Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History (22 page)

“Run, then,” the horror from beyond Heaven hissed in English. “Go on and run. I am ever so bored.”

The others opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off of its inhuman body. It shielded its face. Then, it crouched. A hum. Springing forward, its body spun in midair and ripped through the crowd. Men scattered, shooting at where it was and where it might go. Rogue shots clipped other gunmen or hit the sides of buildings.

I fled. One of Benny’s thugs set Mister Bunting over his shoulder and ran. I saw the one who had beaten Wing with a broomstick; he burst, stray limbs scattering across the ground. Bodies flew. A snap of the twisting shape sent Fat Leung flying into the woods. Eight of us ran to the last wagon. Two horses, scared and baying, stood tied to a tree near where the last wagon and pair of stallions lay in pieces.

The thug and Bunting took the front. Benny and I climbed into the back with the rest. Stumbling, I tripped and fell face-first into a pile of supplies. I heard reins snapping. Horses neighed, and hooves thundered. I got up and looked back. A smattering of men neared, trying to wave us down. Their forms vanished over the hills as we sped off.

Around me, we contemplated our fate. We knew how fast the beast could move. It was only a matter of time before it caught up. I looked down, moving my hands through the pile of tools at our disposal.

I found three bundles of dynamite and a plunger.

“We’ll reach the bridge soon!” Benny shouted. “We might be able to lose him at–” He stopped. A cautious smile crossed his face as he watched my fingers tie several dynamite sticks together. “Good man, Xiao-Li! We throw those at him lit, and–”

“Leave me behind.”

My fellows looked at me strangely. Blinking hard, Benny leaned in. I fixed the cords to the base of the plunger as I spoke. “That thing, that creature enjoys murder. It’s not chasing us because it’s busy killing everyone back in town. When it’s done, I’ll wait for it, and when it comes near–”

“You’ll blow yourself up?” Benny slapped his forehead. “You don’t even know if that’ll be enough!”

“We’re out of options.”

I saw my foreman shaking his head. “What’s gotten into you? What on earth –?”

“I was a monk.” I gripped two handfuls of dynamite, putting them under my arms. “I lived in a temple outside of Chengdu, spending my days memorizing the sutras and freeing myself of earthly wants.”

“You–” Benny’s eyes went wild. My fellows looked as surprised; one removed his cap. Our two white colleagues just looked lost. “You’re a damned
priest?
Then, when you wanted to see our dead–”

“I wanted to see them off. However, I’m not sure what spirits would hear me. I…” I stammered as I remembered her. Long black hair held together with a comb. Slim features, wide eyes. Skin smooth as paper. She never gave me her real name. It was different each time we met. “I was with a woman, you see.”

“You weren’t allowed to be with her.”

“No,” I shuddered at a terrible sound in the distance. “The high priest sent me out into the world to learn Buddha’s path again. I thought that if I punished myself, toiled and raised funds for the temple, then Heaven would be kinder to me.” I looked back. “Now I see that my redemption lies beyond. And if I can take that creature with me, I can avenge Wing’s death and the deaths of everyone else.”

I trailed off. Suddenly, I wondered what I believed.

Hooves beat against wood. I looked behind us to see the grass give way and become the pine bridge built before I arrived. Below us ran the raging current of the river.

“Do you miss your father?”

“What?” Benny shook his head.

“You never answered me. Back at the cliffs, before Bunting and Olivia came.” I didn’t know why that thought came to mind. Yet I asked again: “Do you miss him?”

I looked at him. He drew breath. Lips tight, he nodded sharply.

That was all I needed.

I leapt out of the wagon and hit the middle of the bridge. Groaning, I rose and set the dynamite in front of me, fitting sticks into the cracks.

I had finished rolling out the wires when the beast appeared. It stood at the other end of the bridge, stained with blood. Red rolled from its shell and dripped, forming pools at its horrible feet. Wing’s head was gone. I didn’t care why. Slowly, the thing advanced.

“Hello again,” it hissed, almost giddily. “So that wasn’t you I flattened back there. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to exorcise me.”

Saying nothing, I raised the detonator to my chest. One hand held it up; the other rested on the plunger. His top head tilted at me, “Oh? Is this a standoff?” That horrible laugh once again. “I don’t suppose you’re mad about your friend. So sorry, but his head was just the right size. Not that I need it now. My–”

“Let’s get this over with.”

It stopped. The beast lowered his top head and chortled. “Brave.”

A flash. All at once, the creature sped my way. Wood ripped beneath its frame as it soared across the bridge. I seized up. Waited for half a second. Then, as I saw the bend of a claw heading for my face, I pressed down.

Fire ripped through the bridge and erupted underneath the monster. I heard roaring agony. The limb snapped forward and knocked me aside. I dropped. Twisting round, I looked up. The monster’s body had been ripped by the explosion. Bits of leg and carapace fell from the bridge. White blood dripped from above. Shurach’s trilling howl sounded as he hit the side of the bridge and rolled off.

I hit the water and praised Buddha.

Art by Nilah Magruder

1913
Harlem

The kindly way to feel separating is to have a space between. This shows a likeness
.
– Gertrude Stein, “Roast Beef” from Tender Buttons

Before your grandmother was Clementine, she had a Houma lover called Jacques who would pilot a pirogue up the river to court her before her owners ran him off. Your grandmother had a lover called Honor on the plantation. “Him was the best thief. He always found me what I need.” They married her to a man called James. There were others where the language is tricky. Master. Uncle. Emancipator. Cousin. Owner. Sister. Mistress.

“Master August, though, him teach me to cut a figure. I was at a fine family in Louisiana. Rich like will never be seen again. Master August come from Europe, over the sea. He cut figures of my people and I picked it right up. How I loved to cut. How I miss it,” she says.

You, too, love sharp things. Long, slender hatpins tipped with opal or quince feathers. Buttery leather shoes with pointed toes. Fish that can only be consumed by an eager tongue searching for pin bones. Needles that can free an ingrown hair, mend flesh, or stab. Prick, blister, choke. A threat sidled up next to such delicious beauty.

Before your grandmother’s hands twisted like roots through stone, before she was your grandmother (great? great-great? great-great-great?), before she came to live in this tiny, hot room that you share with her, sleeping at her feet, your grandmother could sew. She could look at a garment and gauge what the inside was like. Could cut her own patterns. Cipher the amount of yardage it would take to complete at different levels of quality that she made up herself and charged accordingly for: A
Passable
would look like the thing, but skimp in every possible way from fabric to fabrication. A
Copy
would get you a garment indistinguishable from the model if you could obtain the exact materials. A
Clementine
would be the garment with her improvements and enhancements. A
Clementine
would be better than the original, what the garment really wanted to be. A
Clementine
would be worthy of her name.

Clementines were the gift from the Master at Christmastime. Always a joy. Always a delight. She was made to the pattern of her owners, but when it is time to cut her own figure in the world, she names herself Clementine after one of the few sweet things she’s known.

Your younger cousins do not know this. They do not care. They have never had and never will have a
Clementine
. They call her your spooky old slave in the attic. This is how you learn to trip and bite and scratch and pinch and fight even when they are kin. Especially when they are kin. This is how you learn to keep silent. This is how you learn to hide.

You use your sharpest scissors to clip your Grannie’s nails like she taught you. Her hands gnarled and tight. You let the hardened yellowed crescents fall into your free hand. Her eyes are an ancient, rheumy blue, rimmed with white like moons. She watches you cut and file and shape.

“Catch all them trimmings up and the dust, too. Put it in yond’ fire and burn it up,” she says.

Once your Grannie is in the bed and it is clear that she will not get back up, she calls you to her, pulls you down to her, and her breath is Dr. Tichenor’s and Garrett’s snuff. “I’ll never finish all this work,” she says. The doctors don’t know what is killing her, but time itself is enough of an answer at almost ninety. Some days her breath is almost gone. Other times her papery skin is covered with a web of blue bruises. Spasms. “I want this done cold. On purpose. Not fickle. You’re my blessing, my waited-for one. It must be you,” she says.

Grannie’s quilt eats her fever and is bitter with her sweat and dying. She pats one of the quilt pieces. You have seen it thousands of times without ever really registering it. It was navy once, not quite square, nubby and rough. Only with your hands on it do you realize that it is also a pocket. A safe. A hiding place.

“Save this piece. I didn’t run. I should have. My color was a caution, but I should have took my chance. I didn’t, though. I waited and waited until the law forced them to let me go,” she says.

You take your tiniest, sharpest seam rippers and cut thread after thread along the perimeter of the square. The pouch pulls free from its moorings. The other side looks obscenely rich compared to the part that has been exposed for several generations. For the first time you see the grubby constellation spring forth from the rough cloth. There are embroidered stars on the front of the pouch. You hold the tiny sky in your open palm.

Open the seven pearly buttons hidden in their placket. Your inheritance. Your legacy.

“Are you ready?”

Gingerly, you pinch the tiny people out. These little cut-figure people – some fabric, some paper – came out of slavery with her. Were emancipated with her. Some are cut from newsprint, already crumbling; one gentleman in a top hat is cut from onionskin transparent and luminous as a star. Many are cut from thick buttery writing paper, cotton-laid with the watermark of an eagle with an A on its chest. These figures are cut so the watermark lies at the heart of the figure. You line them up into a parade, a march.

“These your family folk?” you ask your Grannie.

“Some directly so, yes. Others, no. We all bound up together by blood, though. Kin all the same.”

“Why don’t you put them up?”

“These ain’t toys, child. This not for play. Not for show, either. Every single figure a life. A true likeness. If you can’t treat them as such, then I’ll just take them to my grave.”

“No, Grannie. I want to help.”

“Then pick you one out.” She spreads the little people out across the table. There were men and women represented of all ages.

“How do I know which one?”

“The figure will tell you.”

You hover your hands over the figures like the preacher does over the collection plate at church. The figures seem to be calling out to be chosen, to be picked by your eager fingers. You feel them tingle and ache a bit. You squeeze your eyes shut and lean into the ache of your fingers pointing you to something fertile and alive. Your fingers are divining: water, lightning, gold, life. Your eyes fly open and without even reaching your figure is in your hand. One of the fancy ladies with a parasol on a stroll. She seems to bow a bit to you. She is pretty and light.

“Who is this, Grannie?” you ask. She lifts up in the bed. Motions you closer.

“My second Mistress in slaverytime. I give her younguns my milk from my breast. She give me to her brother as a Christmas present.” You turn away. You flush as you recall the taunt.
Your slave in the attic.

Your fingers start to close, to crush the likeness into a ball.

“Not like that,” your grandmother cautions. “This kind of work, some want to do quick. Fire. Crushed glass. Poison. You get one tree that way. I want a forest. I’m not still here from being hasty. Think on it. ” Your Grannie leans back against the pillows. Watches. Waits. For you.

You open your hand and stare at the likeness. The figure has changed. Now the little woman looks haughty, eager and greedy. You settle the likeness into a little brass dish. You strike a match. Watching it burn, you feel a surge like running down a steep hill. You feel a spark with each bit of destruction that builds into an explosion.

Your Grannie yelps and grabs her arm. There is an angry mark that wasn’t there before.