ONE
Savannah, Georgia—July 1954
May sat at her kitchen table, unmoving, her cup of chicory long since cooled.
Lately, May had been dreaming of days long since past, days that, this morning, seemed strangely closer and more real than the world around her. Some of the dreams were about cleaning the house of her first employer, and though she was sitting at her own table now, she felt certain that if she closed her eyes, she would see every nook and cranny of a house that she hadn’t set foot in going on sixty years.
May had begun working as the Farleys’ maid just after her thirteenth birthday. Right from the get-go, the lady of the house, known by one and all as “Miss Rose” despite being married to Mr. Andrew Farley, struck May as an anxious, nervous child, even though Miss Rose was a good ten or fifteen years older than May herself.
“Mr. Farley likes an orderly kitchen,” Miss Rose said, opening the pantry door and stepping just over the threshold. “He likes to see all labels facing forward, and they should be in alphabetical order.” She paused and gave May a nervous glance. “You do know how to read, don’t you, dear? You understand what alphabetical order means?”
“Yes, ma’am,” May nodded. She was so young. She still cared about making a good impression on this weak and spineless woman.
Miss Rose led her past her husband’s study. “If the door is closed, you may not enter.” She wagged her finger in May’s face. “Mr. Farley likes a clean, orderly space, and you will be expected to keep his office in good order, but”—she stopped and set a grave expression on her face to underline the seriousness of the knowledge she was about to impart—“you must never touch the papers on Mr. Farley’s desk.” And May never did.
May got on fine at the Farleys’, right up until Miss Rose died during labor. When Mr. Farley married again soon after, his new wife brought servants with her from her family home in Augusta. Though she felt at ease with the servants she’d grown up amongst, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of an unfamiliar colored poking around in her private belongings. It was nothing personal, the new Mrs. Farley wanted May to understand, but she had such pretty things, and well, an ounce of prevention and all that. It was really in May’s best interest to seek out alternative employment.
And so May did. She found work cleaning house for old Mr. Whitcomb, with his shock of snow-white hair, and his spotted hands that would run over a body, if that body didn’t move quickly enough away. He lived all alone, his wife gone and his children distant, emotionally if not physically, in a grand house on Calhoun Square.
At their first meeting, the old man had presented her with a box, wrapped with brown paper and string. “Take it home with you. Keep it there, but don’t open it until I tell you that you may. Don’t go opening this until it’s time, or things won’t go well for you,” he warned, a gleam in his eye telling her that in fact he would like nothing better than for her to go poking around in his squalid business, and he believed her incapable of leaving well enough alone. Only a wealthy white man like him, a man who had never felt powerless or threatened, would think that way.
He couldn’t imagine finding himself in a position where folk could treat you however they wanted, saying or doing anything and feeling more than justified, making up lies for themselves so they could paint you as the threat and themselves the innocent, the defenders of good. He couldn’t fathom the possibility of ever finding himself incapable of even saying a word in his own defense, just having to take it from those who are waiting with angry, jealous hearts for you to step out of line so they have an excuse to beat you down. But May didn’t have to imagine it; she’d lived her life there.
No, leaving things unsaid, undone, this was how May survived back in those days. Averting her eyes, turning a deaf ear, hiding any tone of hurt or defiance. The buckra told you to leave something alone, you damn well left it be. The old fellow gave up the ghost about a year after she began working for him. The next day she returned the package, still as tightly wrapped as the day she’d taken possession of it, to his house.
She met and married Reuben around that time, and she spent nearly two decades taking care of him, eventually giving birth to her sweet Jesse.
Jesse who’d died twenty years ago today.
She could hear Binah’s bell-like laughter streaming in through the open window. She knew the girls were out there tending the garden, pulling weeds. She could hear their voices, snatches of their conversation, carrying into the kitchen. They were discussing names for Jilo’s baby. Binah had her opinions, but Jilo would only entertain girl names. Seems that if it were a boy, she planned to name him after two of her heroes: Jackie Robinson and her “father,” Jesse Wills.
Funny how May’s heart had claimed both of these girls as her natural granddaughters, given that neither of them truly belonged to her boy. Of course, Jesse himself had claimed Jilo, but would he have found it in his heart to claim the younger one? Binah was a rare beauty, no denying that, though her beauty was not of the kind many folk around here would appreciate, at least not openly.
Binah had gotten her features, and her sweet voice, from her mama. Would that be enough to bend Jesse’s heart to the girl? But that red-tinted hair—auburn, folk called it—and those bright blues eyes of hers, those came from a father who’d probably never even bothered to set eyes on her. Would Jesse have found enough love in his heart to take the girl on as his own? May would like to think so, but Jesse was still a man, after all, and a man’s pride could prove a fearsome barrier. Didn’t really matter though. Her Jesse was gone, and May had fallen completely in love with yet another of Betty’s cast-off children. Didn’t matter whose blood ran through either of those girls’ veins. They both belonged to May now.
May heard another voice. Still high, but breaking every so often as it began to slide down into the speaker’s chest. Binah’s friend, that young boy Willy, was out there, probably helping them with the watering. Despite the delicate way he carried himself, he was good at hauling the heavy bucket from the spigot to the garden. Seemed he was always underfoot, but May didn’t have the heart to chase him away. Binah had been born straddling two worlds, marked as she was by her parents’ different traits. May figured it was her granddaughter’s firsthand knowledge of what it was like to be not quite the one and not quite the other that drew her to Willy. Some might protest having the kid shadow their girl at every turn, but May had seen this gentle, delicate kind of boy before. Binah, and her honor, were safe as could be in his presence. The world didn’t cotton to boys like him, and soon he was gonna have to learn how to hide his softness or have it beaten out of him. But that day didn’t have to be today, and that beating certainly wasn’t gonna happen here.
May rose and emptied her cup, then rinsed it and set it on the counter. She gripped the porcelain lip of the kitchen sink and leaned forward.
“Your nana,” she called out to the girls, “she’s gonna go lie down for a spell.”
Jilo’s head shot up at her words. “You feeling okay, Nana?”
May knew she was fading, and she knew Jilo could see it. “Fine. I’m fine,” May said, surprised by the annoyance she heard in her own voice. “I’m just old and worn out.” She forced herself to smile. “Don’t you worry about your nana. She just needs a little rest.” May wondered what was going to become of these children once she was gone, though rightly, neither one could be called a child anymore. Jilo was full-grown, with a baby of her own coming, and Binah was fourteen, not really that much younger than May herself had been when she married.
Jilo nodded, but said, “I’ll come check in on you shortly.”
May felt another flush of irritation, but refused to let herself show it. “All right.”
Backing away from the window, she headed down the hall to the room that once again served as her bedroom. Instead of meeting customers in the house, she now held audience with them in the old cemetery in the center of town, where any and all could see. Cut down on the folk who weren’t serious enough about their troubles to need her help. Before, when she let people sneak into her house, she found most of the problems she addressed could’ve rightly been handled with a little more common sense and a little less laziness. The folk who were desperate enough to set aside their fear and pride and walk right into Colonial Cemetery, they were more likely to have problems that merited her help, and the courage to face whatever solution her magic would provide.
Of course, she made a lot less money that way. She’d questioned more than once if she should open up her home once again, especially now that Jilo was home and expecting. But in truth she no longer had the energy for the midnight knocks at the door. No, best to keep business and home separate. Still, May wished she’d managed to set more aside, but she’d paid for Jilo’s and Opal’s schooling, hoping they’d manage to take care of themselves afterward. Although Opal had done well in school, she no longer worked as a nurse. She’d married Nate, her soldier, years ago, and the two of them had three children of their own now. Children May had never laid eyes on in person. Nate had stayed on in the service, and Opal always said she couldn’t visit because they were stationed in places like Japan and Germany. But May didn’t believe it. She knew it was the magic that kept her eldest grandbaby away as sure as it did sweet Poppy.
May had wanted to cut all ties with magic that winter day Poppy had taken off for Charlotte, swearing on the Lord’s holy name never to set foot there again. But life hadn’t left her much of a choice. Maguire had long ago seen to it that she’d never find another respectable job again. Besides, even though she wished it were otherwise, she knew she’d grown too frail to do the hard physical work she’d once done at the Pinnacle. It struck her that the hotel was no longer there, anyway. Destroyed by fire caused by faulty wiring, they said, though May had her doubts. She’d seen something else in the paper, too—Sterling Maguire had welcomed his third son into the world. If May failed, as her mama, too, had failed, to take Maguire out, the old man would probably find a way to continue jumping from body to body to continue poisoning the world centuries after May had been forgotten. May knew that any attack against Maguire would most likely culminate in her own death. That’s why she’d put it off as long as she had. But she was running out of time. She’d sure like to help see Jilo’s baby into the world first, but maybe it’d be better to make sure that babe could be born into a world without Maguire.
She entered her bedroom, trying not to see the haint blue that still dominated there, floor to ceiling. A part of her would love nothing better than to do away with it, paint it over with good white lead paint. Leave nothing but plain white walls to shelter her, a plain white ceiling to shield her from the heavens. No magic, just a fresh start. She could have the floor sanded down to the grain, or maybe have it ripped out and replaced with new strips of oak. But the haint blue still served its purpose. Forces, not quite so friendly, still wandered nearby, attracted by the power they sensed residing in this house. If anything, she should give it a fresh coat, as well as the outside of the house, the overhang of the porch, and the shutters and doors.
She kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed, staring at the door to her closet, almost expecting it to open and reveal the Beekeeper’s grand chamber. But it didn’t, and she very nearly regretted that. The magic had left May so alone in the world, exploiting it for those who feared her, trying to shield those she loved from it. The Beekeeper was the source of this divisive magic, but devil or no, at least with the Beekeeper, May had someone who could accept her exactly as she was.
She well remembered the night she’d ordered the creature away from her home, but the truth was, May had never really expected the creature to honor her wishes. Even today, she kept a bottle of the spirits in the pantry, just on the odd chance the Beekeeper might return.
But it had been years now. The war had come and gone since her last visit from the Beekeeper herself, though the cry of a rooster at odd hours seemed an assurance that, even unseen, the Beekeeper was still keeping an eye on things. Her magic had never deserted May. If anything, it had grown stronger, and might be, it struck May, the only thing that was keeping her going.
Her heart jumped as she heard a door creak open, but it settled when she realized it wasn’t the door to her lost friend’s world, just her granddaughter checking in on her.
Jilo poked her head in. “You’re awake now?”
“Of course, I haven’t even lied down yet.”
Jilo’s brow lowered, and she turned her head a touch to the side. “You just been sitting here staring at the wall all this time?”
“What do you mean ‘all this time’? Can’t a body have a minute to collect her thoughts?”
Jilo smiled and came into the room. May noticed that she held something clutched against her bosom. “Of course, Nana. Just want to be sure you’re doing okay.”
The girl sounded worried. May stopped and studied Jilo’s face for a moment, registering the concern in the girl’s eyes. “How long have I been in here?”
“It’s a little over two hours now.”
May startled at Jilo’s words. “It’s all right, Nana. There’s nothing wrong with you,” Jilo said, rushing over to sit next to her on the bed, placing her free hand over May’s own cold one. “I know what today is,” Jilo said, and shifted so that May could see the old cigar box she’d brought in with her. “I know Daddy died twenty years ago today. And I know you’re hurting over it today even more than usual.” Jilo tilted the box up so its illustration caught the light streaming in through the window. “I was thinking about him, too, and I remembered this here old thing, so I went and dug it out. Don’t really know what it’s supposed to be. Some kind of good luck juju or something.” Jilo placed it on May’s lap. “Opal told me that your mama made it for Daddy, and he passed it on to her. When Opal left for California, she gave it to me.”
May lifted the box in both hands, surprised by its heft. She held it up to her ear and gave it a shake, then another, like it was a gift she was anxious to open.
“Don’t bother trying to open it,” Jilo said, placing her finger on the seam of the lid. The top didn’t so much as wiggle. “It’s cemented shut somehow. Tough enough to keep Opal, Poppy, and me from getting it open. Heck, I think even Binah had a go at it once. I guess your mama didn’t want the good juju to spill out.” Jilo tapped the face of the dark-skinned fellow above whose picture the name “John” had been written in large block letters. “Whatever’s in the box is supposed to keep you safe from that fellow. The Red King, I think Opal said Daddy called him.” The girl laughed. May had done a good job of convincing Jilo that the monsters weren’t real and all such charms were nonsense. “Opal told me Daddy said never to let you see it, ’cause you’d toss it out, but . . . it’s all I have of Daddy to share with you.”
As May stared at the box’s illustration, a sick feeling settled in her soul. The man’s top hat. The dandy red scarf.
May positioned her fingers along the seam of the lid. The top flipped open in an instant.
Jilo gasped. “How on earth did you do that?” She reached out for the box, but May pushed her away with a trembling hand. In spite of the box’s weight, it was empty inside, save for one shiny black feather from a rooster’s tail.
“I have been so blind,” May said. The chill that ran through her bones was so acute, she knew she’d never feel warm again. “They were in it together. The two of them. They tricked me.”
Jilo sprang to her feet, grasping May’s forearm and feeling, May realized, for her pulse. “Don’t you be silly, Nana. Daddy and your mama loved you. They’d never trick you.” May felt she should explain, but the door of her closet began creaking open, and a dark mist Jilo didn’t seem to notice came spilling out from the space.
The box fell from May’s grasp, and she pointed to the closet door, trying to form the words to warn Jilo, but they wouldn’t come. May watched paralyzed as the mist flooded the room, dampening the light. May’s lungs began to burn, and she couldn’t catch her breath. It came as no small relief that Jilo seemed unaffected—unaware, even. But, of course, the Beekeeper had finished with May. She hadn’t, May realized with a breaking heart, finished with Jilo.
May reached out and caught ahold of her granddaughter’s arm. She had to warn her. May had to explain so Jilo wouldn’t ever make the same mistake that she and her mother had made. But she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. And even if she could, would Jilo listen? Would Jilo even believe her, or would she assume May’s mind had gone soft? Jilo’s entire life, May had been lying to her. Wanting to free her girls of the temptations of magic, she had pretended to make her living off mundane tricks played on those with more cash than common sense.
In truth, the ruse was mostly for Jilo. The girl was just so clever. So curious. So full of her own power. An aptitude for magic that the Beekeeper herself hadn’t seemed to understand. She squeezed Jilo’s arm as tight as she could, willing her granddaughter to somehow understand.
“Nana,” Jilo said, then called out, “Binah!”
May could hear the anguish in Jilo’s voice. As Jilo’s image faded, May grasped that she herself had never been the one the Beekeeper wanted. It had been Jilo all along. May’s last wish was that she could do something, anything to protect the girl. Her last thought was the realization it was too late.