Free The Storycatcher by Ann Hite

a visit. They was the busiest people I’d ever seen. The boat driver was Cotter, who called himself working for Mr. Reynolds in one fashion oranother. He was nice enough when he felt like it, but some days he was meaner than one of our wild hogs. He docked the boat, pushed his fancy captain’s hat back on his head, and pointed at the hungry-looking man next to him. “This here boy didn’t lie. He said someone would be waiting on him.”
    The boy smiled. “Yes, sir. I don’t lie.” He walked off that boat and came right up to me like he knew me his whole life. Who in their right mind would let a young man like that go hungry? His face was so thin it was scary.
    As soon as we was away from hearing, I placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. “Who you be, child?”
    “I ain’t no child, ma’am. I’m William Tine, eighteen years old. My daddy was William Tine too. He came from this place, but he’s been dead so long I never even saw him.”
    I studied him. He didn’t seem like no liar, maybe he believed the tale he told. But I knew my brother, William—or Willie—never had a child with his wife. She was a root woman with powerful hoodoo. This I knew ’cause of Willie’s letters that came from New Orleans. Seen a photo of the happy couple together right before he passed on. Never had a baby. “What’s your mama’s name?”
    “Amanda. She be from New Orleans. That’s where she met my daddy. He was playing cards and she worked as a barmaid.”
    Willie was a drinker and a card player. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember that gal’s name he married.
    “My mama was and is one of the best hoodoo women around.” He stopped talking and stared off. “She lives on Black Mountain now. That’s in North Carolina.”
    “Well, boy, lots of mighty strange things take place. You showing up here is one of them things, and I don’t know what to think.”
    “I can do any work you have, ma’am.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure you can. But one thing you got to know. William Tine was my brother.” I let that settle with him.
    He looked at me funny and looked away.
    “He died three weeks after he married your mama.” Something about the voice in my dream the night before made me think of Willie. I took them dreams dead serious like any smart person would.
    “My aunt. That be strange. I didn’t think family would meet me at the boat.”
    “Ain’t nothing too surprising on the island.”
    “Mama never told me a thing about my daddy. Just said he was William Tine from Sapelo Island, a Saltwater Geechee. How’d he die?”
    I wasn’t about to start discussing them matters with him. It wasn’t right. Eighteen or not, he had him a mama with her own truth. That pitiful excuse of a boy needed a place to stay, and I had me a empty room. “I got a room. You come on, now. But I got to know what kind of mama lets her eighteen-year-old boy just up and leave North Carolina while the whole dern country is struggling with the Depression?”
    “My daddy died a bad death, didn’t he?”
    There wasn’t no going around this boy. “I don’t like talking on it, but he was buried out in New Orleans somewhere. Only your mama knows. My brother was supposed to live on this island and live out the old ways. It’s our place. He didn’t believe in such and now he’s gone. Don’t know what happened to him, not really. Only your mama has all them answers.”
    “I got run off of Black Mountain.” The words were hard around the edges. This was a grown man talking.
    “You call me Ada, Ada Lee Tine.”
    “My daddy’s spirit stopped me on the road off of Black Mountain. He told me to find family. Said someone would be waiting at the dock for me on this very day. He told me the truth.” He said this like he sure wasn’t used to truths.
    Who was I to argue with my dead brother? “Come on. You need to eat.” That mama of his could have been with child. It didn’t take but one time. She