The Storycatcher (3 page)

I started to tell Miss Mary Beth Clark to go graze on the marsh grass—that ought to be light enough—but I pulled them words right back before they got out. “I’m cooking some fresh crab with red beans and rice. Maybe some of my greens too. It’s a recipe from the island.” I smiled real sweet at Miss Marsh Grass.

“Sounds like a good meal!” Mr. Benton whooped. “Her crab is astounding.”

The wind kicked up, tossing the tree limbs draped in moss. The clouds gathered across the sky. I needed to go get the fresh crab before the rain.

Miss Mary Beth Clark stared out at the marshes with a worried look on that perky face. “Those clouds are dark.”

“We got a storm coming our way. This morning was an ebb tide.”

Miss Mary Beth shook off a shiver. “I want to explore the house.” Then she turned to me. “Where will you sleep?”

“I’ll be spending the nights in town and back in the mornings.” Great-aunt Hattie always let me stay with her when I was on the mainland. There was just so much I could stomach of white folks before I got purely sick of them. “And I go to the island on Fridays and come back on Mondays. You’ll have to fend for yourselves.”

Mr. Benton grinned like he knew some big old secret. “Lou here, like all the help, is afraid to be at the Ridge after dark. Tyson warned me they’re afraid of a ghost who prowls the area.” He laughed like Miss Mary Beth Clark and him was the same color, like she didn’t have stories. The woman spirit stood right next to her and him, watching every move they made.

“You’d be surprised what be real around here, Mr. Benton.” I tried to keep the pure hate out of my words.

Miss Mary Beth Clark raised her eyebrows at me. “Sounds like some of the stories my grandmother told when I was a child.” She looked over at Mr. Benton, and in that look, I could see she didn’t care for him no more than I did. This was the same look coloreds used to speak to each other without being heard. The girl came from a family that taught her right, even if she was trying to outrun them.

“Come on. This is a grand place. Been in Tyson’s family forever.” He guided Miss Mary Beth Clark through the kitchen. The last thing I wanted was that woman prowling through Mr. Tyson’s house.

Once I was alone, I turned to the old woman spirit. “What you
doing here? Mr. Tyson ain’t done nothing to you or anyone. He be a good man and don’t need your trouble.”

“You right about him. I’m here for my own reasons.” She pointed her head at the kitchen door.

“I don’t want to know. Leave me out of it.” I grabbed my crab basket.

“Now, that little old girl has a story that needs fixing. Poison, pure poison. Ain’t nothing like a young’un that shuns her family and takes things that don’t belong to her.”

“Don’t tell me. I just cook and clean. I don’t want to know one thing. I got to be here for two weeks, and then they’re gone and out of my mind.”

The old woman cackled. “You ain’t never going to forget those two, girl. I be talking to you some more. You got to listen whether it suits you or not.” She walked right through the kitchen wall. The thick, gray clouds moved over the Ridge.

THAT EVENING AUNT HATTIE
met me at the door. No one really knew how old she was, but it was old, probably close to ninety. In her hands was a little lacy handkerchief. “Something is about to happen. It’s in this storm.” The rain pelted her tin roof, and this made her shout. “It’s been whispering in my ear all day. Tide be high tonight, way too high.”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “I saw the old woman spirit out at the Ridge in the daylight. It’s about them folks that come to town, not any of us.” I didn’t dare tell her the old woman’s last words.

“Lordy, you seen the old woman in the daytime? It’s got to be bad.” She led me into her small, tidy house made of tabby. “That ain’t good, even if you got sight, child.”

“The old woman spirit is here to tell the colored mistress’s story. That’s all. That little prissy sure has that ghost stirred up.”

“Did you warn her?” Aunt Hattie gave me some of her Russian tea. The fresh orange flavor was the best in weather like we was having. I was right content to sit there all evening listening to the rain.

“What good would it do? She done looked down her nose at me. She’s way too smart and fancy for the likes of a cook who knows some root and lives on Sapelo. The spirit said something about her not owning up to her family and stealing.”

Aunt Hattie nodded. “You know she’s got a name.”

“What you know about the spirit, Aunt Hattie?”

“Not much. Mama said her name was Emmaline and she was a slave here in Darien. That’s all.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“No reason. Now, you just don’t get caught up in it.”

“What’s for supper?”

“That nice Roger of yours brought me a mess of crawdads, said you loved them best in white sauce. I boiled them in the stuff.”

“My mouth is a-watering.”

ONE MINUTE EVERYTHING
is scooting along in happiness, and then a big, fat gator comes slithering through the water and flips over the boat, upsetting the whole balance. But one would have to believe life held a balance. That’s exactly what happened that rainy night while I slept away. Aunt Hattie and me heard a pounding on the door. We busted into the hall at the same time, ’cause there wasn’t nobody who would come calling at midnight.

I’ll always remember the sweet moment of peace, of life as it should be, with only those little problems that take up people’s time.

Douglas, a man who worked for Roger, stepped in the door. He took off his cap, wet from the rain, and twisted it in his hands. Little drops of water fell on Aunt Hattie’s fine hand-me-down rug, seeping into the rose pattern. The wind lashed the trees outside. “I’m awful sorry, Miss Hattie, for bothering you so late, but I got some bad news for her.” His look landed on me.

My mouth went dry. I was actually thinking maybe he was there because of Aunt Hattie’s son, who had never been right in the head
and took out wandering a couple of years before. My stomach turned sick.

“Spit it out,” Aunt Hattie fussed.

“It’s Roger, ma’am.” He finally looked away and studied his cap.

A dark shadow pulled at me. “What?”

“Roger wanted to catch you before you headed on out for the night. He had a nice big basket of shrimp that could be cooked for their dinner tomorrow.” Douglas shook his head like he was trying not to remember. “Roger took himself right up to Mr. Tyson’s door, and that would’ve been fine except that crazy man from New York City was there. I don’t know what Roger was thinking, having a talk with that colored woman like she be one of us. That Yankee had Roger put in jail for trying to have his way with her.” Douglas passed his hand over his face. “The deputy came and took Roger right off of
Sweet Jesse
.”

I couldn’t get a breath.

“A mob of white men took him from the jail. I was right there, and that deputy didn’t do much of nothing. Oh, he threatened, but he didn’t even draw his gun. I tried to tell them they was wrong, but they just hit me in the head.” He lifted his hand to his forehead, and I noticed the lump on his hairline. “These white men be crazy and don’t give a hoot about justice. Everybody in Darien knows what kind of man Roger is. There’s talk this was the KKK ’cause someone was complaining over Roger having big catches. Said he’s grown too uppity. I’m afraid for Roger, ma’am.”

That bunch of words rattled around in my head like a bag of bones. The bottom let out of the sky just as I thought it couldn’t rain any harder. My heart beat in my head, thump, thump, thump. My blood was pure ice. “A mob? Mr. Benton’s mistress? KKK?” I looked around the room like I’d find Roger standing there. “I’m going to kill me Mr. Benton and that Miss Mary Beth Clark just for good measure.” The words came out like I was slicing away at the air.

“You hush, now.” Aunt Hattie tugged at my arm. “That talk will
only get you in a heap of trouble. That be a white man from New York City. You can’t talk like that.”

A deep sorrow tangled with crazy rage formed around my heart. Emmaline, the old woman spirit, was behind this.

“Let’s go to church. Folks will meet. We’ll figure out what to do.” Aunt Hattie pushed me to the door. I grabbed my coat from the fancy hall tree some white woman passed on to Aunt Hattie. I was still wearing my nightgown. The rain fell in sheets. But this wasn’t the worst of the storm. Roger always believed that the ocean was a woman to be treated with complete respect. That showed how good he was. Now the sea was throwing a fit.

“I got my truck,” Douglas offered. “I’ll take you to St. Cyprain.” The Episcopal church was one of the oldest in those parts, the first colored church to start up after the emancipation. The slaves had been taught white folks’ ways, but when they started their own church, they mixed in some of the old beliefs. Me, I didn’t have one bit of use for a white church. I’d seen too many so-called good folks use the cross to hide their judging, hateful ways. I prayed on the beach. That was the best church in the world.

The lights from St. Cyprain spilled out the double doors into the rain like the lighthouse on St. Simons; the bright yellow glow cutting through the storm, offering help to those in trouble. Inside the church, folks was milling around. All of them buzzing at the same time. Was there something they could do to help? Could they save Roger—such a fine man—from a crowd of determined white men? All the people in that part of the county knew of Roger and his hard work. My heart settled in my chest. A tiny sliver of hope rested on my shoulders. Those men couldn’t punish Roger for something he hadn’t done. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t just. The mistake would sit with them forever if they did. All that mess was just a bad dream, waiting to be shooed away by the morning light. I went over to stand by the wall.

A bunch of voices, louder than the others, began at the door and spread across the church, moving through the crowd like a wave rolling
into shore. Mark Tinker’s sister, Halo, wiped at her eyes and came running at me. “Lord!” she screamed. “Lord have mercy, girl!”

My look settled on her.

“They shot him on the way to Savannah on Highway 17. Right there in the middle of the road. They done killed him. They didn’t even try to hide their intentions. Like he was bad and not worth the effort.” She gripped my wrist with her thick fingers.

Her words turned my heart to ice and something broke inside me. Something cold and hard. I yanked my arm back, turned, and walked out the door into the night. It was like my life was being told in a different way, a way not intended.

“You get back in here!” Aunt Hattie used that voice she always used on me when I was a little thing and took off mad at the world. My heart was dead. I died with Roger.

“Let the girl be. She needs to mourn. She loved him best of all.” This was old Harper’s voice, the voice of a newfound truth.

I wandered in the hard rain without looking, without thinking. Emmaline walked out of a big twisted oak, and for a minute she looked part of the gray moss swinging wildly. It was like our souls were set for the same purpose. I followed her.

FUNNY THING ABOUT BAD STORMS,
they leave their mark and then they’re gone. This storm—no one would ever remember—touched us with its fingers, moved up the coast, and then swung inland across the North Carolina mountains, where it stirred up some more trouble.

When I woke up in Aunt Hattie’s extra bed the next morning, the sun stretched across the room, beating on my body. Another hot day. And just like on any other morning, for a minute I wanted to live in that time before my feet hit the floor to go to work. A shadow hung in my mind, but I didn’t want any part of it. Then I thought of Emmaline, her magic, the way she took a story and turned it inside out. The way she made me follow her.

Aunt Hattie flung the door open and looked more ruffled than I’d ever seen her. “You going home now. Get up! I got you a ride back to the island. You ain’t got much time.” She looked into my soul with them watery brown eyes that was fading to hazel as she grew to meet death. “Don’t be coming back here anytime soon. Understand? We ain’t losing you too.” She put my clothes in my hands. My gown was gone. I wore some old housedress of hers. “They won’t bother with Sapelo. They be too scared of stories and that Mr. Reynolds to do that.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t go nowhere until I let Mr. Benton know I won’t be back, not that he should get my respect. But I want to look him in the eyes and tell him what he caused.” The pain stuck under my rib and grew worse like I’d eaten some bad fish. See, some things are too bad for a mind to handle. Mine had shut out most of the night.

Aunt Hattie watched me close for a minute. “She got you, didn’t she?”

“Who?” Some soft scream built in my head.

“You know who. Emmaline, the old woman spirit. Don’t play dumb with me. Somebody killed that Yankee man and his woman. They don’t know what happened up there, only that it’s a bloody mess. What you know about that?”

I looked away as the pain moved down into my stomach. I couldn’t remember what happened after I met up with Emmaline, only that she took me to that house.

“Roger be dead too, child. You can’t change that.” Her words sat there between us.

“I don’t want him to be.”

“You hush, now,” Aunt Hattie whispered. “Get on out of here. Douglas has you a ride back.”

I pulled my black shift over my head. The world outside the window had come out of the night all fresh and clean. Water drops hung on the leaves.

“Go on, now, before I start believing you didn’t have nothing to do
with that mess. If anyone asks you, you be right here with me all night, crying your eyes out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She put her hand on her hips. “Right now the police is asking all kinds of questions. I just pray Emmaline didn’t work through you. The police be saying Roger was innocent all along ’cause of what happen to that Yankee man and his girlfriend. That’s what the chief is thinking, anyway.” Aunt Hattie handed me her Bible. “You read on that. Keep your mind clean. Get some good root on the island to wash that Emmaline away. Stay there until this mess is over.”