Root Magic

by Eden Royce

  I don’t care about the boy. But a girl? I can use a girl. A lonely, scared little girl.

  I screamed again and my mouth filled with muddy water. I jerked away enough to lift my lips clear of the water and spit out the thick liquid, and that movement pressed my tummy forward into the puddle. I was soaked in an instant. The water was so cold, and the shock of it raced through me.

  Yes, you’re my poppet now. My little doll. I’m going to fill you up.

  Dinah wiggled frantic against me, pounding her gunnysack body into my side. I kicked my legs, tried to get up, but my feet kept slipping in the mud and I couldn’t get enough of a grip or a foothold to move away.

  Full of pretty pins.

  Something sharp poked, then pierced my side. It felt like a branch sank into my skin, then through the muscle, layer by layer. I gasped at the pain. But when I looked around, then down at my body, there was nothing. No branch, no pin, only the dirty, heaving water.

  I tried to settle myself, breathe deep, and think as Doc told us. What could I do?

  Another stick, this one needle sharp, entered my hip. When I hollered, the thing clutching my arm yanked hard. My left elbow gave way, and I crashed face-first into the icy-cold water.

  Eyes open, I saw a face in the water, smeared and wobbly. What I could see clearly were the teeth: white and large and sharp, exposed in a sneer. The grip felt like bony skeleton fingers. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. And another sharp needle worked its way into my shoulder, bumping off the bone, then moving off to find softer muscle.

  Bucking and struggling, I knew, would make me run out of air even faster. My lessons flashed in my head like fireworks. Doc had told me that I had to bring my calmest self to the magic. It was okay to be eager and excited, but the negative emotions like fear and anger were not good when working root. “Bad draws bad, Jez,” he’d said. “Try to let those bad thoughts go.”

  Anything that would steal power surely was evil. I didn’t want to make evil stronger, but how could I keep that from happening?

  I ceased moving. I focused and let my body go still. I felt the pain, but it seemed far away now, like I’d closed a window between it and me. My mind raced around, trying to work out this puzzle. Think, Jezebel!

  Mama and Doc had both said rootwork takes intent. Even Mama knew that, and she didn’t work root. That’s your power. Don’t let anyone take it from you. Miss Corrie’s advice came to me now. The words echoed in my mind, weaving in and out around the doll’s triumphant laughter.

  I knew I didn’t have the strength to get my body loose from this grip. But maybe that wasn’t the only way to get free.

  At that moment, my body felt light, lighter than the water surrounding it, like a balloon lifting into the sky. I let that floaty feeling move into every part of me: my arm and legs, my belly, blotting out the pain as another pin slid inside my skin. It filled me up, and I felt a part of me break away. Up, away from my body in the marsh pool. Separating itself from the grip keeping me in the pool of water.

  No! Get back here!

  The grip yanked at my arm, the voice shrieking in anger, but I was free of my body. Floating above it, I looked down and saw me, a brown girl in a blue dress surrounded by green-gray water. I wanted to stay like this, apart from everything. Safe. There was no pain here, as there was down in that pool.

  You can’t have me, I gasped. My breath was coming in pants, like a dog’s that had run too fast and too long. My heartbeat was fluttering, making me think of trapped butterflies, but did I even have a heartbeat right now? It was down there in my body. I knew in that moment my power wasn’t only in my body. It was deeper, embedded into my spirit. Separate, I could feel the source of the wind. In the air, I could feel the big salt where it kissed the beach.

  And even deeper inside, I could feel a part of Gran with me. And not just her. I felt surrounded by warm, loving people. My people who had been on this land even before Gran was born. I could hear their voices in English and in Gullah. They were inside my head and my heart.

  Wi binya, gyal.

  We’re with you now.

  A gentle breeze surrounded me, and I felt its pressure only, not its temperature. I felt—no, I knew—I was connected to everything around me. As if I could push a button and make something happen. When that thought flowed out of me, a flock of ducks rose up from the water, taking to the air with furious honks and squawks. Their wings created a small windstorm that rippled the surface of the water.

  “Over there!” a voice cried.

  Then I saw the marsh grass part, and two other brown bodies trampled through the grasses and mud. Jay was in front, running up to the tidal pool, with Doc close behind holding a big jar close to his chest. Doc pointed and mouthed something I couldn’t hear; then he gave the jar to Jay. I recognized it as the one from his cabin that was filled with that dirty, muddy liquid. Jay poured the contents of the jug into the water while Doc yanked me free by my ankles.

  I didn’t know if Doc or Jay could hear it, but a screech, somewhere between a person’s scream and a bird’s cry, filled the air around me. The water blackened and rose up in hurricane waves.

  Then, just as suddenly, it froze in place before dropping back down and lying still. Doc shook my body as he held me upside down, while Jay thumped me on the back.

  I dropped like a stone back into my body as a river poured out of my mouth. I coughed and Doc laid me on the ground. I blinked the grit out of my eyes.

  They waited until I could talk. When finally I could, I told them of the body that was a doll, and the teeth in the water.

  Jay touched my shoulder and I flinched away. “Look,” he said, holding up his hand. I stared at it, then looked at my own, stained reddish-brown. I saw my dress poked through with holes, all rimmed with rusty-looking blood. His face, when I looked back, was drenched in fear.

  But, for some reason, I didn’t feel scared about what had just happened. I felt . . .

  Strong. Like I had conquered something.

  A smile started to form on my face, but it stopped when I saw Jay’s look of worry mirrored on my uncle’s face.

  “Are you gonna tell Mama about this?” I asked.

  “No,” Doc said. “You are.”

  14

  “Janey,” Doc said. “Your daughter has something to tell you.”

  Mama looked at Doc, then back at me before she put down the sweetgrass basket she was weaving. She settled herself back in her rocking chair and pressed her lips together like she knew it was gonna be something bad.

  I didn’t know how to tell her. How could I tell her I almost died?

  Doc seemed to read my mind. “Just say it straight out. Easiest way.”

  Beside me, Jay’s face was solemn. I shoved my hands in my pockets and wrapped Dinah’s hair around the fingers of my right hand. My shaking eased up, but only a little bit.

  “Jez?” Mama prompted.

  Then I told her what happened in the marsh. It came out fast, like pouring water out of a bucket. I told her everything—about the pins and the marks on my skin, about the face in the water, about how it wasn’t the face that scared me so much, but the teeth. I kept the part about floating up out of my body to myself.

  A few times, Mama opened her mouth, but she stopped herself from saying anything. One time she tried to sit forward in her rocking chair, or maybe get up, but Doc put a hand on her shoulder and she stayed seated.

  At the end of the tale, I puffed out a breath, tired from talking. My shoulders slumped, and I felt an ache like a bruise where the ghost hand grabbed me. The whole room was quiet, waiting for Mama to say something.

  She closed her eyes tight, like I did when I didn’t want to see something scary. But hers was like she was also trying to hold something in. When she opened her eyes, I saw what it was: tears.

  “Jezebel, listen to me very carefully, hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That was no doll in the water,” Mama said.

  “How do you kno
w that?” I asked. “You don’t even do root magic.”

  Mama pressed her lips together again. I wondered if she was about to tell me it was grown-folk business, like she did when I asked about Daddy. But she surprised me by answering.

  “I don’t work root by my own choice.” Her fingers wove the sweetgrass in her lap, twisting and tugging the strands into perfect place. She did it without looking at her hands, because her gaze was on me. “But your gran taught me lessons just like your uncle is teaching you and Jay. I simply decided I didn’t want to learn anymore. For reasons I will tell you when you’re older.”

  Never did I think of Mama as getting root lessons from Gran. I never thought of her even being my age at all. “Oh,” I said. “Well, if it wasn’t a doll in the water, what was it?”

  “That was a poppet.”

  Poppet. That’s what the thing in the water called me. I rubbed the ache in my arm where one of the ghost pins had gone through me. Beside Mama, Doc was nodding, and I realized she really did know a whole lot more than she told us.

  Jay piped up. “What’s a poppet?”

  “A poppet looks like a doll but is filled with magic.” Doc answered this time. “They can be used like traps, left by someone to do harm to people.”

  “Is Dinah a poppet?” I asked. I put my hand in my pocket to make sure she was there. If she could talk, she would probably say, “Nah, I is me!” I could hear her voice in my head, and I smiled and rubbed my hand over her hair. But when I looked back at Mama, she wasn’t smiling at all.

  Her hands clutched the half-made basket so tight, I could hear the sweetgrass crunch. “I want you to stay away from that marsh from now on, understand? I shouldn’t have let you go out there today at all, what with the trap you found last time. Besides, you’re growing up and there’s no reason for you to be running and ripping around that place.”

  “But I—”

  “No buts. No backtalk. You know what this poppet means? It means there is something out there, and that something is trying to capture you. Trying to take your magic. So you stay out of that marsh—am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, glancing beside me. Jay’s face crumpled like he wanted to give me a hug, but he didn’t dare risk it. Not when he wasn’t sure what Mama would do. And I was nervous too when Mama rose from her chair. But when she got over to me, she just kneeled down.

  “I appreciate you for telling me this story,” she said. “I know it wasn’t easy. So thank you.”

  I looked into Mama’s face and she was smiling. It was a wobbly smile, but it was there. “You’re welcome.”

  She hugged me, and I breathed in the sweet orange scent of her hair dressing. My arms wrapped around her too. Finally, I felt Jay’s skinny arms around me, and Mama embraced us both.

  “The scariest thing I can think of is something bad happening to one of you. That’s why I have to give punishments.” She let me go and looked me in the eyes. “This isn’t your fault, Jez. But you have to be careful. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Magic hummed inside me, warm and full. Before, I wasn’t sure I could be a rootworker, but now I was. I thought about the marsh—not the poppet grabbing me, but what had happened when I tried to get away. When I lifted out of my body. I was getting stronger.

  Someone wanted that power. My power.

  My magic was what made me special. What made me a Turner. I wouldn’t let anyone take that away.

  The “punishment” Mama had mentioned wasn’t too severe—I had to help her out on the farm early in the mornings for the next week. Nothing too much, because I was sore from my run-in with the poppet yesterday. The balm Mama smeared on my cuts and bruises made them feel a little better, though. When I got out onto the porch early that morning, I heard Mama at the chicken coop talking with one of her customers. About me.

  “Have you ever had a child that wanted to eat nothing but rice?” Mama asked the woman as she packed her eggs up. “Just plain, no gravy or butter or nothing?”

  The woman was older than Mama, closer to the age Gran was when she died. Her thick, gray hair was a wig; I could tell that even from where I was, across the yard from the coop.

  “Just rice? That all?” The older woman lifted her bony shoulders in a shrug. “Chirren got all kinda foibles nowadays. Running around wild, doing all they wanna do.” The old woman stopped to count the number of eggs, her lips lightly moving. “Least rice is cheap. Be glad the chile ain’t only eating meat. Then you’d have a time.” She pulled a few coins out of her snap purse and put them in Mama’s hand.

  She turned away to go back down the road, then stopped. “Is it the gal?” she asked. “Only wanting the rice?”

  “Yes’m,” Mama said.

  “Then keep eyes on her. Might be time for her woman trouble.”

  The look on Mama’s face was open and understanding. What trouble did women get that men didn’t get? Babies? Were they trouble? I guess me and Jay could be difficult sometimes, but I didn’t think we were trouble as babies.

  As the old woman passed the porch, she gave me a close look. I greeted her and she returned it, peering at me until she eased along up the road, leaning on her dark wood cane.

  Before Mama could leave the coop, I went to find Jay. He was shoving his feet into his socks and yawning.

  “That old lady who buys eggs from Mama thinks I’m getting woman trouble,” I told him.

  His face knotted up. “What’s woman trouble? You ain’t no woman.”

  “I’m getting to be.”

  “Mmph,” he said, thoughtful, as he wedged his feet into his shoes. “Maybe. You scared?”

  “No,” I lied. Then, “A little.”

  I didn’t want things to change. If I had woman trouble, that meant I was a woman and I couldn’t carry Dinah anymore, because dolls were for kids. I thought of the things Mama and my teachers didn’t do. Climb trees. Run in the marsh. It didn’t seem fair, and I made up my mind to ask Mama what the trouble was with being a woman.

  As for the rice, Mama was right—it was all I seemed to be hungry for lately. I usually loved all of Mama’s cooking, and most of Doc’s when Mama let him use the kitchen. But lately, things changed. I tried eating other things, but they felt wrong in my mouth. I only wanted the rice and I ate it at every meal. We had rice most days for dinner, but I didn’t want it with peas or butter beans, or even collard greens. I wanted it all by itself. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. The old lady said it was cheap, so why was Mama worried? I couldn’t understand it and I told Jay so.

  “I don’t care as long as I get to eat the rest of your food. But why do you want that much plain rice? Ain’t you tired of it?”

  I just shrugged as we went out the back door to do chores. Today, I fed the chickens, gathered eggs, and plucked the ripest tomatoes before the birds got to them. I was sweeping the kitchen floor when Jay came in lugging two peach baskets full of ripe vegetables and plunked them on the table.

  Sure enough, at breakfast, Mama made oatmeal with spoonfuls of her scuppernong jelly, but I pushed at the bowl until Jay grabbed it and shoveled it into his mouth. Mama then made me a bowl of Cream of Rice, and I happily ate it. If I had to go back to school today, at least I could eat what I wanted.

  No one bothered me that day, but the school day still took forever, and when it was finally over, I got a long cold drink from the water fountain in case Jay might want to walk home together. We hadn’t done it in a while, but after yesterday, I thought maybe he might leave his friends and walk with me instead. When he didn’t show, I looked in the cafeteria and out on the ball field.

  No Jay.

  I dragged myself toward the front gates, tired from the early-morning work mixed with the long school day. That’s when I saw Susie. She stood there against a tree, to the right of one of the gates. Her body didn’t move; only her eyes did. I slowed down my steps. Her dark eyes stayed on me as I got closer and closer to the front gates of the school. A breeze blew up, and it sme
lled like the marsh.

  “Are you waiting for me?” I asked.

  “Yep!” Susie said.

  Since I’d gone home early after lunch yesterday, I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about what happened, or hear why she had to go to the principal’s office. And I spent lunch today talking with Miss Corrie.

  “I heard about what happened yesterday, and I was worried about you,” she continued. She rubbed her lips together like Mama did when she put on lipstick. “Do you want to walk home together today?”

  I smiled. “Sure! I was going to see if Jay was around to walk too, though. Have you seen him?”

  That was when I saw some branches rustle on the chinaberry tree across the road from the school. Then I heard a shout. When I moved closer and peered through the gates, I saw what looked like Jay’s bag on the ground.

  If he was hurt, I didn’t know if any teachers would leave the school to help. I held my own bag close, ran out of the school gates, and jogged across the road toward the tree. I felt someone next to me and saw Susie at my side.

  It was quiet for a moment, and we stopped to listen. When I glanced over at Susie, she nodded like she understood the thoughts going through my head. Slowly, I moved closer.

  “You sure?”

  It was Jay’s voice. I breathed in relief and walked over to the tree to tell him off. But what I saw stopped me in my tracks.

  Jay was sitting under the chinaberry tree with a boy I didn’t know. I guessed he was from Jay’s class. The other boy had his back to the tree and Jay was in front of him, holding out his hand. The boy whispered something I couldn’t hear, then he pulled out a small knife.

  I gasped out loud, then covered my mouth with my hand to stop the noise. But it was too late. They heard me and jerked apart like they were caught having cookies before dinner.

  “Jez! What are you doing here?” Jay asked, a guilty look on his face.

  “Looking for you.” I frowned at both of them. “I thought maybe you’d want to walk home together today.”

  Jay looked embarrassed, but the other boy spoke up. “I was just gonna make a small cut on his hand, like mine.” He held up his hand to show me. “Then we shake hands and mix blood, so we can be blood brothers.”