VI

The snow that pounded the farm only a few days prior now melted away, and Zella stuck her bare hands into the soft dirt. With the sun beating down it had grown warm up to her second knuckle, but the earth below was still frozen.

“Move it around some, dear,” the mistress said. She held a cup of black tea in her hands, sent down from her father somewhere in New York. “Let the sun warm the soil underneath.”

Zella nodded and did as she was told. The mistress had always been kind to her. Kinder than the master, but not so kind as the daughter and the youngest. She felt a special affinity toward Eveline. The girl would sneak out some nights and come to their hovel just down the road. She would read to them in their shack, or sometimes, when Wiley and Clyde were asleep, Eveline would take Zella through her lessons.

Zella could hear her brothers hacking away in the fields. The younger master’s voice echoed, urging them to work faster. Even as he grew weaker, his expressions grew louder. She knew they were clearing the leftover stalks, but didn’t know what that meant. She could hear the malice in the master’s declarations, and it reminded her of a past life. One she had hoped she had escaped when Mistress Caroline picked her.

“I think we might do another row of tomatoes this year,” Caroline said from her place on the porch. “They did well last year. What do you think, Eve?”

“It’s a good idea, momma,” the girl said. She worked to keep pace with Zella, every few feet wiping the dirt from her hands onto the brittle grass.

“We should rotate them, like they do in the fields,” Zella said. She looked to Caroline, and stood quickly. “Ma’am,” she added.

Caroline nodded, taking a sip of her tea. “Yes, Zella, we should. Maybe we put them closer to the river this year.”

“Yes, ma’am. There be… there’s more sun down by the river. Away from the house, ma’am.” She offered a submissive smile and Caroline accepted it.

Zella put her knees back down as she and Eveline continued turning the soil. She could hear the boy’s cries from the stable as Hosea taught him to ride. She cringed at the crack of a whip as it tore through the breeze. She laughed when Eveline made a joke—though did not feel it in her heart—and relaxed when the mistress went back inside. Hosea had taught her it was best to give the masters what they wanted, even if you didn’t feel it in your heart.

“He’s acting weird again,” Eveline said.

“Master Emmett?” Zella asked.

“Yes, take a look.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Right, sorry. He’s pacing back and forth up there. I think he cut new slats on the roof, I can see more of him. He’ll watch the river, then the road, then the woods, then us… it’s weird. It’s like he’s expecting somebody.”

“He’s just taking precautions. You know where we sit.”

“He’s been saying that for years. Matthew keeps saying he wants to go join the effort, but daddy tells him no. Then he sits up there like a guard. It’s like he wants something to happen.”

“Maybe he…” Zella trailed off.

“Maybe he does?” Eveline finished. “Maybe, but I think he would rather things just go back to normal.” She took a trowel in her hand and bit into a patch of frozen dirt. “I wouldn’t have stopped you, by the way.”

Zella froze at the mention. She looked up at Eveline, feeling the blood rush into her face. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes you were. It’s okay, I would too, I think.” Eveline kept digging. “I wasn’t out there trying to stop you. Maybe it’s good that I did but I wasn’t trying to. I just wanted to know what that whistling was.”

“Did you tell anybody?”

“I told them we were out picking mushrooms.”

Zella smiled at her hands. “Thank you.”

“He’d whip you bloody if he found out. I don’t like it, but he would. Just stay for a while. Be safe here.”

Zella nodded. The mistress hadn’t given her a trowel, so she dug at the ground with her fingernails. They peeled back slowly, as clumps of debris tore from the earth, and the breeze whistled overhead.

Eveline’s head shot up. Zella heard the crack from her neck and stopped scraping at the ground. She watched Eveline, as the girl knelt still. Her ears wriggled as her eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” Zella asked.

“You didn’t hear that?”

“The wind?”

It picked up again. A shrill screech came along with it. Zella could hear it now. It was less like air being pushed, and more like steel being dragged. She felt her hair lift off her shoulders, and lost her balance. Her backside hit the grass and the wind stopped. She looked up.

On the edge of the property, where the woods met the river on a point, a woman sat on a rock. Her black hair fell in tangles, so wrapped in itself that Zella could tell from down the shore that it fell scraggly over her face. She wore a black gown, and it flowed freely around her ankles, briefly revealing the paleness beneath it. Her hands were folded on her lap, but her body swayed side to side on the stone. A chill ran down Zella’s back as she watched.

“Do you see that?” She asked. Eveline remained quiet. Zella shifted her eyes to the other girl and found hers were stuck on the woman. Her head swayed in unison. “Eveline?” Zella called. She got no response. She stood up, looking around for Caroline, and turned around to watch as Emmett shifted his attention to the south. She tiptoed through the garden and shook Eveline by the shoulder.

Eveline raised an arm, and the woman did too. They swayed together, and Eveline giggled softly. She raised her other arm, swaying in the dead breeze, and closed her eyes.

Zella shook her again, and she jumped, awake. Blinking in a daze, she rubbed her head. Zella turned back toward the stone, and found it empty.

“You okay?” Eveline asked.

“Me? What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I called to you and you didn’t answer.”

Eveline turned to the woods. “I don’t have to answer when you call,” she muttered. She scanned the treeline.

“You saw her too?” Zella asked. Eveline didn’t respond. She jumped up, dropping her trowel and began walking toward the woods.

“Where are you going?” Zella called.

“I want to meet her this time.” Eveline broke into a trot. “Come on!” she sang, her head never swiveling off the rock. “She’s calling to us!”

Zella hesitated. Her mind screamed to stop—but her legs moved before she could fight them. She followed Eveline into the treeline, ducking under branches and skirting around bushes just beginning to blossom. The wind came back. Slowly at first, barely rustling leaves off the ground. Eveline remained ahead of her, stepping with a determination that Zella hadn’t seen from her ventures off the property. Her feet felt heavy. She kept glancing back toward the barn. Master Emmett would never allow her off the property, nobody in her family other than Hosea ever was. Then there were Hosea’s warnings to never step foot inside the surrounding woods. He scared her with those. Back in Georgia, the scariest things between the trees were snakes with fangs and snakes with rifles. Hosea always spoke of the woodland as if it were a snake with divinity.

When she did leave the property, it was always with Eveline. That girl would dance with fawns in the snow or roll in the leaves of autumn, always wandering. She was never pointed, never seeking.

The wind picked up. First a whistle. Then a sough. Then a howl. The checkered dress Eveline wore rose and fell violently with it. Zella put up a hand, blocking the dust from her eyes. She called once again. “Eveline! Eveline!”

There was no answer. When her hand fell, the girl was gone.

Zella whipped around. She twisted and turned, searching the new growth for her mistress. She tried to call, but her throat was too tight. Her body trembled in the new cold, and for the first time in days she watched her breath come out in rapid succession. Her lungs screamed as the frost washed over them.

Her heart hammered against her chest and shot thunder into her ears. The hair on her arms rose and tickled. Zella held herself tight against the emptiness.

“Over here!”

Zella turned to the voice. It was light, almost in a whisper but loud enough to carry. It sounded like Eveline, but raspier.

“No, the other way!”

Zella turned again. It was a little louder now, a little closer. “Eveline?” she called. “Are you okay?”

“Over here!” The voice sang. It was sharp, and reminded her of the wind from the garden. She took a step back, then another. On her third, her leg hit a stump. She turned around, expecting to see Eveline standing there laughing. Instead, she found the base of a tree, and on it a trinket.

She’d seen it before. Sort of. Several twigs twisted around themselves, wrapped in twine. It created a web pattern, and off of one side small bones were attached. She saw Hosea with one of these, Master Emmett had given it to him several weeks ago when the man with the apples came for supper. Hosea refused to carry it into their quarters, but agreed to hold it until Master Emmett was ready to take it back.

This one was stronger. The branches were thicker, and the bones dangling from the twine were cleaner. The twine was less frayed and longer.

She reached out to touch it when Eveline pounced. She grabbed Zella’s wrist and pulled it back, her mouth had twisted into a snarl.

“Don’t touch it,” she sneered.

“Okay,” Zella whimpered. She drew both hands back and stepped away from the girl. Her dress was coated in mud and her face had been scratched from twigs. She knelt to the stump and gingerly lifted the trinket from its place, cradling it as she once cradled her little brother.

“Eveline? What’s happening?”

“I found her, Zella.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know anymore. She gave me a kiss and said this was her gift to me.”

“Eveline, I think we should go home now.”

“No. I think I like it here.”

“I don’t think it’s safe…”

“Says who?”

Zella dropped her eyes as Eveline’s hand wormed its way around her back. “Hosea,” she said.

Eveline scoffed and swayed. Her voice came out twisted, worming its way around her tongue and out of her lips at a pitch too low. “You negroes and your fairy tales. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You shouldn’t even be here.”

Zella watched as Eveline drew a knife from behind her back. A grin slid across her face as she lunged. Zella stumbled and fell, kicking Eveline in the jaw before scrambling to her feet in the leaves and taking off for the farm.

She crashed through the trees, screaming as her lungs would allow. She felt Eveline just behind her. Images flashed of the young mistress crawling over her bare skin, and Zella imagined the blade slicing through the middle of her back. Her feet pounded against roots as she felt vines whipping at her ankles. She ran, refusing to look back.

Zella heard a whistling from above as something smashed into the side of her head, and through her stumbling she ran directly into a tree. Something liquid and hot sprayed across her face as her nose exploded in pain, with bark etched into her forehead and the branches beneath her poking into her back.

Eveline stood above her, blade in hand. She knelt, and through blurred vision Zella could tell that beneath the checkered dress, Eveline’s legs were too pale.