Chicago, 1911
Stumbling out the back door of George’s house, Aidan snorted bad air. The Chicago night stank, even after smelling it for a year. A lot of bluster and too many factories farting poison, too much meat rotting on the hoof—Aidan wished he could close his nose with a lid against the stench.
“We’re not really related.” Thirteen-year-old Frank sneered at Iris. Wearing long breeches, a fancy hat, and Sunday-going-to-meeting shoes on Tuesday, he swaggered through lilacs, smacking plump blossoms.
Iris tugged an ill-fitting dress. “Everybody’s related!” She stomped her feet, splattering him with dirt and worms. “That’s what it means to be alive. Master of Breath give everybody a piece of spirit…”
“Good grief! My real father would have a proper lady for a sister, not some backcountry fool full of superstition and lies!” Frank shoved her.
Iris shoved back. “Biology ain’t lies. Mr. Darwin say everybody be in the human race together.”
“What do you know? You can’t even speak properly.” Frank took off at Aidan’s approach.
Aidan squeezed her shoulders. “How ’bout a story or a song tonight?”
“I’m too tuckered out from school.”
“I’ll only be a minute in the shed.” He banged it open. “You too tired to listen?”
“They make fun of you too.” Iris bounded over George’s vegetables and slammed the kitchen door.
“Damn it!” Aidan hoisted the chair he’d made for Clarissa. Hurrying out the shed, he stumbled over boxes, tools, and a rolled-up Persian rug—a present from Prince Anoushiravan who was riding the rail to California and everywhere else. Thinking of all that open country, Aidan was jealous. “Good for him.”
Aidan rubbed a bruised thigh. Never enough room to move in Chicago. Always so many stacks of this and that; so many shopkeepers, factory workers, hucksters, and day laborers; too many trolleys and autos coming and going, speeding to nowhere. Funny languages shouted at you, weird faces screwed up in disgust or god knows what. Folk pressed together too tight, but nobody touching. Aidan couldn’t hardly stand it. Walter Jumping Bear told him he’d get used to it soon enough. That was several months ago. Soon didn’t seem to be coming.
“Watch where you’re going, Chief!” George shouted.
Aidan halted by a patch of kale. “You the one tramping in the flowers.”
George snorted and stalked from the lily of the valley on into the street. He was working late tonight, again.
Aidan set the new chair in the kitchen. Clarissa broke into a smile. “Why, you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.” She squeezed Aidan’s hand. “I’m surprising George with a late supper. Man won’t stop to eat otherwise.” She dashed off.
Aidan trudged toward Redwood’s back parlor room. After making a fool of hisself in front the camera all day, he was stiff and aching, like he’d been behind a plow, breaking rock-hard soil. Redwood was in Clarissa’s modern bathroom, soaking in a tub after finally hunting down a show that would have her. Months of begging, and it was just more darky wench and chicken foolishness—made Aidan want to spit and cuss. Redwood had Iris laughing at Saeed playing an ornery mule and even got a harmony out of her on a show tune. Aidan was jealous. Cooning didn’t tarnish Red’s spirit and Iris was too shy, too something to sing with him anymore.
He switched on the electric light and caught hisself grinning, hair blowing in the wind. Doc’s drawings hung over Redwood’s writing desk now. She insisted Aidan looked every bit a dashing moving picture star. Indeed, Mr. Payne was so pleased with his work onscreen, he’d lined up a string of wild Injun projects. “A handsome savage is better than an ugly one,” Payne declared. “Women are swooning for you. A secret, naughty thrill in a dark theatre.”
Aidan’s stomach churned. He wished the pay was as good for real life as it was for fantasy. He slumped on the floor by the bed, his head empty and his heart heavy. No denying the money in his pockets, and surely he wouldn’t be doing naughty Injun thrills forever. Doing it at all, though, and living in George’s house was worse than taking nasty medicine ten times a day. George hadn’t said more than three civil words to Aidan since he arrived last year, and that was only due to Clarissa’s prodding. Good thing the man was always out making deals and hardly home, or he and Aidan might have come to blows and killed each other by now.
“Yes, God is very good, but never dance in a small boat.” Aidan spoke Aislinn’s warning out loud, enjoying his mama’s Irish wit, even as worry hit him. All the mess he and Redwood had to put up with, Iris too, and still he didn’t see how they’d ever make a motion picture play. And how would they break the curses trailing them from Georgia? Batting these doubts away, Aidan banged into Redwood’s newspaper collection stacked by the bed. A New York Times article tumbled into his lap:
MARTIANS BUILD TWO IMMENSE CANALS IN TWO YEARS
VAST ENGINEERING WORKS ACCOMPLISHED IN AN INCREDIBLY SHORT TIME BY OUR PLANETARY NEIGHBORS WONDERS OF THE SEPTEMBER SKY.
Staring at photos of a balding Professor Percival Lowell, his Flagstaff Observatory, and Martian canal drawings, Aidan wondered what Doc would make of Martians and their engineering genius. Aidan’s nerves tingled thinking on some stringy body grown tall in shallow gravity walking on the red soil of the evening star, looking over to Earth, and maybe wondering ’bout the folks living ’cross the sky. Did Earth look blue like the sky? Or green like the forests? Or maybe you couldn’t see none of that when you were so far away? Maybe it was just a sparkly grey pebble in the sky.
He leaned into the pillows and caught a whiff of lily of the valley, rosemary oil, and Redwood’s sweet scent. He spied his old pistol next to Garnett’s music box on the nightstand. The gun was clean, but empty. He smiled. Redwood said it brought her good luck, long as there weren’t bullets to tempt her. Aidan picked up the music box. The false bottom came undone and money fell onto the bed. Aidan whistled, fingering tight bundles of bills. All they’d been doing for the past year was chasing a paycheck; he’d hardly found time to think, to keep counsel with hisself. The Martians tickled his fancy. He dug up a fountain pen and his red leather journal to ponder visitors from another world. Flipping to blank pages, he came upon the envelope from Caroline Williams to Jerome and his wife.
“Oh hell!” Aidan dropped it and bolted up. He’d forgotten this damned letter.
He peered down the hall. Nobody in sight and the house was still. The nanny had gone home early to call on her ailing grandmama. The children were asleep. Redwood was still singing in the tub with Iris, sounding good too. Satisfied he had a few moments alone, Aidan tore the envelope open. Unfolding the letter, ten one-hundred-dollar gold certificates drifted to the bed. A fortune!
“Blood money.” Miz Williams truly trusted Aidan to be a good man, to do right. “That’s harder than you think, ma’am.” He glanced at her stiff handwriting:
Dear Jerome,
I’m sure you must have a family by now and need money but you’re just too proud to say. I don’t want to know where you are, but Mr. Cooper has been good enough to deliver this to you and your wife. Of course I don’t approve of what you’re doing, and frankly I don’t know why any woman in her right mind would have you, even a colored one. But I am your mother. You are my eldest son and I love you.
Aidan crumpled the paper before reading the last lines. Promising to deliver this was a kindness to an old woman grieving her son. But he didn’t need more of the past to come spooking him like an angry haint. He grabbed a match from the mantel and set the letter on fire.
“What you doing?” Redwood said from the doorway as flames flared up. She cinched one of Clarissa’s elegant robes tight. Curls of hair hanging ’round her face got tighter in the moist air.
He tossed the burning paper into the fireplace. “I need to fix the hinge on your mama’s box,” he said. “Thought I’d add some money to what you got saved.”
“Quite a stake you handing over.” She inspected a gold certificate. “I ain’t for sale, you know.”
“Why you say something like that to me?”
“I don’t know. I feel mean.” She dropped the money. “I done lost my magic. I used to be—”
“You still are. Think on baby Violet.”
“Don’t tell me who I am.”
“I can’t say nothing right to you.”
“Power ain’t magic.” She put the money back in the bottom of the box. “We got to raise five times what’s here, even with your gold.” She sounded weary. “You so cold you need a fire? Close the window. I like the air is all, don’t need it open.”
“Air is fine by me.”
“George say I ought to put my money in a bank and get interest.”
“George always know how to make the most out of whatever you got.”
“Chicago’s hardly a Midway Fair of dreams.”
“A dream ain’t a place to go to; it’s what you do.”
Redwood had lightning in her eyes and tears, yet half a smile curved her lips. “Ain’t that the truth?” Shimmy-shaking, she grabbed Aidan’s hand.
“What you up to?”
She danced him ’cross the room, bumping into furniture and books. The silky white robe billowed against her damp thighs like clouds passing in the night. Suddenly the walls fell away and the ceiling was gone. A dark new moon loomed above them, a dusky gray disk in inky black. Beyond that was more stars than Aidan had ever imagined. Not just shiny white specks, but spirals of brilliant color too. He and Redwood spun ’round, and a bright blue ball with swirls of white and splotches of brown filled up the dark. Aidan laughed, but there was no sound, just cold filling his lungs, turning his eyes to ice. Redwood stomped against the floor. Aidan looked down at her feet and then up. A flying serpent dashed through the Milky Way, fluttered its wings and settled into the painted ceiling over their heads.
“What you do?” Aidan gasped warm air.
“Ain’t just me.” Redwood poked him. “It’s what we do together. I don’t even know how.”
“Better than a hot-air balloon.” He gathered his magic, wild woman in his arms.
She leaned into him, damp and soft and smooth from the bath. Her heart was racing. Her breath was cold. “It’s only a ride though.” She pulled away and sat down, a heavy weight, sinking into the mattress. He sat next to her and stroked her face. She closed her eyes on his hand. “Where we goin’ find five, six thousand dollars, ’less we both keep cooning?”
He bowed his head, shamed of his own doubt and worry. “It ain’t no easy spell conjuring this moving picture, but you ain’t thinking ’bout giving up, are you?”
“Now why would I be doing that?” Redwood eased her face from his hand. “Sometimes, I feel far away from myself is all.”
He clenched his jaw. Jerome’s dead eyes flickered in the fire. Aidan walked to the window seat, closed the shutters, and curled up in the cushions there.
“Ain’t just what Jerome done to me, you know.” Redwood read his thoughts. “It’s also what I did—”
“What kind of foolishness is that? I won’t listen to you talk yourself down!” He threw what she used to tell him back at her. “You did what you had to do!”
“You don’t understand.”
“Naw, I don’t agree with you! That’s different.”
She shook her head and said no more. He was bone tired, too weary to fight with her. The deep breath of sleep claimed him quickly.
Redwood snuck out the back door; her skin was itchy, her blood heavy, her heart raw and achy. The lioness clawed her side and golden eyes went dark. Redwood groaned and dashed ’cross slippery cobblestones. She passed some fool humming Running won’t set you free. “Well damn it,” she tried cussing like Aidan. “What the hell will?” Foul language just made her feel worse. She ran faster.
Clarissa would’ve said Redwood was being too dramatic, too histrionic, but this was no vaudeville act. Since the lioness died in her arms, since Aidan, and Iris too, hit Chicago town, she couldn’t pretend she was fine when she wasn’t. Redwood needed to find someone to take the trick off her body. Even a powerful conjure woman couldn’t pull her own pain. But from a little girl, Redwood hated asking anybody for help. When she was beloved by the spirit in everything, help just came to her. Now she’d have to pay for it …
Redwood hurried through a dark alley in Chicago’s Black Belt. She stopped at the sound of gravel crunching under boot heels and turned. Nobody. Shadows wavered in the wind. Curtains blew through tight little windows. Scraggly trees swept crooked branches against the brick backs of tenement buildings. Whoever was following her could disappear in the middle of an empty street.
“Show yourself,” she shouted.
Pigeons cooed in a chorus and swooped to a tangle of wires above her.
It was late. Aidan was sleeping like the dead, Iris and the other children too. Redwood had left George and Clarissa rocking their springs and groaning ’bout how much they love one another. If it wasn’t any of them on her tail, she didn’t know who it could be. Everybody else usually know better than to chase after her. Even bad men didn’t bother Redwood Phipps, with thunder and storm on her heels.
“What you after?” she asked the darkness. “Man touch me against my will, end up dead.” Perhaps she heard a startled breath. “I don’t want to go where I’m going. You shouldn’t either.” She pulled her Persian robe tight against her ribs and sped on.
Winona Dupree claim she was a New Orleans mambo—a Vodou priestess bringing good fortune and health to those who come to her with harsh troubles and a heavy purse. Rich colored women who secretly held to the old ways were happy to buy gris-gris charms from Mambo Dupree. She had fair skin and straight white hair and made sure everyone knew she was a quadroon: colored, Indian, French, and Spanish. Clarissa had bought charms from her to hold George and cross his other women. How could Redwood be running to her?
The Dupree house was rude-looking on the outside—peeling paint, rotten wood, and tipping to the right, but inside the front gate, altars to the Loa, the Vodou spirit-deities, made everybody tremble with fear and respect. Sacred charms were etched on the walls and ground: skulls and bones; fire, water, and lightning shapes; crossroad signs; and serpents circling the tree of life. Miz Subie called these vèvés—spells to call down Vodou spirits.
Redwood lifted the brass knocker but hesitated. She set it down softly and backed away. Too late to escape. The door screeched as rusty hinges protested a late-night visit. Mambo Dupree thrust a candle in her eyes.
“As I live and breathe, Redwood Phipps at my door.”
Mambo Dupree wore white robes and carried a bowl of bright-colored flowers. Spicy incense and heavy perfume made Redwood woozy. In the hallway behind her, paintings of the Loa, of sweet Haitian saints and dark-tempered tricksters, danced in the flickering candlelight. These figures, with swords through their hearts and skulls on their hats, laughed in Redwood’s startled face. Snakes wiggled at the Loa’s feet and ’round their necks. A crown of fire sat on a woman’s head and did not burn her.
“What you want of this Vodou queen?” Mambo Dupree didn’t invite Redwood in. Who could blame her? It was no secret that Redwood spoke against selling charms to cross an enemy or a rival.
“I gotta talk to somebody.” Redwood had written Miz Subie ten letters since Aidan and Iris come up, telling all her troubles and woe. She was too ashamed to send even one.
“Sneaking here late, ain’t even a moon to see you by.”
“That was the idea.” No use denying truth.
“A man murdered three women yesterday at the end of this street.” As Mambo Dupree spoke, the spirits settled back into the walls. “You must be desperate to walk danger. Has the baron been chasing you, or just a spirit of the dead?”
“I got a trick on my body won’t let me find love.”
Mambo Dupree looked her up and down. “I ain’t surprised at that.”
“Can you do a body healing? Or are you just a flimflam snake-oil woman?”
“Rude gal! Why you at my door, if you don’t believe?”
Redwood had swallowed her pride, not her good sense. “I—”
“You hate asking for help, don’t you?” Mambo Dupree sniffed her flowers as Redwood squirmed. “You have plenty magic, me only a little bit.”
“What you mean?”
“You a busy conjure woman, up onstage every night, telling one lie after the other, and people pay you plenty.” Mambo Dupree waved the candle ’round Redwood’s face. “You mad over the dimes I earn?” Clarissa’s friends complained of the price they had to pay, but they always seemed eager to keep going back.
“Dimes? Not what I heard.” Redwood had come with a sack of money, stolen from their motion picture stash.
“Rich ladies like to exaggerate.” Mambo Dupree smiled purple-stained teeth. “Make bitter medicine taste better.”
“What proof that you won’t take my money and give me foolishness, but no cure?”
“All right, for proof, I’ll give you the cure for free.”
“Free?” Redwood grunted. “Okay.”
Mambo Dupree roared a good laugh. “What you can’t respect ain’t goin’ help you, gal. Don’t let your life be ruled by what you fear.” She slammed the door in Redwood’s face. On the ground was a doll with pins stuck in its wooly head. Redwood snatched it up. Mambo Dupree sold these to fools who wanted to hurt their enemies.
“Give ’em dolls to prick,” Miz Subie said once ’bout Vodou gris-gris, “better than sticking knives in somebody’s gut.”
As Redwood put the doll in her bag, a shadow slipped into a doorway beside the Dupree house. Bright eyes flashed. “Who is that? Iris?” No answer came but Redwood could feel Baby Sister. She was spooky like Mama, there and not there at the same time. “Searching for a cure like a thief in the night, what do I expect?” She shoved a few bills under Mambo Dupree’s door and headed home.
Redwood tiptoed into the back parlor. Aidan was still on the window seat, snoring. She was cold and damp and felt ridiculous holding the bedraggled Vodou doll. Its hair was falling out and a button eye was missing. Vodou was close kin to hoodoo, but it was a religion she didn’t practice. So, what did she believe?
Aidan shivered and fussed as if a chill had entered his dream. Redwood threw a blanket over him. Startled, he opened his eyes. “What?” he said sleepily.
“Maybe we could work up a show for the Ace of Spades Hotel,” she said. “Find routines for your new songs.”
“Sure.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “When I ain’t dead tired and half asleep.”
“And I can show you and Iris the Chicago sights, like I promised.”
“I know you been busy…” He was snoring again.
Redwood sat over him through the night.
It was weeks before Aidan would agree to play music at Saeed’s. Then the trolley was on the blink and that was just the excuse he needed to back out. Iris raced into the front hall as he was hemming and hawing with Redwood.
“I don’t want to go!” She gripped Aidan’s arm, hanging on to him like a child.
“We’re not having this argument,” Redwood said.
Iris whispered in Aidan’s ear. “I’ve read more than any of them teachers, but since I don’t agree with ’em, they say I’m stupid.”
“They’re jealous,” Aidan muttered. “You just gotta go and stick up for yourself.”
“Georgia’s in my mouth. Nothing else matters.” Her dress had a rip at the hem.
“You been fighting too?” he said.
“The other kids started it.” Iris pouted. “I hate going there.”
Redwood lifted an eyebrow at Aidan like this was all his fault. “What you got to say?”
“You don’t have to like everything that’s good for you,” he said. “And you don’t have to fit in with fools. Just learn what you can.”
Iris thrust his banjo at him. “You play better than anybody in Chicago. I’ll go if you go.” No arguing with that. Iris grinned at Redwood.
The elevated train was ripping and roaring right through Chicago town, going twenty miles an hour at least, streaking between brick and stone and sounding like the end of the world.
Redwood pressed her lips to Aidan’s ear. “Is this really your first time?”
“Yes, indeed.” Aidan held on to his hat even though inside the train, the air was still and heavy. Outside, giant skyscrapers loomed above storefronts and apartment dwellings, blotted the sun for a moment, and then faded quickly from view. Chicago’s two-million-plus inhabitants bustled through morning streets in a colorful, blurry knot.
Maybe the train was doing thirty miles an hour.
“Whizzing along up high, we’re flying, getting the birds’ view.” Aidan had to shout at Redwood to be heard. “Ain’t the same as tracks on the ground.”
Redwood smoothed her silky pants and shouted too. “I’m glad the trolley cables were all knotted up today. The El is quite a ride. We’re not goin’ be late after all.”
Passengers gawked at her long legs and masculine attire, at the Persian turban on her head, the mojo bag at her waist, and the African fabric ’round her neck. Aidan was used to her style. He wouldn’t have her any other way, but he couldn’t stand the evil looks or the hungry eyes crawling over her bosom and behind.
“This old thing rattles like it’s ready to fall down.” An older white woman in a smart gray jacket and skirt spoke to Redwood. “A train jumped the track yesterday and fell into the middle of the road. Two people almost died.”
“That is too bad.” Redwood waved the image away. “This one’s got a bit more life.”
The El pulled into a rickety station perched among old brick houses. Aidan spied rotten wood and rusty joints. Clean white sheets flapped on a taut laundry line. A man in thin long johns ate his breakfast on a third-floor porch. He chomped a fat sausage, washed it down with a steaming mug, and scratched his rear end. Aidan grinned.
“It’s so dirty in here.” The old woman squirmed on a brown paper sack. “Do you know what you’re sitting in?”
“Just as well that I don’t.” Redwood waved at big-eyed children staring in their compartment.
As the train pulled out, Aidan inspected splintery walls and grimy windows. Wet filth on the floor had dried into a crust. Most of the seats were coming undone. ’Cross the aisle, some critter had crawled in the stuffing and—
“You have to get off and pay again just to get anywhere.” The woman sighed. “They treat upstanding paying passengers as if we were poor riffraff. It’s criminal.”
“Yes, a rich man’s dime is usually worth more than a poor man’s.” Aidan chuckled.
“Excuse me, sir?” The lady looked puzzled.
“The El’s carrying me to where I’m going. You too.” Redwood beamed at her. “What you complaining for? Are you scared?” She patted the lady’s freckled hand. “The moon could tumble out the sky and crash into everything. But it does look pretty rising early, like a white pearl in the morning sky. That’s what I want to think on.”
“You’re in a good mood, girl.” The woman looked from her to Aidan. “I guess you have a rich sweetheart showing you the town? That’s the way to do it.”
The passengers were mostly white folk, and they were all staring now, blue-and green-eyed strangers waiting for Redwood to answer.
“We’re going to a rehearsal.” Aidan waved the banjo case—a present from Redwood—in their faces. “And then my sweetheart’s goin’ take me to the sights.”
“Show people.” The woman nodded as if everything made sense, as if she knew who they were now. “Happy-go-lucky, footloose.”
“This is our stop.” Redwood pulled Aidan up. “Good day to you, ma’am.”
“And to you.” The lady smiled at them both. “I’ll be looking out for your music.”
Redwood jumped to the platform and hurried down the stairs.
“Was she trying to make us feel bad?” Aidan asked.
“She’s lonely.” Redwood watched the train rush off. “I bet her sweetheart’s passed on. Bet he showed her Chicago town once.”
On the ground, the street went too slow. Aidan stumbled over the stillness. His eyes wouldn’t settle; the background kept hurtling along in a blur. He shifted his banjo case to the other shoulder and kept pace with Redwood’s brisk walk.
“Why does Saeed want to live way out here in the suburbs? Take you half a day to walk to anywhere. He has to ride the train all the time and that cost a fortune.” She stopped at a row of houses. One ancient maple tree was hanging on, boughs clipped here and there to accommodate cables and wires. Its scraggly leaves were already yellow, and it was only August. No other green growing things, the rest of the street was under asphalt. “Can’t smell the lake from here. When the sun goes down there’s diddly to do.” She fanned her hot face. “I mean no singing and dancing, and Saeed can’t get enough of city nightlife. You all right?” She stepped into the sparse shade of the tree. “You haven’t said but a couple words all morning.”
“I’m happy listening to you,” he said as they climbed a few stairs to number 291, Saeed’s place. He was too jittery ’bout music-making for good conversation.
“You like it here?” She tilted her head and licked her lips. “In Chicago I mean, up north, away from your swamp stink and starry nights.”
He couldn’t tell what kind of answer she hoped for. “You teasing me?”
“It’s a question.” She banged the knocker. When nobody came she rang the doorbell.
“I don’t know if I like it yet,” he said. “Getting used to the city take time.”
“The air’s so humid, don’t need clouds, just wring it out and it could rain.”
“You complaining?” The wet heat made him feel at home. “You like it in Chicago?”
“I don’t know either.” Redwood looked almost forlorn.
Saeed opened the door. “Welcome.” He ushered them in. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, Mr. Wildfire.”
“That makes two of us,” Aidan replied.
“It is a surprise and a pleasure,” Saeed said.
“Nothing against you, sir, just—” Aidan hung his hat on a rack shaped like a briar. It looked to have snatched coats and caps from folks running by.
“Iris persuaded him,” Redwood said. “He thought he didn’t play good enough.”
“We can always get better,” Saeed said.
Redwood frowned. “That’s what I tell you, and you argue with me.”
“I am found out—to believe what you say on occasion.” Saeed bowed. “I’ve heard Mr. Wildfire perform and need not take your word for how good he is.” The prince’s rogue of a brother was certainly a charming fellow. “Follow me. We’re in back.”
“The trolley was down. Lightning struck the lines last night. We rode the El.” Redwood took Saeed’s arm and breezed ahead. Aidan hugged his banjo and followed.
Saeed’s apartment wasn’t at all like his brother’s train car. Heavy drapes kept out bright light and hot air. High-ceilinged rooms were cool and dry. Aidan smelled coffee brewing. Fruit, bread, and cheese were on a table at the parlor door. ’Cept for a piano, there was hardly a stick of furniture. No Oriental rug covered the parquet floor. The wood was worn shiny-smooth in the center. How much dancing did Mr. Saeed do? Seeing Aidan and Redwood, a colored man sat down to the keyboard; another one jumped up strumming a guitar; a compatriot of Saeed’s set the bow to his fiddle. They were familiar fellows from shows Aidan had seen, but he’d lost their names. They nodded at him and the banjo. His fingers itched and ached. Hoodoo magic is one thing, but spells don’t work without practice!
“Are we late?” Redwood asked.
“Everybody else was early,” Saeed said.
“Let’s get going.” Aidan released the banjo from its case and strode to the piano.
“What do we want to do?” Saeed said.
“Start, I guess, and see what happens.” Redwood dipped down to the ground and sprang back, warming up for real dancing. Saeed got busy, stretching too.
Aidan played a few licks on the banjo and the fiddle sailed in underneath him. They were lost several moments in the music. “Like on the elevated train, rushing ’round all over the place.” Aidan smiled. “But we got to tune.” The piano player hit a couple notes, and when Aidan tightened his strings to the right pitch, the fiddle started up fast. The guitar and piano jumped right in. Aidan took his time, taking each player in before his fingers found a few phrases to add.
One song slid into another. Saeed and Redwood danced ’round the room as Aidan traded tunes with the musicians. “Too long since I played.” His fingers were tender. Nobody complained of bad notes though. Turn a mistake ’round right; it was bound to sound decent. “This beats raiding a wagon train of settlers any day.”
Hours slipped by, and he played his fingers raw. Spots of blood dotted his banjo strings. His neck was stiff and his back muscles cramped. While the other musicians drank coffee laced with strong spirits, Aidan sipped pomegranate juice—a Persian specialty. Redwood and Saeed guzzled a pitcher of icy lemonade. Everyone gobbled the fruit.
“You sound good, Aidan Wildfire.” Redwood slurred her words as if she were drunk. She swayed back and forth on unsteady legs. “How you doing?”
“Playing this music with you all,” he said, “well, it feels like coming home.”
“Home. Yes.” Redwood stood close enough for him to feel the heat from her skin, to have a taste of her in his mouth. Was she trying to drive him crazy?
The doorbell rang. “My guests are arriving early.” Saeed disappeared down the hall.
“Is it evening already?” Aidan took a step away from Redwood.
“It’s night,” the piano player said. “The sun’s been down.”
The guitarman grunted. “Time ain’t nothing in here.”
Elegant strangers flooded the room. Aidan recognized their manners and gestures if not particular faces: actors, producers, poets, and dancers dressed in bohemian fashions, puffing on cigarettes, and drinking from flasks. Flashy folk talking loud and fast, certain they’d seen everything worth seeing and knew everything worth knowing.
Redwood leaned her damp face into Aidan’s neck. “I gotta sing, ’fore too many people come. What you got for me?”
Aidan sang without thinking too much. Saeed danced behind Redwood, showing off for a handsome fellow slouched against the wall:
Talk to me, sugar
Talk to me, walk with me
Tell me what you know good
’Fore the moon fall out the sky
Don’t you cry for me
’Fore the train jump off the track
Don’t you lie for me
Stole my heart, now bring it back
Treat me like a good woman
Treat me like a good woman
Treat me like a good woman should
Saeed rolled hisself through the air, like a barrel rumbling ’cross the floor. “I can dance the lyrics you sing.”
“You sure can.” Aidan’s throat throbbed. His fingers tingled. “You had the moon falling and the train jumping.”
Redwood had sobered up from whatever made her tipsy. She snorted and cut her eyes at Aidan. Maybe she was mad at the lyrics, maybe she was sad. “I think I got it.” She joined him with a high harmony on a second time through. The fancy guests were enchanted. The fellow leaning on the wall stood up straight as Saeed vaulted in the air. He was a workingman with soot on his knees, rough cap and gloves stuck in a back pocket, and a union flyer in the front. He didn’t mingle with the crowd, just watched Saeed’s every move. It looked like love if ever Aidan saw it. The union man caught Aidan staring and lifted his chin defiantly. Aidan shrugged. Chicago didn’t shock him the way everyone thought it should.
“What does the good woman say in reply?” Saeed did a flourish at Redwood.
“Sing something, Sequoia,” the union man urged.
“I stole this song from Aidan.” She hummed it. The musicians knew just what to do. “He wrote this a long time ago back home in Georgia, but I would never sing it for him. Well, I’m singing it now with a few of my own lines.”
I got a man say he b’lieve in me
Gonna find a way for us both to be free
“You remember that?” Aidan was touched.
Redwood was in fine spirits. As she sang, Aidan would’ve sworn the elegant crowd turned into giant hummingbirds and butterflies buzzing between monster jackrabbits, waddling pigs, and grasshoppers springing into treetops. Redwood was a bolt of lightning lingering on a hilltop. He smelled ripe peaches and burnt air from the lightning.
Hope’s a canoe, take us far from here
Where a man can be a man without no fear
She opened her storm hand and pulled the bird, bug, and animal forms into her palm, leaving regular dancing folks behind. Saeed’s guests were so drunk on good music, they didn’t mind the strange magic.
“That’s one for the show.” Saeed smiled at Redwood and then at his union man. “I’m sure I can think of something to go with that.”
Whizzing through the night, sparks flew under the train and tiny lights winked in the buildings, but hardly made a dent in the darkness. Redwood put her arm through Aidan’s. “I felt my old self again, rehearsing up a show with you.” She pressed against him. “More and more myself, since you hit town.”
“That’s grand.” His face twisted up in a grimace.
“What’s a matter?” She touched his frown.
He drew away from her. The seat cracked open and stuffing poked his behind. “I ought to play more music.”
“Making moving pictures can take all you got.”
“We ain’t young anymore.”
“Speak for yourself.” She tried to laugh. “You didn’t like the magic we did tonight?”
“We?” He glanced at the other passengers. Nobody paid them any mind. “No. I feel grand making music with you. Best I ever feel.”
“What ain’t you saying?”
“You asked me once if I had a heart’s desire, if I wanted to go out in the world and make a bright destiny.”
“I used to say all kinds of nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” Aidan sighed. “I don’t want us to settle for anything less.”
A few weeks into rehearsing for the Ace of Spades, Aidan woke up on the wrong side of a nightmare, spoke words with nothing behind them, and said, “don’t touch me,” when Redwood reached to hug him. He offered no explanation, just took off for the motion picture factory in the dark. Dumbstruck, she sat on the window seat, dust balls swirling at her feet. With the rehearsals to look forward to, she’d been feeling hopeful, and thought Aidan was doing good too, but—
“Can you fault him?” She scolded herself, like Miz Subie might. “He a lusty man who always liked the good company of women. Got an Irish temper, and no telling how Seminole spirit be firing his nature up.”
She opened the window and watched him stride away. He paused, feeling her eyes on him no doubt. Crickets sang in the trees; a milk wagon clattered down the cobblestones. Aidan waved a hand over his head to her and raced ’cross the road, looking handsome and mad as all get-out.
Redwood was mad at him too, half the time, and then she wanted to kiss and squeeze him tight the other half. She just didn’t know how far they could go, before something bad happened, before her skin tightened like a shield ’round her heart, and she couldn’t feel pleasure or pain. Aidan got prickly or furious or guilty whenever she touched him. How could she find anything out without torturing him? They were goin’ lose each other this way, picking at old wounds, but seem like they didn’t know what else to do.
Redwood climbed onto the ledge and jumped over a hydrangea bush. Heavy blue/violet blossoms bobbed in her face. Dew and pollen tickled her nose. The streetlight near the garden burned out with a hiss. The moon had set and the sky was a carpet of stars, yet none of them were shooting ’round making a show.
Distant footsteps and a sinister laugh sent a charge up Redwood’s spine. Somebody out there was up to no good. Chicago was a dangerous town with folk doing each other in over pennies, and if she wasn’t goin’ let fear rule her life, she had to figure out what scared her so till she hid it from her ownself.
“Conjure woman s’posed to call up a boat if she need to cross the water,” Iris said. She stood in the herb garden with a bloody gash on her leg. “But nobody ’round here like me enough to believe.”
“What you doing up?” Redwood pretended not to be startled out her skin and hugged Baby Sister, who was tall and skinny as a sapling racing for the light.
“They hate me mostly,” Iris said solemnly. She was thirteen going on a hundred.
“Who? Little Frank and that roughhouse crew he run with? The boy’s jealous of Clarissa’s other kids and you too. He want his mama all for him.” Redwood pumped water on a handkerchief. “You so beautiful, folks just don’t know what to do.”
“Uh-huh.” Iris rolled her eyes.
“Was Frank picking on George Jr. and the twins? Are you sticking up for your nieces and nephew?” Redwood sat down with her under the maple tree. “What you doing roving dangerous streets in the night?”
“You do it too,” Iris said. “And not just to go heal folks. I ain’t ’fraid of—”
“You ought to be. I been ambushed and hurt so bad, till I still ain’t healed.” She gripped Iris. “Spying is poison. It curdles your spirit. I’m speaking from experience.”
Iris shuddered and looked away.
Redwood plucked a bottle of cure-all from her waist bag. “This might sting.” She dabbed the long wound. Iris was never one to squeal or cry. She didn’t even flinch. “You got something special,” Redwood said, “a bright light shining through the night.” She pointed to the stars.
“Shoot, everybody got that.” Iris blew her lips, like a disgusted filly. “I can see folks shining even in daytime, even the dim ones. You goin’ kiss it and make it better?”
Redwood hesitated. Clarissa said colored folks didn’t need backcountry healers with all the modern medicine available.
“Yeah, Aunt Clarissa say, why eat pig knuckles or pig innards if you can have a ham steak.” Iris held up her leg. “But everything we did back home ain’t like making do with the worst parts of the pig.”
Redwood touched her lips to the wound, drawing the hurt away, and then hugged Iris again. “We been neglecting you. I’m sorry. Don’t let your light go dim ’cause some folks don’t want to see you—or nobody else—shining.”
“Fire-haint come up from Georgia with me and Aidan. I follow her sometimes. She don’t let me catch her though.”
“Haint? I never hear ’bout this before.”
“Can I help?” Iris said.
“Help what?”
“You and—” Iris changed her mind midstream. “To make a scenario for the moving picture. Aidan said I had to ask you too.”
Redwood sputtered. “If you want to. Of course.”
“I’ve been reading stories and spending all my nickels seeing picture shows. Teacher said I was good at letters and making things up. She think I’m a liar.”
Redwood laughed. “What you been telling her?”
“Not much anymore.” Iris pouted.
“Write your true life, write what you fancy for stories or the moving picture, and show me or Aidan, all right?”
“Can I show George too?”
“He don’t have time for stories right now. Maybe Clarissa.”
Iris shook her head.
“Give her another try. I think sister-in-law can hear what you got to say.”
“Sun’s coming.” Iris pointed to pink on the windowpanes. “I’m fine. You better hurry if you want to catch him.”
Clarissa caught Redwood crawling back in the window. “I thought you were a cat burglar, sneaking in from the garden.” Stead of scolding Redwood, she offered a hand. The ledge was slippery. “Mr. Wildfire left already?”
Redwood grunted and peeled off her dew-damp nightclothes.
“You know he loves you like a fool.” Clarissa touched Doc’s drawings of him on the wall. “You’ve ruined him for other women.”
“Well, we haven’t, we don’t…” Redwood gestured over her half-naked body.
Embarrassed, Clarissa pulled her silky robe tight. “At least you’re not living in sin.”
Redwood groaned and sponged the night sweat from her skin. “When Iris tell you a story, just listen to her, all right? Don’t try to set her straight or tell her it can’t be so.”
Clarissa pursed her lips. “George says Iris is living in her own universe.”
“You won’t change her, fussing at her.” Redwood combed the knots from her hair. “You’ll just make it harder for her.”
“All right.” Clarissa nodded. “But you, what about a wedding? Colored marry who they want in Chicago. Indians too.”
Redwood laughed. “You think that’ll take the trick off my body?” She wiggled into an undershirt.
“Don’t smirk at the blessings of the Lord.”
“I’m not.”
“Wedding doesn’t have to be in a church, if you’re … pagan. And I’ll say a prayer.”
“You’re the best friend I prayed for since I was little.” Redwood hugged Clarissa suddenly. “Ready to go before Lord Jesus and plead my case.”
Clarissa was startled, but suffered the embrace. “I’ve been reading. Even pagans talk to God or a great spirit.” She headed for the door. “Cook’s going to be here any moment.” She paused. “I know you could get Mr. Wildfire to propose. That’s a simple conjuration.” Clarissa closed the door behind her.
“Gotta get him to talk to me first.”
Redwood dressed up in swamp colors. She tied a gurgling stream to her waist, dangled Indian beads from her neck, and went down to collect Aidan from the motion picture factory. They were shooting a sunrise scene to get the shadows just so. Nicolai was a crazy man with light. Over a year of Aidan working in the “movies,” and she hadn’t seen him in full Injun regalia till now. He never let her see his pictures. Aidan strutting in buckskin pants, beaded moccasins, breastplate of bones, and feather headdress made her smile, till she caught his expression. He and Walter Jumping Bear looked splendid, of course, but Aidan was mad enough to take his spear and run someone through. He didn’t have to playact wild and ferocious for the camera.
“Was biiiig fight,” Nicolai explained to Redwood while his crew set up. “Aidan say nyet to tomahawk. Say he got piece of this tribe, piece of that one. Walter say Buffalo Bill never do such a mix-up, other directors neither. Mr. Payne say, Griffith already make The Red Man’s View, The Indian Runner’s Romance. Mr. Payne, do The Last Drop of Blood for to sell tickets and don’t care which savage wield tomahawks.” Nicolai eyed her bosom and hips, not like a man who wanted to bed her, though. “You look beautiful. You should be in a picture today.”
“Ha! Mr. Payne is scared of putting me on the screen.”
“I would not be.” He filmed her with his eyes. “Wonderful picture.” Redwood wondered what story he imagined. “Come.”
She followed behind Nicolai and his camera crew as Aidan played Chief Red Cloud, a drunken scout leading the cavalry to a secret hideout of his people. The white soldiers paid Red Cloud in bottles of cheap whiskey. As night drizzle turned to sunny day, Red Cloud guzzled a bottle and fell off his horse, breaking the rest of his stash for comic relief. Between the horse acting up, the darned costume blowing off in the wind from a giant fan, and clouds covering the sun, it took ten tries to satisfy the director.
“We made this damn story already!” Aidan said. “What shitty drunkard would have such a war bonnet?”
“It was a great hit, so we do it again.” Walter shrugged. He was calm water. “Payne wants money to move his studio to California, so next week I am drunken Chief Storm Clown.” Walter smiled at Redwood coming toward them. “Good morning.”
“You were watching?” Aidan dropped a spear in the dust and threw a blanket over his bare chest. “I didn’t know.”
“The sun was in your eyes,” Redwood said. “You couldn’t see me.” She strutted in front of him, offering a good view. Aidan hustled by with barely a glance. Why get done up for a man who didn’t want to look at you? If he didn’t trust her hips, thighs, or secret spots just a bit, how would they get anywhere?
“We have to stow the costumes.” Walter cleared his throat. “Playacting with firewater demons puts him in a very bad humor.”
“You’re his friend, and it is sweet of you to make excuses.”
Finally a day off from the Wild West. Aidan soaked in Clarissa’s bathtub for an hour, ruminating on his foul mood. Nothing new occurred to him. Redwood opened the door, and steam hit her face. She looked so pretty fanning herself, it hurt.
“A hot bath on a hot day?” she said.
“Gotta do something.” He wanted to sweat and scrub the ornery blues away.
“You still stewing ’bout drunken Chief Red Cloud?” She came all the way into the tiny room. “You’ve seen me playacting all kind of mess, and I don’t like it either.” She did her best chicken mime, circling the tub, pecking at his head and scratching her feet in his clothes. She squawked and flapped her arms. He had to smile.
“What are you all doing in there?” Clarissa called from down the hall.
“Nothing.” Redwood laughed. Brightness was a habit with her, most of the time. Aidan felt sullen again. “You as bad as Brother George,” she said.
Aidan sat up, face burning and nostrils flaring. “George is mad all the time. He don’t like nobody ’cept Clarissa, and he don’t have to ride ’round in a feather clown suit.”
Redwood splashed water in his face. “You ain’t just what they got you doing for their picture shows.”
“What am I?” he said.
“Iris is cooking up a good character for you in our picture.” She backed out. “Hurry up, ’fore this day’s all gone and we ain’t done nothing good.”
Aidan might have sat home, stewing all day, ’cept Redwood had planned a sightseeing tour and picnic. Iris was dying to attend the International Aviation Meet at Grant Park and see women pilots fly. She didn’t care a hoot for old monuments, for museums built way before she was born, or parkland squeezed between skyscrapers and stockyards. Aidan only agreed to come out if they went to the fly show too. Spoiling Iris was a habit for him.
“We’ll have to hurry then,” Redwood said.
They were almost out the door, but Iris went back for her mojo bag, so Aidan tried to convince Clarissa to let her kids come out with them, see the aviators or run through grass and trees. Clarissa didn’t care what Aidan had managed with Iris and the cousins in a Georgia swamp. Her children were bona fide demons, too much to handle in a big wild city.
“We probably missed two trolleys messing ’round,” Redwood said as they got out at the 57th Street stop. Chicago had too many streets to name ’em all. “You can’t do nothing when Clarissa has her mind set.”
“We’re here, ain’t we?” Aidan muttered. “You’re just as stubborn as her.”
“Jackson Park’s where the Fair was ’fore it burned,” Redwood said.
Aidan’s eyes snapped at this. “Really?” Walking on dirt ’stead of stumbling over broken pavement was a relief to his ankles. The path snaked between brambles, late bloomers, and nodding red rosehips. He peered closely at everything, looking for a sign of the time that burned. “Why didn’t you tell me where we were going?”
“I like surprising you.”
Iris ran ahead down a tree-lined path, over an arched bridge, and onto Wooded Island. The lagoon water was murky green. Geese chased gray clouds ’cross a white sky. Moldy leaves, drowned spiderwebs, and rotten wood added a swamp tang to the lake breeze. A cloud of mosquitoes avoided Redwood. He smacked two bloodsuckers on his arm.
“Aidan, you goin’ stay mad at me all day?”
“Why not?”
“Me and Clarissa ain’t got nothing to tell you ’bout stubborn.” She stopped under an old tree. “This bur oak’s seen near two hundred years.” The crown was at least six stories high, and its branches stretched to a ninety-foot span, big as a live oak from home. “Imagine a little acorn striking out in the dirt in 1700 and something,” she said.
Aidan traced his fingers along the black corky bark and picked up a fat, shaggy acorn bigger than his fist. “Little?”
“I don’t mean to torment you.” She threw another acorn at him.
He caught it. “Trees are built more patient than people.”
They wandered over a moon bridge through the Osaka Garden. Muddy green turtles sunned on a tiny island. Red lanterns hung in the trees, and colorful birds darted through raspy leaves, squabbling and singing. The wooden path zigzagged right over lagoons and streams. Oriental statues stood guard in tall grass and behind bushes. Aidan stopped at a waterfall of gurgling scum. Muddy water every direction he looked—sky even looked muddy.
“With a path twisting and turning this way”—Redwood headed over a stone bridge—“the bad spirits dogging our heels get worn out and fall into the water. Japanese folk say, evil need a straight line, but good find its way in the curves.”
“That’s why the water’s so dirty.” He followed her. “Full of bad spirits.”
Redwood stopped in his face. “It’s torment for me too.”
“I know.” Aidan wanted to avoid her eyes, but he couldn’t.
“Hurry up,” Iris yelled from ’cross the water. “We don’t want to miss the lady pilots.” She dashed off, long legs lending her speed.
Redwood pulled Aidan along. “Look where I brought you—the Palace of Fine Arts from the World’s Fair. It’s the Field Columbian Museum now.”
“This is here and now, huh?” Aidan picked up speed.
The Palace resembled the Parthenon or some other Greek temple. Gods, goddesses, and fat granite scrolls of long-forgotten stories were perched atop tall white columns. The lagoon in front was smooth as green glass, reflecting the hazy day back to itself. Throngs of people tumbled up and down the sprawling marble stairs.
“I thought it all burned down,” he said.
“Cairo Street’s gone.” Iris darted up the steps. “But the Osaka Garden and this Palace is still here, and they’ll be here in a hundred years too.” She danced between columns, moving her hips like an Egyptian belly dancer charming snakes and tourists. She got mostly grins and full-blown smiles from the flock of museum patrons. Even the frowners were impressed. Aidan applauded. Redwood stopped his hands.
“Clarissa blame us for Iris not knowing how to act in public,” she said.
“Gal just showing some spirit,” Aidan said.
“Where’s that goin’ get her?” Bitterness caught in Redwood’s throat.
“Swallowing down who you are is no good either.” Aidan held out his hand.
Redwood curled her fingers between his, and they climbed the steps to Iris.
Passes from Clarissa’s club got them through the entrance free. Inside the majestic foyer, the temperature dropped. The air was dry; footsteps echoed off high ceilings and marble floors. Aidan pulled off his hat. The rowdy crowd metamorphosed to devout supplicants, in awe of what God had wrought, of the wonders of the world, of times and people that Aidan could barely imagine. Musky smells and winking masks hinted at ancient treasures down the halls and up the stairs.
“Can’t you hear Doc explaining everything in here to us?” Iris gawked at an ancient Etruscan tomb with fresco paintings on the walls, bronze statuettes, gold jewelry, and everyday objects a dead person would need in the afterlife.
A young white woman smiled warmly at Aidan. Her wavy hair hung below her buttocks. Intricate lace looked scratchy at her neck. Dragonfly earrings dangled to her shoulders, and she smelled of spring wildflowers. Redwood frowned, but Aidan, in a decent mood at last, returned the smile.
“Sir, I know you, don’t I?” she said.
Aidan shook his head. “Well, Miz—”
“Fredericks,” she offered.
“Miz Fredericks, I’ve never had the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Oh, I am sorry to be so bold. I saw you in a motion picture, sir.”
“Miz Fredericks, you seem no stranger to boldness.” The hint of jealousy in Redwood’s voice tickled Aidan.
“He’s a star,” Iris said. “I’ve seen all his pictures three, four times. And my sister’s the toast of Chicago vaudeville.” Redwood snorted at Iris’s praise.
“You were a wild Injun on a painted pony.” Miz Fredericks’s eyes darted uneasily between Redwood and Iris. “Glorious.”
Aidan wanted to hush her up before she spoiled everything. “Good day to you.”
“It took the whole cavalry to chase you down!” Miz Fredericks said, and a couple strangers nodded too. “You put up a marvelous fight, so fearsome and daring.”
“That was Warrior Blood,” Iris said.
Aidan shot Iris a deadly glance. “No, ma’am, that wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t?” Redwood said.
Miz Fredericks frowned at Redwood’s hand on Aidan’s sleeve. “I don’t think I could forget your eyes, sir.”
“I was the drunken skunk who fell off his horse in The Battle of Deadman’s Gulch. They captured me, and I turned traitor scout for whiskey.” He staggered like a drunk.
“You were wonderful all the same.” Miz Fredericks was charmed by his rough manner. “So handsome and dashing. I can’t believe I’m meeting you.”
Sweat sprouted from Aidan’s temples; his breath was a wheeze, and he was shaking, as if the delirium tremens were coming back. More people gathered near them, bright faces splotched red with excitement. A few scowled as Aidan clutched Redwood’s hand. He was fixing to give ’em a lick with the rough side of his tongue, when—
“Sorry, ma’am,” Iris said. “We got to go.” She and Redwood pulled Aidan away from this eager fan and the fool strangers who were pushing too close. “Why you want to lie to that lady?” Iris asked.
Aidan cussed under his breath. He balled up his shaking hands. Swallowing, his throat felt parched, but water wouldn’t do no good. He punched a fat marble pillar. Pain didn’t help. Making it up to Chicago sober was easy compared to—
“Who are you playing? Crazy Coop?” Redwood said. “You s’posed to left him back in Georgia.” Her hand on his forehead cleared his mind a bit. He wanted a jug even so.
“Ain’t so many folks going this way.” Iris tugged at them.
As they continued on, Tlingit masks glared from dark alcoves. Totem poles loomed in the corners: giant-beak creatures, with eyes in their stiff wings, squatted on men whose tears were bright flames; the men crouched on grinning foxes who held fish in their paws. Aidan doubled over and shook his head.
“I hear ’em talking,” Iris said by the fox. “Just don’t understand the language.”
Aidan walked away. Even magic Iris was making him sad today. The next hall was a Hopi exhibit—jewelry, kachina dolls, tools, and clothing—ancient Arizona history and just yesterday too. Aidan balked in the doorway. The room was jammed with well-dressed Chicago folk admiring old Indian ways.
“I don’t need to see any more,” he said.
“I thought this might lift your spirits.” Redwood pointed at turquoise necklaces and beads. “Fallen skystone—”
“My stomach’s feeling sour. I can’t abide the air inside here.”
They skirted the other Indian exhibits and left without viewing anything from Asia or Africa, without seeing butterflies, ancient animal bones, or meteor rocks. As they tromped down hard marble steps, Iris took Aidan’s hand.
“I didn’t want to stay neither,” she said.
“You should come back,” he muttered. “Take a good look-see without me.”
In the museum Redwood had tried not to worry, but Aidan was no better at the Aviation Meet in Grant Park. A squad of buzzing aeroplanes zipped through the clouds, chasing red balloons for a six-hundred-dollar prize. Seventy thousand people filled the grandstands, hollering and carrying on. Too many were swilling whiskey or wine. ’Stead of watching the air polo, Aidan threw up in a bush where Iris wouldn’t see and tapped Miz Subie’s tin on his lips.
“You all right?” Redwood whispered. “Don’t pay those people no mind.” She wanted to say, in their moving picture, he wouldn’t do nothing to turn his stomach. He’d play an upstanding Seminole farmer, brave and wise, ancestor of generations yet unborn.
“I’m fine.”
Iris poked her. “Miz Harriet Quimby of California flew this morning and won a prize. Mademoiselle Hélène Dutrieu of Belgium can’t fly yet ’cause her machine isn’t ready.” Iris dragged her feet, kicked at rocks, and sighed dramatically, as if Mlle Dutrieu’s broken aeroplane was Redwood’s fault.
“Can’t tell who the pilot is, when they’re high in the sky,” Aidan said.
“Mlle Dutrieu is goin’ take up women passengers day after tomorrow,” Iris said. “She fancies that soon, women as well as men will be flying from city to city, even coast to coast. Can’t I come back? Why I have to be at school, learning stuff I been knowing.”
“Your grammar doesn’t sound like it.” Redwood laid out cold chicken, biscuits, and peach pie for a picnic. “You don’t want folks to think less of you, shut a door of opportunity in your face.”
Aidan jerked his head back, as if something slammed too close to his eyes. He sipped a cup of water. Iris picked at the peaches, scattering pie crust for pigeons. Redwood ate three portions of everything, rather than let food go to waste.
“I got two woebegone companions on my hand. What fun showing you anything?”
“Look!” Iris pointed to a long, pale green scarf fluttering behind the wings of an aeroplane. “That must be Miz Quimby.” She jumped up and squealed. Dipping and wheeling, the plane wove arabesques in the red, orange, and purple clouds of sunset.
They walked home. Redwood didn’t trust her full belly to the El or even a trolley on the ground. Aidan didn’t need to be in close quarters with strangers. He was spoiling for a fight, snarling at anybody who looked at them. Or maybe he just needed some good loving. Iris enjoyed folks bustling through the streets or sitting in front of stores and apartments, playing games and talking foreign words. She danced into Reginald Jones’s grocery ’cause she and Aidan were finally ready to eat something.
“Mr. Jones is a Georgia man!” Iris came out with three meat pies. “Living his Chicago dream. He knew Daddy and gave me all this food for free.”
Reginald Jones, a middle-aged, brown-skinned man, smiled in the window at them. Aidan nodded. He and Iris chomped into their meat pies. Redwood was still too full.
A mile from home, they turned a corner and walked into a wreck. An elevated train had jumped the track and crashed into the street. The rusty nose dug a big hole in the asphalt. The tail of the wreck was still on the elevated track, leaning against the roof of another train car. A crowd of railroad men stood beside it, scratching their heads.
“Nothing to see, folks. Just go on about your business.” Policemen shouted at gawkers and stalled automobiles.
“Good thing we walked,” Redwood said.
“Nobody died,” Iris said. “Just hurt real bad.”
“You full of good news, ain’t you?” Aidan said.
When they got home, Iris told everybody the adventures of the day. Clarissa smiled, and George too. Redwood complained of a stomachache, and Aidan looked sick enough to escape to the back parlor with her. Hoping for inspiration, she laid out a piece of white cloth on the floor. She lit four candles and set one at each corner with a bundle of dried fireweed and swamp iris. In the center she placed a bowl with tupelo berries, Culver’s root, devil’s shoestring, man root, and lemon rind. She sprinkled sugar in the bowl and set the last candle in the center. Aidan stood in the doorway, watching her lay out the crossroads spell, like he didn’t want to come in.
“I’m sorry I spoiled your day,” he said. “I don’t know what come over me.”
“Taking you to that museum—I just didn’t think…” Redwood set the two furry acorns from the bur oak on either side of the bowl of herbs and then pulled him into the room, onto the cloth. “Tell me something good. Read to me from your book.” She thrust his journal at him.
Aidan shook his head.
“No? All right, let me read to you.”
He was fixing to resist, but nodded. She turned the pages till a title caught her eye.
WALKING THE STARS
Stories and songs are medicine too.
Big Thunder was of the Wind clan, one of the first clans to come out the mountains when the Master of Breath called the Indians from the navel of the Earth into life. Wind clan was whirlwind friend to Panther clan, clearing away giant roots so that his bigheaded brother could make it into sunlight. The other clans tumbled in after that, Deer, Bear, Corn, Bird, Potato, and all the rest. Big Thunder had to marry across the Fire. His first wife was Snake Clan. His second wife, Aislinn, was an O’Casey from County Cork. They married far across the Fire.
“Your parents are dead,” Aunt Caitlin said to Aidan Wildfire. “You are Aidan Cooper now and nobody else. Those mountain people you lived with got taken by fevers and coughing sickness. You are strong stock, lucky. You take after Aislinn, and I love you as my own. Don’t go running off, hiding in the swamp like a wild savage.”
Aidan was young, and sadness was sharp nettles clinging to him, digging deep, drawing lifeblood. He missed his parents and the clan of mountain folk who had made the world home. Aidan cried in the night. He grew sick and pale, not from coughing or fever, but grief. Finally, when Aunt Caitlin couldn’t get any food to stay in his belly, she took Aidan to Miz Garnett Phipps and pleaded with this colored conjure woman to hold her adopted son to life.
Miz Garnett sent George and Redwood to help their daddy in the fields. She had Aidan gather hairy roots for a healing brew. They watched it boil in a black iron pot. A dead smell filled the house. When darkness fell, Miz Garnett stood by Aidan on the porch. The moon didn’t bother to come out. The air was a heavy blanket of heat. Aidan felt a chill in his heart all the same.
“Shooting stars.” Miz Garnett pointed at streaks of light. “That’s a sign for sure.”
“What the stars got to say to us?” Aidan asked.
Miz Garnett sang a star song in Gullah Creole, and Aidan could only feel the meaning, a traveling song, a song for loved ones far away. “I knew your daddy since I was younger than you.” She put a warm cup of the nasty brew in Aidan’s hands. “His people and my people been ’round these parts for a long time. I got family over on the Sea Islands still.”
“My daddy knew folks from everywhere,” Aidan said, proud of who he come from for a moment. “Aunt Caitlin said I shouldn’t talk about him.”
“I’m a hoodoo, hearing underneath things, can’t hide the truth from me,” she murmured. “We can talk about your daddy and your mama too, if you like, just us. I won’t tell nobody.”
Aidan put the cup to his lips and drank the medicine down quick. It was sweet and frothy and felt good going down. His tongue tingled and his belly didn’t feel so tight. Miz Garnett sat down in the rocking chair and opened her arms. Aidan crawled in her lap, like he was a little child, and they rocked together, slowly. He liked her hickory smoke, sweet magnolia scent. She wore an orchid in her hair—seemed it was growing there and not ever fixing to die.
“Your daddy told me a story once about the Milky Way.” She pointed to the stars.
“The Master of Breath blew into the sky and made the white pathway,” Aidan whispered.
“He told you too? Ain’t that something!”
“Yes. The white starway leads to a City of Light where good people go, when they’re dead.”
“Gullah song tell a similar story. Your mama and daddy are there, smiling on you, hoping you have a long life, a good life, before you walk the stars to them.”
“Aunt Caitlin don’t believe in the Milky Way. Uncle Charlie neither.”
“It’s up there in the sky for us all to see, a prayer every night. A good story fill you up when you hungry, when you lonely. A good song take the hurting out your spirit. No harm believing in that.” She gave him a wind-up music box. “Play this and think of the stars smiling on you.”
“Stars smiling on you…” Aidan’s words, Mama’s words tasted like warm rain after a long winter drought. “She used to rock me in her chair too.” Redwood placed the red leather journal in his hands. “Why you write these stories as if Aidan Wildfire was somebody you heard tell of?”
Aidan shrugged. “How my mama used to do.”
Redwood picked up Garnett’s music box from her nightstand and twisted the screw. The drum wouldn’t turn anymore, so she hummed the “Swanee River” tune. Aidan squatted in the center of the crossroad cloth, looking right through Redwood to her mama and beyond, to Big Thunder and Miz O’Casey walking stars.
“She still talk to you when the sun go down?” Redwood sat next to him.
“Just a whisper now and then,” Aidan replied. “I can’t make out what she’s saying.”
“If she talking Sea Island Gullah, who can blame you.”
He leaned against her. “Is this a good life we’re living?”
“What you want me to tell you?”
“Tell me ’bout this picture we’re goin’ make.”
Redwood’s pulse spiked. “I’ve been thinking on it every day.” The candles hissed and sputtered in a draft from the window. The flames died away, but came back again.
“Me too,” Aidan said.
“Really?” Redwood rested her head on his shoulder. “A Sea Island romance. I’ll play that Teacher everybody always wanted me to be. Course, the Teacher longs for adventure, longs to see the world. The Pirate almost drowns, but Sea Island folk save him, and he loves poetry, like the Teacher.”
“I bet he writes his favorite lines in a journal.”