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Uprooting your family legacy isn’t as quick of a job as you’d like. Like so many seams of coal, your bloodline is embedded in the earth, extracted only by sweat and tears, leaving behind darkness that sticks under your nails and inside your lungs.
But you do it. After Kaneeka banishes the Entity, the town doesn’t only let people leave — it lets new people in. In a few years time, they can make a good living off more than coal and meth. You can let some things go. You can breathe.
When the Scarlet Mines finally close for good, part of you dies. But that’s nothing new. What is living, if not letting the old self die? Cast it off like old skin. You don’t need it anymore.
But you’re not doing it alone. Your cousin sticks by you while you catch your breath. Stella refuses to stop bothering you, and you stop telling her to stop. You even keep up with your old employees, patronizing their own businesses when you can, as awkward as it is.
And there’s Kaneeka. Your cousin swears that she hasn’t changed much, and maybe they’re right. She seems the same on the outside: determined, righteous, dressed all in black, quipping that this is the first time you’ve done something good for this town. But she’s different, too, in ways that you’re baffled no one else seems to notice. She’s more quiet. More still. Sometimes, she stares at the horizon, red-tipped hands on her hips, eyes carving some distant arc in the sky like they’re following a bird, but there is no bird. There is only the two of you.
You visit her often. Her and Dr. Kelly both. The doctor keeps up with the prescriptions you need to keep your tired body running, though she warns you not to burn yourself out, that you’re already on borrowed time. As if you don’t know it. But it’s Kaneeka who soothes the aches in your joints with herbs you can’t name, and who listens to your woes with a keen patience that neither your cousin nor Stella ever managed.
And sometimes she just tells you to get over yourself. Which you also need to hear.
When you move away, it’s Kaneeka’s help and van you need. Stella, sweet as she is, wants you to hold onto every family heirloom you can. (Isn’t this so interesting? Isn’t this thing sentimental? You could donate this one to a museum!) Kaneeka understands that everything possible needs to go into an incinerator before the house is demolished. Clean slate. No more crap.
You’re left with not much more than a few suitcases’ worth of belongings. Kaneeka stands beside you while you watch the first blows of the demolition team. Your heart crumbles — empties out. You feel lighter. You’re done with traps.
“Good riddance, huh?” she says.
“Yeah.”
She squeezes your hand. You startle at her touch. It’s gone before you can respond.
❧❧❧
In Jacksonville, no one knows who you are. It’s shocking at first, almost insulting. Everyone knows who you are. Everyone in the hills around the holler, at least.
God, your world was so small.
No one bothers with the middle-aged lady in the old clothes. No one shies from your glare, afraid that you’ll fire or blackmail them. Now and then, a teenager asks to carry your groceries. Your first week in town, a mother tries to invite you to her Bible study group, and you laugh before you can stop yourself. She turns away with a look of disdain, but you can’t stop laughing.
You buy a house near the bay. It’s small, with just one extra room for when your cousin visits. It’s clean and it’s yours.
In the early mornings, you sit on the porch before work, looking at the water. The fog makes you shiver, but you don’t mind. You think you could watch the water all day.
You don’t have to work, but you like the routine. Your business acumen affords you employment as an accountant without having to run anything. You observe your coworkers as if from a distance: the way they complain amongst each other about petty work struggles, the way they talk about their children as if they’re a given. You call your cousin on the phone, grumbling, “These people are so normal, I can’t fucking stand it,” and they laugh.
Stella calls you often. She used to think she’d never drive or leave the holler, and now look at her — road-tripping across America to vlog the van life with her new puppy. Whatever makes her happy. You’re good where you are.
The first time Kaneeka comes to visit, she blows it off as a coincidence. There’s a veterinary medicine conference in town, and it’s not too far a drive from where she studies and lives with Miles in Raleigh, and anyway, she wants to know if you’ve broken a hip yet.
Surprising yourself, you want to hug her. Instead, you nod her inside with a tight-lipped smile.
Kaneeka, alone in your house. Your house. Not your family’s. Not your legacy’s. Not a prisoner’s. For the first time, a place that is Tabitha’s, Tabitha’s alone. You feel naked before her, anxious of how she’ll judge your independence.
“It’s clean,” she says.
She sleeps in the guest room. For some reason, you don’t sleep at all.
At sunrise, she joins you on the porch, wrapped in a blanket and headscarf and drinking some instant coffee you got for her. “Jesus, Tabitha, it’s freezing out here. How do you do this? I’d think your tolerance would be lower than mine.”
“Yeah, I’m old, I get it,” you huff. “And I like it. It’s… peaceful.”
“Yeah. It’s beautiful.”
All that water, all that blue. All that quiet. Your pounding heartbeat fills it up. Get it together, Tabitha.
You count down the hours until she leaves so you can be rid of the headache her presence gives you. Then you find yourself counting the months until you might see her again.
❧❧❧
It never stops surprising you, how many little things you enjoy. You like wearing jeans and sweaters. You like the live music shows in parks by the bay, even when the music isn’t very good. One night, you bring a man to a hotel room and fuck him without the fear of anyone snatching him away from you but yourself. He’s older than you — about 45, so your age. You don’t mind it as much as you thought you would.
You know that your body aged in that damn house, but it feels like the deal lingers in your bones, aging you more quickly than normal. You get aches when you sit for too long, and your hair looks like it grays more every month. You finally give in and get glasses. You’re not vain — at least, you never thought you were — but it still surprises you when you pass mirrors.
Kaneeka, on the other hand, looks like she’s only getting younger. Every few months when she stops by to see you, she glows. Former lines of stress on her face have evened out and the spark in her eyes has brightened. She has those sparkly nails, the magnetic ones or whatever they’re called. They catch the light, make you aware of your own dullness.
She takes you to a diner and buys you a float. Drinking it, you feel like a teenager out with a friend. Not that you’d know what that’s like. It makes your cheeks hot.
You poke holes in the ice cream with your straw. “You still talk to Avery?”
“M-hm,” she replies, licking her spoon, dainty little tongue flicking between glossed lips. “They get me all the herbs I need.”
“I thought you weren’t going to keep up the… family business.”
“I have knowledge. If I don’t use it, I feel like I’m cheating people, you know?” She sighs, staring out the window. You suddenly see the stolen centuries trapped beneath her oddly smooth skin. “After everything, I… I feel like it can’t have all been for nothing.”
That pisses you off. “It wasn’t for nothing either way. Your life isn’t for nothing, no matter what you do with it. Fuck Sybil.” You stab your straw harder. The tip crumples.
She just giggles, and the age in her face vanishes. “I didn’t come here for a pep talk.”
“What did you come for, then?”
“Want a bite?”
“What?”
“Want to try my float?” She holds out her spoon. Before you think, you lean forward and eat the ice cream off. Strawberry.
When she goes into the guest room that night, she smiles. “Oh good, you didn’t make the bed all perfect this time. That always makes me feel self-conscious.”
You know that. You messed it up just for her. And you left the window open to let the sea breeze in, so the room smells of salt and damp grass.
You sit in the guest room the day after she leaves, Frou-Frou curled up on the bed. The smells of nature mingle with the floral coconut scent she left behind. You breathe so deeply you get dizzy.
God, you can’t do this. You can’t. Your hands twist themselves together — you already have a couple liver spots, Jesus fuck, fuck this.
You go weed the backyard for a couple hours until your back cramps. Then you call your cousin and talk past midnight. By the end, you’re both giggling deliriously — teenagers again. You’ve never felt so young. You’ve never had the chance to.
❧❧❧
She keeps showing up in little ways. She texts you more often, gossiping about the other veterinarians at her clinic, sometimes sending you news headlines to see if they look ominous. (You’re both good at talking each other out of paranoia.) She sends you photos of the animals she treats, especially the chubby cats, which delight you more than you let on. When Miles goes to college, she calls you to sniffle for an hour. When Frou-Frou gets too old to walk, Kaneeka comes over gently guide her into death. She allows you the dignity of barely reacting to your ugly sobs, squeezing your shoulder before getting up to make you a cup of tea.
You stay up late that night watching anime, which was never your thing, but you find yourself liking her shows. You remember some bits of “Sailor Moon” from when Stella would show you compilations. You try not to stare at Kaneeka’s chest, bare beneath her sleep shirt, heavy, warm. She’s wearing her hair natural, and it tumbles softly to her shoulders, lush and free.
You keep saying that you don’t need to sleep, but before you know it, you’re waking up on the couch with a sore back. There’s a blanket on you. Outside, Kaneeka sits on the porch with a cup of coffee in hand, and another one set on your chair.
❧❧❧
Kaneeka drives up and down the Carolina coasts, healing animals and people both, learning Gullah rootwork while earning an online Master’s degree in entomology. She braids her hair in endlessly shifting patterns of cornrows that shine in the sunlight.
You go through menopause.
It’s not fair. But then, life isn’t fair. It’s not like you didn’t know it would happen. It’s not like you’re owed any different.
You smash a glass, then guiltily sweep it up.
The next time Kaneeka visits, she brings you a tiny black kitten. She tells you she couldn’t find another home for him, and you thank her for the bald lie. You name him Jiji. While you play with him with your fingers, she also passes you a pint of ice cream. “For the hot flashes,” she says.
You glare. “How would you know?”
She rolls her eyes.
You don’t want to talk about it, but you end up talking anyway. Words spill out of your mouth when you’re around her in a way that disarms you. She makes you realize how little you speak to anyone in-between her visits.
“It’s not your fault, Tabitha,” she says, sitting on your couch while you take turns petting Jiji, who obliviously rolls between you.
“I know,” you bite out. “I know that. It’s just — I never fucking got a choice, you know? All Pearlanne wanted out of me was another Scarlet to carry on the fucking family legacy — imprisonment, more like it — and then, with my cousin, that — that —“ You grip your knees hard. “That fucking ghost!”
“Yeah. Fuck that guy.”
You huff. “Sybil was all for it.”
“Well, I’m not Sybil, am I?”
“No. No. You’re right.” You scrub a hand over your face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She sits silently for a while. You hate that you screwed this up. You hate that you hate the silence between you. “I hope one day you can trust me,” she finally says, startling you.
“What? I do trust you.”
She looks sad. You hate yourself for making her look sad. “It’s just — whenever I come around here, I feel like there’s still this wall between us, you know? Like you’re holding something back from me. There’s no use denying it, I can tell. I mean, if I’m not welcome here —“
“No. Don’t even say that. You’re always welcome here. Look, I’m sorry I’m… the way I am.” Your heart hammers painfully. It wants to burst out of your chest. You should be better at this, right? You’ve gotten over this when Stella comes around. You shouldn’t feel fear anymore.
You offer her part of the truth. “It’s just, you saved me, you know? You saved all of us. And I know you lost a lot to do it.”
“I didn’t—“
“I know that you did.” You breathe shakily. “I’m out here because of you. I never thought…. It’s just, you saved us, and I’m just an old lady.”
That gets her laughing, at least. “Oh, come on. You’re not that old.”
“I am, though.”
“Well, maybe you just need to find a cougar-hunter.”
You choke, and she slaps your back, laughing at you until you breathe again.
“Seriously, though,” she tells you once the room has quieted, “I don’t want to be special any more than you do. I finally get to live my life, you know? That’s all I ever wanted.”
“Yeah. Me too.” You swallow. “I really am sorry. You’re nothing like her.”
“I know. It’s all right.”
You’re so damn grateful that it’s her. It’s Kaneeka, her mind, her body. To think it ever wasn’t a sure thing — it makes you shiver.
You stay up late together. When it grows dark, you move from the couch to her guest room and sit on the bed, where she rubs lotion into her skin while chatting. When her voice grows quiet, she asks, “I don’t know, do you ever… miss it?”
“Miss what? The holler? No.” Crickets sing outside. Fireflies flicker past the window. “Sometimes.”
“I don’t really. But it’s like… I have these dreams about what happened. I dream about ditchlings sometimes. But when they show up in my dreams, they speak with human voices.” She shudders. “I’d never want to go through all that again. But at the same time, that week changed my life. And no one even knows about it.”
You nod. “I know what you mean. It comes up with my cousin when we talk. I try not to dwell on it, but it’s not like I can avoid it.” You gesture over your body.
She gives you a long look. “You want some lotion?”
“No thanks.”
“Here.” She takes your hand. She rubs dots of satiny lotion into your skin. It smells like flowers. Her skin is so soft and cool. You can see the ring of green in her eyes. “You could… I don’t know, stay with me tonight? To be honest, I hate sleeping alone.”
So do you. But you find you can’t respond. Your hand is shaking in hers — what’s wrong with you? It’s not like you haven’t done this before. Why does she scare you so badly?
In the dark, under the blankets, you face each other. Her fingers trace patterns on your arm, then your scalp. You’re hyperaware of your breaths mingling between you. You close your eyes and lean forward so as not to let fear get the better of you.
And then it’s easy. It’s so easy. Her clean skin, her soft arms, her full lips, the wide, soft span of her stomach. The dips of her inner thighs. The shy sounds she makes.
And her hands on you: stroking wherever she can, not minding how you crease and sag, making you feel small in her arms, yet bigger, hungrier than you ever have before. You could swallow the stars. You can let yourself be selfish.
❧❧❧
“Tabby?”
“M-hm?”
“You want to go on a drive?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere. Up north maybe. We could see the snow.”
“But you hate cold.”
“You’re never seen snow, though.”
“… Yeah, all right. Let’s do it.”
…
“Fuck, it’s freezing!”
“This was your idea, you can’t complain now!”
“I’ll complain all I want! I’ll wait in the car while you — hey!”
“Got you!”
“Tabitha? Who kidnapped Tabitha and replaced her with a kindergartener? Ow!”
“Is that all you got?”
“Fucking — I’ll show you a snowball fight —!”
…
“Stay in bed. I think you pulled a muscle out there.”
“I’m fine.”
“At your age —“
“I’m fine.”
“Fine then, see if I warm you up tonight.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“… Kaneeka?”
“What?”
“I think that was the most fun I’ve ever had.”
“… Me too. You want some hot chocolate?”
“I want you to get in here.”
“Okay, then.”
❧❧❧
Sunlight sparkles in a rainbow from the suncatcher on your porch. Lightness everywhere — you’ll never be shut in again. Jiji purrs on your lap. Your boots are firm on the floor. Kudzu rolls over the nearby trees. Your heart is a spring vine reaching towards the sun. You’ll see her again soon. Soon.
❧❧❧
A kiss. A stroke of your hair. A breath on your neck. You never knew it could be this easy — pleasure. There is nothing you have to pay for it.
"Kaneeka," you whisper. "Kaneeka."
Was your body capable of giving you this bone-deep joy all along? Or did she do something to you? Put some spell inside you along with her fingers? It would scare you if you weren't too busy feeling good.
You return it to her with kisses, prayer-like hopes pressed into her skin. When you rest your cheek against her thigh, you whisper, "I love you" before you can stop yourself.
Her nails scratch your scalp. For a moment, you're paralyzed. "I love you too," she responds, sounding almost as surprised as you are.
You keep expecting her to be snatched out from under you. But when you wake up in the morning, she's still there. Soft rise and fall of her chest. You stare at her eyelids, still flickering with a dream.
❧❧❧
“That’s Miles?”
“I know, right?”
“He’s so…”
“All grown up. I couldn’t be prouder. He graduated with honors, off to some computer science internship now.”
“Did you ever teach him….”
“Magic? Fuck no. He didn’t want any part in it, and I’ll gladly not push it. Let him have a normal life.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m the last one. It’ll all die with me.”
“Kaneeka….”
“No, it’s a good thing. I’m glad. And after seeing what immortality looks like, I don’t want any part in it. But — hey, Tabby, don’t worry. I’m right here.”
“I know.”
“Meanwhile, I found a medicinal use for cecropia moth wings. I bet I could use them for protection spells, too.”
“Cool.”
“I’ll hang some up around here. Let me know if a ghost breaks in, okay? Then I’ll know it was a bust.”
“Not until I call over everyone we know for an exorcism.”
“God. You’ve gotten funny in your old age, baby.”
“Maybe I was always funny, and you just hated me too much to find out.”
“That’s my bitter sweetheart. Come give me a kiss.”
❧❧❧
Your coworkers have stopped pestering you on why you’re not married. By this time, they figure, it’s no use. When they throw you a retirement party, cheap soda and stale cake, they smile at you sadly. Poor Tabitha, the friendless spinster.
You save your smile for yourself. They don’t need to know how lucky you are. Your heart thrums with the promise that you’ll be home soon in her arms.
❧❧❧
You push your rollator up the hill. Kaneeka, walking by your side, knows better than to try to help you. Stella is already at the top, chattering away with your cousin and spreading out the picnic blanket.
You grit your teeth. Sweat. Push through the pain.
Sunlight makes Kaneeka's skin glow, gold on brown. “Need some of the devil’s lettuce, Tabitha?”
“I need you to shut up,” you pant.
“We’re almost there.”
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe tonight.”
You wheeze a laugh. “Uh-huh. I must look — hah — real good right now.”
“Always.”
The grass is so green, scratching your ankles. A moth lands on a nearby tree. You’re almost there. Your muscles burn. One more push. You smirk.
❧❧❧
Rocking chair, iced tea. You laugh at yourself. You’ve gotten almost too comfortable with your old age.
The book Kaneeka lent you is open on your lap:
Thank yuh, ma’am, but don’t say you’se ole. You’se uh lil girl baby all de time. God made it so you spent yo’ ole age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo’ young girl days to spend wid me.
Your eyes carve an arc in the sky. You don’t need your cousin’s powers to look ahead. Years will go on, and your neighbors will only know you as the cranky old lady who feeds stray cats and has weird visitors: the strange cousin, the hyperactive brunette, and the smart, mysterious woman who scarcely seems to age. The world doesn’t need to know that Kaneeka saved it… that you saved it together. The world doesn’t need to know the space you make for each other in your bed, the warm dip of her body in the mattress, the sweet relief of being seen. The price she paid to keep her skin smooth and dark and hers. The way she tends to your own skin like a treasure.
You know that she’ll be there with you one day when you die. And you know that the trust you give her until then is never handled lightly. It took you a long time, but when you asked the water for happiness, it gave you her. You will both be forever daughterless and forever free.