Chapter 1 #2
“Two rows left. Three rows back.” Finding a stick, I dropped to my knees. Using my impromptu spade, I commenced digging in my empty okra bed. The springtime dirt was soft and yielding, unlike the hard-baked layers it would become beneath the summer sun.
“Mama… whatchu doing?”
I paused as my girls came up the path hoisting a pail each. Annabelle’s was filled with eggs. Abigail’s appeared to be empty as my middle child skipped towards me, pail knocking against her spindly legs.
They’re growing so fast those shapeless shifts from Christmas ain’t gonna last.
Clothing was distributed each holiday. What my oldest outgrew was handed down to the second. Now, they’d go to Hattie—thrice worn even if torn, faded.
I watched them approach, longing for more to give them, yet finding them prettier than babydolls in storybooks.
Unlike Hattie’s baby fatness, they were slim.
Wide-eyed. Long-limbed. Color not as deep as mine, yet brown-skinned.
I had a peculiar relief knowing, other than looser hair and the dimpled cleft of chin, they bore little witness of Master Tolliver’s siring them.
“Can I help?”
“Abby, don’t bother Mama. She’s busy.” Annabelle was my oldest. And bossy. So much so that Abigail called her a make-believe mama with no babies.
“It’s fine, Annabelle. I ain’t one to turn down help even from your little sister.
” I waved them forward, a shaky smile masking my desperation.
We took good care of our garden, tending to it as regularly as possible.
Still, panic assaulted me as I imagined a fox or some other scavenger raiding those sacred sacs because of my failing to bury them deep enough. “Here.”
I broke my stick in three, keeping part for myself and handing my girls a piece. I scooted over, making space for my middle child who at her young age showed curiosity for healing herbs and roots. “The faster we get it the faster we finish. And be careful. It’s important.”
Annabelle remained standing, casting a shadow over Abigail and me as we dug. “What’re we digging for? And why’s it important?”
“Your spirit.” I glanced at my oldest in a way that conveyed I wasn’t entertaining endless questions.
“Yes, ma’am.” She lowered onto her knees, adding her efforts to ours until that treasure of treasures was revealed.
“Thank You, Lord. It’s here!” My girls clustered against me as I carefully extracted a small jar from the earth. It was meant for keeping fruit, vegetables, or preserves. It nestled the fruit of my flesh instead. Quickly, I brushed dirt from the cloth wound about it.
“Can we see?” Annabelle and Abigail’s awed whispers tumbled out on top of each other.
“Yes.” I lowered my voice as I unwound the cloth and unfastened the jar’s lid. “This held you safe when you were inside me.”
“That pink, prickly flower thing?”
I chuckled when Abigail fingered the blessed thistle, used for its mold-fighting, purifying properties.
“No, little bit. Not that. This here.” I tilted the jar.
Blessed thistle spilled onto my lap, allowing me to gently extract the palm-sized bundles of cheesecloth within.
Each was uniquely folded, indicating which was which.
Annabelle’s with one dog-eared corner. Abigail’s with two. Hattie’s with three.
“Mama, what’s in those things?”
I sensed my daughters’ excitement. Even newborn Hattie squirmed in her sleep, impatient for the unveiling. “Hush now and I’ll show you, Annabelle.”
Carefully, I unwrapped the newest bundle with delicate reverence, showing its contents to my girls looking on in silence. “This one’s Hattie’s.”
“That ain’t no spirit. That’s some ugly looking pig skin.”
Annabelle’s observations had me laughing and ready to explain the newest addition hadn’t cured yet. But explanations rolled down my throat at the sound of horses’ hooves approaching. “Get to it! Hurry.”
My girls were young yet old enough to know idleness wasn’t condoned.
They obeyed my hissed command, grabbing forgotten pails as I scrambled to refold the cloth and resituate it in the jar.
The snort of the beast coming down the lane prevented me from burying the vessel again.
I deposited it in its hole and brushed dirt over it. And none too soon.
“Dammit Zinnie, Miss Norene’s calling you! Why’re you out here instead of indoors doing what she needs done?”
I stood on top of that disturbed dirt as Ryland Tolliver and his devil horse neared. I studied my rough-shod feet, avoiding eye contact as demanded by a lopsided custom of deference. “Begging pardon, sir. Just looking for tubers. Gotta have plenty for the journey since they’re your preference.”
His mean-eyed horse snorted and pawed the earth as if smelling my deception.
“Well, hurry up. The missus is waiting. And get those eggs to the house.”
I motioned Annabelle and her pail of eggs into action. Quickly, she exited the garden plot, avoiding Master Ryland and his ghostly white horse with its unworldly, silvery eyes.
I watched her hurry away only to realize Master Ryland was watching as well.
Ancient terror raced through me. Lord, she’s only ten. Keep her safe for as long as You will.
Watching my firstborn moving down that dirt path, I wanted to stop the hands of time from moving too fast. Every passing year lessened their invisibility, pushed my girls towards a dangerous vortex where absentminded indifference evaporated.
They’d go from being unnoticed to being used, possibly bred, or touched with lascivious entitlement and pushed into an unwanted realm of attention.
They were Negro. Enslaved. That made them defenseless to all manner of indignities including white men’s cravings.
Didn’t matter that the one who’d sired them was master of the tenant farm he rented.
His parentage remained unacknowledged within his privileged system, providing no protection.
Sometimes the ones that make ’em be the ones that break ’em.
“Abigail, leave that empty pail and go help your sister.” My voice was brittle, anxious. I pushed my four-year-old forward, violently shaking off thoughts of plantation men using slave women then sometimes enacting the same abuse on the offspring such violations created.
“How old is she?”
“Abigail’s four, sir.”
“Not her. The bigger one. Annabelle.”
I glanced at him only to find him staring in my daughter’s direction. My heart splintered with familiar fear. “Eight-and-some-change.”
I prayed God forgive the lie, but I’d falsify until eternity if it meant buying my child time.
“She oughta have more years on her by now. Oughta be coming up on breeding age.”
I stayed silent. A terrifying moment passed before he aimed his attention in my direction.
“We’re headed out morning after next. Soon as the caravan gets here.
” Master Ryland’s horse turned towards me in response to its rider pulling its reins.
His tone was neutral. “There’ll be a head-check tonight.
Tomorrow night. And before we leave. Don’t let nobody mysteriously come up missing.
Everything I own is leaving Mississippi with me. ”
I nodded and gazed on the garden soil that I would miss, letting it take my discomfort in having his focus.
“How’s that new one doing? Pull the cloth back.”
I maneuvered the cloth harness, making Hattie’s face visible.
He made a sound of approval. “You might be plain, but you make good-looking wenches, Zinnie. They’ll turn over a pretty penny if I sell ’em. You agree?”
Icy horror clogged my veins.
Thankfully, Master Ryland didn’t wait for a response to a regularly levied threat used to render me cooperative, leaving me intimately entwined with powerlessness. Instead, he made a clicking sound his hellish horse obeyed.
It sauntered off with its rider issuing additional warnings. “Don’t have the missus summoning you without answering. Be ever ready to serve my family as the Lord intended.”
“Yes, sir.” I exhaled in relief as he and that beast retreated. I waited until they disappeared before gritting out my own opinion. “Walking ‘round here misquoting God since catching some kinda spirit!”
The man was new to scripture. His late-blooming sanctity didn’t mean a thing to me. Didn’t enlighten his blindness and cause him to see God didn’t make me a beast of burden or a mere nothing. I was tired of being property—knew all deserved to live in dignity. Not just them.
Readjusting Hattie’s weight, I retrieved those precious birthing sacs and rushed the way my girls had gone, praying heaven would show me how to break free one day.
Lord, let there be no ravaging. No auction blocks or incest. And never untraceable, irreparable, heart-crushing separation and distance.
I clutched my treasure jars. Did God care enough to keep my baby safe and our family circle unbroken?