Read Online Servants of the Storm by Delilah S. Dawson - Free Book Online
Authors: Delilah S. Dawson
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asleep before my head hits the pillow.
7
I’M DREAMING. I DON’T KNOW how I know, but I Know.
And I’m in Bonaventure Cemetery. I know this exact spot. Carly and I used to come here with her grandmother Gigi before Josephine came and overturned the trees and set all the gravestones crooked and sent the decomposing bodies floating out into the streets of Savannah.
I’m walking among the old oaks, their bare, black branches pointing at the starless sky above like accusing fingers. I part the Spanish moss like a veil and pass beyond, farther into the misty darkness. The air is a strange mixture of warm and cold, like the ocean tides tugging at my feet, threatening to pull me under.
Water sloshes against my hips, the metaphor made real, and I realize that the world has shifted. I’m still in Bonaventure, but now I’m wading through Hurricane Josephine’s wrath. I pull up myarms, cross them over my chest to keep them away from the thick, silty water. Something slips under my foot, and I shy away. Could have been a branch. Or it could have been a bone. Or a snake.
There’s a certain scent on the air, besides the dead reek of the water. It’s salty. And earthy, too. So solid I can taste it on my tongue. So familiar.
“You remember my mama’s black-eyed peas? She always served ’em with collards. Lord, I hated her collards. Like eating slugs that fought you the whole way down.”
I startle to hear her voice, the tang of her complaint as familiar as the scent hanging heavily on the air. I get it now. I’m in Carly’s house, and that’s the welcoming smell of dinner on the stove. Black-eyed peas, creamed corn the color of butter, and collards boiled until they’ve given up. It’s Miz Ray’s kitchen, and my feet are dry on the cracked linoleum floors. Somehow I’ve gone from the crooked, flood-swollen oaks of the old cemetery right into Carly’s kitchen.
Only problem is, it’s not her kitchen anymore.
Besides the fact that she’s dead, her mama moved away after Hurricane Josephine claimed her kitchen and her only daughter. The new owners tore out everything and replaced it with granite countertops and fancy tile floors, or so my mom heard from the busybody old ladies down the street. The room I’m in now—it doesn’t exist anymore.
I slip into my usual seat, and my chair doesn’t squeak like it should. But I don’t mention it, because I can’t stop looking atCarly. Her nose is scrunched up like it always was when faced with collards. And her hair is braided like it was when she died, the roots just a little grown out, each braid tipped with a pink plastic bead.
But her skin is the color of mushrooms, a grayish purple that reeks of poison. And there’s a gash on her head, the flaps of skin curled back over shining bone. And her eyes are dull and black as death.
“She made the best lemon chiffon pie in Savannah,” I say.
It’s the truth, but it comes out flat and careful, like I’m reading a line from a play.
“But she won’t give you any unless you finish your damn collards first,” she says.
But I can tell it’s not just a line for Carly. She’s angry.
I look down. Instead of finding Miz Ray’s good supper, I see a rough box of black wood with a strange symbol carved into it. Evil just rolls off that box, and I draw back like I found a baby gator on my plate. The black wood rattles at me like it would bite me if it could. Like its gator teeth haven’t grown in yet.
“What is it?” I say.
Carly shakes her head, and a few of the braids fall off and slither onto her mama’s second-best tablecloth.
“I told you, Dovey. You have to eat your collards if you want your pie. Nothing’s easy anymore, not after Josephine settled in to stay.”
“Settled in? But it was just a hurricane,” I say. “It’s gone.”
She snorts. “Josephine’s more than a storm. She came here and she dug herself a hole, and now she’s happy as a pig in shit, just festering away. Time’s almost up.
7
I’M DREAMING. I DON’T KNOW how I know, but I Know.
And I’m in Bonaventure Cemetery. I know this exact spot. Carly and I used to come here with her grandmother Gigi before Josephine came and overturned the trees and set all the gravestones crooked and sent the decomposing bodies floating out into the streets of Savannah.
I’m walking among the old oaks, their bare, black branches pointing at the starless sky above like accusing fingers. I part the Spanish moss like a veil and pass beyond, farther into the misty darkness. The air is a strange mixture of warm and cold, like the ocean tides tugging at my feet, threatening to pull me under.
Water sloshes against my hips, the metaphor made real, and I realize that the world has shifted. I’m still in Bonaventure, but now I’m wading through Hurricane Josephine’s wrath. I pull up myarms, cross them over my chest to keep them away from the thick, silty water. Something slips under my foot, and I shy away. Could have been a branch. Or it could have been a bone. Or a snake.
There’s a certain scent on the air, besides the dead reek of the water. It’s salty. And earthy, too. So solid I can taste it on my tongue. So familiar.
“You remember my mama’s black-eyed peas? She always served ’em with collards. Lord, I hated her collards. Like eating slugs that fought you the whole way down.”
I startle to hear her voice, the tang of her complaint as familiar as the scent hanging heavily on the air. I get it now. I’m in Carly’s house, and that’s the welcoming smell of dinner on the stove. Black-eyed peas, creamed corn the color of butter, and collards boiled until they’ve given up. It’s Miz Ray’s kitchen, and my feet are dry on the cracked linoleum floors. Somehow I’ve gone from the crooked, flood-swollen oaks of the old cemetery right into Carly’s kitchen.
Only problem is, it’s not her kitchen anymore.
Besides the fact that she’s dead, her mama moved away after Hurricane Josephine claimed her kitchen and her only daughter. The new owners tore out everything and replaced it with granite countertops and fancy tile floors, or so my mom heard from the busybody old ladies down the street. The room I’m in now—it doesn’t exist anymore.
I slip into my usual seat, and my chair doesn’t squeak like it should. But I don’t mention it, because I can’t stop looking atCarly. Her nose is scrunched up like it always was when faced with collards. And her hair is braided like it was when she died, the roots just a little grown out, each braid tipped with a pink plastic bead.
But her skin is the color of mushrooms, a grayish purple that reeks of poison. And there’s a gash on her head, the flaps of skin curled back over shining bone. And her eyes are dull and black as death.
“She made the best lemon chiffon pie in Savannah,” I say.
It’s the truth, but it comes out flat and careful, like I’m reading a line from a play.
“But she won’t give you any unless you finish your damn collards first,” she says.
But I can tell it’s not just a line for Carly. She’s angry.
I look down. Instead of finding Miz Ray’s good supper, I see a rough box of black wood with a strange symbol carved into it. Evil just rolls off that box, and I draw back like I found a baby gator on my plate. The black wood rattles at me like it would bite me if it could. Like its gator teeth haven’t grown in yet.
“What is it?” I say.
Carly shakes her head, and a few of the braids fall off and slither onto her mama’s second-best tablecloth.
“I told you, Dovey. You have to eat your collards if you want your pie. Nothing’s easy anymore, not after Josephine settled in to stay.”
“Settled in? But it was just a hurricane,” I say. “It’s gone.”
She snorts. “Josephine’s more than a storm. She came here and she dug herself a hole, and now she’s happy as a pig in shit, just festering away. Time’s almost up.
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