Page 30 of Junie

Chapter Thirty

That evening, with Bess preparing the room for Violet and Beau’s wedding night, the task of refreshing Mr. McQueen’s liquor supply falls to Junie. The brocaded silk walls of the hallway to his study clutch the scent of old tobacco and whiskey close within their crimson threads. Junie’s palms sweat, and she is grateful she has her apron pocket to hold the vial instead of her hands. Junie has only ever entered this room in the daytime, and even in the soft light of morning, the corridor always felt like a tomb.

She presses her ear to the dark wooden door. Nothing but the creak of the floorboard beneath her own feet. She twists the knob and nudges the door open, illuminating the room with her candle.

Unlike Violet’s library, which is full to bursting, the shelves hold just a couple of leather books. Two red silk armchairs, fat like toads, sit in one of the corners of the square room. She tiptoes over the burnt cigar ends and glass cups on the floor to the bar at the far end of the room, a wooden, carved table filled with empty bottles and dirty glasses. Junie winces at the smells of old spilled liquor. After stocking the cabinet, she takes the master’s favorite bourbon, left nearly empty on his desk. She removes the stopper, then opens the vial. After carefully adding a few drops of water to revive the dried leaves, she tips the mixture into the bourbon. The leaves slosh in the liquor inside.

“Don’t mess with those,” says Mr. McQueen as he stomps into the room. His wedding jacket is open with the necktie undone.

“I’m sorry, mister,” Junie says in a shaking whisper. Has he seen it?

He waves her off.

“What you doin’ in here, anyway?”

“Bess, she had me come to change your whiskey, sir. She’s hurt.”

“Well, go on and light the candles while you’re at it. Dark as a coffin in here,” he says, lowering himself into a chair.

Junie curtsies, and walks around the room, lighting the sconces until the room glows yellow. She holds her candle with two hands to keep from trembling.

“You Buddy Tom’s girl?” he asks. “Goodness, you sure are a dark nigger girl, ain’t ya.”

“Yes, sir,” Junie says, turning from her last sconce.

“Speak louder, girl, can’t hardly hear you.”

“Yes, sir,” Junie says more firmly.

“You’re a shaky little thing. You got a name, then?”

“Junie.”

“Ah yes, of course, you’re Junie. Well, now that we’re properly introduced, Junie, why don’t you fix me a drink? Neat, to the rim. I’m celebrating, after all.”

Junie complies, pouring the spiked bourbon into a low-ball glass. The specks of herb sink to the bottom of the cup. She swallows.

“C’mon, Janie, I ain’t got all year,” he says, chuckling. “Get it, ’cause it’s New Year’s Eve?”

Janie. She’s been here sixteen years, and he still got her name wrong.

She passes him the drink, and the leaves swirl together as he takes a deep sip. He pulls a pipe and a bit of tobacco off the shelf behind him. Junie’s breath catches in her throat. How much time does she have to run? The grandfather clock ticks closer to eleven, leaving her an hour to midnight. The walk to the riverbank is a quarter hour on its own. There is hardly enough time to collect everyone and run for the rowboat.

“Good night, sir.” She curtsies to exit.

“Nope, I ain’t dismissed you yet,” he says, packing the wooden pipe with tobacco. “It’s my daughter’s wedding night, and if everybody else in the house is going to be occupied, I intend to have some company. You ain’t my first choice, Janie, but you’ll have to do. Now, tell me something you like to do,” he says, lighting the pipe.

Her heart pounds with the rhythm of the clock’s ticks. There is no way out of this.

“Ain’t much to do around a farm like this, sir, if I’m being honest,” Junie says.

“Honesty. I like that. Sit down,” he says, gesturing toward the chair next to him. Junie slowly lowers herself into the smoke-soaked armchair.

“C’mon now, chair ain’t gonna bite. Take a load off.”

Junie leans back. The light of the tobacco leaves casts a glow over Mr. McQueen’s weathered face. He exhales and takes a long drink of the whiskey. He looks at her with a slight smile.

“You know,” he slurs. “It’s funny having you sit there. Your sister used to take that seat sometimes, too.”

Junie’s blood goes cold at his mention of her sister. Her face contorts before she has a chance to tame it.

“Oh, you didn’t know about that? Yeah, we’d sit here, talk, that sort of thing, after she figured it out. She always had some plan. Sometimes I’d oblige, often I didn’t. Minnie was always a bit of a snake. Sneaky thing. Got that from your momma I’m sure.”

Acid burns like fire in Junie’s stomach as she searches desperately for an exit. “She didn’t speak about that, sir. But I should go and help Auntie,” Junie says.

“You’ll stay here, dammit!” he says. He tips the glass back to let the last of the liquor fall down his throat. “Shit, I ought to have company when I please in my own damn house. Now get me another.”

He passes her the glass, and Junie pours the next drink until the tainted bottle is empty. He takes it, alternating between his whiskey and pipe as the minutes tick by on the grandfather clock. Junie digs her fingernails into her thigh.

Mr. McQueen slumps forward in his seat, his eyes on her legs.

“You know, you look just like her,” he says. The scent of whiskey hovers over him as he exhales. “It didn’t show as much when you was a girl, but now that you’re older…I can’t even look in your direction. I gotta creep on eggshells around my own house just to avoid getting a look at you. It don’t even matter how black you is, you still just her spittin’ image. Minnie didn’t take after nobody. Not me, not Lottie. But you. You’ve got Lottie’s same pretty eyes, same pretty nose, same pretty voice, everything. It’s like looking through time. You remember my Lottie, don’t you, girl?”

“I can’t say I remember her much, sir,” Junie says.

“Damn shame that is. She was something, Lottie. She was a snake in the end, too, though. Went off with that no-good field nigger, like I wouldn’t notice.” He tips back the glass to finish the second whiskey. His eyes glaze as he coughs. “You know I didn’t even drink before that? I was a regular choirboy until that harpy.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” Junie mutters.

“I gave her everything. I ain’t never treated her like a house girl. No, I bought her jewelry, I got her gifts from the best shops in the world, hell, I let her grow her hair out. I treated her better than my damn wife.”

Sweat beads in Junie’s underarms, even as a cold wind blows through the window.

“You’re just so goddamm pretty, you know that, girl? Come closer, won’t you? Say you love me. Say I’m your one and only.” His voice is a plea rather than a command.

“What?” Junie answers, stiffening in her seat.

“Tell me you love me. Say it the way she would say it. Say it like my name’s the last one you’ll ever say.”

“Mister, I don’t think I ought—”

“You’re to do what I tell you to do, ain’t you? It’s just some words, Lottie. Just say ’em. Say I’m the only one you love, Lottie.” He climbs out of his chair, this time kneeling on the floor and pressing his hands into Junie’s knees and sliding them up her bare thighs. A cough rocks his body, and specks of blood fall on Junie’s maid uniform. Junie launches herself out of the chair.

“Sir, I need to be going.”

“Lottie wasn’t sure the first time, neither, but I taught her how to like it. Oh, I taught her how and I treated her right.”

He clutches Junie’s ankle, his sweaty palms like wet moss.

“Say it,” he yells, his breath becoming labored. “Say you love me! Tell me you love me, Lottie!”

Junie rips her foot away, kicking him in the chest. Mr. McQueen falls back and she sprints for the door, but he grabs her again, this time by the edge of her dress, ripping the bottom of her uniform. He coughs again and wipes blood across his face.

“Don’t you go,” he screams. He grabs her ankle again, but his grip is weak from the whiskey. “Don’t you leave me again!”

Junie’s foot collides with his jaw, throwing his limp body back into an end table. She sprints for the door, slamming it behind her, leaving Mr. McQueen to bleed.

—

The frigid air burns Junie’s lungs as she leaps over patches of ice to get to the cookhouse, where the candlelight inside glows dimly through the window. Caleb leans casually on the wall, as though it is any other night.

“Where you going so fast?” he says as she hurtles toward him. “Hell, Junie, what’s happened to you?”

“Ain’t no matter,” she says, brushing off her ripped and stained maid’s uniform. “We got to go now.”

“McQueen or Taylor want us for something?”

“No, we got to go . Something’s happened, I ain’t sure what yet, but I know that if we don’t run now, we might not get the chance again.”

Caleb drops his cigarette and stamps it out in a patch of icy mud.

“You remember what I said before, Caleb, about the margins?” she says, grabbing his hands. “I was dead wrong. There ain’t no life here—no life in a place where they can take everything from us as soon as they feel like it. We got to go. My uncle, he said there’s a boat that comes at the end of the month, and it takes Negroes to some safe place where the three rivers meet. He’ll meet us there.”

Caleb rolls his foot over the squashed cigarette.

“Change your mind,” he says.

“What?” The air catches in her throat.

“Change your mind, please, Delilah June?”

“Caleb—”

“Don’t nobody survive runnin’ from this far south. If we was in Maryland or something, maybe—”

“What’s geography got to do with any of this?”

“This is Alabama! Every damn piece of furniture the white folks have, every roast on their tables, every dollar in their banks, comes from the dirt we’re standing on. They ain’t got nothing without cotton planted and as many Negroes as they can afford keeping the place running. You think the white folks round here gonna let some prize Negroes get away? We won’t make it as far as the river ’fore a patroller points a rifle at our heads, and by then, we’d be lucky if they shot us.”

“You’re scared. I know you’re scared,” Junie says. “But do you want to spend the rest of your God-given life at the mercy of men like Taylor? Just because of what might happen?”

“If it don’t mean I have to spend my life alone again, then yes, I will,” Caleb says. “Muh, Auntie, Granddaddy, you—y’all are my family now. I know it don’t seem like much to you, but I ain’t gonna risk the only family I got for a future I’m not too sure I’ll make it to.”

Anger boils in Junie’s veins. She’s taken challenges from a ghost, stolen from Violet, and left Mr. McQueen bleeding on the library floor. And he doesn’t dare to walk through the woods with her?

“If you want me, Caleb, you got to come with me. It’s that simple.”

Caleb rolls his foot over the cigarette again, cracking ice into shards under his boot.

“Change your mind,” he whispers.

“You’re a coward,” Junie says. “You’re too lily-livered to fight for a life worth living.”

“Don’t call me a coward.”

“Oh, you don’t like that word? What other word would you use for somebody who ain’t got the mettle to fight for themselves, who ain’t got the gumption to fight alongside the girl they say they love? Do you know how much I risked for you, to teach you to read? I lost my standing in the house over you. I lost Violet over you.”

“You still really believe that Violet was ever your friend? I ain’t no coward, Junie. I just ain’t a fool,” Caleb says, raising his voice.

“You think I’m a fool, then, to want something more for myself?”

“I think you’re a damn fool for thinking you can have it.”

Junie storms toward the cookhouse door.

“Junie, please don’t. Where the hell you going?” Caleb says, chasing her.

“If you want to waste your life scrubbing Mr. Taylor’s shit out of chamber pots, that’s your prerogative, but I’m gonna go get my family.”

Junie pushes the cookhouse door open. They’re clustered around the table drying dishes and celebrating the new year over greens and stewed black-eyed peas. They turn as the door hits the wall, and everyone’s eyes immediately go to her uniform.

“Junie, what in God’s name—”

“We need to go. Now,” she says, interrupting Auntie. She notices Caleb slip into the cookhouse behind her.

“Go where?”

“Uncle George says there’s a boat coming—just through the woods on the river. Comes on the last night of every month. We hardly got time to make it as it is. We need to leave now. Take what you can from here, then let’s go.”

“George?” Auntie whispers. Bess shoots her a glare, but Junie keeps going.

“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Jesus mercy!” Auntie says, holding the cloth to her mouth.

“I met him at the dance in Montgomery,” she says. “He lives in some county north of here. He’s a freeman, and he wants us, all of us, to come and live with him. He told me to take the boat. Caleb, you remember. You saw him.”

“He was there,” Caleb says, folding his arms over himself.

“See? Now let’s go!”

Junie is pushing the door open when she realizes no one is following her. Bess looks into her bowl of food, fists clenched. Auntie still holds the cloth, shock all over her face. Caleb stares at his feet. Muh and Granddaddy look at her with tears in their eyes as Auntie sits down on the floor, knees drawn to her chest.

“Junie, you’re being carefree now,” Muh says.

“Don’t you dare call me that,” she yells at Muh. She turns back to her family. “Didn’t y’all hear me?”

“Stop this! Stop this now! You wasn’t supposed to say nothing about Daddy, now you see what it’s done to Momma!” Bess screams, crouching down next to Auntie and wrapping her arms around her.

“Y’all ain’t listening!” Junie yells. “The master’s ill. I heard in the house. They all gonna be occupied with him long enough for us to be gone. But we got to leave now. ”

Still, no one moves.

“Don’t y’all hear me? We have to run!”

“We ain’t running nowhere, Grandbaby,” Granddaddy says.

“What do you mean? Please, just get up. Get up, we ain’t all got time to argue.”

“We ain’t going off somewhere to be killed or worse,” Muh adds.

“It’s gonna get worse here . Don’t y’all see that? It’s got—”

“You watch your tone, girl,” Muh says, standing. “Don’t tell me what’s what like I’m some child. Now, I’ve seen what these people do to runaways and I ain’t intending to be like them. You keep your stupid ideas—”

“Settle down, Sadie,” Granddaddy says.

“Don’t you interrupt me while I’m talking—”

“There’s a light coming from over toward the house,” Caleb says, pointing out of the window. Muh drops back to her seat. Auntie and Bess scramble to assume the positions they were in before Junie entered. Blood rushes toward Junie’s head as Mrs. McQueen pushes the door to the cookhouse open. Her pale face is flushed pink, and her eyes are wide with terror. Junie and her family jump to their feet. Junie has never seen the mistress in the cookhouse.

“Ma’am, how can we help you?” Auntie asks.

“The master is gravely ill,” she says. “We need a doctor, as soon as possible.”

“Caleb and I will ride to get one,” Granddaddy says, as he jumps to his feet. Caleb follows and they run out of the building.

“Sadie and Marilla, you’ll need to nurse him until then. Come now, bring rags and buckets.”

“I’ll get something hot for him,” Bess says, rushing toward the fire to boil water.

“Nothing hot! I found him shaking all over, flopping on the floor of the library like a fish. There’s something of a demon in him. Come! ”

Everyone runs to their tasks, leaving Junie alone in the cookhouse. In the rush, no one gave her a job or asked her to help. They’ve left her alone.

If she runs, she’ll have to run alone, too.

Tears sting her eyes as a burning sensation travels through her wrist. The second tally mark disappears, bleeding back into her skin. She closes her sore eyes, giving them a reprieve, until Mrs. McQueen’s words ring in her ears like the shatter of glass.

Something of a demon in him.

The master had been fine until he’d taken the drink from the bottle laced with the leaves.

Minnie’s vial.

The sweats, the shaking, the streams of vomit. Her sister, eyes black, mouth foaming, screaming through the tremors.

Junie believed the demons came for Minnie. But it was Minnie who let them in.