Invisible World (8 page)

I
N THE NEXT DAYS, I IMPROVED QUICKLY. “TODAY WE START,”
Aunty Honey said to me after a week's time. She stood by the stove in her cabin and faced me. She spoke low, fast, and, fortunately for me, in English.

She beckoned me to join her in front of a pot of boiling water. “Put these in the water,” she instructed, lifting a delicate flower from a glass jar vase that held a bunch of them. “Use the bulb part of the cone grass wildflower.”

“What do you use it for?” I asked.

“It will calm a crazed person and help with pains from bad juju in the belly. If a person has been cursed with ringing in the ear, it make the bell quiet.”

When I tossed the last bulb in the boiling water, Aunty Honey took hold of my arm at the elbow and rested her head on my shoulder. I took this to be a gesture of affection and it startled me. In a second, though, I realized she was speaking to me in a tone so low and secretive that I could barely make out what she was saying. Inclining my head toward her, I concentrated on her every whispered word.

“If a person eats this paste in large amount, it make him crazy in the head. He will see things that are not there, people who are not there. He may even hear words that no one speaks. He keeps eating, and he sickens. Or dies.” Aunty Honey gazed at me meaningfully. “In honey, it is invisible and has no taste. In porridge and gumbo also.”

Ice ran through my veins. Had I even had yellow fever?

That night, I walked on the beach with Aakif. “I am no good as a driver,” he lamented. “Vandi's back hurts, so I tell him to rest and I thresh his rice until he feels better. Mariama is with child, so I take the pestle and work her rice in the mortar so she can put her feet up for a while. I am exhausted.”

“You're kind,” I remarked, “but can't you simply let them rest without working for them? You're the foreman, after all.”

He laughed darkly. “Oh, I had better not do that. The bosses expect the work to be done while they are gone. They get very angry and punish us in terrible ways if it is not. It would be on my head if we were disciplined for a bad rice yield. I could not live with what I had done.” Aakif took hold of my hand. “How was your day with Aunty Honey?”

“Busy,” I replied. I told him how much she had taught me about several roots and some herbs. Then I told him about the cone grass. “Do you think it was in the gumbo?”

“No! Impossible! I ate the gumbo with you.”

“That's true, you did.”

“You don't think that I would —”

“No!” I cried, clasping his arm. “Of course not!”

Aakif threw his arms around me. “I would never hurt you, Betty-Fatu! Never ever. You must believe that!”

“I do! I know you wouldn't.” Then I surprised even myself … and kissed Aakif.

He kissed me back.

We both pulled away.

And then we melted together and kissed again, this time more slowly.

 

In the next month, I learned more and more every day from Aunty Honey — or Mother Kadiatu, as I'd grown fond of calling her — during our private lessons. The people in the slave village were cordial to me because I came under the protection of Aakif and Aunty Honey, who were both highly regarded.

Day by day, a little more at a time, I became a part of the village community. I went with Aunty Honey as her assistant when she was called to the home of a sick or injured person. I got to know the people very well in that way.

In the evenings I attended the public singing at the center of the village, where a song leader would call out a verse of a song and the rest of the group would respond with an answering verse. I was welcomed at the fish fries that featured all the abundance of the island, cooked on an open fire, and shared by all.

Aakif and I continued our evening walks on the beach. With him, it was often the same story. He had taken the extra job of a man or woman who was unable to work. His compassionate kindness amazed me continuously.

For my part, I always had something new and exciting to report. Aunty Honey worked me hard but that was all right. I was learning, so I was happy.

“Soon you will leave me,” Aakif predicted unhappily when I had finished reporting of my day with Aunty Honey.

“I won't leave!” I swore. “Do you want me to go?”

“Of course I do not!” Aakif took my hand. “It is the last thing that I want. But let me tell you a real thing, Betty-Fatu. It is the season for the white bosses to return. The happy time will be over. It will hardly seem to be the same place. You will no longer like to be here. Besides, they will see you and take you away no matter what.”

I clutched Aakif's arm, pulling close to him. “No, they can't take me.” The idea of leaving him filled me with panic. We had grown so close. I loved him with all my heart. I couldn't picture my life without having him to talk to every evening.

“Don't you want to see your family once more?” Aakif asked. “You must miss them.”

“I do, very much, but I don't even know if I have a family any —” I couldn't continue the sentence or bear to even think it. Father and Kate had to be alive!

Just then, I heard the sound of pounding hoofbeats on the beach and turned toward it. Three men on horseback were approaching us at great speed — three white men.

Confused and panicked, I looked to Aakif.

“Don't move,” he told me in a voice filled with tension.

We stood where we were as the men slowed alongside us. The lead man was tall and strongly built. He pulled a club from his saddle. “John!” he bellowed at Aakif. “What are you doing down on the beach with this —” he looked me over with distaste “— this white girl?”

“She washed ashore after a shipwreck and we have been caring for her, Mr. Parris, sir,” Aakif answered evenly.

“Is that so?” Mr. Parris sneered. “And what is it that made you believe you could be going on romantic walks with this pretty little white girl?”

As he spoke, he dropped from his saddle and, with his club flailing, attacked Aakif.

“Stop that!” I screamed, flying at Parris. He pushed me back so hard that I dropped to the sand. I was scrambling to get up when each of the other men grabbed one of my arms.

Writhing violently, I squirmed to free myself from their iron grips, but with no success.

In front of me, Parris continued whaling on Aakif, who raised his arms to defend himself from the blows but could not escape the much larger man. Desperate to help him, I sank my teeth into the hand of the man grasping my right arm.

Swearing at the top of his voice, he released me, but I was still held by the man on my left. In the next second, the man I'd bitten slapped me so hard across the face that I flew from the other man's grasp.

The last thing I recall is my feet lifting from the ground and my body being hurled across the sand.

 

I awoke in a bed under a pink satin cover that matched the ruffled pink canopy overhead. It was a world of pink — walls, rug, furniture, curtains. I could only open my left eye. When I gingerly touched the right side of my face, I cried out in pain.

“Stop complaining and be thankful you're alive, young lady.” The woman speaking walked into view. She was in her thirties, with blond hair swept up into ringlet curls at the top of her head.

Coming close, she inspected me, then took a hand mirror from the night table and held it so I could see my own badly bruised face. “I don't know why they had to be quite so rough with you,” she allowed. “But I daresay it was for your own good. You can't be cavorting on the beach with the slaves.” She paused and, shutting her eyes, emphasized her point with a violent shiver of horror. “Where
can
you be from that you don't know
that
?”

“Am I a prisoner?” I asked, ignoring her question as I sat up.

She tittered with laughter. “Heavens, no! I am Mrs. Abigail Parris and you are my guest. Now that I hear you speak, I can perceive that you are from England.”

“What happened to my friend, Aakif?”

The woman stared at me blankly.

“You call him John,” I prodded.

“I don't really know the slaves,” Mrs. Parris answered.

My body ached as I threw off the covers and swung my feet to the carpeted floor. I was still dressed in the cotton patchwork skirt and striped shirt I'd been wearing, though I could see that a ruffled nightgown had been laid out for me across a pink chaise longue.

“Where are you going? I can show you to the ladies' bathroom,” the woman offered.

“I need to leave to see how my friend is.”

“You're heading to the slave quarters?!” she cried in horror.

“That's where I've been living for the last month.”

“Well, there will be no more of that!” Mrs. Parris stated firmly, heading toward the door. “You will stay right here until we figure out what to do with you. Don't worry. You will never step foot in those dreadful slave quarters again.”

“You don't understand! I want to go back.”

“You can't mean that, I'm sure,” Mrs. Parris insisted. “You've been through a terrible time. Your mind isn't as it should be.”

I lunged for the door, but she spun around to the hall outside and, in a second, pulled it shut. With a click, I heard it lock. Yanking at the knob did no good, so I ran to the window. Pushing aside the curtains, I could see right away that I was in the main plantation house. From where I stood, the slave cabins were barely visible through the oaks.

The brutal Mr. Parris, who had attacked Aakif, strode up the front steps. How I hated him! A large whip was coiled in his hand.

Had he used that on Aakif?

I had to find him. Flying to the bedroom door, I pulled at the crystal knob. “Let me out of here! You can't keep me locked in! Let me out!”

But no one replied.

F
OR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, THE PARRIS FAMILY KEPT ME
locked in the room, though they fed me well and attended to my injuries. They even claimed to have released from their employ the man who had hit me.

But I detested them. For the life of me, I couldn't get the image of Mr. Parris beating Aakif from my mind, nor could I abide Mrs. Parris's sugarcoated smugness.

Every time either of them entered the room, I made such a fuss that their tone with me soon became sharp and impatient — at times even threatening. They agreed to free me if I would promise not to steal away to the slave cabins. But I couldn't promise that when my only wish on earth was to see Aakif once more. They wouldn't tell me anything of his condition. Whether I was awake or asleep, I was frantic with the fear that they had killed him.

On the third day, they roused me to tell me that Reverend Samuel Parris, a Puritan minister in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a cousin to Mr. Parris, had agreed to take me in. “He and his wife have three children and the additional care of his orphaned niece. They have need of a servant,” Mrs. Parris informed me.

“A servant?” I questioned. “I am not a servant and I don't want to be one.”

“Is that so? And how do you intend to pay for your meals and board?” Mrs. Parris asked coldly. “How is it that you plan to live in this world?”

The treasured image that I had in my head — the idea of working as a psychic and living independently — suddenly seemed ridiculous. Who would hire me for such work?

Without Aakif and Aunty Honey, I was alone in the world. The Parrises would never let me go back to the slave quarters, nor did they intend to extend to me the same loving care I had once known.

“Could I be a servant here?” I asked. That way at least I could find my way to Aakif.

“Ha!” Mrs. Parris barked with derision. “I should say not. We don't need a white servant here. We have all the house slaves and field slaves we require.”

That very afternoon, the Parrises had two slaves row the three of us to the Charleston Harbor. There was no question of me saying good-bye to Aakif or Aunty Honey. I could not even ask.

I knew the slaves in the boat slightly from being in the village — Salifu and Bala were their names — and tried to make contact, but neither of them would risk meeting my glance. When that failed, I cast my eyes down and focused on trying to read their minds. Their thoughts were expressed in Gullah, but I was able to hear. They both pitied me but felt it was better that I was “with my own kind.”

Concentrating, I tried to reach them with my own thoughts.
Aakif. What has happened to him?

It was no use. Though I was able to hear them, they could not perceive my anxious, unspoken question.

Charleston Harbor was a busy commercial port, and our small craft was rocked in the wake of so many large ships. When Bala finally tied up the boat, getting onto the dock was not easy. Mr. Parris assisted his wife but left me to fend for myself. Salifu got on deck and extended me a helping hand. “Good-bye, Betty-Fatu,” he said in English.

“Is Aakif alive?” I whispered.

“Alive, yes,” he answered quietly.

“How is he?”

“Not good. Very bad.” As he spoke, he took something from inside the bib front of his faded overalls and rapidly passed it to me. I dropped it into the quilted cloth bag Mrs. Parris had given me to take a few items. The quick glance I gave it told me immediately that I was holding a jar of Aunty Honey's own honey.

“Thank her,” I said softly to Salifu just as Mr. Parris coughed irritably for me to join him and his wife, who had already headed up the dock.

They escorted me to a ship named the
Loyal Servant
. As we approached it, memories of the
Golden Explorer
going down brought a flutter of panic, but I was able to fight it.

“Your fare is paid and off you go,” Mr. Parris said as he directed me up the gangplank. “Heed my cousin well. He is a pious man and will not take kindly to being disobeyed.”

I pray he's not a slave driver like you,
I thought bitterly as I walked away from them.

The salt air stung my bruises as I found myself once again on the deck of a many-sailed ship.

As I stood wondering how to get off the ship, I absently watched the people boarding. There were all sorts of types and classes of people.

For the first time, I saw one of the native Americans, a man with long black hair tied at the base of his neck. A young woman with him seemed to be his daughter. I was fascinated by them and tried to read into their minds, but could not decode the language that they spoke.

A priest in a black cassock with a white collar was next to walk up the gangplank. Behind him, two of the ship's crew members carried a pallet on which what appeared to be a very still body was blanketed, mummy-like, and strapped on. Two nuns walked behind the body. They kept their hands on their high wimples so they wouldn't blow away. The rosary beads at their waists also lashed back and forth in the wind as did their long dresses, one brown, the other blue.

Was the figure on the pallet dead and being brought home to bury? The idea of a dead body being on the ship gave me gooseflesh. I turned away from it.

“Last call for all passengers!” a crewman called from the top of the ship. I was on my way to Salem to be a servant, no matter if I wished to or no.

 

On the first day out, I was watching the white-capped ocean roll by when the nun dressed in blue approached me. She clutched a book to her side and I noticed its title was in Spanish:
El Castillo Interior
. Father had insisted that, from a young age, Kate and I study several languages, and Spanish was among them. I could translate the title:
The Interior Castle
.

The nun greeted me, her veil flapping like a sail.

“Good morning to you, Sister. My name is …” Here I hesitated. How did I want to introduce myself? “My name is Betty-Fatu,” I continued without further hesitation. In my heart, I knew that forevermore it would always be my name.

“I am Sister Mary Carmen. Pleased to meet you,” she replied, her English accented with Spanish.

“How do you like your book, Sister?” I asked.

Sister Mary Carmen's smile became radiant. “Very wonderful! It is by Saint Teresa of Avila.”

“What's it about?” I asked.

“Saint Teresa was very holy, and loved God very much,” Sister Mary Carmen began. “One day she had a vision from God. She saw a large crystal egg, and in it were seven mansions.”

“She actually saw this?” I asked. I wondered if it might have been a dream.

Sister Mary Carmen nodded seriously. “Saint Teresa was a great mystic. She went into trances of ecstasy in which she experienced direct contact with God's love. They say she seemed to be somewhere else altogether. I often wonder if her soul traveled. Personally, I believe it must have risen out of her physical being.”

Of course I thought of Bronwyn and the times I'd seen her so limp and deeply asleep as though her soul was — as she'd claimed — truly elsewhere.

“I'm sure she was,” I said.

Sister Mary Carmen opened her book and perused it. “And there was something else mysterious about Saint Teresa,” she said, and then hesitated, as though considering whether or not to speak the next words on the tip of her tongue.

“Tell me,” I prodded.

“Sometimes she levitated,” Sister Mary Carmen whispered.

I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. Could it be? “Do you mean she floated in air?”

Sister Mary Carmen nodded, her eyes wide with the importance of what she'd just imparted. “That's what people reported. They claimed to have seen her rise from the ground when she was in a deep trance.”

My next words were so bold, I couldn't believe I was actually speaking them.

“Did anyone accuse her of being a witch?”

To my surprise and relief, Sister Mary Carmen did not seem offended by my question. “They did, in a way,” she replied. “Some of her friends suggested that her visions might be coming from the Devil and not from God at all.”

“Did they try to hurt her?”

“Saint Teresa did it to herself. She punished herself in various ways to drive out the Devil if he was indeed in her. She stopped only when a priest told her he was sure her visions and trances were from God. I admire her so much.”

“Saint Teresa sounds like an interesting woman,” I said. A person who would punish herself was a little unnerving to me, but I had to admire her dedication.

“Very interesting,” Sister Mary Carmen agreed. “She was a scholarly and independent woman all the way back in the fifteen hundreds.”

Sister Mary Carmen was not what I expected a nun to be like. I found her easy to talk to. “Why did you become a nun?” I asked.

Sister Mary Carmen's forehead wrinkled as she considered this question. “Since I have not yet taken my final vows, there is still time to change my mind,” she said. “So I am thinking about this quite a lot. The right reason to become a nun is because your love for God is so great that you want to dedicate your life to Him. And I am not sure I have this calling.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

Sister Mary Carmen came closer to me and inclined her head so she could speak confidentially. “To be a nun has its benefits. It's not quite an independent life, but as a nun, I can continue to study and I can be of service to the world. I want to learn medicine and to heal. I feel that my calling is as a healer, and as a nun I can do that. I can have a bigger life than I would otherwise have.”

I clutched her arm. “I know how you feel!” I said. “It's the same reason I want to be a witch.”

The nun's jaw dropped at this. “No! Not a witch! Do not say so. The Devil is a witch's master.”

“I mean no harm, but I want to have the power,” I explained. “I want nothing to do with any Devil.”

“Then do not call yourself a witch. You know what the fate of a witch can be. You do not want that.”

“Then what should I call myself?”

“I don't know,” Sister Mary Carmen admitted. “But I have the power in my hands. That much I know for certain. As a girl, I dreamt I lay asleep on a beach on my back with my hands up. Lightning came from the sky and split, traveling into each of my open palms. Ever since then, I've had the power. When I lay my hands on a creature that is ill, that creature — human or animal — improves.”

“Can you make them ill in the same way?” I wondered.

“I would never do that. I have never even tried.”

“Have you tried to help the person on the pallet?”

“Father Bernard would never allow it. We are taking her to see some doctors associated with Harvard College. There are expert doctors and men of science at Harvard who know all about this kind of sleeping sickness. This is the first ship that would take us, so we are docking in Salem rather than in Boston Harbor.”

“What's wrong with your patient?” I asked.

“It's a most unusual case. She was found floating on a ship's wreckage, unconscious and assumed dead. But she stirred, only a bit, and even now clings to life by the merest thread.”

Every nerve in my body suddenly buzzed with excitement. “Please, you must let me see her!”

Sister Mary Carmen glanced quickly around the deck. “It might be possible if we can avoid Father Bernard.”

“What's the patient's name?” I asked, hungry to know.

“We have no idea,” Sister Mary Carmen answered. “None at all.”