Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman Read Free Book Online

wind and the moon and whatever Judith might be doing made her think about the open windows in summer. Through the windows on a summer night, she could hear the older boys and girls running down the dark street in pairs. At the end of Negro Street, the road dwindled into a footpath, which disappeared into the woods and then into the reeds at the edge of the Heron River. Whatever was done in secret there came out as gossip later. Cassie had heard plenty of it from James’s mother, who didn’t mind calling her Lil Ma Adelaine instead of I’da lain down with any ol’ white man .
    The ceramic jug filled with drinking water was outside on the back step. If she had a drink of cool water, she’d be able to sleep.
    Downstairs, outside, Cassie huddled in her nightshirt and drank from the cold metal dipper. She had no illusions about what Grandmother, Lil Ma, or anyone else thought of Judith: Judith was sneaky, wild, dirty. Had Judith told Cassie the truth about not being pregnant? Judith could not possibly be leaving for Virginia. Judith would eventually come to no good, but no good didn’t have to come tonight.
    Cassie went back inside and into the front room of the laundry, where Grandmother’s and Lil Ma’s coats hung on hooks behind the counter. Cassie’s coat and shoes were still wet from the day’s delivery. She took down Lil Ma’s coat and slid into it. She put on Lil Ma’s new, hard-soled shoes, the leather ones that Grandmother said would last as long as a workman’s brogans. They were heavy and cold on her bare feet. She went out the front door, closing it quietly behind her, and stood in the empty street. The damp air was cool and wakeful and reminded her that she had no clear idea what she wanted to do next. She glanced up at the second-floor window and saw a motion, like a shadow in a dream. It was Grandmother’s short, round shape, framed by the sill, lit by the sliver moon, watching. Cassie turned and ran up Negro Street. The shape in the upstairs window made no move to stop her.
    Cassie knew in a general way where the car, the radio, and Judith were supposed to be. At the other end of Negro Street, the road would take her on the laundry route if she went right, or out to the southern edge of town and Duncan Justice’s land if she went left. She had never gone the south way before. She stayed close to the trees as she hurried along the edge of the road. If a car came along, she told herself she would jump into the bushes and roll into the leaves to hide. No one would see her. None of the terrible things that she’d heard happened to colored girls running around alone at night would happen to her. She was afraid, though, that they were happening to Judith.
    Farther on, she saw the leafless black trees lit from behind and some distance from the road, deeper in the woods, a bonfire. She stepped off the wet macadam and into the weeds and thought immediately of snakes. She stood, listening for the rustle of legless creatures and heard, instead, music, rough and thick with static from the radio in the car.
    She tried, from where she was standing, to tell who was back there in the woods. Judith’s laugh was louder than the other voices. At least three other people were talking, all of them boys. Cassie moved toward the fire. When she got close enough to see her own shadow, she hunkered down behind a sticker bush.
    Judith and the albino boy sat close together on a wooden crate under the trees beside the fire. Two of Duncan Justice’s sons, the older boys, were poking around under the hood of an ancient, junk-looking car. The third son, who looked to be about nine, sat a little ways off under a tree with a spotted dog.
    Judith and the albino poured brown moonshine into paper cups. The two Justice boys clanked tools against the engine, working by firelight. Behind the bush, Cassie shifted for a better view, and the dog pricked its ears and stood. The little