then two then three tasking folk began clapping and slapping their knees, and then I saw Pete, the gardener, walk over with a banjo, and then strum the strings, and then it felt like it all happened at once, spoons, sticks, jaw-harps, the dance was upon us, had bloomed seemingly of its own accord, and there was now a circle just off from the fire, and there was a girl with her hand on the end of her skirt swaying her hips to the beat, and what I now saw was an earthen jar on the girl’s head, and looking down to her face, I saw that the girl was Sophia.
I looked up into the starry cloudless night, and judging by the half-moon’s journey across the sky, I knew that it was somewhere close to midnight. The fire roared high, beating back the December chill, and before I knew it, everyone was in the Street dancing. I slowly backed away until I had a view of everything. There were dozens of us down there. It was an entire nation in movement. Some of us paired off, others in small semicircles, others alone. I looked over toward the quarters and saw Thena seated on the steps of one of the cabins, nodding to the beat.
I watched Sophia, a flurry of limbs, but all under control, and the jar seemingly fused to her head, never moving, and when one of the men got too close, I watched her pull him in and whisper something, which must have been rude, for the man stopped there and simply walked away. And then she looked and saw me watching her, and at that she smiled and walked toward me, and as she did, she angled her head so that the jar slid, and reaching up with her right hand, she caught the jar by the neck. Now standing in front of me, she sipped from the jar and then passed it to me. I drew it to my lips and recoiled at its taste, for I had assumed it to be water. She laughed and said, “Too much for you, huh?”
Still holding the ale, I looked at her and drew it to my lips again, keeping eye contact, and drank, and drank, and drank, and then handed the empty jar back to her. I did not know what made me do such a thing, at least not then I did not, but I knew well what it meant, even if I tried to deny it to myself. She knew too. And cutting her eyes, she put the jar down, jogged over to the far end of the table, disappearing among the shadows, then came back with a full demijohn, and handed it to me.
“Let’s walk,” she said.
“All right,” I said. “Where we going?”
“You tell me,” she said.
And so we did walk, and let the sound of the music die behind us as we moved up from the Street, until we were back near the lawn, and the main house of Lockless. There was a small gazebo off to the side, below which was the ice-house. We sat with the demijohn of ale, passing it back and forth silently, until our heads were swimming in it.
“So, yeah,” she said, breaking the silence. “Thena.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Wasn’t no lie, though, was it?”
“Nope.”
“You know what happened to her?”
“You mean to make her this way? I do. But I feel like it’s her story to tell.”
“But she told you, huh?” she said. “She always been soft with you.”
“Thena ain’t soft with nobody, Sophia. Even before whatever happened happened, I suspect she was never soft on any of her folk.”
“Huh,” she said. “And what about you?”
“Hmm?”
“You hard on your folks too?”
“Most generally am,” I said. “But of course, depend on the folk.”
Then I took another drink from the demijohn, and passed it to her, and she was looking at me now, not smiling, just studying me. It was clear to me that I had gone into the Goose one way and come out the other. I wondered how I had endured all those rides to Nathaniel’s seated next to her, wondered if I had somehow been blinded. She was such a lovely girl, and I wanted to be with her in a way that I would never want anyone again, in a way that age and experience rob you of, which is to say I wanted all of her, from her coffee skin to her brown eyes, from her