Remembered

by Yvonne Battle-Felton

  “You’ve broke all the other rules already. Just don’t light it. I’d hate to put you out before we even get started.”

  “When you gonna get your own place?”

  “I have my own place. My own room. Use the kitchen when I want. Come and go as I please.”

  One of the boys laughs.

  “Alright, almost as I please,” Edward whispers.

  He’s smiling but lines crease his forehead. All the windows are shut and he’s sweating despite the cool night air.

  “Man, what you worried about?” Jacob asks. “Your mother ain’t gonna wake up. We been meeting here for weeks and no amount of noise gonna get her out of that bed. Only sound that wakes her is that drawer full of money sliding open. Besides, long as the music’s playing, she’ll think you’re down here with the future Mrs. Edward Freeman. She don’t want to interrupt that, that’s for sure.”

  Except for Edward, everyone laughs.

  “What future missus are you talking about? I don’t have my eye set on anyone.”

  “You don’t need to,” a boy from down the street says. “Your mama got five, six set of eyes doing the looking for you. Every time I see her she’s talking to some girl about Edward this, Edward that. That’s probably why she stopped going to church in the first place. She run out of girls to talk to about you.”

  “That’s not why she stopped going,” Edward says.

  “She still seeing ghosts?” Jacob asks.

  I feel my cheeks burning.

  “She doesn’t talk about it, but I can tell. She needs me here.”

  “She doesn’t seem to think so. She’s really trying to get you hitched.”

  “She’ll have to wait a little longer. Right now, my mama is the only woman for me.”

  Tempe grunts so loud I’m worried Edward will disappear. She’s glowing like there’s a piece of coal in her chest. His body starts to waver.

  “Tempe, stop that right now,” I say.

  She glares at me, then at Edward. For a moment he seems to look right at her. The heat, her anger with it, fades. I don’t know how much time has passed. Edward and the boys are back in the front room sipping beer.

  “It isn’t my mother I’m worried about,” Edward’s saying, “least, not like that. What’s gonna happen to her when I’m gone?”

  “You ain’t going nowhere,” someone says.

  “I can’t come back here. Not if I go along with your plan,” Edward says.

  “The plan,” Jacob says. “Not, your plan or his plan, the plan. You gotta come back here. If you don’t you’ll be the first one they suspect. That right there is suspicious. A mama’s boy not going home to his mama? They’d snatch you and her right up. What your mama gonna do if she locked up somewhere? No, come back home. Go about your business. Go to work like nothing happened. If you want to keep your mama out of this, come back home.”

  Edward paces the front room. A couple of times he nearly walks through me. “Baby, don’t do it,” I say. He don’t hear me. I reach out to touch him. My hands pass through him. He shivers.

  “Who’s going to look after her if I don’t come back?” he asks. “Why you keep saying you ain’t gonna come back? Where else you gonna go? You ain’t gonna hop on no train and leave your mama to fend for herself, are you?”

  “Man, I’m talking about dying. You’re talking about hopping on a train.”

  “Nobody’s dying. Least of all you.”

  “And if something goes wrong, who’s going to take care of her?”

  “It’s just cutting a few wires.”

  “Who is going to take care of my mother?”

  “It’s just a warning. Nobody’s getting hurt.”

  “Who?” Edward asks.

  He’s in front of him before Jacob can move.

  “I will,” Jacob whispers.

  None of them will look Edward in the eye.

  The men disappear, leaving the scent of spice, soap, and sweat behind.

  First Tempe and now this. I add Edward’s name to my list of sins. Tempe’s settled on the bed like she ain’t never left his side. She’s tapping her foot.

  Want me to tell him? she asks.

  Before she can start telling it her way, I get the book and pick up where I left off.

  Chapter 10

  It feels like days. The sky turns from black to pitch black and black again. Ella runs from tree to tree feeling for landmarks. Is this the tree she had sat under with Agnes? Is that? Thin, thorny branches, thick sap-filled cones, dry-rotting tree limbs; in the dark, it all looks, smells, and feels the same. Ella runs through the night. She tumbles through woods and gets tangled up in briars and weeds. She hears dogs and runs left. Footsteps and runs right. Even with the bright light of the moon, the only thing she can see is that she’s lost.

  The rain has stopped but the air is still thick with it. Her feet sink into the mud, slip and slide on leaves and rocks. If only that whistling would stop, Ella could clear her mind enough to figure out where she is. But it’s closer—the whistling. It echoes her breathing, a raspy hiss that rattles. She tries to outrun it. It gets closer, louder. She collapses in a mound of leaves and sticks. Her lungs burn. Out of breath and panting, she picks herself up and lumbers on. Her body is soaked in sweat. She knows the dogs will pick up her scent soon if they haven’t already. Her own smell of fear and sweat burn her nostrils.

  Papa had come for her. Just like she knew he would, he had found her. But she is still here. Why had he left without her? No matter what Agnes, Mr. Jonah, Mr. James, and them thought, Ella didn’t believe that witch hadn’t planned it from the start. How was I to know? Mama Skins had said. And them just standing there like they believed it or like they couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe after all these years the woman they trusted to run the plantation, to decide on the planting and the harvesting of the land and the people, couldn’t do nothing to save one little slave girl. Why couldn’t they see? If she’d wanted Ella saved, she would have been saved.

  Wasn’t that basket of food proof they were paying Skins to keep Ella a slave? They all sat there eating up them lies and that food. Ella’s stomach grumbles. When nobody was looking, she had been picking at crumbs, pinching the crusts of bread. But not today. She refuses to sneak even a scrap of that you done good for keeping a slave basket. She’d rather die. She’d only been sneaking food to be ready. Just in case Agnes kept her word. How could she, though? With her mother bent on keeping her around, Agnes couldn’t get her own self free let alone help Ella. The look in the old woman’s eyes when she asked if it was true she and Agnes were planning to run away was enough. Ella’s silent “no” didn’t even feel like a lie. Not then, not when the old woman said, “Good, cuz I don’t plan on losing this baby,” and not now.

  Fresh dung clings to Ella’s foot. It’s been miles; she might even be in Pennsylvania by now. Her legs ache, the soles of her feet sting. It would be nice if Agnes could have come with her. But she’s probably still huddled over her mother whispering, “It’ll be alright,” as if her life had been the one galloping down the road. As if it wasn’t her fault Papa left. Them whispering and poor-Mama-Skins-ing drove Ella to slip out of the cabin, down the mud path, through the woods, and finally to start running. Poor Mama Skins? What has she lost? Some magic she ain’t never had? With everybody crowded around the old woman like she was a broke-up doll, no one seemed to notice her go. Ella had never wanted to hurt anybody as much as she wanted to hurt Mama Skins. With all of them standing guard, she couldn’t get close enough and she had no intentions of staying one more night even if it meant waiting to kill her in her sleep. Please, Lord, she prays, strike that crazy old devil woman dead right now.

  She pictures Agnes bent over as the old lady’s body goes rigid. Mr. Jonah and the Jameses will probably carry her to the pit. Walker will say a few words, slice her open to make sure she’s dead.
Toss her in. Agnes and James can run off. Will she leave her pa like that? Alone? Please Lord, maybe don’t kill her, just let her get hurt up real bad. If you’re going to kill anybody, let it be Walker, the old one too.

  Just a little while longer and she’ll be able to soak in a long bath of salts. She’ll even suffer her grandmother’s cure of castor oil, lemon, and onion stock. She just has to make it home.

  There are no stars.

  Her lungs fill with the heavy musk of animal. She’s close to a farm or field and if she keeps low and creeps through the tall grass, she might find a quiet place to rest for the night.

  Before long Ella reaches a barn. She slips through a low opening, scraping a thigh on a splintered beam. Her feet give way underneath hay and feed. She crawls across the dirty barn floor to huddle behind a stack of hay. She’ll just rest her eyes and be gone before morning.

  She wakes to mooing and shaking. Her whole body rattles back and forth. The strong hands gripping her arms feel like one of her brothers trying to wake her for lessons. Home! Finally. Rapturous joy, sweet like molasses, fills her throat. Sleep crusts her eyes, gluing her lashes together. She reaches out to touch the heavenly face in front of hers. If only he’d stop shaking her.

  “Gal, gal! Hush all that noise!” he whispers.

  What’s James doing in her bedroom? Mooing cows, sharp hay, dirty floor. She wipes the sleep from her eyes. Walker’s. All that walking, running, and sliding, all that praying.

  “Better get you back, been hours since you left the cabin. Agnes been worrying all night. Ain’t you hear her call?” He pulls her up, shakes his head. “Thought for sure you’d be gone by now. I tol’ Agnes, I says, ‘Agnes, you just watch, that gal done took off after her pa and left you and me both.’ And Agnes says, ‘No, she wouldn’t leave without me.’ And I got to thinking, would you? I would. If my pa come, if my pa was free and if he come for me and somebody kept me from him.” James stops, watches her face.

  For a second, Ella reaches out to him. Her hand hangs in the air. It’s still James. No matter what Agnes said, he raped her. He’s no better than that old woman. He’ll still get what’s coming to him. She prays she isn’t there to see it. She clasps her hands together, nods her head, mouths the word yes.

  Finally, someone understands her. If only she didn’t hate him. It’s a momentary joy. Tears clog her throat.

  “Agnes won’t believe it. Ain’t no way Mama Skins ain’t know your folks was here. Samantha told Agnes to tell her they was coming day before last. She tell you?”

  Ella wishes she was like her pa. No matter how good or bad the news, her pa’s face won’t give nothing away. No expression at all. His body either. He stands more often than not, feet firm on the ground, back straight. It’s all in his hands. Ella and her brothers got good at recognizing the signs. He reacted to news in three ways: a hand under his chin, on a belt loop, or fingering a holster. She’s more like her mother. Her eyes, mouth, the lines on her forehead; her face reflects everything she feels. Her stomach curdles at bad news, her heart stops beating. Now, heart breaking, she crumples to the floor.

  James kneels beside her. “I told her to tell you. Her mama said she’d take care of everything. Don’t blame Agnes for believing her. We gonna come up with a plan to get Agnes, me, and you gone. We can part ways after that if you want to. You can’t get your way off here by yourself and we can’t get around out there without you. Way I see it, that makes us family.”

  Ella’s body shakes. She doesn’t trust James any more than she trusts Agnes but unless she can find another way, she’ll have to make do.

  Agnes spoons a thick stew of mashed carrots and rabbit into a gourd. “Frown your face up all you like,” she tells Ella, “ain’t nothing wrong with the way it smells.”

  The smell of roasted meat mingling with the aroma of carrots and spices fills the cabin. Ella goes outside. Even sitting on the lone step of the porch, it’s overpowering. Eating her food don’t make us friends. Agnes sets a bowl on the porch. Ella takes turns staring at it, the sky, the trees, the scatter of slave cabins of people she’s never met, and back to the bowl. Ella slips a fingertip into it. The warmth feels good. Ignoring the muck underneath her growing fingernails, she sucks stew off her finger. Mama would kill her.

  “We got spoons,” Agnes says. She plops one down on the porch.

  Jonah must have made it. The careful grooves, smooth wedge and thick handle feel like him. Patient and biding. Like the porch. Hardly more than enough room for two people to stand side by side, Ella can picture Jonah whittling it out of some rotted tree trunks, discarded planks, throwaway pieces. Ignoring the spoon, she picks the bowl up between both hands. The warmth of the gourd, the steam of the stew. She puts it to her lips and sips. Her stomach growls. And sips. Her stomach lurches. And sips. It is her first meal in weeks. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.

  Agnes squeezes in beside Ella. The night air cools. Agnes shivers. She eats slowly, humming between spoonfuls, as if each one is better than the last. Ella gets up, leaving the empty bowl behind. She walks round the back to the garden. Sits on a patch of packed earth. Watches the clean sheets billowing on the washing line. Dancing like ghosts.

  “That’s where Mama Skins’s babies buried,” Agnes says.

  Ella half expected Agnes to follow, still she jumps at the sound of her voice.

  “You can sit there, they don’t mind.”

  She won’t give her the satisfaction of thinking she’s spooked. No such thing as ghosts. And if there were, first thing they’d do is get far from here. Only thing haunted is her and her mama.

  “Don’t you think that ’bout my mama,” Agnes says. “She ain’t want to kill them babies!” Agnes leans against the wash line.

  Ella closes her eyes, pictures Mama Skins wringing baby necks.

  “Used to have to birth it first. She’d clean it, dress it real warm, love on it and by night, she’d smother it. Not in its sleep. While it was awake, so she could talk to it, tell it she loved it and how killing it was the most merciful thing she could do in this world. By the next morning she’d be back at Doc’s birthing babies for the farmers’ wives, merchants, anyone who could afford it. Was a time Mama Skins was sent for at all hours of the night. First one too. Before they even called the doctor, they’d send for Mama. He’d taught her ’bout how mixing this with that could save this one, soothe that one, still another one. For long she was doctoring, just about. Then Doc up and died. You know how folks are. Ungrateful gossips. They got to saying she killed him. My mama. As if she’d do that. Walker put a stop to all that talk. Stopped hiring her out too. She been doctoring here since.”

  A sprinkle of poison in his tea, some of them itchy flowers on a roll, a rusted nail? Ella wonders how the old woman killed him.

  “I wish I could take her with me when we go.”

  Though she hasn’t moved, Agnes is too close. Her voice stings Ella’s skin like bees. Her words scatter from her mouth, buzz across the sky, attack. Ella scrambles to get up, to get away from Agnes, her foolish words and her pretend ways.

  “You right,” Agnes calls to her back, “she’s too frail. The trip alone could kill her.”

  That night Ella curls up like a cat, half on, half off the porch. In her head she recites her favorite prayers, practices hymns, lists names, birthdates, and faces so she does not forget. She tries counting the days she’s been here, forty-seven, but that makes her cry. So she counts the days until she goes home. One. Before long, she is asleep. Tomorrow she will follow the river’s bends clear off Walker land. She will find a path and stay clear of it like the runaway slaves used to talk about during testimony. She will pack enough food for seven days. No meat, meat attracts dogs someone had said. She will bundle breads, carrots, and blueberries while Agnes is in the fields and Papa Jonah runs around trying to keep the farm alive and Mama Skins runs around killing it. She will find a ch
urch and they will help her find her way home.

  Mama Skins stands at the cabin door listening to the girl’s dream planning. Inside, Agnes lies alone on her pallet watching her mother’s silhouette.

  Ella wakes to the cold early morning air. The sun is not up. Just as well, she thinks, she has to get ready. Her eyes aren’t open a full minute when she feels someone squatting too close next to her.

  “Master wants you down to the fields to help with the clearing,” Mama Skins says.

  Slaving. She hasn’t planned to be here this long. Forced to bend and break for the man who kidnapped her. Not able to speak up and if she could, what would she say? You know you wrong?

  “Ain’t gonna be no more nothing less you earn your keep. You gonna have to take your hand to something just like the rest of us. No sense sulking ’bout it. Sooner you get started, sooner you get done.”

  “Leave her be, Mama. I’ll help her,” Agnes says.

  Ella follows Agnes to the river. Agnes points out markings along the way, she has a story for each one. That’s where so and so broke his neck, that’s where so and so got bit by a snake. Not one good thing happened on the whole place. Now’s as good a time as any to get going. No food. She’ll have to live off the water, maybe catch fish or something. She ain’t been eating much anyway. The morning’s near as dark as night. Once she gets to the river, she’ll run. The fresh smell fills her nostrils. Not far now. A few steps more and she can hear it. Her heart beats in time with the rush of low and high tide meeting, swirling.

  Agnes stops a few steps ahead. She clasps Ella’s hands tight like a schoolgirl on the playground. “James got a plan,” she says. Her words come out in bursts. “Been waiting to tell you till it gets set but now’s as good a time as any. Walker hired a hand!” She throws Ella’s hands in the air. “Coming here!” She twirls in a circle, her arms outstretched.