by Nisi Shawl
Tchula became anxious with the news of Bola’s imminent departure from her life. Other slaves began to talk, and wondered how she would handle another man taken from her. She spent her days washing, healing those who needed healing, and admiring Bola’s metalwork. Celestine admired them too, and one day she slipped the washerwomen figurines into her apron pocket to show the head cook, and Mrs. Stewart saw them. She demanded to know where Celestine got them from. Celestine told. Mrs. Stewart made such a fuss over them, that she took every last one she could find in Tchula’s cabin and placed them in her own parlor.
Tchula was furious. She accosted Celestine in front of their mother’s gravesite. Celestine was placing flowers on the headstone when Tchula pounced on her.
“You bitch!” she screamed, clawing at Celestine’s arm.
“Let me go!”
“Why did you take my things? He made them for me. For my eyes only.”
“I was only going to show them to Ouida.”
“You should’ve asked me. Now she’ll never give them back.”
“He can make you some more—”
“There’s no time for him to make that many again!”
Celestine pulled out the metal bird from her apron.
“Here, she didn’t take all of them. I hid this one. I’m sorry.”
Tchula took the bird from Celestine’s hand.
“Maybe if you sweet talk Master Stewart, he’ll let you have them back, or maybe you can come look at them—”
“I’m not like you. I can’t have that man on me—” Tchula said.
“You think I like it? He only took me because you left! You did this to me. And I hear everyone whispering about you running off again. If you leave again, he’ll hurt me worse.”
Tchula let her eyes look towards the ground.
“I know it’s bad,” she said. She felt deep shame. Glancing over at their mother’s grave, she also felt a deep loss. Itta had been gone for twelve years. Tchula reached down and touched the headstone.
“Yeah? Well I take it. I lay there and pretend he’s doing it to someone else. It ain’t fair. You get Bola, and I get that maggot’s filth all in me. How many more babies you gotta shake outta my womb? If you leave, I’ll have his children, and he will sell them. I’ll be stuck.”
“Mama didn’t want this for us,” Tchula said.
“She died and left us, Tchula! This how it’s gonna be.”
“Neshoba,” Tchula said.
“Celestine. My name is Celestine.”
“I can’t stay here anymore.”
“What about me? You would leave me here all alone?”
“You can run with me. Mama would want you to come with me—”
“No—”
“I’ll die if I stay here. I know it,” Tchula said.
“I’m already dead,” Celestine said.
π
A week before Bola was to leave, Tchula asked him for one more metal figurine.
“My mother used to take spider webs and put them inside of cuts to bind the flesh. She liked spiders. They were good luck. Make this for me. It will remind me of you.”
Within three days Bola handed Tchula the inch long metal spider. In her quarters she ran her fingers over it, marveled at the elaborate detail he put into the piece. She kissed it, and then hugged him.
“Tonight, you have to ask your gods to help me with Celestine. I’m not strong enough to do it alone,” she said.
“She has no faith; it won’t work,” he said.
“It has to,” she said.
He looked unsure. Worry lines creased his brow. She stood on bare tiptoes and kissed his forehead.
“We need two backs to carry this weight. Together we are powerful, Bola,” she said.
She unfastened his pants and let them drop to the floor. Holding his penis, she pulled back the dense foreskin, feeling the wide purplish head stiffen.
“Chi hollo li,” she said, the Choctaw words rolled off her tongue, “You know that right? I love you.”
He felt small droplets of semen pooling at the tip.
“Yes,” he answered, his breath quickened.
“This will hurt,” she said, and jammed a finger in. He bled like a virgin.
π
It was easy to coax her out of the kitchen.
Bola had purposely missed the communal noon meal by working through it. Stewart had no problem with that when he went to check on him, and praised Bola’s work ethic, chastising the other slaves whose bodies ached because of their continuous movement from can-see to can’t-see each day. Some of the slaves cut their eyes at Bola as they passed by the smithy to get to the feeding tables. When meal time was over, and weary bodies headed back to the fields, Bola snuck around to the kitchen door that led to Celestine’s quarters.
“What you want, Bola?” she asked, her face dusted with cornmeal, her hands wringing a cooking rag. Ouida the head cook eavesdropped on them, making loud cleaning noises to cover their conversation from the owners but not herself.
“I ain’t eat yet. Can you fix me somethin’?”
“What makes you think there’s some leftovers waitin’ on you, man?”
He put a bold foot on the bottom step that led to the inside. She looked down at his foot, then up at him. She smiled.
“Master Stewart see that foot, you’d be in trouble.”
“Then help my foot not get in trouble.”
Ouida saw this and rolled her eyes at them both. Celestine pushed past the older woman, grabbed a clean table napkin, and wrapped a chunk of cornbread dipped in pot liquor and a thick piece of fatback inside. She had been saving it for her own dinner. She handed it to Bola.
“You gotta live on that for now; the beans are all gone.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Mhmmm….”
“Did you eat yet?”
“No.”
“I’ll be over by the chicken coop. Come eat with me.”
Her eyes narrowed. She looked over her shoulder.
“Telemi kalo,” he said.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Come with me.”
Ouida shook her head. Glared at Bola.
“Master Stewart come through, don’t tell him where I am,” Celestine said.
“You playin’ with fire, gal,” Ouida said, handing Celestine a smaller chunk of cornbread.
Bola walked ahead of Celestine just in case anyone else was watching them. He casually passed Tchula’s cabin. He could hear Celestine’s heavy footsteps behind him, and he picked up his pace to distance himself until they were in the clear, hidden by the chicken coop behind the smithy.
Bola leaned against a tree and ate the bread and swallowed the fatty meat that greased his lips. Celestine slid her cornbread in her apron.
“I thought you wanted me to eat with you,” she said.
“I’ll watch you eat.”
“Why you sniffin’ around me?”
“C’mere,” he said. He grabbed for her arm. She pulled back. But not too far.
“Quit playin’ with me, man.”
“I got no time to play. Only two days left before I’m gone.”
“My sister—”
“She don’t want me no more.”
“Why not?”
“O rewa gan lobinrin,” he said.
“What are you saying to me?”
“Moferan e…I like you.”
“Master Stewart—”
“Ain’t here.”
His accent was more pronounced. Celestine wavered. To want to do it freely and not because she was forced—that was a gift. Bola held out his hand. She took it.
“Oda,” he said.
She wondered if he felt like he was kissing Tchula. Her body would feel new, and yet it would not be new, not really. She fumbled with the buttons on her blouse as he lifted her skirt and apron and fingered her slowly. She spun herself around so that she was facing the tree and holding it with her hands.
“We have to w
atch out in case someone finds us. Master Stewart is talking with the overseer in the parlor,” she said, but he was busy nibbling her earlobes, his hands running up and down her heavy breasts.
“Hurry,” she said. He pulled down his pants and she reached around and guided him in.
“Be’ ni—yara, yara—” he said with gritted teeth.
“English, Bola, please say it in English,” she moaned.
“Yes, faster, faster,” he yammered.
She came before he did. He made sure of that.
Later that day, he slept with Tchula. They held one another, their heartbeats pounding in their ears. Earlier Tchula had smoked tobacco leaves in a tightly wrapped cigar and blew the smoke into a mound of dirt on her altar. Bola gave the mound holes for eyes, a mouth, and a nose. Tchula blew smoke into the dirt mouth and opened the way for their deities to come through.
Tchula had stolen a chicken from the coop, slit its throat and fed their gods with the gushing of blood and prayers on her altar. The presence of heavy Red and Black Gods mingling together and meeting for the first time bent Tchula’s and Bola’s backs. The spirits rode them, exhausting their limbs. Requests were made to the Red and the Black, and she felt their escape was imminent. There was no turning back.
“What if I never see you again?” he asked Tchula in the twilight of their rest. She didn’t answer him. A tingling in her stomach let her know she was afraid to. Any doubt released from her lips would taint their bond. Instead, she placed her lips on his. Maybe she could make him plant a new seed in her. One that she could grow in free soil.
She slid on top of him. Tired limbs or not, she would remember every part of his body. He was asleep when she whispered in his ear, “I will find you.”
The overseer and Junior came for Bola at nine that evening. They shackled his arms and legs and transported him onto a supply carriage. Tchula watched Junior strike his horses and carry Bola away into the dark. Master Stewart would follow them in a few days.
Celestine consoled Tchula when she threw herself down on her pallet.
“He’ll use you tonight,” Tchula said when her tears finally dried up.
“I know,” Celestine said, resolved to her endless fate.
“Promise me something,” Tchula said.
“What?”
“Think of mama’s grave.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Celestine asked.
Tchula reached out and hugged Celestine. Huddled on the disheveled pallet, Tchula squeezed Celestine’s shoulders.
“Just think of Itta for me, please.”
Celestine pulled herself free from Tchula’s smothering arms. She gazed into Tchula’s piercing eyes.
“I will,” Celestine answered, still puzzled with the request.
π
Stewart summoned Celestine to his private bedroom in a downstairs wing of the main house. Mrs. Stewart had retired only a half hour earlier after having a nightcap in their parlor, so Celestine was a little thrown off by the scheduling. He would usually wait until his wife had been asleep for some time before crawling out of their marital bed to enjoy his debauchery with Celestine.
She arrived in a pale blue housedress that doubled as a nightgown. Stewart smoked a cigar and watched her undress. She flung the dress across a divan near the full-sized bed. Pulling back the satin bed linens, she positioned herself on her back. She watched Stewart methodically remove each article of clothing and place it on a wing-backed chair across from the bed. He was a man of average height, with a slender physique, but his stomach was bloated and looked like it belonged to a much heavier man. Lying there, Celestine wondered if he had worms.
Stewart kneeled before Celestine and parted her knees, lifting her limbs over his shoulders. Celestine felt her back and buttocks sliding on the cool sheets, and the lips of her lightly haired vulva opened to the warmth from Stewart’s hands. Candles flickered, illuminating her body, her skin taking on a deep orange glow that contrasted with the stark white sheets. Stewart took his right pinky finger and parted her dusky inner labia to reveal her pink insides. He gripped his penis with his left hand and inserted himself, enjoying the fact that Celestine was moist so early.
Her eyes were closed, her lips pursed into a thin line. Stewart partially pulled out, then thrust again, engrossed in the grip of her sex and the light/dark interplay of his penis and her slick orifice. He shifted his weight, driving his knees into the mattress. He moved her legs to wrap around his waist.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
Celestine obeyed. Stewart’s face bore down on her, his passionate tempo faster. Celestine studied his tense expression, his eyes mere slits. She tried to imagine what Bola’s face looked like in the midst of his pleasure, their coupling against the tree still vivid in her mind. She tried to recall the words he whispered in her ear in his native tongue, the calloused grip of his hands on her nipples, the muscles of his chest pressing on her back. She felt her vaginal walls quiver then squeeze, a surge of tension racing down her spine as Stewart grabbed her hair from the back, pulling her head forward. He reached his peak. He would finish soon. She pumped her hips furiously to hurry him.
He opened his eyes.
“Oh!” he gasped, his eyes widening. Celestine stopped moving. This wasn’t his usual response to climax. He gazed down below her navel, down to his penis. He drew out his glistening member, grabbed it with both hands. There were two visible bite marks on the tip of the glans. Two tear-sized drops of blood pooled on the skin and dripped down onto the sheets.
“What have you done?” he barked, color draining from his face. Stewart’s penis swelled, turning deep purple. His breath became ragged chirps. He stared between her legs. Celestine felt a fullness pulsating inside her. She shifted her weight, and raised herself up with her hands.
Her labia pushed open. Two long segmented limbs, thin like twigs, poked out hauling out six more brown legs. Eight feral-looking black eyes shined up at Stewart. Its venomous fangs throbbed as it drew out its entire body from Celestine’s vagina. Its abdomen was as big as a man’s fist. Each spider leg was a foot long. Stewart’s naked body fell backwards to the floor, and Celestine jumped off the bed, screaming. The spider regarded her coolly. Knowingly.
She heard the stampede of feet from upstairs. Muffled shouts were moving down towards her. The overseer and a sallow-faced male house servant burst into the room. Celestine draped her house dress around her nakedness and stood on the divan. The overseer knelt down by Stewart.
“What did you do to him?”
“He was bitten by a spider.”
“Where is it? Did you kill it?”
“On the bed!” She pointed.
The house servant cautiously smoothed down the bed linen with one hand while holding a kerosene lamp with the other. A small glint caught his eye. He squinted, moved his hand to the bed and held up a miniature metal spider. He stared at Celestine, then hid the metalwork in his bed clothes and sank to his knees on the floor. He gaped at the bite marks on Stewart’s blackened penis.
“Lyle!” Mrs. Stewart staggered into the room. Celestine took advantage of the distraction. She pulled on the housedress and slipped out.
π
Celestine ran to Tchula’s cabin and found it empty. A small fire blazed in the fireplace, burning off mounds of herbs. All of Tchula’s jars were smashed on the floor. Her altar was gone. On the oak table, Celestine saw a stuffed burlap bag and the little metal bird, Bola’s first gift to Tchula.
Outside, the commotion of the main house rose to a loud din, waking slaves in their quarters. Beyond the door she could see dark bodies striding towards the chaos. Ouida shuffled into the cabin, out of breath and holding her side.
“We need your sister,” Ouida said.
“She’s gone.”
“God help us,” Ouida said, and rushed back to the house.
Celestine picked up the bird and tapped its beak. The wings flapped with a tinkling sound. Her eyes caught sight of the empty pallet. She
remembered Tchula’s tears, her strong arms squeezing her shoulders, and—
“Itta,” Celestine said. A fearful smile spread across her face. Itta’s grave. Tchula would be there, waiting for her. She closed her hand around the bird and held it to her breast.
“Let’s get free,” she said.
Draping the burlap bag around her shoulder, she ran out of the cabin, past the smithy and the chicken coop. She ran past the Tupelo trees and cotton fields, past all the pain. In the distance, she saw Tchula standing behind a group of maple trees, waving for her to run faster. Celestine ran so fast that she felt like she could extend her arms and soar.
And she did.
Acknowledgments: It’s a Family Affair
Nisi Shawl
This book was born of love. Love is work. Love is wealth. And wealth and work are two of love’s expressions.
The field of speculative fiction has been likened over and over to a large family. That’s certainly the case for those of us who Octavia touched, personally or through her writings. Expressing love is what families are meant to do. You can see this clearly when you look at what went into Bloodchildren.
Octavia E. Butler lived. She lived, and was loved, and made so much possible with her life.
In 2006, Octavia died. We can’t make that not have happened. But we can redeem the meaning of her death for those who survive her. And that is what we’re doing, what we had already begun to do before now, what we hope to keep doing.
Nalo Hopkinson, Jaime Levine, Kate Schaefer, Lisa Gold, Merrilee Heifetz, Pam Noles, Leslie Howle, Gordon Van Gelder, and many others came together in the wake of our loss of Octavia to found a scholarship in her name, dedicated to providing other writers of color with an experience she claimed had been, for her, essential: attendance at the Clarion West or Clarion six-week workshops. Some people helped to publicize the fund and make initial contributions to it, including Harlan Ellison, Walter Mosley, and Steven Barnes. The Carl Brandon Society agreed to become the fund’s administrators, though at the time doing so strained our resources. It was an important job, and the timing wasn’t anyone’s choice.
Countless people have made donations in the years since the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship was conceived: hours, effort, magnificently large chunks of change and modest ones that definitely added up. You’re contributing by buying Bloodchildren. If you’d like to contribute more, visit http://www.carlbrandon.org/butlerscholarship/index.html to make an online donation. Or send us a check made out to the Carl Brandon Society and noted as earmarked for the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Here’s our mailing address:
