Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1) (19 page)

Maybe I had kinfolk still alive too! I might not be able to find where they were. But if I could find out their names, that would be more than I knew now. And maybe I could find them someday.

‘‘Miss Katie,’’ I said excitedly. ‘‘I just remembered that my mama had a Bible too. I gotta go back to where we lived and see if I can find it.’’

‘‘Can I go with you?’’ she asked.

Suddenly my wild idea didn’t sound so good. What if we were seen? What if someone else came here while we were gone and found Rosewood empty?

Katie must have already thought the same thing.

‘‘What if someone comes while we’re gone?’’ she wondered.

‘‘Maybe it’s not too good an idea,’’ I nodded. We sat quietly for a while, then I said, ‘‘But I gotta go. I gotta see if I can find the Bible and if I have any kin left. I want to know.’’

‘‘Please let me go with you,’’ Katie begged. ‘‘We’ll just hope nobody comes while we’re gone.’’

‘‘I suppose we could get up real early and ride fast—’’

‘‘Yes, let’s!’’ said Katie.

‘‘All right,’’ I said. ‘‘We’ll go tomorrow.’’

R
ETURN
27

I
DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH THAT NIGHT, AND I WAS up before dawn. I had to wake Katie and she was pretty sleepy at first. But after we’d had a quick breakfast, she was wide-awake. The danger of it made it seem like an adventure, and we were both pretty keyed up—excited and scared at the same time.

Even though I hadn’t been paying that much attention when I’d wandered into Rosewood, as I’d thought about it since, I had some idea which way I’d come. I hadn’t been but a few miles or so from my old plantation in the past, but somehow I was pretty sure I could find it. And when I told Katie that our master’s name had been McSimmons, she said she remembered that name being associated with a family on the other side of Greens Crossing, she thought toward the east. That seemed to make sense to me. So that’s the direction we headed.

We rode on two horses rather than hitching up a buggy, so we could go through fields and woods if we needed to. We went on the roads at first and rode as fast as we could manage. But once the sun was good and on its way into the sky, I led us off the roads and we stayed in woodsy areas where we wouldn’t be seen.

I told Katie that sometimes one of our master’s men would gather some of us young’uns in a wagon and take us off to collect wood. Looking around, I started seeing things I recognized. Not long after that I knew my way, and pretty soon I knew we were getting close to the McSimmons plantation and its colored town.

We came through a woods to the edge of a field, and I could see the house and other buildings I recognized. We watched carefully for a while but saw no signs of life. We dismounted and walked our horses across the field.

I had no idea what we would find. All kinds of strange feelings started surging through me as we approached. I got real scared, like those men might still be around, even though from the quiet I was pretty sure nobody was.

We walked up slowly past the big house in the distance and down the road to the slave quarters. Everything was just like I left it, except the bodies I hadn’t been able to bury weren’t there. I don’t know what happened to them. Otherwise, it didn’t look like a soul had been there since I’d left myself. The only sign that anybody’d ever lived there was the smell from the outhouses.

Katie looked around.

‘‘You lived here?’’ she asked in a shocked tone. Clearly she had never seen such a place before, never even imagined that people would live in such a place.

Since the time I’d spent in her mama and daddy’s house, it all looked a little different, a little worse, in my eyes too—the tumbled-down shacks, the dirt, the pitiful garden patches now all gone to weeds.

It’s funny how things can look the same but different. It had only been—I didn’t even know how long it had been . . . maybe a few weeks or a month. Katie and I had lost track of time. But as I stood there, it felt like a year—a lifetime—had passed. Everything I saw was from another time, almost like the person I remembered who had lived here, the girl I could picture in my mind, was somebody else and not me at all.

Having the two parts of me—the old and the new—looking at each other right then couldn’t help but make me feel thoughtful and strange and sad.

I started to cry. Katie saw me and came over and put her arm around me. Just feeling her touch unleashed feelings I’d kept inside all this time.

I sobbed out loud. I couldn’t help it. Maybe I suddenly realized that Katie was the only person I had in the whole world. And I didn’t know how much longer I’d even have her.

I finally got myself calmed down. Slowly we started walking around. I remembered where I’d buried my ma and grandpapa and brothers and sisters, but I wasn’t quite ready to see that yet.

I walked toward a little shanty.

‘‘That’s our house,’’ I said.

Katie didn’t reply.

I glanced over. Tears were spilling out of her eyes too, though quiet ones, not sobbing tears like mine had been. I moved toward the door. Katie hesitated. I reached out and took her hand. She followed me up the rickety steps, her hand tightly clutching mine. I couldn’t tell if she was afraid or just feeling some of the same kinds of things I was.

I opened the door, and a scurrying sound startled us both. Katie jumped back and gave a little cry as we saw two or three rats running about. Katie grimaced but then slowly followed me the rest of the way inside.

Everything was just like I remembered it. It didn’t look like a thing had been moved since that last day. Some food was still out on the table, all dried and spoiled now. It was ghostly quiet.

‘‘Where was your room, Mayme?’’ Katie asked in a whisper.

‘‘I didn’t have a room, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘All of us just slept in here.’’

The whole cabin wasn’t much bigger than Katie’s room. Several bunks stacked on top of each other against the wall, with their thin, dirty mattresses of straw, all looked the same.

‘‘How . . . how many of you lived here?’’ Katie asked.

I had to stop a minute to think.

‘‘Seven, I reckon,’’ I said. ‘‘That was after my pa died. It would have been eight before that when the baby was born.’’

As I looked around, for the first time the thought came if there was anything I wanted from here. I’d left in such a hurry I hadn’t had the chance to think about it before.

I looked at my few old clothes, folded on the end of a bunk. They seemed like rags now compared to the work dresses of Katie’s mama that I was using.

‘‘What’s this?’’ Katie asked, walking toward my sleeping spot.

The sight brought new tears to my eyes.

‘‘That’s my crinkly rabbit,’’ I said. ‘‘My mama made him for me. I call him Mister Krinkle.’’

She picked him up and handed him to me. He was old and dirty and nearly falling apart. The sight and feel of him filled me with pain.

‘‘My mama knitted him for my fifth birthday,’’ I said. ‘‘Then she filled him up with old rags and bits of straw.’’

‘‘I like him,’’ said Katie. ‘‘Let’s take him home with us.’’

I sniffed and nodded.

Seeing the bed made brought another memory. I pulled back the mattress. Underneath were the pages of my diary.

I smiled. I’d almost forgotten them. They sure didn’t look like much now.

I reached down and picked them up.

‘‘What’s that?’’ Katie wanted to know.

‘‘Some things I wrote,’’ I mumbled. I really didn’t want to talk about it, at least not yet.

I laid the mattress back down, then remembered why we had come in the first place—the Bible.

There was a chest under Mama’s bed where she’d kept her few clothes and things for the baby. I got down on my knees and dragged it out and pulled the top up. It was about half full of clothes and a couple of ragged blankets. I rummaged through down to the bottom, and sure enough, there it was. I took the Bible out, then stood up and showed it to Katie.

‘‘It was my mama’s,’’ I explained again. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve seen it in a while. I wasn’t sure it would still be here, but here it is.’’

Seeing the Bible reminded me of the pretty blue pin of Mama’s with the letters on it. She said they were the memories of her teardrops, and that always made her look at me with a sad smile. It ought to have been with my mama’s other special things in the chest under the bed, but I looked carefully again, and there was no sign of it.

I stuffed my writing pages inside the Bible. We went back outside, Katie carrying Mister Krinkle and me carrying the old black Bible. I took a deep breath and walked in the direction of the graves, and then just stood looking down at the mounds of dirt I’d made over the bodies of my family.

‘‘Is . . . is this—’’ Katie began.

‘‘It’s my mama and brothers and sisters and grandpapa,’’ I said. ‘‘I buried them before I left.’’

A L
OT OF
G
ROWING
U
P TO
D
O
28

T
HE RIDE BACK TO ROSEWOOD AND THE rest of the day were quiet for both of us. Katie was sad for me and for what she’d seen. And maybe the finality of it was hitting me all over again.

That evening, I don’t know what put it into my head but I felt like taking a bath. The idea of getting clean and fresh probably seemed like washing the past off me or something. I was still downcast about what I’d seen, and I reckoned maybe a bath would help.

‘‘Miss Katie,’’ I said after we had eaten supper, ‘‘would you mind if I took a bath in the tub upstairs?’’

‘‘Of course not, Mayme,’’ she said. ‘‘Would you like me to help with the water?’’

‘‘That’s right kind of you, but I can do it myself if—’’

‘‘I want to help,’’ said Katie. ‘‘You always carry the water for me.’’

‘‘That’s different,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m colored.’’

‘‘It’s not different now,’’ said Katie.

We heated up the water in the kitchen and carried it up to the tub. We had to make a lot of trips up and down the stairs.

‘‘My daddy said he was going to put pipes up here,’’ Katie said, ‘‘so we could pump water up to the tub.’’

‘‘That’d be rip-staver!’’ I said. ‘‘Imagine it—water in the house . . . and upstairs to boot!’’

‘‘I’ll bring up the rest, Mayme,’’ Katie added. ‘‘You can start your bath. Then I’ll pour it over your back and head if you want to wash your hair. It’ll feel good.’’

‘‘Thank you, Miss Katie,’’ I said.

I was taking a terrible liberty doing what I was doing. I usually washed in the creek or in the tub out by the barn. But I could tell it was all right with Katie, so I went ahead.

We hadn’t ever undressed in front of each other. I suppose we were both a little embarrassed, not only about the difference in our skin, but how we’d been filling out recently like girls do. I hadn’t as much as Katie, since I was taller and skinnier. But the changes in my body still took a little getting used to.

I got undressed and got into the tub of water while Katie was downstairs. I lay down in it and tried to forget that I was black, that I had no family left, that I really didn’t belong anywhere. I closed my eyes and said to myself that it was all right just to enjoy this bath and that it was time I forgot the past.

Pretty soon I heard Katie coming back up the stairs lugging another pail of water. I sat up and wrapped my arms around myself.

She came in and put down the pot. ‘‘That was heavy,’’ she said. ‘‘But I think it’s just right, Mayme. If you want to soap up your head, I’ll scoop it out in the cup and pour it over—’’

She stopped and gave a little cry. ‘‘Mayme, what’s that?’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘What are those marks on your back?’’

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. I reached up with one hand and tried to feel the top of my back. Then I remembered.

‘‘Oh, that’s nothing, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘It’s just from whippin’s, that’s all.’’

‘‘Whippings—who whipped you!’’ she said, shocked at the very idea.

‘‘The master, or the master’s son or his men. Mostly the overseer. You should see some of the men. They got ’em all over. Mine’s nothing. You should see the men that got cathauled.’’

‘‘What’s . . . what’s that?’’ she asked.