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“Well. I’m just glad you’re feeling better, ma’am. I would appreciate it if we could keep this a little secret between us.”
“All right. Memphis,” Bessie said, making Memphis go cold. “That was the name I heard.”
“Like I said, fever dreams are funny.”
Bessie chuckled weakly. “Well, you surely are a miracle man. I thank the Good Lord for bringing you to me.”
That night, to celebrate the saving of Bessie Timmons, the refugees gathered around a small campfire to share what food they had. Somehow they’d managed to make a feast of Red Cross rations, and it fed everyone. “Gonna have us a true fais-dodo,” Remy said, and Henry smiled to hear a phrase he knew so far from the home where he’d first heard it. He sat at the rescued piano and banged out all the songs he knew, and then Nate Timmons sat down and showed off his stride piano chops. They sang and danced, and Memphis took note of all of it, how no matter what miseries life threw at people, they managed to make the best of it. But they needed one another for that. Maybe he and the other Diviners—his friends—didn’t know what they were doing just yet. But they would figure it out. Because they had no choice and because they were joined. He watched a grinning Henry banging out a
song on the piano, adding haunting little flourishes and chord changes. He’d never realized what a beautiful musician Henry was, and Memphis felt a joy that his friend was so full of happiness just now. To share a joy was to make it last longer. The women danced and clapped hands. Someone who worked the food tent had managed a pot of coffee somehow. It was tepid, but that didn’t matter. The smell alone was a welcome respite. Strong and chocolaty, it blotted out the stench from miles of fetid floodwater. Bill and Henry passed around cups until all who wanted it had some. It was nearly time for the children to go to bed, though they insisted through their yawns that they weren’t sleepy at all.
“Can’t we have just one more story?” Moses begged. “Floyd! Tell us a story, please?”
“A story, huh?” Memphis said. “All right. All right, then. I got one for you. Who here has heard about Diviners? Okay. All right. Quite a few folks. The rest of you I’m guessing don’t have no interest in hearing about magic and ghosts and whatnot. Maybe I should tell a Bible story instead.…”
The children screamed in protest. They demanded the other story. Memphis held them in suspense for a little longer, fighting a grin. When he looked up, the eyes of all the children were on him. Hopeful. Eager. Something shifted inside Memphis, and the story, his story, began to come out as if it had been waiting patiently for him to tell it. “Once upon a time, there were some friends called the Diviners. They were object-readers and fire-makers, dream walkers and invisible men, future-seers and, yes, healers.…” Memphis told the story of this band of heroes battling evil in the land, trying to right a wrong that had been done many years ago, and of their great foe, the King of Crows, and his Army of the Dead. There was nothing but the night and the fire and the ancient, lasting story of good versus evil, of life and death hanging in the balance. It was a thread woven through all of humankind: this need for story to explain the unexplainable, to comfort the hurting, to promise that no one was alone. Evie’s uncle Will had said there was no greater power on earth than story. And in this shared moment, Memphis knew that it was so.
“And that concludes this episode of… the Voice of Tomorrow!” Memphis said.
The children protested, wanting more.
“Wait just a minute! But what happens after they face the King of Crows? How does the story end?” a boy named Jeremiah asked.
“I suppose that depends on us,” Memphis answered. “We’ve got to be the heroes of our own stories. Sometimes that means reading the past for clues. Sometimes that means peering as much as you can into the future to light the way. Sometimes you got to work where no one can see you until you’re ready to be seen. Sometimes you got to walk in dreams so you know what a dream feels like, so you know the shape of your own longings. Other times, you got to bring the fire of your anger and righteousness! And sometimes, you’ve got to heal the things that are broken or sick. Even when it scares you. Even when you feel like walking away and pretending you never saw the sickness. Don’t need special powers to do any of that. The truth is, the story never ends. It’s always happening. But whether it tips toward evil”—and here Memphis held out a fist—“or good,” he said, offering the other, “well, now. That’s up to all of us. We are all storytellers telling the story, adding our piece.”
Memphis caught Bill’s eye. He expected him to be angry. To rebuke Memphis with a look for telling that story. Instead, the big man seemed moved.
“I’m scared of the King of Crows.” Jeremiah burrowed into his mama’s side.
Memphis looked the boy in the eyes. “You know what heroes do? They pay attention. You be on the lookout for trouble, now. Things you might tell yourself are nothing to worry about. Just your mind making too much of it. It’s like the flood coming through—it gathers strength fast, and then it’s too late.”
“What kinds of things?” Moses asked.
“You wake up in the night because you feel like there’s something near. If you’re out walking and a crow caws nearby three times, like a warning, or sudden mist comes up, making it hard to see, or the sky shudders with lightning the color of a dead man’s eyes. If the hair on the back of your neck stands up and tells you to get moving quick, well, go and get your friends real quick. And if you see an ash-gray man in a tall, tall hat and a coat made of birds, a coat he’s starting to open up to mesmerize you, just… run!” With that, Memphis reached out and tickled Tobias. All the children squealed, then collapsed with laughter.
“Come. Time for bed,” Mrs. Timmons said. She and the other mothers corralled the children toward the tents. The adults thanked one another for the food and Memphis for the story. Old Mrs. Jessup nodded at Memphis. “You know about the man in the hat, do you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Memphis said, surprised.
“Then you know the danger. Don’t let him trap you with the lies inside his coat.”
Memphis, Henry, and Bill retired to their own tent. Before he ducked inside, Memphis took one last look at the sky.
But it was only sky.
“If I’m not mistaken, I could swear you shed a tear over my story tonight, Bill,” Memphis said as he entered the tent and stretched out. He could hear Henry snoring softly.
“You was mistaken,” Bill said. “Go to sleep. Long day tomorrow.”
Memphis turned onto his side, grinning.
Word got around, as word always does, about what Memphis had done for Bessie Timmons. Others began asking for his help, and Memphis obliged: an infected cut here, a feverish child there, a barking cough or some other waterborne illness. What the Red Cross held back, Memphis gave. Day after day, he brought ease to those in need of it. When he returned to his tent later, a handkerchief-wrapped bundle would be left on his doorstep—a ration of bread. A jar of water. A piece of meat. Small thank-yous from the kin of those he’d helped.
The children followed Memphis now wherever he went, especially Moses and Tobias, who saw him as their hero. It made Memphis miss Isaiah all the more.
“Can you show me how to do it?” Moses asked one evening as Memphis, Henry, and Bill shared a supper of beans and bread at a long table with many others in the food tent.
“Don’t work that way.” Isaiah would have a fit making fun of Memphis for not speaking “proper” English. But who got to decide what was proper and not? Tying his words up with “proper” strings made it hard for Memphis to think, hard for him to express himself. The words had to come however the words came, on a tide of feeling.
