Brown Girl In the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

grandmother from tripping, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked down. The floor was bare. Mami frowned at the clean linoleum, met Ti-Jeanne’s eyes: “Doux-doux, why you think it have rice on the floor in front of the baby bed?”
    Ti-Jeanne threw herself into Mami’s arms, sobbing as she tried to explain. Mami walked her over to the single bed, sat down with her, and listened while Ti-Jeanne gulped out the story of what she’d seen. “Mami, this ain’t the first time I see something like this. I going mad like Mummy, ain’t it?”
    At that, Mami’s gentle air vanished. She pulled back and frowned at Ti-Jeanne. “This happen to you before?”
    Ti-Jeanne shrank back into herself. “Two-three times now, Mami,” she mumbled, looking down at the floor.
    Mami grabbed her wrist and held on tight, forcing Ti-Jeanne to make eye contact with her. “Two-three time? Child, why you never tell me what was goin’ on with you?”
    Sullenly Ti-Jeanne replied, “What I was to tell you, Mami? I don’t want to know nothing ’bout obeah, oui.”
    Mami shook a finger in front of Ti-Jeanne’s face. “Girl child, you know better than to call it obeah. Stupidness. Is a gift from God Father. Is a good thing, not a evil thing. But child, if you don’t learn how to use it, it will use you, just like it take your mother.”
    Frightened, Ti-Jeanne could only stare at her grandmother. She remembered that night so many years ago. She had been only nine years old, living with her mother and grandmother in a cramped, run-down apartment in Saint James’ Town. The city was still being governed but was gradually collapsing economically as transfer payments from the province dwindled, taxes rose, and money, businesses, and jobs fled outward to the ’burbs. Young Ti-Jeanne didn’t really understand what was going on, but she could sense people’s resentment and apprehension wherever she went. She and her mother, Mi-Jeanne, used to share a bedroom. That particular night, Mi-Jeanne had woken up screaming. She’d dreamt of people trapped in some sort of box, drowning as water rushed in through its windows. She’d dreamt of angry fights in the streets, heavy blows breaking glass, of heads being blown apart like melons. Mami had tried to calm her, but Mi-Jeanne had become hysterical. The Riots had started a week later. For Ti-Jeanne, they were mixed up in her mind with memories of her mother lying helpless in her bed, besieged with images of the worst of the rioting before it happened. Mi-Jeanne refused her mother’s help. She spat out all of Mami’s potions and screamed at her to stop her prayers. And the power of the visions had driven her mad.
    Mami’s voice broke into Ti-Jeanne’s reverie. “It look like you turn seer woman like Mi-Jeanne, doux-doux. I could help you. No time to waste. Your education start now. Tell me about your visions, nuh?”
    So Ti-Jeanne began describing her visions to the old woman: the Jab-Jab, the Soucouyant, the nightmare she had had every night now for three weeks. As she spoke, Baby woke, crying for his morning feeding. Ti-Jeanne gave him the breast and continued to talk:
    “And in this dream I have now, I does see a tall, tall woman in a old-fashioned dress, long all the way down to the floor. She head tie-up in a scarf, and Mami, she teeth pointy like shark teeth!”
    “What her feet them look like?”
    “She have one good foot and one hoof like a goat.”
    “Jeezam Peace, child! La Diablesse visitin’ you! What she does do in your dream?”
    “I does see creeping through the streets at night. She have a glow around she, like she cover up in fire, but nobody ain’t seeing she. She does be hiding in alleyways and thing, just waiting, waiting. And then a street kid does come walking down the alleyway, whistling to heself, not looking around. And I could see the woman getting ready to spring out at the little boy. And all I screaming and crying at the boy to turn back, to run away, he don’ hear