Sukey's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Sukey's mother had died with half her cures still in her head. Now Sukey knelt in the dirt beneath the great oak, teaching six island children before that same thing could happen to her. Her fingertips were stained deep indigo from years in the plantation fields. She used those blue hands to show the children a root pulled from the ground. "You boil this when the fever comes," she said. "My mama taught me. Her mama taught her." The children leaned close. A boy asked which leaves stopped bleeding. A small girl repeated every word under her breath, trying to keep it. Sukey watched her lips move and felt the old fear return. Words spoken aloud could be forgotten. When she was gone, all of it could vanish, the way half of her mother's knowing already had. Her chicken kept watch at the edge of the clearing. The bird had strange plumage, streaks of green and red down its long tail. The children called it Haint because it seemed to see spirits. It scratched the dirt, calm, until it froze. Its head snapped toward the magnolia trees. It let out one low warning sound. Sukey looked up. She scanned the trees and saw nothing but leaves and shadow. "Go on," she told the bird. "Ain't nobody there." She turned back to the girl and pressed the root into her small hands. "You hold onto this. You be the one who remembers." But someone was there. Behind the wide trunk of a magnolia crouched the plantation owner's daughter, thirteen years old, pale hands gripping the bark. Nell Tamarind had followed Sukey from the big house that morning, curious where the indigo woman went at dawn. She had expected chores. Instead she found a school no white child was meant to see. She held her breath and listened to every word about roots and fevers and remembering. Sukey finished the lesson. She named each child and made them say the cure back to her. One by one they slipped away through the trees toward their cabins. Sukey gathered her baskets. The chicken circled her feet, still watching the magnolia. Sukey started toward her cabin, the rough wooden one with the narrow door and the pot hung over the fire. Then she stopped. A branch had snapped behind her. Nell stepped out from the magnolia. She did not run. She stood in the open, dirt on her dress, and looked straight at Sukey. "Teach me too," Nell said. "I want to remember it. I can write it down." Sukey's blood went cold. This child could hang her with one word to her father. But Nell had offered the very thing Sukey lacked. Paper. Ink. A way to keep the old knowing from dying with her. Sukey looked at the girl's steady eyes and knew the choice would cost her either way.