They climbed out and stepped into a virgin forest of live oaks and loblolly pines. Brown nuthatches twittered in the underbrush. The ground was sandy and filigreed with sunlight and shadows.
Crumbley looked around at the majestic trees with their draperies of Spanish moss. “This place is magical,” he said.
“You haven’t even seen the best yet.” Lydia led them along a faint, sandy trail. An armadillo trundled out of the brush and crossed their path. They walked along in silence, the forest around them cool, peaceful, alive. Overhead, oak limbs converged like the vault of a giant cathedral. Martha took a mental snapshot of the scene. Later, she would try to capture it in words.
Lydia stopped along the trail and tugged on a hot-pink strip of surveyor’s tape tied to a sapling. “We’re standing on the future site of Tidewater Plantation. This is the northwest boundary of the project. Right here is where they plan to build forty-two homes, in phase one alone. In that direction, sixty acres will be cleared for the golf course.”
They continued along the path for a few hundred yards until the trees parted and the path climbed toward the summit of a large sand dune. The air tasted of salt, and nearby, Martha could hear the measured breathing of ocean waves.
At the top of the dune, a wide track of windswept beach came into view, bordered by more scrubby dunes. A crescent of golden sand, undisturbed by footprints, stretched as far as Martha could see, embroidered by boughs of wind-polished driftwood.
They chuffed down the windward side of the dune, passing through patches of sea oats and morning glories, to reach the edge of the beach. Here the sand was hard-packed and rimmed by a line of purple oyster shells. Crumbley knelt to pick one up.
“This is incredible,” he said, turning the shell over and over in his hand. “Simply beyond belief. This place must be one of the state’s best-kept secrets.”
“Imagine lifeguard towers and Jet Skis, cabanas and boardwalks,” Lydia said. “It’s all coming, if Hoshima gets their way. There aren’t many places like this left in the golden isles. We’d like to save just one of them.”
“We need to make this place more accessible to people,” Crumbley said, “but seems like there might be a way to do that without ruining it. Maybe I can arrange for Governor Vellner and the members of the resources committee to come out and have a look.”
They returned to the Range Rover and drove southward on the main road. In a few minutes, the village of Turkey Point announced itself with a simple wooden sign on poles set close to the ground. Toby beeped his horn and an old mutt sleeping in the middle of the road rose and sauntered aside.
Cabins and houses were scattered among the trees on both sides of the road. Some were unpainted, with rusting tin roofs, others looked newer, but all were neat and well cared for. Many had yards fenced with boards or garden wire, and chickens and roosters roamed the grounds. An abandoned school bus with a front porch attached was nestled back among the trees. An old man sat smoking a pipe on a chair under the corrugated tin awning.
Twigs snapped under the tires as Toby pulled into the driveway of one of the larger houses, a cinder-block ranch painted a light shade of green. A gray satellite dish sprouted from one eave. They piled out of the car and Astrid led them toward the front door.
The air was fresh here, scented with pine and the faint aromas of cooking, wood smoke, and car grease. Martha’s parents had been dyed-in-the-wool urbanites, hewing close to the gentrified Atlanta neighborhood of Decatur all her life. Until now, rural Georgia was something she’d seen only through the window of a car; she’d never been this up-close-and-personal before.
They paused a moment in Astrid’s front hallway to admire a collection of intricately woven baskets. Martha ran a finger along one of them, felt its springy texture.
“These are beautiful. Who made them?” Crumbley asked.
“All by Astrid. She’s one of the top sweetgrass basket artisans in the country,” Lydia said. “One of her pieces is displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.”
“Where did you learn this art?” Crumbley lifted the woven lid of a breadbasket.
“I was taught by my grandmother,” Astrid said. “She learned it from her mother, who was a slave. She brought the craft with her from West Africa.”
Astrid led them through the air-conditioned envelope of the house, past solidly middle-class furnishings, and into the backyard, where a community cookout was under way. Some African American men and women milled about; others were seated in lawn chairs, balancing paper plates full of food. Others chatted in the shade of the oaks. A dusty boom box sat on the porch rail, playing lazy strains of Dixieland jazz.
A party. Martha felt a tremor of social anxiety working its way up her spine. She focused her attention on the potluck table, where a big rectangular sink was propped up on bricks.
“Ever tried Frogmore stew?” Nick snapped the lens cap on his camera and slid up next to her.
“That’s what’s in the sink?” Martha asked.
“Traditional recipe around here. Go on and try some. Don’t worry…it’s one hundred percent frog-free.”
Martha stepped across the lawn and peered into the enameled basin. Inside were mounds of pale pink shrimp, corncobs, thick sausages, and red potatoes. Martha took a paper plate and tonged out a single shrimp, a half ear of corn, and a potato. She filled a waxed cup with tea from a plastic spigot and glanced around for a place to sit.
“Over here.”
Martha turned toward the sound of the voice. Two women sat at a large wooden cable spool, flipped on its side to form a table. One of the women, the chunkier of the two, beckoned. “Come on and have a seat over here,” she said. “We won’t bite.”
Martha crossed the hot grass and put her cup and paper plate down on the spool and introduced herself.
“I’m Edwina and this here is Crystal,” the chunky woman said. Edwina wore a peasant dress and had close-cropped hair. The other woman was petite, with her hair held in place by translucent green clips.
“Do you both live here on the island?” Martha asked.
“Born and raised,” Edwina said, dabbing her cheek with a folded paper towel. “What brings you out to Shell Heap?”
“I’m working with the Historical Society. We’re doing a book about the island.”
“Oh, hmm. You part of that oral history thing? They’ve been out here interviewing folks for months now. Ain’t that right, Crystal?”
The thin woman nodded, nibbling daintily at a shrimp speared on a plastic fork. “They been nosin’ around like we’re some kind of funky tribe.”
“Seems like they’re interviewing just about everybody lives out here,” Edwina said. “How come they ain’t asked to talk to me yet?”
“I don’t know, but I would be interested in interviewing you,” Martha said. She carved off a piece of red potato and speared it with her fork.
“I’ll tell you what, I got some stories to tell,” Edwina continued. “Maybe some you don’t want to print. Crystal knows what I’m talking about.” Edwina laughed, nudging the woman with her elbow. Crystal used her napkin to shield a shy smile.
Martha returned their smiles and tasted the potato. It was soft, creamy, and redolent of shrimp.
“Hey, Edwina, can you ladies give us a hand with the ice-cream churn?” A skinny man with a salt-and-pepper beard had appeared on the porch, a crank in his hand. “Can’t find the rock salt nowheres.”
“I’ll be right in,” Edwina said, wiping the corners of her mouth and putting down her fork. “That’d be my husband, Horace. That man could lose a white rabbit in a coal chute. If you’ll excuse us just a minute?”
Edwina and Crystal went into the house, leaving Martha alone to survey the yard and the party. She was doing all right. Having a good time, even. You adjust, life goes on.
Martha put her reporter’s notebook on the table, clicked her pen. How to describe it all? The residents of Shell Heap are friendly, and they project a strong sense of…What?
Community. This is a village. But something’s missing. What? Children. It’s a place without children. A place without a future?
Martha was about to start another sentence when she became aware of a new feeling—a familiar, unwelcome sensation nibbling at the edge of her consciousness. It caused her skin to prickle.
She scanned the yard and the party again. People engaged with one another, social interactions. No one focused on her, everything normal. Her gaze traveled beyond the yard, into the surrounding trees, and paused at a spot where a pair of thick limbs diverged, like an old man’s fingers. In the shadows between those limbs, a hint of movement.
She squinted, trying to sort through the crosshatch of branches and moss, to discern—what? A shadow, maybe. Or some odd thing that someone had tossed up there—
Then Martha felt as though someone had laid an ice-cold towel across her back. The shape moved. It leaned partway out of the shadows. She saw glints of sunlight, two glassy points of light reflecting toward her. At the instant of eye contact, the thing retreated back into the limbs. Martha clenched her pen and looked down at her Chinet plate, where the potato, shrimp, and corncob sat in the center of an expanding wet stain.
Her heart was pumping antifreeze and her thoughts rolled in different directions, like loose marbles. Look away, then look back. She lifted her head to look again at the tree, and saw nothing. Don’t lose focus, Martha. Concentrate. What did you actually see? A person, yes. She wrote it down. Someone green and dull like the moss, dark like the shadows in the tree. But the eyes…large, round, glassy. Like a giant crab.
Martha felt a touch on her shoulder and jolted and dropped the pen. She spun around to see Astrid Humphries standing next to her.
“Sorry to interrupt your note-taking,” Astrid said. “Are you all right? You look like you just saw a Boo Hag.”
“I’m sorry? A what?” Martha’s saliva caught in her throat. She glanced back toward the tree. The V-shape between the limbs was once again a mossy tangle of shadows. No sign of movement, no vacant rims glinting sunlight.
“A Boo Hag,” Astrid said, grinning. “It’s a creature that some of the old-timers around here believe in. I was just joking; I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m fine. I was taking notes and just got lost in my thoughts, I guess.”
“If you don’t mind, there’s someone here who’d like to meet you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Astrid said. “Come on and follow me.”
Astrid led Martha onto the shady back porch, past a rust-stained metal glider and stacks of woven baskets. At the far end, an old woman sat in a whitewashed rocker, hands folded in her lap. She stared out toward the yard with an odd expression—maybe a faint smile, but Martha was unsure.
Astrid leaned toward the woman. “Albertha? Here she is…that young woman you asked about. Her name is Martha—”
“Covington,” Martha finished.
“Martha, I’d like you to meet Lady Albertha, one of those old-timers I was talking about.”
The woman tucked the cane next to her knee and turned toward Martha.
“Let me touch your face, child,” Albertha said.
The woman held her hands forward, fingertips open and expectant. Her hands were as wrinkled as lizard flesh, and her eyes were like clouds.
Martha cast a puzzled glance toward Astrid, who nodded toward the woman, still smiling. Martha leaned forward and the woman’s fingertips played across her face like the footpads of a kitten.
“When were you born?” Albertha asked, her gray eyebrows arched.
“August twenty-second, 1987,” Martha said.
“Drought year. No turnips. That was the year when the wild horses broke into Fawley’s garden, ate up most of the crops.”
Albertha leaned back, rested her hands on her knees. “Sit down over there for a spell. Sit down and have a talk with us.”
Martha glanced back across the porch. Astrid had left them alone, and Martha wondered what Albertha meant by “us.” She took a seat in the ladder-back rocker next to the woman. There was a long pause. Martha waited, wondering what to say, hearing the hum of conversation in the yard, the drone of insects in the palmettos next to the porch. Finally, Albertha spoke.
“You are touched by magic, child.”
“I’m sorry?”
“All of us, what was born that way.”
The woman made a slow gesture, palm passing across her face. “The birth membrane. Some folks even remember it.”
Martha shook her head, forgetting that the woman couldn’t see the gesture. Albertha continued.
“But most folks don’t realize what they born with till they get older. Myself, I’ve know’d since I weren’t but a child, when I first start to hear them whispers in the grass.”
“You mean voices?” Martha asked. “You hear—?”
“Lord, yes. Whispers and murmurs. Every day. My parents thought I had what they call the ‘busy head.’ Spirit talk, children in the woods. Prankster voices. For me, it started at dayclean.”
The woman made a muted, husking sound, which Martha surmised to be a kind of laugh. “My folks, they seen me playin’ in the churchyard, talkin’ to them spirits alltime, they tried to cure it for a while. Took me to a root worker. But there ain’t no cure, those voices always gonna be there. You just got to take charge, get ahold of the reins, ’fo they put the rein on you.”
Martha’s head was swimming. “How did you know—?”
“ ’Course, I was born in the alltime night. But I’ve heard tell of others, what can see ’em.” Albertha leaned forward in her rocker. “Tell me, child, can you see the spirits?”
“Not really…just in my head. But I know what they look like, sometimes, because I can see them in my mind.”
“Now, tell me, child. Tell me about these voices you hear, the spirits you can see inside. What kind of words do they speak?”
Martha felt a flush in her chest, a tingling sensation on her skin.
“Mostly bad things. You see, my voices are caused by an illness.”
“So you try to make them hush up.”
“Yes, I take medicine.”
“And that medicine, does it work? Do they quiet down?”
Martha hesitated. “Sometimes.”
Albertha’s chair squeaked softly as she began to rock. “There’s a reason you came here, child.”
“I’m only here for the summer. I just want to get some experience.”
“Maybe them spirits want to tell you a story.”
“What story?”
“The story of the old ones. The ones that came before us. Them whose blood and tears salted this soil for a hundred years. Sometimes, I hear their voices in the grass. Most time, they just whisper. But they been getting louder. Them voices won’t be quiet, not until they’ve been heard proper. They want somebody to tell their story out loud, so it can be heard.”
There was a beep of a car horn. Martha turned toward the yard and saw that Lydia had brought the Range Rover around. Nick was climbing inside.
“I have to go now,” Martha said, rising. “It looks like we’re getting ready to leave.”
Albertha grabbed her hand. “Be careful, child.”
“What?” A sting of adrenaline shot through Martha’s abdomen. She tried to pull free, but the old woman wouldn’t let go. Instead, she leaned forward and spoke with a low intensity. “There’s big trouble coming. It’ll come mos’ soft, so you can’t hear it or see it. Like the Devil on a butterfly’s wing.”
“Excuse me,” Martha said, her voice quaking. “I have to go now.”
Albertha slipped something into Martha’s fingers, then released her. “If you need any help with those voices, you come and see me. Come see Lady Albertha.”
The old woman stared at the yard. Eyes of milk. As if they had not been chatting at all. The horn beeped again.
—
The last stop on Senator Crumbley’s tour, the Praise House, was a simple wh
ite clapboard structure in the middle of an open, grassy area, surrounded by particularly beautiful moss-draped oaks. The top of the building had a cupola with an iron bell and behind it a field of pockmarked headstones, some tilting like crooked teeth. Along the wall of the church, the bottoms of colored bottles had been mortared into wooden frames.
Inside, the sunlight filtered through the green and brown glass, painting the dim interior with colored light. The room smelled pleasantly of oak, old leather, and human sweat. Not the rank sweat of labor or the sickly sweat of stress, but a rich scent of joyous exertion.
Martha sat in a pew next to Nick, Lydia, and Senator Crumbley. On a platform at the front of the room, robed choristers swayed and clapped in a song of jubilation.
Higher than the highest mountain
Wider than the widest valley
Deeper than the lowest sea
Is the place that waits for me
When I’m in that holy place
When I get to heaven
Ev’ryone can come and see
When I get to heaven
I know there’s a place for me
When I get to heaven
Amid the revelry, Martha discreetly reached into her pocket and pulled out what Albertha had given her. It was a dog-eared business card, with letters that looked as if they had been pecked out on a manual typewriter:
Lady Albertha
Readings, Poultices, & Homeopathic Remedies. Dreams Interpreted.
16 Planters Walk, Amberleen
Chapter 5
Martha walked along the waterfront, feeling fried, but also exhilarated. She’d made it through the first three days of her internship. She liked the work. She’d even finished a draft of one of her first interview transcripts—a little more polish, and it would be ready to turn in to Lydia.
She glanced at a piece of paper folded in her palm that bore the address of the County Commission meeting. Are you ready for this? Lydia had told her tonight’s meeting was a special session to discuss the future of Shell Heap, and it had been relocated from the administration building to the lunchroom of the elementary school because of anticipated overflow crowds.
The Girl in the Maze Page 4
