Goddamn!
Without turning, Adele had whipped her arm around to rake her sharpened thumbnail across the man’s face, drawing a strip of bright blood from his cheekbone to his forehead.
All smiles and mirth were gone. As a warrior, Dawit knew that whenever blood was drawn, talking was finished.
You see that?
Nigger bitch
He and Adele could stand to fight, or they could flee. Without weapons, could they hope to prevail against five men? No. They could not.
Adele, run!
In the end, was it his own act—and not Adele’s—that sealed the day’s horror? He’d hoped to frighten the men, or at least to draw attention away from Adele so she could escape. After all, his death meant very little.
He’d leaped onto the man closest to him, the biggest, and cracked his neck with a simple, skillful twist of his arm. All of them heard the sound. There was no doubt, when the wide-eyed man slumped to the ground, that he was dead.
It did not frighten the men away. Instead, it roused a fevered fury. And Adele, whose skirts were soggy and heavy from the river, could not be quick enough.
Git her ‘fore she swims away
Dawit was halfway bound, wincing beneath their blows, as he watched the bleeding man drag Adele to the riverbank, beneath the solitary tree. He was pulling at her clothing. One of the men tossed a heavy hemp rope across the tree’s sturdiest branch.
Bring her here
Dawit knew what was going to happen next. He saw it happening in his imagination beforehand, and he could not stop it.
You like killin’, nigger? You ‘bout to see some
Adele did not call for him. She never once made a sound.
Watching what the four men did to her while he was bound and helpless, Dawit’s reason dissolved. He kicked and shouted and writhed, spittle flying across his face. He sometimes imagined he’d won his senses back since then; more often, he knew he had not.
Dawit’s own lynching was a comfort to him after what he had seen. Death put his sick heart to sleep.
Why did he have to reawaken? Why?
No wonder his love for Christina had felt so weak. He’d no room in his heart left for Christina then, only sixty years after Adele’s death. Christina’s father, who ran a thriving funeral home in Chicago, gave them the best wedding he could afford. Hundreds of colored men and women turned out to witness their union, to see Christina’s lithe form in a splendid white gown.
He’d had no such wedding with Adele. They made silent vows to each other, sharing their flesh in love. He always kept his seed away from her so they could not make a child who would never truly belong to her. And so, though he’d been instructed to stud her, he’d been enabled to love her instead. Often, they merely lay together in an embrace, not sleeping, not fully awake.
When he met Jessica at last, he had long ago soothed away his hurt. He had been ready for her, a woman nearly unblemished by life’s tragedies, for whom he could become anyone he chose. In the process, he could forget his own sorrows. He had been waiting for her.
“Daddy, you’re going to fall,” Kira called, sounding troubled.
“I have a ladder, sweetheart. I’m not going to fall.”
Dawit’s perch was twenty feet above the ground. The tall, aluminum stepladder was at least four feet beneath his dangling black combat boots. From here, he could survey the nuances of the house he had refurbished inside and out when he bought it ten years before. The paint was cracking near the base of his second- story bedroom window, he observed. He would need to touch it up after the blistering heat of the upcoming summer.
Dawit realized that Kira was right, however. It was seven-thirty, nearly too dark to see by now, even with his superb vision. Jessica would be home from work soon, assuming she hadn’t stopped at her mother’s place first to help her plan Uncle Billy’s funeral.
Dawit snipped his shears once more, clipping the final piece of dead wood he hoped would make room for a bud in the fall. Only as he watched the wood drop, spinning toward the ground, did he pause to ponder his own unfathomable indifference.
Uncle Billy. With his own hands, he had killed a sickly old man who had done him no harm. Even game animals, he reminded himself, know they can often elicit mercy from some predators if they pretend to be sick or lame. Uncle Billy had not been afforded even this measure of natural decency when Dawit cracked his head against the bathtub rim with all of his might, he thought.
Yet, at this moment, Dawit felt no shame. Why would any man want to live as he’d been, so shriveled and useless? And it was justified! Uncle Billy had found a damning photograph, a precious treasure. That photograph, one Dawit didn’t even remember posing for, clearly begged for him to fulfill his Covenant. The resemblance was too precise to pass off as even a relation. His face looked the same now as it had then; as it had since the 1500s.
He could not bring himself to destroy the photo, though. He packed it inside of the small stack of records he took—after all, Uncle Billy certainly wouldn’t miss them now—and hid it away in the cabinet next to his clarinet. He couldn’t resist listening to the “Forever Man” record once he got home, and it served him right that Jessica had returned so quickly and nearly caught him playing it. He had been thinking of her as he listened. “I’m your Forever Man.” Jessica had not even been born when its lyrics first found his pen, but in his heart Dawit had written the song for her.
Behind him, from a taller live oak far above his reach, Dawit heard a whispered hissing growing higher pitched, to nearly a screech. Night Song was here, and her song sounded unusually disconsolate.
“Daddy! It’s the ghost in the tree!”
“I’m coming, Duchess,” Dawit said. He rested the shears across the branches in front of him and used his arms to support himself as he began to climb downward, his foot angling toward the top of the stepladder.
Before he could touch the ladder, a movement from the side of the house visible through the branches—something white—held Dawit rigid. Someone was there. A dark man in a white shirt had darted behind the toolshed, out of his sight in a simple instant. Dawit processed what he had seen, and he realized the man had been wearing a skullcap. He heard a rattling from his neighbor’s gate.
A Searcher!
Dawit’s mind was seized with so many conflicting impulses— to chase him, to shout, to climb higher so he could try to see him better, to take Kira and hide with her—that it dizzied him. He lost control of his heart’s frenetic pumping.
It wasn’t until Dawit heard Kira’s terrified shriek that he realized he was falling.
He bumped the ladder with his flailing arm on the way down, toppling it over, and inside tangled aluminum he felt his shoulder and forearm explode against the hard soil on the pathway below. His body bounced, ribs crunching, and then his head bumped so hard against the soil that his teeth clicked violently, slicing into his tongue, and he lost his vision to a shower of red sparks.
For a blissful instant, he felt nothing.
Then, the pain came.
At once, his senses seized upon every aspect of his frame that had been scraped, jounced, broken. His shoulder was horribly twisted out of place, paralyzing him. His ribs felt shattered.
Dawit howled.
The first thing Jessica noticed of the commotion in her front yard when she drove up was the toppled stepladder at the base of the tree, and she knew what had happened.
She knew why their elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs. DeNight, was stroking Kira’s head, trying to calm her red-faced sobs; she knew why David was lying prone beneath the tree while Mr. DeNight stood above him, his arms crossed before him.
David had said he would prune the orchid tree today. He had fallen, and he was dead.
“No!” she screamed, fumbling to open the car door while her engine still idled. “Oh, Jesus.”
Jessica fell to her knees at David’s side. She saw that his eyes were wide open, thank Jesus, and he was swallowing hard. “I’m all right
,” he whispered, blinking back tears of pain.
Jessica’s heart leaped with momentary relief. David wasn’t dead. But he wasn’t all right. His shirt was torn, he was bleeding from his mouth, and there was something wrong with the way his arm was twisted behind him.
“Did someone call an ambulance?” she asked breathlessly.
“He wouldn’t let us,” Mr. DeNight said, pushing his thick tor- toiseshell glasses higher on his nose. He spoke with a fading Irish lilt and sounded nearly amused. “Says he’ll sue us.”
“What?” Jessica cried. She looked down at David with disbelief. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.” At this, with Mr. DeNight’s assistance, David struggled to sit upright. He held his injured arm, gritting his teeth.
Kira sobbed, running into Jessica’s arms. “Night Song pushed Daddy out of the tree.”
“Shhhhh, Kira. Don’t worry. That’s not what happened,” Jessica said absently, studying David to try to analyze his wounds. He was still wincing violently, possibly from some kind of internal injury. She would have to be insistent this time. His aversion to doctors was ridiculous. “David, what’s wrong with your arm?”
“I just banged it up. It’s sore. I’ll put some ice on it, and I’ll be okay,” David said, finding his voice a bit more.
“We heard him yelling all the way across the street. We knew something horrible happened,” Mrs. DeNight said to Jessica.
“I just lost my balance and fell off the ladder. That’s all. Just wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, it’ll be okay.” David was mumbling, sounding nearly incoherent. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Want me to help you inside?” Mr. DeNight asked David, extending his arm. “That is, if you won’t sue me …”
“He didn’t mean that, Mr. DeNight. Excuse him.”
Jessica was thankful that David didn’t seem to have trouble walking, but she wasn’t very reassured. He was obviously in a lot of pain, and his shoulder looked absolutely deformed, as though he had a hump in his back. The bleeding from his mouth also worried her. The thin trail of blood had reached his chin.
As soon as David was inside, he collapsed against the couch and promptly moaned, his eyes closed. He’d scraped his left cheekbone in the fall, leaving it raw. God only knew what else could be wrong with him.
“That shoulder’s dislocated, David,” Mr. DeNight was saying as Jessica leaned over her husband to unbutton his shirt. “Look there. See? You need someone to fix that up for you.”
“Mommy, Daddy’s bleeding,” Kira said, still crying, as she climbed beside David and grasped his hand.
“I’ll find a cloth and some cold water to clean up his face,” Mrs. DeNight said, ducking back toward the kitchen.
Jessica’s hands were trembling, she realized. Once David’s shoulder was bare, there was no mistaking how badly he’d twisted it; the shoulder was pushed back so far, it had nearly vanished. Maybe his arm was broken too.
“I’m calling 911,” Jessica announced firmly.
David gave her a wild-eyed, foreign look that made her shrink away from him. “I already told you—no fucking doctors!” he shouted, nearly screaming the words. “I said no fucking doctors.”
There was silence in the house except for a glass tumbling into the aluminum kitchen sink. Mr. DeNight was frozen, his arms folded across his chest. Kira’s sobs had stopped as she gazed up at David, fearful. Jessica herself could not move, she was so shocked at the venom in David’s voice. She couldn’t remember his ever shouting at her this way. Not ever.
“Maybe we’d better leave,” Mr. DeNight said cheerfully, as though nothing had happened. “Lottie? Let’s go on home.”
Jessica’s bottom lip shook. She was close to tears, but she fought them back. “Thank you for everything,” she said, anxious to help guide her neighbors out to the porch. “I’m so sorry about … I mean, I don’t know what … David’s never …”
Mr. DeNight squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Give him some time. He may have a concussion, or even be in shock. He’ll come to his senses soon, after the pain gets to him. Take care he doesn’t try to sue you, though. I still get a kick out of that.”
“And he sure meant it,” Mrs. DeNight piped up.
“He’ll be all right. Could be just a tad embarrassed too,” Mr. DeNight said privately to Jessica as he waved goodbye.
When Jessica returned to the sofa, David was resting his head against the cushion, his eyes closed. She immediately felt tense, but she noticed that his breaths were falling evenly up and down.
“David?” she said.
“Shhhhhh,” Kira said, raising her finger to her lips. “Daddy said he’s going to rest now.”
“David, did you hit your head? I don’t think you’re supposed to try to sleep after a head injury.”
“I’m fine,” David said, not sounding any kinder. He didn’t open his eyes to look at her. “Put Kira to bed. Can you handle that? She doesn’t need to be up now.”
Don’t talk to me like that, you damned sonofabitch, Jessica thought in a rage, but she kept her mouth firmly closed. That’s his pain talking, she told herself. And if he wanted to be so stubborn, she decided, then let him sit there and suffer.
“Come on, Kira,” she said instead, taking her daughter’s hand.
Her own hand was still unsteady. David’s outburst reminded Jessica of why she’d never felt fully at ease with Princess in the house. The giant dog had been playful and adored them all, but Jessica could never forget that she was an animal. One day, without thinking, Jessica tried to snatch a chicken bone from Princess’s mouth so she wouldn’t choke on it; the dog snapped, her sharp teeth clicking only an inch from Jessica’s fingers. Those gnashing teeth hadn’t been intended as a warning. Princess wanted to bite her, and hard. Jessica felt alienated from her, like a stranger. Just now, David had made her feel the same way. The trauma of his fall had uncovered someone she had never met.
While Jessica bathed Kira upstairs, she heard David flick on the television set and turn up the volume to Casablanca. Then she heard the faucet go on in the kitchen. He must be all right if he’s walking around, she thought. Still, after Kira was tucked in, it might not hurt to call Alexis from the bedroom phone.
Hurriedly, Kira recited her nightly prayer before climbing beneath her sheets. “Now I lay me down to sleep … I pray the Lord my soul to keep … If I should die before I wake … I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Bea had taught Kira that prayer, the way she’d taught Jessica as a girl, but Jessica never liked it. What a scary idea to send into a child’s head at bedtime, she thought. “And please bless Mommy and make Daddy okay again. Amen.”
“Honey, did Daddy fall off the ladder or out of the tree?” Jessica asked Kira, pulling her bedsheet up to her chin.
“The tree. Night Song pushed him, Mommy. Just like I said.”
How high was that? Twenty feet, maybe? More? Sweet Jesus, he might have been killed. It was a miracle he was even conscious. Jessica smoothed Kira’s sheets across her belly. “Night Song didn’t push him,” she said.
“Yes she did, ‘cause she’s a ghost.”
It probably hadn’t been a good idea to pass on to Kira the folklore about their neighborhood’s long-dead Tequesta haunts. Kira sometimes had nightmares and came scrambling into their room at night, though it was happening less often as she got older.
“Yes, but Night Song is a good ghost. A good ghost wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. We don’t have to be afraid of Night Song. She can’t hurt us.”
Kira lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mommy, are there good monsters too?” she asked.
Jessica stared hard at Kira’s face, her heart stilled. The question stunned her. Then, Jessica remembered her own cadre of monsters who used to terrorize her from under her bed when she was younger. Apparently, they’d found her daughter too.
She kissed Kira’s forehead. “There’s no such thing as monsters, Kira. Monsters aren’t real.”
“Oh, y
es they are,” Kira said with deep certainty, then she inexplicably grinned her widest grin and swept her shining eyes away from Jessica. “Hi, Daddy!” Kira cried, sitting up in bed.
David was standing in the doorway, smiling back.
Finally, the fog of agony that had overrun Dawit’s mind had lifted, releasing his rational self. How he loathed pain! His tolerance for discomfort was nearly nonexistent, and he’d been so long without pain he’d almost forgotten its treachery.
But it was the Searcher, not his fall, that had thrown his senses into disarray. Dawit had been certain the Searchers were here all along, but without confirmation he’d allowed himself to hope he might be wrong. Whichever of his brethren had been sent to discover his whereabouts must have been bold enough to wish to be seen, Dawit knew. Searchers valued stealth above all else. They would never be so careless as to be spotted accidentally.
What did it mean? Had the dreaded time come so soon?
Dawit hissed slightly as he reached over to turn off the beating water of the shower, where he’d stood for long minutes as though the water could wash away his hurting. The water from the showerhead was by now only lukewarm. Dawit’s body was stiff, and his shoulder still throbbed at intervals that were sometimes better, then horribly worse. And what of his ribs … ?
Dawit rubbed away the steam clouding the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door so he could examine his naked flesh. Ah. Just as he’d feared, the bruise on his rib cage where he’d broken at least two ribs was deep brown already, very visible. The bruise would not go away for many hours. He would have to hide his ribs from Jessica.