by Hite, Ann
“That was Will.” I breathed in deep, avoiding the ache.
“Amanda looked up and a flash of knowing crossed her face. Her hair was relaxed into soft curls. The copper color of her skin warmed her features. She settled back on her knees, not a bit surprised I was there.
“I gave her my name and told her the bishop’s wife suggested she might be interested in a new position. I offered to pay her whatever she was being paid plus more. I wore my dark-brown dress with the white Peter Pan collar. My shoes were tiny little leather affairs. It was like I was the one who was looking for a job.
“Amanda told me she had seen me coming in a dream she had and then went about digging her bare hands into the black soil. She was put out that the bishop’s wife hadn’t told her to find a new job. I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to take my offer when she looked at Will and said, ‘Go find that rabbit hole you was playing in yesterday.’
“He turned a white-toothed grin on me. ‘Mama says I can keep that rabbit if I catch him.’ Lord help, he was the cutest thing.”
“Will always had a softness for animals.” I laughed just to keep from crying.
“Now, Amanda was exactly like she’s always been. She gave him a firm look and shooed him off. I was so taken with his open, sweet manner, I told him he had to promise to show me if he caught the rabbit. Then I gave my best smile to Amanda, whose face turned softer around the eyes.
“ ‘Don’t give him hope,’ she said. ‘The missus would take offense with him if he came wagging a rabbit to the door.’ But she didn’t really sound mad at me. Will ran off in the direction of the shed. That’s when Amanda asked me what kind of job I was offering.
“I touched my stomach that pushed tightly against my dress. I was backward in many ways. Amanda laughed at me and cut right through all the properness, telling me she could be a good maid and nurse.
“See, the cook at your grandfather’s house claimed Amanda was a witch. I needed a witch with the way my life was turning out. I told her I was new in New Orleans and who your father was.
“Amanda tilted her head and seemed to pull me into some kind of warmth. ‘All the maids in town be knowing about your husband, Mrs. Dobbins. I be knowing him just as good.’ Amanda gave me a real smile that revealed perfectly straight white teeth. ‘There be things about me you don’t know, wouldn’t like. I’m to myself and need my own place. I’ll not live with you in your house.’
“Had I been older, more experienced in running a home, I would have understood Amanda had stepped over the line, but I needed her and was so stupid I didn’t even notice. Instead, I offered her the rooms above the carriage house.
“ ‘We might be good together. Time will tell,’ Amanda told me. She had the softest smile, not like now, strained and put on for us.”
I shifted on the hospital bed so I could see Mama’s face. “Tell me about the night I was born.” This was my favorite part of the story.
“It was late summer when my little baby came into the world. Your daddy was away in Georgia on a revival trip. A hailstorm just like we had today broke several of the windows in our fine house. That beautiful baby came into a world with a blind fury of horrible pain, so bad I came in and out of consciousness. Amanda stood right with me almost the whole night, giving me her spells. Finally, I passed out cold. Amanda was left to bring the baby into the world on her own.”
I couldn’t help to think about how Mama said we came to North Carolina by way of Georgia.
“I woke with a dizzy head. Amanda stood over me, smiling. The baby girl was wrapped in a blanket, clean as she could be. Her face was round and plump. She had your daddy’s nose and eyes. A sweet version of him. There was no denying who she belonged to.
“ ‘You swore I was having a boy, Amanda. Your spell didn’t work.’ I laughed at her. But I had so wanted a girl. The door creaked open and Will eased up to the bed. He wore a worried look like a little old man.
“ ‘Here’s this baby just as fine as can be!’ Amanda held the baby girl close to him.” Mama stopped talking.
I breathed in this part of the story, imagining Will worrying over me.
“He looked at you for the longest and then touched your cheek. See, Amanda was sure he was what she called a reader, someone who can see people’s futures. She asked him what he saw.” Again Mama waited, as if she might have been finished for the night.
This was a new part to the story. I held my breath, praying she would continue.
“ ‘I see me two girls in one.’ He always sounded like a grown-up and he was quite sure of himself. Now his prediction scared me to death, and it must have shown on my face.
“ ‘He probably sees her as a grown woman too. He still be young,’ Amanda said as she placed you in my arms. Then she issued one of her warnings. ‘Mrs. Dobbins,’ she said, ‘the hail be the omen tonight.’
“But I was humming some silly little song with no name to my daughter and didn’t even have omens on my mind.” Mama smiled at me.
I was quiet a minute thinking about the new part of the story. “Maybe the hailstorm today was part of the omen.”
Mama’s breathing was heavy. “Who knows? I’ve come to know Amanda’s magic quite well. She always knows what she’s talking about.” Mama patted my shoulder and fell off to sleep. I snuggled close to her, pushing my thoughts about Amanda, Will, and all that had changed over the past three weeks right out of my head. For that moment I was with Mama and I was safe.
Ada Lee Tine
I SHOWED UP AT THE dock that afternoon because a voice came in my dreams and said a boy was coming to meet me. I learnt a long time before to follow that voice wherever it pointed me. It was two weeks after them white folks had been murdered in Darien, and everyone talked about it so much they forgot who else died for no dern reason at all. Those on Sapelo didn’t breathe a word about the mess. We just swallowed down the story and pretended to forget. We all was hurt to the bone because of our own dead man. So I knew when that boy arrived he’d be walking into a mess of sadness.
He came on Mr. Reynolds’s shiny new boat, the one he used for trips to and from the island. When the boat came pulling up, I thought it didn’t mean a thing. Mr. Reynolds was always bringing folks over for a visit. They was the busiest people I’d ever seen. The boat driver was Cotter, who called himself working for Mr. Reynolds in one fashion or another. He was nice enough when he felt like it, but some days he was meaner than one of our wild hogs. He docked the boat, pushed his fancy captain’s hat back on his head, and pointed at the hungry-looking man next to him. “This here boy didn’t lie. He said someone would be waiting on him.”
The boy smiled. “Yes, sir. I don’t lie.” He walked off that boat and came right up to me like he knew me his whole life. Who in their right mind would let a young man like that go hungry? His face was so thin it was scary.
As soon as we was away from hearing, I placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. “Who you be, child?”
“I ain’t no child, ma’am. I’m William Tine, eighteen years old. My daddy was William Tine too. He came from this place, but he’s been dead so long I never even saw him.”
I studied him. He didn’t seem like no liar, maybe he believed the tale he told. But I knew my brother, William—or Willie—never had a child with his wife. She was a root woman with powerful hoodoo. This I knew ’cause of Willie’s letters that came from New Orleans. Seen a photo of the happy couple together right before he passed on. Never had a baby. “What’s your mama’s name?”
“Amanda. She be from New Orleans. That’s where she met my daddy. He was playing cards and she worked as a barmaid.”
Willie was a drinker and a card player. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember that gal’s name he married.
“My mama was and is one of the best hoodoo women around.” He stopped talking and stared off. “She lives on Black Mountain now. That’s in North Carolina.”
“Well, boy, lots of mighty strange things take
place. You showing up here is one of them things, and I don’t know what to think.”
“I can do any work you have, ma’am.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure you can. But one thing you got to know. William Tine was my brother.” I let that settle with him.
He looked at me funny and looked away.
“He died three weeks after he married your mama.” Something about the voice in my dream the night before made me think of Willie. I took them dreams dead serious like any smart person would.
“My aunt. That be strange. I didn’t think family would meet me at the boat.”
“Ain’t nothing too surprising on the island.”
“Mama never told me a thing about my daddy. Just said he was William Tine from Sapelo Island, a Saltwater Geechee. How’d he die?”
I wasn’t about to start discussing them matters with him. It wasn’t right. Eighteen or not, he had him a mama with her own truth. That pitiful excuse of a boy needed a place to stay, and I had me a empty room. “I got a room. You come on, now. But I got to know what kind of mama lets her eighteen-year-old boy just up and leave North Carolina while the whole dern country is struggling with the Depression?”
“My daddy died a bad death, didn’t he?”
There wasn’t no going around this boy. “I don’t like talking on it, but he was buried out in New Orleans somewhere. Only your mama knows. My brother was supposed to live on this island and live out the old ways. It’s our place. He didn’t believe in such and now he’s gone. Don’t know what happened to him, not really. Only your mama has all them answers.”
“I got run off of Black Mountain.” The words were hard around the edges. This was a grown man talking.
“You call me Ada, Ada Lee Tine.”
“My daddy’s spirit stopped me on the road off of Black Mountain. He told me to find family. Said someone would be waiting at the dock for me on this very day. He told me the truth.” He said this like he sure wasn’t used to truths.
Who was I to argue with my dead brother? “Come on. You need to eat.” That mama of his could have been with child. It didn’t take but one time. She wasn’t a truthful type, so why would she have told me about a baby?
“I got this for you, ma’am. Made it from some nice maple a man let me have for pay. It took me two weeks of working to get this done.” He shoved something smooth and shiny at me. “I worked for a man who made real nice furniture. He fed me and showed me how to make this. Then he put me on a train in Macon, and I rode it to Savannah. He was a special white man. They don’t come around too often.”
It was a little box—square, shiny, and perfect in every way.
“I figured anybody could use a nice trinket box. See, I’m useful.”
Them tears I’d held in way too long came out of nowhere. “This is beautiful. I don’t reckon no one has ever gave me something so pretty.” I swiped at the tears as he looked off, pretending not to see. “You like crab?” I asked.
“I ain’t never had none.”
I hooted. “Lordy Jesus! You call yourself a Tine? Tines have crab in their blood, boy. You’ll like mine. I’ve been told I’m the best cook in these parts.” Maybe Willie Tine did one thing right. Maybe he sent that boy ’cause he knew how bad we needed each other. I touched his shoulder. “You come on home with me. I’ll teach you all I know. Is anyone looking for you?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t reckon a soul will come.”
I studied the shiny box in my hand. What kind of mama lets a boy like this slip away? “I can use help. I be your aunt that never married. You be my boy now.”
“Pardon, ma’am. I’m not a boy. What you do for a living here?” He looked around at the palmettos and tall oaks. The moss hanging out of the trees, waving wild-like in the wind. The rows of stones marking family after family of folks that lived on the island for longer than most could remember.
“I make baskets. I used to work here on the island when I was real young, but now I work every summer on the Ridge for a white family my mama worked for. It be real rare any of us work off the island unless we fishing. And that’s what I hope I’m going to do. I just got me a boat. You think you could be a fisherman?”
He grinned big.
“I got me a shrimp boat by the name of Sweet Jesse. We both going to learn us how to fish. It’s in our blood. What you say to that?”
“Yes, ma’am. I reckon I can learn real fast.”
I had no doubt that Will Tine could be anything he set out to be. And there it was. Sometimes a loss be so big a soul felt like she was going to die, and then along came something good to take her home in the right direction again.
PART TWO
The Bottle Tree
June 1939
“A old, dead cedar tree be best. The branches are cleaned smooth. Bottles of all kinds are slid on. Get you some red, yellow, blue, and brown ones. Mr. Sun shines through the glass and draws them haints into the pretty colors, trapping them before they know what happened.”
—Amanda Parker
Shelly Parker
THE SUMMER FAITH TOOK HERSELF down the mountain without telling no one—you’d have thought she escaped from jail—the whole house was in a tither. Now, it was the plain truth that I didn’t like the girl, but she’d been acting strange, odd—that was a new word I read in one of her magazines. Even Amanda noticed how she fretted whenever Pastor and Mrs. Dobbins came in the room. It was catching, ’cause then I started watching them, especially Pastor, too. Anyway, Faith had gone against Pastor and Mrs. Dobbins. She wasn’t even real smart about it. Didn’t try to hide a thing. She went to the mercantile to buy thread for that silly quilt she was working on with my great-grandmama’s sewing basket that she stole and flashed in front of Nada’s nose every chance she could. Four years of that mess, and still Nada hadn’t brought it up to Mrs. Dobbins, like the basket just be worthless. And Nada turning her head stuck right in my ribs and twisted like a knife. Anyway, “unchaperoned” was the word Pastor kept shouting. He shouted and shouted, but Faith refused to tell them how she made the trip. I guessed it was the first interesting thing she’d done in her life. She stood up and did something other than whine for more attention. There wasn’t a bit of love between me and her, that was for sure, but a person had to admire her gumption.
When Pastor led Faith off into his study, Mrs. Dobbins started wringing her hands. Lord, she was a mess. Nada kept that cold stare of hers on the study door, and when it opened she stopped cutting up the chicken for dinner.
“What happened, Faith?” Mrs. Dobbins asked.
Faith didn’t have no choice but to stop, ’cause Mrs. Dobbins blocked the door.
“That Tuggle woman took her down the mountain without permission. I want to see her today! Here!” he roared. Then he gave Faith one of those “you going to die” looks. “If there’s not a good reason for this, you won’t be going to her house again. Now, go on to your room and stay there.” He gave his whole attention to Mrs. Dobbins. “I’ve never cared for Faith working like some farmhand, anyway.”
So it was agreed in no extra words that whether Miss Tuggle wanted to or not, she was to come in front of Pastor. And I’d never known him not to get exactly what he wanted out of folks. Everybody on the mountain, including Mrs. Dobbins, knew Miss Tuggle hated Pastor all the way down to her toes. Nobody knew why. They didn’t have to. Miss Tuggle was her own woman, and what she thought was given honor. I cut out humming around the front room dusting Mrs. Dobbins’s stupid doodads. No cleaning up after Faith for a few days. No, I figured Miss Prissy had got herself in so much trouble she wouldn’t be in my way. They’d probably lock her in the attic with only bread and water. She had to be the neediest white girl, always yelling for me to go fetch her some book or a glass of water like her dern legs was gone. “Shelly, sew on this button.” Her being a fine seamstress. Even Nada made over them awful quilts. “Shelly, I need me some apples, peeled and sliced, mind you. And don’t be walking in the woods. I seen you the othe
r day. I’ll tell Amanda. Can you clean the spot off my shoe? Shelly, Shelly, Shelly.” Trying to always boss me like she’s some kind of grown-up. Nada said she was, but I knew better. Shoot, I was more grown at fifteen than she was at nineteen. I knew how backward she was even if nobody else wanted to stand up and take notice.
Mrs. Dobbins was beside herself when Pastor walked back down the hall and slammed his study door. She followed Nada from room to room for at least an hour.
“Mrs. Dobbins, you got to get out from under my feet. I can’t tolerate it no more. You best go see Miss Tuggle yourself.”
“Oh, I can’t do that. It’s not proper. Charles would be very upset.”
“She ain’t nothing but some old granny woman, not a thing special. So stop your fretting before you drive both me and you crazy.”
“I just can’t face that woman after I talked out of my head that day. She knows too much.”
“Shoot, Mrs. Dobbins, she’s probably heard worse.”
“I just can’t.”
Nada took a deep breath. “I’ll send Shelly over to get her right now. Just to bring peace to this house.”
“What if she won’t come? You know she hates Charles.”
Nada rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “You just a trouble borrower. That’s all you be.”
I slid into the kitchen, but Nada followed me.
“You stop trying to get out of this mess.” Nada watched me close. “Take yourself over to Miss Tuggle’s and tell her she has to come see Pastor and why. And ask her if she can give me plenty of catnip and chamomile. I’m running low. I got to either calm this white woman or take a dose of my own tea.”
