My mouth opens with an indignant response, but freezes open. Out of the corner of my eye, Barnett’s body seems to glow. His hair acquires a life of its own, snaky red and pink and fuchsia and mauve and rose and vermillion and crimson and scarlet and flamingo and coral. His gray eyes are like two beams of the searchlight. Is he human?
But of course he is. Only my eyes are tired.
And then, however much time later, he says, “Okay. Here we are.”
We climb out of the jeep and I’d swear this was the same place Alonso and I parked.
And the whole of the swamp is exactly itself, the separate places indistinguishable.
“The boat’s thisaway.”
“Wait a minute. Do we need special clothes? Clothes at all? What about this charm around my neck?”
He laughs softly. “Honey, it don’t matter what you wear. What you think, who you thinking about. At this point, either you got it or you ain’t.”
This is the most sobering thought of all.
And my mind goes completely clear.
Here and now.
Either you are here, here and now.
Or you aren’t.
“Okey-dokey,” he calls. “Climb on in.”
We paddle soundlessly through the thick, dark water. In the moonlight, leaves are glossy, moss is dense as memory. The other denizens of the waterways, the alligators and the shockingly large snakes, ignore us—disguised as a tree trunk, we are part of them. And It.
You think of the Asmat Indians and their Soul Ships. Traveling to visit their ancestors in damp little boats with magnificent carvings.
Our boat is plain but at least it has a bottom.
“Where we’re going,” Barnett says. “Maybe this ain’t what you have in mind.”
“Oh yes it is.”
And we paddle on in the night.
And then I hear it. A low rumble fans out over the bayou. The rumble turns into a chant. And when the chant is clearly audible, the shimmer of fire is there, yards away, right through the trees and the vines.
Dozens of figures clothed in white sway and chant, gathered around a circle enclosed by flickering candles. Inside the circle is an altar, facing east. It is dressed with bottles of dark rum and red wine and coconuts, honey and pieces of hard candy. Behind the altar is a plain pine coffin.
“Is this what you had in mind?” he whispers.
“Yes.”
Conga drums begin. Sammy appears, dressed entirely in white, a white turban decorated with pentangles on his head and a large cigar in his mouth. Walking in a funny, crook-backed way, he alternately spews rum, tosses handfuls of cornmeal into the fire, and issues clouds of cigar smoke.
He is joined by a woman dressed in a full white skirt with many petticoats, a white ruffled overblouse, and many strings of glass beads, carved beads, seeds and seed pods. Her hair is tucked under a white bandanna covered with signs and symbols.
Her energy is down. Even with all the things that ornament her, she appears less a priestess and more a transient in the world of the spirit.
And the face?
Bruised, sickly, and oh so weary.
Deane.
My sister Deane stands in the center of the circle.
As if it were possible to walk over water, and no doubt it is, my body makes to climb out of the pirogue. But Barnett’s hand like a circle of iron clasps my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Are they really there?”
The moonlight. The water. The lacy trees—
And the way you can see the trees on the other side of these people. I mean, right through them.
“Are they ghosts?”
“Just watch.”
The chanting grows louder and louder. A crowd of Africans pummels packets of mantioc and sets them on fire. They also hold cucumbers aloft, slit down the middle, and use the pale green juice as if it were blood.
Kabiyesi, Alaye!
Ebo a fin!
And:
May you live till old age, Oloja
May your time be prosperous
And:
Lizard offered two pigeons
In order to get the woman
But he did not offer two cocks
Which would make the woman stay
From the folds of his pants, Sammy produces a machete. Its gleaming blade makes a statement.
“The Egúngún!”
A veiled figure stands in the circle between Sammy and Deane. It is entirely bandaged: hands, feet, and face. Phosphorescently it sways, blood-black charms dangling from its limbs, red auras glittering out. He is the soul of our Beloved Dead.
“Now!” Barnett shouts, pushing me forward.
Do I walk over water? Do I fly? Am I really in my bed at home in the houseboat? Am I in my bed at the beach in California? Am I back in my childhood bed in the house I grew up in, Pole nestled against me for company, the poodles and my beloved doll Roberta watching over?
The white-clothed worshippers and the naked, ghostly bodies part for me as my body beelines for the inner circle.
I walk barefoot over the candles and feel no pain. Even as I take the machete from Sammy’s outstretched hand, I feel no fear.
Only the howling of nothingness, vacant and icy as the corridors of his eyes when I slit Sammy’s throat.
“This is your time,” says the Egúngún.
Its voice is the music of the spheres, the harmony of twirling atoms.
When I look toward the ground, where the body would have fallen, there is no body.
Deane!
Deane is fading. As if she were ectoplasm only manifested for this one performance, she begins to dematerialize. Her image, eyes fixed on me, wavers.
Pet, she seems to say. My sister.
Her hand, increasingly transparent, is holding out a small mud figure.
With one last gaze—pity? remorse?—she vanishes into the ether.
No Sammy. No Deane. No circle of worshippers. As I stoop to pick up the mud figure, the Egúngún, with a whoosh of its tremendous wings, flies away.
The figure is me, biceps flexed.
Here, you tell yourself, is a woman who could pull a lot of weight.
EPILOGUE
We travel back through the night, passing from wherever we have been to wherever we are going.
Barnett puts his arm around my shoulder and the heat from his body is one kind of cure.
And so is the sun, soon to rise.
Encouraged, you keep traveling on.
About the Author
Patricia Geary is a native of Southern California. She is presently serving as Writer in Residence at the University of California at Irvine. STRANGE TOYS is her second novel.
Praise for Patricia Geary
“Told with the skill of a master storyteller.”
“If, like me, you long for stories that make you deeply uneasy, not because of some dim fog of evil or some gross nightmare monster but rather because of the power of real people to hurt and disturb each other, then have I got a book for you. Strange Toys is about a girl named Pet and her relationship with her fat sister June (who always calls her fat), their elaborate imaginary life with their toys, and the equally imaginary life of their odd parents, Stan and Linwood. It is not, however, the eccentricities of these people that won me over—it is their absolute believability… You will love these people; they will break your heart.”