Neverland (26 page)

I knew at any minute I would explode, and my spirit would look on from above and watch the explosion. My cells were fighting to rend themselves free.

And then I heard the crying of a baby.

My brother Governor.

Upstairs, in his crib.

And in my mind’s eyeball I journeyed up those stairs, down the hall, through the bedroom door. I imagined myself over his crib, and there he was, his feet up in the air, his toes wiggling, his diaper soaked yellow, his eyes like rolling marbles, and his screams shattering and wonderful. A human scream—a scream that others complained about, but that made me feel like I was sitting by a hearth fire on a cold night drinking soup.
Warmth.

Just that one thought.

And I was standing in the kitchen doorway again, while my brother cried for someone upstairs to change him.

There were other cries, too. Another fight was breaking out between my parents, and Julianne came in from beating a rug and announced to me that she was quitting.

“This family’s getting to be too much for me.” While she spoke she glanced out of the corners of her eyes. She would not look at me directly. Usually she had her sleeves rolled up, ready for work, but her sleeves were all the way down, discreetly buttoned. She looked older; she looked too much like a grown-up. She was speaking like she was still sorting things out in her head. “I don’t need the money that bad, anyway. I can get some other job—maybe in St. Badon. Maybe I just won’t work—I can get by. I don’t need this
hassle
.”

When she finally looked me in the eye, I saw fear.

She
knew
all about Sumter. She had to know. Sometimes I felt like she could see right through all us kids. “You’re leaving ’cause of Neverland. You’re a
sinistre
, and you know we’re all hexed.”

“Let me tell you something, Beau, and get it now or never get it. Now, you want the truth or you want to hear what you want to hear?”

“The truth.”

“I am a
sinistre
by birth, but that’s nothing. Folks on this island’ll tell you that
sinistres
, Gullahs, and full moons and hoot owls all got some kind of power, but none of us does. It’s all a lie just to make life more interesting. It’s make-believe. I am a Catholic and I don’t even believe all that. You know what I do believe, boy? I believe I know about what you children do in that shed out back, and let me tell you, it ain’t got nothing to do with no
sinistres
, no dead slaves, no sacred places. What it’s got to do with is that cousin of yours, and the more you let him do it, the worse it’s gonna get. I don’t know that I believe in God, Beau, but I once met a man I
know
was not from Heaven. He could raise the dead, and he could make you see things, but it ain’t never good, Beau, and it ain’t got nothing to do with God and the Devil. It’s got to do with the
mind
, you hearing me? The
mind
. Nobody knows why some people’s smarter than others, and nobody knows why some people got certain talents, and nobody knows why some of those talents can’t be explained in some research lab. Ain’t no IQ test for what your cousin’s got, but I can tell you it ain’t got nothing to do with Gullahs and
sinistres
.”

Who else could I turn to? I felt like my insides were coming apart. My teeth were chattering like I was locked in a freezer. I whispered, “I—I think he makes us worship Lucifer.”

She came over and put her hands on my shoulders to both steady and warm me. “Ain’t that a laugh. What you’re worshiping out there, Beau, what all you children are worshiping, is more like Sumter, that’s what’s going on. He’s a little god and you’re letting him get away with it.”

“I seen ghosts there.”

“I know. But it
can’t
be real, Beau. Keep it in mind. It’s got to all be from him. He’s got that thing I’ve seen before. He’s got the
mind
.”

“Don’t go, Julianne, please.”

“I got to go, Beau. Things are gonna happen here I don’t want to be around for. You’ll be fine if you just keep in mind what I told you. You’re his cousin; you’ve got a mind, too, it’s not all him. He’s just a conjurer; he just has a bag of tricks. He’s just a child. He’s just . . . ”

But there was fear in her eyes, too, and I saw the lie. We all lied. Julianne was lying, because in her cinnamon-flecked brown eyes I saw the truth: She didn’t know any more than I did.

I took a step back from her. “You’re
scared
of him. You’re leaving ’cause you’re
scared
of him.”

She turned her face away to look out of the window over the sink. She must’ve been gazing out over the bluffs and the pines. She shivered just as I had done a few moments before. “You just don’t go near that place again, and you keep your sisters away. Hear?”

“You said you’d tell me the truth. You said you’d tell me the
truth
.”

Her voice shrunk down; it was tiny, I could barely hear her. It was like wind through the crack of an old house in winter. “Who knows the truth? You think just ’cause you grow up you know the truth? You think your gramma even knows the truth just ’cause she’s old?
Nobody
knows for sure
nothing
until you die, and then maybe not even then. You just got to stay away from things that don’t look good.”

“It is so a sacred place.”

“Every place on earth is sacred to
something
. Who knows what’s underground anywhere you walk on this earth? You just don’t dig, do you? You know when something’s bad it’s bad, and you stay away.”

“You know something. You tell me.”

“I can’t . . . ”

“You tell me.” Without wanting to, I began bawling like a baby. I couldn’t even see straight for the tears. I had been holding so many fears inside me, so much
wondering
, that it finally was breaking out through my
eyes. I went and held her around the waist just like she was my mother. She smelled of cocoa butter and sweat. I closed my eyes and wished it all away. I wished I was back home in Richmond, and I wished it was Mama I was clinging to, and I wished I would never grow up. “You tell me, ’cause I need to know . . . ”

Her voice steadied as mine broke. “Something I saw. When I first looked at him. I knew.”

“You tell me.”

“I saw a devourer.”

“It
is
Lucifer.” I was almost comforted by this thought. I knew what you did to ward off the Devil: You pray. You pray real hard and you wait for an answer. You make the sign of the cross. You sprinkle holy water all over the place. You read passages from the Bible. You get your soul saved.

Her fingers combed through my hair. The fabric of her skirt was fuzzy and soft. She pushed me away. “Let me go, just let me go.”

Julianne Sanders leaned over and kissed me on my forehead. “It may be nothing,” she said, tears also in her eyes. “I don’t know, Beau. I don’t
know
.”

I followed her out back to her Volkswagen Bug, and she squeezed my hand and told me to just stay away from Neverland. I didn’t watch her drive away. I ran around to the front of the Retreat, angry because I didn’t know who to turn to, and I was filled with a giant rage.

I needed to destroy something.

It was a childish impulse, but I was a child. The storm inside the house raged out of control, and I stood there and began stepping up and down on the flowers that Aunt Cricket had planted in neat rows to the side of the house. It felt good to destroy.

Voices from the house, familiar and alien: “You don’t love me, so why don’t you just leave.”

“And don’t you tell me how to raise my children, either. It’s not like you were terribly good yourself. You with that damn brush just beating the crap out of us all the time. You think
that’s
mothering? You think
fear’s
the way to raise kids up to be good little ladies and gentlemen? You’ve never been anything but cold to me! And don’t tell me how good you were; I don’t want to hear it! Grampa used to tell me the truth about that. He used to tell me about her, about what you did to her, how you drove her—”

“I wish I had never given birth.” Grammy was shouting, too. “I wish I had hollowed out my womb with fire before I gave birth to a girl like you.”

“Christ Almighty!” Daddy cried out, “I am getting the hell out of this sick family. I am getting the hell away from here—you and your insane relatives!”

“Good, good! It’s about time you did
something
. And don’t come crawling back here tomorrow expecting me to forgive you.”

“Forgive me,
forgive
me? That’s a laugh, that’s a goddamn laugh! Don’t expect me to come back, either, Evelyn, not to your sick little family and this rundown rat-trap!”

I stomped every flower in that garden and then some.

The front door slammed like a trap, and Daddy came out on the porch cussing and hitting the porch column with his fists.

My father’s face was almost calm. His hair, glistening with sweat, was pushed back away from his high forehead, and there were no wrinkles there. His anger had reached its peak; he was now beyond feeling. Those words, “Don’t expect me to come back,” had removed him from the situation. And the others, “Your sick little family . . . ” Daddy was somehow gone even before he headed for the wagon. His eyes were clear, and the slanting afternoon light flattened his features, leaving him no clear expression.

I stood there, watching him. He would not even notice what I was doing: stomping up the garden Aunt Cricket had planted over and over, each summer, and over and over the garden had died. It didn’t even feel like I was doing the killing of those flowers; it felt like a force of nature unleashed through the soles of my feet. I could see myself watching my father. I could see myself as if from above, standing motionless. I was sure if I stayed very still, Daddy would walk right past me and not even know I was there. His face was fixed with blankness. His long knuckly fingers pumping at invisible tennis balls.

I hated him just then with all my heart.

“Coward!” I shouted.

Again I was removed. I watched a little boy yell at his father. It wasn’t me.

He turned and looked right through me.

“Beau?” He took a hesitant step toward me. He wore the V-neck T-shirt that made him look potbellied. His khakis sagged around his waist.

“You’re a goddamn coward and you know it!”

“Snug, you okay?” He squatted down in front of me. I felt a blast of heat from his body as if he’d been absorbing the sun so much that he had turned into a furnace.

I covered my face in my hands, thinking,
Go away, go away
.

His fingers gripped my shoulders, digging in. They were as warm as I’d ever felt them.

“I’m just going to St. Badon to run some errands,” he said.

“No you’re not, you’re running out on us.”

“Okay, I’m not. I’m going to go spend a night at a motel in St. Badon. I promise I’ll be back.”

“Liar.”

“I’ll be doing some thinking, too, Beau, but I’m not running out.”

“I don’t believe you. You
lie
about
everything
.”

“Don’t you talk to me like that.”

“Well, it’s true. What about you and Aunt Cricket?”

“I won’t lie to you.”

“Well, what about it?”

“I never even liked your aunt, Beau. She liked me, but I never liked her. She followed me around. But that’s how I met your mother, so it wasn’t all bad. I just have never liked your aunt.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t. So why don’t you just get out of here. We don’t
need
you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Get out of here, you coward.”

“I’ll be back by supper.”

“I don’t care if you ever come back.”

“All right, then.”

He got up and walked unsteadily to the station wagon. I knew I had hit my father with what he feared most: the scorn of his children.

He glanced back at me briefly as I stood there, and I felt the cold sinking mud of the garden beneath my feet.

My vision went out of focus. I began crying, and, on the inside, I tried fighting those tears, but they wanted out through my eyes. I felt like a Roman candle that was spiraling through the air, hitting whatever came in my path, ready to burst into vivid colors. I aimed for him, running toward him, hoping to wound him some more. I was full of stomping madness. “And don’t you ever come back! Hear? We don’t need you! None of us needs you!” My voice was shrill and stupid, and my lips were curled in a grin, and I began laughing at him.

He got in the car just as I slammed my fist against the hood of the wagon. He started up the engine. His face seemed large, his eyes seemed small. I had the most horrible hallucination as I saw him only half clearly through the dusty windshield: He was doing the exact same thing as I was, and we were the same person, my father and I. We were not even separated: Like the swimming minnows at the bait shop, our minds moved in the same direction without knowing why.

Then I felt a kind of tugging inside me, of my muscles rebelling. “Daddy, I’m sorry,” I panted. He put the car in reverse. He rolled down his window.

I shuffled over to lean against his door. “Daddy, take me, too. Take me.”

“Beau?”

“Can’t I go?”

He reached out with his hand and patted my head. “Your mama needs you right now. I’ll be back.”

“No you won’t.”

“Promise.”

“How long you gonna be gone?”

“A little while. Till tomorrow. I’ll be back by early.” He must’ve read the disappointment in my eyes and thought better on it, because he said, “Tell you what. You go out on the bluffs right when the sun is just barely up over the water and wait. I’ll flash my lights on the tiara bridge—four times—and you’ll know I’m home.”