Mary’s heart thumped with hollow sickening licks. “Thank you kindly, Auntie, but I can’ leave July. I know you an’ Budda Ben would take me an’ de baby an’ do for we de same as you done for me, but July couldn’ get on widout me. July is a fine man. ’E’s raven about me an’ about de baby too. Cinder has been a-tryin to get em off de right track by runnin after em so much all de time, but I’ll get em straight befo long. July don’ never mistreat me. E has a short patience, fo-true. Sometimes e misses an’ talks kind o’ short, but I don’ mind dat. Budda Ben used to talk de same way. Me an’ July gets on good most o de time. You an’ Budda Ben mustn’ fret about me. No.”
Once she had started defending her husband, Mary’s words flowed on and on. Sometimes they rose loud and jerked and broke, then they slackened and started all over, saying the same things, as if repeating them made them true. Declaring to Maum Hannah that July was good and kind and freehanded brought easement to her heart, somehow.
Maum Hannah smoked slowly and listened without a word until Mary finally stopped.
“You ever did have a brave heart, gal. I’m glad to hear you got such a good husband. But if I was you I’d go to see old Daddy Cudjoe an’ get me a good strong charm to keep him a good one. Times is changed. Women ain’ like dey used to be. When I was young, a married man was a married man an’ nobody didn’ bother em. But dese days, it don’ matter if a man is married or single, de womens don’ let em rest. No. Gawd knows what de world is a-comin to.” She sighed deep to think of how slack the ways of the women were.
“You take my advice an’ go see Daddy Cudjoe an’ get em to fix you a charm to keep July home. Daddy is a wise man. E knows black magic as well as white. E could gi you a charm so strong July never could leave you no more. Not long as e lives. Daddy’s wise.”
Mary sat thinking, listening while Maum Hannah told of the many ways in which Daddy Cudjoe had helped her. Once she had a pot that would not boil, and she took the contrary thing to Daddy Cudjoe. He gave it a good frailing with a stout hickory stick and the pot had been the quickest one on her hearth to boil ever since. Once, when Budda Ben’s ax refused to cut straight, Daddy Cudjoe taught it to behave itself right. Everything gets out of order and gives trouble sometimes; men and women and pots and pans and axes; everything needs to be ruled. The river flowed quietly and kindly now, but sometimes it got mean too, and overflowed and drowned out the crops and swallowed up men and their boats. Instead of giving rain to water the earth, the clouds held every drop so tight, not one can leak out. Sometimes they get cross and send down hail that breaks everything, and lightning to strike trees and houses and kill men and beasts.
In the old days, all the people trusted to magic to rule the river and clouds and seasons as well as their tools and each other, but times have changed. Only Daddy Cudjoe, of all the old people left, knew any of the old secret ways. But he knew them well. He could fix July too.
Mary admitted she had thought of going to Daddy Cudjoe, but she wondered if he could help her now since Cinder had him conjured. Maum Hannah declared that every ailment on earth has its cure and sometimes the simplest things, such as river mud, or the scale of a fish, or the eye of a snake, or the skin of a frog, even a hair or a toenail can work wonders. Daddy had always been kind to the most useless things and befriended them. In return they worked for him. They told him where lost things were, what the past was, what things were to come; they trusted him, and taught him all their own wisdom.
He could fix Mary something that would not only keep July safe from Cinder and all other women, but would bind him to her forever. It would pay her to go and see the old man and tell him about her troubles.
If she had stayed a good Christian girl, as she started out to be, then God might have listened to her prayers. But she sinned. She was a fallen member. She would have to depend on magic now, the only power that will work as well for a sinner as it does for a Christian.
When Daddy Cudjoe did give her a charm, she must be mighty careful with it. Charms are strong things. Sometimes they miss and start up troubles of their own that are worse than the ones they are meant to cure.
Daddy Cudjoe made a bad mistake one time himself, when he fixed some kind of a root medicine to help his shortness of breath. Lord! That was a funny thing! Maum Hannah laughed so she could hardly tell how the old man came to her house late in the night one cold night last winter and tapped softly on the door. She jumped up quickly for she thought some poor sick somebody had sent for her. But there stood old Daddy Cudjoe, shivering with cold but with his eyes hot and shining. He began whispering to her so easy she could hardly make out what he said. He wanted to come in and spend the night with her. Think of that! Poor Daddy Cudjoe, already so old he could hardly walk, and all upset by a root tea he had made for
