The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope

Author:Leslye Penelope [PENELOPE, LESLYE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2022-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

HAINTS

Now, while Clara was born ornery, she’d been a peaceful baby and an easy child. She wasn’t picky about what she ate, stayed quiet when grown folks was talking, minded her parents and her granny. Most mothers would have gotten down on their knees to thank the Lord above that they’d given birth to her. But Aurora Johnson was not most women.

She’d been eager to leave what she called the backwoods of North Carolina. Benjamin had promised her they’d make their way to New York, that Washington was just a pit stop so he could work and save some money so they could live a little larger than they had been.

She did love Benjamin, his mama not so much, and the jury was still out on baby Clara. Seeing her come out with that birthing sac covering her had made Aurora’s gorge rise, even through the misery of childbirth. Sometimes when she looked into the baby’s smiling face, she still imagined it covered with that thin film, mucus and blood coating it, and had to go empty the contents of her stomach.

And not only had the little girl come out unfortunately dark—darker than either of her parents—she only got stranger as she grew older. She did just about everything earlier than other babies: walking, talking, using the toilet. And once she learned to talk in full sentences, she didn’t never stop. Child yammered to herself constantly.

Well, not herself. Aurora had rather the child talk to herself than what that baby and Mama Octavia claimed the truth was. Talking to spirits? Haints and ghosts and the like? Her mother-in-law had always struck her as a few spoons short of a drawer. She’d been over forty when she gave birth to Benjamin and had a lot of old-fashioned ways about her. Or maybe she took one too many beatings on the old plantation, but she sure liked to fill Clara’s head with hooey.

Aurora was always sweeping up salt and dirt the old woman sprinkled on the floorboards or under the windows. She’d caught her burning hair pulled out of combs and wrapping potatoes in socks for some purpose or another. A bunch of countrified foolishness that Aurora couldn’t stand.

Then, one day when Clara was six years old, the little girl awoke in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. Aurora was sure she’d find the child dismembered in her own bed with the way she was carrying on.

Benjamin leaped straight from his mattress out of the room and she was right on his heels. The girl was whole and physically healthy, but busy battling imaginary foes. Her eyes were open, but the more they tried to get her calm, the louder she wailed. Benjamin wrapped her in his arms and Aurora slapped her face, trying to bring her back to her senses.

The child’s skin was icy cold and even her goose bumps had goose bumps though it was the middle of July and the notorious Washington humidity was in full effect.

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