Black Cat (Gemini 2)

At dinner she would tell me things she had been told, stories from our past, episodes of sickness, accidents, love affairs, fights, an anthology of our heritage. There were young women who had had their hearts broken in love and women who had died young, as well as men who were killed in wars or suffered fatal accidents. There were many stories about my great-great-grandfather and grandmother who were buried on our property along with their unborn child. In that small square of fieldstone were three tombstones and of course Noble's or my unmarked grave long ago covered with new grass. No one but me and Mama knew it was there.

Sometimes. I would sit on the grass in the small cemetery and think about Noble lying below. I would think about our days together before the tragedy. He had had a wonderful imagination, and like Mama he never seemed lonely. His dragons and knights occupied his days. I used to be jealous of that. I thought it surely meant he would cross over long before I did, which was what Mama always expected, but the ghostly figures Noble saw were manufactured in his own mind and did not come out of the world beyond.

I didn't think Mama would like me visiting the unmarked grave, so I did it when I was confident she was too occupied to see or when she was on one of her shopping tips. I used to think how horrible it was for him to be buried and forgotten this way. Lately, I have heard him pleading from beyond, asking to be acknowledged. Until he is, he is caught in some limbo. He can't be with our daddy and he can't' come back to us.

However, just the thought of telling Mama this terrifies me. I know she will see it as some sort of betrayal, and whenever she thinks that, she assumes something evil has entered the house or me. She would lock me away, make me fast, give me some secre

t herbal cure that would make me sick to my stomach. It didn't matter. In her mind it purged me of the evil.

My only hope is she will hear Noble's pleas herself one day, but she hasn't yet, not yet.

One of the first words Mama taught Baby Celeste was Noble. That is all Baby Celeste ever calls me. It's on the tip of my tongue when Pm alone with her to have her call me Mammy, but I'm afraid of what Mama would do to her if she ever looked at me and said such a thing in front of her. Surely, she would think evil had contaminated her and she would probably lock her away and feed her some herbal medicine designed to purge her of the darkness, too. How she would suffer. I wouldn't be able to stand it, so I don't dare put any ideas in Baby Celeste's mind.

And yet, especially when we're alone as we are now in the turret room, I catch her looking at me differently. Perhaps it's only wishful thinking on my part, but it seems to me she gazes at me the way a child lovingly lazes at her mother. She loves to throw her small arms around me and press herself to me. She can lie beside me for hours without becoming restless, and she loves falling asleep with me in my bed. whenever Mama permits her to come to my room and do so.

The Noble in me tries desperately to remain a little aloof, but he is quickly swept aside. I stroke her hair. I kiss her cheeks and forehead. I hum a lullaby. I hold her tightly and rock and close my eyes.

And I hear Noble arguing and pleading, You can see you should stop being me. It's not fair to the baby. Get Mama to let you stop. I'm cold and it's dark and I'm afraid. Please, Celeste, Help me,"

I'm crying now just thinking about it.

The tears streak down my cheeks and drip from my chin. but I do not make a sound. I hold my breath and bite down on my lower lip. An ache in my heart is growing larger and lasting longer every passing day, but what can I do to stop it? What do I dare do?

The front door opens and closes below. I hear a car's engine start and I stand up and peer out the window to watch Mrs. Paris drive away with her bundle of herbs and her newfound wisdom. She will spread the word even more and there will be additional customers. I'll be hiding up here with Baby Celeste again and again and again.

Soon after Mrs. Paris's car turns and is gone, Mama comes up the stairs and opens the turret door.

"How are my children?" she cries.

Baby Celeste smiles up at her. I hide my final tears and take a deep breath. "We're fine. Mama," I tell her.

She picks up Baby Celeste and we descend the stairs with her listening to Mama talk about Mrs. Paris, how the woman was mesmerized by the things Mama told her. Mama reinforces and confirms what I suspected.

"She'll be happy and she'll tell others and well have more customers for sure. Noble. We have a lot to do. They're starting to appreciate me around here,- Mama says proudly. "Your father never thought that would happen," she adds, looking out the window. Then she laughs.

I'm sure she's right about all of that and I'm happy for her. Somehow. I still can't say I'm happy for us. Perhaps I never will. There are times when I feel so terribly lost, but I can't say it. She would not understand. She would even get angry at that.

I return to the work in the garden. The sun is sliding clown the sky now. It's almost to the tip of the mountain range, and its rays thread through the woods around us, lighting up the green leaves, turning them into emeralds dangling off branches. I can almost hear the shadows stirring and unfolding like charcoal cellophane in the darkest corners.

Something takes shape and soon I am sure I see a pair of female cousins who had lived nearly two hundred years ago come out of the woods and walk toward the house. They are barefoot, but its all right because their feet don't quite touch the ground. I see they are chatting excitedly. They want to tell Mama something, something new, or perhaps something they had forgotten to tell her the last time they had spoken. I'm sure I will hear about it at dinner tonight. They don't look my way until they are just about to the house. Then they turn and both wave. I wave back.

"Tell her to let Noble go." I whisper. "Please. If you tell her, she will listen."

They don't hear me, or if they do, the idea frightens even them. They go into the house, and for a moment or two it is as quiet as a graveyard. Then the scream of a large crow spins my head around. It rises out of the woods as if it's being chased and then veers toward the descending sun and disappears in the glare.

I cover my eyes quickly before the hot, bright light bums them. Too often these days I welcome darkness.

My brain is jumbled, mixed images rush through like visual static: Noble falling backward off the rock: Elliot waving foolishly at me: as the water carries him off, his laughter dying away: Daddy coming home from work and scooping us up into his arms and crying, "My twins, my right arm and my left": Mr. Calhoun in our front doorway, his hat in his hands, his head bowed; Mama walking out into the darkness to speak with her spirits; and Noble smothering his cries in his pillow, his anger in his pillow.

Something has brought us here, something. as Mama often says, far greater than us. We cannot challenge or defy it. We must be who we are. It's our destiny. It flows along like the creek. I dream of it, of our blood flowing, our faces floating on the water's surface like discarded pictures.

The sound of Mama's piano flows from the house, out of any opened window, and snaps me out of this reverie. I close my eyes and listen to the melodies. Most of the time they are sad and heavy, but sometimes, she plays light, happy tunes. Sometimes, she even sings along. She's doing so tonight. She has a wonderful voice, a voice Daddy used to call angelic. It could fill us with happiness and hope and make us wonderfully content with each other, with ourselves.

Those cousins. I think, surely they must have came to her with something good, something wonderful. She'll be happy tonight. She will chatter continuously at dinner and laugh at everything Baby Celeste does or says. All the dark shadows will be swept away. It will seem like everything is really all right.

These nights, these times are special gifts, aren't they? Aren't they? Shouldn't you be grateful for every one, every hour and every minute? I ask my reluctant self.

I do not answer. There is only silence around me. Even the birds are mute and the small breeze has stopped. The whole world has been put on pause.