Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1) (28 page)

T
HAT NIGHT, AFTER WE HAD ALL EATEN AND Emma and baby William were settled down for a spell—though he would probably wake up hungry again in another hour or two—Katie and I sat on the bed in what had been my room and had a long talk. We were both pretty sober after hearing Emma’s story of how she had come to Rosewood.

Once Katie had heard what Emma had been through, and the danger she was still in, she was more determined than ever not to make Emma leave anytime soon, at least until she and William were healthy and strong. Beyond that we didn’t say too much about the future. Neither of us wanted to bring it up again, because I was still unsure what to do myself, and I think Katie knew it.

We didn’t actually resolve anything. Katie was just happy that I had decided to stay for one more night and was content not to worry about how I’d feel later. And I reckon that about sums up how I felt myself. I didn’t know what I’d do or what was the right thing to do.

Finally we said good-night and Katie went back to her room. I turned out my lamp and pretty soon was sound asleep.

Suddenly in the middle of the night, I woke up.

Katie was calling my name.

‘‘Mayme . . . Mayme!’’

Terrified, I jumped out of bed. My first thought was that the men we’d scared off with the guns were back.

I fumbled in the darkness to throw something around me and hurried out into the hallway. Before I could reach her room, Katie nearly knocked me over running toward mine.

‘‘Mayme . . . Mayme!’’ she said, her voice an urgent whisper.

‘‘What is it, Miss Katie! What’s wrong?’’

‘‘Nothing’s wrong,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve had the most wonderful idea! Come into my room and I’ll tell you.’’

I followed her, not knowing what to make of it. I was still a little shaky from waking up so fast.

‘‘Get into bed with me, Mayme,’’ she said as she struck a match to turn on her lamp. My heart was finally beating normally again.

We sat there leaning against the pillows for a bit.

‘‘You said it yourself, Mayme,’’ she said by and by. ‘‘We’re in trouble if anyone finds us alone. So that’s what made me realize what we need to do—we’ve just got to make sure no one finds out we’re here alone.’’

I nodded. It was just what I’d been trying to tell her all along.

‘‘Don’t you see—we’ll make it look like we’re
not
alone!’’ she went on. ‘‘No one will know Mama and Papa aren’t still here!’’

Her eyes were wide and expectant, like she was waiting for me to jump up out of the bed and dance around or something. But I just kept sitting there staring back at her.

‘‘Isn’t that what we’ve already been doing?’’ I asked.

‘‘But you said we couldn’t
keep
doing it without getting discovered.’’

‘‘I reckon so,’’ I said. ‘‘That’s why I decided to leave, because sooner or later we were gonna get found out, or one of your uncles was gonna come and claim Rosewood and take you away.’’

‘‘But why couldn’t we
keep
doing it?’’ asked Katie. ‘‘We can make it so believable that no one ever finds out! Not my uncles or anyone in town . . . or anyone!’’

‘‘But . . .
how
?’’ I asked.

‘‘I don’t know, just have things look like normal,’’ said Katie. ‘‘Do it even better than we have up till now—make the plantation look like everything it’s supposed to be. We can pretend you’re one of Rosewood’s slaves. Remember Mr. Thurston and Mrs. Hammond? They didn’t guess we were alone.’’

I thought about it, trying to get my mind around what she was suggesting.

‘‘I’m going to do it, Mayme,’’ Katie went on, more serious now. ‘‘I’m going to because I have to, for Emma’s sake, to keep her safe. But maybe even after she’s gone. I don’t want to go to live anywhere else. I’m just a girl, like you said, but why can’t I make Rosewood mine? I’m sure Mama and Papa would want me to have it. And I’m going to! I want you to stay, Mayme. And I hope you do. But whether you do or not, I’ve got to get Rosewood up and running again. Don’t you see—I’ve got to. I’ve got to for Emma . . . and for me too!’’

‘‘But I still don’t see
how
you can keep going on like we’ve been doing,’’ I said. ‘‘We’re already starting to run out of things. And what will you do when winter comes or if something happens and you get sick? And how would you buy things? What would you do if you went into town and people asked about your mama? What are you gonna do when you run out of sugar and salt and matches and other things like that you gotta buy? You don’t have any money, do you?’’

‘‘No,’’ said Katie. ‘‘But that doesn’t matter, Mayme. I still think I could do it . . . especially with your help. I think we could pull the wool over people’s eyes enough so that they wouldn’t bother us.’’

Little by little her unbelievable, incredible idea began to dawn on me.

‘‘So you actually think,’’ I said, ‘‘that you can keep doing like we’ve been . . . keep doing it till you get old enough so that the plantation’s really yours—honeyfuggle everybody into thinking the others are still here—your mama and daddy and the slaves and everyone?’’

‘‘Yes . . . yes, Mayme—that’s it!’’ laughed Katie, excited again.

It was silent for another minute.

‘‘By the horn spoons, Miss Katie,’’ I added, shaking my head, ‘‘that’s some daring idea all right.’’

‘‘I know what I’m saying could be dangerous,’’ said Katie. ‘‘But I’d rather be in danger and us be able to stay together and me be able to stay here.’’

‘‘But . . . but do you really
want
me to stay?’’ I asked. ‘‘I’m the daughter of slaves. You’re the daughter of a white man. Even if you could get away with it and gum people into thinking you weren’t alone—’’

‘‘Mayme,’’ she interrupted me, tears suddenly replacing her laughter, ‘‘I
want
you to stay.’’

Her words made me feel like crying too. It got real quiet for a minute.

‘‘Maybe it wouldn’t work forever, like you say,’’ said Katie after a bit. ‘‘All I know is that right now I don’t want to go live anywhere else. I want to stay right here and take care of Emma and baby William.’’

‘‘But . . . but like I said before when you had to talk to that Mr. Thurston,’’ I said, ‘‘you wouldn’t lie and tell people your folks are still alive, would you? You once said you couldn’t do that.’’

Katie thought for a minute.

‘‘Lying’s wrong—I know that. But I remember my mama once telling me when the war came that sometimes people had to do hard things they didn’t need to do at other times. So maybe I could do it, if it would protect us and Rosewood,’’ she said. ‘‘Me not having to go to one of my uncles or to an orphanage and keeping you here and being able to help Emma.’’

‘‘I sure don’t know about all this, Miss Katie,’’ I said. ‘‘but . . . but it’d sure be some pumpkins if you
could
do like you’re saying!’’

Katie thought a minute.

‘‘I’d try not to lie,’’ she said thoughtfully. ‘‘I guess if I had to, to keep whoever’s after Emma from finding her and hurting her, well, I don’t know . . . maybe I’d have to. But I hope not.’’

J
UST
M
E
AND
G
OD
44

A
FTER TALKING A LITTLE MORE, WE WENT back to our own rooms again. I don’t know about Katie, whether she’d had to get up in the night to see to Emma and William, but I slept sound right through until it had begun to get light.

Even though yesterday had been a long day and Katie and I had been up late the night before, I came instantly wide-awake. The minute I sat up in bed I had the sense that somebody had called my name and that’s what had woken me up. But it was completely silent. I don’t know what time it was, but it was early and there wasn’t a sound coming from anywhere else in the house.

What could have made me wake up so suddenly?

I lay there for a few minutes, and then had the feeling that I should get up.

As I got dressed and slowly tiptoed from the room and downstairs, the most peculiar sensation came over me that it was God who had awakened me. The idea made me feel funny—like God
knew
me, knew my name, and was now quietly saying it—
Mary Ann Jukes,
get up . . . come outside. I want to talk to you
.

Did God really talk to people like that?

Did God talk to people . . . like
me
?

I was a nobody, a black, a slave with no family, with nothing to call my own. I reckon I was about as insignificant a person as there could be on the face of the earth.

Would God really pay attention to someone like me? And why would He want to talk to me?

I didn’t have the answers to all those questions, but I figured I ought to do what He said and find out what it was all about.

I went out of the house and started walking. Before I knew it, I was walking toward Katie’s special place in the woods. It was so quiet and still in the morning. The sun wasn’t even quite up yet.

Not only was it quiet out in the morning, it was quiet inside me too—quiet and still and peaceful. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t worried about what to do or where to go. Maybe thinking about God does that to you—quiets you down inside and makes you less fretful. I was a practical kind of person that usually had to have everything all figured out. But on this morning I wasn’t worried about anything except right then, and being where I was supposed to be at that moment. And it was a good feeling too.

Slowly I walked along through the woods, looking around me as the birds woke up too and began to sing.

Just as I reached Katie’s little meadow, I saw a deer about forty feet in front of me drinking from the stream. It pulled its head up and looked at me. It didn’t seem afraid, and we just stood looking at each other for a few long seconds. Then the deer slowly walked away and disappeared in the woods.

I went the rest of the way into the meadow and sat down on the rock where Katie sat to write her poems and think.

I sat there for the longest time, just thinking about all that had happened. Then I remembered that God had woken me up—maybe called my name—though I still didn’t know why.

I wasn’t too experienced at praying. I’d really only prayed that one time a couple of weeks before when I’d been reading in my mama’s Bible. But I figured if ever there was a time when I needed to pray, maybe that time was now.

‘‘God,’’ I said, talking softly, though it sounded a little funny to hear my own voice in the middle of that meadow when the morning was so quiet, ‘‘I don’t know why you woke me up and wanted me to come out here, but if you’ve got something to say, I reckon I’m listening. You must know that I’ve been a mite confused about what Katie and I should do, and especially about what I ought to do. I thought I should leave and I even tried to twice. But it just hasn’t seemed to work out, and now I don’t know what to do. . . .’’

I stopped and took a deep breath.

Again it was silent a long time. Gradually I began to get the sense like I had before that God was talking. But His voice was so still and quiet that I couldn’t hardly make out what He was trying to say.

How were you supposed to hear God’s voice anyway? Maybe you had to get so still yourself that His voice kind of stole inside you in the midst of the quiet.

So I closed my eyes and tried to relax and shut out all my own thoughts and ideas to see if maybe I could make out what God was saying.

I sat for a while with my eyes closed, just breathing in and out and being still . . . and waiting.

Then slowly a thought came into my mind and then eight words followed it. I didn’t really
hear
them, but it was
like
hearing them. This is what the words said—
Ask me what I want you to do
.

‘‘Was that you, God?’’ I asked out loud. ‘‘Was that you saying that?’’

Again, someone repeated the words and I heard them in my mind.
Ask me what I want you to do
.

Then I realized that ever since I’d been trying to decide what to do and whether or not to leave Rosewood, I’d never once talked to God about it. All I’d done was try to figure out
myself
what to do.

I wondered if there might be a difference between what you wanted to do
yourself,
even if you thought it was right, and what
God
wanted you to do.

And how else could you find out what He wanted except by asking Him? Was that why He’d woken me up and gotten me to get up and come outside, so I’d learn how to ask
Him
instead of doing what I thought I ought to do? Was that the prayer He was trying to teach me to pray, how to ask
Him
what to do?

If that was it, I thought, it was a whole new way of looking at things, a whole new way of looking at life. I’d always done whatever I figured I ought to do. That was the kind of person I was. I just did what I thought was best.

Maybe that wasn’t how it was supposed to be after you’d opened up your heart to God. Maybe you were
supposed
to ask somebody else, and who else would that be but God?

I sat for a long time in silence. I didn’t get any more feelings that God was saying anything. Maybe He’d said all He had to say.