Shadow of a Quarter Moon by Eileen Clymer Schwab

Author:Eileen Clymer Schwab
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

“Yo’ daddy won’t be home from Raleigh till tomorrow,” she said as she nudged me to the water’s edge. “With missus locked in her room in the grip of the low-downs, that leaves me to look out fo’ yo’ comfort.”

She lifted a bucket over my head and rinsed the stickiness of the muggy August afternoon from my thick hair. I squealed with delight as the water cooled and refreshed me.

“Can I jump in with the others?”

The slave children were having so much fun I practically begged on my hands and knees. Jerlinda glanced up toward the house and then back at me.

“Missus would have a fit if she saw you in the colored pond. Besides, you aren’t dressed fo’ a swim, chile.”

I stripped to my undergarments before she could protest. “There, I am as ready as anyone else here.”

Jerlinda chuckled at my proud determination. To my dismay, she ordered the other children from the pond.

“Go on, chilluns! Step outta the water so Miss Jacy can have a quick swim.”

The Negro boys and girls moaned as they traipsed to shore, looking at me as though I had stolen their marbles. Rafe was fourteen at the time. He plopped down in the mud on the far bank. Beads of water dotted his tight curls and water dripped from his chin as he watched me impatiently. I wanted all to see that I was as fun-loving as they were, so I grabbed onto a rope that hung from an old willow and swung myself from the bank, then plunked into the deep end of the pond.

Bubbles giggled from me as I drifted down, but when I planted my feet to push to the surface they sank into the mud-thick pond bottom. When I tried kicking free, I realized I was entrenched up to my knees. I flailed beneath the surface, and when I could no longer hold my breath the pain of gulped water burned in my chest. I heard muffled cries from above, then a loud splash. Rafe’s arms were around me, but we were anchored by my submerged feet. Frantically, his hands traveled down the length of my bare legs and tugged at my ankles. I held on to him as he pulled me from the muck and carried me upward.

We both coughed up water and gasped for air when we broke the surface. He was as frightened as I as we clung to each other in the wake of the near tragedy.

“You all right?” he sputtered as my fingers groped the bare skin of his back.

Nose-to-nose with him, I nodded. “I think so.”

He gently wrapped his arms around my waist and glided me to shore. Jerlinda was beside herself with panic as she helped to drag me onto the dry grass. She patted my forehead and chanted words of praise, but I was lost in the moment of lying side by side with Rafe, his hand still in mine. Motionless, we gazed at each other in a way that intimately connected us from that day forward.

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