by Eden Royce
“Zar,” I whispered.
I floated up, not afraid this time. Through trees and higher. I rose past clouds, fat with rain. I didn’t feel cold or scared; I felt wonder stirred with anticipation and a sense of homecoming.
I must have lost myself for a while to the haint, because soon I was farther than I’d ever been. So close to that star, on the other side of far. And I finally felt what she felt. Happiness. Joy. Relief. And then I—we—were there.
A place full of beauty and celebration. A place filled with children. I felt a warm tightness around my shoulders and I realized someone was hugging me. Then I saw a burst like a flare of sunlight pull away from me. It was the spirit—her spirit—separating from mine.
“Tenki,” the haint said. Thank you.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. A trickle of sadness came over me. I wondered how long that haint had been with me. I thought of Susie’s words, asking if I felt like a part of me was missing, and I felt that now. But the haint’s flare of sunlight embraced me again, my arm this time, pulling me forward.
“Hunnah. Kumya.” You. Come here.
I followed the haint to a gathering of lights just like hers. They were all different sizes and shapes and they welcomed me to join them. I did, laughing and happy and full of the warmth of friendship. Colors swirled around me, and while I didn’t remember eating, I felt full—my belly, my heart, all of it. I listened to stories and shared them, playing and running and—
A tug pulled me out of my fun.
The scent of sage and cinnamon.
I looked up and another spirit formed in front of me. This one was larger and fuller and it spoke to me in English.
They are calling you back, child.
“I want to stay,” I said, not caring about the whine in my voice. I would miss it so much, being with the other children’s spirits, even for the little time I’d been here. I knew they all liked me.
Yes, but you want to go back as well, don’t you?
I thought of Doc and Dinah waiting with my body on the little cot. Mama and Jay sleeping in bed, or maybe now up making breakfast. Or with my uncle and my doll, worried about me.
It wasn’t fair. I wanted to stay. I wanted to not be the weird little girl in school. The one with the faded clothes, the dresses made out of Gran’s old things. The one who tried to ignore the jokes. The one who was studying to be a witch doctor.
Then I thought of making fruitcakes with Mama before Christmas. It took us two days: chopping candied fruit, mixing the cake by hand, and lining cake tins with cut-up brown paper bags. Those were my favorite days of the year, even better than playing in the marsh or listening to Miss Watson. I already missed her. I also missed Doc, and even Jay. And Susie, my friend. My sight burned and I realized it was the start of tears.
“Is this heaven?” I asked.
The older spirit shimmered like heat on the road in summer.
The old people used to call this Zar. A place . . . beyond the farthest place you can think of. I don’t know how you found us, but you did. Although I can guess, she said as the small spirit that had shared my body came over next to me.
Sage and cinnamon was strong in my nose now. Tugging, tugging.
You are already going back. Please tell Benjamin she is happy and well. But before you do, I give you this in thanks for bringing her back to us. Her shimmery, blurry arms swirled around with mine, and she placed a kiss in the center of my palm and closed my hand around it.
I felt myself losing my grip on this place. On Zar.
You are strong, child. This will make that voice inside you louder. Use it with care it will—
But I was gone, returning to my body. I was falling again, farther and faster than ever. Faster, through air yellow, then pink, then clear. I opened my hand and looked inside to see a coin that looked brand-new. It was beautiful and I’d never seen anything like it. I couldn’t wait to show it to Doc.
I closed my hand again and let myself continue to fall, unafraid. Through thin, then thick clouds, through treetops, and landing with a thud. I didn’t jerk awake this time; I settled into my body, happy to have it back and all to myself. I relaxed into it, wiggling my toes and fingers, then snuggling into the mattress.
“Oh, thank God!”
I heard Mama’s voice and I opened my eyes. I wasn’t in the cabin anymore but in my own bed. It had been moved to the middle of the room, so everyone could sit around me.
And they were: Mama, Doc, and Jay were staring at me so close, I pressed my back into the pillow. Dinah was snuggled against my side, her crepe wool hair standing on end and her dress wrinkled and in need of a wash. Jay pulled and tugged her hair back into place while giving me sidelong looks.
“What?” I asked, yawning. I felt happy-tired, like I had done a lot in one day and had nothing else to do but rest.
Doc said, “You were gone a long time. We were worried.”
It didn’t feel like a long time. I’d been having the best time of my life, but looking around at the faces, I could see they were all worried. “How long was I . . . gone?”
“All day.” Mama put her hand on my head to feel my temperature. “How do you feel?”
I felt relaxed and pleased knowing somehow I’d helped someone—or something. Under the covers I made a tight fist, feeling the thick edge of the coin in my hand. I’d been so excited to show it to everyone, but I decided maybe later would be best. For now it would be my secret.
With a start, I recalled the message I was supposed to give. “Doc, will you please tell Mr. Benjamin that his daughter is happy?”
Doc blinked really fast, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How do you know that, Jez?”
I covered my mouth with one hand and let out a huge yawn. “I played with her today, and I could feel it.”
“Okay, Jez. I’ll go see him tomorrow and let him know.” Doc rubbed his beard. “You know, not everyone—very few rootworkers or witch doctors—can leave their bodies like you do. I can’t.”
“Really?” I asked, sitting up.
“Really,” he confirmed. “You’re learning fast, and you’ve learned something I could never teach you.”
“And you helped somebody today,” Jay added. “You always been wanting to do that.”
Mama folded a handkerchief that was sitting on her lap and tucked it into the pocket of her apron. “I was so worried. But I’m proud of you. We all are.”
“Thanks.” A warm feeling flooded my face. Mama, Doc, and Jay were looking at me so closely, I had to look down at my hands. “I’m hungry,” I said, knowing this time it was only my belly. My heart and spirit felt full.
“It’s almost dinnertime. Want some rice?” Mama asked.
For the first time in a while, I didn’t.
While Jay helped Mama cook dinner, I took out my rootwork book. I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything during the whole day I was in Zar. And I could write down what Doc said about my flying being something that even he couldn’t do.
As soon as I opened my notebook, though, I knew something was off. It felt wrong in my hands. Thinner and lighter. I went back all the way to the beginning and turned each page.
Certain spells I knew I wrote in my book were missing. My notes on how to keep a boo-hag out of your house—the haint-blue paint, the broomstick across the door—were all gone! When I looked close, I could see the raggedy edges where the pages had once been. All the time and effort I took to write down the information Doc gave me, and so much of it was gone.
“Jay!” I shouted.
“What?” he said, turning from the counter where Mama had him cutting out biscuits with a cookie cutter and putting them on an oven tray. “You ain’t gotta yell, I’m right here.”
“I do have to yell. What happened to my root book?”
“How I’m supposed to know?”
Mama dumped a colander full of cleaned shrimp in a pot. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “What happened to the book, Jez?”
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“Half of it’s gone,” I cried. “Well, not half, but a good bit of it.”
“Gone?” Both she and Jay came over to look, and I turned the pages that were left.
“See? Some of them are missing.”
“Don’t look at me. I ain’t rip up your book.” He held his hands, covered in flour, up in the air. “No reason to.”
Jay was right. There was no reason for him to tear pages out of my book. If he needed a spell or to know an ingredient, he could have asked me to see the book. Or just ask Doc himself. Besides, he teased me at times, but he wasn’t cruel.
“Sorry, Jay,” I muttered. “I was wrong.”
He came over and hugged me with his elbows, so he didn’t get flour all over me. And I knew he had forgiven my too-quick words. “Question is,” Jay said, “who would wanna tear your stuff up?”
Mama tilted her head to the side like she was considering. “I can only think of two reasons someone would tear pages out of a book. One: they want to destroy the book. Two: they want the information for themselves.” She flipped through my notebook. “These pages look like they were torn out carefully, not ripped apart. So I think whoever did this was after what was on those pages.”
“But who wants my rootwork spells and stuff?” I thought of Lettie, but she always acted like rootwork was some kind of evil, so I didn’t think she would take the pages.
“Maybe the question you should ask yourself,” Mama said, going back to her pots, “is when was the last time you let the book out of your sight?”
I didn’t have it when I went to Doc’s cabin about the haint inside me. . . . But then, it had been in my room, where Jay had been asleep. When I thought back further, a sinking feeling took over me.
The last time I had left the book somewhere was when I fell asleep against the tree near the marsh. Susie was there when I woke up.
But—no. It couldn’t have been Susie. We sat together every day at lunch. Well, she hadn’t been to school since that day at the marsh. I didn’t know if she was sick, if it was just a coincidence that she happened to be out of school right after I discovered that my notebook was missing. She listened to me when I was upset about Jay. She walked home with me after school. She stuck up for me in front of Lettie and all the popular girls. She wouldn’t do this to me. She was my friend.
But at the same time, I couldn’t think of anyone else who could have done it.
If it was Susie . . . she must have had a reason. And I was going to find out, either way.
“How long before dinner?” I asked.
“A half hour,” Mama said. “Why?”
“I’ll be back on time!”
I grabbed my torn-up book and raced outside before Mama could stop me. I needed to find Susie. My feet pounded on the ground as I ran toward the marsh. When I got to the edge where the seagrass met the water, I stopped. I didn’t know where she lived exactly. She’d never told me. She was the closest I’d ever come to having a real friend, and I didn’t even know where her house was. I didn’t know anything about her, really.
But when I thought about it, hard, I did know something. I knew that the last thing I wanted was for her to be the person who did this to me. It wasn’t only a notebook—it contained connections to my past. To Gran. And even if she wanted to know what was on those pages, I couldn’t believe that she wanted to take those connections away from me.
I shouted as loud as I could, “Susie, where are you?” I shook the book in the air. It was ridiculous, because I knew she couldn’t hear me, but I yelled again anyway. “I need to talk to you!”
Only the sounds of the marsh answered, croaking frogs and singing cicadas. A splash of water that meant a fish leaped up and dived down again. Leaves on the trees rustled, and our clothes waved and snapped on the clothesline. Of course, Susie didn’t appear.
My shoulders slumped as I turned to walk back home. The orange root bag I’d placed under the house hadn’t worked. Or maybe I did it wrong. Or maybe root just didn’t work like that.
It was as I was drifting off to sleep that night that I heard the crunching of car tires on dirt and rocks outside our house. I blinked and tried to focus on the sound. It was getting closer. Who was coming to our house at this time of night?
That was when the car picked up speed, racing toward our house, tires screeching. I shrieked, then slapped my hand over my mouth to stay quiet. I sat up right as the headlights came on full bright, shining straight into the window. The sudden light stole my vision for a few moments and I put my hand up to shield my eyes.
“What the—” Jay scrambled up out of bed, his head bent down against the light. “Jezzie?”
“I’m here! On my bed.”
The car moved around to another side of the house, and I saw that it had blue and red lights on top of it.
Jay climbed up next to me as a horn blared, cutting through the gentle night sounds of the marsh. Shrieks of laughter came out between the horn blasts as the car circled our house three times. Then something hard slammed against our front window, and the car pulled away.
Mama burst into our room as the horn and laughter faded into the night. I could feel Jay shaking next to me, and I was trembling too.
“You two okay?” She hugged us tight.
We nodded, our faces buried in Mama’s nightgown. She smelled like Ivory soap and her sweet orange hair pomade, and I breathed deep to try and relax.
She rocked us back and forth, whispering, “He’s gone for now, okay? He’s gone.”
18
I got so little sleep that night that Mama had to shake me to get me out of bed the next morning. I dragged myself to the bathroom, then got dressed for school. I ate whatever Mama put in front of me—grits or eggs, I don’t even remember. The table was strangely quiet, Mama and Doc sipping coffee and Jay eating up his breakfast without the usual clattering of his spoon against the bowl. I guess we were all just thinking about that car zooming up to our house with the lights on. We all knew it was Deputy Collins, even if we couldn’t prove it.
Then Jay asked me something that woke me right up. “Suppose Susie is back to school today. What you gonna say about your book?”
I hadn’t even thought about that. “I guess I’ll ask if she took it.”
Doc made a sound of agreement. “That’s the best way, Jez.”
But it turned out I wouldn’t get to, because Susie still wasn’t at school. And I didn’t know where she lived to go and try to find her. I was so caught up in my thoughts that when Lettie said something to me, I didn’t even look at her and just shouted, “Your mama!” over my shoulder.
After school, Jay and his friend Tony waited for me outside to walk home. It was nice, and unexpected, even if they did spend the whole time laughing and running, acting silly, mostly ignoring me. I couldn’t help it—I missed Susie. In spite of her doing what she did behind my back.
“Can you stay out and play?” Tony asked Jay, tossing a ball to him as we reached the path that led to our house.
“No,” he said. He tossed the ball back. “I gotta get on now. See you after dinner, okay?”
Tony smiled and rushed off to his own house, probably to stuff down food and get back outside. Me and Jay walked until we were out of sight and then ran the rest of the way home.
When I walked in the door, Mama smiled and handed me a brand-new notebook. I hugged her and then got to work rewriting everything I remembered from my old book. Doc sat with me to go back over a few things I missed. I finally had a change to add some notes about my time in Zar.
When it was bedtime, I climbed in with my notebook to keep writing. And even after Jay fell asleep, I still worked. Mama came in and made me turn off the light, saying I could get back on it tomorrow. But I couldn’t sleep. Thoughts swirled around in my head and I tossed in bed.
Dinah wiggled next to me, and I patted her head. Finally, I sat up. There was no way I could sleep now. Maybe there was enough moonlight for me to read some of my root notebook. Or I could li
ght the hurricane lamp me and Jay used when we lost power because of a storm.
The room felt hot and sticky, so I kneeled on my bed to crack the window open. That’s when I saw it—a flash of something outside. I leaned closer, till my nose almost touched the window. It happened again: a swatch of pale light, like a shadow made of moonlight, darting through the dark toward the woods.
I eased out of bed and into my shoes, then woke up Jay. He started to protest loudly and I clamped my hand over his mouth. When he realized it was me, he pushed my hand off. I told him what I saw, and then he got up as well, grabbing his shoes and pulling on his overalls.
Me and Jay tiptoed out into the dark night, following the moonlight shadow that was slipping and dipping between the trees and bushes. All I saw was a flash of color in the darkness, then it was gone. Again it came, dashing in and out through the woods quicker than a rabbit. Jay and I froze.
“What is that?” I whispered, soft as I could.
“Shhh,” Jay said, creeping closer and bending forward to get a better look. “Just watch.” He stared for a while, then straightened up. We fell silent as we got closer, quiet as the bubbles breaking in the mud of the marsh.
But what I saw almost made my jaw hit the ground.
“It’s Susie!” I hissed.
Jay looked like he was going to yell out to her, and I clamped my hand on his mouth again. This time, he licked it. I took my hand away and pinched him.
“I’m gonna go ask her who she think she is,” he whispered. “Playing with your emotions like that.”
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. “No, no. Wait, I want to see what she’s up to. Why’s she in the marsh behind our house in the middle of the night?” We eased closer and took up a spot with our shoes in soft black soil and our backs against the bark of a tree.
Susie was standing in the moonlight in a space of trees, looking up at the sky. We watched in shock as she took off her dress and shoes, leaving only her underwear on. Then, she reached up to her head, and there was a ripping sound.
