Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel by Tiphanie Yanique Read Free Book Online

pregnancy Antoinette was trying to keep from the world was discovered and announced. This doctor was the same one who had prescribed bed rest before and salt air after, then both. Now he prescribed the best-worst thing of all: Someone must be with Madame Bradshaw at all times. And while Madame Bradshaw slept, someone must be more than near her; someone must be touching her. She needed the feeling of another heartbeat, of another pulse, the doctor said. This would calm her nervous episodes and keep her and the baby alive.
    So that night Owen Arthur stayed with his wife and did not go to his mistress or out with his daughter. He stayed in the bed with his wife and held her close to his chest so she could feel his heartbeat. In the past he had resisted touching her even in the earliest stages of pregnancy for fear of her miscarrying. But in truth he loved how nymphetish her body became when with child, as though she became a child herself.
    Now Antoinette rested against his chest. His bare chest, naked of any hair as it had always been. Antoinette felt she would surely lose everything now. Everything, except perhaps her man. Fine, then. She would relinquish. Because at least in this she had bested someone. Blasted Rebekah, who couldn’t even help her get rid of the child.
    —
    But Antoinette was not entirely right. Rebekah was also in her own house that night. The house with the red shutters and the piano Owen had bought. Her sons were asleep, except for the one in her belly. She was also carrying Owen’s child. In this, she was not bested by Antoinette after all. Rebekah’s husband had been gone for just under a year. Everyone would whisper that this new child could not be legitimate. Rebekah, too, had tried to lose the baby—for its own sake. But even Rebekah’s stews and teas and prayers had not worked. And then when she had seen Antoinette she knew why.

10.
    “I spit up blood,” Antoinette had said when she’d gone to Rebekah looking for obeah. “When I vomit, it’s always maroon.” Rebekah had touched Antoinette’s belly. Rebekah’s hand felt smooth and cool. But then the obeah woman had snatched her hand away and smacked her own chest in surprise.
    “Fine,” Rebekah said. “Fine. You leave me no choice, woman.” But she wasn’t speaking to Antoinette. Rebekah was speaking to the spirit of the child who would become the redheaded woman. This redhead woman who would stain Rebekah’s son’s soul. Together those two children would be the whole awful story.
    Rebekah went into her room. She removed her right boot. She gripped a piece of brown hair from her own ankle and plucked it out.
    Antoinette took the strand of animal hair that Rebekah gave her.
    “Put it under your tongue,” Rebekah had directed.
    Antoinette did not hesitate.
    “Now we wait,” Rebekah said.
    The coarse hair rested under Antoinette’s tongue. She waited for it to dissolve or grow legs and crawl out of her mouth. She listened to the sounds of people passing and calling for each other.
    “Anything?”
    Antoinette shook her head.
    “Give it.”
    Antoinette slipped the hair out of her mouth. It was slimy, but it was also silver now. Was that the obeah? Antoinette thought on her living daughter, on Eeona’s silver, and wondered what this might all mean. Would Antoinette go home, feel the familiar cramps, and then see the child, a stream of blood and silver and nothing more, pour out of her? Would some curse be transferred to Eeona?
    Rebekah looked at her own hair in Antoinette’s palm. She was alarmed by its sparkle. This has never happened before. But she knew it meant something bad for both her and Antoinette. This one was old, ancient.
    “This child will kill you before you kill her.”
    “Why? I tell it not to come. This child is disobeying me already.”
    Rebekah turned away. She reached into her bosom for the money Antoinette had given her. She knew Madame Bradshaw’s name was Antoinette, though she would never call her