The Prophets(105)

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.