The Healing

Chapter 35





Granada awoke with Polly standing over her, grinning to beat the devil. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, knowing the old woman was reading her thoughts.

Without speaking, Granada looked away and then rose to her feet. The cramping had calmed, but her heart raced.

“You back early,” Granada stammered.

“Um-hum. Charity did just fine. Easy birthing. She got herself a healthy leopard cub.” Polly added sheepishly, “I heard you had to leave all of a sudden. Something get into you?”

Granada was sure Polly already suspected. Could probably smell the blood. But that didn’t matter. Granada knew it was her mother she wanted to tell first. She was determined to stay quiet until then.

While Granada cleared their meal from the table, the sound of muffled hoofbeats rose up from the yard. Polly stepped over to the doorway and gazed into the darkening night.

“Old fool,” Polly sighed, shaking her head.

Granada knew instantly whom she meant. Of all the people Polly had taken a dislike to, only Silas rated the title of “old fool.”

“What’s he done now?” Granada asked, scraping the leftovers into the bucket by the door.

“Nothing to my face. Don’t you know a cat never howls where he’s been kicked?” Polly turned back to Granada. “It’s me Old Silas is riled at, but he don’t rear up and fight me face-to-face. He has to go off a mighty far piece to stir up his trouble. I suspect his throat is sore from all the yowling he’s done today, calling me every name but a child of God.”

Polly’s gaze returned to the yard. “I’m going to have to do something about that man,” she muttered. “Tonight is as good a time as any, I reckon.” Then she looked back at Granada. “I got something I want you to take to him.”

“What you going to do to Old Silas?” Granada gasped. Though Polly denied trucking with hoodoo, Granada wasn’t completely convinced. The woman certainly had some spooky ways, going out into the night and talking to snakes and all. And Lizzie still swore to everybody who would listen that it was Polly who conjured the mistress into setting herself on fire.

Granada watched warily as Polly went to one of the leather trunks she had hauled with her from Carolina. After rifling around in a nest of unginned cotton, she retrieved a stoppered bottle of tinted glass.

By now Granada recognized all the remedies that Polly used on a regular basis, both the patent medicines the master got for her as well as those she prepared herself. But this one she had never seen before.

“What’s that you got there?” Granada asked. Perhaps the trunk was where Polly kept her hoodoo magic.

Polly gently shook the bottle. The glass was the same amber color of her eyes. “Can’t find this around here. Grows up the country. Don’t look like it, but it comes from a plant that’s got the prettiest purple flower you ever seen.”

“What’s it called?” Granada asked.

Polly grinned. “Called a lot of things. Bloody fingers. Deadmen’s bells. Witches’ gloves.”

It certainly sounded like hoodoo, Granada thought.

“You take the leaf after blooming, dry it, and then grind it up real fine.”

“What’s it for?”

Polly smiled but didn’t answer. Granada could see the devil in the old woman’s eyes.

“What?” Granada blurted.

Polly only laughed.

“How come you want me to do it?”

“Because that old cur will come nearer to eating out of your hand than mine.”

“I ain’t going be the one to poison Old Silas!”

Polly threw her head back. “Yes, Lord!” she hooted, slapping her thigh. “I suspect that’ll be exactly what he thinks if I give it to him!” Polly laughed again. “That’s why you got to take it to him. Maybe he trust you enough to swallow it.”

Polly still hadn’t answered her question. “That bottle got poison in it?” Granada asked.

“Sure do. Two pinch kill. One pinch heal. What you think we ought to do?” She chuckled. “Give the old fool an extra pinch?” She laughed again at Granada’s befuddlement.

Polly took a smaller bottle from the shelf and half filled it from the whiskey jug. Then she added a small dose of the powder.

“Let’s just give him one pinch this time,” she said, securing a stopper into the bottle’s mouth with a quick twist of her wrist. “If he’s grateful, we’ll let him live.”

Then, in an instant, Polly’s manner changed. The girlish mischief was gone from her eyes. She fixed a serious gaze on Granada and spoke in a tone that was both solemn and measured. “You tell Old Silas this is a lot more powerful than the mullein tea Sylvie been giving him. This will take the swelling out of his feet and give him his breath back. But he’s got to be careful with it. You understand? Take half now and half in the morning.”

Granada nodded. “But you know good as me he’s just going to throw it out the window.”

“No, you wrong. He’ll take it all right. He just won’t tell nobody.” Polly chuckled softly, shaking her head at the old man’s ways. “You see, Silas can’t let nobody know, but he has it figured out. He’s caught on to the biggest secret about healing there is. And it scares him spitless.”

“What secret?”

Polly looked down at Granada and smiled. “Can’t you figure out that riddle? You been looking for magic all this time and you still ain’t seen enough to know?”

Granada shook her head. “What riddle you talking about?”

“This,” Polly said, her yellow eyes gathering up all the light in the room. “Once you been healed by a nigger, you can’t be a slave no more.”

• • •

Stepping up to Silas’s open door, Granada heard the quick, jagged gasps of strangled breathing.

“Old Silas!” Granada called out.

She hurried into the cabin, and in the night shadows saw Silas lying on his bed with his forearm resting over his eyes. He still wore his preaching suit and though no lamp had been lit, the fabric glowed white from a day’s worth of road dust. He hadn’t even taken time to brush himself off.

Granada stood at the side of his bed. “Old Silas, you taken sick?”

The old man shifted his arm from his eyes and looked up at her. “Granada,” he said, more to himself than to her.

He carefully dropped his legs over the side of the bed and then raised himself to a sitting position, his bare feet flat on the floor. His chin was down and his eyes closed as he labored to get his breath.

“Old Silas—” Granada said.

“I’ll be fine,” he said in a thin, dry voice. “Just need to get up on my feet. Need to walk a bit. Helps me to get my breath.”

Granada put the bottle on the table and took Silas’s arm at the elbow. And indeed once he was upright, his breathing became easier, but she could tell his feet were bothering him terribly. He balanced himself against the table, leaning on it with both hands.

“What’s that?” Silas asked, spying the bottle on his tabletop.

“For your dropsy,” Granada said. “Polly mixed it for you.”

He reached for the bottle with an unsteady hand, removed the stopper and waved it once under his nose. “Smells like whiskey.”

“She says it will soothe your heart better than mullein. It’s stronger. Take half tonight and half in the morning.”

“You try some of it?” he asked, squinting at her through the dim light.

She shook her head.

“No, I reckon not.” He smelled it again. “Soothe my heart, she say. Stop it stone-dead cold more likely.”

He set it on the table and then weaved a bit on his feet. Granada stepped closer, ready to catch him.

“Old Silas,” she ventured, “maybe you ought to try you some.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I hear you a regular hoodoo woman yourself now.”

“No, I ain’t,” she said flatly. “Polly and me don’t work hoodoo. She says hoodoo is taking over from God. She says healing is helping God do what He trying to do anyhow. Like mending a bone or curing a fever or … or …” She dropped her eyes again.

Silas cocked his head. “Or what?”

“You know,” she said, scuffing the floor with the toe of her shoe.

“Humph. Birthing babies,” he guessed. “Might of known you still stuck on that.” He waited until she looked up again and said, “But she don’t let you, does she?”

“Soon,” Granada said.

“You better off not getting into that mess. Let me tell you, there’s nothing special ’bout dropping babies,” Silas said emphatically. “Just go out to the sheds and barns and you can see critters being pushed out all day long. Sheep and cows and horses and hounds.” He drew up his face into a disgusted scowl. “Cats and rats. Folks aren’t any different.”

“That ain’t the way it is,” she said.

“I’ve seen it and it’s not pretty to watch. You don’t want any of that, do you? Hauling a dishpan full of blood and guts and burying it in the woods? Dirty work.”

“It ain’t dirty!” she blurted, unable to hold her tongue any longer. “And it ain’t blood and guts. It’s named a placenta. And you bury it so you can root the baby in the world.”

His lips tightened. “She got you spouting nonsense.”

“You got to bury it so his soul don’t go off wandering,” she insisted.

Gripping both arms of his rocker, Silas lowered himself into the chair. He looked up at her and even in the dim light, Granada could see the disappointment that lay heavy on his face, deepening the lines in his brow.

He let out a heavy breath. “Seem to me like you’ve forgotten all about your mistress. Taking sides against her.”

“No, I ain’t forgot her,” she said, looking down at her feet. “You lied to me, Silas. You said you was going to …” Granada decided not to finish. It didn’t matter anymore. She no longer wanted to be back in the great house.

“I didn’t lie to you,” Silas snapped. “She’s coming back. I’m in good with the master and soon I can still get you in good with her.”

For weeks now Granada could summon no feelings for the mistress at all. Granada recalled well enough Mistress Amanda’s touch that magical Sunday in the parlor. She remembered the beautiful dresses, the times she sat by the mistress’s bed, watching her sleep. How when no one was looking, she reached over and gently stroked the long, dark hair that draped the pillows and covered her milky-white shoulders. Granada had once been able to cry at even the mere mention of Mistress Amanda’s name, but lately she couldn’t squeeze out a single tear.

Polly Shine had dangled another life before her eyes, one that promised healings and birthings and her own babies, and all that was left for Granada to do was to find Ella and say the words.

Silas was still watching her. His brows were raised, the concern still in his face.

“You haven’t forgotten about what the mistress did for you?” he asked, shaking his head sadly. “Taking you out of the quarters and putting you up in the great house. Mistress saved you from being a swamp nigger, Granada. You owe her plenty. You even owe her your name.”

A darkness crossed over Granada’s mind like a shadow over water. “Mistress was the one who named me?”

“That’s the gospel truth,” he said solemnly. “I was there the night she gave it to you.”

Granada became quiet, and after a long pause, asked carefully, “What’s my other name?” Her breath began to quicken.

“What do you mean?” he asked, squinting his eye at her.

“The first one. The one my mother give me.”

Silas drew back in his chair. “I don’t recollect,” he said, his manner short, like he was ready for her to leave. “That was a long time ago.”

Granada’s forehead beaded with sweat. She was getting closer and closer to her mother, only a few steps farther. “Was it Yewande?”

It was the first time she had said the name since the day she had heard it.

Silas opened his mouth to speak, but his lips seemed to stall. It was like he was offering Granada a chance to pretend she hadn’t asked the question. Then everything could be right between them once more.

Her heart throbbed as fast and hard as the hoofbeats of the master’s horse in full gallop.

“That the name my momma give me?” she asked.

Silas cleared his throat. “Could of been Yewande,” he said. “Sylvie tell you that?”

“No, Old Silas. Somebody else,” she said. “My momma told me.”

“Ella?” He looked up at her now, his expression confused.

She nodded. “Where did she get that name?”

“Named you after her grandmother,” he said, his words terse. “Old Bessie’s mother.”

“Yewande,” Granada said again.

“She was a saltwater slave. Brought over on the boat. Yewande was the heathen name she came with.” Silas then angled his head suspiciously. “When did you say you talked to Ella?”

“Preaching Sunday,” she answered. “Last time.”

Silas shook his head. “No, can’t be.”

“I did,” Granada argued. “My mother came after me, calling me ‘Yewande.’ ”

“Weren’t Ella. Not that day,” he said confidently. “Ella was the first to be took by the blacktongue. Along with her boy. The both of them been up in the burying ground since last winter. You were still in the kitchen.”

“Dead?” she said. “No, she ain’t dead. I seen her. My brother, too!”

“What’s this?” Silas asked, suddenly angry. “You and Polly playing some kind of trick on me? That it? Trying to make me believe she can raise up ghosts from the dead?”

Granada’s legs began to go wobbly and her head spun. Outside, gin wagons were still rumbling into the yard. The drivers yelled their howdys to one another as they drove the mules into the lot. Down in the quarter mothers were calling their children in for supper. It all bled together into a terrible deafening roar that threatened to sweep her up on a mighty wave if she did not leave this place at once.

Granada turned quickly, thinking of running, but she could only stumble on shaky legs out the door and into the yard. When she got to the hospital, she bolted up the steps, but went no farther than the dark of the open doorway. She stood there breathless and finally gasped the only words she could manage: “Silas said she dead!”

Polly stood next to the table with the lantern, her shadow looming large on the wall behind her.

Granada searched the old woman’s face for a trace of understanding, hoping she wouldn’t be forced to say more, because that was all she understood.

Polly eyed her carefully but offered nothing and made no effort to come closer.

“But that ain’t true, is it?” Granada asked finally. “I seen her and you seen her. And my little brother,” she said, her voice cracking with panic. “Silas said he’s dead, too.”

“Your brother,” Polly said.

“My brother. My momma. But I seen them,” she repeated. “And you seen them.”

Polly shook her head carefully. “I seen you, Granada,” she said softly. “I ain’t seen them.”

“You did!” Granada shouted, frantic now. “In the yard. You seen her!”

“No, baby,” Polly said gently. “What I seen was what was in your face. I seen how scared you was. Your face told me what you seen.”

“Ghosts?” she cried. “That what you saying? All I seen was ghosts?”

“No, ma’am!” Polly insisted. “You seen your momma and your brother.”

Polly turned her back to Granada and walked with a heavy stride over to the rocker next to the hearth.

Granada had not moved from the doorway, still not wanting to come closer. From across the room she studied the old woman sitting in her rocker, her serene eyes lit softly by the lantern light. When Polly looked upon her, at once Granada’s panic turned to a deathly weariness. Her body went liquid and her legs felt as if they might crumple beneath her.

Just then Polly beckoned Granada with a slight gesture of her hand. The girl crossed over to the woman and then collapsed at her feet. Polly drew the girl’s head to her, resting it against her knee, and gently stroked Granada’s hair.

“Dreams you and me have don’t go away just because the sun comes out. They abide in our hair and skin and in our bones. They get to be part of us.” Polly drew a deep breath and held it in her bosom, as if to underscore her meaning.

Granada turned her head from the light and hid her eyes in the skirt of Polly’s dress. “I want to forget her now. It hurts too bad.”

“No, baby, no,” Polly said softly, “you don’t. Your heart has been hurting for that woman all your life. You’ve been holding out for her. Waiting on her. Scared to move on without her.” In a whispering voice, Polly said, “And she knows it. She is telling you she ain’t forgot you. She remembers you.”

Now that her mother was no longer, Granada was flooded with needs, never before spoken. She wanted her mother to explain to her this crumbling wall between dreaming and waking. The foreign feelings that arose from a forbidden thought or an unintentional touch. The pulsing and surging of new sensations, so pleasant they scared her. How tenderness could hurt so and how delight could be so terrifying.

She needed to tell her mother how scared she was all the time now. How each new discovery was tinged with a sense of shame and loss. What would happen, she wanted to ask, if she did take that step as a woman? Would she be swallowed up by the gaping darkness she felt inside?

Would becoming a woman mean more shame, even more loss? Who else would she be forced to give up? Granada began to weep into the folds of Polly’s dress. She could not bear to lose anyone else.

“Right this minute,” Polly whispered, “you as close to your momma as knuckle to nail. As blood to bowel. She ain’t lost to you. And you ain’t lost to her.”

Polly leaned over and lifted Granada’s chin with a slender finger. “What you been wanting to tell her, child?” the old woman whispered tenderly. “What you been holding on to for your momma? Let her hear it now.”