Chapter Five

Cora closed her journal and put it back into her skirt pocket. She had written enough for the night. Emptying herself of words had not helped. She wanted to seek her bed and join Joe, but there was no rest in her sleep. The darkness from Clyde would be there to fight her. It tugged at a corner of her mind, then fell away, leaving her anxious and agitated.

Walking across the room, she pulled the large tin tub from its nail on the wall and set it in front of her chair before going back to the pump at the sink. She pumped water into her biggest pot and heated it on the stove.

“Want some company?” Joseph asked, standing in the doorway of their bedroom.

“No.” She shrugged, her shoulders moving up and down. “Ain’t no point in both of us not sleeping.”

Joe walked over to where she sat, scooping a stool beneath him and pulling her feet into his lap. He began to rub them, his hands strong, massaging deeply. Cora leaned back and closed her eyes, a soft moan escaping her mouth.

“Just let old Joe take care of you. Talk if you wants to. Don’t if you don’t.”

She felt her shoulders relax while her body sagged into the comfort of the old wing chair, unaware of Joe going to the stove to retrieve the hot water and pour it into the basin. The scent of tea tree oil floated in the air as he eased her feet into the tin tub.

“Let the water work its magic,” Joe instructed, his hands rubbing her calves, alternating from leg to leg, his eyes lifting to hers occasionally. She allowed herself to connect to his spirit.

“I ain’t never knowed nothing like him before, Joe. He got a dark power in him. Evil. No other word for it.”

“You ain’t God, Cora. This ain’t your battle.” His thumb rubbed a deep massage against the ball of her foot, making her moan in relief. “You needs to stay away from them folks.”

“I been trying, Joe.” Air blew softly from between her lips. “But the dreams I had done started getting worse here of late. I waked up this morning with the feeling that the day coming.” She leaned her head against the back of the chair, stretching her neck.

“How come you ain’t say nothing about it this morning?” he asked, switching expertly to her other foot.

“Because I figured what you was gon’ say.”

Joe pulled one foot into his lap, drying it with the towel he had brought with him. He picked up a bottle of castor oil from the floor, pouring a little into the palm of his hand, and began rubbing it into the skin of her heels.

“Well, you done did all you can for now. Ain’t that what you was saying?” He waited for an answer that didn’t come. Then blowing air noisily through his lips, he abruptly changed the subject. “Did I tell you I was talking to James Henry when I was in town the other day?” His hands continued to massage, and Cora thought about how her feet didn’t feel big in his hands. Small groans of comfort filled the air around them, an undercurrent to their conversation.

“He say the last time they went out to the house, Clyde went after the middle boy, James Junior. He start beating him, then choked him. Took James Henry and them other two boys to pull him off. He say if Fannie hadn’t come and started rubbing him the way she do, he believe he would have killed Junior.”

Joe stopped, his gaze locking with hers, watching her eyes change from gray to green until she was forced to look down. She studied the oil floating on the surface of the water. Shaking his head, Joe kneaded the heel of her foot, his story not finished.

“He say Clyde strong, stronger than his big brothers, and he ain’t made seven yet. Said he hated he left Simon out there so long. You know what? Crazy as it sound, I think he still love that woman. I keeps telling you it something real wrong with them folks, and especially something special wrong with that boy and his mama. He ain’t natural.”

“We knows that,” Cora said, sighing as she lifted her other foot and pressed it against his chest. She felt his heart beating through the sole of her foot and waited as the rhythm synchronized with her own. A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and she sighed. “I don’t know what I’m gon’ do, Joe, but I ain’t gon’ give up. I’m gon’ keep on praying that the Knowing give me the strength to do what I got to do. I didn’t ask to be chose and two times, I done failed already. I cain’t live with that.”

She pulled her foot from his chest and forced the other one from his hand, splashing them both down into the water. Joe sat back, blowing air through his lips again in exasperation at her stubbornness. He scooted on his stool, leaning back as she removed her feet from the water and stood, walking around him to pace her agitation out on the wooden floorboards.

“How I be so stupid, huh? What I think was gon’ happen? I’m gon’ walk up in there and strikes him down? Fannie gon’ say, ‘Oh you right, Miss Cora. Gon’ ahead and kill my boy.’” She studied the strong lines of his face, his high cheekbones peppered with a smattering of freckles, courtesy of the reddish-brown coppery hair on his head. “I would have had to kill Fannie first.”

“All I ask,” Joe said, standing and catching her in midstride, holding her by her shoulders, “is for you to wait until you get a sign that it be the right time to go after him again.” He continued to stare into her eyes until she nodded her agreement.

Cora flexed her fingers as she stretched her hands out in front of her. Internally, she reached for the light, at first feeling nothing, the space where it usually resided, hollow and empty. Something skirted around her brain, sparking and shorting out, then flaring back to life. The Knowing settled, and she accepted the choice the truth had left her.

Clyde still sat in the corner of the shack’s large front room, unaware of how many hours had passed. His abnormally broad shoulders touched each side of the wall in the tight space. Looking up to the room’s only window, he shook his head, confused by the day’s events. He wasn’t the same.

He remembered the face of the healer. How the darkness rose within him and fed on the fear that shimmered in her eyes, how he had sent it to claim her, and how good it had felt.

The darkness had freed him to despise her, his hatred forming a knot that twisted in his stomach and strangled his mind. The feelings rose from a place unreachable within his conscious mind, a place from before this time and this body. Primal memories spoke to him of danger, warning him that she was his destruction.

The dark whispered across his mind, causing him to squirm on his stool. She wanted to destroy him. She would make his mother hate him too, taking away the only light he possessed.

He pulled his body tighter, trying to disappear into the darkness where his mother would not find him, where he couldn’t see her look at him with such hurt and disappointment. He tried to hold on to the hope that she would forgive him today and just love him like she did when she told him he was her special boy, her good boy. Then she would hug him, and he could feel her light brushing against the darkness. It would wrap around the bad feelings, muffling them.

He sat there on his stool, watching her. She retreated to the only table and chair in the room. She sat, opening the worn family Bible, resting in its place of honor on the white lace cloth covering the tabletop, leafing through the pages. The light from the sky had dimmed, turning to full dark as she sat, her mouth moving in silent prayer, her eyes occasionally lifting to the ceiling and then casting back down to her Bible.

More time passed, and Clyde could hear her breathing as she rose to cross the room to him. He counted the spaces between her breaths. If they were long with a little sigh at the end, she was unhappy—not angry—and he was safe. There would be no pain. If they were short and rapid, she was bringing the Lord’s wrath to him. She stood, arching her back to relieve the ache of having sat for so long, then bent to pick up the bag, walking to stand in front of him. She shook it at him, the smell of decay and blood exploding into the air with each shake, and his eyelids fluttered involuntarily with pleasure.

“Did you do this? Clyde? Did you do this?” She began questioning him as if no time had passed since she first asked him the question.

He remained mute as always when she confronted him with his sins. She tossed the bag to the floor, some of its contents spilling out. Stepping over the grizzly remains, she reached out for his hand.

He wanted to resist, to bypass this part and get to the other side where she would hold him on her lap, his legs dangling above the floor and his head resting on her chest. He could smell her musky milk scent mixed with the rose sachet that she wore.

He awaited the gentle stroke of her hand on his head, moving down to the length of his nose and finally caressing his cheek. He would hear her voice, low and warm, as he listened to it with his ear against her heart. He lifted his head and raised his arm, his hand reaching out to her.

Fannie took his hand, leading him to the center of the room. He remained there, rooted in obedience, with his head hanging down. He waited as she crossed to the wall, reaching for the heavy leather strap she kept hanging from a nail by the door, its surface marked with dark streaks of dried blood.

She knew that he would not move or attempt to run from her. He never did. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she wrapped the strap tightly around her fist and walked back toward him, her head shaking from side to side. “Why you make me do this, boy?” she asked, the belt smacking against the palm of her hand. He tried not to cringe at the sound, but his muscles quivered with remembered pain. She stared at him for a long moment and then began again, the belt whistling through the air as she spoke.

“He that don’t use the rod hate his child; but he who love him, beats him until the devil gone out of him.” The words flowed over him as the leather came down against his skin, the smack of it aligning itself with her last words. He grunted, waiting for the next blow. It would be harder than the first but not as hard as the next.

“Get behind me, Devil. You demons gets away from my boy and leave him be!” Her voice escalated with each blow, sweat pouring from her brow, stinging her eyes and blurring her vision as it swam with her tears. She sobbed as the belt slammed against his flesh again and again.

He tried to take it, to let the darkness strengthen him and absorb the pain, not allowing it to turn against her. She was his mother, his light, and the only love he had ever known. His lips began to tremble, and he felt the first scalding tear burn a trail as it slid down his face—felt his mouth twisted as pain raged through his body, and the welts rose on his skin. Rushing under her next swing, he threw both arms around her waist, burying his face against her and sobbing loudly.

“I sorry, Mama, I sorry. I don’t means to be bad. I don’t wants to be no sinner. Make me right, Mama, and I won’t do it no more. I ain’t gon’ do it again. I won’t sin no more. I promises.” He gasped, the sound rough and muffled. He was on his knees, dropping his arms to clasp his hands in prayer in front of her. “Please, God, make me right for Mama, please.” He wept.

Fannie dropped the belt in midswing, collapsing to the floor and pulling him onto her lap, ignoring the fact that his upper body was as big as hers. One hand began rubbing around his head before lowering to stroke his nose and finally resting on his cheek, where she cupped it and waited for his shuddering to stop. She rocked him back and forth.

“Shhhhhhh, baby boy, shush now. It be all right. I knows you gon’ do better.”

After a moment, her hand began fumbling with the buttons on her dress, exposing and lifting out her breast, pushing the nipple toward his eager lips. As he began to nurse, she nestled her nose in the thick, black curls that covered his head, inhaling his fresh scent and whispering her praises to God for his deliverance.