Boy's Life (19 page)

     The Moon Man suddenly walked through a hallway into the room. Seeing him so close caused a start for both my mother and me. The Moon Man wore a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of black trousers, and suspenders. Tonight he had only one wristwatch on, and the white rim of a T-shirt showed instead of his chain and huge gilded crucifix. He wasn’t wearing his top hat; the splotchy division of pale yellow and ebony flesh continued up his high forehead and ended in a cap of white wool. The white beard on his chin was pointed, and curled slightly upward. His dark, wrinkle-edged eyes rested on first my mother and then me, and he smiled faintly and nodded. He lifted a thin finger and motioned us into the hallway.

     It was time to meet the Lady.

     “She’s not been feelin’ well,” Amelia told us. “Dr. Parrish’s been loadin’ her up with vitamins.”

     “It’s not anythin’ serious, is it?” Mom asked.

     “The rain got in her lungs. She doesn’t get along so good in damp weather, but she’s doin’ better now that the sun’s been out.”

     We came to a door. The Moon Man opened it, his shoulders frail and stooped. I smelled dusty violets.

     Amelia peered in first. “Ma’am? Your callers are here.”

     Sheets rustled within the room. “Please,” said the shaky voice of an old woman, “send them in.”

     My mother took a breath and walked into the room. I had to follow, because she gripped my hand. The Moon Man stayed outside, and Amelia said, “If you need anythin’, just call,” before she gently closed the door.

     And there she was.

     She lay in a bed with a white metal frame, her back supported by a brocaded pillow, and the top sheet pulled up over her chest. The walls of her bedroom were painted with green fronds and foliage, and but for the polite drone of a box fan, we might have been standing in an equatorial jungle. An electric lamp burned on the bedside table, where magazines and books were stacked, and within her reach was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

     The Lady just stared at us for a moment, and we at her. She was almost bluish-black against the white bed, and not an inch of her face looked unwrinkled. She reminded me of one of those apple dolls whose faces shrivel up in the hard noonday sun. I had seen handfuls of fresh snow scraped off the Ice House’s pipes; the Lady’s soft cloud of hair was whiter. She was wearing a blue gown, the straps up around her bony shoulders, and her collarbone jutted in such clear relief against her skin that it appeared painful. So, too, did her cheekbones; they seemed sharp enough to slice a peach. To tell the truth, though, except for one feature the Lady wouldn’t have looked like much but an ancient, reed-thin black woman whose head trembled with a little palsy.

     But her eyes were green.

     I don’t mean any old green. I mean the color of pale emeralds, the kind of jewels Tarzan might have been searching for in one of the lost cities of Africa. They were luminous, full of trapped and burning light, and looking into them you felt as if your secret self might be jimmied open like a sardine can and something stolen from you. And you might not even mind it, either; you might want it to be so. I had never seen eyes like that before, and I never have since. They scared me, but I could not turn away because their beauty was like that of a fierce wild animal who must be carefully watched at all times.

     The Lady blinked, and a smile winnowed up over her wrinkled mouth. If she didn’t have her own teeth, they were good fakes. “Don’t you both look nice,” she said in her palsied voice.

     “Thank you, ma’am,” Mom managed to answer.

     “Your husband didn’t want to come.”

     “Uh… no, he’s… listenin’ to the baseball game on the radio.”

     “Was that his excuse, Miz Mackenson?” She lifted her white brows.

     “I… don’t know what you mean.”

     “Some people,” the Lady said, “are scared of me. Can you beat that? Scared of an old woman in her one hundred and sixth year! And me layin’ here can’t even keep no supper down! You love your husband, Miz Mackenson?”

     “Yes, I do. Very much.”

     “That’s good. Love strong and true can get you through a lot of dookey. And I’m here to tell you, honey, you got to walk through many fields of dookey to get to be my age.” Those green, wonderful, and frightening eyes in that wrinkled ebony face turned full blaze on me. “Hello, young man,” she said. “You help your momma do chores?”

     “Yes’m.” It was a whisper. My throat felt parched.

     “You dry the dishes? Keep your room neat? You sweep the front porch?”

     “Yes’m.”

     “That’s fine. But I bet you never had call to use a broom like you used one at Nila Castile’s house, did you?”

     I swallowed hard. Now I and my mother knew what this was about.

     The Lady grinned. “I wish I’d been there. I swanee I do!”

     “Did Nila Castile tell you?” Mom asked.

     “She did. I had a long talk with little Gavin, too.” Her eyes stayed fixed on me. “You saved Gavin’s life, young man. You know what that means to me?” I shook my head. “Nila’s mother, God keep her, was a good friend of mine. I kind of adopted Nila. I always thought of Gavin as a great-grandchild. Gavin has a good life ahead of him. You made sure he’ll get there.”

     “I was just… keepin’ from gettin’ eaten up myself,” I said.

     She chuckled; it was a gaspy sound. “Run him off with a broomstick! Lawd, Lawd! He thought he was such a mean ole thing, thought he could swim right up out of that river and snatch him a feast! But you gave him a mouthful, didn’t you?”

     “He ate a dog,” I told her.

     “Yeah, he
would
,” the Lady said, and her chuckling died down. Her thin fingers intertwined over her stomach. She looked at my mother. “You did a kindness for Nila and her daddy. That’s why whenever you need somethin’ fixed, you call Mr. Lightfoot and it’s done. Your boy saved Gavin’s life. That’s why I want to give him somethin’, if I have your permit.”

     “It’s not necessary.”

     “Ain’t nothin’
necessary
,” the Lady said, and she showed a little flare of irritation that made me think she would’ve been plenty tough when she was young. “That’s why I’m gone do it.”

     “All right,” Mom said, thoroughly cowed.

     “Young man?” The Lady’s gaze moved to me again. “What would you like?”

     I thought about it. “
Anything?
” I asked.

     “Within reason,” Mom prodded.

     “Anythin’,” the Lady said.

     I thought some more, but the decision wasn’t very difficult. “A bike. A new bike that’s never belonged to anybody before.”

     “A new bicycle.” She nodded. “One with a lamp on it?”

     “Yes’m.”

     “Want a horn?”

     “That’d be fine,” I said.

      “Want it to be a fast one? Faster’n a cat up a tree?”

     “Yes’m.” I was getting excited now. “I sure do!”

     “Then you’ll have it! Soon as I can get my old self up from here.”

     “That’s awfully nice of you,” Mom said. “We sure appreciate it. But Cory’s father and I can go pick up a bike from the store, if that’s—”

     “Won’t come from a store,” the Lady interrupted.

     “Pardon?” Mom asked.

     “Won’t come from a store.” She paused, to make sure my mother understood. “Store-bought’s not good enough. Not
special
enough. Young man, you want a real special bicycle, don’t you?”

     “I… guess I’ll take what I can get, ma’am.”

     At this, she laughed again. “Well, you’re a little gentleman! Yessir, Mr. Lightfoot and I are gone put our heads together and see what we can come up with. Does that suit you?”

     I said it did, but in truth I didn’t quite understand how this was going to bring me a brand-new bicycle.

     “Step closer,” the Lady told me. “Come around here real close.”

     Mom let me go. I walked to the side of the bed, and those green eyes were right there in front of me like spirit lamps.

     “What do you like to do besides ride a bicycle?”

     “I like to play baseball. I like to read. I like to write stories.”

     “Write
stories?
” Her eyebrows went up again. “Lawd, Lawd! We gots us a
writer
here?”

     “Cory’s always liked books,” Mom offered. “He writes little stories about cowboys, and detectives, and—”

     “Monsters,” I said. “Sometimes.”

     “Monsters,” the Lady repeated. “You gone write about Old Moses?”

     “I might.”

     “You gone write a book someday? Maybe about this town and everybody in it?”

     I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

     “Look at me,” she said. I did. “Deep,” she said.

     I did.

     And then something strange happened. She began to speak, and as she spoke, the air seemed to shimmer between us with a pearly iridescence. Her eyes had captured mine; I could not look away. “I’ve been called a monster,” the Lady said. “Been called worse than a monster. I saw my momma killed when I wasn’t much older than you. Woman jealous of her gift killed her. I swore I was gone find that woman. She wore a red dress, and she carried a monkey on her shoulder that told her things. Woman’s name was LaRouge. Took me all my life to find her. I’ve been to Lepersville, and I’ve rowed a boat through the flooded mansions.” Her face, through that shimmering haze, had begun to shed its wrinkles. She was getting younger as I stared at her. “I’ve seen the dead walkin’, and my best friend had scales and crawled on her belly.” Her face was younger still. Its beauty began to scorch my face. “I’ve seen the maskmaker. I’ve spat in Satan’s eye, and I’ve danced in the halls of the Dark Society.” She was a girl with long black hair, her cheekbones high and proud, her chin sharp, her eyes fearsome with memories. “I have
lived
,” she said in her clear, strong voice, “a hundred lifetimes, and I’m not dead yet. Can you see me, young man?”

     “Yes’m,” I answered, and I heard myself as if from a vast distance. “I can.”

     The spell broke, quick as a heartbeat. One second I was looking at a beautiful young woman, and the next there was the Lady as she really was, one hundred and six years old. Her eyes had cooled some, but I felt feverish.

     “Maybe someday you’ll write my life story,” the Lady told me. It sounded more like a command than a comment. “Now, why don’t you go on out and visit with Amelia and Charles while I talk to your momma?”

     I said I would. My legs were rubbery as I walked past Mom to the door. Sweat had crept around my collar. At the door, a thought hit me and I turned back to the bed. “’Scuse me, ma’am?” I ventured. “Do you… like… have anythin’ that would help me pass math? I mean like a magic drink or somethin’?”

     “
Cory!
” Mom scolded me.

     But the Lady just smiled. She said, “Young man, I do. You tell Amelia to get you a drink of Potion Number Ten. Then you go home and you study
hard
, harder’n you ever did before. So hard you can do them ’rithmatics in your sleep.” She lifted a finger. “That ought to do the trick.”

     I left the room and closed the door behind me, eager for magic.

     “Potion Number Ten?” Mom asked.

     “Glass of milk with some nutmeg flavorin’ in it,” the Lady said. “Amelia and me got a whole list of potions worked out for folks who need a little extra courage or confidence or what have you.”

     “Is that how all your magic’s done?”

     “Most all. You just give folks a key, and they can rightly open their own locks.” The Lady’s head cocked to one side. “But there’s other kinds of magic, too. That’s why I need to talk to you.”

     My mother was silent, not understanding what was about to come.

     “Been dreamin’,” the Lady said. “Been dreamin’ asleep and awake. Things ain’t right here no more. Things are tore up on the other side, too.”

     “The other side?”

     “Where the dead go,” she said. “Across the river. Not the Tecumseh. The broad, dark river where I’m gonna be goin’ before too much longer. Then I’ll look back and laugh and I’ll say, ‘So
that’s
what it’s all about!’”

     Mom shook her head, uncomprehending.

     “Things are tore up,” the Lady went on. “In the land of the livin’ and the world of the dead. I knew somethin’ was wrong when Damballah denied his food. Jenna Velvadine told me what happened at your church Easter mornin’. That was the spirit world at work, too.”

     “It was
wasps
,” Mom said.

     “To you, wasps. To me, a message. Somebody’s in terrible pain on the other side.”