Free The Black Rose by Tananarive Due Page B

by the air. She could breathe.
    Maybe going to Vicksburg would be like that, Sarah thought. Maybe it would seem like they were drowning at first, but they would be just fine if they kept swimming. The thought brought a tiny smile to Sarah’s face even as Louvenia sobbed. Sarah wished she could explain it to her sister to help her stop crying, but it was hard for her to explain the pictures and ideas in her head sometimes.
    Instead all she said was, “We ain’t got to be scared, Lou.”
    And she believed that, even as their cabin appeared in the distance and they both stopped walking as they gazed at it, realizing simultaneously that they would have to leave their memories of Mama and Papa inside those ramshackle wooden walls. If new people came to live there, they wouldn’t know how Papa had cussed every time he tripped over the loose board just inside the doorway, and they wouldn’t know how Mama had once had a fit of anger and thrown a whole kettle of stewed tomatoes against the wall, leaving stains that had never gone away. And the new people wouldn’t remember how Mama giggled late at night when Papa sneaked over on her side of the pallet and they woke everyone up even though they thought they were being so quiet, Papa saying, Hush girl, hush girl as his panting voice grew louder all the time. Once when Sarah had asked Louvenia what Mama and Papa were doing, Louvenia had shushed her and whispered back, “That be how grown folks love.” The new people just wouldn’t know. And maybe one day she and Louvenia wouldn’t know anymore either, Sarah thought. Maybe Mama had forgotten so much about her mammy and pappy because she’d left their house and all the memories inside it.
    A single tear wound its way down Sarah’s cheek, but that was the only one she allowed. Crying might let the fear in, and Sarah was determined not to drown.

Chapter Four
     
    VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI
    1879
    (ONE YEAR LATER)
     
     
    “Sarah? It’s your turn.”
    Miss Dunn’s voice broke into Sarah’s thoughts. Until she heard her name, Sarah had been transfixed by the portrait of Jesus in prayer hanging behind Miss Dunn on the wall, with his eyes gazing piously skyward and his flowing light brown hair cascading across his shoulders. She’d been gazing at the portrait for more than six months now, but it still captivated her; in all the years Mama and Papa and Preacher had talked about Jesus, the blue-eyed man in the painting on the wall was nothing like she’d imagined Jesus to be. It was hard to believe any white man would love her so much he would die for the sins of a colored girl.
    “Sarah, did you hear me?”
    Miss Dunn was sitting primly on the bench at the front of the tiny basement room, which was barely bigger than the cabin she and Louvenia had left behind in Delta. Sarah liked Miss Dunn, and hated to hear her sound cross. Miss Dunn talked prettier than any colored woman Sarah had ever met—she was from up north, she’d told them, from a city called Phil-a-del-phi-a, where there had been no slaves before the war. Her hair was always pulled back tight behind her head in a bun, and the simple gingham dresses she wore were perfectly neat and clean. Miss Dunn was a very young woman, younger than some of the grown men and women who came to her class, and her cocoa-colored face looked as smooth as glass. If she ever smiled, Sarah thought, Miss Dunn would be truly beautiful.
    “It’s your turn to read. Come on up here.”
    “To … read … ?” Sarah said, nearly choking on the words. She sat frozen on her bench, and she heard two boys behind her snicker. Sarah shook her head. “N-no, ma’am, I can’t… .”
    “No back-talking, Sarah. Everybody has a turn.”
    Walking on legs that threatened to betray her at any instant, Sarah made her way to the front of the class. She glanced at the watching students; there were at least fifty of them of every age, from children younger than her to old men and women with gray hair who