“I’ve never let you two in here much before because I didn’t want you getting into anything.” Doc took a deep breath. “Just because we’re going to start working in here doesn’t mean I want you coming in on your own, that clear? I usually leave the door unlocked during the day because I’m going in and out all the time, but the last thing I need is y’all fooling around in here by yourselves.”
“Fooling around doing what?” I asked.
“Anything,” he said, running his finger along the row of shelves. “Twins in this world got more to worry about than normal people.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You saying we ain’t normal?”
“You ain’t,” Jay said, his nose squinched up.
I hit him in his scrawny arm. He yelped, then pushed me. Since he put all his weight behind it, I stumbled and banged my shoulder on Doc’s worktable.
“Stop it, y’all.” Doc’s voice cut through our fighting. “See? This is what I’m talking about. You need to work together.”
A carved wooden box stood on a shelf pushed back behind a round basket woven from black and green telephone wires. Doc took down the box and showed it to us. When I peeked close, the carvings were of water and ocean waves. But I couldn’t see any way to open it – there were no hinges or locks or anything. Doc held the box close to his chest and opened the lid, almost as if by magic. He showed me and Jay the inside. Lots of long, twisty vines lay on a checkered handkerchief.
“These are called Devil’s Shoestrings. They’re one of the most important ingredients for protection spells.”
I reached out and touched on the strings. They felt dry, but when I pressed one, the Shoestrings bent easy as a honeysuckle vine.
“Ugh,” Jay said, peeking into the basket. “They’re all dark and ugly.”
Doc set the box down on his worktable. “One thing I need you kids to understand. And I want you to listen real close now.” He tilted his head and looked at us through one eye like a bird. The air in the cabin felt like it was vibrating, moving around me. “Dark is not ugly. Get that out of your minds right now.” His voice was stern, but the look on his face was gentle. “You are both Black, and your mama taught you to hold your heads up and be proud. You’re Turners, and that comes with a legacy.”
“What’s a legacy?” Jay asked.
“Something from your parents and grandparents,” I said.
“And even further back than that,” Doc said. “Rootworking and magic has been in this family for over three hundred years. Maybe longer, in some way or another.” Doc rubbed his palms together, the sound of his rough skin like sandpaper. “So that was your first lesson in rootwork.”
“That’s it?” Jay stuck out his lower lip. He looked so funny when he pouted and I couldn’t hold in my laugh. “I thought we were gonna actually do something.”
“We can’t always just do fun stuff.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Jay. “It’s like math. We have to learn the principles first. I’m up to it. Are you?”
Jay threw his hands up in the air. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
“All right, all right, you two.” Doc looked at us thoughtfully. “There is something I need help with if you think you’re up to it, something very important. We’re gonna lay down some protection for the house.”
“Didn’t Gran use to do that?” Jay said.
“She did, but some of her magic is fading now that she’s gone.” Doc went clink-clunking around in some boxes stacked in the corner of the cabin. “Since we have a lot more to worry about right now, I think it’s best we set some protection that will last a long time and only need touching up once in a while.”
Doc removed something that looked like a big metal key from a basket and handed it to Jay. He then pointed to a new can of paint on the bottom shelf. “Jay, open that up there.”
Jay lifted the can of paint with both hands and dragged it to the floor. He wedged off the lid with the metal key and then peeled off the thick, dried skin covering the white liquid underneath.
“Now, Jez, you pour this, drop by drop, into that can of paint there.” Doc pressed a small bottle of blue liquid into my hands. “Keep adding drops until it gets to be haint blue.”
“Haint” was the word Gran had used in her stories to mean ghosts, or spirits of people and things that hadn’t moved on from our world to the next. Even though it was an old word, Mama and Doc used it sometimes too.
“Haint blue is the color ghosts and spirits hate most,” Doc continued. “It reminds them of the big salt—that’s the ocean. Since ghosts can’t cross water, they stay away from the color.”
“Okay.” I tugged on one of my pigtails. I had a hair ribbon that was haint blue, but Mama only let me wear it on the Sundays we went to church. I knew the color was special, but not like this. “Then what do we do with it?” I asked.
“You paint the house.” When we just stared at him, Doc laughed. “I never said rootwork wasn’t real work.” He lit his pipe, and the scent of tobacco and dried peaches started to cover the smell of spice and wood from the cabin. He pulled Devil’s Shoestrings out of the basket one by one, then started to braid them in a circle. “Now get that paint mixed.”
I carefully added in the liquid Doc had given me. Jay brought a new paint stick over and went to stir it all up.
“We’re supposed to do that together,” I told him. “Let me hold part of it.”
“Ain’t long enough for you to hold it and pour in those drops at the same time. I’ll go first; then you can stir when there’s enough liquid in.” He sank the stick into the paint and blue rose to the top.
“No, you’ll do it all and not leave anything for me.” Stirring paint was one of my favorite things to do. I loved it when the separate colors would come together all smooth into a brand-new shade.
“I will so! You need to wait, Jezzie.”
He yanked back on the stick at the same moment I decided he was right and I should trust him and wait. The stick flew up, catching against the lip of the paint can, flinging huge blobs of light-blue paint all over the inside of Doc’s cabin, and all over me and Jay, too.
My favorite denim dress—with pockets big enough to hold my doll, a peach, and anything I found out in the marsh while I was running around—was ruined. A line of paint slid down Jay’s dark cheek, headed toward his chin. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, and it smeared into a chalky, ashy smudge that ran along his arm as well.
Mama was going to kill us dead.
Doc slammed his fist down on his worktable, making the roots and herbs inside the jars rattle. “That’s enough out of both of you! Look at my ceiling. Blue paint is no good inside a place. If something gets in here with one of us, it’s already too late.”
“You mean hags?” I joked, grinning. I picked at a dark spot on my dress until I realized it was a small hole. “We’re gonna paint the house now, so they won’t be able to sneak in after today!”
“I’m glad to hear you both remember those stories.” Our uncle returned his attention to his table, brushing aside stubborn gnats as he scraped bark from a twisted, blackened branch and put it in a jar. “They were a warning to keep you safe. There’s worse things than hags out there.”