Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

clammy hand on his hot brow and wished she knew the end to Cally’s story. She was a mere four pages from the end of Cally’s oral history, but she might not survive to read them.
    ***
    Excerpt from the oral history of Cally Stanton, recorded 1935
    I’m a good liar. Belonging to somebody else can surely bring out the liar in you.
    “Yes, ma’am, you are surely right. It’s not fitting for a lady to go off without her husband to take care of her,” I’d say when I carried their breakfast in. She’d straighten her bedcovers over her fat belly and cut her eyes over at the Master.
    When the Missus took her nap, I’d find the Master and walk past him, swinging my skirts. “I never saw a hotel,” I’d say.
    “It’s not a hotel. It’s a glorified boarding house,” he’d say, cutting his possum-eyes away from me.
    I’d just swing my skirts some more and say, “I don’t blame you for being afraid. A big storm might rise up and blow you to kingdom come. And your purty wife, too.” There. I’d told the truth. If he didn’t listen, it was none of my affair. “Folks say that Last Isle’s a pretty place to take a walk.”
    I’d brush a piece of lint off his pants leg. “Sure wish I had somebody to take a walk with.” Then I’d lean over and give him a good look down my dress. “Somebody handsome.”
    We kept after him, the Missus and me, until he packed his bags. Mister Courtney didn’t care for the Master, so he didn’t go with us, after all. Before long, the Master, the Missus, and me were on a steamboat headed for Last Isle.
    The hotel there was even fancier than the Big House at Innisfree, and it wasn’t snugged up under a shady grove, like our Big House at Joyeuse. It sat right out on the beach, plain as you please.
    The sun shone funny that day on Last Isle, like it knew a secret. It made the real world look like one of my dreams. I was standing on the beach, afraid of the way the sun made my shadow look, when I heard an old man say, “I’ve seen weather like this. There’s a hurricane coming”—he pronounced it ‘hurrikan’—“I’d bet forty acres on it.”
    Another man said, “This is no place to wait out a hurricane. This island hardly pokes out of the water. I’m going home to Mississippi, where I can walk without getting my feet wet.”
    I watched those men head back to the hotel and set their slaves to packing. Both their families and all their slaves were off Last Isle that same afternoon. I have always prayed they were safe at home when the storm hit.
    Not many had sense enough to leave. I had the sense, but I was bound to stay. This storm was gonna kill my Master for me.
    The Missus heard talk about the storm coming, and she wanted to leave, but I shut her up. “Ain’t gonna be no storm, ma’am. Look at that sun shine.”
    She kept up her whining, but the Master didn’t say nothing. I think he had boat tickets to get us out the next day. I won’t never know for sure, but he was a smart man. Those tickets didn’t do any of us a bit of good. The storm hit that very night.
    Now I’ve seen thunderstorms and I’ve seen hurricanes. Thunderstorms come up fast and loud and dark. They make plenty of light and noise, but unless you get lightning-struck, you’ll get through a thunderstorm.
    Hurricanes are different. I have never felt a building shake like that hotel did and I have never, before or since, heard the banshee cry in the wind. Before that night, I never saw a tree lean over sideways and snap in two. When the water pulled back away from the island, I knew it was bad. The water was gathering together, so it could throw itself on us all at once.
    Have you ever watched Death come for you? We were on the top floor of that hotel, so we could see the big wave coming a long time before it hit. The Master was standing at the window and I was behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Missus was curled up in bed, just crying. The big wave was gathering and the storm was shaking the hotel harder and harder when it happened.
    The window busted right open. I hid my face in my hands and waited for the glass to hit me, but it never did. The wind hadn’t blown the window in. It had sucked it out into the night. And the Master stood there, teetering at the windowsill.
    Later on, I thought maybe I wasn’t a murderer after all, because I didn’t think about what I did. I didn’t think to myself, This man beat me and had his way with me and he deserves to die. No, my hands