Silent Thunder Read online

  I was too churned up to speak. When I parted my lips to say something, to give Mama more of my protest, not even the squeak of a mouse came to my throat. But Mama must have seen the disappointment on my face. She said, “Wipe that pout off your lips and listen to me good. If I find you dabbling with letters again, I’ll give you a true reason to be down in the mouth.”

  I snuffed my lantern. I rolled to my side. I whispered to Walnut way into the darkness.

  PART TWO

  Serendipity

  12

  Rosco

  October 28, 1862

  MAMA’S CRADLING A TINY BABY. I can see his little body wriggling in Mama’s arms as she lets droplets of sugar-water drip from her finger onto the baby’s suckling lips.

  The baby lets out a whimper. Mama rocks him, coos down into the blanket, where he’s bundled tight. That baby’s whimper sets something off in me. Makes me want to cuddle that babe in my own arms. “Can I hold him, Mama?”

  Mama shakes her head. “Best that I tend to him,” she says. “But come, take a look.” Mama loosens the blanket where it’s tucked at the baby’s chin. She peels the soft fabric away from the baby’s face.

  Soon as I peer in, I’m startled back. This baby’s got the face of a grown man. The face of Gideon Parnell!

  Mama doesn’t see what I see. To her, there ain’t nothin’ strange about the baby. She coddles him. Strokes his face gently. Wipes the spittle from his chin.

  I look closer to make sure my eyes aren’t playing a trick on me. I turn back the blanket so’s I can see even more of the baby. On the place where that baby’s ribs would be, there’s a fleshy, pink wound—a cattle brand, like the one me and Summer and Mama and all of us Parnell slaves got burned into our sides. But this half baby-half Gideon isn’t branded with the letter P. He’s got Mama’s name—Kit—burned into him. And the brand is surrounded by the black body hairs of a full-grown man! I shudder and wince at the same time.

  Mama don’t notice the baby’s brand, either. This baby is all sweetness to her. She folds his blanket back around him, double-checking to make sure he’s properly wrapped.

  Then something happens to make me holler. Mama and her baby rise from the land and float up toward the sky. Same way seed pods rise from a dandelion. The two of them are floating fast and far. Soon they grow smaller and smaller among the clouds. With a breeze blowing at them, Mama’s dress billows up to reveal the brand on her thigh. I look away from shame, from not wanting to see my own mama’s bare legs. I’m calling out, “Mama, Mama!” until I realize that I’m not dreaming no more, that I’m coming to wakefulness.

  My eyes flew open. Twilight was creeping. “Mama’s left for the main house,” Summer said in a sleepy voice. “You all right, Ros?”

  “It ain’t nothin’,” I said. “Just askin’ for Mama, is all.”

  But this time, Mama wasn’t there to chase away the haints in my dream. So I found comfort in just saying Mama’s name.

  My lips made a silent sound, more hushed than a whisper.

  Mama . . . Mama . . . Mama.

  I hugged myself and rocked and rocked, like Mama would if she knew demons had flung up in my dreams again.

  Soon I felt morning sleep coming. Easy sleep that would let me rest a bit before I had to wake for good. As long as I kept up with my quiet call, I knew I’d feel safe.

  Mama . . . Mama . . . Mama.

  Near a month had passed since Parnell had taken ill. Near a month of changes and turmoil among all of us who call the Parnell plantation our home.

  Most everyone at Parnell’s had gone grim. For years, we’d been livin’ under the same rules. Wake when the master said wake, work when the master said work, sleep when the master said sleep.

  Now we didn’t have no rules. You’d ’a thought Parnell’s sickness would’ve been the go-’head for slacking. For the crop slaves to let the fields go fallow, and for us house servants to loaf. But each and every Parnell slave worked just as hard as ever. It was all we knew.

  If I’d come to Parnell’s plantation for the very first time, I’d have sworn it was Missy Claire who was suffering from some sickness, not her husband. Missy looked more wilted than a thirsty lily. While Parnell was holed up in his study, refusing to come out, Missy Claire spent most of her time perched near the parlor window. She poked nervously at a needlepoint sampler, making little progress on it. She had dipped into a frightful silence. Her squawkiness was all but gone.

  It wasn’t Rance, the overseer, who was running things. It seemed Missy Claire had given all the authority over to Mama.

  Mama was always the one with the strong backbone and the ability for managing folks, and now she was ruling the roost. Ruling it with hands of iron.

  Mama had become downright surly. Even little things riled her. She snapped a lot. It could have been that Mama felt the burden of Master Gideon’s feebleness, and the heavy duty of having to keep the Parnell homestead going.

  For every annoying bit of nitpickiness that had left Missy Claire, Mama now had it double:

  “Rosco, child, mind me when I speak.”

  “Rosco, don’t drag them feet o’ yours.”

  “Rosco, make your fetchin’ snappy.”

  I just did like Mama said, and stayed out of her way.

  Soon after Parnell’s stroke, Missy Claire gave in to Mama’s know-how for healing. For the first time ever, she let her use the cayenne liniment to help quiet Lowell’s cough.

  “Kit,” she’d said timidly, “maybe we ought to give your ointment a try. Now that October’s come, we shouldn’t take any chances with Lowell’s well-being.”

  Then, fanning herself with one of her hankies, Missy said, “We certainly wouldn’t want Lowell to catch himself any kind of cold.”

  Missy went on about how autumn always ushers in the threat of winter, and how Lowell was winter’s sure target. (Missy Claire always thought she was an expert in the ways of weather.)

  So I stirred the cayenne liniment, while Mama massaged it into Lowell’s chest and back.

  Oh, does that oil ever stink! It stinks worse than horse wind. But Lowell didn’t seem to notice the smell. He stood obediently when Mama worked on him. He was bare from the waist up, his spindly arms held out at each side. For a moment, Lowell looked like the sack-doll I’d made for Summer. Arms stiff, body still, face blank. Even his cowlick stood at attention.

  All that day I was stuck with the odor of the cayenne liniment. It had a way of clinging to my hands no matter how hard I washed them.

  Mama was the one who’d been tending to Master Gideon, too. (Thea said Gideon preferred the sure-handedness of Mama’s tending over Missy Claire’s frail company.)

  Mama served Parnell’s meals to him in his study. And, with Missy Claire’s go-’head, she prepared warm herb poultices, smelly concoctions Thea swore would restore the master’s limp left arm and leg. (Two Sundays past, when Doc Bates came to check on Parnell, he told Mama and Thea that even though Missy Claire gave her permission to use the poultices, they were not proven medical practice. After he left, Thea told Mama that the Lords good herbs didn’t need no practice.)

  Last week, I heard Mama saying to Summer, “What I tell you—ever since Gideon’s heart-shock, all kinds of official folks been comin’ to this house. I spend half my day answering the door clapper.”

  Mama was right about that. Aside from Doc Bates, Parnell had had visits from Robert Stearns, who owns the mercantile in town, from Andrew Wells, who calls prices at the slave auctions on the block, and, just yesterday, some white-haired man I ain’t never seen the likes of showed up to see Master Gideon.

  “Parnell owes the man money. He’s stacked himself some hefty debts, and that man wanted to make sure Parnell was still alive and able to continue with his payments,” Thea had said

  To keep Master Gideon presentable for visitors, Mama arranged for Clem to bathe the master and shave his face and neck every day.

  Summer still worked ’longside Mama. But something had come
between them two. Some kind of heavy silence. And Summer, she was holding fast to Walnut seemed like all the time. She hugged that doll to her like it was a real, living baby.

  I’d taken to giving Summer her lessons in the early blue-black mornings, after Mama had left the quarters, long before there was even a trace of sun. This was Summer’s idea.

  Summer now took her lessons without the lesson book I’d given her. She said Mama took the book away, for good! So, come lately, I’d been teaching Summer letters with a smooth patch of dirt and a sharp stick. I drew letters in the dirt while Summer held the lantern.

  Not having a proper reading book hadn’t hurt Summer any. In just two weeks she’d learned the whole alphabet. And, my addle-brained sister was more determined than ever to pay me her full attention when I insisted that we go slow with our lessons.

  Ever since sickliness had taken over the master, Lowell had changed, too. His wheeziness was near to gone. If I was a firm believer in Thea’s powers, I’d ’a sworn she’d put some kind of spell on Lowell—some kind of get-well spell.

  He was still skinny as a whittled stick, but a flush of color had come to his cheeks. His speaking voice was still one peg up from a whisper, but he now stuttered only a little. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was Mama’s cayenne liniment that had done the trick, or if Lowell was somehow blessed with healing from knowing that his pa, who thought the worst of him, was sick.

  Lowell and Miss McCracken were still studying “The Snow-Storm.” Miss McCracken now called that part of their lesson “oratorical expression.”

  Lowell’s “trumpets of the sky” never sounded so good. And today, with autumn’s chill starting to nip at the air, I kept those trumpets close while me and Clem worked in the toolshed.

  We were supposed to be outside busting firewood to prepare for what Missy Claire had said was gonna be one of the worst cold-weather seasons Hobbs Hollow had ever seen. But clouds had painted the sky gray as flint, and, oh, were them clouds ever pouring. Outside the shed the rain slashed down in an icy, biting sheet. Missy had told us this was October’s way of announcing a foul winter.

  So Clem and me, we took to sharpening master Gideon’s axes so’s that when the rain cleared and the wood dried, we could bust and cord them logs the way Mama insists Missy Claire likes them—“twig size.”

  I lifted each ax off its hook and set it next to Clem, who was sharpening the blade of Parnell’s biggest ax. Clem worked without speaking, his brows bent, his expression focused. He didn’t even let his eyes wander when the sky threw down a whopping bolt of thunder. When Clem finished one ax blade, he extended his hand to let me know he was ready for the next.

  We worked in silence through three blades. Then Clem said, “You know the hearsay?”

  I shrugged. “’Bout the master holed up in his study?”

  Clem shook his head.

  “’Bout the visitors that been swarming round here? That the hearsay you mean, Clem?”

  No again.

  Clem wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. Even in the chilly shed, he had worked up a sweat. “Naw,” he said. “All that’s old hearsay. I mean the hearsay that came to the quarters early this morning.”

  I’d been with Summer that morning. Our lesson had gone overtime because Summer had insisted we keep on. Clem could see by the expression on my face that I didn’t have a clue.

  “Missy Claire has sent for her brother, Thomas Farnsworth, who owns a plantation down in Louisiana, to come oversee things here. He’ll be comin’ sometime round Christmas.”

  There was still a question on my face. To me, this wasn’t no juicy hearsay; it was just information. “So” was all I said.

  Clem shook his head. “Louisiana’s cotton country, Ros—the deep Southland, the place they sent my Marietta.” Clem’s words were heavy. This time he flinched when a bang of thunder escaped from the sky. “The meanest slave masters walking this earth come from Louisiana,” he said quietly. “Talk at the quarters says the Missy’s brother makes Lucifer look like a lamb. That he’s Secesh to the core.”

  Another thunderclap. Clem’s face went hard. His eyes darted. “I’ve had enough hell living here under Gideon Parnell’s thumb, and it’s even worse now that your mama’s got me washin’ and shavin’ him.” Clem was talking like he’d come to a decision. He said, “I didn’t think so at first, but now, far as I can see, Parnell’s falling sick is good luck. I’m going North to enlist in the Union army.”

  I shrugged, letting Clem’s conviction settle for a moment. Clem waited for me to say something. More thunder came. It was a slow, rolling bellow this time.

  Clem extended his hand, ready for the next ax blade. With his waiting palm stretched out full, he asked, “You comin’ with me?”

  If Clem had asked me about enlisting way back, when I’d first read about the Union taking in colored soldiers, I would have jumped fast as a jackrabbit.

  But something in me was holding that jackrabbit back. With all that had come to pass—Parnell’s heart-shock, the promise of Lincoln’s proclamation, Mama taking plantation matters into her own hands— I wasn’t so quick to jump.

  Clem could see I was slow to answer him. He didn’t badger me, but there was an impatient look coming to his eyes. All he said was, “Hand me a new blade, will you?”

  13

  Summer

  November 10, 1862

  I’D HAVE GIVEN JUST ABOUT anything, even Walnut, to have my book back. But when Mama put her foot down, she meant it, and there was no use in trying to cross her. Thanks to Rosco’s teaching, I knew me all the alphabet. Plus, I knew six whole words. I came to know every bit of this without my Clarkston Reader.

  I learned letters by finding letter look-alikes, regular things that look just like the letters in my book.

  The slants of morning sunlight coming into the quarters—them light slants looked just like the letter W.

  The wisp of hair that fell on the back of Missy Claire’s neck—that was an S.

  The trunk of the cypress tree, standing tall and proud so’s even the strongest wind or the harshest words couldn’t bend it—for certain, that was the letter L.

  And them sweet, buttery peaks that formed in Mama’s mixing bowl when she was whippin’ tea cake batter—they were a whole mess of M’s, one coming up in the bowl after the other.

  I’d been stringing letters together, side by side, like the pearls Missy Claire wore round her neck for the Hobbs Hollow Christmas cotillion. I’d been making my own necklace. A necklace of P’s and D’s and U’s and Q’s. Now, letters were more than curls on paper. Letters meant something.

  I’d learned four words from Rosco: run, man, be, and, the longest and best word, my name, Summer.

  Then, by accident, I learned another word by myself. Two Mondays ago, I was in the parlor where Missy Claire had been spending her days. Missy was working on her embroidery sampler, stretched in its hoop, for what seemed like the longest time. I was sitting cross-legged at Missy’s feet, untangling her embroidery threads, using all the patience I could summon to stay with a tricky knot of the prettiest blue thread I’ve ever seen.

  My eyes were starting to sting from the concentration. I took a long, slow blink, then let my gaze rest on Missy’s sampler. There, plain as the day’s sky, was my name, Summer, stitched in pink across the sampler’s top arc. Further down, under the Summer, was a longer word. I knew all its letters. I made myself curl the sounds of them letters round my tongue. After three tries of sounding the word silently, I blurted it out. Thankfully, my blurt was quiet, like a whisper— “Flower.”

  Missy Claire shifted her eyes in my direction. “You say something, Summer?”

  I blinked and quickly turned my attention back to my knot of thread. “No, ma’am, just a breeze blowin’, I guess,” was my answer.

  Missy Claire gave a blank smile and kept on with her needlepoint.

  Already, I was starting to see what Thea meant about reading being both a blessing and a bugaboo. I was t
ruly thankful that I was starting to see words. Sometimes I thought it was better than seeing the early morning sun crack open the shell of darkness that blanketed the sky each night. But seeing words was also like spending a whole night awake, staring into blackness. The longer I stared, the more I didn’t see—the more words I learned, the more I came to see there were so many I just didn’t know.

  Missy Claire was writing carefully with her embroidery needle, crafting the letters of my name, like it was a fine, delicate thing. But what did my name have to do with flowers?

  Come the next morning, I was a bushel of talk at my lesson. “Ros, Missy Claire’s got my name stitched into her sampler.”

  Rosco was still sleepy. He wasn’t fully listening. “Missy ain’t really makin’ nothing with her needle and thread, Summer. Except for a few lame buds and swirls, her sampler’s been bare for weeks.”

  I slid Walnut from my pocket and smoothed her burlap dress. “Yeah, I saw them rosebuds and swirls around the sampler’s edge. But toward the center was my name. I read it, Ros. It said, Summer. And under my name it said, flower. I read that too—flower,” I repeated.

  Rosco yawned. “Missy Claire’s probably makin’ a sampler for the seasons. To Missy, summer ain’t you, it’s what comes after spring and before fall,” Rosco insisted.

  I rested Walnut in my lap, and lifted my lantern to Rosco’s face. “I know when summer is, Ros. And I know Missy Claire don’t give a toe-bone about puttin’ me in her sampler. But summer is my name, and Missy’s making it look special, even if summer ain’t no more than a season to her.”

  Rosco was wincing at the lantern’s light.

  “I ain’t never seen my name stitched into a sampler, all fine and pretty and pink. I just want to know all what Missy’s sayin’ about summer—and flowers,” I said.

  Rosco let go a heavy sigh, like he was still trying to shake off his sleepiness. “Okay, Summer,” he said, “you and me, we’ll go to the parlor when Missy’s not there— which ain’t often these days—and look for ourselves at what she’s saying with her sampler.”