Butler, Octavia - Kindred

I stared out into the darkness fighting to calm myself. It was not calm- ing, though, that there were no city lights out there. No lights at all. But still, I was in no immediate danger. And wherever I was, there was a child with me—and a child might answer my questions more readily than an adult.

I looked at him. He looked back, curious and unafraid. He was not Rufus. I could see that now. He had the same red hair and slight build, but he was taller, clearly three or four years older. Old enough, I thought, to know better than to play with fire. If he hadn’t set fire to his draperies, I might still be at home.

I stepped over to him, took the stick from his hand, and threw it into

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the fireplace. “Someone should use one like that on you,” I said, “before you burn the house down.”

I regretted the words the moment they were out. I needed this boy’s help. But still, who knew what trouble he had gotten me into!

The boy stumbled back from me, alarmed. “You lay a hand on me, and I’ll tell my daddy!” His accent was unmistakably southern, and before I could shut out the thought, I began wondering whether I might be somewhere in the South. Somewhere two or three thousand miles from home.

If I was in the South, the two- or three-hour time difference would explain the darkness outside. But wherever I was, the last thing I wanted to do was meet this boy’s father. The man could have me jailed for break- ing into his house—or he could shoot me for breaking in. There was something specific for me to worry about. No doubt the boy could tell me about other things.

And he would. If I was going to be stranded here, I had to find out all I could while I could. As dangerous as it could be for me to stay where I was, in the house of a man who might shoot me, it seemed even more dangerous for me to go wandering into the night totally ignorant. The boy and I would keep our voices down, and we would talk.

“Don’t you worry about your father,” I told him softly. “You’ll have plenty to say to him when he sees those burned draperies.”

The boy seemed to deflate. His shoulders sagged and he turned to stare into the fireplace. “Who are you anyway?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

So he didn’t know either—not that I had really expected him to. But he did seem surprisingly at ease with me—much calmer than I would have been at his age about the sudden appearance of a stranger in my bedroom. I wouldn’t even have still been in the bedroom. If he had been as timid a child as I was, he would probably have gotten me killed.

“What’s your name?” I asked him. “Rufus.”

For a moment, I just stared at him. “Rufus?” “Yeah. What’s the matter?”

I wished I knew what was the matter—what was going on! “I’m all right,” I said. “Look … Rufus, look at me. Have you ever seen me before?”

“No.”

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That was the right answer, the reasonable answer. I tried to make

myself accept it in spite of his name, his too-familiar face. But the child I had pulled from the river could so easily have grown into this child— in three or four years.

“Can you remember a time when you nearly drowned?” I asked, feel- ing foolish.

He frowned, looked at me more carefully.

“You were younger,” I said. “About five years old, maybe. Do you remember?”

“The river?” The words came out low and tentative as though he didn’t quite believe them himself.

“You do remember then. It was you.” “Drowning … I remember that. And you …?”

“I’m not sure you ever got a look at me. And I guess it must have been a long time ago … for you.”

“No, I remember you now. I saw you.”

I said nothing. I didn’t quite believe him. I wondered whether he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear—though there was no reason for him to lie. He was clearly not afraid of me.

“That’s why it seemed like I knew you,” he said. “I couldn’t remember

—maybe because of the way I saw you. I told Mama, and she said I

couldn’t have really seen you that way.” “What way?”

“Well … with my eyes closed.”

“With your—” I stopped. The boy wasn’t lying; he was dreaming. “It’s true!” he insisted loudly. Then he caught himself, whispered,

“That’s the way I saw you just as I stepped in the hole.” “Hole?”

“In the river. I was walking in the water and there was a hole. I fell, and then I couldn’t find the bottom any more. I saw you inside a room. I could see part of the room, and there were books all around—more than in Daddy’s library. You were wearing pants like a man—the way you are now. I thought you were a man.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“But this time you just look like a woman wearing pants.”

I sighed. “All right, never mind that. As long as you recognize me as the one who pulled you out of the river …”

“Did you? I thought you must have been the one.”

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I stopped, confused. “I thought you remembered.”

“I remember seeing you. It was like I stopped drowning for a while and saw you, and then started to drown again. After that Mama was there, and Daddy.”

“And Daddy’s gun,” I said bitterly. “Your father almost shot me.”

“He thought you were a man too—and that you were trying to hurt Mama and me. Mama says she was telling him not to shoot you, and then you were gone.”

“Yes.” I had probably vanished before the woman’s eyes. What had she thought of that?

“I asked her where you went,” said Rufus, “and she got mad and said she didn’t know. I asked her again later, and she hit me. And she never hits me.”

I waited, expecting him to ask me the same question, but he said no more. Only his eyes questioned. I hunted through my own thoughts for a way to answer him.

“Where do you think I went, Rufe?”

He sighed, said disappointedly, “You’re not going to tell me either.” “Yes I am—as best I can. But answer me first. Tell me where you think

I went.”

He seemed to have to decide whether to do that or not. “Back to the room,” he said finally. “The room with the books.”

“Is that a guess, or did you see me again?”

“I didn’t see you. Am I right? Did you go back there?”

“Yes. Back home to scare my husband almost as much as I must have scared your parents.”

“But how did you get there? How did you get here?” “Like that.” I snapped my fingers.

“That’s no answer.”

“It’s the only answer I’ve got. I was at home; then suddenly, I was here helping you. I don’t know how it happens—how I move that way—or when it’s going to happen. I can’t control it.”

“Who can?”

“I don’t know. No one.” I didn’t want him to get the idea that he could control it. Especially if it turned out that he really could.

“But … what’s it like? What did Mama see that she won’t tell me about?”

“Probably the same thing my husband saw. He said when I came to

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you, I vanished. Just disappeared. And then reappeared later.”

He thought about that. “Disappeared? You mean like smoke?” Fear crept into his expression. “Like a ghost?”

“Like smoke, maybe. But don’t go getting the idea that I’m a ghost. There are no ghosts.”

“That’s what Daddy says.” “He’s right.”

“But Mama says she saw one once.”

I managed to hold back my opinion of that. His mother, after all … Besides, I was probably her ghost. She had had to find some explanation for my vanishing. I wondered how her more realistic husband had explained it. But that wasn’t important. What I cared about now was keeping the boy calm.