All the while, Ruby felt transfixed by the gentle of his voice. He was no worse than the others, and he had brought them candy.
He leaned over and whispered to Ruby, “My good girl doesn’t have to look. Cover your eyes princess.” Ruby did, until she heard Tanny gag. She opened her eyes to see Tanny looking about in horror, a thin black wire about her neck. Mr. Green held it looped like a tight leash as he plunged into her mouth. He was trembling.
“Look what you’re making Daddy do!” Tanny’s face grew dark, dark. She vomited the chocolate.
Ruby felt a snap inside of her. “Miss Barbara!”
She beat against Mr. Green with her fists. She leapt on his back and grabbed at his face. Tanny’s eyes walled back in her head. Ruby screamed, “Miss BARbara! MISS BAR-BA-RA!”
Mr. Green spun on Ruby like a snake. Eyes too black. Blue too narrow. He hissed like razors, “Little girl, I am the Devil. I know everything about you. I see who’s good. Who’s bad. But sometimes I make a mistake — did I? Maybe you’re the bad one. Are you?” Ruby looked at the girl who used to be Tanny. The girl struggling for breath. Then the man removed the snare from Tanny’s neck. She fell to the floor coughing, gasping, and he brought it over Ruby’s head like a black halo. He lowered it and pulled. Ruby could barely breathe. She urinated.
“Did I make a mistake?” He pulled the cord tighter. Ruby felt the world spin darkly.
“Did I? Did I?”
Ruby spit out, “No.”
“No? You’re sure? You’re sure now?”
Ruby nodded, unable to speak. “So you are my good girl. You are she.” He loosed the cord a bit and added, “And good things don’t mind when we punish bad things, do they?”
Again no.
“And if they do, then we know that they are bad too. Don’t we?”
Ruby nodded yes.
So the man removed the cord from Ruby’s neck and turned and lifted Tanny from the floor.
Tanny cried out when he put the cord around her neck again. She coughed and pooped, as the man dragged her all about the room, Tanny trying to fight, Ruby saying nothing. Then she hated Tanny for being so evil with the Devil. And then she did not. As he put himself in Tanny’s mouth again, Ruby shot silent words into her friend’s heart, i’msorryi’msorrysosorryiloveyousorry, until Tanny hung limp, and the man’s body trembled and jerked. When he was done he dropped Tanny to the floor. Still. Too still. The entire world slowed up then stopped. Her chest did not rise. Did not fall. Her face was plum dark, fat. Her ankles were too twisted under her waist. Her body like an empty sack.
So Ruby died with her. Where was she? Ruby looked wildly around the room. Then high up, she saw Tanny shooting up through the ceiling, and she wailed, Wait! I’m sorry! Sorry! So Ruby lifted up, spirit to spirit, up above the tin roof, out of the gray. Where … where to go. Where … Then down, Ruby looked down and saw herself sitting on the bed, pink dress, pigtails, and sadly guided Tanny back. Down into Ruby’s own body. Invited her inside, to live in there with her, to take root. There was no place else to go. No God, no nothing else. Couldn’t be. So she swallowed Tanny in deep where it was safe.
Because Ruby knew in her evil, evil heart that the Devil had indeed made a mistake. That Ruby was the bad one and Tanny the true. She knew it as the Devil stood gasping in the center of the room. He walked to the door, placed his hat on his head and said, “Be good now,” and left.
Then it was like a rubber band snapped inside of Ruby. She let out a scream that exploded out of her chest, ricocheted against walls until it busted out of the crack in the door. Ruby heard feet running but she could not stop, the air sucked in her lungs too fast. Spit fell from her mouth. Miss Barbara swung the door open. Looked at Tanny. Walked over to Ruby and slapped her in the mouth. Slapped her silent.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Then sweet as cotton candy she explained, “You see, baby, he ain’t rent your friend there,” she motioned to Tanny as if she were a dead mouse, “he done bought her fair and square, and paid plenty, so he could do what he liked with her.”
Miss Barbara smiled, showing her shining square front teeth. “We ain’t about to let that happen to you. That is unless you curry mischief like your friend done.” She looked at Ruby hard, then stretched her lips into another smile. “If you stay a good girl and do exactly what our friends ask you, you gonna be fine.”
Then Miss Barbara patted her on the leg and said, “Come on and get that ice cream while we clear this here up. You got another friend, going to be here in two shakes, and he asked for you special.”
RUBY SAT beside Tanny’s soul, her fingers sifting dirt and patting the small mound. A sob bubbled up from her chest but she’d long ago learned to swallow those back down. Ephram hadn’t, he wept openly beside her, so she reached over and wiped his tears.
“Shhhh.” She whispered. “It’s all right.”
A rush of longing stole through Ephram and he took Ruby in his arms and held her, the blanket folded between them. He held her so long and so tight that the bubble in her chest found its way into the night air and she let it go, one long deep sob that echoed into the woods. A cloud of bats rose into the air before settling again in the pines, an owl let out her hoooo, and the crow flew out of the elm’s hollow and landed on the earth, strutting and pecking at the ground.
Ephram found his voice. “That’s one story?”
Ruby nodded. “You ready to leave yet?”
He brushed her hair and found the dip of her temple. He pressed his lips against it. Then her wet cheek, he kissed there as well, the cut of her jaw. Her long turning neck, the hollow between her collarbone. He kissed until he uncovered her heart and then he pushed the flat of his palm into it and held. His lips found her mouth and entered there with his pain, his desire. He whispered into her ear, “I ain’t going nowhere. If you brave enough to live it, the least I can do is listen.”
Ruby fought against the rise of hope. She lost when he said: “Girl, you a miracle of nature.” Then, “We got to find a way to keep these souls safe ’til they can make it home. And they will make it home, Ruby. They will make it home. We’ll make sure of that.”
Ruby nodded.
“Then you got to tell me what on this earth you believe in.”
Ruby scanned the dark sky. “Only two things, that chinaberry and that old crow.”
“Then move your children up high into those branches. I’ll build a house for to keep them dry. And you ask that crow to keep an eye. I’ll watch over them too, Ruby, you tell me how, give your mind a chance to rest. Give your body a chance to sleep. You been holding up the whole world, girl. Let somebody help you out.”
So Ruby said a prayer to the tree and it waved against the stars. The old bird stopped its scratching and before Ruby could think to ask, the creature bowed its dark head and flapped its large wings. Thank you, Maggie …
She stood and said, “It’s Monday.” From Ephram’s questioning look she continued, “No ox.”
He grinned sheepish and rose to his feet. “No ditch.”
He couldn’t help but gather her in his arms, then hoist her up, cradling her like a baby, like a child, like the woman she was; he rocked her in his arms and somehow found the courage to kiss his Ruby again.