by Ann Hite

Mama always said Shelly had the sight, ever since she was two and saw Daddy standing behind the cabin. He died two weeks before she was born, selling corn whiskey for Hobbs Pritchard, a mean white man down the mountain a ways. Mama always believed Hobbs killed Daddy, but there wasn’t no proof, and Hobbs got what he had coming to him in the end. So, it all came out in the wash.

Shelly never gave spooks and such much thought until the summer of 1944. The war with Japan and Germany threw Black Mountain into the real world. Mama had worked for the Dobbins family since she was old enough to help her mama make the beds. Shelly Parker started even earlier because Elizabeth Dobbins—the only child of Pastor Dobbins and his wife—took a liking to her as a baby. Elizabeth turned six the month Shelly was born and used her for a play toy. The girl was everywhere Shelly went so Shelly didn’t even notice the change from adored toy to personal maid. She fell into caring for Elizabeth real natural: washing her clothes, making her bed, and later when she went off to college, readying her room when she visited.

Miss Elizabeth came home that summer moaning and groaning about a vacation. Mrs. Dobbins reminded her that the war was serious and it just wasn’t time to have fun. Pastor Dobbins preached at Black Mountain Baptist Church. Shelly never heard him preach because colored folks couldn’t attend. Her and Mama had their own beliefs and read the Bible regular. But, Shelly could imagine his sermons, dry as three day old bread with hard crusts. But, something about Miss Elizabeth made that man bend over backwards. So, he decided to take the family to the coast of Georgia. Some friend of his had a family house on the beach. Shelly heard all this talking from her perch in the kitchen where she chopped greens and radishes for a salad.

“I will die of boredom. Who in the world goes to Darien, Georgia?”

“It’s settled Elizabeth. We’re going to have a nice family vacation.” Mrs. Dobbins sounded so sweet, but an edge rode her words.

Shelly snickered as she tossed the salad.

“Shelly Parker, you know not to use your bare hands on Mrs. Dobbins’ food. She’d faint over dead.” Mama named her Shelly because she always wanted to leave the mountain and go to the ocean.

“Don’t it bother you none, Mama?” she turned fifteen that month and questioned every rule forced on her, especially the stupid ones.

“What?” Mama’s voice grew tired like an old tractor that won’t turn over because of a bad battery.

“The way Mrs. Dobbins won’t let us touch her food or use the same linens and plates as her family. I mean you’ve worked for them all your life. I’ve been here all my life. You’d think we could eat off the same plates.”

Mama opened her mouth to fuss, but the voices from the dinning room interrupted. “I have to take Shelly.” Elizabeth whined. Of course she did. Who would clean her clothes and fold down her bed?

“Oh no, dear. We can’t do that. The congregation would think we were uppity, taking our help on vacation. It’s important, in times like this, we look like one of them.”

Did that woman think any soul on the mountain thought her family was one of them? It was plain as the sunrise in the east that Pastor Dobbins didn’t depend on the land for his living. His money came from family.

“We’ll take Shelly to keep you ladies company. It will do her good to leave this mountain. The house is quite large so she’ll need some extra help. I will be back here on the mountain most of the time.”

“I thought this was a family vacation.” Mrs. Dobbins sounded downright pitiful, and Shelly kind of felt sorry for her. The other thing that was plain was Pastor Dobbins didn’t like his wife much.

They left for the coast of Georgia on the twenty-first of June. Mama stood on the front porch of the main house, a dishtowel in one hand and three wrinkles carved into her forehead. When Shelly came close, she pulled her close. The smell of Mama’s bosom, even at Shelly’s age, brought her peace.

“You behave girl.” She spoke in a whisper. As Shelly went to pull away, Mama pinched her arm. “Do it all Shelly. See it all for me. But, remember to bring me back my shells.”

A dread washed over Shelly and her mind turned inside out like some child woke from a deep sleep by night monsters. There she stood, nearly a grown woman, with a big sloppy sob pressing against her ribs, cutting her breathe in half. She climbed in the back of the car.

Mama stood on the porch, stiff, straight, but soft as the color blue. White folks on Black Mountain had a saying: Any soul who left the mountain never truly came home. Their spirit wandered the earth searching for more.

She was disappointed when we first left the mountain. The pine trees that covered the mountain just continued down the road with them. It was enough to put her asleep. She woke with her face stuck to the car seat. Drool ran from the side of her mouth. She swiped at it looking at Elizabeth, who read a thick book her knee pulled to her chest, exposing her thigh.

“It’s hotter than hell in Georgia.” She kept her eyes on the book.

“Please Elizabeth, let’s stay decent.” Mrs. Dobbins looked at Elizabeth’s dress hiked up her leg.

“God Mother!”

“Really Dear, it is hot.” Pastor Dobbins spoke to Mrs. Dobbins like some people speak to a worn out animal, used far beyond its years.

The hot wind rushed in the windows and the scenery rushed past, brittle, brown, and flat.

After Atlanta with its tall buildings, cars, and busy streets, the road turned lonely and long. Shelly thought she might pop if she didn’t pee and wanted to hug Pastor Dobbins when he pulled into a service station. A neat lettered sign read: Whites Only. Her bladder ached as she watched Elizabeth and Mrs. Dobbins leave. She spied a group of trees behind the store and scooted across the gravel parking lot without a soul noticing. She hiked up my skirt and pulled down her panties, dancing a little to hold back. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around her, but she relaxed into relief.

“You! You!”

She cut that stream of pee off just like a water faucet and yanked her panties up.

“You! What are you doing there?”

She searched for a face that went with the voice. “I’m sorry. I had to go to the bathroom.”

A colored woman, leaning on a cane, hobbled out from behind a tree. Her clothes seemed old fashioned. “You know what them white folks in that store will do if they catch you out here? They’ll beat you dead.”

“I had to go. I couldn’t take it no more.”

“You get back to them folks you came with and be careful, girl. Things are never what they seem.” The hairs on the back of Shelly’s neck stood up as the woman moved closer. She thought for a second she could see through her. “Just when you think you’re safe, something comes at you sideways. Remember my warning, child.” The woman turned and hobbled away.

“What are you doing out here, anyway?”

The old woman just shook her head and kept moving. “The child don’t even know what her own eyes tells her.” When Shelly looked again, the woman was gone, just vanished into thin air.

Shelly was sitting in the car when Mrs. Dobbins and Elizabeth came out of the store with cokes. It was a good thing they didn’t buy Shelly one—even though she wanted one so bad she would’ve given her right arm for a taste—because it would have caused her trouble before they made it to the beach house.

The first thing Shelly saw that was different was the clouds building in the sky, dark and light gray stacking one on top of one another. On the mountain, clouds sat on them, foggy blankets. The air turned salty, fishy. The ground went from red clay to sand and long wispy hair-like plants hung from the twisted oak trees. She thought of the woman leaning on her cane, how people looked like trees and flowers sometimes. Mama looked like bluebells sprinkled through a garden. Elizabeth reminded her of a tall bright orange gladiola, bursting into bloom. Mrs. Dobbins wavered like a colorful tulip, beautiful one day, a stem the next. Mr. Dobbins twisted around people like a vine with beautiful green leaves, which hid sharp thorns. And Shelly was a silly daffodil, smiling on a windy spring day. She took a deep breath, silly, silly, thoughts.

Her home for the summer was a giant house sitting on four posts high off the ground, but close to the beach. She hung back while the others went inside. The beach stretched in both directions. Large twisted trees leaned in toward the house like tired soldiers. The water roared into the sand and pulled out, leaving foam behind.

“Shelly, get those suitcases and bring them in.” Mrs. Dobbins stood behind the screen door. “I just don’t think I can take this heat. You could cut the air with a knife.”

A breeze washed over Shelly sweaty arms. The ocean was the reward for any heat. She grabbed a couple of suitcases and left.

The first she laid eyes on Ada Charles a cold chill walked across her head. Ada stood at the kitchen sink preparing crabs for steaming. Some misguided part of Shelly thought Ada saw bad in her. The way she looked at Shelly with her stone cold eyes.

“Ada, this is Shelly, who has been with us since she was born.”

Ada just stared, a big blue crab in her hand.

“She’s here to help you. Is there a room out back for her?”

Pastor Dobbins smiled, but Ada stared him down. “No sir, there’s no servant quarters here. You’ll see we don’t have much use for such in these parts. She’ll have to stay in the house.” Ada said the words fast running them one into the other, but the challenge riding the current in her look was plain. Pastor Dobbins missed the whole scene by staring across the top of her head.

“Oh that just won’t do. It’s entirely inappropriate.” He looked around the kitchen as if it held a solution, like a box in the corner for a pet. “Shelly, you may have to return home with me.”

Ada lowered the blue crab into the steaming water. “I just love crab, don’t you?” A hissing cry came from the pot. She looked at Shelly and went on speaking to Pastor Dobbins. “The girl can come home with me. I have a spare room. I live on Sapelo Island. We have to leave on time each afternoon to catch the ferry.” The dark muscular woman turned a cold look on the pastor.

“I don’t know. The ladies might need help in the night.”

Ada shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The words clipped the air like a pair of sharpened shears cutting through thick cloth.

Pastor Dobbins looked at Shelly as if she were a ham hanging in the smokehouse. She cooked the man’s meals, washed his clothes, breathed the same air as him, and he just couldn’t bring himself to allow her to sleep in one of the many vacant rooms.

“I’ll stay with her. No reason for me to go home.”

“Hmph.” Ada looked less angry. “We’ll leave at four-thirty to catch the ferry.”

Shelly nodded. “What can I do to help with supper?” It felt real good to make a decision without waiting for Pastor Dobbins’ reply.

Ada and Shelly left the food covered in the kitchen and took out at four-thirty. They didn’t have to walk far before reaching the ferry dock. Colored folks stood on the walk, waiting to load onto the boat. A rough looking man with a gray beard checked some ropes on the deck of the boat. “I don’t know about you folks but I’m ready to go home for the day.”

The crowd pushed into the boat. Ada stopped in front of the captain. “This here is Shelly. She came with the preacher’s family. She’ll be staying with me for the summer. There ain’t no servants quarters at the Buck house.”

Shelly took his outstretched callused hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Your mama taught you manners. That’s a good sign. Just be careful out at the Buck place. It’s got all sorts of haints. Ask Ada. She’s met them often.”

“John, don’t frightened the girl to start.” Ada laughed, which transformed her face into a carefree woman.

“I mean it. There’s spirits walking all through that house. Some not so good.”

Shelly wanted to ask him what he meant, but he moved to the ship’s cabin. Ada turned to face the ocean. “He knows what I seen in you.”

“What?”

“You got the touch, the sight. I seen it when you walked in the backdoor. You stirred that house something bad.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She shook her head. “You just refusing to see. That’s bad because one day you going to have to see them. You got three spirits following you. One you picked up on the way down here. She’s old with a cane. One’s a man, young, maybe your father.” She stood looking at the sky. “The last is too hard to tell. It’s a woman. You don’t know her, but she’s waiting for you.” She pointed at the island as the boat bobbed through the waves. “Back in history there was more slaves on that island than owners. It’s ours. No one but us wants it now. And, we’re all leaving one by one. One day all that will be left is the spirits.”

Shelly couldn’t utter a word. The ocean breeze cooled her sticky face.

“I got the sight too, girl. It’s a curse not a gift.”

Now Shelly knew ghosts were just some soul’s imagination, but Ada’s conviction almost convinced her.

Ada’s home was clean and her food was good. Things went along as normal until one day a couple of weeks later when Pastor Dobbins had left, and Mrs. Dobbins took to laying on her bed every afternoon with a cold washrag on her forehead.

“Shelly, Shelly,” She’d whined. “Come up here and give me a fresh rag.”

“I’d like to take a cool rag and stuff it down the woman’s throat!” Ada fried chicken and Shelly sliced peaches for a pie. “You best go get her one.”

As Shelly walked up the staircase, a fancy looking colored woman stood on the top step. She wore a right smart black suit and carried a little box purse. She disappeared when Shelly came closer. Now that shook her up enough to send her back to the kitchen.

“Shelly, Shelly!”

Then Shelly heard her footstep stomp across the hall to the bathroom.

Ada looked hard at Shelly. “What’d you see?”

Shelly described the woman.

“That’s the third spirit following you. Just watch her. I don’t know what she’s up to.”

On the ferry ride, Shelly found the nerve to speak about that day. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Ada just laughed, “But, they believe in you child.”

That night Ada and Shelly ate shrimp over an open fire in the back yard. Her friends came and brought armloads of food.

One of her neighbors brought his fiddle and played lonesome tunes. Shelly ate her food, keeping to myself. A boy not much older than her came to sit on beside her. He was the color of night, tall, with a soft face.

“You’re staying with Ada.” He watched Ada laughing and eating shrimp. “She’s one woman. She must like you a lot.”

Shelly shrugged.

“She ain’t never let anyone stay with her. She’s a real loner.”

“I don’t think she likes me much.”

“Ah, she’s just like that. Don’t worry. She likes you.” He looked around. “You’re here with a white family?”

“Yes. I come from Black Mountain, North Carolina. I work for Pastor Dobbins and his family, always have.”

“I ain’t never heard of Black Mountain, but I ain’t never been anywhere but this island and right around it. To be something, I have to leave this place. This island is going to die. All I can do is go to the mainland and work for white people or work on a shrimp boat for some white man. My life will be working for whites. I’ll never own a thing except some little chunk of marsh and that will never get me anywhere. I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since I was little.”

“That’s good.”

“What do you want?”

Now no one had ever taken the time to ask Shelly this question. She had never asked herself this question. “I like stories. I wouldn’t mind writing. But most of all I want to own the main house.”

“Now there you go!” He held out his hand. “My name is Samuel, Samuel Morgan.”

Shelly took his warm hand. “I’m Shelly Parker.”

“Would you like to take a walk on the beach, Shelly?’

“Why not. I need to find my mama a good shell.”

The moon shown in the sky and the wind made it hard to hear. So they walked together. Samuel placed his hand in hers. They walked until Samuel stopped and picked up a shell from the sand.

“This is for your mama. The ocean is inside and she can hear it anytime.” He pulled Shelly to him and kissed her real hard, her first kiss. Shelly wanted to stay there the rest of her life.

It was probably that puppy love feeling that dulled her senses and made her forget the ghost in the beach house the next day. Mrs. Dobbins and Elizabeth left for some shopping. Ada went to the seafood market. Shelly cleaned the house.

Pastor Dobbins must have woke early that morning, maybe even during the night and decided to make a surprise trip. Maybe he just decided to outrun some evil after him. Anyhow he found her in Mrs. Dobbins’s room, where she was admiring some jewelry, dreaming on Samuel. The ghost woman appeared in the mirror. Fear twisted her face into a scary mask. Shelly stood still, waiting for the ghost to disappear. Pastor Dobbins’ face replaced the ghost. He looked ragged, worn, strained around the eyes. He smelled sour like whiskey.

“What are you doing with Mrs. Dobbins’s jewelry?”

“I’m putting it away.”

He moved close behind her. “You’ve no right to handle her things.”

A little voice inside her warned of danger, but it was too late. Pastor Dobbins touched her breasts. She was so shocked she just watched, frozen. He pushed, pinning her against the dressing table. She struggled, but he grabbed and pushed her on the bed, wrapping her dress around her head. He touched her in places that just wasn’t right.

“I’m going to show you like I did you’re mama.” He pushed his hard thing into her splitting her soul into a million pieces. After that, she just saw light flashes in front of her eyes. She screamed and screamed until her voice grew horse, but he pumped up and down until the pain turned numb and she thought her spirit died. Then, she heard stomping on the steps.

“You son of a bitch!” The words split through the air almost inhuman.

He stopped pumping. Shelly realized she had thrown up inside her dress. He pulled away and she pushed the dress away from her face. The ghost stood beside Ada, who held the fireplace poker up above her head. She hit Pastor Dobbins in the side of the head before he could move. She continued to hammer him long after he lay still in a growing puddle of blood. And, Shelly was glad. God forgive her, but she was glad.

After what seemed like forever, she moved. “Ada, Ada!” She grabbed Ada’s arm and seen her face full of rage, distorted. “Enough. We got to do something. Mrs. Dobbins will be back. We ain’t dying for the likes of him.” Shelly saw the devil himself on the floor.

Ada’s eyes cleared, but she still gripped the poker. “The bastard got what was coming to him. He can’t just do what he wants and hide behind God.”

Ada was in a whole other time and place. She could read it in her face. “Ada, we have to get out of here. They put people to death for less than this. You killed a preacher and ain’t nobody going to listen to your reasons.

Ada marched from the room still gripping the poker. The blood, Pastor Dobbins’s blood, seeped into the rug with the bright rose pattern. The roses began to run together. Shelly followed Ada onto the front porch. “Ada, your apron is covered with blood.”

In one smooth action, she yanked it from around her, using her free hand and balled it around the end of the poker, wiping. “Fingerprints.” The stains on her dress didn’t look so bad.

Shelly nodded.

“Get my basket from the seafood market.”

Ada dropped the poker and apron down an old abandoned well near an empty house on the way to the seafood market. She tied the apron around the poker, closed her eyes, and dropped it into oblivion. Seconds later they heard a small splash. At the seafood market, they strolled like gentry, making double sure folks saw her and Ada together. Nobody cared that they looked all wrinkled and messy. Shelly hoped Mrs. Dobbins and Elizabeth made it back before them.

An hour or so later, they started home with the crab. It had begun to smell, but neither of them spoke. They just walked a death march. Shelly thought of Samuel and how she would never see him again. She was thinking about Pastor Dobbins and how he smelled of whiskey, how he spoke of Mama. She was thinking on how folks hide behind carefully created masks that work to their own selfish advantage. She thought on how Ada was just true to the core of her soul. But, Ada’s efforts didn’t save Shelly from Pastor Dobbins. He already got what he wanted in the most horrible way, but she witnessed revenge. He never lived long enough to enjoy what he did. Ada ended his destruction. God understood that. He wouldn’t let Ada die.

The sheriff’s car sat out front right next to Pastor Dobbins’s car and the ambulance. Mrs. Dobbins’ wails filled the house and spilled into the yard. Shelly broke into a run. It seemed natural as if someone else worked her actions. She ran into the house with Ada right behind.

“Hold on there! What you doing?” The sheriff threw up an arm, blocking the entrance to the living room where Mrs. Dobbins and Elizabeth sat. Shelly seen Miss Elizabeth real clear, not a tear in her eye. She just looked at Shelly as if she knew her soul. They shared more than they knew.

Shelly looked the sheriff dead in the eye. “I’m checking on my missus. Is she hurt?”

“Me and Shelly’s been buying supper at the market. We got carried away looking around and stayed longer than we planned. What’s happened Mr. Paul?”

The sheriff relaxed. “Hi there Ada. The missus says thanks for the birthday cake. It was mighty tasty. Take this child on out of here. There’s a mess upstairs. There’s something about this house, Ada. It was ten years ago this summer when that fancy colored woman was killed in the same room by that white man, both of them from New York. Now that was a mess too, trying to explain to his family why he was staying with a colored in this house. He never did a bit of time. It seems our good Pastor got his though. His pants was down around his ankles. You just can’t tell about folks nowadays. We ain’t telling his wife that part. We’ll try to find the killer, but they didn’t leave nothing to go on just a bloody mess.”

Ada pushed Shelly out of the house. In the window stood the woman, looking down at Shelly, holding the lace curtain in her long fingers.

The last Shelly saw Ada was that afternoon when she got on the ferry. Shelly grabbed her hand. “I love you Ada. I’ll never forget you.”

“Now, you hush that mess. It’s best we forget each other and this day.”

“Tell Samuel to be a doctor.”

She nodded and her stare latched onto Shelly. “Shelly, you are a good one. You raise that child you’re carrying. He can’t help how he came into this world.”

Shelly just prayed Ada was wrong. She had to be.

When Shelly laid eyes on Black Mountain, she thanked God. Mama was standing on the porch of the main house as if she never moved the whole month. Shelly was home. She handed Mama the seashell Samuel gave her and showed Mama how to hear the ocean. Shelly was scared to looked into the house. She was scared she’d see him all bloody, but he never showed himself and eventually she relaxed. In early spring of the next year, Ada appeared to Shelly, who was working Mama’s patch of dirt for a vegetable garden. She knew Ada was a spirit by the way she smiled, all the hardness gone. Ada reached out and touched Shellie’s large stomach. “You take care of that boy, now. I’ll always be with you.”

Shelly tried to put some store in that as turned that hard cold ground.