Stormwitch (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Saturday, 16 August 1969: Morning

“Wake up, girl.” I shake Gisele’s shoulder.

She squints at me with sleepy young eyes and wipes her nose. “What do you want? I barely been sleeping, it’s so noisy out here.”

I eye Clay. He snores in the drizzle, and sometimes he coughs.

I don’t think he can hear Camille’s winds yet. I don’t think anyone with normal ears can hear her.

But Gisele said it was noisy. My gaze turns back to her.

Can she hear the hurricane coming?

Gray half-light through tree fingers tells me Grandmother Jones has left for work, and I know she will be worried. We should go—but I can’t ignore what Gisele said. “Is it still noisy to you?”

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Tell me what you hear.”

“Clay snoring … and rain dropping … and leaves swishing.…” She rubs her ears. “And some lady yelling
about killin’ people for good and ever.”

Fear and joy blend inside me at once.

She hears the witch! Gisele
is
born to be an Amazon like me. I feel like frozen fire, hot and cold.

And yet, she could have had a dream, couldn’t she? “This lady who’s yelling, do you understand what she’s saying?”

“Not really.” Gisele yawns. “She sings, and she swears, and she yells crazy. Real loud, and there’s back-and-forth shoos-shoos, and sometimes a splat.”

“I think you’re hearing the waves in front of the storm,” I murmur. “And the spirit inside it, too. You’re hearing her better than me.”

Clay’s eyes fly open. “You’re crazy, Ruba.” He pulls himself to his feet, shaking his head. “How could she be hearing something so far away? Spirit inside it—I swear, you’re touched in the head.”

Fast anger overtakes me, and I want to hit him. And then I want to cry. Maybe Gisele
did
just have a dream. Maybe I
am
just scaring her.

“Come on, Gisele. I’ll take you home.” Clay grabs at her hand, and Gisele doesn’t hesitate.

Grab. Twist. Push. Hold.

She throws him to the ground, using her weight and position as leverage, just as I taught her the night before.

Clay props himself up on his elbows, groans, then
regards me from his backside like I’ve grown wings behind my ears. “This is your fault, Ruba!”

Gisele scratches her forehead as if she didn’t just throw down a boy nearly three times her age. “Why? You’re the one who touched me when I didn’t ask you to.”

Clay scrambles up, gives us a final scowl, and stalks off into the bushes. Gisele and I wait for a second, then not knowing what else to do, follow as he stomps through the trees.

He doesn’t speak as we follow the path we took yesterday, beside misplaced mansions and through yards and past shacks until we near our dead-end street.

“The Man gonna get you,” Gisele warns Clay as we turn for home. “Grandma Jones told that cop she would bring us to him, remember?”

“For what?” he asks, almost shouting. “We didn’t do anything!”

My eyes trail toward the Gulf skies. Sun burns through the early morning rain, and blue shows between white fluffy clouds.

The storm is coming. Isn’t it?

“This is foolishness,” I tell Clay nervously, still studying the skies. “Why don’t we hide a little longer, so when the storm comes—”

“Don’t talk to me about that foolishness, Miss Witch,” he growls.

Gisele rolls her eyes.

When we reach our homes, no police cars wait for us. I let out a breath I’ve been holding for several long moments.

Clay doesn’t stop at my house and see me inside. He stomps right across our walkway and Gisele’s to his own, climbs the steps in a hurry, shoves open his door, and slams it behind him.

Inside Gisele’s house, something stirs at the noise. In a few seconds, Crazy Sardine swaggers out his door to meet us. He scoops Gisele into his arms. “Where you been? I looked all night.”

“We hid from the fuzz, Daddy,” she says. “And I’m gonna be a Amazon witch like Ruba, and I’m gonna help her beat up Za-Za’s ghost who’s out walking on waves.”

Crazy Sardine gives her a smile as he puts her down. “Go on inside. Be there in a minute and make you some hotcakes.” He kisses his daughter’s head, and she skips up the stone steps and into her house.

Me, he regards with no expression at all.

“Sorry to worry you,” I whisper. “When the police came—like Grandmother Jones said—we were afraid.”

“I know. Maizie told me Leroy Frye’s already making trouble, getting his friend to tell lies about some radio. She’s worried about you, Ruba. Called here a bunch of
times, and over to Hattie’s, to see if y’all came in yet. I told her y’all were just hiding, but I think maybe you should use y’all’s telephone first thing when you go in.”

My toes are becoming a familiar sight to me. “I will. I didn’t mean to make her unhappy.”

As I turn away, Crazy Sardine heaves a sigh that could move leaves. “You make your grandmother happier than you know, you’re so much like James Howard. But mercy, you look a lot like your mother, girl.”

I turn back, curious. I know little of Circe, because it hurt Ba to speak of her. “Do I?”

“Yes. Like God took a picture, only turned it younger.”

I smile where he can’t see me.

“I remember her from Tougaloo, during the storms and all. I saw what she could do with weather and the wind. If you want to train Gisele like your mother and grandmother trained you, that’s fine by me.”

This time I look him straight in the eye.

Crazy Sardine shrugs. “Not everybody thinks magic is evil, especially not old magic. I think it’s part of us, from way back. After Gisele’s mother got killed in the march, I—I’m—well, I am what I am, and I’d be grateful for whatever you teach her.”

I nod.

He nods.

“If you would let me train your daughter, you must trust me, Cousin.”

“Yes, Ruba. I do. Just like I trusted Circe.”

“If ever we find trouble together, will you do as I ask?”

He rubs the back of his neck and grins. “Probably will. Especially in a storm.”

I cut my eyes to him, and he grins.

“Did you know my mother well?”

“Not very. She kept to herself at college. James Howard, he was smart like Circe. They made a good match. Both quiet, careful—but you could see the fight in their eyes. Feel their heart when they spoke, and my God, but they could give you that
look
, Ruba. That look says you’re full of stuff and nothing, or that you just did the best thing in your whole life.”

I think of Ba’s eyes, of how I always knew her heart through her touch and words. And of Grandmother Jones and her rock face, and how when the warmth cracks through, I feel sun in my heart. I smile.

“Guess you got a piece of both of them,” Crazy Sardine says. “Maizie Jones and Miss Ruba Cleo, too, though I never knew Circe’s mother, rest them both. I see it when I look at you. When I listen. You’re deep smart, like they were.”

“Ba—um—Grandmother Ruba Cleo, she really did make me study. About Africa and history, the world,
plants, the ocean—everything. And Grandmother Jones and Clay, they’ve been teaching me about the civil rights movement.”

“I expect you’re a fast learner, Ruba.” Crazy Sardine shakes his head. “Gisele’s a fast learner, too. She can keep up with you. I’m sure of it.”

I shiver in my damp clothes, but somehow, I’m warm inside. Crazy Sardine gives me a wave and heads off to make Gisele’s breakfast.

I find my own breakfast waiting on the stove. Biscuits still a bit warm in foil. Bacon and eggs. Juice already poured in a cup, just inside the refrigerator.

A note on the kitchen table instructs me to call when I get in, and I do.

“I was scared to death,” is the first thing out of Grandmother Jones’s mouth, followed by, “I never thought you’d stay gone all night. I ought to put you on restriction until next year!”

This is definitely not a time to make a stand—the pushing kind, the shoving kind, or any kind in between. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And you know we can’t be dodging Officer Bolin forever. We’ll need to go down and talk with him, proper like. Tell the truth. I already called, told him we’d come by early in the morning tomorrow, before church.”

I squeeze the hard plastic receiver, pressing it against
my ear. “Clay says we don’t have a chance. Not if a white woman said we stole from her. Clay said we would go to jail.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” Grandmother Jones says. “Clay Potts doesn’t have the last say in things like that. But if you’re going to live here and do a little pushing, you can’t be scared of jail. Jail comes with the territory. If you get arrested, Hattie and I, we’ll call the N-double-A-CP and get your bail, quick as we can.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. NAACP.

My breakfast looks less and less appealing. Jail worries me. Needing a group as powerful-sounding as the NAACP to get me out of jail scares me. Being in jail when Zashar’s storm comes, that terrifies me.

“Ruba, I love you,” Grandmother Jones says. “And I’ll stand by you. This is little stuff, girl. I’ve seen a lot worse.”

The emotional tone of her voice gets my attention almost as fast as her words. “I … love you, too,” I say before hanging up.

My dress feels soggy and cold when I stretch it over a chair. I put on Grandmother Jones’s dry robe. It smells of her, sweet and gentle, like rain on flowers. Not at all like Ba’s strong scent of spice and smoke, but pleasant. Comforting. And I make myself eat, because it would please Grandmother Jones, and because I’ll need my strength soon, for the storm chant.

Even with the scent of Grandmother Jones around me, I feel alone. And scared. The biscuits weigh heavy in my belly, and my feet feel like lead as I walk to my room.

It’s a small space, but larger than what I had in Haiti. I kneel in the center and slide aside a small rug. There’s a loose board, my one hiding place Grandmother Jones never finds. Other than my journal, my most important possessions lie underneath—my bow and quiver and the cowry shell necklace handed down through generations, that King Agaja’s loyal son gave Tata in case we ever needed what strength of spirit the king had to offer. She wore it to remember King Agaja’s son, her king, then gave it to her daughter. It came to me through Ba on the beach. I take it out with great care, and then retrieve the bow I so carefully repaired after Ba’s death, the quiver, my sacred oils, and the Amazon war tunic Ba made me.

All seems in order.

Soon, I’ll need these things with me. I’ll need them close, for comfort and maybe even for safety. The most important thing before battle is to check your weapons, so I climb on the bed and do just that. First, I slide my machete out of my pillowcase, where it has lived since I came to Mississippi. I also fish out its leather strap, so I can polish the blade.

As I settle into my task, I hear an insane laugh far in the distance.

The unbalanced sound startles me into pausing, and I gaze out my window. The laugh comes again in its own time, unhurried.

It sounds mocking.

“Zashar has tortured another poor spirit and sent her out of the land of the dead,” I whisper as I return to sharpening my machete. Only I know that laugh doesn’t sound like any of the spirits I’ve heard before when Ba and I fought storms.

It sounds different, and completely without love or hope, and it makes me cold inside.

When I finish sharpening and polishing my machete, I check my arrows. They feel straight as I run my fingers from tip to end, and my bow—still true. When the time comes, I will retie its string and sling my quiver over my shoulder, and do what I must do.

Whatever that is.

If I’m not in jail for not stealing some white woman’s radio.

I pack my secret things one at a time in a special bag, including the bow and quiver. I wrap a blanket around the bag and tuck it between my bed and the wall for hiding. Then I crawl under my covers to rest, just for minute.

The covers feel warm. My pillow, soft.

Grandmother Jones’s robe hugs me as I sink into sleep.

… into wind, swirling …

… into skies, dark as a moonless night …

… into screams, raking the sea …

I jerk awake, heart pounding. It’s still light outside. Did I sleep at all? And yet, the spirit in the storm on the ocean … she sounds so much louder.

And the smell of breakfast—a fresh breakfast, cooking—meets my nose.

No!

I leap from the bed and rush into the kitchen.

Grandmother Jones greets me with a smile.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” she says as I stand embarrassed and rumpled, still wearing her robe.

She doesn’t mention it.

“Glad you slept the clock around,” she says instead. “Needed your rest. Don’t figure you’ve had such good sleep since you came to Pass Christian.”

Good sleep. Full of nightmares and storms. I can’t believe I dared close my eyes with a hurricane so near!

I can feel its breath on my flesh. Last night … last night. Light of the Creator … what I dreamed! That Zashar herself was in that storm.

That instead of fighting some tired spirit, some confused ghost needing to go back to the land of the dead—that I must fight Zashar herself. Here, now. When I don’t even feel ready.

I dreamed that the stormwitch finally freed herself, that her spirit plows toward me, bent on death and complete destruction.

Settle
, I instruct myself.
It was just a dream. Eat and speak to your grandmother and make her happy
.

Television news from a black-and-white set on the counter tells of nothing and more nothing. Grandmother Jones stands and parts the kitchen curtains with two fingers. Light spills across the table, across my dark, dark hands shaking as I hold a golden biscuit.

“You hear the television?” she asks.

I put down the biscuit and shade my eyes against the morning sun. “
Mais, non
. Um, no, ma’am.”

“A big storm hit Cuba Friday night. Killed three people.”

My hands shake so hard I have to put the biscuit down. My nightmares, barely held back, break on my mind like a storm surge. I try to manage my face, keep myself from leaping to my feet, grabbing my bag, and fleeing to the beach, where I feel I have some small power against the storm.