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But to us, they were just the Lucys, sometimes Miss or Mrs., Mister or Master, but typically just Lucy, spawn of Lucifer, kin of the devil in the most wretched place most of us have ever known.
There were six of us total, trudging single file into the forest. Junie led the way, followed by Patience, Lulu, Alice, and Serah, while Nan, the eldest, brought up the rear.
They are cheaper than men and more versatile—can not only pull a plow and clear land, but can cook and clean, too. And best of all, they can breed, increasing a master’s profit year over year every time a child is born.
We were bound together by what tends to bind women like us together. Often, that doesn’t make folks kin. Makes them trapped. And that can make them hateful toward one another, unless it’s redirected and harnessed toward something else altogether.
Most of the time, she worried about harm coming to him in that small evil house, how quickly and often he’d become the target of all the discord that flowed between the Lucys.
He no longer felt at ease, so far away from the Lucys. He missed them now, it seemed, much like he used to miss her.
And most of all, she didn’t want to be in the thick of it herself, with a trapped soul inside her, sucking her dry and tipping her organs about, or later, nursing at her breasts or cradled in her lap, where eventually it’d be taken away, the moment she allowed herself to love it.
I should dash your head in right now, she threatened, grinning at the child suddenly. How many lives could I save just by doing that? But you’ll be different, won’t you? A righteous man in the hell-carnival?
“I didn’t have much milk with the first two either, but our old house girls had plenty. We never wanted for milk when they were around. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but you know that Roberta had a baby every time Mother did.”
“Don’t be scared of me. I hate for gals to be afraid of me,” he said, looking her in the eye so intensely, she dropped her gaze. “I’ll be gentle as I can,” he murmured. It hit her suddenly what he was saying, and she dropped the tray, jumping back when it hit the ground, splashing onto her skirt.
Smh
Jacob still couldn’t afford to buy her and Silas’s freedom, as that price tag was always a goalpost in motion, but worse than that, freedmen weren’t allowed to be in the country long. Texas had a law against them. Without a petition or a white man to vouch for him, he couldn’t stay without risk of being jailed or re-enslaved.
Black snake whips and cat-o’-nine-tails flayed the skin, did damage to the muscle, put a person down for days, weeks even, depending on the number of lashes. Not to mention, it could affect resale value. Those were luxuries a yeoman farmer couldn’t afford, with only a handful of folks in the fields.
Normally, one of us would go over to her and whisper soothing things, but this time, no one did. It was as if we feared the stockman’s presence was contagious and whoever touched her would inevitably be next.
BEING PAST CHILDBEARING YEARS, NAN was the only one exempt from spending a night or two with Zeke.
Before sunrise, she crept out into the woods, searching for roots and shrubs that might be useful. She didn’t want to kill him, just wanted to make him ill enough that he couldn’t perform.
WHEN LULU’S TURN CAME, she sat down opposite Zeke and emptied her pockets.
Oh, and these beads . . .” She picked up Patience’s rosary beads and rolled them in her palms. “These belonged to my mother. My inheritance. I’d hate to part with them, but . . .”
And so it was with Patience’s rosary. The wooden beads connected by a frayed piece of twine radiated something unfamiliar to her.
JUNIE HAD ALREADY BEEN working her own plan. She hadn’t washed herself or changed her clothes in days. And after many hours chopping cotton under the July sun, the rank smell emitted from her intensified with every passing day.
“You know, Jensen was just by here and he’s taking quite a liking to your little boy. Now, I told him he wasn’t for sale, but . . .” This was the cost of keeping his family intact, having his wife and children all under the same roof. And if he only had to “travel” a few times a year, maybe that was worth it.
What did it mean to be saved or spared or favored if only to be thrown out again later?
Alice miscarried, and we sent the soul back over, saving it for a better time, a better place, though we knew it might not take kindly to what we had done.
We didn’t know who Dr. Lewis declared barren until a few weeks later, when Mr. Lucy took Alice along to help with a mill run and came back without her.
That is, until yellow fever comes and lays us low in the summer of 1856, taking both Silas and Miss Lizzie’s youngest, William.
Her boy would be welcomed in heaven as he was not welcomed on earth. The words gave her no comfort.
A stranger, some other man’s property, nursing his daughter. A trace of shame flickered inside him.
Whereas all sex before felt like a splintering, what she felt with him was the opposite, a deep and sweet mending.
We’d warn her about the temperature of a man’s heart, how quickly it could turn to frost, the same way a northeaster could surprise the plants and freeze them quick-quick.
Dorcas had an inkling of why that might be. It was because she refused to take up any task that had nothing to do with the child.
The house regarded her as a two-legged heifer, and so she would do no more than wait to be milked. That is what they rented her for. They would get nothing more.
The child was a thief, and it stole more from her every passing day.
White people didn’t like the help to see them in low moments. They never wanted to be reminded that what stood in the rear of the room, feeding the child, or waving the flyswatter, or refilling the glasses with water, could see and hear their moments of folly and shame.
It was bad luck to name a child before the ninth day.
A baby catcher was always tethered to those she had delivered.
“Now that that’s all settled. Monroe, you and your wife will live in the cabin you built. And Isaac, you and Patience will live in the one you built. Isn’t that a treat?”
“I’ve been patient, haven’t I? Even let you work your little roots until you got comfortable. But my High John the Conqueror ain’t never failed me,”
Your what sir lmao
They grumbled about cleanliness and godliness, about our seeming idolatry of petty objects, our obsession with trifles and trash, while they fingered our dresses and underthings and shuddered at rags stained with menstrual blood.
