ever. I wait for my breath to get steady and even, but the longer I wait, the shorter it gets, till it almost sounds like the pitter-patter of Flapjack scurrying down the path. No matter how hard I listen, all I hear is that barking dog getting closer and closer and folks yelling inside the house.
It seems even the reverend doesn’t know if the Good Lord can deliver us through, because I hear him shout to Mama, “Get Elmira. She’ll help.”
But Mama shrieks, “I’m not leaving!”
Then I hear Uncle Bump. He yells so loud it scares the bejeezus out of me! “I told you, Maisy. I’m not running. You’re her mama. Get her out of here. Right now!”
Mama crashes through the screen door, face puffed, holding back an explosion of anger and tears. She grabs my hand, yanks me down the side steps. I tweet, click, click. Flapjack hurries to meet us.
Just as we race round to the front of the house, we hear the barking hound again. That dog’s pulling the sheriff and his gang of men down the lane straight to us.
I’m wild with fright but Mama’s wilder. “Not again!” she shouts as we run down the lane. “Please not again!” By the time we reach Elmira’s place, Mama’s babbling nonsense. I pound on Elmira’s front door. The second she opens it, Mama falls into her arms.
“Lord have mercy!” Elmira says.
Elmira’s house is small as a sewing thimble. Two rooms. Candles and potted plants everywhere. Hardly space to move. Elmira and me drag Mama through the kitchen to the bedroom and set her on the bed.
Then I
tell Elmira all about how Uncle Bump’s getting blamed for the butter bean fiasco, how he won’t leave our house, how the sheriff and his men are at our door, how we’re all praying she’ll work magic. All the while, Mama’s blubbering. And the only thing Elmira says is “Mercy! Mercy!”
Then Mama shrieks, “I’ve got to help him!” She tries to jump out of bed, but she doesn’t get too far, because Elmira and me pounce on her. Elmira sits right on Mama’s legs and pins Mama to the bed with her hefty bottom.
“We’ll help Uncle Bump,” I tell Mama. “You stay right here.”
While I talk, Elmira reaches round to the windowsill, pulls off a jar of oil. “You wanna help Bump?” Elmira asks.
Mama nods.
“Then do as I say.” She opens the jar of oil and holds it under Mama’s nose. “Sniff.”
Somehow the scent of the oil makes Mama’s body relax into the bed. Soon Mama looks like she’d rather rest than run. That’s when Elmira stands up, and I touch Mama’s legs to make sure they’re not broken. Thank goodness they feel like they’re holding together fine.
Next Elmira holds out a teaspoon of medicine. “Swallow,” she tells Mama.
After Mama swallows, Elmira whispers, “She’ll be sleeping in no time.” Then she plucks out a bunch of grass growing in a box on her window, wraps the grass in a ball round her finger, and presses it into the soles of Mama’s feet. By the time Elmira finishes her foot work, Mama’s eyes flutter.
I wipe the hair off Mama’s forehead and tuck it behind her ear. “I love you, Mama,” I whisper.
My words seem to help Mama’s eyes close all the way.
“She’ll come through,” Elmira tells me.
Of course, the second I hear Mama will be okay, the rest of the nightmare hurtles to the front of my mind. When I talk, my voice is a thin line. “What can you do for Uncle Bump? A spell? Something?”
“Well, I’m sure I can,” Elmira says.
And I’m sure she can too. That’s because Elmira was born gifted. For the past twenty-three years, she spent her days cooking in Old Man Adams’s kitchen, but nights she came back to the Negro side and worked as the hoodoo doctor, curing ladies of the flu by sprinkling elderberry on their foreheads, helping gentlemen find love by fixing violets in their shoes.
Elmira waddles past me into the kitchen to find her mojo bag and roots. “Sit here,” she says, and pats an empty seat at her rickety kitchen table.
Beside the kitchen table sits the Dutch oven she got from Old Man Adams. And believe me, with Elmira’s spacious bottom and enormous bosom plus the new oven, there’s not much room left to move.
But I squeeze into the seat and watch Elmira search through her cluttered cupboards for the right materials to cast a spell. There’s her mojo bag, the candles, the herbs, a cat-o’-nine-tails, and some colored stones.
“Where’s my lavender? Lavender!” Elmira mutters. She fumbles through her materials.
For all she’s trying to help my uncle, this magic’s taking far too long. And I know I can’t wait. So I shut my eyes and whisper, “Where to?”
This time I don’t wait for the orange and yellow glitter to come to me. I go after it. I call the crowbar gleaming in sunshine right into my mind. And the river. I don’t hope it chooses to meander my way. I imagine that river and dive right in. Even though I don’t know how to swim, I’m not pulled under. I float, I float. My back against the water, I blow my breath into the open sky. Gooseflesh splashes over me. I hear a voice, it’s soft but it’s clear: Follow me.
I open my eyes and trail the whisper to the door.
“Where you going?” Elmira asks.
“To help,” I tell her, even though I’m not sure how.
But Elmira nods like she understands.
And I chase my brother’s voice out her front door, into the dusky sky. Flapjack darts out from beneath a bush. Together we bolt round the bend and down the lane.
CHAPTER 23
October 15, 1963, Evening
Flapjack and me are only halfway home when burnt air scrapes inside my nose. My skin aches. My whole body throbs. Soon enough I see a mob of neighbors in the lane. Then I see my house and Uncle Bump’s shed are one fiery blaze.
Anger boils inside me, more than I can take.
I weave through the people to the fire. The men in the Reverend’s Brigade race from the well with buckets. They inch to the flames, dump the water.
“Reverend!” I shout. But he can only see the runners with buckets. He can only hear the crumbling clapboards. He can’t see me standing here. He can’t hear me cry.
“Uncle Bump!” I scream. I chase a flame up the porch steps. But just as I reach out for the front door, someone tugs my hips. I fall backward down the stairs.
Here’s the reverend, holding my face next to his. “What’re you doing!” He’s crazy with fear.
“Where’s my uncle?” I yell.
“Git on down the lane.”
“I’m not running!” I tell him.
The reverend glances past me to the flames. “What’s with y’all?”
“Where is he?” I yell.
The reverend looks back at me. “I’ma tell it straight,” he says.
I swallow.
“Sheriff bombed the house. Smoked me and Bump out. Bump’s in jail. Sheriff says he’ll take Bump to court come morning.” The reverend sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. Then he leaves me here on the ground.
By the time Bessie comes and wraps her fingers round my wrist, it’s dark. “Let’s go,” she says, and pulls me up. “Somethin’ important.” And I wonder what could possibly be more important than my house burning to the ground, Uncle Bump in jail, Mama going mad.
I follow Bessie down the dirt road, while the truth comes clear in bits and pieces. My map? Gone. My swing? Gone. My jump rope? Gone. The television? Gone. The television! I don’t know why a broken-down television I can’t turn on matters. But it does. It matters for everything.
When we get to the end of the lane, I stop and hunch over, heave the smoky air into my lungs. But Bessie doesn’t care I can’t breathe. She’s still grabbing on to my wrist, leading me through stalks of milkweed.
“Shut your eyes,” she orders. “Go on!”
I don’t want to do what she says, but my eyelids, they fall anyway. And the next thing I know, I hear the milkweed stalks rustle and Bessie run off.
I’m alone.
At least I think I am. But then a shirt against my face clears my nose. And a mixed-up scent of baseball and autumn helps me breathe.
What happens next makes no sense at all.
Something about the smell and the heavy arm round my shoulders takes me home, even though I know my home’s gone. And all of a sudden, the sheets Mama sewed with suns and stars, the kitchen table, my map, my swing, my jump rope, and even my television don’t mean a thing.
When at long last I get up the guts to open my eyes, I can see my home, it’s right here with me. My brother’s beside me! Here, under the bright full moon, I cry and shake and I can’t stop. It’s like I’ve dropped a sack of potatoes I carried for ninety-six days. All this time I made myself believe he was okay. Now I can’t be strong another second.
Everything turns dark.
My head hurts.
I hear a groan.
And I realize that sound, it comes from me.
“I never meant to shock you,” Elias says. He rubs the top of my head, while I take a few minutes to put everything back together again. Me, here in the milkweed. Smoke in the sky. I try to speak but my throat’s charred.
My brother scoops his arm under my neck, helps me sit. “Drink,” he says. He hands me a canteen of water. But I’m crying and drinking at the same time, so there’s more water going out than coming in.
“I hid out here in the milkweed till dark. Then I covered my face with this kerchief.” Elias pulls a bandana out of his pocket. “I saw Bessie at the back of the crowd, so I hid behind a tree and threw a rock to get her attention. At least sh
e ran right over and hugged me up before she went woozy—unlike you.”
“Sorry,” I say.
“If I knew girls were gonna be fainting at my feet, I’d have come back sooner,” he says.
But I don’t think it’s funny and my brother can tell.
“I sent a message so you’d know I was okay,” he says, “but Bessie says y’all never got word.” Elias pulls me into his chest, hugs me tight.
And that’s when I see his brand-new sneakers. But I don’t want to ask questions. I just want to stay here in his arms. It’s a miracle he’s back and Uncle Bump’s alive, but truth be told, a piece of me’s spitting hammers and nails. Here all this time Elias was safe while Mama, me, and Bessie filled the well with our tears.
“He didn’t want anyone to trace the note back. He slipped up,” Elias says, his voice deader than ash. “I overheard the driver in the shop. He was talking ’bout the butter bean fiasco, saying they’re blaming Bump. Second I heard that, I knew I had to risk being seen. When the driver finally left the shop, I bolted home.”
“Who slipped up?” I ask, and pick a pod of milkweed off a stalk. “What’re you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, we’ve gotta take care of Uncle Bump. It seems if some folks get their way…” Then my brother gets that faraway look in his eyes, and I see there’s something he doesn’t want me to know.
“What?” I suck in my breath.
“They’ll put him under the jail, not in it.”
“What?” My brother isn’t making sense. “The reverend said Uncle Bump’s in jail. He’ll go to court come morning,” I tell him.
“Not if they kill him first,” Elias whispers.
I tear apart a pod of milkweed. All the feathers inside fall on me. Then I look up at my brother and wonder if he’s gone mad.
“There’s something Mama and me been needing to tell you a while now,” he says. “We’ve been waiting till you were old enough. I can see now’s the time.”
While Elias talks, all the lies my family told me collapse on me like a pile of bricks. They press on my chest. I can barely breathe. I’m afraid I won’t breathe. Afraid I’ll die. Because this truth, the truth Elias tells me, it might just be more than what I can take. My brother tells me all about Daddy—that Daddy didn’t die of pneumonia like Mama always said.
