She just whimpers. I grit my teeth, disgusted.
“You ain’t got to be scared. You got that sword.”
Her little knuckles tighten around the silver hilt at her side. But she don’t even try to lift it. That makes me madder still.
“Get on up outta here! You too grown for all this!”
A squeak escapes her lips and she stammers. “What if they come back?”
“They not coming back!” I’m shouting now. “You just gon’ sit here! Getting filthy! You coulda done something with that sword! You coulda tried to stop them! Damn you, why won’t you get out of here! Why don’t you leave me alone!”
Something in her face changes, chasing the fright away, and her voice goes smooth as water.
“Same reason you won’t go into the barn out back. We know what scare us. Don’t we, Maryse?”
I suck in breath, and some of her fear slides down my throat.
She looks herself over. “Why you always imagine me as a girl? We wasn’t so. You thinking this put more distance between us?”
“What do you want?” I plead.
“To tell you they watching. They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us.”
They? “Who you talking about?”
The fear reappears like a mask, and her voice drops to a whisper. “They coming!”
In a blink, the world is swallowed in blackness. I panic, thinking I’m back in the hideaway place under the floors, raw fright threatening to take hold. But no, this not my house. I turn in a circle, searching that impenetrable darkness, when something catches my ear. Is that singing?
A faint light appears ahead I know wasn’t there before. But it’s where the noise is coming from. I walk toward it and as I do, the light takes shape into something. Or someone. A man. I can see him from the back—wide and broad like a motor truck, with a melon for a head topped in red hair. He wearing a white shirt and black pants held up by suspenders, with something tied about him I think is an apron. Can’t make out what he’s doing, but he’s bent over, swinging one arm, and each time it come down there’s a wet THUNK! Then a little squeal! He the one singing—or trying to. Making the most godawful racket, all off pitch and off beat. Take me a while to recognize the words.
“And when she roll that jelly!”
He chuckles. THUNK! Squeal!
“We like that one,” he says in a deep Georgia drawl. “But don’t understand.” THUNK! Squeal! “What does she roll like jelly? Is it made of real jelly? Sticky and sweet?” THUNK! Squeal! “Here, we know another one.” He clears his throat and starts to caterwauling:
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men!
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they’re up, they’re up,
And when they’re down, they’re down.
And when they’re only halfway up,
They’re neither up nor down!
He chuckles again, and I catch a whiff of something rancid.
“That one we understand. Up, down. Up, down. But jelly?”
THUNK! THUNK! Squeal! Squeal!
I can’t say why, but I want to see what he doing. I scoot to the side, trying not to get too close, and catch a glimpse of his hands. Big burly things. He got thick thumbs wrapped around the wood hilt of a silver cleaver and he’s hacking up meat on a bloodstained table. Only every time he cut a piece, it inches away, a small hole opening up on it I realize is a mouth. And it squeals.
THUNK the cleaver go.
Squeal! the meat lets out.
I rear back in disgust, and he turns about to face me.
He as big in the front as the back, a thick and solid man. He hooks his cleaver on a loop at his waist, and I can see a matching one on the other side. His mouth opens into a too-wide grin on a shaved face and he wipes bloody smears on his white apron before extending a hand.
Realizing I ain’t shaking that thing, he lowers it.
“Well, we finally get to meet you, Maryse.”
I grimace at hearing my name. “You know me?”
He grins wider. “Oh, we been watching you a long time, Maryse. A long time.”
“Who you, then? Some wicked haint messing with my dreams?”
He winks a gray eye. “We the storm on the horizon. But you can call us Clyde—Butcher Clyde. We thought we’d introduce ourselves proper, since you gone and left this nice little space open for us to slip into.”
Storm. Nana Jean’s words play in my head. Bad wedduh gwine come.
“Well, you can slip yourself right back out,” I snap.
He laughs a deep belly laugh. And I swear his stomach moves under that apron.
“We really going to have to dance, Maryse. You just bring that sword of yours next time, you hear? Don’t worry, we’ll bring the music.” He extends his arms and starts up singing again. “Oh, the grand old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men…!”
As he do, little holes break out across his skin. On the exposed parts of his hairy arms, up on his neck, all along his round face. They’re mouths, I realize with a shudder—small mouths with tiny jagged teeth fitted into red gums. All as one they start singing too, joining him in the worst chorus you ever heard. No harmony or rhythm, just a hundred voices crashing together.
And when they’re up, they’re up,
And when they’re down, they’re down.
And when they’re only halfway up,
They’re neither up nor down!
I cover my ears. Because this, whatever it is, don’t dare call it music, hurts! In desperation I try to call up my sword, but can’t get my mind right. It’s like everything is off, the whole world spinning, and I stumble, trying to catch my balance. He just stands there laughing and singing, all those little mouths laughing and singing too. His hands grab his apron, tearing it off and ripping open his shirt. The skin on his pale belly ripples and peels back to reveal a pit of emptiness. No, not emptiness. Another mouth—big enough to eat me whole! With sharp teeth long as fingers and a flicking red tongue!
“We still want our dance, Maryse!” that mouth growls.
He jumps at me, and I swing a fist only to have my arm sink into his chest. His whole body—clothes and all—done turned pitch black, liquid and oozing. The mouths still there too, opening and closing with wet sucking hisses.
I kick out and a leg goes into him, sticking me fast.
Like how Tar Baby catch Bruh Rabbit! my brother wails.
Butcher Clyde laughs, and his tongue flies like a ribbon, wrapping round my middle. I try to peel the nasty fleshy thing off, but it’s so damn strong, dragging me closer, toward that awful mouth, open wide—waiting.
* * *
I jump awake, breathing heavy and don’t mind saying scared as shit! But there’s no tongue wrapped about me. No Tar Baby man with a mouth in his belly. The echo of that terrible singing still in my ears, though. I let it fade and focus on my surroundings.
I can hear Sadie, loud as hell in a nearby room with Lester, and I don’t know who making more noise between the two. She the one cussing up a storm, but pretty certain he doing all the moaning.
Chef here too, whimpering somewhere as Bessie makes shushing whispers. She gets like this sometimes. Starts apologizing to dead men, then wakes up sobbing. Like a piece of that war come home with her. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my brother went off to that war, and what he might have brung back.