“The enemy is gathering,” Auntie Margaret adds sharply.
The enemy what they call Ku Kluxes. Reason they gave me the sword was to fight them—their champion against that evil. Suddenly I remember my dream.
“And he say he the storm, this Butcher Clyde,” I finish.
The three was quiet as I talked. Now they looking at me hard.
“Did this Butcher Clyde harm you in any way?” Auntie Ondine asks. “Give you anything to eat? Answer me!”
Her intensity surprises me. “Nothing— Wait, that really wasn’t just a dream?”
“Not no dream!” Auntie Margaret snaps, jabbing a stitching needle at me. “You let the enemy in, girl!”
“What? I ain’t let nobody—”
Auntie Ondine puts a soothing hand to mine, her doting voice back. “You likely didn’t mean to, baby. They find ways in, through some trouble you might keep deep down inside. Like leaving a door open. There something you can think of like that?”
I remember then the other dream. Back at my old house. The girl and her warning.
They like the places where we hurt.
“No,” I answer, looking Auntie Ondine in the eye. Only way to tell a lie right.
“I know this lady who carry her troubles,” Auntie Jadine sings in a bluesy voice. “Carry her troubles, all on her back. She gon’ let them troubles weigh her down, she keep on carrying ’em round like that…”
I narrow my eyes at her, but she busy tracing a finger in her sweet tea.
“Well, we’ll just have to be careful in the future.” Auntie Ondine smiles.
“What’s happening? Nana Jean can feel something too.”
Auntie Ondine shakes her head. “We can’t see. There’s a … veil, and it’s growing.” She gestures to a patch of dark in the blue sky I hadn’t noticed before. “Now this Butcher Clyde appears. An unlikely coincidence.”
“None of it good,” Auntie Margaret frets.
“You think this Butcher Clyde a Ku Klux?” I ask.
Auntie Ondine’s face sours. “The enemy has more minions than we know.”
I remember Molly’s talk. “You mean ones that’s smarter than Ku Kluxes?”
“Smarter and more dangerous. You must be careful now.”
Her words eat up all the good feelings I’d held on to this night.
“Who are they? These Ku Kluxes and the ones minding them? What are they?”
Auntie Ondine looks like she’s measuring what to tell me. Always seem like they measuring. I start to press again, but it’s Auntie Margaret who talks.
“There were two brothers, Truth and Lie. One day they get to playing, throwing cutlasses up into the air. Them cutlasses come down and fast as can be—swish!—chop each of their faces clean off! Truth bend down, searching for his face. But with no eyes, he can’t see. Lie, he sneaky. He snatch up Truth’s face and run off! Zip! Now Lie go around wearing Truth’s face, fooling everybody he meet.” She stops stitching to fix me with stern eyes. “The enemy, they are the Lie. Plain and simple. The Lie running around pretending to be Truth.”
I listen, wondering, What’s plain and simple about that?
“Don’t let their smile fool you,” Auntie Jadine sings. “Or take you in.”
“We should get you back,” Auntie Ondine says. “Been here long already.”
They strict about the time I spend in this place, though none at all will have passed back home. I grab my sword, getting another hug from Auntie Ondine.
“Be mindful what we tell you now. Stay clear of this Butcher Clyde.”
“I will,” I answer, certain to look her in her eyes.
As I walk away, I can hear Auntie Jadine at my back.
“When the devil come to town, you betta watch how you get down … watch, watch, watch out for the devil!”
FOUR
I’m near Cherry and Third in downtown Macon. People passing by glance to me. Probably because I’m back in knickers—blue with gold pinstripes tucked into gaiters and Oxfords. Or maybe because I’m whistling a tune named “La Madelon” Chef picked up in France. Mostly, though, it’s the sword strapped to my back peeking over a cream-yellow shirt. Don’t see that too often on a Thursday morning.
Butcher Clyde wasn’t hard to find. His name in fresh red paint on yellow right over the shop across the street: Butcher Clyde’s Choice Cuts & Grillery. The leaflet I’m holding announces the store’s grand opening, offering free meats to patrons. Well, white patrons. Because the leaflet makes plain this here is a Klan establishment. It got a drawing of Uncle Sam hugging a man that resemble Butcher Clyde, both holding sausage links, reading: Wholesome Food for the Moral White Family.
Sure enough, there’s four Klans in robes standing outside the store’s glass window, directing the steady line of patrons. Two I know is Ku Kluxes, faces shifting as they pass a canteen back and forth.
I told Nana Jean about the dream with Butcher Clyde and my meeting with the Aunties. After she get through grumbling about haints, she admits he could be the “blood redhead buckrah man” from her premonitions. Seems he arrived in town a week back, opening up this shop next to the American National Bank building. She warned us to keep our distance. But a whole day gone, and I’m losing patience. This Butcher Clyde snuck into my head, outright threatened me. But I ain’t no scared girl no more. I hunt monsters—they don’t hunt me. So now I’m about to do something real brave or stupid.
I wait for a streetcar to pass, then cross Cherry Street, walking straight to Butcher Clyde’s. White folk in line frown when I skip past them. Probably thinking I’m plumb out my mind when I march up to the Klans. One, a little bit of a man, looks at me like he gone dumb. I wait for him to recover.
“You lost, girl?”
“Nope,” I respond. “Here to see Butcher Clyde. He know me.”
White folk get thrown off if you act like they don’t expect—least till they remember they gotta put you in your place. I play my other card, looking to a Ku Klux.
“I can see you.” I tap under one eye. “Ugly as sin under that skin.”
The green eyes of the man the Ku Klux wearing don’t blink. He stops drinking from the canteen, letting water run down his chin, and turns to the other Ku Klux, like they got a silent way of speaking. My gamble pays off.
“Let her through,” the Ku Klux says.
The two human Klans set to holler, but I slip right in the door as someone leaves.
Bruh Rabbit walking into Bruh Gator’s open jaws, my brother’s voice whispers.
The inside look like any other butcher shop. Smells like one too—fresh blood and raw, open flesh. But there’s also the scent of seared meat coming from a kitchen. And at tables, people sit eating. There’s Klan posters everywhere, one advertising The Birth of a Nation at Stone Mountain Sunday. Men at the counter, every last one a Ku Klux, hand out brown packages to customers. And behind them is none other than Butcher Clyde.
He looks the same from the dream—a hefty bulk of a man. Like the other night he stands with his back to me, singing some awful tune and swinging his cleaver. I start up whistling, loud as I can, and he stops what he doing to turn slow. There’s slight surprise when our eyes meet, but I don’t stay for him to say nothing, walking to take a chair by the front window, leaning back all casual-like. A white lady and her son sitting nearby watch me open-mouthed. I stare back until she turns away. There’s angry buzzing behind me, but Butcher Clyde cuts in.