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“Those they invested with magic, the ones you call witches, were the trickiest of all. They rebelled against the outsiders and sent them back beyond the sky, locking them”—he raised an arm and swept it around in a wide circle—“out there.” He reached out and snatched the bottle from the Beekeeper’s grasp, draining its contents and sending the bottle sailing to the floor. May watched as it slipped beneath the surface, falling into the endless forever. When she looked up, another bottle had appeared in his hand.
“The cleverest of the witches drew a line,” the Beekeeper sang out, “locking some things out, but locking some things in.”
“Things,” May began, “such as yourselves?”
“No, little sister,” the man said. “Not like us.” His eyes grew round with terror as he leaned in toward her. “Like them.” He pointed behind her, and she gasped and spun around, only to see her own reflection. Although her spirit dropped at the sight of her own fearful expression, the pair of them burst out laughing.
May turned back to witness the man using his sleeve to wipe away tears of mirth. “No, little sister. The Lady and I, we’ve been here as long as there has been a here to be.”
“The globe, it formed and cooled around us,” the Beekeeper said. “Your kind and all those that came before, they crawled from our flesh, they breathed in our spirit. When the outsiders came, they corrupted you, causing you to forget us and serve them. The outsiders planned to strip us of life and steal our magic. So when the witches rebelled, we helped them. Not that they knew . . .”
“Not that they would thank us anyway,” Lester added, his tone full of resentment.
“They think they did it all on their own,” the Beekeeper said. “And they think they can hold that line of theirs in place on their own.”
“But you, little sister, you are asking yourself what this has to do with you.” He raised the bottle to his lips, looking over it at her as he took a sip. “Do not deny it. Humans are all the same, only interested in what touches them directly.”
“No,” she reached over the table and took the bottle from his grasp. “I am wondering what in the hell it has to do with me.” She turned the bottle up to her own mouth and drank. The couple with her cheered, but as she set the bottle down, the doorway to her own world swung wide open, revealing Jilo on the other side.
FIFTEEN
September 1940
May’s ears detected a knock at the door. Knocks came much more often these days, and they came just about any time of day or night. She knew another desperate soul would soon be standing before her. Sometimes men came, but usually her visitors were women—some despairing over a man who’d gone, others over a man who wouldn’t be gone. May usually didn’t have much patience for the women willing to sell their souls to hold on to a man. She would just give them the taste of juju they’d come for and send them on their way. She had a lot more compassion for the women who needed to escape a man. A steady stream of them had come to see Mother May; they always did their best to hide the bruises, but most didn’t succeed.
May hadn’t yet been moved to kill a man, but she’d come close to it once when she was visited by a woman too busy trying to hide the marks left on the babe in her arms to worry about the welts on her own skin. No, May hadn’t gotten around to killing yet, but thanks to Fletcher Maguire, she had murder in her heart. Someday, sooner or later, May knew she’d share Cain’s guilt. She’d make an offering of her own to the Red King, and when that day came, the blood on her hands would belong to the son of a bitch who’d forced her into this life. On those rare nights when sleep found her, it was imagining what it would be like to watch the light expire in Maguire’s eyes that lulled her into restfulness.
But May didn’t sleep much anymore, thanks to Maguire and the magic he’d forced her to use. This room had once been her bedroom. Now it served as her office, and as much out of pageantry as out of magic, she had painted the entire place—walls, ceiling, and floor—haint blue. She grasped the arms of the chair that had once been her mother’s, now rendered that same calming shade of cerulean
.
The room’s monochrome palette never failed to make an impression on those arriving—many experienced a sense of vertigo, and some even thought May was floating before them.
May. No one called her that anymore. No one. Not even those who used to know her best. Now, everybody called her Mother Wills. “Please, Mother Wills,” or “You gotta help me, Mother Wills.” There was always somebody coming to beg her to use the power Maguire had forced her to welcome into herself. Word had spread about her, the Negress who had stood up to Fletcher Maguire himself, and about the two lawmen—one ripped clear through and the other left sightless and disfigured. Many thought his blindness was a mercy, considering what had happened to his face.
Everyone thought she had been behind the attacks, but no one, not even the Maguires, would touch her for it. Some saw her as a hero. Others as a devil. But all were willing to place coin in her hand for a taste of her power. At first May felt bad about charging people in need. Her own mama had only accepted the occasional gift, but Maguire had ensured she lost her job, leaving her with no other means to protect or feed the children.
May had always been an honest, hardworking woman. She had been the best maid the Pinnacle Hotel had ever seen, and now she was determined to bring that same pride to the work she did in magic. Word of her skill had spread in no time, and she’d found herself a steady stream of customers. She might never grow rich—folk around her had a lot more troubles than money—but the Beekeeper had taught her enough to ensure she and the girls would never go hungry. She, too, had come to think of this entity as the Beekeeper, though it had been Maguire who had labeled her as such, not the Beekeeper herself. It was strange how Maguire forcing May out of her job was what had helped fulfill the Beekeeper’s desire that May should follow in her mother’s footsteps.
She heard the springs of the screen door protest as her latest client entered her home. May drew a steeling breath, which she then exhaled in a prayer for patience. The buzzing of a fat bumblebee sounded in response. May saw it appear out of nowhere, pushing through the blue wall as easily as if the wall were the sky it mimicked. This happened from time to time, the unannounced arrival of an emissary from her patron. “Oh,” May addressed the hovering insect. “She interested in this one, hey? Got some sweet nectar she wants to taste for herself?”
The bee bobbed in the air, shooting up, then descending in a slow, lazy circle, until it landed on her shoulder. The sound of high heels clacking across her living room pulled her back to the present. A woman. May worked to put on her most imperious look, so that when the caller reached her, she’d perceive May not only as a woman of power, but as a woman whose time should not be wasted. She straightened her spine and grasped the arms of her chair. Clearly not bothered by her movements, the bee adjusted its position only slightly before commencing to preen itself. May shifted her focus to the entrance of her chamber, raising her head proudly to greet her latest visitor. Then the sound of a voice she’d never expected to hear again on this side of glory knocked the wind right out of her.
“Jilo, girl, you get over here. Don’t you recognize your own mama?” Betty’s words chased Jilo straight into May’s chamber. May’s other grandbabies experienced vertigo upon entering the room, but it didn’t faze Jilo one bit.
“Nana, there’s a crazy white woman out there,” Jilo said, panic nearly turning her words into a shriek as she ran into the shelter of May’s arms. The bee took off, no doubt rising to observe the scene from a better vantage point.
In the next instant, Betty, or at least a faded version of her, appeared in the doorway, shopping bag in hand. She wore a navy-blue dress, a quiet color May would never have expected of her, and even though the day beyond the lowered shades and oscillating fan of May’s living room was stifling, there was a fur stole around her shoulders. Betty stopped at the threshold, teetering on her high heels, and grasped the door frame to steady herself.
“What is all this, then?” Betty asked, her words coming out with a practiced accent that said she belonged in the city, not out in the sticks.
May placed her arm around Jilo, squeezing her right shoulder and tugging her closer in the same movement. She understood the girl’s confusion. This woman standing before her looked like any of the fancy buckra ladies who paraded themselves around the Pinnacle. Her hair was as long and straight as any white woman’s. Its color wasn’t the shade with which Betty had been born, but neither was it the obviously out-of-the-bottle red it had been when May had last laid eyes on her former daughter-in-law. It was brown. Chestnut brown. White-woman brown.
Betty’s skin no longer held any of its former warm tones. It showed tan, maybe olive, like she was one of those Italians. May felt certain Betty had been bleaching herself, and she doubted the woman had spent more than a minute in the sun in the five years she had been away. May released Jilo, but let her hand slide down the girl’s back and grasp ahold of her tiny fingers. She held the girl’s hand tight as she pushed herself up and advanced on the prodigal mother.
“What’s all this, then?” May parroted her, waving her free hand at Betty.
Betty released her grasp on the frame and took a backward step into the hall. May continued to will her back, away from her special place and into the sitting room. A pout formed on Betty’s lips as she took several awkward reverse steps. May’s eyes followed Betty’s, which were well fixed on Jilo. “She doesn’t even recognize her own mama. She doesn’t recognize me at all.”
