The Healing Read Online Free PDF Page B

world.”
    Though husband and wife, Sylvie and Silas didn’t stay together. Sylvie slept in a room behind the kitchen and Silas stayed alone in his cabin. They both seemed to like it that way. Silas was nearly twice Sylvie’s age, and she said old folks are easier to care for from a distance.
    Sylvie turned away from the door and got back to her biscuit dough. “If Silas don’t show pretty soon with some firewood, Granada, I’m going to send you out to the yard and gather some kindling chips. That might work off some of your sass.”
    “Aunt Sylvie—”
    The cook waved her off. “Baby, stop running your mouth and dip me a cup of sweet milk from the crock. You got me so flustered I done made my dough crumbly.”
    Granada stomped her foot at Sylvie, but then did as she was told, with a few groans thrown in for good measure.
    She handed the cup to Aunt Sylvie with a dramatic sigh.
    “Life must be hard on you Christian martyrs,” Aunt Sylvie said, but Granada saw the smile.
    After pouring the milk into her great hickory bowl, Sylvie worked the batter vigorously with her short, blunt fingers. “Thank the Lord Preaching Sunday don’t come every week,” she muttered, lifting her shoulder to wipe her face on the checked gingham dress.
    Granada couldn’t understand why the cook didn’t look forward to Preaching Sundays. Everybody else did. Several times a year, the master’s slaves were herded in from miles around, from every settlement the master had built, spread across his four thousand acres of plantation land. Hundreds of black bodies flooded into the yard like a dark, slow-moving river. These were all-day affairs, called by the master when conditions warranted sending for Bishop Kerry to give everybody a good preaching-to. Master Ben invited his white friends from town and neighboring plantations to join him high up on the gallerywhere they listened to the bishop give the sermon. And Granada got to be at the very center of it all.
    Sylvie finally looked down at Granada and shook her head sadly. “You mind your manners today. I don’t think you know how lucky you are not to be out working in them swamps. You come mighty close. Don’t you forget it! If you don’t act right, the mistress can always send you back where she found you, like you know who!”
    Granada stuck out her tongue. Aunt Sylvie was always threatening to send Granada to one of the settlements where the field slaves lived. Supposedly that’s where Granada’s mother was moved off to after the cholera. And Sylvie often tried to scare Granada by telling her the story of Lizzie’s little girl with skin the color of cream and eyes like the mistress’s emeralds, all proper and house-raised, now working the swamps like a common field slave. “If it can happen to an almost white girl, it can sure happen to you!”
    Granada forced that possibility from her mind. The mistress would never allow it, she told herself. And if that woman who was supposed to be Granada’s mother ever tried to lay claim, the girl would fight tooth and nail. She wanted no mother but the mistress.
    Sylvie turned toward the cold fireplace, but Granada again stepped into her path, determined Sylvie would not ignore her this time.
    “You think it’s going to be silk this time, Aunt Sylvie?” she asked, her ink-black eyes wide and unblinking.
    “Listen at you, a kitchen girl talking like she knows something about silk.” She took Granada by the shoulders and swung her aside like a garden gate. “Don’t matter if it’s made out of corn silk. You best learn now, white folks don’t look at you. They only look at what you toting on your back or carrying in your hands. That don’t change because the wrapping is pretty, Granada. Just don’t bring attention to yourself.”
    Sylvie shook her head. “What am I saying? The second they see you dressed up like a white girl, they always bust a gut.” She looked at Granada sadly. “Baby, I hope you know they ain’t flattering