Chapter Ten
Ten
HE IS RUNNING IN WHITE, snowy woods. And he is small, still a child, with branches and twigs spider-webbed above him as he runs.
He hears music—distant, tinny-sounding trumpet fanfare from the Duke Ellington Orchestra—before he sees the light.
The vague glow is brighter with every step, until darkness parts to reveal the wooden rail fence of his grandmother’s lodge.
One rotting rail has fallen out of place, leaving a breach he can easily run through.
But he doesn’t. He stops short, staring at the lodge. And the kitchen porch.
And the woman sitting there.
In his dreams, Grandmother doesn’t look the way she did the last time he actually saw her, when she was already emaciated and sharp-jawed from illness.
This is Mazelle Washington the way she has immortalized herself in the photos framed all over her house: hair hanging long and loose (straightened, of course), in radiant makeup, shoulders nestled in the fur collar of her red silk bathrobe with a furred collar and hem, the kind of garment only movie royalty would wear.
She shines so brightly that the light seems to glow from her.
Grandmother’s face snaps toward him: Her eyes are the color of blue ice. She opens her mouth, and her jaw hinges beyond any human length.
“Welcome home, Johnny,” she says in the voice of the dead.