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“Oh,” she said shifting stiffly in her chair, “he ain’t meant to do nothin’ to Jilo, but he had Jilo stand there next to you in that tree of his. Jilo didn’t see anything at first. She just did what yo’ uncle told her to. She sprayed the perfume. She put the dirt in yo’ hand and poured the whiskey over it. But she didn’t see nothing. Not until she look in yo’ eyes. And then she saw the whole thing. Jilo’s entire life, it done flashed before her, just like she was dyin’. And Jilo saw. She saw every single choice she made. How every single action tied into every other single action. Every single wrong. Every single harm. Jilo done saw herself from the outside in, and what she saw was wrong. Jilo saw the beast there waitin’ for her. Just waitin’ there with it sharp teeth to gobble up her sinful heart. It too late for Jilo, my girl. She done the harm she done. She know she gonna have to face up to that. But she ain’t diggin’ herself no deeper. Jilo’s done with magic.”
I should have never waited so long to check in on Jilo, but I’d always thought of the old woman as being carved from granite and dipped in steel. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might need me. I sat up straight, seeing her more clearly now that my eyes had adjusted to the shade. She looked fragile, if not already broken. I had to choose between coddling and tough love. I decided on a delicate balance of both, starting with the latter. “So you are planning to hole up here between now and death?”
She gave a sad cackle. “That comin’ for Jilo sooner than you think, girl.”
“No,” I said as I stood and glared down at her. “You aren’t deserting me like this. I have no doubt you’ve done some things you should be ashamed of. But it seems to me that rather than sitting on your butt and moaning—”
“Now you watch how you talkin’ to Jilo—”
“And feeling sorry for yourself,” I continued even more forcefully. “It seems that while there’s still some breath in you, you should get out and try to mend some of that damage you’ve done.”
“Jilo . . .” She fumbled with a button on her dress as her lower lip poked forward. “She too old. Too tired. What’s done is done.”
“But what isn’t done isn’t,” I said sharply. My voice caught in my throat. “I need you, Mother. I need you.”
She looked up at me, a moistness forming around her eyes. “And what do you need a broken-down old thing like Jilo for?”
I reached forward and took both her hands. They were oh so cold, as if life had already begun to desert them. “Because you are the only one I am sure I can trust. Completely.”
Her eyes looked me up and down. “You so sure about that?”
“Yes,” I responded without hesitation.
“Well maybe you shouldn’t be,” she confessed, pulling her hands out of mine.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, ’cause we both know they is outright lyin’, and then again, they is not tellin’ the whole truth. Jilo know something about you. About yo’ family. That little bastard, the one you called Wren. Don’t forget, he was keepin’ an eye on yo’ family for Jilo long before you born. If Jilo told you what she been keepin’ from you, that trust of yours might up and disappear.”
I fixed her with my stare, causing the old woman to squirm for perhaps the first time in her life. “Tell me.” My heart beat a wild tattoo, but I forced my voice to remain level, calm.
Her eyes darted around me, then fell to her lap. “Those pretty aunts of yours been lying to you, girl. Not like Jilo been by holdin’ back, but outright lyin’. Jilo think maybe Ginny figured it out too, but she not sure about it. Iris and Ellen, though, they know. They had to know all along.”
“They know what?” I asked, growing impatient. My magic reached out to her as I fought the urge to break in and read her thoughts. Deep down, even without rummaging through her memories, I knew what she would say, but still, I had to hear her say it.
Her eyes fluttered up to meet mine. “Your mama, Emily. She didn’t die having you. She ain’t dead at all.”
I never thought I’d be happy that Jilo had used Wren to spy on my family, but finally I had the opportunity to learn the truth from a somewhat objective witness. I sat back down at her feet. “Tell me everything.”
TWENTY
Jilo licked her dry lips and readied herself to speak. “You know Wren was keeping an eye on yo’ family for me.”
I nodded, noticing that she had repeated herself but not pointing it out.
“Well, he the one that told Jilo. He saw yo’ mama wandering around this house the day she was s’posed to be getting planted in the ground. Said she was goin’ through the place lookin’ for something.” Under its own volition, my hand flew up to touch the chain of my mother’s locket.
Jilo started to say something more, but before she could, Martell barreled through the door. “Gramma, you gotta come see this.” He ran back to the porch. “Damn,” his voice carried to us through the screen door. Our eyes locked, and I scrambled up to my feet. I stopped to help Jilo hoist up her light and brittle body.
I let Jilo come under her own steam as I hurried outside. I didn’t see anything unusual from the porch, nothing that would get Martell going like he was. I walked out into the yard after him and followed his eyes to the sky. A dark arc, like a rainbow drained of its colors, had stretched across the western horizon. In the few moments I stood watching it, its color changed from steel to granite to coal.
Jilo had found her way to the porch and was leaning out to examine the phenomenon. The arc began to unfurl, forming a curtain of dusk, not so much hiding everything on the other side as draining the color, fading it to black and white . . . and then all light disappeared, leaving only darkness. “You two come up here. Get out of the yard.” Jilo’s voice quivered. “Go on,” she commanded when we didn’t move. Martell stood where he was, entranced, frozen in place like a statue. I grabbed his hand, my own fright giving me the strength to drag him across the gravel, up the steps, and into the house behind Jilo.
We watched through the window as the veil against the sky began to close in on us. It grew in both proximity and length, the edges curling up toward each other, encircling us. “Gramma, what is it?” Martell asked, his face trembling, fear stripping him of the contrived swagger, revealing the innocent little boy behind it. In spite of my own fear, my heart went out to him.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told him, and then found myself looking to Jilo for confirmation. She said nothing. She went from window to window, opening the blinds. Each window framed a growing shadow. The band of darkness had changed, becoming a devourer of light. I shuddered, realizing that it had stopped growing and had begun contracting, like a serpent squeezing tighter. The world beyond its grasp had ceased to exist for us. On its inner edge, the side that grew ever nearer, the last bit of bright blue summer sky was being drained of color and light. The sky began to press down on us, its heaviness palpable, and the ground beneath our feet trembled. Like a bubble rising to the surface, the world around us lifted up, forming an ever-contracting sphere. It was like a black hole sucking everything into it.
