She comes back into the room with an ashtray, looking as tired as I feel.
“I sent him away. He was scared a me, and he was right to be. I didn’t like myself when I used my power to do such things. I didn’t like myself too much at all in them days.” She stubs out her cigarette. “That’s why I started goin’ to church. You may think it’s funny, but I know it’s what saved me.”
“That’s why you—why you don’t jube no more?”
“I don’t feel the need to no more.”
I just nod. What do I do with all this information?
“You gotta fight the ugly, Evvie. You might not get a lotta time to do it either. That’s why you run. That’s why you ask God to intervene.”
She kisses my forehead and leaves without saying another word.
I sit stewin’ on everything Mama just dumped on me. Now that I’m startin’ to understand my powers more, the idea a disownin’ ’em outta fear just seems half-baked. If she feels better the way she is, that’s fine. Honestly, though? Goin’ against my nature to repress the jube sounds much worse than just livin’ with it. I may be stubborn like her, but I’m different from Mama. In more ways than one. Nothing could make me send Clay away.
I turn off the light, and I still can’t sleep. Curse my stupid family for stickin’ me with this niggery witchy bullshit. Who needs it? What good does it do any of us really?
Then I think about Miss Corinthia and how it saved her and her mother’s lives. I see how it’s useful in an emergency. Unless you’re me, and your emergency is Virgil Hampton.
I start to drift off finally as I imagine what it must be like to be born without weird powers. To have the choice to believe in God or religion or magic. To view these things as interesting concepts for an enlivening discussion, as opposed to knowing how real they can be. And how dangerous.
19
Normal
MY TWO-HEADEDNESS HAS BEEN workin’ overtime lately. I’m way too attuned to what’s going on around me. Just now, when I was readin’ to Abigail, I got the sharpest feeling that somethin’ was wrong with Anne Marie. It was so strong that I handed Abigail the book and stood up mid-sentence to go to the phone.
“Evalene, you can’t stop before it’s done. I’m ascared a the pale-green pants in the dark!”
She trails after me, draggin’ the book that I’ve read a hundred times and that can’t possibly scare her at this point.
I dial Anne Marie’s number.
“Read the book first! You’re bein’ mean,” Abigail hollers.
While it’s still ringing, I lean down close to her. “If you be good and quiet, when the pale-green pants come to pay a visit, I’ll tell ’em you don’t live here no more so you’ll be safe.”
“The pale-green pants knows where I live?” In a panic, she runs into the living room cryin’ and throws herself onto the couch. Dammit. Here I thought I was bein’ nice.
“Hello?”
I’m not sure who it is that’s picked up, but the voice doesn’t sound so good.
“Hi, um, is Anne Marie at home?” I ask.
Silence on the other end. All I can hear is Abigail blubbering in the next room.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Evvie,” Anne Marie says. I’ve never heard her voice sound like this before. Something awful has happened.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“What is it you want?” she asks in a strange way.
“I had a feelin’… that somethin’ was wrong. With you. So I got worried. That’s why I called.”
I hear her breath catch on the other end. Then more silence. All I hear is Abigail’s cryin’ fit, which has already dwindled to a few whimpers and hiccups.
“I can’t—uh—I can’t really talk right now,” she says.
Hearing her like this hurts my heart. I don’t know what to do. My instinct is to run out the door and find her. But I have three more hours of work left.
“Can you get out? You could come over again,” I offer.
She sniffles. She’s been cryin’ for a while. “No. I can’t do that.”
“What about right after I get off at six? We can meet at the fountain?” There’s a fountain in town that we once discovered is almost exactly halfway between our houses. It’s a good rendezvous spot in an emergency.
“Could you meet me at church later?” she asks, her voice cracking.
“Yeah. Of course. It might take me about ten minutes, but I’ll get over there as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
“Is—is there anything you can tell me now? Or anything I can do?”
“Yes,” she says. “Please pray for me.”
The second Miss Ethel opens the door, I fly out of it.
“See you tomorrow,” I throw behind me as I reach the sidewalk.
I slow down so I don’t draw attention to myself, but I move at a fast trot, wantin’ to get to the church as quickly as I can. Dreadin’ what I’ll find when I get there.
Anne Marie’s outside on the front steps.
“Hey,” I say. “Tell me what’s goin’ on.”
She’s got her arms around her knees, and her head lays on ’em to one side. She hasn’t made eye contact with me. She’s hasn’t acknowledged me.
I stoop down and try to get her to look at me.
“I wanna help, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s wrong,” I tell her.
She then tentatively lifts her head to look at me, and I swallow my urge to gasp. Her eye socket is red and badly bruised. By tomorrow, she’ll have a black eye. I don’t know if she has any other injuries, so I delicately lift her to her feet and walk her around to the back of the church, where there’s benches and shade and some degree of privacy.
“Who did this to you?” I ask her once we’re sitting.
“It doesn’t matter, Evvie. There’s nothing you can do.” She sounds hopeless.
“Fine. Let’s assume I can’t do
