“They’d be liars! I wouldn’t steal nothing!”
“I know you wouldn’t. But some folks might believe ’em. ’Fore you know it, they telling ever’body you’re bad. Other folks hear it and they believe it, too. Don’t bother to check into the story ’cause they’d rather just believe that than find out for themselves.”
“Why?”
“Looking for truth makes a man hafta look at himself along the way.”
Cold wind eddied around Bill’s trouser legs and he felt it in his bones. Isaiah took Bill’s hand. The soft trust of the boy’s fingers was a surprise.
“Did the prince kill that man?”
“Yes,” Bill said after a pause. “Yes, son, he did.”
“And was he cursed?”
“Yes, he was.”
“How? Did it turn him into a monster?”
Bill was still for a moment, listening to a winter wren trilling from a nearby perch. “I expect it did,” he said, feeling suddenly tired, more tired than he could remember feeling in a very long time. “Come on now. Let’s go home.”
Isaiah let go. “That ain’t the end of the story!” He sounded angry. And scared. Like somebody had told him the monsters under the bed were real. “Tell me the real end!”
Why shouldn’t the child know the way of things? Still—killing a man was one thing. Killing hope in somebody so young was another. Once upon a time, Bill knew this. Once upon a time, he’d had the same hope. He had believed in goodness. If he wanted to believe in goodness now, all he had to do was walk the boy home to his aunt and a warm supper.
“Okay. But first, you tell me something. What do you remember ’bout the time when Memphis was a healer?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
“It’s just us. Man talk. Nobody needs to know.”
“He fixed my broken arm,” Isaiah said.
“How’s that?”
“I fell outta the tree after church and Memphis put his hands on me and then I had a dream that we were in a bright, peaceful place and I could hear drums. When I woke up, Reverend Brown and Mama and everybody was crowded around and my arm wasn’t broken no—any—more.”
Bill tipped his face toward the sky, letting the weary winter sun warm his cheeks. He remembered the way sunlight looked peeking through clouds after a rain. He’d like to see that again.
“The prince broke the curse. He married the princess and took her away, back to his homeland. He freed his people, and they lived happily ever after. The end,” Bill said. “Ain’t that how fairy tales go?”
“I suppose so,” Isaiah said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Mr. Johnson?”
“Whatcha want? Got no more stories for you.”
“You all right?”
“’Course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your eyes are all wet,” Isaiah said.
“No, they ain’t, neither,” Bill whispered. He could taste the salt. “Come here, little man.” Bill held out his trembling hand, and the boy, trusting as a lamb, came right to him, and Bill swallowed hard as he laced his big fingers with Isaiah’s small ones and pulled the child close, hating himself all the while.
Later, after he’d carried the boy home and put him on the bed, after Dr. Wilson had been sent for and come and Octavia’s prayer circle had gathered in the parlor to pray for the boy, Bill sat on Octavia’s couch sipping coffee, letting people tap his shoulder and praise him for saving the boy again, thanking Jesus that Bill had been there when Isaiah had suffered another of his fits, or who knows what might have happened?
Bill listened to their whispers—“Look at that, crying for him just like Isaiah was his own son”; “That sure warms the heart on a cold day.” Around him, these people were dim shades in a perpetually gray world.
His hand shook on his cup. He had no stomach for the coffee.