Page 28 of Junie

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Junie runs out of the house as icy cold rain turns the dry land to mud. There is nowhere to stop for cover.

By the time she gets to the stables for safety, she is soaked, her maid’s uniform sticking to her skin like tar. There is no sign of Caleb, only the backs of the horses and the walls of their muddy pens. She takes a step forward and trips against a bucket. Her hands and knees squish into the mud as droplets hit her on the face.

She pushes herself to stand, and kicks the bucket with all her might, splintering the wood and bruising her toe. Pain sears up her leg. She curses, disturbing the sleeping horses before dropping back to the ground with her knees in a ball, not caring if her dress gets soaked with mud and filth. Her breath wheezes through her as though she is being strangled. She closes her eyes, leans back against the wall, and shivers, letting hot tears sting her cheeks.

By the time Caleb tosses a blanket around her shoulders and takes her into his arms, it is twilight and the rain has stopped.

She opens her eyes. Caleb lifts half his mouth into a smile, scrunching his freckled cheeks. He lifts a hand and rubs Junie’s hair.

“C’mon, I’ll start a fire round this way,” he says, nodding toward the other side of the stable. “Gimme your hands.”

Her hands have been curled into fists. Junie unfurls them, stretching the red indentations of her nails in her palms. She follows Caleb, wrapped in a flannel blanket, silent while he fixes the fire. She opens her mouth to speak, but sharing her thoughts feels like too great a risk, even with him. She’s consumed with an urge to cover herself, to conceal any part of her skin that might be showing.

Once the fire starts, it smolders before it roars. Junie leans toward the heat.

“Where’s Granddaddy?” she asks.

“Cookhouse. We was round the other side fixing one of the carriages. When it started raining, I told him to go on inside and I’d finish. Didn’t like the sight of an old man in the cold.” Caleb steps away, admiring his work before taking a seat next to her on the log, wrapping his arm over her shoulders, the scent of fresh rain and smoke enveloping her.

“What you thinking about?” Caleb asks, running his hand over her damp hair. His eyes reflect the light of the fire.

He is the keeper of her secrets now, the only one she has left. The realization tastes of both tenderness and heartache.

“I can’t believe she’d do this, Caleb. After seeing what he is, what he’s done…” She trails off, wondering how he’ll answer. He doesn’t. Instead, he just looks at her and puts his arm back around her. She takes another breath and continues.

“I’ve known Violet my whole life, Caleb. We’ve gone through everything together. I’ve always been by her side.”

Junie’s voice cracks, the lump coming back in her throat.

“Go on,” he says, squeezing her shoulder.

“I thought she was mine.” She drops her face into her hands. “You must think I’m foolish.”

“I don’t,” he says, lifting his face to look at her.

“I think I’m foolish.”

“You ain’t foolish, Delilah June. You just got a heart too big for this world. White folks do crazy things, even the ones you think got a head on their shoulders. The power spoils ’em all.”

Junie turns away from him, looking into the fire.

“My sister always called me a fool. Said I was too silly to see the truth in things.”

“That don’t seem too nice of her,” Caleb says.

“Minnie wasn’t nice,” Junie says. “She was…something different. She was the kind of person who wanted what was best for you, fought for what was best, and didn’t care if she hurt your feelings tellin’ you the truth.”

“What else was she like?” Caleb asks, moving closer.

Junie sighs. “She was polite. And neat. And perfect. Minnie was everything I ain’t.”

“Perfect ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, I reckon,” Caleb says.

“She was cold, too. Tight-lipped. And she could be mean, you know. Sometimes she could be more like the mistress than the master’s wife herself. She thought she knew best about everything, absolutely everything, didn’t matter what it was.”

Silence settles between them. The trees rustle in the distance with the breeze. Junie swallows down the lump growing in her throat.

“She’s been…she died a year ago, maybe even to the day. And it wasn’t until then that I knew…I knew I would do anything she wanted me to. I would’ve done anything for her.”

Caleb reaches and squeezes her hand.

“The fever came, it took her so fast. They said there wasn’t nothing any of us could do. And the truth is, it’s my fault she’s gone, Caleb,” Junie whispers.

“That can’t be true,” he says.

“You wasn’t there. You didn’t see it. Everyone thought she caught yellow fever, but it wasn’t. I was foolish one day, sitting on a branch over the river. She told me to get down, and I didn’t. The wind came through and the branch gave way. I nearly drowned, but she jumped in and pulled me out. The next day, she got sick, and then she was gone.” Junie wipes her tears on her reddened palms. “Granddaddy always says Minnie’s passing ain’t nobody’s fault but God’s, but it ain’t the truth. It’s all my fault, Caleb. It’s mine.”

“You can’t blame yourself for her being gone, Junie,” Caleb says.

“How can I not?”

Caleb sighs. “I used to blame myself for losing my mother. I used to act up as a little boy, and I believed for so long that my master sold me off because I caused trouble. Like, if I’d have just been good, I wouldn’t have lost my momma. But the truth is, that man was always gonna sell me. And that fever was always gonna take your sister. Blaming yourself feels better than admitting you ain’t got no control.”

Junie presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“How we gonna live through this, Caleb?” Junie says.

“There are worse white folks than Mr. Taylor.”

Junie turns, surprised at Caleb’s dissent.

“How could you say that? After what he did to us?”

“I hoped you might see the silver lining in it all.”

“What’s that?” Junie asks.

“If they are together, we’ll be together, too.”

Junie sinks with guilt. She hadn’t thought about what this meant for them, the newness of their relationship overshadowed by the depth of her broken friendship with Violet.

“Tell me what you think, then, about us being together,” Junie says.

Caleb smiles, pulling her in.

“It’s like you said before. There’s a life in this, even if we got to squeeze in to find it. Keep doing what we have to in front of the white folks, enduring their rules and tempers. When they ain’t looking, we’ll have our little life together in the margins. It’s enough room for love.”

Room for love. Room for stolen mornings sitting by Old Mother, room for holding hands out of the white folks’ sight, room for kissing at midnight hidden in the cotton fields. Room for the moments that make her heart swell outside of the borders of her chest.

A sharp sensation claws at Junie’s insides. This would be forever. Sneaking into the night to read, hiding in trees to write, holding her tongue to keep from speaking. Even with Caleb, it will be a life of shoving her whole self into the cracks of someone else’s world, never knowing a moment of boundlessness.

She was wrong. There is no room for love here, not as long as things stay the way they are. Not with Mr. Taylor in charge.

Junie pulls away from Caleb as restless sparks course through her body. Her breath catches in her chest. There is no way out of this, not here. They have no control at Bellereine.

“You all right?” Caleb asks.

“I’m just a little hot, is all,” she says, hoping he does not detect the shake in her voice.

She pushes the sleeves of her wet maid’s uniform to reveal more of her skin. The two tally marks on her wrist glow in the light of the flame.

Minnie has always known best, whether or not Junie liked to admit it. Maybe she knew the way of this situation, of the trap Violet has woven her into.

Maybe the only way out of this is to run.

It is almost the winter solstice; the cold darkness begins to cover Bellereine longer than it will nearly any other night of the year.

“I have to go,” Junie says, tossing off the flannel blanket and smoothing her dress.

“Where you going?” Caleb asks, unable to cover his surprise.

“I need something back at the cabin. I’ll be around later.”

“Did I say something wrong?” Caleb asks.

“No, not at all. You said just what I needed to hear,” Junie says, before bending to kiss his forehead. Before he can go after her, Junie starts into the night.

—

With autumn’s leaves long Gone, the river’s edge shines in the moonlight through the stripped tree trunks. Her shovel, borrowed from the stables, cracks the icy surface of the red dirt. She will not be distracted tonight. She will dig until she finds the box and, with it, the key to her salvation.

Minnie has a plan, one important enough to stake her soul on. Junie had just said it herself: She’d do anything for Minnie, anything to make up for the fate she’d forced her sister into. It is a gift that redeeming herself also means setting herself, Minnie, Caleb, and her family free.

The shovel hits something solid. She brushes away the frozen dirt with her hands before lifting Minnie’s box out of the soil. She tugs the necklace off her neck, pressing the open locket into its slot. As she places the opened box on her lap, golden light surrounds her.

Minnie is behind her, dimmer than she’s ever been. How many full moons have passed since Junie last saw her? How much weaker has she become? Junie swallows and rolls her lips under her teeth.

Minnie touches a finger to Junie’s wound, brows knitted.

“Don’t matter,” Junie says. “I want to do it. The next task. I want to do it.”

Her sister runs her fingers over the cut on Junie’s head, her irises obscured in smokelike clouds. Her arms fold around Junie as Junie steels herself for the frigid pain. When her eyes open, the smoldering glow of the In-Between nearly blinds her. Minnie’s glow solidifies as her body sinks in relief. The black clouds in her eyes fade to brown as her expression twists with disappointment.

“It’s been a while, Junie,” Minnie asserts. “I thought you wasn’t comin’ back.”

“I…I wasn’t sure I was, either,” Junie admits.

“It’s been almost five full moons since I awoke. It took nearly all I have to bring you over. I ain’t…I ain’t even strong enough to talk on the other side no more.”

Junie winces, her guilt hitting her like a slap.

“I’m sorry, Minnie. I didn’t see it before, the ugly underneath. I wasn’t lookin’ at the right things. But I see it now, Minnie, I see why you wanted to run.”

Minnie crosses her arms, her face stoic.

“Does all this knowing got to do with that cut on your head?”

“It was Violet,” Junie mutters. “Well, not her directly. The man who’s courting her, who…she’s marrying, he’s the one who…but she’s the reason he did it.”

“Violet’s getting married?” Minnie asks. Her expression shows concern for the first time. Junie swallows her irritation.

“That don’t matter. You want me to run, don’t you? Ain’t that what these next two tasks are about? I’ll do it. I don’t want to live my life in the margins of someone else’s. I want my own. Whatever it is, whatever your plan is, I will do it, all right? I will do it for you.”

Minnie touches her sister’s cheek. “You ought to do it for you, too.”

“Yes, for me, too. And for Muh, and Granddaddy, and Auntie, and Bess. All of us.”

“You ain’t gonna save ’em all, Junie,” Minnie says.

Junie ignores her. “The second task. Tell me what I got to do for the second task.”

“Do you remember the vial in the box? The one with the leaves?” Minnie says.

Junie nods.

“You got to put ’em into the master’s drink. All of ’em,” she says.

“Why?” Junie asks apprehensively. “What will happen?”

“They’ll make him ill. When he gets sick, everybody in the house will be distracted. That’s when you run.”

Questions start to fill Junie’s mind. They tingle on her lips before she bites them back. She has questioned Minnie so many times and wasted so many moments fighting her. Besides, Junie doesn’t care. She wants to hurt them. She wants them to suffer for once.

“And the running, that’s the last task?”

Minnie nods. “You got to hurry. I can’t make it much longer if you don’t work quick.”

Junie nods. Minnie smiles, pressing a kiss to the bruise on Junie’s forehead. She pulls her in, transporting her back to the land of the living.

“Go,” she says into Junie’s ear, before fading between the trees.