“So we had a cave dug for us, and there we were, with furniture from the house and a nice rug on the dirt floor. And I confess, I loved it. It was a great adventure, and I could smell the earth all around us and hear the shells as if they were very, very far away…”
Portia’s eyes seemed darker, like storm clouds. “But I was never frail, as Papa thought. It was my colored maid Sophie who knew about me, how I got bit by the big wild dog back at Fairgrove, and how, when the moon is full, I have my spells. And while Papa sleeps, I run out in the streets, hungry, starving, like everyone else in the city, only I can smell what I need, and I find the siege tunnels and trenches where our Confederate soldiers wait for me. So dark in the tunnels, black but for the red-flower scent of their blood, and I find one sleeping by himself, my nails are sharp, they shred him like a soft roll, and my teeth mangle his throat like ivory knives—and the thick nectar bubbles up in my jaws and he tastes so sweet… and then I give him to the river….
“Sometimes they cry out. But there’s so much pain here, men hurt and dying. One scream in the night?”
There was a smell of musk in the thick air. Portia’s face was radiant and her eyes drunk with color, shot through with spears of red. “And that is what I am. Do you understand?”
Red couldn’t speak.
Portia looked toward the door. “Why, Sophie, come on in here. Meet Yvette.”
It was Matilda at the door, and she took Red by the hand as if she were four years old and led her to the garden, out of Lydia’s sight, where they could sit in the shade and look out over the beautiful irises, so still in the heat.
“Did she tell you?” said Matilda. “She shouldn’t of done that.”
Red’s throat ached as tears rose. She was so sweaty she felt as if her skin would melt. She felt horrible, betrayed and utterly alone, and had never wanted her mother and father so much in her life.
‘You ever seen one o’ them monster movies? They call ’em werewolves. And all the people who saw the movie I went to, they screamed at the scary parts. But they weren’t scary to me, because Miss Portia…” Matilda pulled out a clean handkerchief from the pocket of her apron. Red buried her face behind it.
“Lord knows what happened to her is bad. But she can’t help herself. What she’s got is some disease that I don’t think us or God understands. And it keeps her alive, when all she wants is peace.”
“She gave me the key to the room in the cellar,” whispered Red.
“That’s where we keep her when she has her spells. She came up from Vicksburg right after the war on that riverboat Sultana, and it blew up, and she and her maid Sophie got fished out of the Mississippi. When they made it back to Memphis, Sophie told Miss Portia’s people here. And they’ve kept her hidden in little rooms for years and years. She hasn’t been able to get out and do harm. And she’s so old now… no one from the outside knows she’s still alive. Your own mother doesn’t know what Miss Portia is. When she was a little girl, Miss Lydia sent your mother away to school. Which I can’t do with my Virginia,” said Matilda in that voice she had used when she talked about the cruelty of whites to their maids. “You’re the last Tucker female. You have a right to know.”
It was too much of a burden, sitting across from Lydia at breakfast the next morning and pretending to be a carefree little girl. Mercifully, her grandmother didn’t notice the haunted look on Red’s face, or that she picked at her food because there was a heavy stone at her center. One glance and her mother would have known.
So Red told Virginia.
“Does she really turn into a wolf?”
“Yes! Even Matil—even your mother says so.” “Mama’s been with this family since before I was born. And my great-great-grandmother was named Sophie. Mama works at other people’s houses, but not like here. She practically lives here. She must have known about this for a long, long time.”
“And maybe your grandmother before her.”
“I’ll bet! You know, Mama doesn’t laugh a lot. Sometimes she says I better laugh while I can.”
“Maybe,” said Red, “she just means that your life will be hard . .. your being a negro.”
Virginia gravely shook her head. “It’s more than that. My Aunt Mary works for some awful mean people. But she still laughs and makes jokes and says you can’t let life get you down—and that my generation will have it better. Mama… well, if she’s known about this all her life, it would explain a lot.”
“Our two families go back a long way.”
“We’re practically sisters,” grinned Virginia.
Red grinned back and realized the weight had lightened as she talked to Virginia. Yesterday, between one heat-thickened moment and the next, Red had met a monster, and life was full of dark corners. But now she could bear it, if Portia wanted to see her again.
“I’m not going to be your maid,” said Virginia. “When I grow up.”
“Well, of course you aren’t. What are you going to do?”
“Dunno yet. I’ll go to college.”
They sat in contemplative silence. College was further off than anything they could think of, and for a moment it awed them more than the werewolf next door.
Red drifted thoughtfully into Lydia’s kitchen and heard her on the phone, heard a name to make her heart pound. She was talking to Daddy.
“… well, Frank, it was nothing really. I just put in a good word….”
Red paused in the breakfast nook, some instinct making her hold back and listen.
“I think you got the job because you’re a good teacher, not because the dean of the department is a schoolmate from Randolph-Macon. From back before the Punic Wars.”
Red waited out the silent space of her father’s response.
“…maybe it is time we were on more cordial footing. Frank—Frank, it comes down to this; I knew you wanted the job, I thought it would be good for the three of you to move—up there… never mind why… and Miss Delacourte would never have hired you if she didn’t think you were the best man for the job. I just wanted the best for the three of you. Oh, let me go get Yvette, and not another word about it. Yvette!”
Red tiptoed back to the kitchen, banged the door and ran into the dining room.
She was part of the enclave now, at home with the stately hedges, embraced by tbe emerald tunnel. She had prowled the terrible room, shared secrets with a friend. Crying on the pillow that first night seemed a remote dream as Red sat across from Portia the next day.
“Dear child,” said Portia, “have you pulled yourself together yet?”
“I guess.”
“I could tell you were a girl with sand.” “Sand?”
“Grit, determination, strength.” Portia looked at her with those pale blue eyes and the suggestion of a smile shadowed her mouth.
Portia was beautiful when she was young, realized Red.
“I am a one hundred and twenty-year-old werewolf. But I don’t change into a wolf like I used to, because when the full moon comes around, Lydia takes me down to that little room with no windows, and I can’t see the moon. I just get wild and sick, and I am told my nails and teeth get sharper.
“And here’s the thing: if Lydia gets too old, whose turn do you think it will be to take care of me? Your mother or you, and that colored girl.”
Red shook her head emphatically. “Grandma Lydia got my father a job up north so my mother wouldn’t have to take care of you. And Virginia and me can’t do it. We’re going to college.”