Outside, Junia’s worrisome ramblings rose as she tried to summon her beloved Book Woman.
Again, I walked around the cabin feeling helpless and scared, the cinch in my throat tightening, the old puncheon floorboards groaning with every shaky step. “Mama?”
“Honey, is everything okay in there?” Pearl called from the yard.
“They’re really gone,” I answered as I came out, not wanting to believe it, but finally realizing it was true. “Gone.”
“Honey, Honey—”
“They were taken earlier and I hoped they might have returned.” I hurried past her to the barn and flung open the door, searching. Papa’s ol’ Ford truck was there, but I was surprised to see his horse was missing. I could only hope that maybe, just maybe, my folk were free and coming for me.
The snow came down fast, in large, powdery flakes. I walked over to Junia, pressed my face into the mule’s trembling flesh.
Pearl put her hand on my shoulder, and I glanced up at my home and shuddered as the truth grabbed hold that Mama was right.
I wasn’t safe here.
Four
After I built a fire, I sat down at the table and waited for Pearl to tend to my wound. “Mama and Papa had an illegal marriage,” I said as Pearl dabbed Mercurochrome onto my busted chin, still hurting from its brush with the rocks earlier. It stung, and I quickly fanned my face as the antiseptic set the injury afire.
Pearl bent down and blew on my chin, taking away some of the pain. “Mother used to do that after she put the medicine on my scrapes,” she said.
“Mine still does,” I said, wishing she were here to do it tonight.
“Why was the marriage in trouble?” Pearl asked as she sat back down at the table and looked at me thoughtfully.
“It was a union that went against the moral supremacy of the Kentucky man, God, and miscegenation laws, or so folk around here thought,” I said quietly.
Pearl shot me a puzzled look.
“The law separated them in 1936 on their wedding day because of mine and Mama’s blue color. And I guess because the law thought I was born out of wedlock and fornication had been committed. But after my first parents died, Mama and Papa got a copy of their marriage license that the town sheriff had destroyed. When I turned five, we had to travel all the way to Washington, DC, to find a judge who would recognize their marriage and let them officially adopt me.”
“Back home, Mr. Sawyer tried to marry a woman from China and was fined and jailed. So it’s marrying outside your color?” she asked, still somewhat confused.
“Yes, the mixing of any color is not allowed in Kentucky, the law says.” In the candlelight, I searched Pearl’s face for any hint of disapproval, but her eyes were kind and invited me to say more.
“Doc said we have methemoglobinemia, a gene disorder.” I tucked my hands under the table, folding them on my lap. “All of us, my first folk and my mama now. Though my papa isn’t one of us blue-skinned folk, he was punished just the same. And imprisoned for over three years and banned from Kentucky for twenty-five more.”
Pearl’s eyes widened and she firmly shook her head. “There ought to be a law against ignorance like that. Those type of ugly people need to be whipped with their own ugly sticks.”
“Being different here in white or black Kentucky puts you on the lowest rung. Heard talk over the years about an old preacher in Troublesome who hunted anyone unlike him and his congregation. The folk with odd markings.” I stood up and went over to the window. “Mama said he attacked her and Junia one day on the book route.”
“What happened?” Pearl asked quietly.
“She escaped with Junia’s help. Preacher had already drowned other different folk in baptismals down in Troublesome’s cold creek waters, declaring them sinners and that the odd peculiarities the devil had marked them with were proof. A young Melungeon girl who couldn’t be cured of her fits with herbs and tonics and two of the Goodwin triplets were drowned after the preacher told his flock the birthing of three was beastly and surely the sign of Satan’s seed. There was the albino boy and the three-foot-tall man who’d grow’d an extra nipple. My kind and untold others, he raged against.”