The Secret of Magic

by Johnson, Deborah

  • • •

  BUT WHEN REGINA WOKE UP the next morning the only person still there was Willie Willie. He was sitting in the barkcloth-covered easy chair that he had drawn up close to her bed and his fingers were playing, again, with that bright spot of silver, just like they had been the first time she’d seen him on the gravel out at the bus depot here in Revere.

  “How’s Peach?” She winced and looked over to see her arm a mass of white gauze and adhesive bandages, with, at the end, five swollen fingers barely peeking out.

  “Ol’ Peach, she be off now for Glory.”

  “Off for Glory? What’s that mean?” But struggling up in the bed, she remembered.

  “Peach died, Miss Regina. That fire out there in the forest—she went out with it.”

  She looked over at him, then, focused, saw the shirt on his lap. Of course he had found it. He’d know where to look. It was his cottage, after all. And he’d guess that Peach had given it to her, not like Wynne Blodgett, who didn’t know and would think Peach had kept the shirt to herself and—maybe—finally got scared and had killed her to get it. Wynne Blodgett, a man like that, how could you figure out what was going on in his head?

  But Willie Willie didn’t say anything about Wynne Blodgett, not to her. For a moment, they just sat there, two black people, one old, one young—and Regina wondered where the anger was, where had it disappeared to? Because surely, she thought, she ought to still be angry. Her mother would be mad as hell. Things running on like they were in Mississippi—Ida Jane would be pitching a fit.

  Except this was her fault. Regina knew it. If she hadn’t hit Wynne. If she’d just bided her time, kept hold of her temper. If she hadn’t told him about that shirt.

  “Mr. Willie Willie . . .”

  He shushed her. “Miss Mary Pickett done told me everything. About what you told Wynne. About how you punched him.” A chuckle. “Anything you could tell me and more. Miss Mary Pickett and me . . . Well, we know each other. Been knowing each other for a mighty long time.”

  “Then she told you it was my fault. I’m the one . . .”

  “What Miss Mary Pickett said to me, Miss Regina, was that you wanted to help me, get me some justice for my son.” He paused. “I’m grateful to you for it. I rightly am.”

  Regina wasn’t convinced, but across from her, Willie Willie still played with his hands, strong, ashy fingers brushing together. If it had rained last night, if she hadn’t been dreaming, then the air had been washed clean by it. Sunlight beamed like a searchlight through the open blind, turned the gray in his head into bright molten silver, brightened again the real silver that played in his hand.

  “But tell me, now, how you doing?” he said. Now he looked up, and his smile was so quick she almost missed it. Outside, there was the sound of a door slamming, of someone tramping up the back steps over at Mary Pickett’s, and going straight in the back door.

  “Fine,” Regina said and smiled, but she ached all over, pain pushing tears into her eyes.

  “They cleaned up that dog, took him over to the doc. Don’t look like he got rabies, though. I wouldn’t expect that. You won’t have to have those shots. I guess that’s something.”

  He looked up. “And I got something to say to you. Miss Mary Pickett told me what you think about that book.” He didn’t call it his book or her book, Regina noticed; he just kept talking on.

  “How old are you, Miss Regina?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Uh-huh.” Willie Willie seemed to take this in, digesting her age, his eyes making her seem younger than she actually felt. “Well,” he continued, “Miss Mary Pickett was twenty when she got called back here. Twenty when she came home at the start up of the Depressing. And to what? To a stroked-out daddy and a house falling down around both of their heads. To a passel of cousins and cousins of cousins, all of them forever needing some help. To the only man she’d ever love—I know that now—married off and father to another woman’s child. But she was still my baby girl, and I could see the world on her shoulders. So I’d go over at night into the kitchen, and I’d take Joe Howard with me. She’d help him out with his little schoolwork, and I’d tell her my stories. But they weren’t all just my stories. I’d heard a lot of them myself—from the Choctaw, from somebody claim he was the last conjuring man survived of the Natchez, from the old-timey folks, some came right down from Miss Mary Pickett’s own daddy. People who carried on stories from when the forest began.”

  Regina looked past him, out the window, over at a great house that had been built on slave labor.

  “So you think what she did—she stole from you—you think that was all right?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Willie Willie seemed to consider. “What I’m saying is, it looked right to her then. You know, Miss Regina, once upon a time there was a man named Luther Mottley. He’s in that Magic book. In a way, it’s almost all about him. What he could do. What he could get away with. Now, Luther—he was one right really bad man, and everybody in this town knew it. His daddy, the one built up the house and the shop, had called Luther back from New Orleans to take care of his two sisters. That’s how it was back then, that was the custom. But Luther loved New Orleans and he hated it here, and he hated his sisters. Hated and hated—until the day Sister fell down and she broke that hip. Luther’d stand on the porch. Wouldn’t let nobody near her. Ol’ Doc Sherrod—this Doc Sherrod’s daddy, a white man—went out to help, and there’s Luther politely holding a rifle in his hand. That’s another of the customs. You see, Doc Sherrod was on Luther Mottley’s land. Sister so weak now, pulling herself across the floor to do what Luther ordered her to do, moaning but scared to moan too loud because it might upset Luther. He might turn on her. Scared to death he might hurt her again. Until one day—why, Peach and I killed him.”

  Just like that, word following word, with as much expression in them as if he’d been telling Regina he’d bought red apples that morning off a truck passing through. Regina sucked in her breath.

  “Killed him,” repeated Willie Willie. “And then disappeared him. Not because of what he’d already done to Sister, not because of revenge—you got to believe that—but because Luther had to be stopped before he did worse. I was a rough young man back then, grown up in a rough young land, a land full of strange stories and customs. Now I ask myself, ‘Would I do it again?’” He paused. “I like to think not.”

  He smiled at her then, clapped his hands. She’d seen a magician do this once at the end of his act, almost as though it had come time to break the last spell. When Willie Willie did this, the delicacy of a ladybug spread her wings and floated up from the protection of his old and gnarled hands. He must have been hiding her all along. Regina hadn’t seen, but she watched now as the ladybug spread her wings, fluttered them, and flew straight up. Regina tried following the flight, but she couldn’t. She turned her head in the direction of noise, but this turned out to be the scratching of the magnolia limb against the windowpane. This took her eye away from the ladybug just for an instant, but still she lost it.

  Beside her, Willie Willie chuckled.

  “What you just witnessed,” he said, “why, that’s nothing but the secret of magic. Ol’ Man Magic always does that. Makes us forget what we started out after. Makes us look where he wants us to look.” He pointed to a spot on the ceiling, far off in the corner. “See, there’s your good-luck ladybug, big as you please.”

  He reached down then, lifted the shirt, brought it over to Regina on the bed. Then he took the silver he had played with his hands and laid it on top, where it fit like a puzzle piece, in with the others.

  “The button” she said, and she was on fire with what it meant. Proof. Proof that Wynne Blodgett had done this. Despite the pain, she started struggling up.

  Beside her, once again, Willie Willie shaking his head. “Don’t mean a thing. Not even this. Didn’t you listen to the
sheriff over there at Tom Raspberry’s? Didn’t you hear what he said? Why, Wynne Blodgett could come right on out and say that he killed my boy. He always did it, always admitted it. To his friends, that is, when he was drunk.” A lift of Willie Willie’s shoulders, a smile on his lips that wasn’t quite nice. “Wynne’s always been one to talk more than he should. No, this shirt, what happened—it don’t mean one thing for this town, for those who own it and rule it. But that don’t mean it don’t mean nothing to me.”

  Willie Willie smiled at her, and his smile was radiant, a father’s smile. And she loved it.

  “You did your best for me, Miss Regina, Esquire, and for my son, Lieutenant Joe Howard. And I thank you for it.”

  18.

  It was going to get worse before it got better. That’s what the new doctor said. This time a black one, a man named Dr. Mills, who came over from Malthorn, a little-bitty town, he told her, north of Revere. “But it’s home.”

  “What’s that they say . . . fortunate in your misfortune?” The doctor had a deep, rich drawl. “That’s you, all right, Miss Robichard. No major veins touched. No real tendon damage. You’ll keep those scars for the rest of your life, but they’ll heal clean. In time, you might even forget they’re there.” He tapped her cheek with his stethoscope. “At least he didn’t have time to get hold of your face. You can thank Miss Mary Pickett for that.”

  “Yes, I should,” she said, but she didn’t. No matter what Willie Willie had told her, how he had tried to explain things. Not that she was angry—about The Secret of Magic, about what it had meant to her and what she now knew. No, not angry, really . . . She just didn’t want to have anything more to do with M. P. Calhoun.

  The doctor came twice a day at first and then once. He always told her she was improving, always asked her about her job at the Fund (“Want to visit New York myself someday”), always said to convey his kind regards to Miss Mary Pickett. Asked if she—Regina—saw much of Mr. Willie Willie.

  “He’s the one took us out into the forest,” said the doctor. “Me and my brothers. Mr. Willie Willie’s the one taught us to hunt.”

  But Regina did not see Willie Willie. After that first night, he’d disappeared once again.

  Instead, Regina spent those last few days getting better, looking out the window at Mary Pickett and Dinetta, each in a crocheted shawl, picking through things left over from the harvest—setting up collards, canning late tomatoes and lady apples—their heads bent close together and talking away. Once in a while, Mary Pickett looked up and over at the cottage. Dinetta never did.

  But it was Dinetta who brought Regina the news.

  She was upstairs, her luggage laid out on the floor, putting the last of her clothes in it—an awkward thing, with her arm still in a sling. But Thurgood wanted her back, and Ida Jane, almost frantic with worry, threatened to come down to Revere this very minute. The compromise was that she and Dr. Sam would meet Regina in Washington, D.C., the day after tomorrow. Like Thurgood, Ida Jane talked about the dog attack, the death of Peach, all of the violence. Nobody said anything anymore about Joe Howard and the case, because they all understood that the case was all gone.

  “You got to see this!” hollered a newly friendly Dinetta from the cottage doorway. Regina paused from folding a blouse and listened to her taking the stairs two at a time. “Not gonna believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  “A black cross flaming bright as day last night over at Mr. Jackson’s house. You know, the old Mayhew Place where he lives.” Dinetta paused. Dramatic. “And they say Mr. Willie Willie’s the one done it.”

  “Who says?”

  “The newspaper says. Well, it’s not exactly in the newspaper. Here, read this.”

  She held out a special edition of The Revere Plain Dealer.

  BLACK CROSS BURNED ON BLODGETT LAWN

  * * *

  Local authorities were called to the old Mayhew house yesterday morning at three a.m. by its owner, Mr. Jackson Blodgett. Mr. Blodgett told them he looked out of his window to see flames coming off an object on his land and immediately called the fire department. Although this reporter was not allowed close enough to assess just what the object was, rumor has it that Mr. Blodgett is saying it was a black-painted cross. When questioned further, he stated, “I guess we all know who’s behind this, and it’s time to call an end to it. This is no longer a joke. This time I’ve got the proof.”

  The fire—not a large one—was quickly extinguished, and the sheriff was seen accompanying Mr. Blodgett into his house, along with some men who were identified as cousins from Alabama of Mrs. Mae Louise Wynne Blodgett’s. A small crowd gathered but was quickly dispersed.

  “I hope Mr. Jackson prints something about this himself in the Times Commercial; otherwise, Tom Raspberry’s gonna find himself in a whole mess of trouble. You been up here, but since Peach died, let’s just say things been mighty skittery.” Dinetta looked like skittery was a feeling she might relish. “Negroes are mumbling down in Catfish Alley; whites mumbling on their side of town, too.” Dinetta nodded, wise—at least to race—beyond her young years.

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “It’s already happened.”

  Regina read through the paper again. Shook her head, puzzled. “What about Wynne Blodgett? It doesn’t say anything about him. Was he home?”

  “That’s just it. Wynne’s nowhere around. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him all week. He’s probably off with those no-accounts he hangs out with from over Carroll County. His kinfolk, he calls them, and maybe they are. But if he gets wind of this . . . Honey, there’s gonna be hell to pay. Sheriff’s over here right this minute. He’s talking to Miss Mary Pickett. They want to go out to the forest, find Willie Willie. Get to him before that murdering Wynne Blodgett does.”

  Regina said to her, “Quick. Please help me. I got to get dressed.”

  • • •

  CALHOUN PLACE WAS DARK, already in mourning. At least Regina thought this as she hurried by. Hurried by, not ran by it. Her arm under its sling, and its gauze bandages had started to throb even before she’d made it downstairs to the cottage door.

  Mary Pickett was already in the Daimler, the windows rolled up, a scarf tied around her hair. She was looking just as frantically as she always did for the car keys, and, like always, they were in the ignition, right in front of her eyes. Regina pointed to them as she rapped on the window.

  “I’m coming, too,” she said.

  Mary Pickett put her hand on the key, said an automatic thank-you, and then rolled down the window. She looked from Regina’s face to her cast and started shaking her head.

  “You’ll just get in the way. Wynne all liquored up—when he goes out looking for Willie Willie, it’s not going to be pretty.”

  Regina said, “But I’m Mr. Willie Willie’s attorney.”

  Mary Pickett looked at Regina closely for a moment, at her face this time, not the cast. Finally, she said, “Well, I guess you are that. But Willie Willie’s not going to need a lawyer. I know Wynne. He’s got no intention of bringing him in for trial.”

  But without another word, she leaned over and opened the front passenger door.

  Regina climbed in, careful not to wince, careful not to show Mary Pickett how much her arm hurt. Once the door slammed, Mary Pickett started up.

  The Daimler lurched out onto Third Avenue, the bumper scraping the pavement as Mary Pickett aimed it sharply to the right. She reminded Regina of some kind of big lost bird as she bent over the steering wheel, her arms akimbo in their plaid jacket, her legs long and bony over feet in white socks and old-lady oxfords, her head arched forward as though it were her mind that pulled the car and not the other way around. Behind her lay a rifle on the plush backseat.

  Regina didn’t have to ask what had happened.

  “Duwayne Winters came up on my porch not an hour ago. His people
used to sharecrop with my daddy over out there at Magnolia Forest. They’re white,” said Mary Pickett, still with her eyes fixed straight ahead. “He wanted to tell me that he’d heard from a cousin of his who had heard from . . . well, I guess you don’t need to know the progression. It was about what they were planning to do to Willie Willie. What they called teaching a lesson. It took Duwayne a minute to get up his courage to tell me. I guess he heard them talking days ago, but he didn’t say anything to anybody because he didn’t want to get his mama’s nephew in trouble. That part of the family’s been in and out of the Jefferson-Lee County jail for years. But now with this new thing come up . . . with that black cross burning. White folks are not going to put up with that. Willie Willie’s out there in the forest, and maybe Wynne’s already gone out there after him.”

  The rain had started up again, a cold, gray drizzle, and the pavement was thick and bright with it. Mary Pickett careened the Daimler down Main, past the bus depot, where the street gave way to the highway. Regina remembered the day when she’d first arrived in Revere. Willie Willie striding slowly toward her, puzzled, then smiling, then grinning as it started to dawn on him just who she was. A lawyer from New York—but not Thurgood Marshall. What a tease this would be for Miss Mary Pickett! What a tease it would be for the white men so avidly staring out at them from the front of the depot! But today there was nobody sitting on the dilapidated porch, nobody grinning, nobody staring. The white men had all disappeared. They’d gone into the forest.

  Once she and Mary Pickett left town, there was snow everywhere. At least, it looked like snow to Regina, as she stared out at it, holding tight on to the strap over the door so that she wouldn’t topple over with Mary Pickett’s rough driving. Thick and white, but only at the edge of the road. It took Regina a moment to realize she was looking at cotton, rough filaments of it. Cotton that had fallen off trucks and wagons, that had slipped out of burlap bags strapped to mules and dray horses—a harvest of cotton that led to the forest, looking for all the world like—Oh, God, what was it Peach had said?—like something Hansel and Gretel might have sprinkled to find their way back.