Jilo (6 page)

SEVEN

It took an hour or so, but May’s three granddaughters finally allowed themselves to be calmed, then washed and readied for bed in their daddy’s old room. Chatterbox Opal kept parroting her mother, talking about how good life would be once Mama was singing in front of those big bands. Tearful Poppy, accustomed now to electric light, was afraid of the shadows cast by the flame of the kerosene lamp. Angry, squalling Jilo seemed somehow more deeply aware of her mother’s betrayal than her older sisters. Finally, though, May had them settled for the night.

May worried she was too old to raise these three, but she couldn’t let the fear linger. If she didn’t see to their well-being, who the hell else could she count on to do so? She had only just gotten used to being alone in the house, but the thought of trying to carry these girls into womanhood left her feeling something the loss of her loved ones had not.

She felt lonely.

For the first time in her life she understood those folk who would pay good money to sit at rocking tables and listen for voices from beyond the grave. The good Lord knew what she’d pay to feel Reuben’s reassuring touch again or see her Jesse’s face. She’d gladly hand over her last dime even if all she got from the other side was an echo of her mama’s voice telling her to quit her nattering.

Outside, the chat of mockingbirds, sleepless beneath the bright moonlight, tugged her back into a childhood memory, another full moon night such as this one, when she had complained to her mother about the filching habit that had earned the birds their name. “Why they gotta steal the other birds’ songs anyway? Why don’t they sing their own song instead?”

Her mama had pinched her cheek, forcing her to smile. “They ain’t stealing nothing, baby,” she had said, winking at May. “They just trying to imagine what it’s like to be one of those other birds. Of course they may get the melody wrong in places, but it’s love that make them try in the first place. They just trying to see things through others’ eyes. Be a lot better world if people did that, too. Now you leave those poor mockingbirds be.”

May extinguished the kerosene flame in the living area, its glow giving way to the silver moonlight that reached in through the window to keep her company. Morning would come soon enough, and May would have to be up and out before the moon had left the sky so she could walk the three miles into town where she worked as maid for the Pinnacle Hotel. She daren’t be late.

Even though the infusion of Mr. Truman’s money had begun to ease the economy’s palpitations, May done had three strikes against her. Older Negro woman that she was, she was lucky to have employment of any kind. Management at the hotel made sure she was reminded of that on a near to daily basis. “Yessir,” she’d say whenever Mr. Porter rubbed her nose in it. “It’s very kind of you to keep me on.” She’d smile. Force her eyes not to betray how she really felt. Angry? No, she was past being angry. Weary, that’s how she felt. Weary over the fact that these buckra could never look at her and see a woman, a human being, a child of God. An equal.

Then May remembered her sleeping grandbabies. Would they grow up in the same kind of world she’d known, where they would be forced to smile at smug and yammering white faces that constantly reminded them of the natural order of white over black, male over female? Heat prickled across her skin. Ah, yes. There it was, that anger she’d thought she was past.

She settled into her mother’s armchair, letting herself think for a spell on the worries of the immediate future. May didn’t have an idea what she would do with the girls while she was at work. Opal and Poppy would be old enough for school come fall, but what about the baby? Guilt struck her as she realized she, too, might end up having to saddle Opal with responsibilities beyond what her age should require. Responsibilities that could prevent her from bettering her own lot in life. No. Come fall, she’d have something figured out. She sighed and leaned back in the chair, intending to rest her eyes for a few moments.

A small hand on her forearm startled her awake. “Nana,” Opal said in a near whisper, “Jilo. She ain’t in bed.”

Groggy, May looked down at Opal, and then, as soon as her grandbaby’s message registered, scanned the room for any sign of the little one. “Don’t worry, she got to be around here somewhere.” May pushed herself up, her knees and back complaining as she did. “Where’s Poppy?”

Opal’s wide and frightened eyes followed her in the darkness. “She’s still asleep.”

May shuffled to the table where she’d left the lamp. After removing its chimney and twisting up its wick, she struck a match and touched the flame to the fuel-soaked cloth. The light cast wavering shadows around them as she replaced the chimney.

She lifted the lamp and headed down the hall that ran the length of her four-room wood-frame house, stopping to poke her head in through the opening to Jesse’s old room, where she could make out Poppy’s sleeping shape curled up in the center of the bed. She craned her head around the door frame. “Jilo,” she called out in a whisper that she hoped would get the baby’s attention without waking her older sister. Poppy didn’t stir, but neither did Jilo respond.

May stepped into the room and set the lamp on the nightstand, pushing through the stiffness in her knees to kneel by the bed and search the space beneath it. She had felt certain she would find the child curled up there, sleeping with her tiny fist in her mouth, but there was no sign of her. Up until then, May hadn’t felt worried, but now a sense of apprehension crept up on her, twisting up like kudzu through the pit of her stomach and curling around her heart. She bumped into the bed, causing Poppy to stir. “ ’S’alright, girl,” she said, hoping to keep Poppy from fully waking. “It’s just yo’ Nana.” The girl seemed satisfied enough with her reassurance to go straight back to sleep. May rocked her way back up to her feet and slipped over to the closet.

“I done looked in there,” Opal whispered from behind her.

“Well, Nana’s gonna look just once more.” May tried to keep her tone measured, her movements unhurried. She eased the door open and poked her head inside. The small space was empty except for the fading smell of naphthalene, and a few odds and ends Jesse had left behind. May’s skin prickled, a sensation that felt both cold and hot at the same time. Her intuition told her that something was wrong, but she forced herself to keep a cool head, if only to avoid frightening Opal.

She left the closet door ajar and fetched her lamp, this time crossing the hall and going into her own room, the mirror image of the one where she’d left Poppy soughing. Opal followed on her heels, then dropped to the floor to examine the space beneath the bed.

After a moment, Opal looked up and shook her head. “They something wrong with that girl,” she said, her words and tone an obvious parroting of a pronouncement May felt sure Betty had made many times.

“There’s nothing wrong with that girl. Nothing wrong with Jilo at all.” May’s blood boiled in her veins, but she kept her voice low and calm. She went to her own closet, opening it wide and using her free hand to push back the few dresses she had, to see if they might be serving as camouflage for her hidden granddaughter. Shaking her head, she turned back toward Opal.

“Jilo,” May called out in a sharp voice, her concern for Jilo now overriding her fear of stirring Poppy. There was no response. May grabbed the lamp and headed for the only other room in the house, the kitchen. A smile came to her face. Of course. The girl was probably in there searching for a sweetie of some kind. May hurried down to the end of the hall and over the threshold into the kitchen. Her heart nearly stopped beating. Unlike the front of the house, with its outer screen door that screeched no matter how often May oiled the darned spring, the back exit had no built-in method of announcing the flight of a child.

The back door stood wide open.

Barely pausing to place the lamp on the table, May rushed out the back and scanned the landscape for any movement. “Jilo!” May called out, this time not worried if she waked those waiting for Jesus. “Jilo, girl, where are you?”

“Maybe she gone to the privy?” Opal asked.

“On her own?” May snapped, but when she saw the stricken look in her grandbaby’s eyes, she reached back and placed her hand on Opal’s shoulder. “Maybe you right. Don’t you worry, Nana will find her. You just go and keep an eye on Poppy.” She patted the girl, giving her a slight nudge, but Opal didn’t budge. “Go on. You do as Nana tells you.” She forced a smile, hoping the shadows wouldn’t hide it from the girl’s sight. “That fool baby sister of yours is just out here playing. You get on inside and get in bed. I’ll be in soon.”

May ushered Opal over the threshold and pulled the door shut behind her. Then she turned back toward the yard and hurried down the back steps, her fear loosening her joints. “Jilo,” she called every few feet. Deciding to start with Opal’s idea first, she made a beeline for the outhouse, but it was empty.
Oh dear, sweet Jesus
, she thought as she wondered if she might have neglected to cover the well. She ran around to the far side of the house, not taking a full breath of air until she saw the cover was indeed in place.

She stepped back from the well and began to slowly spin around, training her eyes on every moving shadow. Nothing that her eyes could see in the moon-softened night bore the form of her granddaughter. May regarded the position of the moon. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and Jilo was still pretty new to walking, falling back on her buttocks every fifth or sixth step. How far could she have possibly gone on her own?

In that moment, it struck May that Jilo hadn’t wandered off. She’d been taken. May felt it with the same cold and fearful certainty with which she’d known her mama’s spirit resided in that buckra boy’s broken body years ago. Her mouth went dry; her breath came in quick, shallow gasps. But who could have sneaked in without disturbing her? Every floorboard in her house creaked unless you knew exactly where to step. And how could the culprit have removed the baby from the bed without waking her sisters?

“Jilo,” she cried out, unable to keep the panic from her voice. May’s skin began to prickle, tiny bumps forming along her arms. The air around her seemed to vibrate; it smelled of a lightning strike. She’d felt this before. She tried to resist, but her hands tingled as sparks, so close in color to the turquoise folk called “haint blue,” danced along her fingertips. She swallowed hard and willed the magic to dissipate. She’d made promises, to herself, to Jesus, to her mama, promises never to use this magic that always tested her will in her weaker moments.

Not until May was a full-grown woman had her mama explained why she didn’t want her to use the magic she herself employed on a daily basis. “I done sold myself to the devil for using that magic, gal.” The memory of her mother’s voice tickled her ears as surely as if she’d just breathed the words into them. “Don’t you do what yo’ mama done. You find another way to get along. That old devil can find another horse to ride.” The remembered anguish in her mama’s voice nearly succeeded in dousing the sparks, but then the thought of her grandbaby getting carried off into the dark fought its way up. May hesitated, but only for a moment.

She’d resisted the magic all her life, ever since she was a girl not much bigger than Jilo. It hadn’t been easy; she’d been tested time and again. But she couldn’t bear the thought of that baby,
her
baby, out there alone and frightened. A moan escaped her lips as she thought of that collector her mama had failed to stop. “Just a little,” she thought. “Just this once.” She lifted her hand and let a single spark escape. That spark, so close in color to her porch’s overhang, rose into the air, twinkling like a touchable star.

“Show me where she is,” May’s voice trembled as she addressed the light. “Show me where they took my Jilo.”

EIGHT

The spark circled around May, forcing her to turn to keep it in view. Then it bobbed up and down, floating off toward the live oaks and pines that lined the back side of May’s property. The light swam lazily in the still-warm night air, moving no more quickly than May’s feet could carry her.

The light led her through her backyard and over the unmarked border where her property ended, just past the grove of live oaks where the tall pines began. She did her best to stay clear of the first pine past the oaks to avoid the grave she’d made beneath it for Rosie’s boy. The dry grass gave way to a carpet of equally dry needles, the scent of evergreen reaching up to fill May’s senses with her every crunching step. The smell tugged at vague memories—the sound of bees buzzing, a tall man wearing a stovepipe hat, harsh words from her mother—unrelated to the present moment, and at this moment unnecessary, perhaps even detrimental.

The haint-blue light flashed, then dimmed, nearly going out, warning May that she needed to stay focused on finding her grandchild, not on the dim ghosts of her past. As soon as she returned her concentration to the bobbing spark, it began to glow with a renewed incandescence. She knew nothing of how to use magic, and her mother had refused to share even the slightest insight, lest May be tempted to claim the dangerous power available to her. Still, she intuited that it was indeed her attention that was keeping the turquoise glint alive, and if she let her mind wander too far from her purpose, it would be extinguished, leaving her alone in the night, with Jilo lost to her, perhaps forever.

“I’m right with you,” she addressed the spark, and it reacted to her words with both an increase in speed and brightness. May sharpened her focus until the spark was at its center. Though she did not like the woods, she picked up her pace, trying not to worry about exposed tree roots that might cause her to take a tumble, and allowing herself only the slightest shudder at the thought of the snakes, spiders, and hundreds of other creatures who made their home in this sap-sticky world. She wondered at her mother—the outside, the night; this had been Tuesday Jackson’s world. Not so for May.

The spark carried on, heedless of her very human fears, until it reached the edge of a clearing, where it stopped and hovered in place. As May drew near, another scent, a marriage of smoke and tar, began to overtake the sharp spice of the pines. Fear and worry confounded May’s ability to estimate the distance she had come. Even though her common sense told her she couldn’t be more than a quarter mile from her own property, her sense of direction had deserted her, leaving her without the slightest idea of where her own house lay. It was almost like the natural world beyond her tree line had transformed into a vast and fearsome forest.

May slowed and softened her footfalls. The scent of smoke grew even stronger, and the sound of distant voices, their words indiscernible, reached her ears. Had the light led her to someone’s home? The spark moved again, passing just beyond the tree line, then faded away. May crept forward.

She stopped cold the instant she slid beyond the cover of the trees, and her heart very nearly stopped, too. There was a gathering of white-clad figures at the far end of the clearing, and the silver light of the moon was losing its battle with the darting flames licking at the cross standing in the center of the gathering.

May felt her pulse pounding in her neck and her temples. Surely, she’d been betrayed. This—this was where the magic had brought her. She took a cautious step back toward the trees, keeping her eyes fixed on the sight of the burning cross and the linen-draped monsters who paraded around it. She’d move carefully. Quietly. Draw no attention to herself, until she was safely within the cover of the trees. Another step back, and then she heard it. A baby’s cry. Jilo. It was impossible that it was her, and yet it was undeniable.

“Oh, Jesus,” the words came out as a shorthand prayer, as the world around her started to spin. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the earth.

The flames from the cross illuminated a scene she knew would remain forever burned into her vision. One of the men lifted a small and struggling burden over his head as the others burst into a raucous laughter. May had to rise. She had to go to them. Plead with these demons to return the baby to her. Beg them to simply let her and Jilo leave in peace.

But her body seemed frozen to the ground where she knelt.

The child cried out again, and the man who held her began walking toward the flaming cross. The light from that obscene blasphemy illuminated the goings-on all too clearly. The man was laying Jilo down on a table. No, May realized, an altar. Another man moved around the altar, blocking May’s view. Jilo shrieked, a high, anguished cry that pierced the night. Somehow May found the power to stand, and managed to take a few stumbling steps toward them. She lifted her voice to cry out to them. To call to Jilo. To tell her not to be afraid. Nana was coming. But her voice failed her as surely as if she’d been born mute.

She took another step forward, trying to shake the concrete from her limbs, but a hand descended on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. A small gasp escaped her at the touch. The hand released her, and a woman dressed all in black, her head and face obscured by a heavy veil, circled around in front of her. May could only make out the dimmest suggestion of features beneath the thick lace; race and age were inscrutable. The figure was a bit shorter than May herself, but ample, suggesting a healthy and mature woman rather than a waif.

May lifted a trembling hand and pointed in the direction of her granddaughter’s keening. She tried to speak, managing only a few unintelligible sounds. The woman held a finger up to the veil, near where May felt the lips should be. She wanted May to keep quiet, that much was clear. May nodded to show she understood. The woman turned and took a few steps toward the distant crowd, the hem of her long and old-fashioned gown trailing behind her. And then she fell away, her body disintegrating before May’s startled eyes, and transforming into a swarm of a thousand or more angry yellow jackets.

May watched in disbelief as the swarm advanced on the group. From the outer circle working in, the hooded figures’ casual milling about and occasional saluting turned to panicked gyrations and flailing arms. Their laughter and jeers turned to yelps and cowardly screams. The distance was too great for May to make out the individual insects with her naked eye, but she could guess that many had found their way up under the men’s robes to sting their bare flesh. The men began throwing off their pointed hoods, tugging the robes up over their heads. Others gave into panic and rushed away from the congregation. May heard car engines revving up, saw headlights coming to life and illuminating the ongoing riot of those who didn’t or couldn’t move quickly enough.

A pair of beams shot across the field, betraying her presence to anyone who wasn’t caught up in the chaos. May fell back into the shelter of darkness, but not before she felt hostile eyes graze her. She’d been too dazzled to notice whose eyes had picked her out from among the shadows. The light had illuminated her face for only an instant, but intuition told May that the person who’d spotted her had, in fact, been watching for her. Jilo had not been stolen at random. Someone had taken her to make sure May would come looking.

As May’s eyes recovered from the flash of the headlights, she realized that the swarm was returning toward her, coalescing at first into a dense yet frantic cloud of insects, and then the form of the woman. The creature, whatever she was, drew near, but she seemed to be almost dancing—like the cloud of wasps she had been—rather than walking.

The creature held Jilo in her now humanlike hands. The sight of the child caused May to forget all danger. She broke free of the tree line, hiking up her skirt, and raced toward her granddaughter, only to stop dead as the moonlight attempted to light up the creature’s features. Blurred though they were by her heavy veil, May could now see the moon wasn’t reflecting off the creature’s skin; rather it seemed to be swallowed whole by whatever lay behind her veil. Still, May could feel the creature’s eyes piercing the mesh of the veil, searing through it to take her full measure, inside and out.

The veiled apparition rocked Jilo until the toddler cooed with happiness, using such obvious care and gentleness May’s heart nearly broke at the sight. Then she transferred the child to May’s anxious and trembling hands.

“That will teach those filthy sons of bitches,” the creature said. Then she reached up and brushed back her veil, showing May the utter hollowness that lay behind it. The features May had imagined were nothing more than a trick suggested by the veil and her desire to make this creature into something she could someday understand. The emptiness within unwound to envelop the shell that had contained it, until the strange being was no more.