In an instant, everything went dark. A cold breeze whipped up around her and pushed her to her feet. She crouched, shoulders hunched against an unknown danger that she could sense but could not see. She looked around her, but darkness rendered her vision useless. Slowly a soft glow began to illuminate the sky. Marie caught a glimmer reflecting off the silver hardware on her shoes. As the light grew stronger, Marie whipped her head around, scanning her environment. She saw dense bush, huge old trees with ridged bark, scraggly blades of grass growing at the edges of a dirt road. Overhead, a full moon burned dirty yellow. The hooded stranger was nowhere to be seen.
Marie was attempting to calm the thicket of thoughts ricocheting in her head when she heard an animal wail. Whether it was a cry of warning, pain, or pleasure, she could not tell. Sound exploded somewhere to her left—something was crashing through the bushes, moving quickly toward her. All thought drained from her mind, and she ran, racing down a dirt road away from the sounds. She hadn’t run far when she reached a crossing. She hesitated, then changed directions, pitching herself down the road that had crossed her path. The sound receded, and Marie relaxed enough to observe her surroundings again. But, truth be told, there was nothing to see. All around her was thick foliage, darkened by night.
Marie kept running, watching as the moon flashed in and out of view. A few feet in front of her, a groan rang out. She skidded to a stop. The groan sounded like an old tree branch cracking off its trunk, but then it tapered into a low bellow, like the moan of a large animal catching the lash. She stepped back a few paces and tried to calm her panting. When she looked down at her feet, she was surprised to find that she was standing on another crossing. She allowed herself the luxury of considering which road to take, but even as she weighed her options, she knew it didn’t matter which direction she chose. She could not walk, run, or crawl her way out of this forest—she was trapped.
As soon as she had admitted to herself that she was ensnared, the hooded stranger appeared in the distance. Marie glanced over her shoulder as if checking to see if a magic escape hatch had sprung up behind her, but she knew exactly what she would see when she looked around: no lights, no houses, no people, just the shifting dark greens of dense bushes. She contemplated jumping off the path, but the rustling and grunts escaping the thick foliage were frightening. A memory flashed through her mind of tottering around the bayou with a tear-streaked face, certain a hawk would swoop down and carry her away. She had heard the story for years—how she had wandered out of the family yard when she was three and stumbled around the bayou alone for hours until she had been returned unscathed by a gator hunter who also happened to have an 8-foot gator in tow. She had memorized the details of the story from its multiple retellings, but had never had her own memory of being lost. But now, with fear fluttering in her chest, she remembered.
Marie heard the echo of a cough reaching out to her from afar. By the time she had shaken off her memories, the hooded stranger was drifting toward her. The stranger’s cough—raspy, rattling—sounded like it was right in Marie’s ear. Marie ducked her head and stared at the ground, her shoulders drawn up—mid-flinch—as if waiting for a blade to fall across her neck. Seconds passed; nothing happened. In the silence, Marie straightened and looked up to see the stranger standing two feet away. The stranger’s eyes seemed to be looking at and through her at the same time. Marie wet her lips to speak, wavering on whether or not it was wiser to stay silent.
“We’re at the crossroads, honey,” the woman said, answering Marie’s question before she had uttered a sound.
Marie looked down at her feet. Her eyes grew wide. The crossing in the roads was following her. Suddenly she knew that two dirt roads would have crossed beneath her feet no matter where she had stopped. A racket of confusion broke out in Marie’s mind. When she looked up, an incredulous look had grabbed hold of her face. The stranger waved away Marie’s expression like she was swatting a fly.
“Don’t be scared, little girl. Just hurry up and speak your mind. How can I help you?”
When Marie didn’t respond, the stranger flicked a black speck from beneath a fingernail and watched as it arced over Marie, fluttering as it passed overhead. On the descent it whimpered quietly and fell behind Marie like a stone. Marie covered her face with her hands and shuddered.
“Stop stalling! I don’t have time for this. Speak, lost one. You came to get something or leave something?”
The stranger made a hissing sound with her teeth, and the hissing rattled something loose inside Marie. She felt the gurgling of an answer trying to erupt from deep within her.
The stranger lifted her arms, and her hands floated in front of her. Her arms stretched forward, and she gently removed Marie’s hands from her face. The gleam in the stranger’s eye brightened as she stared at Marie. Their gazes touched for the slightest of seconds. Then the stranger gave two appraising nods and let her hands fall away.
“So that’s why you’re here,” she said. The sound of the her speaking throbbed in Marie’s ear. “You’re here to get rid of that feeling.”
Marie’s body vibrated as a sob rose to her throat. She felt the force of hysteria would strangle her.
“I want to go home,” Marie managed to croak.
“When you go, do you want to take this with you?”
The stranger touched a hand lightly to Marie’s forehead. A familiar heat rose through her. It was the heat that flared every time her friends unleashed an insult, slight, or offhand shaming of black people. It accompanied the inside jokes, the dark derision, the knowing glances that characterized her people as less than. Marie called it her outsider heat, her imposter heat, and it burned whenever she was reminded that she didn’t belong.
Marie retched. Her body pitched forward, but she kept her lips clamped tight. She felt an army of ugly words marching out of her memory, gliding into her viscera, then snaking up her chest, carrying with it the bitter taste of bile. The stranger’s cackle sounded like metal teeth scraping against concrete.
“Don’t nobody ever admit to asking to come here, but once they here, they can’t deny the truths I tell. So tell me then, sweetie, what you gonna give me to get free?”
Marie kept her head down until she started to feel the pressure of blood rushing to her scalp. A fine web of sweat covered her skin. She raised her head cautiously, and a wave of nausea crashed inside her.
“It won’t hurt. Not less’n you keep dodging the truth. Now listen good; I will take all the hurt out your body, and you will pay me for it. You won’t pay me now, mind. I’ll come collect when the time is right. No matter how much you try to prepare for it, it’ll be something you never expect. And when I take it, you’ll remember that you promised to give it up. Deal?”
Marie didn’t speak. She was too busy fighting for breath. The stranger placed her hand on Marie’s shoulder blade. The heat flushed through Marie’s body again, this time at triple the intensity. Marie cried out in anguish. She clenched her fists and teeth, waiting for the heat to pass, but the woman didn’t remove her hand.
“Is it a deal, dearie?” the woman asked.
“Yes, yes, whatever you want,” Marie yelled. “Take it. It’s a deal.”
As soon as the words left Marie’s mouth, she heard a whirling sound. She lifted her head. The trees, the grass, even the crossroads beneath her feet began to rotate slowly around her. She stood and looked around. The nausea was gone—so was the stranger, though her soft, grating laughter lingered in the air.