“Virginia and I… now that’s interesting, Lydia sending you up north.” She seemed far away and Red fiddled anxiously with her teacup.
Portia slapped the table with the flat of her hand. Red jumped and knocked over her tea, but the old woman didn’t notice. “I see it now. She’s going to kill me.”
“What!”
“Oh, not anytime soon. She wants me to hang on for a long time, because that’s her revenge. But when she gets so old that caring for me is a real burden, she’ll take me outside on a full moon. I think changing into a wolf would kill me at my age.”
Red struggled to comprehend. “Revenge for what?”
Portia wasn’t listening. “We will beat her to the punch. I’m going to kill myself on the next full moon, two days off.”
Red stared at Portia. “Great-grandmother Portia, I’ve heard it’s wrong—-”
“—to kill yourself?” Portia turned her hands over and Red looked at her leathery palms and sharp little nails. “Let the truth be told. I’m not your great-grandmother. Oh, I’m a Tucker, but your line descends from my sister, who moved to Memphis before the war. When you have a monster inside, like I do, you don’t love men or bear their children, and people die when they get too near. They say your grandfather Earl fell accidentally, or that the boiler of the Sultana blew up accidentally, killing eighteen hundred people, but it’s not so. If I hadn’t been there, neither thing would have happened.”
The hairs on Red’s arms were standing up.
“I welcome death,” said Portia. “Death is a part of me, like the color of my eyes.”
The day of the full moon found Red packing for the next day’s flight. She was fitting Portia’s small box into a corner of her suitcase when the phone rang. Red heard Lydia pick up and thought nothing of it until she heard her grandmother gasp.
“Matilda! Matilda, come to the phone right away!”
As Red heard the heavier tread in the hall, Lydia came into Red’s room, her arms crossed tightly, her eyes blazing. “You might as well hear this, Yvette. Matilda’s sister Mary has been hit in the face by a brick. Two white men threw it from their car as she walked home from the bus stop.”
From the hall they heard heartbreaking sobs and “Oh, Lord, oh Lord!”
Red felt her stomach lurch. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“They don’t know. That was the doctor, calling from the hospital. I’ll drive Matilda over there, you stay here with Virginia.”
Red sat on her bed, wondering how she was going to face her friend, but it was Matilda who came to her door.
“I have to go now and I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she said in a choked voice. Red could hardly bear to look at her face, the tears soaking into the weary wrinkles. “Maybe in a couple of hours, maybe not for a while.” She pulled a vial of green liquid wrapped in yellowed paper out of her apron pocket and handed it to Red. The paper had words written in a spidery scrawclass="underline" belladonna, henbane, jimson weed, wormwood. Ground and mixed with olive oil, turpentine and hog fat and the fat of an unchristened infant.
“It’ll have to do without that last part. I’ve been growing those plants by the tracks, waiting for her to give me the word. You go take that bottle to Miss Portia before tonight. You’re the last Tucker and maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be.”
Matilda left. Lydia was starting the car out front, and Red realized Virginia had come into her room.
“I’m sorry,” said Red, and she meant it to go beyond the single terrible incident that sent Matilda hurrying to the hospital.
“Mama says it’s because all those people went on that march to Washington last week. If they’d just stayed home nobody would be out throwing bricks.” Virginia’s eyes seemed to bum. “But what those white boys did was wrong. Flat-out wrong.”
“Yes.” After a mournful silence Red said, “I have to take this bottle to Miss Portia. Your mother told me I have to.”
“She told me, too.” said Virginia, swiping roughly at her eyes. “I’ll go with you.”
In the soft, golden afternoon, Red and Virginia emerged on the other side and mounted the steps to the old house, swinging open the screen door. Portia appeared in the kitchen as silently as a ghost.
“What have you got there?” she asked.
Red held up the vial.
“At long last,” her mellifluous voice sounded distant.
“Miss Portia,” said Virginia, “it might be hard on Red if she hands that to you by herself.” Virginia clasped her hand over Red’s and together they placed the vial in Portia’s hands.
“What will this do?” whispered Red.
“It will change me into a wolf and I won’t be able to change back. It won’t be painful, but it will be more exertion than the monster can bear, and she won’t last long. Do you want to watch me drink ?”
The two girls looked at each other. We’ve come this far.
Portia uncorked the little vial, held it to her lips, then paused. She smiled and held it out, saluting them. Then she tilted it to her mouth, grimacing at the taste.
“Goodbye,” she said. “Thank you, with every fiber of my being. Remember me like this when you see it tonight.”
They sat together by the telephone, as silent in Lydia’s house as Portia was next door. The sound of the bell cracked the air, and Red picked it up before the first ring had finished.
“Yvette, we can all breathe easy. Mary got some bad cuts and had to have some stitches, but the doctor doesn’t think there’s a concussion. They’re going to keep her overnight just to be sure. So you tell Virginia. Matilda and I will be home soon. We’ll all eat some supper, then you two can stay at my house while we look after Great-grandmother Portia. It’s one of those nights when she’ll have a spell.”
From the abundant foliage the two girls watched Lydia and Matilda go into Portia’s house. Matilda came for them when it was dark and the moon had risen, and led them to the cellar. Portia lay on the perverse bed, clamped in a prone position. She writhed against the restraints, her tidy braid unraveled, the strings of white hair lashing across her face.
“My God, Matilda, what are those girls doing here?” Lydia almost dropped the plastic cup in her hands. She was completely undone, bereft of elegance and composure.
“They’ve come to see Miss Portia turn into a wolf.”
Lydia leaned stiffly against the wall. “You told them,” she said, and Red was amazed at the pain in her face.
“They—have—the—right! ” gasped Portia.
Everyone turned and looked at her, and Lydia cried out. Portia’s face was growing coarse fur, as were her hands and feet; all that could be seen peeking out from an old nightgown.
“I took a draught,” she whispered, and then she was lost to them, shuddering and shaking.
Lydia looked straight at Matilda, who stared back unflinchingly, as if she had borrowed some of the red light from Portia’s eyes.
“I see,” said Lydia. “It’s over, and I had no say in it.” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from them as she wept.
They watched over Portia, silently, as she twisted and strained against the clamps, the room filling with the musk of a wolf.
“It’s time to leave,” said Lydia faintly.
They all backed out of the room and bolted it behind them.
Lydia wouldn’t let Red look through the peephole. They could hear Portia gasping, scrabbling against the restraints of the bed. The silence that followed was hollow, unearthly. Then came a low growl, guttural and coarse as gravel—and an explosive, feral scream, coupled with the sound of wood splintering and metal whanging against concrete. Red found herself pressed against the far wall of the corridor, gripping Lydia like a lifeline. Lydia folded her arms around her, softly. The monster howled over and over, hoarse, lusting wails, and her claws screeched against the walls, sending shivers to the pit of Red’s stomach. They waited out the rage behind the walls, exhausted by the time the snarls and thuds of the werewolf’s body lessened and stopped. Finally, Lydia released Red and peered through the peephole. She was very still for a moment, then she shot back the bolts.