E broke fo’ gi’ me a sign.
My Pa is dead!
I know, fo’ sho’!
Da lamp-shade broke
Een my hand!”
Her breath caught in her throat with gasps and her grieving got hoarse and husky, the steady sing-song braced by the children’s shrill mourning reached the neighbors who came hurrying to see what was wrong.
At first they tried to cheer up the mother’s heart with big-sounding, bantering talk. Granddad could outswim an otter. The river could drown him no more than a duck. He had followed a wild turkey, or a hog going to make her bed. It was wrong to trouble trouble before trouble troubles you. Hogs had rooted up the earth around the pine. Nobody had done that. Granny hobbled up, muttering to herself between her toothless jaws. The sun shone right into her eyes and marked how they shifted sly looks from the fallen tree to the earth. Her withered fingers plucked at the dirty greasy charm thread around her wrist. One bony finger pointed at the broken ground.
“Whe’ is e, Granny?” the mother asked, and the silence was that of a grave. Granny’s palsied head shook harder than ever, and the mother rent the air with her cries. Sis and the children joined in with wails, and the dogs all howled and barked. Granny said Old Breeze was done for! The same as the felled tree. Who was to blame? How could she tell? Had he eaten any strange victuals lately? Had he drunk water out of any strange well? No? Then he must have been tricked by somebody under his roof. Somebody who wished him ill had put an evil eye on him. No strong well man would melt away unless he had been bewitched. Granny peeped sidewise at Breeze. Where was his stepfather? Where? Nobody answered the old woman, but feet shuffled uneasily as she said that the whole of Sandy Island showed signs of bewitchment. When had it rained? The fowls’ eggs hatched poorly. The cows lost their cuds. The fish didn’t bite. Shooting stars kept the sky bright every night. Black works were the cause! Then everybody chimed in; it must be as Granny said. And the old woman looked straight at Breeze. He was born with second-sight. The young moon was here. This was the time when all those who are cheated out of life come back and walk on this earth whenever a young moon shines. If Old Breeze had met with foul death, he’d come back that night and walk around that very pine as soon as the first dark came. Young Breeze must watch for him and talk with him and find out what had happened to him. Nobody else on Sandy Island could talk to spirits like that boy. He had been born with a caul over his face, and that strange thing that had veiled his eyes when he came into the world gave them the power to see things other people could never witness. Spirits and hants and ghosts and plat-eyes.
Granny’s talk made Breeze’s flesh creep cold on his bones. His blood stopped running. Fear tried to put wings on his feet, but he clung to his mother’s skirt and wept, for even the shadows began an uncertain flickering and wavering as if they’d reach out and grab him.
“Hogs ain’ rooted up de ground. Not no hogs what walks on fo’ legs. No. Sperits might ’a’ done it—but whe’s you’ husban’, gal? Whe’ e is?”