So what? That was a very long time ago. Why should anyone, especially me, care now?
Evidently he cared, because he began to get excited. "There is a song from that time that maps the route. It actually mentions the Tombigbee River, right here in Columbus!"
Mississippi has a reputation as the birthplace of the blues. Lots of songs have lyrics that refer to the Delta, and other places around here. This news was not particularly earth shattering.
"'Follow The Drinking Gourd!' It gives coded messages, like a map. The drinking gourd is the Big Dipper. If the runaways followed the stars and other landmarks mentioned, they just might make it to safety." He was getting excited, like this meant so much to him. I wish he could get that keyed up about me.
I took a bite of my banana and mayo sandwich, trying to think of something smart to ask.
"Truly," he said, "just imagine, there was so much danger. They were being tracked by men with dogs and guns. All the odds were against them!"
"I can't imagine how scary that must have been. They were all alone in the darkness." Not exactly a deep comment, but the best I could come up with.
"Oh, they had help. There was an old man called "Peg Leg Joe". He was a 'conductor,' who led them through part of the escape route. There were others, too, who hid them along the way."
Now, this was something I understood, sort of. "Yeah, sophomore year we had to read The Diary of Anne Frank, and lots of people helped to hide the Jewish children. They were in danger from the Nazis."
I didn't understand why we had to read that book. WWII was long ago, even before my parents were born. It means nothing in my life.
"Yes, it was a lot like that. Can you imagine how much courage it took? Even the lives of free people were at risk just for helping runaway slaves!"
I couldn't really imagine it at all. I'm pretty sure I would have been only interested in boys, and going to parties, and having fun. Anyway, I'm not a slave. I'm not Jewish, either. It's all too long ago, and too hard to imagine.
"Eric, why do you care so much? You're not Jewish, and certainly not Black. I can't see why it's all such a big deal."
"Truly, we are all connected. What hurts one, hurts us all."
And so it went. We ate lunch together, but I was never successful in steering our conversations toward anything personal. Eric seemed to enjoy my company, as long as we talked about history, and ideas. If I moved my hand close to his, he pulled away. I learned not to get too near, and I also learned never to mention Aunt Fleur. Something about her made him flush; his tone of voice hardened. Aunt Fleur told me that sometimes people hold hostility for those who have hurt them. As far as I could tell, they had never met before the day I introduced them. Maybe she reminded him of someone he didn't like. But I can't imagine that, either.
7
I enjoyed my "work" at the Library. This was not only because I got to spend time with Eric, but also because it was actually becoming interesting.
Books have wonderful smells. Whether new or old, there is a fragrance that says as much as the printed words. I liked to stick my nose into the place where the pages press together. Some have slight stains on the edges from the body oil of the people who turned the pages.
Once, I found a sweet Valentines Day card stuck between some pages. Another time, I found three four-leafed clovers, flat and brittle, and a few inches of thin aqua ribbon.
I was drawn to the children's books because of the wonderful illustrations. Mother Goose explained to me that so many of the nursery rhymes had hidden meanings—political references to royalty, maybe to cruel practices, and plagues. Sometimes I thought that she and Eric were in cahoots with their shared love of the past.
I learned a lot from watching Eric help people who were looking for a specific book, or who needed assistance with research.
There is an entire section here devoted to genealogical stuff. People are always researching their families. He was so patient with them. I often got a bit snippy, because the same questions, repeated again and again, bored me.
There is a map of Friendship Cemetery, showing where people are buried. The cemetery dates from before the Civil War; some sections are actually hand-drawn. That can be confusing to people accustomed to modern printed maps and atlases.
Eric was great at explaining how to maneuver through the narrow walks and rows of graves. He often used the wishing well as a landmark. I once heard him say that his mother was buried under a sweeping oak, just next to the well. My Granma Belle is there too, but she has been gone so long that I would have trouble finding her grave.
One day, I was startled to hear him arguing with a man I had never seen. This surprised me, since Eric was usually so nice to everyone. They were in a corner, whispering as softly as they could. That's a hard thing to do when you're angry.
"I had hoped you would come to my party," the man said. His voice was part squeak, part hiss.
"I'm not going! Stop bugging me. Leave me alone." Eric's voice was sharp, with a bitter edge. I wondered why he was so angry. Why turn down a party invitation?
I peeked through a gap in a shelf. The man was sort of dumpy, with a bald head and a gray complexion. "We miss you. The boys are asking for you." He reached out to put his hand on Eric's shoulder. Eric jerked away from him with a violent motion. For a moment I thought he might punch him.
The man must have thought that, too. He pivoted on a heel and sauntered away. Then he stopped for a moment and looked back at Eric. "You know where we are," he said, and marched quickly out of the library.
I didn't think this was a good time for me to make an appearance, so I disappeared into the stacks. The man looked harmless enough, but, in a way, he gave me the "creeps." I hope this wasn't the feeling that Eric got from Fleur.
Later, I asked Eric if he wanted to go to the coffee shop after work. "I'm just not feeling it today, Truly. Another time, okay?" He looked tired, or sad. I'm not sure which.
"I saw you chatting with a man a while ago. A friend of yours?" I really should learn to let things alone.
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean that man with the bald head. You sounded angry."
His face reddened. He dropped his eyes. "That was no friend. That was Mr. Russell, my track coach from high school."
"He must really like you. You've been out of high school a couple of years. Maybe he thinks you should get back into track."
"I told you before. That's all behind me. No track. No Lewis Russell. Never again!"
8
I hadn't been spending as much time with Aunt Fleur since I started "working." I missed her, so I stopped by after I got off that day. She now had three witch balls hanging in her kitchen window.
"Aunt Fleur, you seem to know a lot about magic. Can someone work a spell to make a boy fall in love with them?"
She put a thick finger against her rouged cheek. Today she wore a silvery wig with tufts of cherry red. "There are all sorts of love spells. However, some people think you should not force another to your desire. Never mess with their free will. You should understand, too, that the wish has power. There is magic in the yearning. Hope, alone, has the strength to produce change."
"What about just making them like you? That's not forcing them, is it?"
"I suppose it all boils down to point of view. Can anyone be made to do something against his will?" She had some boxes and padded envelopes on the table.
These were what she used to ship her "Accessorines." On every package she drew something with colored pens. There were flowers, and stars, hearts of all sizes, and squiggles that looked like some sort of secret writing.
"What is this?" I asked, pointing to a mark that looked like the letter "a," but without the line crossing the middle.
"That's a lambda, a Greek letter. Lambda is a sort of club I belong to."
"Oh." She has friends, and belongs to a club. Does everyone in the world have a more interesting life than I do?
Jimmy-James was curled up on top
of the mess. Michael-Ray sat licking his paw and rubbing it behind his ear. I could hear them both purring.
I wanted to steer the conversation back to my issues. "Of course people can be made to do what they hate, like going to school, and doing homework," I offered. "In some ways, kids are like slaves to adults. At my age there is no free will at all."
"Now, I am going to make you eat some banana bread. You could refuse, but it would hurt my feelings. So I know you won't." She got up and went into the kitchen; the silk of her caftan made a soft swishing sound. The oven door squeaked, and the house filled with the wonderful aroma of banana and spices.
Aunt Fleur brought in saucers with thick slices of the bread. Each had a mound of whipped cream on top that was melting down the sides of the still-warm bread.
"Aunt Fleuuur," I must have sounded slightly whiney, "you don't understand. I really, really want Eric to like me."
"Alright, I don't understand." She chuckled slightly. "Why don't you ask him to go somewhere this weekend? A movie, or party, or something?"
"That's a great idea. But where? I don't drive. I'm not invited to any parties. He is, but he's not going because he doesn't like the host, his old track coach."
"Truly, create the life you want. Find a way. Do not accept things the way they are. Change can be magic!"
So, I figured it out. I told Eric that I had been given tickets to the new Johnny Depp movie. (He didn't need to know that Aunt Fleur had paid for them online with her credit card.) He actually offered to borrow his father's car. This was looking promising. We had a real date on Friday night!
I went back to my aunt. "What now?" I asked her. "Can I make him like me?"
"My dear, you are playing with things you don't understand. Here is a little something, a sort of light magic. Now listen carefully. It is very important to do this exactly as I tell you. On the evening of your date, burn a pink candle on a white cloth. Repeat three times: 'Goddess of love, please grant my wish to win Eric's love, so we can live happily ever after. SO MOTE IT BE!' ''
She fiddled with some scraps on the table, and seemed far away for a second or two. This was usual. I guess she often thought about her past. Who wouldn't? Her "now" was pretty unexciting. Then she shuffled through the scraps on the table and handed me a slip of sliver paper. "Write his name on this, and burn it in the candle's flame."
She took a sip of her tea. "Truly, be careful, be kind. And let me know what happens. Magic always has a sort of response, like a chain reaction. Everything is about balance. You really need to understand more about karma before you do this." She looked at me without smiling. "I guess it will be okay this once. Remember, you can set a series of events into play that were unintentional."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But, is that all, just burning his name and saying some stuff? It seems too easy. Shouldn't I do something else?"
"Well," she hesitated, but added, "wear pastel colors, and perfume, especially scents with a bit of spice, like cinnamon."
WOW! I felt powerful and couldn't wait for Friday night.
9
I am nearly sixteen, certainly old enough to date. My parents act like I am still a child. They couldn't come up with a good reason to stop me, so my date with Eric was really going to happen. Of course, they insisted on meeting him. That was no big deal; southern gentlemen always call for a lady at the door. They would never dream of sitting outside and honking the horn.
Right before the date, I gathered the stuff for my spell. We didn't have a pink candle, but I found a red one in the box of Christmas decorations in the hall closet. I remembered something about a cloth. I put the candle on a black-and-white-checked napkin. I wrote Eric's name on the silver paper in my very best script.
The magic words had completely gone out of my head. So I said as much as I could recall. It was something like "Oh, goddess, please make him like me, so we can live happily ever after. Make it so."
"Make it so" is a quote from "Star Trek" on TV. The Capitan of the Starship Enterprise says it all the time. Surely, that's good enough for the Goddess. Right?
I wore an aqua blouse and some faded jeans. Pastel enough, I suppose. My Viva La Juicy perfume smelled pretty good to me, but I added a few shakes of cinnamon from the kitchen, just to make sure.
Mom and Dad were sitting on the sofa waiting for the doorbell to ring. I think they were almost as nervous as I was.
Eric showed up wearing a white shirt with a button-down collar, and a nice pair of slacks. He looked fierce. I wished I had worn something better than my jeans.
He was super polite, very gentlemanly. My mom started in right away, giving him the third degree. It's always the same. "What was your mother's maiden name?" and "What does your father do for a living?"
"Um," he shifted his weight from side to side, "my father is a mechanic. He has a shop on Highway #45 North. My mother died when I was an infant."
"I see,'' said Mom. "Is your family from Columbus?"
"Yes, ma'am. My father is. I don't know much about my mother's family. She was adopted."
"And who is your father?" She wasn't letting go. I wished I could have dissolved into the carpet. This was so humiliating.
"My father is Hunter Alexander. You probably know him. Almost everyone in town does.''
Mom's jaw fell open. She turned to my dad, but he didn't look at her. He gulped a big swallow of his drink. This gap in the questioning gave me an opportunity to whisk Eric out of there.
"Your folks seem a little uptight," he said when we were in the car.
"Yeah, I guess so."
I love Johnny Depp, but honestly, I can't remember anything about the movie. I expected some hand holding, or maybe a stolen kiss. Nothing happened. When he asked what I wanted from the snack bar, I chose Junior Mints. So I know my breath was okay.
We walked out into the steamy night and he suggested we take a ride to the Riverwalk, a park along the Tombigbee River. In the daytime people jog and ride bikes, or walk along the curvy paths. There is an open-air stage where the city puts on free concerts in the summer. This looked promising.
He parked near one of the boat launches. We got out and sat on a bench facing the water. The view here is great. A full moon peeked in and out of wispy clouds. Heat lightening flashed far to the west, toward Starkville. Trees across the river became black silhouettes.
"You smell good," he said. Yes! The spell was working. "Truly, this is the exact place I was telling you about. The escaped slaves walked along these very banks on their way north. I find that fascinating."
I had forgotten all about the slaves. A curtain of thin clouds covered the moon. A tree frog serenaded us, and the water sparkled, reflecting the stars.
"Can you imagine? They crept through the brush, clutching a bundle of clothes, or maybe a basket with some meager scraps of food. In the background they could hear the barking of dogs hunting them, the yells of the men on their trail."
I was getting a bit bored. All I could think of was his beautiful full lips. Wasn't he ever going to kiss me? I guess the answer was no, because he stood up and suggested we go.
"I don't want to get you home too late. Your parents won't like that." He acted like they were more important than I was.
"Eric," I said, "why don't you like your old coach? He likes you." I was only slightly interested in that answer. This was a ruse to stay a while longer. Maybe he would finally decide to steal a kiss.
"He was mean," he said with a flat tone. I don't know how he could have so much empathy for people who lived almost two hundred years ago, and have such obvious hate for a man who cares for him. But I do know that his tone of voice said not to push the subject much further.
When he walked me to my door, I invited him inside. "Not tonight. I have to meet some people," he said, and shook my hand.
What people, I wondered? It's almost eleven o'clock. Does he have a late date?
It was probably a good thing that he didn't accept my invitation to come inside. Both Mom and Dad were
waiting up for me.
"Gertrude," Mom said, "why didn't you tell us that was Hunter Alexander's boy?"
"I didn't know it was important. We never talked about his parents. I don't know what the big deal is."
"They aren't nice people," Dad said. "Not our sort."
Mom added, "We don't think you should go out with him again."
"Why are you throwing shade? He's perfectly nice!"
"Where do you get these strange words?" Dad asked. "Throwing shade? Fierce? Who talks like that?"
Well, Aunt Fleur does. But this wasn't the time to go into that.
"No matter," said my mom. "We still don't think you should see that boy anymore."
This should have made me really unhappy. "Not a problem. I don't think he likes me." I went to bed to the drone of their muffled voices.
Outside my window the cicadas sounded like sirens. I heard a group of bullfrogs croaking a call and response in the darkness. The noises were so loud and so close; it seemed that the walls of my room had expanded to include the world of a summer night. It took me a long time to fall asleep.
10
The next day I decided to visit Aunt Fleur to discuss my failed "date." My grandfather, Hyrum, was there. Not at all unusual, as he is her brother.
"Hey, Gramps!" I gave him a big hug. "What's cookin'?"
"I'm jus' visiting with my, um, sister." He looked uncomfortable. The tea cup seemed the wrong fit for his hands. In Mississippi, and in most of the states around here, we drink iced sweet tea. It's called "the table wine of the south." Somehow, drinking hot tea, especially in summer, is as strange as drinking the muddy water straight out of the Tombigbee.
"I came to tell Aunt Fleur about my date last night."
"Date? Aren't you only six years old?" This was a game Grandpa Hyrum and I had played forever. He pretended to forget my name, or my age, or even who I was.
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