Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

Thomas sank to the floor terrified, staring at her. She dropped the meat into his lap and roared again.

He picked it up and ate—for the first time in how long, she wondered. If he wanted to kill himself, why was he doing it in this slow terrible way, letting himself rot alive? Oh, this day she would wash him and begin his healing. If he truly wanted to die, let him hang himself and be done with it.

When he had finished the venison, she became a woman again and calmly put on her clothing as he watched.

“I could see it,” he whispered after a long silence. “I could see your body changing inside. Everything changing …” He shook his head uncomprehending, then asked: “Could you turn white?”

The question startled her. Was he really so concerned about her color? Usually Doro’s people were not. Most of them had backgrounds too thoroughly mixed for them to sneer at anyone. Anyanwu did not know this man’s ancestry but she was certain he was not as white as he seemed to think. The Indian appearance was too strong.

“I have never made myself white,” she said. “In Wheatley, everyone knows me. Who would I deceive—and why should I try?”

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “If you could become white, you would!”

“Why?”

He stared at her hostilely.

“I’m content,” she said finally. “If I have to be white some day to survive, I will be white. If I have to be a leopard to hunt and kill, I will be a leopard. If I have to travel quickly across land, I’ll become a large bird. If I have to cross the sea, I’ll become a fish.” She smiled a little. “A dolphin, perhaps.”

“Will you become white for me?” he asked. His hostility had died as she spoke. He seemed to believe her. Perhaps he was hearing her thoughts. If so, he was not hearing them clearly enough.

“I think you will have to endure it somehow that I am black,” she said with hostility of her own. “This is the way I look. No one has ever told me I was ugly!”

He sighed. “No, you’re not. Not by some distance. It’s just that …” He stopped, wet his lips. “It’s just that I thought you could make yourself look like my wife … just a little.”

“You have a wife?”

He rubbed at a scabbed over sore on his arm. Anyanwu could see it through a hole in his sleeve and it did not look as though it was healing properly. The flesh around the scab was very red and swollen.

“I had a wife,” he said. “Big, handsome girl with hair yellow as gold. I thought it would be all right if we didn’t live in a town or have neighbors too near by. She wasn’t one of Doro’s people, but he let me have her. He gave me enough money to buy some land, get a start in tobacco. I thought things would be fine.”

“Did she know you could hear her thoughts?”

He gave her a look of contempt. “Would she have married me if she had? Would anyone?”

“One of Doro’s people, perhaps. One who could also hear thoughts.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said bitterly.

His tone made her think, made her remember that some of the most terrible of Doro’s people were like Thomas. They weren’t as sensitive, perhaps. Living in towns didn’t seem to bother them. But they drank too much and fought and abused or neglected their children and occasionally murdered each other before Doro could get around to taking them. Thomas was probably right to marry a more ordinary woman.

“Why did your wife leave?” she asked.

“Why do you think! I couldn’t keep out of her thoughts any more than I can keep out of yours. I tried not to let her know, but sometimes things came to me so clearly … I’d answer, thinking she had spoken aloud and she hadn’t and she didn’t understand and …”

“And she was afraid.”

“God, yes. After a while, she was terrified. She went home to her parents and wouldn’t even see me when I went after her. I guess I don’t blame her. After that there were only … women like you that Doro brings me.”

“We’re not such bad women. I’m not.”

“You can’t wait to get away from me!”

“What would you feel for a woman who was covered with filth and sores?”

He blinked, looked at himself. “And I guess you’re used to better!”

“Of course I am! Let me help you and you will be better. You could not have been this way for your wife.”

“You’re not her!”

“No. She could not help you. I can.”

“I didn’t ask for your—”

“Listen! She ran away from you because you are Doro’s. You are a witch and she was afraid and disgusted. I am not afraid or disgusted.”

“You’d have no right to be,” he muttered sullenly. “You’re more witch than I’ll ever be. I still don’t believe what I saw you do.”

“If my thoughts are reaching you even some of the time, you should believe what I do and what I say. I have not been telling you lies. I am a healer. I have lived for over three hundred and fifty years. I have seen leprosy and huge growths that bring agony and babies born with great holes where their faces should be and other things. You are far from being the worst thing I have seen.”

He stared at her, frowned intently as though reaching for a thought that eluded him. It occurred to her that he was trying to hear her thoughts. Finally, though, he seemed to give up. He shrugged and sighed. “Could you help any of those others?”

“Sometimes I could help. Sometimes I can dissolve away dangerous growths or open blind eyes or heal sores that will not heal themselves …”

“You can’t take away the voices or the visions, can you?”

“The thoughts you hear from other people?”

“Yes, and what I ‘see’. Sometimes I can’t tell reality from vision.”

She shook her head sadly. “I wish I could. I have seen others tormented as you are. I’m better than what your people call a doctor. Much better. But I am not as good as I long to be. I think I am flawed like you.”

“All Doro’s children are flawed—godlings with feet of clay.”

Anyanwu understood the reference. She had read the sacred book of her new land, the Bible, in the hope of improving her understanding of the people around her. In Wheatley, Isaac told people she was becoming a Christian. Some of them did not realize he was joking.

“I was not born to Doro,” she told Thomas. “I am what he calls wild seed. But it makes no difference. I am flawed anyway.”

He glanced at her, then down at the floor. “Well I’m not as flawed as you think.” He spoke very softly. “I’m not impotent.”

“Good. If you were and Doro found out … he might decide you could not be useful to him any longer.”

It was as though she had said something startling. He jumped, peered at her in a way that made her draw back in alarm, then demanded: “What’s the matter with you! How can you care what happens to me? How can you let Doro breed you like a goddamn cow—and to me! You’re not like the others.”

“You said I was a dog. A black bitch.”

Even through the dirt, she could see him redden. “I’m sorry,” he said after several seconds.

“Good. I almost hit you when you said it—and I am very strong.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I care what Doro does to me. He knows I care. I tell him.”

“People don’t, normally.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here. Things are not right to me merely because he says they are. He is not my god. He brought me to you as punishment for my sacrilege.” She smiled. “But he does not understand that I would rather lie with you than with him.”

Thomas said nothing for so long that she reached out and touched his hand, concerned.

He looked at her, smiled without showing his bad teeth. She had not seen him smile before. “Be careful,” he said. “Doro should never find out how thoroughly you hate him.”