The Healing Read Free

her hand on the girl’s face. “And God only knows what tale she’s going to tell on me.”
    Violet’s skin burned to the touch. She stammered more syllables, fervent but jumbled, and then shook off the old woman’s hand with a fierce toss of her head.
    Gran Gran smiled grimly. “But that’s all right, little girl. I lost my momma, too. Don’t remember it to this day. And all they gave me was bits and pieces, here and there. But I done the best I could. Sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to get the story right. I’m still working on it.” She laughed. “Some memories don’t come store-bought and readymade.”
    Gran Gran stood and walked over to the window. “They told me I wasn’t born in this house. I was born over there across the yard in Shinetown. Course it wasn’t called that then. Back then it was called the slave quarters.” Her sigh was heavy, as if weighted by a century of memory. “That’s what they told me anyway. When you quilting up a life, you sometimes got to start with any piece you can get your hands on.”
    As she spoke, the sleeping girl calmed a bit, as if the words themselves were smoothing out the rough weather inside.
    Gran Gran walked over to her. “That what you telling me, Violet? You need to be talked to for a while? Now, if that’s the case, I can sure do that. I can always give you a heavy dose of words.”
    The old woman sat back in her chair and laced her fingers in her lap. “What was I saying?”
    After a moment she remembered.
    “They tell me my momma’s name was Ella,” she began.

CHAPTER 2

    1847
    E lla was awake when she heard the first timid knock at the cabin door. Her husband, who lay beside her on the corn-shuck mattress, snored undisturbed. She kept still as well, not wanting to wake the newborn that slept in the crook of her arm. The baby had cried most of the night and had only just settled into a fitful sleep. Ella couldn’t blame the girl for being miserable. The room was intolerably hot.
    Like everybody else in the quarter, Ella believed the cholera was carried by foul nocturnal vapors arising from the surrounding swamp, so she and Thomas kept their shutters and doors closed tight against the night air, doing their best to protect their daughter from the killing disease that had already taken so many.
    The rapping on the door became more insistent. Ella pushed against Thomas with her foot. On the second shove he awoke with a snort.
    “Thomas! See to the door,” she whispered, “and mind Yewande.”
    Wearing only a pair of cotton trousers, Thomas eased himself from the bed and crossed the room. He lifted the bar and pulled open the door, but his broad, muscled back blocked the visitors’ faces. From the flickering glare cast around her husband, Ella could tell one of the callers held a lantern.
    “Thomas,” came the familiar voice, “get Ella up.”
    Ella started at the words. It was Sylvie, the master’s cook. The woman lived all the way up at the mansion and would have no good reason to be out this time of night unless it was something bad.
    “Now?” Thomas whispered. “She’s sleeping.”
    “She needs to carry her baby up to the master’s house,” Sylvie said. “Ella got to make haste on it. Mistress Amanda is waiting on her.”
    “What she wanting with my woman and child in the dead of night?” Ella heard the alarm rising in her husband’s voice.
    “Thomas, you know it ain’t neither night nor day for Mistress Amanda. She ain’t slept a wink since the funeral. And she’s grieving particular bad tonight. Her medicine don’t calm her down no more. She ain’t in no mood to be trifled with.”
    “Old Silas,” Thomas pled to another unseen caller, “you tell the mistress that Ella will come by tomorrow, early in the morning.” Then he dropped his voice to a hush. “You know the mistress ain’t right in her head.”
    Old Silas had more pull than anybody with the master, but from the lack of response, Ella imagined Silas’s