Page 109 of Mazywood

Imani was so lost in longing to hear her mother’s voice again that she almost missed it.

This time, the voice didn’t come with a smile or warm breath. This version of Mom’s voice was terrified, nearly unrecognizable in its wailing, close in one instant, so distant the next. This version was winding on a journey, and it was terrified.

Was she hearing things?

Instinct made Imani lean closer to the small tunnel opening, pressing her ear against it. She was no less worried that a tiny version of the Beast might spring out and maul her face, but the necessity of knowing overrode her fear.

“Help! Someone… I need help!”

Far, far away. Somewhere at the end of this tunnel, maybe as far as the caverns. The space sounded hollow around her.

“Mom!” Imani screamed back with all her breath. “We’re here!”

“Who’s she talking to…?” Imani heard Daddy say.

Sharise, voice lowered discreetly: “She thinks she hears Mom’s voice.”

Imani swung to look at the two faces staring at her in the dying firelight. Daddy was leaning into the hollow now that the fire was so low. Their eyebrows were lowered with identical concern, eyes brimming with their shared grief.

“Hon…” Daddy began, lip quivering from the frank talk he was about to give her.

“I am hearing her voice! Come listen, Sharise!”

Sharise gave Daddy a look, as if to say, I’ll handle this. Without arguing or mocking her, Sharise bent over to take Imani’s place in the rear of the hollow. Imani shined her flashlight so Sharise could see the shadowed mouth of the tunnel. Imani was breathing too fast. Too loudly.

“I don’t hear anything, Imani,” Sharise said.

“Bend down. Put your ear next to it.”

Sharise gave her a look of unbearable pity before she bent over to put her ear against the cool tunnel air. Imani watched Sharise’s face for clues about whether she was just in shock. Maybe she was no better than Daddy thinking his dead uncle had led him to this tree.

A knot on a twig popped from the firepit. Then Imani stewed in the pure quiet.

“Help me! I’m trapped in here!” Mom’s voice called from the tunnel, the way Mom might sound if she were a mouse in a cat’s grip, her voice tinny and small.

Johnny gasped from the entrance. He had heard her too. Frantic, he tried to angle himself inside the hollow, but he barely got as far as his shoulder and elbow before hot embers scorched his knee. He kicked the fire’s remains aside, trying to get closer to Tasha’s voice.

“We’re here!” Johnny yelled. “Tasha, we’re right here!” His voice shook the tree.

He and his daughters were afraid to breathe, or they might not hear her again.

“Johnny?” the voice called back. Shocked. Elated. Shattered. “Is that you?”

The tree hollow rang with their cacophony of joy.

Reaper

Thirty

GRACETOWN, FLORIDA

JUNE 1950

MAZELLE THOUGHT SHE WANTED TO get away from Gracetown at first light after her father’s funeral, but now that her car had left Lower Spruce and was heading toward McCormack Road, she ached with too much grief to leave.

Mother, Doris, and Dottie were staying behind with Brother and his wife for at least a month, and Brother had offered her and her children a cramped room to share in the cradle of family so they could soak in their misery together. Mazelle couldn’t do that. She and Doris got along better than they ever had, but Mazelle’s sister still belittled her from habit, disguised as concern. (“Why don’t you do another Lazy Mazy picture? Shoot, you can’t be scared off by picket lines. You don’t want the public to forget you.”) Dottie was much more patient with the children than Mazelle was, but it was all too much. Too much activity. Too many voices.

And Mazelle could only stomach the Deep South in small doses anymore. The baby was too young, but Ricky was five and already had noticed the WHITE ONLY signs posted everywhere downtown like religious idols. If Daddy hadn’t insisted in his will that he wanted to be laid to rest on his family plot in Gracetown, they would have buried him in California. If Mazelle had her way, she would never have returned. She didn’t tolerate segregated travel, and the drive to California from Florida was endless. She couldn’t stay here. But she couldn’t leave. Not yet.