sat in the cabin, where Thena had returned. And now Thena amused Sophia with stories of her own youth, and much laughter passed on this account. And then the hour came upon us. There was a hurried goodbye. I told Sophia to wait for me back at the quarters, and were I not back by dawn for her to look for me down by the riverbanks.
Outside the cabin, I looked up into the night, which was big and clear, the moon bright as a goddess, the stars all her progeny, all her fates and dryads and nymphs, spread out across the cosmos. Then I held Thena’s hand and walked with her out from the cabin, through back-paths of the woods, the earth snapping and crunching beneath us, until we were at the banks of the river Goose. I had not told Thena what to expect. I did not know how I could. All she knew was that I had found the route of Santi Bess and that Sophia had testified to its truth. So it was understandable that right here Thena, holding tight to my hand, stopped in her tracks, and when I turned to her, I saw that she was looking up, and when I followed her stunned gaze, I saw that the night sky that had, moments before, been so big and bright, was now obscured by clouds. Wisps of white fog were now coming up off the river, which was only evidenced by the sound it made gently washing up against the shore. The necklace of shells was warm against me.
And on we walked, taking a southern route along the banks, until the wisps rising gently off the river began to congeal into a stew of fog, and over top of it all, we saw, looming in the darkness, the bridge that had carried so many of us Natchez-way. We had gone the back way to avoid Ryland, which, even in its diminished and infiltrated capacity, still haunted the county. Now we circled around, until we were at the bridge’s approach, and looking out, I saw that the fog had thickened so that it seemed the clouds had fallen and enveloped everything. But not everything, for in the distance rising up from where the water must have been, or where the water used to be, I could see the blue glow of halos all around, ringing out like memory, and I now felt the necklace burning underneath my shirt, burning bright as the North Star. I pulled the thing out so that it was over my shirt.
It was time.
“For my mother,” I said. “For all the so many mothers taken over this bridge from which there can be no return.”
And then I looked at Thena, and I saw now she was softly illuminated in blue light emanating from the necklace of shells.
“For all the mothers who have remained,” I said, with one hand clasping hers and the other on her cheek. “Who carry on in the name of those who do not return.”
I turned back to the bridge now and began to walk, and as I did saw the tendrils of fog lapping over the bridge and the blue lights dancing softly in the distance on what would have been the far end, though I knew that night that no such end would be our destination.
“Thena,” I said. “My dear Thena. I have told you much about me, but I have never revealed the essence of all that has guided me, for all of it has been for so long tucked away, hidden in a fog as thick as what surrounds us. It had to be as such, for I was too young to bear what happened, too young to survive with the memory.
“You know that my mother is Rose. And my father is Howell Walker. I was the product of their outrageous union. I was not alone. My brother, Maynard, was born two years before me, to the lady of Lockless, and it was believed that his blood carried all that was good and noble of the old place and he should someday make for a wise and careful heir, for the blood was magic, science, and destiny. But I defied the blood, and so defied destiny, and I think now, knowing all I know, that it was my lost mother who made it so.
“For so long I could not see, could not remember, but I see it all now. Her bright joyous eyes,