Page 7 of Junie

Chapter Seven

The nightmares start as soon as Junie passes out on her pallet. Minnie twists in the sheets, sweat gluing the fabric to her body as vomit trickles from her parted, graying lips. Muh hovers over, lifting her slackening body toward the bucket so that her sick won’t choke her. Her eyes roll back as her limbs shake, Muh clutching her skeletal body and holding her tongue to keep her steady. As the seizures grow more violent, Minnie’s arms and legs fuse to her torso, her outstretched tongue splitting into a fork as her clammy skin turns serpentine. She sheds off the sheets like scales, her slitted eyes setting on Junie as the fangs roll over her fading lips.

Junie wakes up with a scream as her sister’s teeth strike her neck.

“Mercy!” Muh yelps. She sits perched at the edge of her rocking chair, eyes frozen with fright. “Baby, you scared the stew out of me!”

“I—” Junie stumbles, face coated in sweat. The first morning light slips through the cracks in the cabin wall planks. She thumbs the edge of her childhood quilt. She’s home. “I’m sorry, Muh.”

“Well,” she says, settling back into the chair and pursing her lips, “That’s all right.” She picks up the sewing in her lap and continues stitching.

Junie presses her hands to her face, and the events of last night flood her mind. It couldn’t have been real. It’s impossible. It must have been just another night terror.

But when she pulls her hands away, her heart begins to race. Three vertical lines run down her wrist, in the same place the ghost grabbed her. The pain comes rushing back, and the marks throb, as if reprimanding her for forgetting.

She tugs her sleeve over the scars and slowly looks up at her grandmother. They haven’t spoken since yesterday, and while part of her desperately begs to tell Muh what she’s seen, another holds her back, reminding her to keep her distance. Would Muh scold her? Would she even believe her? She pulls her scarf off her head and uses it to dab the last beads of sweat from her cheeks.

“Baby, why is your hair lookin’ like that?” Muh asks, peering at her, brow furrowed.

“Lookin’ like what?” Junie says, reaching up to smooth down her braids.

“Lookin’ like you just rubbed your whole head with a pinecone. I’ve seen possums with better-lookin’ hair on ’em than you!”

“Why does it matter, anyway? I’m just gonna have my bonnet on.”

“Stop fussing and come over here and let me fix ’em ’fore you go up to the house. You can’t be lookin’ like that for these white folks comin’ today.”

Junie sighs, but she crawls to sit on the ground in front of the fireplace, laying her head against her grandmother’s leg. Critter, happy about the extra warmth, stretches in front of the fireplace, then curls next to Junie. Muh fetches her comb and grease before rubbing grease on her fingers to start unbraiding Junie’s hair, picking at the tangles with her comb. She hums a tune that would usually lull Junie into a sense of comfort, but instead, Junie starts to pick at her arm. Muh catches a knot in Junie’s hair that pulls her scalp, and Junie jumps, moving her head.

“Don’t move your head all over like that! You so tender-headed,” Muh says, getting the tangle out.

“I ain’t tender-headed.”

“Yes, you are, you just try to act like you ain’t. You’ve been that way since you were a baby, always jumping but making your face all stiff so no one can tell it hurts. Now sit still.”

Junie silently readjusts herself. “I don’t see why I have to keep mine long when everybody else got their hair short.”

“Because it ain’t fittin’ for a girl as young as you to have short hair. Besides, hair’s a gift, even if it is stubborn as a goat.”

“But you let Minnie cut her hair.”

“I didn’t let Minnie do nothing. She was older than you, and…You know what? I ain’t got no reason to explain nothing to you. Now close your mouth and sit still.”

“Fine, then,” Junie says.

“I thought you’d be with Miss Violet tonight,” Muh says. “Or at least that you’d act like you were.”

Junie ignores the comment, trying not to think about what happened instead.

“I see you’re still cross, then,” Muh says.

“I ain’t cross, Muh,” Junie mumbles.

“I ain’t mean what I said yesterday, you know,” Muh says, pulling the comb through a section of Junie’s hair. “About you, about…I ain’t mean it the way you took it.”

Junie swallows. “How was I supposed to take it?”

“Great day, Junie!” Muh exclaims. “You ain’t used to be so prickly all the time. You used to make a joke about life, but now—”

“I ought to go to the cookhouse,” Junie says, shifting out of her grandmother’s reach.

“No, Junie, please, I’m sorry. I meant to say you do good. You are good, too. I see, I see you trying, even if it don’t come as easy to you as it did to Minnie.”

Minnie. The name chills Junie’s spine.

“You got your own special things,” Muh continues.

“Like what?” Junie asks, desperate to change the subject.

“Well, you got more ideas than anybody else do,” she says. “And you’re kind, even when you don’t wanna be. You care, too. Maybe even too much.”

Grease slides over Junie’s ear as Muh slicks her edges down. Junie’s throat fills with the words she wants to say: I’m sorry, I love you, I’m breaking and I don’t know myself anymore. But those truths are too hard to hear from her own lips. And she can’t bear to tell Muh the truth of last night. Instead, she tries another.

“I don’t think Miss Violet wants to get married, Muh,” Junie says.

Muh sighs, pausing her braiding. “Marriage just ain’t the same for white folks as it is for us, Baby. White folks got all kinds of reasons to get married. Money, property, status. See, we only get married for one reason, that’s one thing we got special that they ain’t got.”

“What’s the reason?”

“Well, love, Baby. We ain’t got no other reason. And it’s the best reason of all, the one they’re all too blind to see.”

“Violet believes in love. She’s told me she wants to marry someone she really loves.”

“Well, that’s nice, but Miss Violet’s a woman, and a rich woman at that. It don’t matter what she believes in.”

“Do you think she’ll marry this Mr. Taylor, then?” Junie asks.

“Ain’t my choice to make. Not even sure it’s hers.”

Junie’s frustration mounts as Muh pulls at her scalp. Everyone around her is casual about Violet’s marriage, as though it won’t mean the end to life as they know it.

“You said yesterday a white girl’s maid goes wherever the white girl goes,” Junie starts. “Ain’t that what you said?”

“Why are you givin’ me lip again?” Muh asks, her face tensing.

“I ain’t, I’m just saying what you—”

“Well, don’t,” Muh interrupts.

“If a white girl’s maid goes with the white girl, don’t that mean—”

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” Muh says, “but you better stop it now.”

“Why won’t you just say it?” Junie says, turning to face her. She feels the color start to rise in her cheeks. “You know everything round here. You’ve declared you know best about everything all my life. Why won’t you just say the truth?”

“Junie, leave it alone.”

“Bess already told me I’d be sent with her. So, why won’t you say? Why won’t you say Violet’s gonna take me with her?”

“Now, Junie—”

“You would’ve said it to Minnie. You would’ve said it because you would’ve cared if it were her gettin’ sent away.”

“Great day, Junie, I don’t know a thing and I’m scared to the devil to think about it!” Muh says, throwing her hands to her face to cover her eyes. She lets out a sob. Junie’s insides crumple with guilt as her exterior stays hard as stone.

What is the evil that stirs inside her that makes her hurt the ones she loves? Junie sits, wanting to reach out her hand to her grandmother, but too afraid to touch her.

“Muh…” she whispers. Muh sniffles, dabbing at her tears before lowering her hands. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know you don’t remember your mother, Junie, but I do.” Muh chokes. “Your mother was the only baby I had who lived, my little survivor. We all loved…I loved your mother with my whole heart. And I was so blessed, so blessed to have you two girls, too, my grandbabies. But it’s like watching my heart walk around outside of my chest. And I lost…You’re all the heart I have left, Junie. If you go—”

Junie stands up, wrapping her arms around her grandmother. She’s smaller than she remembers, fitting easily into her long arms. She touches Muh’s back, feeling where her shoulder blades protrude, rubbing her hands over the raised scars along her back over the fabric of her dress.

“I’m sorry, Muh,” Junie whispers.

“You ain’t the only one with hurt, Junie. This world is full of it, and going through it thinking you’re the only one carrying something is an easy way to lose the bit of love you might have.”

“I don’t want to go,” Junie whispers. The truth, one she couldn’t bear to let herself acknowledge.

Muh pulls away, looking up at her.

“I love you. You hear that? There ain’t no distance or time or will of any white man that’s goin’ stop that. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she responds quietly, holding her grandmother. “I didn’t know you still thought about Momma.”

“Of course I do. I can’t forget your mother. I used to see her all the time.”

“Like you always thinking of her?”

“No, Baby. I’ve seen her. Her spirit. She was with me, for a time,” Muh responds.

The golden body glows in her memory, cheeks freckled and eyes blackened.

“You don’t mean it,” Junie replies.

“It wasn’t right after she left. But a couple years later, one day, there she was. I ain’t never gonna know what happened to her, but she came back here to me. Just floatin’ there, looking right at me.”

“A ghost.”

“I see you lookin’ at old Muh like she’s losing her head, but haunts ain’t nothing strange as far as I’m concerned,” Muh says. “I learned all about haunts when I was a girl. Some of the old folks said haunts was evil, others said they would steal your cornmeal if you left it out. There was an old woman where I was born, the medicine woman, who swore she saw haunts day and night. Said they glow like fire, and float around like smoke until they just disappear. She said the ones she saw wasn’t meant to be here; they was trapped somehow, or disturbed. She’d go around at all hours trying to put offerings on graves every full moon, mumbling to herself about settling the souls.”

“Do you think that’s what happened to Momma? She got trapped?” Junie asks. She sees the blackened teeth, the burning coal tears.

“I like to think haunts are just the souls of the ones that love us, the ones we loved; they come down and stay with us. Not forever, and not always ’cause they’re supposed to, but they do,” Muh says.

“But you don’t see Momma no more?”

Muh pauses, her hands stopping their movements in Junie’s hair. “No, Baby, I don’t,” she says. “But things ain’t always meant to stay, not even haunts, I suppose.

“Anyway, I fixed your hair. Go on and get your bonnet on before it gets messed up in this heat. Muh was up since before day, and she’s tired as Sam Hill.”

Junie rolls her lips under to stifle a laugh and nods. Muh insists she wakes up before the rooster every day, yet is almost always still fast asleep when Junie comes back from the woods at dawn. Junie ties up her hair in her bonnet and chews on a bit of bark in the basket near the beds to clean her teeth, putting on her maid’s uniform to face the day.

—

Alabama mornings have a brilliant and dangerous way of burning away the trouble of the evening in heat, humidity, and activity. After a morning of polishing marble, plating hors d’oeuvres, and yanking corset strings, Junie balances a tray of lemonade, iced tea, and mint juleps on her shoulder on the front porch, praying the sweat hasn’t pooled too obviously in her armpits. Despite the heat, she leans away from the cold tray, its temperature a reminder of last night. The frigidity still aches like a snapped bone. Serving guests is fussy and boring, but at least it is a distraction from flashes of memory.

Minnie’s ghost.

It was foolish to go out there last night, chasing what she didn’t understand.

It’s nearly afternoon by the time Bellereine gets word that the Taylors are approaching. The sun sits low and hot over the trees, but gray clouds hover, waiting to strike.

“You remember what you’re supposed to do?” Bess asks, scooting to stand within whispering distance.

“Fetch Violet when the mistress requests it,” Junie says. “And, offer the guests a drink when they ask.”

“Not when they ask, they ain’t gonna ask! You step up to ’em when they get on the porch, and they’ll take one if they want.”

“I just hold it out?”

“Yes, you just hold it out, like you’re a statue. Do you say anything to ’em?”

“No.”

“Good. And don’t look at ’em, neither. The only thing that should pass through those lips is ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘no, sir,’ and only if they say something to you first. Now step back and stay still. Your granddaddy will wave from down the road when he sees the carriage.”

Junie does as she’s told and steps back against the porch wall. She catches a glimpse of the marks peeking out from underneath her sleeve. She tried the typical cures for burns—cold water, milk, lard—and found no relief, but at least the pain is duller now. Upon closer look, the scars flicker like smoldering coals. She runs her free fingers over the marks, each cold to the touch. Her movements rattle her tray, sending two of her glasses colliding.

“Watch it,” Bess hisses. “Don’t you see your granddaddy waving? These white people are pulling up!”

Junie glances up to see two Breton horses pull the carriage down the magnolia-lined path to the house. Bess taps the foyer window, and on cue, Mr. and Mrs. McQueen emerge. The master wears a brocaded sage-and-gold vest under a cream linen suit, while the mistress stands wrapped in green tartan. Mrs. McQueen digs her nails into the master’s wrinkled hand and forces a smile.

The coach, black and red, with a golden T in script on the sides, parks in front of the porch steps. The horses whinny as a lanky Black coachman hops out of the carriage to open the door. A blond man no more than five and twenty steps out, tall as the coach itself. His taupe plaid waistcoat and cognac jacket emphasize the sharp blue of his eyes. He places his hands on his hips and surveys the house as though it were marked for sale.

A moment later, a woman a couple of years his junior slips from the carriage in a black riding dress with white fringe along the shoulder caps and bustle. Her hat—black, short-brimmed, and finished with a peacock feather—slopes to a point over her forehead, highlighting her long olive neck and chestnut chignon. They are the most elegant people Junie has ever seen, with clothes that shine like fresh money.

Mr. McQueen scuttles to kiss Miss Taylor’s hand before giving Mr. Taylor’s a vigorous shake.

“Darling, may I present Mr. Beauregard Taylor III and his sister, Miss Beatrix Taylor, of the Delacroix, Louisiana, Taylors,” Mr. McQueen announces to his wife. He beams like a dog who has caught a fat rabbit.

“I speak for my sister, my family, and myself when I declare our utmost gratitude for hosting us, Mrs. McQueen,” Mr. Taylor says, kissing the mistress’s hand. “We’re just a couple of strangers, so we do appreciate your congenial hospitality.”

“Oh, Mr. Taylor, it is our absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance. When Mr. McQueen informed me of the joy he had in meeting a young gentleman such as yourself, I agreed that we must host you and your sister here at Bellereine.”

“You’re too kind,” Mr. Taylor says, his voice as sweet as a September peach. “And, please, call me Beau.”

“I’ll do no such thing for a man with your stature and respectability. Here, you’ve had such a journey from Montgomery, you must cool off with a glass of lemonade or a mint julep.”

“Go,” Bess whispers through her frozen smile.

Junie sighs, stretching her face into a smile and carrying her drinks to Mr. Taylor. Before she can get there, Mr. McQueen snatches two mint juleps from her tray, attempting to hide one behind his back. She presses forward until she is next to Mr. Taylor, his towering body and broad shoulders blocking the sunlight. He smells like tobacco and ambergris, musky and rich.

“Sir,” she says, curtsying and casting her eyes down to offer him a glass.

Mr. Taylor takes a glass without any acknowledgment. He steps on her foot, jostling her tray, and says nothing. Junie’s eyes narrow; even Mr. McQueen bothers with an apology when gentility demands it. What would his crisp linen suit look like with a glass of iced tea thrown over it?

“Did Beau catch your foot there?” Miss Taylor beams up at Junie, smile burning white. “I must apologize for my brother. He can be so ungainly.”

Junie ponders her answer. Yes, ma’am would confirm Miss Taylor’s insult of her brother, something Junie certainly does not want to do. Yet, saying no, ma’am to disagree doesn’t seem right, either. She settles on a polite smile.

“What are your names, you and the other maid?”

“I’m Junie, and that’s Bess.”

“Well, pleased to meet you both,” Miss Taylor says with a tip of her hat. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing quite a bit more of one another.” As she saunters away, Junie studies the slickness of her dark hair, the cinch of her narrow waist, and her elegant long neck. She is like Blanche in Jane Eyre, the type of woman a girl could stay up all night drawing to illuminate the faults in herself.

“Now, Mr. McQueen, where’s that daughter you’ve told me so much about?” Mr. Taylor says.

“She’s inside, staying out of the sun, of course,” Mrs. McQueen says. “Junie, will you go and fetch Miss McQueen?”

Junie curtsies and rushes inside, thankful to get out of the heat.

“Awful dark to be a maid, ain’t she?” she hears Mr. Taylor whisper to his sister as she slips into the house. “I don’t know how they stand lookin’ at her.”

She finds Violet on a velvet chaise in a dark corner of the formal receiving room, head drooping low. Despite Violet’s protests, Mrs. McQueen insisted on being the only one to dress Violet for the Taylors. She wears a cream taffeta gown drowning in lace and mint-green ribbon and a hoopskirt nearly as wide as the doorway. Violet must be miserable; how Mrs. McQueen found the dress buried in the farther recesses of Violet’s gown closet is a marvel.

“It’s me, Vi,” Junie says, knocking gently on the doorway.

“It’s my cue, then?” Violet asks, as though from a deep sleep. “You know she wouldn’t let me bring a book. I finally got tired of counting the flowers on the wallpaper and just shut my eyes.”

Violet lifts her head to the light. A new red impression of Mrs. McQueen’s hand from this morning burns on her cheek.

“Stay still, I’ll fetch some powder.” Junie puts her tray down, collecting a jar of talcum powder from Violet’s boudoir. She delicately presses the white powder onto Violet’s cheek and sees her wince.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” While Mrs. McQueen thinks it is uncouth to hit her servants, she doesn’t shy away from putting a hand on her daughter.

“I snuck a wedge of toast from the breakfast table before getting into this liver-crusher of a corset.”

“I’ve heard livers are all the rage in Paris,” Junie says. Violet smirks.

“ Then there was the bit where I called her a parasite for pinning all her fortunes on my marriage. Then she said something about me being an insolent and ungrateful whelp, and here we are.”

“You deserve better. You know that.”

Violet rolls her eyes and laughs. “We don’t pick our parents. If we could, I’d have popped out of Mary Shelley and been left alone to read all day.”

“Don’t be so vulgar,” Junie says, giggling. “Your mother’s just on the other side of that wall.”

“She ain’t paying attention to anything other than our guest’s pocketbook. What’s he like, anyway?” Violet asks.

“Tall, fair, handsome. He stepped on my toe.”

“Seems about right,” Violet says. Junie takes Violet’s hands and pulls her up to standing before handing her a parasol.

Even with the mistress’s shabby dress, Violet is an undeniable beauty. Her red ringlets frame her round, open face, highlighting the fresh blue of her eyes.

“You look beautiful, Violet,” Junie says.

“Oh, be serious. I look like a circus tent.”

“If you got to be a circus tent, you might as well be the prettiest.”

“I doubt I’m even close to the prettiest.”

“Fine. You are beautiful. The dress looks like if a mint julep and a cotton ball had a very ugly baby.”

“Every Southern man’s dream,” Violet says dryly.

“It’s two hundred and seventy-six,” Junie says.

“What is?”

“Two hundred and seventy-six flowers on the wallpaper. I counted them once. You want the lemonade?”

“Any chance you got something with bourbon in it?”

“I did, your daddy drank ’em all.”

“It’s a damn shame that I can’t tell if you’re joking,” she says, downing the last two lemonades. “Now you don’t gotta carry that tray around.”

“You ready?”

Violet strains to breathe through the bindings of her corset. She pinches her cheeks, wincing at the pain.

“As I’ll ever be.” She stretches to kiss Junie’s cheek, before stepping across the porch’s threshold into the full view of the Taylors. While her body is quietly malleable to her mother’s glares and her guests’ examinations, it is the nearly imperceptible quivering of Violet’s lips that reveals she is a woman longing to scream.

—

In the romantic novels she’s read with Violet, each movement and word is filled with meaning that the author brings to life. As Junie waits on Violet and Mr. Taylor’s first exchanges of pleasantries, she decides courtship is far more interesting to read than it is to watch.

“I hear you have a beautiful garden, Mrs. McQueen,” Mr. Taylor says, gesturing toward the white garden gate in the distance. “It’s something that you can manage to grow such beautiful things here. Shows real care and gentility. Do you take care of the garden, as well, Miss McQueen?”

Junie shifts nervously as Violet pales, fidgeting in her mint dress as she perches on one of the porch’s wicker love seats next to her mother. Mr. Taylor and his sister sit on a matching sofa facing them, his broad shoulders taking up more than half of the seat. He sets his eyes on Violet while his sister studies her from behind her fan. Mrs. McQueen pinches Violet out of the Taylors’ view.

“When I can,” Violet lies, straightening in her seat. “I’m often kept busy in the house.”

“Of course, I find that young ladies are often busier than any man I know. Do you take part in the housekeeping, as well?”

“I do my part to keep things going,” Violet says. Junie smirks, knowing Violet’s never lifted a finger or raised her voice to manage anything about the house. “What about you, Mr. Taylor? What do you like to do in your work and leisure?”

“Well, my father is a merchant, so I do my bit to help with the business. And my Uncle Taylor has been teaching me how to run his estate in Selma, of course. It’s all a mess of numbers and accounts, nothing I expect would interest a girl like you.”

“That does sound diverting, Mr. Taylor,” Mrs. McQueen says.

“It certainly can be. When I’m not working, I do like to enjoy myself, of course.”

“I’m sure you must see many performances and concerts, living in a big city like New Orleans,” Violet says.

“Oh no, I much prefer being outside in my leisure time. Riding, hunting, shooting, any sports I can.”

“A good red-blooded Southern boy, ain’t he, Pumpkin!” Mr. McQueen says.

“And proud of it, Mr. McQueen. But I wouldn’t expect a lady as lovely as you to spend her time outside and such, Miss McQueen. It does a woman good to know the arts and care for the finer parts of culture. Keeps men like me from turning into animals.”

“Yes, of course,” Violet says, lowering her head to look up at him through her lashes. Junie bites her lip and curls her free hand into a fist. Moments ago, Violet was dreading this; now she looks as charmed as an Arabian cobra. Her cheeks are pinker than usual, and her pupils are larger. Junie notices her stealing demure glances at Mr. Taylor—nothing uncouth or unladylike, but enough to suggest an attraction. Is a pair of strong shoulders and a few compliments enough to sway Violet to give up her life and sacrifice Junie with it?

Something soft rubs against Junie’s ankles. Startled, she finds Critter bumping her gray head into her leg and weaving between her feet. Critter never prowls this close to the main house. The cat pads into the front yard and then runs toward the edge of the woods.

It’s then that Junie notices a flame in the distance. Her blood runs cold. Her wrist throbs.

Minnie’s glowing figure smolders beyond the forest line. She meets Junie’s eyes and beckons her with a wave of her hand.

No. No, not here.

The McQueens and Taylors continue chatting, and Bess rearranges the drinks on her tray. Don’t they see Minnie, too? The ghost raises her hand, presenting something. She whispers in her familiar tone, her voice the timbre of a snake.

Yours.

The ghost’s arm swings, and the object dangles.

The necklace. She’d thrown it when she ran, hoping to rid herself of the spirit. Why is Minnie set on Junie having it?

The ghost steps forward, approaching the edge of the clearing. Minnie isn’t going to stop. She isn’t going to let Junie go.

Just then, the sky cracks. The clouds, once hovering impatiently on the horizon, burst forth with rain and wind.

“It’s a summer squall, get inside!” Mr. McQueen screams, herding the frantic party indoors.

The ghost dangles the necklace before sauntering back into the woods.

Find me, she calls.

It’s only when Bess grabs her arm and drags her toward the house that Junie realizes she’s soaking wet.

She’d followed Minnie’s voice off the porch, starting into the field.

She’d stepped into the storm.