The reaching pines knew that there were legions of spirits tromping through their woods, trapped in thick underbrush, bound beneath the crisscross of branches, in places on the other side of Marion, where sunlight never hit the earth. Some were haints still hanging from the tree they’d been lynched on. Some let the wind roll them like tumbleweeds from one side of the woods to the other. Some were angry and smelled of burned candles, like the rolling dank shadow haunting Bell land, swollen with such hate that it bent the new saplings aside when it passed. It shifted the cush of brown needles and leaves beneath it.
It was this one — Ruby’s Dyboù—who watched Ephram drop into sleep on the bank of Marion Lake.
Yes, the spirit had watched, had seen a thing drop from the man’s pocket as he walked from P & K, a gris-gris doll with a lodestone tied to its back. It smelled of the girl who hid ghosts in her belly. The Dyboù let out a groan, coughing up a swirl of dust, burying the doll before the fool could notice it missing. Then it had followed Ephram, slipping under each foot before it fell, shooting fingers of doubt and shame through the man’s arches, collecting in his testes.
It despised the man and his body still sparking with fireflies of hope, so it crushed the twinkling light between its fingers. Then sat across from him as he slept. Looked into the old, stupid face. Weak, it thought: Fool always been flesh weak.
The Dyboù contemplated Ephram for hours, watching drool steal down his chin. It scorned the fat back of his earlobes. Then it started looking for chinks in his spirit, little holes to jimmy and crack, until they were just wide enough to lean in and sip.
The biggest tear was near the heart, like a run in a woman’s stocking. The Dyboù’s tongue snaked, playfully poking its tip into the tear. Tasting. It wondered why innocence always tasted like peach cobbler. The ghost swallowed deeply. A shudder ran through Ephram’s sleeping body.
That is when the first crow landed. It fluttered down, its talons curling around a branch. Then came another. Another. A parade of black settled about the tree, cawing and purring under the stars. In the jubilation of call and response, the Dyboù thinned and stole away.
Ephram awoke. The first thing he saw was the white moon waving upon the black lake. Then he heard the soft clucking of crows lacing through the trees. He felt the pine on his back and an ache in his chest. The cake was still intact. He glanced at the tear in his slacks. He dabbed iodine on his knee, by moonlight, and began the slow process of threading the needle — just the way his mama had taught him.
Then he heard it. The midnight wailing.
It was high-pitched and long like a train whistle. It screamed through the air like a spinning knife. It cut into his pride and his resolve. He was running, cake in his hands. Past Rupert Shankle’s place. Past the spring oaks. When he reached Bell land he stopped. A silence stopped him.
He walked softly. He could feel the brittle crisp of the grass beneath his shoes. The place was a weed. The house, the well, the porch, the top of the chinaberry tree in the distance, everything on the place jutting and dry. His heart rang like a cowbell in his chest. Ephram stepped under the splintered porch awning and knocked. Silence. He knocked again. Silence. Again. Again. Again.
Tentatively, he circled the house. Nothing. No one. He peered into the blackness. He called out her name, a small plea under the weight of the sky.
Then he heard her scream.
Ephram ran towards the haunted sound, balancing the angel cake. Guided by moonlight, he made it over the rise. There he saw her clawing into the dry earth with her bare hands. He saw her jerk and rip at a solid root. He walked silently closer and saw that her thumb was cut and bleeding, her fingers raw.
She dug with a fury, a whipping wild might, and she wailed until the roots and the branches shook. In that second she looked directly at Ephram. She poured her anguish into the black of his eyes. “Jesus! My babies! Jesus Lord! Jesus Lord!”
He took it in and held it close.
Saliva spewed from the knot of her mouth and she spread her legs and pushed absolutely nothing into the shallow grave of earth. But Ruby knew that she had just released the hidden soul of one of the murdered children. Ephram saw and felt a gush of warmth against the cuffs of his slacks, his ankles. Somehow a tiny slant of light grew brighter upon that soil.
Ephram watched Ruby bury and consecrate with her tears.
“There, there,” she whispered like wind, “you safe now. The womb or the earth. The womb or the earth. Only two places children be safe.” Ruby patted the mound of soil, her body gulping air and releasing it tattered. Ephram looked and saw dozens of small graves. The branches of the chinaberry cast shadows that stretched like arms over the hill.
“There, there …” she whispered again. Her red eyes finding him. Ephram knew that he had seen the breaking of the storm. He looked at the hem of her gray dress. How a corner had been ripped away and a clean fold of blue lay across her thighs.
He wanted to tell her it was the color of a robin’s egg. He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to tell her about how Celia’s cake was best with iced milk. He wanted — Ephram caught his breath. He wanted. Had held wanting at bay for the stretch and girth of his life.
So Ephram reached out for the first time since his mama left him. He reached out to smooth down Ruby’s dress.
She laid on down, hiked up her skirt and waited. The quicker he began, the quicker he would end. And he had brought what looked like cake, which was more than most, more than all. So when he pulled her up and lifted her injured hand she bared her teeth and glared, because if he didn’t want to take her body, then he must want something more vile.
When he took out the bottle of iodine, she snarled and then she kicked him. Hard. Kicked the waiting moon cake. Kicked his lips and nose so that blood trickled down his chin. Then she crouched and waited.
The cake in ruins about his feet, Ephram felt a lump rise in his throat and then he began to sob. Soft little whimpers like a child. She looked at him. Then she caught the jagged tear of her breath. Her lungs calmed and she leaned over and let her hand pat his back. Gentle like burping a baby. She said, “There, there.” They stayed like that for a little while in the dark, until she reached over and grabbed a handful of cake from the ground.
She chewed and she gave him a soft nod.
So he gave her one right back.
Ruby ventured, “You know, you’ve got to stop letting yourself be beat on by women.”
“I know,” Ephram replied.
The night shifted her horizon and contemplated the kindling of dawn. Ruby and Ephram sat in silence and ate the most amazing white lay angel cake, made theirs with bits of dirt and grass, while the piney woods watched from the shadows.
Book Two Two Bits
Chapter 9
Celia Jennings had not slept in her bed. She had fallen asleep at the kitchen table waiting for Ephram, and awakened at four o’clock in the morning alone, still sitting upright. She had not leaned, or even slumped, onto the polished wooden table. Had not let saliva trickle onto the grain. She was stiff even in sleep, clean in slumber.
Celia had been fourteen when her mother had shamed her entire family by walking up to the Easter Day picnic naked. Ephram was only eight, but the stain still spread over each and every one of them. It was the burden God had decided to fit upon their shoulders. That and their mother having a new home from that day forward — Dearing State Mental. The fact that their daddy, the Reverend Jennings, was politely asked to leave his own church was yet another weight to bear. He took to preaching on the road ten months out of twelve, in even smaller, dingier churches along the Sabine.