The Prophets(108)

The crickets warned her in screeching song, but she ignored them. The moon shot down half-light, but still bright enough that she could see the child’s round face, gentle especially when he looked away.

She reached the bank and looked into the black waters before her. She smiled at how calm they were and felt shame at being the one who would disturb them. She held the child close to her, tighter, and tighter still, until he began to squirm and fight. She was surprised by the strength in his tiny body, but she held on, used all of her strength until she heard a snap and the body fell limp. She raised Solomon’s body high above her head. It was as though she were showing someone in the sky the evidence for which he would be convicted. Then, in one quick motion, she threw him into the river.

It swallowed him with barely a gulp.





1:8


Puah’s grief laid her out on a field in the middle of a war. Every part of her wanted to lie right there, close her eyes, and wait for the wolves to do what nature created them to do. And after her bones had been picked clean, after her flesh had been digested and shat out, maybe a bouquet of poppies would sprout wherever her remains had nourished the soil. Maybe nature would remember her long after everyone had forgotten.

She closed her eyes to prepare when a hand grabbed her.

“Get up, girl!”

It was Sarah.

Puah ignored her because there was no reason to get up only to be shot back down. Puah closed her eyes again.

“Mercy, gal! I don’t wanna be the one to say, sister. I don’t wanna have to be the one to say,” Sarah said. She got to her knees and looked deeply at Puah. “But you gon’ have to put down hard things and get yourself up.”

Puah smiled at the indignant tone in Sarah’s voice. Perhaps she thought it a gentle, warm correction that lifted her up between the shoulder blades and offered There, there now, sweet child.

“They did this,” Puah replied.

Sarah nodded her head. “I know it. Couldn’t be nobody but what they is. But you gon’ have to put him away. Now. Because all you can do for him now is run.”

Puah didn’t move.

“This is me and you know it, Puah. Let troubled things keep they distance,” Sarah said.

Puah continued to curl and linger.

“What I tell you ’bout this, Puah? Get on up. We gotta go.”

“Where?” Puah asked.

Sarah looked into Puah’s eyes. “Do you see me?”

“I see circles. They wobbly like. And you look blue, but soft.”

“Up, chile, up.”

“But where we . . .”

“Any damn where but here!”

“Sarah,” Puah said, and her words were slurred. “Samuel.”

“Get up. I done told you from the start: Hold your things! Tie them up in a place where only you can reach it. And reach for them only when you ain’t got no other choice. When the beasts threaten to stampede you. When the hole get so big you ’bout to fall in it. When you look in the river and the thang looking back at you, you ain’t never seen before. Ain’t that what I been telling you? Ain’t I been plaiting that right into that big ol’ head of your’n? You done let it go carelessly and now look. It spread out right here on the ground waiting for the hooves to come stomping on it. Get up, gal. I said: Get. Your. Ass. Up!”

Finally, Puah raised her shaking fingers. Sarah grabbed them. She pulled Puah up and Puah leaned her weight into her. They began first to walk, then, holding hands, they began to sprint. Gunshots startled them and they kept moving through the trees and made their way to the river. What they couldn’t see, they felt around for. Nothing. There was nothing except rocks and twigs, and two bodies.

“Can you see who it is?” Puah asked.

Sarah squinted. “Naw.”

Puah grabbed her chest. She stood for a moment and looked back through the trees. She took a breath and then stepped forward toward the river. She looked at Sarah.

“We could swim.”

“My big ass can’t swim. Never could. But look—you gotta do it.”

“What?”

“Save yourself. Go on. I find another way.”

“Sarah, they might kill you.”

“They had plenty chances already.”

“But . . .”

“On the other side of that river, you finally have a chance.”

“For what?”

Sarah grabbed Puah by both of her hands and kissed her on the cheek.

“To see yourself.”

Puah shook her head.

“Fool chile. If you can make it ’cross the river, when you come up on that other side, you ain’t gon’ have no other choice.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Go. Swim, sister,” she said to Puah, pushing her gently forward. “Swim.”

Puah pulled off her dress and tied it around her waist. She crept lightly, sinking slowly beneath the water’s skin. A dragonfly zipped past her and she turned toward the sound. She was neck-deep, then she disappeared.





1:9


Sarah held her breath, waiting to see Puah’s head or a braid or a stroking arm—anything. She waited. Not even a bubble came up to glide on the surface and burst quietly. Did the down-deep catch hold of her legs? Some errant spirit mistake her body for its own? Fingers pulling every which way and downward for company?