Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

by Tananarive Due

  Her heart flapping, she stepped towards the barrel once more, paused before looking in, and then regarded the still water. In the reflection, her face was soft and sheen from work, supple and long, haloed by thick, scalloped plaits. Her eyebrows now reflected her confusion.

  She spun around, glancing across the yard uneasily. Where was her machete? Her fingers began to tremor. Then the leaning breadfruit tree leaned a little more, lifting earth and sending stones to rumble away. Jooni jumped for her mango basket and quickly fled the yard, hot and testy.

  * * *

  On the pathway, down the slope, Jooni balanced the basket on her head and moved swift-like, descending on See Them Come. She would rather not, but she had to pass it on the way to the sea. She stepped past the cabins and shacks on the outskirts of the village, built so rough and fast they seemed to perch precariously on the incline of the hill. Outside of them hung clothes on lines tied to trees.

  Jooni wondered if Tenan was home today. Tenan kept her distance, but Jooni visited when she could tolerate it, trying to do her best to comfort an old woman. It was the least she could do.

  But today – today was no day to deal with Tenan.

  Living with Tenan had been like daily battle. To Tenan, Jooni was a sinner; she said all that seeing spirits and strange dreams and things were devil workings, that Jooni’s strange customs were obeah. And she’d called a crowd of amen-sayers to come sanctify Jooni without knowing that was the worst thing she could have done.

  It wasn’t just the crowd that laid their hands on Jooni that drove her away, it was how bad she wanted to hurt Tenan when it was all over. She wanted to say something. Fall. Break your hip, old witch. And she had to fight to hold her lips, while her beauty mole shivered, else it would happen. It would happen, like the other times she’d spoke things and they’d happened. Like how she’d hurt Tenan before. Like what she did to Massa Williams’ favorite horse. Told it to die. And it fell to the ground wheezing that same moment, the veins in its throat bulging. That’s how Massa had found out she was just like her mama. No Emancipation was going to save Jooni’s skin then. Yes, Jooni had to hold her lips.

  But Tenan stood comfortable in what she knew, there with her hands on her hips, and she pushed up her chin and said, “Is what, you want do some more of you obeah on me? The only mother you have left?” And that did it. Jooni ran in shame.

  Remembering all this now, Jooni kept on the path, checking the rising pressure in her chest. Mama had explained it all. Jooni could see her clear like yesterday, twirling round a piece of tall grass in the side of her mouth. Her skin, always shine and smooth and deep dark like the purple skin of starfruit. Touching her cowrie shell, Yaa had said, Your Nana was just like me and you. We could call weself vision people, bush doctors, spirit people, obeah people, mayaal people. No matter the names, the power have the same source and people could use them power for good or wickedness. But you see, everything that backra white man see and don’t understand, they say is evil. And obeah is one of we own word that them hear and feel them own fear, for them don’t want to get struck down…

  Because of all that Yaa had said, Jooni had understood why Tenan had called her a sinner. And she understood why mayaal people had embraced the Christ man. She understood why the old masters had made practicing obeah punishable by flogging and even death. She recalled Lady Hyacinth, the old village mayaal woman, who had once caught Jooni’s gaze, and winked, smiling her toothless grin. The village people respected Lady Hyacinth. What was the difference? The mayaal people held their mayaals, danced down the spirits, and served the people’s ails and conflictions. And they kept their African gods and went on crusades against the wicked, which they now called obeah – lighting lamps and pinning down shadows. And they also invoked the power of the Christ man, because his too was a power, and also because mayaal people had to take note, they had to take note that white men still ran the place, Emancipation or none. They had to make themselves different from obeah, that name which was now drenched in stain as a dark art. That name which Jooni wanted nothing to do with, nor any other name. None of it. She didn’t want her gifts. Yaa was dead.

  Almost clear of the village now. Two villagers were still up ahead, talking under their breath. Sometimes Jooni didn’t hear a thing of what people said. Didn’t hear any of the sus, the bad talk. But sometimes the whisper came from far and registered loud in her head, like now: “See obeah woman a come deh. Mad she mad eenuh.”

  As they neared her, the women averted their eyes. Jooni continued to mind her manners.

  From under her basket: “How you do today, Miz Sally? Miz Eliza?”

  “Yes, yes, fine thank you, Jooni, good to see yuh!”

  And they were behind her, hushed words reaching back to touch the edge of Jooni’s ear. She shut them out.

  * * *

  The sun’s rays struck the sandy road to town. It shone like gold. The sea ahead, beyond the road, looked like a water-field of buoying diamonds. Sellers called out their goods – the women with wide hips, the men skinny and quick-moving.

  Jooni walked the road in the sun-hot: “Fruuuiiit! Mango a sell!” She walked against the traffic – a throng of donkey carts, wagons and horse-drawn carriages. “Sweet mango fi sweet you mouth!”

  A carriage grumbled by and stopped, and a man’s voice called out. Jooni ran with her basket, “Yes, sah,” and pulled the basket off her head, keeping her eyes on the wheels as she waited.

  “How much?” His British was cool and level – disinterested. He had not once looked out the carriage. This man was probably an estate owner, or one of the important Parliament men from town. The woman by his side, with brown ringlets hanging from the side of her bonnet, flapped her folding fan and kept her nose in the air.

  “Five pence for a dozen mango, sah.”

  “Give it to me.”

  The man reached out a big purse for Jooni to put the mangoes in, but she froze. The hands. So familiar.

  Her eyes crawled up the arms into the darkness of the carriage. She started to make out the face with thick sideburns and then the eyes. Green. And her heart started to pound now.

  The man seemed only curious at first, but then the green eyes were showing something else. Recognition. They widened until, yes, she was sure, now there was fright. How strange.

  The man snatched the purse quickly into the carriage and continued to stare wide-eyed, his hand over his mouth. And Jooni got ready to lash with her words if needed, remembering his horse. How quickly his horse had went down when she’d said the word. Die. How fast it happened. Yes, she was ready to lash if he dared to make a move. The sudden heat rising to her skin made her slightly dizzy, as her chest heaved with her heavy breathing. But Massa Williams suddenly stuttered to the driver to go – to go quickly. He started rubbing his temples. “Move!” he shouted. As the carriage lurched off, Jooni heard in a hateful whisper: “Witch!”

  Jooni stood there her chest sounding like drums, and then out of the wind with a hint of the sea salt, biting, bitter, and snarling it echoed: Witch!

  Her nostrils flaring, she grabbed up her basket. The blood was rushing in her ears. Her skin felt like it was on fire. She slowly crossed the road just missing a donkey and its wagon. Do you know what it is we do to witches? Jooni slammed her palms over her ears and stumbled. With a heart-wrenched cry, she turned on her heel, and ran. Fast, fast across the road and hot sand, to the broad, waiting sea, cotton dress flying in the wind, feeling her fingertips, her skin, burn and burn. At the sea front she fell into the sand. The wind whipped as the pink sun began to dip in the distance. The sea’s powerful, crashing waves rose and slammed against the shore. Heat choked Jooni’s throat. Her head buzzed, then clickety clackety clickety clackety, a sudden shower of stones from the sky. Ice. Hail. They pelted her and bounced off the ground. Stop it! she raged. And the rain of ice stopped suddenly. Oh god. It was so hot. This hell was so hot. Jooni got up and faced the sea. Thirsty beyond measure, she stumbled towards it.

&nbs
p; Was my mama a witch? No. She was an obeah woman. And fearless. I can still see her clear clear sometimes. When she stood, she stood strong, hands on her hips looking out on the fields real quiet, like she listening. Waiting. At night, in the pitch-black of our slave hut, sometimes I would stir awake, and Mama is not beside me, she on the other side of the hut, though I can’t see her, but I hearing her. And what I hearing is not only her voice, but other voice too, she talking to the spirit them.

  Sometimes I stir at night and Mama not beside me but she not in the hut neither. She gone into the night. And I would be afraid if she didn’t already done tell me. Say when she disappear is gone she gone go plan freedom. An I mustn’t say a word. An when Mama say that is like she talking with the edge of a knife. But she know she could trus’ me. And she was there by morning.

  It was Sam Sharpe rebellion Mama was planning for – he who they call Daddy Sharpe. I didn’t know it then, but I know now. The year we was in was 1831 they say and Daddy Sharpe who was a slave over in St. James parish was planning a peaceful protest, but his peaceful protest turned out nuthin’ peaceful. It wasn’t the first time slaves was plotting a chance for freedom… they see Daddy Sharpe protest as a chance.

  And Mama she’d been communicating with other rebels on other estates, plotting and planning with them under Massa’s nose.

  All of them, they would get beaten or hung – except Mama.

  Before Daddy Sharpe rebellion, Massa never knew Mama was a obeah woman. She was too much stealth for him. Too much stealth for the whole of them. But Massa was in the town and she hadn’t known. He was returning when he received news from the horsemen riding quick in the wind, reporting how everything was chaos, that the slaves were setting crops aflame, attacking the great houses. Massa flew into a panic; he musta wonder if the uprising reach our estate yet, and he come to check, frantically searching the rooms of the great house and found his family dead, and beside each one’s head a little bag. A obeah bag. And then he knew what was done…

  Massa round up his men quick quick. I remember hearing him shouting in the night. I never hear his voice sound so before, like an animal inside him.

  He didn’t guess it was a woman. But him catch her. Him catch Mama. Him was screaming saying she was a witch. He ask if she know what it is they do to witches. Mama talk back, she say she not no witch, she a obeah woman. And Massa screamed so loud, it make my blood curdle. Like something great rising up out of him.

  I remember that night like it was happening this very moment. When the flames lunged up into the black of the night, like the tongue of a great monstrous serpent, licking the sky. And I was screaming out my throat so til I feel like it was tearing, and I fighting to wriggle out my clothes and run into those flames – but they were holding me back – hands from everywhere holding me back.

  Everything was so silent, silent as the sky. Silent as stone.

  I couldn’t hear no sound coming from the thrashing body strapped to the pole, nor even Tenan who was bawling like I never see her do before. I see Massa Williams on his horse, his face twist up like his whole world coming down in brimstone. His eyes – those green, green eyes… I see him open him mouth and shout to his men, and he take off into the night on his horse, that same horse… and in his hand, a torch of fire.

  Was that really Mama’s body burning there? I could feel the heat, like it was eating my own insides. Ohh I wanted to swallow that fire, oh lawd. But I just see Mama stop moving. And when I see that, like everything inside a me stop too and I feel the people them lifting me, and the flames disappearing from my sight, and all I see is the black, black sky full of stars. I stare at all them pretty sky lights. And I wonder as they was carrying me back to my lonely hut in the wretched night, I wonder how these gods Mama had always told me about, how they could possibly be up there.

  Jooni sank down, down, down into the sea – under the skirts of the great ocean that had carried and birthed endless stories and claimed near as many souls – a water graveyard and a womb. Jooni struggled against the water claiming her lungs and fell still, no longer feeling her throat constrict. Water bubbled at her ears, a cocoon of sound. Had she died? Her eyes closed, she surrendered everything, let her body fall into the nothingness beneath. No more fire. The water was so cool. She descended and descended and descended into blue black and then felt the hands close around her throat. She opened her eyes and saw… was it herself? The long face and bulbous plaits, the big beauty mole, the thin frame in Jooni’s own off-white cotton dress. Yes, it must be her – but wrecked and brutalized, with bruises, jagged wounds and pock marks all over her face and skin. Her teeth like small triangular razors, her eyes flashing icy fire. The reflection in the water barrel. Jooni but not Jooni. Some creature. It tightened its sharp claws around Jooni’s neck, choking her in the depth of the sea. But Jooni felt no urge to resist, only looked into those icy eyes and saw everything in them, held before her like a mirror: a world of pain, falling and falling into pieces. Empty hearts, heavy hands, and snatches of Jooni’s own haunting dreams. A lonely yard and a falling breadfruit tree. Lost mothers and fathers mourning babies. Grief-stricken wailing. Damba – headless. Statues to kiss and cradle and coo over, but so helpless and sad. The forgotten and untold – chained, roped, dogged, hunted, crucified. Yaa, burning in a master’s hell eternally. Hopelessness. All hopelessness and despair. And then Jooni heard her own voice quiet and small. That’s not true. The creature looked startled, its eyes widening, its own beauty-mole trembling. It’s not true – Jooni’s voice said again – we not hopeless. There’s more.

  The creature pulled back in rage; streams of bubbles burst from its mouth. It lurched for Jooni again, this time digging its claws into her shoulder and opened its jaws wide to bite, but it was too late. Jooni was already understanding. She slowly lifted her hand and placed it on the creature’s face. Without any effort, she held it back; felt it writhing behind her palm. And suddenly remembering, she searched, searched inside until she found it. I am not no slave. Yes. This was true. Never was. Never have been. Never will be. I am no slave to man, nor woman, nor beast. No slave to no mind, no thought, no feeling. I am like iron passing through fire. The sky, the plants, the sea. I am life and I will not be broken. The creature continued to struggle against Jooni’s gentle hand, now making tormented sounds. So I think, so I speak – I am. How did Jooni forget her own power? That her own thoughts could make skies fall. Could bend experience. Could paint and color what she saw. That her own words – die – could take life, and yes, could heal. Give salve to the broken? Her heart brimming, she lifted her other hand and placed it behind the creature’s head, and slowly she pulled it in, pulled it into her bosom, and wrapped her arms around it and embraced it as it wailed and convulsed against her. Jooni felt a glowing light humming, spiraling, brightening inside her, until it reached the surface of her skin. It vibrated through the two of them until the creature vanished inside her and she was one again, there, hugging herself in the sea, radiating like a moon. And it was not her time to die.

  She stretched her arms and uncurled her chest in the water and felt a current gently push against her back and come around her. The water cradled her and carried her to the surface where she broke air and suddenly gasped for breath. The sea frothed, heaved, and gently rolled Jooni onto the shore. The moon was full; it shone against the sand.

  * * *

  Days later, Lady Hyacinth stood in the clearing under the big tree in Jooni’s yard, grinning her toothless grin. Candles surrounded them all, placed on the stone wall and on the ground, and on the shrine Jooni had made for Yaa, which she had surrounded with flowers, seashells, pebbles, bird feathers, a coconut, a fat mango, and a calabash full of water. There were candles and fresh flowers around the little earth clay statues too – candles and pretty, pink bougainvillea. In the flicker of light, under an evening sky, elder mayaal women were wetting the ground and praying. Lady Hyacinth stood before Jooni, holding a long stick. She placed the point down at the center of the
clearing and held it there.

  “Kongo!” Her voice, followed by the boom boom from the surrounding drummers, flew up into the trees, and she began to draw with the stick ssshhhhh across the ground.

  “Nzambi, Nzambi, awesome creator god. Ay!” Hyacinth leaned suddenly to the side. She kept her grip on the stick. “Ancestaaaaars! Woy!” Hyacinth shouted again and leaned forward, and then began to sing, the drums beginning soft pounds, while Hyacinth sang raspy words in another tongue Jooni did not know and continued to draw sssshhhhh across the ground completing a healing cross, a spirit cross, a cross with a circle around it. The women poured something over Jooni’s head, wiping it down all over her body. And Jooni leaned and swirled, the drumbeats intoxicating her mind. Short breaths escaped from her mouth as her bare feet shuffled in the dirt making pathways. She smiled – yes, pathways. She dipped to the right, spun around, holding her skirt tail. Dipped to the left. Rolled her torso, the sounds of the drums opening up spaces in her body. They were coming. She turned and turned. She slipped her eyes open, drunken, and glimpsed them – spirits, in white, dark faces, hands and feet – patient, ready and waiting. And when she opened her eyes once more, she saw her, behind the clearing, standing near the stone wall.

  Like she always did when she used to look out over the cane fields. Yaa. Mama. She stood with her arms akimbo, her cowrie shell hanging from her neck, her handkerchief tied around her head. And her chin raised high, high, high. Warrior woman, obeah woman, healer woman. Staring into Jooni, her eyes like steel, and Jooni’s chest was brimming – she started to laugh. And Yaa smiled. And Jooni was feeling something new, but not new. Something so passionate in her chest, strong in her blood. She reached up and touched her neck. Her cowrie. How did she forget? And Jooni moved her hands to her hips. Akimbo. And raised her head and stood there, holding her mother’s gaze, raising her own chin high, high, high. And Yaa, still smiling, vanished into the darkness. But it was fine now. Because Jooni was ready now. And she was laughing. And her laughter was powerful.