The Secret of Magic

by Johnson, Deborah

  There weren’t that many outside electric lights on Mary Pickett’s street, and across it, where shacks sloped toward the river, there were none. But a beam from the center of town spangled through the trees. It illuminated the way back to the courthouse and to Calhoun Place—that is, if Regina chose to take it. She didn’t. She started on her way again and suddenly the Magic kids were there, right beside her. Collie and Booker and Jack, the children who had run out of the cottage, out of the Big House, and maybe down this same street. Pointing out the very things to Regina that Daddy Lemon had once upon a time pointed out to them. And there was Daddy Lemon himself, a sprightly old man who now wore Willie Willie’s face and who knew all about magic and might even know—maybe, maybe—about murder. An old man who sang out,

  See that burdock tree—bark’s good for toothache

  Sage bush there—good for a blood wound

  Draws out the poison

  Draws it out fine

  And that Dancing Rabbit

  Running

  Running

  Toward the River

  Toward The Folly

  Because The Folly was this way, too. Regina remembered. And The Folly was the Blodgett house. Burned—she’d read this in New York—almost down to the ground.

  The road got rougher; she felt it through her shoes—pumps, which she now regretted not changing—as it crumbled from poured concrete toward broken asphalt then from gravel to hard-packed mud. She heard electricity sizzle through wire and then watched as a lone streetlight flared to life over her head. It fell on what looked like patches of lace draping from the tree limbs, then spreading out in swatches from branch to branch. They glimmered between the trees like the magic entrance to a fairy tale. It took Regina a closer look and a moment to realize she was staring at spiderwebs, condensation shining like gossamer through them. Around her the forest ruled, its trees rooted to the land, the overarch of its limbs able to hold back the sun. Regina bent close to touch the webbing. It dissolved on her fingers, leaving a gritty, soft residue. She rubbed it together, brought it close to her nose, and sniffed—and smelled Revere. The mud of its river, its sweet flowers, the scent of its dense growing things, all caught and exuded on the remnants of a fragile spider’s web. Regina breathed in once, and then again, more deeply. For a moment the way things smelled in Revere absorbed her and she wondered if she would remember it once she left here, if there would be something that would bring it back to her, as she made her quick way up Lexington Avenue or down Fifth, as she got off the subway and hurried through Harlem. She wondered if Joe Howard had been remembering this very scent, the freshness of it, as he made his long way home from the war. Wondering and wondering, smelling her fingers, her mind far away, her eyes toward the forest. Finally, looking up, she saw the dog.

  It was a huge thing, and so dark it looked like it could have been sliced from the earth. Or maybe gnawed its way out. Its mouth hung open with visible teeth; its eyes focused on her. And they were live things, so conscious of her and concentrated on her that Regina imagined them counting the breaths as they entered her chest. Numbering them, aware that they had grown shallow and quick, because this was obviously a hunting dog able to sense fear and ferret for it. Regina forced herself to look back at him, to take one deep breath and then another until she felt the pulse at her throat slow.

  For a moment, for an instant, everything stilled.

  Shhh, Regina, the forest whispered. Quiet, too.

  Then a whistle from somewhere deep within the trees, someplace hidden that Regina couldn’t see. A high, quick sound, but immediately the dog trotted toward it.

  Regina waited until he had completely disappeared, then she looked over her shoulder. She was still near enough to turn back to Calhoun Place, and probably she should do that. She could smell the wood smoke from its chimneys, could see them playing hide and seek through the branches of the trees.

  All the matinee movies she’d ever seen flooded back to her now, the ones she’d always thought of as the white-girl pictures. Where the white girl would hear a noise in the basement, would hear a noise in the attic, something tapping away outside, and she would be compelled to go and investigate. Not like a black girl. Regina would laugh about this with friends and with her mother. Black girls had enough trouble on their hands. They didn’t need to go seeking it out.

  But if she went on, who knew what she might find?

  So what choice did she have? She had to push on. And the dog hadn’t followed this path. No, he’d disappeared into the forest, been swallowed up by the forest, so really, was there any reason she should not go on the way she’d planned? She couldn’t think of one, but her steps slowed anyway and she looked around. Cautious.

  Regina had gone on only about fifty feet when she started smelling the river, its dank scent hanging like a dividing curtain on the air. She heard a frog croak behind it, and a splash that might have been some deep-river catfish leaping up to strangle, for a second, on the night air.

  If the river was here, she must be near The Folly, but still, when she actually got there, it seemed to jump out of the forest at her, a surprise. Because it hadn’t been burned “down to the ground” like the clipping from Jackson Blodgett’s Times Commercial had said. The Folly still stood, slabs of it rising like shadows from scorched earth, entire walls even behind the ruin of what once must have been a front porch. The whole thing, the wreck of it hulking up close to the dirt road, a kerosene lamp flickering light onto its burned out step.

  Someone is here.

  Regina heard a whisper, then footsteps. She saw a shadow separate itself from the ruined walls and come on out onto the porch—Wynne Blodgett and the dog, the big one from the road, standing there with him. The two of them now motionless as marble. Waiting for her.

  14.

  Come on up,” Wynne said. “Join me. Mind the steps, though. Some of them are pretty done in.”

  His was “a refined voice,” as Anna Dale Buchanan had described it, with a different accent, too. Softer than his father’s, stronger on the vowels than Mary Pickett’s, and not like his mother’s high-pitched whine at all. Another of the endless ways of talking Southern that Regina had found in Revere.

  It was a young man’s voice. And he was young, maybe younger than she was. At least that was what Regina speculated, twenty-three, twenty-four at most.

  Still sowing wild oats.

  Still playing kids’ pranks.

  That’s how they explained away what he did.

  Yet Regina listened to him, paid strict attention. She went up to the house slowly, one careful step at a time. It was darker now, shadows playing everywhere, and the dog—big and scary—was free to pull her into any one of them. But she’d deal with him, too, if that became necessary. Because Wynne Blodgett was the one she needed to talk to, and now she had her chance.

  “You Mary Pickett’s lawyer?”

  No “Miss” before “Mary Pickett.” He was the first one Regina had heard skip that.

  “I’m Mr. Willie Willie’s lawyer.” Safe on the porch now, Regina turned slowly to face him. “But we’ve already met. Remember? That day at Calhoun Place, when you returned my handkerchief. By the way, thank you again.”

  “You’re welcome.” His smile was easy. “You interested in the home place?” A shift of his head that took in the ruin behind him. “Why don’t you move in a little closer, look on in over there.”

  She glanced quickly around, satisfied herself that the dog hadn’t moved, and then once again did as Wynne said. Ash from the burned-out window sash crumbled through her fingers as she peered in.

  She saw, right away, that within the shell of this destroyed decaying false antebellum crouched a log cabin, around which the much grander house had been built—or almost built. Because parts of it looked like they’d never been finished. The left side didn’t rise to a second story; she could see the remnants of
only three columns on the crumbling porch. Looking close, forgetting Wynne Blodgett for a minute, she made out bark that remained, even now attached to its outside walls, the clear outline of still-intact windows, even the fluttering of curtain at one of them. All of this eerie. The new house completely destroyed, the original still right there.

  “Interesting, isn’t it, the way it burned down. A set fire. You can always tell them,” said Wynne. “Want more light?”

  He lifted the kerosene lamp, brought it so close that she felt its heat at her neck.

  “No, thank you,” she said, moving slowly away, wondering what exactly he meant by that “set fire” but saying, “I’ve seen enough.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She turned around then. Wynne smiled, settled down on one of the lower stairs, reached into his pocket and pulled out a tin of hand-rolled cigarettes. He offered one to Regina, a surprise. When she said no, Wynne shrugged and motioned for her to sit on the step beside him. He laughed when she hesitated. “It’s okay. I told you this is our home place. Can’t nothing happen to a lady lawyer here. Besides . . .” A grin. A pause. “I got myself something to tell you.”

  So she sat down. And once she did, he moved nearer, positioning himself so he was that little bit too close to her. She tried to edge away, but when she shifted, sharp splinters worked their way through the wool of her skirt. They seemed to tell her she’d better be careful, sit quietly, not fidget around. Or she’d be sorry.

  The forest whispered, You’re getting what you came for. Now, listen up!

  She looked out over the trees, and there were Mary Pickett’s three brick chimneys rising dark against a sky dying into mockingbird colors—gray, with white clouds and the odd streak of blue.

  “New York and all,” said Wynne, dragging at his cigarette. “At least that’s what I heard.”

  “I’m from New York.”

  “Didn’t have to say it, even with that accent. You don’t look like anything from around here. Don’t act like it, either.” A pause. “I been watching you.”

  He reached up, fanned away smoke from his cigarette before it waved into her face. Another surprise to Regina, but she distrusted all this sudden courtesy, thought it might be the biggest danger of all. In the distance, she heard a dog bark.

  “That yours?” she said, looking over at the huge dog he’d brought with him. It still stood at The Folly’s edge, hadn’t moved. But when Regina moved, the dog’s eyes followed her.

  Another bark. In the forest. Sounding nearer.

  “That yours, too?” she said, motioning toward the trees. “The dog, I mean.”

  Wynne grinned again. “Not mine. Mine wouldn’t waste his time barking. He’d be up on you, teeth in your jugular before you even knew he was there.”

  So much for Southern good manners.

  “I’ll remember that,” Regina said.

  She’d never been this close to a white man. Not even to the one white lawyer in her office, a man from upper New Hampshire, son of a Congregationalist minister, who was as determined as the rest of them were to see simple justice and had once stammeringly confided to Regina that her mother had been the inspiration for what he’d done with his life. Regina had nodded, edged back, and studiously avoided him after that. Not that she hated white men, not really. Still . . . after what they’d done to her father . . . she couldn’t help herself.

  But that had been in New York, and New York, she had to admit, was nothing like Revere—a place where black people and white people were all jumbled together, had built up a land, and still lived, in a sense, right on top of each other, constantly traipsing in and out of one another’s lives. So close that they couldn’t just naturally be separated, Regina thought now, looking at Wynne Blodgett smoking his cigarette, holding it just like Willie Willie held his, between his thumb and forefinger. No, you needed Jim Crow laws for that, and Confederate flags waving over a courthouse, and separate drinking fountains, and separate schools, and poll taxes and literacy tests for voting, and substandard schools—and in the end a good man like Joe Howard Wilson dead.

  And after all that, what was it you got? A bit of air, a bit of smoke, all that separated her from this man. Who smelled of Old Spice cologne, like Willie Willie smelled of it, and of cigarettes and wood and stale whiskey. And kerosene, too. She sniffed that on him, as though the slightest spark could set him off like tinder, because this was a white man who could get away with murder, and probably had.

  That was the difference down here. In Omaha, the men who killed her father had not known him, had barely even looked at him before they lynched him up. But everybody knew Joe Howard—they knew Willie Willie—here in Revere.

  Something rustled beneath the burnt steps, shot out for the underbrush. Made Regina jump. Still, the dog didn’t move.

  “Wasn’t nothing but a ol’ critter,” said Wynne Blodgett with a chuckle. “My dog’d have done with it upside of a minute. If I sent her at it, that is. Probably just a muskrat. Such a little bitty something. Not big enough to hurt you here.”

  His voice pushed a little at that one word, hurt.

  And there was the smallest smile on Wynne’s face, the wrinkles it made linking right on up from his lips to his eyes. He nodded her on, and the nod seemed to take them right back to Joe Howard, to the murder, to why she’d come here and why she stayed. She could almost see his words straining out at her about that.

  But instead she asked about his strange, ghostly shell of a house. “What do you think happened? Why did it burn?”

  “You mean who burned it?”

  Wynne looked thoughtful for a moment, regarded her through a cumulus of smoke.

  “Willie Willie,” he said at last.

  “Really?”

  But the pieces were coming together in Regina’s mind, a perfect fit. The date on the clipping Mary Pickett had sent to the Fund. She’d have to check it again, make certain, but from what she recalled, The Folly had been torched right after the grand jury had brought back its verdict on Joe Howard’s “accidental death.”

  “But why? I mean, why do you believe he did it?”

  “Because he did do it. Everybody in town knows that.”

  Just like they know you killed Joe Howard? But not really knowing it. No evidence to prove it—so far.

  Regina was really careful not to move; the step beneath her was a thicket of splinters. “And if he did, like you say he did . . . and really . . .” She shrugged, shoulders up, down. “I wonder why your daddy . . . I mean, I wondered why they never just went on and put him in jail. Him being a Negro and all. I was wondering about that.”

  Wynne Blodgett stubbed out his cigarette, pulled out another. Again, he offered the tin to Regina first. Again, she shook her head no.

  “Mary Pickett.” Her name came out of his mouth on a plume of white smoke. “That’s the plain and simple reason. Willie Willie belongs with Mary Pickett, and my daddy never could force himself to lift a finger against a Calhoun. None of my family could. They . . . She treated him like dirt, but my daddy . . . Underneath, I guess he’s still hoping.” The grate of a chuckle. “At least, that’s what my mama always says.”

  But he must have thought better about getting into what his mama might have to say on the matter. Instead, he motioned behind them with his cigarette, arching it out, bringing it so close to Regina’s cheek that she could feel the heat from its nub. “You see that little house inside all this, the log cabin? You get close enough at the window you could make it out?”

  Regina nodded. She’d seen it.

  “That’s what you should ask me about sometime. That little house inside, what it means, how it got there. I don’t imagine you got anything like this where you come from. Not in New York. But there’s a lot of that kind of stuff down here. Big houses sprouting up from what you might call humble beginnings. Calhoun Place started out a log cabin, too, bu
t I don’t imagine Mary Pickett’s ever let you in it—at least not past the kitchen. Not uppity like she is. A nigra like you.”

  He laughed, and Regina didn’t correct him.

  “Well, I have,” Wynne said. “Been in it. And you can still see the beams of the old cabin, if you look really hard in the front parlor and in the living room. If you know exactly what you’re seeing, you’ll recognize it right off. A beam left standing here, a rough wall there. They tell a story, point out a family moving on up, or at least trying to.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “You interested?”

  He brushed his pant leg against the silk of her stocking. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t flinch, move away. She sure couldn’t do that. Not if she wanted to find out once and for all what had happened to Joe Howard. Not if she wanted to get this man to tell her the truth. Close now. Too close. And she smelled again that whiff of stale liquor seeping up through the creases of his fine clothes and fine face. She had the strongest urge then, almost a directive, to get up, retrace her steps, walk away from this ruined house, on past the dog on the road and the woman unfurling her laundry, walk back through Revere to New York and the way life had been. Get away from this man and what she knew he was bound to tell her. Run away from what she had come here to hear.

  But Wynne Blodgett had no idea the war that was waging inside her. He’d wound himself up now, was talking away.

  “I guess you know what happened. Willie Willie, with his gossipy ways, his tale-telling ways. He would have told you.” A chuckle. “Sure would have.”

  So she calmed down, exaggerated a wrinkle into her forehead. “About what?”

  “About my uncle Vardaman,” said Wynne. “How he got himself killed—one shot right through the middle of his head—by Old Man Coddington Mayhew for messing around with old man Coddington Mayhew’s young wife. They called it a suicide. You ever heard a suicide killed himself with a neat little rifle shot through the middle of his forehead? No, I just bet you haven’t, even in New York. We were poor then, and Coddington Mayhew was rich. So he could just out and do mur—” Wynne caught himself. “Whatever he wanted. But I didn’t see no Negro Defense Fund coming down to give us a hand. Didn’t see your rich Mary Pickett—related to all those Coddingtons and those Mayhews three ways from Sunday—sending off to get us no justice and relief.”