Cree pulled a carton from the refrigerator, but grimaced when she smelled it. “The milk’s bad.”
“Just the sugar, then.” Cree nodded, but kept her back turned as the coffee perked. “Leon, would you be a dear and go on into the other room?” Leon did as he was told, and when the coffee was brewed, Cree filled the mug and put it on the table. “So…” A spoon clacked as the old woman stirred in the sugar. “Which dream is it?”
“What? I don’t—”
“The hanging tree or buried alive? Those two are most common.” Cree sat loosely. She was dizzy. She was cold. The old woman sipped and nodded. “When did it start?”
“I think I might be sick.”
“Just breathe, child. We’re only talking.”
Cree closed her eyes and concentrated. “The girl with the knife,” she said. “I’ve seen that one for years, but not often. The other one…” She broke off. “Four days, now. Four nights.”
“Any others?”
“Sometimes,” Cree said, and was not ready to speak of Johnny Merrimon or the gate. She was struggling with too much already. The woman. The conversation.
More sugar went in the mug, the spoon clicking. Verdine sipped, but kept her eyes on Cree’s face. “Your mother had the dreams when she was young, though she’d probably deny it if you asked. Your grandmother had them until the day she died. Your great-grandmother did, too. They find the women in your family. They always have.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“I’m here because no one is supposed to dream outside the Hush. In a century and a half, no one ever has. No one but you.”
Cree fidgeted under the black-eyed stare. There was too much strength for such an old woman, too much fire. “How well did you know my grandmother?”
“We were cousins. We grew up together.”
“And Hush Arbor?”
“I lived there same as you, but left a long time ago.”
“Why?”
“A man from outside. I thought I was in love.”
“Do you … uh. Do you have the dreams?”
“Once,” Verdine said. “A long time ago.”
“Why are you here?”
“To help you.”
“But how—?”
“Let’s talk about these dreams. What do you remember of your time in Hush Arbor?”
“Most of it, I think.”
“Do you remember the story of Aina?”
The question took Cree by surprise. “It’s a children’s story,” she said. “Grandmother would tell it to me before bed at night.”
“Tell it to me now.”
“Why?”
“Humor an old lady.”
The request for the story struck Cree harder than anything yet. It was the beginning and the end: one of the first things taught by her grandmother, and the last story told on the day she’d died. Cree had been so small that—kneeling by the bed—her face had been level with the old woman’s. She could close her eyes even now and see the tired smile and the map of her skin. She’d smelled of tea and dried leaves and dying.
* * *
“Come closer, child.”
Cree pressed tightly to the bed. Wind sighed against the glass, and people were gathered outside in the cold: the whole village, all who remained. Grandmother was dying, and the village would die with her. People understood, so there was keening beyond the glass, the crying of women and the murmur of lost men. They were afraid of her death and what it meant for the larger world. Grandmother sensed them out there—same as Cree—but her eyes were for the girl alone.
“Tell me the story of Aina,” she whispered; and Cree—afraid—shook her small head. “It’s more important than you know. Please.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come, child. Tell me one last time.”
Cree wept then, thinking of all their nights together and of the times she’d heard the story or told it herself. It was as familiar as the feather pillows, the woolen blankets, the warmth of the fire. Grandmother touched the tears on Cree’s cheek, then nodded and closed her eyes. “It’s the first story,” she said. “The most important of all.” Cree took the withered hand and felt how cold it was. “Go on, child. Do this last thing for me. I want to hear the story and to know you will remember it.”
Cree looked from Grandmother to the window, and saw the faces there, the dark eyes beyond the glass. She was alone with the old woman, so she leaned into the bed and told the story of Aina, exactly as she’d learned it. “Hush Arbor is our home,” she said. “But our people are, and always have been, of Africa. We come from the coast on the western edge, from the top of a mountain that rose higher than all others. For centuries, women ruled on the mountain, and the greatest ruler of all was named Akachi, which means ‘Hand of God.’ At the height of her power, twenty-nine nations bowed to Akachi on the mountain. Ten thousand spears defended her home, and her daughter’s name was Aina, which means ‘Difficult Birth,’ which is also just, as Akachi labored for three days to bring Aina into the world. When the child at last was born, a great storm fell on the mountain, so powerful, it is said, that much of Akachi’s power washed away with it, for she was sickly in the years that followed, and the kingdom fractured. War followed war, and Aina grew in a world defined by death and blood and a broken mother. By the time she was ten, Aina sat on the throne to hide her mother’s weakness. By fifteen, she commanded armies of men, and was grown cruel by years of war. When the great queen died, she gave to her daughter the power that was hers by birth; yet, great as that power was, Aina was too young to wield it well, and in the blindness of her youth, the great betrayal came.
“The man who betrayed Aina was called Daren, which means ‘Born of Night.’ This was also a just name, as it was in the night he came with a hundred men to take Aina from the place she slept. A trusted general, he sought to find her sleeping and weak, but a servant girl saw the men coming with spears and rope, and woke Aina in time to flee the caverns that made her palace. For half a night she was pursued by this man she’d once trusted. And though she was new to the great power and weak in its use, she killed thirteen men before she was trapped and bound and carried from the mountain so that Daren, born of night, might be king.
“Knowing her death would mean an uprising from those who loved her, Daren hid Aina by day, and in darkness carried her down the coast to a small kingdom ruled by a bitter man. There she was stripped and sold, and put on a ship so she might be brought across the ocean and sold again and taken north to a county whose very name means black as night—”
“Raven County.” The old woman interrupted Cree, her smile loving but small. “Our home,” she said. “This place.”
The old woman was crying, too, so Cree climbed into bed and put her cheek against the failing heart. She heard it slow inside the narrow chest, and Grandmother’s hand was on her head.
“I’m sorry,” the old woman said. “I wanted to teach you more. I wanted to make you strong.…”
* * *
In the apartment, Cree was shaking her head. “I don’t want to tell the story.”
“But you remember it?”
“I remember,” Cree said; and, looking with fresh eyes at the old woman, saw all the ways she was unlike the grandmother she’d loved. The stare was too intent, the mouth a bitter line. “Why are you really here?”
“Because you are the last of your line and because the dreams matter in ways you can’t possibly understand.”
“Then tell me.”
The old eyes narrowed, and the woman nodded. “Your grandmother said you were special—”
“Enough about my grandmother. Tell me what you want.”
Verdine nodded again, but even as her mouth opened, a commotion rose in the other room. A door slammed. Cree’s mother was yelling.
“What the hell is happening here?”
Cree rounded the corner as bags hit the floor and groceries spilled out.
“What are you doing in my house? Get ou
t!” Leon had the big arms spread, but Luana Freemantle was undaunted. A finger came up when she saw the old woman. “I told you to stay away from my daughter.”
“We’re just talking, Luana.”
“With you there is never ‘just’ anything. Get out of my house! Both of you! Cree, go to your room.”
“I’m not yet finished with your daughter,” Verdine said. “I’ll need a few more minutes.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Leon, if you would keep Luana in this room. Cree, come back to the kitchen—”
“Don’t you go anywhere with her, Cree!”
“Come, child. You have questions. I have answers.”
The voice was soft, the smile inviting. Cree looked at her mother and saw panic twist her face. She mouthed the word no, but Cree was already turning.
“She’s my daughter, damn it! You can’t have her!”
Verdine raised a hand, dismissive, and Cree fell into her wake as if pulled. She was exhausted and sick, and the moment was blurry, as if it, too, were a dream: the narrow woman and the raised hand, how small and bent she was, and how she walked as if floating. Part of Cree’s mind said exhaustion, hunger, hallucination; but the dreaminess was fine because she wanted what was in the dream. Looking back from the kitchen door, she saw her mother in the same strange haze, but a gun was in her hand, and that, too, could not be real. But the gun spit smoke and fire. A bullet snapped into the wall, and everything froze.
“That was a warning.”
The gun was small in her hand, but everyone stared at it. Verdine stood very still. Leon said, “It’s just a .22.”
“A .22 magnum. And I missed on purpose.”
“Why do you have a gun?” Verdine asked.
“Because I’m not stupid. Now, I want you out, and I want you to stay out. Cree, go to your room and stay there.” Cree didn’t move. Neither did Verdine. “I’ll kill you,” Luana said. “I’ll kill you now and not think twice about it. Don’t think I won’t.”
“The girl should be allowed to choose, to know the truth or not. It’s her birthright, just as it was yours.”
“Only if I say so.”
“Still the weak one, aren’t you? Still the runner. Still afraid.”
“I’m glad that I left.”
“Are you really? Even now?”
Maybe she meant the apartment, the squalor, the lack of purpose. Cree never learned, because the big man lunged for the gun, and her mother pulled the trigger again and put a hole in his chest. It was very small with little blood. Luana thumbed the hammer. “There’s a hospital nine blocks east.”
Leon looked at Verdine. The blood was coming faster, as were the signs of pain on his face. He staggered, but Verdine’s eyes never left Luana’s. “Finally found some spine, have you?”
“Get out.”
“This is bigger than you, than any of us.”
“You can’t have my daughter.”
“A hundred and seventy years. You’ve felt it.”
“I felt it ruin my life.” She pointed the gun at Verdine, but the old woman took Cree’s wrist and pulled her close with shocking strength. Cree smelled the smoke in her clothes, the skin like her grandmother’s, like old leather and dried leaves. “Your mother is a coward,” she said.
“You’re hurting me.”
“When you dream again—and you will—I want you to dream of Aina.”
“Let her go, Verdine!”
But the old woman did not. “Think her name as you fall asleep—”
“Verdine, goddamn it!”
“Remember her story, and remember this, too.” She leaned so close that her thin, dry lips touched the shell of Cree’s ear. “She wants you to understand, child. She wants to be found.”
* * *
They left after that, and for Cree the world no longer made sense. She’d always hated the apartment. Now there was blood and smoke and a smell in the air like burnt matches. Her mother was different, too. “How could you do that?” Cree asked.
“I let you go once.” Luana locked the hall door and put the gun on a table. “I won’t do it again.”
“She wanted to talk about Grandmother.”
“And the dreams, and Hush Arbor, and how only she can help you. Verdine does nothing that’s not good for Verdine. Things are happening that you don’t understand.”
Cree sank onto the sofa. She was tired and confused, and now there was this other side of her mother. “Will she go to the police?”
“To an outsider? No.”
“What about the gunshots?”
“Not the first we’ve heard in this building, and not the last, either.”
“She told me to dream of Aina.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“Sooner or later I’ll have to sleep.”
“So we move before that happens. Far away. Another country if we have to.”
“With what money?”
Luana’s face softened unexpectedly, and she sank to her knees, taking Cree’s hands in her own. “Don’t be seduced by the dreams or Verdine or her talk of your birthright. Hush Arbor is a cancer. It eats lives.” She squeezed her daughter’s hands. “Just trust me, please. That woman is not your friend.”
“Was she Grandmother’s?”
“Your grandmother never loved Verdine. She cast her out, banished her for her lies and greed, and her black heart. Best you remember that. Verdine Freemantle is evil. You hear me? Pure damn evil. She’ll do anything to get what she wants. She’ll say anything, tell any lie.”
Cree pulled the crumpled drawing from her back pocket, and smoothed it on her leg. “Do you know this place?” She handed it over, then watched her mother’s face.
“No, I don’t.”
“Grandmother showed me when I was young. She would have shown you, too.”
“She didn’t.”
“Who’s lying now?”
“Only to protect you,” Luana said.
“Your lies. Her lies. What’s the difference?”
“I’m not like Verdine. Don’t think that I am.”
“I want to know about this place.”
“This place? This?” In short, angry motions, Luana ripped up the drawing and dropped the pieces. “Hush Arbor is a cancer. I’ll not say it again.” After gathering the fallen groceries, she straightened. “I’m going to put these away, then you and I will talk about leaving this city. Bus tickets are not expensive. We’ll find the money.”
“It’s my childhood—”
“Have you eaten yet? I’ll make lunch.”
“I can’t walk away from it.”
“Sandwich okay?”
“I said I’m not leaving.”
Luana turned at the kitchen door, and her eyes were near to brimming. “Then the dreams, my love, will eat you alive.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I’ve seen it,” she said. “I’ve lived it.”
She turned, and Cree listened to the sounds from the kitchen. A cabinet opened, and she knew it was the one below the sink where her mother kept the vodka. Cree pictured the shaking hands, the long swallow. Maybe her mother would make lunch. Maybe she’d drain the bottle and forget. Either way, there would be no bus, no answers, and no fresh start. Knowing the pain she was about to cause, Cree gathered bits of paper from the floor, then unlocked the door and slipped quietly into the hall.
* * *
Five hours later, Cree was back in Raven County, on the busy streets downtown. She touched her face and thought how insubstantial it all was: the city, her bones, everything that was not the dream. She found the building where the lawyer worked, and its windows showed her a sunk-eyed girl in three-day clothes.
Too ashamed to go inside, she turned over the lawyer’s card to find his home address. She stopped a dozen people before one agreed to help. When she gave him the name of the street, he pointed down the hill and left, and she found the address above a narrow stairwell beside a bakery full of sleek people in nice c
lothes. Fumbling at the door, she stepped into a dim stairwell that bent twice on the way up. On the landing outside his apartment door, Cree asked herself a final time if this was smart. She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. But the drawing was his. Maybe he could tell her more. Maybe they wanted the same thing.
Knocking twice, she waited. When no one came, she found a spot on the floor and leaned into a corner where the old plaster smelled like old paint. She pictured Leon and the small hole that leaked such little blood. She wondered what her mother was doing, and if Johnny Merrimon was alive, and why Verdine wanted so much for her to dream.
Settling into the corner, Cree felt her eyes grow heavy. She was tired and afraid, so she pictured herself in a treetop on a vast plain. Black stone covered the plain, and the only sound was wind. It moved the treetop, and Cree moved with it. She was untouchable. She could see forever.
Aina …
How many times had she heard the story?
“I want to dream of Aina.”
She repeated the words until they softened, and she believed them enough to drift. She was safe in the branches of her imaginary tree. They cradled her as wind rose and fell, and rocked her. There was no world beyond the blackness of her skin and the sky and the stony plain that ran forever. She imagined a world of infinite warmth, then said Aina’s name a final time. It sounded in the darkness, and Cree was gone from the world. She was a traveler, a dreamer, a sailor on a broken sea.
* * *
When her eyes opened, she was on another ship and half-dead and covered in grime. She was on her side, bodies pressed so tightly against her own that she couldn’t move, could barely breathe. She retched, and the bile ran down her chin to join the blood and shit and other vomit. Around her, people cried out and prayed. Twelve of them were dead, and still chained. It was night, and waves crashed against the hull beside her head. She was Cree, but only just. The rest was Aina, and she felt it all: the wounds and starvation, the old and the dead, the children too young to understand. They were in the darkness, all of them, terrified and lost and weeping.
It was too much and too real, so Cree squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. The ship rolled, and she felt the thrum of it, the sluice of water. She focused on that because the rest was bigger than fear or pain or even death. Aina felt it all as if it were her own, all the souls and chains and abandoned hope. She felt the motherless child, half-starved and bleeding for the first time. She knew the man who’d lost his wife and was ashamed, the broken women and the raped girls; she knew hunger and hot air, the ankles rubbed to bone and smeared with grease to keep off the maggots. Cree felt it, too, and couldn’t bear it. She fisted her eyes and screamed; tried to leave but could not. She was of the girl, and in her, a passenger, trapped.