Heartfire

But he did know where. He whooped with laughter. “Gullah Joe, you won't believe it! I met the Black girl what got her name cut loose by the devil you caught!”

Gullah Joe glared at him. “Be maybe you not shouting me business so all can hear it in the street, they.”

“She goes by the name Fishy,” said Denmark, close enough that he didn't have to shout. “I don't think it was no accident that White boy cut her name loose, cause she be rented out to his sister-in-law.”

“I think you telling me you find this White man?”

“I did, but he ain't dead yet.”

Gullah Joe slapped the table hard. Denmark was startled and his jocular mood fell away. “You lose you courage?”

“She knew I was coming,” said Denmark.

“A woman, she!”

“She got him down to the battery, all them White folks around, you think I'm going to show that knife, let alone cut a White boy with it?”

“Boy? This White man be maybe him a child?”

“No, he a man, but he be young. Bet he don't shave.” Denmark remembered how Calvin looked. So empty. Like his woman. That White witch knew all about her.

Against his will, Denmark looked for her. There she was, mending clothes in a corner. She didn't look up. It took all her concentration just to get the needle into and out of the cloth. She used to be hot-hearted like that Fishy girl. Maybe I could have won her over fairly, if I tried. If I set her free. But I had to control her, didn't I? Just like a White man. I was master.

“How he be?” demanded Gullah Joe.

“Who?”

“The devil him body!”

“He pretty far gone, Gullah Joe.”

“Not far enough.” Gullah Joe glanced over to the circle that contained the captive. Denmark saw that it was twice as thick with knotwork charms as it had been when he left early in the morning.

“He been trying to escape?”

“Be maybe he already escape, him.”

“Well, if he did, wouldn't we know it? Wouldn't you be dead?”

“Be maybe he learn too much,” said Gullah Joe. “Look! Look a-that.”

Though there was not a touch of a breeze in the attic, one of the charms suddenly swayed, then bounced up and down.

“He doing that?” asked Denmark.

Gullah Joe looked at him with scorn. “No, fool, they cockroaches in the charm, they be making her bounce.”

“How can he do that if you got him captive?”

Gullah Joe might have had an answer, but at that moment they both heard the door opening downstairs. Gullah Joe seemed to leap straight up in the air, and Denmark was about to let out an exclamation when Joe shook his head violently and covered his own mouth with his hand as a sign for silence.

Denmark leaned over close. “I thought you said nobody could get in here.”

There were footsteps on the stairs. No effort was being made to muffle them, either. Clump, clump, clump. Slow progress, many feet.

Finally Denmark realized what he was hearing. “It's her,” he whispered. “She brought him here.”

Her voice wafted up the stairs. “Indeed I did,” she said. “Step aside, Denmark Vesey. It's Gullah Joe I need to talk to.”

Gullah Joe danced around his desk like a child desperate to pee. Nobody had ever pierced his defenses so easily. No one had ever called him by name when he didn't want them to. Whoever this was had to be so powerful that Gullah Joe hardly knew what charms to try. She had already passed by some of his most powerful ones.

Denmark saw the witchy man's desperation and realized that this situation was definitely not under control.

“Calvin!” cried Margaret. “Can you hear my voice?”

They were near the top of the stairs, now, able to peer around in the attic and see all the hanging charms. The White woman, the White man, and the slave girl Fishy.

Margaret was listening for an answer. To her surprise, it came from the man beside her.

“I hear you,” said Calvin. But his voice was soft, his ma

“I've brought your body near to your doodlebug, Calvin,” she explained.

Calvin's mouth mumbled a reply. “Get me out of here,” he said, his voice flat.

“Kill him now,” said Gullah Joe. “He body, she calling back him soul. Kill him!”

Denmark picked up a much larger knife than the one he had concealed in his pocket. “You keep him back,” he said to Margaret.

She ignored him completely, and instead began to lead Calvin closer to the large concentration of charms.

“Stop, you! Don't take him there!” Gullah Joe threw a handful of powder at her, but it blew away from her in a sudden breeze and ended up stinging his eyes and making him weep. “How you do that witchery!”

She ignored him, and parted the charms to push Calvin through.

“Oh, yes,” said Calvin, now sounding more like himself, though not quite that cocky yet. “This is right. Bring me home.”

“Stop him!” screamed Gullah Joe.

Denmark lunged between the charms and the White man, his knife drawn.

Margaret immediately shoved Calvin hard, forcing him and Denmark both to stumble and fall into the midst of the circle that contained Calvin's doodlebug.

Gullah Joe howled in fury and threw himself to the floor.

“I have a problem, here, Margaret.”

It was quite likely the thing Calvin would have said. It had his intonation. And it was certainly true. Unfortunately, the voice was coming out of Denmark Vesey's mouth.

“What's your problem, Calvin?” she asked.

"I can't get back into my body," he said. "So I'm glad you tossed in a spare.

“That's not a spare body, somebody's using it,” Margaret said.

“You think I don't know that? But I can't get into my own body and I can't talk without I got one.”

Margaret walked over to Gullah Joe. “What's wrong? Why can't he get back into his body?”

“Cause she be half-dead, she! Look a-him, he steal my friend body him!”

“Your body is dying,” Margaret said to Calvin. “Denmark said something about that before. You're rotting.”

“Give back him body!” cried Gullah Joe.

“Then help me get him back into his own body!”

“How I do that!” said Gullah Joe. “He dead man in him grave!”

“He is not,” said Margaret. “Calvin, you have to heal your body.”

“I don't know how,” said Calvin. “I never tried to raise the dead.”

“You're not dead,” said Margaret. “Look, your chest is rising and falling.”

“All right, I'm trying, but it's not like a cut finger, I don't know what to–”

“Wait!” Abruptly, Margaret turned around, walked over to Gullah Joe, and dragged him to his feet. “You know!” she shouted. “Tell me!”

“What I know?” said Gullah Joe, feigning helpless misery. “You the witchy woman, you break down all this charm, you.”

Gullah Joe smiled and shrugged. Margaret recognized the expression, the gesture. It was the way slaves told their masters to go to hell. She looked into his heartfire and saw many things. But all his lore was hidden from her.

“You know how to heal him,” Margaret said, looking him in the eyes, her breath on his face. “You've captured souls before, and you know how to put them back.”

Gullah Joe just folded his arms and stared off into space.

“Excuse me, Miz Margaret,” said Fishy. She pushed past Margaret and, placing her left hand on Gullah Joe's right cheek, with her right hand she slapped his other cheek with such force that blood shot right out of his mouth. “Talk to the nice lady!” screamed Fishy in Gullah Joe's face. “She be no enemy, you hear me?”

“Him scare me!” cried Gullah Joe, pointing at Calvin on the floor. “Get him out on that body!”

Fishy laid another slap on him, this time so hard that Gullah Joe fell over, his arms pinwheeling, his long knotted braids flopping away from his body. Some charm must have come loose this time, because suddenly more of his mind opened up to Margaret. She didn't need him to tell her now. She opened two little jars on Joe's big table, got two solid pinches of powder, one from each, then strode to the charm circle where Calvin lay and threw the powder out over him.