hand and pulled me across the threshold.
The door closed at our backs.
A young woman with skin the hue of chocolate milk was there to greet us.
She had a heart-shaped face and tawny eyes, and she took my mother’s hand and
said with a smile, “I’m Amelia Damaronde, and I’m so verra pleased to meet
you.” She had bangle bracelets covering her forearms and five gold pins up the
edges of each of her ears.
“Thank you. This is my son, Cory.”
“Oh, this is the young man!” Amelia Damaronde turned her attention to me.
She had an electricity about her that made me feel as if the air between us
was charged. “A pleasure to meet you, too. This is my husband, Charles.” The
big man nodded at us. Amelia stood about up to his armpits. “We take care of
things for the Lady,” Amelia said.
“I see.” Mom was still holding on to my hand, while I was busy looking
around. The mind is a strange thing, isn’t it? The mind concocts spiderwebs
where there are no spiders, and darkness where the lights are bright. The
living room of the Lady’s house was no temple to the devil, no repository of
black cats and bubbling cauldrons. It was just a room with chairs, a sofa, a
little table on which knickknacks rested, and there were shelves with books
and framed, vividly colored paintings on the walls. One of the paintings
caught me: it showed the face of a bearded black man, his eyes closed in
either suffering or ecstasy, and on his head was a crown of thorns.
I had never seen a black Jesus before, and this sight both knocked me for
a loop and opened up a space in my mind that I’d never known needed light.
The Moon Man suddenly walked through a hallway into the room. Seeing him
so close caused a start for both my mother and me. The Moon Man wore a light
blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of black trousers, and
suspenders. Tonight he had only one wristwatch on, and the white rim of a
T-shirt showed instead of his chain and huge gilded crucifix. He wasn’t
wearing his top hat; the splotchy division of pale yellow and ebony flesh
continued up his high forehead and ended in a cap of white wool. The white
beard on his chin was pointed, and curled slightly upward. His dark,
wrinkle-edged eyes rested on first my mother and then me, and he smiled
faintly and nodded. He lifted a thin finger and motioned us into the hallway.
It was time to meet the Lady.
“She’s not been feelin’ well,” Amelia told us. “Dr. Parrish’s been
loadin’ her up with vitamins.”
“It’s not anythin’ serious, is it?” Mom asked.
“The rain got in her lungs. She doesn’t get along so good in damp
weather, but she’s doin’ better now that the sun’s been out.”
We came to a door. The Moon Man opened it, his shoulders frail and
stooped. I smelled dusty violets.
Amelia peered in first. “Ma’am? Your callers are here.”
Sheets rustled within the room. “Please,” said the shaky voice of an old
woman, “send them in.”
My mother took a breath and walked into the room. I had to follow,
because she gripped my hand. The Moon Man stayed outside, and Amelia said, “If
you need anythin’, just call,” before she gently closed the door.
And there she was.
She lay in a bed with a white metal frame, her back supported by a
brocaded pillow, and the top sheet pulled up over her chest. The walls of her
bedroom were painted with green fronds and foliage, and but for the polite
drone of a box fan, we might have been standing in an equatorial jungle. An
electric lamp burned on the bedside table, where magazines and books were
stacked, and within her reach was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
The Lady just stared at us for a moment, and we at her. She was almost
bluish-black against the white bed, and not an inch of her face looked
unwrinkled. She reminded me of one of those apple dolls whose faces shrivel up
in the hard noonday sun. I had seen handfuls of fresh snow scraped off the Ice
House’s pipes; the Lady’s soft cloud of hair was whiter. She was wearing a
blue gown, the straps up around her bony shoulders, and her collarbone jutted
in such clear relief against her skin that it appeared painful. So, too, did
her cheekbones; they seemed sharp enough to slice a peach. To tell the truth,
though, except for one feature the Lady wouldn’t have looked like much but an
ancient, reed-thin black woman whose head trembled with a little palsy.
But her eyes were green.
I don’t mean any old green. I mean the color of pale emeralds, the kind
of jewels Tarzan might have been searching for in one of the lost cities of
Africa. They were luminous, full of trapped and burning light, and looking
into them you felt as if your secret self might be jimmied open like a sardine
can and something stolen from you. And you might not even mind it, either; you
might want it to be so. I had never seen eyes like that before, and I never
have since. They scared me, but I could not turn away because their beauty was
like that of a fierce wild animal who must be carefully watched at all times.
The Lady blinked, and a smile winnowed up over her wrinkled mouth. If she
didn’t have her own teeth, they were good fakes. “Don’t you both look nice,”
she said in her palsied voice.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mom managed to answer.
“Your husband didn’t want to come.”
“Uh… no, he’s… listenin’ to the baseball game on the radio.”
“Was that his excuse, Miz Mackenson?” She lifted her white brows.
“I… don’t know what you mean.”
“Some people,” the Lady said, “are scared of me. Can you beat that?
Scared of an old woman in her one hundred and sixth year! And me layin’ here
can’t even keep no supper down! You love your husband, Miz Mackenson?”
“Yes, I do. Very much.”
“That’s good. Love strong and true can get you through a lot of dookey.
And I’m here to tell you, honey, you got to walk through many fields of dookey
to get to be my age.” Those green, wonderful, and frightening eyes in that
wrinkled ebony face turned full blaze on me. “Hello, young man,” she said.
“You help your momma do chores?”
“Yes’m.” It was a whisper. My throat felt parched.
“You dry the dishes? Keep your room neat? You sweep the front porch?”
“Yes’m.”
“That’s fine. But I bet you never had call to use a broom like you used
one at Nila Castile’s house, did you?”
I swallowed hard. Now I and my mother knew what this was about.
The Lady grinned. “I wish I’d been there. I swanee I do!”
“Did Nila Castile tell you?” Mom asked.
“She did. I had a long talk with little Gavin, too.” Her eyes stayed
fixed on me. “You saved Gavin’s life, young man. You know what that means to
me?” I shook my head. “Nila’s mother, God keep her, was a good friend of mine.
I kind of adopted Nila. I always thought of Gavin as a great-grandchild. Gavin
has a good life ahead of him. You made sure he’ll get there.”
“I was just… keepin’ from gettin’ eaten up myself,” I said.
She chuckled; it was a gaspy sound. “Run him off with a broomstick! Lawd,
Lawd! He thought he was such a mean ole thing, thought he could swim right up
out of that river and snatch him a feast! But you gave him a mouthful, didn’t
you?”
“He ate a dog,” I told her.
“Yeah, he would,” the Lady said, and her chuckling died down. Her thin
fingers intertwined over her stomach. She looked at my mother. “You did a
kindness for Nila and her daddy. That’s why whenever you need somethin’ fixed,
you call Mr. Lightfoot and it’s done. Your boy saved Gavin’s life. That’s why
I want to give him somethin’, if I have your permit.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“Ain’t nothin’ necessary,” the Lady said, and she showed a little flare
of irritation that made me think she would’ve been plenty tough when she was
young. “That’s why I’m gone do it.”
“All right,” Mom said, thoroughly cowed.
“Young man?” The Lady’s gaze moved to me again. “What would you like?”
I thought about it. “Anything?” I asked.
“Within reason,” Mom prodded.
“Anythin’,” the Lady said.
I thought some more, but the decision wasn’t very difficult. “A bike. A
new bike that’s never belonged to anybody before.”
“A new bicycle.” She nodded. “One with a lamp on it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Want a horn?”
“That’d be fine,” I said.
“Want it to be a fast one? Faster’n a cat up a tree?”
“Yes’m.” I was getting excited now. “I sure do!”
“Then you’ll have it! Soon as I can get my old self up from here.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” Mom said. “We sure appreciate it. But
Cory’s father and I can go pick up a bike from the store, if that’s—”
“Won’t come from a store,” the Lady interrupted.
“Pardon?” Mom asked.
“Won’t come from a store.” She paused, to make sure my mother understood.
“Store-bought’s not good enough. Not special enough. Young man, you want a
real special bicycle, don’t you?”
“I… guess I’ll take what I can get, ma’am.”
At this, she laughed again. “Well, you’re a little gentleman! Yessir, Mr.
Lightfoot and I are gone put our heads together and see what we can come up
with. Does that suit you?”
I said it did, but in truth I didn’t quite understand how this was going
to bring me a brand-new bicycle.
“Step closer,” the Lady told me. “Come around here real close.”
Mom let me go. I walked to the side of the bed, and those green eyes were
right there in front of me like spirit lamps.
“What do you like to do besides ride a bicycle?”
“I like to play baseball. I like to read. I like to write stories.”
“Write stories?” Her eyebrows went up again. “Lawd, Lawd! We gots us a
writer here?”
“Cory’s always liked books,” Mom offered. “He writes little stories about
cowboys, and detectives, and—”
“Monsters,” I said. “Sometimes.”
“Monsters,” the Lady repeated. “You gone write about Old Moses?”
“I might.”
“You gone write a book someday? Maybe about this town and everybody in
it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Look at me,” she said. I did. “Deep,” she said.
I did.
And then something strange happened. She began to speak, and as she
spoke, the air seemed to shimmer between us with a pearly iridescence. Her
eyes had captured mine; I could not look away. “I’ve been called a monster,”
the Lady said. “Been called worse than a monster. I saw my momma killed when I
wasn’t much older than you. Woman jealous of her gift killed her. I swore I
was gone find that woman. She wore a red dress, and she carried a monkey on
her shoulder that told her things. Woman’s name was LaRouge. Took me all my
life to find her. I’ve been to Lepersville, and I’ve rowed a boat through the
flooded mansions.” Her face, through that shimmering haze, had begun to shed
its wrinkles. She was getting younger as I stared at her. “I’ve seen the dead
walkin’, and my best friend had scales and crawled on her belly.” Her face was
younger still. Its beauty began to scorch my face. “I’ve seen the maskmaker.
I’ve spat in Satan’s eye, and I’ve danced in the halls of the Dark Society.”
She was a girl with long black hair, her cheekbones high and proud, her chin
sharp, her eyes fearsome with memories. “I have lived,” she said in her clear,
strong voice, “a hundred lifetimes, and I’m not dead yet. Can you see me,
young man?”
“Yes’m,” I answered, and I heard myself as if from a vast distance. “I
can.”
The spell broke, quick as a heartbeat. One second I was looking at a
beautiful young woman, and the next there was the Lady as she really was, one
hundred and six years old. Her eyes had cooled some, but I felt feverish.
“Maybe someday you’ll write my life story,” the Lady told me. It sounded
more like a command than a comment. “Now, why don’t you go on out and visit
with Amelia and Charles while I talk to your momma?”
I said I would. My legs were rubbery as I walked past Mom to the door.
Sweat had crept around my collar. At the door, a thought hit me and I turned
back to the bed. “’Scuse me, ma’am?” I ventured. “Do you… like… have anythin’
that would help me pass math? I mean like a magic drink or somethin’?”
“Cory!” Mom scolded me.
But the Lady just smiled. She said, “Young man, I do. You tell Amelia to
get you a drink of Potion Number Ten. Then you go home and you study hard,
harder’n you ever did before. So hard you can do them ’rithmatics in your
sleep.” She lifted a finger. “That ought to do the trick.”
I left the room and closed the door behind me, eager for magic.
“Potion Number Ten?” Mom asked.
“Glass of milk with some nutmeg flavorin’ in it,” the Lady said. “Amelia
and me got a whole list of potions worked out for folks who need a little
extra courage or confidence or what have you.”
“Is that how all your magic’s done?”
“Most all. You just give folks a key, and they can rightly open their own
locks.” The Lady’s head cocked to one side. “But there’s other kinds of magic,
too. That’s why I need to talk to you.”
My mother was silent, not understanding what was about to come.
“Been dreamin’,” the Lady said. “Been dreamin’ asleep and awake. Things
ain’t right here no more. Things are tore up on the other side, too.”
“The other side?”
“Where the dead go,” she said. “Across the river. Not the Tecumseh. The
broad, dark river where I’m gonna be goin’ before too much longer. Then I’ll
look back and laugh and I’ll say, ‘So that’s what it’s all about!’”
Mom shook her head, uncomprehending.
“Things are tore up,” the Lady went on. “In the land of the livin’ and
the world of the dead. I knew somethin’ was wrong when Damballah denied his
food. Jenna Velvadine told me what happened at your church Easter mornin’.
That was the spirit world at work, too.”
“It was wasps,” Mom said.
“To you, wasps. To me, a message. Somebody’s in terrible pain on the
other side.”
“I don’t—”
“Understand,” the Lady finished for her. “I know you don’t. Sometimes I
don’t either. But I know the language of pain, Miz Mackenson. I grew up
