Virginia Hamilton Page 8

  And why had Levi actually sounded like Thomas stuttering? And covered his eyes and his mouth for some reason. Why did he do that? she wondered.

  She moved out of Levi’s way, standing leaning her shoulder on the doorjamb. Down the hallway, there was Thomas parading toward her.

  Forever the spitting image of Levi. But Thomas was a stronger, louder image, she had to admit it. There was total life, total noise in the furious way he moved.

  Coming at her, he gave her a screaming look before he chose to ignore her completely.

  “Yeah, sure,” Levi said, “go on out and play,” as though he and Justice had been talking right then, “but don’t stay away forever.”

  Thomas came on, passing by Justice. All at once, he spun around, slamming the flat of his hand on the doorjamb above her head.

  “G-g-g-got thaaat old spuh-ider!” he said, grinning at the space above her.

  She clung to the doorway. Thomas had frightened her speechless. But she knew better than to say anything. That’s all he wanted, so he could pick on her.

  She knew there was no spider.

  Justice slid out of the doorway and managed to walk calmly down the hall.

  “You didn’t have to tease her like that,” she heard Levi say, his voice low.

  Thomas snickered. “Wh-whaaat’s fer bre-breee—wh-ut’s to eat?”

  I’m dumb as they come, she thought, ashamed of herself for not realizing. But she was furious at Thomas and hurt by his meanness.

  And found herself yelling, she couldn’t help it: ‘Thomas? Guh-guh-ooodbuh-buh bye, stuh-stuh-stutter-rat!” Frantically, she ran from the house, slamming the door as hard as she could.

  On the vicious sound of Thomas screeching at her.

  I’ve done it now, she thought as she hurtled through the burning heat.

  5

  OUTSIDE IS BETTER THAN in. Better for running. Hiding, she thought.

  She raced around the house to the backyard. She’d heard the side door open as she scrambled through the gate, and her brothers talking loud:

  Levi saying anxiously, “She was only getting you back. You started it. Why you have to bother her for?”

  Thomas answering, stammering, “IIII’m not g-g-gonna hurt-er!”

  She ran for the thick line of osage trees on the far side of the field. There, in the high weeds and damp shadow, she hid herself as best she could. Pressing herself to the earth, she made a ball by hugging her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.

  The side door slammed shut. She heard the muffled sound of feet running aimlessly. She dare not breathe. It had to be Thomas searching for her. Oh, it was so wild of him to make such a big thing out of her teasing. But then, for a time, she heard no unusual sound. She didn’t move, though, guessing that Thomas had become more cautious when he figured out where she would hide.

  Justice closed her eyes and listened to the silence.

  Something, she thought finally.

  In the stillness of age-old trees, she became aware of a presence. It seemed to have the energy to unsettle the air near her. She could sense its touch along the weeds and low branches that shielded her. She couldn’t say she was shocked or surprised. She simply accepted the presence as the nature of Thomas. And Justice knew at once how to protect herself.

  She gathered herself within into one hard place. Small of size, the place was a rock.

  The presence that was Thomas swept over the weeds, then fell to probe along their roots. It flowed along the rock, passed by and flowed back to range behind. It had searing rage and unnatural heat.

  Thomas could not find Justice, although his presence was very close to the rock, hard with centuries.

  I know you’re in there, the presence seemed to say.

  Aqueous stone. Timeless.

  I’m the one growing stronger.

  “You-you … youuu g-g-gotta come hhhome s-s-s … sometime!” Thomas said, his words exploding from some distance away. “III’ll muh-muh, mmmake youuu miserable!”

  Time upon time suspended. Somewhere, a door opened and slammed shut again, although at first Justice didn’t recognize the sound as such. Sound had become meaningless, she had been so deep and hard within. But now she knew that stillness again surrounded her midst the hedge’s armor. Cautiously now, she came back to the comfort and safety of the ancient trees.

  Strained muscles ached her. Minutes passed as she painfully unclasped her hands to release her legs. She had little strength left to brush away ants and other insects crawling over her. But she did straighten full-length in the weeds, feeling that somehow she had triumphed. Dimly, she sensed she had done something odd, beyond the ordinary range of what was Justice, age eleven.

  I hid myself from Thomas, that’s what I did, she thought.

  Her mind clicked on fully. And she was struck by waves of terror that shook her from head to foot.

  Heard his head talking to me—I did! Him looking for me in the weeds, but using just his mind—can it be true?

  She covered her face with her hands, turned on her side and pulled her knees up. In a moment, she was crying in heaving sobs.

  Being not very big, Justice could not feel terror for long. She held her breath seconds at a time to calm herself. Soon, she was breathing somewhat easier, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Not even a soul to help me figure this out, she thought. Levi’s home, but I can’t go back there. Thomas is sure to do something if I don’t get away. Why can’t he stand me to tease him? He sure teases me enough.

  Justice considered which way was best to go. She was up and going the best way before she realized she had moved.

  Stay real low. But I can stand, no one is able to see me here. Staying low because I’m still so scared.

  She thought she heard a pulsebeat of drumming from the house.

  Don’t take a chance of him snagging you on his mind—get away!

  Was it possible, she wondered, for a body to let go its mind like something silky? To let it sail out and have it fall over you?

  Again, she felt terror rising and firmly forced it back.

  Brother, why was he ever born!

  Staying low, she made her way down the field within the hedgerow. Thoughts racing with her heartbeat, she recalled hearing about her brothers being born. Tumbling images, memories. She didn’t know exactly when she had heard. Justice had some trouble with time. Often, time carried her along so fast. Other moments, it hung around her and was slow going.

  But her mom had said once that Thomas had been born first. Then Levi was born, about five hours later, as if he hadn’t wanted to come into the world.

  Because he knew the kind of trouble was lying there, Justice thought. Lying in wait for him.

  Cautiously, she moved down the row. Eyes darting, she would suddenly swivel her head around to stare behind. She dreaded to find some silk curtain drifting after her. But, sensing there was ?o one, she crept on, making little sound.

  Her mom telling her that, from early on, she and Justice’s dad hadn’t known which identical was Thomas and which was Levi.

  Justice had never thought much about it. But now the idea made her pause there hidden in the trees.

  From the time the boys were babies, Justice recalled her mom telling her. Her mom had them safe in the middle of her big bed, ready to dress them nice and sweet after their bath. Her mom saying she could always tell the boys apart. But for some reason, after she bathed them, she got the habit of tying different-colored ribbon around each one’s ankle. Old, soft Christmas ribbon from a shoebox full of it. Red ribbon always for Thomas and yellow for Levi. Just as if the boys were pretty presents. Or maybe, her mom saying, maybe she wasn’t as sure she could tell them apart as she liked to think.

  Anyway, her mom had gone to get something for them from the bathroom—she said she never did remember what it was she’d forgotten. Then the phone had to ring—wouldn’t you know? And her mom swore she hadn’t been on the phone long. Always she had the safety
of the boys on her mind. And hurrying back to them, unaccountably afraid, she found one of them had rolled off the bed, or had crawled to the edge and over the side. Her mom saying, Thank goodness for some thick carpeting.

  The other baby faced the foot of the bed on his stomach. Nine-month-old boys—her mom had left the both of them on their backs, side by side. The one on the bed had been screaming his head off. The one on the floor rocked back and forth, or up and down, on his hands.

  Her mom grabbed up the babies. Holding them, squeezing them so close, she had become almost hysterical, she said. Out of fear she’d caused the one that had fallen to be injured. Of course, they were all right. She hadn’t found a mark or a bruise on either one of them.

  And she had cried, her mom had.

  Because the red ribbon and the yellow ribbon lay tangled in a tiny clump on the bed.

  Her mom saying, seeing the ribbon, what she thought she knew would identify one baby from the other simply vanished. She never again was certain that the baby she called Thomas was not Levi, or which one was born first.

  Well, I know which one was born first, Justice thought now.

  She shivered, going slowly down the row.

  Thomas was the one born first, just so proud to lead and to lord it over everyone. But no sooner was she certain that Thomas could never be Levi than she recalled what had happened at lunch. The way Levi had seemed to change into Thomas right before her eyes.

  Next, she realized again that moments ago she had become a rock.

  Was I really?

  And Thomas—no, not Thomas, but Thomas behind his eyes, bodiless, hunting her with … with his mind!

  Justice was being careful now of sharp osage thorns growing out of the tree bark. She stepped high over horizontal branches. It was in the middle of such a high step that she had a sudden notion. She was almost—

  Not alone.

  With one foot raised as if to climb an invisible stair, she stood frozen. Listening. Not to the day around her, nor the creaking weight of old trees. She was not conscious of the wet heat and the sweet stickiness that the trees held and pressed in on her.

  She was listening to herself inside. She had a notion of something with her, within her.

  Wavering motion. She sensed an enormous tremor of light and dark just beyond the verge of her thinking. Something with her, within her.

  It went away, whatever it had been, leaving a vast impression.

  I’m so scared out here, she thought uneasily. She took a deep breath and tightened her insides against fear.

  Trees made a dome above her, leaning over and into the field from the west property line. Volunteer osage saplings pitched back upon the old trees. Brittle and thick horizontal branches stretched across thirty feet of ground. They were about four feet above the earth, reaching out toward the young saplings and sunlight. These heavy branches were like braces between the young and old growth. Justice took great pleasure in playing follow the leader on them. Following and imitating an imaginary self, she had risked thorn wounds to walk the branches. Just playing. But not today.

  She brushed off her clothing as she went along, sweeping her back with her arms to dislodge any insects still clinging to her. Under her blue jeans, she could feel pressure prints of stones and twigs on the skin of her knees from when she’d made herself into a rock. Such a short time had passed. She found herself clear down the field at the very end of the hedgerow. She took a sudden, last look behind her.

  Arched trees. Shade and leaves, twisted branches and dappled light. A long, lovely row; a vaulted chamber. Standing there at the end of it, Justice had an inkling how old a place it was. Within it, time seemed suspended, quivering in uneven waves of heat. Here was her familiar hedgerow where so much that was strange had occurred.

  Tomorrow, there’ll be snakes hanging here, she thought, as all at once The Great Snake Race was on her mind. Shaped by the timeless osage row, the event was made small.

  She turned away. At her feet was a broken-down fence separating the hedgerow from the Stevenson property right next to the Jeffersons’. Poison ivy entwined with rusted and flaking fragments of the fence. She took a leap over; made it. She cut left across the backyard, keeping her head down to avoid looking at the Duane Stevenson house in front of her. She hoped the Stevenson people hadn’t seen her as she skirted their side of the Jefferson hedge.

  ’Course, by now they’d of gone to work, Justice thought.

  Stevensons had no children. Just a quiet man and woman who left early in the day and came home at suppertime. They owned a long-haired house dog that would never grow big. It barked its head off whenever anyone approached the house. Justice could hear it yapping away now, just frantic, trapped behind the heat of closed windows.

  She went on. With her head bowed and her knees bent slightly to make herself even smaller, she pretended she cut across others’ land the way Dorian and the rest of the boys did most every day. For the times when she planned a visit to Mrs. Jefferson, she never came down the field. She would act as though she were going for a bike ride.

  And maybe even go for a short one, Justice thought.

  And skirting the south side of town, she would head back to Dayton Street by the westward end.

  She reached the street now, on the sidewalk between the Stevenson and Jefferson houses. She breathed easier, for the fact was it made her nervous to trespass the shaded privacy between homes.

  A few paces up the walk, she turned left to enter the Jefferson yard. She ducked in behind their front hedge, which was almost as tall as she. Dusty from the street, it was turning brown and skimpy in places, dying from dry weather.

  A dust bowl is coming, maybe, Justice thought. A sky bowl full of sand, coming to smother the cattle (what cattle?) and us, too.

  She took the short, curved walk up to the front stoop and saw Dorian Jefferson at the picture window. She didn’t know how many times she had found him there like that. He never seemed to be looking out. Seeing her coming, he pressed his face against the windowpane. Mouth and nose flattened, he bugged out his eyes and appeared to be locked in the window, sucking glass.

  She gave him a pained, superior look. You’re not scaring a soul. You’re just getting the glass messy.

  Otherwise, neither of them bothered to greet the other. She couldn’t say whether they were friends.

  He never lets on I come here. Thomas would have teased me if he’d mentioned it.

  Maybe they were friends. Secret friends.

  Her heart beat faster. She watched Dorian leave his post at the window as she stepped up on the stoop.

  Dorian’s mother was a secretive person if ever Justice had seen one. Some kind of caution she had come to share with Dorian. Mrs. Jefferson would seem to let Dorian slip from her mind. She never seemed to pay attention to him, and this didn’t bother him at all. But she never for an instant forgot about Justice’s brothers.

  “Watching they every move,” she would tell Justice. “Somebody got to.”

  There was another world where Mrs. Jefferson lived. Justice could feel herself being drawn into it once again.

  Most houses this time of day were closed tight against the hot weather. The Jefferson house was no exception. When Justice went to open the screen door, she found it locked.

  Should-a known, she thought.

  The screen was caked with dust. She saw that the entire front of the house was dust-covered, as was the hedge.

  You don’t see it at first, she thought. Sure does look like the dust bowl is spilling over everything.

  A moment later, Dorian opened the door and unlocked the screen. She tried to get by him into the house, but he was too quick for her. He thrust out a short-handled broom, which she took from him. She couldn’t recall having seen the broom before; yet she knew exactly what was to be done with it.

  Do it and get it over with. She sighed, turning around, facing the yard and hedge. Just get it done.

  Justice went down to the hedge opening where the sid
ewalk up to the Jefferson home began. There she felt compelled to sweep backward toward the stoop. She hoped none of the neighbors would see her as she swept the broom across the walk in front of her backing feet.

  “Because of the Child and Child,” Mrs. Jefferson had said. Justice had the impression that Dorian’s mother had given this as a reason for the need of sweeping. Mrs. Jefferson never said Thomas’ and Levi’s names. She would say One Child for Thomas and Two Child for Levi. Or Them. Or she said Child and Child. Justice, as she swept, said Child and Child over and over again to herself. She could see how thoroughly it left her out of things.

  “Because nobody know how much of Them is tracking you.” Justice knew Mrs. Jefferson had told her this. “So sweep away the footprints, you, so Child and Child cannot follow.”

  Justice did as she had been told.

  There had been a time when she believed Leona Jefferson was some kind of crazy woman. But gradually she had grown accustomed to Mrs. Jefferson’s peculiar ways. They still appeared odd to what Justice knew as order and routine; yet they made a kind of sense within the world of the Jefferson household.

  Now Justice swept the broom up to the stoop and climbed backward up the steps. She thought of her own house, now hidden by the Jefferson place. Her own house was the best house and the one she loved. At once, Thomas was on her mind—never was he out of it for long—and the way she had hidden herself in the hedgerow. She quaked with dread.

  I have to tell someone, she thought, and pulled herself together.

  The front door opened. Justice turned to face it, still clutching the broom. Dorian held open the screen and took the broom from her. She stepped forward and entered this house like no other.

  There was no entrance hall or foyer in Dorian’s house. A visitor stepped across the threshold and was simply within. There wasn’t time for Justice to rearrange her mind’s eye from the bright, searing outdoors to this damp and cool interior. But she reminded herself about the powdery dust outside, how the screen door had been caked with it. The dust pressed against the frame of the picture window, rising in the corners like the sands in an hourglass. Fragments of dust had filled the air, like a town’s dry gossip, which goes unnoticed until it begins to chafe and burn.