Free Orleans by Sherri L. Smith Page A

night.
    “Maybe,” I finally say. Not decided, but maybe.
    The curtains open at the front of the room again and I sit up straight. The smell of food waft from the back room, and Brother William come out with a big old steaming pot of stew. Sister Henrietta follow, passing bowls around, and they singing some hymn or other about the Lord being a shepherd or something. My mouth be watering.
    Everyone be tucking into they bowls, and I ain’t no different. Henrietta give me a large ladleful from the pot, and I pick that bowl right up and start eating. Bits of pheasant and salt meat, potatoes and yams, mixed up in thick brown gravy. It be just about the best thing I ever ate, seeing as how I been going all day on empty. When I be done, I’ll ask them to heat a bottle for Baby Girl. We doing all right for our first night on our own.
    I scrape the bottom of the bowl, belly full and eyelids drooping. I shouldn’t have eaten so fast. I set the bowl aside and put my arms around the baby in her sling. But my arms don’t want to be holding her, they so heavy. I let her rest in my lap and my head jerk back trying to stay upright, I be so dead tired. Around the room, everybody else doing the same thing, nodding off over they empty bowls. I hear a clatter as some spoon hit the ground, and I realize something ain’t right.
    Then I smell it. Incense. They been burning it in the cooking fire, and I ain’t noticed over the smell of food. But it ain’t just perfume like they be burning in some churches. This be something stronger, and it ain’t good.
    Damn. I shake my head and pick up Baby Girl, but I ain’t got no strength left. I look at my empty stew bowl. They done drugged us all. But why?
    Fighting the incense and the poison in the food, I force myself to keep my arms around Baby Girl. Around me, folks be swaying in the pews and I hear a drum being played. Tat-ta-tat-tat-tat.
    A jolt of fear go through me as I recognize the rhythm and the smell of them burning herbs. I know whose house this be, and it ain’t God or the Rising Son. This be one of Mama Gentille’s places.
    Mama Gentille’s name means kind, but her name be the only place you’ll find it. Hers be the kindness of the gator to the rabbit, the snake to the bird. Before Lydia took me in, I been one of Mama’s girls. And I got the scars to prove it.

9

    I ain’t crying. No, I ain’t crying. Nine be too old for that.
    Daddy say run and I run. Day turn to night and my boots be crashing through the weeds and moss, splashing through the swamp. I hit concrete, sand, and gravel and keep running ’til I don’t hear the dogs no more, or my mama screaming, or Daddy crying. I run ’til I know I be lost. Daddy say run, but he also say where to get help, and I be a long way from it.
    I be so tired. I find a place under a fallen tree to hide, shaking like a rabbit. “Fen, Fen, Fen, Fen.” I sing my name to myself nice and quiet, like Mama sometimes sing it. I got to find Mr. Go. I stay quiet. Maybe Mama and Daddy come find me, if I be still and good. They always do, they always do.
    Then I remember them dogs and the hunters, with they chains and ropes and things, and I know Mama and Daddy ain’t coming for me. That’s when I start to cry.
    • • • 
    I wake up. A little boy, old as me, be peeking at me. It dark, but he holding up a burning torch that light him up. I don’t leave my spot beneath the tree, but I watch him.
    He be wearing a man’s T-shirt that look almost like a dress on him, except he got pants on, too. He could be a ghost, except I don’t think ghosts got skin that black-brown, and they don’t giggle like he be giggling. The whites of his eyes flash in the torchlight as he look at me, and then he turn and disappear into the woods.
    I don’t move. I close my eyes, but I still want to see, so I open them again, and he be back, giggling and holding hands with a girl, this one older, but dressed almost the same. She got a rope belt around her big