Mirror Girls

All our earthly belongings in hand, Nana and I ride the rails as fast as they’ll go, hoping we reach Eureka in time.

The train ride from New York to Georgia is a long one for a dying woman—but Nana wouldn’t take no for an answer. Her dying wish, to be buried in the town where she was born. The town she fled after my parents’ murders. The town I’ve never seen before, except on a map.

I’m a city girl through and through, but Nana never felt quite at home in Harlem. Always calling Georgia home, even after it took her daughter’s life.

The train rumbles over an uneven track. Nana squeezes her eyes shut, every jolt agony. Dr. Brown was against this journey, but Nana insisted: She’d be buried in Eureka soil. Nothing else would do.

“Eureka’s a dangerous town, Charlene,” Nana says. “Cursed long before your parents lost their lives.”

“If it’s so dangerous, why are we going back?”

“Can’t choose home. It’s time for you to face your past. Just wish I’d done more to prepare you.”

“You made me a fighter, Nana.”

And she did—though she always said I shouldn’t hope for too much. That colored folk fight for survival, not happy endings. The day we left New York, I was papering the neighborhoods for a protest against slumlords. The posters reading: NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.

“Eureka’s not like New York. I never did tell you about the river.”

“I’ve seen the river on the map. It cuts through town, sharp as a knife.”

“Yes.” Nana’s hands curl around her cane. “And you, Miss Charlene, had best be on the colored side of that river before dark. Or you’ll have the law to reckon with.”

“I go by Charlie now, Nana. Not Charlene.”

I took the name Charlie when I started working at the community center after school. Organizing is a tough job for a girl. I needed a tough name.

“Charlie, Charlene, whatever you want to call yourself: You’d best be in Colored Town before sunset.”

“Nana, maybe things have changed since you’ve been gone.”

“Nothing changes in Eureka. Nothing ever dies, either.”

Nana’s talking crazy. I shiver.

“Now. Where was I?”

“The river.”

Nana stares hard at me, as if deciding something. Molten sunlight pours through the oval window. The train car smells of overheated metal and dust.

Nausea rolls through me, born of heat and fear.

My mother and white father were murdered on a southern road, on their way to be married in Pennsylvania. Under Jim Crow, it was illegal for mixed couples to marry in Georgia. So one day, not long after I was born, Mama asked Nana to babysit me while she and Daddy took a trip. Mama put on her wedding dress, and Daddy gassed up the car.

Somewhere along the highway, they were shot to death. Dragged out and dumped in the swamp on the colored side of town. Nana believes it wasn’t just murder, but a lynching. She believes my parents died because the Deep South hates race mixing.

In my nightmares, I see it all play out: the highway, the flash of gunshots, the swamp dark.

Since my parents died seventeen years ago, scores of Negroes have lost their lives in the Deep South. Killed to keep colored people in their place. Thousands fled North to escape, flooding into the big cities. Now here I am, going the opposite way.

“The river’s haunted,” Nana says at last. “Don’t go near it. Don’t touch it. Not ever. Understand?”

A haunted river?

With a spike of fear, I wonder if Nana’s mind is going.

The other passengers, all white, bury their faces in newspapers or gaze out the window. We’re in farm country, flying past yellowed fields. I don’t remember when the last colored passenger stepped off the train—Trenton? Philadelphia? Nana and I are the only ones left.

Next stop: Baltimore.

The train car is hot, but I’m cold as ice. Nana’s mind is going, and for the first time I believe—truly believe—that she’s going to die.

“Nana, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“You don’t have to believe in anything, baby. Plenty of ghosts already believe in you.” Her voice rises, too loud. “The veil is thin down South, Charlene. Don’t forget it!”

Afraid, my hands clench. I never should’ve agreed to take my grandmother on this last trip. It’s too much for her. Too hard. I’m a young woman now—two weeks ago, I graduated high school—but still I let Nana boss me around.

In the aisle, the conductor stops short. “What’s the problem here?”

“Nothing.” I use my best talking-to-white-people voice, but forget to call him sir.

Nana closes her eyes, pained.

The conductor snarls, “Where’re your tickets?”

I fumble with my purse. “Here. Right here, sir.”

He barely glances at my tickets—first class. I sold our Singer sewing machine to buy these seats.

“No good in Maryland. Move to the colored car. Now.”

I can’t believe this. “Move? Mister, we can’t move. My nana’s sick, don’t you see?”

He looks at me with such revulsion my blood runs cold. “Say that again, gal.”

“I said, we can’t move. I bought this ticket, same as everyone else—”

Nana’s eyes snap open. “Never mind my granddaughter, sir. We’re going. Thank you kindly.”

“But, Nana—”

She shoots me a look that could boil water. I clamp my mouth shut.

Witnessing our humiliation, two white businessmen smile, smug. My cheeks flame. I might be colored but my money’s green. How dare the conductor kick us out?

The train shrieks into the station.

“Baltimore, all aboard!”

Finally, it clicks into place.

On the train line, Baltimore separates North from South. Under Jim Crow, the conductor has every right to order us into the colored car.

All of a sudden, I feel very small and far from home.

Nana and I struggle into the colored car as new passengers wash in like a tide. Her cane, tap-tapping. But we can’t find a seat, and Nana can’t stay on her feet all the way to Georgia. If she dies on this train, she won’t be a passenger anymore but cargo. I’ll have to ship her body to Eureka, and I can’t bear to lose her like that. I can’t.

A young man about my age catches my eye. Like a movie star, he wears a white fedora. He must see how scared I am, because he nudges the boy beside him. They stand, giving up their seats. My relief is so powerful it leaves me dizzy.

The boy grips a leather strap, swaying with the train.

I tell him with my eyes: Thank you.

He tips his hat: You’re welcome.

His skin is deep brown, but his eyes glitter gemstone blue.

I try not to stare. Either he’s the handsomest young man I’ve ever seen, or I’m just that grateful.

Nana chuckles. “Southern gentlemen. Sure did miss them in New York.”

I think of the conductor, that ugly look he gave me.

White folks’ve treated me poorly in New York—salesgirls making me wait too long in line, policemen giving me the eye. Before we found our place on 125th, a slumlord evicted us because we refused to pay a “poor hygiene fee.” I’ve been abused for the color of my skin countless times, but the way that conductor looked at me was new. To him, Nana and I weren’t worth hating. We weren’t even human.

I cross my ankles, adjusting my dress to cover the run in my pantyhose. The train barrels through a corrugated tunnel, and my reflection flickers in the oval window—light and dark, dark and light. Reflected, I am warm brown skin, long lashes, and wild curls. My hair’s not kinky, but loose. The legacy of a white father murdered on a lonely southern road.

Trying to slow my pounding heart, I conjure my earliest memory, which I know must be of Mama: a nose pressed against mine, the smell of her breath, sweet but tangy. The memory’s gauze-thin, but it’s all I have of her.

“Sleep well, Marie,” Nana whispers—confusing Mama’s name with mine.

“Nana, it’s me. Charlene.”

“Oh, yes,” she says, startled. “That’s what I meant.”

I hate thinking of life without Nana. Like life without air. I squeeze her hand, fighting back tears.

Across the aisle, two older men drum on leather trumpet cases, singing:

Against my will, the song, the rhythmic clatter of the tracks, and the afternoon sun tumble me headlong into an uneasy sleep—a river churning with nightmares.

Magnolia. Wake up, child.”

I bolt awake as the clock tolls midnight. Odessa, my maid of many years, hands me a glass of water.

“Mrs. Heathwood’s asking for you.”

“Me?”

“Hurry. She doesn’t have long.”

Odessa helps me into a gown—layers of black lace, waterfalls of mournful tulle—and a pair of black silk gloves. These will be my mourning clothes, for if Odessa has come to wake me in such a fashion, then my grandmother, the famous Blanche Heathwood, will not survive the night.

I pull the gloves up to my elbows, glancing swiftly into my vanity’s mirror. My skin, contrasted with my black gown, is white as chalk—becomingly pale, for I have made an effort to keep out of the sun. Only my hair is wild, tumbled with curls. Grandmother always insisted I straighten it, because a southern lady is never unkempt.

Tonight, I do not have time to fix my hair. Grandmother does not have time.

Odessa hurries me into the hall. At the oaken door, I balk like a frightened mare.

“You must go inside. Miss Blanche asked for you alone.”

“Whatever does she have to say to me? Odessa, you know Grandmother’s always hated me.”

“Time to let bygones be bygones.” She nudges me forward. “Be brave, Magnolia Heathwood.”

“But I am not brave.”

“Then pretend. You will never get another chance.”

For decades, Grandmother has been the matriarch of the Heathwood family and the owner of the largest cotton plantation in the county. She has lived through both World Wars. She has watched our family’s fortunes rise and fall. There is no denying her on her deathbed.

A southern lady does not want for courage.

Before I can think overmuch, I fling open the door and plunge into darkness.

Grandmother’s bedroom has always lanced my heart with fear. Inside, dozens of priceless mirrors gleam. The surfaces of those mirrors are all black: forged from obsidian. They lean against the walls and each other, making the room look sharp and deep. They remind me of the hall of mirrors at the county fair, tugging and warping the light.

Aunt Hilda claims there are tens of thousands of dollars in glass here—that if we only sold away our heirlooms, we would have wealth enough to plant cotton once more. But Grandmother is too proud of her obsidian treasures to ever part with them. Never mind that mold spots the wallpaper, or that the curtains have begun to rot.

In the sheets of obsidian glass, my face echoes too many times. So, too, does Grandmother’s four-poster bed.

“Magnolia.”

I approach the deathbed carefully, and perch in a stiff-backed chair. Long ago, Blanche Heathwood was a southern belle of great renown. Now, she is a tattered, decaying thing. Only her ice-blue eyes possess any life.

Those eyes flick to my unruly hair. “You look like a savage.”

I wince. “Grandmother, it is midnight. I have not had time—”

She coughs, pressing her handkerchief to her lips. The lace is bloody red. More awful yet, I believe I see chunks of flesh: the insides of Blanche Heathwood’s lungs.

Tears travel down my face, because however coldly she treated me, Grandmother raised me. Now she is dying—and not gently.

“Do you know why I have summoned you?”

I shake my head.

“You’re livin’ a lie, girl.”

“What—”

“Your mother. She was a colored housekeeper. A Negress. Because of her sin, you are colored, too.”

Shock seeps into me like a slow winter’s freeze. Surely these are the ravings of a madwoman, addled by morphine. After all, I know exactly who my mother was.

“Why, bless your heart, of course I am white! Grandmother, don’t you recognize me? I am Magnolia Heathwood, your granddaughter.”

Grandmother watches me with glassy, death-soaked eyes.

I speak faster, louder. “My mother was a Spanish woman. An aristocrat. She died birthing me, don’t you remember? Her portrait is just there.”

Triumphantly, I point to the painting of my ravishing raven-haired mother. She occupies pride of place beside my father, also deceased, and my grandfather in Confederate gray.

“That woman never existed, you stupid thing.” Her words whip out like a lash. I brace myself, though I do not know for what. “Your mother was a common housekeeper. You have her ripe face. Such dreadful features didn’t come from my side of the family. How you can bear to look in the mirror, I simply cannot understand.”

Grandmother’s words spill from her cracked lips like poison. I press back against the chair, away.

“Your mother convinced your fool father that he was in love. Can you imagine? Sleep with the colored woman, what do I care, but love between the races ain’t natural. Only your father didn’t listen. Do you know what he did?” Spittle flies from her lips. “He planned to MARRY HER. The TRAITOR!”

Grandmother is addled, and yet—isn’t my hair a frightful mess? And doesn’t my skin tan too deeply? Grandmother has always strictly forbidden me from exposing myself to daylight come June.

No, no, no. “I don’t believe you.”

Grandmother’s gaze burns a hole in my cheek. “Then I saw you. As pale a thing as ever came from a Negro woman. Though tainted, you would suffice.”