I found out the proper name was African Methodist Episcopal Church, and it was just for coloreds, slaves and free blacks together, and it was meeting in an empty hearse house near the black burial ground. Said the place was packed to the rafters every night.
A slave man next to me, wearing some worn-out-looking livery, said, “Since when is the city so fool-trusting to let slaves run their own church?”
Everybody laughed at that, like the joke was on Charleston.
Jesse said, “Well, ain’t that the truth, Praise the Lord. There’s a man at the church who’s always talking ’bout Moses leading the slaves from Egypt, Praise the Lord. He say, Charleston is Egypt all over again. Praise the Lord.”
My scalp pricked. I said, “What’s the man’s name?”
Jesse said, “Denmark Vesey.”
For years, I’d refused to think of Mr. Vesey, how mauma had sewed him on the last square on her story quilt. I didn’t like the man being on it, didn’t like the man period. I’d never thought he knew anything about what happened to her, why would he, but standing there, a bell rang in my head and told me it was worth a try. Maybe then I could put mauma to rest.
That’s when I decided to get religion.
First chance I got, I told Sarah I was burdened down with the need for deliverance, and God was calling me to the African church. I dabbed at my eyes a little.
I was cut straight from my mauma’s cloth.
Next day, missus called me to her room. She was sitting by the window with her Bible laid open. “It has come to my attention you wish to join the new church that has been established in the city for your kind. Sarah informs me you want to attend nightly meetings. I’ll allow you to go twice a week in the evenings and on Sunday, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work or cause problems of any sort. Sarah will prepare your pass.”
She looked at me through her little glasses. She said, “See to it you don’t squander the favor I’m granting you.”
“Yessum.” For measure, I added, “Praise the Lord.”
Sarah
I couldn’t imagine why Nina and I had been summoned to the first-floor drawing room—that was never a good thing. We entered to find the very corpulent Reverend Gadsden seated on the yellow silk settee, and beside him, Mother, squeezed way over to one side, gripping her cane as if she might bore it into the floor. Glancing at Nina, who, at fourteen, was taller than I was, I noticed her eyes flash beneath their thick, dark lashes. She gave her chin a tiny defiant yank upward, and for a moment, I felt a passing bit of pity for the reverend.
“Close the door behind you,” Mother said. Down the passageway, Father was in his room, too ill now to work. Dr. Geddings had ordered quiet, and for weeks, the slaves had padded about, speaking in whispers, careful not to rattle a tray for fear of their lives. When one’s physician prescribes quiet as a remedy, along with a syrup made from horseradish root, he has clearly given up.
I took my seat on the twin settee beside Nina, facing the pair of them. The accusation against me would be failing as Nina’s godmother. As usual.
This past Sunday, my sister had refused confirmation into St. Philip’s Church, and it wasn’t even that as much as the way she’d done it. She’d made a pageant of it. When the other youths left their chairs on the dais and went to the altar rail for the bishop to lay his hands on their sweet heads, Nina remained pointedly in her seat. Our entire family was there, except for Father, and I watched with a confused mix of embarrassment and pride as she sat with her arms crossed, her dark hair gleaming around her shoulders and a tiny circle of red blazing on each of her cheeks.
The bishop walked over and spoke to her, and she shook her head. Mother went stiff as a piece of wrought iron on the pew beside me, and I felt the air in the church clotting around our heads. There was more coaxing by the bishop, more obstinacy by Nina, until he gave up and continued the service.
I’d had no inkling what she planned, though perhaps I should have—this was Nina, after all. She was full of fiery opinions and mutinous acts. Last winter, she’d scandalized her classroom by taking off her