Exodus

1:1

Samuel’s eyes were rolling back in his head, and James had the rope in his hand. He flung it over a branch. The noose dangled. The people—themselves tired, and yet their hearts thumping loud enough to hear—weren’t sure where to look. They kept their eyes downward until they were told to do otherwise. That is, except for Maggie. Maggie’s face was creased. She shifted the weight from her bad hip to her good one, and she crunched the edges of her dress in her hand. In her other hand, the glint of metal.

The blood dripped from Samuel’s chest quicker now. They wrapped the rope around his neck. His head rolled around as though nearly detached. His eyes were swollen, but he could see: animals roaming as far as the cotton field. That was good enough, but the other things he saw—a clenched fist, a call stuck in the throat, low-level eyes that had something written in them that he might coax out momentarily—those things gave him strength for one last smile.

He gurgled when they raised him up, still legs that came to life flailing, an involuntary response as something else took over. His hands pulling at the rope choking him, and the burn even though he wasn’t on fire yet. But there was James creating a torch. The only question would be whether he would wait to light the flame or do it right away.

Things were red, but they were becoming purple on their way to blue. Then black. Samuel’s choking had taken on the shape of words, one word in particular. A name. Through spittle and lips that had begun to lose their color and swell, up through the bulging veins in the throat, a mystery. Who would be able to understand that his last breath would be marked by the joy that had been given to him strictly by chance and taken from him with grave intention? A name. Just a tiny, simple name.

“’ZAY!”

Samuel’s legs had stopped moving as soon as the name erupted out of him, trailed by blood. James doused Samuel with the oil and then held a torch against his leg. The flames raced up his body. And no one made a sound.

Except Puah.

1:2

She collapsed as was the proper way to mourn the dead, especially if they had for you a kind of affection, not exactly as you had hoped but as they were able, with pure heart, to give. So when she fell, she came down with the weight of what could have been, not what was.

Sarah tended to her, wrapped herself around her and spoke a little something into her ear. She knew this as a way to connect them both to the line of women who had come before them, women who had, in some other time, met their fates with the kind of courage that she was looking for in the crowd right now. Who would be the first? Would it have to be her? It seemed that it had always fallen upon the women to be the head or the heart, to throw the first spear, to shoot the first arrow, to clear the first path, to live the first life. It was a thing that took much energy and that was why they needed so much rest now. So ready to put it all down, lay it all by the river and let some greedy tide take it if it wanted to, flow it to some other body to let them fish it out of the water and drape it over themselves if they thought it would do any good.

But no.

Such would never be the case. Woman is the lonely road. It is at the dead of night, crossing through untamed breezes, and off to the side are the deep bushes that separate the road from the wild. In that wild, eyes ever peer, voices ever howl, and what thoughts remain are not fit for articulation. Thus no woman should ever be unarmed. As long as she had teeth, she had a weapon, and the toothless could find a pointy enough stick or sharp enough rock to bear witness.

1:3

Maggie knew this, too, and the calm on her face was the surest sign. She had been holding on to herself, gripping her belly in her two hands, trying to keep the memory housed there in its proper place. There was a specific feeling when a thing went from tiny to big inside yourself, with nothing but you in between it and heartbreak. You prepare for the time, and there will always come a time, when you have to watch them take the thing you yourself created and use it for untoward purposes, defile it and say that it’s in accordance with nature, and the only thing you could ever do about it is join it in death.

Well, let there be twin deaths, then!

It wasn’t that Samuel reminded her of someone; he was her someone. He was her flesh made real to laugh and tumble outside of her body, and the pain of that was too hard. So she had to move it to a part of her that could shoulder the weight and keep the switch to itself.

My last baby. My onlyest one left to see.

Everything had called on her to remember, but sometimes, she had to forget in order to make it through. Ayo Itself had told her that. He wouldn’t let them do to Maggie what they did to him, not without risking everything to prevent it. Eyes wide and fists raised, he risked his body, which Maggie had willingly touched, knowing it would eventually cost her. There could never be peace, only moments in which war wasn’t overwhelming. He had been cut off. All he ever got to see of Samuel was Maggie’s out-to-here belly, which he kissed at night and spoke to in the old tongue, which wasn’t Maggie’s old tongue, but some of the words still held meaning for her.

“I am joy itself!”

Those words flew at her now, circled her head like birds, in his voice. Soon they were drowned out by others, in the language of her mother, and in voices that sounded almost like hers. These words she remembered.

She stretched out her arms and some of the people looked at her, but she only looked ahead. There was Paul, his back to her. He was facing her son, whose body was alight and hung from the tree in a way that was so plain that it seemed normal. She had separated herself from her child even though she loved his father. She gave him to the plantation to raise because she didn’t see the point in adoring something that would only, in time, give her the right to hate. And that was what had her in its grip now. The hate had such a sweet smell, and when she took it into her mouth, it delighted her and gave her limbs energy. She felt the pain in her hip still, but that was a good thing. Her motions returned to their even gait, which made her look and feel taller. For the first time in years, she ran. She ran toward Paul.

It had been hidden near her wrist the whole time: the metal object, the knife that Paul had told her was supposed to go on the right and then said, he never said that, it was to go on the left, and then beat her when she put it there. She didn’t raise it high, but she held it forward like seven women had told her exactly how to hold it and where it should enter his body. James and his men didn’t even see her coming. The glow coming off Samuel had them transfixed, almost as if he were still alive and doing it on purpose. And maybe it was on purpose, not because of him, but because of the beating of the toubab’s hearts, which guided them to a place where looking at their chaos brought them a sense of comfort. They had never felt so close, surely. This lit-up body had given them the reason to stand close to one another with the same look on their faces: I have found it! They had discovered something about themselves in this, a kinship closer than if they shared the same blood or the same bed. Had they given themselves completely over to the moment, which they might have had the niggers not been standing there, they may even have held one another, not with lust in the heart—well, maybe a little lust—but surely with goodwill and generosity of spirit.

Maggie crept not at all carefully around this euphoria but knew that it wouldn’t matter in the end. With bent hands that found new power, she lunged forward. The tip of the knife met Paul at the back of his neck and slid through much more quietly than she had expected. Aside from his head tilting back some, he made no attempt to move or turn. It was as though he had been expecting it and so let it be, or not expecting it at all and so froze in shock. He fell forward with the knife still left in its place, and Maggie breathed heavily as every eye widened and looked first at the body and then at her.

1:4

James picked up his rifle and pointed it at her, but he couldn’t look directly at her for reasons that still disturbed him. He would have to rely on memory. But before he could take his shot, he was tackled by Adam, who came up from behind. They wrestled on the ground, tearing at each other. James saw rage streak across Adam’s face and then he saw his teeth. When Adam banged his forehead against James’s, James thought he might pass out, but he managed to maintain his tight grip on his rifle.

They struggled over James’s rifle and when it went off, it was Adam’s eyes that got wider before the blood trickled from his lips. The nigger who didn’t look like a nigger unless you got up close and tilted your head and squinted.

James let out the breath he didn’t even know he was holding as everything around him slowed to a crawl. A body on top of him, he saw over the dead man’s shoulder. He saw all of their faces, people and niggers; the cowardly and the courageous; struck by the lightning of their tussle; voices deep, stretched, and unintelligible; hands clawed, each grasping for, and gasping for, the last measure of life left to hold. Surely, as things began to return to their natural speed, he found himself, eyes wide open, caught in the middle of a shout:

“Shoot, fools!”

He was angry that he had to tell his marksmen to move and not stand there in some kind of stupor, but also understanding that this was the end-nigh that each of them had kept buried in his loins in order to pretend that the tingle was sensuous and not apprehensive.

Over in the crowd that had begun to swell, toward the back, there was a moment, just before the firing began, when tearful Essie thought she had been given a vision. She held on to Solomon tightly and began to step farther backward, even though none of the rifles were pointed directly at her.

Then there was thunder.

1:5

A shot rang out and somebody fell. The others, some ran; Zeke, Malachi, and Jonathan took off after them, laughing as though they were playing a child’s game. However, some charged, and that was the Good Night that James had feared. Shots fired and all he saw were bodies, and some of the bodies he couldn’t see because the night and the smoke from the body conspired. Somehow, though, his aim was still reliable, and if it weren’t for the nigger who tackled him, he might have eventually broken the spell.

He got up and his legs carried him past tussle and shout. He stumbled and returned to his feet, turning behind him to see if there was anyone trailing him before returning to his quick step. In the dark, he couldn’t be sure how he ended up at the edges. Perhaps it was just his legs hurrying him to the spaces they knew best. But there he was: at the farthest reaches of Elizabeth, where the tumult and flame and blood were now a reasonably safe distance from him. There was nothing he could do. He didn’t feel ill or cowardly standing there, masked by the unblessed woods that surrounded him, his rifle still in his hands, and a massacre left behind. He had seen far too many of them, had almost been swept under the might of them, to care.

He had touched women as he had been touched. They fought as he had fought. They surrendered as he had surrendered. This, he figured, was the way things were. Everyone got a turn, at some point, to be on top or on bottom. It didn’t matter how good you were or how evil you were. All that mattered was that you were alive and, therefore, unsafe. Subject to His will in the here and, likely, the hereafter. And His will was as brutal as it was arbitrary.

James’s legs had finally grown tired. The ache was both unbearable and deserved. He knew that now. There was no escape, but he could retreat. His one regret: abandoning Ruth. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, the barrel pointed toward the sky. Under the half-moonlight, there were many shadows, though not as vibrant as the ones seen in the daylight. His own shadow pointed eastward, so he walked that way, swatting away insects, tripping over raised stones, until he had reached where the forest was so thick that no man could pass it. He climbed into it as best he could, getting scratched on his face and on his hands. There were now more shadows in front of him. These shadows were bigger than his. Elongated and moving wildly, like they were fighting—or preparing to. One of them made a noise, but that was impossible because shadows didn’t make noise.

Trapped in the confines of thorny and twisted roots, he snatched his rifle down and took a shot. CRACK.

The shadows froze. And then, as if they were only momentarily shocked by the sound, they merged. Big as a tree now, but wider. It hovered over James, blotting out the stars and making it seem as though everything in the universe was black. The darkness engulfed him completely. He held tight to his rifle as he spun the best he could and let off three shots. The dark closed in on him. It felt like an embrace: warm, close. He almost extended his arms to return the sentiment, but that was when he heard the noises that took his breath: buzzing. And what was that: voices underwater?

1:6

Before, Beulah never dared dream. But Be Auntie’s dreams were silver and hot. In this place where metal was brilliant from heat, the men were lined up and obedient, even if they were toubab. They licked every part of her, but only when she commanded. Otherwise, they kept their eyes, hands, tongues, and things to themselves. Quivering, yes; anxious even; but nevertheless tucked away. She wanted to call them soldiers, but that would be wrong. The men in real life were soldiers. They were continually starting wars for any little difference of opinion and causing bloodshed that they insisted was necessary if they were to have their way. These real-life men expected her, and all women, to forget that women were always the first casualties of their lusts, claiming that Eve had made this the order of things when, truly, if you gave it even a second of thought, you would know God planned it like this from the start no matter what Amos said. In her dreams, the men were what men were supposed to be: secondary like they were in the beginning before imbalance. Useful for their strength and humor, sure, but they knew to leave the women alone to think. Therefore, finally, worthy of her worship.

Amos had come closer to this than all the men she ever knew. He left her mornings without a “good” and nights without an “evening,” but he lay next to her all the same. He raised no hands, but he did touch her in the way she liked to be touched: with her permission, always with her permission. Not silver just yet, but hot.

She was smiling in her sleep, touching her lips, when the toubab came to get them. The boys leaped up from around her and dashed outside when they heard a noise. Their thundering startled her awake. She was groggy, and her vision still blurred, but she saw the rifles.

“Sons?”

Be Auntie’s heart beat in her throat. Her tongue was dry, which told her that death would be walking the plantation for a while, snatching up the bluest of berries, even the ones that didn’t know that what was wrong with them all along was that they were blue.

“But it’s okay. I know my boys is gon’ protect me. I raised them rightly. If not them, Amos,” Be Auntie said just before the toubab entered her shack. She sat down and smiled a big smile right into those pale-as-hail faces. Slowly, slowly, so slowly that the toubab didn’t even see, the smile faded when she noticed that none of her boys came running in after them. Not even Dug.

They couldn’t all be dead. All six of them? So quick? Nah. And none of them tapped her, woke her from her pretty sleep to tell her to run even? Can’t be. Not after what she gave. Not after what she saved, turned over, made room for, and squirted out of her nipples to keep them whole.

Amos, too?

Did he pick Essie over her?

Can’t be.

With rifles trained on her and toubab yelling for her to get on out of the place she failed to make home, which was not her fault, Be Auntie plopped down on the floor. The toubab laughed because they thought she fell by accident. She looked out front where the grassy cushion was. Toubab legs were obstructing her view so she tried to see through them. That was the easy part. It was their laughter that split her. That allowed what she thought she had digested to rise herself up out of the bowels and into her center. Ooh, it was cold, gray, and funky; vines crept and the mist stuck close to the ground. Then she burst through, hands first, holding red carnations. Not even the courtesy of a hug. Got her nerve!

Yes. Beulah began to climb out, partly by mouth, partly by ear. While exiting the latter, she whispered, harmonizing with herself: “I tried to tell you.”

1:7

Bodies fell, but Essie held on to Solomon, and beside his head, she could see that some of the people had stormed the toubab, Sarah leading them. There, in the middle of Empty, the writhing crowd of bodies must have looked like a festering wound from above, but nothing had ever before been so beautiful. Essie continued to step back, in awe of that beauty and seeking her own, until she was behind the barn and hidden by the trees that bordered the riverbank.

She held Solomon tighter. He trembled momentarily but didn’t cry. He kept trying to turn around, to see where the noise was coming from, like he was drawn to it, like conquest was his birthright and this had to be seen to be understood so it could never happen again. Essie looked down at his chubbiness. He looked like his father.

She bit her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood, but it didn’t prevent memory from choking her from the inside. Only one thing had been denied her. Well, not only one thing, but this was the thing from which all other denials had sprung: No. Her No had no weight and no bearing, and so how could it ever have any mercy?

This, then, was her No. A little late, perhaps. A little too late, but here it was, nonetheless, bright and difficult, but tangible.

They had made a terrible mistake. They had given the child to the wrong woman. They should have let Be Auntie take it. For she, above all, loved these kinds of children. Instead, they had given it to the woman who thought splitting it through the middle and sharing the halves with whomever wanted them was reasonable recompense. They knew who she was (clearly, they didn’t) and she was obliged to be her. She hadn’t lived up to herself, but that was over and she would disappoint them no further.

The crickets warned her in screeching song, but she ignored them. The moon shot down half-light, but still bright enough that she could see the child’s round face, gentle especially when he looked away.

She reached the bank and looked into the black waters before her. She smiled at how calm they were and felt shame at being the one who would disturb them. She held the child close to her, tighter, and tighter still, until he began to squirm and fight. She was surprised by the strength in his tiny body, but she held on, used all of her strength until she heard a snap and the body fell limp. She raised Solomon’s body high above her head. It was as though she were showing someone in the sky the evidence for which he would be convicted. Then, in one quick motion, she threw him into the river.

It swallowed him with barely a gulp.

1:8

Puah’s grief laid her out on a field in the middle of a war. Every part of her wanted to lie right there, close her eyes, and wait for the wolves to do what nature created them to do. And after her bones had been picked clean, after her flesh had been digested and shat out, maybe a bouquet of poppies would sprout wherever her remains had nourished the soil. Maybe nature would remember her long after everyone had forgotten.

She closed her eyes to prepare when a hand grabbed her.

“Get up, girl!”

It was Sarah.

Puah ignored her because there was no reason to get up only to be shot back down. Puah closed her eyes again.

“Mercy, gal! I don’t wanna be the one to say, sister. I don’t wanna have to be the one to say,” Sarah said. She got to her knees and looked deeply at Puah. “But you gon’ have to put down hard things and get yourself up.”

Puah smiled at the indignant tone in Sarah’s voice. Perhaps she thought it a gentle, warm correction that lifted her up between the shoulder blades and offered There, there now, sweet child.

“They did this,” Puah replied.

Sarah nodded her head. “I know it. Couldn’t be nobody but what they is. But you gon’ have to put him away. Now. Because all you can do for him now is run.”

Puah didn’t move.

“This is me and you know it, Puah. Let troubled things keep they distance,” Sarah said.

Puah continued to curl and linger.

“What I tell you ’bout this, Puah? Get on up. We gotta go.”

“Where?” Puah asked.

Sarah looked into Puah’s eyes. “Do you see me?”

“I see circles. They wobbly like. And you look blue, but soft.”

“Up, chile, up.”

“But where we . . .”

“Any damn where but here!”

“Sarah,” Puah said, and her words were slurred. “Samuel.”

“Get up. I done told you from the start: Hold your things! Tie them up in a place where only you can reach it. And reach for them only when you ain’t got no other choice. When the beasts threaten to stampede you. When the hole get so big you ’bout to fall in it. When you look in the river and the thang looking back at you, you ain’t never seen before. Ain’t that what I been telling you? Ain’t I been plaiting that right into that big ol’ head of your’n? You done let it go carelessly and now look. It spread out right here on the ground waiting for the hooves to come stomping on it. Get up, gal. I said: Get. Your. Ass. Up!”

Finally, Puah raised her shaking fingers. Sarah grabbed them. She pulled Puah up and Puah leaned her weight into her. They began first to walk, then, holding hands, they began to sprint. Gunshots startled them and they kept moving through the trees and made their way to the river. What they couldn’t see, they felt around for. Nothing. There was nothing except rocks and twigs, and two bodies.

“Can you see who it is?” Puah asked.

Sarah squinted. “Naw.”

Puah grabbed her chest. She stood for a moment and looked back through the trees. She took a breath and then stepped forward toward the river. She looked at Sarah.

“We could swim.”

“My big ass can’t swim. Never could. But look—you gotta do it.”

“What?”

“Save yourself. Go on. I find another way.”

“Sarah, they might kill you.”

“They had plenty chances already.”

“But . . .”

“On the other side of that river, you finally have a chance.”

“For what?”

Sarah grabbed Puah by both of her hands and kissed her on the cheek.

“To see yourself.”

Puah shook her head.

“Fool chile. If you can make it ’cross the river, when you come up on that other side, you ain’t gon’ have no other choice.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Go. Swim, sister,” she said to Puah, pushing her gently forward. “Swim.”

Puah pulled off her dress and tied it around her waist. She crept lightly, sinking slowly beneath the water’s skin. A dragonfly zipped past her and she turned toward the sound. She was neck-deep, then she disappeared.

1:9

Sarah held her breath, waiting to see Puah’s head or a braid or a stroking arm—anything. She waited. Not even a bubble came up to glide on the surface and burst quietly. Did the down-deep catch hold of her legs? Some errant spirit mistake her body for its own? Fingers pulling every which way and downward for company?

She had sent Puah to her death. How needless. How sloppy of her to push when she should have pulled. Then she heard a splash. And then another. And another. In the darkness, silver flashed and she caught sight of an arm, graceful, shimmering. She was gliding. Puah was gliding across the river as though the forever mamas had laid hands to buoy her. Sarah panted her excitement quietly, to herself. Too bad she couldn’t stay longer to watch her friend-girl fly. But there were jaws everywhere, and flicking tongues.

Puah had asked Sarah where she would go, and Sarah had no idea. I find my way, she had said. She had long given up on safe space but would settle for a living one, where at least a small piece of her soul could sparkle without having mud kicked at it.

Sarah remembered climbing on top once, up where there might have been safety if the world was right sided, and she saw, off in the distance, women as black as caves raising their hands to acknowledge her, beckoning her, telling her that she had an infinite number of mothers who, themselves, were the mothers of infinity. They were the first to give birth to the last, to give life to the woman who is also a man who is also neither, who will gather all of creation, tree and wolf alike, in perfect submission to peace. What had no start would have no finish. And this was the congress of dreams. It is a circle, you see, a wheel in the sky, spinning; bubbles in the sea-foam; a ring of hands joined in the deep, holding mercies in the middle and witnesses on the perimeter, laughing, knowing. These are those of the land that does not eat its young. Ask your blood. For it will tell you.

“You know where I ain’t never been?” she said aloud to all of creation.

She ran over to the cotton field. Between the loosed cows, she went near the edges, until she made it to the other side. She emerged to see the rows of abandoned shacks, lit faintly by Samuel’s light. She walked past them slowly, delighted by the colors they became under scrutiny. She looked to the woods just beyond.

“I ain’t never been this-a-way,” she said out loud.

She meant south. She had never been south because Paul and others had spoken of the Choctaw as though they were the living vengeance anxious to gobble up lost black flesh. But hadn’t they also said that about the infinity mothers, likewise slandered their grace as though they were no longer around to lay waste to those deceits? Nah, if the Choctaw were monsters to Paul and them, they could only be reprieve to her. Whatever lay over there, beyond these new woods, in that other darkness—well, shit. Nightmares walked here. Gobbled up was better than having another set of pasty hands try to pry her knees apart.

“Ain’t that right, Mary?” she asked the darkness in front of her.

But beating behind her heart was the most recent in a long line of women who kept razor blades hidden in the warmth of their mouths. Let toubab try if they wanted to. She tucked in the loose end of her head wrap and grabbed her dress between her legs so that it clung to her thighs like pants. She stomped into the woods, brushing aside branches and bushes with her free hand. Just as she got to a clear spot, there they were, standing in her way: a posse. Some of them ragged and toothless. Some of them tall and thin. All of them lined up like spikes on a pitchfork, waiting to make their jaggedness known.

When they approached, she had figured out something that had been like a splinter in her foot: the easy thing to believe was that toubab were monsters, their crimes exceptional. Harder, however, and even more frightening was the truth: there was no such thing as monsters. Every travesty that had ever been committed had been committed by plain people and every person had it in them, that fetching, bejeweled thing just beneath the breast that could be removed at will and smashed over another’s head before it was returned to its beating place. The splinter pushed out, she could walk evenly, though cautiously, whether the ground was level or not.

She smirked at them. They had already removed her name from all of the monuments and replaced it with the titles of men, thoughtless, violent, cowardly men who were at once afraid of and captivated by the womb that gestated creation—in other words, the cosmos. They had already pulled the goddesses out of the sky and buried them in the deep, hidden away from all but the most gracious. Now what they wanted to do was wipe her face from the record, scatter her remains so that they would never be found again.

She balled her right hand into a fist and with her left, she reached into her jaw and pulled her weapon from where it rested against the interior of her cheek. It didn’t matter what fires were started or how much timber had fueled them. Nah. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s sacrifice but her own.

She swayed with the cotton plants in the distance behind her. The wind danced between her legs. She held a fist out in front of her and her other hand pulled back like a viper before the strike, a fang glistening in its mouth. Delighted by the potential shock that would overcome their faces as she took at least two of them down with her into the places her people thrived—hot places, thick with ruin—she braced herself:

“Come on with it, then!”

1:10

Amos walked to the very center and raised his hands.

“Be calm! This is the dawning of the Lord’s day!” he shouted, his voice mixing with the tumult but not rising above it.

What they didn’t know was that out yonder, tragedy would be plentiful beyond any that could be imagined here at Empty. They knew of course what that fence, long and wide, had confined them to; there was no need to enumerate what was already plain on the flesh. But what it protected them from was what they couldn’t reckon with. Amos knew, though. There was nothing more frightening than patrolling toubab boys, whom some toubab woman’s tears had nourished, gussying themselves up for a ride into the woods to find a gaggle of niggers hidden in some quiet cove or tucked in the branches of a solemn tree.

They had known what it was to be hungry, but what they didn’t know were the miles between that and starvation because they hadn’t yet seen a man poison himself, picking the wrong leaf to chew and satiate the pain that tore at the gut after five days when not even raccoon meat was forthcoming.

To be without a working well was the worst. The river water was full of salt and upset the belly. And rain couldn’t be counted on because this land was fickle like that. And at most, you could catch a handful before the pouring stopped for no reason other than spite. Never mind the wolves and the snakes and the gators, all teeth and all waiting for a fool to stumble. And what about the babies? How can you bring along a baby into this and muffle its cries when the milk runs dry because the mother’s belly is empty?

No, Empty wasn’t in no ways safe, but it was reliable. And what all could a people who had nothing—and would never have nothing so long as toubab remade the world in their own lonesome image—hope for except to know the who, what, when, why, where, and how of their misery?

I ain’t rotten fruit; I a man.

“Come, be safe in my arms.”

No need to fear, no need, he thought to say to the bodies living and dead. Some of the living would respond to his call because if in the untoward night someone held up a light, however dim, evincing arms open for embrace, where if those arms could not protect, they could at least offer that you wouldn’t die alone, there was, at last, a direction. But neither Essie nor Be Auntie was among them and that pierced him in places hidden and in plain sight.

Amos stood next to Paul’s body, and the people gathered there, encircling them both. That was the safest place to be: weeping around the body of the master of land, while all the others ran wild and free. When the cavalry arrived—and trust: they would be a-coming—he would give them all of their names. Starting with hers.

“All we wanted was a little quiet, huh. Massa, can you manage that for us? A little quiet, and maybe . . . some peace?” When he received no answer: “We stay here with you. We stay.”

He was certain the shots wouldn’t come near because he had seen and already been touched by the Blood. He looked up and saw Maggie. He stood there, in the middle of everything, looking downcast at Maggie, though she herself seemed to be rising up the slope from the tree to the Big House, but he still chose to look at her downward. Their eyes met. Only he had tears in his. He raised his hand slowly, pointing at her. Accusing her. Of what? She would understand and only she. That was why she smiled and turned her back to him. Still, he needed to say it aloud, for the benefit of witnesses. It didn’t matter that it would simply land at her heels.

“They was putting us in danger. All I was trying to do was keep us safe.”

1:11

In the middle of nothing, there was music.

Maggie stood above everything, facing east; the light from far off couldn’t reach her yet, but she knew it was coming. She bent and snatched up the torch that James used to cook her baby, the only one who remained and who she thought was better off not knowing, but she saw, with her own eyes, that he had found something good in this life that would make his short time here bearable. She gathered up the torch and limped quickly back to the Big House.

It was dark inside, and even if the torch had not lit her way, she knew every inch of the house better than she knew the slim curves of her body. This was the place where she was damned, so its contours and boundaries, even its most secret crevices, were all known to her, known and committed viciously to memory. Each spot had a story. The cotton-filled chair was where she was made to stand for hours on a bad hip as the Halifaxes entertained their guests. The fireplace that almost consumed her when Paul pushed her too close. She could have fell down the fucking stairs—and she called them that for good reason—if not for her quick reflexes. And those bitter mirrors. Oh! The house was lawless.

She walked through it anyway because what choice did she have? Up the stairs and into Massa Paul’s room to start at the core, as fire should cleanse from the inside out. She held the torch to the bed and only looked long enough to see it ignite. Then she went back outside, torch in hand, and headed to the fields.

How she despised those rows! Each so very neat in their appearance, all of them methodical and rigid, but also offering up the kind of softness that claimed lives. She walked up and down, quicker even than her injury would allow, possessed as she felt by something very old beside her, running in unison, spears pointed forward. She thought, What it look like if it were them, for once? If they had been split from their children; if they had to toil for no wages and meager sustenance; if they backs had been mangled for the slightest offense or none at all; if they fingers were stripped to the bone picking and picking and, damn it, picking; if it was they heads that had been placed haphazardly on spikes for a stretch of miles. How it feel if they were under? They might not know soon, but eventually, they would know. And they knew, too. That was why they cradled guns like offspring.

With a gentle motion, she began to burn the plants as she walked by them. The sizzle filled the air, and hearing it gave her over to herself, made her feel that her body was, finally, her own. As each bush became a torch, she looked back at the Big House, and in an upper window, inside an upper room, she saw a figure just . . . standing there. Standing there looking, maybe at her, maybe at the people in the distance as they swarmed and reclaimed their dignity with the swiftness that comes when it’s long overdue. But the figure didn’t move. It became just another window dressing, and that was how she knew it was Missy Ruth.

They could have been sisters if Missy Ruth didn’t believe the same deception that men did. Oh, but the deceit was so alluring, sweet on the tongue like cane. There weren’t many who could spit it out.

Nothing compelled Maggie to shout to her or signal that the flames would soon reach her, giving her the chance to flee. Where would she go? Out in the woods like she always did, probably. Or into town. Or find some place of worship to give shelter. There were traps everywhere, sure, but, too, there was no shortage of people who would spring them and endanger themselves to spare a toubab woman grief.

Maggie just stared at her, remembering the dress. Then she held up the torch and for whatever reason, a tear streamed down her face. Maggie decided not to question where it came from or why it came, but was certain that it, alone, was enough.

She wasn’t standing on a hill, but that’s what it seemed like. It was as if the smoke were, instead, clouds, and the ashes—some of the flakes could have very well been her own child’s, mixed in with how far Empty was about to fall thanks to her, yes her, it should be known and remembered, but it won’t be—the ashes could have been the starry heavens because they, too, were remnants of dead things.

No one would remember her name, but she had become a larger spirit now: head bigger, hips wider, and whatever the hurt. All of the ones who had come before her simply pumping through her heart and they had found a place to be in the caverns of her throat. There, she recalled her voice.

With both her hands in the air, she cast her last spell:

“Look! We lined up in a row, stretched damn near across the whole place.” The people, crying some of them, looked over toward Maggie and scurried nearer. “Make a circle. We need a circle because both ends need to be closed up. A snake. A snake eating its own damn tail. Don’t that just beat all? What matter do it make if you are seen? You are here!”

She took a moment to look at each of them. “All you done seen. All you done touched. And you let something as small as a ocean part you? Ain’t you shamed?”

As the knowing rose upon their faces, Maggie smiled. Finally: “A wisdom!”

Only one question: What to do when the cavalry arrives? Only one thing to do:

With every drop of blood:

Rebel!