Chapter 8: Little Bird
Crow's Nest.
The path transitioned from umber-hued terra forma into green-yellow catgrass. The land divided itself in twain, one side a line of thatched roof houses and one side a large radius of communal farmland.
A woman opened the door, healed scars patchworking her dark brown skin. A leather belt covered in large gold rings cinched the waistline of her blue cotton overskirt and long brown pants. Pieces of blue, yellow, and pink silk fanned the sleeves of her tan-colored shirt like plumage. She resembled an oak tree, all broad shoulders and calves, a tethered bundle of cornrows tied into the back of her head. She could have picked Sadie Crane up and carried them over her shoulder no problem. A black flannel conjure bag hung from around her throat.
"You could have written first," was the first thing she said.
Viola grabbed the back of Sadie Crane's jacket, silently begging them to please please be nice. De'afi tried to peer around the bird woman and look inside. They were never close with Sadie Crane's family, not like Sybil was. Life before remained partially obscured. They remembered only snippets. Cold nights sitting around the radio and laughing over dinners with Adel. Black Sparrow offering ginger root tea, strawberry soup, orange juice, and smoked salmon to ease Viola's menstrual distress. White Doe salving De'afi's bug bites. She Follows teaching them to weave baskets.
Sadie Crane stuck their chin out defiantly. Back when they were a kid, they used to disappear for days or weeks. Their guardians said if they didn't want to come home, they didn't have to. But they shouldn't expect a warm greeting, only a hot meal.
"You wanna kick me out, do that," they replied angrily.
White Doe lifted her eyebrows, far from surprised. They were descended from revolutionaries and freedom fighters after all. Rebellion was in their nature.
"I thought you were dead, little bird," she said. "Thought you'd, you'd gone off and got yourself killed. Like everybody said you would."
Her voice broke, tears welling up in her eyes. The last time they spoke to each other was at the train station, then nothing for six going on seven years.
Sadie Crane opened their mouth, prepared to speak the words that had long held vigil on their tongue. But, with a look at De'afi and then Viola, they stopped themself. It wasn't the time. It was never the time actually, if they were being honest with themself. They were here for information, not to fight with their mother again. What was the point of that? Other than it felt good.
"I'm sorry," they said. "Happy now? Or do you want me to get down on my knees and kiss your shoes?"
White Doe laughed through her tears.
"Write to us next time, you little shit," she said.
It was an order, not a question.
They stuck their chin out.
"Yes, Mama," they replied.
White Doe cast her eyes at De'afi and Viola, then moved aside to let them in.
"You'd better get in here before you get mauled or something," she said.
In one corner of the living room, a woman filled up the rocking chair. Her skin light brown, patches of darker on her face and hands. Pale blue yolks floated in the whites of her eyes like gas fires. Her long nightgown, a gargantuan quilt of reds and yellows and pinks, held fast over her chest and hips. The woman's hair was tucked under a vivacious orange sleeping bonnet, but Viola remembered reddish-brown long braids.
Sadie Crane's mouth worked, first without meaning then without hesitation.
"Black Sparrow?" they said.
The woman nodded her head. If it wasn't for those pale blue eyes, nobody would have guessed she was blind. And if it hadn't been for the roundness of her chin, nobody would have guessed she was Sadie Crane's auntie. As far as looks were concerned, she took after her long ago deceased grandfather on Papa Asan's side of the family.
"I figured we'd be seeing you again," Black Sparrow smiled. "De'afi? And...?"
"Viola M'et-Sepirot-Keita," she introduced herself. "Leastways for now."
A small wood stove exhaled into the tiny half-naked living space, heating overalls and shirts hung on limp drying line. The old bruised wood tables Papa Adel made were still in the living room. And a couple chairs dappled in books, newspapers, magazines, and journals.
White Doe navigated to one of the least cluttered chairs. She swept off books and newspapers, disturbing piles to make room. The four kept an immaculate living space under ordinary circumstances, but events as of late had been everything but.
"She Follows is up at the university," she explained. "Off trans--transci--transcribing old cassette tapes or whatever it is the folks at the university do."
"Besides getting on my last nerve with all their now if you just read this book hokey-pokey?" Black Sparrow said. "Like I don't know my own history! Like I haven't been a weaver all my life! I know how the world works, thank you very much."
"Where's Papa Adel?" they asked.
"Taking care of our neighbor's little one," Black Sparrow answered. "Name of Big Tree. Was all by himself, if you can believe it. Had a sick child not even four years old, sweetest thing you ever saw. Then folks start up and disappearing. Neighbor comes by one night when he's not home, gets up under the floorboards and there's three folks down there, been dead a couple weeks and smelling like you wouldn't believe."
"He killed them?" De'afi asked.
"What we all think anyway," she replied. "What we got now, it's, it's damning. Said we were gonna give him a chance to explain himself, then he up and vanished. Just didn't come home again. Left his sick child, name of Runner, behind. Adel's been taking care of them best he can. They got a search party out looking for Big Tree."
"Shit," Sadie Crane said. "That's, wow. Hell. I'm glad Papa Adel's helping at least."
"Sweet man," White Doe said fondly.
He'd always been like that, at least since she knew him. Altruistic, nurturing, and many more things besides. He was far more adept at child-rearing than she was.
The three sat down at the table.
"You been well?" Viola asked. "Besides all, um, that?"
White Doe threw her head and laughed.
"No, we not been well," she replied, amused. "Do you even know what's going on out there? Red walkers. Spirits. Ghosts. Livestock up and dead. What hasn't been going on?"
"You got red walkers up here?" ze said.
Ze'd never seen one before, only heard stories.
"Near enough," replied Black Sparrow. "It's why we put the lights out now, like that's gonna make a difference."
White Doe moved towards the kitchen.
"You want something to drink?" she asked. "Something strong? You look like you need it."
"Tea's fine," Viola said quickly.
"You got beer?" asked De'afi.
"We got spirits," Sadie Crane's mama replied.
White Doe made tea and cut slices of raisin bread. She drew pecan-colored spirits into a clay mug.
Black Sparrow leaned back in her rocking chair. She seemed to know why they'd come.
"You looking for your other auntie, that right?" Black Sparrow said abruptly.
White Doe put the tea and spirits down on the table, flinging a look at her sister. Her eyes blazed.
"No," she said firmly.
"They need to know," her sister countered. "Why do you think they came here? To not get answers?"
The hunter shook her head, her lips drawing into the boundaries. She'd avoided talking about family matters for almost thirty years.
Viola concentrated on her raisin bread, memorizing how it tasted. Her eyes, closed tight as a rubberband, saw nothing but midnight.
De'afi sat across from hir, revising hir blueprints but listening with intent.
Black Sparrow tightened her ink-stained hands, hands of weaver and storyteller. Mama Rai-Ari told the most beautiful stories, each like a soft eyelash blessing. She'd lived up to her mamas in that way. She could only speak of what she knew, places she'd never been and would never go, what was likely to come. Her voice, low as it was, nevertheless cutting the room asunder.
"Her name is Bear," their auntie began. "Well, we called her a lot of things. But she took a name for herself and that was Bear. Cuz of that story our papa went and told us. The one about the doe, the sparrow, and the bear. Lived in this big house, had everything they could ever ask for. Then one day the bear goes I've had enough. Then it just up and eats them, the sparrow and doe both. Just like that."
She rocked back and forth a little in her chair, letting that hang.
"Our father, now, he was an asshole," she went on. "He thought seers were bad luck for the crops, thought we were all gonna starve half to death if we let one in our house. So when Bear told him what she could do, what she could see, he got angry. Now I had never seen him like that before. Carrying on like he'd lost his damn mind."
She laughed forcefully, remembering. It was the first time she cried all night and nobody came to check up on her. White Doe remained curled up at the front door, waiting for her sister to come back. Papa Asan spat on his fingers and rubbed it into the door frame, an old tradition from back in the day to ward off bad spirits.
"Now me, I always hated Papa Asan," she said. "I would have left if I could. But I was a coward."
"She was a fool," White Doe cut in gruffly. "She was only thirteen, gods help her. She could have made up with our father. We could have stuck together."
She was only five years old when Mama Skybird passed away, only eleven when Mama Rai-Ari died of blood sickness. Papa Asan and White Doe nurtured a shared resentment of the youngest child--she had, after all, killed Mama Skybird on her way into the world.
Decades later and she was still unlearning the bitterness her father passed onto her. Bear was no more to blame for Mama Skybird's death than a tree was to blame for where its roots chose to grow.
"But she didn't want to," her sister said patiently. "And can you blame her for that? You always had to make sure Papa never got mad at us. You always said you were sorry, always let him yell at you and about us. You couldn't stand that house. None of us could. I wish you wouldn't lie to yourself."
A shocked expression appeared on White Doe's face. Her sister had never spoken to her like that, not once in the years they'd known each other. She'd taken that for granted, her sister's meek demeanor towards her. They didn't talk a lot after Papa Asan died. His heart, what was left of it anyway, just stopped, leaving his oldest daughter of a mere twenty-one years and his middle daughter of eighteen. And what did the oldest do? She took her sister and left, trying to forget about Bear, Papa Asan, all the people she'd let down or abandoned.
"And now you're gonna sit in that chair and act like he was a monster?" she fired back. "He was our father, for gods' sake. He wasn't perfect. Nobody is. That doesn't give you the right--"
"I've got as much right to how I feel as you do," Black Sparrow cut in.
White Doe didn't say anything back, probably because she knew her sister was right.
Her fingers trembling, she lifted a heap of letters off the living room table. She tried. She tried, best she was able, to be a good sister. To be a good child. To be good. Second place always. Vying for the attention of a father who tolerated her existence. Until he kicked Bear out of the house, elevating her to the coveted status of Best Child by process of elimination. The child who could hunt. The child who never complained.
Once a year for the last five, they got a letter. The letters came from all over. Ladezi, Turaq, even Mati. White Doe allowed herself a moment of relief, knowing both her sisters were alive and well.
"You okay, Mama?" Sadie Crane asked.
A smile broke out on her lips. She gave over the stack of letters, her fingers lingering for just a second longer than was necessary. It was foolish to cling, she informed herself. There were better uses for her time.
"No, little bird," White Doe replied. "But I'm glad."
She exhaled slowly, letting go. She still wore the old conjure bag Black Sparrow made for her, despite her father's protests. He said it was all a bunch of mumbo and she was better off not engaging. But she wore it all the same.
She'd never asked what was in the conjure bag. Because deep down, she knew. A few locks of Mama Skybird's hair. Dirt from the city in which Rai-Ari, named for the ark where she was birthed, spent her formative years. White Doe's baby teeth. Black salt. Silver coins.