Virginia Hamilton (12 page)

Dorian let out a sharp cry, and drew back in fear.

“Shhh!” the Sensitive cautioned him.

A furious red cloud danced over the miniature desert. Easily, Justice had made it a tiny cyclone, using no more energy than it took an eyelash to twitch. When told to tear the red apart, she could do it and add her own creation of the dance as well. Justice sensed her power to live in each particle and that each lived in her.

The red cyclone was following her thoughts, but it did not stop its swirl.

Then, suddenly, Justice commanded it merely by thinking:
Quit your dance.

The cyclone hung still above the sand. Justice could see each of its red sand dots that made circles—so tiny and glowing. Each had obeyed her command and was at ease, waiting.

“You did that on your own?” spoke the Sensitive, her voice full of wonder.

“I did it,” Justice said. She swallowed several times, for her mouth had gone dry.

“Can you do other things with it, on your own?”

“Yes. I can,” Justice said.

“Can you move the blue cone while holding the red cyclone still?” whispered the Sensitive. The kitchen was still, utterly, as Justice thought.

She needed only to remind herself of the blue butte for it to become alert to her as the other cones had.

“I can move it,” she said, and moved the blue over the sand toward the rigid red cyclone. “Now I can do with them without even looking at them.”

She closed her eyes, lifting the blue cone with just her thought. She whirled a ring of the red cyclone and she held the yellow peak at bay. She poured blue sand over the red cyclone until the single moving ring grew heavy and fell to the ground.

“I didn’t tell you to do any of this,” said the Sensitive.

Justice opened her eyes, staring at the sand. “You’re thinking I’m changed,” she said.

“Yes,” said the Sensitive cautiously.

“I am still changing,” Justice said.

“I think you must be pulling together inside,” said the Sensitive.

“I don’t want any of this,” Justice told her.

“It’s not to be your choice,” said the Sensitive.

“I want it to go away.”

“It won’t. You will have to live with it, and we have to prepare you,” said the Sensitive. “There’s no other way.”

“But where does it come from? What
is
it?” Justice asked, in anguish. As she spoke, a part of her kept the sands in place and was quick to strengthen them if they seemed to falter. It was this part of her that spread sadness out over the miniature sands.

“We don’t know the answer to that,” the Sensitive was saying, “and we may never know.”

“Mrs. Jefferson, I’m tired, I want to go home,” Justice said.

“Soon,” said the Sensitive.

Justice felt relieved. She removed the blue sand from the red and poured it back into the shape of a blue butte. She moved it to the far side of the pan, where it belonged, and put back the rigid red cyclone in its own form and place.

An unspoken moment in which the Sensitive entered Justice’s thoughts and there read the trouble with Thomas. She let Justice know she had been there.

“So what about him, then?” Justice asked her.

“I’ll take care of him, that’s not hard,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “You’ll remember none of this, as always. Oh, and it’s a great power you’ve shown here today! And now you have the will to protect yourself and the Number Two Child.”

“Levi,” said Justice. “I will protect him.”

“Yes, you will watch out for him for his own protection. And when it’s time,” said the Sensitive, “you’ll remember everything. You’ll know what to do.”

“I want to go home,” Justice said. “I want my mom.” But she made no move to leave.

“Course you do, baby.” Mrs. Jefferson was her own self again, completely. A woman, somewhat odd, who lived her life down the field from Justice.

Still seated at Justice’s side was Dorian, like a ragamuffin child, always full of nerves. Yet, inside this house, no matter how much Justice’s extraordinary power might frighten him, he was her friend, and faithful to his mother.

Justice felt as if she were coming in from a place beyond herself. She watched Mrs. Jefferson take a large bowl of fruit salad from the refrigerator and mix in whipped cream from a smaller bowl. Next, Mrs. Jefferson spooned the fruit mixture into separate bowls, serving them to Justice, Dorian and herself. Once again, the three of them sat together at the table, this time eating delicious fruit.

“Uuum! I like the taste so much,” Justice said. By the time she had finished, she was herself again. Looking all around, seeing the kitchen as if for the first time. The last thing she remembered clearly was getting up from the couch with Dorian. She suddenly felt confused. In alarm, Dorian turned from her to his mother.

Leona was quick to sense Justice’s uneasiness and entered Justice’s mind without her knowing, as was her Sensitive’s ability. She wiped away partial memories of power and gave Justice a sense of peaceful quiet. She wove through Justice’s memory a calm conversation at the table. Justice would believe they had talked over her problems and that there was now nothing to worry about.

Leona was feeling confident. She had been summoned to live in this community. Her unceasing ability to weave her will through the mystery of time and space had uncovered power here. Eagerly, she had come to live here, only to discover surprisingly less power, full of petty anger and cruelty. Yet it had been power all the same, and it belonged to the Number One Child called Thomas. And she sensed there was true power somewhere deeply submerged. She had waited, scanned and searched. Finally, she had uncovered it, the source for good. Just today, she had been able to help Justice become a rock without frightening her unduly. Here in this room she had taught the child a valuable lesson in directing power and conserving its energy.

Leona allowed Justice to sense the interval that had passed, the length of a good visit.

“What time is it?” Justice asked abruptly.

“Oh, about quarter past two,” Mrs. Jefferson told her.

“I gotta be going,” Justice said. “My mom’ll be coming home.”

“Glad you came by,” said Mrs. Jefferson. “I missed you this week, what with y’all preparing for a snake race.”

“How’d you know about that!” Justice could hardly speak, she was so shocked. And turned an accusing look on Dorian.

He fidgeted nervously, staring from her to his mother.

“You think nobody can hear the Number One Child with his drums in the field?” Leona said. “He can yell loud enough for the whole town to hear him. But I don’t guess else folks take the time. I happen to get a kick out of spying.”

“Well,” Justice said, “you won’t tell on us, will you?”

“Not much to tell, even if I cared to,” Leona said. “Y’all chil’ren have to dare the jeopardy.” She smiled primly.

Such a queer sort of parent Mrs. Jefferson was, Justice couldn’t help thinking. It was funny how sometimes she spoke with a Southern accent and other times—Justice couldn’t recall exactly how she did sound at other times.

Different, though, she thought, and eased herself up from the table. Dorian and his mother stared at her as she turned and headed for the front door.

“Bye,” she called back to them.

Through the room of plants, so green. Painstakingly, Dorian had taught her what all of the green things were called. She still remembered them now. And seeing the plants quieted her completely. As if they were calling her, paying their respects with their runners:

You may sit here awhile. Rest, hide here as long as you want.

Ever so slightly, Justice shook her head at them, pressing in on her on all sides. She didn’t want to stare at them, nor look in the mirror, where she was sure to see her own portrait.

She looked, she couldn’t help herself. Standing in the mirror was a hungry child whose mouth had gone dry. Seconds passed before she realized she stared at her own reflection, it looked so like someone familiar, but older.

“Good-bye,” she said to the reflection, and turned away.

Justice slammed out of the house into sudden, glaring heat and high wind out of nowhere. For a moment, she thought it was raining in the sunlight. But what was hitting her face and bare arms were fine particles, much like sand.

“This stuff’ll get all in my hair,” she told herself. She ran for the open field and home. And never once felt the need to protect herself in the safety of the hedgerow.

S
HE WAS INSIDE THE
house without knowing how she had got there, or what she had thought about on the way. Her mom always did say that, at any time, anyone of her family could get an attack of the “vagues” and not know where they were going or coming from. Justice guessed that was her problem. And she had no recollection that she feared Thomas; but, rather, there was a shape of a suggestion that she respected him and his talent for drumming. It was a different feeling from the shimmering warmth she would always feel for Levi. She had erected a barrier between herself and Thomas which surrounded her like a wall. She would be able to see over it. Thomas might see her looking, but he wouldn’t be able to come closer to her than the barrier.

She found Thomas behind his drums in the parlor. Heat lay trapped on dust streaks of sunbeams. The room was bathed, in stark light where the only suggestion of shadow was in the form of the drummer. He beat the snare and the floor tom-tom with his brushes. Every once in a while, he used a key on a long chain to skim the edge of his cymbals. This made a mysterious, hissing sound, like a spray, a flash, of tiny bells.

Thomas’ head bowed low over the drums. Barefooted, he wore jeans and was bare to the waist, working up a sweat. His eyes were dark and liquid bright, regarding her.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly, heading for her room. But she couldn’t help stopping in front of him to watch and listen. “I always did like that sweet sound of them brushes,” she told him. Smiling, showing teeth, she fairly disarmed him.

“Where you been all this time?” he asked, only half grudgingly.

“All over. I been everywhere running around,” she said. She lied without bothering herself about it. It was what had to be done from behind the barrier between them.

Standing close at his elbow, she stared at the drums and cymbals as his brushes made them whisper. The combination of instruments sounded—Swee su-swee/Swee su-swee/su-su—over and over. Gradually, Thomas altered the rhythm to a jaunty beat. Justice soon noticed its sly amusement.

“How’d you ever do something like that?” she said. She laughed, delighted.

“I have to finish up my practice now,” he said. Thomas seemed almost shy with her. His expression was guarded, but it was not unkind.

“Where’s Levi?” she asked suddenly. Not waiting for him to reply, she turned and bounded away toward the kitchen.

No one there, just a clean, neat space, with cupboards closed, chairs pulled in at the table and all dishes put away. The radio on the counter mumbled low. She went over, flicking the dial around. Justice didn’t bother turning up the sound. By listening closely—it was like fine-tuning her hearing—she could make sense out of the mumbling. She heard music, then switched to a soothing voice on local FM. But rather than stand there, she decided she’d be more comfortable in her room. So she cradled the small pink radio against her and worked the plug loose. “There.” And brushed crumbs of toast from the top of the radio. Evidently, Levi had missed wiping them away. She stood there, undecided about something. Her thinking was all scattered, waiting for her mom to come home, waiting for the day to turn around and be over. Why was she waiting the day through, with nothing more than that on her mind?

Who’d buy such a pink radio? was what broke through random thoughts and a distinct echo in her head of the soothing radio voice before she had pulled the plug on it.

She knew no one in the house would buy a thing like that. One day, her dad had to have brought it home from work. He was always bringing home things from small jobs when folks couldn’t find the money to pay him. From some broken-down little house somewhere, with fanciful carved eaves that had to be repaired.

Her dad carved wood as good as he sized and chipped stone. But he never liked woodworking. He took such jobs in wood only when big stone jobs were scarce.

So he did the job, Justice decided, and he gave it more of his time than he should have. Because he liked doing any repair work to perfection.

And after the first day, knowing that folks couldn’t afford to pay for the care he’d taken. So he did it right anyhow.

And they pay him with what they have which is worth something to them.

“This funny little pink radio,” she told herself. “It would be nice if we could trade things back and forth when we needed things. And not use money at all. Why in the world am I taking this radio to my room?”

Justice felt as if she had muddy water on the brain. Something was almost thick up there. Oozing around, she couldn’t see through it. She had trouble remembering what she was doing.

Guess I’m excited over the snake race—

She sucked in her breath.

The snake race!

Clutching the radio tightly: How could you forget something like that? What’s wrong with me today?

Where’d I put my knapsack for the snake!

“Levi!” Justice yelled at the top of her lungs and headed out of the kitchen.

No response from Levi. But she knew he had to be around. He was forever around the house.

Bet he has his earphones on, she thought.

When Levi listened to symphony, his earphones shut out Thomas’ drumming and Justice, too.

Well, who cares? I can find the knapsack myself.

Thomas no longer drummed in the parlor. She wasn’t surprised he’d left. And something else.

The plants are gone—are they? I seem to remember a lot of green all over.

There was an intense imprint of Thomas surrounding his drums. She sensed this on the stifling light of the room. She stood stock still, sensing a rust color glowing to a heated red on the cymbal brushes. Exposed rust color commenced to fade where Thomas had touched things all around the room.