But when I open the door, nobody’s there. Instead, I think I hear footsteps near the side of the house. I don’t know what to do, and I ain’t especially inclined to go investigate. I strain my ears, listening hard.
Then I get an eerie feelin’. I look across the street, and my insides go cold. Standing there, facing me, is a man. At least I think it’s a man. He’s thin and pale. Ghostly white. His hair is jet black. He’s older than I am, maybe somewhere in his twenties, and he stands so still I begin to wonder if he’s a statue. I blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing properly. I am, and still he stands. But the second I venture past the threshold, the figure moves, and it scares the bejesus outta me!
I duck back inside, slam the door shut, lock it, and turn out the hall light. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this man in my life, and I don’t know why he scares me, but lookin’ at him is like lookin’ at the dead that won’t stay dead. They always want more than the living can possibly give. They want to devour. He has that look, but to see it in the face of a living person is far more chilling. The dead rarely hurt you. The living do it every day.
After a few breaths, I peek through the window drape.
He’s gone. I feel relief for the moment. But somehow I know that feeling won’t last.
4 Beautiful
EW. I FEEL DAMP GRASS under my feet. I look down and there it is. How’d I get outside? I don’t remember leavin’ the house. And why in the world am I barefoot?
I figure it out pretty quick. This is a dream, maybe a dream-vision. Too soon to tell yet.
I look around. Walls. I’m inside a building, but there’s no floor—just grass. It’s dingy in here. Ceiling’s leaking in one spot, and the walls are made of ugly wood paneling that’s stained. Scorched, actually.
I hear steps. I turn, and a tall shape whirls past me and into a wall. Through the wall. I hear something like a giggle or a cry or a hum. Haints. What do they want? They never show up for no reason.
“I saw you,” I call out into the emptiness.
No response. My heart beats faster. I don’t know if a haint could seriously hurt me or not, but my fight-or-flight instinct kicks into high gear when they poke at me like this.
Another one’s here. I can’t see or hear it. Until she laughs low into my ear canal, and my skin’s finna crawl off my bones. I cry out, and now I’m flying fast. She must be pushing me—something is—but my feet hover above the ground. I have no control of my body. We’re heading right for the wall.
“No,” I whimper. Doesn’t she know I can’t move through walls?
We are a breath away from smashing into the cheap wood paneling. I cover my face with my arms, and at the moment of impact, I spill out into a carpeted room, walls painted a sickly pink. The first room has vanished. Another faint giggle. If they weren’t so scary and… dead, the haints might remind me of the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz movie.
I don’t see ’em anywhere. No odd shapes or blurs creepin’ into my view. But I do see somebody, a regular person. She’s sittin’ in a rickety rockin’ chair with her back to me. She’s just rockin’ back and forth. Then she starts to whistle Perry Como’s “Till the End of Time.” I hate that song. She stands up, and I stay where I am, afraid to move. She turns to me, and… she is me. Another me. Comin’ toward me, whistlin’ a tune I can’t stand. She cradles a box in both arms, takin’ her time to get to me. Obviously in no hurry.
As she gets close, I realize I do not want whatever’s in that box, and I try to run, but I can’t move.
She stops just in front of me, her whistlin’ now loud, piercing my precious eardrums. She holds the box out to me. I know I don’t have a choice, so I pull open the box’s flaps. Inside is a black-and-white rabbit with a pacifier in its mouth. Its throat has been slashed, and blood trickles from the wound. Where its eyes should be are dark mirrors. I scream as hard as I can, and I can feel it. But the only sound I hear is her—me?—whistling.
I sit up so fast in bed, I come to standing. Goddamn haints, givin’ me nightmares. I lean against the wall, waitin’ for my pulse to get back to normal. Every now and then, I might learn somethin’ useful when the haints enter my dreamworld. Sometimes I think they just show up to remind me that they can. They can be sadistic.
* * *
Mama fries potatas and onions and a green tomato on the stove and shakes her head, cuz she sure didn’t raise me to be a tramp, she says. I don’t say too much a nothin’, but I listen to her criticize my every choice while I comb and plait the twins’ heads.
“What kinda decent girl stays out to all hours with a buncha ragamuffins up to who knows what?”
She knows damn well that that buncha “ragamuffins” includes honor students, churchgoers, and at least one Boy Scout. But what I say is:
“I did get in before eleven.”
“I told you be home by ten. Last time I checked, eleven and ten was two completely different times. Have they changed that? Is that the new math I keep hearin’ about?” She angrily places the food all on one plate and practically throws it on the table.
“This is how girls be actin’ right before they turn up pregnant,” she informs me.
“Ow,” Coralene whines when I yank her hair harder than I mean to. Doralene snickers.
“Almost done,” I mumble.
“So? Donchu got nothin’ to say for yourself?” Mama challenges.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.”
She stares at me with her arms crossed. “How many a y’all stayed so late?”
“Just a couple.”
Mama watches me suspiciously, eating a forkful of potatas. Even though she’s chewing, I can see her face relax. She’s already less mad. This feels like the perfect time to remind her of how brave and selfless she thought I was not so long ago, but that’s the kinda smart-mouthin’ that might get me smacked. I decide it’s better to keep my mouth shut.
“You have the curse,” she says quietly. “You know that?”
I dip some fingers into the hair grease and rub it into Doralene’s scalp. Despite her resistance, we have talked about the strange talents we Deschamps women share, but I never heard her call it a curse before. I don’t think that’s right. Nobody should feel bad about shit they can’t help.
“It’s a curse now?” I ask her.
“Always has been.” She sighs. I’m shocked when she takes my face in her hands and looks deeply into my eyes. I’m so unprepared for whatever this is that I get the comb caught in Doralene’s hair, and she cries out.
“Evalene,” Mama says. “You’re beautiful.”
“Uh.” I don’t know what to say to this. “Thank you, Mama.”
“Don’t thank me.” She is not playin’ around. Deadly serious. “It is a curse. A beautiful face and a beautiful body can bring no good fortune to a colored woman. Men always see the beautiful things. And they think they got a right to have ’em and do what they want with ’em regardless of how the beautiful thing feels. There’s a lotta ugly men out there, and sometimes their ugliness is hidden by a handsome face, but they ugly deep inside and they see that beauty and they want to steal it for themselves.” Mama leans on the counter for support, and her eyes travel far away for an instant. I wonder if she’s thinkin’ about men from her own life. I’d ask, but I don’t want to upset her. She doesn’t like talkin’ about the past.