Butler, Octavia - Kindred

“Yeah, I think that’s right.”

I frowned at him impatiently. A boy his age should certainly be sure of the spelling of his own name—even a name like this with an unusual spelling.

“It’s right,” he said quickly.

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“And … is there a black girl, maybe a slave girl, named Alice living

around here somewhere?” I wasn’t sure of the girl’s last name. The mem- ory was coming back to me in fragments.

“Sure. Alice is my friend.”

“Is she?” I was staring at my hands, trying to think. Every time I got used to one impossibility, I ran into another.

“She’s no slave, either,” said Rufus. “She’s free, born free like her mother.”

“Oh? Then maybe somehow …” I let my voice trail away as my thoughts raced ahead of it fitting things together. The state was right, and the time, the unusual name, the girl, Alice …

“Maybe what?” prompted Rufus.

Yes, maybe what? Well, maybe, if I wasn’t completely out of my mind, if I wasn’t in the middle of the most perfect hallucination I’d ever heard of, if the child before me was real and was telling the truth, maybe he was one of my ancestors.

Maybe he was my several times great grandfather, but still vaguely alive in the memory of my family because his daughter had bought a large Bible in an ornately carved, wooden chest and had begun keeping family records in it. My uncle still had it.

Grandmother Hagar. Hagar Weylin, born in 1831. Hers was the first name listed. And she had given her parents’ names as Rufus Weylin and Alice Green-something Weylin.

“Rufus, what’s Alice’s last name?”

“Greenwood. What were you talking about? Maybe what?” “Nothing. I … just thought I might know someone in her family.” “Do you?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the person I’m thinking of.” Weak lies. But they were better than the truth. As young as the boy was, I thought he would question my sanity if I told the truth.

Alice Greenwood. How would she marry this boy? Or would it be marriage? And why hadn’t someone in my family mentioned that Rufus Weylin was white? If they knew. Probably, they didn’t. Hagar Weylin Blake had died in 1880, long before the time of any member of my fam- ily that I had known. No doubt most information about her life had died with her. At least it had died before it filtered down to me. There was only the Bible left.

Hagar had filled pages of it with her careful script. There was a record

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of her marriage to Oliver Blake, and a list of her seven children, their marriages, some grandchildren … Then someone else had taken up the listing. So many relatives that I had never known, would never know.

Or would I?

I looked over at the boy who would be Hagar’s father. There was noth- ing in him that reminded me of any of my relatives. Looking at him con- fused me. But he had to be the one. There had to be some kind of reason for the link he and I seemed to have. Not that I really thought a blood relationship could explain the way I had twice been drawn to him. It wouldn’t. But then, neither would anything else. What we had was some- thing new, something that didn’t even have a name. Some matching strangeness in us that may or may not have come from our being related. Still, now I had a special reason for being glad I had been able to save him. After all … after all, what would have happened to me, to my mother’s family, if I hadn’t saved him?

Was that why I was here? Not only to insure the survival of one accident-prone small boy, but to insure my family’s survival, my own birth.

Again, what would have happened if the boy had drowned? Would he have drowned without me? Or would his mother have saved him some- how? Would his father have arrived in time to save him? It must be that one of them would have saved him somehow. His life could not depend on the actions of his unconceived descendant. No matter what I did, he would have to survive to father Hagar, or I could not exist. That made sense.

But somehow, it didn’t make enough sense to give me any comfort. It didn’t make enough sense for me to test it by ignoring him if I found him in trouble again—not that I could have ignored any child in trouble. But this child needed special care. If I was to live, if others were to live, he must live. I didn’t dare test the paradox.

“You know,” he said, peering at me, “you look a little like Alice’s mother. If you wore a dress and tied your hair up, you’d look a lot like her.” He sat down companionably beside me on the bed.

“I’m surprised your mother didn’t mistake me for her then,” I said. “Not with you dressed like that! She thought you were a man at first,

just like I did—and like Daddy did.”

“Oh.” That mistake was a little easier to understand now. “Are you sure you aren’t related to Alice yourself?”

30 KINDRED

“Not that I know of,” I lied. And I changed the subject abruptly. “Rufe,

are there slaves here?”

He nodded. “Thirty-eight slaves, Daddy said.” He drew his bare feet up and sat cross-legged on the bed facing me, still examining me with interest. “You’re not a slave, are you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. You don’t talk right or dress right or act right. You don’t even seem like a runaway.”

“I’m not.”

“And you don’t call me ‘Master’ either.”

I surprised myself by laughing. “Master?”

“You’re supposed to.” He was very serious. “You want me to call you black.”

His seriousness stopped my laughter. What was funny, anyway? He was probably right. No doubt I was supposed to give him some title of respect. But “Master”?

“You have to say it,” he insisted. “Or ‘Young Master’ or … or ‘Mis- ter’ like Alice does. You’re supposed to.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not unless things get a lot worse than they are.”

The boy gripped my arm. “Yes!” he whispered. “You’ll get into trou- ble if you don’t, if Daddy hears you.”

I’d get into trouble if “Daddy” heard me say anything at all. But the boy was obviously concerned, even frightened for me. His father sounded like a man who worked at inspiring fear. “All right,” I said. “If anyone else comes, I’ll call you ‘Mister Rufus.’ Will that do?” If anyone else came, I’d be lucky to survive.

“Yes,” said Rufus. He looked relieved. “I still have scars on my back where Daddy hit me with the whip.”

“I saw them.” It was time for me to get out of this house. I had done enough talking and learning and hoping to be transported home. It was clear that whatever power had used me to protect Rufus had not provided for my own protection. I had to get out of the house and to a place of safety before day came—if there was a place of safety for me here. I wondered how Alice’s parents managed, how they survived.

“Hey!” said Rufus suddenly.

I jumped, looked at him, and realized that he had been saying something—something I had missed.

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“I said what’s your name?” he repeated. “You never told me.” Was that all? “Edana,” I said. “Most people call me Dana.”

“Oh, no!” he said softly. He stared at me the way he had when he thought I might be a ghost.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I guess, but … well, you wanted to know if I had seen you this time before you got here the way I did at the river. Well, I didn’t see you, but I think I heard you.”

“How? When?”

“I don’t know how. You weren’t here. But when the fire started and I got so scared, I heard a voice, a man. He said, ‘Dana?’ Then he said, ‘Is it happening again?’ And someone else—you—whispered, ‘I think so.’ I heard you!”