“Help,” the veteran croaked. “Please.”
Evie had three dollars to her name; Prohibition gin wasn’t cheap. To hell with it, she thought. She was the Sweetheart Seer; she’d get somebody to buy her a drink.
“Here you are, sir,” she said and stuffed all three dollars into the soldier’s can. Quick as loose mercury, the man grabbed her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong.
“I hear them screaming,” the man whispered urgently through gritted teeth. Spit foamed at the corners of his cracked lips.
“Let go!” Evie cried.
“The eye. Follow the eye,” he pleaded.
“Let me go! Please!”
Evie stumbled back and the man banged his head softly against the brick, keening, “Stop, please. Stop screaming. Stop screaming.…”
“How come you lied to Sister Walker the other day about where you’re from?” Isaiah asked Blind Bill as they walked back from the barbershop toward home. Octavia had to stay late at the school, and Bill had offered to take the boy to Floyd’s for a trim so he’d look nice for church on Sunday.
“That woman don’t need to know my business,” Bill said. “It don’t pay to tell folks too much about yourself. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to tell me about your time with Sister Walker. What she make you do?”
“She didn’t make me do anything.”
“No, no. I know ain’t nobody can make little man do what he don’t want to do,” Bill said, giving a tight smile. “She do the cards with you, though, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many you get right?”
“The last time, I got all of ’em right!” Isaiah crowed.
Bill whistled. “That a fact?”
“Mm-hmm. I was good at it,” Isaiah said. “Corner here, Mr. Johnson. Watch out.”
“Thank you, son. But you know I ain’t Mr. Johnson. You call me Uncle Bill.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Bill,” the boy said, and he sounded pleased.
“Seems to me that’s a mighty powerful gift you got there. Nothing bad about it,” Bill said as Isaiah led him around the corner. Bill could’ve navigated it himself, but he let the boy do it since it made him feel important.
“That’s what I said!” Isaiah blurted.
“Well, now, it wouldn’t do for me to tell you to go against your aunt. But you know how women do.”
“Yes, I surely do,” Isaiah said on a sigh. The sound of the little man’s voice, going on like he knew about women, made Bill want to laugh. He reached out and ran his hand over the top of Isaiah’s head like a pleased father.
“Sometimes men got to have their secrets. Am I right?”
“Right.”
“So what we gonna do is, we gonna have a little secret ’tween us men right now, all right? Now, you can’t be telling your auntie ’bout none of this. This is men talk!”
“All right,” Isaiah said, sounding pleased again.
“Shake on it,” Bill said and took the boy’s small, soft hand in his own rough, weathered one. “Old Bill thinks you oughta be working on your special gift. Making it stronger. And I’m gonna help you come into your gifts right. What you say to that?”
Isaiah was all balled up. After he’d recovered from his fit, Isaiah had gone to church with Octavia to see Pastor Brown, who had prayed over him, and they’d made Isaiah promise that he’d never use his powers again. But now here was another grown-up, Blind Bill, asking him to open it all back up. Isaiah didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore.
“Auntie told me not to,” was all he said, as if that could settle the matter.
Bill took a deep breath through his teeth and whistled it out, thinking about just what to say next. “Your auntie is a good woman. A smart woman. I wouldn’t never go against her. I just want to make sure whatever Sister Walker done to you is all gone, you see? Want to make sure there’s nothing that the pastor and prayer didn’t get rid of. Understand?”