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Mirror Girls
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A thrilling gothic horror novel about biracial twin sisters separated at birth, perfect for fans of Lovecraft Country and The Vanishing Half
As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.
Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie’s beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.
The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.
Excerpt
For colored girls, there’s no such thing as happily ever after.
My daughter knew that—it was loving Dean Heathwood that made her forget. That boy was as white as they come, but he sure did love my Marie. He showered her with gifts: an obsidian mirror, a leather atlas, a diamond ring.
Of all Dean’s fancy presents, though, the books were easily the most dangerous.
Beautiful books they were. Romances and love poems, sonnets and fairy tales, all leatherbound with bright illustrations. The kind of books colored children never get to touch, let alone own. Soon enough, my daughter’d fallen in love with those lily-white stories, with the kind of happy endings she’d never live to see.
Now I carry Marie’s favorite book of all, Love Sonnets, under one arm, protecting it from the night air. My daughter’s child is strapped to my back. I take the long route through the swamp, the very path the ancestors traveled, running from Heathwood Plantation’s shackles. Like them, I push past creepers and marsh grass, following the thick, slow pulse of the water. Peat bog sucks at my ankles, but I can’t afford to fall.
It’s long past sundown. If white folk spot me, they might arrest me. Or kill me like they did my sweet, lovestruck girl.
I lean against a cypress tree, letting grief well up for one heartbeat—then, no more.
For my grandbaby’s sake, I’ve got to keep moving. Struggle on.
On my back, Charlene lets out a wrenching wail. Ever since we left Freedom House, she’s bunched tight with rage, like she knows she’ll never see her twin sister again. Like she knows, too, that I’m to blame.
I reach over my shoulder, catching her tiny hand. “I’m gonna fix this, baby girl. You’ll see.”
The scent of woodsmoke leads me to the conjure man’s hut. The grass-roofed shack perches on the water’s edge, hidden beneath a veil of Spanish moss. Preacher says it’s a mighty sin to visit with a conjure man, but it’s a risk I have to take.
The night Marie birthed my grandbabies, I smelled the sizzle of a curse cooking itself up. One twin came into this world white as goat’s milk; the other, pecan brown. Doctor called it a miracle, but I wondered. After Marie died—and poor Dean, too—the hex-stench grew stronger. I got to remembering what my daddy used to say: Only thing stronger than white magic is our magic. Don’t forget: Our love’s stronger even than their hate. And that got me to thinking of Old Roland, brewing up potions in the swamps over yonder.
Thunder cracks; my grandbaby whimpers.
“Hurry on in, Jeannette!” Old Roland calls. “Sky’s fixin’ to fall!”
Inside, I catch my breath.
“Didn’t expect you’d come calling,” Old Roland mutters—it’s so dark, I can’t see him.
I spin around.
“Last I heard, you’d been Saved.”
Finally, I do see. He’s the shadow crouched behind a soup pot, stirring swamp-grass-green liquid with a broom handle.
Careful now, Jeannette. You got to be careful.
My grandbaby grabs a fistful of my hair, holding tight.
Roland rises, knees popping. Squinting, I see the spirits swirling in circles around his head. Growing up in haunted Freedom House, I’m plenty familiar with spirits. Haunts can’t scare me—but Heathwood’s white evil does.
“I’m here to buy some of your power, Roland.”
“What you need with my power?”
Grief drags me down. My lower back twitches like it might give out. I’m old—only forty-five, but all my life lived under Jim Crow, working for white folks from sunup to sundown. I’m too tired to be raising a baby again. I sure don’t have time for this man’s games.
“My grandbabies are in bad trouble. I’ll pay what you want, do whatever it takes—”
“I know you’ve been through hell, Jeannie. And you know why, don’t you?”
Something slithers across the wall. A snake. Silently, my grandbaby points.
Tears roll down my cheeks. “It’s my fault. I broke the bond between twins. Cursed them, though I didn’t mean to.”
Old Roland nods. “Spirits say the white woman tricked the child outta you.”
“Yes.” My voice breaks, thinking of the baby that I’ll never hold again: the sin that’ll never wash clean. “The Heathwood woman came to me weeping. Made me think she cared—that she longed, as I did, for all that’s left of our children. But her heart is ice. She’s never loved. Not once in her life.”
“Did her boy love your daughter? Love her true?”
In answer, I hand Roland the book of sonnets, marked at Marie’s favorite page. Even now she’s gone, I can still hear her chanting her favorite verse, just like she did all through her pregnancy: I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life…
While Roland reads—smoky, shape-shifting spirits peering over his shoulder to spy the pretty pictures—my mind slips over a past slick as ice, remembering:
Dean and my daughter gazing down at their mixed-blood twins, the dark twin holding on to the light one like she was afraid of leaving her behind.
Marie in her wedding dress, waving goodbye to me on her way up North to be married.
The wicked shine of Marie’s casket as gravediggers lowered it into the ground.
“Cursed, oh, yes, they are!” Before I can stop him, Old Roland chucks the book into the pot.
I leap up, hands trembling. It’s too late; Dean’s beautiful book is melting.
“Dean Heathwood gave that book to my daughter with a pure heart!”
“Dean forgot how much this world hates love between Black and white. Those young folks never should’ve met, Jeannette. Should’ve kept an ocean between them.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Roland? Don’t you think I tried?”
Roland’s eyes gleam. “Question is, what we gonna do now? And what are you willing to pay?”
I’ve got five hundred dollars in my pocket, thanks to the Heathwood woman. But Old Roland doesn’t deal in money.
He deals, like the ancestors, in time.
“I’ve got two questions that need answering.” I grip Charlene’s hand, more to calm myself than her. “I’ll pay whatever you want.”
Quick as a flash, Old Roland snatches the snake off the wall. He holds it before him, letting it writhe.
“Snake’ll answer you two questions. But I’m gonna need two years of whatever’s left of your life.”
I suck my teeth. “Take three.”
Roland’s eyebrows disappear into his hair. “Well, that’s new. No one ever wants to pay me extra! You got a death wish or what?”
I speak through clenched teeth. “The third year’s for Magnolia. The light-skinned child the Heathwood woman took. If she ever needs anything. If she ever visits you…”
Roland cocks his head. Again, I see the spirits swirling, whispering about me and the baby on my back.
God may smite me for coming here, but what choice did I have? When all else fails, our people look to the old ways. Roland lives on swampland, but he’s as much a part of Colored Town as the soil, the cotton fields, even the star-studded river itself.
“Spirits say Magnolia’ll come,” Old Roland growls at last. “By then, Jeannie, I warn you—it’ll be too late.”
In one smooth motion, Roland pulls the machete from behind his back and slits the snake from head to tail. The dying thing thrashes, blood foaming. Chanting, Roland dips his finger into the snake’s open belly. He marks my forehead with gore—then kisses me full on the lips.
I gasp, feeling years leave my body. Pulled from my lungs like air. Released, I double over, battling for breath.
“Come back in the morning. I’ll forge you a silver cane outta this snake’s soul. Make him a cobra, like his proud African ancestors! You ask your questions, then catch your train. I know you’re not planning on staying, after what happened to your girl.”
My lips feel bruised. “No. I’m not staying.”
Roland stirs the green waters, concentrating. The spirits ring an ever-tighter circle around his head, soaking up the fumes.
I want to say goodbye to Roland—goodbye to all Georgia, and the only world I’ve ever known. But grief clogs my throat, silencing me.
Gutted, I stumble into the dark.
It’s an effort to put one foot in front of the other. For Charlene’s sake, I walk.
And I plan.
I won’t make the same mistake with Charlene that I did with Marie. Letting her head be filled with nonsense and dreams.
“Remember now, Charlene Yates. For colored girls, there’s no such thing as happily ever after. No use chasing it. You’ve got to fight to survive, but don’t hope for too much.”
The next night, the two of us board the train, headed for New York, a new life. I step carefully—a cobra’s silver head nestled inside my palm.
It’s a long journey for a middle-aged woman and a baby.
I don’t sleep. Every time I start to nod off, a sound wakes me.
The murdered snake, hissing.
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:
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory,
Ridin’ with but the righteous, the righteous and the holy.
This train is bound for glory, this train…
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.”
Genre:
-
"Steeped in atmosphere, equals parts ghost and sororal love story, McWilliams has written a pitch-perfect southern gothic thriller about race, family, and what it means to call a place home."
—Christina Hammonds Reed, award-winning author of The Black Kids
- On Sale
- Feb 8, 2022
- Page Count
- 304 pages
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
- ISBN-13
- 9780759553859



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What's Inside
For colored girls, there’s no such thing as happily ever after.
My daughter knew that—it was loving Dean Heathwood that made her forget. That boy was as white as they come, but he sure did love my Marie. He showered her with gifts: an obsidian mirror, a leather atlas, a diamond ring.
Of all Dean’s fancy presents, though, the books were easily the most dangerous.
Beautiful books they were. Romances and love poems, sonnets and fairy tales, all leatherbound with bright illustrations. The kind of books colored children never get to touch, let alone own. Soon enough, my daughter’d fallen in love with those lily-white stories, with the kind of happy endings she’d never live to see.
Now I carry Marie’s favorite book of all, Love Sonnets, under one arm, protecting it from the night air. My daughter’s child is strapped to my back. I take the long route through the swamp, the very path the ancestors traveled, running from Heathwood Plantation’s shackles. Like them, I push past creepers and marsh grass, following the thick, slow pulse of the water. Peat bog sucks at my ankles, but I can’t afford to fall.
It’s long past sundown. If white folk spot me, they might arrest me. Or kill me like they did my sweet, lovestruck girl.
I lean against a cypress tree, letting grief well up for one heartbeat—then, no more.
For my grandbaby’s sake, I’ve got to keep moving. Struggle on.
On my back, Charlene lets out a wrenching wail. Ever since we left Freedom House, she’s bunched tight with rage, like she knows she’ll never see her twin sister again. Like she knows, too, that I’m to blame.
I reach over my shoulder, catching her tiny hand. “I’m gonna fix this, baby girl. You’ll see.”
The scent of woodsmoke leads me to the conjure man’s hut. The grass-roofed shack perches on the water’s edge, hidden beneath a veil of Spanish moss. Preacher says it’s a mighty sin to visit with a conjure man, but it’s a risk I have to take.
The night Marie birthed my grandbabies, I smelled the sizzle of a curse cooking itself up. One twin came into this world white as goat’s milk; the other, pecan brown. Doctor called it a miracle, but I wondered. After Marie died—and poor Dean, too—the hex-stench grew stronger. I got to remembering what my daddy used to say: Only thing stronger than white magic is our magic. Don’t forget: Our love’s stronger even than their hate. And that got me to thinking of Old Roland, brewing up potions in the swamps over yonder.
Thunder cracks; my grandbaby whimpers.
“Hurry on in, Jeannette!” Old Roland calls. “Sky’s fixin’ to fall!”
Inside, I catch my breath.
“Didn’t expect you’d come calling,” Old Roland mutters—it’s so dark, I can’t see him.
I spin around.
“Last I heard, you’d been Saved.”
Finally, I do see. He’s the shadow crouched behind a soup pot, stirring swamp-grass-green liquid with a broom handle.
Careful now, Jeannette. You got to be careful.
My grandbaby grabs a fistful of my hair, holding tight.
Roland rises, knees popping. Squinting, I see the spirits swirling in circles around his head. Growing up in haunted Freedom House, I’m plenty familiar with spirits. Haunts can’t scare me—but Heathwood’s white evil does.
“I’m here to buy some of your power, Roland.”
“What you need with my power?”
Grief drags me down. My lower back twitches like it might give out. I’m old—only forty-five, but all my life lived under Jim Crow, working for white folks from sunup to sundown. I’m too tired to be raising a baby again. I sure don’t have time for this man’s games.
“My grandbabies are in bad trouble. I’ll pay what you want, do whatever it takes—”
“I know you’ve been through hell, Jeannie. And you know why, don’t you?”
Something slithers across the wall. A snake. Silently, my grandbaby points.
Tears roll down my cheeks. “It’s my fault. I broke the bond between twins. Cursed them, though I didn’t mean to.”
Old Roland nods. “Spirits say the white woman tricked the child outta you.”
“Yes.” My voice breaks, thinking of the baby that I’ll never hold again: the sin that’ll never wash clean. “The Heathwood woman came to me weeping. Made me think she cared—that she longed, as I did, for all that’s left of our children. But her heart is ice. She’s never loved. Not once in her life.”
“Did her boy love your daughter? Love her true?”
In answer, I hand Roland the book of sonnets, marked at Marie’s favorite page. Even now she’s gone, I can still hear her chanting her favorite verse, just like she did all through her pregnancy: I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life…
While Roland reads—smoky, shape-shifting spirits peering over his shoulder to spy the pretty pictures—my mind slips over a past slick as ice, remembering:
Dean and my daughter gazing down at their mixed-blood twins, the dark twin holding on to the light one like she was afraid of leaving her behind.
Marie in her wedding dress, waving goodbye to me on her way up North to be married.
The wicked shine of Marie’s casket as gravediggers lowered it into the ground.
“Cursed, oh, yes, they are!” Before I can stop him, Old Roland chucks the book into the pot.
I leap up, hands trembling. It’s too late; Dean’s beautiful book is melting.
“Dean Heathwood gave that book to my daughter with a pure heart!”
“Dean forgot how much this world hates love between Black and white. Those young folks never should’ve met, Jeannette. Should’ve kept an ocean between them.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Roland? Don’t you think I tried?”
Roland’s eyes gleam. “Question is, what we gonna do now? And what are you willing to pay?”
I’ve got five hundred dollars in my pocket, thanks to the Heathwood woman. But Old Roland doesn’t deal in money.
He deals, like the ancestors, in time.
“I’ve got two questions that need answering.” I grip Charlene’s hand, more to calm myself than her. “I’ll pay whatever you want.”
Quick as a flash, Old Roland snatches the snake off the wall. He holds it before him, letting it writhe.
“Snake’ll answer you two questions. But I’m gonna need two years of whatever’s left of your life.”
I suck my teeth. “Take three.”
Roland’s eyebrows disappear into his hair. “Well, that’s new. No one ever wants to pay me extra! You got a death wish or what?”
I speak through clenched teeth. “The third year’s for Magnolia. The light-skinned child the Heathwood woman took. If she ever needs anything. If she ever visits you…”
Roland cocks his head. Again, I see the spirits swirling, whispering about me and the baby on my back.
God may smite me for coming here, but what choice did I have? When all else fails, our people look to the old ways. Roland lives on swampland, but he’s as much a part of Colored Town as the soil, the cotton fields, even the star-studded river itself.
“Spirits say Magnolia’ll come,” Old Roland growls at last. “By then, Jeannie, I warn you—it’ll be too late.”
In one smooth motion, Roland pulls the machete from behind his back and slits the snake from head to tail. The dying thing thrashes, blood foaming. Chanting, Roland dips his finger into the snake’s open belly. He marks my forehead with gore—then kisses me full on the lips.
I gasp, feeling years leave my body. Pulled from my lungs like air. Released, I double over, battling for breath.
“Come back in the morning. I’ll forge you a silver cane outta this snake’s soul. Make him a cobra, like his proud African ancestors! You ask your questions, then catch your train. I know you’re not planning on staying, after what happened to your girl.”
My lips feel bruised. “No. I’m not staying.”
Roland stirs the green waters, concentrating. The spirits ring an ever-tighter circle around his head, soaking up the fumes.
I want to say goodbye to Roland—goodbye to all Georgia, and the only world I’ve ever known. But grief clogs my throat, silencing me.
Gutted, I stumble into the dark.
It’s an effort to put one foot in front of the other. For Charlene’s sake, I walk.
And I plan.
I won’t make the same mistake with Charlene that I did with Marie. Letting her head be filled with nonsense and dreams.
“Remember now, Charlene Yates. For colored girls, there’s no such thing as happily ever after. No use chasing it. You’ve got to fight to survive, but don’t hope for too much.”
The next night, the two of us board the train, headed for New York, a new life. I step carefully—a cobra’s silver head nestled inside my palm.
It’s a long journey for a middle-aged woman and a baby.
I don’t sleep. Every time I start to nod off, a sound wakes me.
The murdered snake, hissing.
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:
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory,
Ridin’ with but the righteous, the righteous and the holy.
This train is bound for glory, this train…
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.”
Praise
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"Steeped in atmosphere, equals parts ghost and sororal love story, McWilliams has written a pitch-perfect southern gothic thriller about race, family, and what it means to call a place home."
—Christina Hammonds Reed, award-winning author of The Black Kids