Ring Shout(30)

I close my eyes, remembering the rest. The sounds of bullets going through Daddy and the door. The Ku Kluxes rampaging above me. Mama’s screams. My brother’s cries. Me in the hole, shaking with fright. That’s when the sword first come. I still remember its coolness in my grip, sending visions in my head. It was humming with eagerness, willing me to get up there, to fight the Ku Kluxes. But I was so scared …

“—was like I couldn’t move,” the girl says, completing my thoughts. “Like something had ahold of me. I just stayed there in the dark, waiting for it to be over. Stayed down there almost two whole days. When I finally come out everybody was gone. So I went seeking—”

“No!” My heart beating fierce. “Don’t give them this!”

Dr. Bisset don’t even turn to me. “Where did you go seeking?”

My younger self stares me straight in my eyes when she betrays us. “The barn.”

“Take me there.” When I don’t move, he sighs. “That wasn’t a request.” He grabs my arm and the world shifts, like I’m moving without walking. When I stop, we’re out back. In front of the barn, where the door is open slight. It’s morning now. Because that’s when I came here.

“Why you want to see this?” I whisper.

“As I have told you, my lords desire the secret you keep from them, for which you have constructed quite the ruse.”

“When they asked to see your misery, did you just show it to them?” I spit back.

He turns to me, moving a hand to lift his blindfold. I suck in a breath. Where his eyes should be, there’s empty holes, raw and bloody. Like they was … plucked out.

“My lords wished to see the misery I had witnessed through my own flesh. They asked, and I willingly surrendered. Consider this intrusion … slight.”

He walks to the barn door, pushing it open and stepping inside. I stay there breathing fast, feeling like I might drown. Slender fingers twist into mine and I look at my younger self. The fear on her face is gone, because I know it’s all inside me now.

“We can do it together,” she says. Then hands me the broken sword. “More yours than mine. Remember what I told you. They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us.” With a gentle pull, she leads me to the barn door, forcing my feet forward.

When I step inside, I’m alone. Whatever she was—a ghost I left behind, some trick in my head—is gone. So it’s through my eyes that I relive the cold December morning seven years back, when I entered to the terrible sight before me. Three bodies. My family. All hanging from the barn rafters by ropes. They swing in the morning sunlight, feet seeming to dance on the open air. Something grabs hard at my insides, and I fall to hands and knees, doubled over, reliving the horror and guilt.

“Such pain.” Dr. Bisset is knelt down beside me. “Sadness for what you lost. Shame at what you could not do. And anger—so much anger.” His empty eyes read me, boring into my deepest crevices. “You used that anger, fled from family and friends, then went seeking your vengeance, to etch your own story in blood.”

I bite down, remembering. I stayed with my mama’s people after. Whole time, the sword was with me, singing its secrets, teaching its deadly rhythms. When I was ready, I took off looking for Ku Kluxes. First one I killed, I poured much of the rage I held into its death. Hacked it to pieces. But wasn’t enough. I had more pain and anger to give. Two years I spent wandering, killing Ku Kluxes. Don’t know if I was even fully human no more. Was just the vengeance and killing. Now I hunted the monsters. I was somewhere in the Tennessee woods, descending into a hell of blood and slaughter, when Nana Jean’s call dug me out that pit. Became a person again. But I buried the wound that fueled me deep, stuffing a little girl back into that hatch, and all the horrors she’d seen.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, to her, to myself.

“My lords find your misery … delectable,” Dr. Bisset says. “You are a rare treat.”

My eyes roll up to meet his empty sockets and a new anger rises inside me. This is my pain. My scar to carry. Ain’t theirs to feast on, to suck dry like marrow from a bone. I’ve had enough of monsters, devouring bits of me, trying to eat me up altogether.

“I hunt monsters,” I tell him between clenched teeth.

I don’t know when I extend my hand to call up my sword. I feel the broken piece I hold stir, fresh visions swirling in my head. More than I ever seen at once, coming and going in a blur. Once more there’s the song. The beautiful, vengeful song. It’s stronger too—hundreds of voices in harmony. They pull on those slave-selling chiefs and kings, to cry out and wake up slumbering gods. I look down to the jagged blade to find it covered in black smoke, growing to take the familiar leaf shape, binding together until the dark metal is mended and made whole. It’s then I realize that amid the many visions, the girl is truly gone. No more frightful eyes. No more fear to pull me under. The wound I made of her is still there, but it don’t pulse raw like it used to. It’s mending too, even if it might never fully heal.

Dr. Bisset looks at the sword. And those emptied eyes somehow carry surprise.

“How—?” he begins, but I cut him off.

“This is my place. My pain. You got no right here! Your lords like misery so much? Let me show them!” The black leaf-blade explodes into brilliance as the song goes deafening. The light burns through everything, till I’m blinded.