The Mirk and Midnight Hour

by Jane Nickerson

  Thomas reached over and put his hand on my cousin’s shoulder. Seeley blinked and took a bite of the peach.

  “What do you think about what I was just saying, Violet?” Thomas asked, turning to me.

  “About what?”

  “About my going into business with my father. I was so determined to steer clear of it and make my own way, and that’s how I became a teacher. But now …”

  “How should I know?” My tone was sharper than I intended. “It’s up to you. Do whatever seems right.”

  He looked a bit bewildered, but pressed on. “I’d like your opinion. I wouldn’t want to make any future decisions you wouldn’t agree with.”

  “It has nothing whatsoever to do with me.”

  Thomas studied me for a moment. “Seeley,” he said abruptly, “would you go out by the bonfire and make sure we left no signs we were there? It was too dark to check the other night.”

  Seeley readily accepted this and trotted off.

  “Now,” Thomas said once the boy was safely away, “tell me what’s wrong. And don’t say you’re just tired.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, then, I won’t say that. But I’m not sure what to say instead.”

  “How about the truth? Do you regret what you told me by the fire?”

  I swallowed. “Yes, I do.”

  “Ah. Will you please tell me why?”

  With clammy fingers I feverishly began pleating my skirt into folds. “Because you’re betrothed to another girl.” There. I had stated it.

  He stared. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Someone named Delia. Do you deny it?”

  “Where did you hear this?”

  “I read a piece of a letter from your sister last night—it had fallen out of the packet.”

  Thomas gave a long, low whistle. “Delia lied,” he said carefully. “I can’t imagine why. I wrote to Addie and told her that.”

  I bowed my head, miserable.

  “Do you believe me?” he asked.

  When I was with him, everything about Thomas spoke of sincerity and integrity. He never would have betrayed that girl. Of course he spoke the truth. “Yes, I do, but it doesn’t change anything. I thought about it all night. It still could never work out between us.”

  “I’ve told you I’m not engaged,” he said. “If you believe me about that, then what else is the problem?” He hesitated, then asked haltingly, “Is it your cousin? When you told me about him, I got the impression that he was—that you found him attractive. Did you realize it was him you care for instead of me? Please tell me. It would hurt worse for you to lie.”

  I shook my head in disbelief at what he was asking. “This has nothing to do with Dorian.”

  “Then what has changed?”

  “Shall I list everything? You’re a Northerner. You’re handsome. You’re rich. And you’re wounded, weak, and alone, so your judgment is clouded. If it wasn’t, you’d recognize the impossibility of all this without me telling you.”

  I forced myself to meet his gaze, although the hurt in his eyes made me want to cower. But just when I could stand it no longer and was about to turn away, it was he who turned away. His mouth worked for a moment as if it were hard to make words come out. Without looking at me, he at last said quietly, “Of course some of what you say is true. It’s true I was wounded. I suppose I am still physically weak. I realize I cut a pitiful figure, especially when I’m trying to walk.” He was twisting his ring round and round on his finger. “I can’t help where I come from, and even if I were handsome, I can’t help how I look. We’ll forget the money if you don’t like it, and I’ll go back to teaching.” He faced me now. “None of that signifies. It’s not as if we’re a different species; we’re alike in the things that matter.”

  I had never felt more wretched. I rubbed my forehead. “We’re enjoying this season here, pretending your feelings could last, but they can’t. We both know the time is soon coming when you’ll leave this place and join your people in the real world. When you do, you’ll wake up and grasp only too well what I am—a plain Secesh farm girl from the wrong side of the war. You’ll ride off on Star and go back to being a soldier and start shooting at my—”

  “I never—” He tried to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let him.

  “—family and friends and after the war you’ll be wearing white gloves and dancing in ballrooms with Delia-like girls in—in imported magenta French taffeta, and you’ll be ashamed you once thought of me fondly. You’ll wince at the memory.” A slow tear trickled down my cheek. I couldn’t bear for him to wince over me.

  Thomas reached out his arms. “Come over here. You’re too far away.”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I’ll come to you.”

  Now it was me wincing to see how painfully he pulled himself up with his sticks; it was hard not to jump up and help. He hobbled over to my side and dropped awkwardly down.

  “Look at me, Violet.”

  I wanted to refuse, but I tightened my lips and lifted my head.

  His expression was taut with earnestness. “Under the circumstances, I can’t court you in the traditional way. We can’t let the world know we belong to each other—yet. I can’t bring you hothouse flowers or chocolates or books of verse—yet. But I’m not so stupid—my judgment isn’t so ‘clouded’—that I don’t know that what I feel for you is as deep and genuine as the ground beneath us. Although I do have to rejoin the army since I still believe in what they’re fighting for, for your sake I’ll try to get a clerical position. I promise I’m coming back, even though I can’t tell you precisely how long it will take.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what you don’t know!” For the first time his voice was harsh. He struggled to regain patience. “How can I prove myself?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He bowed his head so that his dark hair fell over his face. I could still see that his lips were taut and that his knuckles were white from clutching his walking sticks too tightly.

  The silence between us lengthened.

  Finally he carefully laid down the sticks and raised his head. “What you say might make sense for some people, but not for us.” His expression as he looked at me held such mingled love and frustration that I had to hold back from throwing myself into his arms. So softly that it was almost a breath, he repeated, “Not for us.”

  Seeley returned at that moment.

  “Come on,” I said, springing up and grabbing his hand. “Time to go.”

  “We just barely got here.”

  “We’re going.” I pulled him along as he waved goodbye to Thomas.

  The tears were so blurring my eyes as we scurried from the Lodge that I nearly knocked over Amenze, who stood in our path.

  Dim and dancing forest light played over Amenze’s exquisite features. “Violet Dancey, what are you doing here?” I had forgotten how musical her accent was.

  “I’m—um—” What could I say?

  “You have been to visit our soldier. I knew something had happened. These last few weeks there has been a new quiver in the air around him.” She held up her fingers and rippled them in front of her as if in water. “Even as he sleeps. It told me he has not been as alone as he once was. This makes me happy. I had wanted to talk to him, but I was not allowed. I spoke to my grandmother about what I sensed, but she said it could not be so. She believed her juju had guarded our soldier too well. However, the juju allowed you through because you are no threat. And I see you have already become close to the young man.”

  I had not met Amenze since the day she offered to raise Rush from the dead, and everything I had learned of the VanZeldts since then made the hair rise on my arms. In spite of Amenze’s friendliness, I know I must be on my guard with her. Her people murdered Jorgenson, and something mysterious was going on with them and Thomas. I opened my mouth and closed it again, then pushed out the words, “We must go.”

  Seeley stared at Amenze as he clutched
at me. I pulled him along behind, edging past the girl. It was better to be rude than to further betray Thomas. She moved into step beside us, tall and graceful. I thought of Thomas’s comment about he and I being of the same species. The VanZeldts belonged to a different one. They were People Things.

  Amenze gave a delicate sliver of a smile. “You need not fear. Now that I know it is you, I will not tell my grandmother. But it would not matter if I did. She would not mind you knowing our secret. What harm is there in you? In one young girl?” She reached down and stroked Seeley’s hair with a slender hand. He winced. “The little boy—he is your brother?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s my cousin.”

  “Ah, just a little there is a likeness between you. How nice to meet again this way. Since the first time, I had hoped somehow we might be friends, even if you would not let me help you with your brother—you are so pleasant, so sweet. But I did not know how to make it happen.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t stay and talk; I need to get my cousin back home. So you’ll—you won’t tell Dr. VanZeldt or the others that you saw us here?”

  “I will not, although as I said—it does not matter. Father VanZeldt is a good man. He likes you very much. The other people here, both white and black, are not kind to us. They do not welcome us because we are different. They think it is bad to be—oh, is there a saying?—birds of different feathers.”

  Dumbly I nodded, and as I did so, my coldness toward her began to thaw. I hated to be classed among the unkind people, and I could not believe this girl would willingly hurt Thomas.

  “It was the same in our old land,” Amenze said. “They would only come to us for help when they were desperate. Many and many a year ago, my family was as these others, save more learned in ways of healing and cursing. Then our grandfather’s grandfather received greater truths from the stars.” She gestured to the heavens.

  “Because my family’s beliefs became different from those of their neighbors, who they did not understand it and feared us—hated us—our grandfather’s grandfather hid us away in the mountains. It was a wild and dangerous place. Most children did not live to grow up in spite of our good medicine. When I was very little, my grandfather—our last high priest and our link to Raphtah—died. There were only the five Children of Raphtah left—I, my cousin, Ekon, my brothers, Uwa and Ahigbe, and our grandmother, Cyrah. Cyrah was very ill when Father VanZeldt stumbled upon us in his search for further knowledge. She was dying. Father healed her. This made us believe he himself was Raphtah, come again in disguise from the sky.” She laughed as though this were a hilarious assumption. Her laugh was deep and melodious. “Even when we knew he was not that person, that he had simply used white man’s medicine, we loved him. He is a wise man. Once he learned of our beliefs, he became enthralled by them. He became the high priest of Raphtah, accomplished in all juju, second only to Cyrah in understanding. After Ekon—died”—she appeared to swallow painfully—“Father knew what we must do. We left the mountains and crossed the ocean.”

  “Then you aren’t the doctor’s slaves?”

  She laughed again. “Oh, no, no. You have been thinking that? How amusing! We are not like these poor people here. We are as kinsmen with Father VanZeldt. It is a small family, though, so soon we must find mates so that we may multiply.”

  Of course it was illegal for free Negroes to enter Mississippi nowadays, but Dr. VanZeldt had sneaked them in somehow. I’d never thought Amenze could talk so much, and I wondered if she spoke so to her family or if it was the pleasure of speaking to another girl that made her almost prattle. “Why did he choose to bring you to Mississippi, of all places?”

  She shrugged. “We had always wanted to live in a new country and we hoped the Americans of the South would not notice us because there are others from Africa here.”

  I smiled. “You and your family could never really blend in.”

  She made one of the fascinating, fluid motions with her hands. “My grandmother does not want us to be friends, exactly, with people in town, but she did hope—” She paused, struggling to articulate what she wanted to say.

  “She hoped you would be treated with consideration and not too much curiosity—from a distance,” I suggested.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. That is it. Father VanZeldt also thought perhaps he could help others here with his healing skills and then they would value us.”

  “But not many will let him. Seeley!” My cousin had grown bored with the conversation and surged on ahead. At my call, he reluctantly slowed to let us catch up.

  “No,” Amenze said. “He tried to teach us all the English so we could talk to people in the town, but only I could learn. We speak it back and forth together, he and I. He also thought no one would notice us here because they would be too busy fighting the big war among themselves. It is odd. You people call some of our ways ‘evil’—very, very bad—if we cause one necessary death of one little person. Clearly we do not view evil as you do. To me your war is this thing—this very, very bad.” She shook her head. “Your people are so clever; you can do great things. And yet you take your cleverness and you use it to make thousands of men die all at once and proclaim it good. So peculiar.”

  Was Jorgenson “one little person”? And why was his death “necessary”? I did not dare ask. In spite of my wanting to be sympathetic to her, she still frightened me—every word she said was alien and fearsome. “War is not a good thing, but we’re told it’s a necessary thing. I’m no longer sure.”

  She had subtly steered us toward the bonfire clearing, even though I had intended to avoid it. We broke into it now.

  “You have been here before,” she said, making a statement. “You have wondered about this place. It is where we dance.” She clasped her hands. “Oh, wonderful. Maybe someday you will join us.”

  “I can picture it,” I said softly. “Your dancing would be wonderful indeed.”

  “And do you see this?” She laid a reverent palm against the trunk of the great tree under which the straw thrones had stood.

  “Yes.”

  “It is the silk cotton tree. Normally it does not grow so far north. Father VanZeldt has wondered if perhaps some slave smuggled the seedling here from Africa long ago. Perhaps beneath his clothing. It is a sacred tree whose roots contain the spirits of our ancient ancestors, those who first met Raphtah when he came down to them. When we saw it that first time, we rejoiced because it showed we had come to the right place. We knew we must stay here to protect the tree. It would be a terrible thing if anyone were to lay an ax to it.”

  An eerie, indefinable something in her voice as she spoke of these things made my flesh crawl. I nodded because some response seemed required, even though my brain couldn’t catch up to anything she was saying about her peculiar beliefs.

  “We would like to have you as our guest one day soon,” she continued. “Will you come to visit us?”

  “Someday,” I said. “Right now, though, Seeley and I have got to get home.” Impulsively I touched her shoulder. “Thank you so much for my amulet. It was a wonderful gift. Goodbye—my friend.”

  I had thought she would smile, but a shadow passed over her face. She reached up as though to grasp at my hand, then stopped herself. “You will come soon enough, my friend.”

  Long after we parted, I was aware that she remained standing straight and silent beneath the silk cotton tree. My fingers sought the amber amulet beneath my dress; it was not there.

  I searched for the amulet in all my drawers, beneath the bed, in my jewelry box, and under sofa cushions. Nowhere. Considering how lightly I had at first taken this gift from Amenze, I was now filled with anxiety at its loss. Suddenly it seemed of great importance.

  Somehow I made it through the rest of the day. As the light finally grew gray, Dorian, Sunny, and I sat out on the porch, watching fireflies wink. Tears kept pricking at my eyelids. I longed to go upstairs to my room for a good cry over Thomas but had to wait until Seeley returned from whereve
r he had wandered.

  Sunny was jittery, twisting her bracelets about her wrists and then jumping up to peer over the porch railing. “Where’s Seeley?” she asked.

  “Out looking for Goblin,” I said.

  “Oh.” She sat again, still twitchy.

  Dorian had been uncharacteristically quiet, but he broke the silence suddenly. “You know, Scuppernong is a nice, cozy house and naturally you’re fond of it, but you should see Panola.” His voice took on a dreamy note. “It looks like a Grecian temple on top of the hill, with soaring columns and a portico all around and acres of green spreading out behind. Uncle Roger had it painted gleaming white every five years. It was due for painting last year. If this ridiculous conflict will ever end, I’ll take care of it immediately.”

  “No,” said a small voice from the bottom of the porch steps. Seeley had come around the corner of the house, clutching Goblin to his chest. “I will. It’s my house. When I go back, I’ll be older and I’ll take care of Panola. You won’t need to anymore.” He spoke with a solemn dignity.

  “Then God help Panola.” Dorian’s sneer twisted his features. He stood abruptly. “I’m going into town. I’ll stay the night, as I’ve business there in the morning.” He stalked out to the barn.

  “God will! It’s my house and it’s my land too!” Seeley called after him.

  “Seeley!” I said sharply after Dorian thundered away on his horse. “Everyone knows it’s your place, but you don’t have to act like that. It’s ungentlemanly.”

  The boy turned pale. “Dorian thinks—he thinks it’s his, but it’s not. It’s mine.” His chin trembled and he darted back around the house.

  “Go on up to bed!” I called out. “I’ll come to tuck you in soon!” I sighed and turned to Sunny. “What on earth is wrong with those two?”

  “Oh,” she said, “Panola’s about the only thing in the whole wide world Dorian takes seriously. You wouldn’t know, of course, but to me he’ll go on and on describing every last shutter and outbuilding and field. It drives him crazy that it might fall into Yankee hands or that Seeley might ruin it someday.” Now it was her turn to stand abruptly. “It’s not right. None of it is right.” Her lips trembled and she fled into the house.