The Prophets(49)

“Yes ma’am!” Puah said so fast that it spilled from her lips like water.

“Well,” Be Auntie said, looking sorrowfully at Puah, her top lip pursed in judgment. “You’re young yet and don’t know all of how this works. None of the cost. Don’t be so quick to nod for what might come back on you.”

“I deal with that when I have to deal with it.” Puah forgot herself when she said this. She nearly shouted at Be Auntie, curbed, in the nick of time, only by the knowledge that she would have to return to the shack they shared that evening, and that Auntie’s militia of boys, who maybe didn’t even know they were her militia, might be extra unleashed on her this time. She squeezed the venom out of her tone and returned to delicate voice. “But right now—Miss Maggie, can we help him?”

Maggie looked at her with a raised eyebrow, which was then joined by a tiny smile, nearly completing the circle of her face. “We can help them.”

Then she put her head down. She held her arms out. “Let me be true this day,” she whispered. “Let the blood guide me.” She raised her face and her eyes rolled back in her head. She stumbled a bit, which caused all the women to instantly reach out for her.

“No!” she said to them, shooing away their assistance as she regained her footing. “Ground liable to be shaky on all journeys.” Then, “We ready now. Come.”

The women walked into the barn, moving from fierce sun into tepid shade. Their shadows moved ahead of them before fading, revealing the two groaning bodies on the ground before them. Oh, how fine! How proud even their broken bodies were slumped and no longer clutching each other in the dirt. Puah was breathless. Essie looked away. Be Auntie sighed. Sarah stepped backward, away from the circle and leaned on the barn door frame. Maggie stepped forward and leaned in to get a better look. Two wings of a blackbird, just like she thought. Closer: Isaiah had allowed the tears to come. They rolled out of his eyes fresh and found a place in the ground beneath his face. Oh, yes. The Two of Them fell flat on their faces once they knew that they were out of the sight of judging eyes, and Maggie was certain that was because Samuel would have it no other way. It was also Samuel’s way not to cry. He held it up inside that massive chest of his, which was probably its own underground pond by now.

“Essie, I need you to rip this here to pieces.” Maggie unwrapped an old white dress from around her waist. “It ain’t gotta be even, just so’s I can use it for bandages.”

Essie took the dress. “Mag, this gotta be your finest . . .”

“Go on.”

Essie got down on her knees and began to tear it into strips. She tried to look at Isaiah. She wanted to make sure her friend, no longer friend-friend, was still breathing.

“I can’t even look at them. If I look, it feels like it done to me,” she said.

“That’s blood memory. You ain’t lost yet, thank you,” Maggie said to her. “Don’t let the dress touch the ground. Gotta keep it clean. Don’t wanna cause infection. Puah, I need you to go into the bush and get me four things. We need five, but four you have to do on your own. I help you with the last.”

Puah was crouched over Samuel, who didn’t wish to be seen. Yes, he tried to flatten himself, but to no avail because Puah’s wide eyes saw all, even the things he wanted to hide. The soft things that resided under the layers of rock that were once flesh, but he had to make it something harder in order to exist. She reached her hand. She wanted to bring him the one thing she had to bring: a small bit of comfort, to repay him for his gentle smile, and for being able to see her in a land of creatures that turned their heads, yes, but only to look the other way.

“The marks they put on him,” Puah whispered, nearly touching Samuel’s back, which was laced with new lacerations, or perhaps old ones that had been reopened. “How we gon’ heal this?”

“First,” Maggie said sternly, turning quickly toward Puah, “we don’t speak ill over what we trying to fix! That’s number one. Hush, chile, and listen: Go get me these four things.”

“Why me? I gotta see to Samuel . . .”

“Gal! What I tell you? Hear me now!” Holding up one finger, Maggie spoke: “Listen closely to me. And it gotta be done in this peculiar way. Go behind the Big House to Missy Ruth’s garden. Get to the north side of it, closest to the barn. Pull seven stalks of lavender. You also gon’ find some strands of red hair there. Bring those, too.”

Maggie straightened her back. “Then you gon’ walk east—walk, don’t run. That’s very important. You know that big willow tree in front? Take a handful of weeping leaves from it.”

“You ain’t gon’ need no handful,” Be Auntie interrupted.

“Better too much than too little,” Maggie shot back. She turned back to Puah. “West. Not too far from the river edge, I need as many huckleberries as you can carry. From the plant twined near the dead tree. Know the one?”

“Yes’m.”

“South will be trouble. You gon’ have to go to that other edge of the field, where the overseers and catchers rest. But I need that comfrey right at the edge of they shacks. Make sure your dress don’t touch the ground, you hear me? Long as it don’t, they won’t touch you. Hold it up to your knees. Don’t let it touch the ground.”