Chapter Three

Fannie seethed, concealed deep within a cocoon of bush plants, the images of Clyde and that girl seared into her brain, paralyzing her where she stood. Her mind replayed how the girl’s hands touched and stroked his face, arms, and hands, and fluttered over his chest, drawing sighs and moans from him.

Her mind struggled to reconcile what she saw and heard. Her Clyde, her precious baby boy. Her chest heaved, and dark spots danced before her eyes. When had her vigilance dropped? Why hadn’t she come sooner, followed him, demanded more from him when she saw his sudden moodiness or the way he’d begun to snarl his answers to the few questions she asked?

Clyde stood, helping the girl to her feet, brushing grass and leaves from her skirt before leaning in to kiss her cheek, then turning to walk away. She waited until the sound of him moving away on the path faded, then turned to walk in the opposite direction. Silently, she followed the girl.

Mae stopped outside a small house with a sagging porch and steps that bowed in under the weight of the woman sitting on them. Beneath her dress, her legs spread wide, forming a concave tent over her legs. After a moment, Mae’s face broke into a grin, and she ran forward, nearly bowling the woman over as she hugged her.

“Muhdeah, what you doing here?” Mae asked, dancing back and allowing her grandmother to stand and hold her at arm’s length.

“I done come to see about my gal’s only child and this boy who been courting you.”

Before Mae could say a word, a piercing howl split the air, startling them into silence as a woman came hurtling toward them, her teeth bared, her hands hooked like talons.

“HARLOT!” she screamed as Mae’s grandmother pulled her behind her back, standing to her full height and slamming a stiff arm into the rampaging woman’s chest to stop her. Fannie halted, rocking back on her heels, and glared at Mae’s grandmother.

Mae peered around her grandmother Lula’s broad back, staring at the small nut-brown woman reaching for her, clawing the air, trying to come around her. The snow-white rag wound tightly around her head now hung loose over her braids.

Lula pushed Fannie backward farther, using her height and body to keep her away from Mae, and then shoved her to the ground. She knelt and placed a knee on the thrashing wild woman. She raised one large, meaty arm to wipe the sweat from her brow and looked down at the woman’s face, twisted in anger.

“Woman, who the hell you?”

“She done spoilt him!” Fannie screamed. “She done spoilt my boy. How he gon’ do God’s work now?” Tears rolled down Fannie’s cheeks as she bucked against the weight of the woman holding her in place.

“You must be Clyde’s mama.” Mae rolled her eyes heavenward, complete understanding illuminating her heart.

“You needs to calm yourself some,” Lula ordered, her tone ringing with authority. “Well, is that who you is?”

“She Miss Fannie Henry, Muhdeah,” Mae interjected. “Her boy Clyde the one what been courting me. She his mama.”

“You done ruined my boy,” Fannie hissed, her voice ragged as she labored to breathe.

Lula laughed out loud, her head thrown back, her jowls shaking with humor. “Gal, that ain’t no boy. He a full-grown man.”

“He still a boy!” Fannie snapped. “And he pure. This little whore trying to ruins him. I smell the stink of sin on her.”

Lula’s face hardened, any humor evaporating as she leaned forward, close enough that Fannie could smell fresh spearmint on her breath. Her eyes narrowed.

“I think you best watch your mouth when you talking about my granddaughter. Now, her daddy ain’t worth shit, and that dumbass gal he done took for a wife worth less, but Mae, she sure enough special to me.”

“I know what you is, Lula, and know she using juju on my boy.”

Lula eased up, incredibly agile for a woman of her size, pulling the smaller Fannie up to her feet as she did so. “You ain’t had no trouble with what I is when you was getting salve for that boy’s legs.”

She stared hard at Fannie, who cast her eyes to the ground, mumbling incoherently. Lula twisted her lips in disgust. Fannie was like all of them, wanting you to help and save them, asking for salves and potions, approaching your back door in the dark of night while disparaging you during the day. She hadn’t known her name then, she was just another phantom customer in the shadows.

Lula continued. “I done seen Clyde in town since he got growed. He ain’t much to look at, but he work hard, and far as I can tell, he loves Mae.”

“He don’t knows nothing about no love. She been sexing him for sure.” Fannie spat in the dirt in front of them.

Lula raised one hamlike fist, bringing it back for the blow, itching to knock sense into Fannie. She only stopped when Mae touched her arm.

“You ain’t gots to hit her, Muhdeah. Me and Clyde ain’t done nothing wrong except maybe some little petting in the woods. We ain’t been together like that.”

“I think you best be getting off this place, Miss Fannie. Your son a grown man and old enough to see who he please.” She stopped and let the heat of her anger traverse the space between them. “And if I hears you done bothered my granddaughter again, you won’t have to come looking for her or me. I’m gon’ find you.”

Fannie nodded absently, feeling her muscles relax as she sagged, ignoring Lula’s threat. She wasn’t too late. She hadn’t failed. She could still save her boy. She turned away from the two women, her step lighter as she returned to the woods and the path leading her home.

Mae shook her head and hooked her arm through her grandmother’s as they watched Fannie walk away.

“I hopes you know what you getting into. That woman sure enough trouble,” Lula said, squeezing her granddaughter to her side. “You ain’t gon’ let that tender heart of yours lead you into trouble, is you?”

Mae gave her a lopsided grin, hugged her tightly, then answered, “I won’t, Muhdeah.”

Lula kissed the top of her head, then stared at the figure retreating into the woods. She shivered as a shadow passed over Mae’s face.

Fannie strode through the woods, unaware of anything around her. The need to get to Clyde pushed her faster and faster through the trees until she finally saw their shack in the distance. She stopped, attempting to pull the threads of her thoughts together as fear shredded them. She turned her face to the sky, praying aloud, “Lord, we done kept baby boy safe these long years. Be a fence around him, Lord. Don’t let him fall to the temptation of this Jezebel spirit.” She continued to pray the words as her steps resumed, taking flight through the grass, the spirit of salvation aflame in her breast.

Opening the door, she found Clyde perched in the corner on his stool. Over the years, his legs had grown long enough to reach the ground when he sat, and he tapped his foot nervously against the hard-packed earthen floor, waiting for Fannie to run out of words and tears.

“Baby boy, you ain’t thinking right. She done puts you under a spell,” she pleaded, her hands unconsciously kneading her breasts, producing blotches of milk to stain the front. “I hear tell her grandmother deal in juju,” Fannie said, moving closer to him and forcing him to look at her. Reaching out, she grasped his chin. Clyde looked away, turning his eyes to the floor.

“Mae a good girl,” was all he would say.

Fannie eyed the strap hanging on its hook, looking from it to Clyde. His eyes grew dark, the lids lowering as he followed the direction of her stare. The darkness rose within him, and he growled deep in his chest.

Fannie recoiled, her hand dropping to her side, her voice wheedling. “If you just don’t sees her no more, everything be fine. We be like we was before.”

Clyde said nothing, tamping down the darkness, squeezing it into a place where it could do no harm. Slowly, he stood up, making his way to bed, thinking of meeting Mae in their special place tomorrow. Behind him, he heard his mother dropping to the earth. When he chanced to look back, she lay prostrate on the floor, praying to her God that he deliver Clyde’s soul from damnation.

Mae sat between Clyde’s spread legs, feeling his body hard against her back, the throbbing of his manhood pulsing against her buttocks, the cloth of her dress the only barrier between them, his breath hot on the top of her head. The last two months had flown by, marked by clandestine meetings in the woods, wrapped in his comfort, love, and protection. She’d felt the temptation growing steadily between them.

“You still wants to be married with me, Clyde?” she asked, her voice whispery with heat, the juncture between her thighs wet and moist. She wiggled against him, listening to him groan. She smiled, safe in his embrace, feeling both desired and loved, wondering how a man as immense and powerful as he was could be so gentle and kind. The scowl he wore looking out on the world fell away whenever he looked at her. A pale blue dress and matching shoes lay on the blanket beside them, his latest gift to her. She released her hold on one arm to run her hand over the soft fabric of the dress.

“You knows I do.” His voice was heavy with the lust flowing through him, obliterating the darkness, leaving only Mae. He pulled her arm back, resting her hand on his forearm, rubbing his face in her hair. He shifted, squirming away from the feel of her round, firm behind against him. He prayed she would sit still, unsure he could resist having her right here, right now.

The darkness whispered, urging him toward the wicked disobedience that would soil her, mimicking the sound of his mother’s voice. He pushed the dark away and stood hastily, grabbing at the small suitcase sitting beside her on the grass.

“I got my daddy’s truck so we can gets to the justice of the peace,” he called back over his shoulder. “You gets changed, and I wait for you.”

Mae stepped behind a thick grove of bushes, trusting Clyde not to peek at her as she pulled the worn calico she had arrived in over her head. Sliding the smooth silk of her new dress over her slim form, she relished its coolness. She stepped into the shoes, then picked up her old things, tucking them under her arm.

Mae made her way to the road where the truck was hidden in the trees. She looked around, searching for her father or, worse yet, Fannie, to leap out of the woods, determined to stop them. Clyde sat behind the wheel of the truck, leaning over to open the passenger door and helping her inside.

“Is you scared?” she asked, not for the first time.

Clyde shook his head. He didn’t know fear when he was with Mae. Not the darkness, not his mother. He was sure of her. Since they’d been together, he hadn’t been to a juke, hadn’t wanted to be there, or felt the desire to release the darkness. Even now, he could hold it in place when the dark clawed relentlessly at him.

He wouldn’t let the darkness blind him. Every day, his mother chipped at him, grinding against him, wearing him down. But each time, Mae renewed him, and his resentment against Fannie grew incrementally as she tried to divide him from Mae. She pretended she didn’t know women like Mae existed, berating her and filling his ears with judgment. “Mae a bad woman, full of sin. She the same as the ones God done sent you to purge from this world; she full of darkness.”

Today, it would all be fixed, he thought. “We gon’ gets married,” he said aloud over the sound of the engine roaring to life and the persistent voice of his mother burrowed deep in his subconscious. “We ain’t gon’ sin.”

Three hours later, Mae stood in the living room of her family’s house for the last time, running her hand over the skirt of her dress, gripping a small bouquet close to her chest. It had been a moving little ceremony, standing before the preacher, speaking the words that bound her to Clyde. Verna’s eyes surveyed her outfit, then moved on to Clyde, sniffing contemptuously.

Mae smiled inwardly. She didn’t care. She was free. Clyde stood beside her, clasping her free hand, his brooding gaze fixed on her father and a red-faced Verna. Her father cleared his throat and looked at the paper she had handed him when they entered, the one declaring that she and Clyde were legally wed.

“I guess it ain’t nothing can be done about it now,” Ben declared, his eyes roaming over the print on the page, recognizing it as a marriage license. He shoved it abruptly back at Mae, who folded it and pushed it back into her purse.

“Ain’t that your mama’s handbag?”

“Yes, sir, it is.” She clutched the handbag more tightly under her arm. “She left it for me, and no, sir, ain’t nothing to be done,” Mae said quietly, the regret in his eyes touching her heart. “And I be sorry, but I be legal age to marry. Clyde done ask me, and I say yes.”

Ben surveyed his new son-in-law, taking in the bow of his legs, the barrel chest, and the heavily muscled arms. Clyde glowered at him, his anger flaring. Ben swallowed, refusing to be cowed, and spoke, “I done raised her once. If you don’t like the job I done did, you sends her on back home. Don’t put your hands on her.”

“Like you did?” Clyde asked, pulling Mae closer before turning her toward the door. “She be my wife now, and I takes care of her.”

Rebuttal hitched in Ben’s throat, stunned by what Clyde said. His face colored, and he glared at Mae, swallowing his humiliation, wishing for a drink. Without looking, he could feel Verna bristling next to him.

“Don’t you lets him talk to you like that in your own house!” Verna screeched. “She probably pregnant anyway,” she seethed, poking her own enormous belly forward. “I bet you done let that thing knock you up. Ain’t no other reason anybody marry you, even him!” Mae flinched, the insult falling on her and Clyde.

Beside her, Clyde roared, and Mae felt him go rigid, his eyes clouding with darkness as he turned toward Verna. Ben leaped between them, shielding Verna.

Mae yanked hard on Clyde’s arm, suddenly fearing the violence etched on his face. Reaching up, she turned his face toward her, stroked his cheek, and whispered his name, tears pooling in her eyes. “Clyde, she ain’t worth it, honey, she ain’t worth it,” she whispered, desperate to get his attention, straining with the effort to hold him. Clyde saw the wisps of darkness floating around Ben and Verna, some thick strands and some barely visible.

He heard Mae’s voice penetrating the darkness from a distance, calling to him. His breathing slowed, the murderous rage beginning to recede. Feeling him relax, Mae moved them toward the door, letting it close behind her, refusing to give Verna the satisfaction of looking back at her.

She took a deep breath as they stepped off the porch and walked to the dusty road dividing the dilapidated shotgun shacks into two parallel lines. At the intersection of the next alley, they turned right, making their way out of town to Fannie’s house. They passed an empty rental on their right, and she looked at it longingly. “Soon,” she kept repeating the mantra to herself. But first, they would have to face Fannie.

Mae squeezed her hands over her ears, trying to block the venom filling the room as Fannie flew back and forth, raging first at her and then at Clyde, who stood, his head bent to his chest under the onslaught.

“That little bitch gon’ be the end of you, Clyde.” Fannie’s voice was a high-pitched scream. Her nostrils flared wide, and sweat glistened on her forehead, her voice blistering in Mae’s ears and making her heart thump erratically.

Her eyes shot daggers at Mae, then pinned Clyde. “You cain’t see what she doing with her smell all up in your nose. Ever since that little whore done spread her legs, you ain’t been able to think straight.”

Clyde let her words hang between them before slicing into his heart, staggering him under their weight. He looked down into Fannie’s furious eyes, his own pleading.

“Mae’s uncle done found us a place here in Delhi and put in a word for me to get a good job when we gets to Chicago. Mae say—”

“Mae say, Mae say?” She cut into his words, her arms windmilling and waving as she spit curses. “Don’t tell me nothing else that bitch say. She just trying to take you away from me.” She howled the last words.

Clyde’s head snapped up. His eyes clouded over again, narrowing as he leaned into his words.

“Don’t you say nothing else bad about Mae, Mama,” he hissed, teeth clenched as resentment rose, rendering him full to bursting with his mother’s poison. He growled low in his throat, his hand raised, poised above her. “You shut your mouth right now.”

Fannie’s eyes rounded as she saw his fist begin to descend. Inhaling, she shrieked her alarm, staring into the perfect replication of his father’s eyes, darkness writhing in their depths. She saw the hatred there, felt the fear breeching the chasm of time to paralyze her heart.

Clyde felt his rage growing, the darkness leaking black tears down his cheeks, his mother wavering in his vision. He lowered his fists and ground them against his thighs, his muscles bulging with the strain of his desire to pummel her and smash her words back down her throat. He saw himself, his hands tight around her throat.

“What you gon’ do?” she shouted, backpedaling away from him, her hands flying up to her throat. “You gon’ hit me? You gon’ hit your own mama?”

Her words had become ragged. Her throat constricted as though invisible hands wrapped around it, choking the life from her. “Look what she done did! Look what you doing to me.” Fannie rasped the words from her constricted airway, struggling to get them free. “Me what birthed you and done protected you all your days.” The words trailed into a choked silence.

Mae cringed, lost in the battle between them. She crept closer to the door and then fled through it to stand on the porch, feeling like a coward. The blistering hatred flowing between them smothered her. She would wait here for Clyde.

Inside, Clyde recoiled, a flash of Fannie’s memories telegraphing to him from her fading thoughts. He saw her sprawled and torn on the ground, a behemoth of a man crouched between her thighs—his buttocks clenching—and pounding into her body. The man had Clyde’s face, stretched over smooth skin, and Clyde’s body, with long, muscular legs attached to a powerful frame. He twisted his head until he could look over his shoulder and fixed his eyes on Clyde’s, staring at him.

The phantom hands released Fannie’s throat, allowing her to crumple to the ground. He shook his head violently to rid himself of the vision as Fannie pushed up to her knees, dragging in the air and crawling after Clyde’s retreating figure.

“You gots to listen to me,” she screeched at his back.

Clyde swayed toward the door, his head down, seething with the darkness surging around him that still demanded he silence her vitriol. He had to get to Mae.

“Don’t goes with her. You knows I be the only one what care about you, Clyde. Just me,” Fannie wept, her chest heaving and her hands reaching out almost close enough to grab at him.

“God give you to me and that damned Jezebel done spelled you.” She was howling now, holding the back of his pants leg, her arms already aching with the emptiness of his leaving.

“Please, Clyde,” she cried, sinking back to her knees, her hands grabbing her breasts and wringing the flesh. Her mouth twisted as she desperately tried to form the words to save him. “Sweet Jesus, you just like him. You be him.” Her voice floated to him, a dejected whisper of defeat.

Clyde stopped, turned, and stared down into her upturned face, shuddering as those alien images floated through the darkness across their mental connection. He felt himself merging into the dark, swirling depth of the man’s eyes, twisting and tangling until his spirit joined the violence against his mother, and it became his own memory, pounding flesh until bone broke.

Clyde’s hands tore at his hair, pulling until it threatened to free itself from his scalp, and his voice climbed to the ceiling on the edge of hysteria. He dropped his hands to his face, his fingers clawed at his eyes, trying to snatch out the offending scene. “I sees him, Mama. Who he be?” He wept.

“Him?” Fannie sucked in her breath, narrowing her eyes at the shared memory, then spit the words at him. “He your real daddy. He the murdering sonofabitch what made you.” Snot dripped from her nose and gathered on her top lip, mingling with her tears while the memories played themselves uninterrupted. “Bastard damn near killed me. He the one what made you, but I be the one what saved you—me!” Fannie’s eyes rolled wildly. “First, God saved me from him, using that old witch what tried to kill you. I saved you from her too.”

Fannie spit on the floor. “I put away my ownself’s peoples for you, and all those nasty-ass peoples in Rayville. God done give you special to me!” Fannie’s hand slammed against her chest, the sharp sound of flesh against flesh reinforcing her words.

She collapsed back to the floor, folding her body into her voluminous skirts and shaking with the force of her cries. “She don’t love you no more than he loved me.” Her words spiraled down to a whisper. “She done spoilt you, and now, you just like him.” She sobbed.

Clyde’s heart lurched, thudded, and shrank within his chest, watching the wreckage of his mother puddled on the floor. Fannie trembled, both hands reaching for her stomach, clutching at it and rocking over the hollow emptiness that filled her. Her head snapped backward, yanked on an invisible cord, pain jolting through her brain as she felt the connection between them snap, the wire severed and dangling in a black hole.

“Get on out and take that skanky-ass whore who done cursed you,” she howled. “Go your ass to Chicago. You deserves what waiting for you!” Fannie’s head dropped, her chin resting on her chest, her breathing becoming shallow.

Outside on the porch, Clyde stumbled toward Mae, his arms outstretched, screaming. Mae rushed to him, pulling his head down toward her as his hands clutched his head, pain ravaging his skull, the darkness filling him. Dropping to his knees, he felt the warmth of her hands, stroking. He saw the glow beneath her skin, growing brighter, and felt the darkness leaking from every orifice. Bending his spine backward until his head almost touched the floor, he strained until he felt the cord of darkness snap.

Finally, he slumped against Mae, his weight pulling them both to the porch floor. She held him against her chest, rocking him, whispering his name, stroking his cheeks, worried that he’d had a fit. Could she have married him and lost him on the same day? Was life that wicked to take happiness from her at every turn? From inside the house, she could still hear Fannie’s broken sobs.

Clyde slammed the darkness behind the door of his mind, shutting it away, drawing strength from Mae. He stared through the screen door at Fannie and searched his feelings for her, reaching for his power and finding nothing. The space she and the darkness had always held in his mind was empty, a void. He was alone with Mae.

“It be all right,” he said, climbing to his feet and pulling Mae up. Her eyes searched his, her mouth trembling. He placed one hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the steps.

Fannie’s cries were a hard rain pounding against his back, dwindling to periodic silence as he and Mae walked away from her. His gaze fixed forward as they returned to the road to the rental where their new life would begin. Everything he had believed about being special remained behind him in the wreckage, with his mother groveling on the floor. One final wail pierced the air, and then . . . stillness.