Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton

Author:Tracey Rose Peyton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

EVEN WITH THE HARNESS REMOVED, Serah was fading. Her skin paled to a strange gray. And by the time we were all standing around in the hot sun, watching her marry, she was nearly invisible. Or maybe it was just the heat making everything waver, that made it seem as if she was disappearing.

If the sun was paying us any mind from up there, we must have looked a gay affair, all crowded together and dressed as if for Sunday service. We were all there and the neighbor folk, too, stiff and carefully arranged.

At the fore of the crowd were the Lucys. Mr. Lucy waving a sweaty Bible in the air, and Mrs. Lucy, off to the side, fanning herself, in a light blue dress. Serah and Patience stood closest to them, both stock-still, their faces damp with sweat, pale swishy fabric hanging from their shoulders. Serah’s dress was a dingy yellow, Patience’s a faded gray, both refashioned from Mrs. Lizzie’s old nightgowns.

Mr. Lucy cracked open the Bible and began reading from a turned-down page. “The Good Book tells us ‘Two are better than one, for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth.’”

Serah stared at something low on the ground, a dark seeping oil stain in the dirt. Her arms were folded across her stomach, her fingers fidgeting with what looked like a soiled piece of twine tied around her wrist.

“‘If two lie together, then they have heat. But how can one be warm alone?’” said Mr. Lucy, closing the Bible with a dramatic flourish.

“Amen,” said Lizzie enthusiastically.

It was hard to tell if Serah was listening at all, to the white man officiating the ceremony or the man standing next to her, nodding and murmuring along in agreement.

“We are gathered here today,” Mr. Lucy went on, “to join Serah and Monroe, Patience and Isaac in holy matrimony.”

* * *

THE TWO MEN, MONROE and Isaac, came some months ago, shortly after the New Year. They arrived half-starved and ashen, bought cheap off a planter fleeing the malaria of Houston’s river bottoms. The first few days, the two men were dizzy and light-headed, barely mumbling a word, while they readily attacked trays of corn cake and drained buckets of water without measure.

Of the two, one was older and broad-shouldered, with a thick beard. The other was lanky, bare-faced, and full-cheeked, like a giant child. We learned later the older one was called Monroe, the other Isaac.

But we didn’t care to learn their names. We only wanted to know what purpose they were brought to serve. Were they breeding niggers like Zeke? Or were they just men, who would pull the plow, fell trees, and load the drays, so we no longer had to?

We avoided them best we could, took to eating our meals earlier, and since Mr. Lucy soon employed them in one building project or another, we got our way for a while. They slept in the barn and we retained the cabin and, for once, didn’t mind being locked up together inside it.

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