She lay there a long time no longer in pain, as if drugged or drunk, and then pain came back dull at first and then sharp and an ache all over. She gathered herself best she could and hobbled back to the little cabin and washed up, changed clothes, and put a bunch of rags in down there, found a powder and took it and lay down awhile, and since it was too late by then to go to the ravine she figured she’d better go on back over to the house and fix supper, since Miss Birdie and Mr. Earl and the children would be back soon. And that day, wasn’t too cold for a day in December, but nearly dark at five o’clock, she finally gets back to the house, walking slow, hurting, a wad of rags stuffed into her drawers, and Miss Birdie is in there rushing about with supper.
— Creasie! she says. -Where have you been? Hurry up and help me here with supper before Mr. Earl throws a fit. And so she pitched in, feeling like the whole world was dark dark outside the kitchen in which they labored, feeling like she might faint anytime, and when she heard a car crunch up in the drive and heard old Mr. Junius hail from the driveway she slipped out the kitchen door and ran back to her cabin and wouldn’t come out at all that evening though Miss Birdie called her from over there, called out two or three times, but she lay in the dark that was the whole world outside that little bit of light in the kitchen across the yard that even itself was fading now into nothing.
A Tree Spirit
AUNT VISH KNEW the herbs, and when Creasie missed her period she went to the ravine to see her. Vish gave her a smelly green potion in a little wooden cup, told her to drink it and wait twenty-four hours there in her little cabin next door, where Creasie’s parents had lived when she was born, before her mother died and her father left her with Vish and went away. The next morning, Creasie left whatever there was in her of Junius Urquhart in a hole she dug in the loamy ground next to the creek at the bottom of the ravine. She never let herself get lured back to the shed again, never saw that dummy again but in her nightmares. Staring at her like he did the whole time it was happening. She tried to blank it out of her mind.
But she had nightmares all that year, after. She was still having them the night Frank came in through the window, silent as a ghost.
She was sleeping in her nightgown on top of the sheets, hot, having the dream, and woke herself trying to cry out. It took her a second to know where she was. She cleared her throat and had reached down to pull the covers up over herself when she saw him sitting there in the chair across from the foot of the bed in the wooden chair, black but for the faintly gleaming whites of his eyes, and screamed. He was up and onto her in half a second and had his hand over her mouth, whispering — Shut up now, I ain’t going to hurt you, I ain’t going to do nothing to you, hush up.
It was dark, he was flesh and blood, holding a big hard hand over her mouth. He was flesh and blood but for a second all she could think was the dummy. He took the hand away when her breathing slowed enough so he must have trusted her not to scream and they lay there like that, his breath on her hot and sour, smelled like liquor and a fresh-cut pine tree. He held her shoulder bones with big knotty hands and looked away as if listening for something, then his big eyes turned her way and he looked at her.
— What you want? she whispered, hardly able to gather the breath for speech.
— I just want to know the man own this big house need a nigger to work for him around here.
— Get off me.
— Just tell me.
— Get off me, I’ll tell you.
He rolled off her slowly and stood at the edge of the bed, looking ready to spring on her again if she started shouting. She couldn’t speak, thought to run. He made like to come at her again and she said, — He might need somebody to rake leaves and cut the grass. He hires it out whenever he thinks of it but Miss Birdie’s always on him to get it done, he don’t think of it himself.
He stood there a second, then nodded.
— I’ll speak to him in the morning then, he said. -You mind if I stay here tonight? I can sleep on the floor.
She didn’t say anything, but was thinking if he didn’t do what she thought he was going to do before, then she guessed he wasn’t going to do it later, either, and how could she keep him out anyway if he wanted in, and let him out couldn’t go for help as he’d be out there waiting on her, her heart like a bird fluttering the mites out of its feathers and wouldn’t stop. Then calmed again. Something about him, turning away toward the window, like she wasn’t even there. She changed, wasn’t afraid. Something about his face in the pale light from the window, like he was a man too far away in his mind to be a danger. She said, — I’ll make you a pallet with a quilt I got in the chiffarobe.
So she did, and gave him one of her pillows, and lay there wide awake and listening to him breathe and then snore, and at some point fell asleep in spite of herself. When she woke the next morning he was gone and the quilt folded with the pillow resting on top of it on the floor. She washed in the basin and got dressed and went over to the house and was cooking bread and Miss Birdie comes in the kitchen, says, — Creasie, Junius come by sometime, I don’t know when, and took that dummy off, and I know you’re as glad as I am about it, that old thing was evil. She looked at Creasie. -Is your lip busted? What happened to you?
She tasted the dried blood for the first time, ran her tongue over it. Stopped and had turned to Miss Birdie.
— What’d he do with him? she said.
— What?
— What did Mr. Junius do with the dummy?
— I hope you’re not sneaking out and going honky-tonking on me. Now don’t look at me like that.
— No’m. I just bit it, accidentally.
— You start acting like trash, now, I just can’t keep you on.
Miss Birdie looked just like a doll in a store when her eyes got big like that, little doll mouth. She thought maybe she would have laughed at her but she was fixed on what she’d said, about the dummy.
— Yes’m. What did Mr. Junius do with the dummy?
— Sold him or give him away, one, some man took him away. I don’t know where and I don’t care! Listen, she said, and gave her a five-dollar bill, if you go home to the ravine get me some more sassafras for my tea. I’m about out.
— Yes’m.
That evening lying there with the window open again, she had closed it but the room was just too hot, and a warm damp breeze blowing in from the black evening. And sometime late when she’s drifting off, in he comes, a quick shadow upping one bare foot onto the sill, and crosses the room without so much as a word and goes to where she’d left the quilt and pillow and makes up his pallet again and lies down, soon enough she could hear his gentle rasping, no more than a child’s snore coming from such a big man. Come dawn she crept in and looked him over good. He was sleeping with his mouth wide open and the morning light glinted off a gold tooth partway back in his mouth. Who puts a gold tooth way back in his mouth where can’t nobody see it? She stared till his eyes came open and he looked at her and closed his mouth and swallowed. -I’m Frank, he’d said in a hoarse dry voice. She said, — I’m Creasie. -I know, he said. Then she said, laughing kind of to herself, — I got a crazy notion about you.
Looking at her he says in this husky quiet voice like he wasn’t so used to saying much, — What?
She just shook her head.
— I thought you done gone.
He didn’t move, eyes droopy with sleep, and in a minute said in that same voice, — Where to?
— I don’t know. Nowhere. Just a foolish notion I come by.