In The Shadow of the Field

IN THE SHADOW OF THE FIELD

by Anastasia McCray

(Content Warnings: mentions of slavery, intergenerational trauma)

This is what Mama said:

That ol’ windmill? Been here longer than Freemon Town, or at least the name of it. Not as long as the field, though.

and:

You stay away from that house, you hear me? Ain’t nobody kept up that place in years. Probably got wood rot, if the floor’s still there at all. Don’t you go in there, girl.

...then:

A girl came up from there, once, you heard it? A night came when the plantation went up in flames and a girl came up from there, little Black thing ‘bout blended in with the night ‘cept all that fire at her back. Your Granna told me, and her gran told her cause she seen it. Fire at her back and something else. You know what it was?

And Masai says:

    tulips

        tulips

             tulips

Here’s what Masai Jenkins knows:

• Freemon Town, Texas sprang up from the community of slaves that found themselves unexpectedly free after the sudden death of the plantation owners in a house fire.
• Someone, or someones, built a windmill after all that. No one’s claimed it after all that.
• Nothing’s grown in those fields since.

Last year, Turner Elementary sent their children on their annual end-of-summer field trip to the plantation. Masai’s first-grade class trailed their fifth-grade partners as they walked the perimeter of the abandoned property, from where the pavement turned to unkept bramble, being careful not to walk on actual plots of darkened earth. While it was true that nothing had grown there in over a hundred years, it was truer, still, that the field did not look a century dead but perpetually dying, blackened stems cracked to reveal dust-white innards trampled to dirt, a crusted leaf or two blowing up to get caught on someone’s eyelash or sweaty upper lip. Neatly plowed rows could still be parsed from the rot. Even the adults, both parents and teachers, were cautious around this unspoken barrier, walking in such a way that they would be always between child and turf. 

Masai was not cautious and found herself in the principal’s office after the trip for having unthinkingly darted down one of those rows, chasing a spot of colour she saw waving on the ground. There may have been a gasp or scream that got choked by the sudden wind picking up the colour—a flower petal—and gliding it smooth towards the defunct windmill, with its door that looked to be slightly open and a curl of vines—no, thin-from-a-distance fingers around the frame and the white of an eye peeking out from that darkness within and Masai didn’t know what she was chasing anymore but if she could only get a sliver closer—

A harsh yank on her hair pulled her back. A row of beads from her braids fell to the ground, and one rolled down her shirt collar, got caught in her sweater. The rest plattered to ground like seeds and disappeared into the underbrush. The hand in her hair quickly moved to her shoulder, then her waist, hoisting her up and carrying her all the way to the edge of the property. When she was set down, she saw the pale face of her teacher, the wide eyes of her classmates, felt the stinging in her scalp from the pull that stopped her short, and knew before it was announced that the field trip was officially over.

In the office, later, Masai thought what would scare her the most was Mama’s fury at her running off, at Mama being called out of work by the principal, at the loss of a row of Masai’s good beads. But when Mama came, she simply wrenched Masai into her arms without a word and held her against her breast for a suspended moment. Masai caught the face of the principal and the office assistant who let her Mama in to find them turned away, apologetic in profile. Just behind them in the open face of the window, that splash of colour-turned-petal turned as if caught in the current of invisible breath. And just below that: the blackness of a shadow and the staring white of a singular eye, mouth poised ajar, beckoning to her like an inhale—like she was the petal—the physical weight of a pull in her gut. That was what scared her.

Our daughter sleepwalks the seasons to find her way home.

Masai dreams about a festival in springtime colours where she’s the only spot of Black against this whitewashed version of what she knows with certainty is Freemon Town. She dreams of watching barefoot races through new growth lawns, the local brook unthawing from the winter just chill enough to bite at pale-faced children’s cheeks when they dip their faces in and pull them out, apple-red and shiny. She dreams up stall after stall of trinkets from places she’s never seen outside of a textbook and passes like a ghost through unmoving adults swaddled in sweat-stained fabric too thick for the hint of airborne summer. When she reaches a particular stall, dedicated some nights to silk like what Mama wraps her head in, some nights to ethereal perfume that makes her burn, and some nights to beads, she reaches into her pocket for change. Pulls out, instead, a fistful of petals. 

Masai wakes so often at the front door with Mama’s fingers digging into her shoulders that semi-permanent bruises begin to flower around her collarbone, unendingly in bloom. Mama has to explain them at Masai’s next doctor’s visit, a tic growing in her jaw at every hmm the doctor lets out without once making eye contact with either of them. Masai’s doctors are always from different towns, but none of them seem to truly get her outside of: 

1. normal mental development
2. vision slightly decreased in right eye
3. overweight.

                                     This doctor nods along in all the appropriate places, writes out a prescription, and tells Mama it’s normal for children with “weight issues” to wander in their sleep. Mama gives a tight smile, and Masai knows that she will not be seeing this doctor again.

That night, after carefully taking her first dose of the medicine, Masai dreams brilliance. There’s the festival in aggressive spring, there’s the crowd of white always caught mid-step, and there’s the children with faces frozen in the water. But there’s a burning in her eyes that she can’t rub away even with the friction of her palm. There’s a sky that is very white and stars that are very, very black. Masai wanders to her stall and sees it closed but the door open, and there is a bouquet of flowers lying just within with a card she picks up:

                                                                                                                                      tulips

                                                                                                                                      tulips

                                                                                                                                      tulips

                                                                                                                                             she sounds out,

carefully,

tulips to the lips

                                                   something reverberates like a sewing machine’s furious stamp or like a rush of wildfire uncontained

tulips to the field

                                          She pulls off a singular petal. Places it onto her tongue and

i g n i t e s

The lights end up waking Masai, a flashlight directly to the eye causing her to blink herself into winter reality. She’s in the street in her pajamas halfway to The Boundary Forest at the edge of town, chill sinking deep into her muscles, and it’s Malcolm at the beginning of his paperboy route who’s found her. He hisses a breath, fussing at her like the big brother she’s never had as he shuffles her to his house where his parents are just getting up to breakfast. Both adults freeze when Malcolm presents her, Mrs. Davis with a cup of tea on a path to her lips, Mr. Davis with his hands in the process of flipping bacon. A pop of grease onto Mr. Davis’ wrist snaps them out of it. Mrs. Davis sighs, murmurs something about calling that stubborn Willa, and informs Masai that food should be on the table soon if she’d just grab a seat, flower chile.

Masai sits in half thought (everybody did used to call me that) half cold-induced sleepiness and eats with syrup-slow limbs when a plate is pushed in front of her. Malcolm grabs a slice of toast from a dish in the middle of the table but neither sits nor leaves. When his father reminds him of his paper route, Malcolm shrugs and reminds him there’s no news in the paper folks can’t get from their phones, Pa. Masai struggles to keep her eyes open and doesn’t succeed.

Next thing she realizes, she’s being shaken awake by Malcolm, finger to his lips. The voices of the adults filter into the kitchen from the living room, slowly escalating.

        …just gonna lock her up

        in the house, then?

No.

Or what, let her end

up in the street, again?

No!

        You know what has

        to happen. Mrs. Hattie

        kne—

Don’t you dare

bring up

my Ma.

It’s the price we paid!

Who’s this we?

I ain’t paid nothin

to nobody, Jack.

Not my peace,

not my child.

That’s not what I

meant and you know

it. You can’t

just ignore this!

It’ll only get worse,

Willa. You gotta

tell her about

the field.

I don’t gotta do nothin

with my own child,

Deborah. I suggest you

remember that.

Malcolm flinches next to her. Masai feels the ripple of it in the air shudder through her, and knocks a cup off the table. The bang of the hard plastic striking tile rings through the room like a shot, and the adults’ conversation snuffs out. A second later, Mama rushes into the kitchen, making a beeline for the girl. She checks Masai over with too-tight grips and a smothering of kisses, not satisfied with Masai’s I’m fine’s until Masai physically pushes her hands away. Mrs. Davis sends Malcolm to get Masai a coat to wear outside, tells her she can return it to him at school one day, while Mr. Davis packs both Masai and her Mama some extras from the breakfast. He tells them to call when they get home you hear? and though his voice is warm, his eyes are tight with worry. On the way home, Masai asks what’s at the field.

Never you mind that, girl.

The first thing Mama does when they get home is throw the medication out. Then, she makes a series of phone calls: one to the Davis’ to let them know they made it, the next to the school to tell them Masai wouldn’t be coming in, and the last to the local locksmith to install a chain lock on the front door where Masai can’t reach. Mama’s so frazzled that she doesn’t even notice that Masai hasn’t taken off the borrowed coat when she tucks her into bed, and Masai doesn’t bother with it. 

Masai doesn’t go to school that day, or the next, or the next. It isn’t until she’s missed almost a week and a half worth of school, the school’s calls had turned from placating to just shy of threatening, and Masai had casually let slip that she didn’t like being locked up in the house, that Mama relents. It probably helps that she hasn’t ended up outside the house since Mama threw away the medicine (since I ate that petal in the dream). Either way, the dreams change such that she finds herself at her own bedroom window where she can make her way back to bed without Mama noticing. Either way, Mama puts her on the bus with much wringing of hands and a note to give to her teacher (she’s not gonna read it, anyway, she hates notes).

In true fashion, Mrs. Georgette does not read Mama’s note, but she also doesn’t leave Masai’s periphery for the first few days back. She seems to relax a little when Masai sticks to Jorge (he’s for sure spying for her) and nothing weird happens. By the end of the week, Mrs. Georgette’s back to focusing her full attention on the Wilkins twins and Masai can focus on distracting Jorge from spy duty. Luckily for her, Jorge is easily distracted.

She corners him on the playground by the rusted jungle gym:

I’ll give my cornbread for a week if you don’t tell your auntie what I tell you.

                          Two weeks, and I want some biscuits thrown in with it!

                                              no fair! you know Mama only makes cornbread twice a month. I want some, too! you can have the biscuits, but only
                                             one week of cornbread!

Jorge mulls it over before agreeing with a handshake. By this time, half of their recess is gone, and the third graders are joining the playground. One girl breaks away from her class and heads straight towards them, waving wildly, and unlike the other days when Masai was sure she’d be ratted out, Masai waves her over. Betty Anne climbs into the dome and plops down into the dirt, smacking into Masai’s side as she does (often) with her latest growth spurt ruining her coordination. They have so little time together, even less so as the teachers know to be wary when Betty Anne and Masai disappear together, but Masai still takes the time to carefully explain her strange dreams, the sleepwalking, and the unexpected thing she saw at the field that started it all.

Jorge makes scoffing noises through the story before declaring it silly talk at its conclusion. Masai pulls on his ear in retaliation, and they’re about to devolve into a scuffle that’d surely get them sent to timeout for the rest of recess when Betty Anne says:

That sounds like the tulip festivals they used to have round here, long time ago.

          That pulls them up short, though Jorge still gets in one last tug to Masai’s braid.

He asks:                                       at the same time Masai asks:

Where you learn that?                                       how long ago?

The substitute said, showed us some

pictures from before we was Freemon Town.

Sounds boring.                                            why we ain't seen them?

                                                                 then, turning to Jorge, says:

                                                                                boy, hush up!

Make me!                                                                                      

                                                                            that’s why you

                                                                            ain’t getting my

                                                                            cornbread, now!

Then I’ll tell Auntie Gee                                                                           

you being weird again                                                                           

and she’ll tell your Mama!                                                                           

Betty Anne makes a sound between a sigh and a snarl.

I’ll bring y’all the book she showed us!

she says loudly, cutting through their almost-argument. Jorge sticks his tongue out at Masai, but she ignores him just like her Mama taught her when kids were being mean for attention. Knowing her friend’s patience is running thin, she suggests Betty Anne ask the substitute to borrow the book so they could look through it on the bus ride home, adding that they could tell Jorge tomorrow once he starts to protest that he doesn’t ride the bus. They spend the rest of recess together making dirt pastries, rubbing rust off the old monkey bars to sprinkle on as pretend-sugar, and arguing over who makes the prettiest sand cakes (me) until the middle schoolers trot out onto their own adjacent playground and Mrs. Georgette is calling for her students to line up.

Betty Anne wanders to her classmates, and Masai follows Jorge until she spots Malcolm just across the fence that separates the middle schoolers from the elementary schoolers, remembers the coat she grabbed with her on the way out the classroom just for this, and shoots Jorge an I’ll be back before darting over to the older boy. Malcolm, luckily, sees her and, waving off his friends, meets her at the gate. The clouds cast motley shadows over the playground (like skipping girls), and one hops through her as Masai reaches out towards the boy.

here’s your coat, Malcolm.

Masai says, and two things happen simultaneously:

Both Malcolm and not-Malcolm reach out to ruffle her hair, and the jarring action snaps her awake. She wobbles on her feet, rubbing at her right eye as the clouds part, and Malcolm steadies her, grin changing to a nervous frown. He asks if she needs the nurse, but before she can respond, she hears Mrs. Georgette calling her from across the yard, Jorge at her side, both of them giving her strange looks she can’t interpret from a distance. Masai assures Malcolm she’s fine and wanders slowly back inside, wondering what is happening to her.

(dreamingdreamingdreaming)

Like overlapping bubbles!

Betty Anne says on the bus back home when Masai tells her about Malcolm and not-Malcolm.

I read that in some book, too, but not one from the substitute this time. One of the fun action ones where all these little worlds were in these bubbles and you could hop from one world to another when they got close enough—

we don’t got time!

Masai interrupts, not willing to put up with Betty Anne talking up a storm when she’s so anxious to see the substitute’s book. Betty Anne gives her a sheepish smile and pulls the book out of her backpack.

It’s a history of Freemon Town through pictures and photographs, from its origins to its foundation up to the time of the book’s publication, some 25 years ago. The girls take their time flipping through it, and sure enough there’s some sketches of a tulip festival along the main road, the field at the edge of town hidden by stalls Masai finds herself familiar with, but with the mansion that no longer exists hanging like a stain over the colourful celebration. Betty Anne, the stronger reader as a third grader, reads aloud the description of how Freemon Town was once officially El Camino Acuatico on account of the spring that ran through it being the only natural flowing water for miles and, unofficially, Little Dutchland on account of the United States annexing Texas and an influx of Dutch Americans moving in. The Dutch were the ones who brought the tulips, though they mostly refused to grow in the harsh desert except with constant attention and vigilance, which naturally meant that the Dutch bought slaves to do it.

Funny how none of them nice pictures show that part.

                    Betty Anne says, and Masai flips to the more recent pages. They mostly fall silent, then, around the rumble of the bus and the chatter of the other children, reading at their own paces and humming to signify to the other when it would be alright to turn to another page.

They flip through town celebrations, the building of the town’s first school and library for Black folks, and the population swell after the Civil War when some plantations in neighbouring towns caught wind of the freedom the slave owners weren’t acknowledging and the slaves snuck their way across the town border.

We been real lucky

                                            the caption of a man who escaped with his family reads,

 that no one followed us across the water. Can’t find this place on none of they maps.

Masai calls it real strange right before Betty Anne turns a few pages and lands them on a big camera shot of a group of girls huddled together, all smiling, with a few adults in the background. (looks like the field trip, cause that’s Mama right there). Betty Anne reads the names in the caption, sounds out Georgette and Georgina Wilkins, identical twins; Sarah Parks; Janet Colvin; Willa Jenkins and Astrid Garnet, cousins. Masai’s never heard of Mama having a cousin, not from her, not from her Granna, and not from her Auntie Gran, either. Mama has her arm around this Astrid, and Astrid is cupping a tulip in hers. Masai takes over reading with Betty Anne’s prodding:

a group of girls on their annu’l field trip to the Jansen Plantation. a-ccor-ding to town my—my-tho—

      —mythology—

  —myth-o-lo-gy, nothing has grown in these fields since the town was…was…           

    es…tab…lished

      es…tab…lished—established, but little Astrid’s found a flower (a tulip) in one of the rows—what a cleaver—

—clever—

     —and aptly-named girl! maybe this spells the end of the bli-blig—

                  —like “light”—

                 —blight on this land.

The girls look over the caption again before Betty Anne says:

Some of these words are weird.

    but you read them!

Don’t mean I know what they saying.

    guess we gotta ask Anne Bell…

Both girls groan as the bus pulls up to their stop, and they rush to pack away their things before getting off at Betty Anne’s house. Mrs. Carver is waiting for them in the driveway and ushers them into the warmth of the home while the girls give a chorus of it was good’s to her various questions about their day. By the time she finally leaves them alone at the kitchen table with their afternoon snacks spread out amongst Ruby Rose’s colourings, it’s a whole 30 minutes later, and only because Sammy Lee came tearing through the room with no clothes on. Mrs. Carver goes off, shouting down the hall at the runaway toddler and Anne Bell who was probably supposed to be watching him. 

The girls finish their snacks, mostly by eating out the meat and cheese and passing the crackers to Ruby Rose while they’re still unsupervised. Then, after grabbing the book out of Betty Anne’s backpack, they make their way to Anne Bell’s room where she’s being chastised. They try to look innocent and like they aren’t eavesdropping, but Mrs. Carver sees them, anyways, and asks if they have homework. They don’t, but they still nod their heads.

Help the girls with their homework.

Aw, Mama!

You gonna do something in this house, girl. Either go get that boy in the bath like I told you, or I bathe him and you help with homework!

And because they know there’s nothing Anne Bell hates more than being wet up from one of Sammy Lee’s baths, the girls hide their giggles behind their hands when Anne Bell gives out a sulky yes ma’am and lets the girls into her room. Masai and Betty Anne jump onto the bed, Masai at the right and Betty Anne smacking into her sister’s left side before righting herself. Anne Bell gives a put-out sigh.

What do y’all want,

cause I know it ain’t

homework.

We need help

reading this book.

it has lots of

big words in it! 

Betty Anne pulls out the book and shows her sister. Anne Bell frowns as she takes it, flipping through a little, and it looks kinda like she wants to say something she knows she shouldn’t or maybe doesn’t even have words for. After a long minute, she looks up at them.

Okay,

she says carefully,

      where do you want help?

The girls go through the book, asking after things they don’t know yet but think Anne Bell might because she’s already in high school. They ask her about the town, which she doesn’t know much more than them (or isn’t telling), and Betty Anne asks her about the meanings of words.

Mythology, like a story about why things are the way they are. Like the Bible.

Ain’t that religion?

It’s all the same thing.

Or:

Established? Means creating

something people can use. 

like a new flavour

of ice cream!

No girl, not like that.

Think like a store or a library.

Something people can

use services in.

What you mean

by services?

Like church?

No! Well…maybe.

Or:

Blight… hold up,

let me look it up…

A thing that spoils

or damages something.

Like bad milk?

that’s a blight?

I think more like the Moses

story.

Oh, we learned about

that in Sunday school!

so like the bible?

Yes, like the bible.

Masai is more interested in the people than the words like Betty Anne is, but Anne Bell isn’t much help there, either. She knows slightly more people:

That’s the woman that founded the town, but she didn’t build the windmill like it says here, and her husband built the local school, not the other way round.

And:

I remember Miss Colvin. Used to work at the grocer before y’all were born. She moved out of town with Mrs. Georgina but didn’t come back with her.

But:

I don’t know who this Astrid person is. You’ll have to ask your Mama after that one.

Masai sulks but there’s really not much she can do about what someone else knows or don’t know. Instead, she moves to ask more questions when Mrs. Carver appears at the door. She tells Masai that her Ma should be getting home any minute now and that she should start packing up, tells Betty Anne to go get cleaned up cause she’s putting dinner on the stove, and gets to fussing at Anne Bell when Masai closes the book. Mrs. Carver glances at the cover and chokes on whatever she was gonna say next. All three girls watch her face drain of colour before it all rushes back in startling violet.

Where did you get that book?

Betty Anne says:                           but Anne Bell looks in concern:

The substitute!                               Ma?

Mrs. Carver’s mouth opens and closes and opens again, but no words come out, and Masai feels the tension like a hand on the back of her neck, or no, that is a hand on the back of her neck, Anne Bell’s holding her close and still while Betty Anne seems to be trying to disappear into her side. Mrs. Carver takes one step towards them, and the ringing of the phone saves them from whatever she’s about to do. She looks down the hall to the phone, then at the girls, then at the book.

That’s probably your Mama.

she says, and with strict instructions for Betty Anne to put that book in her bedroom, she goes to answer the phone. The girls release their breaths, and Anne Bell moves her hand off Masai. Betty Anne slips off the bed with the book, face frozen in shock, but before she leaves, Masai flips through the book, finds the page with the field trip picture, and (I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry) rips it out the binding. No one says anything, and Betty Anne leaves the room with a subdued bye before Masai stuffs the page into her pocket. Just in time, too, as Mrs. Carver comes back into the room and says:

Alright, girlie, that was your Ma saying it’s time to go home. Anne Bell, walk Masai home!

But Mama, she lives right next door. She big enough to walk her own self home!

Girl don’t be talking back to me. Go take her home like I just told you to.

Anne Bell usually gives a bigger fight, but this time she drops it, leads Masai to the door and dutifully puts on her coat. Masai doesn’t say anything (cause they aren’t really talking to me, anyway) and, together, they leave to cross the street to Masai’s house. Anne Bell waits with her while she gets out her house key, opens the front door, and steps onto the welcome mat—their ritual of “safe transfer” after Mrs. Carver once fussed about Anne Bell leaving too soon—then ruffles her hair with a see ya tomorrow and darts back to her own house. Masai steps through the doorway (and the shadow in the doorway), closing the door behind her, and begins to take off her backpack and coat.

She pauses when she hears extra voices from the kitchen, leaves her stuff at the door, and follows the noise and smell of cooking food. Just as she reaches the threshold, someone grabs her up around her waist yells: says: sleepwalker sleepwalker 

Gotcha!

        while digging thick fingers into her sides, causing her to squeal out some no no no! in laughs even as she tries to wiggle away. Finally, when tears are streaming down her face, she manages to choke out:

Mami, help me!

Alright, Harry, you’ve had your fun. Let my flower chile down.

With faux disappointment, the woman sets the girl on her feet, who immediately turns around and catches her in a tight hug.

Miss Lady!

Astrid!

did you bring me

something

from your trip?

Nothing you’ll be

getting before dinner.

awww…

And what am I,

now, chopped liver?

Astrid jumps away from Miss Lady and meets Mami at the stove, giving her an extra big hug. Miss Lady comes up behind her to engulf them both in her embrace. Usually, Astrid would say eww and squirm out of the family hug when Miss Lady leans over to peck Mami on the lips, but Miss Lady was gone for an extra long time on this trip and Astrid missed having her mothers under the same roof. It’s made slightly better by Mami pushing back her curls to kiss her, too, on the forehead, remarking on how that’s better. Then, Mami turns to glance at the stove before moving out of the embrace to stir something in a pot. Miss Lady asks her how school was in the moment of separation, and Astrid gasps, tells them to stay right there and rushes back to her backpack for the picture that Mr. Ailey had taken of her and her friends on the field trip.

Miss Lady!

she shouts, running back to the kitchen.

Miss Lady!

Miss Lady!

Miss Lady!

lookit!

lookit!

lookit!

Except, when she skids around the corner of the doorway, something crashes to the floor and startles her back. Mama is staring at her, face pale, hand grasping at nothing as a dirty ladle comes to a stop from its roll on the ground. Masai looks at her, the ladle, her own hand clutching the page from the book she ripped out, then back to her Mama.

What did you just call me?

Mama wheezes, stumbling forward to drop to her knees before Masai, but Masai can’t get rid of the taste of hazy yellow heavying her tongue.

Mama…

No—

She grips at Masai’s arms, strong enough to hold her together—

—what did you call me?

Mama—

You don’t call me that. Who told you

to call me that! No no no—

but Mama—

—no no no no no no no I won’t let

you go like Astrid, you will not go

like Astrid, not like no damn Tulip—

(—to hurt)

Mama!

The light in the kitchen flickers, and Mama snatches her hands away, as if burned. She collapses back on her heels, staring at Masai (pay attention) and past her (pay attention to me) at the page in her hand, but all Masai can see are the shadow-cast fingers wound around Mama’s neck. Masai feels the scene—the imprints on her upper arms, the splatter sinking into Mama’s jeans, the smell of stew bubbling down into the fire—waiver before her through a sheen of wetness over her right eye. She rubs at it absentmindedly, and it pops just like a bubble. (shadow gone.)

Mama,

                        Masai tries once more, so gently so Mama can see just her, and asks:

who’s Astrid?

Anastasia McCray (she/her/hers) is a queer writer from the American South who uses her writing to cleave the distance between her Black Southerner roots and her Nigerian lineage. Currently, she is a graduate of Cornell University’s MFA Poetry program and is working on her first collection of short stories.