“Looka!” Joy lifted a white horse hair and held it in front of his eyes. “Take em an’ drown em, Breeze. Drown em quick. I bet Brudge done dis. De scoundrel! Brudge is tryin’ to scare you. Dat’s all. He can’ do you nothin’. No. Brudge don’ know how to cunjure nobody. But you go chunk dis in de Blue Brook anyhow. Tie em on a rock an’ chunk em far in as you kin. But don’ le’ Brudge know you done it.”
Breeze writhed with cold fear. That short white horse hair was a burden to his shaking fingers. He shifted it from one hand to the other, until he reached the Blue Brook’s bank. When a lizard scurried under a log to hide, its light rustling made Breeze almost drop his load. But he found a pebble, twined the hair around it, and after looking all around to be sure nobody saw, he cast it into the water.
As it fell with a light plop a giggle broke in the stillness. Breeze’s blood turned hot with fury. If Brudge had dared to follow him, watch him, laugh at him, he’d get a stick, a rock, something that could kill, and kill the scoundrel.
His eyes searched the surroundings, but nothing was at hand. Festoons of trailing moss floated from the limbs of the enormous live-oaks, making a weird canopy over his head; a cicada chanted shrilly in a clump of vine-tangled shrubbery; huge coiling, writhing roots spread around great rough trunks, then dropped out of sight, burying themselves in the earth. No weapon for him to use was anywhere in sight. He’d hunt until he found one. A narrow bit of a short blue skirt flickered from behind a tree-trunk and disappeared. Emma’s! Maybe it was she who had tricked him, not Brudge! He stopped short with a sharp indrawn breath. He’d slip up on her, catch her, hold her—maybe push her in the water!
Tipping stealthily forward, he went toward the tree, holding his breath for fear Emma might hear him and get away. He’d make her pay for teasing him, scaring him, making him believe somebody had put a conjure spell on him with that white horse hair.
When Emma peeped out to see where he was, he grabbed her by the arm so suddenly she gave a little frightened cry.
“I got you! Now I’m gwine drown you!” he growled, but instead of pulling away, trying his strength, her eyes filled, her mouth quivered.
“I was jus’ playin’ wid you, Breeze—you oughtn’ to be mad wid me—a-jerkin’ me——”
The moss waved softly overhead, the grass heads leaned sidewise in the gentle wind, two round drops of water dreaned out of Emma’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. They cut clean to Breeze’s heart, startling, paining him. The small arm inside his fingers was soft as Joy’s baby’s. He wouldn’t hurt it for the world.
“I ain’ mad. I’m a-playin’ wid you, too,” he explained.