by Cynthia Bond
“Well, that one ain’t so hard.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cuz we can sit here, or we can stand up, or we can walk outside, or we can lay ourselves down, or any hundred number things what come to our mind. What you feel like doing, Miss Ruby Bell?”
“I don’t feel like doing … anything.”
“Nothing?”
“No. I can’t say one way or another, so nothing suits me fine.”
“I can tell you what I want—and it ain’t nothing. I want something from you, Ruby.”
“What you want from me?”
“I need you to look at me. I need you to see me, right here. Right here. I ain’t nowhere but here. I need you to see that.”
Ruby stared at the man in front of her. “I see.” Suddenly she did. A good man sat before her, strong and patient. She had thought not one existed in the entire world, but here he was, looking right into her, skin still wet with rain.
“Thank you.” He paused, then, “What do you want Ruby?”
So she told him the truth. “I want you with me in sleep every night. And when I wake up, every morning, I want you there too.”
“So that ain’t so hard is it?”
Ruby shook her head no. Ephram rose and offered her his hand and they walked to the bed.
Ruby smiled. Ephram took off his shirt and slacks and shone like dark wood against the white of his undergarments. They sat on the bed, brown against caramel, breathing in the scent of gardenia as the rain began to rage.
NIGHT TOOK hold and the storm became alive. The sky was charged and crackling. Up high in the pouring black, a cluster of clouds paused above the world. They tingled with ions and unleashed great claps of sound and fire bolts along their path. The Dyboù let the clash of wind and rain lift him. He watched the deluge beat upon the little graves near the chinaberry, rivulets of topsoil running down the small hill, leaving small waxen faces bare to the wind.
Inside the house the girl was lost in the gold of love. Through the window his idiot son lifted up from the bed and handed her his shirt to wear then turned his back as she slipped it on. He watched the boy fiddle with the girl’s hair as the rain poured harder, little spirits lifting up against the whip of the storm. The light of the house was like sunlight cutting through the dark woods. The girl Ruby was eating an apple his boy had cut with a pocketknife. One child started whimpering softly as he approached. The crow was cawing as the girl popped a slice of apple in her mouth, the wind screeching through the pines as he reached the graves and in one easy move lifted a tiny, wriggling six-month-old and opened his mouth.
Maggie the Crow lifted against the storm, rain pelting her eyes, and screamed like a siren, an earsplitting caw that cut through the air currents and fell like an ax onto the floor of earth. The sky split open in answer and hurled a bolt of lightning close, too close to the house, ’til the spirit dropped his prey. To the uninitiated it was only the twist and turn of nature, but Maggie watched as Ruby Bell burst out the front door, hair flying, and ran to the graves of her children.
Ruby’s feet pounded in time with her heart as she leapt from the porch, Ephram’s pocketknife in her hand. It was hard, cold, sure. She had grabbed it as she swept out of the house. All of her children were crying as she raced towards them. Lightning had struck the chinaberry tree and one massive branch lay smoldering on the ground like a severed arm, flames flowering only to be smothered by the rain. The ghost children saw Ruby and hurled themselves towards her, knocking her to the ground. They each knew fear, had lived and died with it collecting in cold sweat against their skin, but still they scrambled towards her, tripping and falling, getting back up and running into her arms. Ruby lifted up and saw the thing they ran from. It moved in the dark, held at bay for a moment by the burning branch of the chinaberry. The rain fell in sheets across Ruby’s face, her eyes cutting between the heavy pines. Ruby had felt him for too long, had taken him to her bed. There he was, perched and waiting for her to lower her vigil. Her children knew like lambs sense a wolf prowling, and they pressed closer to her, limbs flowing through her chest, heads buried in her legs, her shoulders. Soft little shoes stepping onto her calves and pausing for a heartbeat before falling through her body like sand. The sky flashed bright with lightning and then growled low and hot. Ruby knew Ephram was watching her from the porch. She knew he was afraid of her, she knew it did not matter, she would not budge until her children were safe.
Ephram stepped into the rain, his chest bare under his suit jacket. He walked to Ruby and stood above her on the wet earth. That is when he saw the knife in her left hand.
“Ruby?”
She looked up at him through the reaching arms and heads of her children, and for a moment in the shadow and blackness, she forgot there was a man named Ephram, she held her knife tight until the sky flashed again and she caught the soft of his eyes.
“Ruby, come on inside.”
“I ain’t going nowhere.” The New York woman had washed away, leaving the girl from Liberty.
“Come on in baby, you getting wet. Ain’t nothing out here won’t keep ’til morning.”
The sky rolled thunder like a pair of dice. Ruby bored holes into the black of the woods and mumbled, “Man get back inside, you—you a good man, but don’t mess with things you don’t understand.”
“School me.”
Ruby looked up again and shook her head in futility. The rain grew thin for a moment and he knelt beside her, put his suited knee into the mud. “Didn’t nobody ever teach you to test a bridge before you cross it? Try me.”
Ruby pointed her knife towards the dark woods and growled, “Git back!” Then she whipped around and snarled at Ephram, “You spoiling my concentration. Sit down or get back inside.”
So Ephram sat on the earth and got wet. Wetter, as Ruby stood the night vigil, knife at the ready. Finally she said, “You think I’m crazy.”
“Naw, I don’t.”
“Well, you wrong. I’m crazy, but that don’t make me stupid.”
“Then tell me what you’re watching.”
Without turning her head she took one step onto a bridge named Ephram. “A man. One without benefit of flesh and bone.”
Ephram stared into the black dark.
“Who is he?”
She paused, then whispered, “Don’t know.”
“What does he want?”
Ruby glanced quickly at Ephram. “My children.”
Ephram sat quietly. He wanted to reach out to her, touch her free hair. Instead he put both of his pinkie fingers into his mouth and whistled, sharp and clear through the rain.
“What—?”
He stopped for a moment. “They say haints hate the sound of it.” Then he resumed. It was a sweet, clear warble that sang through the raindrops and echoed against slick trunks. Ruby watched him, whistling in waves and crescendos, and sure enough the thing waiting in the woods slowly ducked back and slunk away. Her heart slowed in her chest and she looked at this man. After a good long while she said, “You can stop now.”
So he did. “Did it work?”
Ruby let a smile tremble on her lips as she nodded yes. The rain moved off to the southwest while the wind blew in warm, and carried a bit of lilac along its edges.
“Good.”
Ruby looked at the waving sky. Ephram reached his open palm to her. “Come inside?”
“I’m staying out here on this hill tonight with them.”
“Then I am too.”
“No,” New York crept back, clipping at the heels of her words, “they need my full attention.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t.”
“Maybe I can.”
“You don’t know nothing about them.”
“You could tell me.” He reached out then and brushed back a ringlet of hair from her cheek, slipped it behind her ear. He caught hold of her eyes and said, “Ruby, tell me about your children.”
“I’m cold.”
Ep
hram stood and went into the house.
The truth was that Ruby had stories decades old that she had folded up and tucked away between her spine and her heart, tears she had shed in silence, private moments of pride. The truth was that she wanted to share the burden. Ephram came back and held a blanket between them. She unbuttoned the shirt he had given her and let him drape the warm blanket over her shoulders. The night air dried like sheets on a clothesline, crickets commenced their nightly song and lightning bugs sparked in the distance. Ruby began to speak. The waxing moon lit the small graves that covered the land.
“They’re tarrens. Spirits of murdered children.”
“How—where they come from?”
“Different places. They’s too many stories to tell. Some found me. Some I watched the crossing. One hundred thirty-seven stories in all.”
“Tell me one.” Then he gently brushed his hand over the top of the nearest grave. “Tell me this one.”
Ruby let out a low breath and looked at him, unsure.
Ephram nodded.
“All right then. All right then.” She paused a good long while. “You remember Miss Barbara we talked about so long ago in Ma Tante’s house?”
“The one my mama worked for?”
“That’s her. Well, you know I worked for her too.”
“Yes.”
“You know how churches have bake sales to raise money?”
“Yes.”
“Well some of the people who hurt me, hurt my children, they had sales too, ’cept they didn’t sell cakes.”
“Tell me who this child is Ruby.”
“I’m telling. But it’s hard to grab ahold of where to start.”
Ruby felt Ephram slide closer and pet her tenderly on the forehead, then along the turn of her neck. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, Ruby. You spin it how you see fit.”
SHE MADE several stops and starts, then, since there was no nice way to start, she just told him. About the place in Neches. About where she went when she left town. About Miss Barbara’s Friends’ Club and the change she collected in the candy dish. She told him about the first man, she told him about the last and the many in between. She told him what a quarter could buy.
She told him about when the little blond girl had run off and Miss Barbara had had a fit. How they had each of them been questioned until the rumor spread she’d run off with one of her “friends,” the one who liked to hit, hard. How Tanny and Ruby had talked about it and how they feared for her life. The two girls talked about a lot of things during the morning when they were supposed to be sleeping. Tanny would sneak into Ruby’s room and paint the world on the white of the ceiling. They talked about what they would do when they left, where they would go. Tanny said Albuquerque because she liked the way it sounded and she had seen a picture postcard of it once. Ruby said New York because that’s where she knew her mama had gone. Then Tanny said if that’s where Ruby was going she supposed she’d have to go with her.
In the four years Ruby had been taken to Miss Barbara’s, the girls had become something more than friends. Ruby was ten now, Tanny eleven. Some lucky days Miss Barbara put them together as a team. Those were the best because it wasn’t so bad to have company when face-to-face with a friend. Tanny would wink to her during the worst of it and make it pass all the better. The thing Ruby loved most about Tanny was that no one had taken the time to break her spirit before she got there. After four years she still stuck out her chin, still giggled with Ruby about the funny frog men.
“We lucky they keep us together sometimes,” Tanny said one evening after a man with a bad cold had left.
Ruby nodded, putting her tip in her dish, then handing Tanny hers.
Tanny smiled. “Ole Mr. Fart Face so ugly his mama slapped herself when he was born!”
Ruby laughed. “You really do remind me a’ my cousin Maggie. Maggie fights all the time.”
“Mama usta say I come out her with my dukes up.” Tanny smiled softly to Ruby. “It ain’t so bad, though, least these men got a time limit. Ain’t like we livin’ in they house.” Tanny leaned into her, eyes flashing. “But I tell you what. They send in another one sneezin’ all over me I’ma knock!” Tanny played like she was a boxer. “Him!” Fake punch in the air. “Out!” She held up her hands in victory. They laughed, leaned against the wallpaper.
“Damn, they’s a hole in the window in my room. Can’t tell shit time in here, day or night.”
“Seem like night.”
Tanny looked over at Ruby. “You know what? You sure pretty, girl.”
“Ugh ugh.” Ruby shook her head no. “You is,” Ruby answered back.
They were quiet for a moment.
“Sometimes I wonder if that’s why they pick us. Cuz a’ how we look.”
The girls were quiet for a while. They heard footsteps. The door opened and a man looked into their room, paused, whispered to Miss Barbara, then walked ahead and stopped.
Miss Barbara poked her head into the room, and smiled especially wide and sweet. Ruby noted that she had taken to doing so ever since she’d gotten what seemed to be new perfect white teeth. She spoke to them slow, as if they were cats, “Well, we got ourselves a very special friend who done paid extra for y’all two. So do exactly what he say and two big scoops of chocolate ice cream after, all right?”
Ruby nodded dutifully. Tanny just grinned. When Miss Barbara walked away Tanny turned, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
Ruby laughed. The man poked his head into the room, “What’s so funny?” He was tall with round features. He wore a smooth brown hat. His eyes were soft and kind. Different. So different that Ruby wondered if he was a spy sent by her lost mama.
“Hmmm? What’s so funny, girls?” He walked into the room, took off his hat and hung it on the coatrack. Ruby still looked at him hopefully. He knelt down in front of them, face open and smiling, his eyes bright water blue, the black in the center of his eyes big.
“Hmmm?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Tanny finally answered.
“I don’t believe it!” He tickled Tanny. Ruby’s hope cracked like a sour egg.
Tanny didn’t giggle like he wanted her to. She sensed his strangeness too. So he reached out and tickled Ruby. She laughed dutifully. He pinched her cheek. “Aren’t you a sweet little thing.” The strangest thing was that he did not avert his eyes. Ruby realized what it was that made him unlike the others. He didn’t have shame.
Then the man started patting his pockets and smiling until he reached into his back pocket and retrieved a Hershey bar. Ruby couldn’t help but beam. The man grinned back at her, unwrapped the bar and broke it right down the middle, handing half to Ruby and half to Tanny.
“My name’s Peter Green. You can call me Peter,” he volunteered. Ruby and Tanny chewed in quiet. They weren’t used to men at the Friends’ Club giving over their names.
Then the oddest thing of all happened. Mr. Green started asking them questions, normal questions that regular folks might ask. What games did they like to play? What was their favorite color and why? Tanny answered quick and short, but Ruby talked about freeze tag and fishing, bluebells and yellow sun.
He told them about other little girls he’d met in his travels, in places just like Miss Barbara’s. How they told him their favorite game was “Queimada” in a place called Brazil, and “I-Wen Hu” in Taiwan and “Eun Suk Ji” in Korea. He said there was a game like hide-and-seek in Germany that sounded like a fish, “Sardines.” He said it so funny it made Ruby laugh. How there was “Ampe” in Ghana that was something like playing Simon Says. He named other towns and games and talked about all the pretty, good little girls he had met and how nice they had made him feel. He smiled so big and sweet while he talked. He said how of all those girls Ruby and Tanny were the prettiest. Ruby liked him talking about playing and faraway places. She liked thinking about how there were girls playing all over the world even if they had to do what she was about to do, what she had been made to do for four years now. S
till she liked talking before best, anything to stretch out the candy-eating time. When the man looked away for a moment Tanny snuck a wink to Ruby.
“Now,” Mr. Green smiled broadly, “which one of you is in this room originally? Is in it most of the time?”
He looked at Ruby. “Is it you?” She nodded. He smiled warmly at her. “Good for you, sweetheart.” He rubbed her back and whispered, “There’s my good girl.” It was the first time Ruby had been called a good girl since Papa Bell died. Then he turned to Tanny. “And that means you are usually in room number twelve?” Tanny nodded yes.
Then Mr. Green walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He motioned to Ruby. “Come here, sweetheart.” And Ruby did. “My good little girl sits on my right, like Jesus.” He pulled Ruby beside him. Then he looked at Tanny. His face twisted as he said, “And the other one on my left.” Tanny cut her eyes to Ruby for a millisecond. His voice shook, “Don’t look at my good girl.” And he pushed Tanny down between his legs, unzipped his trousers and forced her mouth onto him.
All the while, Ruby felt transfixed by the gentle of his voice. He was no worse than the others, and he had brought them candy.
He leaned over and whispered to Ruby, “My good girl doesn’t have to look. Cover your eyes princess.” Ruby did, until she heard Tanny gag. She opened her eyes to see Tanny looking about in horror, a thin black wire about her neck. Mr. Green held it looped like a tight leash as he plunged into her mouth. He was trembling.
“Look what you’re making Daddy do!” Tanny’s face grew dark, dark. She vomited the chocolate.
Ruby felt a snap inside of her. “Miss Barbara!”
She beat against Mr. Green with her fists. She leapt on his back and grabbed at his face. Tanny’s eyes walled back in her head. Ruby screamed, “Miss BARbara! MISS BAR-BA-RA!”
Mr. Green spun on Ruby like a snake. Eyes too black. Blue too narrow. He hissed like razors, “Little girl, I am the Devil. I know everything about you. I see who’s good. Who’s bad. But sometimes I make a mistake—did I? Maybe you’re the bad one. Are you?” Ruby looked at the girl who used to be Tanny. The girl struggling for breath. Then the man removed the snare from Tanny’s neck. She fell to the floor coughing, gasping, and he brought it over Ruby’s head like a black halo. He lowered it and pulled. Ruby could barely breathe. She urinated.
