Root Magic: Chapters 1–7

She was patting the tears off her smooth brown cheeks with a starched white handkerchief.

After the pastor finally finished talking, the pallbearers lowered the wooden coffin with my gran in it into the huge rectangle in the ground.

In the heat of late summer, the scent of her bergamot hair pomade was like sweet, sun-hot oranges.

After the repast lunch the people at church made for us, we walked home along the hard-packed dirt path that led from the cemetery all the way to our house.

And on our porch, up the rickety front steps Gran had made Doc fix a few months ago, was a policeman.

I could hear Mama gritting her teeth, but when her voice came out, it sounded polite.

I knew about police barging into local rootworkers’ homes.

The padlock Doc kept on the door of the cabin when he wasn’t in his shop had been pried off.

“Lynchings, beatings, and more than half the time, the police are right there when it happens. Or they’re the ones doing it. How are we supposed to live in this world and be safe?”

Wind rustled the trees and the chickens clucked for their afternoon meal.

“You’re never careful,” I said, laughing. Jay stuck his tongue out at me. My brother ran headlong into everything, and I usually had to be the one to get him out again.

Eleven Negro students will integrate Charleston County’s white schools today—the third of September, 1963.

South Carolina was the only state in the union that had yet to desegregate its schools.

Plans to open private schools exclusively for white students have been submitted to the county, and it’s believed many will open their doors next year.

He scooped spoonfuls of ambrosia, Mama’s fruit salad, into his mouth.

Lots of long, twisty vines lay on a checkered handkerchief.

“You are both Black, and your mama taught you to hold your heads up and be proud. You’re Turners, and that comes with a legacy.”
“What’s a legacy?” Jay asked.
“Something from your parents and grandparents,” I said.

The big metal pots sat on the counter covered with muslin cloth to keep the bugs off while it cooled.

The tall man gave a quick look over to Doc’s cabin, then loped up our front steps.

The ones Mama cooked with, like sage and thyme, I recognized by the shape of their leaves.

He let me go, then turned and squelched out of the marsh to the edge.

Go on and wash up for dinner. Your hands and face and those alligator-looking feet. Use the basin outside, not the one in the bathroom.

“I don’t know what’s got into you two today. Frantic as bats outta torment.”

When I leaned her against the windowsill earlier, I had arranged her new dress so the little pleats lay flat in neat rows, the way Mama had pressed them.

I kept scrabbling through the items in Doc’s cabin, searching for...

A wooden walking cane lay in a corner. When I picked it up, I saw the tip of it had been whittled sharp.

“Wait...wait...easy now. One at a time. I can’t hear myself think when y’all are chattering like magpies.”

“But womenfolk mostly trust what they feel more than menfolk. It’s called intuition. Think hard now, Jezebel. Did you feel, somewhere deep inside, that it was going to hurt you?”

“Looks like even though I hadn’t introduced you to this aspect of rootwork, things got outside of my control. My mother was right. I needed to prepare you kids for this world, and I didn’t do that properly. Anyone can learn recipes and rituals, but not everyone has a natural connection to the earth and the creatures that share our world.” He nudged us at the same time. “That’s something both of you have, in different ways. You’re new, so it’s delicate, but it’s strong.”

“I done walk, swim, and fly to get here. But I wouldn’t miss this birthday. You’s eleven now, and that’s momentous.”