The Prophets(13)
“Heavy,” she mumbled to herself.
She heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. She knew it was Paul because of how deliberate each step was. He’d come in the dining room and sit at the head of the table and watch her, like her wretchedness brought him joy. He might even have the nerve to touch her or stick his tongue where it had no business being. She wished she knew a spell that could slit his throat, but alas, that would require her hands to be used and she wasn’t certain that she could take him.
“Shit.”
Essie
Though goddesses made more sense, she agreed to kneel to Amos’s secondhand god—especially if it meant more rations and a wall between her and numerous sufferings.
Maybe not a wall, exactly. More like a fence, a wooden fence, not unlike the barn’s, staked out in uncommon ground, jutting from the earth, meant to keep animals in and people out. A fence and not a wall because crafty as some childish anger was, it didn’t have the legs to climb something so tall. But it could slip through spaces between planks. It thought itself innocent like that. And sometimes, that’s what toubab reminded Essie of: children of everlasting tantrums, ripping and roaring insatiably; stomping through fields with boundless energy; finding everything curious and funny; demanding mother’s teat; falling, finally, into rest only if gently swayed.
They were too young, then, to understand treaties, much less honor them. Signing them must have been penmanship practice or flourish. Still, it was the only assurance people had. So, she knelt; with the pale baby held snug at her waist, she knelt. Sultry in a way that her tattered dress, dusty skin, and loosening braids should have never allowed her to be. The strategy told to her was a lie. Toubab men were, in fact, not discouraged by an unkempt woman. Paul Halifax simply peeled back the layers, saw past the pricked and bleeding fingers that gathered a respectable 150 pounds of cotton every day except Sunday. For him, Essie’s thick thighs and delicate wrists were a kind of currency. She knew then that they purchased everything except mercy.
“It won’t never happen again. This, I promise you,” Amos said to her seven days after he failed her.
Later, much later, she showed her broom-husband her commitment by muddying her knees beside his. However, she would remain skeptical. Skepticism was the only thing that she could truly claim as hers. She took it with her to the barn the day Amos sent her there with a message.
“This ain’t pie; this peace,” she said by way of greeting to Isaiah as she balanced the wildberry confection in one hand; the pie was covered by a piece of cloth so white it glowed. In the other hand, she held the pale baby she named Solomon for her own good reasons. She carried the apprehension atop her head, balancing it like they did in the old days.
Solomon was fussy. He threatened to topple everything by pulling at her dress, right where the milk had made it damp. She hated that he had that sort of power over her body, his cries like a spell making her breasts respond by leaking drops of her serum-self out for his nourishment. She nearly dropped him, but Isaiah caught him by the bottom and took him from Essie’s loose grasp. Solomon looked at Isaiah with big, flat eyes, blue as birdsong, set at the edge of a face that seemed nearly skinless. And yet, in the natural curl in the baby’s sun-colored tresses, Isaiah found something familiar enough.
“You hungry, huh?” Isaiah said to the quieting baby, who touched his nose as he looked at it, transfixed, before he slid his tiny hand down to Isaiah’s lips and tugged on the bottom one. “We eat together then, I reckon.” Isaiah looked at Essie. “How you?”
“Here in this body. You know how it be,” she said, frowning first before gradually allowing the corners of her mouth to curl into a smile.
“Surely,” Isaiah said, looking at her, then back at Solomon, whose nose he rubbed with his own.
“How old is he now?”
“Almost two.”
“And ain’t walking yet?”
She shrugged.
“You wanna come inside? Sit for a spell?”
“Kindly,” Essie said as she followed him into the barn.
She was always surprised at how clean Isaiah was given how close he lay to animals. He smelled like juniper at the height of May, glistening in pitch blackness. She was there when Samuel first brought him the water. Too young herself, but still knowing a shining when she saw one; it was almost if the water had become silver, catching every light in the pouring, rainbows in drop formation, dripping from the concerns of Isaiah’s mouth while he attempted to take in too much at once. Ain’t that a shame—for someone to have been wasting colors like that, no matter what their age? Still, hovering over them was something unseen because it was unseeable, but its vibration could be felt. That was why her hands trembled then and why her hands trembled still whenever these two were around.
Inside, Samuel had his arms raised. His back was facing Essie, Isaiah, and Solomon as they entered. Essie couldn’t tell if he was paying tribute to creation, holding court with degenerate beasts, or merely stretching out of himself. Sometimes, the space inside the body could get to be cramped and it was necessary to extend the limbs to give the spirit more room or, maybe, an opening to fly from. He wore no shirt, so every bit of sweat on his skin was visible, racing from top to bottom. His flesh evinced no natural blemishes, but the moisture highlighted the ones marked there by cowards. She hated to admit to herself that she found beauty in the way those scars snaked across the broadness of his back with delicate curves.