The Healing (22 page)

“Yes ma’am, I sure will. When I see my flowers. When my blood washes the moon.”

This was surely a hoodoo miracle if she had ever heard one. And it was going to happen inside of
her
! Down
there
!

As she walked at Polly’s side, holding on to her hand, Granada knew that what the old woman spoke of must be the biggest riddle of all. One that Chester or Silas or any man could never guess.

“Polly, when—”

“Stop,” Polly commanded, like she had heard something.

Granada froze, with one foot still raised, sure she was about to step on a snake that only Polly could see.

“Wait here,” Polly said, breaking their handhold. She stepped off the road and disappeared into the pitch-black forest.

The girl waited, figuring Polly had to relieve herself, but after she hadn’t come back for quite some time, Granada decided the woman was surely up to something. Determined not to be left out of things again, she slipped into the woods to find Polly.

After tripping over roots and tangling herself in unseen vines, Granada finally entered an open place in the woods where the moonlight filtered through a loosely woven roof of twisted vines and boughs, suffusing everything around her with an otherworldly luminescence. The sight gave Granada the shivers. Though she couldn’t name it, she knew something unnatural was happening.

She heard a rustling in the brush and then Granada saw the old woman’s silhouette. She had dropped to her knees at the base of a sweet-gum sapling, and with her hands was clearing the leaf mold from a patch of ground. Once she had uncovered the spot she reached into her sack and retrieved a large wooden spoon.

Granada inched up to see.

Polly dug a shallow hole then upended the clay crock, pouring its contents into the ground with a thick, sloshing sound. Then her body began to sway, her head lolling from side to side, moaning low and gentle. Without breaking the rhythm, she took a handful of dirt and held it above her head. Granada heard a cadenced sound being born in her throat and finally an upsurge of words that seemed to be spoken to the sky:

Polly lowered her hand and sprinkled the dirt lightly over the hole, then spoke softly to her handiwork:

After she uttered those words, everything went dead quiet, even the night sounds of the insects had been silenced. It was like the forest was holding its breath.

What was she waiting for? Granada wondered. Who was she expecting? Ghosts or witches or maybe the devil himself?

The woods slowly brightened, as if the filtering canopy had parted and the stars and the moon had lowered themselves by invisible threads. Polly’s handiwork was now clearly illuminated. There in the hole was a bloody mass flecked with dirt. It was veined and raw, shimmering in the moonlight. Granada didn’t know how loudly she had gasped and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. With her other hand she found a tree to help steady her wobbly legs.

Polly bent over and filled the hole with more earth, then broke the pot with a rock and spread the pieces about the little mound. When she had arranged it all to suit her, she rose with great effort and began to make her way back to the road, passing by the tree where Granada stood trembling. She said nothing when Granada fell in behind her on unsteady legs and followed her out of the woods.

They continued their progress down the track, with Granada gradually slackening her pace. When she figured she was at a safe asking distance, she gathered all her courage into the base of her throat and blurted, “What was it you took from them people?” Her voice was all trembles. “What did you put in that pot? Did you hurt that momma and her baby?”

Polly’s jagged laugh cracked like ice in the chilled night air. Then the old woman said over her shoulder, “Don’t go into no tantrums. I didn’t hurt nobody.”

Though Polly said no more, Granada found herself believing her, and the girl’s heartbeat began to calm. She started walking again but still kept a safe distance.

“But what was it you buried in that hole?” she called, but Polly didn’t answer. “Maybe I’ll just come back and dig it up and see for myself,” Granada said, brave enough now to sass. Then she wondered if she could find her way back to the tree and locate the little grave, even in daylight.

“I’d be proud if you did,” Polly answered, and again she laughed. “I’d whop your tail for it, but I’d be proud you were finally seeking some wisdom for your own self.”

Polly lapsed into another deep silence, as if distracted by a matter of great weight. In front of them over the tree line was the faint glow from the mansion’s observatory where the master would sit late into the night writing in his journals.

Polly stopped walking, allowing Granada to catch up. “Granada, just ’cause you have a woman’s body don’t mean you have a woman’s heart. You like the new moon. There’s a heap left to learn.”

Granada didn’t like the doubtful tone that underlay Polly’s estimation of her. “Like what? Just tell me,” she said confidently. “I’ll learn it.”

“God wants more from you than having babies. You got to know your place in the weave of things,” she said. “You got to remember where you come from to know where you stand. And you got to know where you stand before you know how to help.”

“I know where I stand, Polly.” She laughed. “I stand wherever my feet stop walking.” And to demonstrate the point, she planted her hands on her hips and came to a dead halt.

But Polly didn’t stop. “That’s what I mean,” the old woman said and walked a little farther before turning around. “See?” she said looking at Granada through the dark. “You’re standing by yourself. If you stand by yourself, then you can’t do nobody no good.”

They stared at each other through the dark, neither taking a step.

The girl panicked. Now Polly was mad again. Why couldn’t Granada keep her mouth shut and listen, like Polly told her to? One thing Granada did know for sure, better than her own name, she
wanted to see babies being birthed. That was the magic she wanted more than anything. Standing right there, she made a promise to God. She would never say another word if Polly wouldn’t give up on her.

Through the dark, as she took a step toward Polly, Granada saw the old woman already had an arm reaching out to her.

A
s Gran Gran lay in bed that night unable to sleep, she considered taking Violet down to the creek bank when the weather warmed to scrape up a bucket of clay. Then sit with her and show her how to shape and fire the masks, as Polly Shine had done when Gran Gran was a girl.

Of course, that would depend on whether Violet stayed. There could be family who would want her back, a family whose names might be lurking in one of the suitcases under Gran Gran’s bed.

With the thought of Violet’s departure, for the first time instead of relief, there was a hollow ache in the old woman’s chest. Why would God remind a person at the small end of her life how lonely she had been for the biggest part of it? When it was too late to do a damn thing but regret it?

Her mind working too hard to sleep, Gran Gran rose from her mattress, kneeled on the floor, and slid out one of the suitcases from under the bed. She had thought hard about opening them with Violet watching but decided against it. Gran Gran remembered the anxious reaction Violet had to the return of the wagon. There would likely be the smells of her mother, memories of kisses and other comforts. Of picnics and playing with dolls and dressing up, whatever it was they did together. Perhaps the suitcases even contained vestiges from the
room where Violet had found her mother that day. No telling what nightmares the luggage held. Not all remembering is a way back. Could be too much hurt, too quick.

Gran Gran recollected what the old heads used to say. That if you woke a person too suddenly out of a dream, his soul would not be able to find its way back. And that girl, Gran Gran reminded herself, is still a house of dreams.

No, she would not take that chance. She decided she would go through the luggage herself. Gran Gran carefully released the latches one at a time, catching them before they could snap back on their springs. She quietly raised the lid.

All at once the room filled with the smell of perfumed silks and satins and lace. Gran Gran inhaled deeply, captured by the effect. It wasn’t a feeling for Lucy or even Violet that overwhelmed her. It was another who came to her, so overpowering, the memory brought a catch to her throat.

She inhaled again and then closed her eyes, letting the perfumes carry her to a place she had not been in years. “Oh, Mistress, Mistress!” she laughed sadly. “Don’t let anybody ever tell you that you weren’t a mess and a half!”

When Gran Gran looked down, it was not the clothing that caught her eye. Whoever had packed the case had emptied dozens of photographs on top before closing the lid. Most were loose, but the one that she noticed was in a silver frame. It showed a man and woman standing in what looked like a church. He was wearing a soldier’s uniform. She was holding a bouquet of flowers, smiling big, nothing like the desperate woman who had first come to Gran Gran, painted up and begging for help.

Gran Gran didn’t touch the photograph. She had no right. Instead she reached under the frame and removed a yellow silk scarf. She then closed the lid of the case, latched it, and shoved it back under the bed.

“Yes,” she said to herself. “We’ll unpack this thing slowly, a piece at a time.”

That night the current of Gran Gran’s dreams was strong, sometimes even violent, breaking through dammed-up places, searching for its bed. As it surged, images became clear, picking up the light. The silt was settling out to the bottom. She awoke the next morning with the mistress on her mind, the scent of her perfume seemingly in the air.

Over breakfast, she carefully pulled the yellow scarf from her apron pocket and eased it across the table to Violet. The girl stared expressionless at the silk cloth, as if waiting for it to break the silence. Then, as if nothing had happened, she went back to cutting her ham.

She still wasn’t ready.

“If I recall,” Gran Gran said at last, “Mistress Amanda had a silk scarf like that one.”

Violet looked up from her plate, lifting her brows.

“Probably had a trunk full of them. And then there were the ones that belonged to Miss Becky. They mostly got burned up in the fire.”

The girl stopped chewing, her eyes intently focused on Gran Gran.

“What, I didn’t tell you about the fire? Why I swear, that woman was out to kill us all!”

I
n Polly’s hospital, Granada passed the night fitfully, confusing waking with sleeping, haunted by specters more real than any dream, yet at the same time, more removed. It was as if she were watching herself through a window from another room.

I’m at my place by the kitchen hearth, waiting for the mistress to bring Miss Becky’s favorite dress for Preaching Sunday
.

Aunt Sylvie is stirring a pot that hangs over the fire, singing a peculiar song in a screeching voice. “Slaves and cotton and cotton and slaves,” she repeats each time she tastes from the pot. She smacks her lips with hoggish relish
.

Little Lord’s prized marble appears on Aunt Sylvie’s soup ladle, but then the orb rolls over and stares at me. It’s Lizzie’s milk-white eye
.

Suddenly the mistress appears in the doorway. Her face is hidden by a mourning veil and she carries a bundle of clothes, hugging them closely to her bosom the way Sarie had cradled her newborn baby. She offers the bundle to Aunt Sylvie who dresses me, but when I turn to curtsy the kitchen is crowded with people pointing and laughing. Daniel Webster, holding Lizzie’s eye between his teeth, grins crazily and jumps into the arms of a smiling blond girl, the same girl whose pictures hang all over the house
.