The Chaos (26 page)

“You mean why am I not enslaving you?”

I nodded and sobbed. It didn’t make any sense to be sad
because some horrid witch didn’t want me to fetch and carry for her, but I still blubbered like a baby.

She slapped her knee and laughed. “Why, what a very odd question to ask, dyevuchka! You are a very entertaining young lady. And no, that’s not why.”

“Why, then?”

“It’s because Izbouchka is broody.”

“You don’t want to make me work for you and then turn me into pot roast because your house is depressed?”

“Boje moi. I
should
do all that to you, just because it would be so much fun. But ‘broody’ doesn’t mean that Izbouchka’s depressed. It means she’s sitting on her eggs to keep them warm. Thanks to you, Izbouchka has a mate!” The way her face lit up made her not look scary at all.

“How— Hang on. You mean that she and that giant bird—”

She nodded. “Yes! Isn’t it wonderful? Two eggs she’s laid over on side of the volcano there. And they are fertilized; I can see the shadows of the young ones inside them.” She sighed happily. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

“Yay. Listen; you’re a witch, right?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Can you tell me how to get rid of a rolling calf? How to get back to my normal self?”

She looked confused. “But you are your normal self.”

I felt Izbouchka stand. Then everything in the house lurched sideways. The old lady grabbed for the arm of the couch. Her legs flew up with the jolt, exposing about a mile of frilly white petticoat underneath her dowdy black skirt. My teacup landed in my lap and overturned. Hot tea soaked through my jeans, but with the false skin covering me, it barely felt warm.

“’Bouchka!” shouted the witch. “Dacha maya, kak dyela?”

Izbouchka gave an awful squawk. She jerked sideways
again, in the opposite direction. Her feet started pounding the ground. Izbouchka was on the run. It was like sitting on top of an earthquake.

“What’s going on?” I asked the old lady.

“I don’t know.” She called out something in her language. She had to do it twice. A window appeared in a wall of the hut. She tottered over to it and looked out. “Oh, now, there’s a fine pickle. You’re in deep trouble, my girl, and you’ve dragged me and ’Bouchka into it with you.”

I didn’t point out that she was the one who’d dragged me into her egg ship. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She turned back to me. “It’s catching up. You have to go, quickly!” She pointed to the stove. “In there, now!”

I stood up and backed away from her, dodging a plate that had gone airborne. “What are you, nuts? I’ll burn up in there!”

She smiled that terrifying smile. “And wouldn’t you make a fine dinner then? But it doesn’t work like that.”

With a crash of breaking glass and a rattling of chains, Spot leapt through the window, throwing the old lady onto the floor. And still, Izbouchka kept running.

Spot came for me. I fell more than dodged out of her way. The old lady lifted her head. The side of her face was bruised. “You have to trust me! Into the stove, or die!”

Spot snapped at me, got only the hem of my blouse. I pulled away, did a running crawl over to the stove. It was roaring full on. Either way, I was going to die.

I leapt in.

“
So after that, Brer Fox was fed up with Brer Rabbit’s prancing and capering, and he figured he’d get him some revenge.”

“After what?” I asked Mom. I was in the bed I’d had as a little girl, with the covers pulled up to my chin, only I wasn’t little. I was my sixteen-year-old self.

“Tell the thing the right way,” muttered Dad. “Where I come from, is Brer Tiger and Brer ’Nansi, not Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit.”

“I’m not from where you’re from,” Mom pointed out. It was true, too. She came from Chicago, from what she jokingly called “Up South” because of all the black people from the American South that had migrated there, looking for work. That’s where her folks had come from.

Dad and Mom were sitting on the bed beside me. They didn’t seem to notice that I was grown and my feet were hanging over the edge of the bed. My feet hurt, and for some reason
I didn’t want to know what was hiding behind me, shielded by the pink composition board headboard.

Dad scowled and massaged his knee.

“Does it hurt, Daddy?”

He looked at me as though he’d forgotten I was there. He smiled. “Little bit. The doctors say they will fix me up good as new.” He’d balanced his cane on the wall where the head of my bed was. It had a black rubber tip, and a set of metal things like teeth you could clamp onto the tip, so the cane wouldn’t slip when it was icy. I avoided looking at the toothy black rubber.

Mom brushed some hair back from my forehead. She’d braided my hair into two big plaits to keep it from getting tangled during the night. “Am I telling her this bedtime story or not?” she asked Dad.

“You don’t hear the child asking you how the story begin?” he said irritably.

Mom was watching Dad’s hand rubbing his knee. She took a breath and calmly replied, “I don’t know that part. Did you take your painkiller?”

Dad pressed his lips together and stared at the ground. I actually did want to know what was behind me. I could sense it looming, getting closer. I needed to turn and look at it. But looking at it would make it real, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Dad said, “Brer Tiger had a patch where he plant some peas. He tell Anansi to watch over them for him. But all the while Anansi was the watchman, it was him-one stealing the peas and eating them. Fulling up his belly with Brer Tiger’s peas.”

Mom smiled. “Every morning when Brer Fox—”

“Brer Tiger,” said Dad.

“. . . when Brer Fox came to the”—she gave Dad a questioning look—“peas patch?”

Dad nodded.

Mom continued, “Every morning, there were more peas missing. And that wicked old Brer Rabbit, he swore up and down that he’d watched over the peas all night but he hadn’t seen a thing.”

Dad said, “Brer Tiger—that is to say, Brer Fox—make up him mind him was going to catch that peas thief if is the last thing him do ’pon this earth.”

Mom said, “Brer Fox, he sat himself down under a big old sycamore tree, and he thought and he thought. He thought till the sweat ran down his brow. And finally he came up with a plan. He got himself some tar—”

“And a stump.”

Mom looked confused. Dad said, “A stump was sticking up out of the ground in him peas patch.”

Mom nodded. “All right, then. A stump. Brer Fox smeared that tar all over that stump, and he carved it into—”

Together, Mom and Dad said, “. . . a tar baby!” They looked at each other and laughed. Ignoring the thing looming behind me, I snuggled uneasily down beneath the blankets. Looked like it was going to be a story after all, even if a mixed-up kind of story.

Dad took a turn. “So next morning, now—”

“Don’t forget the hat,” Mom told him.

“Hat?”

“Brer Fox put a big straw hat on that tar baby’s head, so it wouldn’t melt away in the sun.”

Dad nodded. “Makes sense. So next morning, now, Brer Rabbit—”

“Brer Anansi,” Mom cut in. “I think I like that better.”

Dad chuckled. “Brer ’Nansi march himself over to Brer Fox peas patch, and him spy the tar baby.”

“But Dad,” I piped up, “wasn’t Brer ’Nansi supposed to be in the peas patch already, watching the peas?”

Dad looked at Mom. Mom looked at Dad. They both shrugged.

“When you tell your version of the story,” Dad said to me, “you can figure out that part.”

“Okay.” Was that a snuffing, snuffling sound from behind me? My parents were acting as though we were the only three in the room. I tried to turn my head to look behind me, but I couldn’t make myself do it. My neck muscles refused to work.

“Now, Anansi is a liard son of a so-and-so, but him have manners. So when him see the tar baby, him say, ‘Morning, Sister. How do?’ But the tar baby never answer him.”

Mom tucked the covers up under my chin. “Brer Anansi tried again. He said, ‘Nice weather we’re having.’ But the tar baby said not one word. Now Brer Anansi was getting mad.”

Dad straightened his leg out, grimaced, but continued, “Brer ’Nansi think say maybe a-deaf the tar baby deaf. So him shout, ‘HOW DO, SISTER?’ The tar baby never answer him.”

“Brer Anansi had good and lost his temper now. He said, ‘I just can’t stand no-count, stuck-up people! You mind your manners and give me a decent Howdy-do or you’re going to get such a licking!’ But the tar baby just sat there.”

“So Brer Anansi, he clap him one hand against the side of the tar baby face, braps! And him hand fasten.”

“He hit a girl?” I asked. My mouth was moving, saying the right things. My face probably looked calm. But my skin was crawling with the need to turn around, to kneel and look over the headboard and confront the horror on the other side.

Mom cut in. “Brer Anansi said, ‘Lemme go, or I’ll hit you again!’ The tar baby ignored him. So he took his other hand and smacked that tar baby upside the other side of its head. His other hand stuck fast.”

“Anansi say, ‘Oh, yes? I bet you I kick you!’ Him kick the tar baby one time, two time, and both him feet fasten. Him say, ‘You think because you fasten my hand and my foot, I can’t teach you a lesson? I bet you I buck you!’”

“Brer Anansi,” said Mom, “he butted that tar baby with his head as hard as he could. And what do you figure happened?”

“His head stuck, too!” I said, my mouth chortling with glee, my head straining to turn. I could ask my folks to look back there for me, to vanquish the thing, to save me. But only the expected words came out of my mouth.

Mom leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Exactly. So there he was, stuck fast to the tar
baby, couldn’t move any more than a snake can grow legs and walk. And nothing to do but wait there until Brer Fox came by.”

Dad kissed me, too. “Good night, Sojourner. Sleep well.” He leaned over and got his cane.

“But what happened to Brer Rab—I mean Brer Anansi? Did he get away before Brer Fox came back?” Or was it Brer Tiger, I wondered? Whatever. I needed them to stay with me, couldn’t they see that?

Dad groaned to his feet. “That’s a story for another day. We’ll finish it tomorrow night.”

I pouted, but said, “Oh, okay.” I knew better than to argue with Mom or Dad.

Mom turned out the light as they left. Before they got out of earshot, I heard her say, “Cutty, why are you so stubborn? Why won’t you take the damned painkillers?”

I never heard Dad’s reply. I wanted to be in the story they were telling me. I wanted to be lying in the warm grass in the summer-sunny peas patch, watching Brer Anansi struggle to free himself from the tar baby.

I heard the smallest sound from behind the headboard, like
the rustle of a mouse. But something much, much bigger had made that sound. I took a deep breath in to scream

. . . and I hit the ground rolling. I came up coughing and spluttering. My mouth and nose were full of dust. I choked and gagged on it. A whooping sound came from my throat as I desperately tried to get air instead of dirt. It was hot dirt. It burned going down into my lungs. It
hurt
. I opened my eyes. Mistake. Grit flew into both eyes. I snapped them shut against the scraping sting of it. I sat up, still choking. With my fingers, I did my best to sweep dust out of my mouth. I spent the next few minutes hacking and spitting up dust, and blinking as much of it out of my eyes as I could. As far as I could see, Spot hadn’t followed me. But I couldn’t see much.

I was alive. No third-degree burns. Or would it be fourth-degree burns, now that I had an extra layer of skin? Whatever. There was fog all around me, so thick I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. Just as well. I wasn’t liking looking at me right now. It was like being completely wrapped in a flannel blanket. Cautiously, I put a hand onto the ground I was sitting on. It felt like soil, crumbly between my fingers. I swept my hands through the air all around me. Nothing. My heart was trying to slam through my chest wall; boom boomboom boom. I tried for deep breaths to calm it down, got more fine dirt for my trouble. I had to get the coughing under control. Didn’t know what might come following the sound.

Where was I? The old witch had said I should trust her. Well, at least I wasn’t crisping in her stove like bacon.

Except . . . that smell. Kinda smoky. It wasn’t dirt getting everywhere, it was ash! Was I still in her stove? Had she magically instantly cooled it down so that I wouldn’t burn? Who knew? Who knew anything for sure today?

The ash I’d kicked up was settling. It was getting a little easier to see. From the gentle breeze on my face, I figured I was outdoors. Vague shadows off in the distance, maybe buildings and trees. Was I back in High Park? If so, what had happened to it?

There came a soft hissing sound. Then a rumble I could feel in my bones, then a crack of thunder. Wherever I was, there was going to be a rainstorm, soon. The ground under me was pleasantly warm. It radiated heat that I could feel even through my new skin.

The cramped ache of my feet was getting to me. I leaned over and pulled my boots off. My feet were hideous, but I couldn’t stand the burning pain from the too-small boots a second longer. OMG my toes felt so good not being bunched up anymore! Why hadn’t I done that before now? I wiggled my toes on the warm ground. Ash sifted over them, dusting them to gray.

There was that rumble under my feet again. And more thunder. I stood. I was on an incline, a steep one. I looked up. An ash cloud bubbled above me, curling in on itself and expanding at the same time. It looked miles high. For a few seconds I just stared into the roiling mass of it, too awed to do anything else. The volcano cloud hadn’t come this low over the city before.