HeartFire Page 0,86

body was holding almost still as he levered the broom to sweep out name-strings. No sooner had he thought of this than the broomstick rocketed straight at him like a bayonet, ramming him in the stomach just under the breastbone. Denmark dropped like a rock, the breath knocked out of him. And when he did manage to take in a great gasp of air, he immediately vomited.

A few minutes later, Gullah Joe was bending over him. "You got you air? He not hurt you bad. He no see you, or you dead man."

"Who?" asked Denmark.

"You think I know?"

"You talk like you know everything," said Denmark.

"When I know, I say I know. This one, he a bad devil. He wander like stray dog, come passing through, he see all the names, devil eat name like food, like cake, taste him sweet. He come in my circle and now he get caught, he no come out. So he mad, him! Tear up net. Tear up name, kill me if he can. But I stop him."

"I helped."

"Yes, you knock me down, very smart."

"Why you holding still like that?"

"See me knotty hair? She wiggle, he get inside, he break me in bits."

Denmark had long wondered why Gullah Joe had braided his hair with ribbons and scraps. It wasn't decoration, it was protection - as long as the knotted braids weren't wiggling.

"So that hair keep out the devil?"

Joe flipped his braids boastfully. "Hair, she keep him out of me." Then he pointed at the dangling charms that used to ring the net of name-strings. "These charm, they keep him in my circle." Joe grinned. "It got him."

"What you want him for?" asked Denmark. "Can you ask him for wishes or something?"

Gullah Joe looked at him like he was stupid. "You live White too long, boy, it make you strange."

"I thought maybe it was like a genie or something."

"You no ask devil help you, he help you be dead, that be his help you." Gullah Joe began walking around, looking at the dangling charms hanging elsewhere in the room. "You get me that one, that one, that one."

Denmark, being tall, had no trouble unhooking the charms Joe indicated. Soon they had a new circle created, just like the other one, only when you looked close there were no two charms alike. It seemed not to matter. In a few more minutes they gathered the name-strings from the floor, piled them in another net, and hoisted them off the floor in the midst of the charmed circle.

"Now nobody see them again, they safe, they don't get lost, they don't get found."

"So we beat the devil this time," said Denmark.

Gullah Joe shook his head sadly. "No, he tear one up. He pick that one, he tear her up, he break the string, she name be fly off somewhere."

"Lost?"

"Oh, she name try to get home, she try so hard." Gullah Joe sighed. "Some name she strong, but she blind, no find the way. Some name see the way, but she no fly, she fade away. This one, she strong, she bright, maybe she get home."

"Which one was it?"

"You think I tell she name? Call that name to me? You think I be so bad? No sir. I no say she name, I be pray that name find that girl, she a good one. Why he pick her?"

"Don't ask me," said Denmark. "I don't know why anybody picks anybody."

"No, he go to her, he know her. He know her. That devil, he been walking Camelot street, him. That devil, be maybe him a man. Be maybe him a White man." Gullah Joe smiled. "Be maybe him soul fly, get caught here, but he body be somewhere."

Denmark thought about this. A White man somewhere with his soul trapped outside his body. "You thinking maybe we ought to find him?"

"How much him I catch here?" Gullah Joe asked. "Black people soul, I take name, I take anger, I take sad, all the rest stay body. But the White man, how much he send out, how much he give me?" He went to his table, where a hundred secrets sat in jars and little boxes. He opened one, then another, rejecting each until he found a box with a fine white powder in it. He grinned and picked up a pinch of it between his fingers. Then he walked to the edge of the original circle, where the devil-man was trapped. He parted his fingers as he blew the powder sharply. The