Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (23 page)

“I’ll hitch up the buggy.
Go tell Janie to tell any afternoon patients I might not be back till
4:00 or 5
:00, maybe later.”

“You
doan
got to go
wid me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Everett needs to know.”

“No.
Please don’t, Sadie.”

Sadie sighed.
“Thought so.”

“Thought what?”

“Everett ain’t well.
Is he?”

Paul hesitated.
“I wouldn’t say he’s not well.
I’d say I don’t like the way his face gets red when he gets the least bit upset.
Or the way he breathes when he walks fast.
Don’t let’s tell Papa yet.”

“Well.
Up to you, son.
Best be getting’ started.”

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Paul
turned at Sadie’s direction
and headed
down the path w
inding
i
nto the woods
edging
Stone Creek.
He
halfway expected
a ramshackle hut, dark and o
vershadowed by huge trees
,
its owner
draped in flowing, ragged tatters of black, bent and stooped
.

The path ended in a sunny clearing.
In its center stood a neat white cottage
with a stone chimney
.
Flowerbeds glowed with color and neatly-trimmed shrubs hugged the walls.
A covered well, the walls constructed from the same stone sported by the chimney, stood off to the side.

Paul laughed.

“Whu
t?”

“Not what I expected.”

“What’d you ‘spect?”

“T
ell you
the truth, Sadie, I ain’t real sure.”

“Pull
de
buggy over
d
ere.
Hit her flowerbeds, she
goan
yell.
Hope she didn’t go to
too much trouble for dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Getting’ on toward noon.
She
goan
‘spect us to eat ‘wid her.”

“She don’t know we’re coming!”

“
Yeah, you keep right on thinkin’ dat, son.
She know.”
The door of the cottage opened as Paul handed
Sadie
down from the buggy.
Tamara strode toward
the
m with the same regal bearing, the same copper-colored skin, the same type of turban on her head.
Sadie’s double. Identical twins.

“So you
be
Everett’s oldest boy!” she exclaimed, and held out her hand.
Paul took it and felt a flood of
warmth
run from h
er hand to his.
The warmth s
eemed curiously alive, as though Tamara, by her touch, sent part of herself out into him, exploring his thoughts, his soul.

“Got biscuits rising in
de
oven,” she said
,
“
a
n’ new honey.
Joe Turner robbed a hive yest
erday
down in
de
swamp and brought me a quart jar.
Hope ham alright
wid
you.
Thought ‘bout a chicken, but didn’t
figger
I had ‘nuff time.
You sendin’ out streaks of worry like lightnin’, woman.
Whut’s bad ‘nuff to worry you so you got to bring Paul out here?”

She
took
Sadie’s arm and beg
a
n to walk towards the cottage door.

Paul hurried to catch up with the sisters.
“I hope you’re not upset with Sadie for bringin’ me, I don’t mean to intrude.”

Tamara laughed.
A g
ood laugh, a joyous laugh.

“Shoot, boy!
Jest ‘cause you ain’t never met me
doan
mean I ain’t never met you!
You nor Joshua neither.
Know
s
you both.
Watched you grow up.
Sadie think it time to bring you here, it be time.
You
mo
’
den
welcome.”

Tamara settled them at
a
wooden table.
Its surface gleamed with years of use and polish.

“First thing first
,” Tamara said, bustling around her stove.
“Let’s
us eat some dinner.
Folks got to take care of
dere
bodies do
dey
‘spect
dere
bodies to take care of
dem.
Ain’t
dat
right, Paul?”

“
Yes ma’am.
”

“An’ whut you gots to tell me be real worrisome.
Worse than worrisome, I feel darkness.
Evil.
Can’t eat right
wid evil flowing through
de
room in our words.
So for right now,
let’s us jest take care of
dese biscuits.”

They passed a pleasant half-hour at Tamara’s table
as they
work
ed
their way through the fried ham and new potatoes,
the
mounds of biscuits
.
Tamara produced
a big blackberry cobbler
when the last biscuit sopped the last of the meat juice off the plates.
Sadie visibly began to relax
.
Paul
felt the
waves of comfort flowing out from one sister to the other.

And when Tamara judged the time
right
, she gathered the dishes off the table and transferred them over to the stone sink that stood by the cast iron stove.
She sat back down.

“Tell me,” she said.

Paul pulled the cloth bag out of his pocket and handed it back to Sadie.
This was part of her world
. It wasn’t his. Not yet.

She took it from him but didn
’t give it to Tamara.

“Josh, he seem
to start changin’ ‘bout two months back.
I’d place it ‘
round mid-May, wouldn’t you say, Paul?”

“Oh, I don’t think it was that far back.”

“Yes.
Yes, it was.
Little things at first, things you wouldn’t have paid no never mind to.
‘Sides, you jest now lately been paying mind to things other than sick folks yourself.”

Paul
smiled slightly.
Hadn’t ever fooled Sadie in his life.

“An’ it bother me, but at first, I think, well, he done growed up on me.
Might be he done foun
d
a girl takes his fancy.
But
de
changes,
dey
doan
seem to be
dat
kind.
He absentminded alright, and he
doan
pay much ‘ttention to things less’n you jest ‘bout knock him up side
de
head, but it w
eren’t
happy woolgatherin’ de way it is when a body in love.
An
de
look in his eye when you interrupt him at somethin’, my Lord!
I shoulda knowed sooner.
If’n I’d talked to him den, or followed him, or—”

“An
’
if a bullfrog had wings,” said Tamara solemnly, “he wouldna bumped his hiney when he jumped off’n
de
lily pad.
Ca
n’t help
shoulda done now.”

“No,” agreed Sadie, finally handing her sister the bag.
“An’
dis
morning, Josh’s room be a pure-de
-
wreck.
An’ he
doan
never leave no room lik
e
dat.
So w
hen I go in to pick up, madder
den a wet hen, I fin
d
dis.”

Tamara opened the bag and looked in.
When she raised her head, her eyes flashed.

“Somebody in my town?
Be passin’
dis
stuff out an
’
I doan know ‘bout it?
I
doan
believe it!
Doan believe I been sittin’ back here all happy and sassy, I shoulda been checkin’, I ain’t been tendin’ to my business!”

“If a bullfrog had wings—”
said Paul.

“Doan’ be turnin’ my own words ‘gainst me, boy.”

“
Boy
seems to be a dangerous word today,” said Paul.
“I called Josh boy
this morning and he blew sky-high and stormed out of the house.
And if Sadie hadn’t just found that bag and stopped me, I’d have hauled him back and blistered his hind-end.”

“He been takin’
dis
stuff, he
doan
know whut he sayin’, Paul.
D
oan
hardly know whut he doin’.”

“So Sadie tells me.”

“Tamara, can you feel him?
Whoever gi
ve
dis
to Josh?
An’ if Jo
sh has it, he been hangin’ out
wid a crowd of boys at night, Josh ain’t
goan
be
de
only one whut has
dis
stuff.”

Sadie broke off as Tamara stood up, holding the bag in her hand.

“Le
t’s
us see
.
”
S
he walk
ed
to the canisters that sat on the kitchen counters
and
scooped up
a
handful of flour and
a hand
ful of
cornmeal.
She knealt in front of the fireplace, her moving hands pouring out designs on the floor.

“Sadie, what the hell is she—”

“Quiet.
She got to concentrate.
D
ey
be veves.”

“They be what?”

“Veves.
D
ey
concentrate
de
power, call the sweet spirits.
Now hush up.”

Tamara finished her designs.
She closed her eyes and
started
a low
,
melodious chant
. M
ingled French and English
. Old
er words, lilting words.
The
vision of a large g
rassy plain filled Paul’s brain, a vision of an African pampas.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
The ro
om
filled w
ith scent
. H
eliotrope, lemon verbena, cloves, sandalwood.

“Sadie?”
Paul murmured.

“Hush up,” she responded in a bare whisper.
“
Dey talkin’ to her.”

“Who?”

“Hush up!”

Tamara ceased her chant
. A
frown furrowed her brow.
She sat for a space of time that might have been a minute, or five, or ten.
Paul felt as though he were in the trance with her.
Without warning the scent changed. T
he stench of ordure, the sulfuric smell of
rotten
eggs.
Tamara dropped the bag as though its touch burned her skin.

Sadie rushed to her sister.

“What the hell?”
Paul
wished he didn’t think he’d be asking that a lot over the next days.

Tamara
pushed off
S
adie’s hand
and rose to her feet. She
pulled a canister of homemade potpourri from a cabinet and walked around the room,
scattering
handfuls in
small
, strategically placed
dishes
. The smell of
apples and spice
fought to repel the awful stench.
She
sat back down at the table.