Though he rubs his head in pain, he grins, proud of himself. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He reaches for the doorknob, but I stop him.
“Virgil?”
He turns to me, and his eyes actually seem to have life in them tonight. “I like hearing you say my name.”
I cringe, my insides shudder, but I continue. “The other night at the lookout, you said you came back to this town cuz a me. Why now?” I ask.
He leans in the door frame. Looks like he’s really thinkin’.
“My aunt keeps up with everything in this shit town. She remembered you and I used to be playmates not so long ago. So she thought I’d get a kick outta that story in the paper. You savin’ that family from the fallin’ tree.”
God. Dammit.
“And she was right. I did. Made me realize how precious life is. One minute you’re here; the next… We don’t have that much time on this planet. You find what makes you happy? You gotta take it.”
He regards me for a long second, waitin’ for me to say somethin’ maybe, but I got nothin’ else to say. Abruptly he vanishes down the hall. I strain my ears, but I don’t hear another peep from him. I have no idea how he got in or out of my house. Gone like a ghost.
“Get into bed,” I whisper to the twins. “Everything’s okay now.”
“You gonna see that man tomorrow?” one of ’em asks.
“No. And don’t tell Mama about any of this. It’ll just worry her.”
“What if she finds out by accident?”
“I mean it! Do not tell her, or you will be in real trouble. Trouble you don’t even know about yet,” I threaten. Then I kiss them both on the cheek and turn out the light.
In my room I look around for a suitable place to store the clump of hair in my fist. I grab the bag with the condoms from Mama, and I’m caught off guard by its weight. I look inside, and the condoms are gone. Replaced with a black-varnished wooden box.
I take it out. The top and sides are decorated with colorful Chinese-looking houses and trees and fireworks. It’s a jewelry box. The lid is fastened to the body of the box with a golden latch. I flip it open, and a lullaby starts to play. The interior is lined with bright red velvet except for the inside of the lid, which displays several rectangular mirrors of diminishing sizes. At the back, just in front of the mirrors and atop what must be the music box, a ballerina spins to the music. The mirrors make it look like a whole line of ballerinas getting smaller and smaller. And this ballerina. She wears all white, including her fluffy tutu. And her skin. Looks like mine. She’s my shade of brown. She could be a miniature version of me.
I feel a lump in my throat. I’ve never seen anything like this. I never thought anybody would make something like this. When you see a reflection of yourself from out in the world and it’s not meant to hurt or shame you? When it’s there to show you that you’re beautiful and loved? It just fills you up with warmth and something like grace.
There’s a tiny red envelope in the bottom that I almost didn’t see because it matches the lining. I open it and remove a thin sheet of paper that’s been folded many times.
I know you don’t remember me, but you will in time.
You always remember your first.
~V.H.
I slide down to the floor. Still clutching his hair, the lullaby playing over and over. How could this exquisite jewelry box have come from him?
I’m cold. I’m hollow. I mourn what Virgil took from me all those years ago. I’m too shaken to cry. To breathe. To anything.
I’m haunted by the living.
22 Brave
IT’S EARLY. I’M NOT DUE at work for an hour yet.
I go up the path, and when I get to the back porch, I hear voices. She gets clients before a lotta folks wake up. A bird lands in one of the shorter trees and takes up residence behind an empty blue bottle. The glass magnifies the bird’s image to absurd dimensions. I can’t make out the bird’s species from here. Blue feathers? Or is that the reflection of the bottle? Could it be a blue jay this late in the year? Blue jays bring good luck. I think.
The bird flies over to another tree on my left, and I get a better look at it. I don’t think it’s a blue jay. Too big. A blue falcon, maybe? I don’t know if they’re good luck or not. If there’s any point in believin’ in luck at all.
I’m about to knock when the door swings open and R. J. nearly knocks me over.
“Oh shit! You all right?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine. R. J. Why are you here?”
He shrugs, embarrassed. “Miss Athena done a favor for my aunt Mabel, so Aunt Mabel made a peach cobbler to thank her. I was just the deliveryman.”
I nod, looking past him to see if any other visitors are inside.
“Well, I gotta go, so…” I go through the screen door into the dim kitchen, leaving him behind me.
She’s sittin’ at the table with a cup of tea and barely looks up when I enter. “What you doin’ here so damn early?”
“Hi, Grammie Atti.”
“Whatcha mean ‘hi’? What’s wrong with you today?”
“He’s botherin’ me. My—what did you say it’s called?”
“Malcreant.”
“Yeah. Him. Last night he got into the house. He threatened to hurt the twins and Clay. Mama doesn’t know about this, and I need it to stop and I can’t do it myself. Whenever he’s around, I’m powerless.”
She leans back, thinking. “What did I tell you to do?”
I plop down in the chair opposite her.
“I know he took somethin’ from me, and I know what it was, but I have no earthly idea of how to take it back, and this is an emergency. I need practical magic now. Please! Pretend I’m just a client. What would tell me to do?”
Grammie adds some tobacco to her pipe and lights it. She studies me.
“You want him to stop botherin’ you? Or you want him stopped?”
I pick at my fingernails, and I really think about it. I know what she’s asking. Honestly, I’d be happy if he just left us alone, but would that mean he’d go after somebody else? I’m not sure. Still, I’m not ready to sign off on what she’s implying.
“I want the pain he’s been causing me to boomerang back to him.”
“Good. That was a test. No way in hell you ready for a death hex,” she says. She goes into the other room. I look around at her spirit cards, voodoo dolls, statues, poppets, bottles, and a mess a novelty salt and pepper shakers. She never talks to me about her trinkets. Her “tools.” I ponder all the thousands of stories Grammie Atti must’ve collected over the years and the hand she’s played in the destinies of others.
When she returns, she has two prayer candles: one white and one black.
“You have something personal a his?”
“I got some of his hair.”
“Which hair?”
“Which…? From his head!” I don’t wanna think about how I’d get any of his other hair.
She wrinkles her nose, unimpressed. “Nothin’ else?”
Dammit! I thought that’d be enough. Then I remember that I do have more.
“I have a note written in his hand,” I say. She smiles and nods when she hears this.
“Use the note with the hair. On the right day, just before twilight, light the candles. Speak what you want done, and in your mind, see it done. You know how to see now. Speak it and see it until you’ve done it enough.” She cracks her back in a way that gives me the shivers.
“How do I know when it’s enough?”
“You’ll know. Now if you don’t mind, I have some real clients comin’. The payin’ kind.”
“But wait a minute. The right day? How will I know it’s the right day?”
She sighs like I’m her idiot child she hides in the basement when company comes over.
“It’s the day when you can’t blow the flames out. That’s instinctual. You should know that.”
“Sorry, Grammie Atti.”
She pounds the table with her fist. “
Quit it with the sorries! It’s weak. Don’t be sorry. Do better,” she lectures.
She hands me the candles, and I inspect them. They’re dusty and cracked, even though the wicks look like they ain’t been lit yet. These candles are old. So old, I’m worried they might not work.
“That’s all. I will see you later,” she says, pointing at that ugly cuckoo clock.
I mumble a thank-you and leave the way I came in. I’m walking back down the path to the street, and I see R. J. again.
“You still out here?” I ask him.
“Um.” He quickly stamps out his cigarette. “Yeah. Thought I could walk you to work.”
I sigh. “That’s okay. I can get there by myself.”
“Haven’t seen you hardly at all in weeks. Feels like months.”
“Just been busy,” I say, quickening my pace.
“Do you hate me?”
I stop. I really don’t have time for R. J. and his feelings. Especially now.
“Of course I don’t, R. J. I just have to get to work is all.”
“I’ve only ever been nice to you, and you treat me…” He shakes his head and looks around, like he’s searching for the right word. “Like I have no value,” he finishes.
Oh man. I didn’t know I made him feel so bad. I guess I didn’t think about how he was feelin’ at all, which is pretty unkind. “I don’t mean to be like that,” I say.
“Then why are you?”
I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to hear the truth. Nobody wants to hear it when it hurts.
“You can walk with me. If you want,” I concede. He does, and we don’t speak for several uncomfortable moments.
“So?”
“So, what?” I ask as if I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“So why can’t you be nice to me?”
“I guess—I was worried.”
“About what?”
“I just… I didn’t want to give you false hope.” I wish I could’ve found a better way to put that.
His pace doesn’t decrease, but his shoulders sink a bit. This is why I didn’t wanna talk about it. I don’t always know how to say things right. I meant for that to be gentle, but it didn’t come out that way.
“Those are my feelings. What you do or don’t do isn’t gonna change ’em,” he replies.
“I’m sorry, R. J. That I haven’t treated you so nicely,” I say.
“Thanks for sayin’ that.”
I expect him to walk away after my apology, but he doesn’t. I don’t know what else to say, so I ask him about his folks. They’re fine, he says, but he accuses them of bein’ too overprotective. He wants to join the actions the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee has taken around the South, but he has to wait until he graduates, cuz his parents won’t let him go now. He thinks they treat him like a child.
All this catches me off guard. I didn’t know R. J. had it in him. Demonstrators get spit on, called nigger and every other name in the book, beaten, and thrown in jail. I hope not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of ’em disappear. And if that happens, they won’t be comin’ back. I’d be terrified to join up—with or without the jube.
I never realized how brave he was. Where was this R. J. all the times he was gettin’ on my last nerve? Then again, maybe I just wasn’t payin’ attention. By the time we get to the Heywoods’, I’m glad we ran into each other.
“Don’t be a stranger,” he says to me as I open the gate.
“Same goes for you,” I tell him.
We stand there for a second just kinda smilin’ at each other.
“Well? Bye,” I say.
“Hold on, Evvie.”
“Yeah?”
He rubs the back of his head then looks up to the sky. “If there wasn’t no Clayton Alexander Jr., would I have—uh—would I have had a chance? With you?”
Speaking of bravery, that’s a damn brave question. If he’d asked me this a month ago, I might’ve run away screaming, but I feel differently now. With me off-limits, he was able to talk to me like I was a friend, and as a result I learned more about him in the last ten minutes than in all the years we’ve known each other.
I smile again and nod. For some reason, this seems to fill him with complete joy. He beams and practically skips away.
R. J.’s a good guy. I wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. I wouldn’t mind it at all. Sometime. Like when I’m all done hexin’ my malcreant.
23 Safe
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, I legitimately dread leaving work. My “escort” isn’t here yet, so that’s fortunate, but I can feel him closing in.
Miss Ethel and Abigail fuss in the kitchen, so they don’t notice that I’m still here, hoverin’ in the foyer. I’d really hoped that Grammie Atti would’ve given me somethin’ more fast acting this morning. I was prepared to grin and bear his presence for one day, but with her vague instructions, who knows how many days it’ll take to get rid of him? Just the thought of allowin’ him to “escort” me home from work turns my stomach inside out.
I crouch below the front window and dive down, reachin’ for my joy band. Quickly I think about the last time Clay had me laughin.’ Oh lord! The other night he had me dyin’! He was doin’ an impression of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, but instead of “Stella,” he was hollerin’ “Evvie” at the top of his lungs! I gather it all up and pull it down into my guts. I gotta save the laughin’ I wanna let out so badly for the task at hand.
There it is. My pulsing, giggling, greenish-yellow joy band. I like this one. I hope this one will work.
I breathe deep and close my eyes and feel the short and sweet temporary setting I need right now. A whole new environment… just for a while.
“Jiminy Cricket,” Miss Ethel suddenly cries out. “What is goin’ on?”
I open my eyes with relief and a bit of pride. The sky is now black, even though it’s only minutes past six. It worked.
I slip out the door into the night. Fog accumulates, makin’ it hard to see anything farther than a foot ahead of me. Seeing is harder still, since the power in this neighborhood has just been knocked out. By me. No sun, no lights, just dark.
I worked it out in my head this afternoon. All I need is fifteen seconds at full sprint. Damn, I wish I had on my sneakers! I close my eyes and picture the route I’ll take so I can make it. I mentally count fifteen Mississippis, and then I revert it all. The low sun is back, the fog gone, and electricity restored. Everything is restored.
I slow down right before gettin’ home, smilin’ to myself. As far as I know, the atmosphere change didn’t affect my neighborhood at all. Grammie Atti’s right: I’m gettin’ good at this.
I come in the front, and I can hear Mama out on the back porch playin’ with the girls. Good. They’re all occupied. I go to my room and shut the door. I take out my candles, and I pull the cast-iron pan out from under my bed (this ain’t my first attempt at a hex, but I sure hope this one works). I take it to the bathroom to run some cool water in it, and I bring it back to my room. I remove the candles from their glass holders, and using a hatpin, I carve the word “Virgil” into the side of the white one and “Hampton” into the black one. It’s hard to do and takes longer than I expect. It’s a sloppy job, and the loopy letters are a mess, but I imagine the spirits will know who I’m talking about. I put the candles back into their holders.
Now it’s time to find out if today’s the day. I need it to be today. This has to end. I light the candles, and when they’ve got a good, strong flame goin’, I blow. Lightly, because she didn’t say I had to blow hard.
I blow a couple more times, and they stay lit. They’re still going strong after my fifth try, and I decide this is the day.
I take the music box with his note and his hair, and I grip them tightly while watching the small flames.
“All the evil you do
Can’t touch my loved ones.
It bounces back to you.
All the evil you do
Can’t touch my loved ones.
It bounces back to you.”
I mumble-chant the words faster and faster until it all starts to sound like one long word. My tongue and lips move with a speed beyond my own efforts. As though I’m possessed.
And then it’s dark. And I see them. They’re outside, huddled around a bonfire. Hummin’? I think they’re hummin’. My haints. And that weird girl I met before that looks like me is there too. Still wearin’ them sneakers, denims, and her purple poetry shirt.
Now I’m outside with ’em. The haints are all hunched over. Eatin’. Eatin’ and hummin’. Makin’ all kinda strange noises. This time they look like blurry shadows. Maybe they’re always in a state of motion.
The weird girl turns and sees me. She steps away from the circle and joins me. I wait for her to say somethin’, but she doesn’t speak this time. Her eyes stay on mine as she opens my hands and places two small objects in my palms. I flinch at first because they’re wet, and I wasn’t expecting that. They kinda look like oblong rubber balls, slit down their middles.
Then the slits start to move. Coarse, tiny hairs sprout out along the slits’ edges. They begin to open, and dirty water comes flowing out of them into my hands, spilling onto the ground. The slits peel back to reveal two familiar eyes. Ocean-blue eyes starin’ up at me.
I stifle a scream. I sit straight up. Back in my room. The hummin’ of the haints morphs into the eerie lullaby that my colored ballerina can’t stop twirlin’ to. I run into the bathroom and throw up in the commode. It’s always awful to puke, no matter what, but at least this time it’s quick, and I feel somewhat better once it’s done.
I hear voices in the kitchen, so I know I have to wrap this up fast. I go back into my room and tear his handwritten note into strips. I torch several of his hairs along with some of the note strips. Once every letter I’m holding has been touched by flame, I drop what’s left of the scorched debris into the pot, and it sizzles out. I want to burn it all right this minute, but what if I need to redo this later? I save what I have left and hide it back in the music box, closing the lid and silencing the lullaby.
Daughters of Jubilation Page 19
