Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
For my beloved children, Miles, Zora, and Lena Johnson. To know where you are going, you must understand from whence we came.
To my husband, Glenn, you are my wind.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you didn’t know
—William Wilberforce
PART ONE
Bell Plantation, Charles City, Virginia, 1850
CHAPTER 1
The Bell Plantation
Mama believed that the full moon was the most fertile night of the month, and that everything she touched held God’s power. Each full moon, she dragged me out in the middle of the night with her to hunt for roots, plants, seedlings, and rare blossoms to use for healing. I did not understand why God’s power could not be found during daylight hours, and as I trudged behind her the March cold overwhelmed me. Even my thick wool shawl was no match against the country freeze.
Fear of the woods made my feet clumsy, and I tripped over fallen sticks, scratched my shins on the spiky brush, and bumped my head on low-hanging branches. Mama, on the other hand, moved with skill and confidence, like the earth parted a path and presented the way for her. Even in the dark, she knew where to stop for herbs and how to avoid the dangerous ones. We had only a small lantern to guide us, and when I asked how she knew where things grew she responded, “My gut be my light.”
We slipped through the thicket, past the drafty cabins where the field hands slept on pallets stuffed with hay and husk. I heard dry coughs and a low whine from a hungry baby. Farther down toward the James River, we traveled through the clearing where we met on Sundays for church. Then over the hill along the side of the cemetery, peppered with sticks to honor our dead. As we traveled deeper into the woods of the plantation, the thick forest blocked the light of the moon. I could hear the growls and grunts of unseen animals, and fretted over running into hungry raccoons or red foxes, or stepping on a poisonous snake. I tried to clear the worry from my mind as the land flattened out, but then something pricked my ankle. Before I could call out, Mama stopped suddenly and reached for my hand.
“This here is a black walnut tree. Grow deep in the woods, so you gotta know where to look. Cure for most everything. Ever unsure, come seek this tree.”
Mama handed me the lantern, then pulled a blade from her satchel and severed a piece of bark. She brought it to her nose, then ran her tongue along the inside of it.
“Husk stain anything it touch. After we make a tea for Rachel, rest we use to dye those sheets for the nursery. Just hoping we ain’t too late to save that girl.”
Mama reached into her bag and pulled out a red ribbon. “Go on and mark it, so be easy to find when you come without me.”
I reached up and tied the ribbon on a skinny twig, knowing I had no intention of roaming these woods without my mama.
* * *
We stopped at the sick house on our way back home. That morning, Rachel, the house servant, had been moved from the big house to the sickroom on account of her high fever. Even though Master Jacob’s wife, Missus Delphina, knew Mama worked plants better than anybody, she refused to bring her up to the house to tend to Rachel when she got fevered with lockjaw. Rachel grew up on Missus Delphina’s family’s plantation, and came with her to Master Jacob’s as a wedding gift from her mother. Since Missus Delphina looked down on Mama’s medicine, she called in a white doctor for Rachel, which Mama said was a waste of good money. “He ain’t know nothin’ ’bout doctoring no field hands.”
And Mama was right. Now that the white medicine had failed, Missus Delphina had no choice but to moved Rachel to the sick house. When we entered the room, even I could look at Rachel’s pale body and see death coming for her.
“You ready the hot water?” Mama asked the sick nurse, who nodded her head and pointed to the boiling pot. Mama reached into her sack and pulled out the bark and leaves from the black walnut tree. Then she pinched off a sprig of snakeroot and crushed up the stems.
“Let it steep for ’bout an hour. Then make her sip every time she open her eyes. If she make it through the night, there be hope.”
Mama removed a few balms and poultices from her medicine satchel for the other patients, then gently pressed Rachel’s forehead with the palm of her hand and whispered, “Lawd, look on Rachel with eyes of mercy. Restore her to wholeness and strength. Thy will be done.”
* * *
Few hours later, Mama and I were snuggled in our cottony bed, draped in heavy linens, when we were awakened by the ringing of the plantation bell.
“Oh, Lawd, what is it now?” Mama kept her eyes on me.
There was cause for each chime of the bell, and on that morning the bell rang twice. Two rings meant that Master Jacob wanted to see us for an announcement on the side of the big house.
I burrowed deeper into the blankets and mumbled, “Hope it is not Rachel.”
Mama’s face went slack. “Come, Delores. Needin’ to move directly.” She always called me by my middle name. Her way of claiming me as her own, I guess.
The fire had died out in the middle of the night, so the cold bled right through my woolen socks as soon as they hit the floor. Mama tied the back of her skirt while slipping into her leather shoes. Even in haste, she did not leave the house without oiling her molasses-colored skin with palm oil and pinning her thick hair just right. I fumbled around in the covers but could not produce my headscarf. Mama cut her eyes up at me as she descended the ladder, so I moved on without it.