“We can. Save. Lives. We can. Move. Worlds,” she says. “Do not tell. Any. Man. How much. Power. You got. They. Can’t. Handle it,” she explains. I feel like I need to take her advice, and I hope I haven’t already told Clay too much. As that thought crosses my mind, he rejoins us with a glass of water that Miss Corinthia ignores.
“I thought. We wouldn’t. Need. Our. Kinda magic. By the time. I reached. This age.”
“Aunt Corinthia?”
“Shh!” I shush Clay. She needs to say her piece.
“But I see. What is. Happening. We. Still do. I hope. By. Your one. Hundredth. Birthday. We won’t. Need. Our. Kinda magic. Anymore,” she says. She then settles back into her chair. Her hand, still on mine, trembles, and I notice a tiny bead of sweat form at the top of her forehead. I feel tired from just listening to her. She must be exhausted right now.
“Grandmama, you need anything?” Her granddaughter enters the room, cheerful, but lookin’ fatigued.
“No, Noni. Thank you,” Miss Corinthia says quietly.
“This has been nice, but it’s a li’l overwhelming for her,” Noni confides to us. “I should be gettin’ her home and in bed.”
“Miss Corinthia?” I venture. “Do you know why we have this and other people don’t?”
“Why do. Some folks. Sing. Like. Angels? Why do. Some folks. Put pencil. To paper. And draw. Masterpieces?”
“Okay, Grandmama. Why don’t you take it easy?”
“Why do. Some folks. Find cures. For. Diseases? Everybody. Has some. Kind. Of magic. Ain’t. Just. Us.”
Miss Corinthia is incredible. I want to follow her around and just listen to her talk for the rest of my life. Well. The rest of hers.
The granddaughter—Noni—steps in with a tight smile and starts to wheel her toward the kitchen and away from me forever.
“Good-bye, Miss Corinthia. Thank you,” I call after them. It seems strange to thank her, but I feel so grateful that we met.
Noni rolls her along, but then they stop in their tracks, and I see the poor woman raise her head to the heavens and heave a sigh. She then turns to me.
“Honey? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, but she wants you for a minute,” Noni says to me. I go over to Miss Corinthia’s chair. I stoop down beside her so she won’t have to speak loudly.
“Be. A good. Girl. Try. To. Save. Lives,” she whispers so only I can hear.
“I will, ma’am. I promise.”
“And when. You can’t. End them.”
I try to nod as my limbs go numb.
“All right now. I think somebody desperately needs some rest,” Noni laughs. Under her breath, she adds, “And that somebody is me.” Then she wheels her away.
“Wow. Jesus,” Clay muses, a little dazed.
I shake my head at him. “It ain’t Jesus.”
* * *
Clay opens the door for me, and I appreciate his chivalry, as always, but it’s hard for me to enjoy it right at this second.
He gets in on his side and backs the car outta their gravel driveway. We start down the road, and we’re quiet. Bad quiet. After a minute, he turns on the radio. “Any Day Now” by Chuck Jackson plays. Clay sings along, and it is a great song. But I simply can’t hold it in anymore, so I turn it off.
“Hey! What gives?”
“Why does your mother hate me?”
“What?” He tries hard to sound shocked, but it’s so obvious he’s faking it.
“I heard her, Clayton. She did not want you to take me home. She wanted me to walk! All alone at night. And I’m wearin’ heels!”
Clay rolls down his window and rests his hand on the side-view mirror. Suspiciously silent.
“What did I do wrong?” I ask. My voice breaks a bit, and I swallow hard, cuz I do not want to cry.
“Nothin’, Evvie. She doesn’t hate you,” Clay says.
“Okay. Why does she really strongly dislike me?”
Clay pulls the car over to the side of the road. I think he has trouble arguin’ and drivin’ at the same time.
“Was she like this to your other girlfriends?”
He draws back, face all scrunched up. “You’re the only one she’s ever met.”
I don’t have enough space in my mind right now to find that flattering. Maybe I will later.
“She’s crazy. Okay? She’s seriously cracked. She’s got it in her head that you’re the reason I wanna move to Chicago, when the truth is she just wants me to stay with her till she’s cold in the ground.”
“Wait. What? That doesn’t even make sense!”
“This is what I’m tryna tell ya.”
“Ain’t that what you always wanted to do?”
“Yeah,” he says hesitantly. “It is, but I hadn’t told her about it. Not till this summer.”
“Why didn’t you tell her before?”
He runs his fingers over the grooves in the steerin’ wheel. Then, outta nowhere, he leans over and kisses me. It’s nice—I’m not gonna lie. ’Specially since I haven’t for-real kissed him in hours, but we are having a conversation!
I push him away. “Quit distractin’ me. I’m tryna talk to you!”
He groans and slumps down in his seat.
“So she don’t like me cuz she thinks I’m the one pushin’ you to go to Chicago?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I should tell her that I truly don’t care where you live as long as you’re happy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? If this whole Chicago thing is why she hates me, why can’t I set the record straight?”
He looks over at me all apologetic.
“She doesn’t understand you,” he mumbles.
“What’s not to understand?”
“Evvie, let’s not do this.”
“I don’t even know what we’re doing!”
Clay slumps farther down in his seat. Feels like any minute now he’s gonna open the door and slink away.
“Clay, you can tell me whatever it is,” I tell him.
“Not this.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna assume all the worst imaginable things,” I threaten. He just stares straight ahead.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. But I don’t know if I can trust you anymore if you can’t trust me with this,” I say.
“Oh Jesus,” he sighs, and pulls himself upright in his seat. “You’re not who she would like me to be with, okay?”
“Oh.” I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am. “Is there—another girl?”
Clay shakes his head. “Why can’t you leave this alone?”
“Put yourself in my shoes for a second. If my mother had some mysterious problem with you, wouldn’t you wanna know what it was?”
“She doesn’t think you’re a nice girl, Evvie,” he finally says. I try my best to grasp this new piece of information. But I can’t, cuz it don’t make sense. I am a nice girl. She’s wrong!
“Remember: you made me tell you!”
“That is your mother’s big issue with me? That’s so stupid! I’m so nice! I’m nice to everyone!” Even as I’m professing my innocence, I’m asking myself, Am I nice to everyone?
“That’s not what I mean.” He looks at me hard now, his eyes still sorry, but communicating something else.
I catch on at last. Wow. Clay’s mother thinks I’m a whore.
Now it’s my turn to slump down in my seat. She thinks I’m impure. She wants a girl for Clay whose first time will be her wedding night. Well, there’s nothin’ I can do about that. I am not that girl.
“For what it’s worth, I think she’s an old-fashioned harpy,” Clay offers.
I don’t say anything.
“This is why I didn’t wanna tell you.”
“It’s better that I know.”
“How?”
I fiddle with the door handle, ignoring his question.
“I also kinda made the mistake a tellin’ her when I go… I’m takin’ you with me,” he says.
Hmm. This is news to me. We’ve never discussed our future plans at all. I’m of two minds about it—being two-headed, this is not uncommon. On one hand, I don’t like him assuming I’ll just do anything he tells me to without asking me first. But on the other, I’m elated that he wants me to stay in his world. I can’t even imagine mine without him now.
“She’s all up in arms over it, and it don’t matter that I told her it ain’t happenin’ for a while yet. She’s too attached to me anyways. We gotta cut the umbilical cord eventually,” Clay mutters. I know I need to say somethin’, but I can’t think of what that is. This is a lot to digest.
“But? I never asked you what you want. You might not wanna do that,” he says finally.
“I just hadn’t thought about it before,” I say.
“Oh.” He goes back to playin’ with the grooves on the steering wheel.
Shit. I think I just hurt his feelings.
“To be honest? I don’t think about our future cuz it scares me,” I admit. “I just like thinkin’ about now cuz we’re together and happy.”
“You don’t think we can be together and happy in the future?”
“No, I do. I mean. I hope so.”
Clay slides his arm around me and pulls me into him. I rest my head near his chest.
“I have a question for ya,” he says, and his voice vibrates through my skull.
“Then ask.”
“Would you like to move to Chica—?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
I raise my head up to look at him.
“I’m assumin’ you don’t mean tomorrow?”
He chuckles. “No. I don’t mean tomorrow.”
“Okay then. In the future, I will move to Chicago with you. Or anywhere else,” I say.
He kisses me again, and I don’t push him away this time. And we kiss and kiss until I become aware that we’re on a public road.
“Um, Clay?”
“Huh?” he says breathless in my ear before givin’ it a lick.
“We can’t do this here.”
Instantly he stops. Pulls himself off me and back into the driver’s seat. I straighten out my skirt and blouse and sit upright.
“You are right. Good to know one of us has some brains.”
I snicker as he starts the engine. I accidentally notice the difficulty he’s havin’ over there adjusting his pants so he can comfortably drive. I know I shouldn’t be starin’, but…
“Quit lookin’ at it, Evvie,” he says, and I can’t help but crack up. He isn’t laughin’, but he’s got a big smile on his face.
“I’m kiddin’. Keep lookin’ at it.”
Now he’s got me laughin’ so hard I’m scared I might piss myself! I can’t imagine talkin’ like this with anybody else but him. If things with the trumpet don’t pan out, he could certainly go into comedy.
We pull back out onto the road, and as my laughter subsides, I remember how this whole thing got started.
“None a this will get your mother to like me any better.”
“Please don’t worry about her. She’ll come around.”
“How d’ya know?”
“If she ever wants her son to come home to visit, she will learn to love his lady,” Clay informs me.
I grin, and I’m glad it’s dark enough that he can’t see me blushin’ like a cartoon character. Not totally dark, though. Lights. Behind us.
“Did you see that car before?” I ask him.
He checks the rearview mirror. A black Chevy pickup is right on our tail, and I think it’s been there since we started movin’ again.
“No,” he says. “I’m gonna do somethin’.”
At the next traffic light, he takes a sharp right. The truck stays behind us. We pick up speed and then take a sudden left. I grab on to the dashboard to hold myself steady as we take an immediate right. And then another left. All the while, the truck stays with us, and, of course, I know who it is. I knew who it was the second I saw the truck.
Without realizing it, Clay’s taken us in a circle, and we still end up on my street, but he speeds by my house.
“It don’t matter, Clay. He knows where I live.”
Clay turns to me now. “You still don’t know who this psycho is?”
I sigh. He remembers Virgil from the night at the lookout and knows he’s become a nuisance, but I haven’t been entirely honest with Clay.
“I do know now,” I say. “Virgil Hampton. He… um… hurt me a long time ago.” I can’t say more. I bite my lip and hold back my tears. Just thinkin’ about it fills me with shame, and I didn’t do anything wrong.
And even without tellin’ him every detail, he’s red with rage, and my pulse starts racing.
Clay hits the brakes in the middle of the street, and they screech in my ears. The truck does the same, but as it wasn’t prepared, it does hit Clay’s bumper before backing up. It’s not enough to cause real damage, but enough to scare us. Me anyway. Clay, on the other hand, swings the door open.
“Clay! No!”
He gets out and slams it shut. We’re now idling in the middle of a residential street, and Clay’s finna confront a deranged white man!
I get out in time to hear Clay yell, “That’s what you want? Come on then.”
He’s standin’ in front of his bumper, darin’ Virgil to hit him.
“Right? That’s what this is? Come on, you so goddamn brave!”
Virgil revs the engine, and I run to Clay’s side.
“Evvie, go! I know what I’m doin’.”
“So do I.” I stand my ground and shield my eyes from Virgil’s high beams.
“If you wanna hit him? You gotta hit me, too!” I shout.
“NO, Evvie!”
I dig my fingernails into Clay’s hand to make him shut up and let me do this.
“Hey! Hey, Hampton?” I call. I get closer and bang on his hood. I feel outrageously bold right now.
“You want me? COME GET ME!”
A new car comes down the street toward us. Shit.
“Evvie?” Clay sounds helpless, and I got him in my grasp so he can’t move. The car comes up behind Virgil and honks.
Clay and I look at each other. We know what’s to be done.
He hops up onto his trunk, reaches out for me, and I do the same. We sit, hands interlaced together, legs danglin’ over the edge, watching Virgil. We ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Virgil revs his engine again. I hold my breath. Clay squeezes my hand. The truck starts backing up. The driver behind him lays on his horn and curses all of us but has no choice but to back up too. Virgil backs all the way to the end of the street. Where he halts.
I dip down into that deep, pulsing, anger place for strength. I seize it, and it’s mine. I feel it and I understand. I am not afraid.
Virgil revs that engine again.
“Hey, Evvie?”
“Yeah, Clay?”
We both hold our breath.
“I love you.”
Virgil slams on the gas.
“I love you more,” I cry, and hold him and hold me with everything I have and there’s no time left to run, to scream, to do anything but be here. The red-orange fire burning in my belly tingles my insides with a terrible joy, and within the blink of an eye, Virgil loses control of the truck. It jumps the sidewalk and smashes into a fire hydrant, sending water blasting up into the air.
We run, and we’re back in the car before Virgil can come to his senses. Clay starts driving, tearin’ down the road way too fast. And I can feel the band’s potency fadin’. Normal Evalene thoughts are coming back to me. Like where are we goin’? What are we doin’?
“Stop the car!” I plead.
“Where?”
“Anywhere!”
He swings us into an empty lot. We’re both gasping for air, words, thoughts, anything.
And then I start to laugh. Low at first, but it gets louder.
Clay shakes his head in disbelief. We both finally start to catch our brea
th. To use our lungs like functioning humans again.
“I don’t know what the hell you think’s so funny.”
“It ain’t,” I laugh. “I know it ain’t funny.” I stop laughing. I have to stop because I am so tired. “I just felt really good there for a second.”
“Adrenaline,” he says, starin’ straight ahead.
“No. It was more than that.” Happy-happy, Evalene. I shiver. I heard it. Clear as tap water. I look around, but I don’t see anybody or anything. Clay didn’t hear it. He woulda said somethin’ if he had.
We sit for another few breaths. I can’t hear our breathing without straining my ears now. All is quiet. No otherworldly beings tryna start a conversation. Good.
“Evvie? You did that?”
I’ve calmed down. I’m calm enough to feel a li’l self-conscious now that reality’s settin’ in.
“Yes. Are you scared?”
Clay nods. “Uh-huh,” he says. “I am.”
We coulda died tonight, if I hadn’t used my abilities right. Could be the level of fear, or the adrenaline Clay mentioned, or I don’t know what, but Clay grabs me, and let me tell you: we have no trouble workin’ off any excess energy we might have left. Right there in that lot. Not carin’ who might see.
17 Haunted
NOT TOO HOT OUT. LEAST there’s that.
I follow Grammie Atti out in the woods behind her shack. When you get out far enough, you end up in what people call the General’s Woods. I hate it. They love honorin’ their generals. They lost the damn war, but you’d never know it around here.
If I’m being honest, I do think I’ve gotten better at controllin’ my jubin’, and that’s mostly cuz a her, but damn if she don’t get on my last nerve. We been at this shit for two hours already, and now she wants to take a field trip.
“Quit walkin’ so slow,” she calls back at me. “Slower you walk, longer this’ll take,” she warns.
I pick up the pace, rolling my eyes at her back. I wouldn’t dare do that if she was lookin’ at me. She probably knows I did it anyway.
The light gets dimmer deep in the woods, just able to peek through here and there. Big, ol’ black moss trees tower over us. Imposing. The more time you spend in the forest, the more alive the trees seem to be.
Daughters of Jubilation Page 14
