FOUR
In the closet of Jesse’s boyhood room, on the shelf, pushed all the way back against the wall, sat an old cigar box. Somehow Jesse knew it would still be there even though he hadn’t laid a hand on it—had made a point not to touch it—in twenty years. The box was decorated with a drawing of a man wearing a black top hat, a red kerchief, and matching red pants. His shirt, a long-sleeved white tunic of some kind, exposed a crescent of the man’s chest.
In his mind’s eye, Jesse could picture the box as clearly as he had the day he’d stowed it up there. In a place where it would be safe, and where it would in turn keep him safe.
Jesse’s mama hadn’t been entirely right in thinking Nana Tuesday hadn’t passed down any of her magic. Jesse had received this box, and its mystery contents, from his grandmother’s own hands. When he was a boy—just turned twelve, as he recalled—she’d called to him softly through his bedroom window one night, coaxing him out into the approaching twilight. Once he was outside, she held her finger up to his lips to signal that he shouldn’t talk, then led him away from the house and into the grove of oaks that separated the house from the very field where the dead child now lay.
“He may call himself John,” Nana Tuesday had said, pointing to the name inscribed above the picture, “but this is him all right. This here’s the Red King. He changes how folk see him, so ain’t no two folk ever agree on the shape of his face or the color of his skin, but you can always tell it’s him from his tall hat and the fancy way he dress himself. From his shine for tobacco and rum, and from his foul language. These are the ways he shows himself to us.” She placed the box in his hands. “I put somethin’ in here, somethin’ that will protect you from those who serve him, who worship”—she stressed the word—“him. You got to take this inside the house yourself. Nana can’t do it, else he’ll know she workin’ against him. And you can’t take it through the front door, either. That’ll undo the magic. You take it back with you the same way you came out, you understand?”
Though he didn’t rightly understand what that meant, he nodded and said, “Yes’m.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “Now you get back inside, ’fore your mama realize you out here.” He turned and took a few quick steps away. “Jesse,” his nana called out, causing him to turn back. “Don’t you tell your mama about this. You keep it to yo’self.”
“Yes’m,” he repeated.
She called out to him once more as he was turning away. “And don’t you ever try to open it. Nana sealed it for a reason. You keep that box shut and it’ll keep you safe. You open it, and it gonna let out somethin’ worse than what she trying to protect you from.” She paused and gave him a good hard look. “You gonna try to open it?”
“No ma’am,” he said.
“Good, then, you get on back inside.”
He had no sooner shimmied back through his window than he held the box to his ear and shook it. Though it sounded empty, the heft of it told him there was something inside. He tugged on the lid, but the edge wouldn’t even bend up. He set the box on his bed and fetched his prized pocketknife from his nightstand, intent on sticking the blade into the seam his nana had sealed with some kind of glue or wax. But as soon as he set the blade against the seal and pressed, he felt a whack against his fingers like he’d been caught in a mousetrap. A sharp pop sounded in his ears, and he was nearly blinded by a flash of light. He dropped the knife and shook his agonized hand, wanting to cry. He might have done so, too, but he heard the sound of his nana’s laughter drifting in through his window.
He rushed to the opening. “Yo’ nana knows you better than you know yourself,” he heard her say, though she was nowhere in sight. “Now you put that thing away where it won’t be a temptation.”
That was all the scolding he’d needed to swipe it up from the bed and push it to the back of the closet shelf.
Until today, he’d done a pretty good job of forgetting about the box, but the thought of that simple child lying dead not a quarter mile away pushed it to the forefront of his thoughts. So did his mama’s words about the Red King.
He no longer needed to stand on tiptoe to reach the box. He opened the closet door and reached back to where he felt the cool cardboard. He pulled it out into the light, shocked to see how closely the smiling face beneath its elegant top hat matched his memory. Turning the box, he placed the sharp edge of the knife he’d borrowed from the kitchen against the seal. As soon as he pressed the blade down, a sharp pain shot through him, so strong that he dropped the box to the floor. The Red King’s smiling face looked up at him, mocking him.
Seemed that the magic still worked, and as soon as the feeling of having his fingers roasted left him, Jesse decided he was mighty glad of that fact.
There had been enough magic in it to protect him as a child. Now he hoped there would be enough to protect all three of his baby girls. The pain eased enough for him to reach down to grab the cigar box, but he pulled back at the last moment, his body remembering all too well the shock it had just experienced. Damn, he thought to himself, and made another swipe, this time forcing his hand to pick it up. “Not gonna try to open you,” he said out loud. “Just want to take you home.” As if the magic protecting the box understood him—a thought that sent a quiver through him—he felt a cooling sensation spread across his injured fingers and hand.
He turned and closed the closet door, then cast a glance around his old room—same bed, same curtains, same battered nightstand, and the drawer that would stick should he try to open it, full of cat’s-eye marbles and sundry other boyhood treasures. Everything was still very much in its place—the only thing missing was him. He left the room, heading out to the front porch where he knew his mama was waiting with his daughters.
His mama had returned to the porch swing, Jilo now crying up a storm in her arms. Before going to his room, he’d also sent the squalling child’s sisters to join their nana. Poppy sat next to them, and Opal was a few feet away in the yard, running around and kicking a ball one of her cousins must have forgotten. Everyone else had left.
“Little one’s hungry,” his mama said, jostling the baby in an attempt to calm her. “Cousin Rose, she took from her own child to nurse Jilo this afternoon, but Jilo’s hungry again.” Her expression hardened, her eyes narrowing and her nose scrunching up toward her brow in disgust. “That woman has no right just to run off and leave her baby. I could forgive her for the older . . .”
“I know, Mama,” he said. “She needs her mother. I’ll take her home . . .”
“What the child needs is a wet nurse. That woman can’t handle being a mother. Do you think she can manage to pull her tit out for someone other than her—”
“Mama,” his voice came out raised. “My girls are here. They can hear you.”
As if in her anger she’d forgotten they were even there, she gave a dazed look to first Poppy and then Opal, who had just begun to climb the steps to the porch. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. A long damn day.”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry I raised my voice to you, Mama.”
“No,” she said. “You were right to.”
Jesse turned and held the cigar box out to Opal. “Here, girl. You take this for me.” She scooted closer and he pulled it up and out of her reach. “Do not,” he stressed the second word, “try to open it.” He lowered it into her waiting hands. Luckily for them all, his girls weren’t disobedient like he’d been as a boy.
“What is that?” his mama asked, though Jilo let out an ear-piercing scream that nearly drowned her out. He reached out for his daughter, more than a little relieved when his mama surrendered her to him without a fuss. He’d almost thought she might refuse to send the girl home.
“Nothin’, Mama,” he said, feeling more than a little guilty. “Just something that reminds me of Nana,” he added, hoping it was a large enough nugget of truth to negate the lie.
“She always did like her cigars,” his mama said, her expression softening at some happy memory.
He took advantage of the moment. “I gotta get the girls home, Mama,” he said again.
“This should be their home . . .”
“I know, Mama,” he said, hoping to keep her calm. “Soon. I promise. I’ll get all this worked out.” Relaxing back onto the swing, his mama began stroking Poppy’s hair.
He felt a chill run down between his shoulders. What if he was taking the one thing that had been keeping his mama safe here alone all these years?
If she knew, she would understand. If she knew, she would want the girls to be protected. If she knew, she would want this last bit of the magic her own mama raised her to fear right out of her house.
“You’re gonna be okay?” he asked.
“ ’Course I’m going to be.” She turned to Poppy and smiled. “Your nana is going to be just fine.”
Jilo had fallen momentarily silent, but she began wailing in earnest to make up for the respite she’d allowed their eardrums.
“Come on,” Jesse said, waving Poppy off the swing. He hated that the girls were going to have to walk so far with dusk giving way to full dark. He’d planned on getting a ride from Cousin Harry and his new wife, Ruby, but they’d taken off in a hurry in the confusion following the discovery of the boy.
“All right, I’m going to get this one to her mama. I love you,” he said to his mama, then carried Jilo, still pitching a fit, down the steps, his older girls following on his heels like goslings along the dusty road.
Jesse led the girls up Ogeechee, which bordered the clearing where the boy’s body lay exposed to the elements and any animal that chose to get at the meat. The thought made him shudder and break out in gooseflesh. He held Jilo a bit more tightly and sent up a prayer that the child’s soul was at peace. He felt a twinge of shame as his eyes touched the cigar box in Opal’s arms. A prayer would suffice for the dead, but for the living he was glad to have something that packed a bit more of a punch.