Brown Girl in the Ring Read online

  Osain swivelled on his one good heel to look at Tony. “You? I ain’t business with you! Look at you; why you arms cut up like that?”

  Tony looked defiant. He rolled down his sleeves over the half-healed buff slashes.

  Osain waved his cane in Tony’s direction. “If I had my way, them would catch you and make a end of you, oui? Farmer must know when to grow, and when to prune. You is a branch I woulda chop off one time!” Osain sucked his teeth in disgust. “Healer turn to dealer. What I business with you?”

  There was a tremor in Tony’s voice. “But Missis Hunter said you would help me!”

  Osain looked at him, made a face, sighed. His badly scarred cheek made him look stern. “Yes, is my daughter ask me this favour. I wouldn’t have grant it, oui? You lucky that Prince of Cemetery decide to help you instead.”

  What was he talking about? Ti-Jeanne spoke up timidly. “Papa Osain?”

  “Yes, child?”

  Ti-Jeanne shuddered as she looked at Mami’s skirt flapping emptily around the space where her leg should be. “I ain’t understand. What we supposed to do to help Tony get out of here?”

  The old man didn’t answer at first. He hobbled back to the altar. He picked a few leaves off the bundle of dried mint that Mami had put there, rubbed them between his fingers, sniffed at them, touched them to his tongue. “Somebody dry these good. The taste still fresh, and the leaves ain’t mouldy or damp. Is who do this? Gros-Jeanne?”

  “No, Papa,” Ti-Jeanne replied. “Is me. Is spearmint I pick and dry from out of the garden.”

  “Ah, child . . .” He smiled. “You know how to treat the herbs-them. You granny teach you good. It make me wish you was my daughter, instead of Prince of Cemetery own.”

  Prince of Cemetery? Why would the old man give such a horrible name to her father? Ti-Jeanne had never known her real father.

  Osain jerked his head in Tony’s direction. “That one give you any presents lately?”

  Ti-Jeanne blushed. “Yes, Papa. A rose.”

  “Well, do like the Prince say. Carry it on you and lead Tony out of the city. Nobody go see allyou until dayclean. Them will look right through you. But, Mister Healer-Turn-Dealer”—Osain turned baleful eyes on Tony—“once the sun rise, we ain’t go hide you from eyes no more. We want you gone, oui.”

  Gone. Tony gone, never to come back.

  “Remember now, Ti-Jeanne: tell Gros-Jeanne everything I say. Allyou have to see to Rudy.”

  Without any warning, Osain’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the ground, stick clattering away into the shadows. Ti-Jeanne and Tony rushed over to help. Mami’s eyes were fluttering, her breathing fast. Tony checked the pulse in her wrist, pulled up one eyelid to look at her eye. Ti-Jeanne realised that the old woman had two arms again. She felt through Mami’s long skirt. Yes, both legs were there. Had she imagined what she’d seen? She looked around for Osain’s cane, but it was gone.

  Tony helped Mami into a sitting position. She seemed a bit disoriented, but fine otherwise. She grabbed at Ti-Jeanne’s shoulder. “He come? Papa Osain come?”

  “Yes, Mami.”

  The old woman’s smile lit up the chapel. “Papa come back to me, after so long. What he say? Tell me what he say!”

  • • • •

  The young man’s eyes rolled in fear as, knife in hand, Rudy approached the table where he lay immobile. His body jerked only a little as Rudy drew the knife across his throat, catching the blood in a large calabash bowl. “Drink,” Rudy said to the bowl, “then make me know what the rass that Tony up to now.”

  • • • •

  Three man went to mow (went to mow),

  Went to mow a meadow,

  Three man, two man,

  One man and he dog,

  Went to mow a meadow.

  —Traditional song

  Tony helped Mami into a sitting position against the centre pole, made sure she was all right, then proceeded to loudly accuse her of trying to play tricks on him.

  “Oh, so you think I mamaguying you?” Mami asked acidly. “Then how you explain the spirit that come and ride Ti-Jeanne?”

  “What spirit, Mami?” Ti-Jeanne’s scalp prickled with fear. What had just happened to her, really?

  “Later, child.” Mami turned to Tony again. “Ain’t is obeah you come here tonight to ask the spirits for, Tony? A way to hide from the posse so you could leave the city? Ain’t is you self stand up in my house and tell me I is a obeah woman? What happen; like you don’t believe no more?”

  Tony spluttered, “But . . . but . . . it was just a bunch of playacting, wasn’t it? All of that couldn’t really have happened, your leg disappearing, Ti-Jeanne growing seven feet tall.”

  “What?! Mami, you going to tell me what happen?”

  “Later, I say.” Mami waved Ti-Jeanne into silence.

  Tony was still fuming. He was completely rattled. “Fucking fool I am, letting you talk me into doing this shit. And Ti-Jeanne?” His look was hurt. “You too? How you could do me so, Ti-Jeanne? Prancing around in the dark, playing duppy. I really needed your help, love. Don’t you understand? Rudy’s going to kill me if he finds me!”

  “Tony . . .” Ti-Jeanne didn’t know what to say. What did Mami mean, a spirit had been riding her?

  “Well, mister, is you ask the favour, and from what I see, you wish get grant, for all I think you don’t deserve it. Now you just go have to trust Prince of Cemetery, that is all.”

  That didn’t satisfy Tony. He paced around the chapel, grumbling to himself. Ti-Jeanne knew he was desperate, but she had other things on her mind at the moment. “Mami,” she asked again, “what happen to me just now? Who is Prince of Cemetery? What allyou talking about?”

  Her grandmother reached for the boiled potato that Osain had bitten into and calmly took another bite out of it. She looked at Ti-Jeanne, considering. “Prince of Cemetery claim you for he own,” she said, “just like Osain is my father spirit. No wonder you does see death.”

  In the shadows, Tony kicked at a pew, slammed his hand against it for good measure. Then he sat down, chin in hands, muttering.

  “But what that mean, Mami? I going to dead?”

  “No, child. Prince of Cemetery is a aspect of Eshu, who does guard crossroads. Prince of Cemetery does see to the graveyards.” Ti-Jeanne didn’t like the sound of that.

  Mami continued, “It mean you could ease people passing, light the way for them. For them to cross over from this world, or the next. But I go have to train you.” She smiled in triumph. “And the baby, too, for Prince of Cemetery did ride he for a few seconds before he leave.”

  “What? Baby too?”

  “Yes, doux-doux. So it look like you go have to stay with me a little while more.”

  “But Mami, Tony going away for good!”

  Baby chuckled, probably just at the way the coal-oil lamp flame was flickering above his head.

  “And so? Ain’t you done left he already? Best thing you ever do. Live here with me and give your baby a good home. You could help me more with the healing and so. I go teach you what you need to know. For if Prince of Cemetery decide to ride you again before your head ready, I ’fraid you go go mad for true.”

  Just like her mother. Ti-Jeanne’s heart felt like cold lead in her chest. She had known it would come to this. Do what Mami said, or be lost, like Mi-Jeanne.

  Tony stood up. “I’m gonna do it,” he said. “I’m gonna go, obeah or no obeah. I just have to make sure they don’t see me, that’s all.”

  “Nobody ain’t go see you,” Mami said. “Not so long as you take Ti-Jeanne with you.”

  Ti-Jeanne frowned at her, confused.

  “Is true,” Mami told her. “Prince of Cemetery promise that when you walk out this door, he go hide your living body halfway between here and Guinea Land. That way nobody go see you.”

  “Guinea Land?”

  “Every time a African die,” Mami intoned, “them spirit does fly away to Guinea Land. Is the other wo
rld, the spirit world. You carry that flower that Tony give you, and nobody go be able to see he, either. Until the sun come up, the Prince say.”

  “No, she can’t come, it’s too dangerous. You stay here with your baby. My baby.” Tony reached out and patted Baby’s head. “Why couldn’t you tell me, Ti-Jeanne?”

  The child twisted away from his hand. It was obvious he didn’t like his father.

  Mami said, “Either she go, and keep you safe from eyes that way, or you take a chance and go by yourself with no protection. Don’t matter to me which.”

  Ti-Jeanne still didn’t fully understand what Tony and Mami were talking about, but she understood that she had to accompany Tony for him to be safe. “I coming,” she told him. And that was that.

  “Then go and get the flower he give you,” Mami said to her.

  Ti-Jeanne wished she had the time to ask her grandmother what exactly she’d done and said while under the spirit’s influence. She had to come back to Mami. Just long enough to find out how to control the dreams, keep the spirits out of her head. Then she’d be free.

  Ti-Jeanne gave Baby to her grandmother. She stepped out into the clear night. Mami said, “Hold Tony hand!” A fog sprang up from nowhere. It crept quickly up over her and Tony and gave a soft blur to everything they looked at. Mami stepped out, dandling Baby. She peered around her. “Ti-Jeanne? Tony?”

  “We right here, Mami.” But her grandmother appeared to neither see nor hear them, even when Ti-Jeanne waved her hand right in front of her face.

  “Jesus,” Tony breathed. Ti-Jeanne’s scalp prickled.

  Baby reached for her, a pleading look on his little face. Ti-Jeanne asked, “I wonder how come he could see we?”

  “I don’t know, man. That fucking kid’s weird. Just don’t let my hand go.”

  Mami noticed the direction in which Baby was looking. She addressed them: “Take the bicycles from the Francey barn, allyou. You could go faster that way.” Her gaze was a little off, too high, too far to the right. She really couldn’t see them.

  Holding tight to Tony’s hand, Ti-Jeanne went back into the house and got the wilted rose from her bed where she’d left it. Mami’d said it had to be hidden on her body. She released Tony’s hand to reach for some of Mami’s gauze bandage. He gasped. “Fuck, now I can’t see you.”

  Ti-Jeanne wrapped the rose’s thorns in the bandage, then tucked the rose inside her jacket. Tony sighed in relief.

  “There you are. Shit.” He looked grim.

  Ti-Jeanne’s eyes were burning from lack of sleep. They got the bicycles from the barn and set off through the fog.

  The foggy night air had a clean, sharp smell to it, like biting into an apple. They moved cautiously through the dark streets, ducking out of sight of any passersby. They were still afraid to trust in the spell that kept them only partially in the real world. Soon they were in the heart of Cabbage Town. Every so often they would pass a big Victorian home that was still inhabited. The smells from this part of the city were not as fresh: woodsmoke from fireplaces, rotting garbage, stale piss from the poorly built outhouses. These used to be elegant tree-lined streets of large heritage homes, all stone walls, stained glass, and deep, wooden-banistered porches. Now, many of the homes were gutted or were being used as cramped squats. In the summer, the flies and the stench of shit from the outhouses was almost unbearable.

  The rose was scratching at her skin. “Hold on, Tony.” She stopped her bike and adjusted the flower under her jacket. That helped a little.

  There were still one or two people about; the nightlife of the Burn was pretty active. A few people looked their way, then looked away again, but that didn’t prove anything.

  Then they saw two men approaching.

  “We’d better hide,” Tony said, getting off his bike and starting to pull it into a nearby alleyway.

  But Ti-Jeanne was curious. “You go ahead. I want to try something.”

  “Ti-Jeanne! Come on!” Tony hissed.

  “Just now, just now. You go.”

  The men got closer. Tony hid. The two had their arms around each other, singing. Ti-Jeanne stood in their path. They simply separated, walked around her, still singing, then rejoined again once they’d passed her. The skin on Ti-Jeanne’s forearms rose in gooseflesh. She turned to Tony, not bothering to keep her voice down. “Look like it working, oui. Them look at we, but is like we image don’t stay in their minds!”

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “This is too fucking weird.” He scowled and leapt onto his bike, then pedalled furiously off down the street, leaving Ti-Jeanne to catch up as best she could.

  Every time Ti-Jeanne’s knee rose with the upswing of the bicycle pedal, the stem of the rose inside her parka pricked at her belly button. She pumped the pedals hard. Puffing, she finally pulled level with Tony. He glanced over at her briefly but didn’t say anything. He just kept going, lips pursed, his face set. After a few minutes he said, “Why didn’t you tell me the baby was mine?”

  “Now is not the time, Tony.”

  He grabbed her handlebars and yanked them both to a halt. He glared at her. “So when was supposed to be the right time, huh?”

  “Lord, Tony!”

  “No, really. Were you just gonna let me leave town? When were you going to tell me that I have a son!” He slammed his hand down on her handlebars, making the bicycle shudder in her grasp. Furious, she grabbed his arm, shoved the sleeve of his jacket up to his forearm. He winced as the fresh scabs tore open. Tiny beads of blood popped up along the slash tracks on his arm. She yanked the arm up to his face so that he was forced to look at them.

  “You see that? Eh? That is where all your health going, all your strength, all your money. What you could keep child with? Eh? You go feed he buff when hunger pining he?” She let his arm drop. She sucked her teeth in disgust. “Worthless,” she pronounced him.

  “I would have stopped slashing,” he said in a low voice. “Bruk-Foot Sam, he—”

  “Tony, I don’t want to hear it no more. Is the same story you been telling me for years now. Look, just make we go, eh?”

  As she mounted the bike again, he heard him say to himself, “But he’s my son.” She didn’t check to make sure he was following.

  They made a left off Parliament Street onto Dundas. As they turned, Tony had to swerve wildly to dodge a pedicab runner who was about to smash into him. His bicycle skidded, slammed into the sidewalk verge, toppled. Tony went down with it, skidding a few feet before he came to rest on the sidewalk. “Hey!” he shouted at the runner. “Watch what you doing, nuh, man?”

  But just like the other people they had passed, the man kept on running, oblivious, pulling the empty carriage behind him. Ti-Jeanne pulled up to the sidewalk, got off her bike, and went to help him. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, Ti-Jeanne.”

  “Me too.” Bending gingerly so as not to crush the rose, Ti-Jeanne helped Tony up, an instant before the foot of a running street kid would have smashed down on his hand. The child ran on, thin body curled protectively around something that writhed under his jacket.

  “Mothercunt—!” Tony leapt to his feet. In two steps he’d reached the little boy, grabbed him by one thin arm. “You can’t even say sorry? Eh? You nearly mash my hand just now!”

  The boy looked briefly at the hand that was clutching his arm, attempted to brush it off as though he were shooing a fly, and when that didn’t work, simply stood still, his face blank, his body relaxed. Even though he was being restrained, he couldn’t keep the idea of his captor in his mind long enough to react.

  “Answer me!” Tony demanded.

  “Tony,” Ti-Jeanne called, but he didn’t answer her.

  The child looked Tony full in the face for a brief instant, then his eyes skittered away, glancing everywhere but at Tony. Ti-Jeanne felt the goose bumps come out on her arms again. The boy was oblivious to them. He looked down at the squirming front of his shirt. He was still supporting whatever was inside it with one hand. He
made a clucking noise. “Lightning. You okay in there, Lightning?” A furry face poked out between his shirt buttons. A ferret. It hissed at Tony, bristled up to twice its size, and lunged. Tony released the boy and leapt back. The boy caught at his pet. “What’s the matter with you, boy?” He turned around. He started walking away. “Been keepin’ half a peanut-butter sandwich for you. Hid it with my blankets in that old Hyundai on Gerrard Street? I’ll pick off the mouldy bits for you, okay?”

  Tony came back to her, picked up his bike. “This shit is freaky, you hear?” he grumbled at her. “I keep thinking that people could damn well see and hear me, them only ignoring me for some reason.”

  Ti-Jeanne could see his hands shaking. She felt pretty shaky herself. She checked to make sure that the rose was okay, then got back on her bike. They rode on in silence. After a few more minutes Tony said, “Say something, Ti-Jeanne, or I go think I turn invisible to you, too.”

  “Is all right, Tony. I seeing you. I hearing you.” I don’t see nothing but you. I don’t hear nothing but you. She felt the tears coming down. They kept heading east through the early morning dark.

  They were almost at the Dundas Street turnoff for the unused Don Valley Parkway. Dug into the heavily wooded valley that marked the eastern boundary of the city core, it ran northward out of the city into the ’burbs. Toronto no longer maintained its section of it. Where the Parkway ran into civilization again, Ti-Jeanne had heard that the police in the five satellite cities had set up guard posts at their borders to keep Toronto out. “How you going to get past the blocks at the other end?” she asked Tony, huffing as she pedalled.

  “The closest . . . guard post is at . . . Pottery Road,” he replied, lungs working as hard as hers. “I’ll come off the highway just before it . . . ditch the bike . . . hike through the woods. That goes into East York. Bingo, I’m out of Toronto and into the real world.”

  Ti-Jeanne took her eyes off the road long enough for a doubtful glance at his thin-soled dress shoes. “You don’t think the police does look out for people trying to get in through the bush there?”

  “Jesus, what do you want me to do, then? Stay here? Go organ hunting?”