“No, silly, we ain’t freesteaders, neither. We Mama’s kids. That’s all. We a family.”
Family. Something move sideways in my chest, and all of a sudden I start to cry. I can’t make it stop and don’t want to. Like, if I try to hold it in this time, I like to drown. I cry and cry so hard, I can’t see the little beetle no more or the stew bowl or the spoon or the forest. The girl don’t say a thing ’til I be done. And then she say, “My name be Alice. You want to come with me?”
And I go.
• • •
Mama Gentille’s house be big—an old mansion that been a plantation long ago, according to Alice. I meet Alfie again and we share one of the old rooms on the ground floor. The top floors be too shaky to sleep in, ’cause they might fall down when you ain’t awake, and then where would you be? In the kitchen, Alice say, and I think that’s so funny, I actually laugh for the first time in a long time, and it feel all right.
Alice tell me that me and Alfie are still little kids, so we do little jobs. We snap beans and peel potatoes for the evening meal, and we pick berries when they ripe. No farming at the house, just finding what we can. Sometimes, Alfie and me even go to the bayou and catch crab.
It ain’t so bad, and I don’t see nobody even looking like a blood hunter or a bad thing for days and days and days.
Then Mama Gentille come home.
It be a big deal in the house. Everyone running this way and that to get ready for her being home. Me and Alfie catch twice as many shrimp and crab, and we help make ’em up nice, too. Then Alice surprise us with new shirts to wear, and they almost the right size for us. We wash our faces in the basins with fresh water the other kids brought up from the stream, and we all be lined up like sunflowers in a garden across the old front porch when Mama Gentille’s little wagon pull up, towed along by a mule with long gray ears.
“Mes enfants! Mes enfants!” she shout when she step off her wagon. Mama Gentille be big and round and jolly like Santa Claus, only her skin be the color of old wood, and she be dressed in purple and red, with lips and nails to match. She got a face like the moon and she be beaming at all of us. Some of the little ones can’t wait and run down the steps to hug her. The older ones follow more properly and offer to carry her bags. Me and Alfie, we wait like we been told to. I be new here and not ready to be hugging on some stranger.
“And who do we have here?” Mama ask when she finally see me standing at the top of the stairs. Her arms be full with stray cats and babies and presents and a shoulder bag like to burst with good things—carrots, greens, radishes poking out the sides.
Alice be the one who answer. “Mama, this be Fen. She one of us now, if you’ll have her.”
I study my feet and feel my lip tremble. What if she kick me out, just when I be feeling so good about being here? What if I got to find Mr. Go on my own after all?
Mama Gentille be silent for so long, I can’t stand it, and finally I have to look up. She look stern, frowning at me, and I see she ain’t as old as all that. Maybe old as my mama, maybe older, but not like Mr. Go. He be the oldest man alive. Mama Gentille got nothing on that.
I look away again. If she don’t like me, it be all over. And nothing people hate more than a kid that look at them too long. I been told that by the Ursulines, and I believe them today.
“Of course she can stay!” Mama shout, and everybody cheer except for me, because it take me a while to understand what she say. And then I be cheering, too, and Alfie be hugging me, and I feel like I’ma be all right ’cause I found myself a home.
• • •
That night, I feel somebody grab me before I hear anything, then the breath, hot and heavy in my ear. I open my eyes, dead asleep to dead terrified in an instant. The room too dark to see anything, then too bright as a candle come ’round. White gleam in front of me, and then it re-form into a shape I recognize. Mama Gentille.
“Hello, bébé. Sorry to wake you, chère. Just checking in on my little ones, and you been whimpering in your sleep.”
“Oh,” I say, and my voice sound like a tiny thread. I pull my arm away, but she hold on tight. Then her grip turn gentle, and we both stare at the inside of my wrist, my arms smooth and brown in the candle glow. Mama run a hand down my arm.
“There there, petite. So many babies come to me with nightmares, but they go away in time.” She pat my hand and I pull my arm back under the covers. “You’ve not had it so bad as the rest,” she say, nodding at my arms. “You speak like a little lady, and your skin be smooth.” My tummy start to hurt, because she be right. I forgot to talk tribe like Mama and Daddy say to do. Now she know I ain’t like the other kids, and I start to be afraid.
“Some come to me so scarred with holes, they look like lightning struck them. Abused, abused,” she murmur like she singing a lullaby. I wish she would go away.
“Ah, well, there ain’t nothing to be done about that, eh, Fen? Tomorrow be a new day, as they say.” She stand up with a heavy creak of the floorboards and drag her chair back toward the door. How did I sleep through that? I wonder. I will never sleep so deep again.
“Close your eyes, petite fille. There will be no nightmares in the morning. Good night.”
Against Mama’s advice, I can’t sleep the rest of the night. I hear singing outside my window, and when I look, I see the big kids in a circle, dancing around Mama Gentille. She shaking and jumping like she got spiders on her back. It scare me good. She seem nice on the outside, but I still feel her fingers on my arms.
I’ma be more careful tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ma blend in.
• • •
A few days later, Mama got a visitor, a man in a black hat. I see him coming up the drive from the dorm room where Alfie and I be making beds.
“Who that?” I ask Alfie. He run to look out the window, then turn away.
“That be the man,” he tell me. “He come for the big kids sometimes.”
“What do you mean, come for them?”
Alfie shrugs. “I don’t know, ’cause I don’t never talk to none of them that he come for, but he an important man, Mama say, and he ask for the big kids sometimes.”
“Do he hire them to work?” I ask, making sure I speak like Alfie.
Alfie shrug. “I guess. Like I say, I never asked.”
We finish the beds and head to the kitchen to start chopping vegetables for the soup and I forget all about the man in the black hat. Only later, when we be beating rugs on the front porch and he pass us, do I remember. He pause at the top step, considering me and Alfie as we shout and pound the rugs and pretend to be pirates in battle. He smile at Alfie, tip his hat at me, and continue down the drive, a satchel in his hand. The man in the hat got eyes black as night.
• • •
“Mama Gentille be interested in you,” Alice tell me one day. I be brushing her hair and trying to braid it nice for a change. She almost a full-on woman now, and I want her to look her best.
I grunt and say nothing. Alice continue, “I can tell because she ask about you.”
“She do?” I say. I stop brushing long enough to smooth a lock of hair and split it into three pieces. But it still too frizzy, so I pick up the brush and go at it again.
“Sure, she say, ‘How my Fen doing? How that girl coming along? Staying out of trouble?’ and all that kind of thing.”
I shrug. “That be nice, I guess.”
“You guess? You guess! It be nice, Fen! Nicer than I ever got. When they moved me in with the big girls, I found out they keep a chair under the door at night to keep the boys out. You know that? Mama’d never let that happen to you.”
I blush. “Why would a boy want to be in my room at night, anyway? I got plenty of boys with me: Alfie, and Roger, and the twins.”
Alice shake her head and my braiding work come undone. “That not what I mean. She ain’t wanting you to be used up on one of the boys here. She got something special in mind for you.”
My mouth go dry. “Special? Like what?”
&
nbsp; Alice shrug, and I know she got a secret. “I don’t know, Fen, but when it happens, don’t mess it up, okay? Promise me. Promise!”
I mumble okay, but keep my fingers crossed behind my back.
• • •
At the end of the week, the man in the black hat come back.
“He asked for you, Fen,” Mama Gentille say, laying a new dress—a real dress!—on the bed for me. This be a new bed, in a bedroom all by itself in one of the outbuildings back behind the house. I never been here before. I thought they be empty and haunted, but this room be real nice, with wood panels that glow in the firelight and a fireplace so big, you could roast three rabbits in it.
“That’s a big honor,” Mama explain.
“What he want from me?” I ask.
She touch my cheek and it feel like a caterpillar crawling up my skin. “What only you’ve got to give, chère. You ain’t never been touched by a needle before.”
“Have too! I even know my blood type. I’m an O—” Mama shut me up with a quick slap before I finish.
“Girl, you listen to me. Your arms be smooth and free of needles. That all that man need to know. Now, maybe your parents pricked you in the leg when you was a baby, maybe they took it from your arm once, but so long ago that the holes ain’t showing. And that’s what this gentleman want. A virgin, untouched by needle or knife. So you be that for him. You young enough, and Lord knows you inexperienced enough to pull it off, but say a word about knowing your type and he’ll know you been pierced, and I will throw you out into the swamps myself.”
She pause for a minute, breathing heavy like she run a race and lost. Then she mop her forehead with a handkerchief from her sleeve and smile. “Now, put on this dress, ma petite. You’ll look so grown-up in it. I want to see before the gentleman comes. Can you do that for Mama?”
I don’t answer, but I do as she say. I put on the dress and she approve, and she set me on the bed just so, hands in my lap, legs crossed at the ankle. The dress be long and white, more like a nightgown than a dress, but that be what the gentleman want, she say, so I don’t complain.
Not even when she leave me.
Not even when there be a knock at the door and he come in with his big black hat and deep black eyes.
He put a satchel down on the little table by the fireplace and take off his hat and smile at nobody. Then he take off his coat, undo his suspenders, and take off his shirt to show he nothing but a mass of scars, dark and darker, shiny and pink some of them, all across his arms and chest. His back been whipped to mounds of tissue, but he don’t act like it matter.
Then he turn to me and smile again. The firelight dance in his eyes. “Good evening,” he say, and his voice be deep and rumbling.
“Good evening,” I say back.
“What is your name, dear?”
“Fen,” I say. My voice sound as small as I feel.
“Fen, how old are you?”
“Ten next month,” I tell him proudly.
“Ten next month,” he repeat, and chuckle.
And then he at the bed, and he be spreading my legs, and I clamp them shut but he force them wide and run his hands along my knees and thighs and over the insides of my arms.
“Clean,” he say to himself. “Clean, like she said.”
He let me go and stand up, slipping his suspenders back onto his bare shoulders. “Well, it looks like I’ll owe Mama Gentille a little extra tomorrow,” he say with a grin. His teeth be white as the moon. “Lie down, little girl.”
I can’t move, so he slide me up the bed and press me down onto it. Then he open his satchel, remove four leather belts, and use them to strap my wrists and ankles to the bed. I don’t fight. I don’t know how.
He rip the white dress down the middle and slide it off me. I pull my body in as much as I can, but that ain’t much.
He run his hands over my body, and at least they warm.
When he enter me, it be through the skin. First a swift wipe of a cold cotton pad, then a needle, sharp and hot, into the biggest vein of my right arm. I cry out, but don’t dare move ’less the needle tear me even more. He be sweating as he pierce my arm, the soft mound of vein inside my right elbow. He stroke my legs as the blood flows out my body into the waiting bags. So red, like rubies in the firelight. He take from me ’til I faint. When I wake up, he do it again.
The next morning, I be told I done well. Alfie give me apple juice but don’t ask any questions. Alice take one look at the bandages on my arm and turn away. Mama Gentille take care of me. She soothe my forehead, kiss it, tell me I be the gentleman’s favorite, that I be her favorite, and I fall asleep again.
• • •
The next night, Mama Gentille let me join the big kids when they dance with her ’round the fire.
She call it religion, say she call down spirits that make you feel so good, like you been lifted up to heaven. The kids say Mama a priestess. That how she keep us safe from hunters and trouble from the tribes. I don’t know what it all mean, but if it mean I can get away from the gentleman and his needles, I do it.
I dance, and I don’t know if I get lifted up or not. I don’t know if I go to heaven. But the stuff she burning make me light-headed, and when the sun come up, I go to sleep for a long, long time.
I do not go back to my duties. I wait two weeks for the gentleman to return. When he do, he take my blood again, from the other side.
“What he do with it?” I ask Mama.
She shake her head. “Drink it? Sell it? I don’t know, and I don’t care. It be his to do with as he pleases. Bought and paid for. Now, drink this, it will keep your blood thick and strong.”
• • •
One day, Alice come to me. “I got a secret,” she say. “The gentleman like you so much, he done bought you in full.”
“I ain’t for sale,” I say, but it a lie. I been sold and he has me.
We don’t leave the cottage for a month. “Like a honeymoon,” Mama Gentille say. On the last day of the month, when the man be out and the stew pot be left untended, I wrap my arms around it and hold them there ’til they burned near to the bone. They find me lying on the hearth, bloody and burnt.
The gentleman want his money back. Mama Gentille see it different, though. She say she proud of me. Impressed. She nurse me back to health, tell me it been a test, a trial. I been a good strong girl and I passed it. She sing me to sleep every night, smiling. Only to sell me to the gentleman one last time.
He take me to the cottage when I be out of my mind with fever from the burns. My arms be healing, but they scarred thick for good. He tie me to the bed again, and when he pierce me, it ain’t with a needle, but his own hot flesh. When he done, he untie me and shake his head. My legs still be smooth, he say, but it be too easy to kill me, taking blood that way. I ain’t worth the trouble when there be a houseful of kids to choose from. When he leave, he don’t shut the door.
Mama Gentille don’t come for me. The man don’t want me. I guess she don’t, neither. If this been a test, I guess I failed.
My body be sore, and my arms itch from the burns, but I finally dress myself and go outside. I see Alfie on the back porch, beating rugs, but he don’t see me. Nobody try to stop me, so I walk on away from the house into the bayou. My name is Fen de la Guerre, I tell myself. I am an O-Positive. I’ma find a tribe, or let the swamp take me. But one thing for sure, I ain’t never gonna cry again.
10
MAMA GENTILLE.
The church house feel like it shifting beneath me and I come back to myself. Baby Girl wake up and start wailing, but she right to cry. These children be older than Alfie and Alice, but they still belong to Mama. Stupid of me not to see it, but I done swum into a crab trap. Baby Girl and I both as good as dead.
Brother William and Sister Henrietta be at the front of the church now, swaying to the music William be making from a little skin drum. There ain’t nothing between me and the exit, but I ain’t a fool. If I shinny down that rope right now, guaranteed Mam
a’s people be waiting for me at the bottom. This supposed to be sacred ground, but it a spiderweb. Brother William and Sister Henrietta just be a front, honey to draw the flies.
A woman’s voice, deep and strong, come pouring out the back room. I remember that voice in my dreams and it just about stop my heart. The curtain to the kitchen swing open and out come Mama Gentille.
Mama be big as a house, fat and squat, but somehow she feel tall, like she filling the room. That be her mojo rolling off her, her power, rising like heat from a fire off her coffee-brown skin. For the life of me, I can’t see how she got here. No way did she come up that rope ladder, ’less she slithered up it like the snake she be.
She look around the room with eyes all painted peacock colors, lips red as blood. Then she see me and she stop singing. She smile wide. Seeing her again set the scars on my arms to itching. I remember what I told myself back then: never let her take nothing from me again.
But here we at.
Mama be wearing one of her crazy muumuus, pieced together from all kinds of fabric. She got on a hat that look like a turban, with feathers and things wrapped up in it. She look ridiculous, like some messed-up bird done fell from the sky. But she ain’t nothing to laugh at.
“Fen!” she say in a big voice. She draw out my short little name so it seem like to snap in two. I freeze with Baby Girl in my arms. “Fen de la Guerre,” Mama purr and hold a hand out to me. I don’t take it. Her eyes drop down to the baby I be holding and she smile.
“Oh, now, Fen, chère, don’t be like that,” she purr in that awful sweet voice. “Mama Gentille be so glad to see you. Her favorite little girl, Fen de la Guerre. How long has it been, child?”
Six years and then some, but I ain’t never gonna tell her that. Not long enough be the real answer. I glare back at her, swallow hard, and stand my ground.
“What you doing in a church, Mama Gentille? You ain’t no Christian.”
She shrug and reach out to pat my cheek with her fat hand. My skin crawl.
“God a business, just like any other. And occasionally there be blessings, you know? Miracles. Like you being here. And your baby. You came back to Mama Gentille, ma chère. After so much time, did you miss your Mama?”
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