that river, many bridges even, connecting all the islands, many bridges, each one made of a different story. And you cannot just see the bridges, you can walk across, drive across, conduct across, with passengers in tow, sure as an engineer conduct a train. That is Conduction. The many bridges. The many stories. The way over the river.
“It was a known practice among the older ones. And I have heard tell that even on the slave ship, folk leaped to the waves and were conducted, conducted back to their old African home.” Harriet sighed, shook her head, and said, “But we are here now. And we have forgotten the old songs and lost so many of our stories.”
“There’s so much,” I said. “So much I can’t remember.”
“Seems to me you remember quite a bit,” Harriet said.
“I do. Everything. Every little small bit, but there is a gash in the thing, a gash in me, a gash where my mother should be. When I look back, I can see my childhood playing out like a stage show right here in front of me, but the main player is fog.”
“Huh,” she said. Then she leaned on her stick and stood. “Ever consider you don’t really want to see?”
“No,” I said. “Not really. I feel that it is the opposite, in fact. Like I am really straining to see.”
Harriet nodded and then handed me the walking stick. I turned it in my hand, looking at the glyphs on each side.
“Those markings won’t mean nothing to you. It is written in the language that only I hear. And what is important is not the markings, but the stick itself. Stripped from the sweet gum tree. Reminds me of them days when they put me out to the timbers. Worst days of my life. But they was the days that made me. I think about ’em sometimes, think about all that happened out there, and I like to break down and cry. It is a painful thing, what they have done to us. And there is a part of me that would like to forget. But when I grip that branch of sweet gum, I cannot help but remember.
“I can’t say what done happened to you, Hiram. But if I were to venture a guess, I would say that there is some part of you that wants to forget, that is trying with all its might to forget. And what you need is something outside of yourself, something beyond you, a lever to unlock that thing you done shut away. Only you know what the thing might be. But I think if you can find that lever, then you can find your mother, and when you find your mother you will find that bridge.”
“That how it worked for you? You put your hands on that sweet gum branch and everything was there?”
“No. That’s not how it worked. But I am not like you. Kessiah told me some of it. We both mighta tasked, but we ain’t tasked the same. See, when I came up from that deep sleep, I ain’t just remember, I heard colors, I saw songs, I felt all the various odors of the world. Voices assaulted me from all over, and remembrances old as ancestors did not dim but burned bright as torches. I would watch them play out before me, and everywhere I walked, was just like you said, a whole stage of memories was with me.
“They used to say I was touched. So I learned to regulate the power, to summon some voices and then make others diminish. Sometimes they were too strong and they would tumble me down, just as they did last night. But when I rose after, I rose upon different earth. It was the bridge, Hiram,” she said.
“Conjured up?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “The story is always real. It is not made by me. It is made by the people. And the story is fit to certain points, like the base of a bridge, which cannot be altered by me, nor Santi, nor you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Feels chancy to me. Like this thing can take me at any point—in the stables, on an actual bridge, in a field. Anywhere.”
“Was it a trough in that stable?” she asked.
“Sure was,” I said. “Filled with water. Felt like it sucked me right in.”
“Bet it did,” she said. “Nothing chancy about any of that.”
“I ain’t understanding.”
“Don’t you see it, friend? You was standing at the ramp