We had always known something like this might happen, and Father had seen to it we knew what to do if it did. He'd said the elders had given us the measure.
'We can't use any of the women?'
I knew we couldn't of course. But it was Todd's job to tend them, and there was a slim chance he might know something I didn't. He'd brought them. They were always to his taste.
Todd looked at me with his eyes slitted up and asked me if I meant were any of the women young enough. I could have busted the lamp over his head then. I nearly started to shake, but I can keep my composure.
I take the risks. I do all the planning. I'm the oldest, and I do it. I'm the only one who can. And he knows what'll happen if I don't do it.
You never ignore the sign. Father took us as boys to see where the old place had been, and even in the broad light of day it was a screaming piece of land, just screaming. It turned Grover inside out. I was the only one who could come back from there on his own two feet and that was why it was entrusted to me. Todd had to go get in bed and stay there.
But when it's time, the sign comes to Todd. I have to hop to like a slave and start it all over again every time he gets the sign.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose, rubbed my face.
Father said it was bound to happen.
'I'll get the lots,' I said.
Claire looked up when I came in. I crossed the room and got the case. She didn't take her eyes off me. I told her to get back to her reading.
Julius brought down the cigar box open and set it on the table beside me. I had sat myself by the bay window, looking out at Grover who was sitting in the grass like a sack of potatoes. The checkers, red and black, were all jumbled together, and Julius was letting me see them all first. I nodded, numbly, and thinking about what we had to do was setting in and my mouth went dry and my hands turned cold.
Julius shut the box and shook it, still standing over me. It's hot and stuffy upstairs and I could see sweat swarm down the gnarls in his brow. He stank. He made us keep the house neat as a pin but he couldn't be bothered to wash. The whole place smelled like him.
He rattled the opposite chair back and dropped into it, putting the shaken box on the shelf under the table, where we both could reach it and neither of us see it.
We stared at each other. He said we would pick to see who went first. I got red. That color seemed to burn against my hand. It was just that particular color red. We put the checkers back and shook the box again, both of us, out of sight. Then we put our hands on the table. I thought of Ruth out in the woods and stubbed out that thought.
I pulled black.
You lie down in the dark, and wait.
At first you would see something like a forearm crossing the room. Just the forearm. It isn't a forearm, it only so happens to look like one just then, and it's what occurs to you. It just flashes by. Then, after a while, the dark and the quiet open up, right where you saw it. I can't say what the others see, I see only dim colors. For a long time, there are only dim colors there, and something will flit through the field now and then, quick as a wink. You have to make the effort not to ask it anything; it isn't hard. Eventually, you'll be shown the palaces, five figures of light or maybe more, and then they're all over the room like fog. The fog is blue, like cigarette smoke, but the light is white and gold. The palaces are like chandeliers. Hanging from nothing. We all lie in our separate rooms and go into the walls, I believe the girls too, slipping out into our palaces at night, in perfect silence. That's our beauty; we inherited it from Father, and he from long before.
Todd sat across from me, blanched to the bone. He'd scrunched up that cat face of his. I told myself that if I heard anything like fumbling around down there, anything but a straight pick, I'd shoot out my arm across that table and shove his adam's apple in.
Black.
Dirty cheater —
I just reached out and grabbed one. It felt like it wanted to slip out of my hand. I slapped it down hard on the table. Black.
Todd rocked a little. My nerves were steady.
I was going to win.
He pulled black.
Must have been the shuffle put them all back in order I thought. Could I count them — how many were there?
I pulled black.
Todd hesitated. He rubbed his fingers together. Nails all clean and buffed.
You're going to lose, I thought at him.
He pulled.
I got up and swept the checkers back into the box.
'Red for Ruthie,' I said. I left him sitting there.
Julius asked me where Todd is and I pointed to where Todd was waiting for Ruth on the veranda because he wanted to see her. Julius made a noise and went back into his office to get ready.
It's supposed to work like, Julius gets the girl and brings her here. Todd puts casts on her legs so she can't run. Then he puts her in with the women but separate so they don't mix. Todd holds, normally, because Julius has to do it himself. No one hears because nobody lives around here. When Todd gets the sign, she's there. All ready. You always keep a girl, because you never know when Todd will get the sign. But there's no girl now, because we just did the it. Julius can't go back so soon because they'll be on the look out. But Todd says it has to be tonight.
The last girl was black. Julius said it didn't matter. He also said no one would care because she was colored. She was here three months, nearly. I only got to see her twice. Todd saw the sign and the next night he took her into the thing. She was so scared she didn't even move. Julius did the it. He called when we have to bring her in because he has to start by himself, because he doesn't like us to see how it's done. He wants to be the only one who knows.
Todd knows the time, and Julius does the it, but I'm the only one who can put the right mark on the girl. That's been since Father took us out to the first farm. Julius says it made me slow. He opens the girls up and gets the sack away, and then tells me put on the mark. It's hard because the heart jumps all over. You can't smudge. I always get it right because I practice. Then Julius grabs it and cuts all around and pulls it out. He always gets soaked because they take a while to stop going. Todd has to come up with the bowl and Julius puts it in it, because they have to burn it, and then it gets burnt and the spare-rib smell, smoke all over and then they come, they get into the girl, then we can go in the palaces.
The mark always looks different. I just paint it because I don't know it. I see it and then I paint it on. I tried painting it on me once but the brush tickles and I don't see anything. I think the it has to be happening. I try not to tickle the girl's heart too much.
Claire came down and set out the dishes for supper. Julius kept her locked up in the attic room during the day and didn't want her to «mix» with Ruth. He never let her out and made her read the books all day long, over and over. He allows her to put on a frock before coming down to eat. When he feels like showing off, he makes her conjugate, standing by the table, in her miserable, reedy little voice.
